華嚴經 義疏通講 · 冊21Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 21

First, Asking the Way: What Sudhana Is Looking For Is a Person, Not a Place

This section begins with Sudhana traveling on by stages, reaching that country’s city, and searching everywhere after this nun. He has already arrived at the country’s city, and still he must search everywhere — which shows that arriving at the place is not the same as meeting the person.

Why does the scripture text write out this passage of looking for a person? Because the manner of this assembly is one friend to one visit, and the first step of a visit is not hearing the Dharma but finding. The friend before this pointed out the land, the city, and the person, and taught him what to ask once he arrived; where she was, however, still had to be asked once he had reached the place. Sudhana, once inside the city, found out where she was by searching everywhere, and by the measureless people who all told him. This nun was known to everyone in that city.

One misreading must be cleared away: that good friends are hard to find because they live in seclusion. Here it is exactly the opposite — measureless people all knew where she was, and what was hard was whether Sudhana was willing to go on searching the whole way. Bringing it to the ground: the person one may visit is often not far off; what is far off is the strength that those four words of searching everywhere demand.

The Sentence the People Told Him: She Is Expounding the Dharma in the King’s Donated Grove

The people’s answer was one sentence only: this nun is in the Sunlight Grove that King Excellent Light gave away in charity, expounding the Dharma there and benefiting measureless sentient beings. Within that one sentence there are three matters: the place is a grove given away by a king, the work is expounding the Dharma, and what it reaches is measureless sentient beings.

Why point out that it was given away in charity by King Excellent Light? Chengguan glosses this, saying that according to the discipline, nuns practicing the austerities are for the most part in royal groves, because they thereby have outward protection — by the rule of the precepts, nuns who practice the austere disciplines are mostly in the groves of royal houses, and this is so that they may have protection from without. He goes a step further and glosses it as a setting forth of the Dharma: it figures that because the true state is an excellent light, their roots of goodness are made to reach throughout the grove-park of the Dharma realm; and both alike are knowledge itself, and so both have the name of light. Excellent Light is the king’s name, Sunlight is the grove’s name, and both places carry the graph for light, and upon just this point Chengguan says that both alike are knowledge itself. Li Tongxuan reads this passage wholly as a setting forth of the Dharma: the monk figures forbearance, the nun kindness, King Surpassing Light knowledge, the three dharmas gathered together making the practice of vigor of this position; and the substance of the grove too is just these three dharmas — he says outright that as for the Sunlight Grove, forbearance, knowledge, and kindness are taken as the substance of the grove. Of one and the same grove, Chengguan takes its light and traces it back to knowledge, while Li Tongxuan takes where it comes from and traces it back to the three dharmas of forbearance, knowledge, and kindness; each house has its own track, and both are recorded without adjudication.

Clearing away one misreading: that a good friend who dwells in a royal grove is receiving offerings and enjoying ease. The scripture text states plainly that the grove was given away in charity, and what the person within it does is to expound the Dharma and benefit measureless sentient beings. Bringing it to the ground: outward protection is so that the Dharma may stand and be practiced, not so that the practitioner may live well.

Going to the Grove and Looking Through It: The First Thing Sudhana Sees Is Eight Trees

Sudhana reached the grove, and the scripture text says that he looked all through it. Looked at what? What he saw first were the trees — Full Moon, Universal Covering, Flower Treasury, the sweet-dew fruit tree, Vairocana Treasury, Pure, Joy, Universal Adornment: eight in all.

Why should a scripture spend so many graphs writing about trees? When Chengguan outlines this passage, he sets it down as the first of the six divisions of seeing the dependent recompense, saying: first, the grove of trees that is without outflows, because it is established by the practice of the dharma that is without outflows; within the text there are eight, each having something it sets forth — ponder it. He judges their number to be eight, says that each sets something forth, yet does not gloss them tree by tree, leaving the matter to the reader to ponder. Fazang, reading the sixty-fascicle version, likewise says: first, the seeing of the adornment of the great trees, briefly raising eight kinds — the two houses agreeing as to the number.

Clearing away one misreading: that this is literary elaboration and may be skipped over so as to read the dialogue. Here the eight trees are the first batch of things Sudhana sees, and the scripture text places them before the person — first the dependent recompense is seen, and afterward the direct recompense; this is the sequence of this section. Bringing it to the ground: the surroundings a person stands in are themselves already telling what sort of person that is.

The Springs and Pools and the Six Kinds of Lion Throne: Whom Are the Seats For?

After the trees comes water, and after the water the seats. The flowing springs and pools are brimming full with water of the eight qualities, and four kinds of lotus flower cover the surface of the pools; beneath the jewel trees lion thrones are spread, and among them six seats have names of their own — the lotus treasury, the treasury of the maṇi king of fragrance, the treasury of the maṇi king of dragon adornment, the treasury of the maṇi king of the gathering of jeweled lions, the treasury of the Vairocana maṇi king, and the treasury of the Vairocana maṇi king of the ten directions.

Which eight qualities are the eight qualities of the water? Chengguan transmits their items as light, cool, soft, sweet, clean and without stench, agreeable and free of harm, while Fazang transmits eight items — first light, second cool, third soft, fourth sweet, fifth clean, sixth without stench, seventh agreeable when drunk, eighth free of harm after drinking — the two houses transmitting much the same, with a small difference in the opening out and the closing up. As for the one passage of the seats, Chengguan judges it as the spreading of the seats of the emptiness of dharmas, with the adornments differing according to the dharma; and within it there are the setting forth, the listing, and the closing.

Clearing away one misreading: that the six kinds of seat were prepared for six guests. The scripture text goes on to say that each and every one of those seats has a hundred thousand jeweled lion thrones surrounding it on every side — the seats are not six, they are six classes. Bringing it to the ground: it is upon just these seats that the assemblies at thirty places sit in the passage that follows; writing about the seats here is laying out the places beforehand for the people written about afterward.

The Whole Adornment of the Grove: Why Are the Comparisons Drawn From the Heavens Throughout?

The third passage writes the whole aspect of the grove, using eight comparisons: the manifold jewels everywhere, as upon an island of jewels in the great ocean; the wondrous flowers raining down constantly, as in Śakra’s grove of mingled flowers; the king of fragrance perfuming everything everywhere, as in Śakra’s hall of good dharma; the lovely sound of the nets of bells, like the singing of the goddess Fair Mouth; the wish-granting trees with wondrous garments hanging down and spread out, like the great ocean; the storeyed pavilions, like the great city Well-Seeing of the palaces of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three; the jeweled canopies, like the peaks of Sumeru; the radiance, like the palace of the Brahmā king.

Why are most of the comparisons made with the heavens? Of the eight comparisons, five take an aspect of the heavens — Śakra’s grove of mingled flowers, Śakra’s hall of good dharma, the singing voice of the goddess Fair Mouth, the great city Well-Seeing of the palaces of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, and the palace of the Brahmā king; two take the great ocean, and one the peaks of Sumeru. The aspects of the heavens are the more numerous because the most excellent aspect in the mind of one who reads a scripture is the aspect of the heavens; the scripture text takes the utterly excellent aspect the reader already has, in order to tell of a grove in the human world. Chengguan judges this passage as the fourth of the six divisions of the dependent recompense, saying: a mingled setting forth of the manifold adornments, because the myriad practices are not one — the adornments within the grove are mingled and not one, and this figures that the practice cultivated is mingled and not one.

Clearing away one misreading: that this is exaggeration. Exaggeration makes the small out to be great; here the greatest thing the reader can imagine is taken as the term of comparison, and the scripture text says that the grove is like it — it is the heavens that are used to figure the grove, not the grove that is set beside the heavens. Bringing it to the ground: the myriad practices must be not one because the capacities to be converted are not one; the thirty seats below are the making good of this very sentence.

Bringing Out the Cause of It: Where the Adornment of This Grove Comes From

Having written the grove, the scripture text answers a question of its own: where do these things come from. The answer has four parts — all accomplished by the karmic recompense of a bodhisattva, given rise to by roots of goodness that go beyond the world, flowed forth from the merit and virtue of making offerings to the buddhas, and nothing in all the worlds their equal — and at the end it comes home to one person: all of it in this way accomplished by the nun Lion’s Stretching, who has fathomed that dharmas are like an illusion and has gathered the vast and pure good karma of merit.

Note where the four graphs for fathoming that dharmas are like an illusion stand. They are not outside the merit but right within it: what is gathered is vast and pure good karma of merit, and the one who gathers it is a person who has fathomed that dharmas are like an illusion. Merit and being like an illusion are not two separate stretches. Chengguan judges this passage as the bringing out of the cause of it, and the next passage, beginning with the three-thousandfold world-system, as the making clear of the sovereignty of the working of the fruit — the gods, dragons, and eight kinds of beings of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system and measureless sentient beings all entered this grove and did not feel it pressing or narrow, and the scripture text sets its own question and gives its own answer: because this nun has the inconceivable power of majestic spirit.

Clearing away one misreading: that they were held because the grove was large. The scripture text states plainly that it is not the largeness of the grove but the power of majestic spirit. Bringing it to the ground: how many people a small place can hold depends not on the place but on the largeness of heart of the one who owns it.

Seeing the Direct Recompense: Eleven Comparisons Telling One Person’s Virtue

The dependent recompense written, the person at last comes forward. The scripture text says that Sudhana saw her sitting throughout upon the great lion thrones beneath all the jewel trees, and then tells her virtue with eleven comparisons: her faculties tamed and compliant, like the great elephant king; her mind without stain or turbidity, like a pool of pure water; relieving universally all that is sought after, like a wish-granting jewel; unstained by the dharmas of the world, like a lotus flower; her mind without dread, like a lion king; keeping the pure precepts unshakably, like Mount Sumeru; making those who see her cool, like the king of wondrous fragrances; able to take away the burning of the afflictions, like the wondrous candana fragrance in the snow mountains; those who see her having their sufferings extinguished, like the king of medicines Well-Seeing; those who see her not doing so in vain, like the god Poluona; able to grow the sprouts of good roots, like a good and fertile field.

What is Poluona? Chengguan says that this means water here, and that this god is able to fulfill what people wish for; Fazang says that this name means water, and that it should be the water-god buddha, since seeing him one is already benefited. Both houses gloss it as water, while what god is meant differs a little.

Clearing away one misreading: that the eleven similes are only a heaping up of adjectives. Look closely at their order: the first six similes tell the aspect of her own person (tamed, unstained, able to relieve, unclinging, without dread, keeping the precepts), and the latter five tell what those who see her obtain (coolness, the taking away of burning, the extinguishing of suffering, not being in vain, the growth of good roots) — moving from the former to the latter is a turn from her own virtue to the converting of others. Bringing it to the ground: a person’s virtue can only be seen once it has reached another person, and these eleven clauses are laid out in exactly that way.

The Whole of the Thirty Seats: One Body Sitting Throughout, the Assemblies Differing and the Dharmas Differing

What comes next is the longest passage in this section. The scripture text opens with one sentence for the whole: upon each and every seat the assembly gathered was not the same, and the Dharma gate expounded also differed in each case. And then the same clause-pattern is repeated thirty times.

Here one thing must be settled first: the one sitting upon the thirty seats is one and the same person. The scripture text has already said above that she sits throughout upon the great lion thrones beneath all the jewel trees, and here it says that upon each and every seat the assembly gathered is not the same — it is not thirty transformation-bodies going by turns, but one body reaching everywhere at one time. Chengguan judges the one division of seeing the direct recompense into four, saying: first, the setting forth as a whole of her sitting throughout, her surpassing virtue made manifest; second, the setting forth in particular of what she reaches throughout, the Dharmas expounded differing in each; third, the gathering up as a whole of the many kinds hearing the Dharma and giving rise to the mind; fourth, the setting forth in common of the cause of it, glossing how the sovereignty comes about. And upon the thirty seats he sets up a judgment in three divisions: there are thirty places, divided into three — the first sixteen are the eight kinds of beings, humans, non-humans, and the rest; the next two are the two vehicles; the last twelve are bodhisattvas.

Clearing away one misreading: that one person at one time can expound only one Dharma, and that all the rest must be in sequence. Bringing it to the ground: what this section shows is not a trick of dividing the body, but one Dharma responding everywhere — the same one liberation of the accomplishing of omniscient knowledge, falling upon different capacities, becomes thirty Dharma gates with thirty different names.

The Seven Heavenly Seats: Counteracting and Suiting the Occasion, Two Different Measuring Rods

At the head of the thirty seats are the seven places of the hosts of gods: the Pure Abodes (Inexhaustible Liberation), the Brahmā gods (The Wheel of Pure Speech-Sounds Differentiated in Every Gate), the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Others’ Emanations (The Pure Mind of a Bodhisattva), the Heaven of Good Transformation (The Good Adornment of All Dharmas), the Tuṣita Heaven (The Whirling of the Treasury of the Mind), the Suyāma Heaven (Boundless Adornment), and the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (The Gate of Weariness and Renunciation).

Chengguan brings out the reason for each seat in turn. For the Pure Abodes what is expounded is the inexhaustible, and he glosses this as counteracting the seeking of those non-returners for the exhausting of body and knowledge — the Pure Abodes are where the non-returners dwell, and the ailment of a non-returner lies in seeking the exhausting of body and knowledge, and so the inexhaustible is used to counteract it. For the Brahmā gods what is expounded is every gate, and he glosses it thus: their responding everywhere is only to their own host, but reaching broadly to the three-thousandfold world-system, expounding for them every gate is then to leave nothing unanswered; the Brahmā sounds are clear and subtle, but they are only of this world, and expounding for them the excellent outflow of the Dharma realm is only then pure and subtle. The five seats that follow he passes over one after another: third, the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Others’ Emanations, so that they may gain the pure mind that goes beyond the world, being sovereign beyond the world; fourth, the Heaven of Enjoying Emanations, since their adornments of pleasure-things do not reach as far as the good; fifth, the whirling back to the Tathāgata-womb mind, which is then true contentment; sixth, adorning the Dharma realm throughout, which alone exhausts the pleasure of the divisions of time; seventh, the gods of Śakra, since their craving of desires is very great.

Clearing away one misreading: that expounding the Dharma is only picking out what is pleasant to hear. Within the seven seats, some supply what is lacking (the pure mind beyond the world for the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Others’ Emanations), and some counteract what is one-sided (the craving of desires of the gods of Śakra). Bringing it to the ground: the hardness of expounding the Dharma lies in first seeing clearly where this crowd of people is stuck just now.

The Remaining Seven Seats of the Eight Kinds of Beings: Expounding Either Counteracts Their Ailment or Takes Up Their Ability

After the gods come the seven seats of the dragons, the yakṣas, the gandharvas, the asuras, the garuḍas, the kiṃnaras, and the mahoragas. Chengguan still brings out the sense of each seat in turn: next, one for the dragons, since dragons are able to pass through changes, with lightning flashing and rain adorning; third, the yakṣas, since by nature they delight in flying through the air and harming things; fourth, the host of gandharvas, since they are able to make music and delight in joy. And again: fifth, the asuras, since they are good at illusion, for the sake of adornment; sixth, the garuḍas, since they stir the ocean and terrify the dragons; seventh, the kiṃnaras, who are gods of song, breaking their clinging by the radiance of the practice of a buddha; and further, they have a single horn upon the head and are also called the gods of doubt, and they are made the same as the awakening of a buddha, by the radiance that leaves doubt behind; eighth, the mahoragas, since they have much of the poison of anger.

Looking at the names of what is expounded upon these seven seats, two ways of taking them up may be seen. The gandharvas are good at making music, and what is expounded is Inexhaustible Joy — this is taking up what they are able to do and turning it. The yakṣas delight in harming things, and what is expounded is The Treasury of Rescuing and Guarding Sentient Beings; the mahoragas have much of the poison of anger, and what is expounded is Giving Rise to a Mind of Delight in the Buddha — this is counteracting what they are ailing from. On the one seat of the kiṃnaras, Chengguan lists them on the side of counteracting, saying that their clinging is broken by the radiance of the practice of a buddha, and yet says further that the two senses run through it — the ability of gods of song may be taken up and turned, and their clinging must also be broken, both senses going together. Chengguan separates these two ways of taking them up plainly, saying: of the eight kinds of beings above, apart from the first and the seventh, and the host of yakṣas and the mahoragas, which are spoken of with reference to counteracting, the rest are all with reference to suiting the convenient occasion, since their worldly abilities are turned so as to enter what goes beyond the world; and as for the host of kiṃnaras, the two senses run through it.

The names upon the remaining three seats likewise fit their natures each in turn. The dragons are able to pass through changes, with lightning flashing and rain adorning, and what is expounded is ‘The Radiant Adornment of the Objective Realm of a Buddha’s Spiritual Powers’ — the nature of passing through changes turned into the objective realm of a buddha’s spiritual powers. The asuras are good at illusion and fond of contention, and what is expounded is ‘The Gate of Swiftly Adorning the Knowledge of the Dharma Realm’ — the swiftness of the power of illusion turned into swiftness in entering the Dharma realm. The garuḍas are able to stir the ocean and terrify the dragons, and what is expounded is ‘Terrifying and Stirring the Ocean of All Existences’ — what they terrified was originally the dragons, and what is now terrified is the ocean of all existences.

Clearing away one misreading: that all expounding of the Dharma is counteracting. Bringing it to the ground: a person’s strong point is also a gate — there is no need to knock it down first and then teach; one may take it up and turn it.

The Two Seats of Humans and Rākṣasas: The Benevolence and Righteousness of the World Are Still Not Enough

The fifteenth seat is measureless hundreds of thousands of men and women, for whom is expounded ‘Surpassing Practice’; the sixteenth seat is the host of rākṣasas, for whom is expounded ‘Giving Rise to a Mind of Pity and Compassion.’ These two seats are the least conspicuous among the thirty, and yet each has its reason.

Chengguan glosses the one seat of humans thus: humans mostly carry out unwholesome practices, and even if they carry out benevolence and righteousness it is still not surpassing, and so they are made to give rise to a surpassing practice that goes beyond the world. That sentence falls heavily: it says not only that humans mostly carry out unwholesome practices, but that even having carried out benevolence and righteousness they are still not surpassing, and so ‘Surpassing Practice’ must be expounded for them. The one seat of rākṣasas he glosses as: these then are non-humans, and it also counteracts their much harming — the rākṣasas do harm, and so ‘Giving Rise to a Mind of Pity and Compassion’ is expounded.

Clearing away one misreading: that the good dharmas of the world and the dharma that goes beyond the world differ only in degree, and that practicing long enough one will naturally pass over into the other. Chengguan’s judgment is not like that: benevolence and righteousness are good, but they are not surpassing, and so there is another gate that must be expounded. Bringing it to the ground: being a good person and studying the practice of a bodhisattva are two different things, and the former does not grow of itself into the latter.

The Two Seats of the Two Vehicles: Knowledge Being Inferior, and Knowledge Not Yet Having Let Go of Conditions

The seventeenth and eighteenth seats are sentient beings who believe in and delight in the vehicle of the śrāvakas and in the vehicle of the pratyekabuddhas, and the Dharmas expounded are ‘The Radiance of Surpassing Knowledge’ and ‘The Vast Radiance of the Merit and Virtue of a Buddha.’

Why must radiance be expounded for the two vehicles? Chengguan brings out the reason: next, the two for the two vehicles — because the knowledge of the śrāvakas is inferior; because the pratyekabuddhas cultivate merit only up to a hundred kalpas; and because the radiance of their knowledge of dependent origination is not yet able to let go of conditions. The ailment of the śrāvakas lies in inferior knowledge, and so surpassing knowledge is expounded; the ailment of the pratyekabuddhas is twofold, one that their cultivation of merit stops at a hundred kalpas, and one that though they have the radiance of the knowledge of dependent origination they are not yet able to let go of conditions — still keeping conditions in place, and so the vast merit and virtue of a buddha is expounded for them.

Clearing away one misreading: that what the two vehicles lack is compassion, and that it is enough to give rise to the mind and turn from the small toward the great. What Chengguan points to here is knowledge — the one has knowledge not sufficiently surpassing, the other has knowledge still stuck upon conditions. Bringing it to the ground: turning from the small toward the great is not merely exchanging one aspiration for another; the very knowledge one relies upon must also be exchanged.

The One Seat Before the Grounds and the Ten Seats Upon the Grounds: From the Radiance of Concentration and Wisdom to the Ten Grounds

The nineteenth seat is sentient beings who believe in and delight in the Great Vehicle, for whom is expounded ‘The Gate of the Radiance of the Knowledge of the Samādhi of Every Gate’; the twentieth seat is the bodhisattvas who have first given rise to the mind, for whom is expounded ‘The Gathering of the Vows of All Buddhas’; and below these, the second ground through the tenth ground have one seat each, nine seats in all.

Chengguan judges this one passage thus: the last twelve are bodhisattvas, divided into three — the first one is for those before the grounds, expounding the radiance of concentration and wisdom; the next ten are for those upon the grounds; as for those who first give rise to the mind, this is the giving rise to the mind that is realization, because they give rise to the ten great vows. Two things are to be noted. First, the name expounded upon the one seat of those who believe in and delight in the Great Vehicle contains just samādhi and knowledge, and so Chengguan matches it with the radiance of concentration and wisdom. Second, the first giving rise to the mind in the scripture text is not the giving rise to the mind of first faith; Chengguan says outright that it is the giving rise to the mind that is realization, on the ground that they give rise to the ten great vows — the ten great vows being the business of a bodhisattva of the first ground, and so this seat belongs to the head of those upon the grounds.

Among the ten seats of the grounds, Chengguan sets down a separate gloss upon two: the first ground and the fifth. The gloss upon the first ground is the one already quoted in the section above — as for those who first give rise to the mind, this is the giving rise to the mind that is realization, because they give rise to the ten great vows. The fifth ground expounds ‘The Treasury of Wondrous Flowers,’ and he glosses it thus: the flower means the ten kinds of equal and pure mind, and therefore the Jin scripture says the treasury of the flower of the pure mind; and as for the treasury of the flower, it is because the true and the conventional are cultivated together, and being the cause upon the hard-to-conquer ground it holds them within. And he draws in the Jin translation directly as his witness — the sixty-fascicle version at this seat has just the Dharma gate of the treasury of the flower of the pure mind. Of the other eight seats he says that the remaining eight may be known, and brings out no separate sense for them. Chengguan says that the remaining eight may be known and brings out no sense for them, but the Yanyi chao fills this out on his behalf, bringing out the reason ground by ground: the second ground because the three collections of precepts are full; the third because the eight dhyānas are cultivated; the fourth because it is without practice and without birth and its practice is the radiance of wisdom; the sixth because prajñā is made manifest and the illumining everywhere is universally gained; the seventh because within existence it practises the surpassing practice and cultivates all the limbs of awakening, and so is named universally adorned; the eighth because it gains the forbearance of non-arising and is sovereign in all three worlds; the ninth because it takes non-attainment as its means and the perfection of power increases above the rest; the tenth because the ten obstructions are crushed, the ten perfections full, and the three incalculable ages complete. What is meant by their being knowable is not that there is no sense to tell, but that the Shu is brief by its own manner; once the chao fills it out, one sees how each comes home to its own ground.

Clearing away one misreading: that the higher the ground, the loftier and more abstruse the Dharma expounded. Looking at the names one sees it is not so: the second ground ‘The Wheel of Freedom from Defilement,’ the third ‘Still Adornment,’ the fourth ‘Giving Birth to the Objective Realm of Omniscient Knowledge’ — every name fits close to the aspect of practice of that ground. Bringing it to the ground: the height or lowness of the Dharma expounded is not fixed by the one who expounds, but by where the one who listens is standing now.

The One Seat of the Vajra-Holding Spirits: What the Last Seat Expounds Is the Vajra-Like Concentration

The thirtieth seat is the vajra-holding spirits, for whom is expounded ‘The Nārāyaṇa Adornment of Vajra Knowledge.’ This seat stands at the end of the thirty, and Chengguan gives it no small place: the last one in its sense answers to equal awakening, expounding the vajra-like concentration, because it destroys and scatters the perfumings of the dust; since it is expounded for equal awakening, it makes clear that this position is not a small one.

The vajra-like concentration is the concentration that arises at the point where equal awakening enters wondrous awakening, and is able to destroy the last of the perfumings fine as dust and sand; the name of the vajra-holding spirits carries just the graph for vajra, and the Dharma expounded carries vajra knowledge as well, and so Chengguan matches it with equal awakening. And then he adds one sentence that matters more: as for the words about the dedication, they are with reference to an assigned position only; the rest are all to be taken after this manner.

That sentence must be made clear. This section is fastened, in Chengguan’s outline, to the one position of the dedication that reaches every place, which Chengguan set up in succession from the outline of assigned positions of the ancient worthies; the scripture text itself sets forth no name of any position. Chengguan himself states plainly here that this is with reference to an assigned position only, and with the words about the rest being taken after this manner he runs it through all the friends of this assembly — the assigned positions are a way of reading, not the scripture text’s own judgment upon itself. In the place where he outlines this assembly as a whole, Chengguan had already spoken of this matter evenhandedly: from of old, the Dharma master Yi and the Taishan treatise glossed the text as it ran and did not match the positions separately, while Guangtong and the other masters all matched the ground 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 is complete in many Dharma gates, how could an ordinary mind be barred from studying and seeking the dharma of the good friends, and so not matching them has its reason; yet within the absence of sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to make the positions manifest is the constant rule, so that matching them is likewise not amiss — the matching and the not matching both preserved, and so the assigned position of this section may not be read as a settled judgment. Li Tongxuan reads the same position and matches the dharma differently, saying that the position of this nun is the same as the fourth abode among the ten abodes and the fourth ground among the ten grounds, and matching it further with the fourth perfection, that of vigor. The two houses match differently, each having its own track; recorded without adjudication.

Clearing away one misreading: that since this is a position of dedication, the last seat ought not to expound the Dharma of equal awakening. Chengguan speaks upon just this point, saying that it makes clear that this position is not a small one. Bringing it to the ground: the positions are steps set up so that the reader may understand, not limits set upon the scripture text.

Gathering Up the Many Kinds: Those Who Came Were All Already Ripe

The thirty seats told, the scripture text makes one gathering up: Sudhana saw that all the sentient beings of every destiny who were already ripened and already tamed, and who were fit to be vessels of the Dharma, all entered this grove and sat surrounding her, each beneath her seat; and the nun, following upon the differences of their wishes, their understanding, and their superiority or inferiority, expounded the Dharma for them, causing them to attain non-retrogression with respect to anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi. Chengguan judges this as the gathering up as a whole of the many kinds hearing the Dharma and giving rise to the mind.

Here there is one limiting condition easily slipped over: already ripened, already tamed, fit to be vessels of the Dharma. It is not that the whole world came to the thirty seats; it is that those who were ripe came. And though the Dharmas expounded were thirty and different, the fruit they arrive at is one only — the attaining of non-retrogression.

Clearing away one misreading: that since she is a great good friend, there should be no sentient being at all who is not delivered. The scripture text sets its own limit, and that limit lies not in the one who expounds but in whether the one who listens is ripe. Bringing it to the ground: between teaching and not teaching there lies yet the one layer of being fit to be a vessel of the Dharma; those in a hurry often misapply their strength upon just this layer.

The Ten Gates of Prajñā-Pāramitā: The Reason on the Side of the One Who Converts

After the gathering up, the scripture text sets up a question of its own, asking why — why she is able to be like this. Chengguan judges this answer as two causes: first, because the one who converts is complete in prajñā; second, from the words about this Sunlight Grove onward, because the faculties of those to be converted are already ripe. First, the side of the one who converts.

The scripture text lists ten gates: the universal eye that relinquishes and obtains, expounding all the Buddha-dharma, the differentiation of the Dharma realm, scattering and destroying the wheel of all obstructions, giving birth to the good minds of all sentient beings, surpassing adornment, the unobstructed treasury of reality, the fullness of the Dharma realm, the treasury of the mind, and the treasury that brings forth universally; and it closes with with these ten prajñā-pāramitā gates at their head and entering numberless millions of prajñā-pāramitā gates such as these.

The words ‘at their head’ must be seen clearly. The ten gates are not the whole; they are the head; and what is entered is numberless millions. The scripture text uses a countable ten to lead an uncountable numberlessness.

Clearing away one misreading: that having listed ten gates there are then ten Dharma gates standing side by side. The name of each of the ten gates points to one matter. The universal eye that relinquishes and obtains: the eye is universal and can both let go and take up — nothing seen is left out, and nothing seen is held on to. Expounding all the Buddha-dharma: nothing of what is to be expounded is left unsaid. The differentiation of the Dharma realm: within one Dharma realm its manifold differences are seen clearly and not confused. Scattering and destroying the wheel of all obstructions: the wheel of obstructions is to be scattered and destroyed. Giving birth to the good minds of all sentient beings: the good minds of sentient beings are to be given birth to. Surpassing adornment: the aspect made manifest surpasses the adornments of the world. The unobstructed treasury of reality: the treasury of reality is to be unobstructed. The fullness of the Dharma realm: the differences having been seen, they return to the whole, and it does not fall to one side. The treasury of the mind: all of it is gathered into one mind and is a treasury. The treasury that brings forth universally: from this one treasury all is brought forth universally, and the numberless millions of gates come out from here. The limit must be said plainly: the ancient worthies do not gloss these ten gates one by one — Fazang says only that ten gates of prajñā are raised in brief, and that they are the Dharma gates expounded above and the rest; Li Tongxuan says only that the scripture sets them forth in full. So the distinctions among the ten names above are drawn only so far as the face of the scripture text goes, and no sense is set up on the ancient worthies’ behalf beyond it. Bringing it to the ground: prajñā is not one particular ability, but that unobstructedness which appears in each and every place after its own manner.

First Exhorting Them to Give Rise to the Mind: The Reason on the Side of Those Converted

The second cause lies in those converted: all the bodhisattvas and all the sentient beings within this Sunlight Grove were those whom the nun Lion’s Stretching first exhorted to give rise to the mind, to uphold the true Dharma, to ponder it and cultivate it, and to attain non-retrogression with respect to anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.

This sentence answers the question left over from the section before — why those people were already ripened. The answer is that the one who exhorted them to give rise to the mind in the beginning was this very person. And so the gathering at the thirty seats is not an audience assembled by chance; they are people she has herself brought along the whole way until today. And the scripture text lists three matters: first exhorting them to give rise to the mind, upholding the true Dharma, pondering and cultivating — after giving rise to the mind there are still two layers of work, and only then non-retrogression.

Clearing away one misreading: that the working of a good friend lies in one instruction. What the scripture text records here is a long line: from first exhorting him to give rise to the mind, to today’s hearing of thirty gates of Dharma beneath her seat. Bringing it to the ground: what is called accomplishing a person is the same person accompanying him from beginning to end.

Paying Respects: The Thought Arises First, and Only Then Is the Radiance Sent Out

Sudhana saw the grove, the couches and seats, the walking, the assemblies, the spiritual power, and the eloquence, and heard the Dharma gates besides, and the scripture text says that a vast cloud of Dharma moistened his mind, and thereupon he gave rise to a thought such as this: “I ought to circle her to the right measureless hundreds of thousands of times.” The thought once arisen, the nun sent out a great radiance illumining everywhere the adornments of the assemblies in the grove; and Sudhana thereupon saw his own body and the manifold trees within the grove all circling this nun to the right, passing measureless hundreds of thousands of myriads of times.

The sequence must be seen clearly: Sudhana gives rise to the thought first, and the nun sends out the radiance afterward. Chengguan judges this passage into three: first, beholding what is surpassing and giving rise to the mind; next, sending out radiance and gathering him in; last, setting out the observance of respect directly. Beholding what is surpassing and giving rise to the mind comes first, and sending out radiance and gathering him in comes after.

Clearing away one misreading: that spiritual transformations are a means a good friend uses to draw people in. The sequence of the scripture text is precisely the reverse — the person has that one thought first, and only then does the radiance come and accomplish that thought. Bringing it to the ground: wanting to circle a hundred thousand times is Sudhana’s own mind; being able to circle together with the manifold trees is her sustaining power; without the former, the latter has nothing to be added to.

Sudhana’s Question: The Two Sentences He Uses Before Most Friends of This Assembly

The circling done, Sudhana stood with his palms joined and said: “Holy one! I have already first given rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, 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? I have heard that you, holy one, are good at drawing others on and instructing them. I pray you will expound it for me!”

This is the question that appears again and again through the more than fifty visits of this assembly, and its shape is almost unchanged: first setting out that he has already given rise to the mind, next that he does not yet know, and last what he seeks. Why, having asked more than twenty houses, does he still ask the same sentence? Because what is asked is not knowledge — if it were knowledge, having asked once there would be no need to ask again. What is asked is how to study and how to cultivate, and this is practice; and practice has no single general answer, only a way of living it out in each and every good friend.

One added sentence here is to be noted: I have heard that you, holy one, are good at drawing others on and instructing them. Sudhana did not blunder in at random; he came because he had heard. Clearing away one misreading: that the repeated question is a set formula of the scripture text. Bringing it to the ground: that the same question is still asked in the same way at the twenty-fourth time is itself the practice.

The Accomplishing of Omniscient Knowledge: The Name of the Liberation, and the Reason for the Name

The nun’s answer is one sentence only: “Son of good family! I have gained a liberation named: the accomplishing of omniscient knowledge.” Sudhana then presses on to ask the reason for the name: “Holy one! Why is it named: the accomplishing of omniscient knowledge?” The answer: “Son of good family! This radiance of knowledge, within a single thought, illumines everywhere all the dharmas of the three times.”

Chengguan judges these two subsections thus: first, the setting forth of the name; as for omniscient knowledge, it is because it is the same as the knowledge of a buddha. Second, from the words about Sudhana speaking onward, the inquiring into and glossing of its substance, because within a single thought it illumines everywhere. The one subsection of setting forth the name tells the name of the fruit, and the one subsection of inquiring and glossing tells the substance — and the substance lies just in the seven graphs about illumining the three times everywhere within a single thought.

One question must be asked: why does Sudhana press on to ask the reason for the name? Because a name may be let go once it is heard, but a substance may not. The sequence of question and answer in the scripture text is the three layers of name, substance, and working, pressing down layer by layer, and this is the bone of the questions and answers of this section. The forty-fascicle version sets forth a different name here, the gate of extinguishing all subtle differentiation, and at the closing joins the two ends together, the bodhisattva’s gate of liberation that extinguishes all subtle differentiation and accomplishes omniscient knowledge — the eighty sets forth only what is accomplished, the accomplishing of omniscient knowledge, while the forty sets forth both what is departed from, the extinguishing of subtle differentiation, and what is accomplished, the accomplishing of omniscient knowledge. What is departed from and what is accomplished are two faces of one matter, and each version takes one face in setting up the name; both are recorded without adjudication.

Clearing away one misreading: that omniscient knowledge means knowing all things. Chengguan states plainly further on that omniscient knowledge has two senses, one that it knows throughout all the things of the three times, and the second that as against specific knowledge it is called fundamental knowledge, since it knows that all things are alike one reality — the latter sense telling not of knowing much but of knowing through. Bringing it to the ground: knowing a great deal and seeing through to one reality are two wholly different kinds of knowing.

Fazang reads the sixty-fascicle version, whose name for this friend’s Dharma gate carries one graph more — the bottom — and reads the Dharma gate of the bottom of a bodhisattva’s omniscient knowledge. Upon that one graph he sets up three senses: one with reference to position — she can expound the Dharma for bodhisattvas of the ground of equal awakening, which those of the lower grounds cannot do, and so it is said that she exhausts the original bottom of a buddha’s omniscient knowledge; one with reference to knowledge — the radiance of knowledge illumines the three times all at once and exhausts the objective realm of the knowledge of all modes; one with reference to practice — she raises offerings extensively and exhausts the original bottom of the knowledge of a buddha’s eight aspects. The eighty-fascicle version has no such graph, and so Chengguan sets up no such three senses. The presence or absence of a single graph opens a whole passage of doctrine; this is why the parallel versions are read side by side.

Asking About the Objective Realm: The Third Question Asks About the Working

Sudhana asks again: “Holy one! What is the objective realm of this radiance of knowledge like?” This is the third of the three questions. Chengguan judges it thus: third, from the words about Sudhana speaking onward, the discerning of its working, first the question and afterward the answer; and he judges the text of the answer into two: first the setting forth of the common working, afterward the setting forth of the working of knowledge.

Why, having asked about the substance, must he still ask about the objective realm? Because the substance is told out in a single sentence (within a single thought illumining the three times everywhere), while the working cannot be told to an end. All that the scripture text writes below — the mind-made body making offerings everywhere, the five clauses of not differentiating — is drawn out by this one question.

Clearing away one misreading: that having asked as far as the substance one has reached the bottom, and that the working is only an exercise in application. The weight of this section falls exactly the other way: the setting forth of the name and the inquiring into the substance together do not amount to fifty graphs, while the one passage discerning the working takes up the greatest part of the whole subsection’s questions and answers. Bringing it to the ground: whether a Dharma gate is worth studying is not seen from how lofty a substance it can state, but from how much it can do within the objective realm.

The King of Samādhis and the Mind-Made Body: Why Is It Called ‘King’?

The head of the answer as to the working says: “I have entered this gate of the radiance of knowledge and have gained the king of samādhis that brings forth all dharmas; and because of this samādhi I have gained a mind-made body.”

Why is it called the king of samādhis? Chengguan draws in a treatise as his witness: as for the king of samādhis, the Zhi lun, in its eighth fascicle, says that all samādhis enter into it. All samādhis enter within it, and therefore it is called king. And he goes a step further and tells its substance: its substance is just suchness; the substance of suchness is fundamentally still, and true knowledge accords with this, and so it is named samādhi. The Yanyi chao draws out what follows in the treatise he cites: within the treatise one saying places the king of samādhis in the fourth dhyāna, and another holds that a buddha’s samādhi can be known by a buddha alone and is beyond the measure of others; and upon this Chengguan sets down a single settling word — this is only praising its surpassingness — meaning that the latter saying praises its surpassingness and does not set up a separate place for it.

And where does the mind-made body come from? Chengguan fastens it directly to the pervasiveness of the substance of the king of samādhis: and further, because the substance of the king of samādhis is nowhere not pervading, therefore the mind-made body is able to be accomplished according to kind — the reason a body is able to appear according to kind is that the substance of the concentration is fundamentally without anything it does not pervade.

Clearing away one misreading: that the mind-made body is a spiritual power that one has once one has cultivated it. The sequence here is: entering the gate of the radiance of knowledge, gaining the king of samādhis, and because of the king of samādhis gaining the mind-made body. The body comes last, the knowledge comes first. Bringing it to the ground: how many places one can go to depends on how far the mind has already pervaded.

The Offerings: Making Offerings All the Way Until the Buddha Enters Nirvāṇa

What does the mind-made body do? The scripture text says that she goes to the bodhisattvas bound to one more birth in the palaces of the Tuṣita Heaven in all the worlds of the ten directions, and before each and every bodhisattva manifests bodies as many as the dust-motes of unspeakable buddha-lands, and with each and every body makes offerings as many as the dust-motes of unspeakable buddha-lands. The implements of offering the scripture text lists one by one: manifesting the body of a god-king and so on down to the body of a human king, holding clouds of flowers and clouds of garlands, incense to be burned, unguents, and powdered fragrance, garments, necklaces, banners and pennants, silken canopies, jeweled nets, jeweled curtains, jeweled treasuries, and jeweled lamps.

What matters more is the span of time of the offerings. The scripture text says: just as at the place of the bodhisattvas dwelling in the Tuṣita palaces, so also at the dwelling in the womb, the coming forth from the womb, the being at home, the leaving home, the going to the place of awakening, the accomplishing of perfect awakening, the turning of the wheel of the true Dharma, and the entering into nirvāṇa — everywhere within the eight aspects it is thus; and in the intervals between the eight aspects, whether dwelling in the palaces of the gods, or dwelling in the palaces of the dragons, or on down to dwelling again in the palaces of humans, there too it is the same offering.

Clearing away one misreading: that making offerings is a matter of the time when a buddha accomplishes the way and expounds the Dharma. The scripture text says plainly that it runs from the being bound to one more birth in Tuṣita to the entering into nirvāṇa, and does not let go even of the dwellings in between. Bringing it to the ground: making offerings is not hurrying to be at the grandest occasion; it is being there from beginning to end.

Setting Forth the Benefit: Those Who Know and Those Who Come

At the end of the passage of offerings the scripture text tells two benefits: if there are sentient beings who know that I make offerings to the buddhas in this way, they all attain non-retrogression with respect to anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi; if there are sentient beings who come to where I am, I then expound prajñā-pāramitā for them.

The two sentences make a pair. The former is the benefit for those who know her — merely knowing that she makes offerings to the buddhas in this way, one attains non-retrogression; the latter is the benefit for those who come to where she is — for those who have come, she expounds prajñā-pāramitā. The former needs no meeting; the latter needs a meeting.

Clearing away one misreading: that hearing of a matter does not count as practice. The scripture text here lists knowing separately as one benefit, and the reason lies in the strength of the matter known itself — that one knows there is someone who makes offerings to the buddhas in this way is a thing that works within a person’s mind. Bringing it to the ground: the working of a good friend has two layers, one in what he does for people to see, and one in people’s coming into his presence.

The Five Clauses of ‘Not Differentiating’: Only Seeing Clearly Makes It Possible to Speak of Not Differentiating

In the second passage of the answer as to the working, the scripture text tells the whole with five clauses of one pattern: seeing all sentient beings and not differentiating the mark of a sentient being, because the eye of knowledge sees clearly; hearing all speech and not differentiating the mark of speech, because there is no clinging within the mind; seeing all tathāgatas and not differentiating the mark of a tathāgata, because the dharma-body has been fathomed; upholding and maintaining all wheels of the Dharma and not differentiating the mark of a wheel of the Dharma, because the own-nature of dharmas has been awakened to; within a single thought knowing throughout all dharmas and not differentiating the marks of dharmas, because dharmas are known to be like an illusion.

Chengguan judges this passage thus: second, from the words about a son of good family and her seeing onward, the setting forth of the working of her knowledge; and further, the former is the working of differentiating knowledge, and the present is the working of non-differentiating knowledge, and therefore in meeting objects there is no grasping. The former passage of the mind-made body making offerings everywhere is the working of differentiating knowledge, and the five clauses of this passage are the working of non-differentiating knowledge; the two passages together are one complete answer.

One great misreading must be cleared away: that not differentiating means not seeing clearly, blurring everything into one lump. Look at the reasons the scripture text fastens to each clause and one knows it is not so — the reason of the first clause is precisely that the eye of knowledge sees clearly. It is because it has been seen plainly and clearly that not differentiating is spoken of. Bringing it to the ground: to speak of not differentiating when one cannot tell things apart is muddle; to see through and not grasp at marks is what is here called non-differentiating.

Humbling Herself and Pointing to the Superior: The Things She Cannot Tell Of

After the answer as to the working, the nun says: “Son of good family! I know only this liberation of the accomplishing of omniscient knowledge.” Then she lists what the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas practice — no differentiating within the mind and knowing all dharmas everywhere, with one body sitting upright filling the Dharma realm, manifesting all lands within their own bodies, in a single thought going to all the places of the buddhas, manifesting everywhere within their own bodies the spiritual power of all the buddhas, with a single hair lifting up unspeakable buddha-worlds throughout, within a single pore manifesting the coming to be and the falling away of unspeakable worlds, in a single thought dwelling together with unspeakably unspeakable sentient beings, in a single thought entering unspeakably unspeakable kalpas — and she closes with one question: and how could I be able to know or be able to tell of their practice of merit and virtue?

This is a passage that most friends of this assembly have. The misreading to be cleared away is this: that it is mere courtesy. If it were courtesy, why list nine clauses of matters as concrete as pores and numbers of kalpas? Every one of them points out a real matter she cannot tell of.

Bringing it to the ground: knowing that what one knows is this one gate is harder than knowing a great deal. And what she points to as superior lies exactly upon the non-obstruction of the one and the many — one body filling the Dharma realm, one hair lifting up the worlds, one thought entering the kalpas. And this is just the direction of the road Sudhana is to walk in the passage that follows.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Southward, to Ask a Woman

At the last she points out the road: “Son of good family! Going from here toward the south there is a land named: Perilous Hardship; within that land there is a city named: Jeweled Adornment; within it there is a woman named: Vasumitrā. Go there and ask her: how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva and to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?”

All three names are brought out: the land named Perilous Hardship, the city named Jeweled Adornment, the person named Vasumitrā. Chengguan’s outline for this section stops at the one passage of discerning the working, and for this passage he sets up no separate heading; the lack is recorded as it stands. And within the scripture text itself there is one place worth pausing over: the land pointed to is named Perilous Hardship, and the city within it is named Jeweled Adornment — within perilous hardship there is jeweled adornment.

Clearing away one misreading: that in visiting and studying one goes all the way toward places that are better and better. Here it says plainly that the next station is in the land of Perilous Hardship. Bringing it to the ground: the nun of this section sits in the Sunlight Grove given away by a king, and the road she points to goes toward perilous hardship — a good friend does not point toward a place like his own.

Cherishing Her Virtue and Taking Leave

The last passage is exceedingly simple: at that time, Sudhana the youth bowed to her feet, circled her numberless times, gazed up at her with earnest devotion, and only then took his leave and departed. Four matters and no more — bowing, circling, gazing up, taking leave.

The last passages of the several friends of this assembly either list at length what was gained or record at length what was upheld; this section has none of that, only these four actions. One misreading must be cleared away: that where the text is short the sense is thin. The simplicity here faces exactly the fullness of what came before — the thirty seats and the thirty Dharma gates above take up a third of the subsection, and at the end the taking of leave uses twenty-one graphs only.

Bringing it to the ground: what was gained has all been seen above, and there is no need to say it over again when leaving. And the four graphs about gazing up with earnest devotion are the one stroke that carries feeling — having looked his fill, he must look once more.

Lineage

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

The first is the line of the number of gates. Chengguan, upon the eighty-fascicle version, judges thirty seats, while Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji, upon the sixty-fascicle version, says that there are twenty-nine gates in all — the number of seats differing in the two versions from the outset: the eighty comes to thirty, the sixty comes to twenty-nine, and the two commentaries each agree with the version each glosses. The eighty has besides the one seat of the yakṣas, which the sixty does not have, while the sixty brings out seats for the mahoragas at two places. The two versions are recorded without adjudication.

The second is the line of the assigned position. This section is fastened to the dedication that reaches every place, which comes out of Chengguan’s outline received in succession from the ancient worthies; Chengguan himself states plainly that as for the words about the dedication, they are with reference to an assigned position only, and that the rest are all to be taken after this manner. Li Tongxuan, upon this same position, matches it further with the fourth abode among the ten abodes and the fourth ground among the ten grounds, and matches it with the fourth perfection, that of vigor, and further glosses the land’s name Śoṇa as valor, as the sense of vigor. The two houses match differently, each having its own track; recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the glossing of the name. As for the name of the good friend, the base text of the scripture has Lion’s Stretching written with one graph, while Chengguan writes it with another and glosses it as spreading out and being sovereign, since there is nowhere it does not reach; Li Tongxuan writes it as the base text does and glosses it as making clear that kindness and compassion are agreeable and delightful, that the practice reaches throughout the ten directions converting sentient beings without any weariness; Fazang and Zhiyan, upon the sixty-fascicle version, have the Lion’s Rousing, and Fazang glosses it as pure wisdom without dread, expounding the Dharma decisively. One and the same good friend, three shapes of the name and four glosses of its sense, all of them the settled sayings of the ancient worthies; recorded without adjudication. So too with the names of the land and the city — Chengguan has Śoṇa and the grove of Kaliṅga, Fazang upon the sixty-fascicle version has Hard to Endure and Kaliṅgavatī, while the eighty-fascicle scripture text in this section has only that country’s city and brings out no name for it.

In the text of one section, the former half is sitting and the latter half is expounding. Only one who has filled every seat in a whole grove says ‘I know only this one gate’ — and the sequence of this section lies wholly in that one word ‘only.’

Why This Section Is Hard to Read

Sudhana has been journeying southward all along, and at this point he comes to the twenty-fifth good friend. Before this he has seen monks, nuns, laywomen, elders, householders, a youth, an outsider, a shipmaster, a king — and of this one the scripture text gives only a name and a house: the woman Vasumitrā. As for the Dharma she expounds, the occasions of it are seeing her, speaking with her, taking her hand, mounting her seat, embracing her, sucking her lips. Anyone who reads this far without stopping for a moment has probably not been reading at all.

One misreading must be cleared away first: this passage is not a side-branch of the scripture, nor a strange text smuggled in by later hands. It stands in all three witnesses, the eighty, the sixty, and the forty; in the scripture text of none of the three is there any wording of an assigned position, and the position comes only out of the outlines of the ancient worthies — Chengguan, Fazang, and Li Tongxuan all match her to the fifth, the dedication of the treasury of inexhaustible merit, while Zhiyan makes it “the twenty-fifth, the bodhisattva-position of the dedication of the inexhaustible treasury.” All four houses of the ancient worthies have glossed it passage by passage. That is to say, it is a matter this scripture means of itself to speak of, and moreover a matter which every house held must be made clear.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this section one must keep apart what she does and what Dharma she expounds. From beginning to end of the scripture text, what she manifests is a body and what she confers is the Dharma; and every clause of the ten samādhis comes down upon the four graphs “they then part from craving and desire.”

Assigned to the Dedication of the Treasury of Inexhaustible Merit: Where the Name of This Position Comes From

One thing must be said first: the scripture text itself nowhere says that this good friend is the fifth dedication. The name “the dedication of the treasury of inexhaustible merit” comes out of 〈The Ten Dedications〉; and what matches the woman Vasumitrā to that position is the outline of the ancient worthies. Chengguan, outlining this unit, sets down at the very head “the fifth, the dedication of the treasury of inexhaustible merit”; Fazang has “within the good friend of the fifth dedication of the treasury of inexhaustible merit”; Zhiyan has “the twenty-fifth, the bodhisattva-position of the dedication of the inexhaustible treasury”; Li Tongxuan has “as for the fifth, the dedication of the treasury of inexhaustible merit, it takes the perfection of meditation for its substance.” All four match her to the fifth, while the names they set up differ a little.

Why this position? Chengguan first sets up his outline heading, “the fifth, the dedication of the treasury of inexhaustible merit,” and only then, under that heading, glosses the name of this city: “as for the city being named Jeweled Adornment, it is because going contrary while following worldly conduct is able to give birth to the treasury of inexhaustible merit” — following the conduct of the world while going contrary to its way, and what that gives birth to is precisely the inexhaustible treasury of merit. The sequence is first the outline heading and afterward the gloss of the name; the gloss of the name answers to the name of the position, and the city’s name is not made the ground for matching the position. The Yanyi chao, taking up this heading, glosses the name of the position: it is by the power of dedication that the inexhaustible treasury of merit is accomplished — the treasury is inexhaustible because of the power of dedication.

As to matching and not matching, Chengguan keeps a word of even-handedness of his own. At the place of the five aspects of the final assembly he says: “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.” Not to match has its reason, and to match is likewise not at fault — this is how he himself holds it.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the assigned position is something the scripture text marks for itself. It is not. Bringing it to the ground: in reading the judgment of an assigned position, one must remember that it is a line the ancient worthies read out, not something the scripture says of itself; the line has its own grounds, and those grounds are in the commentaries, not in the scripture.

The Benefit Accomplished in Accord with the Teaching: He Gained Eight Gates First, and Only Then Walked This Road

This section begins not with walking but with gaining the Dharma. The scripture text says that Sudhana’s “mind was lit up and opened by the light of great knowledge, and he pondered and contemplated and saw the very nature of dharmas,” and then follow eight clauses each with the word “gained” — the dhāraṇī gate of comprehending all speech and sound, the dhāraṇī gate of upholding all the wheels of the Dharma, the strength of great compassion that makes him a refuge for all sentient beings, the gate of light that contemplates the sense and principle of all dharmas, the pure vow that fills the Dharma realm, the light of knowledge that shines everywhere upon all dharmas in the ten directions, the sovereign strength that adorns all worlds everywhere, the full and perfect vow that sets going everywhere the works of all bodhisattvas. In the base text this passage has the word “gained” eight times, graph for graph.

The sense of the eight gates may be told one by one. First, the dhāraṇī gate of comprehending all speech and sound: what it faces is the speech of sentient beings, and gaining it, whatever sound is uttered he knows its sense and is not shut out from it. Second, the dhāraṇī gate of upholding all the wheels of the Dharma: what it faces is the Dharma a buddha turns, and gaining it, the Dharma he has heard is held and not lost. Third, the strength of great compassion that makes him a refuge for all sentient beings: what it faces is the suffering of sentient beings, and gaining it, he can be leaned upon and turns no one away. Fourth, the gate of light that contemplates the sense and principle of all dharmas: what it faces is the sense and principle of the Dharma, and gaining it, he illumines the sense and is not left in the dark. Fifth, the pure vow that fills the Dharma realm: what it faces is the measure of the vow, and gaining it, the vow he sets going reaches to the end of the Dharma realm and is unmixed. Sixth, the light of knowledge that shines everywhere upon all dharmas in the ten directions: what it faces is the Dharma of the ten directions, and gaining it, the shining of knowledge has no limit of place. Seventh, the sovereign strength that adorns all worlds everywhere: what it faces is the buddha-lands, and gaining it, he is sovereign in the one matter of adorning worlds. Eighth, the full and perfect vow that sets going everywhere the works of all bodhisattvas: what it faces is the works of a bodhisattva, and gaining it, he can set those works going and his vow does not fall short. The first two lie in upholding, the next two in compassion and in knowledge, and the last four in vow, in knowledge, in strength, and in works — the eight are not eight scattered virtues but the mark of real knowledge and expedient knowledge coming down in eight places.

Chengguan judges this passage to be a benefit of two tiers. The first tier is the seeing of the real principle, of which he says it is “the benefit of gaining the sight of the real nature of dharmas, by reason of the real knowledge that went before”; the second tier is the gaining of the knowledge of expedient skill, of which he says it is “the benefit of gaining the expedient knowledge, by reason of the knowledge that went before and exhausted the differences of the three times.” Real knowledge illumines principle and expedient knowledge illumines matters — what illumines principle sees the nature of dharmas, and what illumines matters is unobstructed in each and every case of speech and sound, of the wheels of Dharma, and of the faculties and desires of sentient beings.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that Sudhana first goes to see the good friend and afterward gains the Dharma. The sequence of this passage is exactly the reverse: first there is the gaining of the eight gates, and only then does he “little by little travel on.” Bringing it to the ground: what kind of objective realm a person can stand firm in depends on what he already carries with him before he enters it. To walk this stretch of road, real knowledge and expedient knowledge are both needed and neither can be lacking — without real knowledge one is turned about by the objective realm, and without expedient knowledge one cannot read the Dharma.

Those in the City Who Do Not Know Her: They Are Anxious for Sudhana

Sudhana arrives at the city Jeweled Adornment and “everywhere sought for the woman Vasumitrā.” The city’s response falls into two kinds, and the kind that comes out first is those who do not know her. The scripture text says “in the city there were some who did not know this woman’s merit, virtue, and wisdom, and they thought in this way” — and note that this is thinking in the mind, not speaking to Sudhana.

What is it that they think? They look this youth over from head to foot, saying that “his faculties are still, his wisdom is clear and bright, he is neither deluded nor scattered,” saying that he “grasps at nothing and clings to nothing, his eyes look and do not blink, his mind is not shaken, and he is deep and broad, just like the great sea.” This whole string of sayings is praise, clause by clause. It is precisely because they have seen the good in this youth that they grow anxious for him.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this is idlers in the city speaking ill. It is not. The scripture text writes it out with the utmost clarity — they first affirm Sudhana’s virtue, and only then turn out that anxiety. Bringing it to the ground: the questions that truly put a person in difficulty mostly do not come from ill will; they come from half an understanding. To have seen the virtue of the person and not to have seen the depth of the objective realm is what gives rise to this kind of doubt.

What Exactly Is Doubted in That Doubt

They go on to say “he ought not, toward this woman Vasumitrā, to give rise to a mind of craving and love, or to a mind turned upside down, to take her for an object pure and pleasing, to take her for an object of desire,” and again “this youth does not do what Māra does, does not enter Māra’s objective realm, does not sink into the mire of desire, is not bound by Māra,” and at last it comes down to a single question — “with what sort of intention has he come seeking this woman?”

Four clauses each with the word “not,” and every one of them says that Sudhana is not that kind of person; and it is precisely because he is not that kind of person that the question stands: since it is so, what have you come to seek her for?

Chengguan judges this passage to be “the doubt of the shallow in knowledge, because contrary practice is hard to know,” and he singles out one thing in particular: those who doubt are the people of the city, not Sudhana himself. He says “as for his not doubting of himself, craving accords with compassion, and its obstruction of practice is the weaker, unlike the two before”; and again “moreover, having already been disciplined by the two before, here he does not doubt.” Fazang sets this same matter down as a pair of question and answer, asking why it is that with the two good friends before, who displayed anger and displayed wrong views, Sudhana himself gave rise to doubt, while here, where the mark of craving is displayed, it is others who doubt; and he answers, “because the two before are close obstructions to the bodhisattva path, whereas craving and love accord with compassion and their obstruction of practice is the weaker,” citing the Jueding pini jing — “a bodhisattva had rather give rise to a hundred thousand minds of craving than give rise to one of anger, and the rest” — for his ground.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the scripture text is saying that craving does not matter. What the two commentaries say is another thing: anger and wrong views run directly counter to a bodhisattva’s compassion, while craving runs in the same direction as compassion (both being turned toward sentient beings), and so in the strength with which they obstruct the path a heavier and a lighter are distinguished. This is said with respect to the strength or weakness of the obstruction to practice, not with respect to defilement and purity. Bringing it to the ground: only when one can tell apart “they doubt” from “I doubt” can this passage be read through. Sudhana does not doubt, and it is because the two friends before had already disciplined him.

Those in the City Who Do Know Her: They Are Glad for Sudhana

The other kind now come on. The scripture text says “among those people there were some who had known beforehand that this woman has wisdom, and they told Sudhana” — this time it is not thinking in the mind but speaking aloud. And the very first thing they say is “excellent, excellent.”

He speaks of four matters that are “resolute”: resolutely to seek the fruit-station of a buddha, resolutely to wish to make himself a support and shelter for all sentient beings, resolutely to wish to pull out from all sentient beings the poisoned arrow of craving and love, resolutely to wish to break in all sentient beings that thought of purity which they hold toward the form of a woman. In the base text this passage has the word “resolutely” four times, graph for graph. These four clauses are not vague encouragement; they push back, item by item, the doubt of those who came before — you suppose he is going toward the staining of desire? He is going to pull out the poisoned arrow of craving and love from all sentient beings, going to break in all sentient beings the thought of purity toward the form of a woman.

Chengguan judges this passage to be “the praise and teaching of those deep in knowledge,” first praising and afterward showing where she is. What is meant by being deep in knowledge is simply knowing the practice of this good friend for what it is.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that because one matter admits of two views it therefore cannot be settled. That the scripture text sets the two views side by side is not so that the reader may choose one, but so that the reader may see clearly where the dividing line runs — and the line runs exactly at knowing, or not knowing, “this woman’s merit, virtue, and wisdom.” Bringing it to the ground: one and the same act, with those who know, is the pulling out of a poisoned arrow, and with those who do not know, is a sinking into the mire of desire. The difference is not in the act but in whether it is read or not read.

North of the Market, Her Own House

The clause that points the way is extremely short: “son of good family, the woman Vasumitrā is within this very city, north of the market stalls and streets, dwelling in a house of her own.” The market stalls and streets are the noisiest place in a city.

Upon this one clause Chengguan lays three tiers of gloss. He says “the market is clamor and jumble; the north presides over extinction; her own house is ultimate emptiness and stillness, which is to say, practicing meditation while within desire, dwelling in clamor and constantly still” — the market is clamor, the north presides over extinction, and her own house is ultimate emptiness. Three names of places are three tiers in the mark of her practice: she dwells in the place of clamor, while what presides is extinction, and the house she dwells in is ultimate emptiness. This is a gloss Chengguan sets up upon the eighty, because in the sixty this place reads “within the deep palace inside this city,” and there is no such tier as “north of the market stalls”; Fazang sets up his gloss upon the sixty, citing the Sanfadu jing and saying “this woman is now truly realizing the suchness of desire, and therefore she is in the deep palace” — the two commentaries rest upon different witnesses, and so the marks they gloss differ as well.

Li Tongxuan reads this clause along another track. He makes the multitude and vexation of birth-and-death into the market stalls, saying “he takes the multitude and vexation of birth-and-death for the market stalls”; and he matches the quarters, saying “the north is the position of the trigram kan, and being the northern quarter it presides over blackness, and it is the position of the many deluded and foolish sentient beings”; and at the last he brings it home to a bodhisattva’s dwelling place, saying “as for her dwelling in a house of her own, the sea of birth-and-death of sentient beings is the house a bodhisattva dwells in of himself.”

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this is a later hand making something out of a place-name. The weight of this clause lies in its settling how the whole unit is to be read — had she dwelt in a deep mountain, this Dharma gate would be a different Dharma gate. Bringing it to the ground: to dwell in the noisiest place while what presides is extinction — this is the definition that this section gives for stillness.

Seeing the Dependent Surroundings: Why That House Is Written Out at Such Length

Sudhana, hearing the words, is glad and goes to her gate, and then comes a long passage writing out the house — jeweled walls, jeweled trees, jeweled moats, each with ten rings of encirclement; within the jeweled moats scented water standing brimming, golden sand spread upon the bottom, five kinds of water-flowers covering the water everywhere; palaces and towered pavilions, doorways and windows, nets and bells and pennants and banners, beryl for the ground, aloeswood and sandalwood, jeweled bells becoming sound when the wind stirs them, the flowers of the gods strewn everywhere; and at the end, “the storehouses of the several precious things numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and ten great parks and groves served for adornment.”

Why write it out at such length? Chengguan gives a reason: “within the seeing, first is the seeing of the dependent surroundings; within ultimate emptiness there is no virtue not fully possessed, and therefore its adornment is widely displayed.” The passage just before said that her own house is ultimate emptiness and stillness, and this passage writes its adornment out large — this is not a self-contradiction; it is precisely meant to display that within ultimate emptiness there is not one virtue that is not fully possessed. Emptiness is not that there is nothing; emptiness is that there is nothing it does not hold.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this passage is a spreading-out of literary ornament. Were it a spreading-out, three clauses would have been enough. Bringing it to the ground: when reading a passage of adornment in the Avataṃsaka, one should always turn back and ask what the clause just before it said — a text of adornment is mostly there to bear out the sense of the clause before.

Seeing the Proper Recompense: The Person Herself

Next the person is written. The scripture text says “her face and features were upright and adorned, her form and marks were full and complete, her skin was golden in color, her eyes and her hair were of a deep blue-black, she was neither tall nor short, neither coarse nor fine” — four graphs “neither,” writing the mark of the middle way by way of denial. Then her voice and sound are written, saying that of “all the differing speech and sound of all sentient beings she was fully possessed, with not one that she did not comprehend”; then her knowledge, saying that she “penetrated deeply into the sense of the written word, was skilled and adroit in talk and exposition, had gained the knowledge that knows things as illusions, and had entered the gates of skillful means”; then her retinue, saying that they were “all of them of common roots of goodness and of one and the same practice and vow”; and at the last the light, saying that “she sent forth from her body a vast and great light, shining everywhere upon all the palaces within that house,” and that “those whom this light met gained coolness in their bodies.”

Chengguan judges this passage, saying “afterward, from ‘at that time’ onward, is the seeing of the proper recompense, which possesses the virtue and the working of the principal and the companions” — the principal is she herself, the companions are her retinue, the virtue is what she possesses, and the working is the light sent forth from her body that makes people cool.

Two places deserve attention. The first is “had gained the knowledge that knows things as illusions”: this is the key to reading this section. One who has the knowledge that knows things as illusions knows that the marks he manifests are as illusions, and therefore can manifest them without clinging to them. The second is where that light comes down — not to make people give rise to desire, but to make their bodies gain coolness. The scripture text has fixed the direction beforehand of itself.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the scripture text writes her form and marks in order to write of her beauty. In the forty, under this clause, there are four extra words, “the heat of confusion in the mind is removed,” which may be read alongside the eighty: where the light reaches, the fever of vexation ceases. Bringing it to the ground: what a passage of writing says is seen from where it comes down, not from its ornament of phrase.

Sudhana’s Question: He Asks What He Asked of Every One Before

Sudhana bows to her feet, joins his palms and stands, and says “holy one! I have already first given rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, and yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to study the practice of a bodhisattva, or how a bodhisattva is to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva. I have heard that the holy one is good at instructing others — would that you would expound it for me.”

This question is the same question asked before every good friend that has gone before. Chengguan places this passage at the end of “the seeing, the paying of respects, and the inquiring,” passing over it with the one clause “the inquiring may be known of itself,” because it is of one form with the other units.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that before this one good friend the thing to be asked ought to have been something else. The scripture text does not alter a single graph. Bringing it to the ground: that before this friend what is asked is still this same clause shows that what is sought is one and the same matter — what changes is the good friend, not the Dharma that is sought. And it is precisely because the question is the same question that this section stands on one line with the units before it, and is not an interlude.

The Setting Forth of the Name: The Limit Apart from Craving and Desire

The first thing she says on opening her mouth sets forth the name of the Dharma gate: “son of good family! I have gained a bodhisattva liberation named the Limit Apart from Craving and Desire, and I manifest a body according to what beings desire and delight in.”

The four graphs “the Limit Apart from Craving and Desire” are the pivot of the whole unit. Here Chengguan sets down a passage distinguishing three tiers, saying “as for the limit apart from craving and desire: ordinary beings are stained by desire; those of the two vehicles see desire as something that can be parted from; a bodhisattva gains liberation without cutting off craving and desire, because his knowledge comprehends that the nature of it is empty, and desire is itself the path,” and gathering it at the end into one clause, “being stained in this way and yet not stained is what makes it the ultimate limit of parting from desire.”

The three tiers are these: ordinary beings are within desire and are stained by it; those of the two vehicles see desire as a thing that can be parted from, and so part from it and get out; a bodhisattva gains liberation without cutting off craving and desire, because his knowledge illumines that its nature is fundamentally empty. And so the word “limit” does not mean ‘parting away to somewhere beyond a boundary’; it means ‘the ultimate place of parting from craving and desire’ — and the ultimate place lies in being stained and yet not stained.

Fazang, upon the sixty’s “the pure Dharma gate of the true limit apart from desire,” sets up two senses: the first with reference to her own practice, saying “though by compassion and vow she keeps confusion and displays herself in the place of desire, yet great knowledge illumines desire and its very substance is empty, and this is named the purity of the true limit,” and citing the Jingming’s “within desire and yet practicing meditation” and the Zhufa wuxing jing’s “craving and desire are the very path, and so likewise are anger and delusion” as his evidence; the second with reference to benefiting beings, saying “though she keeps confusion and displays herself within desire, she makes the sentient beings who dwell in desire necessarily part from desire.”

Why this woman’s contrary practice stands side by side with the right Dharma, each of two houses sets out in a table of its own at the outline passage of the chapter. Chengguan sets up five senses: first, that upon the mark itself it is empty, and being empty it is the path — which is not to say that the three poisons are themselves the Dharma of a buddha; second, with reference to the use of illusion in gathering beings in, which likewise is not to say that they are it; third, that within confusion the mind is used as the common run of the world uses it, and here it is in contemplating the mind that it becomes the path, which likewise is not to say that it is the path; fourth, that confusion is kept to moisten birth and to lengthen the bodhisattva path, which likewise is not to say that they are it; fifth, that upon the mark itself it is the path, unlike the four before, because it is beyond thought. The first four all come home to the one clause ‘it is not that these three poisons are themselves the Dharma of a buddha,’ while the fifth grants outright that upon the mark itself it is the path — and what that granting rests upon is its being beyond thought, not a principle that can be reasoned out; this dividing line must not be dropped. Fazang, at the same place, sets up four senses: first, that upon the mark itself it is empty; second, with reference to the adroit gathering in of beings; third, with reference to keeping confusion to moisten birth — all three coming home to ‘it is not that these three matters are themselves the Dharma of a buddha’; fourth, with reference to its being so upon the mark itself, unlike the three before, of which he says himself that it is exceedingly hard to understand, because it is beyond thought. The two houses each form a table of their own, and they are here recorded without adjudication.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this says craving and desire are themselves liberation and need not be cut off. Chengguan’s sentence has a first half and a second: the first half is “gains liberation without cutting off craving and desire,” and the second is “because his knowledge comprehends that the nature of it is empty, desire is itself the path” — the second half is the condition of the first, and pull the second half out and the first half becomes another matter altogether. Fazang, at the conclusion of the working, sets a further limit: all that this passage speaks of is what great bodhisattvas of the utmost position do, and is not what those of the lower positions know. Bringing it to the ground: the threshold of this gate is not daring but knowledge, and position as well. Without that “knowledge comprehending that the nature is empty,” no one whatever is permitted the half-sentence before it.

Manifesting a Body of the Same Kind: Manifesting a Body According to What They Desire and Delight In

After the setting forth of the name comes the working, and the working speaks first of manifesting a body. The scripture text says “if a god sees me, I am a goddess, and my form and my light are surpassing beyond compare; and so on in this way, down to humans and non-humans and the rest who see me: for them I manifest myself as a human woman or a non-human woman, and according to what they delight in and desire, I let them all see it.”

Chengguan judges this to be “the displaying of the working, within which first is the manifesting of a body of the same kind.” To manifest a body of the same kind means: whatever kind the sentient beings are, a body of that kind is manifested. Gods seeing her, a goddess; humans seeing her, a human woman; non-humans seeing her, a non-human woman. This joins exactly onto the earlier clause “had gained the knowledge that knows things as illusions” — the condition of being able to manifest according to kind is knowing that what is manifested is not real.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this is a display of spiritual penetration. Where the manifesting of a body of the same kind comes down is not on the manifesting but on “according to what they delight in and desire” — she enters by way of what the sentient beings already delight in, and does not require that sentient beings first change into something else before they may see her. Bringing it to the ground: in drawing a person in, the first step is to go and stand where he is standing, and this clause is the scriptural ground of that step.

The First and Second of the Ten Samādhis: The Dharma Expounded and Desire Parted From · A Moment’s Sight and Gladness

The ten samādhis begin here. In the base text this passage has “if there are sentient beings” ten times graph for graph, “they then part from craving and desire” ten times graph for graph, and “samādhi” ten times graph for graph — ten clauses in even order.

The first clause is “if there are sentient beings bound about by the intention of desire who come to where I am, I expound the Dharma for them, and having heard the Dharma they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of the objective realm without attachment.” This clause matters most, because it is the only one that states the middle course expressly: when they come they are bound about by the intention of desire; in the middle there is “I expound the Dharma for them”; and only after they have heard do they part from craving and desire. From the second clause on, the expounding of the Dharma is not restated in the middle, and there remains only “merely see me for a moment, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of gladness.”

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that in the nine clauses that follow no Dharma need be expounded and the path is gained by contact alone. Since the first clause has already established the Dharma, the nine that follow speak in succession according to the shallowness or depth of the occasion, and the matter of expounding the Dharma has not been withdrawn. Chengguan judges these ten clauses as a whole, saying “within the benefiting of beings by the Dharma there are ten samādhis, all of them according to the convenience of the desire received, whereby such profound samādhis are gained — ponder it” — the words “benefiting beings by the Dharma” are the title of this whole passage, and “according to the convenience of the desire received” is a skillful means, not a substitute. Fazang judges by the same axis, saying “within it there are ten samādhis, all of them making use of desire to convert the sentient beings who dwell in desire, causing them to gain such profound samādhis as these.”

Bringing it to the ground: what is gained in the first clause is “the objective realm without attachment,” and what is gained in the second is “gladness” — what is gained after parting from desire is not a dry blandness but non-attachment and gladness. This is the keynote all the way down the ten clauses.

The Third and Fourth of the Ten Samādhis: Speaking and Gaining Unobstructed Voice and Sound · Taking the Hand and Gaining the Going to All Buddha-Lands

The third clause: “if there are sentient beings who merely speak with me for a moment, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of unobstructed voice and sound.” The occasion is speech and what is gained lies likewise in voice and sound — this is one plain rule of the passage: the matter that is the occasion and the samādhi that is gained mostly answer to each other in sense. Li Tongxuan reads this clause thus: “this makes clear the giving rise to wisdom out of concentration, and the comprehending that voice and sound have no substance,” setting the point down upon the absence of self-nature in voice and sound.

The fourth clause: “if there are sentient beings who merely take my hand for a moment, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of going everywhere to all buddha-lands.” The hand is the instrument of drawing in, and therefore what is gained is the going everywhere to all buddha-lands. Li Tongxuan glosses this clause as the sense of leading and drawing in.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the correspondence between the occasion and what is gained was pieced together by later hands. In the passage before, upon seeing the proper recompense, the scripture text had already said that of “all the differing speech and sound of all sentient beings she was fully possessed, with not one that she did not comprehend,” and that the one occasion of speech gains the samādhi of voice and sound runs through with that very clause. Bringing it to the ground: in reading these ten clauses one may ask of each in turn, ‘what is the answering between this occasion and this samādhi,’ and the scripture text has prepared the answer of itself.

The Fifth and Sixth of the Ten Samādhis: Mounting the Seat and Gaining the Light of Liberation · A Moment’s Looking and Gaining Still Adornment

The fifth clause: “if there are sentient beings who merely mount my seat for a moment, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of the light of liberation.” In the sixty this clause reads “those who lodge together with me gain the samādhi of the light of liberation,” the wording of the occasion differing in the two witnesses while the name of the samādhi is the same. Li Tongxuan glosses the mounting of the seat thus: “the mounting of the seat is the increase of the knowledge that is without marks.”

The sixth clause: “if there are sentient beings who merely look upon me for a moment, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of still adornment.” The occasion is looking, and what is gained is still adornment. Li Tongxuan glosses this clause thus: “‘merely looking upon me’ is the sense of contemplative illumination” — the one occasion of looking answers exactly to the knowledge of contemplative illumination.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the closer the occasion the coarser the Dharma. Under the ten occasions the scripture text sets one samādhi to each occasion and establishes the name of each, and nowhere judges the coarseness or fineness of the Dharma by the nearness or distance of the occasion. Bringing it to the ground: the sequence of this passage runs contrary to the judgment of the world, and finding it unaccustomed is exactly the place it means to cure.

The Seventh and Eighth of the Ten Samādhis: Stretching and Crushing the Outsider Paths · Blinking and Gaining the Light of a Buddha’s Objective Realm

The seventh clause: “if there are sentient beings who see me stretching, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of crushing the outsider paths.” Stretching is the mark of extending the body. Li Tongxuan glosses this clause thus: “stretching is the sense of delight in the Dharma.”

The eighth clause: “if there are sentient beings who see me blink, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of the light of a buddha’s objective realm.” To blink is for the eyes to close and open once. Li Tongxuan glosses this clause thus: “blinking is the seeing of the truth and the entering into the objective realm of a buddha’s knowledge.”

These two clauses are the two finest occasions in the whole passage — an extending of the body, a single blink of the eyes. And what is gained is, in the one, the crushing of the outsider paths, and in the other, the light of a buddha’s objective realm.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this says a posture can deliver people. The subject of the scripture text from first to last is that one word “gain” — those who gain are the sentient beings, and the occasion by which they can gain is what they have seen in this good friend. Bringing it to the ground: the occasion can be as fine as a single blink because within that blink there is the whole weight of her concentration; it is not that the gesture itself has power.

The Ninth and Tenth of the Ten Samādhis: Embracing and Gaining the Gathering In of All Sentient Beings · Sucking the Lips and Gaining the Increase of the Treasury of Merit

The ninth clause: “if there are sentient beings who embrace me, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of gathering in all sentient beings and never forsaking them”; the tenth clause: “if there are sentient beings who suck my lips, they then part from craving and desire and gain the bodhisattva samādhi of increasing the treasury of merit of all sentient beings.”

These are the two nearest occasions in the whole passage. In the sixty these two clauses keep transcribed words, reading “those who aliyi me gain the samādhi of gathering in all sentient beings” and “those who azhongbi me gain the samādhi of the secret treasury of all merit and virtue”; Fazang, upon that witness, transmits their names in this tongue, saying “as for aliyi, in this tongue it is embracing, holding, and touching, which is the mark of gathering in, and therefore that samādhi is gained,” and saying “as for azhongpi, in this tongue it is the mouthing of the mouth, and what is gained is the concentration of the secret treasury of the teaching in words”; what Zhiyan transmits reads as fundamental desire and right desire. Li Tongxuan glosses directly upon the wording of the eighty, saying “as for those who embrace me, it is the sense of gathering in sentient beings and not forsaking them; as for those who suck my lips, it is the sense of receiving the teaching and expounding the Dharma.”

The names of what is gained should be seen clearly: what embracing gains is “gathering in all sentient beings and never forsaking them,” and the mark of embracing answers to the sense of gathering in and not forsaking; what sucking the lips gains is “increasing the treasury of merit of all sentient beings,” and the mark of the mouth answers to the sense of teaching in words. Of the two sayings of Fazang and Li Tongxuan, the one matches the mouth to the concentration of the secret treasury and the other matches the mouth to receiving the teaching and expounding the Dharma, and each stands on a track of its own.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the scripture text here is describing the fine details of an outward matter. The sixty keeps the transcription and the eighty translates directly; and those who expressly gloss these two occasions by gathering in and by teaching in words are two houses, Fazang and Li Tongxuan — Fazang takes aliyi for the mark of gathering in and azhongpi for the concentration of the secret treasury of the teaching in words, while Li Tongxuan takes embracing for the sense of gathering in sentient beings and not forsaking them and the sucking of the lips for the sense of receiving the teaching and expounding the Dharma. What Zhiyan transmits reads as fundamental desire and right desire, a track of its own; and Chengguan, in this passage, judges the ten samādhis only in general and does not gloss these two occasions one by one. Bringing it to the ground: how a passage of writing is to be read is first seen from where those who have read it from of old bring it down.

The General Conclusion of the Working: Whatever Sentient Beings Draw Near to Me

After the ten clauses comes one clause of general gathering: “whatever sentient beings draw near to me, all of them are able to abide in the limit apart from craving, and to enter the liberation, present before them and unobstructed, of a bodhisattva’s ground of omniscient knowledge.” The ten clauses before all read “if there are sentient beings,” and this clause turns to “whatever sentient beings” — the particular occasion turns into the general occasion, and the ten samādhis are gathered into a single “abiding in the limit apart from craving.”

Li Tongxuan glosses this clause thus: “it raises them all together, that of all who draw near not one passes by in vain, and all obtain the gate of omniscient knowledge”; and upon this he draws out a further sense, saying “this makes clear that those of the two vehicles and the bodhisattvas who have come out of the bonds seek only to part from suffering, and have not entered into great kindness and compassion, entering the sea of birth-and-death to share in the work and draw beings in,” and saying “they do not reach the sovereign king of knowledge of the Dharma realm, who dwells in the defiled and the pure and yet is without stain.”

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that after the ten clauses each goes its own way and there is no general gathering. The concluding clause says it plainly: the names of the ten samādhis differ one from another, and yet what they come home to is one place only — abiding in the limit apart from craving, entering a bodhisattva’s ground of omniscient knowledge. The names differ and the coming home is one; nor is the shallowness or depth of the occasion made a judgment of high and low. Bringing it to the ground: in reading a passage that sets things out in a list, the clause of general gathering at the end is often weightier than the ten clauses before it.

Sudhana Asks Again: How Did You Come by This?

Sudhana does not stop at praising; he asks a second question: “holy one, what roots of goodness did you plant, what works of merit did you cultivate, that you have been able to accomplish such sovereignty as this?”

This question asks after the cause. The former question asked after the Dharma (how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva), and this one asks how it is that this good friend can have such a Dharma. Chengguan judges this to be “the occasion by which the Dharma was gained, first the asking and afterward the answering.”

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that this is curiosity. Among the several units of this assembly, not every one has the asking after the occasion by which the Dharma was gained; this unit has this one question precisely because the mark she manifests is so far out of the ordinary that without knowing its cause the mind cannot be at rest. Bringing it to the ground: when you see a person able to do what you cannot do, to ask ‘how did you come by this’ is of more use than to ask ‘what are you doing.’

The Answer: One Jeweled Coin

Her answer is a passage of a bygone matter. In the past a buddha appeared in the world named Lofty Practice, and the city of his royal capital was called Wondrous Gate. That tathāgata, taking pity on sentient beings, entered the royal city and set his foot upon the threshold, and the whole city shook, and of a sudden became vast and broad, adorned with the many jewels, the music of the gods struck up together, and the gods filling the empty sky. At that time she was an elder’s wife named Excellent Wisdom; seeing the Buddha’s spiritual power, awakening arose in her mind, and together with her husband she went to where the Buddha was, and “made an offering of one jeweled coin.” At that time Mañjuśrī the youth was the Buddha’s attendant, and expounded the Dharma for her, causing her to give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.

Upon this jeweled coin Chengguan sets up two senses, saying “as for the giving of one jeweled coin, there are two senses: first, that it was a jewel and yet she could give it away, and so she gained the parting from craving; second, that one coin though slight, being given with the mind of awakening, accomplished this sovereignty.” The first is with reference to the thing given away — it was a jewel and yet she could give it away, and so she called forth the fruit of parting from craving; the second is with reference to the mind that gave — the coin was but one, and the mind was awakening, and so she called forth such sovereignty as this. Li Tongxuan makes a separate division, saying “this makes clear that in the cause of the past, the giving away of the jeweled coin she held dear is the parting from craving, and Mañjuśrī’s urging her to give rise to the unsurpassed mind of awakening is the parting from desire,” and saying again “as with the one jeweled coin, what was given was not much, but because the mind held it dear, that she could give it away is no different from giving much.”

There is a fact of the parallel translations to be set down here: in the sixty what is offered at this place is not a jeweled coin but “a wondrous jeweled crown of the gods”; only the eighty and the forty have one jeweled coin. Chengguan’s and Li Tongxuan’s two senses of the one jeweled coin are both fastened to the wording of the eighty.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that to accomplish such a Dharma gate the ground of the cause must have been some startling great affair. What the scripture text gives is one coin. Bringing it to the ground: a cause is a cause not by its quantity but by whether that one thought is the mind of awakening. This passage is the place in the whole unit where the foot finds surest ground.

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

She goes on to say “son of good family! I know only this bodhisattva liberation of the limit apart from craving. As for the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, they have accomplished the boundless knowledge of skillful and adroit means, their treasury is vast and great, and their objective realm is beyond compare — how then could I be able to know, or be able to tell of, their practices of merit and virtue?”

Most of the good friends of this assembly have this passage; Chengguan, speaking of the common rule, says that only the first friend and the last three lack these two matters, the humbling of oneself and the pointing to the superior. Fazang sets it up as a heading of its own, calling it “looking up and pointing to the superior advance: the great bodhisattvas have measureless and vast skillful means, and how could I be able to know it”; Zhiyan makes it “looking up and pointing to the superior portion.”

One graph deserves attention: at the setting forth of the name the scripture text reads “the limit apart from craving and desire,” and at the humbling of herself it reads “the liberation of the limit apart from craving,” one graph, “desire,” being fewer — the base text is thus graph for graph, and the two places are not level with each other.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the humbling of herself is a courtesy. What she points to is “the boundless knowledge of skillful and adroit means” — precisely the very road she has walked all her life. To point to the superior where what is pointed to is of one kind with oneself is harder than to say vaguely that one falls short. Bringing it to the ground: to know which gate it is that one knows matters more than to know many things.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Encompassing of the City Good Deliverance

“Son of good family! From here, going southward, there is a city named Good Deliverance; and within it there is a householder named Encompassing, who constantly makes offerings at the buddha-stūpa of the sandalwood seat. Go to him and ask: how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva and to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?”

Three names come out together — the city named Good Deliverance, the person named Encompassing, and his practice, which is constantly making offerings at the buddha-stūpa of the sandalwood seat. Li Tongxuan glosses the city’s name thus: “as for the city being named Good Deliverance, it is with reference to this householder’s good deliverance of sentient beings.” In the sixty this place has the city named Shoupoboluo and the elder named Abiding at Ease, and in the forty the city named Pure Arrival at the Other Shore and the householder named Encompassing in the other transcription — the names in the three witnesses differ from one another.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that the pointing out of the next friend is a bridging phrase for a change of scene. It is in fact the bone of the whole of 〈Entering the Dharma Realm〉 — each good friend pushes Sudhana on to the next, and the journey of more than a hundred cities is strung together in just this way. Bringing it to the ground: a true good friend will always send a person on beyond himself.

Cherishing Her Virtue and Taking Leave

The last passage is extremely short: “at that time, Sudhana the youth bowed to her feet, circled her measureless times, gazed up at her earnestly, took his leave, and departed.”

The taking of leave in this unit is pared down to four matters only — bowing, circling, gazing up, departing. Chengguan’s outline within the window of this section stops at the passage of the occasion by which the Dharma was gained, and he sets up no separate headings for these three; the titles of these three sections are named after his common headings for the six passages.

Clear away a misreading: to suppose that where the text is short the matter is light. The whole weight of this section has already come down upon the long passage in the middle, and the last passage needs nothing added. Bringing it to the ground: when a stretch of road has been walked one goes on forward, and that is the whole meaning of the four graphs “took his leave and departed.”

Lineage

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

The first is the line of the witnesses. As for this woman’s name, the eighty and the sixty both have Vasumitrā and the forty has Vasumitrā in the other transcription. As for the name of the Dharma gate, the eighty and the forty have the limit apart from craving and desire, the sixty the true limit apart from desire; the name Zhiyan uses is the same as the sixty’s, and Fazang in his prose likewise uses the pure Dharma gate of the true limit apart from desire — which name is used is fastened to which witness is read. As for the thing offered in the passage of the former life, the eighty and the forty have one jeweled coin, the sixty a wondrous jeweled crown of the gods; as for the elder’s wife’s name, the eighty has Excellent Wisdom, the sixty Good Woman, the forty Wondrous Knowledge. The city and the person of the next friend likewise have their several names in the three. After the general conclusion of the ten samādhis the forty has a further question and answer of its own, discussing the faults and troubles of a woman’s form and coming home to the parting from desire, which passage neither the eighty nor the sixty has — the having and the not having are set down as they are, without judging which is the original text.

The second is the line of the gloss on the name. All three houses transmit the two names Friend of the World and Friend of the Gods (Zhiyan sets up no separate gloss of the name within the window of this section): Chengguan says it is because she converts by expedients according to the people of the world and the gods, Fazang says it is because she is adroit and able to lead in and gather up all the worlds, Li Tongxuan says it is because she can be a teacher and friend to the people of the world, and can be a teacher and friend to the gods. Li Tongxuan transmits two further sayings, the one that it is Exchanging Jewels and the other that it is exchanging jewels for goods; and upon this woman’s practice he sets down one word, saying “this is being unstained and yet stained, which only Samantabhadra’s knowledge reaches.” The three houses agree in the gloss of the name while the sense each fastens it to has its own leaning; recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the divisions of the outline. Chengguan makes three divisions (seeking in accord with the teaching · seeing, paying respects, and inquiring · conferring her own Dharma realm); Fazang, upon the sixty, makes four passages and after the showing of her own Dharma realm sets up a fifth, the looking up and pointing to the superior advance; Zhiyan makes three passages and within the true realization opens two further (expounding the Dharma gate of herself · looking up and pointing to the superior portion); Li Tongxuan does not outline unit by unit but sets up five gates of truly entering the Dharma gate of the present position and five gates of pointing to virtue and advancing upward. As for the place of dwelling, the eighty has north of the market stalls, in a house of her own, and Chengguan sets up his gloss upon clamor and stillness; the sixty has the deep palace, and Fazang sets up his gloss upon the three objective realms of the Sanfadu jing — the witnesses they rest upon differing, the marks they set up differ as well. These several divergent glosses are all the settled sayings of the ancient worthies, and are recorded without adjudication.

Within one city, two kinds of people, looking at one and the same matter. Those who cannot see through it are anxious for him; those who can see through it are glad for him. The scripture text has kept both voices and cut away not one clause. To read this section, one must first admit that one may well be among them.

This Time Sudhana Walks in at the Gate Himself

This section starts off very fast. Sudhana “traveled on little by little, came to the city Well Crossing, arrived at the householder’s dwelling, bowed to his feet, and joined his palms and stood,” and then comes at once that sentence he has already asked more than twenty times along his road: “I have already given rise, before this, to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, and yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to learn the bodhisattva practice, or how he is to cultivate the bodhisattva path.”

There is one thing worth asking first. At the places of several friends before this, the scripture text often has a passage of ‘calling to mind the teaching of the friend before,’ where Sudhana must carry along the road the Dharma the last one gave him; why is there none of that here? Chengguan, reading to this place, says outright, “within the text, in the first, seeking in accord with the teaching, the calling to mind of the Dharma is absent” — which is to say that the passage that is missing was seen and set down by the ancient worthies long ago; it is not a dropping out in the copying, but the text of this unit being as it originally is. Fazang, reading the same place upon the sixty, likewise says, “within the second, entering in accord with the teaching, the calling to mind of the Dharma is abridged away.” The forty, on the contrary, has at this place a passage carried over from before: Sudhana, having heard the former friend’s Dharma gate, accords with it single-mindedly, calls it to mind and cultivates it, and passes through ten samādhis before “calling to mind all-knowing wisdom,” and only then does he “little by little go forward and come to the city of the Other Shore” — the very passage the eighty and the sixty lack, the forty has; the difference among the three witnesses is recorded side by side in the apparatus layer.

A misreading must be cleared away: that the calling to mind is missing does not amount to Sudhana coming to this station carelessly. What follows immediately in the scripture text is bowing, joining the palms, and asking — three matters all present, so that the one division of seeing, paying respects, and inquiring is on the contrary written out in good order. Bringing it to the ground: when you read a passage of scripture and find that it ‘is missing something,’ first look to see whether the ancient worthies saw it too — that they saw it and did not supply it is often just the way of telling you that the weight of this unit does not lie there.

The Liberation He Has Gained: Its Name Is the Title of the Whole Section

The householder’s first words are not a piece of reasoning; they are the announcing of a name: “I have gained a liberation of a bodhisattva, named the Limit of Not Entering Parinirvāṇa.”

Why announce the name first? Because what this section means to break is the one piece of common sense that looks least in need of breaking — that the Buddha entered nirvāṇa. The name being set up in front, the three passages below it have something to come down upon. Chengguan, glossing this name, puts the weight upon a single graph: “as for the Limit of Not Entering Parinirvāṇa, ‘entering’ means to enter, because it exhausts the true limit wherein the tathāgatas do not enter nirvāṇa.” The graph rendered ‘entering’ is here not a syllable of transcription but a sense: it is ‘to enter’; ‘not entering nirvāṇa’ is just not entering nirvāṇa; and ‘the limit’ is that true limit reached when the matter is pressed to the very bottom. He then cites the Chapter on the Appearance of the Tathāgata of this very scripture as his ground, saying, “therefore the Chapter on the Appearance says, ‘as the true limit is nirvāṇa, so likewise is the nirvāṇa of the Tathāgata.’”

A misreading must be cleared away: this is not to say that the Buddha never displayed a nirvāṇa. What the name speaks of is ‘the limit’ — pressed to the true limit, the Tathāgata has never entered. Bringing it to the ground: the name of a Dharma gate is often just that thing it wants you to look at over again; the more the name sounds like the opposite of common sense, the more it must be read through before it is judged.

In His Mind These Three Sentences Do Not Arise

In the passage displaying the substance, the scripture text uses the most orderly set of parallel clauses in this section: “in my mind there does not arise any such saying as this: ‘this tathāgata has already entered parinirvāṇa, this tathāgata is now entering parinirvāṇa, this tathāgata is going to enter parinirvāṇa.’”

Ask first: not to give rise to the thought — is it not to think of it, or is it to be unable to call it to mind? Chengguan answers very briefly: “second, from ‘son of good family, I do not give rise in mind’ onward is the displaying of the substance, that is, the mind is joined to the true limit and knows that the Buddha constantly abides.” It is not that he presses the thought down and will not think it; it is that the mind has already come to be joined to that true limit, and so those three sentences cannot arise — just as one who knows the sun has never gone out will not give rise in his mind to the thought ‘the sun has now set.’

A misreading must be cleared away: what the three clauses send away is the view of the three times, not the matter of ‘manifesting.’ What the scripture text sends away is a mind of judgment of the kind “this tathāgata has already entered parinirvāṇa”; it is not saying that the world has never seen the mark of a buddha’s nirvāṇa. Bringing it to the ground: what really wants examining in practice is not whether the mouth says the Buddha entered nirvāṇa, but whether the thought ‘he is no longer here’ arises in the mind.

There Is Finally None That Enters Parinirvāṇa — Except for the Manifesting

The passage resolving the doubt is the positive statement of this section: “I know that of the buddhas, the tathāgatas of all the worlds in the ten directions, there is finally none that enters parinirvāṇa, except only that, wishing to tame sentient beings, they manifest it.”

Ask first: if he has never entered nirvāṇa, then what was it that was seen beneath the twin trees? The scripture text itself gives the one and only clause of exception — manifesting for the taming of sentient beings. Chengguan even here does not set up a sense of his own, but fastens it back to this scripture and to the Lengqie: “third, from ‘except only’ onward is the resolving of the doubt, which is discerned as in the Chapter on the Appearance,” and again, “the Lengqie also says, ‘there is no nirvāṇa of a buddha, and no buddha of nirvāṇa.’” Fazang, at this place upon the sixty, sets down a simile besides, saying, “moreover the buddha-moon constantly abides; it is only that in the water of sentient beings’ minds the reflection has its appearing and its vanishing” — the moon has never risen or set; what rises and sets is the reflection in the water.

A misreading must be cleared away: ‘except for the manifesting’ is not a loophole left open in the doctrine of constant abiding; it is precisely the placing of the manifesting as function and not as substance. Fazang puts it more directly: “as for except for converting sentient beings, it is only that he alters the minds of others so that they see an appearing and a vanishing; in truth the constant body has no appearing and no vanishing.” Bringing it to the ground: to see a buddha’s nirvāṇa and give rise to grief is a matter of the water of sentient beings’ minds; to read that grief as ‘the Buddha has really gone away’ is what this section means to cure.

The Moment of Opening the Door of the Stūpa

The first four passages are all statements of principle; the fifth suddenly comes down upon a very concrete matter: “son of good family! At the time when I opened the door of the stūpa of the tathāgata of the sandalwood seat, I gained a samādhi, named the Lineage of the Buddhas Is Inexhaustible.”

Ask first: what has this passage to do with the sense of constant abiding before it? Chengguan judges it very clearly, saying, “fourth, from ‘I opened’ onward displays his working. Within it there are two: first, discerning what the working rests upon, which is also the verifying of the foregoing sense of not entering nirvāṇa, since it adduces present seeing” — this is not another passage of marvels starting up, but the adducing of a direct measure for that sentence above. When he explains the name of the samādhi, he glosses the sense from the name, saying: “as for the lineage of the buddhas being inexhaustible, the lineage of the buddhas arises from conditions. The buddhas are born conditioned upon the principle, and seeing the principle to be limpid one therefore sees that the buddhas have no ceasing, because the buddha’s emanation body is just the constant body, the dharma-body.” Fazang, upon the one matter of opening the stūpa, divides the phenomenal and the principle into two layers, saying, “as for opening the stūpa, it is the opening of its phenomenal aspect. As for gaining the concentration, it is the seeing of the nature that is principle.”

A misreading must be cleared away: it is not that the stūpa has spiritual power. Chengguan says of this stūpa, “as for constantly making offerings at the stūpa of the Buddha, it is because it is the foremost among roots of goodness” — what has ripened is this one mind of constant offering. As to why the householder should make offerings at this stūpa in particular, Chengguan frankly says, “it is not clear on what occasion he makes offerings at this stūpa in particular,” and merely records one saying without forcing a judgment. Bringing it to the ground: one small thing that has been done for a very long time may well be your own door of the stūpa.

Entering Thought-Moment after Thought-Moment, Knowing Thought-Moment after Thought-Moment

The gaining of the concentration is not a single occasion. The scripture text goes on to say: “in thought-moment after thought-moment I enter this samādhi, and in thought-moment after thought-moment I come to know all the measureless surpassing matters.”

Ask first: why is ‘thought-moment after thought-moment’ insisted upon? Because what was said above is that the buddhas have no ceasing; and if this householder saw them only within some one occasion of entering concentration, then what he saw would have become a piece of memory, and memory has arising and ceasing. Entering thought-moment after thought-moment and knowing thought-moment after thought-moment — only so does what is known answer to the sense he has realized: to buddhas without ceasing there answers a seeing without break.

A misreading must be cleared away: ‘thought-moment after thought-moment’ does not point to his diligence, but to this samādhi being present without waiting upon the rousing of a thought, just as was said above about ‘not giving rise in mind’ — no mind of discrimination arises, and yet the knowing does not break off. Bringing it to the ground: to examine any so-called ‘gaining of strength,’ do not look at its strongest single occasion; look at whether it breaks off.

Why Sudhana Presses On with a Further Question

The householder’s words are complete at this point, and yet Sudhana does not stop: “Sudhana said: ‘as for this samādhi, what is its objective realm?’”

Ask first: is this question curiosity? Chengguan sets it out as a passage of its own, saying, “afterward, from ‘Sudhana said’ onward, is the asking and answering about the objective realm” — within his outline this one question does not stand on the same level as the setting forth of the name, the displaying of the substance, the resolving of the doubt, and the working; it is the latter of the two items opened under the working itself, set beside the discerning of what the working rests upon. Which is to say: the name and the substance of the Dharma gate have been given, and what Sudhana wants is ‘what is seen.’ Fazang, upon the sixty, likewise sets it apart, saying, “third, from ‘he said’ onward makes clear the working, first the asking and afterward the answering.”

A misreading must be cleared away: to press the question is not to disbelieve. The householder said above, ‘I know that the buddhas finally do not enter parinirvāṇa’; and if Sudhana did not ask after the objective realm, that sentence would remain for him a piece of hearsay. Bringing it to the ground: to hear a great conclusion and not ask ‘then what is it that you have seen’ is for the most part not yet really to want it.

What He Sees (1): Following Their Sequence, He Sees All the Buddhas of This World

The answer opens with a roll of names: “I enter this samādhi, and following their sequence I see all the buddhas of this world,” and then, “that is to say: the buddha Kāśyapa, the buddha Kanakamuni, the buddha Krakucchanda, the buddha Śikhin, the buddha Vipaśyin, the buddha Tiṣya, the buddha Puṣya, the buddha Unsurpassed Victory, the buddha Unsurpassed Lotus.”

Ask first: why should what is seen have a sequence? The scripture text says of itself, “following their sequence”: the seeing of the buddhas is not a jumbled simultaneous appearing, but a sequence plainly kept. As for why this sequence should be so, neither the scripture nor the ancient worthies sets up any separate gloss at this place, and no judgment is here made on their behalf, as the case is.

A misreading must be cleared away: the nine buddhas are not the whole of the roll; they are ‘the foremost.’ The scripture text goes on immediately to say, “buddhas such as these taken as the foremost,” and there is a long passage below. Bringing it to the ground: as for seeing the buddhas of the three times, the starting point is always the one nearest to yourself.

What He Sees (2): Within the Space of a Single Thought, Eight Steps of Increase

After the roll of names comes number: “within the space of a single thought I come to see a hundred buddhas, I come to see a thousand buddhas, I come to see a hundred thousand buddhas, I come to see a koṭi of buddhas, a thousand koṭis of buddhas, a hundred thousand koṭis of buddhas, an ayuta of koṭis of buddhas, a nayuta of koṭis of buddhas, and on to buddhas as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable worlds; all such as these I see in their sequence.” From a hundred up to a nayuta of koṭis there are eight steps in all, gathered at the end by the number of dust motes.

Ask first: the Avataṃsaka is accustomed to great numbers, so where are the great numbers of this passage put to work? They are put to work upon ‘the space of a single thought.’ What increases through the eight steps is the buddhas seen, while the time is throughout that one single thought — the number increases and the time does not, and so what is displayed is not muchness but inexhaustibility.

A misreading must be cleared away: it is not that he looks quickly. The scripture text says “in their sequence I see them all”; that the sequence is not disordered and yet costs no time is precisely because what is seen does not fall within an arrangement in time. Bringing it to the ground: anyone who has been thinking of merit as ‘accumulating a great deal’ may pause a moment at this passage — what increases here is what is seen, not what is spent.

What He Sees (3): What Is Seen Is the Whole Course of a Single Buddha

To see a buddha is not to see one mark; it is to see the whole course: “I also see those buddhas at the first beginning when they roused the mind, planting the several roots of goodness, obtaining surpassing spiritual penetrations, accomplishing great vows, cultivating wondrous practices, being complete in the perfections, entering the grounds of a bodhisattva, gaining the pure forbearance, crushing the armies of the demons, accomplishing perfect awakening, their lands pure, the assembly gathered and surrounding them, sending forth a great light, turning the wondrous wheel of the Dharma, manifesting spiritual transformations” — from the first rousing of the mind to the manifesting of spiritual transformations, fifteen matters in all; and afterward, “the several differences within it I am all able to hold, I am all able to keep in mind, all able to contemplate, and to distinguish and display.”

Ask first: why must the seeing be so detailed? Because the sense set up above is that the lineage of the buddhas arises from conditions. If only the fruit of buddhahood were seen, a buddha would look like something that came to be all at once; only when the fifteen matters have been seen one by one can ‘the conditions’ be seen — the rousing of the mind is a condition, the roots of goodness are a condition, and on to the turning of the wheel of the Dharma, which is a condition too.

A misreading must be cleared away: to be able to hold and to keep in mind is not a good memory. After holding and keeping in mind there are still contemplating and distinguishing and displaying, and this last matter is being able to set it out for others — so this is a seeing that can be transmitted, not a private experience. Bringing it to the ground: examine your own acquaintance with a buddha or a teacher, and ask whether you know only the mark of the fruit, or know as well how he walked the road to it.

The Future and the Present Are Likewise So

Having seen the past, the scripture text fills out the three times with a single sentence: “all the buddhas of the future, Maitreya and the rest, and all the buddhas of the present, Vairocana and the rest, are likewise so.”

Ask first: the buddhas of the future have not yet appeared in the world, so how are they seen? If what makes a buddha a buddha lies in arising from conditions while the principle is constant, then that ‘principle’ by which a future buddha is a buddha does not wait upon time in order to be, and it is this that is seen. Chengguan set up the sense of this section beforehand — “the buddhas are born conditioned upon the principle, and seeing the principle to be limpid one therefore sees that the buddhas have no ceasing”; the principle does not follow upon time, and therefore the three times are seen together.

A misreading must be cleared away: the seeing is not to be narrowed down to the principle alone with the matters of causes and effects shut out. Fazang, outlining this passage upon the sixty, says, “first, the seeing of the matters of the causes and effects of the buddhas of the past; second, the classing together of future and present with them” — the causes and effects of the buddhas of the past are seen first, and the future and the present are classed together with them; and the scripture text itself says only “are likewise so,” what is classed together being just the fifteen matters listed above. Bringing it to the ground: what opens the three times through is that principle which neither increases nor decreases with time; and the principle being open, what is seen is still the buddhas’ matters of cause and effect, not the matters stripped away.

The Ten Directions and the Three Times, with the Two Vehicles and the Assemblies of Bodhisattvas as Well

The last sentence pushes the range to its furthest: “as it is with this world, so all the buddhas, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and assemblies of bodhisattvas of the three times in all the worlds of the ten directions are likewise so.”

Ask first: why should the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas be reckoned in as well? Because the sense set up in this section is the true limit of not entering nirvāṇa; and the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas are precisely that class of whom the world holds that ‘once they have entered nirvāṇa they appear no more.’ Only when even they are within what is seen is this sense pressed to the very bottom.

A misreading must be cleared away: this is not a judging of the two vehicles as high or low; this section passes not one word of appraisal upon them, but merely lists them within what is seen. Bringing it to the ground: whether a Dharma gate is ultimate may be told by whether it dares to put inside itself the class that is hardest to place.

I Have Gained This One Alone

The objective realm answered, the householder turns his words at once: “son of good family! I have gained this one liberation alone that a bodhisattva gains, the Limit of Not Entering Parinirvāṇa.”

Ask first: having seen so many buddhas, how can he still say ‘gained this alone’? Because the dharma he has gained is one only; the buddhas seen are many, yet they are still the working of this one Dharma gate. The friends of this assembly mostly have such a sentence, and what each humbles himself over differs; Chengguan at this section points out where he does not reach, saying, “within the pointing to the superior, though the elder knows that the three times do not cease, he is not yet able to know in a single thought, nor to make the knower and the known equal” — that he knows the three times do not cease is what he has gained; that he cannot know in a single thought and cannot make knower and known equal is the limit of his portion.

A misreading must be cleared away: humbling oneself is not a courtesy. The two matters Chengguan points to are precisely the first two clauses of what the scripture text below raises as superior, and here scripture and commentary answer one another closely. Bringing it to the ground: to know where the edge of one’s own gaining lies is itself a thing that takes a considerable gaining to do.

Pointing to the Superior (1): With the Knowledge of a Single Thought They Know the Three Times Everywhere

The first clause of what is pointed to as superior is: “as for those bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, with the knowledge of a single thought they know the three times everywhere, and in a single thought they enter all samādhis everywhere.”

Ask first: does not the householder too ‘know thought-moment after thought-moment’? The difference lies between ‘thought-moment after thought-moment’ and ‘a single thought.’ Knowing thought-moment after thought-moment is thought succeeding thought without break; knowing everywhere in a single thought waits upon no succession. Entering everywhere thought-moment after thought-moment is entering and entering again; entering everywhere in a single thought waits upon no sequence. Fazang, upon the sixty, says it more plainly, that the elder “is not yet able to make the single thought that knows and the three limits that are known equal and without two” — the difference is that the single thought that knows and the three limits that are known are not yet made equal into one.

A misreading must be cleared away: this is not to say that the householder’s samādhi is not real; it is to say that between a seeing that succeeds and a knowing that waits upon nothing there is a limit of portion. Bringing it to the ground: the place most easily misjudged in practice is just here — taking ‘a very close succession’ for ‘already waiting upon nothing.’

Pointing to the Superior (2): The Sun of Knowledge Shines Constantly; the Tathāgata, I, and Sentient Beings Are Without Two

The second clause goes further: “the sun of the Tathāgata’s knowledge shines constantly upon their minds; toward all dharmas they have no discrimination; they comprehend that all buddhas are utterly equal, and that the Tathāgata and I and all sentient beings are equal and without two.”

Ask first: the clause before spoke of knowing the three times; what does this one speak of? It speaks of the equality of knower and known. What the householder saw above was his seeing of the buddhas; what is raised here is that the Tathāgata and I and all sentient beings are without two — the seer and the seen are no longer two ends. What Chengguan called “not yet able to know in a single thought, nor to make knower and known equal” has its second matter pointed at just here.

A misreading must be cleared away: ‘equal and without two’ does not say that sentient beings are already buddhas; it says that under this shining of knowledge there is no partition of knower and known. What the scripture text uses is ‘equal and without two,’ not ‘is the very same.’ Bringing it to the ground: to read words of universal equality and think that no cultivation is needed is to take what is seen at the ground of the fruit for the present state at the ground of the cause.

Pointing to the Superior (3): The Self-Nature Is Pure, and Yet He Can Enter Everywhere into the World

The third clause turns to the working: “they know that the self-nature of all dharmas is pure, without pondering and without stirring, and are yet able to enter everywhere into all the worlds, far removed from the several discriminations, abiding in the seal of the Dharma of the buddhas, and able to awaken all the sentient beings of the Dharma realm.”

Ask first: without pondering and without stirring, how can one still enter the world everywhere and awaken sentient beings? The joint of this clause is in the words ‘and yet able’ — it is not first stillness and afterward motion; it is that the very absence of stirring is the entering everywhere. The householder at the head of this section, who opened the door of the stūpa of the tathāgata of the sandalwood seat and gained the samādhi named the Lineage of the Buddhas Is Inexhaustible, is walking the first stage of just this direction; and what is raised here is the furthest reach of that same direction.

A misreading must be cleared away: ‘the self-nature is pure’ does not say that sentient beings have no afflictions at present; it says that upon the self-nature of dharmas there is no defilement, and therefore awakening is possible. Bringing it to the ground: any practice of delivering beings that has not this clause beneath it will turn into pushing people along; with this clause, it is opening and not pushing.

That Question in Return Is Not a Courtesy

After the pointing to the superior comes a question in return: “and how could I know or tell those practices of merit and virtue?”

Ask first: he has plainly just said a long passage about the merit and virtue of those bodhisattvas, so how can he say again that he cannot know and cannot tell? What he has said is what he can adduce from hearing; what he cannot do is to know it in realization. To be able to bring out the names and headings, and to realize the realm itself, are not one matter. This one question puts that whole passage of what was raised as superior back into the position of ‘I have not arrived.’

A misreading must be cleared away: this is not self-belittling in order to display the virtue of humility. Chengguan joins the humbling of himself and the pointing to the superior into one heading and calls it “the fourth, humbling himself and pointing to the superior,” while Fazang calls it “looking up and pointing to the superior advance” — what is pointed to is the superior, and what it faces is the advance; so this question is a sentence that opens the road upward, not a sentence that closes things off. Bringing it to the ground: a sentence of ‘I cannot tell it’ carries weight only when it is said after you have already told it very well.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: The Mountain Named Potalaka, the Friend Named Avalokiteśvara

The last division is the sending on: “son of good family! Going south from here there is a mountain, named Potalaka; there is a bodhisattva there, named Avalokiteśvara. Go there and ask him: how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice and to cultivate the bodhisattva path?”

Ask first: this householder keeps a stūpa and sees that the buddhas constantly abide — why should he point on to a bodhisattva renowned for great compassion? Chengguan makes a turn upon the words within the verse, saying, “as for the words ‘upon the sea there is a mountain,’ it is because great compassion accords with and enters the sea of birth-and-death while dwelling upon the mountain of nirvāṇa” — the sea is birth-and-death, the mountain is nirvāṇa, and the mountain is upon the sea. What was gained at the station before is knowing that the buddhas do not enter nirvāṇa; what is to be looked at at the next station is dwelling in nirvāṇa and entering birth-and-death.

A misreading must be cleared away: the pointing out of the next friend is not an appendix to this section. The person pointed to and the dharma gained have always joined onto one another, and the sequence of the scripture text is itself the sequence of practice. Bringing it to the ground: a true teacher will send you off to the side you do not yet have.

Why for This One a Passage of Verse Is Added Besides

After the pointing, the scripture text says “thereupon he spoke a verse, saying,” and then four lines of verse follow.

Ask first: the friends of this assembly mostly stop at prose in pointing out the next friend, so why is verse added here? Chengguan says the reason outright: “fifth, from ‘to the south of here’ onward, within the pointing out of the next friend, first prose and afterward verse. Because the bodhisattva of great compassion is honored by the multitude, verse is added besides.” It is added for the sake of honoring the one pointed to, and is not an ornament of style. The forty at this place likewise has four lines of verse, while the sixty has no verse and closes directly with prose — the three witnesses differ in form, and the apparatus layer records them side by side.

A misreading must be cleared away: the adding of verse does not amount to the prose having said too little. The prose has already finished saying the place and the name; what the verse adds is the scene and the urging. Bringing it to the ground: to give rise beforehand to reverence for the person you are about to see is what makes that stretch of road walkable at all.

Verse (1): Upon the Sea There Is a Mountain

The first line: “upon the sea there is a mountain, with many holy and worthy ones; made of the many jewels, utterly pure.”

Ask first: why speak of the mountain before the person? Because what Sudhana is going to is a place, and also an objective realm. The four words ‘upon the sea there is a mountain’ are at once a plain statement of a mountain by the sea of southern India, and also carry the displaying Chengguan points to — dwelling upon the mountain of nirvāṇa without leaving the sea of birth-and-death. The clause ‘with many holy and worthy ones’ first gives Sudhana a settled mind: that is not some solitary and forbidding place.

A misreading must be cleared away: ‘made of the many jewels’ does not say how costly the mountain is; it says it is utterly pure — the jewels here are a simile of purity, not a simile of value. Bringing it to the ground: to know before setting out that the place you are going to is pure is itself a thought that lessens the doubts along the road.

Verse (2): Flowers and Fruit, Springs and Pools

The second line: “flowering trees and fruiting trees and groves fill it everywhere; springs that flow and pools and marshes are all of them there.”

Ask first: why should a verse that points out a road write of flowers and fruit and springs and pools? Because if the place pointed to had only a name and no mark, what Sudhana would give rise to would be a concept. Flowers and fruit: by flowering there is fruit. Springs and pools: flowing, they are able to gather. The marks written of answer clause by clause to the practice of great compassion — filling everywhere is universality, and being all of them there is lacking nothing.

A misreading must be cleared away: this is not idle scene-painting. In the forty this verse has the springs first and the flowering groves afterward, the sequence inverted from the eighty’s; the two witnesses stand side by side and the marks written of are the same — from which it may be seen that what matters is the marks, not the arrangement. Bringing it to the ground: imagine some place of practice you mean to go to, and if you cannot picture a single concrete mark of it, for the most part you do not yet really mean to go.

Verse (3): The Valorous Great Man, Dwelling upon This Mountain for the Benefit of Sentient Beings

The third line: “that valorous great man is named Avalokiteśvara, and for the benefit of sentient beings he dwells upon this mountain.”

Ask first: a person of great compassion — why is he called a ‘valorous great man’? Because entering the sea of birth-and-death without retreating is just what needs valor; kindness and compassion without valor are only a not-bearing-to-see. At this place the scripture text does not say how many spiritual penetrations he has; it says only that for the benefit of sentient beings he dwells — to dwell is not to leave, to keep one place long and to answer all who come.

A misreading must be cleared away: valor is not hardness. The weight of the whole line lies in ‘for the benefit of sentient beings’; valor is the virtue that exists for the sake of this, not a temperament possessed on its own. Bringing it to the ground: to judge whether a mind of compassion can stand, look at whether it can settle down in the hard place.

Verse (4): You Ought to Go and Ask

The fourth line: “you ought to go and ask about the several merits and virtues, and he will show you the vast skillful means.”

Ask first: why is what is to be asked after ‘the several merits and virtues’? All along the road Sudhana has asked ‘how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice and cultivate the bodhisattva path’; and the words of the verse here point to the substance of what he asks — the practice of merit and virtue. And what is promised as the answer is ‘the vast skillful means,’ which answers exactly to the gate of Avalokiteśvara. In the forty this clause reads “he will expound it for you at large,” and in the eighty “he will show you the vast skillful means”; the two witnesses differ in form, and the apparatus layer records them side by side.

A misreading must be cleared away: ‘vast skillful means’ is not a makeshift expedient. Skillful means here answers to great compassion; it is the capacity to enter the sea of birth-and-death and to succor beings. Bringing it to the ground: to go and see someone carrying one concrete question is far more use than going with a vague admiration.

Paying Respects and Taking Leave: Circling Him Measureless Times

The last sentence is Sudhana’s leave-taking: “at that time Sudhana the youth bowed to his feet, circled him measureless times, gazed up at him earnestly, took his leave, and departed.”

Ask first: what sequence is there in the three matters of bowing, circling, and gazing up? Bowing is the reverence of the body; circling is the not bearing to go at once; gazing up is going and yet keeping the eyes still here. Only after these three matters comes ‘took his leave and departed’ — that he goes slowly is just the weight of what he has gained. At this place the sixty has “took his leave and journeyed south,” while the forty and the eighty alike have “took his leave and departed”; the three witnesses are recorded side by side.

A misreading must be cleared away: this is not a set formula of manners. The whole unit runs to some eight hundred graphs, and the last sentence spends more than ten of them writing how he goes away; from the proportion alone it may be seen that this is no idle text. Bringing it to the ground: the way you leave a good friend is a ready measure of how much you have really carried away from him.

Lineage

For the text of this section there are three lines of the stream that opens on from it.

The first is the line of the buddhas not entering nirvāṇa. Chengguan, in glossing the name of this section and in resolving the doubt, fastens both places back to the Chapter on the Appearance of the Tathāgata of this scripture, and cites the words of the Lengqie in evidence; what this section sets up and what the Chapter on the Appearance sets up are one and the same sense, save that the Chapter on the Appearance expounds it at large while this section makes it present in the realization of a single householder. And so anyone who reads this section and finds its sense too large may go back to the Chapter on the Appearance to fill out its breadth. The two clauses of the Lengqie that Chengguan cites the Yanyi chao traces back to their source — they are from the verse at the opening of that scripture in which Mahāmati praises the Buddha; the chao first sets down the verse, next sets down the gloss of the one house of Dayun, and only at the end lays down its own “the gloss says,” bringing out a separate reading under “I now say”: that the first clause sends away the nirvāṇa that is realized, the second the buddha that realizes, the third has no joining of realizer and realized, and the fourth gathers up the reason for it all. The verse is what is glossed, Dayun is the saying of one house, and what follows “the gloss says” is Chengguan’s own reading; the three layers each have their own speaker, and in reading they may not be run together as one saying.

The second is the line of the lineage of the buddhas arising from conditions. Of the nine graphs Chengguan used in glossing the name of the samādhi, the Yanyi chao traces the source, saying, “as for the commentary’s ‘the lineage of the buddhas arises from conditions; the buddhas are born conditioned upon the principle,’ the upper clause is from the Fahua jing, and the lower clause is Sheng’s gloss,” and says further, “the citing of Sheng here accords rightly with the words of the scripture about the lineage of the buddhas being inexhaustible,” and cites the Niepan in evidence. One sentence glossing a name, and three works fastened to it — from which it may be seen that this sense does not arise alone in this section. The text of the Niepan that the chao cites runs to “for this reason the Tathāgata does not in truth finally enter nirvāṇa” and there stops, and the chao glosses on from it, making clear that all that is cited displays “a nirvāṇa that has no everlasting extinction” and the nirvāṇa that is constantly abiding and real.

The third is the line of the divergent glosses of the several houses, each with its own track, recorded without adjudication. As for the name of this dedication, Chengguan outlines it as the dedication of entering all equal roots of goodness; Fazang outlines it as the dedication of according with equal roots of goodness while his closing words read the position of the dedication of firm roots of goodness; Li Tongxuan and the scripture text of chapter twenty-five alike have the dedication of according with and making firm all roots of goodness — four houses differing in form. As for the name of the good friend, Chengguan transmits the two glosses of wrapping around and of gathering in; Fazang, upon the sixty’s Abiding Securely, glosses it as gaining the buddha’s dharma-body and making offerings to it as constantly abiding, and transmits besides that in the Indic text it should be named Upholding and Gathering, or else Holding Fast and Gathering In; while Li Tongxuan divides the two parts of the name and glosses them, and transmits the full form of the name in Sanskrit. As for the gloss of the city’s name, Chengguan sets up his sense upon Well Crossing, Fazang glosses the sixty’s Shoupoboluo as Good and Wondrous, Arriving at the Other Shore, and Li Tongxuan glosses it with reference to converting practice. As for the occasion of constantly making offerings at this stūpa, Chengguan says of himself that it is not clear, and records one saying alone without forcing a judgment. As for the number of the divisions of the outline, Chengguan makes five divisions with the first lacking the calling to mind of the Dharma; Fazang, upon the sixty, opens four passages under the showing of his own Dharma realm and eight passages under the looking up and pointing to the superior; Zhiyan too sets up his outline upon the sixty, judging this friend to be the twenty-sixth, the bodhisattva position of the dedication that accords with and makes firm the roots of goodness, the elder named Abiding Securely, and opening four headings of the entering, two divisions of the direct entering, and three headings of his own portion, the forms of the names he uses following the sixty; while Li Tongxuan glosses the names following upon the text in 〈The Ten Dedications〉, and for this friend sets up separately five gates of directly entering his own position and five gates of pointing to virtue and advancing upward — the one passage of the former friend’s pointing to virtue and advancing upward being words spoken by that former friend to point toward this one, and not an outline of this friend himself. Of what Li Tongxuan glosses upon this friend, several things bear teaching: that the discriminating minds of all sentient beings are one and all the seed of the tathāgatas’ wisdom, the same as the seed of the wisdom of the buddhas, without marks of arising and ceasing; that the householder’s body dwells in the world to convert the worldly, and that within the stūpa chamber only a sandalwood seat is set and no image, expressing that the sixth gate of wisdom reaches the markless dharma; that the wisdom of one’s own buddha, of the buddhas, and of sentient beings is from the first of one limit; that this dedication takes prajñā as its substance with the other nine as its companions, and cures the obstruction of not being at ease in great kindness and compassion while dwelling in birth and death with supramundane wisdom; and that the next friend’s mountain, named for the tree of small white flowers, expresses cultivating the practice of kindness and compassion with humbling oneself to the utmost smallness as its practice. These several divergent glosses are all the settled sayings of the ancient worthies.

As for the matching of the assigned position, it belongs to the outline of the ancient worthies and Chengguan takes it up in succession; the scripture text itself does not mark its own position. At the place of the general outline of this assembly Chengguan first sets down two sayings: Master Yi and the Taishan lun “gloss only as the text runs, scattered, and make no separate matching,” while masters such as Guangtong “all match the positions”; the two sayings are recorded side by side without adjudication.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

Beneath the two sayings Chengguan lays down a judgment of his own: “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, and to match them does not obstruct their not being sequential — this is Chengguan’s own explicit judgment, not one of two sayings merely set down side by side.

One householder, one stūpa, and one sentence: ‘the buddhas finally have not entered parinirvāṇa.’ What he keeps is the least conspicuous of matters, and what he opens is the hardest of gates to believe — the essential of this section lies wholly in that want of proportion.

By the Time Sudhana Arrives Here, He Already Has Something in His Hands

This section begins not with walking but with recollecting. Sudhana “single-mindedly pondered the teaching of that householder,” and then recollects seven matters concerning the buddhas — the sequence of their appearing, the sequence of their following one upon another, the sequence of their names, the wondrous Dharma they expound, the adornments they are furnished with, their accomplishing of right and equal awakening, and their inconceivable working.

Why must this passage come first? Because studying under the friends is not a matter of changing the subject. What the householder before him showed was the “treasury of a bodhisattva’s liberation,” and only because Sudhana “entered” it and “gained” it could he walk as far as the next mountain. The scripture text sets down nine verbs one after another — entered, gained, recollected, called to mind, upheld, contemplated, comprehended, saw, made clear — and each verb differs from the others, as do the objects they fall upon.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking this for a formulaic interlude. Were it a mere formula, why list the seven matters one by one? Bringing it to the ground: what you carry on the road after leaving one teacher decides what you are able to see in the next.

For the Stretch of Walking, the Scripture Text Gives Only One Sentence

“He traveled on little by little, came to that mountain, and everywhere sought for this great bodhisattva.” The whole journey is given in these seventeen graphs, and the four graphs “everywhere sought for” must not be passed over.

Why must he “seek and search”? Because this good friend has set up no signboard. Several of the friends before him dwelt in a city, or in a country, or had a tower that could be found; this friend is among the cliffs and valleys of a mountain, and Sudhana found him only by searching. Chengguan makes this passage the first division, “seeking in accord with the teaching” — to proceed is to go, to seek is to search, and those two words are the bone of this one sentence.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that a good friend is met as a matter of course once he has been pointed out. The scripture text plainly writes “everywhere.” Bringing it to the ground: knowing the name and the direction still leaves a stretch of road you must walk and search out for yourself.

Why the Scripture Text Records the West Side

The place where the friend is seen the scripture text writes out with great fineness: “he saw, on the west side, among the cliffs and valleys, springs flowing and winding one across another, the groves of trees lush and thick, the fragrant grasses soft, spread over the ground turning toward the right,” and only afterward, “the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara was seated cross-legged upon a boulder of adamant.”

Every clause is soft — the springs wind across one another, the groves are lush, the grasses are soft, the ground is spread turning to the right. Since what is expounded is the Dharma of great kindness and compassion, the place has nothing perilous and nothing steep about it: the setting answers to the Dharma. As for the two words “west side,” Chengguan takes a further sense from them, saying, “that it is on the west side is because the west governs killing, and so the rescuing power of compassion is displayed” — precisely because the west governs slaughter, a manifesting there displays what compassion is as a rescue. He adds a second sense as well, “and further, to cause them to turn back toward it, since that is what they served from the first.” This is an interpretive reading Chengguan sets up upon the text of the eighty-fascicle witness, and is not something the scripture text says of itself.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing the description of the scene to be ornament. Bringing it to the ground: the place where a person dwells is itself already speaking of the Dharma he practices.

What He Is Expounding Is the Very Thing He Has Gained

The scripture text goes on to write what he is doing — “and he was expounding the Dharma of great kindness and compassion, causing them to gather in all sentient beings.” That this clause stands before Sudhana opens his mouth is a matter of position, and the position matters.

Why does it matter? Because Sudhana is about to ask “how does one learn the bodhisattva practice,” and the answer was already being performed before he asked. And note carefully what it is they are caused to do: not that sentient beings should gain happiness, but “causing them to gather in all sentient beings” — the measureless bodhisattvas who hear the Dharma, once they have heard it, still do the work of gathering in sentient beings. What makes the Dharma of great kindness and compassion a Dharma is just this, that the people it teaches out are again people capable of compassion.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing compassion to be a kind of feeling. The kindness and compassion here is a Dharma gate that can be expounded, taught, and transmitted. Bringing it to the ground: if one who has received compassion stops at being consoled, that Dharma has not yet been transmitted to him.

Ten Clauses of Recollecting the Good Friend: Words Sudhana Speaks for Himself

Before he has drawn near, Sudhana first raises ten recollections, every clause beginning with “the good friend”: is the tathāgata, the cloud of all dharmas, the treasury of all merit and virtue, hard to meet with, the jeweled cause of the ten powers, the inexhaustible torch of knowledge, the sprouting root of merit, the gate of omniscient knowledge, the guide upon the sea of knowledge, the equipment that aids the way and reaches to omniscient knowledge. Ten clauses only, neither more nor fewer.

The first four speak of the person — he is a buddha, a cloud, a treasury, hard to meet; the latter six speak of the working — he is a cause, a torch, a sprout, a gate, a guide, equipment. The first clause weighs the most, and Chengguan singles it out to gloss, saying, “that the good friend is the tathāgata is because he leads one to the ultimate, and so is the same as a buddha”: it is not said that the good friend is the buddha’s own body, but that the place to which he leads and the place to which a buddha leads are one and the same ultimate, and so, with respect to the utmost of his leading, it is said that he “is the tathāgata.”

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing these to be words of flattery. Among the ten clauses not one says that the good friend treats me well; every clause says where he is able to bring a person. Bringing it to the ground: to examine your own mind toward a good friend, what you look at is not how much gratitude you feel, but whether you truly take him for the very road that goes to omniscient knowledge.

Before He Asks, He Is Already Spoken To

Sudhana has not yet said a word when Avalokiteśvara, “seeing Sudhana from afar,” opens his mouth, and more than ten clauses come one after another, every one of them about Sudhana himself: he has raised the intention of the Great Vehicle, given rise to an upright and straight mind, his great compassion is deep and weighty, the wondrous practice of Samantabhadra follows on and appears before him, his great vow and deep mind are full and pure, he seeks the Buddha’s Dharma diligently and is able to receive it all, he gathers and accumulates roots of goodness and is never satisfied, he accords with good friends and does not go against their teaching. The last passage speaks of where he came from — “born out of the great sea of the merit, virtue, and wisdom of Mañjuśrī; his mind has ripened, and he has gained the Buddha’s power.”

Why must this passage be here? Chengguan judges it the third within the one division of seeing, paying respects, and inquiring, saying, third, from ‘at that time Avalokiteśvara’ onward, “the friend bestows praise and gathers him in, because his great compassion is deep and weighty and he accords with and gathers in” — the bestowing of praise is itself a gathering in, the working of great compassion carried out on the spot. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, judges this passage to be ten clauses and matches a sense to each clause in turn.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing this to be a courteous greeting. Not one clause of what the scripture praises is empty speech; every clause can be turned back and matched to the real matters of the road Sudhana has walked. Bringing it to the ground: a true gathering in is first to let a person know where he already stands, and not first to tell him how far short he falls.

He Has Already Raised the Mind — Why Then Does He Still Ask How to Learn

Sudhana’s words in asking for the Dharma are of a peculiar kind: “Sagely one! I have already raised beforehand the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to learn the bodhisattva practice, or how to cultivate the bodhisattva way.” First he admits that he has raised the mind, and then he admits that he does not know how to learn.

Why do the two not conflict? Because the raising of the mind is a vow, while learning the practice and cultivating the way is a road. To have the vow established and the road unclear is exactly the moment for asking; whereas to suppose that having raised the mind one will naturally know how to walk is to leave that mind stopped at the vow. This one question Sudhana has asked once and again before the fifty and more good friends of this assembly, and the wording scarcely changes — and it does not change precisely because the road each of them shows is different, while the mind that asks is from first to last one and the same.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that to ask so many times is repetition. Bringing it to the ground: that the same question can still be asked aloud one more time — that fact is itself the way.

First the Praise, Afterward the Conferring: The Name of the Dharma Gate Comes Out Only Here

When the bodhisattva answers, his first sentence is not the Dharma gate but “excellent, excellent! Son of good family! You have been able to raise the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.” Chengguan judges the passage of conferring the Dharma to be “first the praise, afterward the conferring,” the praise before and the conferring after.

Why must the praise come first? Because what is conferred is great compassion, and the rising of great compassion lies in being able to raise the mind. If his raising of the mind were not first sealed and settled, the eleven skillful means and the eighteen fears that follow would have no place to rest. This one “praise” is not politeness; it is the first step of conferring the Dharma.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that praise is meant to make a person happy. Bringing it to the ground: only when the place where a person already stands firm has been pointed out can he bear what is to be given him next.

The Liberation Gate of the Practice of Great Compassion: Three Words in the Name

Only then does the name of the Dharma gate come out — “I have accomplished the bodhisattva’s liberation gate of the practice of great compassion” — and at once he glosses its mark himself: “with this bodhisattva gate of the practice of great compassion I teach and transform all sentient beings equally, following on without break.”

Three places in the name are to be looked at. The first is “great compassion,” of which Chengguan says, “that he teaches and transforms equally is itself great compassion, and because the compassion is of one substance with them, it is called equal” — equality is not treating people all alike, but rather that, being of one substance with sentient beings, there is naturally neither thickness nor thinness in it. The second is “practice”: compassion does not stop in the mind, but is walked out. The third is “gate,” of which Chengguan says, “that it follows on without break is itself the gate of practice; and further, the gate is the universal gate, since the universal gate manifests and rescues by bending to each, leaving nothing out” — what makes a gate a gate is that one can go in by it and come out by it, and that there is no capacity it cannot enter.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing an equal mind to be an evenhandedness reached by force of effort. Bringing it to the ground: if a mind of compassion must hold down its partiality in order to be equal, it is not yet the compassion of one substance; the compassion of one substance has already dissolved even the boundary of “other people.”

Above, the Same as the Buddha; Below, the Same as Sentient Beings

The one division of the working is first stated in general, in two clauses only: “abiding in this gate of the practice of great compassion, I am ever in the presence of all the tathāgatas, and I manifest everywhere before all sentient beings.”

These two clauses are one above and one below. Chengguan says, “because above he is the same as the tathāgata’s true mind of wondrous awakening, he is ever in the presence of all the tathāgatas; because below he is of one substance of great compassion with sentient beings, he manifests everywhere before all sentient beings” — ever in the presence of the buddhas, because his mind is the same as the buddhas’; manifesting before sentient beings, because his substance is the same as sentient beings’. Above he does not depart from the buddhas and below he does not depart from beings, and between the two there is no third place. Chengguan sets down one further matter here, saying, “yet this great sage long ago accomplished right awakening, and his title was Right Dharma Illumination; he manifests as a bodhisattva, and it is by way of sense that he is called equal to a buddha” — this is what Chengguan transmits, and the scripture text of this section does not bring out such words.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that ‘ever in the presence of the tathāgatas’ means he remains all along in some buddha-land. Bringing it to the ground: whether one can manifest everywhere before sentient beings depends on whether one has all along not departed from that mind which is the same as the buddhas’.

Eleven Skillful Means: Not Eleven Matters, but Eleven Ways In

For the sense of manifesting everywhere, the scripture text sets down eleven clauses each beginning “at times”: at times by giving, at times by kindly speech, at times by beneficial conduct, at times by working alongside, at times manifesting a form-body, at times manifesting all manner of inconceivable nets of pure light and form, at times by voice and sound, at times by deportment, at times by expounding the Dharma, at times manifesting spiritual transformations, at times manifesting by transformation a shape of the same kind. The first four are the matters of the four means of gathering in; the middle four are upon the body, the light, the sound, and the deportment; the last three are upon expounding the Dharma, spiritual transformation, and the shape of the same kind.

Chengguan sets up his judgment squarely upon this number, saying, “afterward, from ‘at times by giving’ onward, is the separate making clear of the sense of manifesting everywhere, in eleven clauses,” and he compares these eleven clauses with the thirty-five responses of another scripture, saying, “compared with the thirty-five responses of the Fahua jing, at a first glance they seem fewer, but in the sense they take they are more, for those thirty-five responses are only the manifesting of a form-body and the expounding of the Dharma among these here” — those thirty-five are only two clauses of these opened out. The last clause is the hardest to do: “at times I manifest by transformation a shape of the same kind as theirs, and dwell together with them and bring them to ripeness” — not manifesting a body he can look up to, but manifesting a body of the same kind as his, and settling down there.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that “at times” means picking one at will. Among the eleven clauses, deportment and dwelling together both make no sound at all, from which one can see that gathering in beings does not always require speaking. Bringing it to the ground: to help a person, first ask yourself whether you are willing to be of the same kind as he is and to dwell together with him, rather than first thinking of what ought to be said.

Eighteen Kinds of Fear: Counted from the Outside All the Way In to the Mind

The second passage of the working of the gate of the practice of great compassion is the rescuing from fear. The scripture text lists eighteen in one breath: perilous roads, burning distress, confusion, bondage, being killed, poverty, not making a living, ill repute, death, being amid a great assembly, the evil destinies, darkness, being moved and shifted, parting from those one loves, meeting those one hates, what presses upon the body, what presses upon the mind, and sorrow and grief.

The eighteen are not laid out side by side as equals. Chengguan judges their divisions, saying, “within it there are three: first, the parting from worldly fears, of which there are eighteen kinds; the first three are upon the afflictions, and these are the fears that are causes; the rest are all upon the fruits” — the first three (perilous roads, burning distress, confusion) are the causes able to give rise to fear, and the rest are fruits already formed. He points out as well the opening and gathering within them, saying, “the three of bondage, killing, and craving are opened out from the fear of not making a living,” and “from darkness onward, all are matters among the five fears.” Read closely, the sequence does indeed run from the outside inward: at the start it is the road, the heat, the confusion; in the middle it is bondage, killing, poverty, having no means of living, a ruined name, death, being amid the crowd, the evil destinies; and at the last it is darkness, displacement, parting from those one loves, meeting those one hates, pressure upon the body, pressure upon the mind, sorrow and grief — the further on, the nearer it draws, and the last item is already inside the mind.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing the rescue from fear to be the dispelling of calamity. If it were only the dispelling of calamity, why should the counting reach “what presses upon the mind” and “sorrow and grief”? Bringing it to the ground: the fear a person truly cannot get past is for the most part not on the perilous road, but in that stretch inside his own mind.

Recollecting Me · Calling My Name · Seeing My Body

After the eighteen fears the scripture text brings out a vow of its own: “I make this vow as well: ‘May all sentient beings, if they recollect me, if they call my name, if they see my body, be freed and part from every fear.’”

The eighteen clauses before speak of the fears to be parted from; this clause speaks of the cause by which one is able to part from them. Chengguan judges it exactly so, saying, “second, from ‘I make this vow as well’ onward, is the cause of being able to part; recollecting is the mind, and all three kinds of action bring benefit” — recollecting is the action of mind, calling the name is the action of speech, seeing the body is the action of body; each of the three kinds of action is one way in, and all three are able to bring benefit. What matters here is this: this passage is a vow the good friend makes of himself, and is not an urging that Sudhana should recollect anyone. What the scripture text has in this place is Avalokiteśvara setting out for himself the content of his own gate of the practice of great compassion.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that this entrusts one’s rescue to another person. Among the three kinds of action, recollecting, calling, and seeing all require that the frightened person himself make some movement. Bringing it to the ground: what is called a response has, at the one end, the power of a vow that has long been standing there, and at the other end, whether you are willing to stir that one thought.

After Parting from Fear, There Is Still One More Matter

Rescue from fear is not the end. The scripture text goes on: “Son of good family! By this skillful means, when I have caused sentient beings to part from fear, I further teach them to raise the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi and never again turn back from it.”

The four words “by this skillful means” settle the character of everything that came before it as a parting from fear — those partings are skillful means and not the ultimate. Chengguan says, “third, from ‘by this’ onward, is the causing of them to advance in the great mind, whereby they are able at last to part utterly from the fear of the two deaths”: the eighteen worldly fears may be parted from, and yet the fear of birth and death is not yet parted from, and to part from that there is only the one road of raising the great mind. Hence the sequence of the gate of the practice of great compassion is: first let a person stop being afraid, then let him raise the mind; if he is not first made unafraid, he cannot raise the mind, and if he is only made unafraid and is not taught to raise the mind, even that freedom from fear will not hold.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that the aim of compassion is just the drawing out of suffering. Bringing it to the ground: truly to have helped a person is that from then on he need no longer lean on you in order not to be afraid.

I Have Gained Only This One Gate

The Dharma being expounded, this great being who long ago accomplished right awakening says: “Son of good family! I have gained only this bodhisattva gate of the practice of great compassion.” Every good friend of this assembly has this one sentence, and under this friend Chengguan adds a remark of his own, saying, “fourth, from ‘I have gained only’ onward, is the humbling of himself and the pointing to the superior. Having long ago accomplished right awakening, he still does not fail in humility.”

Why add it here in particular? Because this friend’s standing is not the same as the others’ — Chengguan having already set down that he “long ago accomplished right awakening, his title being Right Dharma Illumination,” the four words “I have gained only” are then not an insufficiency in his own crossing over, but a manifesting. A manifesting of what? Of a person who has already reached the ultimate and who, speaking of what he himself has gained, still speaks of one gate only.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing modest words to be a figure of speech. Were it a figure of speech, there would be no need for ten solid clauses of pointing to the superior to follow. Bringing it to the ground: to be able to say clearly which one gate it is that you have gained is harder than being able to name a great many gates.

The Ten Matters of Pointing to the Superior: Two Clauses of ‘Already’ and Eight of ‘Ever’

The words of pointing to the superior come to ten matters in all: already purified all the vows of Samantabhadra, already abiding in all the practices of Samantabhadra, ever practicing all good dharmas, ever entering all samādhis, ever abiding through all boundless kalpas, ever comprehending all dharmas of the three times, ever going to all boundless lands, ever putting an end to the evils of all sentient beings, ever increasing the goodness of all sentient beings, ever cutting off the stream of birth and death of sentient beings; the first two begin with “already,” the latter eight begin with “ever,” and the whole is closed with one question — “and how could I be able to know or to expound their practices of merit and virtue?”

The two clauses of “already” are what has been accomplished — the vows of Samantabhadra already purified, the practices of Samantabhadra already abided in; this is the root. The eight of “ever” are the constant practice — practicing goodness, entering concentration, abiding through kalpas, comprehending the dharmas, going to the lands, these are his own portion; putting an end to evil, increasing goodness, cutting off the stream of birth and death, these are the benefiting of others. The last of the ten matters is “ever cutting off the stream of birth and death of sentient beings,” which joins directly to the great compassion of this gate: to rescue from fear all the way to the end is to cut off that stream.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that pointing to the superior is handing the words over to someone else. Of the ten matters the scripture text points to, not one lies outside this friend — what he himself is doing at this very moment is the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth. Bringing it to the ground: a true pointing to the superior is not saying that I am unable, but saying that this matter is vast beyond measure, and that I do what strength I have in one gate of it.

Lineage

For the text of this section, three lines of what it opens out downward may be traced.

The first is the line of the name. This friend’s name the eighty-fascicle witness gives as Avalokiteśvara, the sixty-fascicle witness as Contemplator of the World’s Sounds, and the forty-fascicle witness again as Avalokiteśvara. Chengguan does not judge which is the correct rendering, but refers the difference back to there being two kinds within the Sanskrit witnesses themselves, saying, “yet within the Sanskrit witnesses there are of themselves two kinds that differ, and so the translators followed the difference,” and further, upon whether the sense taken is round and full, “now the sense taken is the round one, and therefore it is said sovereign.” At the end he opens it further upon the contemplating and the contemplated, saying, “yet contemplating is that which contemplates, and runs through every contemplating,” and “if it be said sovereign, that belongs to the working of the one who transforms.” What Fazang transmits is three titles, and he assigns them to the three kinds of action, saying, “if it be taken upon the action of speech alone, the name is Contemplator of the World’s Sounds, because the working of that is much,” “if it be taken upon body and speech, the name is Light of the World’s Sounds, because the light of his body reaches and shines,” and “if it be furnished with all three wheels, gathering in beings without obstruction, the name is Avalokiteśvara.” Li Tongxuan, upon this position being the gate of compassion within the world, takes the title of compassion, saying, “now this seventh, the dedication that accords with all sentient beings, forms the gate of compassion within the world, and since the name Light of the World’s Sounds is a title of kindness and compassion, it is taken as the gate of practice that marks the position and causes advancement.” What the three houses transmit is recorded side by side without adjudication.

The second is the line of the place. The name of the mountain the scripture text does not bring out, having only “came to that mountain.” Chengguan gives Potalaka and glosses it, saying, “here it means the small white-flowering tree,” and takes “its fragrance is smelled from afar, and whoever smells it and sees it is certain to be glad — this is the sense of according” to match the position of this friend; Li Tongxuan gives Potalaka in his own transcription and says, “here it means the small white-flowering tree; the mountain grows many white-flowering trees, and their flowers are very fragrant, the fragrance reaching far,” taking the sense to lie in “taking the humble and the utterly small as his practice”; Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness’s Mountain of Light, transmits its Indian name as Mount Buduoluo, and says, “rendering it by sense, it is named the mountain adorned with small trees and creepers.” One and the same mountain, and the names the three houses bring out and the senses they take are each different; recorded side by side without adjudication. As for the direction in which the friend dwells, Chengguan, upon the eighty’s “west side,” takes “the west governs killing, and so the rescuing power of compassion is displayed,” while Fazang, upon the sixty’s “western nook,” takes “dwelling in the western nook of the mountain means that he takes his stand in the nook of the mountain and dwells facing east, which is the mark of facing toward the light” — the texts of the two witnesses differing, the interpretive readings of the two houses differ as well; recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the assigned position. This friend is assigned to the seventh, the dedication that accords equally with all sentient beings, and this is Chengguan’s outline in succession from the ancient worthies, not something the scripture text marks of itself. At the place of the chapter outline Chengguan brings out an evenhanded remark of his own: “both have their reason — namely, that since each single position is furnished with many Dharma gates, how should an ordinary mind be barred from practicing and seeking the Dharma of the good friends? Therefore not matching them has its reason. Yet within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and displaying the positions is the constant rule, so that matching them likewise loses nothing.” — both the matching and the not matching of positions have their reason, the assigned position being a display of the constant rule, and to match them loses nothing. Chengguan brings out the name and matches the friend’s name to it, saying, “that the good friend is named Avalokiteśvara is because, the three kinds of action being turned toward him, the six penetrations must answer to the occasion, and his gathering in and benefiting being beyond thought, he is named Avalokiteśvara, and by this he is able to accord with sentient beings everywhere” — why Avalokiteśvara is matched to this position lies just in the words “accord everywhere.” The name of the position Fazang brings out upon the sixty-fascicle witness is the dedication of according with and contemplating all sentient beings equally, and Li Tongxuan’s is the dedication that accords with all sentient beings; the names of the position the three houses give are not uniform, while the place they match it to is in every case the seventh; recorded without adjudication.

In the text of this one section, the first half is a searching and the second half is a not being afraid. Only by searching everywhere can one come to see a teacher who sets up no signboard; and only after hearing out the eighteen kinds of fear does one know that compassion is not a mood but a practice that must be carried on and on.

A Good Friend Who Walked Over of His Own Accord

Most of the good friends before this one Sudhana went to see stage by stage: first he received the pointing out, then he journeyed south, then he searched, and then he saw, paid respects, and inquired. With this one the sequence is turned around — Sudhana had not yet stirred from the assembly of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara when, from the eastern quarter, a bodhisattva came through the air, pressed the ground and made it quake, sent forth light and rained down offerings, and then walked into this assembly of his own accord. Sudhana saw the next teacher without leaving where he stood.

One misreading must be cleared away: this is not the scripture text’s sequence falling into disorder. Precisely because the Dharma gate to be displayed is “the Universal Gate of Swift Practice,” this friend’s coming is itself the expounding of the Dharma — before he has opened his mouth, “able swiftly to reach everywhere throughout all places” has already been performed through once. Chengguan divides this unit into six passages and yet says, “within the text of the good friend there are six; the first two may be understood as they stand,” passing over the first two passages without glossing them and beginning his exposition straight from the third, “conferring his own Dharma realm” — precisely because the marks of the first two passages the scripture text has already made plain enough of itself.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this section, that long opening passage of auspicious marks is not stage-setting; it is the first sentence of the main text.

Coming From the East and Pressing the Ground with His Foot: One Press, and the World Quakes

The opening sentence of the scripture text is “at that time, from the eastern quarter there was a bodhisattva named Right Course, who came through the air, reached the summit of the Encircling Mountains of the Sahā world, and pressed the ground with his foot,” and what follows immediately is “that Sahā world quaked in six ways, and the whole of it was adorned with all manner of jewels.” The marks manifested are two: one a quaking, one an adorning. What quakes is the great earth, and what is adorned is likewise the great earth — one and the same ground, first quaking and then straightway becoming a thing made of every jewel.

Why “pressed” and not “stood”? Li Tongxuan sets down one gloss upon this, saying, “that he presses the ground with his toe is what knowledge walks upon; it sets forth that by the emptiness of dharmas knowledge arises and appears, and the graspings of the assembly before him are all scattered,” and saying further, “the Encircling Mountains are the objective realm of recompense that the deluded grasp at; where knowledge appears without a support, the objective realm grasped at is not there.” This is the reading by way of setting forth the Dharma proper to Tongxuan’s one house.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that the quaking in six ways is there to display the greatness of a spiritual penetration. The scripture text, straight after the quaking, joins on “the whole of it was adorned with all manner of jewels,” by which it may be seen that the quaking is not the end in view — the quaking is for the sake of turning: the old mark scatters and the new mark appears, and these are two halves of one and the same matter.

Bringing it to the ground: a real shaking is never a matter of something added; it is that the “existent” one had been grasping at can no longer stand.

Sending Forth the Light of His Body: Making the Brightest Thing There Is Look Like a Mass of Ink

The second mark is light. The scripture text says, “the bodhisattva Right Course sent forth the light of his body, and it outshone every sun, moon, star, and flash of lightning,” and there follows a list of the eight divisions of gods and dragons, Śakra, the Brahmā kings, and the four World-Protector kings — all that is brightest in the world and in the heavens, within his light, is “all like a mass of gathered ink.”

This is the weightiest sentence of rhetoric in this section. To figure sun and moon by a mass of ink is not to say that the light of sun and moon has grown small; it is to say that they and this light are not of the same kind at all. The light of sun and moon has something it depends on, has arising and ceasing, and has a division between what illumines and what is illumined; whereas this light is the light of a body, sent forth by the virtue of the practitioner’s own person. The scripture text sets down no gloss whatever at this place, and closes with a single simile alone — so the reader must stop for a moment upon the simile.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that to outshine is simply to overpower. Were it merely an overpowering in quantity, the scripture text ought to have said ‘many times finer than sun and moon’; to say “all like a mass of gathered ink” is to have changed the measure.

Bringing it to the ground: if a light can appear bright only when other lights have dimmed, it is still a light of the same kind as theirs.

The Light Shining Upon the Evil Destinies: Every Kind of Suffering Quenched, the Afflictions Rising No More

The first thing the light does is not to shine upon the buddha-lands but to shine upon the three evil destinies. The scripture text says, “that light shone everywhere upon all the hells, the animals, the hungry ghosts, and the places of King Yama, causing that, within those evil destinies, every kind of suffering was quenched, the afflictions rose no more, and sorrow and grief were altogether left behind.”

The three clauses are clearly in sequence: first “every kind of suffering was quenched,” which is a removal upon the fruit; next “the afflictions rose no more,” which is a stilling upon the cause; last “sorrow and grief were altogether left behind,” which is a settling upon the mind. Were there only the first clause, that would be a pleasure that halts for a while, the suffering quenched while the cause remains, so that afterward it comes again; only with the second clause is there a no-longer-arising; and only with the third does the one who undergoes it know for himself that he is well.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that to send forth light and rescue from suffering is a bestowal by another’s power, with no share in it for the one who receives. The scripture text says “the afflictions rose no more” — the afflictions belong to the one who receives, and what the light does where it arrives is to keep them from arising, not to carry them off in his stead.

Bringing it to the ground: to test how deep a help to a person some matter is, look at whether what it halts is the suffering, or the affliction, or the sorrow and grief — the three do not stand in the same place.

Raining Down Offerings Everywhere: Having Shone Downward, He Makes Offerings Upward

The third mark is offering. The scripture text says, “further, within the lands of all the buddhas, he rained down everywhere every kind of flower and fragrance, necklace, garment, banner, and canopy,” and the closing clause is “all such articles of adornment as these he offered up to the buddhas.”

This passage joins on after the shining upon the evil destinies, and their order may not be exchanged. The passage before is downward — shining upon the hells and the hungry ghosts; this passage is upward — making offerings to all the buddhas. The light and the rain of one and the same body, the one going down and the other going up, and between them no pause. Since this friend’s Dharma gate is named “universal gate,” universal means that nothing is sifted out: neither the places of suffering are sifted out, nor the pure lands.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that rescuing from suffering and making offerings to the buddhas are two kinds of cultivation, each having its own occasion. The scripture text writes them as two clauses done in one breath, with nothing between them but the single word “further.”

Bringing it to the ground: if, in the moment of aiding others, one forgets to revere the buddhas, and in the moment of revering the buddhas one cannot see where the suffering is, that is still not the one word “universal.”

Manifesting a Body According to What Sentient Beings Delight In, and Only Then Coming

The fourth mark is the manifesting of a body. The scripture text says, “further, according to what sentient beings delighted in within their minds, he manifested his body everywhere within all the palaces, so that those who saw him were all gladdened, and only after this did he come to where Avalokiteśvara was.”

The two words “only after this” are to be noticed. The three marks before — quaking the ground, sending forth light, raining down offerings — were all done on the road of his coming; and only when all this was done did he “come to where Avalokiteśvara was.” Which is to say that this friend’s “coming” is not a stretch of displacement; it is a stretch of practice. Li Tongxuan sets down a gloss upon the one clause “came through the air,” saying, “it makes clear that the substance of knowledge has no support, that its nature has no shape or matter, and that its spirit is nowhere unpervading; out of its own substance, true emptiness, it raises an illusion-like body and answers to conditions to benefit beings, responding to the ten directions within a single instant, its nature having no going or coming” — on Tongxuan’s reading, upon the nature there is in fact no going or coming to speak of, while upon the phenomenal side there is a manifesting of a body in place after place.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that “what sentient beings delighted in within their minds” is a catering to their tastes. The fruit given in the scripture text is “those who saw him were all gladdened,” and after that gladdening this bodhisattva went on his way — what they delight in is a gate, not a place to halt.

Bringing it to the ground: the first step in drawing a person in may follow what he delights in, but the name of that step is entering the gate, not arriving home.

Avalokiteśvara Says to Sudhana: Have You Seen Him Come or Not

Only here does the scripture text turn into dialogue. The first sentence the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara puts to Sudhana is not ‘go and ask him’ but “have you seen the bodhisattva Right Course come to this assembly or not?” — first he asks whether he has seen. Sudhana’s answer is as short as can be: “I have already seen him.”

This one question and answer, with the punctuation taken away, run to twelve graphs. Fazang makes this passage “the questioning to confirm, and the pointing out,” the first section of Avalokiteśvara’s pointing Sudhana onward. With so great a display of auspicious marks before it, had Sudhana not seen it there would have been no ground for the inquiry that follows; and his answering “I have already seen him” says that the quaking of the ground, the sending forth of light, the raining down of offerings, and the manifesting of a body displayed in the passage before were all watched by him, present there.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing this to be a courtesy. The reason the teacher before him must first ask the one question “have you seen or not” is that the Dharma gate Sudhana is about to go and ask after is precisely the name of the marks he has just seen with his own eyes — first what he has seen is tested, and then what he asks is allowed.

Bringing it to the ground: before asking after some matter, first make sure whether you have truly seen that matter happen.

Avalokiteśvara Teaches Him to Ask: The Same Two Old Sentences Again

Avalokiteśvara goes on to say: “Son of good family! You may go forward and ask: how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice and to cultivate the bodhisattva way?”

These two sentences recur again and again throughout this assembly, and are very nearly the sentence with which every good friend points the way. This is what is to be asked; this is likewise what Sudhana asks when he stands before the next one; and this is still what the bodhisattva Right Course charges him with at the last when he points him toward the god Mahādeva.

Why is the question never changed? Because the fifty-odd good friends whom he studies under have each gained one gate, while what is asked is from first to last one and the same matter — the learning of the practice and the cultivating of the way. The gates are measureless; the matter is one only. If the question changed along with the friend, then studying under them would turn into collecting Dharma gates; it is the question’s not changing that shows what is collected to be different stretches of one and the same road.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that a repeated sentence is a formula of the scripture text that may be read past. It is precisely the bone of this assembly’s structure — one unchanging question, matched with fifty-odd different answers.

Bringing it to the ground: changing teachers is allowable; changing the question calls for care.

Sudhana Reverently Receives His Teaching and Goes at Once

The scripture text writes Sudhana’s action in four short clauses: “at that time, Sudhana the youth reverently received his teaching, went at once to where that bodhisattva was, bowed to his feet, and joined his palms and stood.”

“Reverently received his teaching” is the mind; “went at once” is the deed — at once means immediately, with no hesitation between, and no going back first to make ready. “Bowed to his feet” is the reverence of bodily action; “joined his palms and stood” is the bearing of one awaiting the asking. Within the four clauses, mind, deed, body, and bearing are complete, and in the whole passage there is not one graph writing Sudhana’s impressions.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that the scripture text’s leaving out the description of his state of mind is a terseness of wording. In writing Sudhana, this assembly has all along written his mind by way of his actions — his reverence lies not in what he says but in the way he stands.

Bringing it to the ground: how long one waits before setting out after receiving one sentence of teaching is itself part of the answer.

Sudhana Sets Out His Request: I Have Already Raised the Mind, and Yet I Still Do Not Know

Sudhana’s words in requesting the Dharma have three parts: first he sets out what he already has — “I have already raised beforehand the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi”; next he sets out what he does not yet know — “yet I do not know how a bodhisattva is to learn the bodhisattva practice, or how to cultivate the bodhisattva way”; last he sets out why he has come — “I have heard that the sagely one is skilled at instructing; may you expound it for me!”

The order of the three parts is worth looking at. Were only the not-knowing spoken, it would be a bare seeking after the Dharma; were only the already-raised mind spoken, it would be a setting out of his own qualifications. To speak first of what is already raised is to make plain that what he seeks is not the matter of entering the gate but the method of practice for one who has entered it; and to speak next of what is not known is to make plain that raising the mind is not the same as knowing how to walk.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that once the mind is raised one naturally knows how to cultivate. That the scripture text has Sudhana himself speak these two matters apart is precisely so that the reader may see the seam between them.

Bringing it to the ground: between raising the mind and knowing how to walk there is a distance, and that distance is the whole length of studying under the friends.

The Setting Forth of the Name and Substance: The Universal Gate of Swift Practice

The bodhisattva Right Course’s first sentence in answer is as short as can be: “Son of good family! I have gained a liberation of a bodhisattva, named the Universal Gate of Swift Practice.”

Chengguan makes this “first, the setting forth of the name and substance,” and glosses the sense upon the name, saying, “because the ten directions are without bound it is named universal gate; because a single thought-moment surpasses many it is called swift.” This one gloss splits the name into two halves: the universal gate speaks of space, the ten directions having no bound, and so it is universal; the swiftness speaks of time, a single thought-moment surpassing the many, and so it is swift.

And the two senses in fact complete each other. Were the ten directions bounded, then so-called reaching everywhere would be no more than the finishing of one stretch of road, and swift or not would be of no moment; it is precisely because they are unbounded that a single thought-moment’s surpassing of many becomes necessary. Conversely, if a single thought-moment could not surpass many, then the unboundedness of the ten directions would become a despair one could never walk to the end of. So this name is not two merits set side by side; it is two faces of one matter.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that swiftness is an ability of the order of the penetration of spiritual feet. The words of the answer below will show that this “swift” goes on at the same time as the making of offerings to the buddhas and the transforming of beings, with not one step left out.

Bringing it to the ground: real swiftness is not a matter of what has been spared; it is that on one and the same road no place has been passed over empty.

Sudhana’s Three Questions: Where the Dharma Was Gained · How Far the Place He Came From · How Long Since He Set Out

Having heard the name, Sudhana presses on with three questions: “Sagely one! In the presence of which buddha did you gain this Dharma gate? The land you came from, how far is it from here? How long since you set out?” The first asks after the buddha in whose presence the Dharma was gained, the second how far off is the land he came from, the third how long it has been from his setting out until now.

Chengguan sets down one adjudicating sentence upon these three questions: “second, from ‘Sudhana said’ onward, is the displaying of his working. Within it there are four: first, the setting out of the questions. Though there are three questions, the intent lies in the swiftness.” — the three questions seem each to ask after one matter, and yet what they point to is one and the same graph, “swift.” Because it is far and long, the swiftness can be brought out; were it near and brief, fast and slow would have nothing to be measured against. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, sets out the order of the three questions as “first, asking after the place where the Dharma was gained; second, asking how near or far the place he came from is; third, asking how much time since his coming,” the same three matters asked in the eighty-fascicle witness.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that Sudhana is asking after travel particulars. What he asks after is this Dharma gate’s provenance, its measure, and its cost.

Bringing it to the ground: after hearing a name, one presses on with three questions, and how well those three are asked decides how deep the answer can be.

Praising the Profundity and Sifting the Vessel: First He Says “This Matter Is Hard to Know”

The bodhisattva Right Course does not answer at once, but first speaks a passage on the “hard.” The scripture text says, “this matter is hard to know, and all the devas, humans, asuras, śramaṇas, brahmins, and the rest of every world are unable to comprehend it,” and there follows a listing of the marks of those who can comprehend it: “only those hosts of bodhisattvas who are fiercely energetic and neither turn back nor grow timid, who have already been gathered in by all good friends and held in mind by the buddhas, whose roots of goodness are complete, whose resolve and delight are pure, who have gained the faculties of a bodhisattva and have the eyes of wisdom, who are able to hear and able to uphold, able to understand and able to expound.”

The first sentence is the sifting: five classes of the world are unable to comprehend it. The latter is the vessel: of the eight matters listed, they run from energy to being gathered in by good friends and held in mind by the buddhas, then to roots of goodness, resolve and delight, the faculties of a bodhisattva, and the eyes of wisdom, closing with four abilities — able to hear, able to uphold, able to understand, able to expound. The order of the eight matters runs from coarse to fine, from outward conditions to inward realization, and the last four abilities are the four stages that follow upon receiving the Dharma. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, adjudicates this passage, saying, “first, praising the profundity and sifting the vessel. As for ‘only the energetic’ and the rest, this is Sudhana himself, exactly the man in question.” — the vessel sifted for is Sudhana’s own person.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing this to be a declining. Were it a declining, the look of one fit to hear would not be set out in such detail — the finer it is set out, the more it is a handing over of a measure by which the other may measure himself.

Bringing it to the ground: after hearing ‘this matter is very hard to understand,’ what is to be done is not to withdraw but to look at oneself against those eight items and see which one is lacking.

Sudhana Requests the Exposition Relying Upon the Power He Bears: It Is Not by My Own Strength That I Believe

Sudhana’s reply is one sentence only: “Sagely one! Bearing the spiritual power of the Buddha and the power of the good friends, I am able to believe and able to receive; may you expound it for me!”

Chengguan makes this “third, from ‘Sudhana’ onward, requesting the exposition relying upon the power he bears.” What is to be looked at is the two words “bearing the power” — Sudhana did not say ‘I am clever’ or ‘I am qualified’; he said that his being able to believe and able to receive is by bearing the spiritual power of the Buddha and the power of the good friends. Of the eight marks of fitness to hear listed in the passage before, he claimed not one for himself, claiming only the two powers he bears.

And this is the answer most exactly fitted to that passage. Of the eight matters listed there, the first is to be valiant and diligent, unretreating and unafraid, and the second and third are “already gathered in by all good friends and held in mind by the buddhas” — the two powers Sudhana bears are just the content of those two items. He does not go around the measure; he points out which mark on the measure he stands at.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that bearing a power is a modest formula. Were it truly a modest formula, he ought to withdraw after saying it, whereas having said it he requests the Dharma — bearing the power is his reason for daring to ask, not his excuse for not daring.

Bringing it to the ground: whether one can receive a very deep Dharma is settled not by how strong one is but by whose power one is joined to.

Answering the Place Where the Dharma Was Gained: From the Presence of the Buddha Universal Victory Arising, in the World Wondrous Treasury, in the East

The first branch of the direct answer answers one matter only: “I came to this land from the presence of the buddha Universal Victory Arising, in the world Wondrous Treasury, in the eastern quarter, and it was in the presence of that buddha that I gained this Dharma gate.” The land is named Wondrous Treasury, the buddha is named Universal Victory Arising, and the quarter is the east.

At this place the scripture text gives names only, whereas Chengguan sets down here the weightiest gloss of sense in this section: “first, the answering of the place where the Dharma was gained. That is, from the realm of the Tathāgata-womb of one’s own original knowledge, which universally gives rise to the myriad goods, coming from original awakening — therefore the practice is able to be swift and to reach everywhere; knowing that all dharmas are not apart from the nature of mind, the myriad practices are accomplished all at once.” — on Chengguan’s reading, the “place” he comes from is not merely a buddha-land in some quarter but points as well to one’s own realm of the Tathāgata-womb of original knowledge; and precisely because what comes is original awakening, the practice can be swift and reach everywhere, without waiting to be accumulated step by step.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that Chengguan is emptying an answer given in terms of phenomena into principle. What he glosses is ‘why this Dharma gate is able to be swift’ — if the swiftness were gained by cultivation, there would be a point beyond which cultivation could not reach; only if the swiftness is original is there anything like “a single thought-moment surpassing many” to speak of.

Bringing it to the ground: if some matter can hold up only by force continually added to it, there will always come the day when no more force can be added.

Answering How Long Since He Set Out and How Near or Far the Place Is: Proving the Swiftness by the Length

The second and third branches are answered together. The scripture text says, “from setting out there, there have already passed kalpas as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable buddha-lands; within each single thought-moment I raise steps as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable buddha-lands; each single step crosses over buddha-lands as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable worlds.”

Three layers of an utmost number, counting three things: first counting time (kalpas), second counting steps (the steps within a thought-moment), third counting lands (the lands under a step). Chengguan adjudicates here, saying, “third, from ‘within each single thought-moment’ onward is the answering of how near or far the place is. Since in much time he raises many steps, it is thereby known to be far — and this is just the swiftness.” — this adjudicating sentence unties the contradiction between the length and the swiftness: the reason so long a time must be spoken of is to let one reckon out how far he has traveled; and to have traveled so far within just that length of time is precisely swiftness. What the length measures is distance; what the swiftness measures is capacity.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that, since a single thought-moment can surpass many lands, to have traveled so many kalpas must look slow. The scripture text’s arithmetic is multiplication, not cancellation — the steps within a thought-moment are already an utmost number, and the thought-moments within a kalpa are an utmost number again.

Bringing it to the ground: to judge whether a stretch of cultivation is swift, one cannot look only at how long it has run; one must look at what was traversed within that time.

Displaying the Benefit Accomplished: The One Who Travels Swiftly Has Not Passed Over a Single Land

The fourth branch says what was done along this road. The scripture text says, “into every single buddha-land I enter everywhere, and go to where its buddha is, and make offerings with wondrous articles of offering,” and the virtue of the articles of offering is given in four clauses: “these articles of offering are all accomplished by the unsurpassed mind, sealed by the dharma that is without contrivance, borne with by all the tathāgatas, and praised by all the bodhisattvas.”

The order of the four clauses is: accomplished by the mind (where they are raised), sealed by the dharma (what they rest upon), borne with by the tathāgatas (by whom they are allowed), praised by the bodhisattvas (by whom they are commended). The four taken together make clear that this offering is not a matter of the quantity of things but of the quality of mind and of dharma. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, adjudicates this passage, saying, “not merely that swift practice is not left off and wondrous practice is accomplished, but rather that it is by swift practice that this surpassing practice is accomplished” — not merely that being swift has not held up the practice, but that it is precisely by being swift that so broad a practice is brought to accomplishment.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that swiftness must be coarse. That the scripture text should insert just here, at the point of utmost swiftness, these four finest clauses on the virtue of the articles of offering is precisely to cut off this misreading.

Bringing it to the ground: a matter done swiftly with nothing slurred at any point — that swiftness is merit and virtue; otherwise it is only hurry.

Seeing and Teaching Everywhere, and the Displaying of the Ten Powers by Class

The close of the fourth branch first speaks of seeing everywhere, and the fifth branch closes by class with a single sentence. The text of the seeing everywhere is “further, I see everywhere all the sentient beings within those worlds, and know their minds entirely, and know their faculties entirely, and following upon their wishes and understanding I manifest a body and expound the Dharma, at times sending forth light, at times bestowing wealth and jewels, and with all manner of skillful means I teach and tame them, without a time of rest”; the closing sentence of class is “as it is from the eastern quarter, so is it also from the south, the west, the north, the four intermediate directions, the zenith, and the nadir.”

The order within the passage of seeing everywhere is in good array: first knowing the mind, next knowing the faculties, and then, following upon their wishes and understanding, manifesting a body and expounding the Dharma; besides the expounding, at times sending forth light, at times bestowing wealth and jewels, and closing at the last with “without a time of rest.” Knowing the mind is knowing what they are thinking of; knowing the faculties is knowing what they can bear — the two are not the same, the former being the present, the latter a capacity. Chengguan adjudicates the closing sentence as “fifth, from ‘as it is from the east’ onward, is the displaying of the ten powers by class,” which says that there is no need to speak of each quarter separately, but that from one quarter raised the rest may be known.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that “at times sending forth light, at times bestowing wealth and jewels” are secondary skillful means. They stand alongside “manifesting a body and expounding the Dharma,” belonging equally to the teaching; only the capacity they answer to is different.

Bringing it to the ground: first know the other’s mind and faculties, and only then decide whether to expound, to give light, or to give wealth — get the order wrong and all three are wasted.

Concluding His Own Portion: I Have Gained Only This One

The answering done, the bodhisattva Right Course draws himself back in: “Son of good family! I have gained only this bodhisattva’s liberation of universal swift practice, by which I am able swiftly to reach everywhere throughout all places.”

Notice that the name has grown shorter here — in the earlier setting forth of the name it was “the Universal Gate of Swift Practice,” and here, in concluding upon himself, it is “the liberation of universal swift practice.” Within one and the same section the scripture text has itself used two forms, the former being the setting forth and the latter the conclusion. And the merit matched to it is a single clause only: “able swiftly to reach everywhere throughout all places,” which is just the joining of the two senses, “universal gate” and “swift,” given before.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that ‘I have gained only this one’ is a courtesy. The self-humbling clauses of the friends of this assembly are nearly all of this same form, and yet what each of them humbles himself over differs — what he humbles himself over is precisely the one gate he has just finished expounding. What is humbled is not whether he has it, but that he has this one gate only.

Bringing it to the ground: to be able to say clearly which one gate it is that one has mastered is far harder than to say one has mastered everything.

Looking Up and Pointing to the Superior: One and the Same Graph “Everywhere,” in Two Measures

After the humbling of himself comes the looking up and pointing to the superior. The scripture text sets down eleven clauses in a row concerning the great bodhisattvas: “as for the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, there is nowhere in the ten directions they do not reach; the objective realm of their wisdom is equal and without difference; they lay out their bodies well so that these fill the whole Dharma realm; they reach every way, enter every land, know every dharma, arrive at every age, expound every Dharma gate equally, shine upon all sentient beings at one and the same time, give rise to no discrimination in the presence of the buddhas, and are without obstruction in all places,” closing with a single question: “how then could I be able to know or to expound the practice of their merit and virtue?”

The virtues pointed to are, clause by clause, the sense of everywhere — everywhere in the ten directions, everywhere in the Dharma realm, everywhere in every way and land and dharma and age. And what he himself has gained is likewise an everywhere: “able swiftly to reach everywhere throughout all places.” One and the same graph — how then are one’s own portion and the advancing beyond divided? Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, opens this passage into five parts, and the first of his particular pointings says, “the objective realm they dwell in is measureless and indestructible, unlike Right Course, who dwells only upon this one summit of the adamantine mountain” — the objective realm of those pointed to is measureless and indestructible, while the place he himself dwells in is one mountain summit alone: it is not that the Dharma gate has been changed, but that within one and the same gate there is what is broader and greater still.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that looking up and pointing to the superior is an admission of incapacity. What he points to is the deeper reach of a virtue bearing the same name — it is precisely because what he has gained is real that he knows that deeper reach to be real as well.

Bringing it to the ground: to know how much deeper the one gate one has mastered still goes is an ability that comes only after that gate has been mastered.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Go South, to the City Duoluobodi, to the God Mahādeva

The last sentence is the pointing of the road: “Son of good family! To the south of here there is a city named Duoluobodi; within it there is a god named Mahādeva. Go there and ask him: how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice and to cultivate the bodhisattva way?”

The three matters are all present: the quarter (south), the place (the city Duoluobodi), and the person (the god Mahādeva), closing still with those two unchanging questions. Notice the standing of this next friend — not a monk, not an elder, not a bodhisattva, but a “god.” The mixed standing of this assembly’s good friends is seen here in one more instance.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that pointing out the next friend is a mere interlude. This friend himself came from the eastern quarter, while he points a man to go south — the place he came from and the place he points to are in different quarters, while the matter pointed to is one and the same.

Bringing it to the ground: the direction a teacher gives at the last is often harder to understand than the one gate he has expounded, because it is the next step he has chosen for you.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave: Four Actions, and Not One Word

The last passage is Sudhana’s taking of leave: “then Sudhana the youth bowed to his feet, circled him numberless times, gazed up at him with earnest longing, and took his leave and departed.” Four actions — bowing, circling, gazing up, taking leave — and in the whole passage not one word.

Chengguan makes the outline of this unit here “the latter three may be understood as they stand,” without listing the names of the three passages separately or setting up a separate gloss — according to the scripture text of this section, the latter three are the looking up and pointing to the superior, the pointing out of the next friend (the passage “son of good family! To the south of here there is a city named Duoluobodi”), and the cherishing his virtue and taking leave — which is to say that passages of this same type among the several good friends before have already been glossed, and that here the reader will see it for himself. And the four graphs “gazed up with earnest longing” are still worth stopping over: before he went he was looking upward, and what he looked at was the man who had just come from the eastern quarter.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that the taking of leave is a matter of etiquette. The texts in which the friends of this assembly are taken leave of vary in fullness, and the leave-taking of this unit is spare down to actions alone. And the opening of this section too is nothing but actions (pressing the ground, sending forth light, raining down offerings, manifesting a body). At its beginning and at its end alike, this section is upon the body and not upon the mouth.

Bringing it to the ground: what one did on leaving a teacher is more to be relied on than what one said.

Lineage

Of the text of this section, three lines are opened onward.

The first is the line of the assigned position. Chengguan assigns this friend to the dedication of the mark of suchness, and his Yanyi chao, glossing why this position and this friend answer to each other, says, “that is, the roots of goodness join with suchness, and so the dedication is accomplished” — the roots of goodness join with suchness, and so it becomes a dedication. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, takes “the dedication of the mark of suchness” straightaway as the name of this passage, closing with “the dedication of the mark of suchness is finished.” The position the two houses assign is the same, while the name each uses is in the one case full and in the other spare. This adjudication of the assigned position issues from Chengguan’s outline in succession from the ancient worthies, and is not something the scripture text says of itself. Where Chengguan treats of the matter of assigned positions in general, he keeps his own balance, saying, “both have their reason …… yet within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and displaying the positions is the constant rule, so that matching them likewise loses nothing” — the two accounts, of matching positions and of not matching them, each have their reason, and to match them loses nothing.

The second is the line of the divergent interpretations of the sense of the eastern quarter, recorded without adjudication. Fazang glosses the coming from the eastern quarter as “that he comes from the eastern quarter sets forth the mark of suchness, the look of realizing knowledge opening into clarity”; Zhiyan sets up a separate question and answer, saying, “why does this one friend speak of the east and not tell of the south? Why is this? Answer: this eighth dedication is suchness, apart from divisions, and so it sifts off what went before. But there is only the first realizing sight and awakening, and therefore the east is spoken of,” glossing the east by being apart from divisions and by the beginning of realizing sight; while Li Tongxuan glosses it by the rule of the quarters of yin and yang, saying, “the eastern quarter sets forth knowledge,” and saying further, “therefore the east sets forth knowledge and the west sets forth compassion, and by these two positions it is made clear that compassion and knowledge are level,” and setting out for himself the intent with which he establishes this rule, “it is only upon the Dharma that names are established and their rule laid down.” The quarter the three houses gloss is one and the same, while the sense each takes from it differs.

The third is the line of the mountain pressed and of the text of the taking of leave in the several witnesses, recorded without adjudication. As for the mountain pressed, the eighty-fascicle and the forty-fascicle witnesses have the Encircling Mountains and the sixty-fascicle witness the adamantine mountain; Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, glosses it as “setting forth abiding in the mark of suchness, since it cannot be destroyed,” while Li Tongxuan, upon the eighty-fascicle witness, says, “the Encircling Mountains are the objective realm of recompense that the deluded grasp at; where knowledge appears without a support, the objective realm grasped at is not there.” As for the taking of leave, the end of this section in both the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle witnesses has the text of the taking of leave, and Li Tongxuan too lists “fifth, paying respects and taking leave” within this position’s pointing to virtue and advancing upward; his question and answer, “question: why does it not here say that he took his leave and departed?” is raised upon the seeing of Right Course within the assembly of the preceding position, where Sudhana does not take leave of the Contemplator of the World’s Sounds, and he answers it himself as “the two positions of compassion and knowledge are level and full in this position …… and so he does not take his leave and go” — it does not say that the end of this section lacks the taking of leave. As for the name of the liberation, the eighty-fascicle witness has the Universal Gate of Swift Practice, the sixty-fascicle witness the Dharma gate of the universal gate of swift going, and the forty-fascicle witness the Universal Gate of Unmoving Swift Practice; as for the city of the next friend, the three witnesses have Duoluobodi, Poluoboti, and Gate Lord; and as for this good friend’s name, the eighty-fascicle and sixty-fascicle witnesses have Right Course and the forty-fascicle witness Right Nature of Undifferentiated Practice. All these divergent interpretations and divergent readings are the settled accounts of the ancient worthies and of the ancient translations.

In the text of this one section, the opening is a man who walked over of his own accord, and the close is a man looking upward. The one gate expounded in between is called ‘the Universal Gate of Swift Practice’ — and it had been demonstrated through to the end before Sudhana ever heard its name.

The Strangest Single Gesture in This Section Comes Before the Expounding of the Dharma

All along this road of visiting, the good friends Sudhana has seen have been monks, elders, youths, non-Buddhist practitioners, and kings. At this twenty-ninth one, it is a god, named Mahādeva. Sudhana had only just bowed and asked for the Dharma when this good friend, instead of opening his mouth at once, first did one thing — “he stretched out his four hands far, took the water of the four great oceans, and washed his own face with it” — and then took golden flowers and scattered them over Sudhana, and only then spoke.

What must be asked is this: why wash the face before expounding the Dharma? Chengguan glosses the point by saying that this is “first one ought to purify oneself, so as to wash body and mind; afterward, because of benefiting others, it is said that flowers are scattered” — first purify oneself, afterward benefit others, and the sequence of the two matters lies just in this one washing and this one scattering.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking this for a display of spiritual penetrations, meant to startle Sudhana first. Were it so, the scattering of flowers and the expounding of the Dharma would both become mere leftovers. None of the three houses takes it so: Chengguan fastens it to the sequence of self-purifying and benefiting others; Fazang fastens it to the skillful use of the four unobstructed understandings; while Li Tongxuan says that it “makes clear that one who raises the great mind of awakening is hard to gain and hard to see,” fastening it to the sense of being hard to meet and worthy of weight.

Bringing it to the ground: before handing a Dharma over to someone, ask yourself first whether this face of yours has been washed — if what you rest upon is impure, what you say will be impure as well.

The Twelve Clauses Carried Along the Last Stretch of Road: That Is Mind, Not Mileage

This section begins not by writing of walking but by writing of mind. Sudhana “entered the vast and great practice of a bodhisattva,” and then come twelve clauses in a row: seeking the objective realm of wisdom, seeing the matters of spiritual penetrations, recollecting the surpassing merit and virtue, giving rise to great gladness, raising up firm vigor, entering the inconceivable liberation at will, and then six “grounds” — the ground of merit and virtue, the ground of samādhi, the ground of comprehensive holding, the ground of the great vow, the ground of eloquence, and the ground of the powers. Only when we reach the four graphs “he traveled on little by little” does mileage begin at all.

What must be asked is this: why must a stretch of road be preceded by so long a string of mind? Because the Dharma conferred by the good friend before him is not something settled by having understood it once; it must be carried the whole way, and only if it can be carried can one arrive at the next friend. Zhiyan, in outlining this passage, sets it as the second of proceeding to enter in accord with the teaching, and calls it “recollecting the Dharma gate that came before”; Li Tongxuan sets it as the first of the five gates of truly entering the present position, and calls it recollecting the good friend’s teaching, pondering it, and advancing upward.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking these twelve clauses for Sudhana’s self-praise. The pattern of the clauses shows otherwise — sought, saw, recollected, gave rise to, raised up, entered, practiced, contemplated, abided in: every clause has the verb in front, and speaks of what he is doing, not of what he already is.

Bringing it to the ground: the stretch of road between two teachers tests not how far you walked, but whether that mind of yours ever broke off.

Coming to the City and Asking After Him: The One Who Asked the Way Was Sudhana, and Those Who Answered Were the People of the City

Having come to that city, the first thing Sudhana does is “ask after where Mahādeva now was” — he does not know the way, so he asks people. And those who answer are not a good friend but “the people all told him,” the ordinary folk of the city. What they say is: “He is within this city, manifesting a vast and great body, expounding the Dharma for the assembly.”

What must be asked is this: what weight do these few idle strokes carry? Fazang, when outlining this passage upon the sixty-fascicle witness, counts even those who pointed the way into the reckoning, calling them “companion good friends” — the one who points out your road is likewise in the ranks of the good friends.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that seeking the Dharma has dealings only with great good friends. This one passage records, of all things, a sentence from a passer-by; and Mahādeva’s appearance and whereabouts the reader hears first of all from the mouths of passers-by.

Bringing it to the ground: when a person is truly expounding the Dharma, the people of the city all know where he is. What is called “expounding the Dharma for the assembly” was never a matter of shutting the door.

Paying Respect and Inquiring: The Way Sought Runs On Unbroken

Sudhana arrives, “bows to his feet, joins his palms before him,” and then opens his mouth. His question is those two clauses often seen throughout this assembly — “how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice” and “how to cultivate the bodhisattva way” — with a clause of self-declaration set before them, “I have already, before this, raised the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi,” and a clause of request set after them, “I have heard that the holy one is well able to instruct; would that you would expound it for me.”

What must be asked is this: all along this road of visiting, why do the clauses he asks run on so much of a piece? Because although the friends visited change, the way sought does not change — what is sought is, from first to last, the bodhisattva practice and the bodhisattva way. Each one answers his own portion, and only together do they make the whole. Were what is sought to change with each person, what he gained would be no more than a heap of scattered answers that could not be joined into a road.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking the self-declaration of having raised the mind for mere courtesy. That clause states his own position — the mind has been raised, and what is now lacking is a place to lay hold of practice and of the way. Chengguan outlines the text of this assembly in six divisions, and the first two divisions of this section (seeking in accord with the teaching, and seeing, paying respect, and inquiring) he passes over with “the first two may be understood as they stand,” setting up no separate outline name, just because this pattern has already become a fixed form in this assembly.

Bringing it to the ground: to ask one question rightly matters more than to ask many; and the same one question is worth asking of many people.

He Stretched Out His Four Hands Far, Took the Water of the Four Great Oceans, and Washed His Own Face: What Do the Four Hands Signify

Four hands, four great oceans, one face — this is the densest sentence in the section. Chengguan glosses it on two levels: upon the matter, it is that “the raising of the mind is hard to meet with, and so he purifies his eyes and looks, and scatters flowers and makes offering”; upon what is signified, it is that “he extends the hands of the four unobstructed understandings and takes up the Dharma gate that answers to the surpassing outflow of what he has realized,” and further that it “also signifies that the four means of gathering in are extended afar, to gather in the fourfold assembly.” What Fazang signifies is the same, saying that “the four long arms are the skillful use of the four unobstructed understandings. That he takes the water of the four oceans is his answering to the sense of the surpassing outflow of the Dharma realm.” Li Tongxuan does not set up his matching upon the four unobstructed understandings; he says first that it “makes clear that one who raises the great mind of awakening is hard to gain and hard to see,” taking the sense of being worthy of weight, and thereafter brings out a signification of his own, matching the four long hands to the four measureless minds and the four means of gathering in — “it also signifies that his four long hands taking the water of the four great oceans is his gathering in sentient beings by the four measureless minds and the four means of gathering in” — while the washing of the face he matches to the water of great compassion, saying that it “makes clear that by the water of great compassion, following upon the working of knowledge, he contemplates sentient beings and ever gathers them in.” The number-dharmas the three houses match it to differ, and are recorded without adjudication.

What must be asked is this: why four, of all numbers? Both houses fasten it to the four unobstructed understandings — the four unobstructednesses in expounding the Dharma, of dharma, of meaning, of speech, and of eloquence. To stretch out four hands before expounding the Dharma is precisely to lay out first the capital with which one expounds.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking “the water of the four oceans” for exaggerating rhetoric. What Chengguan fastens it to is “the Dharma gate that answers to the surpassing outflow of what he has realized,” and what Fazang fastens it to is “answering to the sense of the surpassing outflow of the Dharma realm” — what the water signifies is the Dharma realized, not a great quantity of water.

Bringing it to the ground: when a person is to expound the Dharma, look first at which hands he stretches out; then look at whether what he has reached out and taken is used first upon himself.

Whose Face Is Washed: A Place Where an Old Divergent Reading Exists and Two Houses Judge Alike

The scripture text of the eighty-fascicle witness is “washed his own face,” and the graph “own” stands there plainly. And Fazang says: “From of old all have said that he washed Sudhana’s face; but now, collating the Sanskrit witness, with his four long arms he takes one ocean’s water at each of the four quarters and washes his own face; that is, the water washes and purifies himself, and he is then able, over against that, to scatter the flowers upon Sudhana where he stands.” — He points out that of old there was a way of reading that took this washing to be the washing of Sudhana’s face, and that he, relying on the Sanskrit witness, judges it to be Mahādeva’s washing of himself. Chengguan says nothing of a Sanskrit witness, and what he judges is the same, saying, “first one ought to purify oneself, so as to wash body and mind; afterward, because of benefiting others, it is said that flowers are scattered.”

What must be asked is this: how could such a reading have arisen? The sixty-fascicle witness reads here “bathed and washed his face,” without that graph “own”; a reader who relied only on the sixty-fascicle witness could take it either way. The eighty-fascicle and the forty-fascicle witnesses both have the graph “own,” so that the divergent reading has no place to arise.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing this a quarrel over one graph that touches nothing large. The sense of the two readings lies far apart — to wash Sudhana’s face is for the good friend to purify the disciple’s faculties; to wash one’s own face is for the good friend first to purify the mouth with which he is able to expound. The judgment being different, the very bone of this section is different as well.

Bringing it to the ground: the presence or absence of one graph can change the sense of a whole passage. The most vital labor in reading the scriptures often falls just in places like this.

Praising How Hard Bodhisattvas Are to Meet: First Make Plain What It Is You Have Met With

Having washed his face and scattered the flowers, the first passage Mahādeva speaks is not a Dharma gate but a praise — a praise of how hard bodhisattvas are to meet. “Very hard to get sight of, very hard to get word of, appearing rarely in the world,” and then a string of offices: to be the refuge of sentient beings, to be the rescuers of sentient beings, to make for the worlds a place of peace and security, to make a great light, to point out to the confused the peaceful and secure right road, to be great guides who lead into the Buddha’s Dharma gate, to be great Dharma generals who guard the city of all-knowledge. In the middle a simile is inserted — “the puṇḍarīka flower among human beings.” The last clause is a condition: “only one whose body, speech, and mind are without fault can afterward get sight of their form and image and get word of their eloquence,” Li Tongxuan says of the simile of the puṇḍarīka flower: it is the hundred-petalled white lotus, upright, fragrant and clean, which all are glad to see; so too the bodhisattva, whose mind is upright and whose conduct is right, is able with the fragrance of expounding the Dharma to steep and soften the hearts of people, so that all are set free and all are glad to see him.

What must be asked is this: for whom is this praise spoken? On the surface it speaks of bodhisattvas; in fact it speaks of Sudhana’s own situation at this moment — you have just met with one, and the meeting has its conditions. Chengguan outlines this as “manifesting a mark and praising how hard the friend is to meet with, so as to make him glad to enter,” and Fazang likewise outlines it as “the skillful means of conferring the Dharma” — the praise is not courtesy but the step before the conferring of the Dharma.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking the last clause to mean that one must cultivate until the three kinds of action are without fault before one is fit to see a good friend. What the scripture text fastens it to is “getting sight of their form and image and getting word of their eloquence” — how much you see and how much you hear turns on that one portion of purity in yourself, and not on a threshold to be crossed.

Bringing it to the ground: one and the same good friend, and different people meet him and gain differently. The difference lies not in him but in whether the one who comes has faults still unpurified.

Cloud-Net: Two Similes Inside One Name

The name of the Dharma gate is only two graphs — Cloud-Net. Chengguan glosses its substance, saying it is “by the six perfections and great compassion, as a cloud covers and moistens, as a net catches and gathers in.” Fazang glosses it more finely, splitting each of the two graphs into two senses: a cloud has “the sense of moistening and benefiting, and the sense of covering everywhere,” and a net has “the sense of dredging up, and the sense of veiling and reflecting,” closing at the end with one clause, “thus it takes the practice of the six perfections for its substance.” Li Tongxuan, for his part, glosses from the name: “it makes clear that the cloud of great compassion covers all things everywhere, and that it rains down the teaching like a net that draws sentient beings out” — the cloud is the pervading cover of great compassion, the net is the teaching’s drawing out of sentient beings.

What must be asked is this: why these two things? A cloud is above, and its working is to cover and to moisten, bestowing from above downward; a net is outside, and its working is to dredge and to gather, drawing in from without inward. One bestowing and one drawing in — these are exactly the two sides of the six perfections and great compassion: the six perfections are what is practiced, and great compassion is that for the sake of which one practices.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking “Cloud-Net” for a description of the abundance of transformations by spiritual penetration. What both houses gloss is fastened to the practice of the six perfections, and not to any strangeness of mark. The name and the substance being the six perfections, the jewels manifested afterward are all no more than the place where the one perfection of giving comes down.

Bringing it to the ground: to judge whether a Dharma gate is deep or shallow, look first at what its substance is. If the substance is the six perfections, then all those marks that look so strange have a place to settle; if the substance is only marks, then however many the marks, they will not join up with the way.

Sudhana Asks Only One Clause: What Is the Objective Realm

Mahādeva has set forth the name, and what Sudhana takes up is four graphs — “what is the objective realm.” He does not ask how to cultivate it, nor how long it takes; he asks only what the place this Dharma gate reaches is like.

What must be asked is this: why ask about the objective realm? Because the name and the substance have been set forth; the substance being known, what is lacking is the working. Chengguan outlines the text that follows as “the inquiry and answer upon the working,” which opens precisely in answer to this one question; Zhiyan outlines it as “displaying the objective realm of the Dharma’s virtue and working,” fastening it to the same place.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking the asking about the objective realm for curiosity. Every clause Sudhana asks is something he means to carry back and use. To ask about the objective realm is to ask what this Dharma gate will grow in a person.

Bringing it to the ground: when someone expounds a Dharma gate to you, the clause worth pressing is often this — what does it look like in use.

Manifesting the Jewels: Twenty Heaps of Jewel-Mountains Piled Before You, So That You May Be Taught to Send Them Away

Mahādeva’s answer is not an explanation but a manifesting. Gold, silver, beryl, crystal, tridacna shell, agate, and on to jeweled crowns, jeweled seals, jeweled necklaces, pearl nets, and wish-fulfilling maṇi — twenty heaps, “every one like a great mountain”; and further flowers, garlands, incense, burning incense, ointment incense, garments, banners and pennants, music, and the implements for the enjoyment of the five desires, “all heaped like mountains”; and further numberless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of hosts of maidens.

What must be asked is this: why manifest so much? Because what is to be taught is giving. To teach a person to let go, one must first let him truly have something in his hands. Zhiyan outlines this passage as “first the heaping of jewels, second the heaping of incense, third the manifesting of the maidens,” and Fazang outlines it as “first the heaping of things, second the teaching of giving, third the extending of it to the rest of sentient beings” — the heaping first, the teaching after, the sequence plain.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing the jewels are manifested to make Sudhana glad. The very next clause is “you may take these things and make offerings with them to the tathāgatas” — they are brought out in order to be sent away. Mountains of jewels filling the eye are the properties of giving, not the fruit and reward of giving.

Bringing it to the ground: to learn letting go in earnest, one must first admit that there is something in one’s hands. Those who say they have nothing at all are often the ones who can let go of the least.

Teaching the Giving of Wealth: First Make Offerings to the Tathāgatas, Then Give to All

The sequence of the passage that teaches giving is worth looking at: first “make offerings to the tathāgatas, cultivating every kind of merit,” then “give them away to all, and by this gather in sentient beings,” and only then what it is for — “causing them to learn and cultivate the dāna-pāramitā, so that they are able to give away what is hard to give away.” Then Mahādeva extends this matter outward: “Just as I, for your sake, manifest these things and teach you to practice giving, so it is for all sentient beings as well,” closing at the end upon “in the presence of the Three Jewels and in the presence of good friends, paying reverence and making offerings, increasing good dharmas, and raising up the intent for unsurpassed awakening.”

What must be asked is this: why does what is given stop at ‘raising the mind of awakening’? Because the giving of wealth is not itself the aim. Chengguan outlines the first half as “manifesting jewels and causing giving, teaching by the gathering in of dāna,” and outlines the second half as “extending it to the rest, the general teaching and the gathering in by beneficial conduct,” and says that “words such as ‘and so forth’ take in kindly speech and working alongside as well” — among the four means of gathering in, giving is only the one by which a start is made.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that this passage teaches people to give a great deal. Where the scripture text comes down is “raising up the intent for unsurpassed awakening”; goods and wealth are only the road by which a person is led up to that intent.

Bringing it to the ground: if what is sent out does not send the person up into the mind, it is only goods that have changed places.

The Three Kinds of Sentient Beings: Three Sicknesses, Three Marks

The latter half of the working puts on a different face. For those greedily attached to the five desires and letting themselves go slack, an “impure objective realm” is manifested; for those full of anger, of arrogance, and of much contention, “a form utterly dreadful, like a rākṣasa drinking blood and devouring flesh” is manifested; for those torpid and lazy, “kings, robbers, water, fire, and every kind of grave illness” are manifested. After the three kinds, the scripture text gathers it up in three layers: first “they are caused to let go of every unwholesome act and to practice good dharmas,” next “they are caused to remove every obstacle to the perfections and to be furnished with the perfections,” and last “they are caused to pass beyond every perilous road of obstruction and to arrive where there is no obstruction.” One layer is letting go of evil and practicing good, one is removing obstacles and being furnished with the perfections, one is passing beyond the perilous road and arriving where there is no obstruction — and it is just here that the skillful means for the three kinds arrive.

What must be asked is this: why use a frightening method? The clause after each mark shows it: after the dreadful form comes “their mind and intent turn pliant, and they let go of the knot of enmity”; after the kings, robbers, water, and fire comes “knowing that there is such sorrow and suffering they urge themselves onward.” What is manifested is dreadful, but where it arrives is pliancy, is urging onward, and not dread itself.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking this for intimidation. What is manifested for the first kind is impurity, not dreadfulness; what is manifested for the third kind is hardship, not punishment. Each of the three marks answers to one sickness, and the matching is exact — greed answered by impurity, anger answered by dreadfulness, laziness answered by the hardship of impermanence. Fazang outlines this passage as “teaching the practice of the precepts and the rest,” and Zhiyan outlines it as “teaching the giving of the Dharma”; neither takes it for a play of spiritual penetrations.

Bringing it to the ground: to help a person turn in earnest, one must first make out which flavor his sickness is. The same one dose given to three kinds of sick people will cure none of them.

Humbling Himself and Pointing to the Superior: Five Similes, Two of Self-Benefit and Three of Benefiting Others

His declaration of what he knows is only one clause — “I know only this liberation of Cloud-Net”; the five similes that follow all speak of others. The bodhisattvas are “like Śakra,” crushing the asura army of the afflictions; “like a great water,” quenching the fires of affliction of sentient beings; “like a fierce fire,” drying up the waters of craving and desire of sentient beings; “like a great wind,” blowing down the banners of view-grasping of sentient beings; “like adamant,” crushing and breaking the mountains of the view of self of sentient beings.

What must be asked is this: do these five similes have a sequence? Fazang judges the point, saying that “upon the five similes are displayed five practices, the first two of self-benefit and the latter three of benefiting others” — the similes of Śakra and of the great water belong to self-benefit, and the similes of the fierce fire, the great wind, and adamant belong to benefiting others. Zhiyan does not divide self from other, saying only that “first the five similes are raised and then joined, and next it is concluded, that is all.” Both houses are set side by side.

One misreading must be cleared away: supposing that the similes of water and of fire clash with each other — the one quenching fire, the other drying water. The fire quenched is affliction, and the water dried is craving and desire; the name of one thing signifies a different sickness in each of the two places, and they must not be read as one.

Bringing it to the ground: only by knowing that one has but a single gate can one see those five things in others. Humbling oneself is not a posture; it is the measuring of one’s own boundary.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Pointing from the Heavens Down to the Earth

In the last passage Mahādeva points out the road: in Jambudvīpa, in the country of Magadha, at the site of awakening, there is an earth goddess named Peaceful Abiding; and the question he charges Sudhana with is still those two clauses.

What must be asked is this: why does a god point a person on to an earth goddess? This question the scripture text does not answer; but Li Tongxuan sets up a question and answer of his own upon it, saying that this position is “the same as the tenth, the abiding of consecration, among the ten abidings: he turns that liberation about and enters birth and death, so that the great kindness and compassion that follow upon knowledge may richly benefit sentient beings and be wholly complete,” and taking the two spirits as displaying separately two virtues — “because the god spoken of before makes clear the completeness of presiding over knowledge, this earth goddess is said to preside over the completeness of kindness and compassion, signifying that earth is able to bear up the ten thousand beings and to nourish sentient beings.” What can be looked at is the place pointed to — the site of awakening, the very place where the Buddha accomplished the way; and the good friend there is named “Peaceful Abiding.” From heaven to earth, from high to low, from manifesting a vast and great body to abiding peacefully and unmoved. Li Tongxuan further glosses the place pointed to and the name pointed to: the site of awakening is this position’s bringing together of the five dharmas — awakening, principle, knowledge, kindness, and compassion — into one, all of them full; and she is named Peaceful Abiding because in these five dharmas, full and even, there is nothing that tilts or moves.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking the pointing out of the next friend for a closing formula. In the clause before, he has only just said that he himself knows a single gate; in the clause after, he points out where the next gate is — humbling oneself 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 Dharma but the next person he knows of.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave: One Sentence Draws It Closed

“At that time, Sudhana the youth bowed to Mahādeva’s feet, circled him numberless times, and took his leave and departed.” The close of the whole unit is these seventeen graphs alone, set over against the “bowed to his feet, joined his palms before him” of their meeting. Bowing to the feet on coming, bowing to the feet on going as well; and between them lies one Dharma gate.

What must be asked is this: why record “circled him numberless times”? Circling is reverence, and “numberless” is the unwillingness to go at once. Chengguan passes over these three outline divisions with “the latter three passages may readily be understood,” setting up no separate outline names — the scripture text has already said it plainly enough by itself.

One misreading must be cleared away: taking the taking of leave for the end of this passage. The very next clause is that Sudhana traveled on little by little toward the country of Magadha — the same moment as the taking of leave is the setting out.

Bringing it to the ground: the sign that a stretch of road has been walked to its end is being able to say farewell well, and then to set out at once.

Lineage

For the text of this section, three lines of what it opens out downward may be traced.

The first is the line of the assigned position. Chengguan outlines this unit as assigned to the dedication of liberation without bondage and without attachment, and the sense of that name the Yanyi chao glosses by saying that “it means that one is not bound by marks and not attached by views, and that the working is at will, and therefore it is named liberation.” Li Tongxuan, upon the same position, matches it instead to the three worthy stages and the ten sagely ones, saying that this city “forms the position of the great Dharma master presiding over this ninth dedication, being the same as the position of the prince of the Dharma king among the ten abidings, and as the ninth, the ground of wondrous good wisdom, among the ten grounds, in that it has a great Dharma gate that richly benefits sentient beings.” What must be made plain is this: that a good friend is assigned to some one position is Chengguan’s outline in succession from the ancient worthies of old, and the scripture text does not mark the position of itself. Chengguan, in the place where he outlines this assembly as a whole, first records the two sayings of old — the Dharma master Yi and the Taishan treatise merely glossed the text as it ran and made no separate matching, while Guangtong and the other masters all matched them to the ground positions.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

The two sayings being set out, Chengguan then sets down his express judgment — “both have their reason, that is, since each and every position is complete in many Dharma gates, how could an ordinary mind be barred from studying and seeking the dharma of the good friends, and so not matching them has its reason; yet within the absence of sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to make the positions manifest is the constant rule, so that matching them is likewise not amiss.” This one clause is Chengguan’s own judgment, and not the words of either of the two houses before him: both the saying that matches and the saying that does not have their reason, and to match them does not obstruct their being without sequence — this section follows his outline, and yet does not let his outline cover over what the scripture text says of itself. Li Tongxuan, upon the same position, judges this good friend to be one that “takes the perfection of power for its principal, and the other nine for its companions,” and what it particularly counteracts to be “the obstruction of not being at will in expounding the Dharma”; his manner of matching differs from Chengguan’s, and this is recorded without adjudication.

The second is the line of the glossing of the name. The three houses are set side by side: Chengguan, under one name, gives four glosses, saying, “that the good friend is named Mahādeva is because he manifests a great body. His knowledge being pure and at will, without bondage and without attachment, he is named a god. Answering to principle and responding everywhere, he is named great. His wondrous working being hard to fathom, he is named a spirit”; Fazang makes it “Mahādeva: his recompense being pure and without bondage, surpassing and at will, this title is set up for him”; while Li Tongxuan sets up his gloss upon pure knowledge, saying that “his knowledge rests on nothing, and without acting and without pondering he ever responds to the ten thousand beings, and therefore he is titled a deva-spirit,” and signifies it by the images of qian as the gate of heaven and xun as the door of earth, coming home at the last to “the god of the first principle, the god of all-knowledge, not such as the gods of the arising and ceasing of the five agents.” The name of the city is likewise set out from three houses — Chengguan and Li Tongxuan both give Duoluobodi and render it as Possessing the Gate, Chengguan fastening it to “there being here the subtle and wondrous Dharma gate of the without-bondage and the rest, and his being a Dharma master,” and Li Tongxuan fastening it to “because there is a great Dharma gate, the city is named Possessing the Gate,” while Fazang gives Poluoboti and corrects it to Duoluobati, his gloss resting upon “the city having a stately gate.” These divergent interpretations are all settled sayings of the ancient worthies, recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the parallel translations. As to the name of the city, all three witnesses bring it out in the clause where the friend before points out the road — the eighty-fascicle has Duoluobodi, the sixty-fascicle Poluoboti, and the forty-fascicle Gate Lord; at the clause of coming to the city none of the three brings it out again, and the eighty-fascicle and the forty-fascicle have only “came to that city.” As to the four hands, the eighty-fascicle witness has “stretched out his four hands far,” the sixty-fascicle has “put out four long arms,” and the forty-fascicle has “stretched out his four arms far”; as to the clause on washing the face, the eighty-fascicle and the forty-fascicle both have the graph “own,” and the sixty-fascicle does not. As to the jewels manifested, the eighty-fascicle has twenty heaps, the forty-fascicle twenty-two heaps, while the sixty-fascicle does not bring out each heap separately. Among the five similes, the third simile in the eighty-fascicle is a fierce fire, while in the forty-fascicle it is the fire at the end of the kalpa; and for the fourth and fifth similes the sixty-fascicle does not make the similes of a banner and a mountain but of the mind of defiled attachment and the notion of a self. As to the name of the next friend, the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle have Peaceful Abiding, and the forty-fascicle has Self-Nature Unmoving. Further, the forty-fascicle broadens its text under the first kind of sentient beings, expounding at length the faults of desire, and brings out as well a passage of verses praising the precepts, which neither the eighty-fascicle nor the sixty-fascicle has. What those verses teach is no restatement in other words of the three marks of the eighty-fascicle; it has six senses of its own. First, the precepts are likened to the earth — “the roots of goodness both worldly and world-transcending all rely upon the most surpassing ground of śīla” — the precepts being that upon which every worldly and world-transcending root of goodness relies. Second, it judges that ascetic practice and strange garb cannot stand in for the precepts — going naked, binding the hair into a topknot, bathing in an icy river, burning the body, making burnt offerings and the like: “all such as these, being without the precepts, are as a play,” and “to afflict the body without the precepts is of no profit.” Third, it judges that high birth and low do not alter the fruit of keeping or of breaking — “high or low, if the body of the precepts is broken, all alike fall into the hells with no difference,” while “one of a humble gate who keeps the precepts is born among the gods, and one of a surpassing clan who breaks them falls into the dark.” Fourth, the precepts are made medicine, bridge, raft, hidden treasure, and valiant companion — “the precepts are the most surpassing medicine for the sickness of delusion, guarding one in every hardship and suffering as father and mother do, a torch in the darkness of folly, a bridge over birth and death, a raft upon the shoreless ocean of karma,” and “the precepts are a hidden treasure that nothing can encroach upon, the precepts are a valiant companion who leads the way ahead.” Fifth, the precepts as the most surpassing fragrance — “sandalwood, saffron, aloes and musk: all such as these are no fragrance; the bodhisattva’s keeping of the precepts is the most surpassing fragrance, going out through humans and gods without end.” Sixth, at the end of life recollecting one’s pure precepts and being without fear — “if at the end of life the limbs and joints are in pain and all one’s kin are about to be parted from one, to consider with care that one has pure precepts brings joy to body and mind, without sorrow or fear.” These six senses are recorded as belonging to the forty-fascicle witness. Recorded side by side without adjudication.

A god takes the water of the four great oceans and washes his own face first. The most vital clause in this section lies within that gesture made before the expounding of the Dharma.

This Time Sudhana Does Not Journey South

With the twenty-nine good friends before this one, Sudhana for the most part journeyed south, one after another. At this section the scripture text says only that he “journeyed on stage by stage, and made for where the goddess Peaceful Abiding was, within the site of awakening in the country of Magadha,” and no longer speaks of the south.

It must be asked: is this an abbreviation of the text, or is it deliberate? Chengguan holds it to be deliberate, and makes it the first eye of this section. He says that in being at the site of awakening, the Dharma realm entered is just the place where awakening is gained, and so awakening is the root; that the south spoken of before had something it set forth, being a going from the root toward the south; and that now, the Dharma realm being one that gathers the branches back into the root, the south is not spoken of. Fazang sets up two senses upon the same matter: with respect to cause, this place sets forth the realizing of the real upon the grounds, which is the same as the position of a buddha, the position of dedication having come to its end, and so the dedication is accomplished at this place; with respect to fruit, it sets forth the Buddha's manifesting a body by skillful means in answer to what is ready, which belongs to the fullness of the position of dedication, and so it is here that the ground of the accomplishing of the way is distinguished. Li Tongxuan sets himself a question — why is the south not spoken of, but only the site of awakening in the country of Magadha in Jambudvīpa — and answers himself that it says only Jambudvīpa, with no separate partial seeking, because this is the Dharma of the dedication equal to the Dharma realm. Zhiyan's answer is the sparest: because the world is fully ripened, and it is apart from all marks.

One misreading must be cleared away: the not speaking of the south is not a geographical oversight, nor is it that he has walked to the end and has no road left. The four houses answer differently, yet their direction is one — the south is ‘going over there,’ and the site of awakening is ‘coming back here.’ Bringing it to the ground: for one who has sought the Dharma outward the whole way, there is always one station that is a return to the very ground he set out from.

The Million Earth Goddesses Speak First: What Did They Recognize

Sudhana walks on to the site of awakening, and the million earth goddesses see him and praise him among themselves. The scripture text says that a million earth goddesses were together in that place and “spoke with one another face to face” — it is that they spoke facing each other, not that they spoke to Sudhana. Chengguan outlines this passage as the friend's seeing him and praising him, and says that since it speaks of the friend's seeing, the seeing of the friend is already contained in it: the one praised is Sudhana, the one who praises is the good friend, and the good friend's seeing of Sudhana is already there within it.

It must be asked: why does the scripture text first set up this passage of the bystanders' talk? Because what is praised is precisely the cause and fruit this section is to display. They say “this youth who comes here is the very treasury of the Buddha”; they say he “will surely become, everywhere, the place of reliance for all sentient beings”; they say “this person has already been born into the lineage of the Dharma-king”; they say he “will open the great treasury of precious things that is wisdom.” These four clauses say, one what he is, one for whom he is, one where he comes from, and one what he will open — and the graphs ‘treasury’ and ‘opening the treasury’ are precisely the foreshadowing of the welling up of the treasuries below and of the Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take this for a courteous eulogy. What the earth goddesses say holds two layers at once: one layer speaks of what already is — “this youth who comes here is the very treasury of the Buddha,” “this person has already been born into the lineage of the Dharma-king” — and speaks of the roots of goodness he is already complete in and the lineage he has been born into; the other layer speaks of what is to come — “will surely become, everywhere, the place of reliance for all sentient beings,” “will open the great treasury of precious things that is wisdom” — and speaks of the benefiting of beings that is to be his afterward. The two layers stand together: it is a plain statement that also foretells, not a compliment. Bringing it to the ground: the one who can recognize where a person came from and where he is going is often not the teacher he means to consult, but the bystanders who fill the ground.

Why They Call Him the Treasury of the Buddha

The earth goddesses call Sudhana “the treasury of the Buddha”; this is the first appearance of the graph ‘treasury’ in this section.

It must be asked: he is a youth — how can he be called a treasury? Treasury is the sense of what is able to contain. What he contains is the roots of goodness heaped up along the whole way of his consulting — which is precisely what the earth goddess's pressing of the ground with her foot below is to bring to display. So the first clause calls him a treasury, and the fifth passage presses the treasury up out of the ground and shows it to him: the praise is no empty word, but has real evidence behind it. The sixty-fascicle witness has here “this youth who comes here is able to gather in sentient beings, and is the very treasury of the Buddha,” with the further clause “is able to gather in sentient beings,” opening the sense of treasury out toward the benefiting of others.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take “the treasury of the Buddha” as saying that he is already a buddha. What the earth goddesses say is “will surely” — it is a treasury contained and not yet opened, not a fruit already opened. Bringing it to the ground: in reading the four graphs “is the very treasury of the Buddha,” one must read them together with the clause “will surely break open everywhere the ignorance of all sentient beings”; the treasury is for the sake of opening, and the opening is for the sake of breaking the darkness of others.

Adorning the Place and Gathering In Beings: A Teaching With Nothing Spoken

After the earth goddesses' praise, she does not at once expound the Dharma, but first performs a passage of auspicious marks. The scripture text, from “sent forth a great light that shone everywhere throughout the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system” down to “in a hundred thousand places the buried treasuries of themselves welled up and appeared,” is the longest passage of description in this section.

It must be asked: what is this passage saying? Chengguan outlines it as the adorning of the place and the gathering in of beings, whereby the surpassing virtue is displayed — the place is adorned, sentient beings are gathered in, and thereby the virtue of the good friend is made manifest. What is adorned has three layers: the light and the quaking move heaven and earth; the precious things, the trees, the rivers and pools adorn the ground itself; the rain of fragrance, the wind-borne flowers, the music, the lovely sounds of the articles of adornment, and the joy of the several beasts adorn the surroundings. And it closes with the single clause “in a hundred thousand places the buried treasuries of themselves welled up and appeared” — this clause is not scenery; it is the lead-in to what follows.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take this for a display of spiritual powers. The sequence of the scripture text says it plainly enough: first the place is adorned, and afterward the Dharma is expounded; where the ground is not pure, the Dharma has nothing to rest upon. Li Tongxuan says upon this that the million earth goddesses set forth the fullness of the practice of great kindness and compassion, and that the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system quaking and roaring at one moment makes clear that Sudhana's knowledge and compassion at this position are altogether full. Bringing it to the ground: when a person arrives at a certain place and the whole ground breaks into flower, it need not be that the ground has suddenly changed — it is that he has arrived.

Welcome, Youth: Two Matters Within One Question

The first thing the earth goddess says when she opens her mouth is “welcome, youth! In this ground you once planted roots of goodness. I shall display them for you — would you like to see them?”

It must be asked: why does she first ask “would you like to see them”? Chengguan outlines this as the promising to display his former goodness, drawing out the beginning of his question — she first promises to display to him his roots of goodness of old, and thereby draws out Sudhana's request. So this clause is no idle question; it hands the initiative back to Sudhana: the roots of goodness were planted by himself, and whether they are seen or not is likewise for him to say.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the good friend's conferring of the Dharma as a one-sided giving. The sequence of the scripture text is this: the earth goddess first promises to display and then sets the question — “I shall display them for you — would you like to see them?”, the promise standing before the question; Sudhana then sets out respect and answers with his request — bowing to her feet, circling her, joining his palms, and only then saying “yes indeed! I wish to see them,” his answer and his request being one thing; and only then does the earth goddess press the ground with her foot and directly display the cause of old. Chengguan's five passages — praising, adorning the place, promising to display, setting out respect and stating the request, directly displaying the former cause — accord with this sequence. The sixty-fascicle witness here joins them into a single question, “would you like to see for yourself the fruit and recompense of the roots of goodness you once planted in this place?”, dropping the clause “I shall display them for you,” so that the movement of the words is more urgent; the eighty-fascicle and the forty-fascicle witnesses keep the two matters. Bringing it to the ground: a true displaying always waits upon the words “I wish to see.”

Setting Out Respect and Stating the Request: Yes Indeed, I Wish to See

Sudhana's answer is only six graphs, and the gestures before it are three. The scripture text says that he “bowed to the feet of the earth goddess, circled her numberless times, joined his palms and stood,” and only then “said: ‘Holy one! Yes indeed! I wish to see them.’”

It must be asked: why so much preparation for six graphs? Chengguan outlines this as the setting out of respect and the stating of the request — respect set out first, the request stated after. Of the more than fifty units of this whole assembly, Sudhana for the most part sets out respect on first seeing a friend; at this position it is still not abridged, which is just what is meant by saying that the higher the position the thicker the reverence. And the words of his request are made only the two graphs “wish to see,” with not a word more — the sparer the words of requesting the Dharma, the more the single-mindedness shows.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the bowing and circling for a courtesy of ceremony. The bowing and circling here stand before the requesting of the Dharma, which shows that they are a part of the requesting, not an ornament upon it; as for after the gaining of the Dharma, the close of the scripture text has another bowing and circling and taking of leave, and what that one gives thanks for is the Dharma already gained. Bringing it to the ground: before wanting to see anything, look first at the posture you are standing in.

Pressing the Ground With Her Foot: They Were in the Ground All Along

The earth goddess does not display it to him by speech, but by a single gesture — “she pressed the ground with her foot, and hundreds of thousands of koṭis of asaṃkhyeyas of treasuries of themselves welled up” — and only then says “these treasuries now follow you and go after you; this is the fruit and recompense of your roots of goodness of old, it is what the power of your merit has gathered in.”

It must be asked: she presses the ground once and the treasuries come out — did the earth goddess conjure them up? The scripture text answers it plainly of itself: they are “the fruit and recompense of your roots of goodness of old.” So the treasuries were in the ground all along, and the one who presses does no more than make them appear. Li Tongxuan says upon this that the earth goddess pressing the ground with her toe, so that hundreds of thousands of koṭis of asaṃkhyeyas of treasuries well up of themselves, sets forth what Sudhana's own practice has reached, and that this is why the ground is pressed with a toe. Chengguan fastens this passage to a deeper layer: he says that since the worthy positions are already full, the three worthy stages are gathered together to be the cause of entering the grounds, displaying that Sudhana's merit constantly follows upon the earth goddess's knowledge and is not destroyed — and that this being so, the causes of old are not lost, and he is able to enter into realization. That is to say, what this one press brings to display is not merely a recompense of a single time, but that all the causes of old of the ten abodes, the ten practices, and the ten dedications, the three worthy stages entire, are present and unlost. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, is of the same general sense, saying that now that the grounds are to be realized, an aid is given so that all is displayed at once, and thus all the roots of goodness are here in this place.

One misreading must be cleared away: to think that Sudhana here suddenly comes into an unlooked-for fortune. The scripture text says “follow you and go after you” — they have been following him the whole way; it is not that he meets them at this moment. Bringing it to the ground: what is called sustaining power is for the most part not the giving of something new, but the letting you see what you have been carrying all along.

The Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom: Why It Cannot Be Destroyed

Only when the treasuries have been displayed does the earth goddess speak the name of her own Dharma gate — “I have gained a liberation of a bodhisattva, named: the Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom, and I constantly bring sentient beings to accomplishment by this Dharma.”

It must be asked: why can the treasury not be destroyed? Chengguan sets up his account upon its substance: when the knowledge of a single thought-moment merges with the Dharma realm, it cannot be destroyed; and within this there is nothing that is not brought forth, and so it is named a treasury. So “indestructible” does not say that it is firm and hard to break, but that it is not two with the Dharma realm — the Dharma realm cannot be destroyed, and therefore this knowledge cannot be destroyed. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, speaks from another side: because it is upheld and not lost, and buddhahood is thereby settled, it is named the indestructible treasury; his eye is upon ‘holding and not losing.’ Li Tongxuan speaks from compassion and knowledge arising each from the other: compassion arises out of knowledge, and so there is nothing that can destroy it. The three houses fasten it differently, and none of them glosses ‘indestructible’ by hardness.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take “indestructible” and the treasuries in the ground of the passage before as one and the same treasury. A treasury in the ground can be dug, can be exhausted, can be destroyed; a treasury within knowledge cannot be destroyed — and this section sets the two treasuries side by side precisely so that one may see the difference. And the earth goddess goes on to say “I constantly bring sentient beings to accomplishment by this Dharma,” which shows that this treasury is not a thing kept to oneself. Bringing it to the ground: whatever can be taken from you was never in this treasury to begin with.

Constantly Following the Bodhisattvas: The Working of a Guardian

The name of the Dharma gate spoken, the earth goddess speaks her own working: “I recall that ever since the Buddha Burning Lamp I have constantly followed the bodhisattvas, revering and guarding them,” and below it she lists the items observed — practices of mind, objective realm of wisdom, all vows, the several pure practices, all samādhis, vast and great spiritual powers, the power of great sovereignty, and the Dharma that nothing is able to destroy, eight items; then the matters followed upon — going everywhere to the buddha-lands, everywhere receiving the predictions of the buddhas, turning the Dharma wheel of the buddhas, expounding at large the sūtras, the light of the great Dharma, teaching and taming, and displaying spiritual transformations, seven clauses; and she closes it all with the one clause “all of this I am able to receive, and all of it I am able to bear in mind.”

It must be asked: why does a guardian speak of her own “observing” and “bearing in mind”? Chengguan fastens the reason for it to the passage before: because the knowledge is not destroyed, therefore she constantly recalls, and so on — precisely because that treasury cannot be destroyed, what is observed and what is held are not lost. The eight items observed each have what they point to: practices of mind are the thoughts the bodhisattvas give rise to; the objective realm of wisdom is the realm their knowledge shines upon; all their vows are the terms they set up; the several pure practices are the works they cultivate; all their samādhis are the concentrations they abide in; vast and great spiritual powers are the workings those concentrations bring forth; the power of great sovereignty is that working unobstructed; and the Dharma that nothing is able to destroy gathers the first seven and returns them to what cannot be destroyed — what is observed is the inward virtue of the bodhisattvas. The seven matters followed upon each have what they point to as well: going everywhere to the lands of all the buddhas is where the body arrives; everywhere receiving the predictions bestowed by all the tathāgatas is what is taken part in; turning the Dharma wheel of all the buddhas is the teaching handed on; expounding at large all the gates of the sūtras is what that teaching opens out; the light of the great Dharma shining everywhere is what that teaching reaches; teaching and taming all sentient beings are the beings converted; displaying the spiritual transformations of all the buddhas is the skillful means used — what is followed upon is the outward working of the bodhisattvas. Inward virtue and outward working alike lie within what is observed and what is followed, and so she closes it all with “all of this I am able to receive, and all of it I am able to bear in mind”: receiving is being able to take it in at the time, bearing in mind is not forgetting it afterward. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, adjudicates this passage as ten clauses: the first one clause is the general one, saying that the one who constantly guards holds what those bodhisattvas practice; the nine below display it particularly, matched as the deep realizing of knowledge, the fulfilling of great vows, purity of wondrous practice, the bringing forth of surpassing spiritual powers, completeness in the power of virtue, the accomplishing of firm Dharma, the Dharma of hearing the buddhas and being given the prediction, transforming those below by the Dharma, and receiving the power of the buddhas from above. Li Tongxuan says that this makes clear the arising of differentiating knowledge out of root knowledge, and the learning of the practice of kindness and compassion.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the earth goddess for a mere onlooker who keeps the accounts. What the scripture text says is “constantly followed” — she goes along with them, she does not look on from beside; she guards, she does not stand around watching. Bringing it to the ground: one who is able to remember all the way what another has practiced is himself within that practice, or he could not remember it.

The Kalpa Adornment · the World Moon Banner · the Buddha Wondrous Eyes: The Time and Place of Gaining the Dharma

Her working spoken, the earth goddess traces back the time and the place of her own gaining of the Dharma: “in an age long past, beyond kalpas as many as the dust motes of Mount Sumeru, there was a kalpa named: Adornment, and a world named: Moon Banner, and the buddha's name was: Wondrous Eyes; and it was in the presence of that buddha that I gained this Dharma gate.”

It must be asked: why must these three be given? Chengguan outlines this as the displaying of the time and place of the gaining of the Dharma — the kalpa is the time, the world is the place, the buddha is the one from whom it was gained. With these three complete, the Dharma gate has a provenance and is not self-made. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, outlines this as the causes and conditions of gaining the Dharma, dividing it into three passages: first the time and place of old, next the gaining of the Dharma and its increase, and after that the further meeting with the buddhas; and he says that the buddhas she met she constantly made offerings to at the place where they accomplished full awakening at the place of the Way, because what the earth goddess presides over is just this gate. One of the divergences of form among the three witnesses at this place is the buddha's name — the eighty-fascicle and forty-fascicle witnesses have “Wondrous Eyes,” the sixty-fascicle “Good Eyes”; while the kalpa named Adornment and the world named Moon Banner are the same in all three.

One misreading must be cleared away: to think that the ancient buddha is spoken of in order to boast of remoteness. What the scripture text says next is “entering it and coming forth from it, cultivating and increasing it” — the weight lies not in the moment of gaining but in the entering, coming forth, and cultivating after the gaining. Bringing it to the ground: a Dharma gate has a provenance so that one may know it can go on being cultivated, not so that one may sigh over how far off it is.

From the First Gaining to the Worthy Kalpa: The Line Never Let Go

The earth goddess goes on to say “with regard to this Dharma gate I have entered it and come forth from it, cultivating and increasing it, and have constantly seen the buddhas and never been parted from them,” and says further “from the time when I first gained it down to the Worthy Kalpa,” within which interval she met tathāgatas as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable buddha-lands and served and made offerings to them all; and she saw those buddhas go to the seat of awakening and display great spiritual power, and saw all the merit and virtue and roots of goodness belonging to those buddhas.

It must be asked: what is meant by “entering it and coming forth from it”? Entering is entering into this Dharma gate, coming forth is coming forth from it; and the entering and the coming forth are both within the cultivating and increasing, which shows that this is not a concentration one goes into and cannot come out of. Chengguan outlines this as the general concluding of the ripening — from the setting forth of the name, the working, and the time and place before, it is here bound up into the one word ‘ripe.’ So the four graphs “never been parted from them” are the evidence of the ripeness: not that she never left her seat, but that she never left the buddhas. The sixty-fascicle witness here has “cultivating and nourishing and purifying this Dharma gate,” with no words of entering and coming forth; the forty-fascicle witness, like the eighty, has the two words entering and coming forth.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take “constantly seen the buddhas” for marks seen with the eye. What the scripture text says next is that what she saw was their “going to the seat of awakening and displaying great spiritual power” and “all their merit and virtue and roots of goodness” — what is seen lies in the merit and virtue, not in shape and color. Bringing it to the ground: the mark of a thing cultivated to ripeness is that it is still there after you come out of concentration.

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

At this point the earth goddess says: “I know only this Dharma gate of the Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom.” Then she raises up what the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas practice — constantly following the buddhas, being able to hold all that the buddhas speak, entering the utterly deep wisdom of all the buddhas, filling and pervading the whole Dharma realm in thought after thought, “equal to the body of a tathāgata, giving rise to the mind of the buddhas, complete in the Dharma of the buddhas, doing the deeds of the buddhas” — and closes with a question: “how then could I be able to know, or to tell of, their practice of merit and virtue?”

It must be asked: she says of herself that she has “constantly followed the bodhisattvas” and that she has “constantly seen the buddhas and never been parted from them” — why then does she say she cannot know what the bodhisattvas practice? What she points upward to, the scripture text makes “constantly follow the buddhas” — that is the practice of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, not the practice she relates of herself; the one is a following of bodhisattvas, the other a following of buddhas, and the two are not to be mixed. Fazang answers from the limit of her position: because this earth goddess sees the buddhas only at the place of the Way and cannot constantly follow them, she therefore points upward. That is to say, her limit lies in the ‘place’ — one who guards a single place cannot see everywhere. And what she points to is precisely that kind of practice which is not confined to one place. The eight virtues she points to have their own order too: constantly following the buddhas is the not being confined to one place; being able to hold all that the buddhas speak is hearing without loss; entering the utterly deep wisdom of all the buddhas is understanding that enters realization; filling and pervading the whole Dharma realm in thought after thought is practice without bound; and the last four clauses — “equal to the body of a tathāgata, giving rise to the mind of the buddhas, complete in the Dharma of the buddhas, doing the deeds of the buddhas” — run from body to mind and from Dharma to deed: the body equal to the body of a buddha, the mind giving rise to the mind of the buddhas, the Dharma complete as the Dharma of the buddhas, the deeds just the deeds the buddhas do, the four running through one another to make one practice. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, adjudicates the pointing upward as six divisions: the first division answers directly the limit of the earth goddess's attendance, the next point to the breadth of hearing, the depth of hearing, and the all-at-onceness of hearing of those bodhisattvas, on to the cause bringing forth a fruit that cannot be destroyed, and the last division concludes that it is not of her own portion.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the humbling of oneself for a formula of the genre. Most of the good friends of this assembly have this passage, precisely because it is the bone of the whole assembly — what one good friend can give is always one gate, and the Dharma realm is not confined to one gate. Bringing it to the ground: only one who can say which single thing he knows really knows that one thing.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: From the Earth Goddess to the Night Goddess

After the pointing to the superior comes at once the pointing out of the next friend: “here in Jambudvīpa, in the city of Jiapiluo in the country of Magadha, there is a night goddess named: Vāsantī. Go to her and ask: how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice and to cultivate the bodhisattva way?”

It must be asked: why are the words of the question as they are? The question this section points to is just these two clauses. The way sought runs on unbroken, and so the words of the question are carried on from friend to friend; while the answerers each answer from their own gate — and this is just the style of this assembly: one way sought, and gate after differing gate opened upon it, none contradicting another. As for the name of the next friend, the eighty-fascicle witness has “Vāsantī,” the sixty-fascicle “Posuoputuo,” the forty-fascicle “Spring Harmony”; and the name of the city likewise has three forms in the three witnesses. The names differ, but that she is a night goddess is the same.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the pointing out of the next friend for seeing a guest off. What the scripture text points out is not only a person, but a city as well and the words of the question as well — where to go, whom to find, what to ask, all three given complete. Bringing it to the ground: the last thing a good friend gives is most often the address of the next good friend.

Cherishing Her Virtue and Taking Leave: Three Gestures

The last passage is the shortest: “then Sudhana the youth bowed to the feet of the earth goddess, circled her numberless times, gazed up at her earnestly, and took his leave and departed.”

It must be asked: he had already bowed and already circled on coming — why bow and circle again on going? The bow on coming is the reverence of requesting the Dharma; the bow on going is the thanks for having gained it; and in between there are the four further graphs “gazed up at her earnestly,” a passage this section has of its own — the gazing up is a still looking, the taking leave is an already going. The forty-fascicle witness here has “single-mindedly cherishing her, he took his leave and departed,” bringing the feeling cherished out into the open; the sixty-fascicle witness has “took his leave and made for that city,” joining straight on to the next station with no words of gazing up.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the cherishing of virtue for an unwillingness to part. The scripture text writes the gazing up and the taking leave together, which shows that the two do not obstruct each other — precisely because he can carry it away, he is able to go. Bringing it to the ground: the posture in which you leave a teacher is the evidence of how much you carried away.

Assigned to the Measureless Dedication of Entering the Dharma Realm: Why This One Is the Last of the Ten Dedications

Chengguan outlines this unit as the tenth, the measureless dedication of entering the Dharma realm; Fazang marks it as the good friend of the tenth measureless dedication of the Dharma realm; Zhiyan marks it as the thirtieth bodhisattva of the measureless dedication of the Dharma realm; and Li Tongxuan marks it as the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm — the four houses differ slightly in the names they set up, while the position they adjudicate is one; and the scripture text itself marks no name of a position. So the ‘assigned position’ is what the ancient worthies outlined, and not what the scripture text adjudicates of itself. Chengguan's matching of assigned positions to the more than fifty friends of this assembly comes down to him from the ancient worthies, and he states his own view thus: “both have their reason — that is, since each single position is complete with many Dharma gates, how should an ordinary mind be denied the practice of seeking the Dharma of the good friends? and so there is reason in not matching them. Yet within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and displaying the positions is the constant rule, so that matching them likewise loses nothing.” This is his even-handed stand upon the matter of assigned positions. In the Yanyi chao Chengguan further glosses this tenth dedication as the dedicating of the roots of goodness of the Dharma realm to the Dharma realm; and this is just why the name of the dedication is called the measureless entering of the Dharma realm — what dedicates and what is dedicated to are alike the Dharma realm.

It must be asked: how does this one earth goddess come to be fit for the last of the ten dedications? What Chengguan fastens it to is that “the three worthy stages are gathered together to be the cause of entering the grounds” — the three worthy positions are brought to their close here, and all the causes of old are displayed at once and unlost, and so it is the cause of entering the grounds. Thus the passage of the welling up of the treasuries is not only Sudhana's past; it is also the closing of the accounts of the one position of the ten dedications. At this place the commentary writes the four graphs “the ten dedications are finished,” and below it come the ten friends of the ten grounds. At the close of this section Li Tongxuan, at the close of this section, first says that the nearness or farness of the arousing of the mind all expresses the depth and breadth of great compassion, without beginning or end and yet not going beyond the span of an instant — following the world it is many kalpas, with reference to knowledge it is no time at all; he further makes this position the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm, saying that it has the perfection of knowledge for its principal and the remaining nine for its companions; that with respect to the gate of knowledge it treats all the positions in common, and with respect to the gate of position what it treats is world-transcending knowledge and compassion, turning back into birth and death so as to be sovereign there — and having said this much, he turns at once to the first ground.

One misreading must be cleared away: to take the assigning of positions for pasting a label on each good friend. The names the four houses set up differ, and the bones they rest upon differ too, which shows that this is an outline for reading the scripture and not the scripture's outline of itself. Bringing it to the ground: one may read this section without remembering the name of the position and still understand that one press and that one treasury; but only by remembering the name of the position does one see why it is placed here.

Lineage

Of the text of this section, three lines are opened onward.

The first is the line of the closing of the ten dedications. At the end of this section Chengguan writes “the ten dedications are finished,” and Fazang at the same place writes “thus far the position of the ten dedications is finished” — the two houses alike make this section the last of the one position of the ten dedications, and after it come the ten friends of the ten grounds. Of the more than fifty friends of the whole assembly, the boundaries between positions lie for the most part between good friends and not between chapters or fascicles, and this section is one instance of it.

The second is the line of the fastening together of names. The name of the dedication Chengguan outlines is the measureless dedication of entering the Dharma realm, while the name of the tenth dedication set up in chapter twenty-five of the scripture text is the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm; and what Li Tongxuan marks is of the same form as chapter twenty-five. The going in and out of the names is recorded side by side without adjudication, while the position they are fastened to is one.

The third is the line of the divergent interpretations of the commentators, each with its own track, recorded without adjudication. As for the outline of this section, Chengguan makes it six divisions, opening five within the seeing, paying respect, and inquiring and four within the displaying of her own Dharma realm, and passing over the last three passages with ‘may be understood as they stand’; Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, makes it five divisions and opens five gates separately within the displaying of his own Dharma realm; Zhiyan makes it three passages, opening seven within the entering in accord and two within the true entering, and four again within his own portion; Li Tongxuan does not divide the outline unit by unit, but glosses within his general treatment, opening it into two sets, the five gates of advancing upward and the five gates of the true entering of the present position. As for the good friend's name, the eighty-fascicle and sixty-fascicle witnesses have Peaceful Abiding, the forty-fascicle Self-Nature Unmoving. As for the glossing of the name, Chengguan fastens it to the ground being what the myriad dharmas rest upon and to ‘peaceful abiding’ being the sense of entering; Fazang to the gathering in of the roots of goodness, resting at the ground of the place of the Way, upheld and not lost; Li Tongxuan to the five dharmas being equally full so that nothing is overturned; while Zhiyan does not gloss the sense of the name separately but joins straight on to the outline of the text. As for why the south is not spoken of, Chengguan makes it the gathering of the branches back into the root; Fazang, the fullness of the position of dedication and the distinguishing of the ground of the accomplishing of the way; Li Tongxuan, that because it is the dedication equal to the Dharma realm there is no separate partial seeking; Zhiyan, that the world is fully ripened and apart from all marks. As for the name of the Dharma gate, the eighty-fascicle witness has the Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom, the sixty-fascicle the Indestructible Treasury, the forty-fascicle the Treasury of Wisdom Hard to Subdue. All these divergent interpretations are the settled accounts of the ancient worthies. The five dharmas Li Tongxuan speaks of are awakening, principle, knowledge, kindness, and compassion — he says that at this position these five are gathered into one and are all full, and that she is named Peaceful Abiding just because in these five she is equally full and nothing is overturned; the sense of peaceful abiding lies in the five being neither partial nor overturned. He glosses the treasury and the liberation as well: since the knowledge of the practice of the Dharma realm contains all and its compassion fills all, there being no being it does not rescue and no suffering it does not save, the pervading roundness of knowledge and compassion is named a treasury; and the being unattached within what is practiced is named liberation — treasury is the breadth of what is gathered in, liberation is the purity of what is not clung to, and the two names are of one substance. As for the relation of the two knowledges, he fastens it to the arising of differentiating knowledge out of root knowledge and the learning of the practice of kindness and compassion: root knowledge is the substance, differentiating knowledge is the working, and the practice of kindness and compassion arises out of that working — and so he says that compassion arises out of knowledge and therefore there is nothing that can destroy it. Zhiyan, in the Kongmu zhang, sets up a passage upon this position within his gloss upon each good friend, adjudicating this tenth good friend as the skillful means of becoming a buddha, the position of cause winning the fruit, appearing before sentient beings, and the sense of the benefit of becoming a buddha, after which he turns at once to the skillful means of the positions of realization of the ten grounds; and in his list of the names of the good friends this friend stands as the thirty-first, which is not of the same reckoning as the thirtieth friend counted from the scripture text. Recorded side by side without adjudication.

One unit of some seven hundred and seventy graphs: the first half is a host of earth goddesses speaking, the second half is one earth goddess speaking. That one press in the middle joins the two halves together — what was praised and what was brought to display turn out to be one and the same thing.

From This Friend Onward, Sudhana Walks into the Ten Grounds

The thirty good friends before this Sudhana has asked of, station by station. At this friend, the night goddess Vāsantī, the outline of this assembly changes to a new passage. Chengguan sets up here a general framework, saying, “from here on, the fifth of the great divisions of the text has ten good friends, assigned to the positions of the ten grounds, and so is divided into ten passages; the first, the night goddess Vāsantī, is assigned to the Joyful Ground” — from here on, ten good friends, whom the ancient worthies match to the ten grounds, and this one is matched to the first ground, the Joyful Ground.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

A misreading must first be set aside: this ‘matching’ is not something the scripture text says of itself. From beginning to end the scripture text has not one clause saying that this night goddess is the first ground. Chengguan, in the outline passage for this chapter, has already stated the measure of it plainly, saying, “both have their reason: namely, since each and every position is furnished with many Dharma gates, how could it be that an ordinary mind may not learn and seek the dharma of the good friends? — and therefore not to match them has its reason. Yet within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to display the positions is the constant rule; so to match them, too, is no fault” — to match them has its reason, and not to match them has its reason; the sequence of positions is the constant rule, and to match them is not wrong, yet neither does it obstruct one position’s being furnished with many gates.

Brought down to the ground: in reading this section, ‘the first ground’ is a pair of spectacles, not a verdict. Put them on and the connective thread can be seen; take them off and the scripture text is whole all the same.

Before Setting Out, Take Up What the Friend Before Him Gave

This section begins not with walking but with holding in memory. Sudhana “with a single mind pondered the teaching of the goddess Peaceful Abiding, and held in memory the bodhisattva liberation of the Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom,” and then eight verbs follow: cultivating her samādhi, learning her rule and standard, contemplating her sporting, entering her subtlety, gaining her wisdom, penetrating her evenness, knowing her boundlessness, fathoming her utter depth — deepening the whole way along.

Why write it so? Because what the earth goddess Peaceful Abiding before her conferred was the Indestructible Treasury of Wisdom, and a dharma of that kind is not gained merely by understanding what one has heard; one must enter into it layer by layer along the road. Chengguan outlines this passage, saying it is “first, the cultivating and realizing in accord with what came before; afterward, from ‘little by little’ onward, the seeking of the friend who comes next” — first make firm what has already been gained, and only then speak of going on to the next friend.

Set aside a misreading: that going about to learn means changing the subject. The sequence of the scripture text is just the opposite — what was gained at the last station is the very strength of foot with which one walks toward the next. Brought down to the ground: what you are doing on that stretch of road after leaving one teacher decides what you will be able to see when you reach the next.

He Entered by the East Gate, Stood a Little While, and the Sun Went Down

Sudhana came to the city, “entered by the east gate, and had not stood there long when he saw the sun go down.” These two clauses look like an idle stroke of travel writing, yet Chengguan gives each of them a meaning: of the east gate, “it is the beginning of the opening of brightness, displaying the start of the entering into realization”; of the sun’s going down, “it is because she is a night goddess, signifying that the sun of discriminative seeing has already wholly perished.”

Two layers in one clause: the east is the quarter where the sky grows light, matched to the start of first entering the position of realization; and the sun’s going down is not the ill luck of nightfall, it is that sun of discrimination sinking away — to see the night goddess, one must first have the dark.

Set aside a misreading: that the scripture text writes the sunset in order to state the time. If it were only stating the time, why match it with the east gate in particular? Brought down to the ground: everything seen by the light of discrimination is of no use in the real night; only by being willing to let that brightness go down does one wait out the time for another kind of light.

The Four Clauses of “By the Good Friend”

While Sudhana waited, four thoughts arose in his mind, each clause beginning with “by the good friend”: gaining the eye that reaches everywhere, able to see clearly the objective realms of the ten directions; gaining the vast and great understanding, able to penetrate all that the mind takes as its object; gaining the eye of samādhi, able to contemplate all Dharma gates; gaining the eye of wisdom, able to illumine clearly the seas of buddha-lands in the ten directions.

Why raise these four thoughts before the meeting? Because the eye and the understanding are not objects that a good friend hands over to you; they are what grows out upon your own body as you draw near. Of the four clauses two are eyes, one is understanding, and one is again an eye — three eyes and one understanding, set over against the objective realms, what the mind lays hold of, the Dharma gates, and the seas of lands.

Set aside a misreading: that “by the good friend one gains” is a courteous phrase yielding the credit to another. What the scripture text sets out is the provenance of four capacities, not a politeness. Brought down to the ground: to examine whom you have drawn near to, what you look at is not the feeling but whether these four are growing.

She Is in Empty Space, Her Body All Constellations

Just as the thought was arising, the person was seen: the night goddess in the midst of empty space, seated in a jeweled storied pavilion upon a lion throne in a treasury of fragrant lotus flowers, her body the color of true gold, her eyes and hair blue-black, her necklaces of many jewels, her body clothed in a vermilion garment, upon her head a brahmā crown, and “all the constellations appearing plainly upon her body.”

Why not see her upon the ground, but see her in space? Chengguan says, “that she is seen in space: the city signifies the way of teaching, and space signifies the way of realization, so that the doctrine and the telling of it are penetrated together, as the sun stands in space. That she is clothed in a vermilion garment: the knowledge of realization is bright and manifest” — the city is the teaching, space is the realization, and the man being within the city while the seeing is in space says that teaching and realization appear at one and the same moment. As for a body all constellations, Chengguan says further, “the star-images of the Dharma gates are not apart from the one body, just as the working of transformation-births from the substance is not apart from the nature of a single hair.”

Set aside a misreading: that this is decoration of a mythic kind. Brought down to the ground: a whole sky of stars is not in the sky but upon her body — everything that is transformed has never been apart from the substance of the one who transforms it.

What Is Played Out in the Pores Is What She Has Done

Next the scripture text writes of the pores. First it says, “within each and every pore upon her body there appeared images of her converting and delivering measureless and numberless sentient beings of the evil destinies and causing them to escape from peril” — within every pore a rescue is being played out; and of the sentient beings rescued, some are born among human beings, some among the devas, some turn toward the awakening of the two vehicles, some cultivate the way of all-knowledge.

Then it says that within the pores she “displayed every kind of skillful means of teaching and converting”: manifesting a body, expounding the Dharma, displaying the way of the śrāvaka vehicle, displaying the way of the pratyekabuddha vehicle, and so on to displaying the practices of the bodhisattvas, their valor, their samādhi, their mastery, their dwelling place, their contemplation, their lion’s stretching, their sporting in liberation. The former passage is the fruit — what the rescuing accomplished; the latter is the cause — by what means the rescuing was done.

Set aside a misreading: that the pores manifesting their marks is the good friend showing off spiritual powers to a guest. Brought down to the ground: Sudhana has not yet asked a single graph, and this teacher’s whole record of service is already spread open. What is called conferring the Dharma confers first of all ‘what I have done.’

What Sudhana Wants Is Not Consolation but the Ground of the Ten Powers

Having seen her, he threw his body down and bowed to her feet, circled her numberless times, joined his palms, and said: I have already raised the mind of awakening beforehand, and hope, relying upon good friends, to obtain the treasury of the Dharma that is the merit and virtue of all the tathāgatas — “would that you would reveal to me the way of all-knowledge, so that walking in that way I may come to the ground of the ten powers.”

This speech has three joints: first he reports his own starting point — the mind already raised; then he states the provenance of what he seeks — relying upon good friends; and last the destination — the ground of the ten powers. The ten powers are a buddha’s ten powers, and so what he wants is not to be got out of trouble but to walk the whole way.

The night goddess’s answer does not give the Dharma first; it gives first a word of confirmation: “good, good! Son of good family! You are able, with a deep mind, to revere good friends, to delight in hearing their words, and to cultivate their teaching” — reverence, hearing, and cultivating, all three together, and only then follows “and because of that cultivating, you will certainly gain anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.”

Set aside a misreading: that the praise is a courtesy. What she praises are three concrete matters, and she fastens the “will certainly gain” to the third of them. Brought down to the ground: if reverence and hearing do not come down into cultivating, that word “certainly” has no place to land.

Within the Name of the Dharma Gate Its Substance Is Hidden

She reports her own Dharma gate: “I have gained the bodhisattva liberation of the light of the Dharma that breaks the deluded darkness of all sentient beings.” The name has three joints: what is broken is the deluded darkness of sentient beings, what breaks it is the light of the Dharma, and what is accomplished is liberation.

Chengguan takes this name apart in two layers. The first layer matches what is broken with what breaks, saying, “the deluded darkness of all sentient beings is the twofold folly that is broken; the light of the Dharma is the knowledge of the twofold selflessness that breaks it” — the deluded darkness is not muddle in general, it is a twofold folly with a definite reference; and the light of the Dharma is not light spoken of loosely, it is the knowledge of the twofold selflessness. The second layer joins them into one, saying, “further, the breaking of the darkness of sentient beings is compassion, and the light of the Dharma is knowledge, and so compassion and knowledge are both furnished.”

And what does that twofold folly refer to? Chengguan, glossing what is cut off upon the first ground in the Chapter on the Ten Grounds, says, “first, the folly of holding to self and dharmas, which is the hindrance of the nature of an ordinary being; second, the folly of the defilement of the evil destinies, which is the deeds and fruits of the evil destinies and the rest.” The former folly is the folly of holding to a self and holding to dharmas, and what is cut off is the hindrance of the nature of an ordinary being — the very portion by which an ordinary being is ordinary, the hindrance that obstructs the first ground; the latter is that portion of defilement which makes the deeds of the evil destinies and undergoes their fruits. The twofold selflessness that breaks them is the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of dharmas: what breaks the folly of holding to a self is the selflessness of the person, and what breaks the folly of holding to dharmas is the selflessness of dharmas; once the holding to self and dharmas is broken, the nature of an ordinary being is cut off along with it, and the deeds and fruits of the evil destinies are no longer made. Chengguan in this section only sets forth their names and refers them to the Chapter on the Ten Grounds, and his Yanyi chao likewise says, “its twofold folly and twofold selflessness and the rest are all as in the Chapter on the Grounds.”

Set aside a misreading: that “breaking the deluded darkness of all sentient beings” is breaking someone else’s darkness. The twofold folly that is broken belongs to all sentient beings, and she herself was once within it — she herself in the second life was precisely the one who had to be woken, when the night goddess shook the house. Brought down to the ground: the light that can break another’s darkness and the knowledge that cuts off one’s own nature of an ordinary being are one and the same.

Set aside a misreading: that this Dharma gate is a charitable enterprise of ‘lighting up other people.’ Brought down to the ground: the side that breaks another’s darkness is compassion, and the side that is the light of the Dharma is knowledge; the name has two hands in it from the start, and lacking either it is not this Dharma gate.

Nine Kinds of Person, Nine Kinds of Mind

The Dharma gate having been set forth, she speaks first of the mind. She lists nine pairs: toward sentient beings of evil understanding she raises the mind of great kindness, toward sentient beings of unwholesome deeds the mind of great compassion, toward sentient beings who do wholesome deeds the mind of rejoicing, toward sentient beings of both kinds of conduct the mind that is not two, toward defiled sentient beings the mind that causes purity to arise, toward sentient beings on wrong paths the mind that causes right conduct to arise, toward sentient beings of low understanding the mind that causes great understanding to be roused, toward sentient beings who delight in birth and death the mind that causes them to cast off turning in the round, toward sentient beings abiding in the way of the two vehicles the mind that causes them to abide in all-knowledge.

The first four minds are kindness, compassion, rejoicing, and non-duality; the latter five all read “causes to arise,” “causes to be roused,” “causes to cast off,” “causes to abide” — the first four are measures upon her own mind, the latter five are leadings of others. At the end she says, “because I have gained this liberation, I am constantly matched with minds such as these” — these nine minds are not tuned up only when the occasion comes; they are the constant state after liberation.

Set aside a misreading: that toward one who does wholesome deeds only rejoicing is needed, and that only toward one who does evil is compassion needed. The scripture text leaves out not one of the nine kinds of person; even those mingled in good and evil, even those already upon the way of the two vehicles, each has a mind of its own. Brought down to the ground: the kind of person toward whom you cannot get a mind to arise — that square is your own gap.

The Ten Gates of Rescuing and Gathering In: Beginning from the One Graph “Night”

The mind spoken of, she speaks of the matter. She states first the time and the place in general: “at the time when I am in the dark of night and the voices of people are still, when ghosts, spirits, robbers, and every kind of evil being come forth to roam,” with dense clouds and heavy fogs, evil winds and violent rains, and the sun, moon, and constellations all covered over; and she sees sentient beings entering the sea and walking the land, meeting robbers and lacking provisions, confused as to direction and having lost the road, alarmed and afraid and unable to get themselves out — “and at that time I rescue them by every kind of skillful means.”

Chengguan takes this passage apart into four matters, saying, “now the first has four kinds: first, the night and the rest as the time of rescuing; second, the sea and the rest as the place of rescuing; third, the meeting with robbers and the rest as those who are rescued; fourth, every kind of skillful means as that which rescues” — time, place, occasion, and dharma, all four in place, and only then can there be talk of rescuing. The nine gates below are the unfolding of these four, and Chengguan outlines the whole passage, saying, “within it there are ten gates: the first one states them in general, and from ‘for those in peril at sea’ onward they are displayed one by one.”

Set aside a misreading: that “night” is only a backdrop. Brought down to the ground: every working of this good friend is set at the very darkest moment — not waiting for daybreak to speak of it, but setting hand to it just when nothing can be seen.

Every Gate Has Two Joints: First the Rescue at Hand, Afterward the Great Vow

The style of the nine gates is one and the same. Chengguan points it out very plainly, saying, “within the nine gates displayed one by one afterward, the text in every case has two: first the rescuing from the world’s suffering so that they gain the world’s joy; afterward, by dedication and the great vow, causing them ultimately to leave suffering and gain joy.” The first joint writes the manifesting of forms and the doing of deeds, and the latter joint begins with “and I think further in this way” or “and I make a vow in this way,” leading into a passage of dedicatory vow; only the seventh gate, the rescue from delusion and deeds, runs on from the vow of the sixth without a leading clause of its own. Of these two leading clauses in the scripture text, within the gates of rescuing and gathering in “and I think further in this way” occurs four times and “and I make a vow in this way” four; the four thoughts Sudhana raises before he sees the night goddess are also led in by “and I think further in this way,” but they are no vow of rescuing, so that in the whole passage “and I think further in this way” occurs five times.

Why must there be a second joint? Because what the first joint rescues from is this one occasion of peril, and what the second wants is that such peril never be again. Lacking the latter joint, this night goddess would be no more than a rescue party.

Set aside a misreading: that making a vow is a formal courtesy after the rescuing is over. Brought down to the ground: to be still willing to make one more vow when the matter at hand is done — that vow is the socket by which a single act of goodness is joined to the endless.

The First Gate — At Sea: She Becomes the Shipmaster, and Becomes the Sea God Too

“For those in peril at sea, I display myself as a shipmaster, a fish king, a horse king, a tortoise king, an elephant king, an asura king, and a sea spirit” — seven kinds of body. What she does is to still the evil winds and rains, quiet the great waves, lead them upon their road, and show them where the shore and the islands are, causing them to be free of dread and all to gain peace and security. The vow is, “with these roots of goodness I dedicate and bestow upon sentient beings, vowing to cause them to cast off every kind of suffering.”

Among the seven kinds of body there are human, beast, and god. She does not pick out a dignified station; she picks only the one that in this particular sea can best rescue people. And the four things she does are utterly practical: stilling the wind, quieting the waves, pointing the road, pointing the shore — not one clause of them is expounding the Dharma.

Set aside a misreading: that a bodhisattva rescuing people must first set out the principle. Brought down to the ground: when a man is in the waves, getting him ashore is the only dharma that ought to be done at that moment. The vow is placed afterward, not before.

The Second Gate — On Land: She Becomes Sun and Moon, and Becomes a Crowd of People Too

“For all sentient beings upon the land who meet with dread in the darkness of night,” she manifests herself as sun, moon, and constellations, as the haze of morning and the lightning of evening, as every kind of light, or makes houses and dwellings, or becomes a crowd of people. The vow is to cause sentient beings “all to put out the darkness of the afflictions.”

The Third Gate — Not Gaining What Is Sought, and Walking in Mountain Peril: Six Things Not Answering to What Was Sought

After the second gate a further passage follows: among sentient beings some cherish long life, some love a good name, some covet wealth and treasure, some hold rank and office weighty, some cling to sons and daughters, some are enamored of wife and concubine, and when what they seek does not answer to their mind, sorrow and dread arise abundantly, and “all of these I rescue, causing them to leave suffering behind.” Chengguan cites this clause as the head of the third gate, making it: from “all sentient beings” onward, the rescuing of sentient beings who do not gain what they seek and who walk in mountain peril — not gaining what is sought and mountain peril joined into one gate, with the passage on the wilds below belonging to it as well.

Set aside a misreading: that the dread of the night is only the dark. What the scripture text lists next — life, name, wealth, rank, children, spouse — not one of them is made by darkness, and yet they keep a man awake at night just the same. Brought down to the ground: the four graphs “or becomes a crowd of people” show the skill best of all; one who fears the dark sometimes needs only that someone be beside him.

The Third Gate, Continued — In the Mountains: A Good Spirit · A Fine Bird · A Numinous Herb

“For those who walk in mountain peril and are held back by hindrances, I become for them a good spirit, manifesting a form and drawing near; I become for them a fine bird, putting forth a voice to console and gladden them; I become for them a numinous herb, spreading out a light and shining upon them,” and further she shows them the fruit trees, shows them the springs and wells, shows them the straight road, shows them the level ground, causing them to escape from every sorrow and calamity.

Three manifestings and four showings. What is manifested is sentient — spirit, bird, and the light of a herb; what is shown is insentient — tree, well, road, and a place to set the foot. The former give company and ease of mind, the latter give food, water, road, and a place to stop. What a man in the mountains lacks, these seven meet to the last particular.

Set aside a misreading: that the numinous herb is for people to eat. What the scripture text says is “spreading out a light and shining upon them” — an herb that shines in the mountains is first a road-marker and only then a medicine. Brought down to the ground: to rescue a man stranded in the mountains, what is wanted is these seven concrete things, not a word of encouragement.

The Third Gate, Concluded — The Wilds: Exchanging the Road on the Ground for the Road in the Mind

“For those who walk in the wilds, in dense forests, upon perilous roads, who are entangled by creepers and darkened by cloud and fog and are afraid, I show them the right road, causing them to get out.” The first joint is extremely short, and the whole weight is in the vow that follows: “may all sentient beings fell the dense forest of views, cut through the net of craving, come out of the wilds of birth and death, put out the darkness of the afflictions, enter the level and right road of all-knowledge, and reach the place without fear, in ultimate peace and joy.”

Look at the graphs of these two joints: the dense forest against the dense forest of views, the creepers against the net of craving, the wilds against the wilds of birth and death, the darkening by cloud and fog against the darkness of the afflictions, the right road against the level and right road of all-knowledge. Every single thing in the first joint is exchanged in the vow for a corresponding thing in the mind.

Set aside a misreading: that this is a coincidence of rhetoric. Four things matching one to one is not coincidence; it is a deliberate laying out. Brought down to the ground: the wilds a man truly cannot walk out of are for the most part not underfoot.

The Fourth Gate — Delighting in and Clinging to the Land: She Makes Them Weary of It

“If there are sentient beings who delight in and cling to their land and are made sorrowful by it, I use skillful means to make weariness and detachment arise in them,” and the vow is, “may all sentient beings not cling to the aggregates, and may they abide in the objective realm of the sarvajña of all the buddhas.”

This gate is opposite in method to the three before it. The three before give — give a ship, give light, give a herb, give a road; this one takes away, making them weary and detached. Why? The three gates before rescue from peril at sea, upon land, and in mountain and wilds, and the third of them already takes in the cherishing of long life, the love of a good name, the coveting of wealth, the weighing of rank, the clinging to sons and daughters and to wife and concubine, where what is sought does not answer — that is the suffering of not getting; the suffering of this gate lies rather in delighting in and clinging to the land already had — the suffering of not letting go. And the suffering of not letting go is not resolved however much is given. In the vow, “the land” is exchanged for “the aggregates” — the plot of ground truly clung to is this body and mind.

Set aside a misreading: that “making weariness and detachment arise” is telling a man to grow despondent. Brought down to the ground: what stands opposite weariness and detachment is not emptiness, it is the objective realm of the sarvajña — to take one thing away is in order to put another in.

The Fifth Gate — Delighting in and Clinging to the Village: That Village with Six Gates

“If there are sentient beings who delight in and cling to their village, who covet and love their houses, who dwell constantly in darkness and undergo every kind of suffering, I expound the Dharma for them, causing weariness and detachment to arise in them, causing the Dharma to be complete in them, causing them to abide by the Dharma,” and the vow is, “may all sentient beings none of them covet and delight in that village which is the six sense-fields, may they swiftly get out of the objective realm of birth and death, and may they ultimately abide in the city of all-knowledge.”

The method of this gate is expounding the Dharma, and its three clauses advance in order: causing weariness and detachment to arise, causing the Dharma to be complete, causing them to abide by the Dharma — taking away, filling up, settling down. In the vow, the four graphs “that village which is the six sense-fields” show the scripture text’s taking of the simile best of all: that village of the six gates of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind is the very house a man cannot bear to move out of; and the place he returns to is likewise a place of dwelling together — the city of all-knowledge.

Set aside a misreading: that getting out means leaving the crowd. What the scripture text exchanges is not gregariousness for solitude; it exchanges the village for the city. Brought down to the ground: the question was never where one lives, but whether the place one lives in has six gates that let in the wind.

The Sixth Gate — The Dark Night: Those Who Take the Level Road for a Perilous One

“If there are sentient beings who walk in the dark of night, who are confused as to the ten directions, who upon a level road give rise to the thought of peril and upon a perilous road give rise to the thought of levelness, who take what is high for low and what is low for high,” their minds confused and great suffering and vexation arising in them. Her way of rescuing is extremely fine: for those who would come out, she shows the doorway; for those who would walk, the road; for those who would cross a ditch, the bridge; for those who would ford a river or a sea, a boat or a raft; for those who like to look out upon the directions, where it is perilous and where easy, where safe and where dangerous; for those who would rest, where the walled towns, the waters, and the trees are — six kinds of person, six kinds of thing, to each his own.

The vow divides into two layers. First is “just as here I shine upon the darkness of night and put it away, causing all the affairs of the world to be set out plainly,” and afterward, “so may I everywhere, in the long night of birth and death of all sentient beings and in the dark places of ignorance, shine upon them all with the light of wisdom.” The night of the world and the long night of birth and death are joined by the one graph “shine.”

Set aside a misreading: that a man who has lost his way needs the same one map. The scripture text gives six different things. Brought down to the ground: ask him first what he means to do, and then give that one thing.

The Seventh Gate — Delusion and Karma: From the Four Inversions to the Five Heinous Deeds

What follows on from this vow is no longer a road but the case history of sentient beings. First the four inversions — “taking what is impermanent for permanent, what is not joy for joy, what is not self for self, what is impure for pure”; then the holding to a self, a person, and a sentient being, and to the dharmas of the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields; and further down, being confused about cause and effect, not recognizing good and evil, killing sentient beings and so on to wrong views, being unfilial to father and mother, slandering the tathāgatas, breaking the wheel of the right Dharma, cursing, shaming, and injuring the bodhisattvas, slighting the way of the Great Vehicle, severing the mind of awakening, stealing what belongs to stūpas and temples, committing the five heinous deeds — “and before long they will fall into the place of the three evil destinies.”

The nine clauses before are inversions upon view, and the long string after is a falling upon conduct; the scripture text writes the two joined together, saying that the falling in conduct comes from the inversion in view. And so her vow is not that they may commit fewer offenses, but “may I swiftly, with the light of great knowledge, break the dark ignorance of those sentient beings, and cause them speedily to raise the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.”

Set aside a misreading: that this passage is a reproach of sentient beings. This passage stands within the text of the vow; it is the roll of those to be rescued, not a bill of charges. Brought down to the ground: the place to set hand to the remedy is not at the far end of behavior, but at that one graph “thought.”

The Seventh Gate, Continued: What Is Given After the Mind Is Raised

“Once they have raised that mind, I display for them the vehicle of Samantabhadra, open up the way of the ten powers, and display for them also the objective realm of the tathāgata, the Dharma-king,” and further displays the city of all-knowledge of all the buddhas, the conduct of all the buddhas, the mastery of all the buddhas, the accomplishment of all the buddhas, the comprehensive holding of all the buddhas, the one body that all the buddhas share in common, and the place where all the buddhas are equal, causing them to abide therein.

Note where this clause stands — it follows upon ‘causing them speedily to raise the mind of awakening.’ All the toil before was to pull a man back from the edge of the evil destinies and cause him to raise the mind; and after the mind is raised, what she gives is not protection but a road: the vehicle of Samantabhadra, the way of the ten powers, on to the place where all the buddhas are equal. What Sudhana asked for at the outset, “coming to the ground of the ten powers,” is here handed back in the very same words.

Set aside a misreading: that the delivering ends when the mind is raised. Brought down to the ground: raising the mind is not the terminus; it is the place where this good friend truly begins to give things.

The Eighth Gate — The Eight Sufferings: Sickness, Age, Poverty, and the Hour of Execution, with No One to Rely On

“Among all sentient beings, some are bound by sickness, some are encroached upon by age, some are made to suffer by poverty, some meet with calamity, some transgress the king’s law and are about to undergo punishment, having nothing to rely upon, so that great dread arises in them; all of these I rescue, causing them to gain peace and security.” Chengguan cites “some are bound by sickness” to set this up as the one gate of rescuing sentient beings from the eight sufferings.

The vow is: “may I, by the Dharma, everywhere gather in sentient beings, causing them to be liberated from every affliction, from birth, old age, sickness, and death, from sorrow, grief, and the trouble of suffering, to draw near to good friends, constantly to practice the giving of the Dharma, diligently to practice wholesome deeds, swiftly to gain the pure Dharma body of a tathāgata, and to abide in the place that is ultimate and does not change.” Five sufferings stand in front, and yet in the vow she says first “to draw near to good friends” and then “constantly to practice the giving of the Dharma” — one who has been rescued goes next to rescue others.

Set aside a misreading: that the suffering of sickness, age, and poverty can only be bettered by circumstance. Brought down to the ground: the last clause of the vow is “the place that does not change” — the shared mark of all these sufferings is change, and so the ultimate resolution lies not in bettering one’s circumstance but in that place which does not change.

The Ninth Gate — Evil Views: Taking the Rightly Awakened for the Not Rightly Awakened

The last gate rescues those who have gone wrong upon view: “entering the dense forest of views, abiding upon wrong paths, giving rise to wrong discrimination toward every kind of objective realm,” constantly doing the three unwholesome kinds of deed, falsely performing every kind of wrong austerity, “toward what is not the rightly awakened giving rise to the thought of the rightly awakened, and toward the very place of the rightly awakened giving rise to the thought of what is not the rightly awakened,” being gathered in by evil friends and thereby raising evil views, and about to fall into the evil destinies. Her way of rescuing is to “cause them to abide in right view and to be born among human beings and gods.”

But the vow does not stop at human beings and gods. It goes on, “just as I rescue these sentient beings who are about to fall into the evil destinies, so may I everywhere rescue all sentient beings,” and what is vowed has four joints following one upon another: “causing them all to be liberated from every kind of suffering” is the leaving of suffering; “to abide in the sagely way of the pāramitās that goes beyond the world” is one step further than the right view of human beings and gods — right view only pulls a man back into the good destinies, and only the practices that reach the far shore get him beyond the world; “to be irreversible with respect to all-knowledge” is that this step is never again turned back from; and last, “to be furnished with the vow of Samantabhadra, to draw near to all-knowledge and yet not to cast off the practices of the bodhisattvas, and constantly to be diligent in teaching and converting all sentient beings” is that after irreversibility one does not enter quiescence — drawing near to all-knowledge and still not casting off the bodhisattva practices, still going back among sentient beings to teach and convert them. Human and divine, beyond the world, irreversible, not cast off: each joint deeper than the last, and the last joint turns back to where it began.

The nine gates have come, at this point, from peril at sea all the way to evil views. The perils the eight gates before rescue from lie for the most part in what befalls one — the sea, the land, the mountains, the wilds, the land one dwells in, the village, the dark night, and sickness, age, and poverty; and the seventh of them has already spoken, upon delusion and karma, of inversion in view. This gate rescues those who have gone wrong upon view in particular: toward what is not the rightly awakened giving rise to the thought of the rightly awakened, and toward the very place of the rightly awakened giving rise to the thought of what is not. Once judgment is wrong, the more diligent the austerity the deeper the fall. And so this gate manifests neither a form nor a light, but right view.

Set aside a misreading: that mistaking one’s teacher is only bad luck. The scripture text says it outright — “gathered in by evil friends, and thereby raising evil views.” Brought down to the ground: a section that praises good friends from end to end closes with a last gate set exactly opposite them.

Twenty-One Verses: Saying the Prose Passage Over Again, but in Another Way

The prose passage finished, she “received the spiritual power of the Buddha and contemplated the ten directions,” and spoke twenty-one verses for Sudhana. Chengguan judges them to divide into four: the first one verse gives the name and substance of the Dharma gate; the next four raise the cause and exhort to cultivate, that is, the four measureless minds; the next ten display the fruit and cause entering, that is, the surpassing excellence of the six sense-fields; the last six make clear the vastness of the working.

The first verse sets forth the name, saying, “this gate of liberation of mine brings forth the pure light of the Dharma, and is able to break the darkness of delusion — when the time comes, only then is it expounded” — matched with the name in the prose passage, with the one addition of “when the time comes” in the last clause. The next four verses are kindness, compassion, rejoicing, and equanimity: diligently practicing vast and great kindness; the still sea of great compassion; making my mind rejoice; having already cast away the trouble of what is conditioned. Two clauses among these four the prose passage does not have: the third verse says of great compassion that it “brings forth the buddhas of the three times” — kindness and compassion are not merely the means of rescuing from suffering, they are the causal ground from which buddhas are brought forth; and the fifth verse says, “having already cast away the trouble of what is conditioned, and gone far as well from the fruit of the śrāvakas” — casting away the conditioned is one layer, and going far from the fruit of the śrāvakas is another: to have come out of the trouble of the conditioned and then to stop at the fruit of the śrāvakas is, for this Dharma gate, still not to have arrived.

The middle ten verses speak in turn of the purity of the six faculties, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and each has its own thing to say. What the eye sees is the buddhas of the lands of the ten directions seated beneath the tree of awakening, and it sees as well sentient beings “turning in the round among the five destinies, constantly undergoing measureless suffering” — buddhas and sentient beings are within one and the same sight. What the ear hears is “the whole sea of speech and language, all of it heard and able to be held in memory,” heard without loss. The nose is “without obstruction among the dharmas,” the tongue “expounds the wondrous Dharma as is fitting” — the one is a taking in, the other a giving out. The one verse of the body matters most: “the three times are evenly thus and thus, and according to the minds of sentient beings all is manifested” — the body is manifested according to the minds of sentient beings, while in substance it is evenly thus and thus through the three times; it manifests without moving, and moves without losing its suchness. The two verses of the mind each carry a negation: “everywhere calling the tathāgatas to mind, and yet not discriminating,” “knowing the faculties and the desires and delights, and yet not discriminating” — calling all the buddhas to mind without discriminating, knowing the faculties and desires of all beings without discriminating. Not discriminating is not failing to know; it is knowing everywhere without raising the thought that discriminates; for once discrimination arises, the buddhas called to mind and the beings known become things standing over against one.

The last six verses speak of the working: spiritual power shakes measureless lands and “tames those hard to tame” — what is tamed is the very kind that is hard to tame; merit is inexhaustible as space, making offerings to the buddhas and benefiting beings; knowledge penetrates the sea of dharmas and “puts away the delusions of sentient beings,” and knows besides the buddhas of the three times, all dharmas, and their skillful means; and the last two verses see within a single dust mote all the lands of the three times, and within the dust motes of the lands of the ten directions wholly see Rocana. The working is of the utmost vastness, and it comes to rest at the end upon a seeing within one dust mote, joining the passage of the prose where the pores manifest her converting: vastness is not a spreading outward, it is that within one place nothing is unseen.

Set aside a misreading: that restating in verse is repetition. The prose passage tells what she did; the verses tell what she became — the causal face and the fruitional face of one and the same thing. Brought down to the ground: within the whole set of verses the clause “you ought to enter this gate” occurs six times, and this is her purpose in speaking them; they are not a recital of herself.

The Two Things Sudhana Asked

The verses done, Sudhana asks: “how long ago was it that you raised the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi? And how long has it been since you gained this liberation, that you are able to benefit sentient beings in this way?” Chengguan says, “within the third, how long ago the Dharma was gained, first two questions are raised and afterward two answers are returned” — how long since the mind was raised is one question, how long since the Dharma was gained is the other, and the long birth-story below is the two answers.

Why ask how long ago? Because what he has just seen is an accomplishment of a body all constellations and pores manifesting lands. When a man sees a great accomplishment, the first thing he asks is usually ‘how was it done’; but what Sudhana asks is ‘how long.’ Only within time is there sequence, and sequence is the thing he can learn.

Set aside a misreading: that asking how long ago is curiosity. Brought down to the ground: the man who asks ‘how long’ is the man preparing to walk it himself.

The First Life: A Queen Who Was Asleep

The answer to the first question begins from the utmost distance: past kalpas as many as the dust motes of Mount Sumeru, there was a kalpa named Still Light, a world named Bringing Forth Wondrous Jewels, and five hundred million buddhas appeared within it; four continents named Jewel-Moon Lamplight, a city named Lotus Light, a king named Good Dharma Measure, and the king had a consort named Dharma-Wisdom Moon — “the night being deep, she was asleep.” East of the city was a forest named Still Dwelling, and in the forest a great tree of awakening named the Light of the Spiritual Power of All Buddhas Brought Forth from the Body Adorned by the King of All-Light Maṇi Jewels.

After a string of names and terms, it comes to rest upon one concrete picture: the night is deep, and the queen is asleep. This is the starting point of the birth-story passage — not meditative absorption, not austerity, but being asleep.

Set aside a misreading: that stories of former lives all begin from making a vow or from hard practice. Brought down to the ground: this passage says that, before the moment of being woken, a person was simply asleep all along.

Who Woke Her

“At that time there was a buddha named King of the Thunder-Voice of All Dharmas, who beneath this tree accomplished right and equal awakening,” and sent forth a vast and great light of measureless colors that shone throughout the world. Within the city Lotus Light there was a goddess presiding over the night named Pure Moon, who came to where the king’s consort was and “shook the necklaces upon her body to wake the consort,” and told her that the tathāgata had accomplished unsurpassed awakening in the forest Still Dwelling, and expounded for her at length the merit and virtue of the buddhas, their mastery and spiritual power, and all the practices and vows of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra. Thereupon she caused the king’s consort to raise the mind of awakening and to make offerings to that buddha and to the bodhisattvas, the śrāvakas, and the assembly of monks.

Look at the manner of the waking: not the expounding of the Dharma, but the sound of shaking necklaces. First there is a sound, and the person wakes, and only then are there words; first there are words, and the person moves, and only then is there offering. Three joints, and not one of them is skipped.

Set aside a misreading: that a good friend’s first business is to give a Dharma talk. Brought down to the ground: the first thing that night goddess did was only to make a little noise — while someone else was asleep.

That Consort Was I

“Son of good family! The king’s consort Dharma-Wisdom Moon of that time — could she be another person? She is this very body of mine!” — the bringing together of past and present in the birth-story, laid bare in one clause.

Then she speaks of the benefit after the mind was raised: for kalpas as many as the dust motes of Mount Sumeru she was “not born among the evil destinies of the hells, the hungry ghosts, or the animals,” nor born into a lowly house; her faculties were complete, she had no sufferings, among gods and human beings her merit was surpassing, she was not born in an evil age, she was constantly not apart from the buddhas and from the bodhisattvas and the great good friends, and constantly in their presence she planted roots of goodness, and “through kalpas as many as the dust motes of eighty Mount Sumerus she constantly received peace and joy.” And the last clause turns: “and yet the faculties of a bodhisattva were not yet complete.”

Set aside a misreading: that this passage is praising the merit of raising the mind. After the peace and joy of kalpas as many as the dust motes of eighty Mount Sumerus, what follows is the three graphs “not yet complete.” Brought down to the ground: not falling into the evil destinies and constantly receiving peace and joy are still only conditions, not completion.

The Second Life: Another Person Asleep

“When that kalpa had passed, and a further ten thousand kalpas had passed,” before the Worthy Kalpa there was a kalpa named Sorrowless Universal Shining and a world named Stainless Wondrous Light, within which the pure and the defiled were mingled and five hundred buddhas appeared, the first named Sumeru-Banner Still and Wondrous Eye; and in that life she was the daughter of the elder Renown, named Wondrous Wisdom Light — the base text has this clause as “I was: the elder Renown; the daughter was named: Wondrous Wisdom Light,” in the punctuation now current, which reads it apart as two persons, the elder and his daughter; while the sixty-fascicle witness has “the daughter of the elder Bright and Surpassing, named Surpassing Wisdom Light” and the forty-fascicle witness “the daughter of the elder Renown, styled Wondrous Wisdom Light,” both making her the elder’s daughter, and the words below, “at the side of my father and mother,” likewise show a daughter — the reading followed here; the punctuated reading apart is recorded side by side without adjudication.

And that night goddess Pure Moon, “by the power of her vow,” was born in the city of King Wondrous Banner in the world Stainless, and again became a goddess presiding over the night, named Pure Eye. “At a certain time I was at the side of my father and mother, and the night being deep I was asleep and resting” — the same scene played over: she was asleep again, and that one came again, “shook my house and dwelling, sent forth a great light, made her body appear,” and praised the merit and virtue of the Buddha, saying that the tathāgata Wondrous Eye was seated upon the seat of awakening and had just accomplished right awakening, and exhorted her and her father and mother and kinsfolk to go swiftly and see the Buddha, herself going before as guide and leading them to where the Buddha was.

Set aside a misreading: that the two lives are two independent stories. The structure of the two passages is symmetrical point for point: she is asleep, that goddess comes to wake her, a buddha has just accomplished the way, they go to make offerings. Brought down to the ground: the good friend did the same one thing, only twice.

At the First Sight of the Buddha, She Gained It

“No sooner had I seen the Buddha than I gained a samādhi named: the Wheel of the Light of Knowledge of the Three Times That Brings Forth the Seeing of Buddhas and the Taming of Sentient Beings.” Chengguan says this is the “samādhi of skillful means, that is, above, the seeing of the buddhas, and below, the converting of sentient beings” — the name has two ends in it from the start: seeing buddhas and taming sentient beings.

Having gained this samādhi, she was “able to call to mind kalpas as many as the dust motes of Mount Sumeru,” and saw also the buddhas appearing within them, and in their presence heard the wondrous Dharma; “and because of hearing the Dharma, I then gained this liberation of the light of the Dharma that breaks the darkness of all sentient beings.” The sequence is: seeing the Buddha, she gains the samādhi; by the samādhi she can call to mind kalpas, can see buddhas, can hear the Dharma; and because of hearing the Dharma she gains this liberation gate of the present section.

Set aside a misreading: that gaining the samādhi is gaining the liberation. In the scripture text three passes lie between — calling to mind, seeing buddhas, hearing the Dharma. Brought down to the ground: concentration does not give birth to liberation directly; concentration lets you hear the Dharma, and the Dharma gives birth to liberation.

What She Saw After Gaining the Liberation: Her Body Going Everywhere, the Buddhas, the Sentient Beings

“Having gained this liberation, I then saw my own body going everywhere to worlds as many as the dust motes of buddha-lands,” and saw also all the buddhas of those worlds, and saw further her own body in the presence of those buddhas; and further down, what she saw was all the sentient beings of those worlds — “understanding their speech and sounds, knowing their faculties and natures, knowing that in the past they had been gathered in by good friends, and according to what they delighted in manifesting a body for them, causing gladness to arise in them.”

Three clauses write of sentient beings: understanding his speech, knowing his faculties, knowing by whom he was led in before. The third clause matters most — before she rescues a man, what she looks into first is the provenance of his roots of goodness.

Set aside a misreading: that what spiritual power sees is objective realms. Brought down to the ground: the eye this liberation gate opens looks at the thread-end left upon each person by those who went before; to take up that thread is what is meant by “according to what they delighted in.”

Growing Thought by Thought: A Mind Without Interval

The last passage writes the vastness of the working: “the liberation that I gained there at that time grew thought by thought, and this mind had no interval,” and so she went everywhere to worlds as many as the dust motes of a hundred buddha-lands, and this mind had no interval, and went everywhere further to a thousand buddha-lands and a hundred thousand buddha-lands, “in this way, thought following upon thought, and so on until worlds as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable buddha-lands.” In the places she went she saw the tathāgatas as well, heard the wondrous Dharma as well, knew the seas of those buddhas’ past deeds and the seas of their great vows as well, and “the buddha-lands that those tathāgatas adorned and purified, I too adorned and purified.” The last clause gathers it all in: “this gate of liberation grew thought by thought, and in this way it came at last to fill the Dharma realm.”

The three occurrences of “this mind had no interval” are the bone of this passage. Vastness is not a single leap to the measureless; it is grown out thought upon thought with no break in between. Li Tongxuan sets up a word upon these numbers, saying that this is the first ground “taking the hundred for its head, and thereupon filling the endless buddha-lands of the whole Dharma realm of the ten directions.”

Set aside a misreading: that the vastness of the Dharma realm is a kind of measurement. Brought down to the ground: that “no interval” matters more than those numbers — a mind that has been broken off in the middle will not grow to the Dharma realm however great the numbers are.

I Know Only This One

“Son of good family! I know only this bodhisattva liberation of the light of the Dharma that breaks the darkness of all sentient beings.” She has just finished saying that it fills the Dharma realm, and the very next clause is that she knows only this one.

Then comes the pointing to the superior: the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas accomplish the boundless practices and vows of Samantabhadra, enter everywhere the seas of all Dharma realms, gain the bodhisattvas’ samādhi of the mastery of the adamantine banner of knowledge, bring forth great vows, and hold and sustain the lineage of the buddhas; in thought after thought they fill out the whole sea of great merit and virtue, and adorn and purify all vast and great worlds; with knowledge that is at will they teach, convert, and ripen all sentient beings; with the sun of wisdom they put away the dark obstacles of all the worlds; with valiant knowledge they awaken all sentient beings from their torpid sleep; with the moon of wisdom they resolve the doubts of all sentient beings; with a pure voice they sever the clinging of all becoming — “and how then could I be able to know their wondrous practice, or to tell of their merit and virtue, or to enter their objective realm, or to display their mastery?”

Looked at one by one, each of these virtues answers to something: “accomplishing the boundless practices and vows of Samantabhadra” is the boundlessness of the vow; “entering everywhere the seas of all Dharma realms” is the shorelessness of what is entered; “gaining the bodhisattvas’ samādhi of the mastery of the adamantine banner of knowledge” is a concentration hard as adamant and not to be broken; “bringing forth great vows and holding and sustaining the lineage of the buddhas” is a succession never cut off; “filling out the whole sea of great merit and virtue” is the fullness of one’s own practice; “adorning and purifying all vast and great worlds” is the purity of the lands; “teaching, converting, and ripening all sentient beings” is the ripening of others. The last four clauses answer one by one to what they cure: “with the sun of wisdom putting away the dark obstacles of all the worlds” cures darkness; “with valiant knowledge awakening all sentient beings from their torpid sleep” cures sleep; “with the moon of wisdom resolving the doubts of all sentient beings” cures doubt; “with a pure voice severing the clinging of all becoming” cures clinging; and “within each and every dust mote of the whole Dharma realm displaying every mastery of spiritual power” is why the four before can reach everywhere — sun, moon, voice, and knowledge reach no further than a single dust mote and no less far. The closing “the eye of knowledge bright and pure, seeing the three times as equal” is the eye of all this: that spiritual power pervades a single mote rests not on power but on the clearness of the eye; the eye being clear and the three times seen as equal, nothing manifested fails to meet its occasion.

Set aside a misreading: that this is a set phrase of modesty. The four things she points to — the sun of wisdom, valiant knowledge, the moon of wisdom, the pure voice — are of the very same kind as that Dharma gate of her own. Brought down to the ground: only one who knows that what she has gained and what she points to are of one road can say ‘I know only this one’ without losing the measure of it.

The Next Friend Is the One Who Woke Me Long Ago

“Son of good family! Here in Jambudvīpa, within the site of awakening in the country of Magadha, there is a goddess who presides over the night, named: Universal Virtue Pure Light. It was from her that I originally raised the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, and she constantly awakens me with the wondrous Dharma. Go to her and ask: how is a bodhisattva to learn the bodhisattva practice and to cultivate the bodhisattva way?”

Upon this clause Chengguan judges, “she is the former Pure Moon, and so it is said ‘originally from her the mind was raised’” — the next friend she points out is that very night goddess who twice woke her in the birth-story. He glosses the name further, saying, “the friend is named Universal Virtue because in the most surpassing Dharma realm there is no virtue she is not furnished with; and Pure Light because right knowledge realizes and enters, apart from the defilement of mistaken transgression”; and he glosses the place, saying, “as for ‘within the site of awakening,’ it is being without mistaken transgression, by reason of according with principle. Principle is the site of awakening.”

Set aside a misreading: that pointing out the next friend is only reporting an address. Brought down to the ground: she sends Sudhana off to the very source of her own raising of the mind — and this one clause gathers the whole purport of the birth-story into one place.

Ten Verses and One Graph of Farewell

Sudhana praises her with ten verses. Chengguan divides them into four: the first four praise the surpassing excellence of body and mind; the next three make clear that the great working has no bound; the next two show that the benefit to beings is not in vain; the last concludes that her virtue is without end. The first four verses praise her pure body, the evenness of her Dharma body, the seeing of her form and image within all the destinies, and a mind vast as space — the second verse, “the worlds all enter within it, their forming and their perishing meet no obstruction,” is the one most to be looked at: the Dharma body being equal through the three times, the forming and the perishing of worlds are both within it, forming adds nothing and perishing takes nothing away, and therefore there is no obstruction; the next three verses all begin with “within each and every pore,” speaking of sending forth light, manifesting bodies, and displaying lands; the next two verses say that those who hear her name and see her body “all obtain the benefit of merit and virtue, and accomplish the way of awakening” — the benefit obtained stops not at merit but reaches the accomplishing of awakening; and “those who for many kalpas were in the evil destinies and only now get to see and hear of you ought also to receive it with gladness, because their afflictions are extinguished” — the seeing and hearing that comes after many kalpas in the evil destinies is itself the extinguishing of affliction, and therefore is to be received with gladness; and the last verse says, “through kalpas as many as the dust motes of a thousand lands one might praise the virtue of a single hair of yours; the number of the kalpas could still be exhausted, but the merit and virtue would in the end have no end.”

The praising done, “he bowed to her feet, circled her measureless times, gazed up at her with earnest longing, and took his leave and departed.” Three actions, and only then one graph of farewell.

Set aside a misreading: that taking leave is the breaking up of the gathering. Brought down to the ground: to praise a good friend’s virtue up to “the number of the kalpas could still be exhausted” and then turn and walk away — cherishing her virtue and going forward are, in this section, one and the same action.

Lineage

Of the text of this section, three streams open downward from it.

The first is the thread of assigned position. Chengguan sets up the outline of ten good friends for the ten grounds, and assigns this friend to the Joyful Ground.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

As to the matching of assigned positions, Chengguan in the chapter outline passage states of himself that both have their reason, saying, “yet within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to display the positions is the constant rule; so to match them, too, is no fault.”

Li Tongxuan divides his gloss upon this friend into the two sections of entering the position proper and pointing to virtue and advancing upward, and in his general discussion of the ten grounds judges this to be “the good friend of the first ground, the Joyful, with dāna-pāramitā as principal and the other nine as companions,” and says further, “this makes clear the gate of entering the worldly, being bound along with beings, and nourishing great kindness and compassion, and being furnished with the dāna-pāramitā so that it is brought to completion.” His treatise mentions this friend at three further places in its general discussion of the ten grounds, all upon her name and her position: in one place, “she is also named reliance without fear, that is, she is a reliance without fear for all sentient beings”; in another, “this spirit signifies the first ground, the Joyful”; in another, “so as to signify great compassion, since she presides over the sprouting of the shoot of awakening in sentient beings” — of one purport with his gloss upon this passage. The bone to which the two houses fasten differs, and both are settled sayings of the ancient worthies.

The second is the thread of the night goddesses and the female body. Chengguan says, “that upon the grounds night goddesses are seen for the most part is because the knowledge of realization is profound and wondrous, and it breaks the darkness among mingled marks,” and says further, “the nine deva-spirits below are, according to the Sanskrit witness, all goddesses. That Gopā too is female is because upon the grounds one realizes a compassion of one same substance, which is the state of a woman.” Li Tongxuan fastens it to the same one sense of compassion but tells it more fully, saying, “the ten good friends have no marks of one gone forth from home, and all together are heavenly women,” and takes a woman’s being able to nourish sons and grandsons without weariness as a sign of the bodhisattva’s nourishing of sentient beings.

The third is the thread of the divergent interpretations of the commentators. As to the outline of this section, Chengguan makes six passages and within the praising and conferring opens three further; Li Tongxuan sets up five gates within the Dharma gate of truly entering the present position, six gates further for seeing the night goddess, and seventeen gates within the making of the request for what is sought, with five gates apart for the one passage of pointing to virtue and advancing upward.

As to the gloss of the friend’s name, what the four houses say may be gathered into three senses. Chengguan glosses the two graphs separately as spring and as presiding over, and Li Tongxuan joins them into the single phrase presiding over the springing forth of spring — these two glossing the form of the name in the eighty-fascicle witness. What Fazang and Zhiyan gloss is the form of the name in the sixty-fascicle witness: Fazang renders the name as reliance without fear, saying of her that “in the text below she at length becomes a reliance for sentient beings who are afraid,” and takes besides the name of the Indian witness and renders it as spring, saying, “that is, signifying that she is able to grow the ten thousand practices, as in the season of spring”; and the interlinear note of Zhiyan’s Kongmu zhang likewise has reliance without fear. One name, three senses: reliance without fear is said upon what she gives to sentient beings — one who is afraid has something to rely on, and so is afraid no longer; spring is said upon the season; and being able to grow the ten thousand practices is said upon the first ground. The three senses are at bottom one thing — she who is willing, in the blackest night, to let people have something to rely on is the very spring that can grow the ten thousand practices.

As to what the city’s name signifies, Chengguan takes yellow to be the central color and to signify according with the middle way, and takes it further as the city of the Buddha’s birth, signifying that upon the first ground one is born into the house of the buddhas; Li Tongxuan takes yellow to be the color of blessing and felicity. All these divergent interpretations are settled sayings of the ancient worthies, and are recorded without adjudication.

One who keeps watch through the night does this: in the darkest hour she lets people see the road. And her own provenance is no more than this — twice, while she was asleep and dreaming, a little noise someone made woke her. What the first ground looks like, this section gives just this.

Before Walking On to the Next One, Sudhana First Called the Last One to Mind

This section begins not with walking but with calling to mind. The scripture text says that Sudhana “came to know the bodhisattva treasury born of the first raising of the mind of awakening by that night goddess Vāsantī,” and then counts on down the list — the bodhisattva vows she raised, the bodhisattva perfections she purified, the bodhisattva grounds she entered, the bodhisattva practices she cultivated, the way of going forth she walked, the sea of the light of all-knowledge, the mind that rescues sentient beings everywhere, the cloud of great compassion that covers everywhere — closing with “the practices and vows of Samantabhadra that she is constantly able to bring forth, in all the buddha-lands, to the ends of the future.”

Why write it this way? Chengguan outlines this passage as the seeking in accord with the teaching, and counts its clauses: he says, “now the first. First the calling to mind of the former dharmas, which has eleven clauses: the first one calls to mind the raising of the mind, and the remaining ten call to mind the dharmas gained.” Of the eleven clauses, the first calls to mind that first single thought in which the friend before him raised the mind, and the remaining ten call to mind the dharmas she thereby gained. The sequence carries meaning: first the cause is called to mind, afterward the fruit.

A misreading must be set aside: that going about to learn means changing the subject station by station, laying down the last one once she is done. The sequence of the scripture text is just the opposite — the raising of the mind and the gaining of the dharmas that the one before displayed is the provision with which one walks toward the next. Brought down to the ground: what your mind is calling to mind on that stretch of road after you leave one teacher decides what you will be able to see when you reach the next.

Three Questions, All Asked upon One and the Same Graph

Sudhana came to where the night goddess was, and the scripture text writes it with the utmost brevity: he bowed to her feet, circled her numberless times, and before her joined his palms. Chengguan outlines this as the seeing, paying respect, and inquiring — first the seeing and paying respect, afterward the inquiring. What is asked is three clauses: “How is a bodhisattva to cultivate the bodhisattva ground? How is he to bring forth the bodhisattva ground? How is he to accomplish the bodhisattva ground?”

Before the three questions Sudhana first states one thing of himself: “I have already, before this, raised the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi.” This clause is no courtesy; it is the qualification for asking about the Dharma — only where the mind has first been raised does the ‘ground’ he asks about have a place to come down upon. Among the three questions, cultivating is the gate of practice, bringing forth is what is born from that gate of practice, and accomplishing is the ultimate of what is born. The one graph ‘ground’ is asked about three times, and the three askings are not the same: how it is cultivated, how it is brought forth, how it is accomplished.

Set aside a misreading: that these are three ways of saying one question. Were it one question, the night goddess in what follows would not have had to take up the three matters, “the cultivating, the bringing forth, and the accomplishing,” and hand them back graph for graph. Brought down to the ground: when a question is asked clearly, the one who answers knows at which joint to begin.

First the Praising, and What Is Praised Is Two Things

The night goddess’s first words are “Good, good! Son of good family!” and then she takes up what Sudhana has asked and says it over — “you have already been able to raise the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, and now you are further able to ask about the cultivating, the bringing forth, and the accomplishing of the bodhisattva ground.” Chengguan outlines this as the ‘first the praising’ within the praising and conferring of the Dharma: the praising comes before the conferring.

One must see clearly which two things are praised: first, that he has already raised the mind; second, that he is further able to ask. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle text, outlines this passage as the praising of a vessel for the Dharma, and says that what is praised is “being able to ask about the practice that rests upon the ground, and about the ground upon which the practice rests.” That is to say, what the good friend gives her seal to is not the courage of raising the mind alone, but the asking in the right place.

Set aside a misreading: that the praising is a politeness that may be passed over in the reading. If it were politeness, why say the three matters asked about over again, graph for graph? Brought down to the ground: whether a person has asked well is seen in whether the one answering must say his question over — to say it over is to show that the question stands.

The Ten Dharmas: The Ten Things That Fulfill the Bodhisattva Practices

The first passage of the conferring is not the gate of liberation but the ten dharmas. The scripture text sets forth, questions, explains, and concludes of itself: “a bodhisattva who accomplishes ten dharmas is able to fulfill the bodhisattva practices. What are the ten?” Then ten clauses open out, closing with “a bodhisattva who accomplishes these ten kinds of dharma is then able to fulfill all the practices of a bodhisattva.” Chengguan outlines its form, saying, “now the first has the setting forth, the questioning, the explaining, and the concluding. Within the explaining there are ten clauses: the first is general, the rest are particular.”

What are the ten clauses? The first is gaining the pure samādhi and constantly seeing all the buddhas; the second, gaining the pure eye and constantly beholding the marks and signs; the third, knowing the great sea of merit and virtue; the fourth, knowing the sea of the light of the Dharma; the fifth, knowing that light is sent forth from the pores to benefit sentient beings; the sixth, seeing that seas of flaming light of jeweled color are brought forth from the pores; the seventh, in thought after thought bringing into appearance the seas of transformations that tame sentient beings; the eighth, gaining the Buddha’s voice and turning the Dharma wheel; the ninth, knowing the boundless seas of the names of the buddhas; the tenth, knowing the power of mastery with which the buddhas tame sentient beings. Chengguan glosses only the three hard ones among them, saying, “among the particular ones, the third is the light of the Dharma that is knowledge, the fourth is the sending forth of light that benefits, the fifth is the constant light that gives off flames; the rest may be known.”

Set aside a misreading: that these ten clauses are ten merits and virtues unconnected with one another. The first clause is the general one — gaining concentration and thereby seeing the buddhas; the nine clauses below are all particulars of what is known and seen once the buddhas have been seen. Brought down to the ground: the sequence of these ten dharmas is first to be able to see, then to be able to know, and last to be able to know how the buddhas tame sentient beings — from realizing it in oneself to converting others.

Two Ways of Reading the Ten Dharmas: General and Particular, and the Ten Bodies

The Shu glosses only three clauses; the Yanyi chao finds this not enough and glosses the passage over again for the reader, bringing out two ways of reading it. The first is the gloss by general and particular. The Chao says, “one is to make it a gloss by general and particular: the first one is general, the remaining nine are particular. Among the particular ones: the first contemplates the outward marks; the second calls to mind the inward virtue; the third knows what is realized; the fourth is the sending forth of light; the fifth is the constant light; the sixth is transformation; the seventh is the perfect voice; the eighth is the names; the ninth is the taming of beings.” This reading takes the ten clauses as one general and nine particular, each of the nine a single matter.

The second reading matches the ten clauses to the ten bodies of a buddha. The Chao says, “second is the gloss in terms of the ten bodies: first, the body of awakening; second, the body of marks and signs; third, the body of knowledge; fourth, the Dharma body; fifth, the body of vows, as in the chapter on Worthy Head, where the sending forth of light from the pores is in every case owing to former vows; sixth, the body of merit; seventh, the body of transformation; eighth, the body that upholds by power, since the perfect voice upholds the Dharma to the ends of the future; ninth, the body born of intent, since the names are set up according to intent; tenth, the body of majestic force.” And upon this it closes with a word of exhortation to cultivate: “the ten bodies together make manifest that inward and outward are both complete; if one calls these to mind with undivided attention, what practice would not be accomplished?”

Set aside a misreading: that the two readings shut each other out, so that one must be chosen. The Chao itself brings out the two glosses side by side: the former reading speaks in terms of sequence, the latter in terms of the buddha-body that is seen. Brought down to the ground: with one and the same passage of scripture, changing the measuring rod brings another layer of sequence into view — this is the constant way of reading the Avataṃsaka, not an unsettledness of interpretation.

The Name of the Dharma Gate, Taken Apart, Is Four Things

The night goddess speaks the name of her own Dharma gate: “I have gained a bodhisattva liberation named Quiescence, Meditative Concentration, Joy, and the Universally Roaming Stride.” This is a name of eight graphs, which Chengguan opens into four parts, and if it is recited past as a single lump of terminology, the four passages of working below have nothing to hang upon.

Chengguan takes it apart graph by graph, saying, “first the name and the substance are set forth: to accord with principle and not to grasp is quiescence; the joint working of stilling and contemplation is meditative concentration; abiding in the joy of the right Dharma is joy; a great working without bound is the universally roaming stride.” Each of the four senses has its own reference: quiescence is not a not-moving, but an according with principle in which the mind grasps nothing; meditative concentration is not a stilling only, but stilling and contemplation working together; joy is not the feeling of pleasure, but abiding in the joy of the right Dharma; the universally roaming stride is not walking, but a great working that has no bound.

Set aside a misreading: that the two senses ‘quiescence’ and ‘universally roaming stride’ clash — the one still, the other in motion. The sequence of the four senses is precisely the sequence of substance and working: to accord with principle and not to grasp is the substance; the joint working of stilling and contemplation is the practice; abiding in the joy of the right Dharma is the receiving; a great working without bound is the working. Brought down to the ground: the four passages of working below open out upon these four parts, and Chengguan matches them as three — the first passage, the meditation of attending to things as they really are, is the working of quiescence; the next, the meditation of dwelling in the joy of the present dharma, is the working of concentration; the third and fourth passages (the meditation that draws forth merit and virtue, and the meditation that benefits sentient beings) are together the working of the universally roaming stride; and the one sense ‘joy’ is gathered into the working of concentration. Only when the name has first been taken apart rightly can the scripture text be read on.

Seeing All the Buddhas and Yet Not Grasping: Ten Clauses of ‘Is Not’

In the first passage of the working, the scripture text says that she “sees everywhere all the buddhas of the three times,” and sees too those buddhas’ lands, places of the Way, assemblies, spiritual powers, names, expounding of the Dharma, life spans, speech and sounds, and bodily marks, “in all their many kinds of difference, all of them plainly seen, and yet without grasping.” Since she sees them plainly, how is it that she does not grasp? The scripture text raises the question itself: “Why is this?”

The answer is in ten clauses. The first eight clauses each set up an ‘is not’ and then bring out the reason for it: they do not go, because “the destinies of the world are forever quieted”; they do not come, because “their essential nature is unborn”; they are not born, because “the Dharma body is even”; they are not extinguished, because “there is no mark of birth at all”; they are not real, because “they abide in dharmas that are like an illusion”; they are not false, because “they are benefiting sentient beings”; they do not shift, because “they have passed beyond birth and death”; they do not perish, because “their nature is constant and does not change.” The last two clauses turn the wording: “they are one mark, for all speech is left behind; they are without mark, for nature and mark are from the first empty and still.” Chengguan outlines the form of this passage, saying, “it is set forth that because she sees the buddhas without grasping there is quiescence. The explanation says that the reason there is no grasping is that she has fathomed to the end the essential nature of a tathāgata.”

Set aside a misreading: that not grasping means wiping away the marks that are seen. The scripture text says plainly “all of them plainly seen” — they are seen with entire clarity. Brought down to the ground: the ground of not grasping does not lie in seeing a little less, but in having fathomed to the end the essential nature of a tathāgata — knowing that what is seen is originally just so, one has no need to snatch at it.

Where These Ten Clauses and the Eight Negations Are Largely the Same

Reading the ten clauses of ‘is not,’ one readily calls to mind the eight negations of the Zhong lun. Chengguan does exactly this, taking the eight negations and matching them — he says, “the text has ten; ‘is not’ is largely the same as the eight negations of the Zhong lun: namely, not going, not coming, not being born, not being extinguished make four; the ‘not real’ and ‘not false’ are just not-permanent; the ‘not shifting’ and ‘not perishing’ are just not-annihilated; ‘one mark’ is just not-different, and ‘without mark’ is likewise not-one.” This edition reads it as ‘the text has ten “is nots,” largely the same as the eight negations of the Zhong lun’: the text of this passage has ten ‘is nots,’ largely the same as the eight negations, and what follows points out clause by clause how they are matched.

By this matching, the ten clauses in fact gather in the eight negations: not going, not coming, not being born, not being extinguished, four clauses answering directly to four negations; ‘not real’ and ‘not false’ together answering to not-permanent; ‘not shifting’ and ‘not perishing’ together answering to not-annihilated; ‘one mark’ answering to not-different, and ‘without mark’ to not-one. The eight of the eight negations are here opened out as ten — with not one clause falling outside the eight negations, and so it is said to be “largely the same.”

Set aside a misreading: that “largely the same” means exactly alike. The eight negations are a screening away — not born, not extinguished, and there it stops at screening away; these ten clauses screen away and each brings out its own reason, and those reasons are for the most part fastened upon the benefiting of beings (‘not false,’ because “they are benefiting sentient beings”). What is matched answers well enough, but the force of the saying is not the same. Brought down to the ground: one and the same negative clause is in one place the breaking of clinging, and in another the saying that the essential nature of a buddha is thus and is yet still benefiting beings — in reading, one must look at what “because” it is joined to.

The First Two of the Four Dhyānas: Single-Minded and Unmoving, and the Mind of Gladness Delighted

The second passage of the working is the four dhyānas. The scripture text says that after she knows all the tathāgatas, toward this gate of liberation she “penetrates it plainly, accomplishes and increases it, ponders and contemplates it, makes it firm and adorns it,” and then, “not giving rise to any deluded thought or discrimination, rescuing and guarding all sentient beings with great compassion, single-minded and unmoving, I cultivate the first dhyāna.” The second dhyāna is “stilling all the works of the mind, gathering in all sentient beings, the power of knowledge valiant, the mind of gladness delighted, I cultivate the second dhyāna.”

Chengguan matches the clauses to the branches of dhyāna one by one. For the matching of the first dhyāna he says, “in the first dhyāna, ‘pondering and contemplating’ is just initial and sustained thought, answering to the branch of counteracting; ‘making it firm and adorning it’ is still the mark of initial and sustained thought,” and says further, “next, ‘rescuing and guarding all sentient beings with great compassion’ is the branch of benefit: that is, leaving one’s own sorrow behind and calling to mind the sorrow of sentient beings, and so joy and bliss are born.” For the matching of the second dhyāna he says, “in the second dhyāna, ‘stilling all the works of the mind’ is the extinguishing of thought and examination. Next, ‘gathering in all sentient beings’ is single-mindedness; ‘the power of knowledge valiant’ is inward purity, without thought and without examination. Next, ‘the mind of gladness delighted’ is the joy and bliss born of concentration.” The Yanyi chao further distinguishes inner purity in the lesser and the great vehicle: “the inner purity of the lesser vehicle is only faith; the inner purity of the great vehicle is formed by the joining of the three branches of the second dhyāna, namely equanimity, mindfulness, and right knowing” — in the lesser vehicle inner purity is faith alone, in the great vehicle it is the three branches of equanimity, mindfulness, and right knowing joined together; these three minds are still covered over by joy, their force not yet prevailing, able only to leave behind outward initial and sustained thought, and so they are joined into one inner purity. That the sūtra speaks of gathering in all sentient beings as one mind fits just this sense.

Set aside a misreading: that the branches of dhyāna are a matter of the inward mind and have nothing to do with sentient beings. The branch of benefit that Chengguan matches in the first dhyāna is taken from the very clause “rescuing and guarding all sentient beings with great compassion,” and the single-mindedness of the second dhyāna is taken from “gathering in all sentient beings.” Brought down to the ground: the joy and bliss here is not a joy and bliss sat out on one’s own, but the joy and bliss born of leaving one’s own sorrow behind and calling to mind the sorrow of sentient beings.

The Third and Fourth of the Four Dhyānas: Turning Away from Birth and Death, and Extinguishing the Burning Afflictions

For the third dhyāna the scripture text reads, “pondering the own-nature of all sentient beings, weary of and turning away from birth and death, I cultivate the third dhyāna”; and for the fourth, “being wholly able to extinguish all the sufferings and burning distress of all sentient beings, I cultivate the fourth dhyāna.” These two dhyānas have only two clauses each, and yet Chengguan matches them in the finest detail.

For the matching of the third dhyāna he says, “in the third dhyāna, the first, ‘pondering the own-nature of all sentient beings,’ is the two branches of equanimity and mindfulness: that is, casting off the former joy of gathering in beings, and within this casting off not losing mindfulness. ‘Weary of and turning away from birth and death’ is the two branches of wisdom and bliss: that is, rightly knowing that birth and death are not to be rejoiced in, and the weariness and turning away is just the gaining of the bliss of true quiescence.” For the matching of the fourth dhyāna he says, “in the fourth dhyāna the two clauses run through all three branches: that is, suffering, joy, sorrow, and bliss are all sufferings and burning distress, since within what is below suffering a bliss is crosswise given birth to. Because the four feelings are gone together, it says ‘wholly able to extinguish,’ which is equanimity and mindfulness, purified. Since there is neither suffering nor bliss, this is the middle feeling.” The Yanyi chao here points out one further layer: “once all is stilled and extinguished, then the casting-off itself is cast off, and only then is it true casting-off” — not only are suffering, bliss, sorrow, and joy cast off, but the casting-off that does the casting is cast off as well, and only then is it true casting-off; the neutral feeling of purity of equanimity and mindfulness must be read down to this layer.

Set aside a misreading: that “weary of and turning away from birth and death” is a shrinking back. Chengguan glosses the weariness and turning away as rightly knowing that birth and death are not to be rejoiced in, and “the weariness and turning away is just the gaining of the bliss of true quiescence” — the weariness and turning away is a knowing, not a hiding. Brought down to the ground: what is taken here from the purified equanimity and mindfulness of the fourth dhyāna is the extinguishing of the suffering of sentient beings; only when one’s own suffering and bliss are gone together can one reach another’s burning distress at all.

Why These Are Not the Four Dhyānas of the World

The four dhyānas are in themselves a dharma held in common, and those of outsider ways cultivate them too. That being so, on what ground does this passage count as a bodhisattva’s working? Chengguan blocks the question in advance, under the first dhyāna, saying, “yet the dhyāna of the world only leaves behind desire and what is evil and unwholesome; now, because the one vehicle is deep and wondrous, it leaves behind every deluded thought.”

The difference lies in the obstruction that is left behind. What the dhyāna of the world leaves behind is desire and the dharmas that are evil and unwholesome; what the scripture text here leaves behind is “every deluded thought and discrimination” — the measure of what is left behind being different, the place arrived at is naturally different too. Chengguan states it once more further on, saying, “all the above is in terms of the one vehicle, differing from the dharma assigned at the third ground, and so on down to the saying ‘entering the Dharma realm everywhere.’” Among the ten grounds, the third, the Luminous Ground, is precisely the position to which the four dhyānas and the eight concentrations are assigned; this friend is assigned to the second, the Stainless Ground, and yet speaks of the four dhyānas, so that a particular distinguishing is called for: the same name, four dhyānas, and not the same matter.

Set aside a misreading: that wherever the four dhyānas are spoken of, sequential meditative concentration is meant, so that one must finish the first dhyāna before there is a second. Here the four dhyānas are fastened clause by clause upon sentient beings, and what is cultivated in the four passages is four faces of one and the same gate of liberation. Brought down to the ground: to judge whether a concentration is a bodhisattva’s concentration, look at what it leaves behind, and look also at what it is doing once it has left that behind.

The Merit and Virtue That Comes Out of Dhyāna

After the four dhyānas the scripture text goes on: “increasing and fulfilling the vows of all-knowledge, bringing forth the seas of all samādhis, entering the gates of the sea of the liberations of the bodhisattvas, sporting in all spiritual powers, accomplishing all transformations, and with pure knowledge entering the Dharma realm everywhere.”

Chengguan sets this passage apart as the third of the workings, saying, “third, from ‘increasing and fulfilling’ onward is the meditation that draws forth merit and virtue. ‘Sporting in spiritual powers’ is just the sense of the universally roaming stride.” The four dhyānas are the very substance of concentration; this passage is the merit and virtue that concentration draws forth — vows, samādhis, gates of liberation, spiritual powers, transformations, and the entering of the Dharma realm, six matters widening out one after another. And the two graphs ‘sporting’ answer back to the ‘universally roaming stride’ in the name of the Dharma gate.

Set aside a misreading: that spiritual powers are a by-product of meditative concentration, which one may have or do without. The scripture text ranks them between “the vows of all-knowledge” and “entering the Dharma realm everywhere”: vows before, the Dharma realm after, and the spiritual powers wedged in the middle, a stretch of working by which the vows pass over into the Dharma realm. Brought down to the ground: merit and virtue is not something waited for while sitting in concentration; it is what is ‘drawn forth’ once the concentration is accomplished — to draw forth is to pull upon something so that it comes out.

The Thirteen Perceptions: What Is Done First for Those Heedless at Home

The fourth passage of the working is the benefiting of sentient beings. The scripture text first names those it is for: “sentient beings who are heedless at home”; then what is done for them — causing thirteen perceptions to arise in them: impurity, what is to be loathed, weariness, oppression, bondage, the rākṣasa, impermanence, suffering, no-self, emptiness, non-arising, not being one’s own master, and old age, sickness, and death.

The sequence of the thirteen perceptions can be traced. The first several perceptions speak in terms of the marks of the body and of its objects, so that a person may first see clearly what it is he covets; the later ones speak in terms of the nature of dharmas, so that he may know that what he covets has of itself no own-nature. Chengguan matches this passage to the factors of the path, saying, “within the text there are three: first, causing them to cultivate the four stations of mindfulness and the like” — the thirteen perceptions being what the four stations of mindfulness and the like gather in. And the night goddess goes on to state one thing of herself: “I myself do not give rise to delight or clinging toward the five desires, and I exhort sentient beings too not to cling to the joy of desire” — practice for herself and converting of others raised side by side.

Set aside a misreading: that causing people to give rise to perceptions of weariness and turning away is a frightening of them. The last three of these thirteen perceptions are non-arising, not being one’s own master, and old age, sickness, and death — and the one branch of non-arising speaks in terms of the nature of dharmas, not in terms of what is fearsome. Brought down to the ground: only when one first gives rise to no delight or clinging toward the five desires oneself can one move another to do so; the scripture text puts the “myself” before the “I exhort as well.”

Expounding the Dharma in the Still of Night: Why a Night Goddess Is Called a Night Goddess

After the thirteen perceptions the scripture text changes to another kind of person it is for: “if there are sentient beings dwelling in a place of open leisure.” For this kind, what the night goddess does is to still evil sounds, to expound the deep Dharma in the still of night, to give the conditions for practicing in accord, to open the gate of going forth from the home, to show the right road, to make a light, to remove their obstruction of darkness, to extinguish their fear, to praise the work of going forth from the home, and to “praise the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṃgha, and the good friends as being furnished with every kind of merit and virtue, and to praise as well the practice of drawing near to good friends.”

In this passage the standing of this friend is most plainly seen. She is a night goddess, and what she does is done in the night as well — “in the still of night I expound the deep Dharma for them”; what she gives is light; what she removes is the obstruction of darkness; what she extinguishes is fear. Chengguan outlines this as “making clear the causes and conditions that make a way.” Li Tongxuan too sets up the sense of this friend’s name upon just this, saying, “because knowledge and compassion reach everywhere and shine upon the long night of sentient beings, she is named Pure Light.”

Set aside a misreading: that a night goddess expounding the Dharma is the ornament of a myth. The scripture text itself carries the night through to the end in the later passage — “able, in the great night of birth and death, to bring forth the light of all wisdom”: the night that is real and the night that is birth and death are a pair to be read together. Brought down to the ground: what the still of night removes is the darkness before one’s eyes, and what wisdom removes is the darkness of birth and death; one and the same good friend, one and the same act, and only the night that is shone upon is different.

The Four Clauses of Cutting Off Evil and Giving Birth to Good

The third passage of the text on converting beings begins with “furthermore.” What is done falls into two lengths: one is the cutting off of evil — “not to give rise to unlawful greed, not to give rise to wrong discrimination, and not to do the many kinds of deed that are offenses; and if they have already done them, to cause them all to be brought to a stop”; the other is the giving birth to good — “if they have not yet given rise to wholesome dharmas, have not yet cultivated the practice of the pāramitās, have not yet sought all-knowledge, have not yet raised the great kindness and compassion, have not yet done the deeds of humans and devas, to cause them all to give rise to these; and if they have already given rise to them, to cause them to increase them.” It closes with “conditions in accord with the Way such as these do I give them, and so on until I cause them to accomplish the knowledge of all-knowledge.”

Chengguan points straight at what this passage is matched to, saying, “afterward, from ‘furthermore’ onward, is the causing them to cultivate the four right eliminations.” The four right eliminations are: to cut off the evil already arisen, to cause the evil not yet arisen not to arise, to cause the good not yet arisen to arise, and to cause the good already arisen to increase; and the four clauses of the scripture text are just this form, except that the clause on causing the evil not yet arisen not to arise is set at the head, as “not to give rise to unlawful greed.”

Set aside a misreading: that cutting off evil and giving birth to good is a beginner’s matter, unbefitting a gate of liberation as high as this. The last clause of the scripture text says it plainly: what these four clauses arrive at is “the knowledge of all-knowledge.” Brought down to the ground: whether a Dharma gate is high is not seen in where it takes its start, but in where it delivers a person.

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

The end of the conferring is the humbling of herself and the pointing to the superior. The night goddess says, “I have gained only this bodhisattva gate of the liberation of Quiescence, Meditative Concentration, Joy, and the Universally Roaming Stride,” and then raises up the virtues of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas — furnished with all the practices and vows of Samantabhadra, penetrating all the boundless Dharma realm, increasing all roots of goodness, illumining and seeing the ten powers of the tathāgatas, abiding in the objective realms of the tathāgatas, “dwelling constantly in birth and death, their minds without obstruction,” and so on to “able, in the great night of birth and death, to bring forth the light of all wisdom,” closing with a single question: “how then could I know, or tell of, the practices that are their merit and virtue?”

Fazang, upon this passage, judges the number of its joints, saying, “within the fifth, the looking up and pointing, there are six: first, the pointing to the practices and vows of Samantabhadra; second, being apart from obstruction and furnished with goodness; third, accomplishing the objective realm of a buddha’s knowledge; fourth, dwelling in defilement without defilement; fifth, gathering in the buddhas and the Dharma; sixth, extinguishing darkness and shining upon the night.” The last of the six joints is “extinguishing darkness and shining upon the night,” answering exactly to the standing of this friend.

Set aside a misreading: that the humbling of herself is a belittling of herself. What she points to is not another Dharma gate that others have and she does not; it is what lies deeper and finer within one and the same Dharma gate. Brought down to the ground: a person is willing to say “I have gained only this” because he has truly seen that there is more beyond this — the one who has not seen it is the one who cannot say the words.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Not Far, to the Right, Joyful Eyes Beholding

Last comes the pointing out of the road: “not far from here, to the right of the site of awakening, there is a night goddess named Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings.” Three pieces of news — how far, on which side, what she is called — and Chengguan gives a gloss upon all three.

He says, “as for ‘not far from here,’ it is because they are assigned to the world alike. As for ‘to the right of the site of awakening,’ it is that light is emitted in reliance upon principle, and the sense is thereby made easy. As for ‘Joyful Eyes Beholding,’ because she bears with evil and looks upon beings she is called Joyful Eyes; because she emits the light of hearing and holding she is called Beholding.” Not far, because these two friends before and after are assigned to positions alike in the world, positions with nothing between them; to the right of the site of awakening, because light is emitted in reliance upon principle; and as for the name of the friend who comes next, Joyful Eyes takes its sense from bearing with evil and looking upon beings, and Beholding from emitting the light of hearing and holding.

Set aside a misreading: that “not far from here” is only a matter of the length of the road. What Chengguan glosses is the position — the positions touch, and therefore the road is not long. Brought down to the ground: the next one a good friend points out is often not one higher and further off, but one that touches upon this one; only where they touch can a person walk across.

The Beginning of the Verses Restating, and the Three Divisions of the Thirteen Verses

The prose passage done, the scripture text turns to verse: “at that time, the night goddess Universal Virtue Pure Light, wishing to state again the meaning of this liberation, spoke verses for Sudhana the youth, saying.” Below there are thirteen verses in twenty-six lines.

Chengguan divides them into three, saying, “afterward the verses restating: the thirteen verses divide into three — the first ten verses restate the direct conferring of the Dharma gate; the next two restate the humbling of herself and the pointing to the superior; the last one restates the pointing out of the next friend.” The three divisions answer to the three divisions of the prose passage: the direct conferring of the Dharma gate, the humbling and pointing to the superior, and the pointing out of the next friend. As the prose passage divides, so the verses divide.

Set aside a misreading: that the verses restating are the prose passage said over again and may be read lightly. The verses stand for two reasons: to state it again for those who come later, and to gather the sense of the prose passage into clauses that can be held. Brought down to the ground: in reading the verses, first look at which passage of the prose they answer to — where they answer, the two passages light each other up; where they do not, one feels that the verses have begun something else.

The First Ten Verses Restate the First Ten Dharmas, and the Sequence Is Uneven

What the first ten verses restate is the ten dharmas above, but the sequence is not the same as the prose passage’s. Chengguan does not avoid this; he says plainly, “in the former, the first ten dharmas are restated, and the text is a little out of order: the first four restate the first four dharmas in order; the fifth leaps ahead to restate the seventh; the sixth restates the sixth; the seventh turns back to restate the fifth; the eighth restates the tenth; the ninth restates the eighth; the tenth restates the ninth.”

By this matching: the first four verses restate the first four dharmas in order — the first verse, “if there is a mind of faith and understanding, one sees to the full the buddhas of the three times,” restates the samādhi and the seeing of the buddhas; the second, “look you upon the bodies of the buddhas, pure, their marks adorned,” restates the pure eye beholding the marks; the third restates the great sea of merit and virtue, raising up “the Tathāgata Rocana” as the buddha who is seen; the fourth restates the sea of the light of the Dharma. The fifth verse skips over to restate the transformations that fill everything, which is the seventh dharma; the sixth restates the flaming light of jeweled color, which is the sixth; the seventh turns back to restate the sending forth of light from the pores, which is the fifth; the eighth restates the mastery of taming, which is the tenth; the ninth restates the Buddha’s voice, which is the eighth; and the tenth restates the ninth, in the words “when the Buddha cultivated the many practices of old, he had already gathered me in.”

The fourth verse and the ninth each have a layer that should be pointed out. The fourth verse, “the Tathāgata knows the nature of dharmas, quiescent and without duality; with a body adorned by pure marks he shows himself everywhere to the worlds” — the first half is the nature of dharmas that is known, quiescent and not two; the second half is the body adorned with marks that is manifested, shown everywhere to the worlds; that the sea of the light of the Dharma is a sea lies precisely in knowing the quiescent nature without that obstructing the manifesting of a pure body: the two clauses rest upon one and the same Buddha, and are not two matters. The ninth verse, “the Buddha utters one wondrous voice, and every kind is made to understand; he rains down everywhere the vast Dharma, and makes them give rise to the intent of awakening” — the voice is one, the understanding differs kind by kind, what is rained down is the vast Dharma, and what is brought about is the giving rise to the intent of awakening: one voice and every kind understanding is the working of the Buddha’s voice; raining down the Dharma and making them give rise to the mind is its fruit. Restating the eighth dharma, the Buddha’s voice turning the Dharma wheel, it says the word “turning” to the full.

Set aside a misreading: that the unevenness of the sequence is an error of transmission. Not only does Chengguan not amend it, he marks out verse by verse which dharma is being restated. Brought down to the ground: the ten of the prose passage is the sequence of expounding the Dharma, and the ten of the verses is the sequence of being gathered in — the same ten matters, told in one sequence and sung in another.

The Last Three Verses: Two Verses of Humbling Herself, One Verse Pointing the Road

The eleventh and twelfth verses restate the humbling and the pointing to the superior: “the buddhas who appear in the world are as many in number as sentient beings; the objective realms of their many kinds of liberation are not what I am able to know”; “all the bodhisattvas enter into a single pore of a buddha; a wondrous liberation such as this is not what I am able to know.” The last clause of both verses reads alike, “not what I am able to know,” the one speaking in terms of the buddhas’ objective realms of liberation, the other in terms of the liberation that is a bodhisattva’s entering a pore.

The last verse restates the pointing out of the next friend: “near to this place there is a night goddess named Joyful Eyes Beholding; you ought to go to where she is and ask about the cultivating of the bodhisattva practices.” The prose passage says “not far from here,” and the verse says “near to this place”; the prose passage says “go there and ask her,” and the verse says “you ought to go to where she is.”

Set aside a misreading: that the two clauses “not what I am able to know” are a repetition. What is not known in the former clause is the buddhas’ objective realms of liberation; what is not known in the latter is a bodhisattva’s entering into a single pore — the one points upward, the other inward. Brought down to the ground: a word of humbling oneself is said twice and points to two different things, and so both directions of what one has not reached are pointed out.

One Clause of Taking Leave, and the Whole Unit Closes Here

The last passage is a single clause: “at that time, Sudhana the youth bowed to her feet, circled her numberless times, gazed up at her with earnest longing, and took his leave and departed.” Chengguan sets up no separate gloss here, saying only, “fourth, the taking of leave with respects, which may be known as it stands.”

Four things: bowing, circling, gazing up, taking leave. Set against the passage of seeing and paying respect at the opening of this section (bowing to her feet, circling her numberless times, and before her joining his palms), the form before and after is the same, with one thing more — “gazed up at her with earnest longing.” This one added joint is what there was not until after the Dharma had been heard.

Set aside a misreading: that taking leave is a set phrase that need not be read. If it were a set phrase, the coming and the going would read without a graph of difference. Brought down to the ground: coming in, he joined his palms and sought the Dharma; going out, he gazed up and parted — and what was gained in between is hidden in just this small difference.

Assigned to the Stainless Ground: Whose Judgment Is This

The outline title of this section in Chengguan’s Shu is “second, the night goddess Universal Virtue Pure Light, assigned to the Stainless Ground.” The scripture text itself does not say that this friend is assigned to the second ground — the judgment of ‘assigned position’ is a matching that Chengguan carries on from the ancient worthies, and not something the scripture text sets forth of itself.

The Yanyi chao glosses the reason for this matching, saying, “that is, because she is furnished with pure śīla and is apart from the defilement of the afflictions that can give rise to subtle transgressions.” The defilement left behind is not a coarse and evil transgression, but the defilement of the afflictions that “can give rise to subtle transgressions” — the cutting off is at the cause that can give rise to them. Fazang, upon the name of the friend in the sixty-fascicle text, likewise sets up a gloss, saying, “the precepts are without the defilement of mistaken transgression, and the knowledge has the merit of shining upon the conventional; therefore it says Stainless Light.” The two glosses are fastened to different things (the one glosses the name of the ground, the other the name of the friend), and yet both fasten the ‘defilement’ to the precepts.

And as between matching and not matching, Chengguan himself, at the place in this chapter where the five aspects are outlined, first brings out an evenhanded word, saying that of old the master Yi and the treatise of Terrace Mountain merely glossed the text as it came, with no separate matching, while masters such as Guangtong all matched the positions of the grounds, and then judging, “both have their reason” — not to match has its reason, because each and every position is furnished with many Dharma gates; and to match has its reason too, because “within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to display the positions is the constant rule, so to match them is no fault.” Brought down to the ground: in reading the four graphs ‘assigned to the Stainless Ground,’ remember that it is a measuring rod and not what the scripture text calls itself; the rod is of use, and the rod is not the thing measured.

Lineage

Of the text of this section, three streams open downward from it.

The first is the thread of the name and the substance and the working. Chengguan glosses the name of the Dharma gate by four parts and four senses, and further matches four kinds of meditation to the four passages of working — the meditation of attending to things as they really are to the ten clauses of seeing the buddhas without grasping; the meditation of dwelling in the joy of the present dharma to the four dhyānas; the meditation that draws forth merit and virtue to the passage of increasing and fulfilling; and the meditation that benefits sentient beings to the two passages of every kind of skillful means. And upon this he points out that these four meditations “differ from the dharma assigned at the third ground,” setting the dhyāna of this section apart from the dhyāna assigned at the third ground, the Luminous Ground, among the ten grounds. This one set of matchings is the framework upon which later readers of this unit have read it. The Yanyi chao further adduces here the two old sayings on matching the four dhyānas of the Laṅkāvatāra to positions, and makes clear that in this passage the third is the same as the fourth (cause and fruit interpenetrating); it also gathers the ten clauses into five pairs of substance and working, gathers the eighteen branches into the four classes of the Dilun, and takes the ten perceptions as largely the same as this scripture’s thirteen — all of them details under this one framework. Li Tongxuan passes besides an explicit judgment on the clause of the third dhyāna: he takes the base text's “their own nature weary of and turning away from birth and death” to be the translator's error, which should read “their nature of itself apart from birth and death, and so cultivating the third dhyāna” — this judgment belongs to Tongxuan, and the base text stands as it is.

The second is the thread of the glosses of the several houses upon the name and upon the substance of the concentration, each having its own track, recorded without adjudication. As to the essential nature of the name of the Dharma gate, Fazang, upon the three joints of the sixty-fascicle text, says, “quiescent extinction and the joy of concentration are the inward realization of the root knowledge; ‘vigor’ is the whipping up of cultivation by the subsequent knowledge. Following what comes below, the four dhyānas and the four exertions are taken as its essential nature”; Li Tongxuan, upon the name in the eighty-fascicle text, says, “this is the pāramitā of the precepts, taking the Dharma body as the substance of the precepts, since the nature of every objective realm is of itself dhyāna”; while Chengguan opens it graph by graph into four senses. As to the gloss upon the friend’s name, Fazang, upon the name in the sixty-fascicle text, glosses “the most excellent Dharma realm is called Utterly Deep, and the realizing entry of right knowledge is named Wondrous Virtue,” and Li Tongxuan, upon the name in the eighty-fascicle text, glosses “being furnished with kindness and nourishing the worldly, she is named Virtue; her knowledge is without doing, and its nature is of itself a great working reaching everywhere, and so she is named Goddess” — the names the two houses gloss are not one and the same form to begin with. As to the number of the outline divisions, Chengguan makes four; Fazang, under “she answered, saying,” opens five and sets up the looking up and pointing separately; Zhiyan makes three, and within the true entering opens three again; and Li Tongxuan does not outline unit by unit, but sets up five gates each for the passage of advancing upward before it and for the passage of true entering here. As to the judgment of position, Chengguan makes it assigned to the Stainless Ground; Fazang marks it the good friend of the second ground, the Stainless; Zhiyan makes it “the position of a bodhisattva of the second ground”; and Li Tongxuan likewise marks the second ground, the Stainless, with the pāramitā of the precepts as the chief and the other nine as its companions. All these divergent interpretations are settled sayings of the ancient worthies.

The third is the thread that fastens the two friends together. What is called to mind in the opening clause of this section is the raising of the mind and the dharmas gained of the friend before her, the night goddess Vāsantī; and Li Tongxuan further brings out a saying of his own, holding this friend to be the one who, when the friend before her was in a former kalpa the consort of a king, was “her teacher who awakened her in the night” — Chengguan, in glossing the friend’s name, likewise identifies her, “she is the Pure Moon of before, and so it says that from the first she gave rise to the mind,” only touching on it without spreading it out, while Li Tongxuan sets out its beginning and end in the fullest detail; Fazang’s Tanxuan ji and Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji do not go into the matter.

The text of one section: the former half is the name, the latter half the working. The name is taken apart into four parts and the working is opened into four passages — and Chengguan matches the senses opened out of the four parts as three workings: one passage for quiescence, one for concentration, and two for the universally roaming stride, with the sense of ‘joy’ gathered into the working of concentration. The evenness of this section lies wholly in this one graph, ‘match.’