華嚴經 義疏通講 · 冊20Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 20

The Two Matters of This Unit: Curing Illness and Blending Incense

Among the good friends of the chapter Entering the Dharma Realm, each expounds the Dharma in his own way. When we come to the elder Universal Eye, what he expounds is two matters only — the first, “I know all the illnesses of all beings”; the second, “I also know well the essential method of blending all the incenses.” The first faces beings, the second faces the buddhas; the first goes downward, the second upward. When Chengguan outlines this passage, he divides it in just this way, saying of the conferring of his own Dharma realm that “within it there are two: first, the ability to cure illness, which is the transforming of beings below; afterward, from ‘son of good family, I also’ downward, is the clarifying of the ability to blend incense as an offering to the buddhas above.”

A misreading to be cleared away: this is not a man who is both physician and incense merchant talking about his trade. The whole unit runs to something over thirteen hundred graphs; in the passage on curing illness what is really worked at is not prescriptions but the contemplations of the four divisions of illness and the sixteen clauses of the direct conferral of the great practice, and in the passage on blending incense what is really worked at is not formulas but the three vows and the clouds of incense pervading the Dharma realm. His trade is the door he enters by, not the content.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this unit, if one stops at ‘he can cure the sick’, one has read this friend as a story of good works. The whole weight of the scripture text lies in the one clause that comes after the cure — “then I expound the Dharma for each of them according to what he ought to receive.”

Assigned to the Practice of Good Manifestation: This Judgment Is Chengguan Carrying Forward the Ancient Worthies, Not the Scripture Labeling Itself

From beginning to end the scripture text never says that the elder Universal Eye is “the sixth practice.” This position is matched by the commentators. Chengguan opens his outline of this unit by saying “the sixth, the elder Universal Eye, assigned to the practice of Good Manifestation”; and the Yanyi chao, glossing why he is matched to this position, says “wisdom is able to make manifest the principle of the three truths, and wisdom is present before one.” Li Tongxuan matches the same position among the ten practices, saying “the sixth, the bodhisattva Grove of Vigor: this is the practice of Good Manifestation, presiding over the gate of prajñā-pāramitā,” and directly raises Sudhana’s friend at this position as evidence, saying “as Sudhana’s good friend at this position is named the elder Universal Eye.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the assigned position to be a mark of rank set down by the scripture. Chengguan himself, when he discusses assigned positions generally within this assembly, speaks quite evenly, saying “both have their reason … and yet, where there are no graded positions, graded positions are not thereby obstructed.” An assigned position is a way of reading, not the scripture’s own judgment; that it reads well by this means does not amount to the scripture saying so.

Bringing it to the ground: knowing which sentence is scripture and which is the commentators’ matching is the first thing to be practiced in reading the Avataṃsaka. Wherever this exposition speaks of “the sixth practice” or “the practice of Good Manifestation,” it is without exception the outline of Chengguan and the ancient worthies, and not the elder’s own name for himself.

Eleven Clauses of Recalling, Nine Layers of the Measureless: What He Carried Away from the Previous Friend

This unit does not open by writing the road; it writes the mind Sudhana had after he finished listening at the place of the elder Jewel Topknot. Eleven clauses run down in a row — entering deeply, abiding securely, penetrating, seeking after, purifying, making bright and keen, accomplishing, penetrating, making grow, setting up, giving rise — and in the first nine what is entered and what is abided in are each crowned with the one word “measureless,” while the last two are not: one is “setting up a bodhisattva’s banner that none can surpass,” the other “giving rise to the knowledge of a bodhisattva so as to illumine the things of a bodhisattva.”

Why use “measureless”? Chengguan glosses the first clause most finely of all, saying “the measureless has two senses: first, because it is many, which is the object of provisional knowledge; second, because it has no measure at all, which is the object of real wisdom. Because the object is measureless, knowledge too is measureless.” The one is what cannot be counted; the other is what has no quantity to speak of at all. The former is what provisional knowledge faces, the latter what real wisdom faces. Since the object is measureless, the knowledge that illumines it is measureless too — and this sentence is said in reverse: it is not that knowledge is first made great, but that the object is measureless from the start.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking these eleven clauses for a heap of adjectives. Read clause by clause, they have an order — first entering deeply into what is realized, next abiding securely in what is practiced, then penetrating the skillful means, and only then seeking after the Dharma gates. It is first gaining and afterward seeking, not first seeking and afterward gaining.

Bringing it to the ground: what one carries away on leaving a good friend, the scripture writes before it writes the walking. What is carried along the road is these eleven layers; only so is there a question to be asked when he reaches the next friend.

Knowing and Seeing: Why Two Words Are Needed

Of the phrase “entering deeply into the measureless knowing and seeing of the buddhas,” Chengguan does not let those two words pass. He first opens their distinct sense, saying “knowing is knowledge, seeing is wisdom, that is, the knowledge and wisdom that illumine the two objects”; then he opens their common sense, saying “the two words knowing and seeing are both the realizing power of the Tathāgata, since he knows that meaning as it truly is, which is unobstructed knowledge.”

If they are taken in the common sense, the two words say one and the same thing — then why say it twice? Chengguan asks and answers himself, saying “to set apart knowing by inference, therefore he says seeing; to set apart seeing with the eye of flesh, therefore he says knowing” — saying “seeing” is meant to set aside the kind of knowing that infers by comparison (seeing smoke, one knows there is fire), and saying “knowing” is meant to set aside the kind that is only seen with the eye of flesh. And he notes what he rests upon, saying “this is as Vasubandhu’s Bore lun glosses ‘knows in full and sees in full.’”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for a commentator picking at words. These two words fix the character of what a buddha realizes — it is not arrived at by reasoning, nor is it within the reach of the senses. Take away either word and one falls to one side.

Bringing it to the ground: what one calls one’s own ‘knowing’ can be measured against these two words — is it inferred, or is it seen, or is it neither of the two but only something heard.

The Country of Vine Root and the City of Universal Gate: Three Names, Each Signifying One Sense

The country is named Vine Root, the city Universal Gate, the man Universal Eye. These three names Chengguan glosses one by one by way of wisdom. Of the country’s name he says “now the root of a vine enters deep into the ground, and above it puts forth flowers and shoots. This signifies that in the practice of Good Manifestation the realization of wisdom is deep and so can give birth to what is subsequently attained, and what is subsequently attained turns with things — hence the likeness is taken from the vine” — the vine’s root strikes deep, and only so do the shoots come up, and only so can the tendrils turn with whatever they cling to; realization being deep, subsequently attained knowledge can manifest along with things. Of the city’s name he says “the city is named Universal Gate because the wisdom of true reality is nowhere it does not pass through.” Of the man’s name he says “the elder is named Universal Eye because contemplating and illumining wisdom is nowhere it does not see.”

What Fazang rests upon is the sixty-fascicle version, where the names are “True Sharp Root” and “Universal Eye Wondrous Fragrance,” and so his gloss is different: he says “wisdom leaves error behind and accords with principle, hence named True; it illumines clearly and gives birth to what comes after, hence named Sharp Root,” and again “his knowledge illumines the faculties and the medicine, and everywhere perfumes beings, and from this the name is taken” — the one a ‘the faculties and the medicine’, the other a ‘universal perfuming’, which answer exactly to the two occupations of this unit, curing illness and blending incense.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that symbolic matching may be done as one likes. Though the names the two masters match are different, the bone they point to is the same, and both come down upon wisdom; and the reason they come down upon wisdom is that the assigned position is the practice of Good Manifestation. Symbolic matching runs on rails.

Bringing it to the ground: when one comes to a place-name or a person’s name in a scripture, one may first read it through as scripture, and only then look at how the ancient worthies matched it — the order cannot be reversed.

Seeing the Dependent and the Proper: The City Wall and the Great Road Are Expounding the Dharma Too

The passage in which Sudhana sees the city has only eight graphs — “the low parapets stood high and steep, the great roads were broad and level.” Even these eight graphs Chengguan matches. He first glosses the words, saying “five boards make a wall-length, five wall-lengths make a parapet-course; a parapet is the low wall”; then he sets up the symbol, saying “that the low parapets stand high and steep is that wisdom guards against wrong, being high and unsurpassed,” and saying “that the great roads are broad and level is that wisdom is what the buddhas constantly walk and is no expedient bypath, hence it is open and boundless.” Of the hundred thousand villages outside the city he says they are “the wisdom of the retinue.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for forced matching. A wall guards against what is outside, and so is matched to guarding against wrong; a road is walked, and so is matched to what is walked; the wall’s “height” is matched to the unsurpassed, the road’s “broad and level” to its being no narrow path — every matching takes the use of the thing, not the name of the thing.

Bringing it to the ground: wisdom is not an empty word. It has a side that guards (it does not let what is contrary to the Dharma in), a side that walks (it is the great road the buddhas constantly travel), and a side that gathers in (the hundred thousand villages all around). Lacking any one of the three, one’s reading goes to one side.

Sudhana Asks the Same Question as Before

Sudhana arrives, bows and joins his palms, and what he says is “Holy one! I have already raised the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, but I do not yet know how a bodhisattva is to study the bodhisattva practice, and how he is to cultivate the bodhisattva path?” — the same question that Sudhana puts to most of the good friends of this assembly.

Why does Sudhana put the same question to most of the good friends? Because what is asked is not each master’s own Dharma gate, but the one same matter as it appears in each master. Fazang outlines this passage as “seeing, paying respects, and making the request,” and divides it into four, saying “first, the thought of going in search; second, seeing the surpassing dependent and proper; third, paying respects; fourth, making the request” — before the question there are three layers of preparation, and the asking is only the last step.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the repetition for the scripture economizing on words. Sudhana puts this question to most of the good friends of this assembly, precisely so that what is asked may stay constant while what is answered differs of itself; if each friend were asked differently, one could not see why what each answers is different.

Bringing it to the ground: only when a question is asked steadily can one hear the differences in the answers. One who keeps changing the question hears nothing but his own question forever.

Praising: First the Confirmation, Then the Conferral of the Dharma

What the elder says first is not the Dharma; it is “it is good, it is good! Son of good family! You have been able to raise the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.” Chengguan outlines this as “first the praising, and afterward, from ‘son of good family’ downward, the conferring of his own Dharma realm,” and Fazang marks out its use still more directly, saying “first, praising the raising of the mind, as a skillful means for conferring the Dharma.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for courtesy. Fazang puts his finger on it in a phrase — praising the raising of the mind is a “skillful means for conferring the Dharma,” the first step of conferral and not small talk before it. And so, however deep the Dharma to be conferred, one must first make sure how far the mind of the one who comes has been raised.

Bringing it to the ground: a person who truly means to teach another most often begins by making sure where the other is standing, rather than hurrying to pour out what he himself knows.

Knowing the Illnesses: The Illnesses He Knows, from Wind, Bile, Phlegm, and Fever to Harm by Water and Fire

The first matter the elder relates of himself is knowing illnesses — “I know all the illnesses of all beings: wind, bile, phlegm, fever; ghosts and sprites; venomous magic; and even harm done by water and fire.” Four classes of illness: first, the four great elements out of balance within the body (wind · bile · phlegm · fever); second, affliction by ghosts and sprites; third, being struck by venomous magic; fourth, harm by water and fire. The first class arises within, the latter three come from without.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this passage for talk of supernormal powers. The words the scripture uses are “I am able to rescue and cure them all by skillful means” — skillful means, not miraculous transformation. The sixty-fascicle version here has “according to what each requires, he is able to cure them all,” which is the same sense: for such an illness, such a method.

Bringing it to the ground: the door this good friend enters by is the most solid of all. He does not begin by expounding the Dharma realm; he begins by taking up the sore places in a person’s body. What is called transforming beings below has its starting point here.

Removing Bodily Illness and Giving Bodily Ease: After the Cure There Is Still the Giving

The second passage writes not the curing but what comes after the cure. After the scripture says “I treat them all so that they are restored to health,” there follows a long string — bathing in fragrant water, fragrant flowers and necklaces, fine garments and choice robes, every kind of ornament, food and drink and goods and treasures — “so that all of them are supplied in full and lack nothing at all.” Chengguan outlines this section as “all who come are cured, together with the giving of bodily ease,” and Fazang divides it more finely, saying that of the four matters that come first, “the first is removing their bodily suffering; the second is giving them bodily ease,” and saying that these two matters “together bring beings to ease, and are likewise a skillful means of gathering and transforming.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the giving of goods and property for a side-branch unrelated to the true Dharma. Fazang’s phrase “are likewise a skillful means of gathering and transforming” states exactly its place — it is not the Dharma directly conferred, but it is the condition on which the direct conferral can be conferred at all.

Bringing it to the ground: a person whose body still hurts and who is still hungry cannot take in the Dharma. The order of the scripture is: first stop the pain, next give ease, and only then expound the Dharma — not one step is skipped.

Curing the Illnesses of the Mind (1): The Contemplations of the Four Divisions of Illness Run Through Both the Great and the Small Vehicles

After the body is cured, “then I expound the Dharma for each of them according to what he ought to receive.” The first layer speaks of counteragents — for those in whom greed and desire are heavy, the contemplation of impurity; for those in whom anger is heavy, the contemplation of kindness and compassion; for those in whom delusion is heavy, teaching them to distinguish the many kinds of marks of things; for those who act in equal parts, revealing the surpassing Dharma gate. Four kinds of person, four medicines.

Here Chengguan makes a judgment of great importance, saying that this layer “first clarifies the removing of delusion, and in sense it runs through both the great and the small,” while the sixteen clauses of the next layer “bring them to accomplish benefit, and this is the Great Vehicle alone.” That is to say, the contemplations of the four divisions of illness are not a Dharma belonging to the Great Vehicle alone — they are a shared Dharma, and hearers cultivate them too.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that a shared Dharma is a shallow Dharma. What makes a shared Dharma shared is that it counteracts the leanings that every practitioner has; the elder does not first ask the one who comes which vehicle he belongs to, but first looks at which division he leans toward.

Bringing it to the ground: a counteragent must be matched exactly. For one heavy in greed, the contemplation of kindness and compassion does not meet the illness; for one heavy in anger, the contemplation of impurity does not meet it either — with the wrong medicine, the more it is used the further one leans.

Each of the four contemplations has its own reason. The contemplation of impurity contemplates the body’s impurity: what greed clings to is the mark of the pure, and so it is broken by impurity. The contemplation of kindness and compassion gives joy and draws out suffering: what anger arises from is the vexing of others, and so it is stilled by the giving of joy. Distinguishing the many kinds of marks of things discerns the marks of things: what delusion is confused about is precisely the failure to discern, and so it is opened by distinguishing. The surpassing Dharma gate is not directed at any single leaning: one who acts in equal parts has no one leaning to be met, and so what is given him is the whole. Li Tongxuan, glossing the symbolism of the curing of illness in this passage, says of the illnesses of affliction that they are “cured by the five contemplations that halt the mind and by the ten perfections,” and matches them one by one: the illness of wind signifies those in whom thought and recollection are heavy, met by counting the breath; the illness of bile signifies those in whom greed and desire are heavy, met by the contemplation of impurity; the illness of phlegm and fever signifies those in whom delusion is heavy, met by the contemplation of the twelvefold arising by conditions; the illness of ghosts and sprites signifies those who cling to wondrous marks, met by the contemplation of emptiness — his matchings do not answer in every respect to the four items of the scripture text (the scripture meets delusion with the distinguishing of the marks of things, while Tongxuan meets it with the contemplation of the twelvefold arising by conditions). Recorded without adjudication.

Curing the Illnesses of the Mind (2): The Bone of the Sixteen Clauses, the First Five Displaying the Great Mind, Practice, and Vow in Common

After the removing of delusion, the scripture turns into the sixteen clauses of “so that they may …”. Chengguan divides them into three parts, saying “there are sixteen clauses: the first five display in common the great mind, practice, and vow. The next ten separately clarify the causes of the ten perfections, bringing about the fruit of the ten bodies,” with the last clause as a general conclusion.

What the first five are for: raising the mind of awakening, giving rise to the intent of great compassion, making merit and virtue grow, raising the great vow, cultivating the practice of Samantabhadra. And what is extolled, in order: the merit and virtue of the buddhas, the measureless suffering and distress within birth and death, the gathering and cultivating of measureless merit and virtue and knowledge, the taming and subduing of all beings, the bodhisattvas abiding in all lands and all kalpas and cultivating the net of practices.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking these five clauses for a random selection. They have an order — first the mind is set up (the mind of awakening), next compassion (the intent of great compassion), next the provisions are gathered (merit and virtue), next the vow is set up (the great vow), and last the practice is set up (the practice of Samantabhadra). Mind, compassion, provisions, vow, practice: this is precisely the bone of the Great Vehicle.

Bringing it to the ground: every one of these five clauses is of the form ‘so that they may do such a thing, therefore he expounds such a Dharma’. What the expounder expounds is settled by the fruit the listener needs, not by how much the expounder happens to know.

Curing the Illnesses of the Mind (3): The Causes of the Ten Perfections, Bringing About the Fruit of the Ten Bodies

The next ten clauses are the most evenly ordered passage in this unit. The bone of the scripture text is ‘so that they may gain such a body, he extols and praises such a perfection’ — the body desired coming first, the perfection praised coming after; only the sentence forms are not uniform: the clauses of discipline, forbearance, and meditation read ‘obtain such a body’, the clause of vigor reads ‘gain such a body’, the clause of wisdom reads ‘make manifest such a Dharma body’, and the three clauses of skillful means, powers, and knowledge read ‘manifest such a body’; the first clause, ‘so that they may become fully endowed with the marks and signs of a buddha’, does not bring out the word “body” at all, while the clause of the vow, ‘so that they may abide in all kalpas for the sake of beings’, does not touch on the mark of a body at all. The ten perfections in order are giving · discipline · forbearance · vigor · meditation · wisdom · skillful means · vows · powers · knowledge; and the ten bodies in order are the marks and signs · the pure body reaching everywhere · the pure and inconceivable body · the body none can surpass · the body to which nothing is equal · the Dharma body · the form-body · abiding in all kalpas · passing through all lands · gladdening according to the mind.

Chengguan glosses clause by clause the reason for each matching, saying “giving fulfills the minds of others, hence the marks and signs that delight what they meet. Discipline stops evil everywhere, hence the pure body reaching everywhere; forbearance takes in the forbearance of principle as well, hence the inconceivable; vigor spurs on the myriad practices, hence none can surpass; meditation is single-minded, hence nothing is equal to it; wisdom illumines principle, hence it makes manifest the Dharma body; skillful means makes the function manifest, hence the form-body can be beheld; the vow reaches to the limit of the future, hence abiding in kalpas without end; power cannot be shaken, hence it passes through all; knowledge exhausts things and dharmas, hence the body is formed according to what beings are.” Every matching takes the nature of that perfection — giving is giving to others, and so its fruit is in the marks and signs that delight what they meet; discipline is stopping everywhere, and so its fruit is in the pure body that reaches everywhere; meditation is single-mindedness, and so its fruit is in what nothing equals.

Besides the matching made in the commentary, the Yanyi chao matches the ten bodies of the Tathāgata one by one to these same ten perfections: giving to the body adorned with marks and signs; discipline to the gaining of the body born of mind (since it reaches everywhere); forbearance to the gaining of the body of majestic power; vigor to the urging on of the myriad practices and so the accomplishing of awakening; meditation to the gaining of merit that nothing equals; wisdom to the manifesting of the Dharma body; skillful means to the accomplishing of the transformation body; the vow to the accomplishing also of the body of vow; power to the becoming again of the sustaining of power; knowledge to the accomplishing also of the body of knowledge; and the last one purifies all ten bodies together. The commentary’s matching takes the marks of body that the scripture text itself brings out, while the Chao’s takes the items of the ten bodies of the Tathāgata; both match ten perfections to ten bodies, but the names matched are not the same. In reading, the two tracks are to be kept apart and not run together into one account.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the ten perfections bringing about the ten bodies is a mechanical numbering off. Look at Chengguan’s reasons and one sees it is not — what he matches is nature, not order. The reason forbearance brings about the inconceivable body lies in “forbearance takes in the forbearance of principle as well,” not in forbearance standing third and the inconceivable body standing third.

Bringing it to the ground: to cultivate one perfection without knowing the fruit it brings about is to risk cultivating it into a mere habit; knowing the fruit it brings about, one knows whether what one is cultivating is that perfection at all.

Curing the Illnesses of the Mind (4): The Last Clause, and Letting Each of Them Return

The last of the sixteen clauses is “so that they may gain the ultimate, pure, and exquisite body, I extol and praise the leaving behind forever of all unwholesome things.” Chengguan judges this to be the general conclusion, saying “the last clause is the general leaving behind of all evils, hence ultimate, pure, and exquisite” — the ten clauses before each leave behind one leaning, this one clause leaves behind all of them; the ten clauses before each accomplish one body, this one clause accomplishes the ultimate body.

The eight Chinese characters that follow, “when the giving has been done in this way, I let each of them return,” are the gathering-in of the passage on curing illness. The sixty-fascicle version here has “with such and such kinds of giving of Dharma I bring them all to fullness, and they return rejoicing,” marking out plainly the words “giving of Dharma.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking “I let each of them return” for coldness. The elder does not keep people. The Dharma having been conferred, a person goes back to his own place to cultivate it — this is a good friend’s sense of measure: he teaches and does not gather people to himself as his own.

Bringing it to the ground: a true conferring and receiving ends with each going back. What is left behind is not the relationship but the Dharma received.

Knowing the Substance of the Incenses: Nine Incenses and the Two Graphs for Blending

The second matter begins from “I also know well the essential method of blending all the incenses.” The nine incenses listed: the incense without equal, the sindhu-pāra incense, the unsurpassed incense, the incense of awakening, the aruṇavatī incense, the hard black sandal incense, the uraga sandal incense, the aloeswood incense, the incense that stirs none of the faculties. Chengguan glosses the sense of three of these foreign words, saying “sindhu is the river Indus. Pāra is the bank — the incense of the bank of that river,” saying “aruṇavatī, this means red at its utmost,” and saying “uraga is the name of a snake of the Western Regions; that snake is venomous, and it coils about this sandal tree.”

But the weight of what the scripture says lies not in the names of the incenses; it lies in “knowing in full the method of preparing and blending them.” Upon those two graphs for blending, Chengguan turns into sectarian doctrine, saying “blending is the perfect and unobstructed fusion of discipline, concentration, and wisdom” — the use of incense lies not in a single note but in the blending; the practice of the three trainings lies not in cultivating them separately but in their fusion.

Li Tongxuan sets up another track here. He first divides two layers: the elder’s curing of illness and blending of incense are, in his words, “truly such a practice,” not an allegory set up out of nothing; what they symbolize is something further. Of the three incenses: the sindhu-pāra incense comes from the bank of a great river, and he takes it as symbolizing the wisdom of the three emptinesses and the four unobstructed eloquences at this position — like the great lake gushing forth four rivers, moistening the great earth and becoming again a great sea, wherein the incense of the five-part Dharma body (discipline, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowing and seeing of liberation) is all born; the aruṇavatī incense is red and bright in color, and he takes it as symbolizing how the light of the signless wisdom of the three emptinesses and four eloquences at this position shines upon the mind-realms of all beings, so that all gain the incense of the liberation of wisdom; the uraga sandal incense can quiet the venom and heat of the snake, and he takes it as symbolizing that if beings hear the incense of the teaching that mind and object-realm are alike empty, without substance or mark from the first and with no single dharma to be got, and believe and awaken into it, then all the venom and heat of the afflictions is of itself made pure. He gathers all in at the last with “these eight incenses of wisdom” (his own figure recorded as it stands), saying that this incense perfumes the seeds in the consciousness of beings’ wrong views and causes them to practice in accordance with the eightfold noble path and so to enter the Tathāgata’s wisdom.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for no more than a pleasant simile. On the “blending” of this incense what Chengguan speaks of is the three trainings: “blending is the perfect and unobstructed fusion of discipline, concentration, and wisdom”; Li Tongxuan, for his part, speaks with respect to the assigned position, saying that this unit “presides over the gate of prajñā-pāramitā.” The two masters each speak from one side — the one clarifying by the simile of incense the fusion of the three trainings, the other marking by the assigned position that wisdom presides — and the ancient worthies did not join these two sentences into one; recorded without adjudication.

Bringing it to the ground: if cultivation puts all its strength on a single note, the flavor that comes out is lopsided. Blending is not compromise; it is that every note is present and none obstructs another.

Raising the Offering and Giving Rise to Vows: Three Vows All Fulfilled

“When I take this incense and make it an offering, I everywhere see the buddhas, and the vows I have raised are all fulfilled” — and what is fulfilled is three vows: the vow to rescue and guard all beings, the vow to adorn and purify all buddha-lands, the vow to make offerings to all the tathāgatas. Chengguan outlines this as “next, raising the offering and giving rise to vows.” The three vows face in three directions: one toward beings, one toward lands, one toward the buddhas.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the offering to the buddhas for the seeking of blessings. The scripture says it plainly: the first vow fulfilled by holding incense and making offering is “to rescue and guard all beings” — what is offered to is the buddhas, but the first item of the vow is beings. Making offerings above and transforming below are here made into one matter, not two.

Bringing it to the ground: where a person’s vows are aimed says more about what he is cultivating than what he has done. The first vow of the one who offers incense here is not aimed at himself.

Accomplishing the Great Offering: One Incense Brings Forth Measureless Incense

The third layer writes the completion of the offering — “from each single incense there are born measureless incenses, which reach everywhere to all the Dharma realms of the ten directions and to the sites of awakening where all the buddhas gather with their assemblies” — and then come seventeen items each crowned with the word for incense: palaces of incense, halls of incense, railings of incense, walls of incense, parapets of incense, doors and windows of incense, storeyed pavilions of incense, half-moon ornaments of incense, canopies of incense, banners of incense, pennants of incense, curtains of incense, nets of incense, images of incense, ornaments of incense, light of incense, clouds and rain of incense. Chengguan outlines this as “afterward, the accomplishing of the great offering,” and speaks of it together with the two layers before it as “where they stand in the text is evident in each case.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for exaggerated description. Look at the way the seventeen items are arrayed and one sees it is not — from palaces and halls to railings and walls, from doors and windows and storeyed pavilions to banners, pennants, curtains, and nets, and at the last to light and to clouds and rain: it moves from the substance of buildings gradually into what has no form. One thing manifesting everywhere and thereby completing the adornment of the whole Dharma realm is the way this sūtra expounds throughout.

Bringing it to the ground: what is offered is but a single incense; what is accomplished is an offering that pervades the Dharma realm. The difference lies not in the thing but in how great the vow is of the one who holds it.

Concluding with the Name and Substance of the Dharma Gate: What My Gate Is Called

The elder concludes with the name of his own Dharma gate — “the Dharma gate of causing all beings everywhere to see the buddhas and rejoice.” This name gathers both of his working occupations into itself: because he cures illness, beings rejoice; because he blends incense, they everywhere see the buddhas. Chengguan makes this sense plain in the passage on humbling himself, saying “that is, the illnesses of body and mind being removed, the ease of the two worlds is accomplished, and so all rejoice; and by incense the offering is made everywhere.”

The variant forms of the name are worth noting. The sixty-fascicle version has “the Dharma gate of the universal gate that causes all beings to rejoice,” and Fazang further transmits another version, saying “the Indian text has: the Dharma gate of the fragrant body of offering, of seeing the buddhas by the universal gate, that causes all beings to be glad and satisfied.” Fazang also opens this name into three matters, saying “as for causing beings to rejoice … it is because he benefits and gladdens beings. As for the universal gate … it is because burning incense perfumes everywhere and adorns the Dharma realm. As for seeing all the buddhas, they are the buddhas to whom the offering is made.” Three names stand together; recorded without adjudication.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the name of a Dharma gate for a mere label. The structure of this name is the structure of this unit — rejoicing answers to transforming below, seeing the buddhas everywhere answers to offering above. Change the name and the reading changes with it, and this is why the names in the different versions must be recorded together.

Bringing it to the ground: if one can read the name of a Dharma gate, one has also seen the bone of this passage of scripture.

The Great King of Medicines: Six Conditions All Benefit, and None Passes By in Vain

After concluding the name, the elder points to the superior by a simile — “as for the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, they are like a great king of medicines: whether one sees him, or hears of him, or holds him in mind, or dwells together with him, or goes along following his practice, or utters his name, all of these gain benefit, and not one of them passes by in vain.” Six conditions: seeing, hearing, holding in mind, dwelling together, following his practice, uttering his name. Below this he goes a layer further, saying “if there are beings who only for a moment are able to meet with him,” that too will surely cause them to melt away the afflictions, to enter the Dharma of the buddhas, to leave behind the heaps of suffering, to put an end forever to the terrors of birth and death, to reach the place of omniscience where there is nothing to fear, to shatter the great mountain of old age and death, and to abide in the bliss of equal quiescence.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the simile of the king of medicines to say that a bodhisattva’s supernormal power is great. The use of a medicine does not wait upon a man’s understanding its properties; among the six conditions there is not one that is ‘understanding its meaning’. What is likened is exactly this — a bodhisattva’s benefiting of things does not hang upon whether things can understand.

Bringing it to the ground: this simile comes from the mouth of a physician, and it is the aptest sentence in his whole life’s trade. He does not borrow a ready-made comparison; he pushes what he himself knows to its utmost in order to speak of another.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: I Know Only This One

“But how could I know, how could I expound, such a practice of merit and virtue as theirs?” — a single rhetorical question, a passage that many of the good friends of this assembly have. Fazang draws out of this class of text two kinds, saying “yet in all these texts the looking up and pointing to the superior is of two kinds: first, that within one’s own Dharma gate there is something still deeper and finer which is not within one’s own knowing, as in this text and the positions before it; second, pointing to a Dharma gate of a different class as not within one’s own knowing.” Fazang says this beneath the passage on the elder Liberation (the fifth abode), and the example he raises is that text; he does not state to which kind Universal Eye belongs. The division into two kinds stands thus; recorded without adjudication. Zhiyan outlines this passage as beginning from the phrase “the great kings of medicines,” saying “third, from ‘the great kings of medicines’ downward is the part of looking up and pointing to the superior.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for modesty. Look at the order of what he points to — Fazang outlines this passage in four: first it raises the person, next it points in general to the great benefit, third it points separately to the benefit of seeing, and last it concludes that it is not within his own share. What is pointed to is what those bodhisattvas practice, which he cannot know and cannot expound. Before this he has expounded what he himself knows to the utmost, hiding not a sentence; when he says here that he cannot know, it is not courtesy but the plain truth.

Bringing it to the ground: only one who can expound to the end what he knows can state where what he does not know lies. The two are one and the same honesty.

Pointing to the Next Friend: From Universal Eye to Never Satiated

At the last he points out the road — “south of here there is a great city named Tāla Banner; in that city there is a king named Never Satiated.” The sixty-fascicle version has “a city named Full Banner, a king named Fully Satisfied”; the variant forms of the names are recorded together. From an elder who delivers people by the art of medicine and the practice of incense, we turn to a king who manifests the appearance of punishment. Li Tongxuan glosses the name of the latter, saying “rescuing and guarding beings, he loves and does not let go — hence named Never Satiated.”

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that each good friend is higher than the last. The scripture says only “go to him and ask,” and what is asked is still the same two questions. The judging of rank is what the ancient worthies matched; the scripture itself gives only a road.

Bringing it to the ground: this turn from the practice of Good Manifestation to the practice of non-attachment is a turn from the manifesting of wisdom to the entering into the common world by skillful means. The one friend makes people rejoice, the next makes them afraid — the appearances of the Dharma may be opposite, while what is being done is one and the same.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave

“At that time Sudhana the youth bowed to the feet of Universal Eye, circumambulated him measureless times, gazed up at him earnestly and with longing, took his leave, and departed.” Four matters: bowing to his feet, circumambulating, gazing up, taking leave. The leave-taking of this unit is of the barest, not like those of several friends before, which set out a long string of what was gained.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking bareness for abridgment. This whole unit runs to something over thirteen hundred graphs and is one of the very short units in the chapter Entering the Dharma Realm; yet short as it is, all six sections of the outline are present — going in search, inquiring, conferring the Dharma, humbling himself, pointing onward, taking leave — not one section is missing.

Bringing it to the ground: the completeness of a Dharma does not lie in length. The bone of this unit is the same frame as that of the longest units of all.

Lineage

For the text of this unit, four lines are opened downward.

The first is the line of the variant forms of names. The eighty-fascicle version has “Universal Eye,” the sixty-fascicle version “Universal Eye Wondrous Fragrance”; the table of the order of the good friends in Zhiyan’s Huayan jing kongmu zhang likewise has “Universal Eye Wondrous Fragrance,” and lists the next friend as “a king named Fully Satisfied.” So too with the country’s name: the eighty-fascicle version has “Vine Root,” while the line of the sixty-fascicle version has “True Sharp Root.” As for the name of the Dharma gate there are three: the eighty-fascicle version’s “the Dharma gate of causing all beings everywhere to see the buddhas and rejoice,” the sixty-fascicle version’s “the Dharma gate of the universal gate that causes all beings to rejoice,” and the Indian version transmitted by Fazang, “the Dharma gate of the fragrant body of offering, of seeing the buddhas by the universal gate, that causes all beings to be glad and satisfied.” The variant forms of names are not a suspicion of mistranslation; they are a difference in the versions relied upon. They are recorded together, without selecting between them.

The second is the line of the two words knowing and seeing. When Chengguan glosses these two words he cites Vasubandhu’s Bore lun (the Treatise on the Prajñā); the Yanyi chao carries this forward and widens it, and divides the distinct from the common sense: the distinct rests on the Fahua lun (the Treatise on the Lotus), the common is the Bore lun, and the question and answer it quotes (why, having said he knows in full, it further says he sees in full) is the text of the Bore lun. Below this it next cites the first fascicle of the Gongde shi lun, next the question and answer in the twenty-ninth fascicle of the Zhi lun (the Treatise on Great Wisdom) on the undiminished liberation among the eighteen unshared dharmas, and further the eighty-sixth fascicle of the Yuqie, the nineteenth fascicle of the Chengshi lun in its chapter on seeing and knowing, the twenty-sixth fascicle of the Jushe, and the ninety-fifth fascicle of the Da poshalun, all to set out the difference between knowing and seeing (all of these treatises are given as the Chao cites them). All these places discuss the one matter — why knowing and seeing are raised together. The Chao further, at the place of the wisdom of the retinue, sets out that wisdom is of five kinds and judges that all five are present in this unit: the city is true reality, the elder is contemplating and illumining, the object-realm was already there in the gloss on the measureless, here there is the retinue, and letters run through all four. This line comes from the corroborations the author of the Chao himself raises, and is not a gloss on the clauses of this unit one by one; it is recorded here.

The third is the line of the various masters’ divisions of the outline, each having its own rails; recorded without adjudication. As for the outline of this unit, Chengguan makes six sections, Fazang five parts (exhorting to cultivate · entering in accord with the teaching · seeing, paying respects, and making the request · conferring his own Dharma realm · the part of looking up and pointing to the superior in advancing), Zhiyan three sections (exhorting and teaching to proceed and enter · entering in accord with the teaching · truly gaining the Dharma realm), opening the entering again into seven and the portion of his own share again into four, while Li Tongxuan has besides a gloss dedicated to this passage, dividing it into the eight gates of directly entering the Dharma gate of the present position and the four gates of pointing to virtue and advancing (his own figures recorded as they stand), and also glosses this position within his general discussion of the ten practices by way of three matters, the bodhisattva Grove of Vigor, the world Adamantine Wisdom, and the buddha Eye of Liberation; and he judges that the good friend of this position has prajñā-pāramitā as the host with the remaining nine as companions, that under the gate of knowledge all the positions cure alike, and that under the gate of position what is cured is the obstruction of not being free in the quiescence and the functioning that follow upon practice. As for the number of clauses conferred in curing the illnesses of the mind, Chengguan judges sixteen clauses and divides them as first five · next ten · last one, while Fazang judges fourteen clauses and divides them as first three · last eleven. As for the divisions of the obstructions, Zhiyan makes three layers, the obstruction of retribution · the obstruction of concentration · the subtle obstruction, while Chengguan makes two layers, removing delusion · accomplishing benefit. Fazang moreover preserves a separate view on the passage of the practice of incense, saying “because in the Sanskrit text he is a seller of incense.” All these divergent glosses are the settled teachings of the ancient worthies.

The fourth is the line of what the forty-fascicle version clarifies in addition. In this passage the forty-fascicle version has besides one exchange of its own: having heard the elder speak of curing illness, Sudhana asks, “I asked about the wondrous practice a bodhisattva cultivates; why do you speak of these worldly medical arts?” — what is sought is a bodhisattva’s wondrous practice, so why speak of the medicine of the world? The elder’s answer does not evade the question: when a bodhisattva first studies and cultivates awakening, he should know that illness is the greatest obstruction; if the body has disease the mind is not at ease, and how then should one cultivate the perfections? Therefore when a bodhisattva sets about transforming others he first cures their bodies, and only afterward expounds the Dharma and brings their minds under discipline. The forty-fascicle version further greatly widens the passage on knowing illness, opening out separately the four illnesses, the five great natures, the simile of the body as a vessel, the five periods of the inner body and the outer vessel, the absence of any self-nature in time, and the knowing of measure in food and drink; and the next friend’s name there is “Nectar Fire” rather than “Never Satiated.” As for the four illnesses, the forty-fascicle version brings out what governs each: illness of the body is governed by wind, bile, phlegm and heat; illness of the mind by madness and distraction of mind; illness from without by wounds from blade and staff and overexertion in action; illness belonging to both together by hunger and thirst, cold and heat, pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy — while the eighty-fascicle version raises only the forms of illness, neither dividing them into four nor bringing out what governs them. As for the body as a vessel, the forty-fascicle version makes plain whence it comes: “this vessel of a body is sustained by karma; it is not what Īśvara is able to make,” nor is it made by self-nature, or time, or place; and so to cure the body is to cure what karma has brought about. As for the five periods of the inner body: in the state of the infant the mind makes no discriminations; in childhood one can tell right from wrong; in the prime of life one gives rein to greed, hatred and delusion; in decrepitude the many illnesses press in; and next comes the state of death, where the body breaks up and life ends — each set against the five periods of the outer vessel, from the forming of the aeon to the destruction of the world. Here Sudhana asks again, the forty-fascicle version setting it out as an exchange, “Sudhana said” and “Universal Eye told him” — the question, “from what do these five periods arise?” and the elder’s answer, “time has no self-nature; it is made by discrimination, and turns with the wheel of deluded karma, circling without end”: time is not of itself but appears along with deluded karma, and so the wise one knows the waxing and waning of illness and understands well the seasons that belong to each region. And as for the conditions of the great king of medicines, the forty-fascicle version has eight (seeing · hearing · remembering · calling to mind · dwelling together · practicing together · invoking the name · rejoicing along), the eighty-fascicle version six. All of this is the text of the forty-fascicle version, and the eighty-fascicle version has none of it; it is recorded here so as to show where the other translation clarifies in addition, and not so as to stand in place of what the present scripture says.

An elder first takes up the pain in a person’s body, then takes up the leaning in a person’s mind, and at the last kindles a single incense into an offering that pervades the Dharma realm. As for the “Good Manifestation” of wisdom, the scripture text says not one further word.

Why This Passage Is Hard to Look At

At the first sixteen good friends, Sudhana arrived and was able to ask, and was able to receive an answer. At this seventeenth one the situation changes: what Sudhana sees from far off is a king inflicting punishment upon his main hall — hands and feet cut off, ears and nose severed, eyes gouged out, heads struck off, skin flayed, bodies dismembered, boiling in water, burning with fire, being driven up a high mountain and pushed down — and the scripture itself sets down a comparison, saying that the sound of the cries is “as it is in the great hell of Crushing Together.” Sudhana looks and doubts, doubts to the point of not daring to seek the Dharma.

A misreading to be cleared away: this is not the scripture text written badly, nor a variant passage inserted by later hands. The whole unit runs to something over sixteen hundred characters (punctuation included); the first half, nearly eight hundred characters, is precisely this act of looking, and in the second half the king takes it apart for him clause by clause — what the king himself says in the eighty-fascicle version is that he “conjures up evil men who do all manner of criminal deeds and undergo torments of every kind”: the ones who do the crimes are conjured, and the ones who undergo the suffering are conjured too. That the one who inflicts the punishment is himself a conjuring is not put in words here in the eighty-fascicle version; the forty-fascicle version says it plainly, “and those who are able to deal with the fierce and evil beings are alike transformations by conjuring,” and Li Tongxuan likewise reads it as the king “conjuring and manifesting his own body doing evil deeds and undergoing torments of every kind.” Which is to say: the way this good friend confers the Dharma is to let a person first see something he cannot accept.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this passage, if one hurries past the first half in order to get to the four graphs “liberation like an illusion,” one has thrown away what matters most here. That doubt of Sudhana’s is the door of this passage.

Recalling the Previous Friend’s Teaching: What the Mind Is Doing While the Feet Are Walking

The unit does not open with walking; it opens with recalling. The scripture says that Sudhana was “recalling and pondering the teaching the good friend had given,” and what he recalled had three clauses: “he is able to gather me in, able to guard and keep me, and to make me not turn back from unsurpassed perfect awakening.” Gathering in is taking a person into one’s keeping; guarding is not letting him be lost; not turning back is going forward and not returning — the three clauses are exactly the three things a good friend does for a student.

Then seventeen kinds of mind arise: joy, pure faith, vastness, ease and gladness, leaping up, rejoicing and giving thanks, the surpassing and wondrous, stillness and quiet, adornment, non-attachment, non-obstruction, impartiality, sovereign freedom, abiding in the Dharma, going everywhere to the buddha-lands, seeing the adornments of the buddhas, not forsaking the ten powers. Chengguan’s Yanyi chao glosses this, saying that “there are seventeen minds; the first, joy, is the general one, and the remaining sixteen are the particular ones” — the first, joy, is the general, and the sixteen after it are the particular, each matched to its sense in turn: pure faith is “faith and delight in hearing the Dharma,” vastness is “transforming below and seeking above,” ease and gladness is “the delight in the Dharma gladdening the spirit,” leaping up is “seeking bravely and pressing forward,” rejoicing and giving thanks is “rejoicing in what has been obtained,” the surpassing and wondrous is “compassion and knowledge flowing together,” stillness and quiet is “neither grasping nor arising,” adornment is “adorning with virtue,” non-attachment is “not attached to the myriad objects,” non-obstruction is “not obstructed in giving rise to cultivation,” impartiality is “things and self made level and even,” sovereign freedom is “not being driven by one’s own mind,” abiding in the Dharma is “abiding without abiding,” going everywhere to the buddha-lands is “matching the principle and pervading all,” seeing the adornments of the buddhas is “seeing the adornment of the marks of a buddha,” and not forsaking the ten powers is “not forsaking the knowledge of a buddha” — each of the sixteen particulars has its match, and not one of the minds is set down for nothing.

These sixteen matchings are not sixteen headings laid side by side; they are one sequence. It begins from faith and delight in hearing the Dharma; because one hears, one can transform below and seek above; because one transforms below and seeks above, the delight in the Dharma gladdens the spirit; because of that delight, one seeks bravely and presses forward; because one presses forward, one rejoices in what has been obtained; and at compassion and knowledge flowing together, benefiting oneself and benefiting others at last run side by side. Below that, the four—neither grasping nor arising, adorning with virtue, not being attached to the myriad objects, and not being obstructed in giving rise to cultivation—speak with respect to the marks of what is cultivated. From things and self made level and even onward, it is already the proper appearance of the practice of non-attachment — not being driven by one’s own mind, abiding without abiding, matching the principle and pervading all — coming home at the last to seeing the adornment of the marks of a buddha and not forsaking the knowledge of a buddha.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking these seventeen minds for literary ornament. Look at the tenth, the unattached mind — Chengguan judges this passage to be assigned to the practice of non-attachment, and this one mind, appearing at this place, is the announcement of everything written afterward.

Bringing it to the ground: the stretch of road between two good friends is not a blank. This passage tells you what is to be done on that road — take the teaching the previous one gave, and recall it clause by clause.

Seeking the Next Friend: The City of Tāla Banner, and the Name Never Satiated

The scripture says that he “traveled on from one place to the next, passing through countries, villages, and hamlets, until he came to the city of Tāla Banner.” On the name of the city and the name of the king the ancient worthies each have their own gloss, and the glosses differ.

Chengguan glosses the city’s name, saying “as for the word tāla, it means here bright and pure,” and further glosses the graph “banner” separately, saying “a banner is what is set up; it signifies that the practice of non-attachment rests upon the purity of wisdom, and so brightly sets up the surpassing practice” — tāla is bright and pure, banner is setting up, and put together they signify that this one’s practice of non-attachment rests upon the purity of wisdom and thereby sets up the surpassing practice. Li Tongxuan glosses this, saying “the city is named Tāla Banner; this name means bright and pure, and the name is established with respect to the lord of the transforming” — he takes the same sense of bright and pure, but does not gloss the two elements of the name separately, and he says that this name is established with respect to the lord of the transforming, that is, this king.

On the gloss of the king’s name the two houses diverge still more plainly. Chengguan glosses this, saying “the king is named Never Satiated because, his skillful means being like an illusion, his transforming is without any attachment, and so he has no mind that wearies” — because what is transformed is in the first place an illusion, and because the one who transforms is himself without attachment, no matter how long the transforming goes on no weariness arises. Li Tongxuan, on the other hand, says “the king is named Never Satiated because he is never satiated in benefiting the living; the name is formed from the practice of the causal stage” — because he never wearies of benefiting beings, the name is obtained with respect to the practice at the causal stage. The former establishes the name from the emptiness of what is transformed, the latter from the compassion of the one who transforms. The two accounts stand together; they are recorded without adjudication.

Bringing it to the ground: one name can have two readings, and both hold. In reading the glosses of the ancient worthies one must get used to this.

The People’s Answer About the King’s Governing: First His Governing Is Heard Of, Then the Man Himself Is Seen

Sudhana does not see the king directly; he first asks the people on the road. This one question and answer is not a passing scene. Chengguan glosses this, saying “having entered his country, one is bound to hear of his governing” — having entered a country, one first hears how that country is governed.

What the people answer is this king’s outward face: “proclaiming the transformation of the Dharma and taming and guiding beings, governing those who are to be governed, gathering in those who are to be gathered in, punishing their crimes, deciding their disputes, comforting the orphaned and the weak,” and the very items of his transforming teaching are the ten good deeds — the three of the body (cutting off killing, stealing, and unchaste conduct forever), the four of speech (refraining from false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, and frivolous speech), and the three of the mind (leaving behind greed, anger, and wrong views).

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this speech of the people to contradict the punishments that follow, and concluding that one of the two must be false. It is not so. The order of the scripture text is precisely this: first it lets you hear of a king who governs his country by the ten good deeds, then it lets you see him cutting off people’s hands and feet. The contradiction is one the scripture text sets up itself, and the answer is in the second half.

Bringing it to the ground: this passage is the foreshadowing of the unit. What the people say, “he makes them all cut off killing, stealing, and unchaste conduct forever,” and what the king later says, “I make all beings give up the ten evil deeds and abide in the path of the ten good deeds,” are one and the same matter — only the means are hard to accept.

Seeing the Surpassing Dependent and Proper: First His Throne Is Written, Then His Body

Of the one section on seeing, paying respects, and inquiring, Chengguan makes four branches: “first, the seeing of the surpassing dependent and proper; second, from ‘before him and behind him there were’ downward, the seeing of his transforming by contrary means; third, from ‘when Sudhana had seen this’ downward, not understanding and giving rise to doubt; fourth, from ‘as he was thinking in this way’ downward, the deity in the sky instructing him.” The first branch is this passage.

As for the dependent and the proper: the dependent is the place that is depended upon (the throne, the canopy, the palace), the proper is the body that depends upon it (the adornments of the king’s body). The scripture writes the throne first: a Nārāyaṇa adamantine throne, numberless jewels for its feet, measureless jeweled images for its adornment, a net of golden cords spread over it above. Then it writes the body: a wish-fulfilling maṇi for his crown, adorning his head; gold of the Jambū river made into a half-moon, adorning his forehead; indranīla maṇi for ear-pendants; priceless maṇi for a necklace, adorning his neck; the fine maṇi of the heavens made into seal-bracelets, adorning his arms. Last it writes the canopy: gold made the canopy, many jewels made its ribs and spokes, great beryl made its pole, lustrous maṇi made its rim, jewels of every kind made its bells, constantly giving forth a lovely sound and sending out a great radiance pervading the ten directions.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this passage for mere display. Look at its direction — from the throne to the head, to the forehead, to the ears, to the neck, to the arms, to the canopy; broadly it goes upward from the throne, yet after the neck it turns to the arms, and after the arms it returns to the canopy, so it is not a monotonous single ascent; and its last clause is “sending out a great radiance pervading the ten directions.” What this passage writes is not luxury but the marks of a fruit of deeds, laid down in advance precisely for that one question of the king’s later on, “how would I obtain a fruit such as this?”

Bringing it to the ground: at each clause of this passage one must keep that later question in mind. While looking, one does not know why one is being made to look; only on reaching the later passage does one know that it was all evidence.

Seeing His Transforming by Contrary Means: Six Are the Offenses, Nine Are the Punishments

The second branch. The scripture first writes the king’s might and the fierce troops before him: “King Anala had great strength and might; he could subdue every other host, and there was none who could stand against him,” ten thousand great ministers managing the affairs of the royal house together with him, and a hundred thousand fierce troops, “ugly and coarse of form, their clothing scant and mean, holding weapons in their hands, their sleeves rolled back and their arms bared, glaring with angry eyes; not one of the beings who saw them was without terror.”

Then it writes what the offenders had committed, six matters: stealing the goods of others, taking the lives of others, violating the wives of others, giving rise to wrong views, giving rise to anger, harboring greed and envy. Then it writes what was inflicted, nine punishments: hands and feet cut off, ears and nose severed, eyes gouged out, heads struck off, skin flayed, bodies dismembered, boiling in water, burning with fire, being driven up a high mountain and pushed down. Six offenses and nine punishments, two sets of parallels running down against each other.

The two graphs “transforming by contrary means” are Chengguan’s name for the section, and their sense is that the transforming teaching is carried on by way of a contrary appearance. A misreading to be cleared away: taking “transforming by contrary means” to say that this king acts wrongly and that the scripture is making a defense for him. It is not so. Contrary is said with respect to the appearance that is manifested — what is manifested is contrary, what is done is transforming. These two graphs fix the character of the whole passage in advance, and only then is Sudhana allowed to doubt.

Bringing it to the ground: if on reading this far one does not find it hard to look at, then one has not read it in at all. The scripture itself says “the sound of the cries they raised was as it is in the great hell of Crushing Together”; it wants you to hear that sound.

Not Understanding, He Gives Rise to Doubt: Why Sudhana Doubts Here

The third branch. What Sudhana thinks has four clauses: it is for the benefit of all beings that I seek the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva; this king destroys all the wholesome things, does great crimes, oppresses and afflicts beings, and even cuts off their lives; he has never once given a thought of fear to the evil destinies to come; then how could I seek the Dharma at his place and raise the mind of great compassion to rescue and protect beings?

Chengguan asks a good question here: since Sudhana constantly recalls the previous teaching, why does he still doubt? He glosses this, saying “yet, though Sudhana constantly recalled the teaching, doubt arose in him, because practice by contrary means is hard to know” — practice by contrary means is hard to understand in the first place. And he further distinguishes why Sudhana’s doubt arises here and did not arise before: “Greed benefits in this present world, and so he did not doubt Vasumitrā; anger and delusion appear as harm, and so at Victorious Heat and at this king alike doubt and wonder arose.” What Vasumitrā manifested seemed to run against the precepts, yet what she gave was benefit in the present world, and so Sudhana did not doubt; the mass of fire and the mountain of blades of the brahmin Victorious Heat, and the blade and saw of this king, are harm as they appear before one, and so he doubted.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking Sudhana’s doubt to mean that his cultivation was insufficient. Chengguan’s judgment is exactly the reverse — the doubt arises because the object is hard to know, not because the person is unworthy. That the scripture writes down this doubt of Sudhana’s just as it was, it writes for every reader.

Bringing it to the ground: when in reading the scriptures one comes to a place one cannot accept, one should first follow the method of this passage: acknowledge the doubt as it is, neither forcing it down nor walking away because of it. Sudhana stood where he was and doubted.

The Deity in the Sky Instructs Him (One): First He Is Told to Turn Back and Recall the Previous One’s Teaching

The fourth branch, which Chengguan divides into two layers: “within it there are two: first he is made to recall that the previous teaching is real, so that doubt does not arise.” This is the first layer.

The deity in the sky says only one thing: “Son of good family! You should recall the teaching that the good friend, the elder Universal Eye, gave you.” It does not explain, it does not defend; it only tells him to turn back. Sudhana answers, “I recall it constantly, and have never once dared to forget it” — he really is recalling it, and having recalled it he still doubts.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this deity to be putting in a word for the king. Look at what it says — it has not one clause about this king; everything it says is about the matter of the good friend itself. Its first clause tells him to recall the previous teaching; its second tells him “do not turn away in weariness from the words of a good friend,” and the reason given is that “a good friend can lead you to a place free of danger and hardship, a place of security.”

Bringing it to the ground: when doubt arises, the first step is not to untie the doubt, but to return first to the place already made certain and stand there. The teaching the previous good friend gave is what Sudhana has already made certain.

The Deity in the Sky Instructs Him (Two): Seven Kinds of Knowledge Beyond Conceiving

The second layer, of which Chengguan says: “afterward, from ‘son of good family, a bodhisattva’s skillful’ downward, is the distinguishing of how deep and profound the practice that follows is, so as to make him enter by faith.” What the deity raises are seven matters, and to each is appended the graph “knowledge”: the knowledge of skillful means, the knowledge that gathers beings in, the knowledge that guards and holds beings in mind, the knowledge that ripens beings, the knowledge that protects beings, the knowledge that delivers beings, the knowledge that tames beings — all of them beyond conceiving.

Each of these seven has its own place; they are not one thing said seven times. The knowledge of skillful means is the knowledge that can set up a means at all — from what ground a means is established. The knowledge that gathers beings in is the knowledge that can bring a person in; if a person cannot be brought in, nothing further can be spoken of. The knowledge that guards and holds beings in mind is the knowledge that, once a person has been brought in, does not let him be lost. The knowledge that ripens beings is the knowledge that lets the roots of goodness grow until the time when they may be gathered — gathered unripe, they are injured. The knowledge that protects beings is the knowledge that shields a person at the place where he is about to fall back. The knowledge that delivers beings is the knowledge that brings him out of what binds him. The knowledge that tames beings is the knowledge that can break what is hard and stubborn in him — and what the king of this passage manifests falls precisely upon this last one. That each of the seven has the graph for knowledge appended says that these seven are not merely good-heartedness but measure: good-heartedness anyone may have, but the measure is not what a lower position can gauge. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle version, passes a separate judgment upon these seven clauses: “Second, within the clarifying of what is deep and hidden in the bodhisattva’s doing: the first two clauses are the skillful knowledge beyond conceiving, and the latter five clauses are the working beyond conceiving — that is, the traces run counter while the practice runs along, and it is not to be gauged by a lower position; hence it is so said.” Of the seven clauses, what is beyond conceiving in the first two lies in the skillful knowledge, and what is beyond conceiving in the latter five lies in the working: the skillful knowledge is the knowing that can set a means up, the working is the deed that is thereby done. And the reason it is beyond conceiving Fazang fastens to the four graphs “the traces run counter while the practice runs along”: the trace that is manifested runs counter, the practice that is actual runs along, and neither of the two covers the other over, so that it is not what a lower position can gauge. In the eighty-fascicle version each of these seven matters has the graph “knowledge” appended to it; the sixty-fascicle version has them as a bodhisattva’s skillful means · a bodhisattva’s knowledge · gathering beings in · taming beings · teaching and transforming beings · pitying and holding beings in mind · delivering beings, with no such graph appended; and Fazang’s division into the first two clauses and the latter five is said precisely upon this list of the sixty-fascicle version.

Of the two graphs “deep and profound” Chengguan has one decisive clause: “as for the words deep and profound, it is because he penetrates what is not the path.” Penetrating what is not the path means being able to penetrate within what is not the path — and this is where the whole joint of this passage lies. The Yanyi chao analyzes this stretch of the commentary into five sections: “first, the general statement, making him have faith; second, from ‘yet Sudhana’ downward, the questioning of his doubting mind; third, from ‘practice by contrary means’ downward, the bringing out of the sense of his doubt; fourth, from ‘what benefits’ downward, the resolving of the hidden difficulty; fifth, from ‘as for the words deep and profound’ downward, the displaying of the deep and profound, first the statement and afterward the proof, as may be known.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking “beyond conceiving” for a word of evasion, equivalent to saying ‘ask no further’. It is not so. The seven matters the deity raises are all of them on the side of gathering beings in — skillful means, gathering in, guarding and holding in mind, ripening, protecting, delivering, taming; not one of them speaks of the realm of supernormal powers. He is telling Sudhana: as to which of these seven the thing you have seen belongs to, that is what you cannot yet measure.

Bringing it to the ground: when a doubt cannot be untied, first make certain what class the matter belongs to. If it belongs to the matters of benefiting the living, then one need not hurry to fix a crime upon it.

Sudhana Inquires with Respect: The Doubt Removed, the King’s Doings Not Yet Made Plain

Sudhana, having heard, goes in, “bows to his feet,” calls him “holy one,” and the question he asks is still that same question of the whole assembly: I have already raised the mind of awakening, yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to learn the practice of a bodhisattva, how he is to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva. On this Chengguan sets down only one clause: “second, from ‘at that time Sudhana’ downward, the inquiring with respect, as may be known.”

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the deity to have cleared the king’s name, so that Sudhana dares to bow to his feet. The scripture does not write it so. The deity did not tell him that this king was innocent; it told him only that the knowledge of a bodhisattva is beyond conceiving. Chengguan says this passage is “to make him enter in faith,” and Li Tongxuan outlines it as “Sudhana’s doubt removed, he goes to the king”—what is removed is the doubt about daring to go; what is trusted is the word of the good friend. As for what the king is actually doing, the deity says not a word; the king himself will answer once they are inside the palace.

Bringing it to the ground: respect for a good friend need not wait until one fully understands before it is given. This passage writes that order out very plainly — respect first, understanding after.

The Skillful Means of Conferring the Dharma: Taking His Hand and Sitting Together with Him

The king’s first act is not to expound the Dharma; it is to “take Sudhana by the hand, bring him into the palace, and bid him sit down together with him.” Chengguan sets down a very weighty clause here: “taking his hand and sitting together with him displays the manner in which there is no distance, and signifies the gathering in of that one’s preparatory effort so as to make it go toward the real.”

The manner in which there is no distance means a courtesy with no barrier in it — not a king toward a subject, but sitting together. And what is signified is “the gathering in of that one’s preparatory effort so as to make it go toward the real”: taking in the student’s exertion and making it go toward what is real.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the taking of the hand and the sitting together for mere politeness. Look at the position where it occurs — precisely at the moment when the king has not yet spoken for himself and the contrary appearance Sudhana saw has not yet been explained. What is called the skillful means of conferring the Dharma lies exactly in this act: first let the one who had feared him sit together with him, and only then can what the king does be spoken of.

Bringing it to the ground: the nine punishments above were bodies, and the taking of the hand here is a body too — the same pair of hands.

Raising the Fruit to Bring Him In: First, Look at the Palace

The king’s first words are “you should look at the palace in which I dwell.” Chengguan makes four branches of the one section on the direct displaying of the Dharma realm, and this is the first: “within it there are four: first, raising the fruit to bring him in.”

What Sudhana sees: the palace vast beyond compare, all of it made of wondrous jewels combined; seven jewels for the walls, a hundred thousand jewels of every sort for the towers and pavilions, a net of maṇi jewels spread over it above; ten koṭis of attendant women upright and surpassing in form, their bearing and their manner of coming and going all worth looking upon, nothing they did that was not skillfully done, rising before him and lying down after him, receiving his wishes with pliant intent.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for a boast of wealth. The four graphs “raising the fruit to bring him in” put it very exactly — what is raised is the fruit, and the purpose is to bring him in. Every single item set out in this passage is to be taken up by the king in the next passage as counter-evidence.

Bringing it to the ground: at this point Sudhana still does not know what he is looking at. The scripture has him look first and ask afterward — the same order as in the unit of the monk Ocean Banner: seeing first, knowing after.

Displaying the Provisional by Means of the Real: Such Evil Deeds, How Would There Be Such a Fruit?

The second branch. Chengguan says, “second, from ‘at that time King Anala said to Sudhana’ downward, is the displaying of the provisional by means of the real.” The king’s way of asking is a counter-question: “If I truly did evil deeds such as those, how would I obtain a fruit such as this, a body of form such as this, a retinue such as this, an abundance such as this, a sovereign freedom such as this?”

The reasoning runs like this: evil deeds do not correspond to these five kinds of fruit; and these five kinds of fruit are visible here before one; therefore those evil deeds were not truly done. By the real that is present before one (the fruit) is displayed the provisional that is manifested (the cause) — and this is what the four graphs “displaying the provisional by means of the real” say.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this for proving one’s innocence by wealth and rank, equivalent to saying ‘I live well, therefore I am not guilty’. It is not so. What is relied upon is not wealth and rank themselves, but the single principle that deeds and their fruits do not deceive each other. Had those deeds truly been done, the fruit could not be like this — the whole force of this inference lies in the principle of deeds and their fruits, not in the appearance of wealth and rank.

Bringing it to the ground: the king does not directly say ‘those people were conjured by me’. He lets Sudhana work back from the fruit himself. What one has worked out oneself is what one can enter.

Displaying What He Has Attained (One): The Name of the Liberation Like an Illusion

The third branch, which Chengguan divides into three sections: first the glossing of the name, next the clarifying of the working of the Dharma gate, afterward the clarifying of its surpassing benefit. This is the first section.

The king says of himself: “Son of good family! What I have attained is the bodhisattva’s liberation like an illusion.” Chengguan glosses this name, saying “as for the first, that it is named like an illusion: he knows the living to be like an illusion, and so transforms illusion by illusion” — knowing that beings are of themselves like an illusion, he uses illusion to transform illusion. Within the four characters “transforms illusion by illusion” there are two occurrences of “illusion”: what is known is the illusoriness of beings, and what is used is the illusoriness of skillful means.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking “like an illusion” to say that nothing counts for anything, so that killing a man is no matter either. The scripture blocks this road itself — later the king says plainly, “my body, my speech, and my mind have never afflicted or harmed a single being.” Being like an illusion is not the cancelling of cause and effect; it says that the one who transforms does no real affliction or harm within what is transformed.

Bringing it to the ground: the name of the Dharma gate of this passage is one of the few names on this whole road of Sudhana’s that one understands at once and finds hard on reflection. The hard part is this: having understood the name, one must still watch how it is used.

Displaying What He Has Attained (Two): The Working of the Dharma Gate — the Evil Men Are Conjured

The second section, of which Chengguan says, “next, from ‘in this land of mine’ downward, is the clarifying of the working of the Dharma gate.” The king accounts for it himself with the utmost clarity, in three clauses:

First, the capacities he faces — “of all the beings in this land of mine, the greater part do killing, stealing, and so on down to wrong views, and by any other skillful means they cannot be made to give up their evil deeds.” Every other skillful means has been tried, and it does not work. Second, the skillful means he uses — “for the sake of taming those beings I conjure up evil men who do all manner of criminal deeds and undergo torments of every kind.” The men who do the crimes are conjured, and the men who undergo the suffering are conjured too. Third, the effect obtained — making all the beings who do evil, having seen it, “give rise in their minds to alarm and dread, give rise in their minds to weariness and turning away, give rise in their minds to a faltering,” and thereupon cut off all the evil deeds they have been doing and raise the mind of awakening.

Here the eighty-fascicle version stops at the clause about conjuring up evil men; the forty-fascicle version sets down at the end of this passage a further clause that gathers it all in, making clear that those seen doing evil and undergoing suffering, and those able to deal with the fierce and evil, “are alike transformations by conjuring” — the side that inflicts the punishment being gathered into what is conjured as well. The eighty-fascicle version has no such clause, and in reading one should know where that boundary falls.

In the stretch on distinguishing the deep and profound Chengguan had already determined which kind of practice by contrary means this unit belongs to: “of this there are two kinds: first, actual practice; second, transformation by conjuring.” And this passage belongs to the latter — “as for what is called transformation by conjuring, it is precisely this text. Below, the king says so himself.” The last four graphs matter most: this is not an account the commentator finds for the scripture; it is one the scripture speaks out itself in this very place.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the punishments written in the first half to mean that there really were persons undergoing that suffering. The scripture breaks this here itself — those who undergo the suffering and those who do the crimes are alike what is conjured. The ones who are really looking, and who really receive the benefit, are “the beings who do evil.”

Bringing it to the ground: so the function of that first passage is to be seen by people, not to be undergone by them. And the first person it frightens is Sudhana himself.

The Surpassing Benefit of the Dharma Gate: From Giving Up the Ten Evils to Abiding in the Ground of Omniscient Knowledge

The third section, of which Chengguan says, “afterward, from ‘because I in this way’ downward, is the clarifying of the surpassing benefit of the Dharma gate.” The scripture has three layers: “give up the ten evil deeds, abide in the path of the ten good deeds” is the first layer; “be happy in the ultimate sense, be at peace in the ultimate sense” is the second; “abide in the ultimate sense in the ground of omniscient knowledge” is the third.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this king’s transforming to stop at making people keep the law. Look at the last of the three layers — the ground of omniscient knowledge is the ground of the knowledge of a buddha. It begins by frightening a person out of a single evil deed, and where it comes home is omniscient knowledge, with no break in between. This locks exactly together, front and back, with what the people said at the opening, “he makes them all cut off killing, stealing, and unchaste conduct forever”: what the people saw is the first layer; what the king says of himself is three layers.

Bringing it to the ground: whether a skillful means may be used is judged not only by whether it works at the moment, but by where it leads through to. These three layers are the measure this passage gives.

Directly Displaying His Real Virtue: One Mosquito and One Ant

The fourth branch. Chengguan says, “fourth, from ‘son of good family, my body and speech’ downward, is the direct displaying of his real virtue, the depth of his kindly mindfulness.” The first three branches all speak of the Dharma gate; this branch speaks of this man’s mind.

The scripture has two clauses: “my body, my speech, and my mind have never afflicted or harmed a single being”; and “a mind such as mine would rather undergo the suffering of the Unremitting Hell in time to come than give rise to so much as one thought of an intention to do anything that would make one mosquito or one ant suffer — how much less a human being! A human being is a field of merit, for from him all the wholesome things can be born.”

The nine punishments of the first half are blade and saw and cauldron; here it is one mosquito and one ant. The first half is what is laid upon a person’s body; here it is “one thought of an intention.” The scripture fastens this passage together with the two most extreme ends: the man who can manifest such a fearful appearance will not make even one mosquito suffer, and would rather undergo the suffering of the Unremitting Hell himself. The forty-fascicle version pushes this one layer further, saying that he recalls of himself that not even in a dream has a single thought of negligence arisen in his mind, how much less would he kill a person while awake — setting dream against waking, and pushing the vow of doing no harm into the very place where the mind is least under governance; the eighty-fascicle version has no such layer.

Chengguan further adds a general judgment with respect to position: “yet at all the positions, upon reaching the seventh, it is because they are all skillful means that Fulfilled Vow, Avalokiteśvara, and Opening the Blossoms of Trees are for the most part with respect to kindness and compassion.” The seventh of the ten abodes, Fulfilled Vow; the seventh of the ten dedications, Avalokiteśvara; the seventh of the ten grounds, Opening the Blossoms of Trees; and this seventh of the ten practices — at four positions the friends for the most part take their appearance from kindness and compassion.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking this passage for self-declaration that could as well be left out. This passage is the heart of the unit. Without it, the “like an illusion” before it is only a set of words; with it, being like an illusion comes to rest upon a particular kindness and compassion.

Bringing it to the ground: to judge whether a skillful means is a real skillful means, see whether the one who sets it up is willing to undergo it in the other’s place. This one clause, “would rather undergo the suffering of the Unremitting Hell in time to come,” is that measure.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: The Forbearance of Non-Arising Is Realized by Knowing Illusion

The scripture says, “I have attained only this one liberation like an illusion,” and then raises what other bodhisattvas have attained: they have attained the forbearance of non-arising, they know that all the destinies are entirely like an illusion, that all the practices of a bodhisattva are entirely like a conjuring, that the whole world is entirely like a shadow, that all things are entirely like a dream; they enter the unobstructed Dharma gate of the mark of true reality, cultivate all the practices like Indra’s net, move through the fields of objects with unobstructed knowledge, enter everywhere into all the samādhis of equality, and have attained sovereign freedom in the dhāraṇīs — and how could I know or expound the practice of their merit and virtue?

Chengguan sets down one gloss here: “fourth, humbling himself and pointing to the superior. That in pointing to the superior he says the forbearance of non-arising is because it is by knowing illusion that one at last realizes this forbearance.” What is pointed to in pointing to the superior is the forbearance of non-arising, and the reason for pointing to this forbearance is precisely that this forbearance is realized by penetrating illusion — what he points to is not some other, unrelated virtue, but the very fruit that his own gate leads through to.

Beyond the forbearance of non-arising and the four comparisons, the scripture sets out five further matters, each with its own reference. “They enter the unobstructed Dharma gate of the mark of true reality” is the gate entered: at the mark of true reality one is not obstructed by it. “They cultivate all the practices like Indra’s net” is the practice cultivated: Indra’s net is the jeweled net of the palace of Indra, where jewel shows jewel endlessly, and it depicts how the practices enter one another — not one practice finished and then the next, but all the practices present within one. “They move through the fields of objects with unobstructed knowledge” is the knowledge that acts: the field does not obstruct the knowledge, and the knowledge does not ruin the field. “They enter everywhere into all the samādhis of equality” is the concentration dwelt in: since all things are equal and not two, that concentration enters everywhere. “In the dhāraṇīs they have attained sovereign freedom” is the power held: a dhāraṇī is the holding of all things, a holding that does not lose, and within that holding there is sovereign freedom, so that one is not driven by what one holds. Fazang divides this passage of pointing to the superior into three: the first clause points generally, the nine clauses below display separately how profound the illusion and the rest are, and the last clause concludes that it is not his own portion; Chengguan, for his part, judges upon the clause of the forbearance of non-arising that “it is by knowing illusion that one at last realizes this forbearance.” Taking the two judgments together, one sees that the clauses pointed to are not a flat list of virtues; they are layer upon layer of the one sense, illusion, pushed through to its depth.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the humbling of himself for a courtesy. Look at the order of the four comparisons: like an illusion is of the destinies (where beings go), like a conjuring is of the practices, like a shadow is of the world, like a dream is of all things — from beings to practices to the vessel world to all things, the scope widens layer by layer. What the king has attained, the illusion, is the first of these four comparisons; what he points to are those in whom all four are complete and who enter the unobstructed Dharma gate besides. His humbling has measure in it, because he has reckoned it exactly.

The sixty-fascicle version of this one unit differs from the eighty-fascicle version at more than one place; from its beginning to its end there are seven places worth setting side by side, and they are set out here one by one.

First, the minds born of recalling the teaching. The eighty-fascicle version has seventeen minds, the sixty-fascicle version sixteen, running from “the mind of great joy” to “the mind that does not forsake the buddhas and good friends,” differing in both the names and the order. And where the eighty-fascicle version has “recalling and pondering the teaching of the good friend,” the sixty-fascicle version has “recalling the good friends in order, rightly mindful and pondering the teaching of the good friend,” with the added graphs for “in order” and for the plural — what is recalled is not some one friend at large but all of them along the road, and recalled in their order.

Second, the people’s answer about how the king governs. The last clause the eighty-fascicle version has as “he comforts the orphaned and the weak,” whereas the sixty-fascicle version has “to those who have fear he gives fearlessness” — the one said with respect to the orphaned and weak having nothing to lean upon, the other with respect to fear having already arisen, and what is comforted and what is given each point to one side. In the list of the ten good deeds, the eighty-fascicle version divides the three of body · the four of speech · the three of mind into three groups and fastens a verb to each (forever cutting off · prohibiting · keeping far from), while the sixty-fascicle version heads them all with the single word “praising” and lists the branches one by one, the last three as “no greed, no anger, no delusion” — the one speaks of governing in the force of prohibition, the other of transforming in the force of praise. The fourth branch of speech the eighty-fascicle version has as “ornate speech” and the sixty-fascicle version as “speech without meaning”: the ornate is the flowery adorning, the meaningless is the empty of substance; the one is said from its wording, the other from its substance.

Third, the seeing of the dependent and proper and of the king’s might. The number of the great ministers is the same in both but written with different graphs, the eighty-fascicle version as “ten thousands” and the sixty-fascicle version as “one myriad.” The stretch upon the fierce soldiers belongs in detail to the eighty-fascicle version alone — ugly in appearance · shabby in dress · bearing weapons · baring their arms and glaring · so that those who see them are afraid, all five written out; the sixty-fascicle version has only the single clause “ten thousand brave officers guarding him with weapons in hand,” the number ten thousand rather than a hundred thousand, and nothing of the appearance that makes men afraid. The reason the first half is so hard to look at is that the eighty-fascicle version puts its force precisely here. The text of the adornments of the dependent and proper differs both ways: the sixty-fascicle version has clauses such as his hair being deep blue-black that the eighty-fascicle version lacks, and the eighty-fascicle version’s indranīla-maṇi earrings and heavenly wondrous maṇi seal-bracelets are likewise absent from the sixty.

Fourth, the punishments of the transforming by contrary means. The eighty-fascicle version lists nine items, the sixty-fascicle version six; the first four are largely the same in both but differ in their graphs — “gouging out his eyes” against “gouging out both eyes,” “beheading him” against “severing head from body.” The eighty-fascicle version alone has flaying the skin · dismembering the body · boiling in cauldrons · driving up a high mountain and hurling him down, four items; the sixty-fascicle version alone has “casting into seething ashes” and “wrapping him in cloth, pouring on oil.” And after the punishments the eighty-fascicle version sets down a comparison of its own, “as though in the Crushing Great Hell,” which the sixty-fascicle version does not have, having only “with measureless torments such as these he punished them bitterly” — that the cry can be heard at all lies in this comparison the eighty-fascicle version adds.

Fifth, the rising of the doubt and the deity’s instruction from the sky. Of Sudhana’s doubt the eighty-fascicle version says only that this king destroys all good dharmas, does deeds of great sin, and has no regard for the evil destinies, whereas the sixty-fascicle version sets down flatly “this is the evil of evils, the foremost evil man,” far heavier in its force. The previous friend’s name the eighty-fascicle version has as the elder Universal Eye, the sixty-fascicle version as Universal Eye Wondrous Fragrance. In the deity’s second speech the eighty-fascicle version first admonishes “do not weary of and turn from the words of the good friend” and afterward raises the seven matters, while the sixty-fascicle version leads with the counter-question “if you are always recalling it, why do you doubt and wonder?” — the one settles his mind first and then gives him the measure, the other charges him with his doubt first and then opens the understanding for him. The seven matters are the same in number in both but differ in name: the sixty-fascicle version has a bodhisattva’s skillful means · a bodhisattva’s knowledge · gathering beings in · taming beings · teaching and transforming beings · pitying and holding beings in mind · delivering beings, with no graph for knowledge appended to each.

Sixth, entering the palace and the raising of the fruit. The number of the attendant women the eighty-fascicle version has as ten koṭis, the sixty-fascicle version as five hundred. The raising of the fruit the eighty-fascicle version casts as a counter-question, pressing out the impossibility of “if I had actually done such evil deeds” by the five matters of recompense · bodily form · retinue · abundance · sovereignty; the sixty-fascicle version has only the one question “do you see the deeds from which this recompense of mine comes?”, and Sudhana answers “I have seen” — the eighty-fascicle version has no such answer, and the whole force of the counter-question stays inside the king’s single question. At the viewing of the palace the sixty-fascicle version abbreviates with “as said above,” while the eighty-fascicle version sets it out clause by clause. The name of the Dharma gate the eighty-fascicle version has as the liberation like an illusion, the sixty-fascicle version as the Dharma gate of conjuring.

Seventh, the humbling of himself and pointing to the superior, and the directing to the next friend. The name of the forbearance the eighty-fascicle version has as the forbearance of non-arising, the sixty-fascicle version as the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas. The third of the four comparisons the eighty-fascicle version has as “like a shadow,” whereas the sixty-fascicle version has “the whole world is entirely like lightning” — a shadow exists along with the form and is gone when the form goes, while lightning is extinguished in the flash; the one depicts the absence of self-nature, the other the failure to last, and each rendering takes one side. The gate entered the eighty-fascicle version has as “the unobstructed Dharma gate of the real character,” the sixty-fascicle version as “the unobstructed Dharma realm”; the eighty-fascicle version has besides the two clauses “cultivating all the practices of Indra’s net” and “entering universally all the samādhis of sameness,” where the sixty-fascicle version has “possessing the wondrous practices of a bodhisattva” and “gathering in all practices,” with nothing of Indra’s net. For the dhāraṇī the sixty-fascicle version has “the measureless whirling dhāraṇī,” with three added graphs whose sense is turning and not standing still, said with respect to the working of the holding. The next friend’s city the eighty-fascicle version has as Wondrous Light and the sixty-fascicle version as Good Light, different names for one and the same place. In the taking of leave the eighty-fascicle version has “took his leave and departed,” the sixty-fascicle version “took his leave and journeyed south,” differing in the last two graphs — the one stops at the leave-taking, the other already shows the direction.

Bringing it to the ground: to know which portion one has attained, and to know as well where that portion leads through to — this is what is called humbling oneself and pointing to the superior.

Directing Him to the Next Friend and Cherishing His Virtue, Bowing and Taking Leave: South to the City of Wondrous Light

Two matters in the last passage. Directing him to the next friend: “Son of good family! To the south of this place there is a city named Wondrous Light, and a king named Great Light. Go there and ask him: how is a bodhisattva to learn the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?” Cherishing his virtue and taking leave: Sudhana “bowed to the king’s feet, circled him numberless times, took his leave, and departed.”

Chengguan’s outline of this unit stops at the humbling of himself and pointing to the superior; for these two passages he sets up no separate section within this window, and that is recorded as it stands. Li Tongxuan, on the other hand, sets up a gate of his own here: he opens this last passage into four gates — pointing to virtue and advancing upward; displaying the direction of the good friend and the name of the city where he dwells, Wondrous Light; raising the good friend’s name as king, Great Light; and bowing at his feet and taking leave. And he glosses the two names pointed to, saying that the city named Wondrous Light is the same as the eighth abode and the eighth ground, the wondrous working of effortless knowledge, which is the fullness of differentiating knowledge within the present position, and that the king named Great Light is root knowledge itself. As for that other group of four gates — pointing to virtue and advancing upward; displaying the direction of the dwelling and the name of the city, Tāla Banner; raising the king’s name, Never Satiated; and taking leave with respect and departing — it is the outline of the previous friend, the elder Universal Eye, introducing the present friend, not this friend’s outline here: the two groups bear the same name, but the stretches of text they are fastened to lie one before and one after.

A misreading to be cleared away: taking the directing to the next friend for an administrative handover. The next one this king points to is named Great Light, and the city this king dwells in is named Tāla Banner (bright and pure) — the names of the cities and the names of the friends along the road are themselves a sequence.

Bringing it to the ground: the full structure of one good friend closes only at this clause: on coming, recalling the previous teaching; on going, being directed to the next friend. Everything hard to look at in between stands inside this structure.

Lineage

For the text of this unit, three lines are opened downward.

The first is the line of the judgment and glossing of practice by contrary means. At the place of distinguishing the deep and profound, Chengguan cites the section on the training in discipline of Paramārtha’s She lun, saying that a bodhisattva’s practice by contrary means, killing and the rest, can give birth to measureless merit and obtain unsurpassed awakening, and that necessarily “only a great bodhisattva is equal to this matter,” and he divides it into the two kinds, actual practice and transformation by conjuring; as for actual practice, it is knowing that the person before one will certainly do a deed bringing unremitting retribution and that there is no other skillful means by which he may leave off this evil, so that only cutting off his life will make him not do it; and knowing further that once that person has given up his life he will certainly be born in a good destiny; and moreover the bodhisattva reflects to himself that having done the killing he will certainly fall into the hells and undergo the suffering in that one’s place, and that though that person presently undergoes a light suffering he will certainly obtain the fruit of ease — the birth in a good destiny and the fruit of ease being precisely the limiting conditions upon which the one kind, actual practice, can stand at all; and he says further that the section on discipline of the Bodhisattva Ground of the Yujia lun likewise has this account. Of the texts of these two treatises, this apparatus records only the clauses Chengguan cites, and does not dig out their original text separately. And Chengguan plainly judges this unit to belong to the one kind, transformation by conjuring, his ground being that “below, the king says so himself” — the second half of the scripture text accounts for what is conjured on its own. Zhiyan’s Kongmu zhang, too, has a section upon this friend within its glossing of the good friends in order, and judges of him: “with respect to the distinct teaching of the one vehicle: skillfully and sovereignly he displays the method of practice by contrary means, accomplishing the virtue of advancing and retreating, a surpassing skillful means,” fastening it at the end to what is accomplished by the perfection of skillful means — the name method of practice by contrary means points to the same thing as Chengguan’s transforming by contrary means, while the virtue of advancing and retreating is said with respect to the two appearances, running counter and running along: within the appearance that runs counter he does not lose what runs along, and within the appearance that runs along he is not clogged by what runs counter, so that in both advancing and retreating the virtue is accomplished; and the perfection of skillful means to which it is fastened agrees in turn with the perfection Li Tongxuan sets up in saying “skillful means as the perfection that is lord.”

The second is the line of the cross-reading of the four positions. Chengguan says that at all the positions, upon reaching the seventh, they are skillful means, and raises the three friends Fulfilled Vow, Avalokiteśvara, and Opening the Blossoms of Trees as being for the most part with respect to kindness and compassion; Li Tongxuan, for his part, sets out four positions plainly: “as at the seventh abode of the ten abodes, the position of kindness and compassion, which the laywoman Fulfilled Vow stands for”; “this seventh practice of the ten practices, the practice of kindness and compassion, is stood for by King Never Satiated”; “the seventh dedication has Avalokiteśvara as its lord, and in the seventh, the Ground of Far-Reaching, there is the night deity named Opening the Blossoms of Trees as its lord; all such are different names for the accomplishing of kindness and compassion according to position.” The two houses are upon one and the same axis; what Chengguan raises is the three friends Fulfilled Vow, Avalokiteśvara, and Opening the Blossoms of Trees, whereas Li Tongxuan sets out four positions plainly and fastens each to its position, the one he has in addition being this very friend, King Never Satiated — the Avalokiteśvara of his list and the one in Chengguan’s being the same friend of the seventh dedication.

The third is the line of the divergent glosses of the various houses, each having its own rails; recorded without adjudication. As for the outline of this unit, Chengguan makes four sections (seeking in accord with the teaching · seeing, paying respects, and inquiring · conferring his own Dharma realm · humbling himself and pointing to the superior), while Li Tongxuan does not follow this bone, and separately sets up two groups of four gates on pointing to virtue and advancing upward, one belonging to the previous friend and one to this friend, and the fourteen gates of the gate of truly entering the present position. On the matter of the name of the position, Chengguan makes it assigned to the practice of non-attachment, and the Yanyi chao glosses the reason for it as “skillful means enters into existence without being deluded about emptiness, and in phenomena and principle there is no clogging, neither forsaking nor receiving; hence it is named non-attachment”; Li Tongxuan calls this friend “the good friend of the seventh, the practice of Good Manifestation,” and elsewhere makes it “this seventh practice of the ten practices, the practice of kindness and compassion,” so that three names are seen together. As for the gloss of the city’s name, Chengguan glosses the two elements of the name, tāla and banner, separately, while Li Tongxuan takes only bright and pure and establishes the name with respect to the lord of the transforming. As for the gloss of the king’s name, Chengguan fastens it to skillful means like an illusion and transforming without attachment, while Li Tongxuan fastens it to being never satiated in benefiting the living, the name formed from the practice of the causal stage. As for the perfection that is lord, Li Tongxuan says “skillful means as the perfection that is lord, with the remaining nine as companions.” He further opens two sides, the gate of knowledge and the gate of position, in speaking of what is healed: with respect to the gate of knowledge, all the positions heal in common; with respect to the gate of position, this one position heals in particular “the obstruction of not being sovereign in the two practices, defiled and pure, while dwelling in birth-and-death,” so that one attains to dwelling in birth-and-death with great knowledge and great compassion both sovereign — the former is said of all positions in common, the latter is the reason this one position is set up at all. Fazang’s Tanxuan ji and Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji both gloss this unit proper, but rest upon the sixty-fascicle version, so that the name-forms there are King Fully Satisfied, the city of Full Banner, and the Dharma gate of conjuring. Fazang glosses the city named Full Banner as taking its name from the field of skillful means being already complete and surpassing all others, and the king named Fully Satisfied as taking his from skillful knowledge being already round and from his being sovereign whether the appearance runs counter or runs along. He further sets up a question and answers it himself — since Sudhana recalls the previous teaching, why does he still doubt? He answers: because what faces him is the appearance of anger and harm obstructing the path, “in principle doubt is required, and only then is the difference between the two practices within the bodhisattva path, going against the path and going along with it, made plainly known”; were it not so, “the wrong and the right could not be told apart.” This answer is fastened, like Chengguan’s “because practice by contrary means is hard to know,” to the difficulty of the object, and it goes one step further in saying what the doubt is for: the doubt is precisely the pass at which wrong and right are told apart. Fazang also records the Sanskrit of the friend’s name, saying that Nara is a Sanskrit word meaning full, and notes that in the Indian text this Dharma gate is named the samādhi of abiding in illusion. Zhiyan, for his part, outlines this unit in three sections (the urging of the teaching and the entering · the entering in accord with the teaching · the true entering of the Dharma realm), opens eight items under the entering in accord with the teaching — first, taking leave (taking leave of the previous friend and departing) · second, recalling (within which there are again the general first and the sixteen clauses as the particular next) · third, arriving at the place · fourth, raising a skillful means to lead him there (which has the two texts of question and answer, that is, asking where the king is and the people answering with how he governs) · fifth, from “he saw” downward, the seeing of the appearances (opened again into three: first the seeing of the dependent and proper, second the seeing of the law by which the country is governed, third the beholding that gives rise to doubt) · sixth, from “he thought in this way” downward, the bodhisattvas and the rest leading and admonishing him so that the doubt is removed · seventh, from “he heard the deity” onward, the manner of paying respect · eighth, from “he said” downward, stating himself and inquiring — the eight running from taking leave of the previous friend through to stating himself and inquiring, and answering passage for passage to the first half of this unit; and judges under the true entering that the Dharma gate has three divisions, body, working, and the displaying of its accomplishment by the reverse — and the last is precisely the passage in which the king states that his body, speech, and mind have never afflicted or harmed anyone: by that passage the unreality of what was transformed before is displayed in reverse. All these divergent glosses are the settled teachings of the ancient worthies.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

On the matching of assigned positions Chengguan passes a judgment of his own at the place of the general judgment of the five aspects before the chapter, and that judgment does not belong among what is recorded without adjudication. He first sets out what two houses say — Master Yi and the treatise of Mount Tai gloss only as the text runs and make no separate matching, whereas Guangtong and the masters of his line all match positions; the two having been set out, he then judges: “both have their reason: that is, since each single position possesses many Dharma gates, how should ordinary minds be barred from being able to practice and seek the way of the good friends? — hence not matching has its reason. Yet within the absence of a sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to display positions is the ordinary rule, so matching is likewise not amiss.” This one clause is Chengguan’s judgment, not the words of the two houses before it. Hence to call this unit assigned to the practice of non-attachment is said in accordance with the ancient worthies’ matching of positions, and does not mean that apart from this matching there is nothing to be understood.

In the text of one passage, the first half makes a person unable to look, and the second half makes him unable not to look. And the scripture text leaves that ‘unable to look’ of Sudhana’s upon the page just as it was — the teaching method of this passage lies in that doubt, which has not been wiped away.

The One Sudhana Meets This Time Is a King Seated at the Heart of a Street

Of the several good friends before this, some were monks, some elders, some laywomen. At the eighteenth, the one Sudhana meets is a king. What sets this king apart from the several before him is not that he has a country and a city, but the practice in which he abides — he calls the practice he has cultivated and brought to fullness ‘the practice of the Banner of Great Kindness’, and he has brought that practice down into the law of a whole country.

A misreading to be cleared away: do not read this unit as ‘a very compassionate king gave away a great many things’. The whole unit runs to something over two thousand seven hundred graphs, and the giving is only one passage of it; the real bone lies in the twelve clauses the king himself speaks, “by this Dharma” — the Dharma by which he is king, the Dharma by which he gives command, the Dharma by which he gathers in, the Dharma by which he follows after the world. Kindness here is not a state of feeling; it is an institution.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this unit, what one watches is how the mind of kindness walks out of the heart and into the street. Chengguan outlines this unit in four sections, and only the last is the humbling of himself and the pointing to the superior; of the first three, each walks further outward than the one before it.

Recalling the Previous Friend’s Dharma Gate: What He Carries Along the Road Is the Two Words “Like an Illusion”

This unit opens not by writing of the road but by writing of what is held in mind. Sudhana is “single-mindedly and rightly holding in mind the Dharma gate of the knowledge of illusion that that king had obtained,” and then four clauses follow: pondering the liberation that is like an illusion, contemplating the dharma-nature that is like an illusion, giving rise to vows that are like an illusion, purifying dharmas that are like an illusion — and last a general clause, “everywhere throughout all the three times that are like an illusion giving rise to every kind of transformation that is like an illusion.”

Why must this be held in mind first? What the previous good friend displayed was illusion; what this good friend displays is kindness — the two matters look unrelated. Fazang sets down a word on just this, saying that the use of recalling the previous friend lies in “perfuming and cultivating the former Dharma so as to make it grow yet more surpassing,” and he points out why this is so: “by way of example one knows that all things of the world are illusion, and so enters the Dharma realm alike.” That is to say, what the previous one taught was the example that ‘all dharmas are illusion’; carrying that example onward, the kindness which the next one displays will not fall into a substantial kindness with someone who is kind and someone toward whom kindness is shown.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that in studying under teachers each station is a change of topic, and that what was learned at the previous station can be set down at the next. The order of the scripture text is exactly the reverse — “like an illusion” appearing six times in succession is the lesson he goes on repeating all along the road.

Bringing it to the ground: what one carries in the mind along the road after leaving one teacher decides what one will be able to see when one reaches the next.

Traveling On from One Place to the Next: The One Sentence in Which He Asked the Way

Only then does the text write of the road. “At times he came to the cities and settlements of the human world, at times he passed through wildernesses, crags and valleys, and places of hardship and peril,” and yet he was “without weariness or slackening, and never stopping to rest.” Arriving beneath the city he does not go straight in; he first asks the people: “Where is the great city of Wondrous Light?” The people answer him: “The city of Wondrous Light — this city here is it now.”

This one question and answer is so short it could almost be passed over, but it is a form shared by the fifty and more units of this assembly — after the seeking in accord with the teaching there is always a passage of searching out and coming to know. When Chengguan outlines the first section of this unit he separates “first the recalling of the former” from “afterward the going on toward the next”, and within the going on toward the next there is “first the searching out and coming to know”.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that a man who seeks the Dharma ought to know everything, and that asking the way is superfluous. What the scripture text writes is just the opposite — he stands beneath the city and does not know where the city is, and he must ask.

Bringing it to the ground: not to be ashamed to ask ‘where is this?’ is the first posture of one who seeks the Dharma.

Rejoicing in the Benefit to Come: Before He Has Even Entered the City, He Has Already Settled What He Will Hear

Having asked and understood, Sudhana “rejoiced and leapt for joy,” and a thought arose in his mind: my good friend is within this city, and I shall now surely be able to see him myself. Then follow eight clauses of “to hear that the bodhisattvas” — the practices they practice, the essential gate by which they go forth, the Dharma they realize, their inconceivable merit and virtue, their inconceivable mastery, their inconceivable equality, their inconceivable valor, and the inconceivable vastness and purity of their sphere.

Chengguan outlines this passage as “rejoicing in the benefit to come” — what he rejoices in is what has already been obtained, and the benefit is what is yet to be obtained. Of the eight clauses, the first three speak with respect to the bodhisattvas’ practice, gate, and Dharma, and the last five with respect to the bodhisattvas’ virtue; and each of the last five is crowned with “inconceivable”.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that Sudhana is here cheering himself on. What the eight clauses set out is the table of contents of what he is about to hear, not an emotion. Before going through the door he has first thought out clearly what he is going to ask.

Bringing it to the ground: to run through once, before seeing a good friend, what it is one is asking for — that act is itself the Dharma.

The Adornment of the City: The Seven Jewels for Its Substance, Water of the Eight Qualities for Its Moats

Once inside the city, the scripture text uses a very long passage to write of the city. The first layer is its substance and its moats: the city is made of the seven jewels, gold, silver, beryl, crystal, pearl, tridacna shell, and agate; it has deep moats of the seven jewels, encircling it seven times over; the moats are filled with water of the eight qualities, golden sand is spread on their bed, and four kinds of lotus flower are spread everywhere upon the water.

Why should a scripture that expounds the Dharma realm spend so many graphs writing of city walls? Chengguan has one general way of reading this passage, given below where he glosses the ten yojanas — he says “all the things and matters herein should be taken as a perfect and unobstructed setting forth of the Dharma by symbol.” That is to say, these numbers and things are not a record of fact; they are the instruments of setting forth the Dharma by symbol.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the reader may skip this laying-out and go straight to the dialogue. If one skips it, one cannot read out before what kind of a sphere Sudhana’s freedom from defilement is established — without such a city as this, the four graphs “he had no attachment at all” are empty words.

Bringing it to the ground: read the city through first with patience, and only then will the sentence about freedom from defilement that comes after it carry weight.

The Seven Adamantine Walls: Seven Names, Speaking of One and the Same Indestructibility

Outside the seven rows of jewelled tāla trees are the seven kinds of adamantine wall, each with its own name: Lion Light, None Can Surpass It, It Cannot Be Broken Down, It Cannot Be Marred or Chipped, Firm and Unobstructed, the Treasury of the Surpassing and Wondrous Net, and Free of Dust and Pure. Upon the walls, moreover, numberless wondrous maṇi jewels are set in among one another as adornment, and every kind of jewel is made into the battlements.

Among the seven names, the three names “It Cannot Be Broken Down”, “It Cannot Be Marred or Chipped”, and “Firm and Unobstructed” speak directly with respect to indestructibility; “None Can Surpass It” speaks with respect to what cannot be crossed; “Lion Light” speaks with respect to majesty; “the Treasury of the Surpassing and Wondrous Net” speaks with respect to holding all within; and “Free of Dust and Pure” speaks with respect to freedom from defilement. Taken together they are seven faces of one thing.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the seven names are a flourish of language. At this place the scripture text expressly sets down a “that is to say” and lists the names one by one; and wherever names are listed one by one, it is because one is meant to see them severally and distinctly, not to fuse them into a single impression.

Bringing it to the ground: only when one can make out seven faces in a thing has one truly seen that thing clearly.

Ten Yojanas and Eight Gates: Chengguan Teaches a Way of Reading Numbers

The city is ten yojanas across, faces the eight directions around, and has a gate opening on each face, all adorned with the seven jewels, with vaiḍūrya jewels for its ground.

How large is ten yojanas? Here Chengguan sets down the most important sentence of reading in this unit — he says “as for the words ‘ten yojanas’, it is to make plain fullness and completeness”, and then he himself raises a difficulty: “since there are ten koṭis of thoroughfares, and on each thoroughfare measureless beings, how could ten small worldly yojanas hold them?” Ten yojanas of ground cannot hold ten koṭis of streets; this is a plain contradiction. Chengguan does not go about reconciling it; rather, out of this very contradiction he draws the way of reading directly: “therefore all the things and matters herein should be taken as a perfect and unobstructed setting forth of the Dharma by symbol, to be pondered according to principle.”

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the numbers of a scripture text must all be checked against worldly measure. If one checks them by worldly measure, this passage cannot stand from its very first line. Chengguan’s way of reading this scripture is precisely to enter by the place where it cannot stand.

Bringing it to the ground: when one reads in a scripture a number that does not fit worldly measure, do not first judge it an exaggeration; first ask what it sets forth by symbol. The ten is the ten of fullness and completeness.

Ten Koṭis of Thoroughfares: Measureless Beings Dwell in the Streets

Within the city there are ten koṭis of thoroughfares, and between each one of these thoroughfares there dwell measureless myriads of koṭis of beings.

This one sentence stands in a very singular place amid the adornment of the city — before and after it the writing is all of jewelled things, and only this one sentence writes of people. And the difficulty Chengguan raises, that ten yojanas cannot hold them, rests upon just this sentence. That is to say, the scripture text itself inserts one sentence about people into the laying-out of jewelled things, and only so is this city not an empty city.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the adornment of the dependent recompense is writing about surroundings. The intent of the scripture text in writing of the city returns at the last wholly to people — below it says that beings, “in accordance with what each one’s mind desires, what they see is not the same”, and what they see differently is precisely this city. The city is written for the sake of people.

Bringing it to the ground: whether a place is good is judged not by how many jewels it has, but by who lives in it and how they live.

Ten Kinds of Storeyed Pavilion: Pavilion and Net, Matched Two by Two

Next come ten kinds of storeyed pavilion, each with a net covering it above: the pavilion of jāmbūnada gold matched with a net of vaiḍūrya maṇi; the silver pavilion with a net of red pearl maṇi; the vaiḍūrya pavilion with a net of Wondrous Treasury maṇi; the crystal pavilion with a net of the Stainless Treasury maṇi-king; the pavilion of the maṇi jewel that Illumines the World with a net of the Sun Treasury maṇi-king; the pavilion of the Indra-blue maṇi jewel with a net of the Wondrous Light maṇi-king; the pavilion of the Sea of Beings maṇi-king with a net of the Blazing Light maṇi-king; the pavilion of adamantine jewels with a net of the Unconquerable Banner maṇi-king; the black sandalwood pavilion with a net of heavenly mandārava flowers; and the pavilion of the Unequalled Fragrance King with a net of every kind of flower.

Among the ten pairs, in the first eight both pavilion and net are jewels; in the last two the pavilion is fragrant wood and the net is flowers — at the end of the ten pairs a different manner of matching turns out. Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, sets up ten kinds of adornment of the dependent recompense, and one of those items is “the asaṃkhyeya jewelled pavilions”; among the ten items Zhiyan sets up there is likewise an item “storeyed pavilions”.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that these ten pairs are one and the same sentence repeated ten times. Read them pair by pair: the materials change, and in the last two pairs even the kind changes.

Bringing it to the ground: writing of one and the same form tries a reader’s patience more than anything else, and it is often within just such sameness of form that the scripture text hides a turn.

The Nets and the Canopies: Above the Numberless, Numberless Again

Besides the pavilions and their nets, the city further has numberless maṇi nets, nets of jewelled bells, nets of heavenly incense, nets of heavenly flowers, and nets of jewelled images — five kinds of net; and further numberless canopies of jewelled cloth, canopies of jewelled parasols, canopies of jewelled pavilions, and canopies of jewelled flower garlands — four kinds of canopy, spread over it everywhere, with jewelled parasols, banners, and pennants set up in every place.

What divides this passage from the one before it are the four graphs “this city further had” — the former passage is of the nets upon the pavilions, this passage of the nets and canopies within the city. The former was already numberless; this one is numberless again. Among the ten items of the dependent recompense Fazang sets up three separate items, “canopies of pure jewels”, “the covering of jewelled parasols”, and “the setting up of banners and pennants”; Zhiyan likewise sets up four separate items, “jewelled canopies”, “parasols”, “banners”, and “pennants” — neither of the two merges this passage into the one before.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that “numberless” is written loosely and may be summed up in general terms. That the ancient worthies, in dividing the outline, set up item after item separately is precisely their refusal to sum up.

Bringing it to the ground: the skill of reading a passage of adornment lies in being able to make out which sentence is a new layer.

The Pavilion Treasury of the True Dharma: The Place Where the King Dwells Is Named Treasury of the True Dharma

At the center of the city there is a storeyed pavilion named Treasury of the True Dharma, adorned with asaṃkhyeya jewels, radiant and blazing, most surpassing and beyond compare, and beings who see it are never sated in mind — and King Great Light constantly dwells within it.

The pavilions of the whole city are numberless, and this one alone has a name, and that name is Treasury of the True Dharma. This is the first time in this unit that king and Dharma are joined together: the place where the king constantly dwells is named the treasury of the Dharma. In the sixty-fascicle version this pavilion bears a different name, and is not called Treasury of the True Dharma.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the pavilion’s name is merely a decorative word. Below, the king says of himself “by this Dharma I am king”, which answers to the name of this pavilion, the one before and the other after — what he dwells in is the Dharma, and what he governs the country with is likewise the Dharma.

Bringing it to the ground: where a person constantly is, the name of that place is that person’s own statement of himself.

Able to See Without Defilement: Having Seen All This, and Yet Without Attachment

Having finished writing of the city, the scripture text turns its brush at once: “At that time Sudhana the youth had no attachment toward any of these precious jewels and wondrous things, nor even toward men and women or the sphere of the six sense objects; he only pondered rightly upon the ultimate Dharma, single-mindedly wishing and delighting to see the good friend.”

Chengguan outlines this sentence as “able to see without defilement”, set over against the “seeing of the dependent recompense” before it. When Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, sets up the ten items of the dependent recompense, he lists “Sudhana without defilement” as the tenth, and glosses two matters by which he is able to be without defilement: “because he knows it to be like an illusion, and because in going in search of a good friend he has no other thought.” The former matter is the knowledge of illusion he held in mind on the road in the passage before; the latter is the aim he set up when he rejoiced in the benefit to come.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that being without attachment means not looking. What the scripture text writes is a looking to the very end and yet no attaching — first the city is written out to the very end, and only then is it said that he had no attachment.

Bringing it to the ground: to test one’s own non-attachment is not a matter of avoidance, but of whether, after one has looked one’s fill, there is anything left over in the mind.

The King Sits Amid the Crossroads Where Four Roads Meet, Not in His Hall

Traveling on from one place to the next, Sudhana sees King Great Light “not far from the pavilion where he dwelt, amid the crossroads where four roads meet”, seated upon a vast and adorned lion throne of the wish-fulfilling maṇi-jewel lotus-flower treasury, with dark-blue beryl jewels for its feet, gold silk for its curtains, every kind of jewel for its nets, and finest heavenly cloth for its sitting mat.

The king has the pavilion Treasury of the True Dharma to dwell in, and yet he is not in the pavilion; he is seated at the heart of the street where four roads meet. Upon this one sentence Chengguan sets down a turning word, saying “that he is amid the crossroads where four roads meet is because with the four measureless minds he uses the four means of gathering to gather beings in” — the roads open in four directions set forth by symbol the four measureless minds and the four means of gathering, and to sit at the crossing of four roads is to sit in the very place of gathering beings in.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that this is merely writing of the king’s closeness to his people. Chengguan’s gloss does not come down upon attitude; it comes down upon a correspondence of numbers — the four roads answering to the four measureless minds and the four means of gathering.

Bringing it to the ground: where a person ordinarily sits tells more of his practice than what he says.

The Ten Similes of the King’s Body: Twenty-Eight Marks, and That Is Not Yet Fullness

The king sits cross-legged, “adorned in body with the twenty-eight marks of a great man and the eighty secondary marks”, and then come ten similes: a mountain of true gold, the sun in a clear sky, the moon at the full, the king of the Brahmā heaven, the great ocean, the Snow Mountain, a great cloud, empty space, Mount Sumeru, and an island of jewels.

Here there is a number easily passed over — the marks of a buddha are thirty-two, and this king’s are twenty-eight. Chengguan does not avoid it, but says outright “as for the twenty-eight marks, it is because the cause is not yet full”; Fazang likewise says “as for the twenty-eight, it is because he manifests that the stage of the cause is not yet full.” The two of them judge to one and the same sense: these are the marks of the stage of the cause, not the marks of the stage of the fruit. In the Yanyi chao Chengguan further infers that the four marks wanting are the invisible crown of the head, the white hair between the brows, the Brahmā voice, and the broad long tongue, while saying of himself that he has not seen it in scripture or treatise, and leaving at the end the words “let it be verified” — this is the Chao’s inference, not a plain statement of the scripture text; and as for why this position is assigned to the Hard-to-Obtain Practice, the Chao glosses it too, saying that it can be obtained only by the power of unobstructed vows. Among the ten similes, the sea takes boundlessness, the Snow Mountain takes adornment, the great cloud takes the power to shake, empty space takes the power to display, Sumeru takes the four colors appearing everywhere, and the island of jewels takes being filled full — every clause speaks of a man who is still within the cause and yet already complete in the several virtues.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that a good friend is a buddha. The scripture text itself has drawn the boundary with a number.

Bringing it to the ground: one who can be a teacher of others need not wait until he is full; and knowing that he is not yet full is itself one of the reasons he can be a teacher.

What Is Given Before the Throne: The Quantity of Things, and the Fineness of Things

Before the king’s throne are set out the things that are given. First are nine kinds of precious jewel heaped up, with garments, necklaces, and food and drink; next are hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of jewelled carriages, heavenly musical entertainments, heavenly wondrous incenses, and medicinal broths and goods for the sustaining of life for the treatment of illness; and next again are measureless milk-cows with hooves and horns of the color of gold, and measureless thousand koṭis of comely women smeared with sandalwood and wearing heavenly garments and necklaces, practiced in all of the sixty-four arts without exception, skilled in understanding the feelings and proprieties of the world — and these too are given in accordance with the minds of beings.

Of the three passages, the first is wealth, the second is pleasure and medicine, and the third is people — the things given pass from lifeless things to living ones, from outward things to human capacities. Chengguan outlines this as “first the setting out of what is given”, and he points out its character in particular: “running through both the sentient and the insentient”. As for the item of the sixty-four arts, Chengguan says “as for the sixty-four arts, the sense of them is as expounded elsewhere”, and does not gloss it here.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that giving is only the giving of things. What is given in the third passage is people who can do things and who understand the ways of the world; it counts service too within the giving.

Bringing it to the ground: true giving will walk down to the layer of ‘people’ — giving persons, giving effort, giving time.

The Givers, and the Twelve Clauses of the Intent of the Giving

On both sides of the crossroads where four roads meet, goods for the sustaining of life are set out everywhere, and beside each one of the roads there are twenty koṭis of bodhisattvas who take these things and give them to beings. Chengguan outlines this in three: first the setting out of what is given; next, from “beside each one of the roads” downward, the clarifying of the givers, who are the helping companions; afterward, from “for the sake of gathering in everywhere” downward, the clarifying of the intent of the giving.

The intent of the giving comes to twelve clauses: the first clause states it in general, “for the sake of gathering in beings everywhere”, and the eleven clauses below state it severally — rejoicing, leaping for joy, purity of mind, coolness, the extinguishing of the afflictions, knowing every meaning and principle, entering the path of all-knowledge, casting away the mind of enmity, leaving behind the evil of body and speech, pulling out all wrong views, and purifying all the paths of action. The twelve clauses go from the shallow into the deep: the first four are what the receiver feels at the moment; the several clauses in the middle are the extinguishing of the afflictions and the entering into knowledge; the last four are the purifying of the mind’s activity and of the paths of action. Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, judges this passage to be “ten gates that set out the intent of the giving”, and notes that “one clause is wanting”, which is a collation remark made with respect to the wording of the sixty-fascicle version.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the aim of giving is to relieve a person’s want. Among the twelve clauses only the first few have to do with what is received and used; all the rest have to do with turning the receiver’s mind and action.

Bringing it to the ground: which of these clauses one holds in mind when giving something to another decides whether the act is giving or trade.

Paying Respects and Inquiring: What Sudhana Asks Is Still the Same Two Questions

Sudhana casts his five limbs to the ground, bows to his feet, respectfully circumambulates him to the right, passes measureless times around, joins his palms and stands, and only then opens his mouth: “Holy one! I have already given rise, before this, to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to study the bodhisattva practice, or how he is to cultivate the bodhisattva path. I have heard that the holy one is skilled in guiding and instructing; be willing to expound it for me!”

Within the one question there are three matters: first he states what he already has (he has already given rise to the mind of awakening); next he states what he does not yet know (how to study, how to cultivate); and last he states the reason he has come to ask (having heard that the holy one is skilled in guiding and instructing). Upon this passage Chengguan sets down six graphs only: “second and third, paying respects and inquiring, may be understood” — he does not gloss it further, because this is the question that is the common form of this assembly.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that asking the same words in every unit is a repetition of the writing. It is precisely because the question is one and the same that the difference of the answers makes plain how what each good friend has obtained differs. One and the same question is the measuring-rod for each man.

Bringing it to the ground: to carry one and the same question and put it to many people teaches more than changing the question every time.

Displaying the Dharma Gate in General, and the Causes and Conditions of Obtaining the Dharma

The king’s first sentence of answer is: “Son of good family! I have purely cultivated the bodhisattva practice of the Banner of Great Kindness; I have brought the bodhisattva practice of the Banner of Great Kindness to fullness.” Chengguan outlines this as “displaying the Dharma gate in general”, and glosses its name as “great kindness standing foremost, free of defilement and perfectly full” — “standing foremost” glosses the banner, and “free of defilement and perfectly full” glosses the pure cultivating and the bringing to fullness.

Next come the causes and conditions of obtaining the Dharma: “In the presence of measureless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis, and even of unspeakably unspeakably many buddhas, I put hard questions concerning this Dharma, pondered and contemplated it, and cultivated and adorned it.” Upon this Chengguan sets down a judgment: “the putting of hard questions is the wisdom that comes of hearing; with the three kinds of wisdom he adorns this kindness.” The putting of hard questions, the pondering and contemplating, and the cultivating are just the three kinds of wisdom — that which comes of hearing, of pondering, and of cultivating; and what those three adorn is kindness.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that a kind heart is an inborn disposition that needs no study. The scripture text says it with the utmost plainness — he asked for it in the presence of measureless buddhas, and what he did was to “put hard questions”, not merely to hear and let it be.

Bringing it to the ground: kindness too must be studied, must be asked about until there is no more asking, must be pondered, and must be cultivated.

By This Dharma I Am King: Twelve Clauses Pushed Out All Along One Line

From “by this Dharma I am king” onward, twelve clauses use “by this Dharma” one after another: being king, giving command, gathering in, following after the world, leading beings, making beings cultivate, making beings enter in, giving beings skillful means, making beings be perfumed, making beings set out in practice, making beings abide securely in pondering the own-nature of all dharmas, and making beings abide securely in the mind of kindness. Chengguan outlines what follows from here as “clarifying the working”, and the working opens into five, of which these twelve clauses are the first, “gathering in and transforming by the Dharma”.

The order of the twelve clauses is a single line: the first three are at the king’s own station (being king, giving command, gathering in); the fourth turns toward the world; from the fifth on, every clause is upon beings; and the last two return to beings themselves abiding securely in the nature of dharmas and in the mind of kindness. That is to say, this Dharma sets out from the king’s hands and comes at last to rest within the minds of beings, and the place where it rests is precisely the place where the king himself dwells — kindness.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that “by this Dharma I am king” means that he governs by means of the Buddha-dharma. The weight of the sentence does not lie in governing; it lies in the two words “this Dharma” — everything he does has only this one content.

Bringing it to the ground: only when the twelve things a person does can all be stated in one and the same sentence is that sentence his practice.

With Kindness Foremost, Causing Them to Abide in Six Minds

After the twelve clauses the scripture text turns out one sentence that holds them all: “with kindness foremost, and complete in the power of kindness”. Then he causes beings to abide securely in six minds: the mind of benefiting, the mind of giving ease, the mind of pity, the mind of gathering in, the mind of guarding beings and not forsaking them, and the mind of pulling out the suffering of beings without ceasing.

The order of the six minds goes from the shallow to the deep: benefiting and giving ease are the giving of ease; pity is the arising of the mind that pulls out suffering; gathering in is taking them to oneself; guarding and not forsaking is not letting go; pulling out the suffering of beings without ceasing is not staying the hand. The first four minds may still come and go; the last two are set down with the words “not forsaking” and “without ceasing”, and so take time itself into them as well.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that kindness is a soft emotion. The scripture text says “complete in the power of kindness” — kindness here is a power, a power that can endure and can bear up.

Bringing it to the ground: to test one’s own kindness, do not watch whether the heart is stirred at the moment; watch whether it can go on without ceasing.

Causing All Beings to Be Happy Once and for All: Thirteen Clauses

“By this Dharma I cause all beings to be happy once and for all” is the general clause, and beneath it are thirteen clauses stated severally: to be constantly glad of themselves, to be without any suffering in body, to be cooled in mind, to cut off the craving of birth-and-death, to delight in the delight of the true Dharma, to wash away the defilement of the afflictions, to break the obstruction of evil action, to sever the stream of birth-and-death, to enter the sea of the true Dharma, to sever the destinies of the several kinds of existence, to seek all-knowledge, to purify the sea of all their minds, and to give rise to a faith that cannot be broken.

The thirteen clauses may be divided into three layers: the first three speak with respect to the ease of body and mind present before one; the seven in the middle are: cutting off the craving of birth-and-death, delighting in the delight of the true Dharma, washing away the defilement of the afflictions, breaking the obstruction of evil action, severing the stream of birth-and-death, entering the sea of the true Dharma, and severing the destinies of existence — of which five speak with respect to the cutting off of delusion and the extinguishing of obstruction, while the two clauses “to delight in the delight of the true Dharma” and “to enter the sea of the true Dharma” speak with respect to what is delighted in and what is entered, set in among the clauses of cutting off; and the last three speak with respect to entering the Dharma (seeking all-knowledge, purifying the sea of the mind, giving rise to unbreakable faith). That the two graphs rendered “once and for all” can stand is precisely because this happiness does not stop at the comfort of body and mind, but is pushed all the way to unbreakable faith.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that ‘causing beings to be happy’ means giving people good days to live. Of the thirteen clauses only the first three come near what the world calls happiness; the other ten are all cutting off and entering.

Bringing it to the ground: to make a person truly happy, one must in the end come to what he is to cut off and what he is to believe.

Already Abiding in This Practice: Able to Transform and Teach the World with the True Dharma

This passage is closed with one sentence: “Son of good family! I already abide securely in this practice of the Banner of Great Kindness, and am able to transform and teach the world with the true Dharma.”

Within the one sentence there are two matters: first his own abiding, second his transforming of others; and between the two matters there stands the word “able” — because he already abides, therefore he is able to transform. Chengguan divides the conferring of his own Dharma realm into three, and the working divides again into five. This sentence does not stand outside the five divisions of the working but within them — “by this Dharma I am king” opens the first division of the working, “gathering in and transforming by the Dharma”, and “I already abide securely in this practice of the Banner of Great Kindness” is the very closing of that first division. That is to say, all the workings spoken of above take the “already abiding” of this one sentence as their root.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that transforming and teaching is a skill. The ability of which the scripture text speaks comes out of abiding, not out of technique.

Bringing it to the ground: before wishing to teach others, first ask oneself where one abides.

Gathering In by Fearlessness, and Gathering In by Jewels and Wealth

The second of the workings is gathering in by fearlessness, and it has one sentence only: “All the beings within my land have no fear of me.” The first thing a king does for his people is not to give, but to let them not be afraid of him.

The third is gathering in by jewels and wealth: if there are beings poor and destitute who come seeking, “I open my treasuries and let them take what they will”, and he tells them four clauses of “do not” — do not do any evil deeds, do not harm beings, do not give rise to any views, do not give rise to attachment; and he further points out where to take them: “come to me and to the crossroads where four roads meet: everything of every kind is fully supplied there, take it as you please, and do not give rise to any misgiving.”

What is worth noting is that the four clauses of “do not” are not conditions upon the giving; they are words spoken at the same time as the giving; and at the end there is added the further clause “do not give rise to any misgiving”, for fear that they should not dare to take. To have given the things and then to fear that people will not dare to take them — this is a place where the scripture text writes with the utmost fineness.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that gathering in by fearlessness and gathering in by jewels and wealth could be merged into one passage. The order of the scripture text is fearlessness first and wealth after — a person must first dare to come before there can be any question of his taking.

Bringing it to the ground: when helping someone, put ‘you need not be afraid’ first.

Gathering In Everywhere According to Capacity: One and the Same City, Five Pairs of Differing Sights

The fourth of the workings is gathering in everywhere according to capacity. The king says that the beings who dwell in this city are all bodhisattvas who have raised the intent of the Great Vehicle, and yet “in accordance with what each one’s mind desires, what they see is not the same”, and beneath this are five pairs, ten clauses: the extent, small or vast; the ground, earth and sand or every kind of jewel; the walls, heaped earth or jewelled walls; the surface of the ground, tile and stone high and low and uneven or maṇi level as the palm; the dwellings, made of earth and wood or halls and storeyed pavilions with steps and terraces, windows and doorways, railings and balustrades, casements and shutters. It is closed on the latter side with “all such things being nothing other than wondrous jewels”.

Of the five pairs, the first speaks with respect to extent and the latter four with respect to quality; and the order of the latter four goes from the ground to the walls, from the walls to the surface of the ground, and from the surface of the ground to the dwellings — that is, from the outer to the inner. One and the same city, and what is seen has so many layers of difference: this passage is the one place in this unit that speaks directly of mind and object.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the difference of what is seen is a mistaken perception on the part of beings. The scripture text does not judge which side is mistaken — it says only that what is seen differs, and in the next passage it states the reason for the difference.

Bringing it to the ground: when two people say wholly opposite things about one and the same matter, it does not follow that one of them is lying.

Seeing It Pure and Seeing It Foul: Wherein Lies the Difference

Then the king himself states the reason: “If there are beings whose minds are pure, who have in the past planted roots of good and made offering to the buddhas, who have raised the mind that goes toward the path of all-knowledge and taken all-knowledge as the ultimate place of refuge, and those whom I gathered in of old when I was cultivating the bodhisattva practice, they see this city as adorned and pure with every kind of jewel; the rest all see it as foul.”

The causes raised are five: purity of mind; having in the past planted roots of good and made offering to the buddhas; having raised the mind that goes toward the path of all-knowledge; taking all-knowledge as the ultimate place of refuge; and having of old been gathered in by the king. The first four causes lie within the beings themselves; the fifth lies in the good friend’s gathering in. That is to say, to be able to see it pure is half a matter of what one has cultivated oneself, and half a matter of a good friend having gathered one in long ago.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that ‘the object turns with the mind’ means that one sees whatever one thinks of. Of the five causes the scripture text sets out, four are long labor and one is a bond formed in the past; not one of them is a thought of the present moment.

Bringing it to the ground: what the world looks like to one today was decided by matters very long ago; and some part of it was decided for one by other people.

Gathering In by Samādhi: First He Tells It in Words, Then He Does It There and Then for You to See

The fifth of the workings is gathering in by samādhi. The king says that the beings of this land, in the age of the five turbidities, delight in doing evil deeds, and that “in my mind I pity them and wish to save and protect them”, and so he enters the gate of the bodhisattva samādhi of according with the world with great kindness foremost; and when he enters this samādhi, beings’ minds of dread, of vexing and harming, of enmity, and of contention “are extinguished of themselves”. Why is this? “Because such is the Dharma.” And the last sentence is: “Son of good family! Wait but a little while, and you will presently see it before you of yourself.”

Chengguan divides this fifth part in two: “within it there are two: first the telling in words; afterward, from ‘at that time King Great Light’ downward, the direct displaying by concentration, making manifest the working of the concentration.” First the telling and then the displaying — the telling is words, the displaying is concentration. And here lies the most singular thing in this unit: this one, halfway through the telling, stops, and enters concentration there and then for Sudhana to see.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that “wait but a little while” is a courtesy. It is the turning sentence of this unit — from the teaching in words into direct realization.

Bringing it to the ground: only when a person can say ‘wait a moment and see for yourself’ is what he says not merely words.

The Working Displayed by Concentration, One: The Ground, Walls, Halls, and Palaces All Give Forth Sound and Pay Homage

As soon as the king enters concentration, the city shakes in six ways within and without, and the jewelled ground, jewelled walls, jewelled halls, jewelled palaces, terraces and towers, storeyed pavilions, steps and stairs, casements and shutters “all gave forth a wondrous sound, and all of them bent toward the king and paid him homage.” Then the dwellers within the city cast their bodies to the ground, and the throngs of people of villages, encampments, and cities all come to pay homage; and then the birds and beasts look upon one another, give rise to a mind of kindness and compassion, and bow in reverence; the hills, plains, grasses, and trees turn about toward the king and pay him homage; and the ponds, pools, springs, wells, rivers, and seas surge and overflow and pour out before the king.

Of the four layers, the first is the insentient vessels and things, the second is people, the third is beasts, and the fourth is hills, waters, grasses, and trees. Upon this whole passage Chengguan sets down a general judgment: “that the sentient and the insentient alike accomplish surpassing benefit is because of the great kindness of one same substance, in which thing and self are not two.” That grasses, trees, earth, and stone are able to bend is not because grasses and trees have minds; it is because the one who is kind does not see thing and self as two. Chengguan further takes as a comparison the worldly king whose virtue accords with heaven and earth, so that the unicorn and the phoenix come to present themselves, and by the one word “how much more” pushes it on to the kindness that is beyond the world.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that this is a display of supernormal power. Chengguan’s gloss does not come down upon supernormal power; it comes down upon the four graphs “thing and self are not two”.

Bringing it to the ground: when the kindness in a person has reached the point of not dividing thing from self, everything around him will change its position.

The Working Displayed by Concentration, Two: Dragon Kings, Heaven Kings, Heavenly Women, and the Elephant King

Next comes the offering made in the air. Ten thousand dragon kings raise up great clouds of fragrance, stir up lightning, shake forth thunder, and pour down a fine rain; ten thousand heaven kings, with those of the Thirty-Three, the Yāma, the Tuṣita, the Good Emanations, and Mastery over Others’ Emanations foremost among them, perform all manner of music in empty space; numberless heavenly women sing songs in praise and rain down seven kinds of cloud — clouds of flowers, of incense, of jewelled garlands, of jewelled garments, of jewelled parasols, of jewelled banners, and of jewelled pennants; and Airāvaṇa, the great elephant king, by the power of his mastery spreads out numberless great jewelled lotus flowers in empty space and lets hang down numberless jewelled necklaces, jewelled silken streamers, jewelled garlands, jewelled ornaments, jewelled flowers, and jewelled incenses, while numberless court women sing his praises in every manner.

The order of the four kinds runs from below upward and back down again: the dragons are in the water, the gods in the air, the heavenly women belong to the heavens, and the elephant king is again a king among animals. And what they do is in every case making offering — pouring rain, performing music, singing praise, raining clouds, spreading flowers, letting hang ornaments. The passage before was paying homage; this passage is making offering. Paying homage arises from a natural stirring; making offering arises from a deliberate act.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that this passage is merely a scene of festivity. Taken together with the passage before it, it is the laying out of the sentient side of “the sentient and the insentient alike accomplish surpassing benefit.”

Bringing it to the ground: in the former passage the ten thousand things bow their heads to him; in this one, beings do things for him — and neither was sought by him.

The Working Displayed by Concentration, Three: Those Who Drink Blood and Eat Flesh Also Gave Rise to the Mind of Kindness

The last kind is the weightiest: within Jambudvīpa, measureless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of rākṣasa kings, yakṣa kings, kumbhāṇḍa kings, and piśāca kings, some dwelling in the great sea and some living on the land, “who drank blood and ate flesh and did cruel harm to beings” — and they “all gave rise to a mind of kindness, willing to practice what is of benefit, understanding clearly the world to come, and doing no evil deeds; respectfully they joined their palms and bowed their heads to the king.” And it does not stop at Jambudvīpa: throughout the other three continents, and even the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system, and even the worlds of the hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of nayutas in the ten directions, all the venomous and evil beings “were likewise so.”

The order of the four clauses of change is worth reading clause by clause: to give rise to a mind of kindness is a turn of mind; to be willing to practice what is of benefit is a turn of vow; to understand clearly the world to come is a turn of view; to do no evil deeds is a turn of action. Only when all four — mind, vow, view, and action — have turned is it said that they respectfully bowed their heads.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that this is evil beings frightened into submission. The words the scripture text uses are “gave rise to a mind of kindness” — what grows up in them is the very same thing that is in the king.

Bringing it to the ground: the utmost test of kindness is not that good people become better, but that kindness grows up even in the least kind of persons.

Rising from the Concentration: I Know Only This One

King Great Light rises from the samādhi and tells Sudhana: “Son of good family! I know only this bodhisattva gate of the samādhi of according with the world with great kindness foremost.”

This sentence is the humbling clause that is the common form of this assembly, and here there is one particular to note: earlier he stated of himself that what he cultivated and brought to fullness was ‘the practice of the Banner of Great Kindness’, while the name of the gate he concludes with here is ‘the samādhi of according with the world with great kindness foremost’ — the two names, of the practice and of the concentration, stand apart. That is to say, what he has brought to fullness is a practice, and what he concludes as the one thing he knows is the one concentration that appears when that practice has gone to its utmost. In the sixty-fascicle version the name of the practice here takes in the name of the concentration, and the two names are one. Chengguan glosses the name of according with the world thus: “kindness is fundamentally for the sake of things, and so it is named according with the world” — kindness exists from the first for the sake of beings, and therefore it is called according with the world.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that “I know only” is a courteous modesty. He has only just displayed the homage of an entire world to Sudhana; this sentence is spoken after that.

Bringing it to the ground: only when one can actually do it does the sentence ‘I know only this one’ carry weight.

The Nine Similes of Kindness: Nine Things, Spoken of a Bodhisattva’s Kindness

Next comes the pointing to the superior, taking nine things as similes: a lofty parasol (the mind of kindness shading everywhere), practice (practicing the low, middling, and high alike), the great earth (the mind of kindness bearing all up), the full moon (the light of merit appearing equally), the clear sun (the light of knowledge shining upon every object of knowing), a bright lamp (breaking up the darknesses within the mind), the water-clearing pearl (settling clear the turbidity of flattery and deceit within the mind), the wish-fulfilling jewel (satisfying all that is wished for), and the great wind (swiftly causing beings to cultivate samādhi and to enter the great city of all-knowledge).

The nine similes may be divided into five groups: the parasol and the earth take covering and bearing up; the moon, sun, and lamp, these three, take shining; the water-clearing pearl takes the clearing away of turbidity; the wish-fulfilling jewel takes the satisfying of what is wished for; the wind takes swiftness. And among the nine items, the item “they are practice” takes no thing as its image, and is an exception within the nine — all the other eight items are things, and this one alone is a practice. This one exception makes plain that what the nine similes liken is not the aspect of kindness but the working of kindness; and among the workings there is one that cannot be likened to any thing, and can only be spoken of with respect to practice.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the nine similes are nine comparisons, any one of which may be taken at will. Read one after another, the five senses of covering, shining, clearing, satisfying, and swiftness advance in order; they are a single line along which the working of kindness goes from the still to the moving.

Bringing it to the ground: to know how far one’s own kindness has come, take these nine things and measure it against them one by one.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: Ten Times ‘How Could I’

After the nine similes come ten clauses of rhetorical question: to be able to know their practice, to be able to speak their virtue, to be able to weigh their great mountain of merit, to be able to gaze up at the host of stars of their merit and virtue, to be able to contemplate the wind-wheel of their great vows, to be able to go into their profound Dharma gate, to be able to display their great sea of adornment, to be able to make clear their Samantabhadra gate of practice, to be able to reveal the cavern of their several samādhis, to be able to praise the cloud of their great kindness and compassion.

Of the ten clauses the first two take no image, and each of the latter eight takes an image, with the verbs matched to the images with the utmost precision: a mountain may be weighed, stars may be gazed up at, a wind-wheel may be contemplated, a Dharma gate may be gone into, a great sea may be displayed, a gate of practice may be made clear, a cavern may be revealed, a cloud may be praised. Not one of the eight verbs could exchange places with another. Chengguan outlines this fourth section as “humbling himself and pointing to the superior”, and says “first the humbling of himself as knowing one gate” — first he says that he knows only one, and only then does he point to those who surpass him.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that humbling oneself and pointing to the superior is self-belittlement. What the ten clauses describe is the whole of a sphere that he has seen and cannot exhaust in speech — that he can point out so many names is precisely because he has seen it.

Bringing it to the ground: one who can say where he himself cannot reach has usually already gone very far.

Pointing to the Next Friend: The Laywoman Immovable of the City Secure Abiding, to the South

At the last the king points to the next friend: “Son of good family! Go from here toward the south, and there is a royal capital named Secure Abiding; there is a laywoman there named Immovable. Go to her and ask: how is a bodhisattva to study the bodhisattva practice and to cultivate the bodhisattva path?”

The place is named Secure Abiding and the person is named Immovable — the two names answer to one another. What the king of this unit displays is the kindness that stirs all things everywhere, and the next friend to whom he points is named Immovable: between the two units there is a plain turn. And the words of the question are wholly the same as those Sudhana asked when he came, with not a graph changed: to study the bodhisattva practice, to cultivate the bodhisattva path.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that pointing to the next friend is merely seeing a guest off. That the scripture text makes Sudhana carry one and the same question to the next one is itself a teaching.

Bringing it to the ground: the last thing a teacher can do is to hand you on, and to give you back the question you came to ask, just as it was.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave

The last sentence is: “At that time Sudhana the youth bowed to the king’s feet, circumambulated him numberless times, gazed up at him earnestly, took his leave, and departed.”

Four matters: bowing, circumambulating, gazing up, and taking leave. Set over against his coming — casting his five limbs to the ground, bowing to his feet, respectfully circumambulating to the right, passing measureless times around, joining his palms and standing — the coming has one thing more, the joining of palms and standing, which was for the sake of asking; the going has one thing more, the earnest gazing up, which was for the sake of remembering. Chengguan’s outline of this unit ends at the humbling of himself and the pointing to the superior, and he sets up no separate outline heading for this passage.

A misreading to be cleared away: to suppose that the text of taking leave is a set formula. The texts of coming and of going are not the same, and the difference lies precisely between asking and remembering.

Bringing it to the ground: to look once more when leaving — that one look is what one can carry away.

Lineage

For the text of this unit, five lines are opened downward.

The first is the line of the assigned position. To what position this unit’s friend is assigned, the several masters judge differently: Chengguan judges it the Hard-to-Obtain Practice, Fazang judges it the practice of Reverence, Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji has the eighteenth, the bodhisattva of the practice of Reverence, Zhiyan’s Huayan jing kongmu zhang gives the order as the nineteenth, a king named Great Light, and Li Tongxuan has the eighth, the bodhisattva Grove of Practice, matching it to the Hard-to-Obtain Practice. That the ordinal numbers differ among them is because the several masters’ starting points in counting their divisions differ, each number being internal to its own system; they are recorded together, without adjudication. And the name of the position does not come out of the scripture text; it is the ancient worthies’ outline — the scripture text says only that what this king cultivates is the practice of the Banner of Great Kindness. In the fascicle that treats the friends one by one Li Tongxuan has a long gloss besides: he takes the city’s name Wondrous Light as the same as the effortless wondrous working of the eighth abode and the eighth ground, and the king’s name Great Light as the root knowledge; he takes Sudhana’s arrival at this city as the curing of the habit of weak knowledge and unfull great compassion at the former position, cured so that knowledge and compassion are made even; he takes the twenty-eight marks as showing that knowledge and compassion have been cultivated at the two positions of the ten abodes and the ten practices while the ten dedications are not yet full, and so the thirty-two marks are not yet complete; and he judges this friend to have the perfection of vows as host and the other nine perfections as retinue. All of this is the track of setting forth the Dharma by symbol of Tongxuan’s own house, recorded without adjudication.

The second is the line of the glossing of names. The city’s name and the king’s name are glossed by the two masters each with respect to the version he relies upon. Chengguan, with respect to the eighty-fascicle version’s “Wondrous Light”, glosses that at the former position compassion increased and that now he obtains the wondrous wisdom of non-abiding by which he carries beings; and of the king’s name he glosses that the knowledge of the concentration of kindness leaves nothing uncomprehended, and that within his vast vows all is illumined through and through. Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version’s “Good Light”, glosses that he accords with principle and benefits things, his working being light; and of the king’s name he glosses that the light of the concentration of great kindness illumines and benefits the throngs of beings, and that he is master in gathering and transforming. Where the two glosses come down is, in the one, upon wisdom, and in the other, upon working; they are recorded together, without adjudication.

The third is the line of the dividing of the items of the dependent recompense. Fazang, under the seeing of the surpassing dependent recompense, sets up ten kinds of adornment, whose items are the moats and pools, the jewelled walls, the streets and lanes, the asaṃkhyeya throngs in the lanes, the asaṃkhyeya jewelled pavilions, the canopies of pure jewels, the covering of jewelled parasols, the setting up of banners and pennants, the separate pavilion where the king dwells, and Sudhana’s freedom from defilement; the ten items Zhiyan sets up are the moats, the walls, the lanes, the throngs of people, the storeyed pavilions, the jewelled canopies, the parasols, the banners, the pennants, and the storeyed pavilion where the king dwells. The two masters alike set up ten items, and yet what they take in differs — Fazang puts Sudhana’s freedom from defilement among the ten, Zhiyan puts the storeyed pavilion where the king dwells among the ten. All these divergent glosses are the settled teachings of the ancient worthies, recorded without adjudication.

The fourth is the line of the further opening of this friend’s outline. Fazang opens five under the conferring of his own Dharma realm — the displaying of his own Dharma gate, the clarifying of the causes and conditions of obtaining the Dharma, the making manifest of the working of the Dharma gate, the clarifying of the power of the concentration of kindness, and the concluding of his own part; the one division of the working opens again into four: gathering beings in by the Dharma, benefiting things by wealth, the differing sights that follow upon practice, and the determining of the vessels of capacity; the power of the concentration of kindness opens into two: first the telling of that concentration’s use, afterward the displaying of its use there and then; and the looking up and pointing to the superior at the end opens into three: one clause pointing in general to the depth and breadth of the benefit of kindness, seven clauses making the virtue manifest by simile, and the concluding that it is not his own part. Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji, for its part, opens two under the direct entering, five under the use of benefiting, three under the power of the samādhi in verifying what appears, and three under the looking up and pointing to the superior. The items the several masters open are each internal to their own systems, and are recorded together with Chengguan’s four divisions and five workings, without adjudication.

The fifth is the line of the forty-fascicle version. This chapter is contained in the forty-fascicle version translated by Prajñā as well. The king of the forty-fascicle version is complete in the thirty-two marks of a great man, not the eighty-fascicle version’s twenty-eight; and its clauses of the intent of the giving are fourteen, its clauses of “by this Dharma” fifteen, its items of the minds in which, with kindness foremost, beings are caused to abide nine, its similes of the pointing to the superior ten, and its clauses of the pointing to the superior twelve — all of them more than the eighty-fascicle version. The increase and decrease of the numbers are internal to each version’s own system, recorded without adjudication.

In the text of one unit, the former half is the seeing of a city and the latter half is the seeing of a concentration. Seeing the city, he sees to the point of no attachment; seeing the concentration, he sees the sentient and the insentient alike come to submit — the order of this unit lies wholly upon the one word ‘seeing’. And of the words the king speaks, only one is of the first importance: he brought the practice he cultivated down into the law of a whole country.

What This Good Friend Speaks of First Is Not a Dharma Gate, but a Certain Night of Her Own

At the good friends before this one, when Sudhana asked, most of them answered on the spot with the name and the marks of a Dharma gate. At the laywoman Immovable the situation changes: she first answers with the names of five Dharma gates, and when Sudhana presses further and asks what their states are, she gives back only one clause, “Son of good family! This place is hard to know.” Only when Sudhana asks again does she open her mouth — and what she opens her mouth to speak of is not the marks of things, but that certain night in a past age when, as the daughter of King Lightning Bestowed, she was upon an upper storey looking up at the constellations and saw the buddha Long Arm.

A misreading to be cleared away: this is not evading the question. The whole unit runs to something over two thousand seven hundred graphs, and the account of a former life takes up rather more than a third of it; that passage runs from seeing the buddha, to the thought arising, to the buddha teaching the ten minds, to hearing the Dharma and the ten seekings, all the way to how she was unmoved throughout kalpas as numerous as the dust motes of Jambudvīpa — and this is precisely her answer to “what are their states?”. Bringing it to the ground: when a person is asked about his state, the most honest way to answer is often to say how he came to be here.

Why It Is Written Beginning From the Road Out of the City of Wondrous Light

This unit does not open with the meeting; it opens with walking: “At that time Sudhana the youth went out of the city of Wondrous Light, traveled along the road, and rightly recalled and pondered the teaching King Great Light had given.” Then comes the holding in mind of the gate of practice of the Banner of Great Kindness, and the pondering of the gate of the radiance of the samādhi of according with the world, and after that six clauses of “that inconceivable” — the sovereign power of vows and merit, the knowledge that ripens beings, the great majestic virtue of the enjoyment not held in common, the marks of differentiation, the pure retinue, the deeds performed. Chengguan outlines this passage and says it is “first, the pondering and cultivating of the previous teaching,” that is, pondering and cultivating in accordance with the teaching of the previous good friend.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that in going about to study, changing teachers means changing the whole lesson. The sequence of the scripture text is exactly the reverse — the teaching received at the last station is what one is to carry the whole of this road. Bringing it to the ground: what is in the mind on that stretch of road between two good friends decides what one will be able to see when one gets to the next.

The Eleven Kinds of Mind: A Benefit Gained by Cultivation, Not an Emotion

After the pondering and cultivating, the scripture text lists eleven minds: joy, pure faith, keenness and sharpness, gladness, leaping up, rejoicing and giving thanks, being unmuddied, purity, firmness, vastness, inexhaustibility. Chengguan outlines this as “the benefit gained from cultivation,” and upon two of the minds within it he sets down one fine gloss, saying, “the unmuddied is with respect to there being nothing other; the pure is with respect to its own substance” — unmuddied is said with respect to nothing other being mixed in, and pure is said with respect to the substance itself.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that these eleven minds are a spreading out of a string of near-synonyms. With this one gloss present, at least the two minds unmuddied and pure can be told apart: the one speaks of nothing being mixed in, the other of being pure in itself. Bringing it to the ground: in reading a long string of this kind, first find the two the ancient worthies have already told apart, and the divisions among the rest then have a measure.

Weeping and Shedding Tears: Why the Weeping Comes at This Station

After the benefit gained, the scripture text writes that Sudhana “wept and shed tears, holding in mind how truly rare a good friend is,” and beneath it ten clauses say that a good friend is the place from which merit and virtue, the practices of a bodhisattva, pure mindfulness, the wheels of dhāraṇī, the radiance of samādhi, and the knowing and seeing of the buddhas are born, and that he is able to rain down the rain of Dharma, to display the gates of vows, to give birth to the radiance of wisdom, and to increase the root-sprouts. Chengguan outlines this as “returning the merit and virtue to the friend,” and he gives a particular explanation of why the weeping comes at this station, saying, “that he is partial to grief at this point is because the cultivation of compassion is about to be fulfilled.”

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that weeping is the expression of gratitude. What Chengguan fastens it to is the position in the practice — the practice of compassion is about to be fulfilled, and so at this place there is a leaning toward grief. Bringing it to the ground: what a person weeps over says how far he has cultivated, and not merely that he is soft-hearted.

Ten Clauses of “Able Everywhere”: What Is Praised Is What the Friend Is Able to Do

Next come Sudhana’s own words within his heart: from “a good friend is one who is able everywhere to rescue and guard all beings in the evil destinies” downward, ten clauses, and every clause opens with “able everywhere” — rescuing and guarding the evil destinies, expounding things that are level and equal, displaying the level road and the steep and dangerous one, opening up and making clear the deep meaning of the Great Vehicle, urging on the various practices of Samantabhadra, leading one to the city of omniscient knowledge, making one enter the great ocean of the Dharma realm, making one see the ocean of Dharma of the three times, bestowing the place of awakening of the holy ones, increasing all white and pure things. Chengguan outlines this as “praising at length what the friend is able to do.”

Something to notice here is how these ten clauses differ from the sixty-fascicle version: at this place the sixty-fascicle version has clauses of the type “holding a good friend in mind, one is able to leave the dangerous road,” and what is praised is the benefit of holding the friend in mind; what the eighty-fascicle version praises is what the friend is able to do. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the two versions differ only in being fuller or briefer in wording. Bringing it to the ground: the place where the praise falls is different, and so the direction one reads out of it is different — one looks at what the teacher is able to do, the other at what one gains oneself by holding the teacher in mind.

The Four Clauses the Deity in the Sky Announces: Practicing, According, Not Doubting, Not Being Apart

While Sudhana was grieving and holding this in mind, the deities in the sky told him four clauses: that whoever practices the teaching of a good friend gladdens the buddhas, that whoever accords with the words of a good friend comes near the ground of omniscient knowledge, that whoever is without doubt toward the words of a good friend constantly meets with good friends, and that whoever sets his mind on being constantly not apart from a good friend comes to be furnished with every benefit and good. The speaker, following the scripture text word for word, is “the deity that ever follows alongside and awakens bodhisattvas, and the deity that is the Tathāgata’s messenger”—two deities, as Chengguan reads the two uses of the word.

Chengguan, with respect to the eighty-fascicle version, first judges that the graph for deity here is used in two ways, saying that the Jin version has “the deity that is the Tathāgata’s messenger, the deity that follows the bodhisattva,” of which the deity that follows the bodhisattva is a spirit brought about by one’s own deeds and practices and the deity that is the Tathāgata’s messenger is a spirit that by the buddha’s power gathers in the living, and that once one’s position in cultivation is settled there are in every case two deities constantly following that person. Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, likewise divides this speaker into two deities and glosses the office of each, saying, “as for the deity that follows the bodhisattva, it is the spirit of one’s own deeds and practices; as for the deity that is the Tathāgata’s messenger, it is the spirit the buddha sends to gather in the living” — the one is a spirit brought about by one’s own deeds and practices, the other is sent by a buddha to gather in and transform beings. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that a deity’s coming to tell him is an accident from outside. Bringing it to the ground: the sequence of these four clauses is practice, words, faith, and vow, each layer deeper than the last, and only the last clause speaks of not being apart.

The Royal Capital of Abiding Secure: Why the City’s Name Is These Two Graphs

The place the deity points him to is “the royal capital of Abiding Secure.” Chengguan sets down one gloss upon each of the two layers: on “abiding secure” he says, “knowledge tallying with the real Dharma, not broken by conditions, is called abiding secure”; on “royal capital” he says, “that it is the royal capital of Abiding Secure is because it is the position of a prince.” Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, glosses the city’s name in the same words, saying, “it tallies and joins with the real Dharma and is not broken by conditions, and so this is taken for its name.” Li Tongxuan fastens the royal capital still more plainly, saying, “this makes clear that this position is where the ninth bodhisattva, the prince of the Dharma, dwells, and so it is called the royal capital.”

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the city’s name is only a place name. None of the three houses takes it for a place name; each takes it for the position to which the passage is assigned and for the Dharma with which it tallies. Bringing it to the ground: from the city’s name onward this section is already expounding the Dharma — abiding secure is not dwelling long, but knowledge tallying with the real Dharma and not being broken by conditions.

In Person a Maiden: This Good Friend’s Station in Life

The people tell Sudhana: “The laywoman Immovable is in person a maiden; she is within her own household, guarded by her father and mother, and expounds the wondrous Dharma to her own kin, a measureless multitude of people.” Living at home, a maiden, guarded by her father and mother — all three matters differ from what one ordinarily thinks a master who expounds the Dharma to be.

Chengguan fastens to this one clause at the end of his gloss of the name, saying that she is one who, “because she cultivates kindness by means of knowledge, is displayed as dwelling as a woman.” Li Tongxuan sets up a whole track of signification: a king’s daughter stands for kindness and compassion, a maiden stands for the absence of any habit of defilement, and as for “being at home and guarded by her father and mother, skillful means is taken for the father and the perfection of knowledge for the mother”; and at the end he adds a clause of his own to distinguish it — “she is not a woman as such” — plainly saying that this is a reading by signification and not a discussion of her person as a matter of fact.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that when the ancient worthies take the woman’s body for signification they are dissolving away the fact in the scripture text. Tongxuan’s clause “she is not a woman as such” is exactly his declaring his own reading to be one track of signification, while the matter of fact in the scripture text still stands. Bringing it to the ground: in reading a signification, remember that it is one track and not the only track.

Through the Door It Is Light: The Dependent Reward Before the Proper Reward

When Sudhana arrives, what the scripture text writes first is not the person but the house: “he entered within her house and saw that in that hall a golden radiance was shining everywhere, and whoever met with this light became cool and clear in body and mind.” The light touched his body, and on the spot he gained five hundred gates of samādhi. Li Tongxuan reads this clause and says that the light of this hall is “the room of compassion of the position of the ninth master of the Dharma, because it is lit by the light of the teaching” — the house is the room of compassion, and the light is the light of the teaching.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that this is narrative scene-setting and that the real matter waits upon the meeting. Here, the moment the light touches his body he gains five hundred samādhis; the benefit has already been given out. Bringing it to the ground: the teaching of a true good friend has often arrived before he has opened his mouth.

The Five Hundred Gates of Samādhi: Raising Five Names to Gather In Five Hundred

Of the five hundred samādhis gained, the scripture text singles out only five names: knowing all rare marks, entering stillness, leaving all worlds far behind, the universal eye’s relinquishing and gaining, and the Tathāgata store; beneath them it gathers them up directly with “he gained five hundred gates of samādhi such as these,” and it fastens on one comparison — “his body and mind became supple, like an embryo of seven days.”

Li Tongxuan takes the sense of each of these five names in turn. The first, knowing all rare marks, he reads as “understanding that the marks are of themselves pure, and that their own substance is radiant” — upon the rare marks one sees that they are of themselves pure, and being pure their own substance is radiant. The second, entering stillness, he reads as “reaching the point where mind and object have no reliance, dwelling neither in emptiness nor in existence, and the nature is of itself still” — mind and object alike have nothing to rely upon and fall to neither side of emptiness or existence, and the stillness is the nature being so of itself, not a holding down of the mind. The third, leaving all worlds far behind, he glosses as “a samādhi such as this is able to be without defiled attachment within the world” — what is left behind is the defiled attachment, not the world. The fourth, the universal eye’s relinquishing and gaining, he glosses in two halves, saying, “that the eye of knowledge has no reliance is what is named relinquishing; that it knows well the myriad existents is what is named gaining” — relinquishing is the eye of knowledge having nothing to rely upon, gaining is its knowing the myriad existents throughout, and within the one name having no reliance and knowing throughout are accomplished together. The fifth, the Tathāgata store, he glosses as “this makes clear that within one knowledge the myriad virtues are contained” — within one knowledge the myriad virtues are contained, and so it is named a store. At the end he says, “these five in number are raised to make clear that the five hundred wholly contain the five hundred Dharma gates of the five positions” — five are raised as the number to make clear the five hundred, and the five hundred in turn contain the Dharma gates of the five positions. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that five hundred is a number of exaggeration and that the five names are raised at random. With this one reading present, the five names are the net-rope and the five hundred are its meshes, and they are fastened to the sequence of positions besides. Bringing it to the ground: when the scripture text runs down a string and singles out only a few names, those few names are often the net-rope.

The Five Surpassing Things in Seeing the Proper Reward: The Last Clause Is What Matters

In the passage of seeing the person, the scripture text begins from her form and features: her form and features are upright, wondrous, and surpassing, and the women of the ten directions cannot match her; from her mouth comes a wondrous fragrance; her palace is adorned; her retinue has no equal; and at the end it speaks of being free of defilement — no being gives rise to defiled attachment toward her, and whoever sees her for a moment has his afflictions of themselves extinguished — with the comparison “just as a million great Brahmā kings will assuredly not give rise to the afflictions of the desire realm.” Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, outlines this as six surpassing things, and points out that the one surpassing thing of being free of defilement “has two clauses, first the subduing and afterward the cutting off”; Zhiyan, likewise with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, outlines it as five, saying, “in the reverent contemplation there are five: first, the surpassing form and features and the benefit gained, in which there are three that can be understood; second, the surpassing substance of the palace and the rest; third, the surpassing retinue; fourth, from ‘whoever sees her’ downward, the surpassing removal of hindrances; fifth, from ‘seeing that woman’ downward, the rehearsing of the foregoing surpassing virtues in a verse of praise” — the two houses divide it into different numbers, and this is recorded without adjudication.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that this passage is writing about beauty. The scripture text itself puts the landing place in the last clause: the afflictions of whoever sees her are extinguished. Bringing it to the ground: with a form whose marks are wondrous and surpassing and which yet leaves one free of defiled attachment, what the scripture text means to speak of is not the excellence of the marks but that “free of.”

One Verse of Four Lines: What Sudhana Praises Is Discipline, Forbearance, and Vigor

After Sudhana had bent his body and joined his palms, he praised her in one verse: “Guarding the pure precepts, cultivating vast forbearance, vigorous and never turning back, radiance shining upon the world.” The upper half of this verse is the two practices of discipline and forbearance, vigor stands in the third line, and the last line, “radiance shining upon the world,” speaks of the fruit. The verse Fazang judges is the verse of the sixty-fascicle version, which at this place has “constantly keeping the pure precepts, vigorously cultivating forbearance, like unto the full moon at its fullest, alone shining bright among the stars”; and of that verse he says, “in the verse, the upper half briefly praises the three practices, and the lower half raises a comparison to display them all together”: the two lines of the upper half have already briefly praised the three practices of discipline, vigor, and forbearance, and the lower half is the comparison with the full moon that displays them all together. The verse of the eighty-fascicle version has no comparison with the full moon, and its last line speaks of the fruit directly by radiance; and so this judgment of an upper and a lower half is fastened to the verse of the sixty-fascicle version.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the three practices praised were raised offhandedly. Li Tongxuan likewise sets up an account upon these three practices, saying that she “cultivated the three kinds of practice, discipline, forbearance, and vigor, and obtained a body whose radiance shines upon the world.” Bringing it to the ground: the three practices, discipline and forbearance and vigor, are what is able, and radiance shining upon the world is what is obtained — and the bone of this verse of praise lies in that one word “obtained” between the able and the obtained.

“What Are Their States?” and “This Place Is Hard to Know”

What Sudhana asks after is the state; what is answered is “this place is hard to know.” This one question and one answer are so short as to be almost without content, and yet they are the pivot of this section — it is after the non-answer that Sudhana has that passage of asking again, and after the asking again that there is the account of a former life.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that ‘hard to know’ is a refusal. The scripture text then goes on with a long answer, from which one can see that it is not that she will not speak, but that before speaking a certain knowing must first be set up — this state is not one that a single question can settle in an answer. Bringing it to the ground: when a teacher says ‘this place is hard to know,’ it is often an invitation to ask the question more deeply.

Sudhana Asks Again: He First Says How He Will Receive It

In the passage of asking again, what Sudhana says is not ‘please speak’ but the sequence of his own receiving: “because of a good friend I shall be able to believe and to receive, able to know and to understand, to go into it and contemplate it, to cultivate it and accord with it, to leave every sort of discrimination behind, and to be ultimately level and equal.” Believing and receiving come first, knowing and understanding next, going in and contemplating next after that, cultivating and according next again, and only at the end is there the leaving of discrimination and being ultimately level and equal.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that asking for the Dharma requires only sincerity. This passage is his reporting his own vessel in advance — this is how I shall receive it. Bringing it to the ground: whether one can obtain the Dharma lies half with the one who speaks and half with whether the one who receives has first made plain how he will receive.

The Opening of the Account of a Former Life: What She Saw That Night

The answer begins from the name of the kalpa: the kalpa was named Free of Defilement, the buddha was named Long Arm, the king was named Lightning Bestowed, and “he had only one daughter, who was this very person of mine.” Beneath it is written that night: in the night watches the music was stopped, her father and mother and brothers had gone to sleep, the five hundred maidens had fallen into a heavy sleep, and she alone was upon the upper storey looking up at the constellations, and within the empty sky she saw that tathāgata “like unto a king of jeweled mountains,” the buddha’s body sending forth a great net of radiance reaching throughout the ten directions, and a wondrous fragrance coming from the pores. She smelled the fragrance and her body became supple; she came down from the storey and bowed her head; she gazed up and could not see the mark upon his crown, and gazed to the left and right of his body and did not know where its limit lay.

Li Tongxuan sets up a gloss by signification upon the names in this passage, saying, “as for ‘Long’, it means lengthy, making clear the sense of drawing beings in and taking them up,” and again, “that the king is named Lightning Bestowed is knowledge; it is to make clear that knowledge is able to break through delusion, and that seeing the path is as swift as a flash of lightning.” A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the account of a former life is an account of her origins. Bringing it to the ground: every step written in this passage is a matter of the senses — seeing the stars, seeing the buddha, smelling the fragrance, the body becoming supple, bowing the head — and it is here that the Dharma goes in.

Privately in Her Heart She Thought: What She Asks Is “What Sort of Deeds Did He Perform?”

After seeing the buddha, what rises in her heart is not praise but a question: “What sort of deeds did this buddha, this world-honored one, perform, that he obtained a body so fine and wondrous as this” — and beneath it are listed the marks and secondary marks complete, radiance fully furnished, a retinue brought to accomplishment, a palace stately and fine, merit and wisdom alike pure, dhāraṇī and samādhi inconceivable, spiritual powers sovereign, and eloquence unobstructed.

The Yanyi chao, upon this one question, points out the most important set of correspondences in the whole unit, saying that what she holds in mind is five matters, “namely, pondering by what cause one obtains these five virtues” — and the five virtues held in mind are precisely what the five Dharma gates gained below repay. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that this is a thought of admiration. Bringing it to the ground: what she asks after is the cause and not the fruit, and so what the buddha answers below is likewise the cause — ten kinds of mind.

The Ten Minds the Buddha Long Arm Teaches: One Mind Matched to One Matter

The buddha knew what was in her mind and taught her to set her mind in ten ways: a mind that cannot be broken, extinguishing the afflictions; a mind that nothing can prevail over, breaking through all graspings; a mind that does not shrink back, entering the gate of the deep Dharma; a mind able to endure, rescuing evil beings; a mind without confusion, taking birth everywhere among all the destinies; a mind never satiated, seeking to see the buddhas without resting; a mind never having enough, receiving in full the rain of Dharma of all the tathāgatas; a mind of right pondering, bringing forth everywhere the radiance of all the buddha-teachings; a mind of great upholding, turning everywhere the wheel of Dharma of all buddhas; a mind of wide circulation, bestowing the treasure of Dharma according to what beings wish.

Every one of the ten minds is a pairing of a mind with what it is for: the first two are for extinguishing the afflictions and for breaking through all graspings, the third for entering the gate of the deep Dharma, the fourth for rescuing evil beings, the fifth for taking birth everywhere among all the destinies, the sixth and seventh for seeking to see the buddhas and for receiving in full the rain of Dharma of all the tathāgatas, and the last three for bringing forth everywhere the radiance of all the buddha-teachings, for turning everywhere the wheel of Dharma of all buddhas, and for bestowing the treasure of Dharma according to what beings wish. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that setting the mind is a single matter. The scripture text opens it into ten, and fastens to each what it is for. Bringing it to the ground: in asking oneself whether one has set one’s mind, one may change the question — of these ten matters, how many does my mind match?

The Ten Minds Matched to the Five Dharma Gates: The Finest Set of Correspondences in the Yanyi chao

The Yanyi chao matches the ten minds one by one to the five Dharma gates gained: the first two minds accomplish the merit and knowledge she held in mind, and so she gains the first, the gate of liberation of the store of wisdom hard to crush down; the third, the mind that does not shrink back, repays the dhāraṇī she held in mind, and so she gains the third, the gate of the dhāraṇī of the ground of the sameness of all things; the fourth, rescuing evil beings, and the fifth, taking birth among the destinies, display the cause of the spiritual powers, and so she gains the second, the gate of the practice of firmly holding; the sixth, seeking the buddhas without being satiated, and the seventh, receiving the Dharma without having enough, repay the samādhi, and so she gains the fifth, the gate of the samādhi of never wearying in seeking all things; the last three display the cause of unobstructed eloquence, and so she gains the fourth, the gate of eloquence illumining all things.

The Chao itself further states why its matching does not follow the order, saying that it is “only that it does not follow the order of the five things held in mind below, so as to display that there is nothing better or worse among them.” A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that a matching out of order is an oversight. Bringing it to the ground: matching out of order is precisely the way of saying that among these five things there is no high and low.

The Ten Seekings and the Adamant: The Scriptural Ground of the Name Immovable Is Here

After hearing the Dharma she raises ten seekings: seeking omniscient knowledge, seeking the ten powers of a buddha, seeking eloquence, radiance, the body of form, the marks and secondary marks, the assemblies, the lands, the deportment, the life-span. And the clause that follows is the bone of the whole unit — “having set this mind, my mind was firm as adamant, and all the afflictions, together with the mind of the two vehicles, could none of them break it.”

The Yanyi chao, upon these ten seekings, points out that they are precisely the causes of the five Dharma gates above, and matches four of them: the first, seeking the wisdom of a buddha, is the samādhi of seeking the Dharma; the second, seeking the ten powers of a buddha, is seeking wisdom; the third, seeking the eloquence of a buddha, and the fourth, seeking the radiance of a buddha, are the dhāraṇī — and the Chao itself says why radiance can be matched to the dhāraṇī, “since the dhāraṇī has wisdom for its substance, it is called radiance”; and the remaining seekings all belong to the practice and vow of firmly holding. The last clause, “having set this mind,” the Chao judges to be the general conclusion upon firmness. So the ten seekings are not a row of ten wishes: each of the fruits of the five Dharma gates has its own cause, and the causes do not follow the same order as the fruits.

Chengguan glosses the name “Immovable” with three senses set out together: that from the time she set her mind there was nothing among all things in which she failed to gain concentration; that the afflictions and the two vehicles cannot move her; and that she also makes the minds of beings immovable. Among these three senses, the scriptural ground of the second is precisely this clause of the comparison with adamant; and the scriptural ground of the third lies in the earlier passage, “if anyone could see her even for a moment, all his afflictions would of themselves be extinguished.” A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that a name is taken for the sake of sounding well. Bringing it to the ground: if a Dharma name stands, there must be a place in the scripture text from which it comes.

The Twelvefold “Throughout Those Kalpas”: This Is How Immovability Is Realized

In the passage of being free of faults, apart from the first clause saying that through kalpas as numerous as the dust motes of Jambudvīpa she gave rise to no thought of desire, the twelve that follow open every clause with “throughout those kalpas,” and each of the twelve has what it is directed at. First, giving rise to no anger: what it faces is her own kin, and so beneath it follows “how much less toward other beings.” Second, giving rise to no view of self: what it faces is her own body, and so beneath it follows “how much less to reckon possessions as mine” — the body first and the things outside it after, the sequence of self and what belongs to self. Third, at the time of death, at the time of birth, and while abiding in the womb, these three times, she was never confused so as to give rise to the notion of beings or to a mind without moral quality; what is set apart is “how much less at other times” — the three times are the hardest places in which not to be confused, and so they are raised. Fourth, a single buddha seen even in a dream was never forgotten; what is set apart is what the bodhisattva’s ten eyes see. Fifth, upholding the true Dharma of the tathāgatas she never lost one letter or one clause, and since even the words of the common world were not forgotten, how much less what the tathāgatas spoke with their own mouths. Sixth, upholding the ocean of Dharma, of one letter and one clause there was nothing she did not ponder and nothing she did not contemplate, and so too on down to the things of the common world. Seventh, in each single thing she gained samādhi, and so too on down to the arts and crafts of the world. Eighth, upholding the wheel of Dharma she never let fall one letter or one clause, and never gave rise to worldly cleverness — save only for the taming of beings, which leaves one opening. Ninth, seeing the ocean of buddhas, in the presence of every single buddha she accomplished the pure great vow, and so too before the buddhas of transformation. Tenth, seeing the wondrous practices of the bodhisattvas, there was not one practice she did not accomplish. Eleventh, of the beings she saw there was not one she did not urge toward the mind of awakening, and she never urged a single being toward the intent of a śrāvaka or a pratyekabuddha. Twelfth, upon one letter or one clause of the buddha-teachings she gives rise to seven “no”s — no doubt, no notion of two, no notion of discrimination, no notion of this and that kind, no notion of grasping, no notion of better and worse, no notion of love and hate: doubt is not believing, the notion of two divides subject from object, the notion of discrimination and the notion of kinds set up difference within the Dharma, the notion of grasping takes hold, and the notions of better and worse and of love and hate set up high and low and choosing and rejecting within the Dharma — the seven run in one line from coarse to fine.

Li Tongxuan glosses the name Immovable by this very passage, saying, “this makes clear that from the time this woman set her mind, throughout the births she has taken over kalpas as numerous as the dust motes of Jambudvīpa, she has not been moved in the least by the five desires of the world or by anger, and so she is named Immovable.” A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that immovability is a state of stillness. These twelve are all movement — upholding, holding up, seeing buddhas, urging others on. Bringing it to the ground: immovability speaks not of doing nothing, but of not having been shaken in the midst of what is done.

Fourteen Clauses of “Constantly”: From Constantly Seeing to Constantly With

After being free of faults it turns to constant practice: constantly seeing the buddhas, constantly seeing the bodhisattvas, constantly seeing true good friends; constantly hearing the vows of the buddhas, the practices of the bodhisattvas, the gates of the perfections, the gate of the radiance of knowledge of the grounds, the gate of the inexhaustible store, the gate that enters the net of boundless worlds, the gate of the causes that give birth to the boundless realms of beings; constantly with a pure radiance of wisdom extinguishing the afflictions of beings, constantly with wisdom growing the roots of goodness of beings, constantly manifesting her body according to what beings delight in, constantly with pure and fine speech awakening all the beings of the Dharma realm.

The sequence of the three passages is seeing, hearing, and with — first seeing the buddhas and bodhisattvas and good friends, next hearing the Dharma gates, and only at the end using them upon beings. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that benefiting others is a separate lesson taken up afresh. Bringing it to the ground: benefiting others stands last not because it is secondary, but because the two passages before it are its capital.

Entering One Samādhi Is Entering Ten Thousand: What the Number Is Saying

After she has agreed to manifest, she sits upon the lion throne of the Dragon Store and enters the gate of the samādhi of the adornment of never being satiated in seeking all things, the gate of the samādhi of the adornment of the wheel that is not in vain, the gate of the samādhi in which the wheel of the knowledge of the ten powers appears before one, the gate of the samādhi of the inexhaustible store of the buddha-seed, “entering ten thousand gates of samādhi such as these.”

Chengguan does not take this number for a measure of spiritual transformation, but for a proof that one gate gathers in many gates, saying, “within the one samādhi of never being satiated in seeking the Dharma she enters ten thousand, from which it may be known that the other liberations too gather in many gates” — from one samādhi one enters ten thousand, from which it may be known that the other liberations each gather in many gates as well. Li Tongxuan reads this in the same direction, and first sets down one sense upon each of the three samādhis raised: of the samādhi of the wheel that is not in vain he says, “it is because one must study and be fully furnished with both the worldly and the supramundane” — of study worldly and supramundane not one part is in vain, and so it is called not in vain; of the samādhi in which the wheel of the knowledge of the ten powers appears before one he says, “it is because the wheel of the differentiating knowledge of the buddhas is gathered here and made full”; of the samādhi of the inexhaustible store of the buddha-seed he says, “it is because there is nothing the knowledge does not contain, and the transforming of beings is never cut off” — the knowledge contains all and the transforming is unbroken, and so it is named an inexhaustible store. And then he says that the three samādhis raised before are the general and the ten thousand the particular, and that this is “the gate of the teaching of the mutual containing of one and many, sovereignly entering the net of Indra.” A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that ten thousand is a way of saying many. Bringing it to the ground: this number speaks of the relation of one and many; it does not speak of quantity.

The Working: The Sixfold Shaking and the Hundred Koṭis of Tathāgatas

At the time of entering samādhi, in each of the ten directions there are worlds as numerous as the dust motes of ineffably many buddha-lands, and they shake in six ways, all pure and made of beryl; within each single world there are a hundred koṭis of sets of four continents and a hundred koṭis of tathāgatas, some dwelling in the Tuṣita heaven and so on down to entering parinirvāṇa; and each single tathāgata sends forth a net of radiance throughout the Dharma realm to the assemblies at the places of awakening, turns the wondrous wheel of Dharma, and awakens the multitude of the living.

Fazang, outlining this passage with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, says that it is “the displaying upon entering samādhi: that is, by the power of the samādhi the worlds shake in six ways, and the tathāgatas in eight aspects fill the Dharma realm” — what is manifested is the eight aspects of a tathāgata. A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that this is a display of spiritual powers. The last clause of the scripture text falls upon “awakened the multitude of the living.” Bringing it to the ground: if what is manifested does not come home to the awakening of beings, it is only a manifestation.

Coming Out of Samādhi and Confirming What He Relates: What Two Clauses Mean

After coming out of samādhi there are only two clauses: she asks, “Son of good family! Have you seen this?” and Sudhana answers, “Yes! I have seen it all.” Chengguan outlines the working in four branches, and the last branch is “fourth, coming out of samādhi, that is, the relating” — after coming out of samādhi she confirms what he relates.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that these two clauses are a passing scene. Earlier Sudhana asked after the state and got “this place is hard to know”; here what he answers is “I have seen it all” — and between the one question and the one answer lie a whole account of a former life and an entering into samādhi. Bringing it to the ground: from “hard to know” to “already seen,” the sequence of this section is walked to its end between these two clauses.

The Nine Comparisons in Humbling Herself and Pointing to the Superior: She Speaks of Herself as Small

At the end she says, “I have attained only this radiance of the samādhi of never being satiated in seeking all things,” and beneath it praises the bodhisattvas with nine comparisons: the golden-winged bird taking hold of one whose roots of goodness have ripened and setting him upon the shore of awakening; the merchant traveler entering the isle of jewels and searching out the jewel of the knowledge of the ten powers; the fisherman taking the net of the true Dharma and drawing beings up out of the waters of craving; the asura king stirring up the oceans of afflictions of the three existences; the orb of the sun shining upon the mire of the waters of craving and making it dry up; the full moon making the mind-flowers of those who can be transformed open wide; the great earth on which beings come to rest and which increases their roots of goodness; the great wind uprooting the great trees of all views; the wheel-turning king gathering in beings by the four means of gathering in — and she gathers it up at the end with one question: “as for me, how could I know or tell of their merit and virtue and practices?”

Among the nine comparisons, two take hold (the golden-winged bird, the merchant traveler), one draws up (the fisherman), two stir (the asura king, the great wind), two shine (the orb of the sun, the full moon), one gives rest (the great earth), and one gathers in (the wheel-turning king). A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that humbling herself is a courtesy. Bringing it to the ground: she speaks of what she has attained as one and of the practice of the bodhisattvas as nine, and that proportion is itself the teaching.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: A Non-Buddhist Who Has Left the Household Life

The last passage points the road: to the south there is a great city named Measureless Tusāra, and in it a non-Buddhist ascetic who has left the household life, named Universal Practice. Chengguan glosses the city’s name, saying, “as for Tusāra, it means here the giving birth to gladness”; and he glosses the friend’s name, saying, “the friend is named Universal Practice because his skillful knowledge accords with the capacities of beings and there is nothing he does not practice, and so he is named true practice”; and he glosses why he manifests the appearance of a non-Buddhist — “that he is displayed as a non-Buddhist is because he is able to walk what is not the path. What is not the path does not defile him, and so it is said that he has left the household life.” Li Tongxuan glosses the city’s name to the same sense but divides the graphs, saying, “‘Tu’ means gladness and delight, and ‘sāra’ means giving birth.”

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that manifesting the appearance of a non-Buddhist is an expedient contrivance. What the two houses gloss falls alike upon ‘walking what is not the path and not being defiled by it.’ Bringing it to the ground: only when one can walk into what is not the path and not be defiled by it does that word “universal” carry its weight.

Cherishing Her Virtue and Taking Leave: A Station Ends in Paying Respects

The end of this section is a single clause: “At that time Sudhana the youth bowed to her feet, circled her measureless times, gazed up at her with earnestness, took his leave, and departed.” Li Tongxuan takes this very clause as the close of the last gate of pointing to virtue and advancing upward, making it “fourth, paying respects, taking his leave, and going.”

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that this is a set formula closing the narrative. Bowing the head, circling, gazing up, and taking leave are all four present, and the phrase “gazed up with earnestness” is least of all a set formula — what is gazed up at is the Dharma just received, and not merely the person just parted from. Bringing it to the ground: at every station Sudhana begins by seeking the Dharma and ends by paying respects, and the scripture text never writes the receiving of the Dharma and the honoring of the person apart from each other.

Assigned to the Practice of Good Dharma: How This Name of a Position Was Fastened On

As for the position to which this section is assigned, Chengguan outlines it as “the ninth, the laywoman Immovable, assigned to the practice of Good Dharma,” the ninth of the ten practices. The Yanyi chao glosses the reason for it, saying that it is “because she expounds the Dharma and confers it upon others, and every movement becomes a rule for beings, and she ponders, chooses, cultivates, and practices all things” — expounding the Dharma and conferring it upon others, so that in movement and in stillness alike she becomes a rule for beings. The corresponding places in the scripture text are her two clauses, “expounding the wondrous Dharma to her own kin, a measureless multitude of people,” and “expounding the subtle and wondrous Dharma for all beings, making them all glad.”

What must be made plain is this: the judgment of an assigned position itself comes from the ancient worthies. Before his outline of the five aspects of this assembly, Chengguan states his own balanced view of the choice, saying that the account of the ancient worthies which matches the positions and the account which does not match them each have their reason, that to match them accordingly is likewise not amiss, and that within the absence of a sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed — and so an assigned position is a way of reading, not something the scripture text labels upon itself. Li Tongxuan separately sets up two gates and judges by them, saying that this position has the perfection of power as its lord, that with respect to the gate of knowledge all the positions heal in common, and that with respect to the gate of position it heals the hindrance of not being sovereign in expounding the Dharma. Bringing it to the ground: in reading a judgment of assigned position, remember that it is a measure the ancient worthies have given, and that the scripture text itself hangs out no such placard.

Lineage

From the text of this section three lines of flow open downward.

The first is the line of the name. On the gloss of the name Immovable, Chengguan sets out three senses together and fastens on “because she cultivates kindness by means of knowledge, she is displayed as dwelling as a woman”; Fazang has only the one sense of not being moved by the two vehicles or the afflictions from the time she first set her mind; Li Tongxuan takes his stand upon her being unmoved by the five desires and by anger throughout kalpas as numerous as the dust motes of Jambudvīpa. On the city’s name Abiding Secure, Chengguan and Fazang are almost wholly the same in wording, both making it a tallying with the real Dharma and a not being broken by conditions. On the city’s name and the friend’s name of the next friend, Chengguan and Li Tongxuan each gloss them and the sense is the same.

The second is the line of the matching. The Yanyi chao matches one by one the ten minds the buddha Long Arm taught to the five Dharma gates gained, and itself makes plain that the matching is out of order so as to display that there is nothing better or worse among the five things; and this matching is a fine measure for reading the names of the five Dharma gates of this section.

The third is the line of the divergent glosses of the several houses, each with its own track, recorded without adjudication. As for the names of the Dharma gates of this section, the eighty-fascicle version has five names set out side by side, while the sixty-fascicle version has “the Dharma gate that cannot be broken” as the general and four clauses to complete the gloss of it — Fazang and Zhiyan alike, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, set up the Dharma gate that cannot be broken as their outline heading. As for the outline of this section, Chengguan makes it seeking in accord with the teaching (in two divisions, the former of five), seeing, paying respects, and inquiring, praising Sudhana and conferring the Dharma (displaying the names and substance of the Dharma gates, and inquiring after the state of the working, with the six of the causes and conditions of obtaining the Dharma and the four of the displaying of her working within the full answer), humbling herself and pointing to the superior, and pointing out the next friend; Fazang, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, makes it seeking in accord with the teaching in six, seeing, paying respects, and requesting in four, conferring her own Dharma realm in five, the working of the Dharma gate in four, and looking up and pointing to the superior and advancing in three; Zhiyan makes it exhorting by the teaching in three, proceeding to enter in accord with the teaching in seven, and truly entering in three; Li Tongxuan does not outline it passage by passage, but sets up the seventeen gates of truly entering the present position and the four gates of pointing to virtue and advancing upward (the five gates of the former place belong to the previous friend’s passage of pointing to virtue and advancing upward, the text that hands the seeker on to the present friend, and are not one and the same passage as the present friend’s four gates). As for the number of comparisons in humbling herself, the eighty-fascicle version has nine and the sixty-fascicle version six, and Zhiyan, with respect to the sixty-fascicle version, judges them to be six comparisons. This passage is preserved in the forty-fascicle version as well, and its chief variants are four: its verse has four lines of seven graphs where the eighty-fascicle version has four lines of five; in the passage of constant practice every one of its fourteen clauses is fastened to “never letting go of them,” whereas the eighty-fascicle version makes its fourteen out of constantly seeing, constantly hearing, and constantly using; upon entering samādhi it has ten koṭis of gates of samādhi where the eighty-fascicle version has ten thousand; and the sealing upon coming out of samādhi asks after the three matters of seeing, hearing, and understanding, whereas the eighty-fascicle version asks only after seeing. All these divergent glosses are the settled teachings of the ancient worthies.

The text of this section is, in its first half, walking and looking, and in its second half a whole night of recollection. Her way of answering “what are their states?” is to walk once more, for someone to see, the road she has walked — and the teaching method of this section lies wholly in that one walking again.

The Person Sudhana Is to Look for This Time Is a Non-Buddhist Ascetic

Of the nineteen good friends before this one, some were monks, some laywomen, some elders, some kings, some youths and maidens. At this twentieth one, the person Sudhana is to look for is called, in the plain words of the scripture text, a non-Buddhist ascetic named Universal Practice. The place where he dwells is not a monastery but a mountain; those who surround him are not disciples of the Buddha but ten thousand Brahmā gods; and his majestic light is such that a Great Brahmā king cannot match it.

A misreading must be cleared away first: this is not Sudhana taking a wrong road, nor is the scripture text urging anyone to go and consult non-Buddhist teachers. The text states its own account plainly — Sudhana comes here having already heard the Dharma at the place of the laywoman Immovable, following the direction the previous good friend gave him. The marks this one wears are those of a non-Buddhist; the Dharma he holds is the practice of a bodhisattva. Chengguan, glossing this name, says it straight out: he is displayed as a non-Buddhist because he is able to walk what is not the path; because what is not the path does not stain him, he is therefore said to have left the household life. He manifests the marks of a non-Buddhist because he can in fact walk what is not the path; and because, having walked what is not the path, he is not stained by it, one may turn the matter around and say that he is the one who has truly left the household life.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this section, if at the sight of the two graphs for non-Buddhist one first puts up a guard, the section cannot be read through at all; and if at the sight of a non-Buddhist one concludes that non-Buddhist teachers may be studied as such, one has gone off the other side. What the text means to say is a third thing — to be able to enter and not be stained is what universal practice means.

Seeking in Accord with the Teaching: That Stretch of Walking Is the First Division of This Section

This section begins not with a meeting but with walking. Single-mindedly holding in mind all the instructions, receiving them all in faith, pondering and contemplating them — three things: holding in mind, receiving in faith, and pondering and contemplating. Holding in mind is not forgetting; receiving in faith is not doubting; pondering and contemplating is not stopping at the surface of the words. Only when these three have been done does he travel on little by little, passing through lands and cities.

Chengguan outlines this passage with a single heading name, four graphs long: seeking in accord with the teaching. The words are few, but the position matters — the first heading of this section is that one is in accord with the teaching and afterward seeks, not that one seeks first and then looks for a teaching.

Note too the manner of the searching. The scripture text writes that Sudhana entered that city at the hour when the sun goes down, and then searched place by place for the non-Buddhist ascetic Universal Practice in the market stalls, in the neighborhoods and lanes, and along both sides of the great roads that run out in all four directions. Markets, lanes, the mouths of the great roads — all of them the places where people are thickest. This tallies exactly with this one’s own Dharma gate: he does not wait inside a monastery gate for people to come to him; he is out among the crowds. Bringing it to the ground: seeking in accord with the teaching is not waiting for the next station to appear of itself, but taking what the previous one gave and going to where the people are to look for it.

The city’s name also deserves a word. Tusāra, Chengguan reads as meaning here the giving birth to gladness, that is, because within this city measureless matters of gladness are given birth; and upon that name, with respect to this friend’s virtue, he adds one further clause: because the perfection of knowledge is complete, there is nothing it cannot give birth to. Li Tongxuan reads the name in the same way — tu means joy and gladness, sāra means giving birth — but fastens it more widely, saying that the city’s name displays that this good friend’s perfection of knowledge is complete, that his practice is the same as the ten grounds already ended in the fruit of buddhahood, that he walks universally in all practices as befits what is seen, that he manifests his body everywhere the same as their gates of practice, and that in gathering beings in and benefiting the common world he causes them all to be glad. Ask first: why should a city’s name have to be spoken of in terms of knowledge? What the two houses point at is in fact the two ends of a single matter — the perfection of knowledge complete first, measureless gladness given birth after. Knowledge being complete, there is nothing it cannot give birth to; nothing it cannot give birth to, and then wherever he arrives people gain the benefit; gaining the benefit, they are glad. A misreading to be cleared away: that the city’s name is only a coincidence of place-names. Were it only a place-name, Chengguan would not have had to add the clause about the perfection of knowledge beneath the name, nor would Li Tongxuan have had to say that it displays this good friend’s perfection of knowledge. Bringing it to the ground: the reason the city is named the giving birth to gladness lies not in the city but in the one who dwells in it; and this one’s universal practice is likewise not a matter of walking far, but of gladness being given birth wherever he walks — the universal and the glad are two ends of a single matter, and the root of both is the perfection of knowledge complete.

Seeing the Light at Midnight: Why It Is Seen at Night, and Why upon a Summit

There are three details in the passage of seeing the friend, and Chengguan gives a symbolic gloss to all three, and gives all three together in a single stretch of words: as for the seeing, that it is seen at midnight is because knowledge enters birth-and-death, and because Sudhana is about to enter this position; above it was said that he entered the city at sundown; that it is upon a summit is to display that the position is at its utmost; that a radiance shines is because the light of wisdom breaks the darkness of birth-and-death and of the two extremes.

The first is the time. Entering the city at sundown and seeing the light at midnight — night stands for birth-and-death, and knowledge entering into the night is exactly the form of this one’s practice of entering the destinies; at the same time it displays that Sudhana is about to enter this position in the sequence. The second is the place. What is seen is upon a summit, displaying the utmost of the position — this is the last of the ten practices. The third is what appears. What is seen is light, and what that light breaks is the darkness of birth-and-death and of the two extremes; the two extremes are existence and nonexistence, the real and the conventional, the two ends.

A misreading to be cleared away: that these several clauses are literary ornament. Were that so, Chengguan would not have needed to gloss each matter one by one. Bringing it to the ground: the text writes the time, writes the place, and writes the light, and all three are saying one and the same thing — the height at which this one stands and the darkness into which he enters are two faces of a single matter.

What the Friend Looks Like: His Form and Features Perfect, His Majestic Light Beyond a Great Brahmā King

What Sudhana sees on climbing the mountain is this non-Buddhist ascetic upon his mountain, on a level piece of ground, walking slowly back and forth; and then he sees that his form and features are perfect and his majestic light shines, such that a Great Brahmā king cannot match him, and that ten thousand Brahmā gods surround him on every side.

There is a tension in this pairing: what is manifested is the mark of a non-Buddhist, what is attained is a majestic light beyond a Great Brahmā king. Li Tongxuan sets down a separate symbolic gloss on the single matter of the level ground upon the mountain, saying that the third is seeing him walking back and forth on level ground upon the mountain, that the summit is knowledge and the level ground is the dharma-body, and that this displays being the same as wrong views while not apart from the great knowledge of the dharma-body — the summit is knowledge, the level ground is the dharma-body; and the level ground lying upon the mountain, where he walks back and forth, is precisely manifesting marks the same as those of wrong views while not departing from the great knowledge of the dharma-body.

A misreading to be cleared away: that manifesting the marks of an ordinary being means one has come down to that height oneself. The text writes exactly the reverse — the lower what is manifested, the higher what is possessed. Bringing it to the ground: to be able to share the same work and not lose one’s own standing is what sharing the same work means; if in sharing the same work one sinks along with the rest, that is not gathering others in but being gathered in by them.

Fazang, glossing this passage in the sixty-fascicle version, gives a reason for each of the three matters of climbing the mountain and seeing the friend: that it is daybreak is because the obstructions are ended and the position is displayed; that he climbs the mountain is because he has gained a correspondence with the position; and why it matters that he sees the non-Buddhist lies in the last of the three — because he realizes that the person is the Dharma realm. What is realized is not a person, but that the person is the Dharma realm: to see this one who wears the marks of a non-Buddhist is itself to realize the Dharma realm. Were the person and the Dharma realm taken as two things, this seeing would be no more than the sight of a remarkable man.

Requesting: What Sudhana Asks Is Still Those Two Clauses

Sudhana’s question is nearly one and the same clause under all the friends of this chapter. Here it is: Holy one, I have already first set my mind upon anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, and yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to study the practice of a bodhisattva, or how he is to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva. At the end he adds one clause giving the reason he has come to ask: I have heard that you, holy one, are well able to instruct others; I pray you will expound it for me.

Three layers are to be noted. The first is that he says first that he has already set his mind — he does not come empty-handed to ask, but comes to ask carrying a mind already set. The second is that the two matters asked about are kept apart: studying the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivating the path of a bodhisattva, the one what is studied, the other what is walked. The third is the clause of reason — he is not asking just anyone, but has come because he heard that this holy one is well able to instruct.

A misreading to be cleared away: that asking about the Dharma only requires having a doubt. The sequence in the scripture text is that setting the mind comes first, choosing the person next, and the question last. Bringing it to the ground: if before asking one can state clearly where one is standing, the answer will have something to land on.

The Four Names and Substances: Four Matters Inside a Single Clause of Self-Account

The answer opens with praise: Excellent, excellent! Son of good family! What is praised is the mind he has already set. Only then does the conferring proper begin, and the first passage of the conferring is a self-account of four matters — I already dwell in the bodhisattva practice that reaches everywhere, I have already accomplished the gate of the samādhi of contemplating the world everywhere; I have already accomplished the power of spiritual penetration that has no support and does no making, I have already accomplished the prajñā-pāramitā of the universal gate.

Chengguan judges this passage to be the setting forth of the names and substances, and says that the setting forth of the names and substances first has four items because knowledge knows everywhere, and that though the four senses are distinct they complete one another. The four matters are not four separate capacities set side by side, but a single matter in which each completes the others: the first is that the field of converting is everywhere all-round, and the name Universal Practice is set up from this; the second is entering concentration and contemplating the capacities of beings; the third is that by the spiritual penetration that does no making he is able to reach everywhere the places just named; the fourth is that by the wisdom of the universal gate he is able, while in concentration, to contemplate everywhere. Because the field of converting is everywhere all-round, he is called Universal Practice; only in entering concentration can he contemplate capacities; having the spiritual penetration that does no making, he can arrive at those places; having the wisdom of the universal gate, he can contemplate everywhere while in concentration.

If each is spoken of according to what predominates in it, Chengguan adds one further clause: taken separately, doing no making and having no support means functioning without abiding; the wisdom of the universal gate means there is no thing it does not exhaust.

Bringing it to the ground: these four clauses are the cord of the whole unit. The four passages of broad exposition that follow are just these four clauses each spread out once.

Fazang gives a separate reason for the one name “reaching everywhere”: reaching everywhere, he says, makes clear that the ten practices are fulfilled, and that the tenth of them, the perfection of knowledge, knows everywhere. That he can reach everywhere is, first, because the ten practices are already fulfilled, and second, because the tenth of those ten practices is precisely the perfection of knowledge — knowledge knowing everywhere, the practice therefore reaches everywhere. He further gathers the four things into two senses: the first, that relying on concentration he sends forth knowledge that illumines the Dharma realm everywhere; the second, that relying on concentration he sends forth penetration that reaches everywhere — and the two clauses that follow in the sixty-fascicle text he relies on, 「成就普觀三昧法門」 tr. “accomplishing the Dharma gate of the samādhi of universal contemplation” and 「無依無作神足」 tr. “spiritual feet that have no support and do no making,” gloss these two senses one by one (in the eighty these answer to the second and the third of the four things). This does not collide with Chengguan’s four senses completing one another: Chengguan matches the four names one by one to the four workings, Fazang gathers the four names into two senses — the one opens, the other closes, and that is all. Zhiyan, on the sixty, divides the gathering and converting by substance and working within the conferring of the Dharma into three steps: first raising up the light of knowledge, next observing their capacities, last expounding the Dharma so that they receive benefit — first the knowledge that illumines, next the observing of the faculties to be converted, then the expounding that brings benefit; the three steps are one continuous sequence.

The First Working: Reaching Everywhere — Born Among All the Destinies

The first of the four workings Chengguan fastens to the scripture text from the clause beginning “son of good family, everywhere I,” and judges it to be, first, making clear the working of reaching everywhere. What the text gives as self-account is: everywhere in the world I am born among all the destinies, with all sorts of locations, all sorts of shapes and appearances, all sorts of practice and understanding, all sorts of dying and being born. Four occurrences of “all sorts” — locations, shapes and appearances, practice and understanding, dying and being born. The first two are outward marks; the latter two are inward practice and the going and coming of birth-and-death.

The items listed beneath the words “that is to say” are set out one by one: the destiny of gods, the destiny of dragons, the destiny of yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, the hells, animals, the realm of King Yama, humans, non-humans — thirteen items in all, gathered up with the word “and so on.” It is to be noted that this list has the hells in it, and animals in it — the manifesting is not only within the good destinies.

A misreading to be cleared away: that when a bodhisattva manifests a body according to the kind of being, he manifests only presentable bodies. This list places the hells and the animals right in the middle of it. Bringing it to the ground: the “every” in reaching every place counts in even the place one is least willing to go.

The Second Working: Contemplating the World Everywhere — How the Ten Rounds of Benefit Are Divided

The second working Chengguan fastens from the clause beginning “some dwell within views,” and judges it to be, second, from “some dwell within views” downward, the working of contemplating the world everywhere, since he contemplates what is fitting for them and expounds according to what is fitting. So the capacities of beings are sorted first: some dwell within all sorts of views, some put their faith in the two vehicles, and some again have faith and delight in the path of the Great Vehicle — those who dwell in views, those who have faith in the two vehicles, those who have faith and delight in the Great Vehicle, three kinds. Only when the capacities have been sorted does he use all sorts of skillful means and all sorts of gates of knowledge to work their benefit.

The text of the benefit runs to ten rounds, each round beginning with “sometimes I” and closing with a clause of “causing them.” The order of the ten rounds is not set down at random: first the crafts and skills of the world, next the four means of gathering, next the perfections, next the great mind of awakening, next the practices of the bodhisattvas, next the suffering retribution of evil deeds, next making offerings to the buddhas, and the last three rounds praise the Buddha alone — the merit and virtue of the Tathāgatas, the majestic virtue of the buddhas, the sovereign body of a buddha. From the handicrafts of the world it climbs all the way up to the great and majestic substance of a buddha that nothing whatever is able to overshadow.

Ask first: in these ten rounds, what is expounded, and what is caused? Every round in the scripture text is a pair — the upper half the Dharma expounded, the lower half the benefit caused — and without either half there is no round. What the first round causes is that they become fully possessed of the knowledge of the dhāraṇī of every art and technique: what is expounded is the crafts of the world, but what is caused is the knowledge that holds all together. The nine rounds beneath it keep the same pattern. He expounds the four means of gathering, and what is caused is that they become fully possessed of the path of omniscient knowledge — the four means are the door by which one enters among people, the path of omniscient knowledge is where it arrives. He expounds the perfections, and what is caused is that they dedicate what they cultivate toward the station of omniscient knowledge — the perfections are what is practiced, the dedication is where it returns. He praises the great mind of awakening, and what is caused is that they do not lose the intent upon the unsurpassed path — praise here is guarding, and what is guarded is that one thought not falling back. He praises the practices of the bodhisattvas, and what is caused is that they fulfill the vow to purify a buddha-land and to deliver beings — the reason the practices are praised is that these two vows may be brought to fullness. He expounds the suffering retribution of evil deeds, and what is caused is that they give rise to a deep aversion toward evil karma — suffering is spoken of not to frighten but to turn them away. He expounds how making offerings to the buddhas and planting wholesome roots will certainly obtain the fruit of knowledge, and what is caused is that they give rise to a mind of gladness — cause and effect are spoken of not for calculation but for gladness. He speaks in praise of the merit and virtue of the Tathāgatas, and what is caused is that they delight in the buddha-body and seek omniscient knowledge — praising the Buddha does not stop at admiration but must turn into the seeking of knowledge. He speaks in praise of the majestic virtue of the buddhas, and what is caused is that they vow and delight in the indestructible body of a buddha — what the majestic virtue draws out is a longing for the body that cannot be destroyed. He speaks in praise of the sovereign body of a buddha, and what is caused is that they seek the great and majestic substance of a Tathāgata that nothing is able to overshadow — what the last round seeks is already the very substance of a buddha.

A misreading to be cleared away: that expounding the crafts of the world does not count as expounding the Dharma. What the first round gives is the knowledge that holds all together, not merely a handicraft. Read the ten rounds through, and what is expounded climbs all the way from the crafts of the world up to the sovereign body of a buddha, while what is caused climbs likewise from the command of a single skill up to the great and majestic substance of a buddha — what is expounded and what is caused are two faces of one stairway, not two separate matters; and the stairway can be climbed all the way only because each round sets out from where the hearer is standing now. Bringing it to the ground: the “fitting” in expounding the Dharma according to what is fitting is starting out from where a person is standing now, not from where the speaker would like to be talking.

The Third Working: No Making and No Support — No One Knows Who I Am

The third working Chengguan fastens from the clause beginning “again, son of good family, this Busāra,” and judges it to be, third, from “again, son of good family, this Busāra” downward, making clear the working of doing no making and having no support, and therefore it says that they do not know where he has come from. The pivot of this judgment lies in that last clause: the evidence that doing no making and having no support can be established is exactly the words that they do not know where he has come from.

The scripture text gives its own account: I use skillful means to display myself as having one and the same shape with them, and expound the Dharma for them according to what they ought to receive — and then comes the most important clause in this section: those beings are none of them able to know what person I am or where I have come from; it is only that those who hear are made to cultivate in accordance with the real. Because he displays a shape the same as theirs, he is not recognized; because he is not recognized, those who listen have nothing left to rely on but the Dharma. Li Tongxuan takes shadow and echo for his comparison, saying that a practice like this is always everywhere in the ten directions and at no time not manifest, like a shadow following a form, like an echo answering a sound, having no substance that comes and goes, penetrating the ten thousand existents by knowledge and constantly manifesting bodily form to whatever it faces — a shadow follows the form, and is not a separate thing that comes and goes; an echo answers the sound, and is not a separate sound that goes out of doors.

A misreading to be cleared away: that in gathering and converting others one must first let them know who one is and what one’s credentials are. This passage wipes out the credentials altogether, and leaves only the words that those who hear are made to cultivate in accordance with the real. Bringing it to the ground: whether one can bring a thing to completion without leaving one’s name on it is the practical test of this working.

One City and One Jambudvīpa: How the Measure of the Benefit Is Extended

At the end of the third working there is one transitional clause: just as I work the benefit of beings in this city, so too in the cities and towns and hamlets of Jambudvīpa, in every place where throngs of people dwell and stay, in just this way do I work their benefit.

This clause is short, but it is the first stage of the whole unit’s method of extending a measure. What it extends to is every place where throngs of people dwell and stay — not every place whatsoever, but every place where people live. The field of gathering and converting is fixed by beings, not by territory.

A misreading to be cleared away: that this is an exaggeration. The manner in which the text extends is “just as … so too in just this way,” which takes a thing already brought to completion and extends it outward after the same pattern; it does not add a large number out of thin air. Bringing it to the ground: only one who can do it in a single city is entitled to speak of a whole Jambudvīpa; if it cannot be done in one city, everything extended afterward is empty talk.

The Fourth Working: The Wisdom of the Universal Gate — The Ninety-Six Hosts and the Extension from Realm to Realm

The fourth working Chengguan fastens from the clause beginning “son of good family, within Jambudvīpa,” and judges it to be, fourth, from “son of good family, within Jambudvīpa” downward, the working of the wisdom of the universal gate, since the ninety-six kinds can all be exhausted. The reason for it lies in the one word “exhaust” — because wisdom can exhaust the ninety-six divergent views, it is called the universal gate.

The scripture text says: within Jambudvīpa there are ninety-six hosts, each giving rise to a divergent view and thereby giving rise to attachment, and in the midst of them all I use skillful means to tame them, causing them to let go of every one of their clingings to views. It is to be noted how the giving and the receiving run in this clause: those tamed are the beings who have given rise to divergent views and thereby to attachment, and what they are made to let go of is every one of their views — it is their views that are let go of, not the beings themselves, and it is every one of their views, not only the several mistaken ones. Beneath this come three tiers of extension: as it is with Jambudvīpa, so it is with the remaining four continents; as it is with the four continents, so it is with the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system; as it is with the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system, so it is with the oceans of beings in the measureless worlds of the ten directions — and at the end it comes back to the manner of expounding the Dharma: according to what the minds of those beings love and delight in, using all sorts of skillful means and all sorts of Dharma gates, manifesting all sorts of bodily forms, and using all sorts of speech and sounds to expound the Dharma for them, causing them to obtain benefit. The four occurrences of “all sorts” here stand exactly opposite the four of the first working: there they were the various ways of manifesting a body, here they are the various ways of expounding the Dharma.

Having finished matching the four workings, Chengguan adds a clause of his own about the measure of the matching: in what has gone above, the matching was made separately according to what predominates, but in reality the senses run through one another. The four workings are matched out according to what predominates in each passage; spoken of by the doctrine, the four workings run through one another. Bringing it to the ground: in reading these four passages one may read them divided by the outline, but one should not read the four matters as four things with nothing to do with each other.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: I Know Only This One

The conferring of the Dharma once finished, this one at once sets a limit upon himself: I know only this bodhisattva practice that reaches everywhere. Under nearly every one of the friends of this chapter there is this same clause. What follows is the pointing to the superior — raising up the practice of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas: their bodies are equal in number to all beings, they gain a body no different from that of beings; they use bodies of transformation to enter everywhere among the destinies, and display the taking on of birth in every place; they manifest everywhere before all beings; their pure radiance shines throughout the world; they use unobstructed vows to dwell throughout all kalpas, and gain those various matchless practices that are like Indra’s net; they are always diligent in benefiting all beings, and dwell together with them constantly without any attachment; they are everywhere and altogether equal throughout the three times, they use the knowledge of no-self to shine forth all around, and they use the treasury of great compassion to contemplate all things — and it closes with a single question: how then could I be able to know or to tell of practices of merit and virtue such as theirs?

Counted clause by clause, what is raised up in the pointing to the superior comes to thirteen virtues, and they may be read in four groups. The first group speaks of the body, five clauses: that their bodies are equal in number to all beings is a matching of quantity with beings; that they gain a body no different from that of beings is a matching of quality, with no partition between; that they use bodies of transformation to enter everywhere among the destinies is entering by transformation; that they display the taking on of birth in every place is entering and then being born; that they manifest everywhere before all beings is being manifest so that every one can see — from quantity to quality, from entering to manifesting, each step following close upon the last. The second group speaks of what enables that body to stand, three clauses: that their pure radiance shines throughout the world is that the body manifested carries its own light; that they use unobstructed vows to dwell throughout all kalpas is that, the vow being unobstructed, the dwelling can be sustained; that they gain those various matchless practices that are like Indra’s net is that practice enters into practice with nothing to match it. The third group speaks of how they stand among the multitude, two clauses: that they are always diligent in benefiting all beings is never ceasing; that they dwell together with them constantly without any attachment is dwelling together without sticking — the one affirming, the other excluding. The fourth group speaks of the knowledge they rely upon, three clauses: that they are everywhere and altogether equal throughout the three times is not falling into time; that they use the knowledge of no-self to shine forth all around is not falling into a self; that they use the treasury of great compassion to contemplate all things is not falling into coldness — and these three clauses are the root of the ten before them.

It is to be noted that the practice pointed to and the Dharma he has himself expounded are in fact upon one and the same topic — both speak of entering everywhere among the destinies. The difference lies precisely in the last three groups: it is the same entering everywhere, but the one is being already able to enter, and the other is entering while equal throughout the three times, shining forth while without a self, and contemplating out of the treasury of compassion.

A misreading to be cleared away: that humbling oneself is a courtesy. The more than ten clauses raised in this passage are, clause by clause, a deepened form of his own Dharma gate; he has not changed the topic in order to praise someone else. Bringing it to the ground: only one who knows how much deeper his own gate still goes is truly standing inside that gate.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: From a Non-Buddhist upon a Mountain to an Elder Selling Perfumes in the South

The last passage points the road: son of good family, going south from here there is a land named Vast Extent; there is an elder there who sells perfumes, named Utpala; go to him and ask how a bodhisattva is to study the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva.

All three matters are to be looked at. The first is the direction — still south, the more than fifty friends of this assembly going southward all the way. The second is the turn of station — from a non-Buddhist upon a mountain surrounded by Brahmā gods to an elder selling perfumes inside a city; from marks of withdrawal from the crowd into a trade in the marketplace. The third is that the question stays the same — what is asked is the same in sense, though the wording is slightly abridged.

A misreading to be cleared away: that changing teachers means changing the question. The pattern of the scripture text is exactly the reverse: the question does not change, the one who answers changes. Bringing it to the ground: one and the same question answered once each by one good friend after another is itself the teaching method of this chapter.

Cherishing His Virtue, Paying Respects, and Taking Leave: The Four Actions in the Last Clause

The last clause of this section: at that time Sudhana the youth bowed to his feet, circumambulated him measureless times, gazed up at him with earnest devotion, and took his leave and departed. Four actions — bowing, circumambulating, gazing up, departing.

Compared with the closing passages under other good friends, this passage is extremely short: it does not list the Dharma gained, nor list what is to be held in mind. It must be stated as it stands: the text of this one’s leave-taking is simply brief in itself. Chengguan’s outline of this section stops at the passage of praising and conferring the Dharma that displays the four workings, and he sets up no separate outline heading for the closing passage.

Bringing it to the ground: the four graphs for gazing up with earnest devotion are the only ones in this passage that carry feeling. One more look before going — that one look is the whole of what Sudhana leaves behind in this section.

Assigned to the Practice of Truth: Why This One Stands Last Among the Ten Practices

As for the account of the assigned position, where it comes from must be made clear first. That this friend is matched to the tenth of the ten practices, the practice of truth, is Chengguan’s outline — in his general outline of this section Chengguan states outright that this is the tenth, the non-Buddhist ascetic Universal Practice, assigned to the practice of truth. The scripture text itself does not name the position, and in reading, these two layers are to be kept apart. Chengguan himself sets down an explicit judgment upon matching of this kind: both have their reason, since each single position possesses many Dharma gates, and how should an ordinary mind be barred from practicing and seeking the Dharma of the good friends? — therefore not to match them has its reason; yet within the absence of a sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and displaying the positions is the ordinary rule, so that to match them is likewise not amiss. Not to match has its reason; to match is likewise not amiss. An assigned position displays the ordinary rule; it does not lock a good friend into one stage.

Why is it named the practice of truth? Chengguan, in the Yanyi chao, fastens it to the two truths and to speech and conduct: the perfection of knowledge being already complete, it tallies with the two truths, and speech and conduct are not empty, and it is therefore named truth. The perfection of knowledge is already complete, so that one may speak of the two truths; what is said and what is done are not two things; and therefore it is named truth. Li Tongxuan likewise fastens it to the tenth practice, but the sense he fastens it by is different, for he fastens it to the fulfilling of kindness and compassion at its end: from this point onward, up to within the tenth practice, the non-Buddhist ascetic Universal Practice, by the practice of great kindness and compassion, becomes for their sake every one of the bodies of the ninety-six kinds of non-Buddhist ascetics and gathers in all the wrong views, and this is because one whole course of practice is fulfilled. The one sets it up from the perfection of knowledge and from speech and conduct; the other sets it up from the practice of great kindness and compassion. Li Tongxuan further assigns this position a further determination: this, he says, is the good friend of the practice of truth, who takes the perfection of knowledge as host and the other nine as companions, and this position counters the obstruction of not being free in one’s conduct within birth-and-death and causes freedom to be gained. Among the ten perfections this position takes the perfection of knowledge as host and the other nine as companions; what is countered is the obstruction of not being free in one’s conduct within birth-and-death, and what is gained is freedom of conduct within birth-and-death. This returns exactly to the tension with which this section opened: to manifest the marks of a non-Buddhist and yet not be stained by them is just the form of that obstruction of unfreedom already removed. Li Tongxuan further points out, in the passage of pointing to virtue, where it is heading: of the clause in the praise of virtue 「以無礙願住一切劫，得如帝網諸無等行」 tr. “by unobstructed vows abiding through all eons, gaining the unequalled practices that are like Indra’s net,” he says 「即是十迴向中願行方便」 tr. “this is precisely the skillful means of vow and practice within the ten dedications” — this friend is assigned to the last of the ten practices, and the virtue pointed to is already the vow and practice of the next position, the ten dedications; to point to virtue is to turn toward the next position.

The ancient worthies have of themselves been now loose and now strict on the matter of assigned positions, and the two accounts, the loose and the strict, stand together; here they are recorded without adjudication — what is so recorded without adjudication is only the difference between the ancient worthies’ looseness and strictness, and it does not take in the explicit judgment of Chengguan cited above, that to match them is likewise not amiss: that clause is a judgment Chengguan himself sets down. Nor is the outline of one house made into the scripture text’s judgment upon itself. Bringing it to the ground: the name of a position in the sequence helps you see where this section stands within the whole chapter, but it need not be used to frame words the scripture text has not itself said.

Lineage

From the text of this section three lines of flow open onward.

The first is the line of the single sense of being displayed as a non-Buddhist. Chengguan sets up that he is able to walk what is not the path, and that because what is not the path does not stain him he is therefore said to have left the household life; Li Tongxuan sets up that he is called a non-Buddhist ascetic who has left the household life and is named Universal Practice because his knowledge is equal to the fruit of buddhahood and he is therefore said to have left the household life, because in order to convert the stream of the wrong he displays himself as the same as wrong views and is therefore called a non-Buddhist, and because in benefiting beings his practice is the same in every matter as that of the three vehicles and he is therefore named Universal Practice; and he says further that within the practice of a bodhisattva it is converting the wrong and not the right that is called a non-Buddhist, and dwelling in practice unstained that is called having left the household life. The one sets it up from what is not the path and from being unstained, the other from converting the wrong and from dwelling in practice; the matter the two houses point at is the same, the gate of sense by which they take hold of it differs, and this is recorded without adjudication. Li Tongxuan here further cites a clause of the Jingming scripture as evidence, saying that where those six non-Buddhist masters fall, there you too must fall along with them, and only then may you take the food; Chengguan, within the window of this section, does not cite this scripture.

The second is the line of the field over which universal practice extends. Chengguan fastens it to skillful knowledge according with capacity, since there is nothing it does not walk, and the field so extended over is just the ninety-six hosts and the destinies listed in the scripture text. Li Tongxuan extends the field wider, saying that whatever is cultivated and advanced in that has not yet reached the ultimate wondrous practice of the principle and knowledge of the one-vehicle Dharma realm — the sovereignty of the one and the many, of sameness and difference, the gate of bodies and lands interpenetrating throughout the worlds of the ten directions like Indra’s net — is all of it outward seeing; and he judges from this that gathering in both the ordinary and the holy, and drawing them all in by the skillful means of practicing the same as they do, is what is named the non-Buddhist ascetic Universal Practice — on this account those converted are not only the ordinary who hold wrong views, but extend also to the holy who have not yet reached the ultimate. Li Tongxuan further cites Kong Qiu and Zhuang and Lao separately as a class comparable to this practice; Chengguan has no such words. The two accounts are recorded together without adjudication.

The third is the line of the parallel translations. In the sixty-fascicle version this friend’s name is given as “according with all beings,” the city’s name as “Contentment,” and the mountain is only said to be a great mountain north of the city, without a name; as for the fourth of the four things, the eighty-fascicle version has the prajñā-pāramitā of the universal gate, the sixty-fascicle version “by the radiance of the prajñā-pāramitā of evenness”; for the clause about Indra’s net, the eighty-fascicle version has the gaining of those various matchless practices that are like Indra’s net, the sixty-fascicle version the gaining of a practice of the radiance of the adornment of Indra; and for the name of the next friend, the eighty-fascicle version has an elder who sells perfumes, named Utpala, the sixty-fascicle version an elder there named Blue Lotus Fragrance. These divergent readings are recorded together without adjudication. The forty-fascicle version likewise has the whole passage for this friend, and its key items open and close in several places differently: the mountain lies northeast of the city and is named Wondrous Auspiciousness, not Well-Gained; the fourth of the four things is the prajñā-pāramitā of the limit of the Dharma realm of the universal gate, adding the limit of the Dharma realm beyond the universal gate; as for the rounds of benefit, the eighty has ten and the forty has eleven clauses of the same form, the one further round being the expounding of the knowledge of the dhāraṇī that, hard as a diamond, can break ignorance; in the first tier of the extension from realm to realm the eighty has the remaining four continents and the forty the remaining three; and the next friend’s land is Vast and Broad, his name Fully Endowed Utpala. What the three versions share and where they differ are recorded together without adjudication.

The text of this one section is, in its former part, the marks, and in its latter part, the working. The marks are those of a non-Buddhist, the working is that of a bodhisattva; and what keeps the two from quarreling is only the four graphs that say what is not the path does not stain him.

From This One Onward, the Name of What Sudhana Studies Has Changed

What the twenty good friends before this one displayed were the positions of abiding and the positions of practice; at this elder the sequence of positions changes. Chengguan sets up a general heading here, saying, “In the fourth great division there are ten good friends, assigned to the ten dedications” — the ten good friends beginning from this one are matched to the ten dedications. And this one is matched to the first of them, named the dedication of rescuing and guarding all sentient beings while free of the mark of sentient beings. Zhiyan, reading the sixty-fascicle version, judges the same, saying, “The ten good friends from here on correspond to the positions of the ten dedications. The first is the position of the bodhisattva of the first, the dedication of rescuing and guarding all sentient beings while free of the mark of sentient beings.”

The judgment of assigned position is an outline Chengguan set up in succession to the ancient worthies; it is not something the scripture text marks out for itself — the scripture text says only “he went to where the elder was,” and does not even give the elder’s name. Chengguan himself, in a passage outlining this assembly’s chapter, puts it very evenhandedly: “Both have their reason. That is, since each single position possesses many Dharma gates, how could an ordinary mind be barred from studying and seeking the method of the good friends? And so not matching them has its reason. Yet within what has no sequence of positions, the sequence of positions is not obstructed; displaying the positions is the usual rule, and matching them too is without fault.” — the loose gloss and the matching to positions both have their reason, and to match them does not obstruct their not being a sequence.

A misreading to be cleared away: do not suppose that ‘dedication’ is some procedure added on after the practice is finished. Chengguan, glossing the name of the country in which the elder dwells, says, “That it is in the country Vast and Great is because he is only now entering dedication. Because one dedicates to beings it is vast; because one dedicates to awakening it is great; and dedicating to the real carries a sense running through both vast and great” — the two words ‘only now entering’ say that this is the very beginning of entering dedication, and the vastness and greatness of the country’s name are precisely the three places toward which dedication is directed. Bringing it to the ground: dedication is not shifting merit from one place to another; it is turning everything one has cultivated toward beings, toward awakening, toward the real.

What Was in His Mind While He Walked: The Eleven Clauses of “I Only Wish”

This section opens not with the road but with the mind. Sudhana, “because of the teaching given him by his good friends,” gives rise to six clauses of ‘not’ — not sparing body or life, not attached to wealth and treasure, taking no delight in crowds, not indulging in the five desires, not clinging to kin, not setting store by kingship; and then come eleven clauses of “I only wish” (eleven by actual count, not twelve): converting and delivering beings, adorning and purifying buddha-lands, making offerings to the buddhas, realizing and knowing the real nature, cultivating and gathering the ocean of merit and virtue, practicing with never a turning back, cultivating throughout constant kalpas, entering the places of awakening everywhere, entering one gate of samādhi and manifesting them all, seeing all buddhas within a single pore, and attaining the radiance of wisdom and upholding the Dharma store of the buddhas.

Why must this passage be set up first? Chengguan says it plainly when he outlines this division: “Within the first, seeking in accord with the teaching, first there is the raising of vows in accord with the teaching, since this is the head of the great vows of dedication” — because dedication takes great vows for its head, the first passage of this one is the raising of vows.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing the six clauses of ‘not’ are a list of austerities. Look closely: the six clauses of ‘not’ are the letting go, and the eleven clauses of “I only wish” are the taking up; he lets go that thoroughly only in order to take up these eleven things. Bringing it to the ground: what a person truly wants is seen not in what he does, but in what he is willing to do without.

The Ten Clauses of “I Wish” and the One “I Do Not Yet Know”: How Sudhana Asks

Having come before the elder, Sudhana bows, circles him, joins his palms and stands, and then speaks a passage. The first half is ten clauses of “I wish”: wishing to seek equal wisdom, wishing to fulfill measureless great vows, wishing to purify the supreme form-body, wishing to see the pure dharma-body, wishing to know the vast knowledge-body, wishing to purify and cultivate all the practices, wishing to illumine the samādhis, wishing to abide in the dhāraṇīs, wishing to wipe away obstacles, wishing to travel through the ten directions. The second half is but one clause: “yet I do not yet know how a bodhisattva is to study the bodhisattva’s practice and how he is to cultivate the bodhisattva’s path, so as to give birth to the knowledge of omniscient knowledge?”

Why lay out ten clauses of “I wish” before asking? Because to ask about the Dharma one must first say where one is standing. The ten clauses of “I wish” are the realm sought; the one “I do not yet know” is the road that is lacking. The realm is already clear and the road is not yet clear — only so can the question be asked precisely.

For this passage of setting forth his intent, Fazang, reading the sixty-fascicle version, has a separate outline. He judges the passage thus: setting forth his intent in ten clauses, the first five seeking above the virtues of the fruit, the latter five longing to complete the practices that are the cause — the first five clauses seek above for the virtues of the fruit, the latter five long to complete the practices that are the cause; the clauses are ten in either case, but the first five face toward the fruit and the latter five toward the cause. This outline Fazang sets up with respect to the text of the sixty-fascicle version, and since the shape of the clauses in the sixty and in the base text differs, the outline is not to be forced clause by clause onto the ten clauses of “I wish” in the base text; what matters in his way of reading is this: the ten clauses are not ten petitions laid out flat, but two passages, seeking the fruit and completing the cause. What Chengguan outlines in this section is the one part of “first, in accord with the teaching, raising up vows,” tied to the eleven clauses of “I only wish” in the passage before; what Fazang's outline here is tied to is the ten clauses of setting forth his intent within seeing him, paying reverence and setting forth his request. The outlines of the two masters are each tied to their own text; neither replaces the other.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing these ten clauses are a courtesy. These ten clauses are exactly what he has gained walking the whole way through the twenty good friends before — the more one has gained, the more concrete what one asks. Bringing it to the ground: when one cannot ask a good question, it is usually not that one is insufficiently humble, but that one has not yet thought out what one wants.

The Elder Praises Him First: What He Praises Is Not the Question but That Mind

The elder’s first words are not an answer but a praising: “It is good! It is good! Son of good family! You have actually been able to give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.”

Why is it the setting of the mind that is praised, and not the fineness of the question? Because within this assembly, the Dharma conferred by all the good friends takes the setting of the mind for its root. What Sudhana asked about was practice and path, but the elder points first to the first clause within his asking — “I have already given rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi” — and that is the reason he is able to stand here.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing this is merely an opening politeness. At the end of this section, when the elder tells of the benefit of the Elephant Store perfume, he says, “Knowing that this had come about, I expounded the Dharma for them, causing them to give rise decisively to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi” — head and tail both come to rest on the setting of the mind. Bringing it to the ground: the point a teacher affirms in you first is very often the very point he means to teach you.

The General Statement of What He Knows: A Man Who Sells Perfumes Knows Perfume in Four Layers

The elder’s conferring of the Dharma begins with a general statement. Chengguan, outlining this passage, judges it as four rounds, saying, “First, knowing that perfumes differ in substance; second, from ‘he is further skilled at clearly knowing’ downward, distinguishing differences by kind; third, from ‘he is further skilled at distinguishing’ downward, knowing that they differ in power and function — the former two are with respect to the worldly, this one takes in the world-transcending as well; fourth, from ‘perfumes such as these’ downward, clarifying the fathoming of root and branch to the end.”

The first layer is substance: all perfumes, perfumes for burning, perfumes for anointing, perfumes ground to powder — these are the four fashionings of perfume. The second layer is kind: the places from which the kings among perfumes come forth, together with the perfumes of the gods, of the dragons, of the yakṣas, and on to those of the gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, humans and nonhumans — these are sorted by where they come from. The third layer is power and function: curing illness, cutting off evil, giving rise to joy, increasing the afflictions, extinguishing the afflictions, making one delight in and cling to the conditioned, making one weary of and turn from the conditioned, casting off arrogance and heedlessness, setting the mind on and being mindful of the buddhas, realizing and understanding the gates of Dharma, what the holy ones make use of, the distinctions among bodhisattvas, and the positions of the bodhisattvas — from worldly use it runs all the way to world-transcending use.

Within these three layers, the Yanyi chao gives each of the first two a further reading in terms of principle. In terms of phenomena it says, As with the first, knowing that perfumes differ in substance, this can be known in terms of phenomena. In terms of principle it says, As for perfume that is burned, it means that by the fire of knowledge the myriad practices are set blazing forth, since they reach everywhere. As for perfume that is smeared on, it is blended with the water of the purity of the nature, since it adorns the Dharma body. As for powdered perfume, it is ground by adamantine knowledge, so that it is made to have nothing real. That is, knowledge and the purity of the nature and the rest are taken as the place from which they arise. Burning is the fire of knowledge setting the myriad practices blazing forth so that they reach everywhere; anointing is blending with the water of the purity of the nature so as to adorn the Dharma body; powdering is grinding by adamantine knowledge so that it is made to have nothing real. The three fashionings are each matched to one gate in terms of the Dharma, and the place from which they arise is knowledge together with the purity of the nature. For the second layer, distinguishing differences by kind, the Yanyi chao likewise has a reading in terms of principle, saying, perfume is just the practice of habitual tendencies; the cause of a god is that the habitual tendencies of a god perfume and kindle it into fruition — what divides the kinds is habitual tendencies: a god's perfume is a god's perfume because the habitual tendencies of a god perfume and kindle it into fruition. And in the comprehensive matching of the five parts of the dharma-body further on, the Yanyi chao likewise ties its text down clause by clause, saying, Precepts and concentration can be known. The third: that the king and the four armies all rise into the sky is because knowledge realizes emptiness. The fourth: the mind being mindful of the Buddha is because one is freed from the five desires. The fifth: gathering to listen to the Dharma is knowing and seeing. This is not a loose matching of a set of headings but one part tied to one clause: wisdom tied to rising into the sky, liberation to being mindful of the Buddha, the knowing and seeing of liberation to gathering to listen to the Dharma.

Why divide out these three layers? Because the three words ‘skilled at distinguishing and knowing’ must have content. Chengguan points out here the way of reading this whole unit, saying, “Now, the first. Knowing the various worldly perfumes serves to signify the perfume of the Dharma; that is, by the perfumes of precepts, concentration, wisdom, kindness and compassion, and the rest, one perfumes and cultivates so as to give birth to the wholesome and to extinguish the habit-energies of evil” — the worldly perfumes he knows signify the perfumes that belong to the Dharma.

Chengguan also matches the two clauses of the general statement separately: “As for knowing all perfumes well, that is the practice of differentiation. As for also knowing how to blend them, that is the practice of merging and penetrating” — being skilled at distinguishing and knowing all perfumes is the practice of differentiation, knowing each perfume one by one in its substance, its kind, and its function; also knowing how to blend them is the practice of merging and penetrating, blending the several perfumes into a single pellet. The two practices are not two steps in sequence; they are two faces of one thing: without the knowing that differentiates, merging becomes mere confusion; without the practice that merges, differentiation becomes mere scattering. He then says how they are blended: “One grinds them with an adamantine pestle, and the prajñā-pāramitā of the mark of the real blends them, so that pure and mixed are unobstructed and compassion and knowledge are perfectly merged, and thereby dedication is accomplished” — what is ground away is the barrier of each perfume keeping to its own nature, the hand that blends is the prajñā of the mark of the real, pure and mixed unobstructed, compassion and knowledge perfectly merged: this is what is called dedication. Bringing it to the reading: this position is the dedication of rescuing and guarding all beings while free of the mark of beings; rescuing is the practice of differentiation (each being with its own suffering, one by one), being free of the mark is the practice of merging (seeing no mark of a being to be rescued), and the two at once are precisely this single pellet of perfume.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing the first two layers are idle writing and only the third is Buddha-Dharma. Chengguan states plainly that the former two are with respect to the worldly and the third takes in the world-transcending as well — that worldly passage cannot be skipped, because world-transcending knowing is precisely what is distinguished, step by step, up out of worldly knowing. Bringing it to the ground: only one who can distinguish the differences of the world can distinguish the differences beyond it; whoever cannot tell good perfume from bad cannot tell good things from evil ones.

Fathoming Root and Branch to the End: To What Degree Must One Know a Thing?

The last clause of the general statement gathers it all in: “Perfumes such as these — their forms and marks, their arising, their coming forth, their being brought to completion, their purity, their ease and security, their skillful means, their objective realms, their majestic virtue and working, and their very root — all such matters as these I have penetrated through and through.” Ten matters are laid out in a row: forms and marks, arising, coming forth, completion, purity, ease and security, skillful means, objective realms, majestic virtue, and root; the scripture text sets out the word ‘working’ separately after ‘majestic virtue,’ but Chengguan judges that “as for the one item of working, its sense runs through the previous seven,” and does not set it up as a separate matter, and so the number of ten matters is reached.

Why set up this string? Chengguan calls this round “clarifying the fathoming of root and branch to the end,” and uses it further on to read the first of the perfumes — this string is not a heaping up of adjectives but a set of headings for inspection: from what it looks like, to how it arises, how it comes forth, how it is brought to completion, all the way to asking what its root is.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that “I have penetrated through and through” is a boast. Right beneath this clause come the ten perfumes: the Elephant Store perfume tells this string of ten in full, and of the other nine Chengguan says the remaining nine perfumes should all possess the ten of Dharma and likeness, but because it is abbreviated there are only two or three — they should possess them and the text abbreviates; it is not that they lack them. Bringing it to the ground: the standard for saying one understands something lies just here — if one cannot tell of its arising and its root, one merely knows its name.

As for how many headings the method of knowing perfume is to be set up under, Fazang has a set of his own. With respect to the text of the sixty-fascicle version he sets up ten senses, saying, clarifying that knowing the sense of the method of perfumes has ten kinds: first, knowing that from which it arises; second, knowing where its fragrance reaches; third, knowing the benefit accomplished once it has reached; fourth, the completeness of what it does; fifth, its being able to bring joy and purity; sixth, its causing one to leave vexation and be at ease; seventh, skillful means of entering the Dharma; eighth, the bounds of what is known; ninth, the practice and action performed; tenth, the ultimate root. From that from which it arises, where its fragrance reaches, and the benefit accomplished once it has reached, it runs on to the bounds of what is known, the practice and action performed, and the ultimate root. This set and Chengguan's ten matters of root and branch are alike ten headings but differ in the headings themselves: Chengguan's ten matters run from forms and marks to the root, Fazang's ten senses from that from which it arises to the ultimate root, and the angle taken by the headings in between differs as well. As for the disposal of the remaining perfumes, Fazang's sense is the same as Chengguan's, saying, The Ox Head perfume and the rest, nine kinds, each likewise has the ten senses; because the text keeps them brief, there are two or three or so; take them as modeled on this — they should possess the ten senses and the text keeps them brief. The ten of each master forms its own set; recorded without adjudication.

Zhiyan, reading the sixty-fascicle version, sets up an outline of his own for the causes from which what is known arises. He says, knowing the causes from which perfume arises, there are ten causes: the first is establishing; second, that for whose sake; third, the completion of the Dharma; fourth, the completeness of all the parts; fifth, being without fault; sixth, virtue accomplished and unmoving; seventh, skillful means and marks set forth; eighth, the bounds; ninth, completing the preceding matter; tenth, the place from which it comes — the first is establishing, the second that for whose sake, the third the completion of the Dharma, the fourth the completeness of all the parts, the fifth being without fault, the sixth virtue accomplished and unmoving, the seventh skillful means and marks set forth, the eighth the bounds, the ninth completing the preceding matter, the tenth the place from which it comes. What these ten ask after is the arising-cause: why a perfume comes to be the perfume it is, from establishing and that for whose sake on to completing the preceding matter and the place from which it comes. Zhiyan's ten causes, Fazang's ten senses of the method of perfumes, and Chengguan's ten matters of root and branch are all ten in all three masters while differing in their headings, and the sequence each takes and what each faces toward differ as well; the three sets stand side by side, recorded without adjudication.

The Elephant Store Perfume: The One Fully Worked-Out Demonstration

The first perfume is told at the greatest length. It comes forth in the human world, “born because dragons fight”; burn one pellet and a great perfume cloud rises and spreads over the royal capital, and for seven days a fine rain of perfume falls; touching the body it turns the body the color of gold, and touching clothing, palaces and storeyed pavilions it turns these the color of gold too; when the wind carries it into the palace, the beings who smell it are for seven days and seven nights filled with joy, happy in body and mind, without the various illnesses, not harming one another, far from sorrows and pains, not startled and not frightened, not confused and not angry, turning toward one another with minds of kindness, their aims and thoughts pure. The closing clause is: “Knowing that this had come about, I expounded the Dharma for them, causing them to give rise decisively to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.”

Why must the first perfume be told in such detail? Because it is the demonstration. Chengguan matches it clause by clause to the string of root and branch set out above, saying, “The first, the Elephant Store perfume, possesses the ten matters of root and branch given above: first, merely to speak the name of a perfume is necessarily to have its form and marks; second, the fighting of dragons is its arising; third, the rising of the cloud is its coming forth; fourth, the raining of rain is its being brought to completion; fifth, the color of gold is its purity; sixth, joy and happiness are its ease and security; seventh, being without illness and the rest are its skillful means; eighth, minds of kindness and the rest are its objective realms; ninth, purity of thought is its majestic virtue — as for the one item of working, its sense runs through the previous seven; tenth, from ‘knowing that this had come about’ downward is its root, since its root is for the sake of the mind of awakening.”

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the closing clause “and I expounded the Dharma for them” is an incidental conclusion. Chengguan judges it to be the tenth, the root — the nine matters before it are matters of perfume, and only the tenth matter is the reason this passage exists at all: the use of every perfume is rooted in leading people to give rise to the mind of awakening. Bringing it to the ground: if in reading this passage one reads only that ‘the perfume is potent,’ one has read it as a marvel; the clause of the root stands at the very end.

A Second Way of Reading the Elephant Store Perfume: Put the Mind of Awakening in Place of the Perfume

To the same passage Chengguan also gives a second reading. He says, “If the ten senses are displayed with respect to the mind of awakening, then the perfume of the mind of awakening resembles the Tathāgata-womb, and is born because good and evil attack one another. Once the mind is set, a cloud of kindness rises and pours down a rain of Dharma; those whom the mind reaches are made to return to what is true and pure, gaining the joy and happiness of the Dharma and leaving behind the suffering of delusion and karma, and so kindness rises on and on and aims and vows are made wholly pure.”

Put otherwise: born because dragons fight becomes setting the mind because good and evil attack one another; the perfume cloud rising and the rain of perfume falling becomes the cloud of kindness rising and the rain of Dharma pouring down; the touching of the body turning it gold becomes those whom the mind reaches being made to return to what is true and pure; joy and freedom from illness becomes gaining the joy and happiness of the Dharma and leaving behind the suffering of delusion and karma; minds of kindness turned toward one another and aims and thoughts pure becomes kindness rising on and on and aims and vows made wholly pure.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing this is a forced fitting. Chengguan first sets up the headings of the ten matters, and then says that the same set of headings may be read once with respect to phenomena and once with respect to the Dharma — it is not a substitution, but two layers of the same passage of text. Bringing it to the ground: if one cannot read out of the phenomena the scripture speaks of the layer that belongs to the Dharma, then those seven days and seven nights and golden perfume clouds are merely a curiosity.

The Ox Head Perfume: Smeared on the Body, One Enters Fire and Is Not Burned — This Is Patience

The second perfume comes forth on Mount Malaya, is a sandalwood perfume, and is named Ox Head; anoint the body with it and even should one enter a pit of fire, the fire cannot reach him.

Why raise this instance? Chengguan matches it directly to a gate of practice, saying, “As for Malaya, it is the name of a country, since that country has much of this perfume. This then is the perfume of patience: the fire of anger does not burn.” The pit of fire is an outward matter; anger is an inward fire. One who can anoint himself with this perfume is not burned by the outward fire, nor by the inward fire either.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing this is a magic art for guarding the body. The scripture text has the clause “even should one enter a pit of fire,” and the word ‘should’ is a word of supposition — the point is not really going and leaping into fire, but whether one has that one perfume upon one’s body. Bringing it to the ground: to test whether one has patience there is no need to wait for a great matter; look at the instant one is offended against, and see whether the fire has started up.

The Unconquerable Perfume: Smeared on a Drum, the Enemy Armies Withdraw of Themselves

The third perfume comes forth in the ocean and is named Unconquerable; smear it on drums and conches and shells, and when the sound goes forth, all the enemy armies scatter of themselves.

What Chengguan matches to it is vigor, saying, “The third then is the perfume of vigor: the armies of demons scatter.” So the ‘enemy armies’ of this passage are, in the Dharma, the armies of demons; and their scattering is not by fighting but by sound — once the drum sounds, the other side disperses of itself.

For this same perfume, what Li Tongxuan matches to it is not vigor. Reading it by the sequence of the ten abidings, he says, it clarifies that in the abiding of cultivating practice, by the accomplishment of forbearance toward dharmas, one turns back and enters the ocean of birth-and-death to teach and transform sentient beings. With a mind of patient endurance one hears the drum of all sounds good and evil, and evil, perversity and hostile foes of themselves retreat and scatter. What is accomplished is forbearance toward dharmas, and with it one turns back and enters the ocean of birth-and-death to teach and transform beings; what makes the foes retreat is the mind of patient endurance — hearing all sounds good and evil as one hears the sound of a drum, the mind does not follow after them, and evil, perversity and hostile foes of themselves retreat and scatter. Chengguan ties this perfume to vigor, Li Tongxuan ties it to forbearance toward dharmas; the one takes the power and function of sound and speaks of vigor, the other takes hearing sound without being moved and speaks of forbearance. Both glosses are recorded without adjudication.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that vigor means gritting one’s teeth. What this passage displays is perfume smeared on a drum so that a sound goes forth; the strength lies in the perfume, not in the drum — if vigor is only clenching the jaw, that is the drum sounding. Only where the perfume is does the sound have that strength. Bringing it to the ground: real vigor is not driving oneself very tight; it is that the matter itself has acquired a fragrance, so that those who hear it withdraw of themselves.

The Lotus Store Perfume: One Pellet the Size of a Sesame Seed, Perfuming All Jambudvīpa

The fourth perfume comes forth on the shore of Lake Anavatapta, is an aloeswood perfume, and is named Lotus Store; one pellet is only the size of a sesame seed, yet when it is burned its fragrance perfumes the whole realm of Jambudvīpa, and the beings who smell it leave every offense behind and their portion of the precepts is pure.

From this one onward Chengguan gives a comprehensive matching, saying, “The next five, in order, are the perfumes of the five parts of the dharma-body” — the fourth through the eighth are matched in order to precepts, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowing and seeing of liberation, the five parts of the dharma-body. And so this fourth one corresponds to precepts; the scripture text’s closing clause, “they leave every offense behind, and their portion of the precepts is pure,” tallies exactly.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that the precepts are a list of prohibitions, one by one, the more the weightier. What this passage takes up is just the reverse: one pellet the size of a sesame seed perfumes a whole realm — and Chengguan, glossing the selling of perfumes, likewise says, “Though the substance of a perfume is small, the fragrance it gives off spreads far; though a root of goodness is slight, dedication makes it reach everywhere.” Bringing it to the ground: the precepts lie not in quantity but in truth; one small matter genuinely upheld carries its scent further than a long string of regulations.

The Aruṇa Perfume: Smelled, the Mind Decisively Leaves Defilement Behind

The fifth perfume is in the Snow Mountains and is named Aruṇa; when a being smells it, his mind decisively leaves behind the various defiled attachments, and the elder expounds the Dharma for them, and there are none who do not attain the samādhi of freedom from defilement.

According to Chengguan’s comprehensive matching, this fifth one corresponds to concentration. The scripture text states two layers very clearly: first, smelling the perfume and the mind leaving defiled attachment behind; afterward, the expounding of the Dharma and the attaining of the samādhi of freedom from defilement — the perfume does only the first step, and it is the Dharma that accomplishes the second.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that attaining concentration is some state appearing before one. The sequence of this passage is first the leaving behind of defiled attachment and afterward the attaining of samādhi — if defiled attachment is not left behind, samādhi has nowhere to stand. Bringing it to the ground: when you cannot sit still, do not ask about concentration first; ask what the mind is sticking to.

The Ocean Store Perfume: Furnished Only for a Wheel-Turning King

The sixth perfume is in the realm of the rākṣasas and is named Ocean Store; this perfume is furnished only for the use of a wheel-turning king, and if one pellet is burned and used to perfume him, the king together with his four kinds of troops all rise up into empty space.

According to the comprehensive matching, this one corresponds to wisdom. The scripture text points out expressly that “this perfume is furnished only for the use of a wheel-turning king” — it is not something all people can make use of.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that ‘only a king can use it’ means the Dharma is partial. What this passage displays is correspondence: only the position of a wheel-turning king is fit to receive this perfume, just as only a vessel that corresponds to it is fit to receive this Dharma. Bringing it to the ground: one and the same clause of Dharma, spoken to different people, has effects as far apart as heaven and earth — it is not that the Dharma makes distinctions, but that the one receiving it has or has not arrived at that position.

The Pure Adornment Perfume: Making the Minds of All the Gods Mindful of the Buddha

The seventh perfume is in the Heaven of Good Dharma and is named Pure Adornment; burn one pellet and use it to perfume, and it makes the minds of all the gods everywhere mindful of the Buddha.

According to the comprehensive matching, this one corresponds to liberation. What the first six perfumes accomplish is mostly a matter of the body and a matter within the realms — the color of gold, not being burned, driving back the enemy, purity in the portion of the precepts, rising into the sky; among them the fifth, the Aruṇa perfume, has already come down upon the mind, and the scripture text says “their minds decisively leave behind the various defiled attachments,” but what it comes down upon is a leaving-behind. At this one, what comes down upon the mind turns into a returning-to: being mindful of the Buddha.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that mindfulness of the Buddha is a beginner’s gate of practice. This passage stands seventh among the ten perfumes, and by the comprehensive matching it answers to liberation; the Yanyi chao says, “fourth, the mind mindful of the Buddha, because it is freed from the five desires.” The scripture states one condition only — this perfume burned and its fragrance spread, “it makes all the gods mindful of the Buddha”; the scripture does not say that the six before it must first be carried out before mindfulness of the Buddha has its turn. Bringing it to the ground: mindfulness of the Buddha is set here in the place of being freed from the five desires; in reading, look at what it is matched to, and do not add a sequence the scripture does not give.

The Pure Store Perfume: The Gods Gather Like Clouds and Hear One Dharma Together

The eighth perfume is in the Suyāma Heaven and is named Pure Store; burn one pellet and use it to perfume, and there are none among the gods of the Yāma Heaven who do not gather like clouds where their heavenly king is and hear the Dharma together.

According to the comprehensive matching, this one corresponds to the knowing and seeing of liberation. The previous one “makes all the gods mindful of the Buddha”; this one has “the gods of the Yāma Heaven, none failing to gather like clouds where their king is, to hear the Dharma together” — in both it is the gods who benefit, and the difference lies between mindfulness of the Buddha and gathering to hear the Dharma.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that hearing the Dharma is a passive matter. What the scripture text uses is “there are none who do not gather like clouds” — the perfume only perfumes; the coming is their own coming. Bringing it to the ground: whether a place has the Dharma is seen not in whether someone is expounding, but in whether anyone comes walking there of himself.

The Saindhava Perfume: Burned Before the Seat of a Bodhisattva Bound by One More Birth

The ninth perfume is in the Tuṣita Heaven and is named Saindhava; burn one pellet of it before the seat of a bodhisattva bound by one more birth, and a great perfume cloud rises and covers the Dharma realm throughout, raining down everywhere all manner of offerings and making offerings to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.

Chengguan has a separate gloss on this name, saying, “Saindhava is one name for four real things; here it is fitting to use it for salt, since the perfume resembles this” — one name refers to four things in common, and in use one takes what suits the occasion; here what is taken is the one among them that resembles a perfume. As for what it signifies, Chengguan says, “The ninth then is the perfume of tallying with the Dharma realm.” The scripture text says the perfume cloud “covers the Dharma realm throughout,” and that is precisely the sense of tallying with the Dharma realm.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that “covers the Dharma realm throughout” is a way of saying there is a great deal of perfume. The reason this perfume can pervade lies in the place where it is burned — before the seat of a bodhisattva bound by one more birth; because the place where it is burned already stands within the mind of the Dharma realm, the cloud that rises from it corresponds to the Dharma realm. Bringing it to the ground: how far a thing reaches is seen not in its volume, but in where it issues from.

The Snatching Away the Mind Perfume: For Seven Days It Rains Down Adornments Everywhere

The tenth perfume is in the Heaven of Good Transformation and is named Snatching Away the Mind; burn one pellet and for seven days it rains down all manner of adornments everywhere.

Chengguan sets up the sense from the name, saying, “The tenth is the perfume of forgetting grasper and grasped, and so it is named snatching away the mind” — snatching away the mind means that even the very notion of grasper and grasped is snatched away. And so this one is placed last: in the previous nine there is still one who knows and a perfume that is known; at this one, knowing and what is known are both exhausted.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that “snatching away the mind” means losing consciousness. What this passage manifests is a raining down of all manner of adornments everywhere for seven days — what is snatched away is the clinging to grasper and grasped, not perception; and it is precisely because grasper and grasped are both forgotten that what is rained down is inexhaustible. Bringing it to the ground: at the very end of doing something, the hardest thing to set down is not the thing done, but the ‘I am doing it.’

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: He Admits Knowing Only One Thing

The ten perfumes told, the elder gathers it into one clause: “Son of good family! I know only this method of blending perfumes.” Then he turns to speak of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas — leaving behind all the various evil habit-energies, not defiled by the desires of the world, cutting off forever the snares of the afflictions and the hosts of demons, passing beyond the various destinies of existence, adorning themselves with the perfume of wisdom, having no defiled attachment whatever to the various worlds, fully accomplishing the precepts that have nothing to which they are attached, purifying the knowledge that has nothing to which it is attached, walking in the objective realm that has nothing to which it is attached, in every place whatsoever having nothing to which they cling, their minds equal, without attachment and without dependence; and at the end he sets off five questions in a row: how could I know their wondrous practice? Or tell of their merit and virtue? Or display all the gates of pure precepts they possess? Or reveal the faultless deeds they perform? Or distinguish their practice of body, speech, and mind, which is free of defilement?

Why must this passage be here? Because it is the main theme of the position to which this section is assigned. This one is matched to the dedication of rescuing and guarding all sentient beings while free of the mark of sentient beings. Reading according to the sequence of the scripture text: the ten perfumes before this tell, passage after passage, of what perfume benefits in beings, and this passage lets fall six words for attachment in a row to speak of having nothing to which one is attached. What is known is perfume; what is pointed to as superior is having nothing to which one is attached.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that humbling oneself is politeness. What the elder says is not ‘I understand little’ but ‘what I understand is only this one gate’ — only because what he knows has a boundary can he point beyond it to the realm of those who have none. Bringing it to the ground: only the person who can say clearly where his own boundary lies really knows what he knows.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: The Shipmaster Sovereign in the City of Storeyed Pavilions in the South

At the last the elder points out the road: south of here is a great city named Storeyed Pavilions, and in the city is a shipmaster named Sovereign; go and ask him how a bodhisattva is to study the bodhisattva’s practice and cultivate the bodhisattva’s path.

Why should one who sells perfumes be followed by one who sails a ship? The scripture text does not itself say. What can be seen is that the clause of what is asked is not altered by a single word — what Sudhana asked the elder is this very clause, and what the elder teaches him to ask the next one is still this very clause. Through more than fifty stations, the question is from first to last one and the same.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that one changes teachers because the previous one has finished teaching. The elder has just said that he knows only one gate — it is not that he has finished teaching, but that he has only this one gate. Bringing it to the ground: only a teacher willing to point a person elsewhere is a real teacher.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave: A Farewell in a Single Clause

The last passage is extremely short: at that time Sudhana the youth bowed to the elder’s feet, circled him measureless times, gazed up at him with earnest longing, and only then took his leave and departed.

Why so short? This whole section runs to something over twelve hundred graphs, and in bulk it belongs among the simpler of this assembly’s good-friend units; the text of the taking of leave is simple accordingly. Yet all four matters are present: bowing, circling, gazing up, and departing.

A misreading to be cleared away: supposing that short means abbreviated. The four words “gazed up with earnest longing” are the last action before departing — the man is already about to go, and his eyes are still looking. Bringing it to the ground: the truest moment at the close of a period of study often lies not in the gaining of the Dharma, but in that one glance before turning away.

Lineage

Of the text of this section, three lines open out from it.

The first is the line of glossing the name. Chengguan sets up a sense from the word ‘sell,’ saying, “As for the selling of perfumes: to sell is to vend. Though the substance of a perfume is small, the fragrance it gives off spreads far; though a root of goodness is slight, dedication makes it reach everywhere. Moreover, whether one sells or buys, both alike obtain the perfume; the roots of goodness of self and of others may alike be dedicated” — taking the two sides of buying and selling to liken how the roots of goodness of self and of others may alike be dedicated. Li Tongxuan takes a different angle, laying weight on the method of blending perfumes, saying, “Further, by well knowing the Dharma gate of the many perfumes, he blends aromatic drugs to serve for selling and vending, thereby signifying that dedication blends knowledge and compassion, birth-and-death and nirvāṇa, and the discriminating notions of defiled and pure, altogether forming a single pellet of the perfume of concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowing and seeing of liberation,” and, taking the single pellet of blended perfume for a likeness, says, “Blending perfume in this way — with the many perfumes blended into a single pellet, they aid and benefit one another, all are without intrinsic nature, none loses its own virtue, and sameness and difference are sovereign.” Both masters liken the selling of perfumes to dedication, and the angle from which each takes the likeness differs; recorded without adjudication.

The second is the line of the blue lotus. As for the elder’s name, Chengguan gives it as the Elder Blue Lotus, and glosses its sense, saying, “As for the blue lotus: the lotus dwells in the mire and yet is undefiled, just as one guards beings and yet is free of the mark. The blue lotus is the highest among things in the water, and rescuing and guarding is the most honored among those who enter birth-and-death.” Li Tongxuan likewise takes the likeness of dwelling in the mire undefiled, but what he ties it to differs a little, saying, “It signifies practice that is defiled neither by birth-and-death nor by nirvāṇa, and that within the two, being not two, is not soiled,” and further, “Just as the blue lotus flower must be born within mire and turbid water, and yet is not defiled by the nature of mire and water, and its color and fragrance are foremost.” Zhiyan gives it as Blue Lotus Perfume; the forty-fascicle version gives it as Utpala Fully Endowed; the sixty-fascicle version gives it as the Elder Blue Lotus Perfume — while within this passage of the base text the elder’s name does not appear at all. The names and glosses of the several masters stand side by side; recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the sequence of positions. Li Tongxuan sets the first of three positions side by side, saying, “Just as the first of the ten abidings, by the Wondrous Peak, signifies markless wisdom, and the first of the ten practices, by the monk of the country of Three Eyes, signifies clarifying practice and coming out of entanglement, so the first of the ten dedications, by the elder who blends perfumes, signifies dedication blending and merging knowledge and compassion, the myriad practices, nirvāṇa and birth-and-death”; and glossing the name of the country he says, “That the country is named Vast and Great is because he vastly raises up great vows and sets practice going without bound, gathering in all kinds of beings everywhere.” Chengguan, for his part, matches vast and great to the three places of dedication. Zhiyan judges that the ten good friends from here on correspond to the positions of the ten dedications. The position the three masters judge is the same, while what each says is the reason for it differs; recorded without adjudication.

Of the precept-substance of the three positions Li Tongxuan also speaks together: in the ten abidings, contemplating the twelve links of dependent arising in the ocean of birth-and-death as the root of the nature's own purity, with the Buddha's knowledge alone as the precept-substance; in the ten practices, the arts and crafts, the dharmas of marks, the arts of reckoning, and the skills of the world that benefit beings as the precept-substance; in the ten dedications, entering the conventional from the real, dwelling in the ocean of birth-and-death and leading beings so as to accomplish the practice of kindness and compassion, as the precept-substance — thus the cultivation of the precepts in the three positions has in each its sameness and difference and its rule of advancing upward. The precept-substance is one and the same, yet the ten abidings take contemplation of the principle, the ten practices take the skills that benefit beings, the ten dedications take entering the conventional and leading beings: the further the position advances, the more the precepts open toward beings. This is Li Tongxuan's reading by position, and belongs to him.

In the text of this one section, the first half is ten worldly perfumes and the second half is a string of ‘nothing to which one is attached.’ The more solidly perfume is told, the more securely having nothing to which one is attached can be established — the sequence of this section lies wholly in this one turning away.

Sudhana’s Twenty-Second Teacher Is a Ship’s Captain

Among the good friends before this one there have been monks, laywomen, elders, and householders. At this one, the scripture text gives a single station and nothing more — a shipmaster, a man who stands upon the sea-shore outside the city gate with a hundred thousand merchants about him, putting out to sea. And the Dharma he speaks is the very trade by which he eats: where the islands of jewels lie, where there are dragon palaces to be avoided, how the color of the water is to be read, how the set of the wind is to be watched for, whether the planking is iron or wood, whether the gear runs stiff or smooth.

One misreading must be cleared away first: this is not ‘taking a worldly art as an expedient and then teaching a little Dharma alongside it.’ When the scripture text has told this whole trade out at length, it gathers it up with one sentence only: “Because I have accomplished wisdom such as this, I am constantly able to benefit all sentient beings.” — the trade itself is the very wisdom that has been accomplished. Chengguan, in reading this passage, says outright of these names of sea-matters that the sense of the ocean of birth and death and of the ocean of the Dharma is present in every one of them, and states plainly that he is glossing them with reference to the ocean of birth and death.

Bringing it to the ground: what is to be read in this section is how a man turns his whole trade into a practice that does not leave birth and death and yet ferries beings across it. The whole unit runs to one thousand three hundred and eighty-three graphs, and has no verse.

Contemplating the Road: What He Is Looking At While He Walks

This section begins not with a meeting but with walking. And the passage of that walking the scripture text writes out in fine detail: he contemplates the road’s high and low, its level and its steep, its clean and its foul, its crooked and its straight — four items in one set.

Why write these four? Chengguan gives a figurative reading of the four gates, saying that the path of a buddha is the high and all the rest are the low; that birth-and-death and nirvāṇa are the level and the steep; that having obstruction and being without it are the foul and the clean; that the two vehicles are the crooked and the bodhisattva is the straight — high and low is the division, among the paths one may head for, between the path of a buddha and the other paths; level and steep is the division between birth-and-death and nirvāṇa; clean and foul is the division between having obstruction and being without it; crooked and straight is the division between the two vehicles and the bodhisattva. To look these four items over is to see clearly ‘which one it is that I am walking now.’

The Yanyi chao, re-examining this passage, says that Chengguan’s commentary only briefly shows their marks and does not say the rest, and that to tell the marks of contemplation in full there are many senses: first, with reference to the mark of the indestructible, then among the gates five are such as may be relied upon and five are such as may not; second, with reference to the nature of the indestructible, then one does not see high and low, and there is no level and steep and the rest. The chao also records that the new translation has here ten matters in five pairs, while the present scripture has four pairs only, lacking the fourth, safety and danger — and the four pairs of the eighty-fascicle version are just the four items contemplated in this section.

Clear away a misreading: to take this for a realistic touch about traveling that may be passed over. If it were realism, why contemplate only these four and not how far, how wide? Bringing it to the ground: before setting out, to see clearly which kind the road beneath one’s feet belongs to matters more than walking fast.

The Ten Causes of the Path: Why the Good Friend Is Worth Seeking in This Way

On the road there is one thing he holds in mind — the good friend. The scripture text runs ten clauses down in the pattern “the good friend is the cause of accomplishing the cultivation of … the path”: the paths of all the bodhisattvas, the path of the perfections, the path of gathering in sentient beings, the path of entering everywhere into the Dharma realm without obstruction, putting away bad understanding, leaving arrogance behind, extinguishing the afflictions, casting off the various views, pulling out every evil thorn, arriving at the city of omniscient knowledge — ten clauses when counted graph by graph.

The ten clauses are to be read in three stretches: the first four say that the good friend is the cause of ‘accomplishing what path’ — the paths of the bodhisattvas, the path of the perfections, the path of gathering in sentient beings, the path of entering everywhere into the Dharma realm without obstruction; the middle five say that the good friend is the cause of ‘causing all sentient beings to put away what’ — putting away bad understanding, leaving arrogance behind, extinguishing the afflictions, casting off the various views, pulling out every evil thorn; and the last one names no putting away but an arriving — “causing all sentient beings to arrive at the city of omniscient knowledge.” The first stretch is what is accomplished, the middle what is cured, the last what is entered upon; only the three together are the whole of the ten clauses.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that holding the good friend in mind is gratitude and fond remembrance. The scripture text goes straight on to ask and answer for itself, “why is it said so,” and the answer is that at the place of the good friend one obtains all good dharmas, and that relying on the strength of the good friend one obtains the path of omniscient knowledge — what is held in mind is a “cause,” not a feeling. Bringing it to the ground: in judging a good friend, do not look at whether he makes you comfortable; look at whether he is the cause of these ten things.

Hard to See and Hard to Meet: These Four Graphs Are the Reason for Everything That Follows

The ten clauses told over, the scripture text gives one conclusion only: “The good friend, such a person, is hard to see and hard to meet.”

Why hard? The scripture text does not say directly. But the manner of this assembly is already answering: Sudhana walks station by station, and at every one he must go in person to see, to ask, and to pay respects. Chengguan, on the outline of this very passage, says that what is gained at this position is precisely that toward the bodhisattva Dharma-master one gains an indestructible faith — and that indestructible faith is set up upon just these four graphs, hard to see and hard to meet: only by knowing how hard it is will one not take the one already met for a thing owed.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “hard to see and hard to meet” says that good friends are few in number. If it were only fewness, one need but walk through a few more cities; what the scripture text calls hard lies not in the number but in meeting one and being able to recognize him, and to rely on him. Bringing it to the ground: these four graphs are the reason for all the paying of respects, the gazing up, and the weeping later in this section, and are not a figure of speech.

Seeing, Paying Respects, and Inquiring: He Is Outside the City Gate, Not Inside the City

Sudhana reaches the city, and the place where he sees this good friend the scripture text writes with precision — “dwelling upon the sea-shore outside the city gate.” Not in a house within the city, not in a monastery, but on that strip of shore between the city and the ocean, a hundred thousand merchants about him, expounding the dharma of the great ocean.

Upon the two graphs for sea-shore Chengguan lays down two tiers of turning words, saying that as for his being seen upon the sea-shore, if one takes the ocean to be the Dharma of the buddhas, then birth-and-death is this shore, and he is there because he does not cast off birth and death; and if one takes the ocean to be birth-and-death, then cultivating the cause by great compassion is this shore, and he abides in great kindness and compassion so as to make beings leave the cause behind — take the Buddha-dharma for the ocean, and birth-and-death is this shore, and his standing on this shore is for the sake of not casting off birth and death; take birth-and-death for the ocean, and cultivating the cause by great compassion is this shore, and his standing on this shore is for the sake of making beings leave the cause of suffering. What the two tiers of reading come home to is one and the same thing: he does not go into the city, and he does not go out onto the ocean; he stands right at the joining of them. Li Tongxuan reads this clause in the same direction, saying that he constantly overlooks the shore of the ocean of birth and death and draws beings in.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the seaside is chosen because that is where his trade is. The scripture text writes ‘outside the city gate’ on purpose, and does not write ‘on the ship.’ Bringing it to the ground: the position from which one takes people in is often not one’s own safest place, but that strip of shore where the coming and the going meet.

Sudhana’s Question: Before Asking for the Dharma, He Reports His Own Position

Sudhana’s words of requesting the Dharma take this form before most of the good friends of this assembly: first he says, “I have already first given rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi,” and then he says, “and yet I still do not know: how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva? How is he to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?”

There is a reason for this sequence: to report first the mind that has been given rise to is to state one’s standing and direction in coming to ask; to ask afterward about studying and cultivating is to state that what is lacking is the route and not the aspiration. And the two questions are raised together — “study” is hearing and understanding, “cultivate” is practicing and upholding; lacking either, the question is not a whole question.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the former clause is a courtesy. If it were courtesy, the good friend’s answer would not take it up in its very first clause, “you have already been able to give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi” — what is answered is precisely what was reported. Bringing it to the ground: say clearly where you stand before you ask for the Dharma, and the one who answers will know where to take it up.

Praising and Conferring the Dharma: Every Clause You Have Asked Is a Cause of the Path

The shipmaster’s answer begins from praise. He takes this one question of Sudhana’s apart and praises it clause by clause, every clause closing on the graph for “cause.” The first five are: the cause that gives birth to great knowledge, the cause that cuts off all the sufferings of birth and death, the cause of going to that great island of jewels which is omniscient knowledge, the cause of accomplishing the mahāyāna that cannot be broken, the cause of leaving far behind the two vehicles’ dread of birth and death and abiding in the eddy of the samādhis of stillness — the first what knowledge is born from, the second what suffering is cut off by, the third the island of jewels headed for, the fourth the Great Vehicle accomplished, the fifth the sinking and sticking left far behind. The latter four all close on “the cause of the pure path,” and each has its own matter: the first, “riding the cart of great vows, practicing the bodhisattva practice everywhere without any obstruction” — the great vow being the cart, the practice reaches everywhere without hindrance; the second, “adorning with the bodhisattva practice that knowledge which nothing whatever is able to break” — the practice adorns the knowledge, and so the knowledge cannot be broken; the third, “contemplating everywhere all the dharmas of the ten directions as being without obstruction” — contemplating the dharmas of the ten directions everywhere and seeing them unobstructed; the fourth, “swiftly being able to enter upon the ocean of omniscient knowledge” — entering quickly the ocean of omniscient knowledge. Those clauses of the base text that close on the graph for “cause” number nine when counted graph by graph.

Chengguan judges this passage to have ten clauses, saying that first there is the praising of the question, praising his setting of the mind, and afterward his being able to ask about the Dharma; that the text has ten clauses, the first five being able to ask about the cause of the fruit and the latter five about the cause of the cause, and that this is why it says cause of the path — the commentary does not separately give the reason for its opening and closing up. Within the commentary he further glosses one sense among them, that of “the whirling eddy of samādhi,” saying that as for the whirling eddy of samādhi, the whirl means a deep eddy, sunken and not flowing; that the two vehicles sink into stillness and are stirred only after eighty thousand kalpas, and that therefore to leave this far behind is the bodhisattva path. The whirl is the eddy in the deep place, and what sinks into it no longer flows; the two vehicles sink into quiescence, and one stirring of them takes eighty thousand kalpas, and so it is said that to leave it far behind is the bodhisattva path. The ten of the commentary’s judgment and the nine clauses closing on “cause” in the base text — the difference of opening and closing up is set down and preserved. Li Tongxuan reads this clause not as “the whirl” but as “the turning back”: he says that leaving far behind the two vehicles’ dread of birth and death and abiding in the turning back of the samādhis of stillness makes clear that one is able by the samādhis of stillness to dwell within birth and death, turning back to benefit beings and not going out from birth and death. The one house takes it as sunken and not flowing, the other as turning back to benefit beings; both readings are set down and preserved.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that praise is a polite opening. This passage of praise is in fact handing Sudhana a list — this one question you have asked sets nine things in motion. Bringing it to the ground: whether a question is worth asking is seen from how many things it draws out.

The Practice of the Banner of Great Compassion: What the “Banner” in the Name Means

The main body of the answer starts from the setting forth of the name: “It is right here, upon the shore road of this city, that I purely cultivate the bodhisattva practice of the banner of great compassion.” The name of the Dharma gate is four graphs and no more.

Chengguan, glossing this name, divides it into the two tiers of name and substance, saying that first there is the setting forth of the name and substance, that is, great compassion surpassing and rising above, being that to which things return — a banner is a standard raised high, and it has two marks: first, that it rises above all other things; second, that the multitude look toward it and thereby know where to head. And so the reason great compassion is called a banner lies not in the depth of its pity but in its rising above every practice, and in its becoming the one thing by which beings recognize their direction. Li Tongxuan, for his part, sets up his account upon the precepts, calling this friend one who takes great kindness and compassion for the substance of the precepts and constantly moves back and forth within the ocean of birth and death to ferry beings across, and he rounds it off with “dwelling neither on this shore nor on the far shore.” What the two of them fasten to are, in the one case, compassion as that to which beings return, and in the other, compassion as the substance of the precepts.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “banner” is merely an ornament of adornment. If it were merely ornament, why would the scripture text name a Dharma gate with it? Bringing it to the ground: in testing one’s own mind of compassion, do not look at how much it stirs; look at whether others can find their road by it.

Converting and Delivering upon the Land: First the Goods of the World, Then the Wealth of the Dharma

The name of the Dharma gate having been set forth, the working of it is spoken of next. The working is spoken of upon the land first. The sequence of the scripture text is exceedingly clear: first he contemplates the poor and destitute beings, and for the sake of benefiting them cultivates all kinds of austere practice, and according to what they wish causes them all to be satisfied; “first, with the goods of the world, I fill their hearts full,” and then “I give the wealth of the Dharma, causing them to rejoice.” Below this the clauses run on headed by the graph for “causing,” from “causing them to rejoice” down to “causing them to enter the ocean of the knowledge of omniscient knowledge,” fourteen clauses when counted graph by graph, each with its own thing caused: causing them to rejoice, causing them to cultivate the practice of merit, causing them to give birth to the path of knowledge, causing them to increase the strength of their roots of good, causing them to raise up the mind of awakening, causing them to purify the vow of awakening, causing them to make firm the strength of great compassion, causing them to cultivate the path that can extinguish birth and death, causing them to give rise to the practice that does not weary of birth and death, causing them to gather in the ocean of all sentient beings, causing them to cultivate the ocean of all merit and virtue, causing them to illumine the ocean of all dharmas, causing them to behold the ocean of all buddhas, causing them to enter the ocean of the knowledge of omniscient knowledge. The first three make him rejoice and so raise up the practice of merit and the path of knowledge; the next four make him firm, step by step, in the strength of his roots of good, the mind of awakening, the vow of awakening, and the strength of great compassion; the next two are, the one, cultivating the path that can extinguish birth and death, and the other, giving rise to the practice that does not weary of birth and death — an extinguishing and a not-wearying set side by side and not at odds; and the last five all close on the graph for “ocean,” from gathering in the ocean of sentient beings, through cultivating the ocean of merit, illumining the ocean of dharmas, and beholding the ocean of buddhas, home at last to entering the ocean of the knowledge of omniscient knowledge.

This sequence is itself a teaching: first satisfy what he asks for, then give him what he ought to have. Turn it around, and the wealth of the Dharma, once given, cannot be caught; stop at the first half only, and it is no more than relief of the poor. Chengguan, in judging the order of the two conversions on land and on the ocean, says it flatly, that this passage first makes clear the converting of beings upon the land so as to let them know there is an ocean — the purpose of converting and delivering on land is to let them know that such a thing as the ocean exists.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that giving goods is the expedient and expounding the Dharma the real business. The scripture text writes “first, with the goods of the world, I fill their hearts full” at the very head, and does not treat it as provisional. Bringing it to the ground: those unwilling to give the goods of the world first are often unable to give out the wealth of the Dharma at all.

Knowing the Jewels within the Ocean: Twelve Clauses in Three Rounds

Turning into the conversion upon the ocean, the first matter is knowing the jewels. The wording of the scripture text is arranged with great evenness: the first round is islands of jewels, places of jewels, kinds of jewels, seeds of jewels; the second round is cleansing, boring out, bringing forth, working; the third round is vessels of jewels, uses of jewels, objective realms of jewels, radiances of jewels. Twelve clauses when counted graph by graph.

Chengguan matches these twelve clauses with the Dharma clause by clause, saying that within it there are twelve clauses: first, that which is stilled and unmoving within the ocean of birth and death is called the island of jewels; second, the Tathāgata-womb that is empty and not empty is the place of jewels; third, merits and virtues as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā are all the kinds of jewels; fourth, buddha-nature is the seed of jewels — all of the above being with reference to what is originally there; and the eight clauses below these he divides into two stretches, saying that the next four are with reference to what is accomplished by cultivation, taking pure precepts and the austere disciplines and the like as that which can cleanse, taking the knowledge of dependent origination as that which can bore out, taking the giving rise to the mind of omniscient knowledge as the cause of bringing forth, and hearing as that which can work them, and that the last four are the uses of the jewels. The three rounds thus become three tiers: what is originally there, what is accomplished by cultivation, and the arising of use. And the premise on which he is able to match them so lies in one sentence — he says that the first is knowing the jewels, because the jewel is knowledge itself, and that if one does not enter the great ocean of birth and death one cannot obtain the jewel of omniscient knowledge. Li Tongxuan, for his part, matches clause by clause otherwise, saying that “I know within the ocean every island of jewels” means penetrating the island of omniscient knowledge; that “every place of jewels” means being good at distinguishing the sharpness or dullness of the faculties of the worthy and the able; the kinds of jewels are the kinds of those who practice in common and those who practice apart, and the seeds of jewels are the differing seeds of the great and the small vehicles. The two run on different tracks, and both are set down and preserved.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that these twelve clauses are a spread of parallel phrasing, and that having read one clause one may infer the rest. The three rounds have each their own tier: not knowing what is originally there, there is nothing to take; not knowing what is accomplished by cultivation, one cannot take it out; not knowing what it is used for, one has taken it out for nothing. Bringing it to the ground: wisdom is not one lump of undifferentiated goodness; it has a side that is there to begin with, a side that must be dug for, and a side that concerns what is done with what has been dug out.

Knowing within the Ocean the Places of Peril: Three Palaces, and the Two Houses Match Them Differently

The second matter is knowing the perils. The scripture text raises three places: the dwelling-places of the dragons, the dwelling-places of the yakṣas, the dwelling-places of the bhūtas, closing with “and am good at turning aside from them all, so as to be spared those perils.”

Chengguan matches these three places with the three poisons, saying that they are the three poisons of hatred, greed, and delusion within birth and death, and glosses the last name, saying that a bhūta means here “self-born,” that it is like a yakṣa but is not born of father and mother, and that it therefore stands for much delusion. The three places Li Tongxuan glosses are not the same as those of the base text — the three he matches are dragons, yakṣas, and rākṣasas, saying that as for the dragon palaces being places of peril, the bodhisattvas of the pure lands are like dragons, having a portion of kindness and compassion, ranging in space with a partial sovereignty of spiritual footing; that the yakṣa stands for the śrāvakas, who can slay the three poisons and also gain spiritual penetration; and that the rākṣasas’ places of harm and peril stand for the pratyekabuddhas, who dwell in the ocean of nirvāṇa — and what he matches them with are bodhisattvas of the pure lands and the two vehicles. The one house matches them with the three poisons, the other with three kinds of practitioner; both are set down and preserved.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “turning aside” means dodging and taking no part. What the scripture text speaks of is a man sailing a ship who knows where the hidden rocks are and steers around them; the ship is still traveling on the ocean. Bringing it to the ground: avoiding peril is not leaving the ocean; it is knowing which stretch of water may not be cut straight through.

Knowing within the Ocean the Matters of the Water: How Deep the Eddy Runs Is How Deep the Mind Runs

The third matter is knowing the water. The scripture text has three clauses: how shallow or deep the whirling eddies run, how far or near the billows rise and fall, how good or bad the color of the water is, closing with “all of them differing one from another in all kinds of ways.”

Chengguan matches these three clauses with mind and consciousness, saying that this is knowing the marks of mind and consciousness, that the form realm and the formless and the rest depend on the concentrated mind of consciousness which fixes the number of kalpas as shallow or deep, that the waves of the seven consciousnesses are the nearness or farness of the perfuming of defilement, and that following upon good or evil conditions the color of the water of the mind differs — the shallowness or depth of the eddy is matched with the number of kalpas at which the concentrated mind dwells, the nearness or farness of the billows with the nearness or farness of the staining of habit-energy, and the goodness or badness of the water’s color with the mind’s color varying according to the good or evil conditions met with. The Yanyi chao, re-examining this clause of Chengguan’s, says outright that to sink into emptiness and to be stuck in stillness is just the sense of the whirling eddy — sunk in emptiness, stuck in stillness, which is precisely water that whirls and does not flow; and it distinguishes the shallow and the deep by the number of kalpas in the formless realm, saying that the peak of neither-perception at eighty thousand kalpas is the deep, and twenty thousand is then the shallow. Li Tongxuan matches them more with reference to karma and confusion, calling “I am also good at distinguishing and knowing how shallow or deep the whirling eddies run” the shallowness or depth of the karma of craving, grasping, and becoming; “how far or near the billows rise and fall” the greater or lesser reaching-out of the thoughts and imaginings of feeling and consciousness; and “how good or bad the color of the water is” the goodness or badness of the mind of craving. The two match different particulars while taking the same axis — the three marks on the face of the water are the three marks of the mind.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this is a listing of seafaring knowledge. What the three clauses distinguish is in every case ‘one and the same body of water wearing different appearances,’ which answers exactly to the mind being one substance and yet differing in mark. Bringing it to the ground: in reading one’s own mind, one may begin from these three — how deep it is eddying just now, how far from oneself the crest of the wave is, whether the water’s color is clear or muddy.

Knowing within the Ocean the Matters of Time: Knowing What Ought to Be Done at Which Moment

The fourth matter is knowing time. The scripture text writes of the degrees along which the sun, the moon, and the constellations move in their courses, of day and night, dawn and dusk, of how the time-divisions of the sun-marker and the water-vessel lengthen and shorten.

Chengguan matches it with the utmost brevity, in one sentence only, saying that this is being able to know time, that is, whether the capacity of beings is unripe or ripe, and what within such and such a time it is fitting to cultivate, concentration or wisdom — knowing time is knowing whether a capacity is unripe or ripe: whether this person at this moment is raw or ripe, and whether in this stretch of season it is fitting to cultivate concentration or fitting to cultivate wisdom. Li Tongxuan, for his part, pushes it over onto the sequence of positions, taking it as the rule of turning by which the three positions advance in cultivation and the three vehicles’ differing teaching divides its gates of practice.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that knowing time is a matter of attending to auspicious and inauspicious days. What the scripture text knows are “the degrees of their courses” and “how the time-divisions lengthen and shorten,” which are regularities and not fortunes. Bringing it to the ground: one and the same clause of Dharma, said a step too early, cannot be caught; said a step too late, the person has already walked away — knowing time is this.

Knowing within the Ocean the Matters of the Ship: The Planking and the Wind Are Matched with the Myriad Practices

The fifth matter is knowing the ship. The scripture text writes of the ship’s iron and wood being firm or brittle, its gear stiff or smooth, the force of the water great or small, the set of the wind against or with, closing with “every mark of safety and of danger such as these there is none of which I am not clearly aware, and when it is fit to go I go, and when it is fit to stop I stop.”

Chengguan matches this with the myriad practices, saying that this is knowing that the myriad practices are not alike, that having skillful means is the firm and lacking them is the brittle, that what has been cultivated before runs smooth and what has not is stiff; that the greatness or smallness of the water means birth and death having a bound or being without bound; and that the wind’s being against or with means the eight winds, four with and four against, and again means that in cultivation there is dwelling and there is not dwelling — a practice with skillful means is like iron, a practice without them like rotten timber; a route once cultivated runs smooth, one not cultivated is stiff. Afterward he adds a further sentence on the number when opened and closed up, saying that if the third and the fifth are each opened into three matters, then there are twelve in all. Li Tongxuan, for his part, matches them with the ripeness or unripeness of the faculties of the three vehicles, saying that this makes clear the being well able to know, among those of the three vehicles who turn their minds about, who can bear to enter birth and death and who cannot, and the grade of their faculties as ripened or not yet ripened; and he states for himself that his method is to entrust the matter and thereby set forth the Dharma. Both houses are set down and preserved.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “when it is fit to go I go, and when it is fit to stop I stop” is a phrase about an easy-going attitude. All five matters before it are for the sake of these eight graphs: only when one knows accurately enough is one entitled to say stop. Bringing it to the ground: to be able to stop without spoiling the matter comes of knowing enough, not of a small heart.

Carrying the Throng in a Good Ship: Not Once Has It Been Damaged

The sea-matters told over, the scripture text returns to the affair itself: with a good ship he carries the several merchants along a safe road, expounds the Dharma for them so as to make them rejoice, leads them to the island of jewels and to being furnished to the full with precious jewels, and then brings them back to Jambudvīpa. The sentence that follows is the heaviest sentence of this section — “I take the great ship back and forth in this way, and have never yet let it suffer so much as one damage.”

This sentence is the pivot of the position to which this section is assigned. He goes back and forth between the ocean of birth and death and the island of jewels, voyage after voyage, and the ship has never been damaged. Below this the scripture text lists what those who see and hear him obtain, eleven clauses when counted graph by graph from “then they are made never again to dread the ocean of birth and death,” every clause closing on “ocean”: never again dreading the ocean of birth and death; certainly entering the ocean of omniscient knowledge; certainly being able to dry up the oceans of craving and desire; being able with the light of knowledge to illumine the ocean of the three times; being able to exhaust the ocean of the suffering of all sentient beings; being able to cleanse the ocean of the minds of all sentient beings; being swiftly able to purify the ocean of every land; being able to go everywhere to the great ocean of the ten directions; knowing everywhere the ocean of the faculties of all sentient beings; understanding everywhere the ocean of the practices of all sentient beings; according everywhere with the ocean of the minds of all sentient beings. What the first four say is what the one who sees and hears is himself spared and himself enters — spared the dread of birth and death, entering omniscient knowledge, drying up craving, illumining the three times; what the latter seven say is what reaches out to beings — exhausting their ocean of suffering, cleansing their ocean of mind, purifying their ocean of lands, going to their ten directions, knowing their ocean of faculties, understanding their ocean of practices, according with their ocean of minds. Chengguan judges this list, saying that since ten oceans have been listed, the oceans before are then to be pondered accordingly, and that the first four are self-benefit and the latter six are benefiting others — the commentary makes it ten oceans, with the first four as self-benefit and the latter six as benefiting others, while the base text counted from the first clause comes to eleven; the number opened and closed up is set down and preserved. Li Tongxuan, in rounding off this unit, fastens on this very sentence too, saying that this is the sense of the indestructible dedication, with the perfection of the precepts as chief and the other nine as companions.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “has never been damaged” is a boast of achievement. The ship is his practice and the ocean is birth and death; that the practice enters birth and death and is not damaged is where the two graphs for “indestructible” come to rest. Bringing it to the ground: whether one can go on doing a thing for others over a long time is judged not by how many voyages have been made, but by whether, after those voyages, one is still there.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: I Have Gained Only This One

The Dharma told, he gathers it up at once: “I have gained only this practice of the banner of great compassion; and if there are those who see me or hear me, who dwell together with me or hold me in mind, none of them shall be in vain.”

There are two stretches in this sentence. The former half is humble — I have gained this one gate only. The latter half, however, is not humble — of all who see me, hear me, dwell with me, hold me in mind, not one shall be in vain. The two stretches do not conflict: what has been gained is one gate, and yet within the reach of this one gate nothing is in vain. Below this he raises what the bodhisattvas are able to do, ten clauses when counted graph by graph, all closing on “ocean”: being good at ranging and crossing the great ocean of birth and death; being unstained by any of the oceans of the afflictions; being able to cast off all the oceans of false views; being able to contemplate the ocean of the nature of all dharmas; being able with the four means of gathering to gather in the ocean of sentient beings; being already well settled in the ocean of omniscient knowledge; being able to extinguish the ocean of the attachments of all sentient beings; being able evenly to abide in the ocean of all times; being able by spiritual penetration to deliver the ocean of sentient beings; being able at the fitting moment to tame and subdue the ocean of sentient beings. What the first four say is the bodhisattva’s own ranging, non-staining, casting off, and contemplating upon the four oceans of birth and death, the afflictions, false views, and the nature of dharmas; what the latter six say is what reaches out to the ocean of beings by the six matters of the four means of gathering, of settling, of extinguishing attachment, of evenly abiding, of spiritual penetration, and of the fitting moment. It is rounded off with “how then could I be able to know, or be able to tell of, their practices of merit and virtue.”

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this is a courteous belittling of oneself. If it were self-belittling, he would not first have said “none of them shall be in vain.” Bringing it to the ground: to know which gate it is that one has gained and where its bound lies, and at the same time to know that this one gate does indeed work — these two things must be said together, and that is what the humbling of this section is.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: The City Delightful to the South, and the Elder Unsurpassed Victory

At the end he points the road: to the south there is a city named Delightful, and within it an elder named Unsurpassed Victory; go there and ask how a bodhisattva is to study the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva. The sense of what is asked is the same as what Sudhana asked on arriving, and yet the graphs differ a little: on arriving it read “how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva? How is he to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?” with a “how” brought out for each of the two questions, whereas the clause of pointing out here reads “how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva,” bringing out only one “how.” The question has not changed; what changes is the one who answers.

The manner of this assembly lies just here: one good friend confers one gate, and when the gate is exhausted he points the road. The road pointed out in this section is toward the south; as to the directions pointed out throughout the assembly, Chengguan once made a threefold division — the good friends before the grounds are mostly in the south, within the grounds there is no direction, and after the grounds both are held together — and so it may not be laid down as one rule.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that pointing out the next friend is a closing courtesy. If it were courtesy, there would be no need to say Sudhana’s original question over again almost word for word. Bringing it to the ground: the last thing a good teacher does is to hand your own question back to you whole, and to tell you where the next one who can answer it is.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave: Departing in Tears

The last passage is Sudhana’s leave-taking: bowing to his feet, circling him measureless times, gazing up with earnest devotion, weeping and shedding tears, his mind unwearied in seeking good friends, and only then taking his leave and departing.

The order of the five things is worth looking at: bowing to the feet first is the body; circling next is reverence; gazing up next is the not bearing to go at once; weeping next is feeling come to its full; and the last clause, “his mind unwearied in seeking good friends,” is only then the reason for the weeping — it is not that he cannot bear to leave this one, but that he knows he must go on to seek the next, and that the seeking mind is unwearied.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the weeping is grief at parting. If it were only grief at parting, the scripture text would not go straight on to write “his mind unwearied.” Bringing it to the ground: if what one carries away in taking leave of a good friend is nothing but unwillingness to part, one will not reach the next city.

Lineage

Of the text of this section, four lines are opened downward.

The first is the line of the assigned position. This section is assigned to the indestructible dedication, and this comes from Chengguan’s outline — the scripture text itself has no name of a dedication position. Chengguan’s judgment of the five aspects of this assembly is set up in succession from the ancient worthies. At the very first clause of this section he marks the assignment to the indestructible dedication, and glosses the name of the Shipmaster by “in all dharmas his deep faith is indestructible.” The position Li Tongxuan matches is the same as Chengguan’s, and the perfection he makes chief is different: he takes the perfection of the precepts as chief and the other nine as companions, and says that with reference to the gate of knowledge all the positions are cured in common, and that with reference to the gate of position it is by accomplishing the precepts of great kindness and compassion. Both are recorded without adjudication. Zhiyan’s Huayan jing kongmu zhang, under the skillful virtue of the ten dedications, lists this friend as the second good friend, speaking with reference to the distinct teaching of the one vehicle and to the portion of benefiting beings, and taking the boat that succors upon the ocean and turns about at both times as accomplishing the sense of benefiting others — both voyages, the going and the coming, are for the benefit of others, which answers exactly to the going back and forth without damage of this section. Li Tongxuan too, in his gloss on 〈The Ten Dedications〉, raises this friend beforehand, saying that within this dedication position great compassion is taken for the substance of the precepts and that dwelling within the ocean of birth and death he gains sovereignty, and likening the ocean, whose nature is pure and harbors no corpse, to the Dharma body, originally pure and harboring no defilement or staining. Recorded without adjudication.

The second is the line of the gloss on the name. On the gloss of the Shipmaster’s name Chengguan and Li Tongxuan agree entirely, both saying that it means here “Sovereign”; and Chengguan glosses further, by three things, the reason for his being sovereign — that upon the ocean of the Buddha-dharma he has already penetrated well, that upon the ocean of birth and death he is able to ferry well, and that in all dharmas his deep faith is indestructible; while Li Tongxuan adds one clause, making clear that it is upon the ocean of birth and death that he gains sovereignty. Of the city’s name, Tower-Pavilion, Chengguan glosses only with reference to the sense of dedication why it is in this city, saying that by this dedication the mind of awakening is turned and made to grow further, and compassion and knowledge, leaning upon each other, rise above; Li Tongxuan sets up two glosses separately, the one that the place is near the southern sea and low and damp, so that men mostly build towers to dwell in, and the other that within the ten dedications the myriad dharmas are blended, the general and the particular, the same and the different, layer upon layer, and the city is named from this. Recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the setting forth of the Dharma by the sea-matters, and here the two houses run on different tracks. Upon the five matters within the ocean, Chengguan matches each matter with a sense of the ocean of birth and death (the jewel is knowledge itself; the three palaces are the three poisons; the marks of the water are the marks of mind and consciousness; the sun and moon are the knowing of time; the ship is the myriad practices), while Li Tongxuan matches clause by clause with the sequence of positions and the ripeness of the faculties of the three vehicles, and states for himself that his is an entrusting of the matter so as to set forth the Dharma, making it easy for beings to understand. On the one item of the places of peril, the three that Chengguan matches are dragons, yakṣas, and bhūtas, and the three that Li Tongxuan matches are dragons, yakṣas, and rākṣasas. These various divergent glosses are all the settled sayings of the ancient worthies, and are recorded as such.

The fourth is the line of the three houses and their differing base texts. What the Yanyi chao re-examines is Chengguan’s commentary, and so its glosses take up the commentary clause by clause and run downward: upon the one passage of contemplating the road it opens out many senses; upon the clause “the form realm and the formless and the rest depend on the concentrated mind of consciousness that fixes the number of kalpas as shallow or deep” it glosses that to sink into emptiness and be stuck in stillness is just the sense of the whirling eddy; and it discerns that in cultivation dwelling is against the current and not dwelling is with it. The Tanxuan ji and the Souxuan ji, for their part, both set up their outlines upon the sixty-fascicle text, and so the form of this friend’s name they use is not the transcription but the rendering by sense — the Tanxuan ji has “the sea-master Sovereign,” and glosses the name by saying that upon the ocean of the Buddha-dharma and upon the ocean of birth and death he is able to penetrate well and to ferry well, and therefore this is taken for his name; and it glosses the name “the pure practice of the banner of great compassion” by a surpassing great compassion drawing beings out of the ocean of birth and death. The Souxuan ji has “the sea-master named Sovereign,” judges his position to be the twenty-second, the bodhisattva position of the indestructible dedication, and opens the benefit of the working of converting into four headings: the dharma of liberation, the dharma of knowing the matters of the world, turning the mundane so as to accomplish the supramundane, and the rounding off into the great working. The base texts the three houses rest upon are not the same and the name-forms they set up differ likewise; this is recorded without adjudication, and the name-form of the one text is not used to alter the name-form of the other.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

Upon the one matter of matching the assigned positions, Chengguan lays down a judgment of his own at the place of the general outline of this assembly: “both have their reason, that is, since each and every position possesses many Dharma gates, how could it be that the ordinary mind may not learn and seek the dharma of the good friend, and so there is reason in not matching them; yet within what has no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to make the positions manifest is the constant rule, so that to match them is likewise not at fault.” Both the saying that matches and the saying that does not have their reason; matching them does not obstruct their not being sequential — and this is Chengguan’s own explicit judgment, not one of two sayings merely set down side by side.

This Good Friend’s Place of Practice Is the Scene of Human Quarrels

The several friends before this one were on a mountaintop, or by the sea, or at a stūpa, or in their own dwellings. At this twenty-third one, the elder Unsurpassed Victory, when Sudhana finds him he is doing something that looks very unlike practice — “governing and deciding for people all the various affairs of the human world.” Those surrounding him are measureless merchants and a hundred thousand householders, all of them come to have their matters settled.

One misreading must be cleared away: this is not to say that alongside his practice he also holds a worldly office. The scripture text goes straight on with the clause “following upon that occasion he expounded the Dharma for them” — he expounds the Dharma following upon the very occasion of settling matters. Settling matters and expounding the Dharma are not two things, nor is it that he first finishes judging and then speaks; it is that the judging, in the very moment of it, is the speaking.

Bringing it to the ground: this section brings the words “reaching every place” down into the most tangled place there is among human beings. If practice had first to leave quarrels behind, this good friend would not need to open a place of practice at all.

What He Carries Along the Road Behind Him: Giving Rise to a Mind of Great Kindness Reaching Everywhere

This section begins not with walking but with the mind. Sudhana “gave rise to a mind of great kindness reaching everywhere and a mind of great compassion that moistens and enriches,” and moreover these are “continuing on one after another without a break” — kindness is what reaches everywhere, compassion is what moistens and enriches, the one running crosswise and the other lengthwise. Then come a dozen or so clauses telling out his own virtues: the two adornments of merit and wisdom, the casting off of the dust and stain of affliction, the realizing of the evenness of dharmas, a mind with no high and no low, the pulling out of the thorns of what is not good, the extinguishing of every obstruction; and it closes with four figures — vigor is his wall and moat, samādhi his park and grove, the sun of wisdom breaks the darkness, the wind of skillful means opens the flowers, and the unobstructed vow fills the Dharma realm.

Each of this dozen or so clauses has its own office; they are not one matter said ten times over. The two adornments of merit and wisdom are the provisions he carries; the casting off of the dust and stain of affliction is the removing of what defiles him; realizing the evenness of dharmas is seeing no two upon the side of dharmas; a mind with no high and no low is raising no picking and choosing upon the side of persons; pulling out the thorns of what is not good is pulling out causes already sown; extinguishing every obstruction is clearing away what obstructs at present — provisions, defilement, dharmas, persons, causes, obstructions: six layers, each with its clause. The four figures that follow tell what he leans upon: the wall and moat are guarding (vigor is why nothing is lost); the park and grove are ease (samādhi is why he can abide); the sun of wisdom and the wind of skillful means are breaking and opening (the one breaks the darkness of ignorance, the other opens the flower of wisdom); and it ends with the unobstructed vow filling the Dharma realm, which tells why he can reach everywhere — if the vow be obstructed, then however far one walks it is only walking far.

The question to ask is: why should a stretch of road be written out at such length? Because the Dharma the former good friend conferred is not a thing settled by having understood it when heard; it must be carried along the whole way, and only on arriving at the next place does it come into view. When Li Tongxuan outlines this passage, he lists it as the first of the five gates of truly entering the Dharma gate of the present position, and calls it holding in mind the good friend’s teaching, pondering it, and advancing upward; as for the gate of pointing to virtue and advancing upward, what that one encircles is the stretch at the close of the former friend’s section, from “as for the bodhisattvas” down to “took his leave and departed,” and not this.

Clear away a misreading: to take “continuing on one after another without a break” for walking without stopping. What the scripture text fastens it to is the mind, not the feet. Bringing it to the ground: what is to be examined in the road between two good friends is whether that one mind has ever broken off.

His Mind Constantly Entering the City of Omniscient Knowledge: He Enters the City of Knowledge First, and Only Then Can Enter That City

The last clause of this passage is “in his mind he constantly entered, then and there, the city of omniscient knowledge, and in this way he sought the path of a bodhisattva,” and only the clause after it reads “little by little he traveled on, stage by stage, and arrived within that city.” The one clause is the mind entering the city of knowledge, the other the body entering an actual city, and the two press close upon each other.

Why set them in this order? Because the Dharma this section shows is called “reaching every place,” and the root of that “reaching” does not lie in the distance the feet cover. If the mind has never entered, then and there, the city of knowledge, then to walk through every walled town is only to have walked through walled towns.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “the city of omniscient knowledge” is a figure while “that city” is a real matter, and that the two have nothing to do with each other. The scripture text sets the two clauses side by side precisely so that one may see the joint between them. Bringing it to the ground: that one truly arrives at a place is because one has first arrived at that place within one’s own mind.

East of the City · the Grove of Freedom from Sorrow · Surrounded by Merchants: Three Things, Each with Its Own Sense

Of where the elder is, the scripture text gives three pieces of news only: east of the city, the Grove of Freedom from Sorrow of the Banner of Great Adornment, and the measureless merchants and hundred thousand householders surrounding him. Chengguan glosses each of them in turn: he says that “as for his being east of the city, it is because the sun of a buddha opens the dawn,” taking the image of the sun rising in the east; he says that “as for his dwelling in the Grove of Freedom from Sorrow, it is because, being the same as a buddha’s dedication, there is neither loving nor hating,” fastening the grove’s name to the dedication that is the position here; he says that “as for the merchants and the rest surrounding him, the Buddha is the merchant-chief and the bodhisattva is the merchant, and the wealth of the Dharma benefits outwardly while the merit comes home to oneself,” taking a merchant’s outlay and trading as a figure for the circulation of the wealth of the Dharma.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take these for background the compilers wrote in casually. Chengguan’s sense is just the opposite — the dependent surroundings in which one is found are themselves the Dharma being shown. Fazang too has a word upon this, saying that “as for the grove east of the city and the rest, within the city he gathers and converts, and it is convenient for lodging,” which takes the convenience of gathering and converting; while Li Tongxuan says that the east sets forth knowledge and the west sets forth compassion, and fastens the grove to the perfection of patience by saying that “as for his being within the Grove of Freedom from Sorrow, this is governed by the perfection of patience.” The senses the three houses take are each different, and not one of them treats this as an idle stroke of the brush.

Bringing it to the ground: the place a person is constantly to be found is itself already telling what it is that he cultivates.

The String of Benefits from His Expounding for the Throng: From Pulling Out Arrogance to Increasing Aspiring Delight

When the elder expounds the Dharma for the throng, the scripture text lists a dozen or so clauses of the benefit they gain, and the order of them is worth looking at: first “causing them forever to pull out all arrogance, to leave behind ‘I’ and ‘what is mine,’” then the giving away of what has been heaped up and the extinguishing of the stain of stinginess and jealousy, and only then the mind’s gaining purity, the gaining of the strength of pure faith, the constant delight in seeing the buddhas, the upholding of the Buddha-dharma; and the last six clauses climb all the way up — giving rise to the strength of a bodhisattva, setting going the practice of a bodhisattva, entering the samādhis of a bodhisattva, gaining the wisdom of a bodhisattva, abiding in the right mindfulness of a bodhisattva, and for the sixth “increasing the aspiring delight of a bodhisattva.” Each of the six has its own charge: giving rise to strength is the strength able to bear this matter; setting going the practice is the practice set in motion; entering the samādhis is the mind’s settled abiding; gaining wisdom is illumination; abiding in right mindfulness is not losing what is illumined; increasing aspiring delight is seeking this path and delighting in it ever more — from strength to practice, from concentration to wisdom, from mindfulness to aspiration, this is the order in which one able to practise ripens step by step.

The question to ask is: why begin from arrogance? Because those who come are a throng with matters to be settled, and human contention is for the most part contention over one “I.” To pull out arrogance and to leave behind “I” and “what is mine” answers exactly to their sickness.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that expounding the Dharma must begin from a high place. The starting point of this string is extremely low — first let a man put down ‘this is mine.’ Bringing it to the ground: for the Dharma to get down to where a man is, it must first meet the very thing he is at this moment contending over.

Casting the Body to the Ground and Rising Only After a Long While: Why Paying Respects Takes Up a Clause of Its Own

Sudhana’s paying of respects the scripture text writes out very finely: first he “watched that elder until he had finished expounding the Dharma for the throng,” waiting until the speaking was done; then he “cast his whole body upon the ground and bowed to his feet”; then he “rose only after a long while.” Three motions with three layers of sense — not interrupting, giving his reverence to the full, and rising only after long.

The question to ask is: why record “a long while”? Fazang glosses this, saying “the prostration with the five limbs, held long, is the body setting forth the mind” — that the body lies low for long is the mark of a mind that weighs the Dharma heavily.

Clear away a misreading: to take this for an elaboration of courtesy. Were it that, the scripture text would need one clause of bowing to the feet and no more. Bringing it to the ground: the posture of one who seeks the Dharma does not lie in whether the ceremony is performed correctly, but in whether one can wait and whether one can lie low.

I Am Sudhana! I Am Sudhana! — the Sense of Naming Himself Twice

Sudhana’s address begins by naming himself twice: “I am Sudhana! I am Sudhana!” This is the one clause of the whole unit which is extremely short and which all three houses gloss. Chengguan says that “as for naming himself, his name has long been heard, and it sets forth a vessel that weighs the Dharma heavily, in hope that there may be a hearing”; Fazang says that “naming himself again, the speech sets forth the mind, showing his pity and weight at their utmost. And it further shows that he is himself a vessel of practice, longing that the Dharma be expounded”; while Li Tongxuan says that “as for his saying twice ‘I am Sudhana,’ it sets forth the depth and weight of his seeking the Dharma. It also makes clear that he penetrates the selflessness of self, and so accomplishes patience.”

One misreading must be cleared away: to suppose that naming himself twice is merely announcing who he is. What all three houses fasten upon is the word “weight” — the body already cast to the ground sets forth the mind, and the speech naming him again likewise sets forth the mind; in both body and speech one and the same thing is being said: I have come to seek the Dharma.

Bringing it to the ground: to give an account of oneself clearly is not so that the other may know who you are, but so that you yourself may know what you have come here at this moment to do.

Sudhana’s Question: The Ten Things That Follow upon Two Askings

The question itself is two clauses — “how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva? How is a bodhisattva to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?” This is the manner of asking used throughout this assembly. What is precious is the ten clauses fastened after it: when I study in this way, shall I constantly be able to convert and deliver all sentient beings, constantly to see before me all the buddhas, constantly to hear all the Buddha-dharma, constantly to uphold and maintain all the Buddha-dharma, constantly to head into every Dharma gate, to enter every land and study the practice of a bodhisattva, to abide through every kalpa and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva, to know the spiritual strength of every tathāgata, to receive the mindful protection of every tathāgata, to gain the wisdom of every tathāgata.

The question to ask is: are these ten clauses an asking about the Dharma, or a boast? The clause-pattern settles it — “when I study in this way, shall I constantly be able to …”; what is asked is whether the practice he cultivates can bring these ten out, not a declaration that he is already able.

These ten clauses have their order too. The first three face three things: converting and delivering all sentient beings (facing beings), seeing all the buddhas then and there (facing the buddhas), hearing all the Buddha-dharma (facing the Dharma). The next two turn to what he takes up for himself: upholding all the Buddha-dharma is to receive and not lose it, entering all the Dharma gates is to enter and pass through. The next two open out place and time: entering every land is a place with nothing picked out, abiding through every aeon is a time with nothing broken off. And the last three are set wholly upon the tathāgatas: to know the spiritual strength of all tathāgatas is to know their working, to receive the mindful protection of all tathāgatas is to receive their gathering in, to gain the wisdom of all tathāgatas is to gain their substance. Working, gathering in, substance — three layers climbing, and so “gaining the wisdom of all tathāgatas” stands as the utmost of the asking.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that Sudhana asks only for a method. What he asks after is the place to which the method reaches — converting beings, seeing buddhas, hearing the Dharma, upholding the Dharma, entering the gates, ranging every land, exhausting every kalpa, knowing the spiritual strength, receiving the mindful protection, gaining the wisdom. Bringing it to the ground: when asking after a Dharma gate, ask at the same time how far it can carry a man.

Excellent, Excellent: What the Elder Praises First Is Nothing Else Than That Mind

The elder does not answer his question at once, but first gives one clause of praise: “Excellent, excellent! Son of good family! You have already been able to give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.” What is praised is neither Sudhana’s sincerity nor his question, but the mind he has already given rise to before this.

The question to ask is: why praise this first? Fazang outlines the same passage as “first he praises his setting of the mind, as the skillful means for conferring the Dharma” — praising the setting of the mind is the skillful means of conferring the Dharma, not a courtesy. The mind having already been set, only then has the Dharma conferred a place to settle.

Clear away a misreading: to take a good friend’s praise for words of encouragement. This praise is a testing: first confirm the vessel, then set down the Dharma. Bringing it to the ground: whether a man can receive a Dharma is judged not by how much he understands when he hears, but by whether that mind has been given rise to.

Setting Forth the Name and Substance: Within the Dharma Gate’s Name Are Both Its Substance and Its Working

The Dharma the elder confers is named “the spiritual penetrating strength, without anything depended upon and without anything done, of the gate of bodhisattva practice that reaches every place.” This name is in two halves: “reaching every place” is the working, and “without anything depended upon and without anything done” is the substance. Chengguan judges this with the utmost clarity, saying that “because there is nothing done and nothing depended upon, therefore he can reach everywhere,” and again that “reaching everywhere is the breadth of the working, having nothing depended upon is the excellence of the substance,” and glossing the sense of it: “having nothing depended upon means not depending on another. Having nothing done means being apart from applied effort.”

One misreading must be cleared away: to suppose that “reaching every place” is a breadth drilled up by spiritual penetration. Chengguan’s judgment is just the opposite — because there is nothing depended upon, therefore there is nowhere it does not reach; because it is apart from applied effort, therefore it does without doing. If there were something depended upon, there would be places the depending could not reach; if there were applied effort, there would be times when the effort could not be applied.

Bringing it to the ground: how wide a gate of practice can walk is judged not by how much force has been added to it, but by how many props have been let go.

Discerning the Working: Reaching Every Place, Brought Down onto the Text, Is Expounding the Dharma

After setting forth the name, the elder puts a question to himself: “what is meant by the gate of bodhisattva practice that reaches every place?” And what he glosses falls upon a reaching everywhere that is for the sake of expounding the Dharma. Chengguan points to this sense outright: “within the gloss he makes clear that reaching every place is because he expounds the Dharma widely.”

The scripture text’s gloss falls into two passages. First it raises one great threefold-thousand world: the Thirty-Three Gods of the desire realm, the Suyāma Gods, the Tuṣita Gods, the Gods Who Delight in Their Own Emanations, the Gods Who Command the Emanations of Others, the Māra Gods, together with the eightfold throng of gods and dragons, humans and nonhumans, on to the beings of the hamlets and encampments and walled towns and every dwelling-place — all of them stand in the list of those for whom he expounds; and it closes with “and on to all the Brahmā gods of the form realm, for them too I set forth the Dharma that rises beyond.” Then with the one clause “just as it is within this great threefold-thousand world” it displays the ten directions by the same kind — Chengguan outlines the manner of it as “first he raises the three thousandfold, and afterward, from ‘just as within this three thousandfold’ onward, he displays the ten directions by the same kind.”

What each house fastens this to rests upon its own witness: Chengguan, upon the eighty, weighs the reaching everywhere as a wide expounding of the Dharma; Fazang and Zhiyan, upon the sixty, divide the karma of the body from the karma of speech — Fazang says “his spiritual power reaches everywhere to where beings are, and this is named reaching every destiny,” and under it “expounding the Dharma therein and benefiting beings is named the adornment of pure practice”; Zhiyan outlines it as the two texts of “first the karma of the body reaching the destinies” and the karma of speech expounding the Dharma, taking besides the stretch on knowing dharmas and compounding medicines for the karma of mind. The three marks of body, speech, and mind being thus divided, reaching everywhere and expounding everywhere do not take each other’s place. Recorded without adjudication. Bringing it to the ground: every place the scripture text reaches to has fastened to it the clause “and for them I expound the Dharma” — what is meant by pervading is a pervading wherever there is someone to whom the Dharma may be spoken, not a pervading through scenery.

Barring What Is Evil and Giving Birth to What Is Good: The Sequence of a Long String of “Causing” Clauses

The body of the passage on the one great thousandfold world is a long string of clauses with the word “causing.” The nine clauses in front are all barring: causing them to cast off what is not the Dharma, to still disputes, to do away with fighting and battle, to stop anger and contending, to break the knot of enmity, to loosen bonds, to come out of prison, to be spared from dread, to cut off all the evil karma from the taking of life on to wrong views; then the one clause “whatever may not be done, all of it I cause them to forbid themselves” makes the turn; and the clauses after it turn into giving birth: causing them to practice in accord with every good dharma, causing them to study every craft and art, setting out and distinguishing for them all kinds of treatises and discussions, causing them to give rise to gladness, causing them little by little to ripen, and at the end “following along with the outer paths, expounding for them the surpassing knowledge, causing them to cut off the various views, causing them to enter the Buddha-dharma.”

The question to ask is: why are crafts and arts, and treatises and discussions, listed in here as well? Because the throng being converted is a throng with matters to be settled, and their livelihood, their quarrels, and their views are all within worldly dharmas — the scripture text states its own meaning: “within the various worlds he makes benefit for them.”

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that expounding the Dharma speaks only of what is beyond the world. This passage, from stopping fights to teaching crafts to following along with the outer paths, walks the whole way inside the world, and only at the end does it “cause them to enter the Buddha-dharma.” Bringing it to the ground: to be able to pull a man out of his quarrel is already expounding the Dharma; to teach him a trade is still on the same line.

The Expounding of the Five Destinies: Expounding Suffering and Bliss, and the Road That Goes There Too

In the passage displaying the ten directions by the same kind, what is expounded is four dharmas — the Buddha-dharma, the bodhisattva dharma, the śrāvaka dharma, the pratyekabuddha dharma; and after that it turns into the five destinies, where the clauses with the word “expound” come to sixteen. The manner of them is broadly three clauses to a set: expounding a certain destiny, expounding the suffering or the bliss within that destiny, and expounding the road that leads to that destiny. Yet only three destinies fit that manner — the world of King Yama, the world of the gods, and the world of humans; and of these the world of the gods speaks only of bliss and not of suffering, while the world of humans raises suffering and bliss together. The middle clause of the two destinies of the hells and the animals is not of suffering or bliss: the hells have “expounding the sentient beings of the hells,” the animals “expounding the differences among the animals”; and the one destiny of the animals has besides the clause “expounding the suffering the animals undergo,” so that it comes to four clauses.

The question to ask is: why must even ‘the road that leads to a certain destiny’ be expounded? Because to expound only the suffering of the hells does not necessarily let a man know which road he is at present walking. To expound the suffering is the fruit, to expound the road is the cause; only when cause and fruit are expounded together has a man somewhere to set his foot down.

Clear away a misreading: to take the expounding of the five destinies for a threatening. The clause on the world of the gods speaks of bliss only, and the world of humans expounds suffering and bliss together — this is speaking fairly, not frightening. Bringing it to the ground: to make a man truly change his road, he must first be let see which road he is walking now.

The Eleven Clauses of ‘For the Sake of What’: That for the Sake of Which the Dharma Is Expounded

At the end of the working, the scripture text tells out in eleven clauses running together that for the sake of which he speaks: because he would open up and reveal the merit and virtue of a bodhisattva; because he would cause them to cast off the faults and troubles of birth and death; because he would cause them to know and see the various subtle merits and virtues of the person of omniscient knowledge; because he would cause them to know the confusion and the undergoing of suffering within the several destinies of existence; because he would cause them to know and see the dharma that has nothing to obstruct it; because he would display why it is that all the worlds arise; because he would display that the stillness and extinction of all the worlds is what is at peace; because he would cause sentient beings to cast off the various imaginings and attachments; because he would cause them to realize the dharma of the buddhas that has nothing depended upon; because he would cause them forever to extinguish the several wheels of affliction; because he would cause them to be able to turn the Dharma wheel of a tathāgata. And it gathers all up with the one clause “for the sake of sentient beings I set forth a Dharma such as this.”

The question to ask is: is there anything careful about the sequence of these eleven clauses? The two ends settle it — it begins from “opening up and revealing the merit and virtue of a bodhisattva” and ends at “being able to turn the Dharma wheel of a tathāgata”; it begins from letting a man see that there is such a road, and ends with a man able himself to turn the Dharma wheel. All the way between may be read in three stretches. The first two clauses pull up what binds: to cast off the faults and troubles of birth and death is to be made to know what is to be left, and to know and see the subtle merits of the person of omniscient knowledge is to be made to know what is to be gone toward; one leaving and one going, and the will is settled. The next three open what is to be seen: to know the confusion and the undergoing of suffering within the several destinies is to see the fruit of suffering; to know and see the dharma that has nothing to obstruct it is to see that the dharma is of itself unobstructed; to display why it is that all the worlds arise is to see whence the suffering comes — fruit, dharma, and cause being all three seen, one no longer merely dreads suffering. The next two turn toward what is to be come home to: to display that the stillness and extinction of all the worlds is what is at peace is the place to come home to, and to cause beings to cast off the various imaginings and attachments is the practice by which one can come home. And the last three tell what is thereby accomplished: to realize the dharma of the buddhas that has nothing depended upon is what is realized; forever to extinguish the several wheels of affliction is what is cut off; to be able to turn the Dharma wheel of a tathāgata is what is done — realizing, cutting off, doing, all three being furnished, that for the sake of which the Dharma is expounded is complete.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the sake for which the Dharma is expounded is only the delivering of beings from suffering. Among these eleven clauses is “because he would cause them to realize the dharma of the buddhas that has nothing depended upon,” which answers precisely to the substance of the Dharma gate — the Dharma spoken and the substance abided in are one and the same thing. Bringing it to the ground: ask yourself why you would speak of a certain Dharma, and if you can answer with none of the eleven clauses, then most likely the time to speak it has not yet come.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: The Word “Pure” That Comes Out Extra

When the elder tells out what he himself knows, the name he uses differs from the earlier one — in setting forth the name and substance it was “the gate of bodhisattva practice that reaches every place,” and here it is “the pure Dharma gate of cultivating the bodhisattva practice that reaches every place,” with “cultivating” and “pure” added. Chengguan does not take this for a variant reading, but has a word upon it, saying “as for the pure Dharma gate being added, reaching everywhere is fundamentally for the sake of expounding the Dharma, and so it is what was expounded before” — reaching everywhere is from the first for the sake of expounding the Dharma, and expounding the Dharma is the pure working, and so here it may be added.

The passage of pointing to the superior that follows raises the virtues of the bodhisattvas very high: furnished to the full with sovereign spiritual penetrations, going everywhere to every buddha-land, gaining the ground of the universal eye, hearing every sound and speech, entering universally into all dharmas with wisdom sovereign, without going against and without contending, valiant and firm beyond compare, sending forth with the broad and long tongue the even and equal sound, their bodily forms subtle and fine and the same as the bodhisattvas’, with the tathāgatas ultimately not two, their knowledge-bodies vast and great and entering universally into the three times, their objective realms without bound and the same as empty space; and it closes with a single question — “how then could I be able to know, or be able to tell of, their practices of merit and virtue?”

This string of virtues is no miscellany. Going everywhere to the buddha-lands and gaining the ground of the universal eye are what is reached and what is seen, and hearing every sound and speech is what is heard — the three together being the body’s pervading, the eye’s clarity, and the ear’s penetration. The next three turn inward: to enter universally into all dharmas with wisdom sovereign is to have nothing among dharmas one cannot enter; to be without going against and without contending is, having entered, neither to contend with others nor to be at odds with oneself; to be valiant and firm beyond compare is to take this work up without flinching. Then the one clause of sending forth with the broad and long tongue the even and equal sound turns it outward through the mouth — what is sent forth is even and equal, and the Dharma is not altered for the one it meets. After that, their bodily forms subtle and fine and the same as the bodhisattvas’, and with the tathāgatas ultimately not two, are the utmost of body; their knowledge-bodies vast and great and entering universally into the three times, and their objective realms without bound and the same as empty space, are the utmost of knowledge. The ancient worthies read this passage by dividing it into the three of body, speech, and mind: Fazang judges that it first makes clear the pervading of the karma of the body (the body being equal to the lands without waiting upon spiritual power, and therefore surpassing the reaching everywhere of the passage before), next the karma of speech, next the karma of mind, and closes by concluding that it is not what he himself knows; Zhiyan likewise makes four stretches — the excellence of the karma of the body, of speech, of mind, and the summing up. What the elder humbles himself before is exactly this utmost of the three karmas: the reaching everywhere he has gained still waits upon spiritual power in order to reach; the bodhisattvas’ bodies are equal to the lands without waiting upon it at all.

Clear away a misreading: to take the humbling of himself for a courtesy. What he humbles is not the measure of his realization but the measure of what he knows — I know this one gate only, and of those others I cannot tell. Bringing it to the ground: only when one knows that what one knows has a bound is there a next station to go to.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Three Names, Three Directions

In the last passage the elder points out the road and gives three names: the country named Śroṇa, the city named Kaliṅga Grove, the nun named Lion’s Stretching; and he charges that what is to be asked is still those same two clauses — “how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva and cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?”

The question to ask is: why does the clause to be asked not change? Because though the friend consulted changes, the path sought has not changed. Asking the same clause the whole way, each who answers answers his own one portion, and only put together do they make the whole.

Clear away a misreading: to take the pointing out of the next friend for a set phrase closing the scene. The elder has only just finished saying that he knows one gate alone, and straightway he points out where the next gate is — humbling himself and pointing out the road are two halves of one and the same breath. Bringing it to the ground: what a good friend gives at the last is often not his own Dharma, but the next person he knows of.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave: Bowing, Circling, Gazing Up, and Only Then Going

The last sentence is extremely short: “at that time, Sudhana the youth bowed to his feet, circled him measureless times, gazed up at him with earnest devotion, and took his leave and departed.” Four motions come down one after another — first bowing to his feet, then circling measureless times, then gazing up with earnest devotion, and only at the end taking his leave.

The question to ask is: this one sentence repeats almost unchanged at the end of every section — why is it not left out? Because what it records is not courtesy but the mark of Sudhana’s mind on leaving a good friend. Bowing to the feet is the body’s reverence; circling is going round and round him, unwilling to leave at once; gazing up is that the eyes still cannot bear to move away; taking leave is that at last he goes — the sequence is distinct, and the step of going is set at the very end.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that “took his leave and departed” means the Dharma here has been heard through and one may go. In the passage just before, the elder has told out that what he knows has a bound, and pointed out where the next one is; Sudhana’s going is precisely a going in accord with what he was taught. Cherishing his virtue and going forward are two faces of one thing, not a casting off of this for that.

Bringing it to the ground: toward a person who has taught you, can you go like this — having taken to the full what was to be taken, having paid to the full the reverence that was to be paid, and only then setting out for the next station, rather than turning away the moment the hearing is done?

Lineage

Of the text of this section, three streams are opened downward.

The first is the line of the assigned position. Chengguan outlines this unit as assigned to the dedication equal to all buddhas, and its sense the Yanyi chao glosses, saying it is “because the road of dedication that all the tathāgatas of the three times are able to dedicate, and the goodness that is dedicated, are equalled”; and where Chengguan glosses the city-name “Delightful,” the author of the Chao further cites in evidence the text of this same sūtra’s 〈The Ten Dedications〉. It must be stated that a friend’s being assigned to a certain position is Chengguan’s outline, carried on in succession from the ancient worthies; the scripture text itself sets down no position. At the place of his general judgment of the five aspects before the chapter, Chengguan first sets out what two houses say: Master Yi and the Taishan lun gloss only as the text runs and make no separate matching, while masters such as Guangtong all match the positions.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

The two sayings having been set out, Chengguan then passes his own explicit judgment — “both have their reason, that is, since each and every position possesses many Dharma gates, how could it be that the ordinary mind may not learn and seek the dharma of the good friend, and so there is reason in not matching them; yet within what has no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to make the positions manifest is the constant rule, so that to match them is likewise not at fault.” This one clause is Chengguan’s judgment, not the words of the two houses before him: both the saying that matches and the saying that does not have their reason, and matching does not obstruct their not being sequential — this section both follows his outline and does not let his outline cover over what the scripture text says of itself.

The second is the line of the gloss on the name. The three houses are raised together: Chengguan glosses the name by the penetration attained, saying “because he has attained a surpassing penetration, there is nothing above it; because he is equal to the buddhas, there is nothing more excellent”; Fazang likewise glosses it by penetration, saying “as for the elder Unsurpassed Victory, because he has attained a surpassing penetration and there is nothing further that surpasses it, this is taken for his name”; while Li Tongxuan fastens it to the perfection of patience, saying “as for the elder’s being styled Unsurpassed Victory, this is the gate of the perfection of patience, for among the practices carried on within the throng patience is what is distinguished, and moreover his virtue and skill surpass the world, and so he is styled Unsurpassed Victory.” The one matter of the city’s name is likewise raised by all three — Chengguan glosses it by the dedication’s not seeing fair and foul, Fazang says “as for the city being named Delightful, his objective realm is already equal to a buddha-land, and may be wished for and delighted in,” and Li Tongxuan says “as for the city being named Delightful, because the elder is good at clearly deciding all the various affairs of the human world, and is moreover able to expound the dharma that goes beyond the world, beings delight in him and will not let him go, and so the city is named Delightful.” Li Tongxuan says further what governs here and what attends, and what is cured: the one position of the dedication equal to all buddhas takes the perfection of patience for its substance and the other nine perfections for its attendants; with reference to the gate of knowledge it cures alike at every position, while with reference to the gate of position it cures precisely the obstruction of patience’s not being sovereign upon entering the ocean of birth and death, and causes the patience of dharma to be gained in sovereignty; what is cultivated in the former ten abodes and ten practices is the patience that leaves suffering behind and goes beyond the world, while what this position accomplishes is the patience of kindness, compassion, and benefit within the world. Where he glosses this position in 〈The Ten Dedications〉, the setting forth of the Dharma he raises is just this elder Unsurpassed Victory, in the Grove of Freedom from Sorrow east of the city Delightful — the banner setting forth that patience does not move though it meet what goes against it, the grove setting forth that patience brought to fullness shades widely, and the name setting forth that among the practices there is none beyond patience. These various divergent glosses are all the settled sayings of the ancient worthies, and are recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the parallel translations. In the eighty this unit brings out no city-name; the sixty has Delightful, the forty Necklace of Delight. As for the friend’s name, the eighty and the sixty have Unsurpassed Victory, the forty Most Victorious. As for the next friend’s name, the eighty and the forty have Lion’s Stretching, the sixty Lion’s Rousing. Of the Dharma gate’s name too the three witnesses have three forms; and of the items of the substance the eighty and the sixty have two, the forty four. The forty’s four items are moreover not even with each other: where the name and substance are set forth it has “without substance, without anything depended upon, without anything done, without anything abided in,” and in the clause of humbling himself “without anything depended upon, without anything done, without any nature, without anything abided in,” the first list has “without substance” as its first item and lacks “without any nature,” while the second has “without any nature” as its third item and lacks “without substance.” The eighty and the sixty set up only the two items of having nothing depended upon and nothing done; the two the forty adds, having no nature and abiding in nothing, say further of the same Dharma gate why it is so — to have no nature is to have no own-nature that could be depended upon; to abide in nothing is to reach everywhere and yet not abide in what is reached. This belongs to the forty alone. All are recorded without adjudication. The city-name that Zhiyan sets down in his table of the sequence of good friends is again Joyful Delight, differing in form from every witness. All are recorded without adjudication.

A man who settles disputes says that the Dharma he has attained is called “without anything depended upon and without anything done.” Settling disputes most requires something to go upon, and what he goes upon is nothing depended upon — the weightiest sentence of this section is hidden just there, in what looks like a contradiction.