華嚴經 義疏通講 · 冊3Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 3

Why the Last Chapter of the First Assembly Is a Story Out of the Ancient Past

Reading this chapter, the doubt a reader most readily raises is this: the preceding five chapters all spoke of the inconceivable sphere at the moment the Buddha had just attained the path — the Buddha's body, the light, the world-seas, the Lotus-Treasury world, growing broader and broader as they went; how is it that at the close of the first assembly the text suddenly turns into a story of ‘long, long ago’, telling of a prince named Great Majestic Light who saw four buddhas?

Look at where it is placed, and the doubt is resolved. Chengguan's determination of the reason for this chapter's coming is put with the utmost directness: “Earlier what was set forth was the fruit of this cause; now what is discerned is the cause of that earlier fruit. It answers the earlier question about the cause, and therefore it comes next.” What the preceding five chapters displayed is the “fruit” that a “cause” had brought to completion; what this chapter discerns is the “cause” by which that “fruit” came to be. He points out further that this question does not arise out of nowhere — the opening of the preceding chapter had already said that Vairocana “adorned and purified this by cultivating causes through vast kalpas”; well then, what exactly was that “cultivating causes through vast kalpas”? In this chapter “only now are those events made manifest.”

Li Tongxuan's way of setting it up differs, while what it comes home to is close: the preceding five chapters raise up the buddha-fruit of Vairocana in the present age, and one fears the reader will not be able to give rise to faith — “if in antiquity there were no former traces, whence should the present have come?” Therefore one must “cite the ancient to verify the present, making clear that the path is not mistaken.” The former speaks from the doctrinal sequence of cause and fruit; the latter speaks from the reader's faith. Both masters are recorded.

Coming down to how one reads: this chapter is not an interpolated legend, but the ‘provenance’ of the fruit set forth in the preceding five chapters. The endless adornment of the Lotus-Treasury world is not so of itself by nature; someone cultivated it kalpa after kalpa — this is the one sentence the whole assembly means to hand to the reader at the end.

Why the Chapter Is Titled with the Buddha's Name and Not with What It Narrates

What this chapter narrates is the past deeds of Prince Great Majestic Light; why then is the chapter named “Vairocana”? Chengguan gives an answer of the utmost concision: “the cause is the cause of that fruit, and therefore the title bears the name of the fruit” — what is discerned is indeed a cause, and yet this cause is the cause of that fruit, and so it is still with the name of the fruit that the chapter is titled. He adds one further layer: if one does not take the dharma by way of a person, the reader will have no way at all of knowing “whose” cause this is.

Fazang treats the same question on the side of the sixty-fascicle text, and puts the question more sharply: this whole long segment plainly discerns worlds at length — “why is it not called the World chapter, but is instead titled with the Buddha's name?” First he records the ancient worthies' answer: “Because it is named from the lord. Because the lord is the more excellent, the lord of the land is raised up in speaking of it.” Then he brings out his own explanation: because the Buddha extends through the three kinds of world, the receptacle world and the rest, and is complete in the ten bodies, the lands and the rest spoken of in the text below “are precisely the Buddha Rocana,” just as among the ten bodies there is a land-body; and again, because that which is depended upon and that which depends are unobstructed, the title and the exposition raise up each other, which is only a matter of the patterning of the words; and again, among the five oceans, the ocean of buddhas already contains the other four oceans, and because the Buddha is the more excellent, he alone is set up as the standard.

Li Tongxuan says it most briefly of all: “this chapter takes its name from its lord. It cites the ancient buddhas to establish faith in the present, and so it takes the Buddha's title as the name of the chapter.”

Clear away one misreading: do not suppose that the title's not matching the content is an oversight of the translator. The three masters answer differently, and their answers must be taken apart: Chengguan attaches it to cause and fruit — “the cause is the cause of that fruit, and therefore the title bears the name of the fruit”; Li Tongxuan attaches it to the manner of naming — “this chapter takes its name from its lord”; Fazang, going straight to the unobstructedness of that which is depended upon and that which depends, determines that “the lands and the rest in the text below are precisely the Buddha Rocana.” Among them it is Fazang alone who says outright that the world is not outside the Buddha; to title with the Buddha's name and yet speak of worlds is, on the sense of this one master, precisely meant to keep the reader from seeing the two as two separate things.

How the Four Graphs of “Vairocana” Are to Be Construed

For the explanation of the name in this chapter, Chengguan gives only one sentence: “put concisely, it means light shining everywhere; at length it is as explained before” — the detail was already given in the preceding chapter and is not repeated here. Hence for the fuller explanation of the name in this chapter one must go to the two masters Fazang and Li Tongxuan.

Fazang takes the graphs apart: “Rocana is here translated as ‘light shining’, and vai here means ‘everywhere’; that is to say, light shining everywhere.” He also records three old renderings handed down from antiquity — some said ‘complete in the three kinds of action’, some ‘complete in purity’, some ‘broadly vast, adorned and pure’ — and takes “Vairocana”, as obtained by examining the Sanskrit text, as the full name. He then divides both “light” and “everywhere” in two: light is of the light of wisdom and the light of the body; the light of wisdom is again divided into shining upon dharmas (mirroring both the real and the conventional) and shining upon capacities (responding universally to every sort of being), and the light of the body again into the constant light (perfectly bright and unobstructed) and the light released (rousing to awakening by means of light). “Everywhere” too is of two kinds: first, the level and unbroken everywhere, unobstructed and universally encompassing; second, the layer-upon-layer everywhere, like the repeated appearances in Indra's net. Most important of all is the judgment he lays down — “these two are perfectly interfused, each pervading everywhere in its entire substance; it is not a partial pervading.”

Li Tongxuan's construal differs: “vai means ‘of every kind’, and rocana means ‘light’; that is to say, with the compassion and wisdom of the dharma-body he sets up lights of teaching and practice of every kind, and thereby breaks the darkness of sentient beings' deeds.” Fazang construes vai as ‘everywhere’, Li Tongxuan construes vai as ‘of every kind’. Both accounts are recorded, with no ranking of higher and lower.

Where it comes down to earth: whether one construes it as ‘everywhere’ or as ‘of every kind’, neither master permits light to be read as a spectacle. Light is the wisdom that shines upon dharmas and shines upon capacities; everywhere is a pervading of the whole substance and not an occupying of a portion — and this settles how the light of the four buddhas below, and the prince's obtaining of the Dharma, ought to be read.

Tenet and Aim: What This Chapter Means to Verify and Establish

Chengguan sets up the tenet and aim in one sentence: “to make clear that the cause is vast is the tenet; to verify and establish the fruit set forth earlier is the aim” — the tenet made clear is the ‘vastness of the cause’, and the aim it comes home to is the ‘verifying and establishing of the fruit set forth earlier’.

This one sentence is in fact the general guide to reading the whole chapter. If one reads this chapter as a story of encouragement, the weight will fall on ‘how vigorous the prince was’; on Chengguan's determination, the weight should fall in two places: first, on the “vastness” of the cause — serving four buddhas, passing through oceans of kalpas, changing identity several times and yet never shifting what he sought; second, on the answering of this cause to the fruit of the preceding five chapters — only as broad as the cause is can the fruit be great. If a reader feels that the adornment of the Lotus-Treasury world is so remote as not to be his own affair, this chapter is precisely what fills in that distance.

The Time of These Past Deeds: A Number of Kalpas, First Stretching the Scale Open

The scriptural text begins with Samantabhadra speaking: “In an age long past, after kalpas as many as the dust-motes of a world, and then that number doubled again, there was a world-sea named: Universal Gate of Pure Light.” Chengguan determines this to be “first, a general clarification of the time of these past deeds,” and notes that this time is “kalpas as many as the dust-motes of two buddha-lands” — the dust-mote number of kalpas doubled again, that is, twice the dust-mote number of a buddha-land in kalpas.

First a question: why must the time be spoken of on so unmeasurable a scale? Answer: because the fruit to be verified and established is that fruit of boundless oceans of lands in the preceding five chapters. Cause and fruit must answer to each other; if the cause lay within a few lives and a few kalpas, the fruit could not be borne up by it. Clear away one misunderstanding: this is not the rhetoric of exaggeration but a doctrinal necessity — that Chengguan is willing to convert it into “kalpas as many as the dust-motes of two buddha-lands” shows exactly that the ancient worthies read it as a real measure and not as a figure of speech.

Coming down to oneself: the best use to make of this sentence is not astonishment at the numbers but a loosening of the calculation of ‘how many years before practice shows results’. From its very first line this chapter has changed the scale.

The Place of These Past Deeds (1): The World-Sea and the World Excellent Sound

Chengguan determines that from “there was a world” onward is “a separate display of the place of these past deeds,” and within the place there are again three: a general clarification of the ocean of lands, a separate clarification of one land, and pointing precisely to one quarter.

The general clarification of the ocean of lands is the single sentence “a world-sea named: Universal Gate of Pure Light.” The separate clarification of one land is “there was a world named: Excellent Sound, which rested upon a sea of nets of maṇi flowers and had as its retinue worlds as many as the dust-motes of Mount Sumeru” — and here Chengguan records one thing: “omitting the land-seeds.” The chapter “The Lotus-Treasury World” always lists the land-seeds when it speaks of a world-sea; here they are passed over and not spoken of, and the ancient worthy records this as the facts stand, without forcing a supplement.

Whence comes the name Excellent Sound? Chengguan's answer is of the utmost concision: “the land is named Excellent Sound because many buddhas appear in the world there with the sound of expounding the Dharma” — this world is named Excellent Sound because many buddhas appear there in the world and expound the Dharma. This sentence in fact announces the whole chapter beforehand: in the text below, Tathāgatas as many as the dust-motes of ten Mount Sumerus arise here, and the four buddhas follow one another, all of them footnotes to this name.

The scripture goes on to say that its shape was perfectly round, that its ground had immeasurable adornments, that it was encircled by three hundred layers of jeweled trees and ring-shaped mountain walls, that clouds of every jewel covered it over, that clothing and food came at the mere thought of them, and at the end it gives the kalpa's name, “Adornments of Every Kind.” Chengguan determines this as “next, setting forth its characteristics; afterward, giving the name of the kalpa — this may be known” — the setting forth of characteristics and the giving of the kalpa's name are two passages plain in wording and needing no laborious explanation.

The Place of These Past Deeds (2): The Sea of Fragrant Waters, the Great Flowering Sumeru, and the Great Grove of the Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches

Within the pointing precisely to one quarter, the first is “a general clarification of the place of stimulus and response,” that is, the three passages on the sea of fragrant waters, the flowering mountain, and the great grove.

On the “sea of fragrant waters” Chengguan distinguishes one important thing: “the first clarification, of the fragrant sea, is not the sea that upholds the land-seeds; it is just like the sea of the four continents in the present age” — this sea of fragrant waters is not that sea of fragrant waters in the chapter “The Lotus-Treasury World” which bears up the land-seeds, but corresponds only to the sea of this set of four continents of ours. Clearing away an error: a reader who has just come out of the endless seas of fragrant waters of the Lotus-Treasury chapter will very readily go on reading the sea of fragrant waters here as being of the same order; the ancient worthy's distinguishing them here is a reminder that what this chapter speaks of is an affair within ‘one set of four continents’, as one might speak of a single set of four continents within the Sahā world.

Out of the sea there emerges a great flowering Mount Sumeru named Banner of Flaming Blossoms Universally Adorned, with railings of ten jewels encircling it all around — Chengguan determines this as “second, from ‘that sea’ onward, the sea puts forth the flowering mountain.” Upon the mountain there is a great grove named Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches, wherein flower-pavilions, jeweled terraces and belvederes, banners of wondrous fragrance, banners of jeweled mountains, jeweled puṇḍarīka flowers, and nets of fragrant maṇi lotuses are ranged layer upon layer — Chengguan determines this as “third, from ‘upon that mountain’ onward, clarifying the grove on the mountain's summit: first indicating it, afterward displaying its adornment,” and he points out the intent in speaking of this grove: “this grove is spoken of because the Buddha appears within it.” This sentence is of the first importance: in the text below all four buddhas appear in the world within this one grove, and the grove is the fixed point of the whole chapter. As for the cities and their inhabitants, “the cities and their inhabitants are spoken of as a general raising up of those to be transformed” — they are there in order to raise up in general the capacities to be transformed.

Li Tongxuan sets up a different outline for this segment, dividing it “in meaning into eight” (the sea of fragrant waters and its name; the flowering mountain within the sea; the ten adornments of the mountain; the great grove upon the mountain and its name; the five kinds of immeasurable things upon the mountain; the general raising up of adornments too many to record; the number of cities upon the mountain; the mixed classes of beings dwelling together), and in passing he construes one term: “as for what is called the puṇḍarīka flower, this means the white lotus.” The two masters' ways of dividing differ; both are recorded.

The Place of These Past Deeds (3): The Principal City, Flaming Light

Chengguan determines that from “Sons of the Buddha, to the east of this grove” onward is “a separate clarification of the inhabitants who are able to stimulate,” and within it there are three: indicating the two kinds of city, principal and companion; explaining the principal city at length; explaining the companion cities concisely.

In indicating principal and companion he first distinguishes one doubt: the text below plainly has cities of gods, so why is a human city the principal one? Answer: “though there are cities of gods, because the Buddha appears there the human city is the principal one” — the criterion for determining principal and companion is where the Buddha appears in the world and transforms beings, not the height of the station.

The explanation of the principal city at length first displays the adorning of the place and afterward sets forth the excellence of its people. In the passage on the adorning of the place Chengguan explains several names of things: “what is on the city wall for defense is called a watchtower; the earthen terrace built up separately around the city is called a counter-terrace” — the scriptural phrase “turrets, watchtowers, and counter-terraces” names the system of a city's defenses; “utpala and the rest are the lotuses of the four colors: blue, red, yellow, and white” — the scripture lists the four flowers utpala, padma, kumuda, and puṇḍarīka, which are precisely the four colors blue, red, yellow, and white. The intent here is not in the architecture but in displaying the thickness of the blessings and recompense of the capacities to be transformed.

The setting forth of the excellence of the people lies in the passage “among all the inhabitants of this great city there was not one who had not accomplished the supernormal power of movement that comes as the fruit of deeds, so that they could come and go riding upon space, moving as the gods do.” Clearing away an error: the supernormal power here is what the fruit of deeds brings about, not a supernormal power obtained by cultivation — the scripture itself says “the supernormal power of movement that comes as the fruit of deeds.” However thick their blessings and recompense, they must still wait for a buddha to appear before they obtain the Dharma; and this is the reason for what follows.

The Place of These Past Deeds (4): The Companion Cities and the Caution Against a Single Pattern

Chengguan determines that from “to the south of that city” onward is “explaining the companion cities concisely,” first discerning the cities' names and the classes that dwell in them, afterward displaying their encircling adornment. The scripture lists the city of gods Adorned with Flowering Trees, the city of dragons Ultimate, the city of yakṣas Banner of Adamantine Excellence and Wonder, the city of gandharvas Wondrous Palace, the city of asuras Jeweled Wheel, the city of garuḍas Adorned with Wondrous Jewels, the city of kiṃnaras Play and Delight, the city of mahoragas Vajra Banner, and the city of Brahmā kings Adorned with Wonders of Every Kind — and so on, to a million koṭis of nayutas of them.

At the close of this passage Chengguan lays down a caution: “worlds differ, and their establishing is somewhat different; one may not take this as the pattern for them” — the establishing of each world is different to begin with, and the city-system of this world may not be taken as the general pattern. This sentence matters especially for the reader: the geography of this chapter is not a map of the cosmos but the actual state of that one world; to extract it and take it as a model of all worlds is precisely what the ancient worthy fends off.

The Place of These Past Deeds (5): The Site of Awakening, Universal Radiance of Jeweled Flowers, and the Great Lotus

The third, “a separate display of the adorning of the site of awakening,” Chengguan divides in two: first discerning the adorning of the place, then “second, from ‘in front of that site of awakening’ onward, it clarifies that the lotus and the fragrant sea are for the sake of the Buddha's appearing.”

The site of awakening is named Universal Radiance of Jeweled Flowers; within it wheels of maṇi flowers are opened wide and filled everywhere, incense lamps burn constantly, clouds of flame of jewel-colors spread over and cover it, nets of light shine everywhere, all the articles of adornment constantly produce wondrous jewels, all the music constantly plays elegant strains, and maṇi jewel-kings manifest the bodies of bodhisattvas — the weight of this passage lies in the fact that the “articles of adornment” themselves put forth jewels, put forth sound, and manifest bodies: that is, the receptacle world is itself an instrument of expounding the Dharma.

In front of the site of awakening there is a great sea named Fragrant Maṇi Adamant, out of which comes forth a great lotus named Wheel of Flame from the Flower's Stamens, a hundred koṭis of yojanas broad, encircled by ten unspeakable hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of lotuses. Chengguan makes plain the use of this flower: “for the sake of the Buddha's appearing” — in the text below the first buddha indeed “suddenly appeared within the great lotus at that site of awakening.” Clearing away an error: reading this passage one readily takes it for a description of scenery, when in fact it is a seat set in advance for the Buddha's appearing; the scripture's narrations of adornment have always had their function and are not mere embellishment.

The General Raising Up of the Many Buddhas Within the Kalpa: Which “First” Is “the First Kalpa”

Chengguan determines that from “in the first kalpa of that world Excellent Sound” onward is “a separate display of the past deeds within that time,” falling into two: “first, a general raising up of the many buddhas within the kalpa; afterward, from ‘the first of them’ onward, a separate display one by one, properly setting forth the past deeds.” And he records one thing: “the scripture as transmitted is not complete, and therefore there is no general conclusion” — there is no concluding wording at the end of this chapter because the text as handed down is incomplete, not because a conclusion is doctrinally unneeded. This is the ancient worthy's record as the facts stand, and the reader need not supply the lack.

The general raising up is the single sentence “there arose in the world Tathāgatas as many as the dust-motes of ten Mount Sumerus.” On the three graphs “the first kalpa” Chengguan distinguishes a doubt: “saying ‘the first kalpa’ means the kalpa Adornments of Every Kind. Since it says ‘first’, then that there are further great kalpas after this is not contrary to principle” — what is called the first is the first as taken within this one segment of past deeds; that there are further great kalpas after it is not contrary to principle.

This sentence draws out a passage of discernment at the opening of the Yanyi chao. The reason Chengguan must say “not contrary to principle” is to fend off a difficulty raised by Master Jingfa: the text below says that a great kalpa has small kalpas as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, that the human lifespan is two small kalpas, that the Buddha's lifespan was fifty koṭis of years, and that Majestic Light served three buddhas in succession and upon the turning of his recompense was born in heaven; now it is said that within the first kalpa there were buddhas as many as the dust-motes of ten Mount Sumerus — is it, then, that within that land there are further many great kalpas and this is the first great one, or is it that among the small kalpas the first small one is taken? The subcommentary records his question, and the commentary fends it off with “not contrary to principle.” This question is recorded, and no answer is given on his behalf.

Coming down to how one reads: the Huayan is without beginning, and any “first” is a first with respect to one segment of narration. To read it as an absolute starting point is precisely what this passage of the ancient worthies' discernment means to prevent.

Serving Four Buddhas in Succession: The Skeleton of the Whole Chapter

Chengguan determines the segment properly displaying the past deeds to be “the serving of four buddhas in succession, which makes four distinctions”: first, meeting the Buddha Excellent Cloud of the Sumeru of the Mountain of All Merit; second, the Buddha Adorned with the Good Eye of the Perfections; third, the Buddha Ocean of Most Excellent Merit; fourth, the Buddha Banner of the Lotus Eye of Universally Heard Renown — “each of them has the words ‘Sons of the Buddha’.” Each segment opens with Samantabhadra calling out “Sons of the Buddha,” and this is the textual warrant for the division.

Li Tongxuan's way of dividing differs: he lays out the chapter in an extended outline of fifteen segments, and here he lays down a determination: “four buddhas appear in the world, which altogether makes clear that the single title Vairocana differs in name according as it responds to conditions in the world, and that it is not that the Buddha's names and titles are different” — the four buddhas are not four honored ones, but the single title Vairocana differing in name as it responds to conditions in the world. He also places his warrant in the chapter “The Names of the Buddha” below: each and every buddha is complete in names and titles that follow conditions and are equal to the Dharma realm and the realm of sentient beings, and all the names in the world are the names of the buddhas.

He further sets up a passage of question and answer to handle whether the ancient buddhas and the present buddha are one or different: “as for the ancient buddhas and the present buddha, are they one or different?” The answer, “they are one and they are different” — the dharma-body and the wisdom-body, the marks of a great person, great loving-kindness and great compassion, wisdom and liberation, are one; each and every sentient being raising the mind and attaining buddhahood, they are different; the buddhas of the three times all attaining buddhahood in a single thought without earlier or later limit, they are one, and yet this does not undo the seeing, within that single thought, of the measure of the kalpas of the three times of immeasurable sentient beings, and so they are different. He says this must “be comprehended and understood by the ten mysterious gates and the sense of the six characteristics,” and adduces the scripture as verification: “the bodies of all the buddhas are only one dharma-body, one mind and one wisdom, and so likewise are the powers and the fearlessnesses.”

Recorded without adjudication: Chengguan establishes the four distinctions by the opening phrases of the scriptural text; Li Tongxuan outlines it in fifteen segments and determines that the four buddhas bear one title. The two tracks stand side by side.

The First Buddha (1): The Three Parts of the Buddha's Title, Each Standing for a Virtue

The passage on the first buddha Chengguan divides into six: the general indication of the Buddha's title; the prior auspicious signs ripening the capacities; the proper display of the Buddha's arising; the light from between the brows rousing and summoning; those whose capacities are ripe gathering like clouds; the extensive setting forth of the Dharma-gates. What follows reads by these six.

First comes the general indication: “the first buddha of them was titled: Excellent Cloud of the Sumeru of the Mountain of All Merit.” Why is the Buddha's title so long? Chengguan explains part by part what each stands for: “‘the mountain of all merit’ means that his blessings and merit are so lofty and steep that one cannot look up to them. Saying further ‘Sumeru’ means that his concentration and wisdom are so high and wondrous that they are hard to shake. Saying ‘excellent cloud’ means that the covering of his loving-kindness and the moistening of his wisdom are vast and boundless.” The mountain stands for the loftiness of blessings and merit, past looking up to; Sumeru stands for the height and wonder of concentration and wisdom, not to be shaken; the excellent cloud stands for the covering of loving-kindness and the moistening of wisdom, vast and boundless.

Clear away one misunderstanding: a buddha's name is not merely a form of address. That Chengguan explains part by part what each stands for shows that in this scripture a buddha's name is a gathering of items of virtue; to read a buddha's title is to read a list of qualities. Coming down to earth: these three parts are exactly the three faces of practice — blessings, concentration and wisdom, loving-kindness and wisdom; when the reader meets a long name and knows it to be three things, the name is no longer a string of syllables hard to remember.

The First Buddha (2): A Hundred Years Before the Buddha Appeared, the Ten Auspicious Signs

Chengguan determines that from “Sons of the Buddha” onward is “the prior auspicious signs ripening the capacities,” falling into two: first the manifesting of signs that ripen the capacities; second, from “within that world” onward, the seeing of the signs and the ripening of capacities. Within the former there are again three: first indicating the time (namely, a hundred years beforehand); next, from “this maṇi” onward, properly displaying the signs, of which there are ten; afterward, from “manifesting such” onward, concluding the intent of the signs.

The signs the scriptural text lists are these: the appearing of inconceivable clouds of jeweled flame; the giving forth of the sound praising the buddhas' merits; the sending forth of the sounds of countless buddhas; the stretching out of light spread as a net, filling and covering the ten directions; the palaces and pavilions shining upon one another; the light of the jeweled flowers surging up and gathering into clouds; and further, wondrous sounds going forth to proclaim the vast roots of goodness that all sentient beings had practiced in former lives; to proclaim the names and titles of all the buddhas of the three times; to proclaim the ultimate path of the vows and practices cultivated by the bodhisattvas; and to proclaim the various words in which the Tathāgatas turn the wondrous wheel of Dharma. Chengguan determines these to be ten in number.

What matters is that he attaches an intent to each of the last four signs: “that it proclaims what was practiced in former lives is in order to show that their seeds are about to ripen. That it proclaims the names and titles of the buddhas is in order to make them remembered. That it proclaims the great practices and vows is in order to make them cultivated and raised. That it proclaims the turning of the wheel of Dharma is in order that they may hear and study it beforehand and so give rise to the Dharma-eye.” To proclaim what sentient beings practiced in former lives is to display that the seeds of their roots of goodness are about to ripen; to proclaim the buddhas' names is to make people remember; to proclaim the bodhisattvas' vows and practices is to make people cultivate and raise them; to proclaim the turning of the wheel of Dharma is to let people hear and study it beforehand and thereafter give rise to the Dharma-eye.

Clearing away an error: the auspicious signs are not a ceremony of announcement; they are the transforming itself. The Buddha has not yet appeared, and the transforming has already begun — what is called “ripening the capacities” is precisely the nourishing of capacities to ripeness while the Buddha has not yet appeared. Where it comes down to earth is in the scripture's own concluding words: “because all the kings in that world saw these signs, their roots of goodness ripened, and all of them, wishing to see the Buddha, came to the site of awakening.” When capacities are ripe they come of themselves, without waiting to be summoned.

The First Buddha (3): To Appear in One Place Is to Appear Everywhere

Chengguan determines that from “at that time” onward is the proper display of the Buddha's arising, falling into two: “first, the attaining of the path in one place; second, from ‘just as … here’ onward, a concluding statement extending it broadly everywhere.”

In the attaining of the path in one place, the Buddha “suddenly appeared within the great lotus at that site of awakening.” The two graphs “suddenly” are to be attended to — he does not come from without, nor arrive by degrees. Then his body is described: “his body pervaded and covered all, equal to the true Dharma realm; in all buddha-lands he manifested his birth, and to all sites of awakening he went”; boundless was the wonder of his colors, complete in purity; no one in any world could outshine him; within every palace his image appeared; all sentient beings were able to see the boundless transformation-buddhas issuing from his body.

First a question: if it is said that “his body pervaded and covered all, equal to the true Dharma realm,” how can it also be said that he ‘appeared within the great lotus’? Do the one and the everywhere not obstruct each other? The scriptural text itself gives the answer — “just as he manifested his body and sat upon the seat here in this sea of fragrant waters of Pure Light, upon the summit of the Sumeru named Banner Adorned with Flaming Blossoms, within the great grove of the Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches, so also, upon the sixty-eight thousand koṭis of Sumeru summits in that world Excellent Sound, he likewise manifested his body there and sat.” To manifest his body upon this one seat is to manifest it at the same moment upon sixty-eight thousand koṭis of Sumeru summits. Chengguan determines this to be “the concluding statement extending it broadly everywhere.”

Clearing away an error: this is not a trick of multiplying bodies. Multiplying bodies means one body producing many bodies; what is spoken of here is that the body from the first pervades and is equal to the true Dharma realm — and therefore wherever he manifests, he does not come from somewhere else. Coming down to earth: if at this point the reader entertains the thought that ‘the Buddha is only over there’, the sense of the Dharma realm established in the preceding five chapters comes to nothing.

The First Buddha (4): The Light from Between the Brows Rouses and Summons; Whatever the Light Touches Awakens

In the fourth passage, the Buddha “then released from between his brows a great light, and that light was named: Sound That Rouses All Roots of Goodness; it had as its retinue lights as many as the dust-motes of ten buddha-lands, and it filled all the lands of the ten directions.”

Why does a light have a name? The name is its function — “Sound That Rouses All Roots of Goodness.” What this light does the scriptural text lists in the finest detail: if there are sentient beings who can be tamed, then as soon as the light touches them they awaken of themselves, quiet the burning fevers of the afflictions, tear open the nets of the coverings, crush the mountains of the obstructions, wash clean the defilements and turbidity, give rise to great faith and understanding, produce surpassing roots of goodness, forever leave behind every calamity and terror, extinguish every suffering of body and mind, give rise to the mind that wishes to see the Buddha, and turn toward omniscience.

This string should be read as a sequence: first quieting (quieting the burning fevers of the afflictions); next breaking (tearing the nets of the coverings, crushing the mountains of the obstructions, washing clean the defilements and turbidity); then producing (giving rise to faith and understanding, producing roots of goodness); then departing (leaving behind calamity and terror, extinguishing the sufferings of body and mind); and only last, turning toward (giving rise to the mind that wishes to see the Buddha, turning toward omniscience). Clearing away an error: the light is not an atmosphere of blessing but an actual working of transformation — every clause has something it counters and something it produces.

The scriptural text goes on: “at that time all the lords of the world, together with their retinues, immeasurable hundreds of thousands of them, having been awakened by the Buddha's light, all went to where the Buddha was and bowed their heads to his feet” — this sentence is the beginning of “those whose capacities are ripe gathering like clouds,” and it also proves that the light spoken of before was indeed effective.

The First Buddha (5): King Delightful-to-See Good Wisdom and Prince Great Majestic Light

Among those whose capacities are ripe, the scripture singles out one household: “in that great city Flaming Light there was a king named: Delightful-to-See Good Wisdom, who ruled over a million koṭis of nayutas of cities; consorts and court women thirty-seven thousand in number, with Blessed Auspiciousness as their foremost; princes five hundred in number, with Great Majestic Light as their foremost; and Prince Great Majestic Light had ten thousand consorts, with Wondrous Sight as their foremost.”

Why must the numbers of this household and the names of the foremost be listed one by one? Because the protagonist of the whole chapter that follows comes from it. The king's name is “Delightful-to-See Good Wisdom” — to see him is to be delighted, and his wisdom is good; the prince's name is “Great Majestic Light” — answering to the Buddha's light spoken of above. The scripture states the prince's station in a single phrase: foremost among the five hundred princes. Clearing away an error: this is not the laying out of a pedigree, but the marking of a concrete position for “one whose capacities are ripe” — not an abstract sentient being, but the son of a certain king of a certain city in a certain world. However broad the Huayan's expounding of Dharma, it always comes down upon one concrete person.

Coming down to earth: here the reader meets for the first time a person he can compare himself to. He is not a bodhisattva but the son of a human king; and all he has to rely on is “the power of the roots of goodness cultivated in the past.”

The First Buddha (6): The Ten Dharma-Gates the Prince Realized

“When Prince Great Majestic Light had seen the light of the Buddha, then, by the power of the roots of goodness he had cultivated in the past, he at that moment realized ten Dharma-gates.” Look first at the three junctures of this sentence: what he met with was the Buddha's light (not the hearing of Dharma); what he relied upon was the power of roots of goodness cultivated in the past (not the effort of this present life); what he obtained was realized at that very moment (not accomplished by degrees of cultivation). Clearing away an error: this does not say that roots of goodness may be had without cultivating them — quite the contrary; the three graphs “cultivated in the past” make plain that the sudden obtaining of this moment rests entirely upon the accumulation of ages past. The suddenness is in this life, the gradualness in kalpas past.

The ten gates, item by item, are as follows:

One, he realized the samādhi of the wheel of the merits of all the buddhas — that samādhi comes first means the root of what is obtained lies in concentration; “wheel of merits” means that the buddhas' merits turn without cease as a wheel turns.

Two, he realized the dhāraṇī of the universal gate of all buddha-dharmas — a dhāraṇī is that which holds all together; within one dharma it holds together the gate of all buddha-dharmas, and hence is called the universal gate; obtaining it, what he hears is not lost.

Three, he realized the prajñā-pāramitā of the treasury of vast skillful means — prajñā is the wisdom that goes to the other shore, and this wisdom has “vast skillful means” as that within which it is held: wisdom does not arise alone but is always together with skillful means.

Four, he realized the great loving-kindness of the great adornment that tames all sentient beings — loving-kindness is the giving of joy; that it is called “great adornment” is because the taming of all sentient beings is what constitutes its adorning, and not the beauty of one's own person.

Five, he realized the great compassion of the sound of the universal cloud — compassion is the drawing out of suffering; as a cloud covers everywhere and as sound reaches everywhere, so the character of compassion lies in making no selection.

Six, he realized the great sympathetic joy of the most excellent mind that produces boundless merit — sympathetic joy is to rejoice in another's joy; this joy is able to produce the most excellent mind of boundless merit, and hence joy is not an emotion but a cause producing merit.

Seven, he realized the great equanimity that awakens to all dharmas as they really are — equanimity is not abiding; and the reason for this equanimity lies in “awakening to all dharmas as they really are,” so that equanimity is not coldness but the non-grasping that follows upon seeing clearly.

Eight, he realized the great spiritual power of the treasury of equality of vast skillful means — spiritual power too has skillful means as its treasury and equality as its substance, so that this power is not for one's own distinction but for the equality of its use.

Nine, he realized the great vow that increases the power of faith and understanding — that a vow can be sustained lies in the increase of the power of faith and understanding; if faith and understanding do not increase, the vow must fall back.

Ten, he realized the gate of eloquence of the light that enters universally into omniscience — eloquence is the capacity to expound the Dharma, and its gate lies in “entering universally into the light of omniscience,” so that eloquence does not come from a gift of speech but from wisdom.

Surveying the ten gates: the first is concentration; the second is holding together; the third is wisdom; the fourth through the seventh are the four immeasurables (loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity); the eighth is spiritual power; the ninth is vow; the tenth is eloquence. The four immeasurables stand in the middle and take four of the ten, which shows where the weight lies. Coming down to earth: if the reader asks ‘what can one obtain from seeing a buddha's light once’, the scripture's answer is not a marvel but these ten things — concentration, holding together, wisdom, loving-kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy and equanimity, spiritual power, vow, and eloquence.

The Prince's First Verses: Ten Verses Praising the Buddha's Light and Spiritual Powers

“When Prince Great Majestic Light had obtained this light of Dharma, then, upheld by the Buddha's majestic power, he looked out over the great assembly and spoke these verses” — the speaker is the prince, what he relies upon is the Buddha's majestic power, and those he addresses are the great assembly. The verses are ten in all.

The sequence of the verses is worth noting: the first two verses praise how rarely a buddha's appearing in the world is met with (“only after immeasurable koṭis of thousands of kalpas does a guiding teacher appear”); of the middle five verses, three exhort contemplation with “look, all of you” and “you should contemplate” — contemplate the Buddha's light, contemplate the Buddha's spiritual powers, contemplate the Buddha's body; the two after them turn to relate the wondrous sound spread through the world and the benefit of the light bringing ease to sentient beings; and the last three turn to praising the assembly at the site of awakening and the Buddha's spiritual power. Clearing away an error: this is not an outpouring of feeling but an exhortation to contemplate — the first thing the prince does upon obtaining the Dharma is to call the whole assembly to look together. Coming down to earth: the first movement of one who has obtained the Dharma is to direct it back to the assembly, and this lies on the same line as the king's gathering of the assembly and the bodhisattva's revealing, further on.

At the end the scripture records its effect: “by the Buddha's spiritual power the sound was carried everywhere throughout the world Excellent Sound” — a prince's verses, by the Buddha's spiritual power, pervade a whole world, and this is the occasion of the king's hearing the verses below.

The King Hears the Verses and Gathers the Assembly: A Mobilization Throughout the City

“At that time King Delightful-to-See Good Wisdom, having heard these verses, was greatly gladdened in mind, and looking over his retinue he spoke these verses” — the speaker turns to the king, and those he addresses are his retinue. The verses are eleven in all.

What the king's verses say is entirely a matter of mobilization: summon the hosts of kings, the princes, the great ministers, the magistrates of the towns; beat the great drums, ring the jeweled bells; purify the walled cities, raise banners, spread canopies, set out musical entertainments; adorn and purify the roads, rain down wondrous garments, make ready jeweled carriages; and further, rain down articles of adornment, canopies of lotuses, necklaces, wondrous garments, fragrant waters, sandalwood, and jeweled lamps to stand in the air. The last verse gathers it up: “take all of it and offer it to the Buddha, and let your minds give rise to great gladness; let wives and retinues go as one to see him who is honored by the world.”

First a question: why should seeing the Buddha require so grand an array? Answer: what this whole segment displays is offering — what lies within the king's power is this. The prince praised the Buddha with the light of Dharma; the king offers the Buddha what his kingdom possesses; the one is a gift of wisdom, the other a gift of wealth. Clearing away an error: do not read it as pomp. The scripture deliberately has every item “made to stand in the air” and “fill the whole of space,” in order to display that the mind of offering is not confined by the ground. Coming down to earth: to rain down articles of adornment everywhere, each according to his own strength — the single line “each of you, according to your own strength” is the most practical word these verses have for the reader.

The Gathering Like Clouds: A Nation's Host and the Kings of the Eight Classes Go to One Assembly

The scripture goes on to narrate the actual going to the assembly: the king, with thirty-seven thousand consorts and court women (with Blessed Auspiciousness as their foremost), five hundred princes (with Great Majestic Light as their foremost), and sixty thousand great ministers (with Power of Wisdom as their foremost) — and so on, a host of seventy-seven hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas — came out from the great city Flaming Light, went riding upon space, their articles of offering filling the whole of space, and arriving where the Buddha was they bowed their heads and withdrew to sit at one side.

Then it lists the kings of the eight classes, each coming with his retinue: the god-king Banner of Good Transformation of the city Wondrous Flowers with ten koṭis of nayutas of retinue; the dragon-king Pure Light of the great city Ultimate with twenty-five koṭis; the yakṣa-king Fierce and Strong of the city Vajra Banner of Excellence with seventy-seven koṭis; the gandharva-king Delightful-to-See of the city Stainless with ninety-seven koṭis; the asura-king Pure of Form and Reflective of the city Wondrous Wheel with fifty-eight koṭis; the garuḍa-king Practitioner of the Ten Powers of the city Wondrously Adorned with ninety-nine thousand; the kiṃnara-king Adamantine Virtue of the city Play and Delight with eighteen koṭis; the mahoraga-king Banner of Jeweled Renown of the city Vajra Banner with three koṭis of hundreds of thousands of nayutas; and the Brahmā king Most Excellent of the city Pure and Wondrously Adorned with eighteen koṭis of retinue.

First a question: why must the cities' names, the kings' names, and the numbers of the retinues of the eight classes be listed one by one? Because the principal and companion set up earlier in “indicating the two kinds of city, principal and companion” here receive their actuality. The human king of the principal city moves first, and the eight classes of the companion cities follow — this is the verification in fact of “because the Buddha appears there the human city is the principal one.” Clearing away an error: that the numbers of the retinues are uneven (some in koṭis, some in thousands, some in hundreds of thousands of nayutas) shows precisely that this is an actual record and not a formula.

The Extensive Setting Forth of the Dharma-Gates: The First Sūtra the Buddha Expounded

The sixth passage of the segment on the first buddha: “at that time that Tathāgata, in order to tame all sentient beings, expounded in the ocean-assembly of the site of awakening the sūtra of the Dharma of Mastery Universally Gathered from All Buddhas of the Three Times, with sūtras as many as the dust-motes of a world as its retinue, and following the minds of sentient beings, caused them all to obtain benefit.”

Three things are to be attended to. First, the occasion of the expounding is “in order to tame all sentient beings” — it is not in response to a request but the Buddha's own doing. Second, the sūtra's name is “the Dharma of Mastery Universally Gathered from All Buddhas of the Three Times” — what is gathered is the dharma of mastery of all the buddhas of the three times, so that this scripture is not the private teaching of one buddha. Third, there is a principal sūtra with a retinue of sūtras, “with sūtras as many as the dust-motes of a world as its retinue” — under one scripture there follow dust-mote numbers of scriptures, and this is the common pattern for the four buddhas' expositions in this chapter.

Clearing away an error: the retinue of sūtras is not an appendix. The sense of principal and companion is a general rule in the Huayan — the one gathers in the many, and the many do not depart from the one; the expounding of one scripture is at the same moment the expounding of immeasurable scriptures. Coming down to earth: the closing line “following the minds of sentient beings, caused them all to obtain benefit” is where this whole great mobilization comes to rest — those who came each obtained what was theirs to obtain, and the difference between what is obtained in the two segments below is owing precisely to this.

The Eleven Lights of Wisdom: What Was Obtained After Hearing the Dharma

“The Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light, having heard this Dharma, then obtained the light of the ocean of Dharma amassed in former lives by the Buddha Excellent Cloud of the Sumeru of All Merit.” Note that the form of address has already turned from “prince” to “bodhisattva.” Before, he saw the light and obtained ten gates; now he hears the Dharma and obtains lights of wisdom; the name of his station turns with what he obtains.

The names of what he obtained, item by item, are as follows, eleven in all, and all of them ending in the name “light of wisdom”:

One, the light of wisdom of the samādhi of the sameness of the whole gathering of dharmas — within the whole gathering of dharmas he sees sameness, and this sameness is what is seen within samādhi.

Two, the light of wisdom of the abiding in which all dharmas enter into the first mind of awakening — all dharmas are gathered into the first mind of awakening and abide there; the two graphs “first” matter: the initial mind already gathers in all.

Three, the light of wisdom of the pure eye of the treasury of universal light of the Dharma realm of the ten directions — with a pure eye he sees the Dharma realm of the ten directions as a treasury of universal light.

Four, the light of wisdom of contemplating the great ocean of vows of all buddha-dharmas — what is contemplated is the great ocean of vows of the buddha-dharmas, so that this wisdom takes vow as the sphere it contemplates.

Five, the light of wisdom of the pure practice that enters the ocean of boundless merit — it is by practice that one enters the ocean of merit, and this wisdom is attached to pure practice.

Six, the light of wisdom of the treasury of swiftness and great strength that turns toward non-retrogression — non-retrogression requires great strength, and within the treasury of great strength there is the sense of swiftness, so that non-retrogression is not a standstill but a swift advance.

Seven, the light of wisdom of the wheel of deliverance by the power of immeasurable transformations within the Dharma realm — within the Dharma realm, by the power of immeasurable transformations, the wheel of deliverance is accomplished; transformation and deliverance do not obstruct each other.

Eight, the light of wisdom of the definitive entry into the ocean of the fulfillment of immeasurable merit — “definitive” means without doubt and without falling back, and what is entered is the ocean of the fulfillment of merit.

Nine, the light of wisdom of knowing how the definitive understanding of all buddhas is adorned and accomplished as an ocean — what is known is how the buddhas' definitive understanding is adorned and accomplished.

Ten, the light of wisdom of knowing the ocean of spiritual powers by which boundless buddhas of the Dharma realm appear before all sentient beings — knowing the ocean of spiritual powers by which boundless buddhas appear before all sentient beings; this is the wisdom of the ‘manifesting in one place is manifesting everywhere’ set forth above.

Eleven, the light of wisdom of knowing the powers of all buddhas and the dharmas of fearlessness — knowing the Buddha's ten powers and four fearlessnesses.

Surveying them: the first two are sameness and the initial mind; the third through the eighth are the wisdoms of his own practice; the ninth through the eleventh are the wisdoms of knowing the Buddha's virtues. Clearing away an error: that all eleven gates are called “light of wisdom” and not samādhi or spiritual power is meant to display that the substance of what is obtained lies in wisdom. Coming down to earth: what was obtained by seeing the light inclined toward function (concentration, loving-kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy and equanimity, spiritual power, vow); what is obtained by hearing the Dharma inclines toward illumination and understanding — the one is a being moved, the other an understanding.

Great Majestic Light's Second Verses: Seeing the Sun's Orb by the Sun's Light

“When the Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light had obtained these immeasurable lights of wisdom, then, upheld by the Buddha's majestic power, he spoke these verses” — ten in all.

The first verse establishes the ground of it all: “I have heard the Buddha's wondrous Dharma, and thereby have obtained the light of wisdom; by this I have seen what the World-Honored One practiced in ages past.” The six verses that follow all speak of the ocean of past practices he has seen: all the places of his births, the distinctions of his names and bodily marks, and his offerings to the buddhas; cultivating practice through immeasurable kalpas and adorning and purifying the ocean of lands; giving away his own body, vast and without bound; giving away ears, nose, head, hands, feet, and palaces; within each single buddha-land cultivating the practice of awakening for koṭis of kalpas; and by the power of Samantabhadra's great vows cultivating practice within the ocean of all buddhas.

The eighth verse is the most important simile of the whole chapter: “just as it is by the shining of the sun's light that one comes in turn to see the orb of the sun itself, so I, by the Buddha's light of wisdom, see the path the Buddha practiced” — it is by the sun's light that one afterward sees the sun's orb. First a question: whence comes the wisdom that sees? Answer: precisely from the one who is seen. Clearing away an error: do not suppose that the practitioner first has an eye of his own with which to contemplate and then goes and contemplates the Buddha. This verse says it plainly — that eye is itself the Buddha's light. Coming down to earth: this line is the ‘mutual answering of cause and fruit’ of this chapter in miniature upon a single person — for one who sees the fruit, his very seeing is the gift of that fruit; and the fruit he sees is precisely the cause he is about to cultivate.

The last two verses turn to a vow: “I contemplate the Buddha's ocean of lands, pure and greatly radiant; in stillness he realized awakening, and the Dharma realm is wholly pervaded. Let me be as the World-Honored One is, vast in purifying the ocean of lands; by the Buddha's majestic and spiritual power let me cultivate the practice of awakening” — first seeing and then vowing, and this is the occasion of the prediction below.

The Ten Revealings: What He Does for the World After Obtaining the Dharma

“The Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light, because he had seen the Buddha Excellent Cloud of the Sumeru of the Mountain of All Merit and had served and made offerings to him, gained an awakened clarity of mind in the Tathāgata's presence, and for the sake of all the world” revealed ten things:

One, he revealed the ocean of the Tathāgata's practices in ages past — the first thing revealed is the Buddha's causal practice, precisely the same purport as this chapter's “discerning the cause of that earlier fruit.” Two, he revealed the skillful means of the bodhisattva practices of ages past — not only the practice but the skillful means along with it, so that people may learn it. Three, he revealed the ocean of the merits of all buddhas — from the cause he reveals the virtue of the fruit. Four, he revealed the pure wisdom that enters universally into the whole Dharma realm — he reveals the wisdom that is realized. Five, he revealed the masterful power of attaining buddhahood at every site of awakening — he reveals mastery in attaining buddhahood, which is the sense of the one place and the everywhere set forth above. Six, he revealed the Buddha's powers and fearlessnesses and undifferentiated wisdom — he reveals the Buddha's ten powers, four fearlessnesses, and undifferentiated wisdom. Seven, he revealed the universal manifestation of the Tathāgata's body — he reveals the universal manifesting of the Buddha's body. Eight, he revealed the inconceivable spiritual transformations of the Buddha — he reveals the inconceivability of the spiritual transformations. Nine, he revealed the adorning of immeasurable pure buddha-lands — he reveals the purity of that which is depended upon. Ten, he revealed all the practices and vows of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra — the last comes home to Samantabhadra's practices and vows, answering to “the power of Samantabhadra's great vows” in the verses above.

Its effect is twofold: “causing sentient beings as many as the dust-motes of Mount Sumeru to raise the mind of awakening, and causing sentient beings as many as the dust-motes of a buddha-land to accomplish the pure lands of a Tathāgata.”

Clearing away an error: these ten things are not a list of the contents of his preaching; they are what he “revealed” — that is, by his own obtaining of the Dharma he caused others to see. Coming down to earth: the proof of having obtained the Dharma lies in whether one can let others see it too. This section is the concrete showing of why the “cause” of this chapter is vast: what he cultivates does not stop with himself.

The First Buddha's Verses of Prediction: The Buddha Speaks Eleven Verses for Great Majestic Light

“At that time the Buddha Excellent Cloud of the Sumeru of the Mountain of All Merit spoke verses for the Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light” — the speaker is the Buddha, and the one addressed is Great Majestic Light. Eleven verses in all.

The first verse praises his raising of the mind: “Excellent, Great Majestic Light! Treasury of blessings, vast in renown, for the sake of benefiting sentient beings you have raised your mind and set out on the path of awakening.” The second records what he has obtained and holds out what he is to obtain: “you have obtained the light of wisdom, and the Dharma realm is wholly filled with it; blessings and wisdom are both vast in you, and you will attain the deep ocean of wisdom.” The third makes clear the measure of the cultivation: “cultivating practice within one buddha-land, passing through kalpas as many as the dust-motes of that land — just as you have seen me, so in time to come you will obtain such wisdom.” The line “just as you have seen me” is important: the me you see today is the fruit you shall obtain.

The verses that follow each distinguish one thing: that it is not those of inferior practice who can know this skillful means (distinguishing away sloth); cultivating practice for immeasurable kalpas within each single dust-mote (displaying how fine and how long the cultivation is); passing through oceans of kalpas in the round of birth and death for the sake of each single sentient being, the mind neither weary nor slack (displaying how long the compassion is); making offerings to each single buddha to the utmost limit of the future, without a moment's weariness in the mind (displaying how long the reverence is); all the buddhas of the three times together fulfilling your vows (displaying the buddhas' common verification); all the Tathāgatas' vows being without bound, and only one of great wisdom who penetrates them being able to know (displaying the depth of the vow). The last two verses gather it up: “Great Majestic Light has made offerings to me, and therefore has obtained great majestic power, causing sentient beings as many as dust-motes to ripen and turn toward awakening. All you bodhisattvas who cultivate the practice of Samantabhadra, great in renown, who adorn the ocean of buddha-lands — the Dharma realm is pervaded everywhere.”

Clearing away an error: a prediction is not a foretelling of fortune or misfortune; it is the pointing out of the road between cause and fruit — and this is why the whole passage of verses speaks entirely of ‘what to cultivate, how long to cultivate, and what to distinguish away’. Coming down to earth: what the Buddha grants is “just as you have seen me,” and what he requires is cultivation through kalpas as many as the dust-motes of a land — these verses state the tenet and aim of the chapter (the vastness of the cause as tenet, the verifying and establishing of the fruit set forth earlier as aim) more plainly than anywhere else.

The Measure of the Kalpa, the Buddha's Lifespan, and the Coming of the Second Buddha

“Within that kalpa of Great Adornment there were small kalpas as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, and the lifespan of human beings was two small kalpas.” — first the measure of the kalpa and the human lifespan. “That Buddha Excellent Cloud of the Sumeru of All Merit had a lifespan of fifty koṭis of years.” — next the Buddha's lifespan.

First a question: why must these numbers be recorded? Answer: because the text below is to say “after that buddha passed into extinction, there was a buddha who appeared in the world.” The Buddha's lifespan has a measure, and therefore there is a passing into extinction; there is a passing into extinction, and therefore there is a second buddha. This passage of numbers is the joint of the narrative, not miscellaneous record. Clearing away an error: neither should the Buddha's lifespan be read from this as the common measure of all buddhas — this is that buddha's lifespan in that world.

“After that buddha passed into extinction, there was a buddha who appeared in the world named: King Adorned with the Good Eye of the Perfections, who likewise accomplished right awakening within that great grove of the Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches.” — the phrase “likewise within that great grove of the Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches” ties the four buddhas to one and the same grove, answering exactly to Chengguan's determination that “this grove is spoken of because the Buddha appears within it.” Coming down to earth: four buddhas with different names in the same place — Li Tongxuan's determination of ‘four buddhas, one title’ rests upon just such textual features.

What Was Obtained Before the Second Buddha: Ten Thousand Dharma-Gates

From “when the youth Great Majestic Light saw that Tathāgata accomplish equal and right awakening and manifest the power of spiritual penetration, he then obtained the samādhi of the recollection of the Buddha” onward, the scripture lists ten items:

One, the samādhi of the recollection of the Buddha, named Gate of the Treasury of the Boundless Ocean — the buddha recollected is like a boundless ocean-treasury, so that recollecting the Buddha is not recollecting a single mark. Two, the dhāraṇī named Abyss of the Dharma of the Power of Great Wisdom — the power of holding together is named an abyss of Dharma: because it is deep, it can receive. Three, the great loving-kindness named Universally Following Sentient Beings to Tame and Liberate Them — the character of loving-kindness lies in following sentient beings and taming and liberating them, not in a bare giving of joy. Four, the great compassion named Cloud That Covers Over Every Sphere — compassion is like a cloud that covers over every sphere, reaching everywhere. Five, the great sympathetic joy named Treasury of the Majestic Power of the Ocean of the Merits of All Buddhas — what joy holds in treasury is the majestic power of the ocean of the buddhas' merits, and hence joy has strength. Six, the great equanimity named the Purity of the Sameness of the Dharma-Nature and Space — what equanimity rests upon is the pure sameness of the dharma-nature, like space. Seven, the prajñā-pāramitā named Pure Body of the Dharma Realm, Free of Stain by Its Own Nature — what wisdom accomplishes is the pure body of the Dharma realm: wisdom and body are not two. Eight, the spiritual power named Unobstructed Light That Manifests Following All — the character of spiritual power lies in the light's being unobstructed and manifesting universally in accord. Nine, the eloquence named Entering Well the Abyss Free of Stain — the ground of eloquence lies in entering well the abyss free of stain, and hence eloquence is born of purity. Ten, the light of wisdom named Pure Treasury of All Buddha-Dharmas — what the light of wisdom shines upon is the pure treasury of all buddha-dharmas.

The scripture concludes: “ten thousand Dharma-gates such as these he obtained and penetrated in full.”

Here one thing must be distinguished clearly: what the scriptural text explicitly lists is ten items, while the conclusion says “ten thousand Dharma-gates” — the ten items are instances raised, and the ten thousand is the whole of what was obtained. The scripture itself uses the three graphs “such as these,” which is to take the whole by an instance. Clearing away an error: one may not, on the strength of the ten listed items, say that the ten thousand is a hollow number; nor may one, on the strength of the ten thousand, say that the scripture has omitted items — since the scripture itself uses the three graphs “such as these,” an increase or decrease in the number never becomes a doubt at all.

Set this alongside what was obtained before the first buddha: there he saw the Buddha's light and obtained ten Dharma-gates (the first of them a samādhi); here he sees the Buddha accomplish right awakening and manifest spiritual power and obtains ten items (the first of them the samādhi of the recollection of the Buddha). The classes of names obtained are close (samādhi, dhāraṇī, loving-kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy and equanimity, prajñā, spiritual power, eloquence, light of wisdom), while the conditions met with differ. Coming down to earth: what one and the same person obtains before different buddhas may be similar — repetition is not wasted effort but deepening.

The Youth's Third Verses: And Now We Have Seen a Second Buddha

“The youth Great Majestic Light, upheld by the Buddha's majestic power, spoke verses for his retinue” — the speaker is the youth, and those addressed are his retinue; ten verses in all, and the metre turns from five graphs to seven.

The first verse points out the occasion of the whole: “within inconceivable koṭis of kalpas, a bright teacher who guides the world is hard to meet even once; the sentient beings of this land have much benefit from goodness, for now we have obtained the sight of a second buddha.” The three graphs “a second buddha” are the key to the whole chapter's sense of time: he himself remembers the first buddha. The verses that follow praise the light of the Buddha's body, the light shining and removing suffering, the clouds of transformation, the clouds of light from his pores shining into the gloom and extinguishing the sufferings of the hells, the wondrous sound spread through the ten directions, his manifesting within all the oceans of assemblies, and the boundlessness of his spiritual power. The last two verses turn to exhortation and vow: “you should give rise to a gladdened mind, leaping with delight and love and utmost reverence; I shall go there together with you”; “raise the mind, dedicate and direct it, turn toward and seek awakening, hold all sentient beings in loving thought, and all of you abide in Samantabhadra's vast vows — then you will gain mastery as a king of Dharma does.”

Clearing away an error: these verses resemble the first verses spoken before the first buddha in form, but their position differs — there he had just obtained the Dharma and praised; here he has already served one buddha and exhorts the assembly to go together. Coming down to earth: the one who can say “I shall go there together with you” is one who has already been once.

Going Together to the Second Buddha: The Assembly Each Obtain Ten Benefits of Dharma

“When the youth Great Majestic Light spoke these verses, by the Buddha's spiritual power the sound was unobstructed and all the worlds were able to hear it, and immeasurable sentient beings raised the mind of awakening.” — compared with the segment on the first buddha, where “the sound was carried everywhere throughout the world Excellent Sound,” here it is “all the worlds were able to hear it”: the reach is broader.

“At that time Prince Great Majestic Light, together with his father and mother, together with all his retinue, and together with immeasurable hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of sentient beings, surrounding him before and behind, with jeweled canopies like clouds covering the whole of space, went as one to where the Tathāgata King Adorned with the Good Eye of the Perfections was.” — note the four graphs “together with his father and mother”: in the segment on the first buddha the king led his son and went; in this segment the son leads his parents and goes. The positions of the one transformed and the one who transforms have already turned.

“That buddha expounded for them the sūtra of the Pure Adornment of the Essential Nature of the Dharma Realm, with sūtras as many as the dust-motes of a world-sea as its retinue.” — the pattern of the exposition is the same as with the first buddha.

The ten things the assembly obtained upon hearing the scripture are, item by item: one, a pure wisdom named Entry into All Pure Skillful Means; two, a standing upon a ground named Light Free of Stain; three, a wheel of the perfections named Manifesting the Adornments Loved and Delighted in by All the World; four, a wheel of expanding practice named Boundless Light and Pure Vision That Enters Universally into All Lands; five, a wheel of the practice of turning toward named Banner of the Light of the Cloud of Merit Free of Stain; six, a wheel of realization by following and entering named Vast Light of the Ocean of All Dharmas; seven, a practice of setting out ever more deeply named Adornment of Great Wisdom; eight, an ocean of the wisdom of consecration named Utmost Wondrous Vision of Effortless Cultivation; nine, a great light of revealing named the Pervading Shine of the Reflected Light of the Marks of the Ocean of the Tathāgata's Merits; ten, a pure wisdom producing the power of vows named Treasury of Faith and Understanding of Immeasurable Vow-Power.

The sequence of these ten items is worth noting: first obtaining wisdom, next obtaining a ground, next obtaining a wheel of the perfections, then three wheels (expanding practice, the practice of turning toward, realization by following and entering), next setting out ever more deeply, next the ocean of the wisdom of consecration, next the great light of revealing, and last obtaining the pure wisdom producing the power of vows. By wisdom to enter a ground, from the ground to raise practice, by practice to enter realization, from realization to consecration, to revealing, and back again to producing the power of vows — this is a complete sequence of the positions of practice. Clearing away an error: these ten are what “that great assembly” obtained, not what Great Majestic Light alone obtained; the subject in the scriptural text is the assembly. Coming down to earth: that what the protagonist obtained and what the assembly obtained are set down side by side shows precisely that the benefit of this assembly does not lie in one person alone.

The Second Buddha's Verses of Prediction: Excellent, Ocean of Merit and Wisdom

“At that time that buddha spoke verses for the Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light” — the speaker is the Buddha King Adorned with the Good Eye of the Perfections; ten verses in all.

Set these verses beside the first buddha's verses of prediction and the tenor is plainly different: the first buddha says much of “you will attain” (you will attain buddhahood, you will obtain such wisdom, you will become a guiding teacher of the world), while this buddha says much of “already” — “you have already brought forth the ocean of great wisdom”; “you have already seen the clouds of the buddhas' merits, and have already entered the ground of inexhaustible wisdom”; “you have already obtained the gate of skillful means and holding-together”; “you have already brought forth the oceans of all vows; you have already entered the ocean of samādhis”; “you have already entered upon my practice of awakening.”

First a question: why this turn of tenor? Answer: because a buddha stands in between. Having served long, what he has accomplished is much, and therefore what the Buddha confirms turns from “you will attain” to “you have already attained.” Clearing away an error: this does not mean he has arrived at the end — within the same verses there is still “you shall, by wondrous skillful means past all measuring, enter the sphere of the Buddha's inexhaustible practice,” “you shall be complete in great spiritual powers of every kind,” “you shall attain buddhahood with great merit.” The already and the shall stand together, and this is just the character of the path.

The last verse gathers it up: “making offerings to the buddhas without remainder, the adornments of the lands all made pure, cultivating wondrous practices throughout all kalpas — you shall attain buddhahood with great merit.” Coming down to earth: if a reader wishes to know where he himself has come to, what he should look at is not how much is left, but the proportion of “already” and “shall” within one and the same sentence.

The Third Buddha: The Succession of the Throne and a Wheel-Turning King's Offering

“After the Tathāgata King Adorned with the Good Eye of the Perfections entered nirvāṇa, King Delightful-to-See Good Wisdom before long also passed away, and the youth Great Majestic Light received the position of a wheel-turning king.” — three matters in one sentence: the Buddha's nirvāṇa, his father's death, and his own receiving of the position of a wheel-turning king. His identity turns again: from prince to youth, and now to a wheel-turning sage-king.

First a question: why must the scripture record the changes of his identity? Answer: because this is one face of the “vastness of the cause” — the conditions he meets with change (seeing the light, hearing the Dharma, being a king, being born in heaven), while what he turns toward does not. Clearing away an error: the position of a wheel-turning king is not here a display of the fruits of recompense; it is the wherewithal of the offering in the next passage.

“Within that great grove of the Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches a third Tathāgata appeared in the world, named: Ocean of Most Excellent Merit.” — still in the same grove.

“At that time the wheel-turning sage-king Great Majestic Light, seeing the marks of that Tathāgata's attainment of buddhahood, together with his retinue and the four kinds of armies and all the people of the towns and settlements, and bringing the seven jewels, went as one to where the Buddha was, and offered up to the Buddha a great pavilion adorned with maṇi jewels of every fragrance.” — what he offers is a great pavilion. In the two segments of the earlier buddhas what he offered was verses and his going; in this segment what he offers is what belongs to a wheel-turning king. Coming down to earth: the higher the station, the heavier what is given away; and this lies on the same line as the “he gave away his own body” and “ears, nose, head, hands, and feet, and palaces of every kind” of the second verses.

“At that time that Tathāgata expounded in that grove the sūtra of the Practice of the Light of the Universal Eye of a Bodhisattva, with sūtras as many as the dust-motes of a world as its retinue.” — the pattern of the exposition is still the same.

“When the Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light had heard this Dharma, he obtained a samādhi named: Universal Light of Great Merit; and because he obtained this samādhi, he was wholly able to know the ocean of merit and of what is not merit, past, present, and future, of all bodhisattvas and all sentient beings.” — what is obtained in this segment is a single samādhi, yet its use is exceedingly broad: to know the merit and non-merit of all bodhisattvas and sentient beings of the three times. Clearing away an error: that what is obtained goes from many items to a single samādhi does not mean that what is obtained has grown less, but that what is obtained has grown purer. Answering to the “merit” of offering the great pavilion, what is obtained lies likewise in the knowing of merit — a textual feature of cause and fruit answering to each other.

The Third Buddha's Verses of Prediction: Excellent, Meritorious Great Majestic Light

“At that time that buddha spoke verses for the Bodhisattva Great Majestic Light” — eleven verses in all.

What these verses have in view differs from the two before: it is entirely vow and blessings. The first verse praises his “taking pity on the whole ocean of sentient beings, you have raised the great vow-mind of surpassing awakening”; the second makes clear what he does — “for the sake of all sentient beings who suffer, you raise a mind of great compassion to set them free; you shall become the refuge of the deluded multitude — this is what is called the skillful practice of a bodhisattva” — and for this lays down a settled name: this is called the skillful practice of a bodhisattva. The fourth verse names him by four names, “you of the light of blessings, you of the banner of blessings, you of the place of blessings, you of the ocean of blessings,” and comes home to “all the vows the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra has, these you, Great Majestic Light, are able to enter into.” Of the five verses that follow, only the first and the last speak the word vow outright — “you are able by this vast vow to enter the inconceivable oceans of the buddhas” and “so also shall the adornment and purity of your land be — this is what one of boundless vows and practices should obtain”; the three in the middle speak of seeing immeasurable buddhas in the ten directions and the oceans of their practices in ages past, of one who abides in this ocean of skillful means certainly entering the ground of wisdom, and of cultivating practices through oceans of dust-mote kalpas within all the oceans of lands — matters subsumed under vow, though the word vow does not appear. The third of these verses brings out a separate sense: “if there is a bodhisattva able to be firm, cultivating all surpassing practices without weariness or sloth, then the most excellent and highest unobstructed understanding, such wondrous wisdom, is what he shall obtain” — that a vow can be accomplished depends upon firmness of practice without weariness, and therefore before speaking of vow this one line is set up first. The last two verses turn to the assembly: “the ocean of the assembly now at this site of awakening, having heard your vows, gives rise to delight; all of them enter Samantabhadra's vast vehicle, raise the mind, dedicate and direct it, and turn toward awakening. Within each single one of boundless lands, they enter therein and cultivate practice through oceans of kalpas; by the powers of their vows they are able to fulfill all the practices of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra.”

Clearing away an error: the four names of blessings (the light of blessings, the banner of blessings, the place of blessings, the ocean of blessings) are not a heaping up of titles; they are of a piece with this segment's ‘offering of the great pavilion’ and ‘obtaining the samādhi of the Universal Light of Great Merit’. Coming down to earth: the three buddhas' verses of prediction each have their own weight — the first buddha weights the cultivation of “you will attain,” the second the confirmation of “you have already attained,” the third the pervasiveness of “vow.” Vow comes last because vow is the step that pushes what one person has obtained out into the whole assembly.

The Fourth Buddha: Coming to the End of Life and Being Born in Heaven; the Host of God-Kings Obtain a Samādhi

“Within that great grove of the Wheel of Maṇi Flower Branches there was again a buddha who appeared, titled: Banner of the Lotus Eye of Universally Heard Renown.” — the fourth buddha, still in the same grove.

“At this Great Majestic Light came to the end of his life here and was born within the heavenly city of the Still Jeweled Palace upon Mount Sumeru, becoming a great god-king named: Banner of Merit Free of Stain.” — his identity turns a fourth time: from wheel-turning king to god-king. The name “Banner of Merit Free of Stain” is still attached to “merit,” of a piece with the preceding segment.

First a question: why does the scripture have him come to the end of his life? Answer: the first three buddhas were all met with among human beings, while this buddha is met with in heaven — the place of meeting turns from human to heavenly, and the body he manifests from king to god-king. Clearing away an error: coming to the end of life is here not the end of the narrative but the manner of its continuing. The scriptural text goes straight on: “together with the host of gods he went to where the Buddha was and rained down clouds of jeweled flowers as an offering” — the identity has changed, and the offering has not been broken off.

“At that time that Tathāgata expounded for them the sūtra of the Universal Gate of Pervading Radiance of Vast Skillful Means, with sūtras as many as the dust-motes of a world-sea as its retinue.” — the names of the sūtras expounded by the four buddhas each differ (the Dharma of Mastery Universally Gathered from All Buddhas of the Three Times; the Pure Adornment of the Essential Nature of the Dharma Realm; the Practice of the Light of the Universal Eye of a Bodhisattva; the Universal Gate of Pervading Radiance of Vast Skillful Means), while the pattern of principal and companion is the same in all four segments.

“At that time, when the host of god-kings had heard this sūtra, they obtained a samādhi named: Treasury of Universal Joy. By the power of this samādhi they were able to enter the ocean of the true character of all dharmas.” — please note that the subject of what is obtained in this segment is “the host of god-kings,” not Great Majestic Light alone. This is of the same kind as “that great assembly” obtaining ten Dharma-gates in the segment on the second buddha. Coming down to earth: among the four segments, what the protagonist obtains and what the assembly obtains are written alternately; the past deeds take one person as their thread, yet what they display was never the affair of one person.

The Chapter's End: Coming Out from the Site of Awakening and Returning to Their Own Places

The last sentence of the whole chapter is: “having obtained this benefit, they came out from the site of awakening and returned to their own places.”

First a question: why is so plain a sentence the conclusion of the whole chapter? Answer: because it gathers the whole stretch of past deeds up into “obtaining benefit.” From the ten Dharma-gates before the first buddha to the samādhi of the Treasury of Universal Joy of the host of god-kings at the last, what the four segments record is nothing but the three matters of ‘seeing the Buddha — hearing the Dharma — obtaining benefit’; with this one sentence concluding it, the skeleton of the whole chapter appears.

Here Chengguan records one thing the reader ought to know: “the scripture as transmitted is not complete, and therefore there is no general conclusion.” — that there is no concluding wording at the end of this chapter is owing to the incompleteness of the text as handed down. Clearing away an error: one may not on this ground say that the scripture's sense is unfinished, nor may one supply a conclusion of one's own. The ancient worthy records the lack as the facts stand, and the reader too should read it as the facts stand.

Looking back over the whole chapter: one world-sea, one world, one grove, four buddhas, and one person in four identities — this is the entire provenance of that fruit of the preceding five chapters. The scripture does not say when he attained buddhahood; it says only what he obtained along the way. And the chapter's name has already said it for him — Vairocana.

Lineage

The sense of this chapter was carried forward by the various masters of later times, all of it recorded, with no adjudication. The line of Chengguan: he establishes the place of this chapter by the mutual answering of cause and fruit (“earlier what was set forth was the fruit of this cause; now what is discerned is the cause of that earlier fruit”), divides it section by section with a threefold outline (time, place, past deeds) locked to the opening phrases of the scriptural text, opens six sections within the segment on the first buddha, attaches four intentions to the auspicious signs, and records that “the scripture as transmitted is not complete, and therefore there is no general conclusion”; his two distinctions, that ‘the sea of fragrant waters is not the sea that upholds the land-seeds’ and that ‘worlds differ and this may not be taken as the pattern’, are both to prevent the reader from confusing the sphere of the preceding chapter with the events of this one. The Yanyi chao sets up no separate section explaining the name in this chapter; from its opening it takes up “that there are further great kalpas after this is not contrary to principle” and records Master Jingfa's question, recording the question without answering on his behalf.

The line of Fazang: he explains this segment together within the sixty-fascicle text's chapter “The Buddha Rocana,” takes the explanation of the name as his first gate, sets up the construal of the two lights (the light of wisdom, the light of the body) and the two modes of everywhere (the level and unbroken everywhere, the layer-upon-layer everywhere), and lays down the judgment “each pervading everywhere in its entire substance; it is not a partial pervading”; his answer to the question “why is it not called the World chapter, but is instead titled with the Buddha's name” takes as its warrant the three senses of ‘the Buddha extends through the three kinds of world and is complete in the ten bodies’, “that which is depended upon and that which depends are unobstructed,” and “among the five oceans the ocean of buddhas already contains the other four oceans,” determining that the lands and the rest in the text below are precisely the Buddha Rocana. This determination is what reading this chapter's narrative of the adornment of worlds by way of the dependent origination of the Dharma realm rests upon.

The line of Zhiyan: in the Souxuan ji his setting up of four gates is the same as in the Tanxuan ji while his text is more concise; separately, in the Shixuan men, he takes the past deeds of this chapter as scriptural verification of “attaining buddhahood in three lifetimes,” determining that the three lifetimes of seeing and hearing, of understanding and practice, and of entering into realization are ‘only within a single thought’, and further affirming that ‘it is not that he had not long been planting roots of goodness’ — the single thought and the long cultivation stand together, with neither side favored.

The line of Li Tongxuan: he reads it by three gates (the reason for its coming, the title, explaining the meaning following the text), determines the reason for its coming to lie in “citing the ancient to verify the present, making clear that the path is not mistaken,” construes “vai” as “of every kind” differing from Fazang's “everywhere,” lays this chapter out in an extended outline of fifteen segments, and determines that the four buddhas' appearing in the world “altogether makes clear that the single title Vairocana differs in name according as it responds to conditions in the world, and that it is not that the Buddha's names and titles are different,” his warrant lying in the sense of names following conditions in the chapter “The Names of the Buddha” below; in his question and answer on the oneness and difference of the ancient buddhas and the present buddha, he says outright that it must “be comprehended and understood by the ten mysterious gates and the sense of the six characteristics.” This determination differs from the way of reading that takes the four buddhas as four honored ones by following the narrative; the ancients held this account, and it is recorded.

As for the books that give the outlines of the Huayan school, the Wujiao zhang, under the gate of clarifying the positions with respect to practice, raises up the protagonist of this chapter as an instance of the allotment of what is obtained, attaching his position to that of a wheel-turning king of the pure white jeweled net; what it cites is the name as differently translated in the Jin-dynasty version, and the reader must know that what it refers to is the Great Majestic Light of the eighty-fascicle text. The differences between the two texts in personal names, in buddha-titles, and in the classes of names of what is obtained (Great Majestic Light and the Youth Universally Adorned; ten Dharma-gates and ten samādhis; eleven lights of wisdom and four samādhis) are recorded together, with no adjudication; the Jin-dynasty version's segment ends with the second buddha, and for the events of the third and fourth buddhas the Jin-dynasty version has no wording, which is recorded as the facts stand, without raising from that absence any argument about addition or subtraction.

Where This Chapter Stands in the Whole Scripture

In Chengguan's outline of the order of the assemblies of this scripture, the present chapter belongs to the second assembly. The first assembly spoke of one thing only — how vast the buddha-fruit is. In that assembly the dependent and the direct recompense of Vairocana were set out to their utmost, and what the reader saw was a sphere already perfect. The question follows of itself: what has a sphere like that to do with me? The second assembly is the answer to that one sentence.

Chengguan determines this segment to be “the part on cultivating the cause, according with the fruit, and giving rise to understanding,” and he says it very plainly: since earlier the fruit was raised up so as to make people give rise to faith and delight, now what must be clarified is the cause able to give rise to that fruit, so that faith and delight may settle into right understanding. He divides the reason for its coming into three layers besides — the coming of the part, the coming of the assembly, and the coming of the chapter. The coming of the part is spoken of with respect to the whole segment; the coming of the assembly says that within all cultivation of the cause, faith stands at the very head, and therefore the second assembly speaks first of faith; the coming of the chapter says that the first assembly raised up the cause so as to display the fruit, and what it completed was “the object in which faith is placed,” whereas this assembly raises up the fruit so as to discern the cause, and what it sets forth is “the practice that is able to have faith.” Fazang's determination agrees with this entirely, and Zhiyan puts it still more concisely: what was discerned before is the land relied upon; next, then, should come the name of the lord who teaches and transforms within that land.

Why, then, do the names come first among the three chapters? Chengguan and Zhiyan determine it alike: these three chapters are the Buddha's acts of body, of speech, and of mind — the chapter “The Names of the Tathāgata” clarifies the Buddha's act of body, “The Four Noble Truths” his act of speech, “Awakening by Light” his act of mind; and since “among the three kinds of act within the fruit, the body is what gathers them all,” the body is expounded first. Brought home to oneself: when a person is to give rise to faith in someone, what he first comes into contact with is invariably that person's name and person, never his doctrine. The order of the scripture is arranged along the order in which the human heart comes to faith.

The Introductory Portion: He Never Took a Single Step Away from the Site of Awakening

The scripture opens by saying that the World-Honored One was “in the land of Magadha, at the site of awakening named the Dharma of Araṇya, having just accomplished right awakening; in the Hall of Universal Light he sat upon the lion throne of the lotus-womb.” There is a difficulty here that is easily slipped past — the site of awakening and the Hall of Universal Light are two places; how can the Buddha have “just accomplished right awakening” here and at the same moment be seated there?

Chengguan answers this by way of “the present raising up the general so as to gather in the particular, the land being named earlier so as to gather the branch by the root”: the land is named first, and thus the root gathers in the branch; and since the site of awakening has already been raised up above, the text below has him “not stirring from the tree of awakening, and yet pervading the ten directions.” This one sentence is the bone of the whole chapter. It is not that the Buddha shifted his position; it is that he has no need whatever to shift position — his body pervades the ten directions, and therefore every place is this place. Clear away a misreading: this is not to say that ‘the Buddha has a trick of dividing his body.’ A divided body is still two, whereas what the scripture speaks of is one body that pervades. If this one sentence is not established first, all the marvelous appearances of the second assembly will read as mere myth.

The introductory portion goes on to praise the Buddha's virtues in ten clauses. Chengguan says these ten clauses are “the first the summary, the rest particular” — “his wondrous awakening fulfilled in every part” is the summary, and the nine clauses that follow are the particulars. In explaining “wondrous awakening” he leaves us, in passing, a precious record of the art of translation: the Jin translation has here “good awakening,” and the treatise's scripture “right awakening,” because the single Sanskrit sound su contains at once the senses of wondrous, good, and right, and each translator took one of them. One and the same Sanskrit graph opens out into three faces in three Chinese translations — and this is exactly the proof that the ‘one substance with many names’ of which this chapter speaks is no abstruse talk: it has happened, alive, within the history of translating the scriptures.

As for the clause “the two courses forever cut off,” Chengguan explains it as the affliction-obstruction and the obstruction to the knowable, and birth-and-death and nirvāṇa: both of these pairs are called “the two courses,” and only when neither side is present is it called “forever cut off.” Mark the second pair well: not only is birth-and-death not present, nirvāṇa is not present either. The reader most easily thinks of the Buddha as ‘someone who has come to rest on the far side, in nirvāṇa’ — and this clause stops that thought exactly.

What the Assembly That Came with Him Was Contemplating

The introductory portion says that the bodhisattvas who came with him were “not one of whom was other than one with a single birth remaining before taking the place of a buddha.” For the two words “one birth” Chengguan gives two explanations: the first is taken with respect to the aspect of transformation, as with Maitreya's descent to birth; the second with respect to true recompense, meaning that among the four kinds of transformational birth-and-death only the last remains. He himself determines that this passage is “mostly taken with respect to the aspect of transformation” — he does not force the loftier reading, but takes the sense the text gives.

The scripture next says that these bodhisattvas “universally and well contemplated” ten things: the realm of sentient beings, the Dharma realm, the realm of worlds, the realm of nirvāṇa, the deeds and their fruits of retribution, the order of the mind's movements, all letters and their meanings, the worldly and the world-transcending, the conditioned and the unconditioned, and the past, present, and future. Chengguan points out that the praise of virtue here is such that “though the virtues are measureless, only the one word ‘universal’ is praised.” “Universal” has two senses: first, that the whole multitude alike possesses this virtue; second, that they universally contemplate the ten objects. And “well” has three senses: knowing marks well, knowing the absence of marks well, and knowing well that these two are unobstructed.

The order in which these ten objects are set is not a casual list. Chengguan reads straight down it: sentient beings are the sum of what is to be transformed; and whence does this birth come? It arises as a world by way of delusion about the Dharma realm; I ought to cause them to abide in the realm of nirvāṇa and to purify their deeds and fruits, and therefore I must recognize the disease that is “the mind's movements” and the medicine that is “letters and meanings,” causing them to weary of the world and to delight in what transcends it, and yet neither to exhaust the conditioned nor to abide in the unconditioned. Having contemplated the ten dharmas crosswise, one then penetrates the three times lengthwise. Brought home to practice: this is a bodhisattva's chart of the order of diagnosis and treatment — first recognize the person, then the source of the disease, then the medicine, and only last the measure of dosage that falls into neither extreme.

What the Bodhisattvas Asked in Their Minds

The portion of request is “they thought in this way,” not a question spoken aloud. What the compiler records is a movement of thought, and this must be seen clearly first — for the World-Honored One's response in what follows is likewise not language but spiritual power; the thought and the manifesting of power answer to each other exactly.

What is asked falls into two stretches. The first stretch is ten clauses: the buddha-lands, that in which a buddha abides, the adornment of the buddha-lands, the dharma-nature of a buddha, the purity of the buddha-lands, the Dharma a buddha expounds, the essential nature of the buddha-lands, the majestic virtue of a buddha, the accomplishing of the buddha-lands, and the great awakening of a buddha. Chengguan points out that these ten clauses are “questions interlacing the dependent and the direct” — one clause of dependent recompense and one of direct, alternating as they go; and they are so arranged because the direct recompense, in responding to capacities, must rely upon a land, and at the same time because this displays that the dependent and the direct are unobstructed to each other. Clear away a misreading: do not suppose that the text has merely listed ten of the Buddha's affairs at random; the very alternation, one and one, is itself saying something.

The second stretch is “raising an example and thereby requesting”: it raises the buddhas of the ten directions as an example, saying that they expound the Dharma for ten reasons, that they expound the bodhisattvas' ten abodes and so on down to the ten summits, that they expound the ground of a Tathāgata and so on down to the supreme excellence of a Tathāgata, and only at the last does it close with the single clause, “we would that the Buddha, the World-Honored One, might expound these for us as well.” Chengguan determines these three segments thus: the first ten clauses mark the intent of their exposition and clarify that they have compassion; the latter thirty clauses raise up what they expound and display that they have wisdom; and the last clause closes with the request proper. Compassion, wisdom, and request are all present — and only so is it a complete form of requesting the Dharma. He further counts this portion of request as having “fifty clauses, but only forty questions.” The actual numbers in the present base text are ten matters, ten clauses ending in “for the sake of,” nine items of the dharmas of the stations, and nineteen items of the Tathāgata's fruit-virtues, which do not tally with the commentators' counts — the transmitted texts of old and of today differ in how many graphs they carry; this is recorded here, with no adjudication.

Why the Buddha Said Not a Single Word

This is the thing in the whole chapter that most deserves to be pressed. The questions in the bodhisattvas' minds being finished, the World-Honored One, “knowing what the bodhisattvas held in their minds, in accordance with each of their several kinds manifested spiritual powers for them” — he does not answer, he only manifests power; and after the manifesting, the one who speaks is Mañjuśrī.

Chengguan raised a question here: why does this assembly expound without entering concentration? He answers, “because the station has not yet been entered, and the nature is not yet settled,” and thereupon sets up four cases for the manner of expounding the Dharma: first, expounding after concentration, as in the other assemblies; second, concentration after expounding; third, expounding within concentration, as in the ninth assembly; fourth, expounding without entering concentration, which is this assembly of the station of faith and the seventh assembly. He points out further that in the other assemblies the crown of the head is stroked and only then comes the exposition, whereas in this assembly the exposition comes first and the stroking after — and therefore “the very frame of this scripture runs both lengthwise and crosswise, and cannot be reduced to a fixed standard.” Clear away a misunderstanding: do not take “entering concentration” as a rite indispensable to expounding the Dharma, and do not, conversely, read “not entering concentration” as carelessness. Entering and not entering are here set according to capacity; they are not a matter of higher and lower.

Li Tongxuan presses the question straight to the bottom: why does the Tathāgata not expound his teaching himself, but emits light and causes a bodhisattva to expound it? His answer is intensely practical — “the Tathāgata's intent is that a bodhisattva of a given station should expound the Dharma-gate of that station, so that those who study and cultivate may know the measure of the divisions, it being thereby easy to understand.” Whoever stands at a given station is the one to expound from that station, and only so does the learner know which square he himself now stands upon. Zhiyan's connection is the same: the reason Mañjuśrī expounds this chapter is that he is wondrous wisdom, and well penetrates the ocean of buddha-lands. This layer also answers a doubt readers often have: throughout this scripture the Buddha expounds extremely little — not because the Buddha does not expound, but because this very manner of expounding is itself the design of the teaching.

The Ten Buddha-Titles of the Ten Directions and the Ten Bodhisattvas Named “Head”

After the manifesting of power, in each of the ten directions there is a world, a buddha-title, and a bodhisattva who comes with his retinue. The scripture lists every direction in full and will not spare a single sentence.

Li Tongxuan here hands us a key: these ten buddha-titles “all take the ten wisdom-Tathāgatas, the Buddha Unmoving Wisdom and the rest, to be the fruit of one's own mind, with the Buddha Unmoving Wisdom as the substance and the remaining wisdoms as its function”; and Mañjuśrī, Foremost in Awakening, Foremost in Vision, and the rest, the ten bodhisattvas whose names end in “Head,” “are the body of one who practices the mind of faith.” That is to say, the ten buddha-titles are ten faces of the buddha-fruit of a person's own mind, and the ten bodhisattvas are ten aspects of one who cultivates faith. This is the determination of Li Tongxuan's house alone, not something the scripture marks for itself, and in reading it one should hold it under his name.

Let each direction be opened out. From the world Golden Color in the east, from the Buddha Unmoving Wisdom, comes Mañjuśrī — golden is the color that does not alter, unmoving is the substance of wisdom, and Mañjuśrī is wondrous wisdom; all three are bound to one “root,” and therefore this stands first. From the world Wondrous Color in the south, from the Buddha Unobstructed Wisdom, comes Foremost in Awakening — awakening is the very first move, and therefore its wisdom is named unobstructed. From the world Lotus Color in the west, from the Buddha Wisdom That Extinguishes Darkness, comes Foremost in Wealth — the amassing of the wealth of Dharma begins with the breaking of darkness. From the world Campaka-Flower Color in the north, from the Buddha Wisdom of Dignified Bearing, comes Foremost in Jewels — dignified bearing is a virtue that can be seen, and therefore its head is named by a jewel. From the world Utpala-Flower Color in the northeast, from the Buddha Wisdom of Bright Marks, comes Foremost in Virtue — merit must have bright marks by which it may be verified. From the world Golden Color in the southeast, from the Buddha Ultimate Wisdom, comes Foremost in Vision — the eye is what is able to see, and only when one sees through to the ultimate is he named Foremost in Vision. From the world Jewel Color in the southwest, from the Buddha Most Excellent Wisdom, comes Foremost in Diligence — vigor is the most excellent among all practices. From the world Vajra Color in the northwest, from the Buddha Masterful Wisdom, comes Foremost in Dharma — the nature of dharmas is firm as vajra, while in function it is masterful. From the world Crystal Color below, from the Buddha Brahmā Wisdom, comes Foremost in Wisdom — crystal is clear through and through, and brahmā means pure, and therefore it is bound to wisdom. From the world Equal Color above, from the Buddha Wisdom of Contemplation, comes Foremost in Worthiness — contemplation carried through to equality, and the man is then called worthy. These ten sets of names will each come on stage again below in the chapter “Bodhisattvas Ask for Clarification”; here one need only learn who they are.

Mañjuśrī's First Sentence: Nine Matters Beyond Conceiving

Mañjuśrī, sustained by the Buddha's majestic power, looks universally over the assembly, and the first sentence he speaks is “these bodhisattvas are exceedingly rare”; then he lists nine matters beyond conceiving: first the buddha-lands, second that in which a buddha abides, third the adornment of the buddha-lands, fourth the dharma-nature of a buddha, fifth the purity of the buddha-lands, sixth the Dharma a buddha expounds, seventh the appearing of a buddha, eighth the accomplishing of the buddha-lands, ninth a buddha's unsurpassed perfect awakening.

First ask: why does he praise the assembly as rare before saying that the Buddha's Dharma is beyond conceiving? Because it is these very people who are requesting the Dharma. To be able to put such a question as this is itself a rare thing; to praise the persons is precisely to confirm their question. Ask again: does saying “beyond conceiving” mean that here it stops, that nothing more need be said? Quite the contrary — Mañjuśrī at once poses himself a question, “and why is this so?”, and answers that the buddhas of the ten directions “know that what sentient beings love and desire is severally different, and so, according to what suits them, expound the Dharma for them and tame them,” and so on throughout, to the limit of what is level with the Dharma realm and the realm of empty space. The reason for what is beyond conceiving is therefore itself sayable: because the capacities to be met are measureless, the aspects able to meet them are measureless. Clear away a misreading: “beyond conceiving” does not mean ‘you are not permitted to think’; it means ‘it cannot be thought under any one fixed aspect.’ Brought home to oneself: whoever takes the Buddha to be only one fixed image should, on reaching this passage, let go his grip.

Bodies of Every Kind, Names of Every Kind: From Which Side Does the Difference Come?

Mañjuśrī next gives the general indication: within the several sets of four continents of Sahā, the Tathāgata has bodies of every kind, names of every kind, forms and colors of every kind, lengths and shortnesses of every kind, life-spans of every kind, dwelling-places of every kind, faculties of every kind, places of birth of every kind, works of speech of every kind, and ways of contemplating of every kind, “causing sentient beings each severally to know and to see.”

This sentence is the pivot of the whole chapter, and the point of it lies in those last words. The difference is not on the Buddha's side; it is on the side of the sentient beings who “each severally know and see.” Chengguan says the whole of this layer at the very opening of his explanation of the section on the names: “the sage has no name; it is for the sake of beings that appellations are set up” — if names are set up upon his virtue, that virtue has no bound or shore; if they are set up according to capacity, they equal the number of the realm of sentient beings. Though the names are of many kinds, all are set up so that, as is fitting, goodness may arise, evil may be extinguished, and the principle may be seen, like the ocean-seal manifesting all at once; and therefore “they should give rise to no attachment.”

Clear away one misunderstanding that matters most: on reading that one buddha has ten thousand names, the thought most easily arising is ‘so the Buddha is as great as all that’ — but that is to read the passage as a hymn of praise. Mañjuśrī's intent in expounding this passage is precisely the reverse: the names are many because sentient beings such as you and I are so exceedingly unlike one another. A name is the name of a medicine set up for a disease, not a title of honor set up for the Buddha. Brought home to oneself: if a person holds fixedly that ‘the Buddha I know is the Buddha,’ what he grips is in truth his own portion of capacity, and not the Buddha.

From this Li Tongxuan determines the function of this chapter within the station of faith: “in the worlds of the ten directions there is not one name that is not a buddha's name, because the essential nature of a name is of itself liberated” — the essential nature of a name is of itself liberated, and therefore what this chapter clarifies is “that toward all names there is no attachment.” Upon this he sets up his outline of six chapters completing faith, saying that the first, “The Names of the Buddha,” “causes one who has the mind of faith to have faith that the Buddha's names pervade all the names of the world, since one knows that the nature of a name is apart.”

The Ten Names within a Single Set of Four Continents

Mañjuśrī raises first this one set of four continents: he is called in some places All Aims Accomplished, Full Moon, Lion's Roar, Śākyamuni, the Seventh Sage, Vairocana, of the Gautama Clan, the Great Śramaṇa, Most Excellent, Guiding Teacher — “names such as these, ten thousand in their number.”

Chengguan explains the names one by one, and each is worth taking in. All Aims Accomplished is Siddhārtha, since there is no matter he does not bring to accomplishment. Full Moon: his delusions are cut off and his wisdom full, his kindness casts a cooling shade — the fullness and the coolness of the moon answer exactly to the fullness of his cutting off delusion and the coolness of his compassionate shade. Lion's Roar is named for the settled and decisive exposition; it is not that the sound is loud, but that there is no hesitancy in it. As for Śākyamuni: “Śākya” means “able,” being the clan of the able and humane, and “Muni” means “silent,” since he accords with the principle of quiescence — one name embracing at once the face turned toward the world and the face turned away from it. The Seventh Sage is the last of the seven buddhas of the past. Vairocana was explained in the preceding chapter. “Of the Gautama Clan” is taken with respect to the surname alone; here it means “lord of the earth,” because from the beginning of the kalpa, generation after generation, they succeeded one another as wheel-turning kings; and Chengguan cites in evidence the Zhi lun — “Śākyamuni, because his surname was Gautama.” Śākya, then, is the name of the clan and Gautama the name of the surname, and the two are not the same. The Great Śramaṇa: “śramaṇa” here means “one who stills evil,” and since there is no evil he does not still, the word “great” is added. Most Excellent: he is the utmost among the noble ones, and nothing can be added to his virtue. Guiding Teacher: he leads and guides sentient beings away from peril and hardship, and in the ocean of birth-and-death shows them the host of jewels.

At the end Chengguan adds one sentence: “yet a name contains many meanings; I have explained these ten concisely, fearing the text would become prolix, and of the rest I explain only what is difficult.” That sentence is itself a matter of form — he does not pretend that all ten thousand names can be explained to exhaustion. The reader should learn this sense of measure.

Clear away a misreading: these ten names are not ten different buddhas, nor are they ten divisions of the Buddha's functions. They are ten classes of appellation by which one and the same buddha, within one and the same set of four continents, is called by people of differing capacities. The four words “ten thousand in their number” give the reminder: to raise ten is only to give examples; the actual number is ten thousand.

The Ten Worlds Around the Four Continents

Chengguan determines this segment to be “the ten worlds neighboring this continent, making ten sections,” and reminds us that “Good Protection and the rest are all common designations of a whole set of four continents” — Good Protection and the rest are not the names of some small country but the common designation of that entire set of four continents. He further sets up the pattern of the outline: “first, indicating the place; next, listing the names; last, concluding with the number — and all the others are modeled upon this”; all eleven sections use one and the same form, and in reading one need only look at where the names differ. Here each direction is opened out as the text runs, with one point of meaning bound to each.

The world Good Protection in the east, from Vajra to Cutting Off Discourse. Chengguan explains the last name in particular: “Cutting Off Discourse, because what he realizes is apart from words, and because none can speak a fault of him” — what is realized is apart from speech, and none can speak a fault of him: one name embracing two senses.

The world Hard to Endure in the south, from Śakra to Most Excellent. Chengguan explains “Śakra” by saying that “he is lord of gods and men, and is able to answer to the minds of beings” — the point taken is not his eminence as lord of the gods, but his ability to answer and accord with the minds of sentient beings. The world is named Hard to Endure while the Buddha is named Able to Tame and Endowed with Joy; the two stand over against each other and complete the sense.

The world Intimate Wisdom in the west, from Water Heaven to Well Abiding. Chengguan explains “Water Heaven” by saying that “water benefits the myriad things well, and the light of heaven is pure” — water's benefiting of things lies in its not choosing between high and low, and the purity of heaven's light lies in its being unstained; the two are joined into one name.

The world Having Lions in the north, from Great Muni to Attained through Austerity. The names in this direction mostly hang upon austerity, the first and the last alike. Among them the name “Yiluobana”: Chengguan's commentary writes it with a different graph and explains it as “Yishifu means ‘masterful’; luobana means ‘sound’ — that is, mastery in the perfect voice”; Fazang, for his part, takes Ināpana as “the king's grove,” saying the Buddha was born in that grove when he was a prince. One name with two explanations, each with its ground; recorded here, with no adjudication.

The world Wondrous Contemplation in the northeast, from Tamer of Māra to Hard to Appear. The first name is Tamer of Māra and those next are Accomplishment and Extinguishing — the subduing of Māra and the accomplishing of the path are the two faces of a single event, and this direction sets up its appellations upon that.

The world Joy and Delight in the southeast, from Utmost Majesty to Power of Vigor. Majesty and delight look to be opposites, and yet the scripture sets majesty within the name of a land of delight — the fearsome and the delightful are not two on the Buddha's side.

The world Exceedingly Firm in the southwest, from Abiding to Surpassing Sumeru. The world is named Firm, and the Buddha is named Abiding, Unmoving, King of the Summit, Surpassing Sumeru; name and land answer to each other, all taking the sense of what cannot be shaken.

The world Wondrous Ground in the northwest, from Universally Pervading to Abiding in the Root. The first name is Universally Pervading and the last is Abiding in the Root — to pervade without losing one's root is the bone of this direction's set of names.

The world Flaming Wisdom below, from Gathering Roots of Goodness to Universally Excellent. The first name, Gathering Roots of Goodness, answers exactly to the nadir as the station of accumulation.

The world Upholding the Ground above, from Possessed of Wisdom to One Path. Among them, for the name “Like a Blazing Fire,” Chengguan has a simile that is very fine: “a blazing fire burning fuel does not choose among the trees of the grove, and the Buddha's wisdom in benefiting beings makes no selection between the worthy and the foolish” — the fire does not pick its wood, and wisdom does not pick its man. The last name, “One Path,” answers to this direction's first name, “Possessed of Wisdom”: at the utmost reach of wisdom there is only a single road.

There is a further structural difficulty here: the scripture says that this one set of four continents has worlds both “above” and “below” it, which does not agree with what the other teachings say — “within the great encircling ring a hundred koṭis are spread out level, with the heavens above and the hells set below.” Chengguan raises this question and answers it: what this teaching expounds is that “phenomena are interfused according to principle”; wherever the Dharma is expounded is itself the center, and even at the utmost upper limit and sideways to the mountains of the great encircling ring, there too the ten directions serve one another as principal and companion. He further sets out five senses in which a pure land does or does not change: first, taken as phenomena it is ever fixed, as the Lesser Vehicle expounds it; second, it is seen differently according to the mind; third, spoken of with respect to the Buddha, it is originally neither pure nor defiled; fourth, it turns about according to the Dharma, as with principal and companion serving one another; fifth, it enters hidden into a dust-mote. Zhiyan's connection tends the same way: the reason the zenith and the nadir are taken here is to display that above and below there is no quarter and sideways no limit, “and thereby the perfection of the teaching is displayed.” Clear away a misreading: this is not a quarrel with the cosmology of the schools; it says that one and the same matter is established in different ways within different teachings.

A Hundred Koṭis of Sets of Four Continents, a Hundred Koṭis of Myriads of Names

Mañjuśrī next sums up: “this Sahā world has a hundred koṭis of sets of four continents, and within them the Tathāgata has names of every kind to the number of a hundred koṭis of myriads.”

One set of four continents has ten thousand names; a hundred koṭis of sets of four continents therefore have a hundred koṭis of myriads of names. This sentence opens out at a stroke the quantity of the preceding eleven sections, and it is also the starting point of the ten sections of the ten directions below. Chengguan determines the whole section on the names to fall into four: first, within Sahā itself there are a hundred koṭis; second, the neighborhood of Sahā, that is, beyond the hundred koṭis; third, the extension by kind to all, that is, to the ends of the ten directions; fourth, the explanation of the reason for the differences, namely that it is according to beings — and this sentence is precisely the conclusion of the first of the four.

Note what this step does as teaching: the preceding eleven sections could still be counted (ten names, a number of ten thousand), whereas by this point the number can no longer be formed into an image in the mind. The scripture is not exaggerating; it is forcing the reader to turn from ‘counting the names’ to ‘contemplating why there are names at all.’

The Ten Worlds Neighboring Sahā

Chengguan determines this segment to be “setting forth the ten directions neighboring Sahā, likewise as ten sections.” The form is entirely the same as that of the ten sections of the four continents, save that the closing number is changed to “names of every kind to the number of a hundred koṭis of myriads.” Each direction is opened out as follows.

The world Secret Instruction in the east, from Equality to Wisdom Without Equal. The first name is Equality and the last is Wisdom Without Equal — equality is not a blending in which there is no difference; it is precisely because his wisdom is without equal that he can be equal to all.

The world Abundant Overflow in the south, from Original Nature to Great Mastery. In this direction three “treasuries” stand in a row: Treasury of Light, Treasury of Wisdom, Treasury of Merit; and they are followed by Heaven among the Heavens and Great Mastery — the order runs from what is stored within to its outward function.

The world Free of Stain in the west, from Accomplished in Mind to Endowed with Power. Among them, “Able to Loose Bonds” and “Practice of Taming” answer to the name of the land, “Free of Stain” — the harm of a stain lies in its binding, and therefore the names of this direction take the loosing of bonds as their point.

The world Abundant Delight in the north, from Campaka-Flower Color to Pure Body. This direction mostly sets up its names by images of things: Treasury of the Sun, Sun of Wisdom, Appearing Like the Moon, Swift Wind — the Buddha spoken of through the aspects of sun, moon, and wind.

The world Gathering In in the northeast, from Forever Free of Suffering to Unmoving Mind. The first name is Forever Free of Suffering and the last is Unmoving Mind, with three treasuries in between — Great Hidden Treasure, Treasury of the Past, Treasury of Pure Faith — for the sense of gathering in lies precisely in the power to store.

The world Bountiful Benefit in the southeast, from Manifesting Light to Ocean of Wisdom. The name “Reaching the Far Shore of Discernment” most deserves notice: discernment too has a far shore that can be reached; it is not that discernment is to be cut off altogether.

The world Few and Sparse in the southwest, from Lord Muni to Vajra Lion. The land is named Few and Sparse while the Buddha is named Possessed of Many Jewels and Liberation of the World — in a place of fewness the names raise up rather his abundance, and the names of this direction form a contrast of themselves.

The world Joy in the northwest, from Mass of Wondrous Flowers to Net Treasury. This direction alone lists eleven names, while every other lists ten. Chengguan has a discussion devoted to this: collating the Jin translation, he says that in the direction of Secret Instruction one name, “Wisdom from Hearing,” is lacking below “Opening and Enlightening the Mind,” whereas the northwest, “having eleven names, alone has a surplus, and does not make a proper form of text”; he therefore infers that the name “Single-Minded Recollection of the Dharma” here should be the very “Wisdom from Hearing” dropped in that other direction, an omission in the transmission of the Sanskrit text, the annotator having wrongly placed it among the palm leaves. The actual state of the present base text is this: the direction of Secret Instruction is complete with “Wisdom from Hearing,” making ten names, and the northwest world Joy still lists eleven. The text the commentators collated and the present base text differ in their graphs; both are recorded, with no adjudication. This item is worth the reader's remembering: the ancient worthies read the scriptures so closely that they would not let pass even the presence or absence of a single name.

The world Gate-Bolt below, from Kindling Flame to Banner That Crushes. Among them, the name “Śakra's Bow” Chengguan explains as “the Tathāgata's bow of mindfulness and concentration, with the sharp arrow of illumination, able to shoot the asuras of deeds and defilements” — mindfulness and concentration are the bow, illumination is the arrow, and what is shot are deeds and defilements. He records besides that the Jin translation has here “Lord of the Dharma-Command,” taking the sense that Śakra is lord of the gods by the Dharma-teaching, and says that “what is said here, ‘his bow,’ is but one matter among them”; the two recensions each retain their sense, and he does not adjudicate between them as higher and lower.

The world Resounding Sound above, from Banner of Valor to Omniscience. The name “Transcending the Realm of Objects” in this direction is directly interlocked with the passage below explaining the reason for the differences; on reaching that last passage the reader must turn back and look at it once more.

The Extension and the Reason: As He Was Matured in Days Past, So He Expounds Today

The last passage falls into two. The first half is the extension by kind: just as it is in this Sahā world, so in the east, in worlds to the number of a hundred thousand koṭis, numberless, measureless, boundless, without equal, uncountable, unaccountable, unthinkable, unweighable, unspeakable, throughout all the worlds to the ends of the Dharma realm and of the realm of empty space, the names of the Tathāgata are severally different; and in the south, west, and north, in the four intermediate directions, above and below, it is in every case likewise so. Chengguan gives a pointer here: in the chapter “The Four Noble Truths” there is a further raising of this as an example for the other ten directions, in the same form as here.

The second half is the explanation of the reason: “just as, in days past, when the World-Honored One was a bodhisattva, it was by discourses of every kind, by languages of every kind, by sounds of every kind, by deeds of every kind, by retributions of every kind, by places of every kind, by skillful means of every kind, by faculties of every kind, by kinds of faith and understanding of every kind, and by stations of every kind that he was brought to maturity, so too he causes sentient beings to know and to see in this way, and expounds the Dharma for them.”

First ask: why should there be differences among the names? It was said above that it is according to capacity. And whence do the capacities come? This sentence gives the answer at the root — the Buddha himself, in those days, was brought to maturity within just these differences. Chengguan explains it in two senses: first, since he himself was brought to accomplishment by way of differences of names and words, he now in turn follows the old road and brings others to maturity by difference; second, in days past when he was a bodhisattva he tamed beings according to their capacities, and now, having come forth into the world, he sets up names answering to what he did at the root. He gives a most beautiful example: of old he taught sentient beings to empty their deluded objects, and now that he has accomplished right awakening a name is set up for him, “Transcending the Realm of Objects” — and there is the provenance of that name in the world Resounding Sound above.

Fazang determines this segment to be threefold: first, citing the capacities; second, bestowing transformation; third, the intent of the transformation; and at the end he says that the intent of the transformation is “the intent in expounding, as suits them, the dharmas of humans and gods and of the two vehicles and the rest, wishing to cause them to know the Tathāgata's Dharma.”

Clear away a misreading: this passage does not say that the Buddha's names were given him by later men. What it says is that name and capacity have one and the same source in causes and conditions — by whatever dharma he brought sentient beings to maturity in those days, by that name do sentient beings recognize him today. Brought home to oneself: whichever name you use today to call him to mind, that name is the very shape of the old bond of causes between you and him. The scripture does not ask a person to exchange it for a loftier name; it asks only that he know the provenance of the name, and so no longer settle upon it.

Lineage

The connection with the chapters before and after — this chapter carries on from “Vairocana” of the first assembly and is followed by “The Four Noble Truths.” Chengguan and Zhiyan alike match the three chapters to the Buddha's acts of body, speech, and mind; Li Tongxuan, for his part, gathers the six chapters from “The Names of the Tathāgata” to “Foremost in Worthiness” into a single part, calling it “the part in which faith is established by way of the fruit — faith that one's own mind is itself a buddha,” and points out the function of each chapter in turn: the chapter of the names causes one who has faith to know that the nature of a name is apart; “The Four Noble Truths” causes him to know that the truth of suffering in the world is itself the noble truth; “Awakening by Light” causes him to illumine the Dharma realm with the light of his own mind; “Bodhisattvas Ask for Clarification” causes him to have faith in the Dharma-gate in which faith is placed; “Pure Conduct” causes him to know that the first arousing of the mind takes the great vow as its head; “Foremost in Worthiness” causes him to have faith that the Buddha's spiritual power pervades and transforms without bound. And by these six dharmas he names Foremost in Worthiness — “when observation and practice accord with these six dharmas, this is called the mind of faith.” This is the outline of Li Tongxuan's house alone; recorded, with no adjudication.

The connection with the first assembly — Chengguan says of this chapter that “moreover, it answers from afar the earlier question about the ocean of names,” and determines that among the forty questions of the portion of request “the latter twenty clauses are wholly the same” as the questions of the first assembly. The second assembly therefore does not set up a new stove of its own; it answers a question already raised, and left unanswered, in the first.

The connection with “The Manifestation of the Tathāgata” — as to the meaning of the chapter's name, Chengguan says it “has already been explained in the chapter ‘The Manifestation of the Tathāgata,’” and this chapter expands its aspect.

The connection with “The Appearing of the Tathāgata” — Li Tongxuan runs the cause and fruit of the two practices of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra through from here, saying that from this chapter to the chapter “The Appearing” is “the cause and fruit of the two practices of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, since for one who has the mind of faith the station of practice is fulfilled and substance and function penetrate through.”

The divergent explanations of the ancient worthies, both recorded — (1) The common and the particular in “name” and “title”: Chengguan has “what summons the substance is called the name, what sets forth the virtue is the title; the name is particular and the title common,” and Fazang likewise takes the name as particular names such as Śākya and the title as the ten titles common to all buddhas; Zhiyan, however, has “the name is the common name, and the title is the particular title,” assigning them in the reverse way. (2) The explanation of the name of the assembly: Chengguan sets up three explanations, Fazang five meanings (the fifth explaining “universal” by the layer-upon-layer appearing of the net of Indra), and Zhiyan two meanings, “‘universal’ means that the virtue is universal, and ‘light’ means the light of wisdom.” (3) The setting up of the tenet of the chapter: Chengguan has “to make manifest that the Buddha's names pervade everywhere is the tenet; to tame and transform and benefit according to capacity is the aim,” and Zhiyan has “the aspect of mastery in the virtue of compassionate transformation is the tenet; it may also be said that the ocean of buddha-lands is the tenet.” (4) The interpretation of Yiluobana: Chengguan takes mastery in the perfect voice, and Fazang the king's grove, the place of birth. (5) The two recensions of the name in the nadir: the Tang translation's “Śakra's Bow” and the Jin translation's “Lord of the Dharma-Command,” both of whose senses Chengguan preserves. (6) The counting of the clauses of the question passage: Chengguan counts fifty clauses and forty questions, which does not tally with the actual count in the present base text. In these six matters, one meaning with two tenets, both are recorded without adjudication; the choice belongs to the translator.

The differences of the parallel translation — the Jin translation's “The Names of the Tathāgata,” chapter 3, has Mañjuśrī as the expositor just as this chapter does, and its structure is likewise the same; only it has not the two tiers of “four continents” and “a hundred koṭis of sets of four continents,” but governs the ten directions directly under “this world.” In the listing of the dharmas of the stations in the portion of request, the eighth item is “ten penetrations” in the Tang translation and “ten masteries” in the Jin. Among the buddha-titles of those who gather from the ten directions there are many differences of translation (in the south, Unobstructed Wisdom against Fire of Wisdom; in the west, Wisdom That Extinguishes Darkness against Wisdom of Practice; in the north, Wisdom of Dignified Bearing against Wisdom of Action; in the northeast, Wisdom of Bright Marks against Bright Wisdom; in the southwest, Most Excellent Wisdom against Superior Wisdom). All of it is recorded, with no adjudication.

Why the Chapter The Four Noble Truths Follows the Chapter The Names of the Tathāgata

The preceding chapter counted the names of the Buddha; this one counts the names of the Dharma. That the two stand side by side is no accident of arrangement. Chengguan's determination of the reason for this chapter's coming is put very directly: this chapter expounds at length the various kinds of vocal action treated in the chapter before, and it is precisely the answer to that earlier question about “the Buddha's preaching of the Dharma”; moreover, “the Buddha being already known as one to take refuge in, next the Dharma is known as something to look up to” — first one knows who it is that one takes refuge in, and then one knows what the Dharma is that one looks up to. He adds a further contrast: “above, the names were established in accordance with beings; here, the dharmas differ according to capacities” — in the preceding chapter the Buddha's names were established according to sentient beings, and in this one the names of the Dharma differ according to capacity.

Li Tongxuan's determination agrees entirely: the earlier chapter, The Names, expounds the bodily action of the Tathāgata, whose names differ severally according to the quarter; this chapter expounds the vocal action of the Tathāgata, and since preaching the Dharma according to the quarter never departs from the four noble truths, this chapter must come. Fazang, on the sixty-fascicle text, opens the reason for its coming into five layers, of which the second and the third are just this sense — following upon bodily action, vocal action is settled next; earlier it was made clear that the names of the person who preaches differ, here that the names of the Dharma preached differ. Zhiyan puts it still more simply: earlier the lord of the transforming was praised, here the teaching-dharma that is preached is praised.

The four masters tie it differently and yet in one direction, and the reader should fasten upon this layer first: this chapter does not mean to explain the sense of the four truths; it means to set forth the names of the four truths. Fazang's sentence is the clearest — “this chapter is not an explanation of the sense of the four truths; it only makes clear that the names of the four truths differ.” If one comes to this chapter with the expectations one brings to the four truths of the Āgamas, it will seem nothing but a table of terms from beginning to end; that is to have come in at the wrong door. The table of terms is itself the Dharma this chapter means to expound.

Where the Word ‘Noble’ in ‘Noble Truth’ Falls

Begin with a question that is easily slipped past: suffering, origination, cessation, path — the ordinary person too has suffering and origination; why then are these called ‘noble’ truths?

Chengguan's explanation of the name makes the cut exactly. First he glosses ‘noble’: “noble means right, because the right dharma that is without outflows is obtained within the mind” — noble is not a status; it is the right dharma without outflows obtained within the mind. Then he glosses ‘truth’, saying that truth has two senses: first, being true in fact; second, being discerned with care. Being true in fact is stated with respect to the object — the marks as they are said to be are not let go of, are real, are fixed, and the two kinds of cause and fruit, mundane and supramundane, are without falsity. Being discerned with care is stated with respect to wisdom — noble wisdom contemplates them, discerning without error. Then he joins the two senses and gives his determination: “the ordinary person has suffering and origination, yet does not discern them truly, and so they cannot be called truths. It is because unerring noble wisdom discerns and knows the object that they are called noble truths.”

Here a very common misreading must be set aside: that what makes the noble truths noble is that the object contemplated is loftier than the ordinary person's object. It is not so. The object is one and the same object — the same five aggregates, the same afflictions; the difference lies in whether the discerning wisdom discerns them truly or not. The suffering in an ordinary person is suffering, and yet it does not amount to a ‘truth’, because he does not discern it. Brought home to oneself: the mark that a person has truly begun to practice is not that he has come by some new sphere of experience, but that he has begun to discern, as it really is, the suffering that was his all along.

As for the form of the four graphs taken together, Chengguan says it is “a construal that carries a number” — four is the number, and the noble truths are what is numbered. Fazang, on the sixty-fascicle text, likewise makes it a construal that carries a number, saying “four is the number. Truth is the sense: because the principle is real it can give rise to an unerring understanding, and so they are all called truths.” Li Tongxuan takes hold of it by the word ‘real’: “truth means the sense of the real; it makes clear that the Tathāgata expounds four kinds of real sense, so that sentient beings may give rise to faith and understanding.” The three masters gloss the graphs by different routes, and all come down on the one word ‘real’.

The Buddha's Dharma-Gates Are So Many; Why Are the Four Truths Alone Set Out

In this chapter Chengguan sets up a gate of its own called “the resolving of objections,” to deal with two doubts the reader will raise. The first is just this: the Dharma-gates the Buddha preaches are so many; why are only the four truths set out here?

His answer has three layers. First: although the name of the four truths comes out of the Lesser Vehicle, “the sense runs through both great and small and is complete in both fact and principle” — the name is in the small, the sense runs through both. Second: the four truths are one complete double track of cause and fruit — the two truths of suffering and origination are the mundane cause and fruit, to be known and to be cut off, and they do not alter; the two truths of cessation and the path are the supramundane cause and fruit, to be realized and to be cultivated, and as facts they are fixed. Knowing, cutting off, realizing, and cultivating, taken together, are enough “to carry sentient beings to the far shore.” The third layer is the key sentence of the chapter — “the worlds differ, yet these alone do not alter.” The worlds may differ by a thousand degrees and the names may run to four hundred koṭis of ten thousands; and yet this structure, suffering, origination, cessation, and path, is unaltered throughout the worlds of all space.

The layer Fazang adds on the sixty-fascicle text speaks still more closely to the reader's mind: if this confined dharma of the Lesser Vehicle already has such differences throughout the worlds of all space, then what doubt can remain that the dharma of the One Vehicle, which runs through every quarter, differs boundlessly? — this is the use of setting forth the great by way of the small. He states a further layer, breaking attachment and drawing in capacities: the śrāvakas' confined dharma of the four truths is expounded until it becomes the boundless sea of truths that fills the Dharma realm, so that they lose their original grasping, and thereupon the boundless Dharma realm of the One Vehicle is set forth and they are brought to enter it. Chengguan says the same.

A misreading to be set aside: do not read this chapter as saying, ‘the Great Vehicle also teaches the four truths, therefore the Great and the Lesser Vehicle come to the same thing.’ The ancient worthies' intent is precisely the opposite — it is just because the four truths are held in common, the least disputed structure there is, that using them to expound the inexhaustible extent of all space carries the most force. Where it comes home: real breadth is not exchanging one set of terms for a new one; it is walking the set already in one's hands all the way to its end.

Why Three of the Truths All Carry the Word ‘Suffering’

The second question is finer: the scriptural text has ‘the noble truth of suffering,’ ‘the noble truth of the origination of suffering,’ ‘the noble truth of the cessation of suffering,’ ‘the noble truth of the path to the cessation of suffering’ — why do all four carry the word ‘suffering’?

Chengguan's answer fastens name by name: it is the origination that gives birth to suffering, and so it is called the origination of suffering; the cessation that exhausts suffering, and so it is called the cessation of suffering; and as for the path that reaches the cessation of suffering, it is called the path to the cessation of suffering. Then he sets aside a possible abbreviation: “one may not say simply ‘the path of suffering,’ because the path does not give birth to suffering and so is not like origination; nor does it cease suffering and so is not like cessation. It is able to realize the cessation of suffering, and so it is called the path to the cessation of suffering.” The path does not give birth to suffering, and so cannot be called ‘suffering’ outright as origination is; the path is not itself the ceasing of suffering, and so cannot be called ‘the cessation of suffering’ as cessation is; the path is the road able to realize that ‘cessation of suffering,’ and so can only be called the path to the cessation of suffering. Fazang sets the same question on the sixty-fascicle text, and his answer runs almost word for word the same, with one clause added at the end — “one should say ‘the path to cessation’” — which points up the structure of the three graphs more plainly still.

This is not a byway of philology. That all four names are established with an eye to suffering means that the axis of the whole doctrine of the four truths is suffering — not the emotion of misery, but that state of affairs in which ‘all that is conditioned oppresses.’ Coming down to how one reads: when one reads those four hundred and forty names, if the names of the truth of suffering seem the most numerous, the most various, and the most piercing, that is exactly the scripture's intent; the latter three truths are nothing but the cutting off, the exhausting, and the way out of this one thing.

Why One Truth Should Have Ten Thousand Names

Then comes the most important question of the whole chapter: why should one truth have so many names? And how is the number four hundred koṭis of ten thousands arrived at?

Look first at the scripture's own answer. Each world, having finished its ten names for each of the four truths, concludes with the clause “conforming to the minds of sentient beings, they all bring them to be tamed.” Fazang takes this clause apart and explains it: “that is, this name is established in order to answer to capacities and bring beings to be tamed. To tame is to harmonize; to subdue is to hold down” — to harmonize is to harmonize and govern the actions of body, speech, and mind; to subdue is to hold down and destroy all evil conduct. The names are many not because the dharmas are many, but because capacities are many. There is only one suffering; the minds of beings have measureless kinds of door by which they can come in, and so measureless kinds of name are established.

Look next at how the number is reckoned. Chengguan takes the number of the preceding chapter as his standard: taking The Names as the standard, one set of four continents has ten thousand; now one truth in one four-continent world likewise has ten thousand, and the four truths pass through a hundred koṭis of four-continent worlds, and so there are “four hundred koṭis of tens of thousands.” This reckoning must be seen clearly: ten thousand is the number of names of one truth in one four-continent world, a hundred koṭis is the number of four-continent worlds, and four is the number of truths — it is the three numbers multiplied together that give that clause of scripture. What the scripture itself says is “there are names such as these to the number of four hundred koṭis of ten thousands”; what the ancient worthy explains is how this number comes about, and the two are not to be confounded.

What, then, is the relation among these names? Chengguan has one general determination: “now, in the establishing of the names, some name the cause from the fruit and some take the name of the fruit from the cause; some are with respect to fact and some with respect to principle; some are general and some particular — as will be known from the text.” Some borrow the name of the fruit for the cause, some the name of the cause for the fruit; some are with respect to fact, some with respect to principle; some are general statements, some particular. Take these four pairs of measures to the four hundred and forty names, and one will not find them a scattered heap of synonyms.

A misunderstanding to be set aside: many names does not mean blurred sense. Chengguan's determination is exactly the contrary — “although it is the difference of names that is displayed, that is to express a difference of sense, since a name must call up a reality — and therefore this is the sense of the measureless four truths.” Difference of name is difference of sense, because a name must call up a reality. He cites the Great Scripture as warrant: suffering has measureless marks, which are not what śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas can know; and he adduces the Yogācārabhūmi, which says that suffering has one hundred and ten kinds. Those of the two vehicles know the marks of suffering but not the measureless marks of suffering, and it is just those measureless marks that this chapter means to set forth.

The Sahā World: The Forty Names of Our Own Land

The chapter lists its own world first. The scriptural text opens with “the noble truth of suffering, in this Sahā world,” sets out ten names each for suffering, origination, cessation, and the path, and concludes with the four hundred koṭis of ten thousands. This is the pattern for the whole chapter, and the ten worlds that follow all go by this same form.

Chengguan goes through the ten names of the truth of suffering one by one. The first, ‘offense,’ he glosses as “a crushing, that is, because it crushes and ruins form and mind” — not moral guilt, but what is able to crush and ruin body and mind. The second, ‘oppression,’ is the oppressing of body and mind by unwished-for objects. These two he judges to “set it forth in general.” The third, ‘alteration,’ he matches to the suffering of change; ‘grasping after objects’ is the suffering of pursuit; ‘aggregation’ is the suffering of the five heaped-up aggregates — the frame of the three sufferings and the eight sufferings is right here. ‘A thorn,’ he says, is a name established from a simile, as of a thorn driven into the body and not drawn out. ‘The root relied upon’ is that from which suffering can give birth to every evil. ‘Deceit’ he explains most tellingly: “within a lesser suffering it can give rise to the notion of pleasure” — the mistaken sense of pleasure arising within a lighter suffering; this is deceit. ‘The place of the boil,’ he says, is a simile for a twofold suffering: the place where a sore grows is of itself painful, and to have a hand touch it is suffering added to suffering, which is the suffering of suffering. ‘What the fool does’ he matches to the suffering of formations, and adduces an excellent simile: an eyelash laid in the palm is not felt, but put into the eye it is painful and unsettling; the fool does not feel the suffering of formations, as with the hair in the palm, and instead casts off suffering by means of suffering.

On the ten names of the truth of origination Chengguan is very sparing: “the first two set it forth in common” — bondage and ruin state in general that one who has deeds and delusions is bound in the three realms and has his roots of goodness ruined; “the next two set forth the afflictions in particular” — the sense of clinging in love and deluded awareness and thought set forth delusion in particular; the rest for the most part speak of deeds and delusions together. Of the ten names of the truth of cessation he picks out two: ‘without contention,’ because the afflictions are themselves contention, and when the afflictions are exhausted there is no contention; and ‘real in its substance,’ which he explains with the greatest weight — it is not merely that delusion has ceased, but truly that the constant abiding of the dharma-body is what constitutes the sense of the truth of cessation, and therefore the next name is ‘abiding in its own nature,’ meaning that it is ceased from the very beginning. Of the ten names of the truth of the path he notes only the last, ‘the ten treasuries,’ saying that these are just the ten treasuries of faith, learning, and the rest expounded in this scripture's own chapter The Ten Inexhaustible Treasuries — to make the ten treasuries of this scripture itself the path is where the Huayan reading of the four truths comes to rest.

Brought home to oneself: these forty names are not forty technical terms; they are forty entrances. Whichever name pierces one at a reading is the door one is oneself to go in by.

The World Secret Instruction: Seeing That World from This

From the second passage on, the scripture changes its sentence-form — “as for what is called the noble truth of suffering in this Sahā world, in that world Secret Instruction it is sometimes called: the root of seeking” — first raising the truth as it is in this world, then giving its name in that. The form of the sentence is itself the doctrine: it is not that that world has another truth of suffering, but that one and the same truth of suffering has changed its name there. Chengguan assigns this world to the east.

Among the names of the truth of suffering he picks out ‘analyzed, it is wholly without force,’ explaining it as “pressed back upon its conditions, there is no real thing there” — press it item by item back upon conditions and no real thing can be found; and he picks out ‘a thing with shape,’ saying “whatever has shape is suffering,” everything that has shape at all lies within suffering. Of the truth of origination he notes ‘the source of disease,’ saying it is so because there is grasping after objects. Of the truth of cessation he notes ‘one undivided part,’ and this name repays pondering most of all: “delusion arises out of falsity, and so its divisions and numbers are as the dust and the sands; the principle cannot be divided, and so it is called one undivided part” — the afflictions arise out of falsity and so can be divided into numbers as many as dust and sand; the principle cannot be divided, and so is called one undivided part. Of the truth of the path he notes ‘the upward course,’ saying “what it goes toward is cessation,” what it makes for is the truth of cessation; and he notes ‘contemplating the quarters,’ saying that it is contemplating the four truths, adding the clause “there are four further quarters, as in the chapter The Ten Concentrations.”

The way of reading to be learned in this world is: one and the same truth under a different name — what differs is not the truth but the capacity. In this world it is called ‘offense,’ in that world ‘the root of seeking’; in this world ‘what the fool does,’ in that world ‘a thing with shape’ — change the name and the angle of entry changes with it.

The World Most Excellent: A Tangle of Renderings

Chengguan assigns this world to the south, and here records a tangle of renderings: this world “earlier was named Abundant Overflow; Abundant Overflow is the proper rendering, while Most Excellent is merely a rendering by sense.” At the fourth world he says further that the name of the northern world Abundant Overflow in fact belongs to the southern world; in the preceding chapter this quarter was named Abundant Joy, in Sanskrit Weibudi, and Abundant Joy is what catches the sense — it is that “the translators were not careful, and the two names have become mixed with each other.” The ancient worthy records it and does not alter the scripture, and this is exactly the attitude a reader of translations ought to have: know that the thing has happened, and go on reading by the base text.

Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘possessed of force,’ using a simile of great weight: “birth, old age, sickness, and death are like four mountains bearing down upon a man; though one be worthy and mighty in the world, one has no strength to contend with them” — four mountains press in, and however worthy, however mighty, one has no strength to contend with them. Of the truth of origination he notes ‘not one's own possession,’ saying “one's own nature is originally pure; what have deluding falsities to do with it?” — the original nature is pure, and the deluding falsities were never one's own to begin with. Of the truth of cessation he notes ‘the meaning within meaning,’ saying that goodness in the realm of fact already has meaning, and that the principle of cessation surpasses it, and so it is called the meaning within meaning. Of the truth of the path he notes ‘able to burn,’ saying it is burning the afflictions with the fire of wisdom.

A misreading to be set aside: that the truth of suffering is called ‘possessed of force’ does not mean that suffering is so dreadful that one should be afraid of it; it means that it does not yield according to whether one is worthy or mighty, and therefore can be countered only by the path, never by worldly advantage.

The World Free of Defilement: The Seal Broken, and What Is Entrusted Kept Whole

Chengguan assigns this world to the west. This is the passage he explains most densely.

Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘without number,’ saying “because the three times have no shore” — past, present, and future have no bound, and so suffering is without number. Of the truth of origination he notes ‘increase,’ saying that it is delusion giving birth again to delusion and to deeds. Two names of the truth of cessation are the most important: ‘matching and meeting’ he explains as the cessation in the realm of fact answering to and meeting the cessation in the realm of principle; and for ‘the seal broken’ he uses a simile famous from of old — the suffering of the aggregates in the world is like a wax seal pressed into clay, where the seal is destroyed and the impression is formed, so that scarcely has this set of aggregates ceased when the next is born in succession; to say ‘the seal broken’ now is to say that they are born no more, forever. Of the truth of the path he notes ‘the bound of the existences,’ saying “illumine it as it really is and birth-and-death can be exhausted,” and cites the Zhong lun: “because the true dharma, and the one who expounds it, and the one who hears it are hard to come by, therefore birth-and-death is neither bounded nor unbounded,” explaining himself that the three things being hard to come by is why it is not bounded, and that what is hard to come by may yet be come by, and if it is come by then birth-and-death has a bound. He notes also ‘what is entrusted is kept whole’: a deed entrusted to origination is received for a while and then lost again; a deed entrusted to the path can never be lost.

Brought home to oneself: of all these names, ‘the seal broken’ best bears self-examination — if practice is only a pressing down of the suffering of this present set of aggregates, that is still the seal destroyed and the impression formed; what has to be asked is whether the seal itself has been broken.

The World Abundant Overflow: Nothing to Cultivate, and Measureless Life

Chengguan assigns this world to the north. Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘a portion of the sea of existence,’ saying that each of the twenty-five existences occupies a portion; and ‘made of number,’ saying that the substance of number is origination itself, and that suffering is what origination makes. Of the truth of origination he notes ‘divisible and countable,’ saying “with no single principle running through it, the delusions and deeds become a myriad differences” — with no one principle to thread it, afflictions and deeds are divided into thousands upon thousands of differences; and he notes ‘able to seize and bite,’ saying that to seize is to snatch and to bite is to gnaw, and that the harm done by origination is like a savage bird or beast.

One name of the truth of cessation deserves particular notice: ‘nothing to cultivate,’ which Chengguan explains as “because cultivation has reached its utmost” — not that there is no need to cultivate, but that cultivation has gone to the utmost and there is nothing more to cultivate. This stands in the same passage as ‘diligent cultivation and realization’ and ‘hard to cultivate’ among the names of the truth of the path, and the two check each other exactly: because on the path there is diligent cultivation and hard practice, on cessation there can be nothing to cultivate. Another name of the truth of the path is ‘measureless life,’ of which Chengguan says “that is, the realization of cessation is forever constant; here the fruit's designation is set upon the cause” — the name of the fruit set upon the cause, which is precisely an instance of that class he spoke of earlier, naming the cause from the fruit.

The World Gathering In: Empty at the Root, and Free of Words

Chengguan assigns this world to the northeast. Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘the nature of the hells,’ saying “before entering the stage of forbearance one always has the nature to fall” — until one has entered the stage of forbearance one always carries the nature that may fall; and he notes ‘empty at the root,’ saying that this is stated with respect to nature as being the same as purity, the five aggregates of feeling being empty when penetrated through. The truth of origination he explains as being by reason of deluded falsity, craving and view seizing upon things crosswise like a rākṣasa, while the substance of falsity is originally empty and so there is nothing that can be grasped; and he cites the Zhong lun: “as for what is deceitful and falsely grasped — what is there in it to be grasped? The Buddha expounds a dharma such as this, wishing thereby to display the sense of emptiness.”

What most deserves notice in this world is that the truth of cessation and the truth of the path share a name: the second name of the truth of cessation is ‘free of speech’ and the first name of the truth of the path is ‘free of words.’ Chengguan divides the two in a single clause: “the nature of cessation is free of words; the path is what makes words be freed.” The one is so of itself; the other is made so. A misunderstanding to be set aside: to be free of words is not to forbid speaking. The scripture is speaking, and it has spoken four hundred and forty names; what freedom from words says is that what the names point to does not come to rest upon the names.

The World Bountiful Benefit: Like a Thief, and the Seal of All

Chengguan assigns this world to the southeast. Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘like a thief,’ saying “the suffering of the five heaped-up aggregates plunders and harms me” — the five aggregates are like a thief that plunders and harms. Of the truth of origination he notes ‘without force,’ and explains it with great precision: “in the matter of going forth from birth-and-death it has no power at all, and once good dharmas treat it, it can resist them no more” — origination has, in the one matter of going forth from birth-and-death, no strength whatever, and the moment good dharmas treat it, it cannot hold out.

The name ‘the cause laid down’ in the truth of cessation is the hardest to construe, and Chengguan answers completely: the unconditioned has no cause and yet in substance is fruit; the path of awakening, measured against it, is still a cause; only still-extinguished nirvāṇa can be called the ‘fruit of the fruit,’ and therefore it is called the cause laid down. Of the truth of the path he notes ‘the seal of all,’ saying “because there is nothing it does not discern and determine” — there is no dharma that it does not discern and settle, as a seal seals a thing. Coming down to how one reads: among the ten names of the truth of the path in this world are ‘the treasury of samādhi,’ ‘gaining light,’ and ‘the vast road,’ all names belonging to the gate of practice; read together with ‘the seal of all,’ they show that the Huayan truth of the path has concrete marks of cultivation, and is not merely a principle.

The World Few and Slight: The Master of the House, and the Vast Road

Chengguan assigns this world to the southwest. Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘wrong conduct,’ saying “its substance is not the right path, for it is the nature of formations.” Of the truth of origination he notes ‘the broad ground,’ saying that it is so “because the great tree of suffering grows from it” — origination is like a broad stretch of ground out of which the great tree of suffering grows; and he notes ‘the master of the house,’ settling it in one clause: “it is ignorance.” This name is the easiest to remember — the master of the household of the afflictions is ignorance; however many the guests, the master is only one.

Of the truth of cessation he notes ‘the place where the course is cut off,’ saying “because the road of the mind is cut off” — the mind's road comes to an end here. Of the truth of the path he notes ‘the vast road,’ saying “because the noble ones before and the worthies after travel it without weariness,” the noble ones before and the worthies after all walking this road and never tiring of it. Read the two names together and they form a contrasting pair: on cessation the road of the mind is cut off, on the path the noble before and the worthy after travel — what is cut off is the road of the grasping mind, what is traveled is the road of cultivation and realization, and the two are not to be confounded.

The World Joy: Breaking the Support

Chengguan assigns this world to the northwest, and here records a divergence between the editions: he says that the truth of suffering in this world wants one name, the Jin rendering lacking ‘coming to birth’ and the Tang rendering lacking ‘loss of benefit.’ This is what the ancient worthy saw when reading the two texts, and it may be recorded as such.

Of the truth of origination he notes ‘bottomless,’ saying “because the afflictions are deep, and without practicing the path and learning one bobs up and down without end” — the afflictions are so deep as to have no bottom, and without practicing the path and learning one can only bob up and down. Of the name ‘breaking the support’ in the truth of cessation his explanation is most refined: body and afflictions are supports each for the other, turning about without end; only by realizing the principle of cessation can this be broken forever. This sentence is worth pausing over: the body depends on the afflictions and the afflictions depend on the body, and this is a closed circuit; force applied at any point inside the circuit will not get one out, and what has to be broken is the very fact of ‘being supports for each other.’ Of the truth of the path he notes ‘vast in nature,’ saying “because there is nowhere it is not.”

The World Gate-Bolt: Made by the Self, and Entering the Meaning

Chengguan assigns this world to the nadir. Of the truth of suffering he notes ‘made by the self,’ and settles it in a clause: “because there is the view of self” — suffering is what the view of self makes. Of the truth of origination he notes ‘the mind of self,’ saying “that is, the view of self and craving for self,” the view of self and the love of self. Read these two names in succession and their force is most apparent: the world before said that the master of the afflictions is ignorance, and this world says that what makes suffering is the view of self — the one speaks from the fundamental delusion, the other from the grasping at self.

Of the truth of cessation he notes ‘a factor of awakening,’ saying that it is “the place that is awakened to,” the very place awakened to. Of the truth of the path he notes ‘entering the meaning,’ saying “because it can enter the highest meaning of the truth of cessation.” The names in this world mostly use similes of implements and of stations — ‘like an unfired vessel,’ ‘the body of the destinies,’ ‘the gate of many evils,’ ‘a wondrous medicine’ — and in reading one may notice that in this world the scripture speaks of suffering by way of things that can be touched and seen, which is itself an instance of establishing names according to capacity.

The World Resounding Voice: The Whole Range of Suffering Is in This One Passage

Chengguan assigns this world to the zenith. Of the eleven worlds it is on this one that he explains the most, because the ten names of the truth of suffering in this passage set out very nearly the whole range of suffering.

‘The hidden flaw’ he says is the body as the place where the sickness of delusion is harbored; ‘arrogance’ he judges to be the fruit taking the name of the cause — conceit has the giving birth to suffering as its work, and this is setting the name of the cause upon the fruit, precisely that class he spoke of earlier, taking the name of the fruit from the cause. Of ‘the nature of defiled clinging’ he asks an excellent question: “its nature makes for defilement — as with the suffering of change in pleasant feeling, who would call that suffering?” — who would say that the suffering of change in a pleasant feeling is suffering? ‘The racing current’ he matches to the suffering of formations, saying it is because their nature is momentary; ‘not to be delighted in’ he matches to the suffering of suffering; ‘concealment’ he matches at a stroke to all three feelings — because it conceals the cause of suffering, pleasant feeling concealing the suffering of change, and neutral feeling the suffering of formations; ‘swift perishing’ he matches to the suffering of flowing on; and ‘hard to tame’ he explains in the way that comes closest to home: “who does not wish to cast it off? Yet none can get out of it; only one who does not dread weariness and pain can tame it” — who does not wish to cast off suffering? And yet one cannot get out; only one who does not shrink from weariness and pain can move it at all.

Of the truth of origination he notes ‘reaching to the furthest edge,’ saying “because it is unbroken and without end”; and ‘a gate,’ saying it is the gate by which one enters the destinies of suffering. Of the truth of cessation he notes ‘not to be grasped,’ saying “grasp it and it is not cessation” — the moment it is grasped it is no longer cessation; and he explains the two names ‘small’ and ‘great’: “make it small and it has no inside, for it holds not one thing; make it great and it has no outside, for it is the nature of the Dharma realm.” Of the truth of the path he notes ‘hard to stand against,’ closing with a clean simile: “where there is delusion it must be broken, and it is not broken by delusion. It is as light can destroy darkness, and so there is no darkness that is not destroyed. Darkness does not destroy light — how could it stand against it?” — light can destroy darkness while darkness cannot destroy light, and so the path is what delusion finds hard to stand against.

This passage may serve as a general review of the truth of suffering for the whole chapter: the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, the suffering of formations, the suffering of flowing on — within this one passage there is a name to point to each.

The Conclusion Extended to the Ten Directions: Host and Companion, Layer upon Layer without End

The eleven worlds having been expounded, the scriptural text turns to the conclusion. There are really two layers here, and in reading it is easy to run them into one.

The first layer is the extension by likeness: the scripture says that as this Sahā world expounds the four noble truths and has four hundred koṭis of ten thousands of names, so in the east, in those worlds a hundred thousand koṭis in number, numberless and measureless and on to unspeakable, all the worlds throughout the Dharma realm and the realm of space, within each and every world the four noble truths are expounded and each likewise has four hundred koṭis of ten thousands of names; and as with the east, so with the south, the west, and the north, the four intermediate quarters, the zenith, and the nadir. Chengguan makes this the section ‘the extension by likeness to all,’ and says that it first raises the Sahā as the likeness for the east, and afterward raises the east as the likeness for the remaining nine quarters.

The second layer is host and companion. The scripture goes on to say “as the Sahā world has all that has been said above, so in the worlds of the ten directions, all those worlds likewise each have the same,” and then says that in the worlds of the ten directions, within each and every world, the expounding of the noble truth of suffering has a hundred koṭis of myriads of kinds of names, and origination, cessation, and the path likewise each have a hundred koṭis of myriads of kinds of names. Chengguan makes this the section ‘host and companion without end,’ and explains it with great clarity: first this is raised as the instance for that — the Sahā being host and Secret Instruction and the rest, the worlds throughout all space, being companions; afterward, with “all those,” that is taken as the likeness of this — so that Secret Instruction and the rest, the worlds throughout all space, are each in turn host and gather in their own companions; and thus it is “inexhaustibly inexhaustible.”

Here there is a crucial distinction to be caught: the extension by likeness only says that elsewhere the names are just as many; host and companion says that every place can be the center. The former is an expansion of quantity, the latter an interchange of position — the Huayan inexhaustibility lies in the second layer, not in the first.

And here Chengguan draws a line for himself: this is still stated only with respect to worlds of the same kind as the Sahā, because within the concluding number they are alike a hundred koṭis; as for the remaining worlds of other kinds, tree-shaped and the rest, each and every one of those kinds pervades the Dharma realm throughout space, and that is what is layer upon layer, inexhaustibly inexhaustible, and “is not what is spoken of here.” That an ancient worthy is willing to draw a limit for himself at the very point of greatest breadth is a stroke worth learning.

One further thing to notice is that the scripture has changed its number: what is concluded for each world is “four hundred koṭis of ten thousands of names,” while what is concluded here is “a hundred koṭis of myriads of kinds of names.” The two numbers are different headings; in reading, follow what the scripture writes and do not force them into agreement.

Names Measureless Is Sense Measureless

Looking back over the whole chapter, the ancient worthies' determinations may be gathered into a single sentence: this chapter has expounded the four truths as the measureless four truths.

Chengguan's route is this. First he establishes that a name must call up a reality, and so difference of name is difference of sense. Then he cites the Nirvāṇa, “to understand that suffering is without suffering is called the noble truth of suffering,” saying that it means penetrating that the four arise from conditions and are therefore empty, and so going beyond the fish-trap, awakening to the purport, and becoming great. Then he cites the Nirvāṇa again for a threefold division — the ordinary person has suffering but no truth; those of the two vehicles have suffering and have the truth of suffering but have not the real; the bodhisattva has no suffering and has the truth, and has the real — and explains for himself that those of the two vehicles, though they discern suffering with care, do not penetrate the emptiness of dharmas and so do not see the real. Finally he pushes on to the unconstructed four truths: understanding that the aggregates and the sense-fields are all suchness, there is no suffering to be cast off; ignorance and the dust of toil being themselves awakening, there is no origination to be cut off; birth-and-death being itself nirvāṇa, there is no cessation to be realized; the extremes and the deviant being all central and right, there is no path to be cultivated — with no suffering and no origination there is no mundane, with no cessation and no path there is no supramundane, and neither grasped nor cast off they are one and the same true truth. He concludes that in this chapter “the constructed and the unconstructed, the measured and the measureless, are all contained.”

Zhiyan, on the sixty-fascicle text, determines it somewhat differently: he says the four truths are of two kinds, constructed and unconstructed, and that “here the text runs through both, but the intent is only the unconstructed, real and not false” — the text runs through both, the intent lies only in the unconstructed. He further sets a question: why is the rule set not by one truth but by the four truths? The answer is that it is in order to serve as an object of seeing and hearing for those of the three vehicles below, and to complete the condition by which they afterward give rise to faith and enter the path.

Li Tongxuan for his part distinguishes the four noble truths of the One Vehicle from the four truths of the three vehicles: the four truths of the three vehicles are weariness of suffering and origination and delight in cessation and the path, and hence are named the Dharma wheel of the four truths; the four noble truths spoken of by this scripture of the One Vehicle are the real sense of them — penetrating that the nature of suffering is real, there is no weariness; there is no separate buddha-land or separate pure land in another quarter; there is no delighting in or weariness of defilement and purity, nirvāṇa and birth-and-death; and one who cultivates the path “abides in the dharma of suchness and cultivates the dharma of suchness, neither wearied nor attached, neither delighting nor grasping.”

The three masters determine it differently, and here it is recorded without adjudication. But there is one thing they hold in common that the reader may carry away: the four truths are not lowly because they are ‘a numbered set of the Lesser Vehicle’; the depth or shallowness of the four truths lies wholly in how far the discerning wisdom discerns. Within one and the same word ‘suffering,’ the ordinary person undergoes it, those of the two vehicles know its marks, and the bodhisattva sees its measureless marks and its reality — the name has not changed; the person has.

Lineage

The sense of this chapter was inherited by four later tracks, all recorded without adjudication. The Chengguan line: he explains the text section by section under five gates, setting up the reason for its coming, the explanation of the name, the tenet and aim, the resolving of objections, and the explanation of the text proper; the explanation of the text proper he further divides into four sections, the names of the truths in the Sahā, the ten worlds next in order, the extension by likeness to all, and host and companion without end; and he takes the measureless four truths as gathering in the unconstructed four truths as well, and concludes the whole chapter with host and companion without end. He assigns a quarter to each of the ten worlds, records at the worlds Most Excellent and Abundant Overflow the mixing of renderings, and records at the world Joy the divergence in the number of names of the truth of suffering between the two texts — collation carried on alongside outline and explanation, which is the mark of his reading of this chapter. The Fazang line: on the chapter The Four Truths of the sixty-fascicle text he judges that this chapter only makes clear that the names of the four truths differ and is not an explanation of the sense of the four truths, that sense being opened separately into the five gates of the explanation of the name, the settling of the marks, substance and nature, action and function, and kinds, to be treated at another time; he sets forth the boundlessness of the One Vehicle's Dharma realm by ‘the confined dharma of the Lesser Vehicle already differing throughout all space,’ and judges this chapter to take the shared teaching of the One Vehicle as its rule while gathering in the lower stations throughout. The Zhiyan line: with the two kinds of four truths, constructed and unconstructed, he judges the text here to run through both while the intent is only the unconstructed; he sets the question “why is the rule set not by one truth but by the four truths,” answering that it is to serve as an object of seeing and hearing for those of the three vehicles and to complete the condition of giving rise to faith and entering the path, and appends a further thought of his own, that “the constructed of the One Vehicle is emptiness, the unconstructed of the One Vehicle is not empty.” The Li Tongxuan line: he distinguishes the four noble truths of the One Vehicle from the four truths of the three vehicles, judging that the three vehicles have delight and weariness while the One Vehicle penetrates that the nature of suffering is real; he further makes the four truths gather in the five aggregates, the twelve links, and the eighty-four thousand toils and liberations, adduces the doctrine of the nine vehicles from the Yingluo scripture, and closes this whole division of chapters with “the fundamental wisdom of universal light as the substance of the hall” — a determination that differs from the method of reading the scripture by the sequence of its outline; the ancients had this doctrine, and it is recorded.

Outside this chapter, its sense may be cross-read in three places. The first is the chapter The Ten Inexhaustible Treasuries: the tenth name of the truth of the path in the Sahā world in this chapter is ‘the ten treasuries,’ which Chengguan points to directly as the ten treasuries expounded in that chapter; and the passage on the treasury of learning in that chapter, in listing the numbered dharmas, likewise puts the four noble truths first. The second is the chapter The Ten Grounds: in his explanation of the name Chengguan announces beforehand that “following the fifth ground below, they are again contemplated under ten layers,” and Li Tongxuan ties it likewise, that the bodhisattva of the fifth ground makes ten kinds of contemplation of the truths, taking the four noble truths as their substance, and the bodhisattva of the sixth ground makes ten kinds of contemplation of the twelve links of arising through conditions — the measureless names of the truths established in this chapter come to be realized in a clearly ordered method of contemplation only at the ten grounds; the speaker there is the bodhisattva Vajragarbha, not the Mañjuśrī of this chapter, and in reading the attributions must not be confounded. The third is the chapter Entry into the Dharma Realm: that chapter has the clause “though he contemplates the four noble truths, he does not abide in the noble fruits of the Lesser Vehicle,” which answers exactly to this chapter's sense of breaking attachment and drawing in capacities.

As for the compendia of the Huayan school, in the five books, the Wujiao zhang, the Shixuan men, the Fajie xuanjing, the Huanyuan guan, and the Zhigui, the two terms ‘the four noble truths’ and ‘the noble truth of suffering’ are alike not found; and this chapter likewise has no separately circulating treatise citing and explaining it. The absence is recorded in accordance with fact.

The Buddha Released Light, and Yet Did Not Say a Single Word

In one scripture there is a chapter whose protagonist releases light and does not expound the Dharma, while the one who expounds it is a disciple — and a reader's first response is most often this: then what is the Buddha doing? From beginning to end of this chapter the World-Honored One does one thing only, which is to release a hundred koṭis of rays of light from the wheel-marks beneath his two feet; thereafter the light shines in ten successively increasing rounds, and all ten segments of verses issue from Mañjuśrī, the Buddha not himself speaking one word.

To make sense of this arrangement one has first to look at where the chapter is placed. Chengguan, determining the reason for this chapter's coming, sets out ten meanings, of which the first is “first, because it answers the earlier question about the fruit upon which one relies”; the second says that it broadly opens out what the preceding chapter, “The Names of the Tathāgata,” had indicated only in general; and the third is more direct still: “third, because it sets forth the very substance of the ten faiths.” Fazang, determining it on the sixty-fascicle text, puts it in a way easier to keep in mind: the preceding two chapters make clear the Buddha's bodily and verbal deeds, and this chapter makes clear the deeds of his mind — “first, the earlier chapters clarified body and speech, and now this clarifies the deeds of the mind; therefore it comes next.” Li Tongxuan ties it to the same intent, saying that “The Names of the Tathāgata” raises up the Buddha's body and his names as pervading everywhere, and that “The Four Noble Truths” makes clear that the Buddha's verbal deeds of expounding the Dharma pervade everywhere, while this chapter releases light to awaken those who have the mind of faith.

So the Buddha's not speaking is not an absence; what this chapter means to display is precisely the pervading of the deeds of the mind. A name can be uttered and a truth can be spoken; this one thing, “pervading,” cannot be said, and has to be shone upon and shown. Clear away one misreading: do not take the releasing of light for a display of wonders. Chengguan says it plainly — in the two preceding chapters Mañjuśrī's expounding “did not wait upon the shining of light”; what this chapter has to discern is that within a hundred koṭis of lands, and on to the whole Dharma realm, the expounding is simultaneous, and so “light is required to display it, and to show whence they have come” — the light is there so that “pervading” may become a visible thing. Coming down to the reading of it: every segment of this chapter should be read as one more asking of ‘do you see it?’

‘Light’ Is the Substance and ‘Awakening’ Is the Function: The Two Levels within the Chapter's Name

The four graphs of the chapter's title the ancient worthies read on two levels. Chengguan first opens them and then closes them. Opening them, he says: “Light is the substance. Awakening is the function.” Light is the substance, awakening the function. And these two are each of them twofold again: “that is, light has the two lights, of the body and of wisdom, and awakening has the awareness that knows and the awakening that realizes.” What the Buddha releases is the bodily light, and it shines upon the realm of events, causing the bodhisattvas to be aware and to see events without obstruction; what Mañjuśrī sets forth is the light of wisdom, and it shines upon both events and principle, causing the assembly to awaken to the nature and the marks of dharmas. This one division cuts open exactly the form of the whole chapter: the prose is the bodily light shining upon events, the verses are the light of wisdom shining upon principle.

And when he closes them? Chengguan says: “body and wisdom are not two, for there is only one unobstructed light.” The bodily light and the light of wisdom are not in fact two beams; and he cites, as warrant, the words of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra at the place of the bodhisattva Beryl Light: “‘Light’ is a name for wisdom; knowing and awakening are not different.” Fazang, over on the sixty-fascicle side, determines the matter in exactly the same way, and cites the Nirvāṇa Sūtra: “this light is markless; it is not that, being blue, it is seen as blue” — this light is not a blue thing that gets seen; it is itself without marks.

Zhiyan divides it most finely of all, one meaning to each of the four graphs: “‘Tathāgata’ is the lord of the transforming; ‘light’ is the substance of wisdom, ‘bright’ is its function, and ‘awakening’ is the opening and enlightening of those who are its conditions.” Li Tongxuan speaks not from the side that shines but from the side of those whom the shining reaches: “because the light that shines awakens the mind of faith and causes them to cultivate, for this cause it is named the chapter Awakening by Light.” The four masters come down in different places, and yet not one of them reads “light” as physical light. Clearing away a misreading: if one reads this chapter thinking all the while of brightness and of range, both levels, substance and function, have been thrown away. Where it comes to earth is Chengguan's one sentence on the tenet and the aim — “the unobstructed awakening of the two lights, of the body and of wisdom, is the tenet; to cause beings to give rise to faith is the aim”: what this chapter means in the end to accomplish is not a marvel of sight and hearing but faith.

Ten Rounds of Shining — Was the Light Released Ten Times?

The scripture has ten segments, and in each the light goes further than in the last: this world, ten worlds, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, a koṭi, ten koṭis, and in the last segment straight on to the end of the Dharma realm and of the realm of empty space. Reading to the third segment, a person naturally asks: does the Buddha release it once, and then again?

Chengguan clears away all three possible readings at one stroke: “yet it is not a releasing of light many times over, nor is it one release of light shining in order upon the many nodes; it is a single release of light shining all at once upon the worlds to the end of space.” It is not that it was released many times, nor that it was released once and then shone through them in order — it is one release and an all-at-once shining. Then why does the text have a before and an after? He answers: “but because words cannot be uttered side by side, the setting forth is shown as having before and after, and according to their capacities it appears in the minds of beings and is seen node by node” — language cannot say everything at once, and so the setting forth has a sequence; and on the side of sentient beings, it is seen node by node according to each one's capacity. He closes with a comparison of the finest sort: “as regards the Buddha and Mañjuśrī, at every node they pervade everywhere, as the moon shines everywhere upon a hundred streams and is seen in each.” There is only one moon, and the hundred streams each see a moon — it is not that the moon divides its body; it is that the waters severally receive it.

There is a further layer, and it matters more. Chengguan says: “if one goes by the real meaning, there should be endless nodes equal to the Dharma realm, with verses at every node” — ten is not a real number; it is said with reference to the text as it now stands. He even points out that “taking the text as it stands, there are for the moment twenty-six nodes, the first nine named separately and the latter seventeen discerned together, which makes ten segments” — a text of twenty-six nodes outlined as ten segments, which shows that “ten” is a number taken by the outline and not a fixed quantity of the thing itself. Clearing away a misreading: do not go counting how many trips the light made. Where it comes to earth: at each segment the reader should ask, not ‘how much further has it gone’, but ‘is what I see in this segment still the very same thing?’

Why It Is Mañjuśrī Who Speaks the Verses

The speaker of the ten segments of verses is marked by the scripture in each segment without one graph altered: “At that time the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī of all places, each in the place of the buddha where he was, sent forth his voice at the same time and spoke these verses.” Two things are to be noticed: first, that the speaker is not the Buddha; second, that the speaker is crowned with the three graphs “of all places.”

What is meant by “of all places”? Chengguan sets out three meanings. The first is with reference to the node in hand: “as in the first node, before a hundred koṭis of buddhas there are a hundred koṭis of Mañjuśrīs, and that is ‘all’.” And this is why the scripture says in every segment “each in the place of the buddha where he was” — each speaks the verses belonging to his own node. The second is with reference to coming and going: “one Mañjuśrī coming from one place in the east is coming from all places in the east; arriving at one Dharma assembly, he arrives at all Dharma assemblies.” The third is with reference to the symbolizing of the Dharma: “Mañjuśrī is the wondrous functioning of unmoving wisdom, which understands the moment it touches an object.”

Why Mañjuśrī, and not another? Zhiyan answers with the utmost brevity: “in the fifth part, the verses, the text has them issue from Mañjuśrī, and the intent is that he stands for the other ten bodhisattvas. The reason Mañjuśrī is the one who speaks is to show that the Dharma issues from wisdom.” Li Tongxuan sets himself a question and answer, and answers at more length: “it is to make clear that Mañjuśrī is the wondrous wisdom of the buddhas of the ten directions, well discriminating the right from the wrong. Right and wrong once settled, one then cultivates by practice, and this is named the practice of Samantabhadra.” He answers in passing a further difficulty as well: in the teaching of the five stations the bodhisattvas must all enter concentration before they speak; why is there no entering of concentration in this chapter? The answer: “faith is the arising-and-ceasing mind of an ordinary person; faith has not yet entered realization, and therefore there is no concentration.” — this is Li Tongxuan's way of determining the chapter, reading it throughout as the station of the ten faiths; there was such a saying in antiquity, and it is recorded.

Clearing away a misreading: that the speaker is not the Buddha does not mean that these verses carry the lesser weight. Chengguan determines that “within the ten segments the text is in each case twofold” — the prose is the Buddha's bodily light displaying events, the verses are Mañjuśrī's light of wisdom expounding principle; the two are two faces of one thing, not a principal and a subordinate. Where it comes to earth: in reading the ten segments that follow, each segment is to be read on both levels at once — the prose shows you what has been seen, the verses tell you how it is to be looked at.

Segment One · The Light Shines upon This Three-Thousandfold Great-Thousand World-System: To Have Seen Is Not Yet Seeing

The prose of the first segment writes out the nearest circle: a hundred koṭis of Jambudvīpas, Pūrvavidehas, Godānīyas, and Uttarakurus, the four continents; a hundred koṭis of great seas and encircling mountains; a hundred koṭis of bodhisattvas taking birth and going forth from the household; a hundred koṭis of tathāgatas accomplishing right awakening, turning the wheel of the Dharma, and entering nirvāṇa; and then upward to Sumeru, king of mountains, and to the heavens, as far as the Heaven of the Ultimate of Form. Chengguan glosses these names one by one — Jambudvīpa is “in the new rendering called Jambu”; Pūrvavideha is “here rendered Excellent Body, because its bodies are more excellent than those of the other continents”; Uttarakuru is “here rendered Excellent Birth, because the life-span there is fixed at a thousand years and clothing and food come of themselves.” As for the number “a hundred koṭis,” he says that it is the middle of the three grades in the reckoning attributed to the Yellow Emperor: “from a thousand upward it changes by hundreds a hundred times over, and thus there is a hundred koṭis.” The point of this long string is not natural history but the spreading open of the whole breadth of ‘one world’ for a person to see: from earth to heaven, from birth to cessation, not one thing omitted, all of it within a single light. The latter half of the prose matters still more: one sees the Buddha seated upon the lion throne of the lotus treasury, and the ten great bodhisattvas of the ten directions come and gather, each with his following; the names, the lands, and the buddhas served are listed by tens. Chengguan warns that these are not ten separate Dharma assemblies: “first the original assembly is manifested; this is one assembly pervading all places, and it is not that there are many places each having its own separate assembly.”

The ten verses then turn all of this over once. The first verse — “If someone sees the one rightly awakened, liberated and departed from the outflows, clinging to nothing in any world, he is not one with the eye of the realized path” — first asks: to see the Buddha as liberated, free of the outflows, unattached to the world — is that not excellent? The verse says that this is still “not the eye of the realized path,” because what you have seen is still an object of which ‘there is a liberation to be had’. The second verse supplies the positive side: “If someone knows the Tathāgata, that his substance and marks are without anything at all,” and the person who cultivates and understands in this way “will quickly become a buddha.” The third verse brings the work down onto the mind: seeing the world, “his mind does not waver,” and toward the body of the Buddha likewise it does not waver. The fourth goes further: toward the Buddha and toward the Dharma “his mind understands them to be equal,” and moreover “the two thoughts do not come before him” — it is not that one thinks about equality; it is that the very thought which divides into two sides does not arise. The fifth says that seeing the Buddha and seeing oneself are equal, and one abides therein “with nothing dwelt in and nothing entered” — even the posture of one who could enter is set down. The sixth turns to the five aggregates: “form and feeling have no number, and perception, formations, and consciousness are likewise” — it does not say that the aggregates are too many to count, but that they have of themselves no fixed number to be grasped. The seventh says that the two kinds of view, worldly and world-transcending, are “all of them passed beyond,” and yet one still “well knows the dharmas” — from which it is plain that passing beyond is not a refusal to attend. The eighth is the subtlest: to give rise to the mind that dedicates and directs is good, but one must at the same time “see that the mind is without arising,” or else the dedicating itself becomes one more thing clung to. The ninth turns the gaze upon sentient beings: “sentient beings have no birth, nor have they any perishing.” The tenth closes on mutual entering: “within one he understands the measureless, within the measureless he understands one, and understands that these arise from one another.”

Clear away one large misreading: these ten verses are not denying ‘the seeing of the Buddha’; they are dismantling the grasper and the grasped inside the ‘seeing’. Where it comes to earth is the third verse — if a person's mind wavers along with objects, then the buddha he sees wavers along with them too; only when the mind does not waver is one entitled to speak of seeing.

Segment Two · The Light Passes beyond This World and Shines Everywhere upon Ten Buddha-Lands to the East: Such Is the Dharma of the Buddhas

In the prose of the second segment the light for the first time passes out beyond this world and shines everywhere upon ten buddha-lands to the east, and so likewise in the four intermediate directions and above and below; the assembly that comes and the buddhas served are now given in the abridged form, “Mañjuśrī and the rest,” “the world Golden Color and the rest,” “the Tathāgata Unmoving Wisdom and the rest.” From here on the scripture settles the narrative frame of the ten segments. The ten verses of this segment change subject entirely: the segment before spoke of how to see the Buddha; this one speaks of why the Buddha does as he does.

The first verse — “Sentient beings are without wisdom, wounded and poisoned by the thorn of craving; for their sake he seeks awakening: such is the Dharma of the buddhas” — is glossed by Chengguan in its first half thus: “that is, ignorance makes deeds, and craving is able to moisten those deeds, and therefore birth-and-death is without end, as with a thorn in the mud one does not feel the wound.” The thorn is in the mud, and one treads upon it without feeling the wound: this is what is most perilous about craving. The second verse says that the Buddha “lets go of both sides” and thereafter “turns this wheel that has no equal” — the letting go of the two sides is not neutrality; it is the precondition of the wheel's being turned at all. The third, “through kalpas inconceivable he vigorously cultivates the practices,” pulls the becoming of a buddha back from miracle to the long labor of kalpas. The fourth says of his subduing of Māra that he is “valiant and strong, and none can overcome him,” and yet its last line comes home to “it is by reason of compassion that he is so” — the provenance of the strength is compassion, not force. The fifth says “with his mind of wisdom he breaks the obstructions of the afflictions and in a single thought sees all” — the breaking of obstruction and the seeing of everything are one and the same act. The sixth, “he strikes the drum of the right Dharma and wakes the lands of the ten directions,” uses the image of rousing from sleep, not of persuasion. The seventh, “without destroying the boundless realms he roams the koṭis of lands” — to roam everywhere without destroying the realms is the definition of sovereign freedom. The eighth says that the buddhas “are like empty space, ultimate and constantly pure,” and that of those who call them to mind “the vows are fulfilled,” joining the purity of the Buddha to the vow of the practitioner. The ninth weighs heaviest: “within each and every hell he passes through measureless kalpas; and for the sake of delivering beings he can bear this suffering.” The tenth closes upon oneself: “not begrudging body and life, constantly guarding the Dharma of the buddhas, without self and with a mind harmonious and pliant” — the root of pliancy is no-self, not good manners.

Clearing away a misreading: this segment is easily read as a hymn of praise. It is in fact a set of causal statements — the last line of every verse identifies ‘what power this is’: the power of the Great Seer, the spiritual power of the Buddha, the power of sovereign freedom. Where it comes to earth is the first verse: unless one first grants that one is oneself the person wounded by the thorn of craving and not feeling it, the nine verses that follow have nothing to do with one.

Segment Three · The Light Passes beyond Ten Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon a Hundred Worlds to the East: Some See the First Birth, Some See the Nirvāṇa

The prose of the third segment has the same form as the one before, the light moving on from ten worlds to a hundred. The ten verses of this segment are most singular: apart from the first, all nine begin with “some see” or “some there are who see” — one and the same buddha, and what sentient beings see differs in each case. Chengguan determines this segment to be the awakening under the eight aspects, and in glossing the display of the eight aspects in the prose he says: “within the second, the display of the eight aspects, the text has five aspects, the taking of birth containing three. The Buddha released light only after accomplishing the path; that he nevertheless displays the first birth and the later nirvāṇa is by reason of the gate of the subtle, which fuses the three times.” The Buddha has already accomplished the path, and yet within the light there appear the first birth and the nirvāṇa; this is because the three times are mutually fused.

The first verse is the general heading: “The Buddha has understood that dharmas are like a conjuring; penetrating them without obstruction, his mind is pure and departed from every clinging, and therefore he tames the multitudes of beings” — it first establishes the ground of the displaying, which is the full understanding of the conjuring-like. The second sees the first birth, “his wondrous color like a mountain of gold,” “forever the bright moon among men,” two comparisons, one writing dignity and one coolness. The third sees the walking meditation, “right mindfulness and wisdom both skillful, the lion's stride of a great man” — between going and staying is merit itself. The fourth sees the “deep blue eyes” and that “at times he shows a slight smile,” and the last line breaks it open: “in accord with the wishes of sentient beings” — even the smile is a response to capacity. The fifth sees the lion's roar, and its weight lies in the last line, “not one word he speaks is untrue.” The sixth sees the going forth from the household, “liberated from every bond,” and “constantly delighting to contemplate quiescence.” The seventh sees him seated at the site of awakening and accomplishing right awakening, with “arrived at the far shore of merit” and “the darkness of folly and the afflictions exhausted” raised together, the one merit and the other wisdom. The eighth sees the turning of the wheel of the Dharma, whose precondition is “complete in the great mind of compassion.” The ninth sees the lion's roar again, and this time the weight lies in “his majestic light most singular” and “the power of his supernormal penetrations without equal” — the same name as the fifth verse but a different meaning, the one with reference to the truth of what is said, the other to the excellence of majestic power. The tenth sees the nirvāṇa: “some see his mind at rest and still, as a lamp of the world forever extinguished,” and yet immediately after, “in every manner he displays supernormal penetrations” — the lamp is out and the functioning does not cease.

Clearing away a misreading: do not read these ten “some see” as ten stages that the Buddha has. They are simultaneous, and are seen by differing capacities. Where it comes to earth: which aspect you see at this moment tells you nothing about the Buddha; it tells you about yourself.

Segment Four · The Light Passes beyond a Hundred Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon a Thousand Worlds to the East: The Buddha Is Not Something That Can Be Reckoned

In the fourth segment the light moves on to a thousand worlds. The subject of these ten verses is the most severe of all — the Buddha does not fall within any category that can be measured.

The first verse states the position: “toward the profound Dharma the Buddha is penetrating and without equal,” and sentient beings cannot understand, and so “in due order he reveals it for them” — that he is profound and yet still consents to due order is compassion. The second puts the knife in directly: “the self's own nature has never existed, and what is mine is empty and still; how then should the tathāgatas come to have a body?” The third says “the world's measurings that infer from causes cannot find a fault”; and Chengguan points out here what is being refuted: “by logic one sets up an inference, and in dependence upon the conventional one discriminates a fixed existence or a fixed nonexistence; hence it is called worldly.” — to measure the Buddha with the worldly fixities of is and is-not is from the outset to fail to reach him. The fourth clears the categories away one by one: “the Buddha is not the worldly aggregates, the elements and bases, the dharmas of birth-and-death; dharmas reckoned by number cannot constitute him” — aggregates, elements, and bases, these reckoned dharmas, do not compose a buddha. The fifth says “his nature is from the first empty and still, and inwardly and outwardly he is liberated.” The sixth is the pivot of the whole segment: “his nature is constantly unmoving, without self and without coming or going,” and yet “he can wake the world” — unmoving and yet able to wake: this is substance and function not obstructing each other. The seventh, “constantly he delights to contemplate quiescence, one mark and no second, his mind neither increasing nor decreasing,” and yet “he displays measureless spiritual power” — the same non-obstruction. The eighth says the Buddha “does not perform the deeds of karmic recompense and causal conditions that sentient beings perform,” and yet still “fully understands without obstruction” — not being inside them, he can see them entire. The ninth, “the Tathāgata does not discriminate, and delivers the boundless kinds”: not discriminating is not the same as not attending. The tenth closes with form and color: “the buddhas are of the color of true gold, not really existent and yet everywhere within all that exists” — not really existent, and yet pervading everything that is.

Clearing away a misreading: reading “the Buddha is not the worldly aggregates,” do not slide into ‘the Buddha does not exist’. What the verse dismantles is the notion that takes aggregates, elements, and bases for the Buddha; it does not dismantle the Buddha. Where it comes to earth is the sixth verse: if a person supposes that being unmoving must mean being useless, and that being useful must mean moving, these ten verses cannot be read at all.

Segment Five · The Light Passes beyond a Thousand Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon Ten Thousand Worlds to the East: Deeds Such as These Are to Be Done

In the fifth segment the light moves on to ten thousand worlds. Every one of these ten verses ends with “deeds such as these are to be done” — ten verses reckoned out, and the closing line seen ten times, without a single exception. The four preceding segments all spoke of the Buddha and of seeing the Buddha; at this segment the text turns suddenly into a charge laid upon the reader: these things, you are to do.

Chengguan, outlining this segment, says that the first verse is compassion, “the deed of rescuing, not seeking one's own benefit, hence it says ‘forever come out beyond humans and gods’”; and that the next are “four deeds of ascending toward wisdom: first faith, second delight, third mindfulness, fourth learning.” Set against the scriptural text it is quite plain: the first verse, “give rise to the great mind of compassion, rescue and protect sentient beings, forever come out beyond the throngs of humans and gods,” first establishes compassion. The second, “let the mind constantly believe and delight in the Buddha, let that mind not turn back,” is faith. The third, “aspire to and delight in the Buddha's merit, let that mind never retreat, abide in cool and clear wisdom,” is delight. The fourth, “within all the deportments constantly call to mind the Buddha's merit, with no break by day or night,” is mindfulness — and note “within all the deportments”: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down all count. The fifth, “contemplate the boundless three times, learn the merit of those buddhas, constantly without a weary mind,” is learning. Faith, delight, mindfulness, and learning, these four, are exactly what Chengguan marks as the “deeds of ascending toward wisdom.”

The latter five verses turn to contemplative practice. The sixth, “contemplate the true mark of the body, that all is quiescent, and depart from the clinging to self and to no-self” — even “no-self” is not clung to, and this is the line most easily skipped. The seventh, “contemplate the minds of beings equally, give rise to no discriminations, enter the realm of the real.” The eighth suddenly widens: “lift up the boundless realms entire, drink dry all the seas everywhere,” and its last line marks itself, “such power of supernormal penetration and wisdom” — supernormal power too is listed among the deeds that are to be done. The ninth, “ponder the lands, those with the marks of form and those without.” The tenth is the most extraordinary: “the dust-motes of the lands of the ten directions, one dust-mote reckoned as one buddha, and being able to know their number.”

Clearing away a misreading: these ten things are not a checklist of ten items of practice; they are one line — compassion arising, faith established, mindfulness maintained, contemplation accomplished, measure made vast. Where it comes to earth is the fourth verse: the true watershed is not what you think about while sitting in meditation, but whether there is any break “within all the deportments.”

Segment Six · The Light Passes beyond Ten Thousand Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon a Hundred Thousand Worlds to the East: The Topsy-Turvy View of a Diseased Eye

In the sixth segment the light moves on to a hundred thousand worlds. In this segment the first five verses change to seven-graph lines while the latter five remain five-graph — ten verses reckoned out, the first five in seven-graph lines and the latter five in five — and this is the first change of prosody in the chapter. What it says is also the most famous thing in it: the Tathāgata is not to be seen by marks of form.

The first verse is the heaviest blow of the whole chapter: “If by majestic marks of virtue, by the body of form, and by clan one sees the Tamer among men, this is the topsy-turvy view of a diseased eye, and such a one cannot know the most excellent Dharma.” To identify the Buddha by majesty, by the body of form, by clan is judged outright by the scripture to be a diseased eye. The second verse steps back and speaks of the marks of form themselves: “the Tathāgata's form and figure and all his marks, no world at all can measure”; Chengguan glosses this verse, “the first verse makes clear that the Tathāgata's marks of form are boundless, and therefore beyond the fathoming of sentiment,” and determines that boundlessness has two senses, of which the first is “because it is deep, for each single mark, matching the real, is boundless” — it is not that the marks are unworthy, but that the marks themselves are unfathomably deep. The third verse rounds the statement out: “the Tathāgata does not take marks for his substance, but is only the markless Dharma of quiescence,” and yet “his bodily marks and deportments are complete in every particular, and the world sees them each according to its delight” — not taking marks for his substance does not obstruct the completeness of the marks. The fourth speaks of the unmeasurableness of the Dharma: “neither combined nor uncombined,” falling on neither side. The fifth speaks of the body: “the Buddha's body is unborn and beyond frivolous talk, not the differentiated dharma of a heap of aggregates.”

The latter five verses turn to the part of the practitioner. The sixth, “body and mind are alike equal, inwardly and outwardly liberated, through eternal kalpas abiding in right mindfulness.” The seventh, “one whose mind is pure and gives out light is unstained wherever he goes, and there is no place his eye of wisdom does not reach” — the phrase “mind pure and giving out light” fastens exactly upon the chapter's name. The eighth, “one body becomes measureless, and the measureless becomes one again,” which is the mutual entering of one and many. The ninth, “this body has come from nowhere and is not heaped up; because sentient beings discriminate, the Buddha is seen to have bodies of every kind”; Chengguan glosses here, “that is to say, the one body and the many bodies arise only from the discriminating minds of sentient beings, and therefore there is no heaping up and no coming from” — the provenance of the many bodies lies in the discriminating of sentient beings, not in some storehouse on the Buddha's side. The tenth gathers this principle into its final line: “it is the mind that discriminates the world, and this mind is without anything at all; the Tathāgata knows this Dharma, and thus one sees the Buddha's body.”

Clearing away a misreading: what the first verse negates is ‘taking marks of form for the Buddha's substance’; it does not negate the dignity of the marks and signs, and the third verse has already supplied the balance. Where it comes to earth: if, while bowing to a buddha, the mind is calculating efficacy and response, that is only another way of writing “majesty, form, and clan.”

Segment Seven · The Light Passes beyond a Hundred Thousand Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon a Million Worlds to the East: Both One and Many Are Let Go

In the seventh segment the light moves on to a million worlds. Li Tongxuan says of it, “the seventh has ten verses of practice, praising the Tathāgata's virtue of sovereign freedom without reliance, complete in every merit, so as to bring about the mind of faith” — and indeed this segment begins from the praising of virtue and closes in the letting go of both one and many.

The first verse praises in general: “the Tathāgata is most sovereignly free, come out beyond the world and leaning on nothing.” The second speaks of his substance: “no staining and no clinging, no thinking and no dependence, his nature not to be measured.” The third states the theme: “his light is everywhere and pure, the encumbering dust washed clean, unwavering and departed from both sides — this is the Tathāgata's wisdom” — the chapter is named Awakening by Light, and this is the one place where “light” is judged outright to be “the Tathāgata's wisdom.” The fourth speaks of the effect of seeing: seeing the Tathāgata with “body and mind departed from discrimination,” one then “forever comes out from every doubt and hindrance” as to all dharmas. The fifth speaks of the turning of the wheel: “within all worlds, everywhere he turns the wheel of the Dharma; there is no own-nature and there is nothing turned”; Chengguan glosses the line, “though he turns it pervading the Dharma realm, because it is without own-nature and quiescent there is nothing turned, and, borrowing words to proclaim it, it is called an expounding by skillful means” — the pervading turning and the nothing-turned do not conflict, and to say that something is turned is a word of skillful means. The sixth speaks of calling the Buddha to mind: “toward the Dharma no doubt, all frivolous talk forever cut off, no discriminating mind arising — this is to call to mind the Buddha's awakening” — so calling the Buddha to mind is not a matter of thinking of him, but of no discrimination arising. The seventh, “knowing the dharmas in their differences and not clinging to speech, so that there is neither one nor many.” The eighth takes one and many apart to the end: “within the many there is no own-nature of one, and within one there is no many; letting go of both in this way, one enters everywhere the merit of the Buddha.” The ninth makes beings and lands alike quiescent: “beings and lands are all quiescent, nothing leaned upon and no discrimination.” The tenth closes it again from one and different: “beings and lands, one or different, are not attainable”; and Chengguan says here, “being alike quiescent, one cannot call them different; the two being distinct, the recipient world and the recipient body, one cannot call them one” — being alike quiescent one cannot say different; the world and the body being distinct, one cannot say one.

Clearing away a misreading: the “both let go” of the eighth verse does not cancel the capacity to distinguish one from many; the seventh has only just said “knowing the dharmas in their differences.” What is let go is the taking of one or of many as really having own-nature. Where it comes to earth is the sixth verse: a thought that is still weighing up ‘does this count as calling the Buddha to mind’ is still inside discrimination.

Segment Eight · The Light Passes beyond a Million Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon a Koṭi of Worlds to the East: This Is the Power of Skillful Means

In the eighth segment the light moves on to a koṭi of worlds. Chengguan marks it here, “the eighth: the light shines again upon a koṭi of realms. Before it said a million; now it is tenfold what went before.” These ten verses are all in seven-graph lines, and ten verses reckoned out, the closing line showing “the power of skillful means” ten times, every verse ending in it — the second instance of the chapter's repeated closing formula.

The first verse, “his wisdom without equal and the Dharma without bound, passing beyond the sea of existence to the far shore,” closes with “this is the power of skillful means of one who has this merit.” The second, “all the Dharma of the buddhas he clearly understands, constantly contemplating the three times without weariness, and though he takes objects as conditions he does not discriminate” — to take objects as conditions and not discriminate is the first sense of skillful means. The third, “he delights to contemplate beings without the notion of a being born, sees the destinies everywhere without the notion of a destiny, and constantly abides in the stillness of concentration with a mind bound to nothing”: contemplating without notions, abiding without being bound. The fourth, “skillfully penetrating all dharmas, with right mindfulness diligently cultivating the path of nirvāṇa, delighting in liberation and departing from the unequal.” The fifth turns toward the benefit of others: “able to urge others toward the Buddha's awakening, toward the omniscience that is like the Dharma realm, skillfully transforming beings so that they enter the truth,” its closing line marked as “this is the power of skillful means of one who abides in the mind of a buddha.” The sixth, “whatever Dharma the Buddha expounds he accords with and enters, his vast wisdom unobstructed, every practice in every place already reached.” The seventh is the finest: “constantly abiding in nirvāṇa as in empty space, manifesting transformations according to the minds of beings, with no place he does not reach; this is to take the markless for a mark” — the markless taken as a mark is exactly the definition of the two words ‘skillful means’. The eighth, “day and night, sun and moon, and years and kalpas, and the marks of a world's formation and destruction from beginning to end,” its closing line marking itself as “this is the power of skillful means of the wisdom of times and numbers.” The ninth, “all beings have birth and cessation, with form and without, with perception and without, and all their names he knows.” The tenth, “the three times, past, present, and future, all their speech he understands, and he knows the three times to be wholly equal”; Chengguan glosses the last two verses of this segment, “the two verses above merely understand the differences, and that is skillful means. Of the ten incomparable skillful means, the first two lines know the marks, the upper line exhausting vertically and the lower gathering horizontally” — the first two lines of the tenth verse are the one vertical and the other horizontal, the vertical exhausting the three times and the horizontal gathering in all speech.

Clearing away a misreading: skillful means is not an expedient of the second rank. These ten verses tie skillful means without exception to wisdom — one who has this merit, one beyond conceiving, unobstructed wisdom, one who is quiescent, one who abides in the mind of a buddha, one who cultivates in sovereign freedom, one who has arrived where it is hard to arrive, the wisdom of times and numbers, one who abides in the realm hard to conceive, an understanding beyond compare: not one of the ten subjects is of a low order. Where it comes to earth is the seventh verse: whether one can, within the state of dwelling nowhere, give rise to a functioning that has shape, is the sole test of whether the skillful means is genuine.

Segment Nine · The Light Passes beyond a Koṭi of Worlds and Shines Everywhere upon Ten Koṭis of Worlds to the East: This Is His Practice

In the ninth segment the light moves on to ten koṭis of worlds. In these ten verses, reckoned out, the closing line shows “this is his practice” ten times; it is the third instance of the chapter's repeated closing formula, and it is also the segment richest in compassion. Chengguan outlines this segment verse by verse under the two heads of ‘those rescued’ and ‘the rescuing’, one verse to one class of sentient beings, with the last verse as the summation.

The first verse is the general one: “vast austerities all cultivated, diligent day and night without weariness or sloth,” first establishing the ground of the one who rescues. The second rescues beings of folly and craving: “beings turn in the sea of craving, covered by the net of ignorance and greatly pressed”; Fazang, glossing the difficulty of this verse, says, “in the first pair, the former rescues beings of folly and craving. It is as when a person falls into the sea and by four circumstances finds it hard to escape: first, the water is deep; second, the waves are steep; third, he is bound in a net” — the water deep, the waves high, and himself tangled in a net, and beyond these three nothing to take hold of. The third rescues beings given to license: “the world gives itself to license and clings to the five desires, and by unreal discrimination undergoes suffering,” and the means of rescue is “upholding the Buddha's teaching, constantly gathering in the mind.” The fourth rescues beings who cling to a self: “beings cling to a self and fall into birth-and-death, and seek its limit and cannot find it.” The fifth rescues beings of the evil destinies; Chengguan glosses this verse, “the three lines are those rescued, that is, having no good to rely on, showing that it is only evil deeds and the causes that are the sickness of delusion which summon the three evil destinies, and that in turn there arise again the faults of the three poisons, cause and fruit both burning. The last line is the means of rescue: only purify the mind, and the cause perishes and the fruit is lost” — the first three lines write out to the full the sickness and the round of the three poisons, and the last line gives one medicine only: purify the mind. The sixth rescues beings of wrong views: “constantly walking crooked bypaths and entering the house of darkness,” of which Chengguan says, “wrong views veil principle, and that is the house of darkness,” the means of rescue being to “greatly kindle the lamp of the right Dharma.” The seventh rescues beings who cling to existence: “beings drift and sink in the sea of existence, their hardships shoreless with no place to rest,” rescued with “the great ship of the Dharma.” The eighth rescues beings of ignorance; Chengguan says, “because of the ignorance that abides at the root, they do not see the root that abides nowhere, and, deluded as to principle and confused as to events, they run madly within birth-and-death,” rescued by “raising up the bridge of the Dharma.” The ninth rescues beings on the perilous road: “seeing beings on a perilous road, constantly pressed by the suffering of old age, sickness, and death,” rescued by “cultivating skillful means without limit.” The tenth is the summation; Chengguan determines that “the first half concludes that there is the wisdom of teaching and of realization, which is able to guide the compassion that has no object. The next line concludes that there is the compassion of one same substance, which is able to pervade the six destinies of the ten directions” — “hearing the Dharma, believing and understanding without doubt, understanding that the nature is empty and still and not being afraid” is the wisdom, and “following the kinds of forms he enters the six destinies throughout the ten directions” is the compassion.

Clearing away a misreading: the three comparisons of lamp, ship, and bridge are not a heaping up of figures; each answers a different plight — one who has lost the road needs a lamp, one who is sinking needs a ship, one who is cut off needs a bridge. Where it comes to earth is the tenth verse: with either wisdom or compassion missing, the rescue comes to nothing — compassion alone will be drowned by the object, and wisdom alone will stand and watch.

Segment Ten · The Light Passes beyond Ten Koṭis of Worlds and Shines Everywhere to the End of the Dharma Realm and of the Realm of Empty Space: The Buddha Pervades Empty Space in Just This Way

The tenth segment is the closing segment. The prose pushes the number of worlds all the way to the end: a hundred koṭis, a thousand koṭis, a hundred thousand koṭis, nayutas of koṭis, and on to “numberless and measureless, boundless and matchless, uncountable, unnameable, unthinkable, unweighable, unspeakable, all the worlds to the end of the Dharma realm and of the realm of empty space.” Chengguan determines that the prose of this segment divides in two, “first clarifying the number of worlds, of which there are roughly seventeen, gradually exhausting the Dharma realm; afterward clarifying that all that is within those worlds appears,” and determines the ten verses to be “clarifying the virtue of the perfect pervading of cause and fruit,” which divides in two: “the former four display the pervading of the Buddha's cause and fruit; the latter six urge beings to practice accordingly.”

The former four verses. The first, “in one thought he contemplates measureless kalpas everywhere, with no going, no coming, and no abiding”; Chengguan says, “the first three lines are the three penetrations, the cause complete; the last line is the fullness of the fruit in the ten powers” — the first three lines are cause, and the last line, “passing beyond all skillful means he accomplishes the ten powers,” is fruit. The second, “throughout the ten directions his fair renown beyond compare, forever departed from calamities and constantly joyful, arriving everywhere within all lands,” is the great functioning displayed outwardly, the expounding pervading everywhere. The third speaks of the pervading cause: “for the benefit of beings he makes offerings to the buddhas, and according to his intention obtains a corresponding fruit”; Chengguan glosses, “because he makes offerings to the buddhas with the Dharma, he accords and knows with regard to the Dharma; because he acts universally for beings, he can function universally; and this is the outflowing of the same kind, called a corresponding fruit,” and cites the words of the Jin rendering as warrant: “the Jin scripture says ‘offering with an upright mind’, which makes clear that it is an offering of Dharma” — the offering is not a matter of goods, but of Dharma. The fourth speaks of the deep cause: “from his first offering to the buddhas his mind gentle and forbearing, entering deep concentration and contemplating the nature of dharmas, everywhere urging beings to give rise to the mind of the path,” which Chengguan divides into the two practices, the six perfections for one's own benefit and those for others' benefit, the two practices being complete “and therefore it says ‘swiftly accomplishes’.”

The latter six verses urge practice. The fifth is the practice of seeking the Dharma: “seeking the Dharma in the ten directions with a disposition making no distinction, cultivating merit that it may be complete, the two marks of existence and nonexistence wholly extinguished,” of which Chengguan says, “in all dharmas there is nothing at all sought; a seeking of this kind is the seeing of the true dharma-body.” The sixth is the practice of expounding the Dharma: “everywhere going to the lands of the ten directions, broadly expounding the wondrous Dharma and raising up benefit and profit,” Chengguan glossing “benefit and profit” as the fourfold gain of causing beings to depart from evil and take up good, of this life and other lives, of the worldly and the world-transcending, of merit and of wisdom. The seventh is the practice of hearing the Dharma: “the wondrous wheel of the Dharma that the Tathāgata turns is in every part a limb of awakening,” upon which Chengguan lays down a sentence of the utmost weight — “there is not one graph and not one dharma that is not a cause of awakening; how should it stop at the thirty-seven factors?” The eighth through the tenth are the practice of dismantling marks, which Chengguan determines as “the first stating it directly, the latter two glossing it further.” The eighth states it directly: “not seeing that the ten powers are empty as a conjuring, though he looks it is not seeing, as a blind man looks; one who grasps marks by discrimination does not see the Buddha, and only by departing from clinging altogether can one see” — the first three lines say it from the negative side, the last from the positive. The ninth is the first further gloss: “beings differ according to their deeds, and the inward and outward of the ten directions are hard to see through; the Buddha's body is unobstructed and pervades the ten directions, and likewise cannot be seen through”; Chengguan says, “the deluded confusion of beings cannot even be exhausted; how then should the buddhas, who accord with the real, be seen to the end?” — taking the deluded as a figure for the real. The tenth is the second further gloss, and is also the close of the whole chapter: “Just as in empty space there are measureless lands, that come not and go not and yet pervade the ten directions, whose arising, forming, and perishing lean upon nothing — so too does the Buddha pervade empty space.” Chengguan opens two sets of four meanings upon this verse: for lands pervading space, “first, many lands fill space; second, their substance neither comes nor goes; third, it does not prevent their forming and perishing; fourth, there is no separate thing relied upon”; and for the Buddha's body pervading space, “first, it pervades many lands all at once; second, it constantly neither goes nor comes; third, it should have appearing and disappearing; fourth, its substance and function rely on nothing”; and the conclusion is that “the Buddha's body likewise is not to be grasped by way of its pervading space.”

Clearing away a misreading: the last verse's saying that the Buddha pervades empty space is most easily read as ‘the Buddha is one enormous existent that fills up space’ — and that is exactly what Chengguan blocks with “grasping by way of pervading space.” What the figure of empty space takes is the being without support, not the being vast. Where it comes to earth: from the first verse's “he is not one with the eye of the realized path” the whole chapter is dismantling seeing, and at the last verse it will not permit even “pervading” to be grasped — from beginning to end this chapter does one thing only, which is to take away, layer by layer, the buddha you are holding in your hand.

Lineage

The meaning of this chapter was carried on by four later tracks, which are recorded together without adjudication. The line of Chengguan: he opens five gates — the ten meanings of the reason for its coming, the explanation of the name in its opening and closing, the tenet and aim, the resolving of doubts and objections, and the explanation of the text — determines light to be the substance and awakening the function, establishes the two meanings of “a single release of light shining all at once” and “one assembly pervading all places,” and outlines the ten segments one by one, dividing the prose and the verses of each into the two levels of bodily light and light of wisdom; at the end of the chapter he concludes the three chapters together, saying “the three chapters above have now answered the question about the fruit relied upon in the first ten clauses,” gathering the pervading of the name, the pervading of the expedient and the real, and the pervading of the body into one set. The line of Fazang: on the sixty-fascicle chapter “The Awakening by the Tathāgata's Light” he distinguishes four gates, determines the reason for its coming by the sequence of the three kinds of deeds, sets up beside the tenet and aim a separate gate of “intent,” and in glossing the verses explains the twofold departure from existence and nonexistence in three layers, by the three natures, by the three non-natures, and by their mutual fusion — the household method of the school of the five teachings receives here one complete application. The line of Zhiyan: in discerning the name he divides the four graphs “Tathāgata,” “light,” “bright,” and “awakening,” determines what this chapter answers to be “the eighth question, on the power of the Buddha's merit, and the tenth, on the display of the accomplishing of right awakening,” and at the end of the chapter opens twenty-two separate gates that gather in the cause and fruit of the six destinies, the two vehicles, those who turn about, those who advance directly, the sudden teaching, and on up to the station of Samantabhadra, saying of it himself, “this is said in dependence upon the transmitted teaching of Samantabhadra.” The line of Li Tongxuan: he reads the whole chapter as the station of the ten faiths, determines the ten wisdom-buddhas to be “the fruit believed in within the mind of faith, one's own wisdom, the same from the first as the Buddha's,” the ten color-worlds to be the dharma-body and Mañjuśrī to be the wondrous wisdom of one's own mind, determines the light of this chapter to be the light of the teaching and practice of the station of faith, and explains his own procedure by the two questions and answers on faith's not entering concentration and on Mañjuśrī's being the one who expounds.

The question-topics to which the four masters tie the chapter are not the same, and the outlines they set up are not the same either; there was divergence of saying in antiquity, and it is recorded without adjudication of high or low. As for the compendia of the Huayan school, the Huayan jing zhigui cites this chapter in one place as an instance of the meaning of “pervading,” which belongs to the raising of an example in doctrinal classification and is not a glossing of this chapter's scriptural text; that too is recorded without adjudication. In the four books Huayan yisheng jiaoyi fenqi zhang, Shixuan men, Fajie xuanjing, and Huanyuan guan the chapter's name yields no occurrence at all, and the absence is recorded as the facts stand. This chapter likewise has no separately circulating treatise that quotes and glosses the scripture, unlike the chapter “The Ten Grounds,” which has the Treatise on the Ten Grounds Sūtra; that absence is recorded along with the rest.

As for this chapter's ties with what precedes and follows: it receives from above the pervading of the name in “The Names of the Tathāgata” and the pervading of the Dharma in “The Four Noble Truths,” and joins below to “Bodhisattvas Ask for Clarification.” Li Tongxuan determines it most directly: this chapter is that into which faith enters, and the chapter “Ask for Clarification” “is already within faith, where by question and answer the rule of the Dharma establishes the cultivation of the power of faith” — the light having shone, the next thing is to open one's mouth and ask.

A whole chapter of question and answer — and that fact is itself a point of doctrine

In the middle of a scripture there suddenly appears an entire chapter of questions and answers, with no emission of light before or after it, no entering into concentration, no hymns of praise — only Mañjuśrī asking one bodhisattva after another, and one bodhisattva after another answering in verse. A reader's first thought is most likely this: what is going on here?

Look first at where it is placed. The three chapters before it — “The Names of the Tathāgata,” “The Four Noble Truths,” and “Awakening by Light” — speak of the Buddha's names, the categories of the truths, and the realms illumined by the light; all of these are the object in which one has faith. With this chapter the text turns to the understanding by which one has faith. Chengguan, determining why this chapter comes where it does, says it very plainly: the three chapters above have already answered what the arising of understanding depends upon, and only from here on does the text properly answer the cause and fruit of the understanding that governs it; and further, among those three chapters, “the three chapters show that faith possesses understanding, practice, and virtue, and understanding is the root of the other two, and so this chapter comes first” — within faith there is understanding, there is practice, and there is virtue, and understanding is the root, so it comes first. Li Tongxuan's determination approaches from the other end: in the preceding chapter the Buddha emitted light from the wheels beneath his feet, opening to awakening the near and far of the buddha-realm that the light illumined, so that those with the mind of faith might contemplate each of them without obstruction; and this chapter follows in order to show the person of the ten faiths “the practice of right cultivation and the cutting off of doubt.”

The antecedents to which the two of them attach the chapter differ, but where they land is the same: this chapter is set up for the person who has already heard and does not yet truly understand. Its substance, then, is not proclamation but interrogation. Chengguan, when distinguishing the chapter's name, makes this point with the utmost clarity: there are two sorts of questioning, one a loose asking back and forth, the other a challenging question that “interrogates by means of principle,” and this chapter is the latter; and there are two sorts of answering, one that merely reports back in accordance with the question, the other that “interprets in full while taking in variant senses alongside, and with fine words praises and expounds so as to make the principle blaze forth,” and this chapter too is the latter. Hence it is called “asking for clarification” and not “question and answer” — clarity can break darkness, because what it removes is the darkness of doubt in the one who asks. He adds one further reason drawn from the form of the text: the prose passages raise the question and the verses resolve the question, so the two together are called asking for clarification.

Brought home to oneself: a real doubt is never resolved by being consoled; it is resolved only by being asked out to the end. What this chapter demonstrates is the method of pursuing a doubt all the way down — not pressing the question out of sight, but asking it into a shape that can be answered.

“The ten profundities” is Chengguan's sectional name, not the scripture's own label

In reading this chapter, the thing most easily mistaken at the very first step is the phrase “the ten profundities.” From beginning to end the scripture never produces this label, nor does it number the ten rounds of question and answer. “The ten profundities” is a sectional name established in Chengguan's Huayan jing shu, and he lists them all at once: first, the profundity of dependent origination; second, the profundity of teaching and transforming; third, the profundity of the fruit of deeds; fourth, the profundity of preaching the Dharma; fifth, the profundity of the field of merit; sixth, the profundity of right teaching; seventh, the profundity of right practice; eighth, the profundity of right and auxiliary; ninth, the profundity of the one path; tenth, the profundity of the realm of the Buddha. When the same commentator marks the rounds out one by one later in his text, the eighth also appears as “the profundity of the auxiliaries of the path,” and both names are found in one and the same commentary.

Chengguan not only lists the names; he also explains why these ten come in this order: the profound principle of dependent origination gathers up all dharmas entirely and is the essential of contemplative understanding, and so it is set forth first; beings are deluded about this, and so they must be taught and transformed; going against that teaching and going along with it, there are good and evil deeds; to know these deeds, one depends on the preaching of Dharma to accomplish it; and preaching that perfects goodness rests on the Buddha alone as the field of merit; once one has spoken of according with the field, one must uphold the holy teaching; the teaching lies in diligent practice; practice requires both the right path and its auxiliaries; the auxiliaries must have the right, and different roads come home to the same place; and one who has gained the one path is naturally bound for the realm of the Buddha. — The ten rounds are not ten topics set side by side; they are a single line.

Clearing away one common misreading: do not suppose that the scripture itself divided the text into ten sections. The scripture only runs on in the form ‘at that time the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī questioned such-and-such a bodhisattva, saying.’ Dividing them into ten, naming them, and threading them into a sequence are all the commentator's work. Li Tongxuan, reading the same chapter, does not use the name of the ten profundities at all; what he counts is “eleven sections of scripture,” and he reckons the first question as twenty questions rather than as five pairs and ten items. That the ancient worthies divide one and the same passage of scripture in different ways is exactly what shows that a sectional name is scaffolding for reading and not a bone of the scripture.

Where it lands: when reading the Avataṃsaka and coming upon a tidy set of numbered terms, first ask once, ‘Did the scripture say this itself, or did a commentator supply it?’ Once that one question becomes a habit, a great many later disputes need never be fought.

Profundity one, dependent origination: the nature of mind is one, how then can there be all these differences

The first question is the foundation of the whole chapter. Mañjuśrī's thesis is set down in four graphs only: “the nature of mind is one.” From this he presses out the difficulty: if that is so, why is it that there are seen to be all sorts of differences? He lists five pairs — going to good destinies or evil destinies, faculties complete or defective, sameness or difference in the manner of taking birth, comeliness or ugliness, and pain and pleasure not the same. Chengguan calls these “ten items in five pairs,” and points out that the five pairs are not simply laid side by side: the first pair is the general recompense, saying that destinies are good or evil; the four pairs below are all particular recompense, and moreover “each earlier one possesses all the later ones, and each later one necessarily carries the earlier ones with it” — within good and evil destinies there is in each case completeness or defect of the faculties; within completeness and defect there is in each case sameness or difference of birth; within the places of birth, same or different, there is in each case beauty or homeliness of appearance; and upon beauty and homeliness there is in each case pain or pleasure. Layer multiplied upon layer — only this deserves the name “all sorts.”

The question is not yet finished. Mañjuśrī then presses out a second layer: deeds do not know mind and mind does not know deeds; what is undergone does not know its recompense and the recompense does not know what is undergone; mind does not know what is undergone and what is undergone does not know mind; the cause does not know the condition and the condition does not know the cause; wisdom does not know its object and the object does not know wisdom. Chengguan says that this layer “brings the foregoing difficulty to completion,” and distinguishes three senses in it: first, a direct asking after the reason — given that there are all sorts, on what account do they not know one another; and if they do not know one another, who taught them to be all sorts? Second, an expression of doubt — if they do not know one another, is it after all one nature or is it all sorts? Third, the framing of a difficulty of mutual contradiction — one nature following upon all sorts loses the truth of ultimate meaning, and all sorts following upon one nature ruins the conventional truth; now that we see both all sorts and their not knowing one another, how can these two stand together? He calls this a contradiction of root and branch, a contradiction of principle and phenomena, a contradiction of one and many, a contradiction of true and false: one difficulty in four layers.

Here one thing must be sorted out: what the “nature of mind” in “the nature of mind is one” refers to. Chengguan singles it out for decision: it may not be said to be the eighth consciousness — “the words ‘nature of mind’ are not the eighth”; he determines that the nature of mind here is the Tathāgata-womb, is the mind that is pure in its own nature, and expounds it by joining the empty and the non-empty Tathāgata-womb: the nature of the deluded mind is a nature that is no nature, which is the empty Tathāgata-womb; the nature of the true mind is a nature that is real nature, which is the non-empty Tathāgata-womb; and the two are equal and not two, and so are called “one.” As for the Yuqie shidi lun line of texts, which says that the maturing store-consciousness is produced in its very substance from the seeds of deeds and defilements — how is that to be reconciled with this? Chengguan answers by the provisional and the real: for ordinary persons and those of the lesser vehicle he speaks by way of the provisional teaching, a conventional formulation that follows appearances; for the great bodhisattvas he speaks according to the real teaching, exhausting the principle. Capacities are great and small, dharmas are shallow and deep, teachings are provisional and real, and so there is no contradiction. — This is the first place in this chapter where the doctrine of the Huayan school comes down, and it is the commentator's determination, not something the scripture states outright.

Foremost in Awakening's answer runs to eleven verses, one more than each of the other nine rounds. The first verse does not answer the question but praises the one able to ask it and exhorts the hearing: the benevolent one asks this in order to open and enlighten the multitude in their dimness; I answer in accordance with the nature of the Dharma as it truly is, so listen closely. The second verse is the direct answer of the whole round, and is also one of the most crucial lines of the entire chapter: “Dharmas have no operation, and they have no substantial nature either; for this reason all of them, each and every one, do not know one another.” — Not knowing one another is not a defect; it is the necessary consequence of having no nature of one's own. Only if dharmas had real substance and real operation could there be talk of one knowing another; being without substance from the first, there is no knower standing there at all.

Then the third through the sixth verses are four similes, the vehicles of the simile differing while the concluding line is the same. The water in a river: the swift current races and rushes, and one wave does not know another wave. A great mass of fire: the fierce flames blaze up together, and one flame does not know another flame. A long wind rising: whatever it meets it can stir and fan, and wind and things do not know one another. The many earth-elements: layer upon layer they rest depending one upon another, and still, each and every one, they do not know one another. The four similes take up, respectively, the succession of water, the simultaneity of fire, the operation of wind, and the mutual dependence of earth — stopping up one by one the four doubts, ‘what is in succession must know,’ ‘what is simultaneous must know,’ ‘what has operation must know,’ ‘what is mutually dependent must know.’

The seventh verse returns to the six faculties: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and the faculties of mind and thought — beings rely on these and turn on constantly, “yet there is no one who turns” — there is the fact of turning, but no master of the turning. The eighth verse is the line on the strength of which Chengguan determines this chapter to be the principle of the real teaching: “The nature of the Dharma has from the first never arisen; it manifests and so appears to have arisen. Within this there is nothing that does the manifesting, nor any thing that is manifested.” Not only is there no thing manifested; there is not even one who manifests. The ninth verse raises the six faculties again and says “all is empty and without nature; the deluded mind discriminates and so they seem to be,” pairing with the seventh verse — the one saying there is no master, the other that there is no substance. The tenth verse turns to the eye that contemplates: observing in accordance with principle, one sees that nothing has a nature of its own; such a Dharma-eye is inconceivable, and such a seeing is “not inverted.” What is crucial in this line is its last three graphs: seeing that there is no nature is not the view of annihilation, and the criterion is that it is not inverted. The eleventh verse closes with the utmost breadth: real or not real, false or not false, worldly or world-transcending — “there is only a borrowed way of speaking” — even the names set up in the preceding ten verses are loosened along with the rest.

Clearing away a misreading: do not read “each and every one, they do not know one another” as a cold mechanism. What it says is that among dharmas there is no real relation of one presiding over another; it does not say that cause and effect do not hold. Cause and effect will be treated head-on in the next round and the round after that.

Profundity two, teaching and transforming: beings are originally not beings, what is there left for the Buddha to teach

The second question walks on from the conclusion of the first. Since dharmas have no nature, beings too are “not beings”; why then does the Tathāgata, in accordance with their season, their span of life, their body, their conduct, their understanding, their speech and discourse, what their minds delight in, their skillful means, their thinking, and their observing, manifest a body among beings such as these and teach, transform, and discipline them? — As the ten graphs of “in accordance with” are laid out one after another, the finer they grow the more strenuous it all appears: what is transformed is originally empty, and yet the one who transforms is as thorough as this. Chengguan says that Mañjuśrī frames this thesis by “treading upon the emptiness of all eight consciousnesses as given by Foremost in Awakening earlier,” and that the point that beings are precisely not beings is one “both sides equally grant”; the difficulty lies in the second half: beings being empty, how is it that the Buddha transforms them?

For Mañjuśrī's questioning Foremost in Wealth, the reason Chengguan gives is “because he has obtained this gate of benefiting beings with the wealth of Dharma” — the very gate that Foremost in Wealth has obtained is that of benefiting beings with the wealth of Dharma.

Foremost in Wealth's answer, in ten verses, takes a road that looks like a digression and is in fact directly on target: he does not say straight out how the Buddha transforms, but says what that body and mind which is transformed actually is. The first verse first states to whom it belongs: this is the domain of those who delight in quiescence and are widely learned; may the benevolent one hear and receive it. The second verse begins with contemplating the body: discriminate and observe within the body, “which thing here is the self” — one who can understand thus has penetrated whether there is a self or not. The third verse says the body is “set up by borrowing”: the place where it dwells has no fixed direction, and one who understands this has no attachment within it. The fourth verse goes from the body on to dharmas: observing the body well, all is seen distinctly; knowing that dharmas are all false, one does not give rise to a discriminating mind. The fifth verse asks about the span of life: through what does it arise, and through what does it fall away and perish? The answer is the simile of the whirling wheel of fire — swing a torch into a circle and there seems to be a wheel, but in truth its beginning and its end cannot be known. The sixth verse is a summarizing line of contemplative practice: everything that exists is impermanent, dharmas are empty and without self, and one is forever parted from all marks.

The last four verses turn to the key of how transforming is possible at all. The seventh verse: the many recompenses arise in accordance with deeds, are unreal as a dream, and from moment to moment are constantly perishing. — The fruit of deeds does not obstruct emptiness. The eighth verse: the dharmas the world sees take mind alone as their master; each grasps at marks in accordance with his understanding, and so is inverted and not as things truly are. The ninth verse: all the talk and disputation of the world is discrimination; “there has never been a single dharma that could enter into the nature of the Dharma.” The tenth verse: the two forces, that which takes an object and the object taken, come together and all sorts of dharmas are born, perishing swiftly without pausing for a moment.

Read the ten verses joined together, and the answer floats to the surface: those ‘seasons, spans of life, bodies, conducts, and understandings’ that the Buddha accords with are precisely the false appearances that beings themselves have set up, taking mind as master and grasping at marks in accordance with their understanding; the Buddha is not at work upon really existing beings, but sets to work right at the place where beings are inverted. What is transformed is originally empty, and yet the inversion is vividly there, and so teaching neither falls into emptiness nor becomes an attachment. Brought home to oneself: to teach a person, one must first know which false appearance he is standing on at this moment; the way to begin is not by first denying that appearance, but by starting from there.

Profundity three, the fruit of deeds: all alike are the four elements without a self, why then are pain and pleasure, beauty and ugliness not the same

The third question asks something still closer to human feeling. Beings are alike composed of the four great elements, and within them there is no self and nothing belonging to a self; why then is there the difference of undergoing pain and undergoing pleasure, of being handsome and being ugly, of being fine within and fine without, of undergoing little and undergoing much, of recompense in this life and recompense in a life to come? And moreover, within the Dharma realm there is from the first neither beauty nor ugliness. — This brings the “difference” of the first question down into the compartment nearest to the bone: one's lot in life.

Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Jewels. The answer runs to ten verses, and its structure is extremely tidy. The first verse is a statement of the dharma and also the guiding thread of the whole round — “In accordance with the deeds each has done, the fruit of recompense arises just so; and there is no doer at all — this is what the buddhas have declared.” There are deeds and there is fruit, and yet there is no doer. Chengguan here cites the Da zhidu lun as the authority of holy teaching, in which it is said precisely: “There are deeds and there is fruit, but no doer of the deed and the fruit. This is the first profundity, and it is what the buddhas have declared.” — That the fruit of deeds has no doer has been called the first profundity from of old.

The second through the tenth, all nine verses, are similes, and all conclude with “and the nature of deeds is just like this.” Chengguan says that these nine similes “set forth the common character in showing forth, giving a simile for how the fruit of deeds arises from conditions, is without nature, and yet does not ruin the character of phenomena,” and at the same time “severally display the intent of each simile, for the similes are each different” — what they have in common is that from conditions there is no nature and yet the character of phenomena is not ruined; what is several in them is that each cures one particular doubt. The bright and spotless mirror producing images in accordance with what stands before it cures the doubt ‘if there is no doer then there ought to be no fruit’; the seeds in a field, each not knowing another and yet of themselves coming forth, cure the doubt ‘if they do not know one another they cannot bring about a fruit’; the skilled conjuror manifesting all sorts of forms at the crossroads cures the doubt ‘the fruit of recompense is as vivid as this, how could it be unreal’; the wooden man worked by a mechanism able to give out all sorts of sounds while “it has neither self nor non-self” cures the doubt ‘where there is operation there is a self’; the many birds coming out from the eggshell with sounds each not the same cures the doubt ‘how can one and the same cause give a different fruit’; the faculties all coming to completion within the womb while “the substance and form has no place from which it came” cures the doubt ‘where does the fruit come from’; the all sorts of painful things in the hells that “have nowhere at all from which they came” cures the doubt ‘a painful recompense must have someone inflicting it’; the wheel-turning king perfecting the seven treasures whose “place from which they came is unobtainable” cures the doubt ‘a superior recompense must have some source of its own.’ The tenth verse, the worlds being burned by a great fire and this fire having no place from which it came, Chengguan singles out and assigns a further sense: the preceding eight similes concern the fruit of contaminated deeds, and “the last verse gives a simile for the fruit of uncontaminated deeds: the uncontaminated fire of wisdom burns away what is contaminated, and since wisdom is set off by the contaminations, it too has nowhere from which it comes” — even the uncontaminated, world-transcending fruit likewise has no place from which it came.

Clearing away the most crucial misunderstanding: “there is no doer at all” does not mean that there is no responsibility. What the scripture says is that there is no permanent, unchanging “self” doing the deeds and undergoing the recompense; it does not say that there is no connection between deeds and their fruit — that connection is exactly what the nine similes demonstrate over and over. Brought home to oneself: handing one's lot over to a substantial self to bear produces only resentment and arrogance; only when one sees clearly that this is how the nature of deeds works is there any room to change.

Profundity four, preaching the Dharma: what was awakened to is one dharma only, why then are measureless dharmas spoken

The fourth question turns toward the Buddha's side. What the Tathāgata awakened to is one dharma only; why then does he speak measureless dharmas, manifest measureless lands, transform measureless beings, send forth measureless sounds, manifest measureless bodies, know measureless minds, call forth measureless spiritual powers, shake measureless worlds, manifest measureless adornments, and reveal boundless realms? And yet within the nature of the Dharma none of these marks of difference can be obtained.

Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Virtue, and the reason Chengguan gives is plain and brief: “because it displays the virtue of the Buddha”; and he points out that this round may also be named “the profundity of responsive manifesting,” because both the question and the answer run through the three kinds of action, of body, speech, and mind, and it is only because transformation by preaching the Dharma is the most excellent among them that the name is taken from that.

Foremost in Virtue's answer, its first verse, praises the question and states the difficulty: the meaning asked about is profound and hard to understand, and one with wisdom who knows it will constantly delight in the merits of the Buddha. Thereafter the second through the tenth, all nine verses, are similes, all concluding with “and the dharmas of the buddhas are just like this,” and the vehicles of the similes are startlingly uniform — every one of them a natural thing taken under the aspect of ‘one substance with many functions.’ The earth is one in nature while beings each dwell separately, and the earth has no thought of one or different; fire is one in nature and burns every thing, and the flame has no discrimination; the great sea is one while its waves and billows are ten million and various, and the water has no varieties; wind is one in nature and blows upon every thing, and the wind has no thought of one or different; the great cloud with thunder rains universally upon all the earth, and the raindrops have no difference; the earth-element is one and yet brings forth all sorts of sprouts, and it is not that the earth has anything peculiar; the sun, with no cloud to veil it, shines universally upon the ten directions, and the light has no differing nature; the moon in the sky is such that there is no one in the world who does not see it, and yet “it is not that the moon goes to where he is”; the great king of the Brahmā heaven manifests in response so as to fill the three-thousandfold world and yet “his body is not divided into separate ones.”

The nine similes may be read in three groups. The first six — earth, fire, sea, wind, cloud and thunder, and the earth-element — say that the nature is one while those who receive it differ: the difference lies on the side of what is used and received, not on the side of what bestows. The seventh and eighth similes, the sun and the moon, say that it is pervasive and yet unmoving — and here the line “it is not that the moon goes to where he is” is the most crucial: when the moon appears in a thousand rivers, the moon has not divided itself and run to each river; when the Buddha appears in measureless lands, the Buddha likewise is not divided into measureless portions. The ninth simile, the great king of the Brahmā heaven, says that he manifests in response while his body has no separate difference, lifting the similes of natural things onto the body of a sentient being and answering directly to “manifests measureless bodies.”

Clearing away a misreading: do not imagine “one dharma” as a single principle that could be memorized. Chengguan, when interpreting the text of the question, says that what the Buddha realizes is “the Dharma realm of one taste,” and that this is a point both sides grant; one taste is not monotony — it is the absence of difference that is able to contain every difference. Brought home to oneself: one who truly understands something will have more to say, not less — because what must be said to each person is different; and only when the words are many while the mind is not disordered is the “one” still there.

Profundity five, the field of merit: since the field is equally one, why are the fruits of recompense not the same

The fifth question shifts the fourth by one notch: it asks not about difference in preaching but about difference in the recompense received. The Tathāgata as a field of merit is equally one and without difference; why then are the fruits of beings' giving not the same — all ten of them differing, in complexion, shape, family standing, faculties, resources, masters, retinue, official rank, merit, and wisdom? And yet the Buddha's mind toward them is equal and has no two kinds of thinking.

Chengguan explains why Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Vision: “because the field of merit is what illumines and guides and draws forth production, and further because giving is the forerunner of all the perfections, he therefore questions Foremost in Vision.” — The eye is what guides the body's action, and the field of merit is likewise what guides beings into producing merit; name and sense answer to one another. He also explains the two graphs “equally one”: the Buddha is the field from which merit is produced and is therefore named a field of merit; the virtue of the field is not two, and this is named being equally one — and this principle both sides grant.

Foremost in Vision's answer sets up a simile in all ten of its verses, without a single verse of plain statement, and this is the only round in the chapter of which that is true. The first five similes answer ‘why do the fruits differ’: the great earth is one and yet in accordance with the seed each brings forth its sprout, and “toward them it has neither enmity nor affection” — the difference is in the seed, not in the field; water is of one taste and comes to differ because of the vessel, and the scripture points it out outright, “because the minds of beings differ”; the skilled conjuror is able to make the multitude rejoice, a simile for the Buddha's field of merit making beings revere him and be glad; the king of talent and wisdom is able to make the great multitude rejoice, a simile for the Buddha's field of merit making the multitude all be at ease; the bright and spotless mirror produces images in accordance with the colors before it, a simile for the Buddha's field of merit in which “in accordance with each one's mind they obtain all sorts of recompense.” — These three similes — the first, the second, and the fifth — point together at one thing: the variable that makes the difference lies in the receiver, not in the field. The third and the fourth similes turn instead to speak of the field's power to move people.

The last five similes turn to answer ‘what after all is this field good for’: the agada medicine can cure every poison, a simile for extinguishing the troubles of the afflictions; the sun rises and shines upon the world, a simile for extinguishing all the kinds of darkness; the pure full moon shines universally upon the great earth, a simile for being “equal in every place”; the Vairambhaka wind universally shakes the great earth, a simile for shaking the beings of the three realms of existence; the great fire can burn every thing, a simile for burning away everything conditioned. The five similes run from the shallow to the deep — first the removal of the afflictions, then the removal of the darkness of ignorance, then the display of equality, then the shaking of the three realms of existence, and last the burning away of all that is conditioned.

Clearing away a misreading: the field of merit is not a machine that pays interest on the size of the deposit. The scripture says it plainly: the Buddha's mind is “equal, with no two kinds of thinking,” and the difference in the fruit of recompense lies wholly in the fact that “the minds of beings differ.” Brought home to oneself: with one and the same offering, the mind that is roused is different, and so what is obtained is different; one who seeks merit and reckons only the quantity of what he offers has made the field into a machine.

Profundity six, right teaching: the Buddha's teaching is one, why is it that the afflictions are not cut off at once

The sixth question is the one in the whole chapter that stands closest to the actual scene of practice. The Buddha's teaching is one, and beings have all seen it; why then are they unable at once to cut off entirely all the bonds of affliction and get free? And moreover their five aggregates, the three realms, and ignorance and craving have no difference in them, and these too are what the Buddha's teaching speaks of. That being so, for beings this teaching is at some times of benefit and at other times of no benefit — why?

Chengguan explains why Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Diligence: “because it breaks indolence, he questions Foremost in Diligence” — the name is itself the answer. He also points out that the thesis set down, “one,” has two senses: first, that in cutting off the arising of affliction and realizing the cessation that is deliverance, this sense is not diverse; second, that many persons see it alike, and what they see is not different.

Foremost in Diligence's answer, in its first verse, gives the conclusion straightaway: “there are some who are swiftly liberated, and there are some who find it hard to get free” — the teaching is the same, the people are not. The second verse gives the positive prescription: wishing to remove and extinguish measureless faults and evils, “within the Dharma of the Buddha one should be valiant and constantly vigorous.” The direct answer of the whole round lies in fact in these two verses; the eight that follow are all similes, and moreover the eight similes all give a simile for one thing only — indolence, all concluding with “one who is indolent is just like this” (two of them adding the line “within the teaching-Dharma of the Buddha”).

The eight similes each cure one aspect of indolence. A tiny bit of fire with damp kindling is a simile for a foundation not yet firm while the outward conditions are heavy with damp; drilling wood for fire and “stopping to rest again and again before it comes out” is a simile for breaking off in the middle just as the work is about to succeed — this is the most painful of the eight, for the force of the fire dies away along with the stopping, and the work already done does not stand there waiting for you. Holding a sun-jewel and not using anything to receive its cast image is a simile for having the tool in full and not preparing the conditions; the fierce sun shining while the child shuts his eyes and then asks in wonder why he cannot see is a simile for blinding oneself and blaming the Dharma; having no hands or feet and wishing to shatter the great earth by shooting arrows of grass everywhere is a simile for an instrument unequal to the task and an ambition beyond it; taking the water of the great sea with the tip of a single hair and wishing to make it run dry is a simile for a method utterly disproportionate to what is sought; the fire at the end of the kalpa blazing up and wishing to put it out with a little water is a simile for applying a force far short of the momentum to be countered; seeing empty space and sitting still while saying one has already leapt and trodden all through it is a simile for understanding without practicing and then declaring oneself arrived. On this last simile Chengguan has a direct comment: this is one who, “though he knows that the nature is empty, has not yet travelled it with his wisdom and yet speaks of pervasive realization,” and he determines him to be a person of overweening pride.

The eight similes are not eight kinds of indolence; they are eight faces of one indolence: conditions not prepared, work broken off, a condition lacking, self-blinding, ambition great and instrument small, a method not answering to the Dharma, force unequal to the momentum, and understanding put in the place of practice. Brought home to oneself: the best use to make of this passage is not to sympathize with the people in its similes, but to check off, one by one, which of them one is.

Profundity seven, right practice: receiving and upholding the right Dharma ought to cut off the afflictions, why are there those who uphold it and do not cut them off

The seventh question presses the sixth further. The sixth asked why they are not cut off at once; this one is sharper still: the Buddha plainly says that receiving and upholding the right Dharma can remove and cut off every affliction, so why are there those who receive and uphold the right Dharma and do not cut them off? And moreover they are turned about by the force of eleven afflictions — greed, anger, delusion, conceit, concealment, wrath, resentment, envy, stinginess, deceit, and flattery — with no mind to get free. Being able to receive and uphold the Dharma, why is it that afflictions still arise within their mental conduct?

Chengguan explains why Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Dharma: “he questions Foremost in Dharma because it is a matter of practicing the Dharma.” He also explains the two graphs “receive and uphold”: “to receive is for the mind to take in the sense and principle; to uphold is to remember it and not forget”; and he determines the shape of this question to be that “the Buddha says it can cut them off, and now there are those who do not cut them off, which is a contradiction between teaching and practice” — first the contradiction is stated, then from “follow after greed” onward what is not cut off is set out, and from “the force of these” onward the reason for it is given.

Foremost in Dharma's answer, in its first verse, points at the target at once: “it is not by wide learning alone that one can enter the Dharma of the Tathāgata.” — The question was about receiving and upholding, and the answer is that receiving and upholding is not the same as practicing. Thereafter all nine verses are similes; the first eight all conclude with “for one who does not put the Dharma into practice, wide learning is just like this,” while the last changes to “within himself he has no real virtue, and one who does not practice is just like this” — of the nine similes, eight share a conclusion and the last differs, and it is not a uniform pattern.

The nine similes may be divided into three layers. The first layer, of four similes, speaks of having and not using: a man swept along by water who fears drowning and dies of thirst, with water filling his eyes and dying of thirst all the same; one who sets out fine food and starves himself rather than eat; one skilled in prescriptions who cannot save himself when ill; one who counts another's treasures while he himself has not half a coin. The second layer, of two similes, speaks of being within it and not receiving its use: born in a royal palace and suffering hunger and cold; a deaf man performing music, delighting others and not hearing it himself. The third layer, of three similes, speaks of being able to show others and unable to bring oneself across: a blind man painting images, showing them to others while unable to see them; the ship's pilot who dies in the midst of the sea; one at the crossroads discoursing at length on all sorts of fine matters while within he has no real virtue. The three layers advance in order — first having and not using; next being within it and gaining no benefit; last being able to benefit others and unable to benefit oneself. That the last simile has a differing conclusion and does not speak of wide learning is precisely because it no longer speaks only of the failing of wide learning, but of every failing of ‘able to say it, unable to do it.’

At the end of this passage Chengguan adds two remarks in particular: one, that he makes it clear his intent is not to disparage wide learning; two, that “these nine verses may also be matched severally against the senses of following after greed and the rest — one should think it through in accordance with principle,” leaving the matching to the reader. This stroke is worth noting: here the commentator openly hands the reading back to the reader instead of completing the pairings himself.

Clearing away a misreading: do not read this round as anti-intellectual. The eighth round, immediately following, will say that “within the Dharma of the Buddha, wisdom is the foremost.” What is broken here is not learning but learning without practice. Brought home to oneself: test whether your own wide learning has turned you into one of the four persons of the first layer — the easiest self-deception is to take having read for having done.

Profundity eight, right and auxiliary: wisdom is the foremost, why then are all sorts of practices praised

The eighth question catches the momentum left by the seventh. Since wisdom is the very foremost within the Dharma of the Buddha, why does the Tathāgata at some times praise giving, at some times the precepts, forbearance, vigor, meditative concentration, and wisdom, and further praise loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity? And moreover in the end no one, by one dharma alone, is able to get free and accomplish unsurpassed perfect awakening.

Chengguan explains why Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Wisdom: “he questions Foremost in Wisdom in order to display that wisdom is the substance of the right path and governs its auxiliaries” — wisdom is the substance of the right path and gathers in all the auxiliaries of the path, and so this round is named the profundity of right and auxiliary, while in the marking out of the rounds one by one it is also called the profundity of the auxiliaries of the path. He also determines the shape of the question: since wisdom is the foremost, only wisdom ought to be praised, so why are the rest praised as well? This is a difficulty of contradiction between the right and the auxiliary.

Foremost in Wisdom's answer has six verses of plain statement first. The first praises the question and exhorts the hearing. The second gives the general answer: among the guiding teachers of past, future, and present, “there is not one who said that by one dharma a person could gain the path.” The third gives the reason: “The Buddha knows the minds of beings, that the portion of nature each has is not the same; and in accordance with the way each ought to be brought across, he preaches the Dharma to them just so.” The fourth through the sixth make “in accordance with the way each ought to be brought across” concrete, forming a table of remedies: to the stingy he praises giving, to the breaker of precepts the precepts, to the angry forbearance, to the indolent vigor, to the scattered concentration, to the deluded wisdom, to the unkind loving-kindness and pity, to one who rages and harms great compassion, to the sorrowful sympathetic joy, and to the crooked in mind equanimity. Ten ailments and ten medicines, each answering to its own; and at the end of the sixth verse one line is added — “cultivating in this way, in due sequence, one gradually comes to possess the dharmas of the buddhas in full” — after the remedies there is still a sequence.

The last four verses are four similes, each matched to one pair. First set the foundation wall and only then build the palace hall, matched to giving and the precepts — “the root of the bodhisattva's various practices,” that is, the foundation. Build a city wall to guard the multitude, matched to forbearance and vigor — “guarding and protecting the bodhisattvas,” that is, the safeguard. A king of great strength on whom the whole land looks up in devotion, matched to concentration and wisdom — “what the bodhisattvas rely and depend upon,” that is, the support. A wheel-turning king able to give every ease and joy, matched to the four measureless minds of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — on this last verse Chengguan says, “the last verse: the four equalities are the cause, and because the ease and joy of self and other summon a fruit without end,” that is, the giving of joy. The four similes move from the foundation to the wall, from the wall to the king, and from the king to the wheel-turning king, growing broader at each step, exactly matching the sequence of “gradually comes to possess the dharmas of the buddhas in full.”

Clearing away a misreading: do not take “wisdom is the foremost” and ‘by one dharma one does not gain the path’ to be in contradiction. The foremost is the substance, and the various practices are the auxiliaries; the substance is not established apart from the auxiliaries, and the auxiliaries are not made right apart from the substance. Brought home to oneself: remedies must be prescribed according to the ailment, but do not stop at the remedy — after the ten ailments and ten medicines there is still that one line, “cultivating in this way, in due sequence.”

Profundity nine, the one path: the buddhas have one path only, why then are the many things in the buddha-lands not the same

The ninth question is the broadest of the ten rounds. The buddhas, the world-honored ones, gain deliverance by one path alone; why then are all the many things belonging to all the buddha-lands now seen to be of all kinds and not the same — the world, the realm of beings, preaching the Dharma and disciplining, the span of life, the radiance, the spiritual powers, the assembly of the multitude, the standards of teaching, and how long the Dharma abides, each having its differences? And moreover there is no one who could accomplish buddhahood without possessing in full all the dharmas of the Buddha.

Chengguan explains why Mañjuśrī questions Foremost in Worthiness: “because the utmost path is yielding and compliant. And further, worthy is akin to upright and good, and buddha after buddha alike has this one upright path.” He also explains the sense of “one path”: what buddha after buddha rides upon is alike the contemplation of the nature of mind and the equal cultivation of the myriad practices, with no differing byway from beginning to end, and so it is called one path; and this round is also named the One Vehicle.

Foremost in Worthiness's answer is ten verses of plain statement with not a single simile — among the ten rounds of this chapter, the first eight all set up similes, the count for each round being four, two, nine, nine, ten, eight, nine, and four; while the ninth, the round of the one path, and the tenth, the round of the realm of the Buddha, have no similes at all, and in this round there is not one. This fact itself carries a meaning: the sense of the one path admits of no simile, and to take a simile is to fall to one side.

The first verse addresses the questioner by name and states the thesis: “Mañjuśrī, the Dharma is always so: the king of the Dharma has only one dharma, and all who are without obstruction gain deliverance from birth and death by one path.” The second verse brings the one path down onto the Buddha's own person: the bodies of all the buddhas are only one dharma-body, one mind and one wisdom, and their powers and fearlessnesses are so as well. The third verse is the pivot of the whole round, saying where the differences come from — “In accordance with the minds of dedication they had when they first set out toward awakening, they obtain a land such as this, an assembly, and a preaching of the Dharma.” The difference is not in the path but in the mind of dedication at the causal stage. The fourth verse goes on: in all the buddha-lands the adornments are perfectly complete, and “as the conduct of beings differs, so what they see is not the same” — the land lacks nothing; the lack is in the seeing.

The fifth and sixth verses form a group: buddha-land, buddha-body, assembly, and speech — dharmas of the Buddha such as these “beings are unable to see”; those able to see them are the clear and penetrating persons “whose minds are already pure and whose every vow is fulfilled.” The seventh and eighth verses state again the two reasons for difference in what is seen: first, that it accords with what the minds of beings delight in and with the force of the fruit of their deeds, and moreover “this is because of the majestic spiritual power of the Buddha”; second, that the buddha-land itself “has no discrimination, has no hatred and no love.” The ninth verse sets down a very weighty judgment: what each sees has its differences, and this “is no fault of all the tathāgatas, those great sages” — the responsibility for the difference lies with the seer, not with the Buddha. The tenth verse closes on the side of what does not change: within all the worlds, whoever ought to be transformed “constantly sees the hero among men.”

The thread of the ten verses is clear: the one path does not change (verses one and two) — difference issues from the mind at the causal stage (verses three and four) — seeing or not seeing turns on whether the mind is pure (verses five and six) — the difference in what is seen has two conditions, the mind and deeds, and the Buddha's power (verses seven and eight) — it may not be laid at the Buddha's door (verse nine) — and yet wherever there is one to be transformed, the Buddha has never failed to appear (verse ten). Clearing away a misreading: do not read “as the conduct of beings differs” as making the buddha-land a subjective hallucination. The ninth verse has already stopped up the opposite side — it is no fault of the Buddha's; and the tenth verse stops up the other side — whoever ought to be transformed constantly sees him. It is neither wholly outside nor wholly within.

Profundity ten, the realm of the Buddha: the bodhisattvas question together, and Mañjuśrī answers in verse

The tenth round is the turnabout of the whole chapter. In the first nine rounds Mañjuśrī asks and one bodhisattva answers; in this round it is the reverse — the scripture says “at that time the bodhisattvas said to the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī,” and it is the bodhisattvas questioning together, with Mañjuśrī answering. They first state their reason: “what each of us understands, we have all already spoken,” and now they ask the benevolent one, with subtle eloquence, to expound and set forth all the realms of the Tathāgata. Then in one breath they list eleven questions: what is the realm of the Buddha, its cause, its bringing across, its entering, its wisdom, its dharma, its speaking, its knowing, its verifying, its manifesting, and its breadth.

Chengguan has two layers of determination about this turnabout. As to structure: “that the great assembly questions together is the gathering of the particular back into the general, and so general and particular are unobstructed and the six characteristics are perfectly fused” — in the first nine rounds each presides over one gate, which is the particular; in this round the great assembly questions together, which is the general, and general and particular are unobstructed. As to person: “they question Mañjuśrī because the realm of the Buddha is profound, and apart from the wondrous virtue of prajñā none could reach it”; and he notices one formal difference between this round and the nine before it — the nine questions all first raise a dharma and fix it down (“the nature of mind is one,” “the Buddha's teaching is one,” and the like), whereas here “from the beginning of faith to the end in wisdom, all rest upon the realm of the Buddha, and so there is no fixing down”: the question comes at once, with no thesis set first. Chengguan further, taking the whole chapter into view, determines that the ten rounds have two senses, one in terms of practice and one in terms of dharma: in terms of practice, Mañjuśrī questions and nine bodhisattvas answer, showing that wondrous wisdom runs through the various practices, while nine bodhisattvas question and Mañjuśrī answers, showing that the various practices are perfected in wondrous wisdom; in terms of dharma, the first nine display the sense of difference and the last displays that difference comes home alike to the realm of the Buddha. (Here the commentary reads “nine bodhisattvas question,” while the scripture reads “the bodhisattvas”; the wording of the commentary and of the scripture differs on the face of it, and this is recorded.)

Mañjuśrī's answer in ten verses gathers the eleven questions into one piece exactly. The first verse answers the measure of the realm and the entering: “its measure is equal to empty space; all beings are within it, and yet in truth there is no entering” — all beings are within it from the first, and so there is no entering to speak of. The second verse answers the cause of the realm: its surpassing and subtle causes could not be exhausted though expounded for koṭis of kalpas. The third verse answers the bringing across: in accordance with each one's mind and wisdom he draws them forward so that they gain benefit, and to bring beings across in this way is the realm of the Buddha. The fourth verse answers the entering and the manifesting: the various lands of the world are all entered in accordance with them, and yet “the body of wisdom has no form or color, and is not what they are able to see.” The fifth verse answers the wisdom: the wisdom of the buddhas is sovereign and free, unobstructed in the three times, “equal, like empty space.” The sixth verse answers the knowing and the breadth: the Dharma realm and the realm of beings are ultimately without difference, and all of it is completely known. The seventh verse answers the aspect of speaking and knowing: all the sounds there are in all the world, the Buddha's wisdom knows them all in accordance with them, “and yet has no discrimination.” The eighth verse answers the verifying: “This is not what consciousness is able to be conscious of, nor is it the domain of mind; its nature is from the first pure, and it is revealed and shown to beings” — what is verified is beyond the reach of consciousness, and yet it can still be revealed. The ninth verse answers the substance of its dharma: it is not deeds and not afflictions, has no thing and no dwelling place, does not examine and has nothing it does, and “moves through the world in equality.” The tenth verse closes upon a single thought: the minds of all beings are present universally throughout the three times, and “the Tathāgata, in a single thought, penetrates all of them clearly.”

Eleven questions answered in ten verses is not a matching one to one. Mañjuśrī's way of answering is to draw the eleven facets back into a single measure — empty space — and then from that measure to say how it pervades, how it brings across, how it manifests, and how it knows. Clearing away a misreading: do not read “there is no entering” as meaning that one has no share in it. What the scripture says is that beings are already within it, and so there is no entering from outside; and this is the same stroke as “there is no one who turns” in the first round — it does not abolish the fact; it abolishes the subject of the fact.

Where it lands: the reason this round stands last is exactly as Chengguan determines — when the contemplation of the ten faiths is complete, one then reaches the realm of the Buddha. What the first nine rounds understood was all difference; this round says that difference comes home alike; and the place it comes home to is not some other place, but right here where “its measure is equal to empty space.”

The manifesting of things and the concluding extension: the asking done, the Buddha shows it on the spot by his spiritual power

After the ten rounds of question and answer, the scripture turns to narration, and Chengguan divides this into two passages. The first passage is the manifesting of things: within this Sahā world, all the differences in dharma, in deeds, in world, in body, in faculty, in the taking of birth, in the fruit of keeping the precepts, in the fruit of violating the precepts, and in the fruit that is their land, belonging to all beings, are by the Buddha's spiritual power all made to appear plainly. The second passage is the concluding extension: within all the worlds of the eastern quarter — unspeakably, unspeakably many, exhausting the Dharma realm and the realm of empty space — the differences in dharma belonging to all beings, and on down to the differences in the fruit that is their land, are likewise by the Buddha's spiritual power made to appear distinctly; and so also in the southern, western, and northern quarters, the four intermediate directions, and above and below.

Chengguan sets up a section for these two passages, calling it “the manifesting of things and the concluding extension,” and first asks one question: why is there this manifesting? He answers: the light of the Dharma opens and awakens the bodies and minds of beings, and the Buddha's power for a moment manifests and shows an appearance as its answer, “so that they may verify it with their own eyes and thereby be gladdened and repelled” — the ten rounds before were an answer by words, and this passage is an answer by showing an appearance; only when a person verifies with his own eyes can gladness and revulsion arise in him. He further numbers the things manifested at ten: dharma, that is, the dharma one practices; deeds, that is, right practice; the cause that is accumulated and the fruit that is suffering; the differing kinds of bodies; the differences of faculty and capacity; the four modes of birth, not one; keeping the precepts, hence the superior and inferior among humans and gods; violating the precepts, hence the heavy and light among the three evil destinies; the land, hence the defiled and pure among dwelling places; and the tenth is the recompense of preaching the Dharma — and this tenth is “missing from the text of this scripture, while the Jin edition has it in full”: absent from the eighty-fascicle text and present in the sixty-fascicle. The passage of concluding extension he divides in two: first the eastern quarter is concluded, and then from “the southern and the western” onward the remaining nine quarters are treated in kind; and he says that here, where the Dharma is preached, the manifesting of things extends through the ten directions, and where the Dharma is preached elsewhere it should be taken in the same way, “all of it being one great assembly of the Dharma realm.”

Chengguan here also sets up one further correlation, matching the ten things manifested to the ten profundities: first Foremost in Dharma, the profundity of right teaching; second Foremost in Jewels, the fruit of deeds; third Foremost in Diligence, indolence and the difficulty of getting free; fourth Foremost in Wealth, contemplating the body within and the rest; fifth Foremost in Virtue, the one taste of the Buddha's dharmas and the differing preaching that accords with capacity; sixth Foremost in Awakening, going to good and evil destinies; seventh Foremost in Wisdom, the six perfections practiced in accord; eighth Foremost in Vision, the equality of the Buddha's field; ninth Foremost in Worthiness, that in accordance with mind the worlds have their differences; and tenth, since the Jin scripture has the preaching of Dharma, this is the dharma of the realm of the Buddha as spoken. This order is not the same as the order of the ten rounds of question and answer in the scripture — in the scripture Foremost in Awakening comes first and Foremost in Dharma is seventh, while in this correlation Foremost in Dharma stands first and Foremost in Awakening sixth. It is a separate set of correspondences that the commentator sets up for the answer by showing an appearance; it is not an alteration of the order of speakers in the scripture, and in reading, the two may not be confounded.

Looking back from the end of the chapter: the ten rounds of question and answer asked difference all the way down, and at the last what is given is not a conclusion but difference manifested for people to see. After asking it all the way down one must still see for oneself, and this is how this chapter brings itself to a close.

Lineage

The sense of this chapter was carried on by three later channels, and they are recorded without adjudication.

The line of Chengguan: he sets up the sections by the ten profundities, and for each round first states the reason for “questioning such-and-such Foremost,” fastening the speaker to the gate he presides over; in the first round he takes the Tathāgata-womb as what “the nature of mind is one” refers to, expressly singling it out as not the eighth consciousness, and expounds its being “one” by joining the empty and the non-empty Tathāgata-womb; he further poses the contradiction between the maturing store-consciousness of the Yuqie shidi lun and the Tathāgata-womb that accords with conditions in the Lengqie jing and the Miyan jing, answering it by the two teachings, provisional and real, so that they do not contradict, and determining that “the two schools are not the same, and their shallowness and depth may be seen,” and further saying that the later followers' interpretation within consciousness-only, “fixedly speaking of the unchanging, loses the according with conditions” — this is the place where the doctrine of the Huayan school shows most plainly in this chapter. He also matches the ten bodhisattvas to the ten faiths and the ten minds (Mañjuśrī as the mind of faith, Foremost in Diligence the mind of vigor, Foremost in Wealth the mind of mindfulness, Foremost in Awakening the mind of concentration, Foremost in Wisdom the mind of wisdom, Foremost in Dharma the mind of non-retrogression, Foremost in Jewels the mind of the precepts, Foremost in Virtue the mind of guarding the Dharma, Foremost in Vision the mind of vows, Foremost in Worthiness the mind of dedication), while himself noting that “they are simply not in sequence” and that “this too shows the ten minds, and they need not be in sequence,” so that he does not force the correlation to line up with the scripture's order. This determination is Chengguan's own, and it is recorded.

The line of Fazang: what he interprets is the sixty-fascicle chapter “Clarifying the Difficulties,” and he explains the name by the four senses of clarifying difficulties — in terms of mind and object, in terms of teaching and meaning, in terms of the way of discourse, and in terms of guest and host, of which the sense “in terms of guest and host” bears most closely on the substance of this chapter: in the prose passages the setting of difficulties is shown, and in the verses the resolving of difficulties is shown. In his gate of critical assessment he lists the divisions of the causal stage into two, into three, into four, and into five, and further records separately the master “Guang's” division of the sense into three and into four, listing the several views without upholding one; in his gate of fixing the stage he divides by teaching in making his determination: within the initial teaching the ten faiths are of themselves a stage, and he cites the Liang She dacheng lun in evidence; within the final teaching they are only the expedient of the ten abodes and have no separate stage of their own, and he cites the Benye jing and its names for the ten minds in evidence. His gate of the arousing of the mind likewise speaks by dividing the initial teaching, the final teaching, the perfect teaching, the lesser vehicle, and the sudden teaching. On one and the same question, ‘are the ten faiths a stage or not,’ Fazang assigns each its own place according to the teaching; the ancients had this view, and it is recorded.

The line of Li Tongxuan: he does not use the rubric of the ten profundities, but divides the text of the scripture into eleven sections, determining that Mañjuśrī and the ten bodhisattvas beginning with Foremost in Awakening “are host and companion to one another,” and takes the bodhisattvas' names as displaying the practices carried out in the ten faiths — Mañjuśrī inquires by means of the practice that lies under his name, and the ten bodhisattvas each answer in verse with the dharma of their own practice, “so that those with the mind of faith may rely on them and learn by imitation.” He reckons the first question as “twenty questions,” with sometimes one graph making a question and sometimes one clause making a question, differing from Chengguan's section of ten items in five pairs. In interpreting the name Foremost in Awakening he establishes the sense on “both true and false having vanished”: awakening to the fact that the very substance of the deeds that flow along in birth and death is in its own nature ever true and does not flow at all, and that eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are ever such as the Dharma, he is therefore named Foremost in Awakening. He further takes the ten wisdom-tathāgatas, beginning with the Buddha of Unmoving Wisdom, as one's own fruit within the stage of the ten faiths; the ten worlds of color, beginning with the Golden-Colored World, as the principle believed in within the ten faiths; and the ten bodhisattvas, Mañjuśrī, Foremost in Awakening, Foremost in Wealth, and the rest, as the practices of the ten faiths — the names of the buddhas, the names of the worlds, and the names of the bodhisattvas being together the instruments by which the Dharma is displayed. This way of reading differs from those who divide the sense by sections; the ancients had this view, and it is recorded.

As for the textual authorities carried on in this chapter, they all issue from the commentators' citations and not from the scripture itself: Chengguan cites the Awakening of Faith in two places, the Lengqie jing, the Miyan jing, the Ru Lengqie jing, a verse of the Damo jing, and the two interpretations of the She dacheng lun and the Baoxing lun, and the Da zhidu lun, fascicle two; Fazang cites the Liang She dacheng lun, the Foxing lun, the Renwang jing, and the Benye jing. Unlike “The Ten Grounds,” this chapter has no separately circulating treatise that quotes and interprets the scripture; and the compendia of the Huayan school likewise have no dedicated interpretation of the terms “asking for clarification,” “clarifying the difficulties,” or “the ten profundities.” This absence is recorded as it stands.

Why Pure Conduct Follows The Bodhisattvas Ask for Clarification

In the preceding chapter nine bodhisattvas questioned and answered in turn and said to the full the profound meanings of dependent origination, of teaching and transforming, and of the retribution of deeds; the reader has just been handed a whole set of views. The chapter that follows immediately upon it says no new doctrine whatever. It teaches only the one phrase “he vows: may all sentient beings,” and turns it over and over one hundred forty-one times. That drop is itself the intent of the arrangement. Chengguan's determination of the reason for this chapter's coming is put without the least softening: “One who would climb to the wondrous station must rely upon excellent practice; where there is understanding without practice, much learning is spent in vain, and therefore the preceding chapter clarifies understanding while this chapter discerns practice.” To ascend to the wondrous station one must rely upon actual practice; with views alone and no practice, much learning is only spent for nothing. He adds a further layer: what the preceding chapter clarified is the contemplative practice of entering the principle; what this chapter discerns is what is practiced in accordance with affairs.

One common misreading must be cleared away: do not suppose that “practice” is some separate thing to be done at a time set aside and in a place arranged for it. The affairs passed through in this chapter are all of them being at home, going forth, walking, washing the face, eating, sleeping; not one of them has been arranged on purpose for cultivation. Li Tongxuan, in establishing the reason for this chapter's coming, speaks from another angle: one who has already given rise to the aspiration for awakening and delights in faith in the true Dharma is to “turn over all views at a stroke,” overturning at once the ignorance, greed, and hatred that have been there without beginning. Turn them over where? Precisely upon these affairs. Coming down to oneself: anyone who habitually feels ‘I will cultivate once I have the time’ — this chapter was written for him.

Why the Two Graphs “Pure Conduct” Establish the Name

The two graphs of the chapter's name look ordinary enough, yet the ancient worthies spent fine effort here. Chengguan first glosses the three Sanskrit segments: what is practiced, all and everywhere, pure. Then he gives the definition: the three kinds of action passing through affairs and conditions one by one is called what is practiced; using skillful vows to guard against wrong, to depart from fault, and to complete virtue is called pure. So “pure” is not a further layer of cleanness laid on from outside; it is the quality of that very practicing itself — and Chengguan accordingly judges it an appositional explanation: “What is practiced is itself pure — an appositional explanation.”

He has a second explanation as well, and it raises the standard: “Again, compassion and wisdom carried on together is called what is practiced; because the practice surpasses that of the ordinary and the lesser it is called pure, for the uncontaminated of the two vehicles cannot benefit others as well, and so is not truly pure.” The uncontaminated of the two vehicles counts as pure too, but because it cannot benefit others as well, here it does not count as truly pure. That sentence is the threshold of this chapter: were the one hundred forty-one vows to lack the four graphs “he vows: may all sentient beings,” they would be no more than mottoes with which to remind oneself, and not pure conduct.

Fazang's explanation of the name differs from Chengguan's. Following the Sanskrit original he makes it “the chapter of Perfect Pure Conduct,” and further adduces the name in Asvabhāva's She lun, “the Scripture of Pure Practice,” and opens two explanations: the three kinds of action being without fault is pure, the mind giving rise to vows is conduct, and conduct according with the universal Dharma is perfect — this is the appositional explanation; pure is principle, conduct is wisdom, and principle and wisdom unobstructed is perfect — this is the dependent-determinative explanation. Li Tongxuan, for his part, does not gloss the Sanskrit, but establishes the name directly upon “turning over all views at a stroke” and “entering Samantabhadra's practice.” What the three masters establish differs; all is recorded, with no adjudication.

Foremost in Wisdom and Mañjuśrī: Why These Two

The choice of who asks and who answers is not casual. Chengguan explains this pair in particular: “Skillful vows made passing through affairs must have wisdom for their guide; the affairs are near while the import is far, and this belongs to Wondrous Virtue alone.” Passing through affairs and giving rise to vows looks near, but its import is far, and it must have wisdom for its guide; therefore Wondrous Virtue — Mañjuśrī — is the one who answers. He then states the division of labor between the two bodhisattvas with the utmost clarity: Mañjuśrī is prajñā contemplating emptiness, Foremost in Wisdom is upāya engaging affairs; engaging affairs and yet not deluded about the principle, therefore though he vows there is no grasping; contemplating emptiness and yet not abandoning affairs, therefore though he is quiescent he does not take realization. Chengguan names this the twin coursing of the provisional and the real.

Clear away a misreading: do not read the making of vows as a seeking after something. A vow has marks; contemplating emptiness is without marks; and if the two are set against each other this chapter becomes a text at odds with itself. What the ancient worthies do is to read them as two sides of one and the same thing — it is precisely because contemplating emptiness does not abandon affairs that vows can be made at all, and precisely because engaging affairs is not deluded about the principle that one can vow without grasping.

Foremost in Wisdom's First Question: The Three Kinds of Action Without Fault

The first question asks after “bodily, verbal, and mental action without fault.” Note that this is the head of the twenty questions and the general outline of them all. Chengguan determines this segment, saying that “the first single segment asks after the fruit in general, and the latter ten clarify it separately,” and says further that among these ten clauses “the first one displays being without fault in general, the next eight display it separately, and the last one brings out its cause in general.” So “without fault” is not one among ten kinds of virtue; it is the general statement, while the eight clauses below say separately in what respect the fault is absent, and the last clause says how it can be absent.

First the question, then the answer: where do the faults of the three kinds of action come from? Not from body, speech, and mind themselves, but from turning along with the afflictions. Further on Chengguan gives an exceedingly crisp set of pairings: not following hatred, hence doing no harm; not following conceit, hence not to be derided; not following evil views, hence not broken down; not following doubt, hence not turning back and not moved; not following greed, hence pure and undefiled; not following delusion, hence wisdom as forerunner. Read straight through in this way, the first segment of the twenty questions turns out to be a table setting afflictions against items of virtue. Coming down to oneself: to examine whether one's words and deeds are at fault, one need not check them item by item against the marks of the precepts; one need only ask in the train of which affliction this particular sentence was spoken.

Foremost in Wisdom's Second Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Do No Harm

“Doing no harm” counteracts hatred. Chengguan pairs them directly: “not following hatred, hence doing no harm.” Doing no harm is not merely not raising a hand; it is not even giving rise to the intention of injuring another. Here a reading that lowers the standard must be excluded: supposing that having no enemies is already doing no harm. Later in this chapter there is a vow that answers to it exactly: “On seeing a person who turns his back on kindness, he vows: may all sentient beings not repay in kind those who act with evil.” Not to repay in kind — that is the point at which doing no harm is actually measured, and the object is one who has turned his back on kindness, not a good person.

Foremost in Wisdom's Third Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Cannot Be Derided

“Cannot be derided” counteracts conceit. Why should conceit invite derision? Because the conceited must have something open to reproach, and another's finger, once pointed, strikes home. Chengguan says “not following conceit, hence not to be derided,” and says further that this is “no delusion remaining, and so not to be derided.” So being beyond derision is not a matter of guarding one's name with eloquence; it is that there is in fact no handle by which one might be derided. Coming down to oneself: when one fears what others may say, what should be examined is not the one who says it, but whether the spot he has hit is still there.

Foremost in Wisdom's Fourth Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Cannot Be Broken

“Cannot be broken” counteracts evil views. Once the view goes wrong, the practice is broken at the root. Chengguan says “not following evil views, hence not broken down,” and on the side of the fruit pairs it thus: “because adverse conditions cannot break it, one obtains the Buddha's ten powers.” The point lies in the passive voice of “cannot be broken” — it is not that one holds on tightly oneself, but that outer conditions cannot break it. Every keeping that is propped up by force of will can be broken; only when the view is upright is there what cannot be broken.

Foremost in Wisdom's Fifth Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Do Not Turn Back

“Not turning back” counteracts doubt. Chengguan says “not following doubt, hence not turning back and not moved,” and pairs the fruit: “because of cultivation that does not turn back, the bodhisattva's practice is fulfilled.” The mechanism of turning back is for the most part not a collapse in the face of some great difficulty; it is that a thread of doubt — ‘does doing this actually do any good?’ — has come first into the mind, and the practice slackens by a degree each day. The vow-text of this chapter has an extremely concrete sentence for it: “On requesting to go forth, he vows: may all sentient beings obtain the dharma of non-retrogression, with nothing to obstruct their minds.” The dharma of not turning back and the mind without obstruction stand in the same line, and one sees from this that turning back comes from the feeling of obstruction.

Foremost in Wisdom's Sixth Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Cannot Be Shaken

Among the twenty questions “cannot be shaken” stands next to “not turning back,” yet the sense differs: turning back is walking backward oneself, being shaken is being swayed by an outer force. Chengguan pairs the fruit thus: “because he is far removed from all marks and is thus unmoved, the cause of nirvāṇa is completed” — the ground of not being shaken is being far removed from all marks. This question receives a direct answer at the very end of the chapter: the concluding praise says that gods, Māra, Brahmā, śramaṇas, brahmins, and on to śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas “are unable to shake him.” The first question of the chapter and its last answer are buckled together here.

Foremost in Wisdom's Seventh Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Are Excellent

“Excellent” does not mean being cleverer than others. Chengguan pairs the fruit thus: “because the practice of virtue is excellent, there is skill regarding dharmas” — the test of excellence lies in skill regarding dharmas, not in being esteemed by others. Clear away a misreading: to read excellence as a feeling of superiority is to fall straight back into the conceit that the third question counteracts. Coming down to oneself: to judge whether one's own cultivation is excellent, what is looked at is whether one can use the meaning of the Dharma skillfully when facing it, not how others regard you.

Foremost in Wisdom's Eighth Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Are Pure

“Pure” counteracts greed. Chengguan says “constantly cultivating excellent practice and not following greed, hence pure and undefiled,” and pairs the fruit thus: “because the substance is pure as space, the conditions of the path are furnished.” Purity and the next question's “undefiled” look like a repetition; Chengguan's distinction is this: purity is spoken of with respect to the substance, as space has from the first nothing in it; being undefiled is spoken of with respect to engaging objects, having entered upon the object and yet taking on no defilement. The vow-text of this chapter has both layers: “On washing away the body's filth, he vows: may all sentient beings be pure and pliant, and finally without stain” is with respect to the substance, while “On seeing an empty bowl, he vows: may all sentient beings have minds that are pure, empty of the afflictions” is meeting an object and the mind not turning along with it.

Foremost in Wisdom's Ninth Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Take On No Defilement

“Undefiled” is the question in this chapter closest to daily use. The bodhisattva is not one who does not engage the objects of the five desires: the eleven vows of the first group are all household affairs — gathering with wife and children, obtaining the five desires, gathering for song and music, wearing strings of jewels, ascending a tower. Chengguan pairs the fruit thus: “because he engages objects and takes on no defilement, his virtue is fit for a vessel that transmits the Dharma” — engaging objects and yet not defiled, he is qualified to transmit the Dharma. The misreading to be cleared away is understanding “undefiled” as avoidance: if it depended on avoidance, these eleven vows of the first group could never be given rise to at all.

Foremost in Wisdom's Tenth Question: The Three Kinds of Action That Have Wisdom as Forerunner

The tenth question is the cause of the preceding nine. Chengguan says it plainly: “The last one brings out their cause in general. If wisdom be the forerunner, bodily, verbal, and mental action are constantly without fault.” And he pairs the fruit thus: “because wisdom is the forerunner, the many wisdoms are accomplished.” This question is also the pivot of the whole chapter — the reason Mañjuśrī is the one who answers is precisely that skillful vows made passing through affairs must have wisdom for their guide. Coming down to oneself: what is called wisdom as forerunner takes, in this chapter's concrete form, the shape of giving rise to that one thought of vow at the moment the affair is met with, and not of adding a dedication after the thing is already done.

Foremost in Wisdom's Eleventh Question: The Ten Kinds of Fullness

The eleventh question turns to ask after ten things: fullness of birthplace, of family, of household, of form, of features, of mindfulness, of wisdom, of practice, of fearlessness, and of awakening. These ten look like the reward of merit, yet Chengguan judges them “a vessel for cultivating the path”: at the time the bodhisattva takes up cultivation he must be furnished with these ten, and only so does the practice of benefiting self and others come to completion. He cites the Yuqie shidi lun and pairs them item by item: constantly born where the Buddha's Dharma is present, of honorable family, born into a household with faith turned toward the three jewels, upright in form, unimpaired in the faculties, unforgetting in right mindfulness, lofty and clear in the awakening of wisdom, gentle and well tempered, firm and strong in resolve, awakened of itself in nature. For the item of “fearlessness” he cites in addition the Zhidu lun's four kinds of fearlessness: the fearlessness of retaining all, the fearlessness of knowing the faculties, the fearlessness of resolving doubt, and the fearlessness of answering objections — not fearing to forget, not fearing to err, not fearing inadequacy, not fearing to be stalled by doubt. The misreading to be cleared away: these ten are not conditions to be sought after; Chengguan's closing sentence says “again, these ten things, if taken with respect to the Dharma, are that being born in the Buddha's house is fullness of birthplace, and so on” — all of them may be read with respect to the Dharma.

Foremost in Wisdom's Twelfth Question: The Ten Kinds of Wisdom

The twelfth question lists ten wisdoms: excellent wisdom, foremost wisdom, highest wisdom, most excellent wisdom, measureless wisdom, wisdom beyond counting, inconceivable wisdom, wisdom with nothing to match it, wisdom that cannot be weighed, and wisdom that cannot be spoken. These ten items read like synonyms repeating, and Chengguan gives a clean division: the first four discriminate against what is inferior — the first surpasses the worldly, the second passes beyond the two vehicles, the third discriminates against the provisional teaching, the fourth is the buddha-fruit surpassing the stations of the cause; the latter six are spoken of with respect to wisdom's own substance — without measure, without any number, beyond word and thought, without match, hard to compare, corresponding to realization alone.

Most important is his explanation of “cannot be spoken,” four clauses in one breath: “Would one say that it is? It is without mark and without shape. Would one say that it is not? By it the sage is spiritually quickened. Would one say it is both? Wisdom has no two substances. Would one deny both? It is not that it cannot be set forth and displayed. Therefore it cannot be spoken.” Say it is, and it is without mark and without shape; say it is not, and by it the sage is quickened; say it is both is and is not, and wisdom has no two substances; say it is neither, and yet it is not that it cannot be set forth. Therefore it is called what cannot be spoken. What this comes down to is this: do not use “cannot be spoken” as an excuse for stopping thought — Chengguan says it cannot be spoken only after he has tried all four ways of saying it.

Foremost in Wisdom's Thirteenth Question: The Ten Powers

The thirteenth question lists ten powers: cause, aspiration, skillful means, conditions, the object of the mind, the faculties, observation, śamatha, vipaśyanā, and deliberation. Chengguan judges them in general as “precisely the furnishing of the causes and conditions of the path,” and says “in every case they are called powers because each of these ten has the capacity to aid the path.” His explanations one by one are exceedingly concrete: the power of cause is the seed-nature, the acquired seed already present joining with the unmistaken perfuming of hearing and with the innate seed; the power of aspiration is the excellent longing that seeks great awakening; skillful means is the power of constructive cultivation, which by way of the six skillful means — compassionate concern, understanding the formations, delighting in the Buddha's wondrous wisdom, not forsaking birth and death, not being defiled amid transmigration, and blazing vigor — completes compassion and wisdom; the power of conditions is the urging of good friends; the power of the object is the object of compassion and wisdom that is observed; the faculties are the five faculties of faith and the rest; observation is being well able to discriminate, in one's own and others' affairs and principles, the medicine and the illness; śamatha here means calming; vipaśyanā here means insight; deliberation is weighing what should and should not be done.

Here Chengguan cites the Liang-dynasty She lun and Asvabhāva's She lun to explain the power of cause: “The perfuming of much hearing joins with the nature of understanding within the ālaya-consciousness, and all the noble ones take this as their cause”; “Although this perfuming of hearing is contaminated, it is the seed-nature of the world-transcending mind.” The point is this: the perfuming of hearing is itself contaminated, and yet it is the seed of the world-transcending mind — which answers exactly the doubt ‘is much learning spent in vain?’ Much learning is not spent in vain; what is spent in vain is understanding without practice.

Foremost in Wisdom's Fourteenth Question: The Ten Kinds of Skill

The fourteenth question lists ten kinds of skill: the aggregates, the elements, the sense-fields, dependent origination, the desire realm, the form realm, the formless realm, the past, the future, and the present. Chengguan determines the whole in a single sentence: “Fourth, skill regarding dharmas, all taken with respect to transmigration. The first four are the substance of transmigration, the three realms its place, the three times its time” — the aggregates, elements, sense-fields, and dependent origination are the substance of transmigration, the three realms are the place where it transmigrates, the three times are the time in which it transmigrates. The ten kinds of skill are in fact the one matter of transmigration taken apart into its three sides: substance, place, and time.

What is skill? He gives two clauses and then adds a third on top: “first, knowing well that those dharmas are empty and have nothing at all; second, knowing well how not to destroy provisional names while distinguishing the marks of dharmas. Add to this the ability to gather in endlessly, and the skill is greater still.” Knowing emptiness, not destroying provisional names, and then in addition being able to gather in endlessly — that is the skill of this scripture. Coming down to oneself: to know only emptiness and be unable to distinguish the marks of dharmas, or to be able only to distinguish and not to know emptiness, is still short of skill.

Foremost in Wisdom's Fifteenth Question: The Awakening-Factors and the Three Kinds of Emptiness

The fifteenth question asks after the seven awakening-factors and emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness. Chengguan judges this segment as “cultivating the cause of nirvāṇa,” and says “the seven awakening-factors and the three kinds of emptiness are expounded at length in the chapter The Ten Grounds.” Here one should notice the usage of this chapter: not one of the sets of numbered dharmas that Foremost in Wisdom asks after is unfolded in this chapter; the unfolding takes place in other chapters. This is precisely the character of the question portion — raising up virtues and inquiring after their cause, asking ‘how is one to obtain it’ and not ‘what is it’. Coming down to the reader: if in reading the twenty questions one chases after each technical term in turn, one will miss the point of the asking; the point is that this long string of items of virtue is exchanged in the end for an answer of four graphs.

Foremost in Wisdom's Sixteenth Question: The Six Perfections and the Four Immeasurables

The sixteenth question asks after the fulfilling of the six perfections and the fulfilling of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. In his division of the five fruits Chengguan joins this segment with the next as the fruit of disjunction, and explains: “The cultivating of the six perfections and the four equalities at the outset is the fruit of a person's exertion; their fulfilling is the fruit of disjunction, because the several coverings are counteracted.” Cultivating the six perfections and the four equalities is the fruit of a person's exertion; their fulfilling is the fruit of disjunction, because fulfilling is precisely the coverings having been counteracted. The point lies in the word “fulfilled”: what is asked is not whether giving has been cultivated, but whether it is fulfilled; and the test of fulfillment is that stinginess, greed, and the rest have been left behind.

Foremost in Wisdom's Seventeenth Question: The Ten Powers of the Tathāgata's Knowledge

The seventeenth question asks after the ten powers of a buddha, from the power of knowing what is possible and what is not through to the power of cutting off all habits. In Chengguan's division of the five fruits this segment belongs to the latter half of the fruit of disjunction, and he says “and the seventh, being furnished with the ten powers, all as seen in the text above.” A misreading must be cleared away: that Foremost in Wisdom asks after the Buddha's ten powers is not a presumptuous leap over the stages, because the character of all twenty questions is “raising up virtues and inquiring after their cause” — raising up the virtues of the fruit so as to inquire after their cause; and the higher what is asked, the more plainly the cause inquired after shows its importance. And the cause Mañjuśrī gives is always only those four graphs.

Foremost in Wisdom's Eighteenth Question: The Protection of the Ten Kings

The eighteenth question asks after constantly obtaining the protection, reverence, and offerings of the god-kings, the dragon-kings, and on to the Brahmā-kings. Chengguan judges this segment as the dominant fruit: “Eighth, the reverence and protection of the ten kings, is the dominant fruit.” And earlier he pairs its cause: “because there is no delusion remaining and he cannot be derided, the ten kings revere and protect him.” This question is the one most easily read as seeking a blessing, and it must be corrected by Chengguan's pairing of the cause: the reason protection is obtained is that one is oneself without any remaining delusion and so beyond derision, and not that one has petitioned for it. Coming down to oneself: real protection is drawn by virtue, not gained by asking.

Foremost in Wisdom's Nineteenth Question: Becoming Refuge and Rescue for Sentient Beings

The nineteenth question asks after “becoming a refuge, a rescue, a place of return, a destination, a torch, a light, an illumination, a guide, an excellent guide, and a universal guide.” Chengguan judges this segment together with the next as the fruit of uniform outflow, and distinguishes what each comes from: “By the power of the original vow, he becomes refuge and rescue and the rest. By the power of the original practice, he becomes the first and the rest.” Becoming refuge and rescue is the uniform outflow of the power of the original vow; becoming the first is the uniform outflow of the power of the original practice. He points out further that “the ten clauses of ‘refuge’ and the rest are as at the beginning of The Dedications” — these ten clauses have a further extended explanation in the opening section of the chapter The Dedications. This question buckles directly onto the answering portion of the chapter: the one hundred forty-one vows all turn upon the axis of “he vows: may all sentient beings,” which is precisely the operative face of the power of the original vow.

Foremost in Wisdom's Twentieth Question: Becoming the First Among Sentient Beings

The twentieth question asks after “becoming the first, the great, the excellent, the most excellent, the wondrous, the utterly wondrous, the high, the unsurpassed, the one without equal, and the one equal only to those without equal.” Chengguan explains name by name with respect to the buddha-fruit: the ocean of the Tathāgata's merit is full and lacks nothing further, and therefore he is called the first, this being also the general clause; the great is that his substance embraces the Dharma realm; the excellent is that self-benefit is perfect; the most excellent is that benefiting others is brought to its end; the wondrous is that the obstruction of the afflictions is exhausted; the utterly wondrous is that the obstruction to what is to be known is exhausted; the high is that looking downward there is none that reaches him; the unsurpassed is that looking upward there is none beyond; the one without equal is that looking downward there is none to be his match; the one equal only to those without equal is that, looking to his peers, they are all of them without equal.

With this the twenty questions are finished. Chengguan sets down one general verdict upon the whole long string of questions: “The reason so many virtues are raised up at length is the wish to display the excellence of the practice.” To lay out so many items of virtue has for its aim only to display how excellent the practice is. That sentence is the key to understanding the structure of this chapter: the longer and more splendid the question portion, the weightier those four graphs of the answer.

Mañjuśrī's First Step: He Praises the Question First

Mañjuśrī does not answer at once, but first praises the question: “Excellent, Son of the Buddha! Today, because you wish to bring manifold benefit and manifold security, out of pity for the world, and to benefit and gladden gods and humans, you ask about a meaning such as this.” Chengguan outlines this as “praising the question as bringing benefit to completion,” and explains it graph by graph: abundant benefit is benefit, security is peace and joy, and to benefit and gladden is precisely these two; and he notes that “the sense of ‘benefit and gladden’ has already appeared in the chapter Awakening by Light.”

Why praise first? Because what is praised is not Foremost in Wisdom's cleverness but the motive of his asking. The twenty questions raise up nothing but the highest virtues of the fruit, and were the motive a seeking for oneself, the question would become a coveting of what is high and great; Mañjuśrī first brings the motive into the open — for abundant benefit, for security, out of pity, to benefit and gladden — and only so does the question stand. Coming down to oneself: before asking about the Dharma, look first at why you are asking; this step matters more than asking beautifully.

Mañjuśrī's Answer: Make Good Use of the Mind

Then comes the heart of the whole chapter. Mañjuśrī says: “Son of the Buddha! If the bodhisattvas make good use of their minds, then they gain all excellent and wondrous merits.” Chengguan outlines this as the indication of the cause, and explains: “First he indicates the cause, namely making good use of the mind. The mind awakens to the depth of spiritual illumination; when the mind is upright, the myriad virtues come home to it. As for ‘making good use’, it is precisely the skillful vows made passing through conditions later on, entering the mystery upon contact with objects, as discerned above.”

Three layers must be kept distinct. First, this is a cause and not a fruit — what was asked above Chengguan counts as one hundred ten kinds of virtue, and what is given here is the cause by which those virtues can be obtained. Second, the two graphs “make good use” have a determinate content and are not a vague ‘be a bit more attentive’: Chengguan points straight to “the skillful vows made passing through conditions, entering the mystery upon contact with objects,” that is, the operation of the one hundred forty-one vows that follow. Third, everything hangs on the word “use” — everyone has a mind; the difference between good and not good lies in the using.

Clear away a misreading that matters: making good use of the mind is not the same as keeping in a good mood, nor is it looking on the bright side of everything. Half the affairs passed through in this chapter are adverse circumstances and ugly sights — hardship and distress, a road of peril, much dust, a person in distress, an ugly person, one who turns his back on kindness, coarse and rough food, receiving no reverence. If making good use of the mind were only positive thinking, there would be no way to use it when these are met. What the vow-text does is another way altogether: it turns the object before one into a vow for all sentient beings. What the object is does not matter; what matters is what it is used for.

Having indicated the cause, Mañjuśrī immediately turns the question back: “Son of the Buddha! How is the mind to be used, that one may gain all excellent and wondrous merits?” This sentence is the direct introduction to the one hundred forty-one vows. The structure of the whole chapter thus becomes clear: Foremost in Wisdom inquires after the cause by way of virtues; Mañjuśrī indicates the cause, then inquires after its use himself, and then demonstrates by one hundred forty-one affairs how it is used.

The Shape of the Vow-Text: One Sentence for Every Thing

The one hundred forty-one vows are cast from a single mold: first the affair met with is raised up, next comes “he vows: may all sentient beings,” and afterward the dharma vowed for is set out. Displaying the general purport of the text, Chengguan says “yet although these vow-sentences have four clauses, the affairs are only three”; of his commentary at that point only the first line survives here, the remaining clauses not being recorded in this edition, and the absence is set down as the facts stand.

From the scriptural text itself three things can be seen clearly. First, the affair comes before and the vow after — the object comes first; the vow is not made out of nothing. Second, the dharma vowed for and the affair met with are often linked by a single graph or a single aspect: seeing a thorn tree he vows that the thorns of the three poisons be cut away; seeing a bridge he vows that all be ferried across as by a bridge; seeing a great river he vows entry into the ocean of the Buddha's wisdom; seeing flowers open he vows that the supernormal powers open out. This linkage is no word-game; it is the point of leverage by which the mind is turned out of the object. Third, the object of what is vowed is in every case “sentient beings” and not oneself — this is the line that divides this chapter from every motto, admonition, and formula for training the mind.

In the resolution of objections Chengguan states the full weight of this. Someone asks: the text has only some hundred-odd vows; where is there practice in it? He answers: the practice here has several layers — from going forth at the beginning to lying down and waking at the end, all is the practice of affairs; knowing the home to be empty in nature is the practice of principle; not being deluded upon contact with objects and comprehending affair and principle well is the practice of wisdom; guiding wisdom by vows and not being detained in self-benefit is the practice of great compassion; the practice of principle and the practice of wisdom being not two is the practice in which compassion and wisdom are unobstructed. And he pushes further down: that upon meeting objects adverse or favorable the mind does not run scattered is the practice of calming, that wisdom does not sink away is the practice of contemplation, and together they are the practice in which calming and contemplation are carried on together; understanding well what is wrong and what is right and vowing that all sentient beings may be so is the contemplation of the provisional, knowing the body to be empty and still with the mind free of defiling attachment is the contemplation of emptiness, seeing the principle as it really is is the contemplation of the middle; and on to this, that seeing evil he would surely have it cut off and seeing good he would surely have it made complete is precisely the practice of the four great vows.

Thus within a single sentence of vow there are the practice of affairs, the practice of principle, the practice of wisdom, the practice of compassion, calming and contemplation, the three truths, and the four great vows, all of them. This is why this chapter dares to use one hundred forty-one repetitions of a single sentence pattern without its being felt as poverty.

Vow-Group One, At Home: It Begins at Home, Not at a Monastery

In the first group of eleven vows the affairs passed through are all within the household: being at home, serving father and mother with filial obedience, gathering with wife and children, obtaining the five desires, gathering for song and music, being within palace chambers, wearing strings of jewels, ascending a tower, giving something away, a multitude gathering, being in hardship and distress. That the scripture places the starting point of bodhisattva practice in the most ordinary place is itself an admonition.

Open up the first vow: “When the bodhisattva is at home, he vows: may all sentient beings know the home to be empty in nature and be freed from its oppression.” Why “know the home to be empty in nature” and not ‘be weary of the home and leave it’? What makes the home oppress a person is not the house and the family, but the grasping of the home as really existent — with real existence there is gain and loss, and with gain and loss there is oppression. So the counteraction is not moving out; it is knowing that its nature is empty. And note the second half: what is escaped is the oppression of sentient beings, not one's own. With this vow made, every particle of unfreedom within the household is turned into compassion for all sentient beings.

Open one more vow to see the method: “On gathering with wife and children, he vows: may all sentient beings hold foe and kin in equal regard and forever leave craving and attachment behind.” Of all occasions the scripture attaches the dharma of holding foe and kin in equal regard to the most intimate one. This is the general rule of the chapter — the dharma vowed for is often exactly the flavor most lacking in the affair met with. Coming down to oneself: the home is not an obstruction to cultivation; the home is the place of practice appointed by these eleven vows of the first group.

Vow-Group Two, Going Forth and Receiving the Precepts: From Leaving the Household to the Full Precepts

The second group of fifteen vows, from “when leaving the household” to “on receiving the full precepts,” is a complete sequence of going forth: leaving the household, entering the saṃghārāma, calling upon the greater and lesser master, requesting to go forth, taking off lay clothing, shaving hair and beard, putting on the kāṣāya, going forth proper, the three refuges, receiving and studying the precepts, receiving the ācārya's instruction, receiving the upādhyāya's instruction, and receiving the full precepts.

At the three vows of the three refuges Chengguan has a note on the history of the institution: “As for the first three, taking refuge oneself: in the days when the Buddha was present it was one of the five modes of receiving; after the Buddha's extinction, the receiving of the five and the eight precepts must rely upon the three refuges.” While the Buddha was in the world the three refuges were one of five ways of receiving the precepts; after the Buddha's extinction, the five precepts and the eight precepts must be received in reliance upon the three refuges.

Open one vow: “On taking refuge in the Dharma oneself, he vows: may all sentient beings enter deeply into the storehouse of the scriptures, their wisdom vast as the sea.” This vow has been recited most widely in later ages, and in reading it one easily takes it for mere praise. Seen with respect to the usage of this chapter, it is the method of using the mind at the very moment of taking refuge in the Dharma: taking refuge is not the completion of a formality; it is, in that moment, vowing at once for the whole storehouse of the scriptures and for the wisdom of all sentient beings. It may also be mentioned that this vow agrees graph for graph in the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle texts, and is one of the few sentences of the chapter in which the two texts do not differ.

Vow-Group Three, The Time of Sitting in Meditation and Contemplation: The Seven Vows Chengguan Outlines

The third group of seven vows runs from “on entering the hall” to “on rising from the cross-legged posture.” Chengguan outlines this as “the vows at the time of sitting in meditation and contemplation,” and states their number plainly as seven — which agrees with the actual count of the scriptural text.

The sequence of the seven vows is one complete sitting: entering the hall, spreading the seat, sitting upright, crossing the legs, cultivating concentration, cultivating contemplation, leaving the seat. What is to be noticed are the two ends. At the head: “On entering the hall, he vows: may all sentient beings ascend the unsurpassed hall and abide there unmoved” — the moment one comes through the door the mind is already being used; it is not that one begins once settled in the posture. At the tail: “On rising from the cross-legged posture, he vows: may all sentient beings contemplate all conditioned dharmas as returning to dispersal and extinction” — the very act of leaving the seat is used to contemplate impermanence, so that even getting up is not the end of cultivation.

Open the pair in the middle: “On cultivating meditative concentration, he vows: may all sentient beings subdue the mind by concentration and be finally without any delusion remaining,” and “On cultivating the wisdom of contemplation, he vows: may all sentient beings see the principle as it really is and be forever without contradiction and dispute.” The function of concentration is stated as subduing the mind, the function of contemplation as seeing the principle as it really is; the division of labor is clear and the two are not confused. Coming down to oneself: what moves one in these seven vows is precisely that they do not allow anyone to cut ‘on the cushion’ and ‘off the cushion’ into two pieces.

Vow-Group Four, The Time of Setting Out and Robing: The Six Vows Chengguan Outlines

The fourth group of six vows runs from “when the foot is set down and one stands” to “on putting on the saṃghāṭī.” Chengguan outlines this as “clarifying the vows at the time of setting out and robing,” and states their number plainly as six — which agrees with the actual count of the scriptural text.

The first two vows are about the feet: “When the foot is set down and one stands, he vows: may all sentient beings attain liberation of mind and abide unmoved”; “On lifting the foot to step, he vows: may all sentient beings come out of the sea of birth and death and be complete in the many wholesome dharmas.” One setting down and one lifting, one still and one moving, each with its own vow — this is the finest cutting of the gate of practice in the whole chapter, and Chengguan's phrase in his explanation of the name, “the lifting of the foot and the setting down of the foot are wholly Mañjuśrī's mind,” points exactly here.

The latter four vows are about the robes: the inner robe, the belt, the upper robe, the saṃghāṭī. Open one vow: “On arranging the robe and fastening the belt, he vows: may all sentient beings gather in and keep watch over their roots of goodness, and not let them be scattered and lost.” The belt is fastened so that the robe is not loose, and what is vowed is that the roots of goodness be not scattered — the affair met with and the dharma vowed for meet upon the word “fasten.” Coming down to oneself: dressing, that wholly meaningless daily act, becomes here one taking of stock of the roots of goodness.

Vow-Group Five, The Time of Washing and Rinsing: The Seven Vows Chengguan Outlines

The fifth group of seven vows runs from “taking the willow twig in hand” to “washing the face with water.” Chengguan outlines this as the vows at “the time of washing and rinsing,” and states their number plainly as seven — which agrees with the actual count of the scriptural text.

This group is the least ‘decorous’ passage in the whole chapter, relieving oneself being among them: “When relieving oneself, he vows: may all sentient beings cast away greed, hatred, and delusion, and clear away the dharmas of offense.” There is no need to make excuses for the passage. That the scripture ranks it here is precisely to show that no single affair falls outside the vow; and if this one affair could be excepted, the four graphs “make good use of the mind” would have a gap in them.

Open one vow: “On chewing the willow twig, he vows: may all sentient beings have minds pliant and clean and bite through the afflictions.” Chewing and biting through are one and the same action, the one applied to the twig, the other to the afflictions. All seven vows of the group use this method of taking the simile from close at hand — taking up the twig and vowing to obtain the wondrous Dharma, washing the hands and vowing to receive and uphold the Buddha's Dharma, washing the face and vowing to obtain the pure Dharma-gate. Coming down to oneself: the daily acts of cleansing cost the least attention and for that very reason are the easiest to pass through empty; these seven vows are what fits those empty intervals with content.

Vow-Group Six, Taking Up Staff and Bowl, Setting the Foot Toward the Road

The sixth group of five vows runs from “taking the tin staff in hand” to “traveling along the road,” and is the beginning of going out to beg for food. The tin staff and the alms vessel are the things carried; setting out, being upon the road, and traveling along it are the stages walked.

At the vows on begging for food Chengguan has a general explanation: “Because of begging for food he gives rise to vows that are alike in kind. The path with nothing to depend upon is the true path. Turning toward the dharma without remainder is true nirvāṇa. The truly pure Dharma realm is what the mind treads upon.” What is called a vow alike in kind is taking, from the affair before one, a dharma of like kind to vow for. One who begs has nothing to depend upon, and therefore he vows to “enter the place where there is nothing to depend upon”; he walks upon a road, and therefore he vows to “tread the pure Dharma realm.” Chengguan points out in particular that the path with nothing to depend upon is the true path — this is not a simile made in resignation, but the direct sense.

Open one vow: “On holding the alms vessel, he vows: may all sentient beings accomplish themselves as vessels of the Dharma and receive the offerings of gods and humans.” What is held in the hand is a vessel for holding food; what is vowed is that sentient beings become vessels that carry the Dharma. Receiving offerings, in this chapter, is never a seeking after offerings, but a vow that sentient beings be fit to receive them.

Vow-Group Seven, The Sights of the Road

The seventh group of eleven vows runs from “on seeing the road going up” to “on seeing a high mountain,” and the affairs passed through are all sights of the road: the road going up, the road going down, the crooked road, the straight road, much dust, no dust, the road of peril, an assembly, a great pillar, a dense grove, a high mountain.

This group exposes the method of the chapter most clearly: the sights are some good and some bad, while the dharma vowed for is in every case good. Seeing the road going up he vows to come out of the three realms forever; seeing the road going down he vows that the mind be humble; seeing the crooked road he vows that the path that is not straight be cast away; seeing the straight road he vows that the mind be straight; seeing much dust he vows to leave the soiling of dust far behind; seeing no dust he vows constantly to practice great compassion. Vows can be made upon objects of either kind, and one sees from this that making a vow does not depend upon whether the object is good or bad.

Open one vow: “On seeing a great pillar, he vows: may all sentient beings depart from the mind of self and of contention and be without rancor.” What has a great pillar to do with the mind of self and contention? A pillar as a thing stands alone and upright and will not bend — and this is precisely the look of a contentious mind. This vow takes its simile from the greatest distance of any in the group, and it explains best the four graphs “entering the mystery upon contact with objects”: it is not that the dharma was in the object to begin with, but that the one who uses his mind sets the dharma upon the object.

Vow-Group Eight, Plants, Waters, Springs, and Gardens Seen

The eighth group of fifteen vows runs from “on seeing a thorn tree” to “on seeing a garden park,” and what is seen is grass and trees, flowers and fruit, rivers and marshes, pools and wells, springs, bridges, flowing water, garden plots, and groves and parks.

The similes in this group are the densest: thorns paired with the thorns of the three poisons, thick foliage with concentration and liberation for shade, flowers opening with the supernormal powers opening out, the flowers of a tree with the thirty-two marks, fruit with realizing awakening, a great river with entering the ocean of the Buddha's wisdom, a marsh with the one-flavored Dharma, a pool with fulfillment in verbal action, a well with eloquence, a gushing spring with roots of goodness without end, a bridge with ferrying beings across far and wide, flowing water with washing away the stain of doubt, a garden plot with hoeing out the weeds of craving, a sorrowless grove with leaving craving behind, and a garden park with turning toward the Buddha's awakening.

Open one vow: “On seeing one tending a garden plot, he vows: may all sentient beings hoe out the weeds of craving in the garden plot of the five desires.” Another is hoeing the weeds upon the ground; the one who makes the vow sees the weeds of craving in the garden plot of the five desires. This vow displays the direction of the chapter best of all — it is not a descent from the meaning of the Dharma to the mark of the affair, but a rise from the affair before one straight up to the meaning of the Dharma, and never apart from that “he vows: may all sentient beings.” Coming down to oneself: seeing a fine sight and giving rise to a mind of enjoyment, seeing an ugly one and giving rise to a mind of distaste, are both the mind being used by the object; these fifteen vows are a demonstration of the mind using the object.

Vow-Group Nine, The People Seen, and Walled Cities, Royal Capitals, and Wooded Marshes

The ninth group of twenty-seven vows is the longest group in the chapter, running from “on seeing a person richly adorned” to “on seeing one dwelling in woods and marshes.” The persons seen are ranged in pairs: adorned and unadorned, delighting and not delighting, glad and distressed, free of illness and ill, upright in form and ugly, repaying kindness and turning his back on kindness; then come the śramaṇa, the brahmin, the practitioner of austerities, the person of integrity, the one clad in armor, the one without armor or weapons, the debater, and the one of right livelihood; and last the king, the prince, the elder, the great minister, the walled city, the royal capital, and the wooded marsh.

Pairing is the usage of this group, and no pair praises the one and disparages the other. Seeing a glad person he vows that they constantly obtain peace and joy; seeing a distressed person he vows that they obtain fundamental wisdom and extinguish suffering; seeing a person upright in form he vows that pure faith be constantly given rise to toward the buddhas and bodhisattvas; seeing an ugly person he vows that no delight be taken in what is unwholesome. Favorable and adverse circumstances, beautiful and ugly appearances — from all of them a vow can come.

Open one vow: “On seeing a person who turns his back on kindness, he vows: may all sentient beings not repay in kind those who act with evil.” This is the hardest sentence in the chapter. What is seen is one who has turned his back on kindness and duty, and the most natural response is indignation, while what the scripture vows for is not repaying in kind — and what is vowed is not that oneself will not repay, but that all sentient beings will not repay. At the neighboring vow on repaying kindness Chengguan has a remark: “As for being able to know the kindness and virtue of the buddhas and bodhisattvas: the buddhas and bodhisattvas, from their first arousing of the mind, take all sentient beings universally as their object …” — the reason knowing kindness is hard is that the kindness of the buddhas and bodhisattvas has from the arousing of the mind taken all sentient beings universally as its object and is not for me alone, and so is not easily noticed. Coming down to oneself: whether, on meeting with betrayal, one can in that moment change it into a vow, is the point at which the whole practice of this chapter is actually measured.

Vow-Group Ten, Entering the Village to Beg and Receiving Food

The tenth group of eighteen vows runs from “entering the village to beg for food” to “when the meal is finished,” and is one complete round with the bowl: entering the village, reaching the gate, entering the house, seeing one unwilling to give, seeing one able to give, the empty bowl, the full bowl, receiving reverence, receiving no reverence, seeing one with a sense of shame, seeing one without it, fine food, food not fine, soft food, coarse food, eating, receiving the flavor, and the meal finished.

What shows the most skill in this group are the four pairs of adverse and favorable: bowl empty and bowl full, reverence obtained and not obtained, food fine and not fine, food soft and coarse. In none of the four pairs is the adverse side read as an obstruction — the empty bowl vows that the mind be pure and empty of afflictions, receiving no reverence vows that no unwholesome dharma be practiced, food that is not fine vows that the flavor of the samādhis be obtained, coarse food vows that worldly craving be cut off.

Open one vow: “On seeing an empty bowl, he vows: may all sentient beings have minds that are pure, empty of the afflictions.” An empty bowl is the most concrete frustration of one who begs, and yet this vow turns about directly upon the word “empty”: the emptiness of the bowl becomes the emptiness of the mind. This is the utmost of the chapter's linking by kind, and it is also the line dividing it from ordinary words of consolation — it does not say ‘an empty bowl does not matter’; it uses emptiness itself as the dharma. This vow agrees graph for graph in the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle texts.

Vow-Group Eleven, Expounding, Leaving the House, Entering the Water, Heat and Cool

The eleventh group of six vows runs from “when expounding the Dharma” to “when the heat withdraws and the cool first arises.” Expounding the Dharma, coming out from the house, entering the water, bathing, high summer, the heat withdrawing — this is the stretch from after the meal to bathing.

Open the pair on heat and cool: “In the fierce and cruel heat of high summer, he vows: may all sentient beings cast off the many torments and may they all be utterly gone,” and “When the heat withdraws and the cool first arises, he vows: may all sentient beings realize the unsurpassed Dharma and be cool at last.” In the heat he vows for freedom from torment; in the cool he vows for the ultimate coolness — one and the same word “cool,” which in the first vow is felt by the body and in the second is what is realized. The scripture does not evade the body's pleasure and pain, but vows for the substance of the Dharma's meaning by way of the name of what the body feels. Coming down to oneself: the weather is the object least open to choice, and this chapter does not let even that go.

Vow-Group Twelve, Reciting, Seeing the Buddha, Homage at the Stūpa, Praising the Buddha

The twelfth group of ten vows runs from “when reciting the scriptures” to “when praising the Buddha's marks and signs,” and is the one group in the whole chapter that belongs entirely to religious observance: reciting the scriptures, seeing the Buddha, contemplating the Buddha truly, seeing a stūpa, contemplating a stūpa, bowing the head, circling to the right, circling three times, praising his merits, praising his marks and signs.

Note that the chapter gives this group no special treatment — the sentence pattern of these ten vows is exactly the same as that of “when relieving oneself.” This is precisely the evenhandedness of “making good use of the mind”: paying homage at a stūpa and washing the face are, as uses of the mind, one and the same thing; the difference lies only in the object.

Open one vow: “On contemplating the Buddha truly, he vows: may all sentient beings be, every one, like Samantabhadra, upright and beautiful.” What is vowed at the time of looking upon the Buddha is not that oneself may see the Buddha, but that all sentient beings may be like Samantabhadra. This answers to “the marks of their virtue are such as Samantabhadra's, and their form and figure are foremost” in Mañjuśrī's indication of the cause. Open one more: “On circling the stūpa to the right, he vows: may all sentient beings be without contrariety in what they do and accomplish omniscience.” Circling a stūpa to the right is the mark of what is not contrary, and what is vowed is precisely that what is done be without contrariety — the mark of the affair and the meaning of the Dharma are joined upon the one word “contrary.”

Vow-Group Thirteen, The Time of Waking, Sleeping, and Resting: The Three Vows Chengguan Outlines

The last group of three vows runs from “when washing the feet” to “on first waking from sleep.” Chengguan outlines this as “tenth, from ‘when washing the feet’ onward, the three vows at the time of waking, sleeping, and resting,” and states their number plainly as three — which agrees with the actual count of the scriptural text.

The course of a day ends here and begins again. Washing the feet vows for the power of the bases of supernormal power; lying down to rest vows that the body be secure and the mind unagitated; and the last vow is where the whole chapter comes to rest: “On first waking from sleep, he vows: may all sentient beings awaken to omniscience and look round upon the ten directions.” Chengguan explains it thus: “As for the awakening of omniscience, it is not only that the three times are equally illumined; it is also that the ten directions are penetratingly understood.” The very instant of waking from sleep is used as a figure for the awakening of omniscience, and its measure is not confined to the three times but takes in the ten directions as well.

Clear away a misreading: do not read the last vow as an exhortation to rise early. “Waking” is here the general emblem of all the “using of the mind” in this chapter — to give rise to that one thought of vow upon each single affair is one waking. Coming down to oneself: one hundred forty-one vows in a day, beginning at home and ending at waking from sleep, with not one stretch in between left blank.

The Concluding Praise: What It Is That Cannot Be Shaken

At the end of the chapter Mañjuśrī sums up: “Son of the Buddha! If the bodhisattvas use their minds in this way, then they gain all excellent and wondrous merits; all the gods of every world, and Māra, and Brahmā, śramaṇas, brahmins, gandharvas, asuras, and the rest, together with all the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, are unable to shake him.”

Three things are to be seen clearly. First, the four graphs “using the mind in this way” buckle back onto “making good use of the mind” where the cause was indicated; the chapter is hooped from head to tail by the two graphs “use the mind,” and the one hundred forty-one vows in between are the content of “in this way.” Second, the fruit obtained is graph for graph the same as what was promised where the cause was indicated — “then they gain all excellent and wondrous merits” — Mañjuśrī adds nothing at the close. Third, the list of those unable to shake him runs from gods, Māra, and Brahmā all the way to śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas; that the two vehicles too are listed among those unable to shake him accords exactly with what Chengguan said in explaining the name, that “the uncontaminated of the two vehicles cannot benefit others as well, and so is not truly pure.”

And this sentence is also the direct answer to Foremost in Wisdom's sixth question, “how is one to obtain bodily, verbal, and mental action that cannot be shaken.” Of the twenty questions, this one alone receives at the chapter's end an answer that corresponds to it graph for graph — the answers to the other nineteen are all in those one hundred forty-one sentences of vow.

Lineage

• The difference in the number of the vows: the base text yields by actual count one hundred forty-one occurrences of the sentence “he vows: may all sentient beings.” Chengguan's Shu plainly states “one hundred forty-one vows”; Fazang's Tanxuan ji makes it “one hundred forty vows, answering throughout all the foregoing questions”; Li Tongxuan's Xin Huayan jing lun has throughout “one hundred forty great vows.” The three masters' counts differ by one vow; all are recorded, with no adjudication, and the vernacular and the exposition of this reading edition follow the actual count of the scriptural text and make it one hundred forty-one.
• The outlining of the number of questions: Chengguan determines what Foremost in Wisdom asks as “twenty occurrences of ‘how is one to’, eleven segments in all, each segment of ten clauses, making one hundred ten kinds of virtue,” and brings out two further ways of gathering them up — either gathered into four pairs of cause and fruit (the cause and fruit of merit, the cause and fruit of wisdom, the cause that is skillful understanding and the fruit that is contemplative practice, the cause that is the many practices and the fruit that is completed virtue), or divided into two (the first ten questions asking after the substance of pure conduct, which is asking after cause, and the latter ten asking after what the practice accomplishes, which is asking after fruit). Three outlines stand together upon one and the same passage, and Chengguan does not adjudicate which is right.
• The determination by the five fruits: Chengguan gathers up the latter ten segments by the five fruits — the first one the fruit of maturation, the next four the fruit of a person's exertion, the next two the fruit of disjunction, the next one the dominant fruit, the last two the fruit of uniform outflow. This determination is taken from the gate of fruits in the analysis of dharma-characteristics and applied to the text of this scripture; it belongs to the commentator's own determination.
• The three masters on the name: Chengguan sets up the appositional explanation alone; Fazang, following the Sanskrit original, makes it “the chapter of Perfect Pure Conduct,” adduces Asvabhāva's She lun's “Scripture of Pure Practice” as a different name, and opens both the appositional and the dependent-determinative explanations; Li Tongxuan does not gloss the Sanskrit but establishes the name upon “turning over all views at a stroke.” The three accounts are recorded, with no adjudication.
• The difference in the indication of the cause (at the level of the witnesses): the eighty-fascicle text has “making good use of the mind,” the sixty-fascicle text has “accomplishing bodily, oral, and mental action”; the eye of this chapter is a phrase the sixty-fascicle text does not have. Both are recorded, with no adjudication.
• The objection from no-thought: in the resolution of objections Chengguan records a question — wondrous practice is wholly no-thought; now one sees good and sees evil, vows to depart and vows to complete: how should this be the path? His answer is that to depart from thought in seeking no-thought is not yet to have attained true no-thought, much less the unobstructedness of thought and no-thought; and further, that no-thought is only one among the practices, and could hardly accomplish the sudden perfection in a single thought. This question and answer is where the vows and practice of this chapter meet the line of no-thought, and it is recorded here.
• Ties to other chapters: the seven awakening-factors and three kinds of emptiness and the skill regarding dependent origination asked after in this chapter Chengguan indicates as expounded at length in the chapter The Ten Grounds and in the sixth ground; the ten clauses on refuge and rescue he refers to the beginning of the chapter The Dedications; the ten names of surpassing excellence and eminence he explains by citing the Shidi jing lun; and the two graphs “benefit and gladden” in the praise of the question as bringing benefit to completion he says have already been explained in the chapter Awakening by Light of the same assembly. This chapter asks without explaining; the explaining is in other chapters.
• What is lacking in the Yanyi chao: Chengguan's Suishu yanyi chao has no continuous passage of explanation where the outline of this chapter opens; the occurrences of the Pure Conduct chapter's vow-text within the Chao are all citations serving as instances in the commentary on other chapters, and the absence is set down as the facts stand.
• What is lacking in the Huayan school's treatises: in the Wujiao zhang, the Shixuan men, the Fajie xuanjing, the Huanyuan guan, the Kongmu zhang, and the Qixin lun yiji, the strings “pure conduct,” “he vows: may all sentient beings,” and “make good use of the mind” have no occurrences, and the absence is recorded.
• The distribution of “he vows: may all sentient beings”: this phrase occurs one hundred forty-one times by count in the whole of the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka, equal to the number of this chapter's vows — that is, it is found in the whole scripture only in this chapter.