華嚴經 義疏通講 · 冊8Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 8

First, where this section stands

Within the sixth dedication the bodhisattva Vajra Banner speaks in one breath of sixty matters of giving. This sub-unit is the second stretch of them — twenty gateways. In the first seventeen what is let go is always some part of his own body: the topknot, the eyes, the ears and nose, the teeth, the tongue, the head, the hands and feet, the blood of the body, the marrow and flesh, the heart, the intestines and kidneys and liver and lungs, the bones of the limbs and joints, the skin of the body, the fingers and toes, the fingernails with the flesh; then, for the sake of seeking the Dharma, throwing himself into a fire pit, undergoing suffering in another's stead, and relinquishing his realm and its cities; and the last two gateways are the cutting off of killing and the rescue of those whose male form has been ruined. Throughout the whole section there is only one speaker, the bodhisattva Vajra Banner; those spoken to are the bodhisattvas in the assembly, and “Sons of the Buddha” is the general form of address to them. Not one sentence of question is inserted in this stretch, there is not one narrative turn marked by “at that time,” and there are no verses — the verses come at the end of the next sub-unit.

Why should these twenty gateways count as one group? Chengguan lays out this sixth dedication as sixty gateways, and determines that the first twenty-seven matters are the giving of outer wealth, that the one gateway of rescuing the prisoner which comes next partakes of both outer and inner, and that the twenty-nine matters below it clarify only inner wealth; the twenty gateways of this section stand within that general outline at the head of the portion of inner wealth. (Where he comments gateway by gateway, Chengguan numbers them twenty-six through forty-five; and there, of the one gateway of rescuing the prisoner, he says that it is “wholly inner wealth,” which differs slightly from the general outline's “partaking of both outer and inner.” Both passages are recorded.) Here one misreading must be cleared away at once: the names ‘inner wealth,’ ‘outer wealth’ and ‘the sixty gateways’ nowhere appear in the sutra from beginning to end. They are Chengguan's outline-terms for the dividing of this section, and wherever this exposition uses them below, it is always Chengguan speaking on the strength of that outline, not the sutra speaking of itself. If a reader takes the outline-names for the sutra's own words, the very ground on which the Avataṃsaka is read has been set askew.

What, then, does the sutra itself say? What it says is a single sentence-pattern repeated twenty times: such and such a bodhisattva gave in this way in ages past, and now this bodhisattva likewise gives in this way; what his mind is like when he gives; and having given, “he dedicates and directs the roots of goodness in this way, namely:” — whereupon ten vows follow, every one of them running “may all sentient beings…”; and at the end ‘this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's… dedication of roots of goodness,’ with one further clause, ‘it is for the sake of causing sentient beings… .’ Across the whole section “may all sentient beings” occurs a hundred and eighty-seven times and “this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva” twenty-two times (in the third gateway the ears and the nose each receive their own conclusion, and then a general conclusion is added, so that the conclusions exceed the gateways by two). Among these hundred and eighty-seven vows there is not one that asks anything for himself — what is let go is his own bodily parts, his realm and cities, and his power to protect life, while what is vowed for lies wholly with sentient beings. This is why “according with and making firm all roots of goodness” is called a dedication at all, and the sutra has already brought it out by itself; there is no need to look outside for an explanation.

One further sentence must be set up first. After Chengguan has finished expounding the act of giving in the first gateway, he adds a sentence that holds the whole section together: this gateway, together with its dedication, is fully possessed of the seven excellences and thereby accomplishes a perfection, whereas in the gateways before and after, the text mostly leaves them out. What this says is: what makes giving become a perfection is not the weight of the thing let go but those seven excellences. The first gateway writes them out in full; in the remaining nineteen the reader must supply them for himself.

The gateway of giving the topknot: first the question, ‘when you let go of the most precious portion, will the mind be disturbed?’

When a person is to give away the most precious portion of his own body, the first practical question is not ‘can he bear to let it go,’ but ‘at the very moment of letting go, is the mind disturbed or not.’ This gateway answers that.

The sutra writes it out very finely: the bodhisattva, seeing the beggar come, first “gives rise to joy in his heart,” and then tells him that this topknot is the very first thing in all Jambudvīpa — not making light of it and saying ‘it is worth nothing, take it,’ but saying plainly that it is the most precious, and only then giving it. Then come eight words: “in his heart there is no wavering or disturbance; he does not turn his thought to any other undertaking.” Chengguan divides this passage on the act of giving into six parts: seeing the beggar and rejoicing; purity of speech and intent; the bodily act of properly letting go; longing for and looking up to the higher current; skillfully settling upon the true principle; and resolving in his aim to be their equal — and to each he ties a reason: because he abides in the lineage; because he is apart from the two obstructions; because the undertaking is excellent; because the intent and delight are excellent; because it is gathered in by marklessness; because what he relies upon is excellent.

Here a misreading must be sorted out. The sutra says “he does not cling to suffering, and knows that the feeling of suffering is without mark and without arising,” which is easily read as ‘he has cultivated himself to the point of feeling no pain.’ The sutra's wording is in fact more exact: it does not say that there is no feeling of suffering; it says that he does not cling to the feeling of suffering, and that he knows the various feelings arise one from another and that not one of them abides unchanging. The pain is still pain, but the mind does not come to rest upon the pain.

Brought down to use: what this gateway hands you is not a knife but a checklist — when you give away the thing you are least willing to part with, do you first belittle it in order to get it out of your hands, or do you know full well how precious it is and still give it gladly? The former is coaxing the mind past the fact; only the latter is the giving this gateway speaks of.

The gateway of giving the eyes: why the vows over an eye ask for ten kinds of eye

The second gateway gives the eyes. Look first at a hint from Chengguan: he cites the fourteenth fascicle of the Dazhidu lun to the effect that giving has three grades — food and drink are the lowest, jewels the middle, and the head, the eyes and the five viscera the highest. The eye stands here as the representative of the highest grade of giving.

The sutra writes out eight minds that the bodhisattva raises when he gives away his eyes and five clauses of ‘for the sake of…,’ and then the ten vows. Note the structure of the ten vows: the fleshly eye, the divine eye, the Dharma-eye, the eye of wisdom and the Buddha-eye are the five eyes, and upon these the sutra further adds the most excellent eye, the unobstructed eye, the universal eye, the eye free of the film of delusion, and the pure and unobstructed eye — it is not merely five eyes that are sought, but every possibility of an eye's being an eye. Chengguan says that these ten eyes are much the same as, and slightly different from, those spoken of in “Detachment from the World.”

Here a misreading must be sorted out. Reading this far, someone will ask: if he has given away his fleshly eye, why then does he vow that sentient beings obtain a pure fleshly eye? The sutra's position is not ‘having given it away he wants nothing more of it,’ but that the perishable pair is exchanged for the imperishable whole — hence the closing clause, “it is for the sake of causing sentient beings to obtain the pure eye of omniscience.” What is let go is my eye; what is vowed for is the eye of sentient beings. The two are not being reckoned on the same side of the account at all.

Brought down to use: the thought that most easily arises when one gives is ‘what have I lost.’ This gateway turns the whole account over: what is let go is one, what is vowed for is ten, and none of the ten comes back to oneself.

The gateway of giving the ears and nose: two things given together, while the vows must be made apart

In the third gateway the sutra puts ears and nose together in one passage for the act of giving, yet sets up their dedications separately — and Chengguan points this out particularly: the two matters are clarified together in the act of giving, while the dedication is displayed apart, and the text has only three parts. This is no editorial whim; it is because what the ear senses and what the nose senses differ, so that what is vowed for naturally differs too.

The ten vows over the ear all bear upon hearing: the unobstructed ear, the unhindered ear, the Tathāgata's ear, the pure ear, the ear neither deaf nor dull, the ear pervading the Dharma realm, the unobstructed ear, the indestructible ear, the ear of universal hearing, the divine ear and Buddha-ear. Chengguan raises here one variant reading of a Sanskrit text: the first and the seventh both read “unobstructed,” but going by a Sanskrit text the first should be named ‘unattached and undull,’ which speaks of the sort of deafness one has been deaf with since birth. He further glosses “becoming a king among ears” as being sovereign both in hearing and in not hearing.

The vows over the nose fall into two halves: the first vow obtains ten kinds of nose, the second ten kinds of face. Why should giving the nose issue in a vow about the face? The reason Chengguan gives is very much to the point — the nose sits at the middle of the face, and whether a face is comely or not arises from it; therefore the one is set up alongside the other. Let one divergent gloss of the ancient worthies be recorded here in passing: Fazang records that someone glosses “the gate of the face” as the mouth, and cites Guangtong's saying that the place below the nose where the pillar stands is the gate of the face, and he puts a counter-question against the former gloss; Chengguan, glossing these ten faces, does not touch upon the term ‘the gate of the face’ at all. Both views are recorded; here they are not adjudicated.

Brought down to use: what this gateway says is that a faculty and the objects that faculty senses are one set. Cultivation is not the shutting down of some one faculty; it is the vow that the faculty be pure all the way through.

The gateway of giving the teeth: first the question, ‘what rank of station can actually let go of this?’

The opening sentence of the fourth gateway is the important one: “a bodhisattva-mahāsattva abiding within the ground of firmness and sovereignty,” and only then does it say that he is able to give his teeth to sentient beings. Chengguan, glossing this sentence, says that to abide in the station of firmness and sovereignty is to be on the first ground or above. This one sentence reminds the reader: the giving spoken of in these gateways is not a code of conduct urging beginners to go and do the like right now.

The sutra then writes the bodhisattva's mind at this moment with a rare simile: “rare and hard to come by as the uḍumbara flower.” The uḍumbara is the flower that appears once in a vast age, and in the whole section this is the only place where a flower stands for the mind. Then twelve kinds of giving-mind are listed, from the inexhaustible mind all the way to “he gives with a mind that cuts away what his own body vitally needs and yet holds no grudge” — cutting away what one's own body vitally needs without a trace of grudge arising.

Among the ten vows Chengguan points out one exception: the third vow, “may they obtain a tamed mind, well able to head toward the bodhisattvas' practice of the perfections,” is stated with respect to the mind alone, whereas the other nine are all stated with respect to the teeth. And he gives a very fine explanation for it — wisdom can tame the afflictions and head toward the far shore, just as teeth tame food and thereby nourish the dharma-body. Besides this he collates a Sanskrit text at two places: as for the accomplishing of the svastika sign, a Sanskrit text says only ‘whorling to the right’ and ‘having delight.’

Brought down to use: when the giving has come as far as this portion, what is being measured is no longer the amount of goods but whether, when the thing you actually need is taken away, that one thread of grudge is still there.

The gateway of giving the tongue: handing over the whole business of speaking

In the fifth gateway someone comes to beg for the tongue. The sutra first writes the bodhisattva's response: with a mind of kindness and compassion, soft words and loving words — note that before the tongue has been cut off at all, what he uses is precisely the tongue. Then it writes that he settles the beggar upon a lion seat, sets both his own knees upon the ground, opens his mouth and puts out his tongue to show him, listing ten kinds of mind one by one, and then says: ‘This body of mine now belongs entirely to you.’

The ten vows all bear upon the use of speech: the tongue that reaches everywhere, the tongue that covers the face, the tongue that can cover all Buddha-lands, the soft and slender tongue, the tongue of eloquence, the tongue of light, the decisive tongue, the tongue that tames all everywhere, the tongue that penetrates all everywhere, the tongue that speaks well of all the Dharma-gates. Chengguan points out only one thing: the first vow is the mark of the broad and long tongue spoken of in “The Ocean of Marks,” and the rest may be known.

Here a misreading must be sorted out. Reading “what they say has nothing double in it and is entirely true,” one easily takes it to mean ‘do not say one thing now and another later.’ What the sutra points to is in fact one layer deeper: the face-covering tongue is a mark, and the reason behind the mark is that speech corresponds to the way things really are — because not one sentence has been false, the mark of the tongue can be broad and long to this degree. The mark is the fruit; the truthfulness of speech is the cause.

Brought down to use: what this gateway treats is the habit of taking speech for a tool. The tongue may be the handiest of tools, and it may also be the first object of giving; the difference lies in whether the one who speaks is prepared to hand it over along with everything else.

The gateway of giving the head: ten uses of the word ‘head’ that all say one thing

In the sixth gateway he gives his head, and beneath the words “because he wishes to accomplish” the sutra uses the word “head” ten times in a row: the head of most excellent wisdom, the head that rescues sentient beings, the head that is the very first, the head of pure wisdom, the unobstructed head, the head of the first ground, the head of the most excellent wisdom in the world, the head of pure wisdom whose crown none can see, the head of the king of wisdom, and the sovereign head. Chengguan says that these ten are all stated with respect to the wisdom of a buddha, differing only as the sense differs, and he matches them one by one with entering into principle, leading compassion, seeing phenomena, being apart from obstruction, fusing phenomena and principle, being that upon which others rely, transcending the inferior, seeing that there is no initial mark, being sovereign in the manifesting of function, and being true in the very phenomenon.

There is a double sense here that is very easily missed: the head is the topmost portion of the body, and wisdom is likewise the topmost portion among the virtues, and in Chinese the one word ‘head’ carries both senses. What is let go is the head upon the body; what is vowed for is the head among wisdoms — “may all sentient beings obtain the head of a Tathāgata, obtain the invisible crown.”

One misreading to sort out: do not read these ten heads as ten different heads. They are one and the same wisdom of a buddha stated from ten sides, just as one head is only ever one.

Brought down to use: what this gateway asks is — which portion of yourself do you value most? For most people the answer is not their goods but their own judgment, their standing, their opinions; that is, ‘this head of mine.’ The sutra takes the topmost portion and gives it away, vowing that sentient beings all become the head that is a buddha's wisdom — and that is precisely the remedy for this.

The gateway of giving the hands and feet: faith as hands, practice as feet

In the seventh gateway hands and feet are given together and vowed for together, and the text has only three parts. The finest thing in this gateway is one matching gloss of Chengguan's: faith is the cause of the hands, and the recompense is that the hands can rain down jewels; practice is the cause of the feet, and the recompense is that the feet can travel everywhere. The sutra itself writes it so too — “he takes faith as his hands, and raises up the practice of richly benefiting,” “he steps out at ease and travels about, valiant and without timidity.”

Now look at the two halves of the vow. The first half speaks broadly of one use: they obtain jeweled hands, make offerings to one another, and raise clouds of wondrous jewels that spread through the Buddha-lands; the second half lists briefly the various hands and their various uses — jeweled hands, flower hands, incense hands, garment hands, canopy hands, flower-garland hands, powdered-incense hands, hands of adornments, boundless hands, measureless hands, universal hands. At the end the sutra begins a fresh sentence, “at that time the bodhisattva with the hands of his great vows covers sentient beings everywhere,” which is the gathering-up of this gateway and also one of the few places in the whole section where a small group of vows stands on its own.

Chengguan's gloss on the mind of giving the feet is put extremely well: just as the feet, abiding on the ground, can hold up the body, so the vow, abiding on the ground of wisdom, can accomplish the wisdom-body; because he is apart from the defilement of mind he can display the dharma-body; because the dharma-body is utterly still it cannot be ruined; because the realization of wisdom continues forever there is no severance.

Brought down to use: hands and feet are what a person does things with and walks with. What this gateway says is — on the strength of what does your hand reach out, and on what do your feet stand? The answer is faith and practice, not ability.

The gateway of giving the blood of his body: only by not clinging to the feeling of suffering can one give at all

The eighth gateway breaks open the body and lets out blood. Chengguan says here only that the text likewise has just three parts, and that the instances cited, together with the giving of marrow in the passage below, are all as stated in the fourteenth fascicle of the Dazhidu lun; he offers no long gloss of his own. The sutra itself writes it very clearly: twelve kinds of mind, of which three are the crux — “he raises the mind that does not cling to the feeling of suffering,” “he raises the mind that delights to see those who beg,” “he raises the mind that does not disdain those who come to beg.”

Here a misreading must be sorted out. “Not clinging to the feeling of suffering” is not numbness. The first gateway has already said it: the feeling of suffering is without mark and without arising, and the various feelings arise one from another with none abiding. Not to cling is not to set up, upon the feeling of suffering, a self that undergoes suffering. If it really were numbness, then “delighting to see those who beg” could not be said at all — a numb person delights to see nobody.

The ten vows all bear upon the body: the dharma-body and wisdom-body, the body without toil or weariness, the indestructible body, the body like a conjuration, the body that may be loved and delighted in, the body born from the Dharma realm, the body like the light of a wondrous jewel, the body that is a treasury of wisdom, the body that is a sea of jewels, the body of empty space. What is let go is blood that can be drained away; what is vowed for is a body that cannot.

There is also one difference of formal usage here: the closing sentence of this gateway does not, as in the other gateways, simply say ‘this is the… dedication of roots of goodness,’ but folds nine kinds of mind — the mind of the Great Vehicle, the pure mind, the vast mind and the rest — into the closing sentence itself. Read the sutra word for word; there is no need to make it uniform.

Brought down to use: this gateway is for those who feel ‘I must first stop hurting before I can raise the aspiration.’ The sutra's order is exactly the reverse — raise the aspiration first; the pain stays where it was, and the mind does not stay upon the pain.

The gateway of giving the marrow and flesh: ten things all appearing at once before his eyes

In the ninth gateway he gives marrow and flesh, and what is most singular in the sutra is one long passage in the middle with ten occurrences of “appear before him”: all buddhas appear before him, all sentient beings appear before him, all worlds appear before him, all sentient beings appear before him, all the Buddha-paths appear before him, all the bodhisattvas of the three times appear before him, all fearlessnesses appear before him, all three times appear before him, all the world appears before him, all the bodhisattvas' practices free of fatigue and weariness appear before him. What this says is: when the giving has come this far, what is before the bodhisattva's eyes is not merely a knife and a beggar; the whole Dharma realm is present.

Among the ten vows the one most worth close reading is the third, ‘the mind-made body.’ Here Chengguan sets up the longest gloss in this section: he cites the second fascicle of the seven-fascicle Laṅkāvatāra to the effect that a thought goes and comes swiftly and without obstruction, and hence the name mind-made body; he further determines that this body has three classes — that of the joy of samādhi, that of the awakening to the self-nature of dharmas, and that of the kinds arising together without contrived action — and matches them with the stations before the fifth ground, before the eighth ground, and after the eighth ground; and he further sets against them the ‘mind-produced’ of the eighth fascicle of the Cheng weishi lun, saying that this is produced in accordance with the will of the mind, being only a transformation and not a fresh arising. At the end he brings it home to the Huayan formulation: this is one of the ten bodies.

Here a misreading must be sorted out. The mind-made body is not a stand-in body conjured up by spiritual power. Chengguan says it plainly: the mind is raised only as a simile, taking from it swiftness and unobstructedness; it is not that some body fashioned by the mind flies out.

Brought down to use: this gateway tells a person that the scene of giving is never a matter of two people only. Only one who can see ten things all appearing at once can give away marrow and flesh.

The gateway of giving the heart: what does it mean to give away the ‘heart’?

The tenth gateway, the giving of the heart, is the gateway in the whole section most easily read amiss. The sutra says “he gives his heart to the various sorts who come begging,” and also says “when he gives his own heart to those who beg.” How can a heart be given away?

Look first at how the sutra itself continues. What it continues with is ten kinds of mind: the mind that studies sovereign giving, the mind that cultivates all giving, the mind that practices the dāna-pāramitā, the mind that accomplishes the dāna-pāramitā, the mind that studies all the bodhisattvas' giving, the mind that relinquishes all entirely and inexhaustibly, the mind accustomed to giving all entirely, the mind that shoulders all the bodhisattvas' practice of giving, the mind that holds in right mindfulness all buddhas appearing before him, the mind that makes offerings to all who come begging without any cutting off. That is to say, the sutra's giving of the heart comes down to ‘turning the whole mind into a mind of giving,’ and not to taking out a heart-organ and handing it to someone.

Now look at the vows. In this gateway the vows are singularly many — Chengguan says that first the intent is distinguished and afterward the vows displayed, twenty minds in all. The first is the mind that is a vajra treasury, and Chengguan glosses ‘treasury means firm,’ as with the pith of a tree, and vajra is likewise firm; that is, the wisdom of the ground of buddhahood, which the dharmas of the world cannot ruin. The second is the mind of the vajra realm adorned with the svastika sign, and this he glosses more finely: outwardly the svastika sign is displayed, betokening the auspiciousness of the myriad virtues; inwardly wisdom accords with suchness, and so it is named the vajra realm. Realm here means nature: because it accords with the nature it is firm as vajra and cannot be harmed, and because wisdom has been accomplished it is sharp as vajra and can destroy afflictions hard to destroy. He further ties it to the mark of the vajra-adorned breast-virtue spoken of in the portion on the conferring of office in “The Ten Grounds,” and to the minds of the same name spoken of in “The Inconceivable Dharmas of the Buddha” and “Detachment from the World.”

Brought down to use: reading the twenty minds through, one finds that they are almost all minds of ‘not being shaken.’ When the letting go has reached this portion, the heart, the recompense sought is precisely a heart that can never again be taken away.

The gateway of giving the intestines, kidneys, liver and lungs: first see this body clearly

The eleventh gateway gives the intestines, kidneys, liver and lungs. Chengguan says that this is four matters brought under a single dedication, and notes that above there were the large and the small intestine, while here they are combined into one intestine.

The teaching weight of this gateway lies not in the vows but in that long passage in the middle contemplating the body. The sutra writes that the bodhisattva contemplates that this body “has nothing firm about it,” and further calls to mind that this body will before long be ruined, that those who see it will be disgusted, that it is what foxes, wolves and hungry dogs would eat, that this body is impermanent and will in the end be cast away, eaten by other creatures, and will itself know nothing of it. Among all twenty gateways of the section, this is the only one that uses the language of revulsion.

Here a misreading must be sorted out, and an important one. The sutra is not teaching people to loathe the body. Where it comes to rest is “with an unfirm body he purchases the firm body” — a sentence that occurs twice in this section, the other occurrence being in the third gateway. Revulsion is the means; the exchange is the end: since this body must in the end rot and be eaten by dogs, then trade it while it is still here for one that does not perish. And so at once the bodhisattva “understands within the Dharma and gives rise to great joy,” and “with a reverent mind he looks closely at that one who has come begging, with the thought that a good friend has come to guard him” — the man who comes for his viscera has become the good friend who delivers him.

The ten vows all bear upon the virtues of the inner organs: the body that is a treasury of wisdom, the body that is a treasury of merit, the superior and wondrous body, the body whose belly does not protrude, the body of wisdom, the inexhaustible body, the body that is the pure treasury of dhāraṇī, the pure body, the body of the deep contemplative practice of the Tathāgata's wisdom, the body quiescent within. Chengguan points out only one thing: as for the body that is a treasury of wisdom, it is because the body is what wisdom relies upon.

Brought down to use: to loathe the body without joy is the asceticism of the outer paths; to be joyful without knowing that the body is not firm is the craving attachment of the ordinary person. This gateway means to hold both ends at once.

The gateway of giving the bones of the limbs and joints: twenty vows that make one complete body

The twelfth gateway gives the various bones of the limbs and joints. Chengguan here sets up a question: since bone-marrow has already been spoken of above, and here the various bones of the limbs and joints are added, is this a repetition or not? He himself gives two solutions — taken together, it is only one matter, namely the bones of the limbs and joints; taken apart, the limbs and joints are a matter of their own, as with being dismembered joint by joint, and that was not among the things listed above. He does not settle upon either of the two, and neither is it settled here.

The vows of this gateway are the most numerous, twenty of them laid out in a row: the body like a conjuration, the vajra body, the perfect dharma-body of omniscience, the body of the power of wisdom, the body of the power of the Dharma, the firm body, the body that responds as is fitting, the body perfumed by wisdom, the body firm and continuous without severance, the body abiding in great strength, the dharma-body equal throughout the world, the body of the power of merit, the body without any place of dependence, the body taken in by the buddhas, the body that richly benefits all sentient beings everywhere, the body that appears everywhere, the body fully possessed of diligence, the pure body apart from self-conceit and arrogance, the body of firm practice, the body of the household of the buddhas. Chengguan points out three places: the realm without tie is the realm of nirvāṇa; being fully possessed of the great strength of limbs and joints like Nārāyaṇa's is as measured out in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra; and the body that illumines and appears everywhere is like a clear bright mirror in which nothing fails to appear. The clause of what the dedication is for, “it is for the sake of causing them to obtain omniscience and to be forever pure,” he glosses as: wisdom is the bone of the myriad virtues.

Brought down to use: bone is the frame of the body. What the twenty vows say is one thing — that the frame which holds up a life be changed from bone into wisdom.

The gateway of giving the skin of his body: treating the man who comes with a knife as a benefactor

The thirteenth gateway gives the skin of the body. The teaching eye of this gateway lies in one simile: a man comes holding a sharp knife in his hand and begs for his skin, and the bodhisattva not only is joyful but is “as though a man had bestowed a heavy kindness upon him”; thereupon he goes out to meet him and brings him in, lays out a seat and asks him to sit, and bows his body in reverence, thinking: this beggar is very hard to meet with, he has come to fulfill my vow of omniscience, and therefore he is benefiting me.

This is the most thoroughgoing reversal in the whole section: the man with the knife is a benefactor — not because patience has been cultivated to the point of not feeling the pain, but because an account has been reckoned clean through: without him this vow would have nowhere to be accomplished.

Chengguan is very honest about the instances cited, and it is worth setting down. He says that of the instances cited, “the bodhisattva Pure Treasury” — no one of that name has been found; and of the story of the King of the Golden-Flanked Deer, he says that both the Dazhidu lun and the fourth fascicle of the Pusa benyuan ji jing record it, telling how the golden-flanked deer rescued a drowning man, and how that man repaid the kindness by informing the king so as to have the deer taken, and then he says “broadly speaking, the name is the same but it is not the giving of skin” — that is to say, the class of story is close and the name agrees, but that is not a story of giving skin. That an ancient worthy should mark as unsettled an instance he himself has cited is a working example of scholarship; here it is recorded just as it stands, and no rounding-out is supplied on his behalf.

The ten vows all bear upon the skin as color and mark, and at the end the clause of what the dedication is for says “may they all obtain the adorned and purified Buddha-fields”; Chengguan's gloss is a fine one: skin is an outward mark and a Buddha-field is likewise an outward mark, and therefore with skin one vows for fields.

Brought down to use: the hardest thing for a person is not giving, but giving to the very one who is at that moment harming him. This is exactly what this gateway speaks of.

The gateway of giving the fingers and toes: four words that exhaust the virtues of the ten fingers

The fourteenth gateway gives the fingers and toes. Chengguan glosses the first four vows with four words: slender and long is measure, well-rounded is form, red copper is color, and able to hold is power — measure, form, color, power; the virtues of the ten fingers do not go beyond these four roads. He says further that this is taking wisdom as the fingers, and that the excellent signs are what is wondrous.

The variant readings of a Sanskrit text are most numerous in this gateway, and most worth recording. Chengguan says that going by a Sanskrit text, the seventh vow should read: may all sentient beings obtain, upon the inner face of the tips of the ten fingers, the mark of the thousand-spoked wheel, and upon the inner face of the remaining joints the marks of punnāgata and of svastika, adorning one another alternately; and on that reading the words ‘perfect’ should read ‘full vase,’ and the words ‘whorling to the right’ should read ‘having delight.’ The eighth vow, going by a Sanskrit text, should read: fingers with the mark of the great lotus nandikāvarta, and yet it whorls to the right. He further cites the Guanfo sanmei hai jing as saying that at the end of each finger-joint twelve wheel-marks appear, and also records a saying introduced as “someone says” that the whorling of the svastika sign is stated with respect to the Chinese script. These variant readings are all recorded without adjudication.

The sutra itself says in the last vow “skillfully distributed and fully possessed of the webbing,” and Chengguan cites a sutra to gloss the webbing: when the fingers are drawn together it does not appear, and when they are spread it appears at once, like a net of true pearls, distinct and lovely.

Brought down to use: the finger is the smallest portion of the body, and yet the sutra sets up ten vows for it and the ancient worthies collate four points of a Sanskrit text over it. The fineness of the Avataṃsaka is not fussiness; it is the refusal to let any portion whatever slip past.

The gateway of giving the fingernails in seeking the Dharma: from this gateway on, the reason for giving changes

The fifteenth gateway is a turning point. In the first fourteen gateways someone comes to beg and the bodhisattva gives; from this gateway on, it is the bodhisattva who seeks the Dharma, and the other party who sets a portion of his body as the condition. The sutra writes it very plainly: someone says ‘if you can give me your fingernails with the flesh, I will give you the Dharma,’ and the bodhisattva answers ‘only give me the Dharma; the fingernails with the flesh, take and use as you wish.’

Chengguan sets up a question here: in seeking the Dharma, why should it be the giving of nails in particular that is spoken of? He gives two solutions. One is that among the instances cited there was such a matter to begin with. The other is that there is something betokened — nails can grasp and take, which accords with the sense of ‘seeking’; and in the next gateway, entering fire to seek the Dharma, what is betokened is that it is hard to take. In passing he cites the Dazhidu lun as saying that the prajñā-pāramitā (the perfection of wisdom) is like a great mass of fire, which cannot be taken hold of on any of its four sides, and where there is no taking neither is there any taking hold. This one solution binds the two gateways into a single stretch: the nail betokens the ability to take, the fire betokens that it cannot be taken, and the seeker of the Dharma must pass through both ends.

The ten vows all bear upon the nails: nails of the mark of red copper, glossy nails, bright and pure nails, nails of omniscience, incomparable nails, wondrously adorned nails, indestructible nails, nails of the mark that is the skillful means of entering all the Buddha-dharmas, well-born nails, the nails of the great guiding master of omniscience. Chengguan points out two places: the mark of red copper is one of the minor marks; and as for the incomparable, the nail as phenomenon is undefiled by dust and grime, while the nail as wisdom is undefiled by the marks of objects. He further records a saying that in the speech of the Western Region ‘well-born’ is called ‘upright and comely.’

Brought down to use: what this gateway tests is how true the mind that seeks the Dharma is — when the price of the Dharma is set upon your own body, are you still willing to pay?

The gateway of throwing himself into a fire pit in seeking the Dharma: the true Dharma is very easily gotten

The sixteenth gateway is the fiercest in the whole section and also the one whose words are most startling. Someone says that he must throw his body into a fire pit seven fathoms deep before the Dharma will be given, and the bodhisattva, hearing it, “is joyful and leaps up,” and then speaks a passage: for the sake of the Dharma I ought even to abide long in Avīci hell and all the evil destinies and undergo measureless suffering — how much more so merely to enter a fire pit of the human world and thereby hear the Dharma? Marvelous! The true Dharma is very easily gotten.

Read closely the sentence “Marvelous! The true Dharma is very easily gotten.” This is not making light of the Dharma; quite the contrary — he is taking the bitter torments of the hells through measureless kalpas as his denominator, and set against that, one jump into a fire pit is simply too cheap. Chengguan here glosses only that seven fathoms means a fathom of seven feet, and on the ten vows of the dedication points out that the first and the ninth are vows made with respect to seeking the Dharma, while the other eight are vows made with respect to entering the fire.

Here a misreading must be sorted out. The sutra is not encouraging self-injury. The fourth gateway has already set the boundary: this is the affair of a bodhisattva abiding in the ground of firmness and sovereignty, which Chengguan glosses as the first ground and above. What the reader should look at here is that sense of proportion — to take the one thing you dread and set it upon the scale of measureless kalpas in the evil destinies.

Brought down to use: the price a person will not pay is usually a matter of having taken the denominator too small. This gateway changes the denominator.

The gateway of undergoing the multitude of sufferings in seeking and guarding the Dharma: undergoing suffering in an evil man's stead

The seventeenth gateway speaks of undergoing measureless afflictions and suffering in one's own body for the sake of seeking and guarding the Dharma. The summit of this gateway is its last sentence: the bodhisattva even takes in those exceedingly evil men who slander the true Dharma, who are covered over by evil deeds and held fast by the deeds of Māra, and all the afflictions and sufferings that they ought to undergo, he, for the sake of seeking the Dharma, undergoes entirely in their stead.

Chengguan gives only one line here, but it is the most forceful tie of attribution in this section: matters of this class are like the pulverizing of bones at the Fragrant City and the forgetting of the body upon the Snowy Ridge, and their kind is not one alone — that is to say, this is no isolated case; from of old there have been many who forgot the body for the sake of the Dharma.

Here a misreading must be sorted out. Undergoing suffering in another's stead does not say that the fruits of deeds can be transferred. What the sutra writes is the bodhisattva's vow and practice — he draws to himself the suffering that the other ought to undergo and undergoes it; while what the ten vows ask for is entirely that sentient beings be “forever apart from the pressing oppression of all suffering and affliction,” that they “forever extinguish the aggregates of suffering,” that they “escape the prison of suffering.” The direction of the vows is from first to last that sentient beings be apart from suffering, not that their account be settled for them.

Brought down to use: the hardest object of giving is not the pitiable person but the hateful one. The gateway before gave skin to one who was harming him; this gateway goes one step further — to one who slanders the true Dharma.

The gateway of relinquishing the realm and its cities in seeking the Dharma: prostrating full length for one word

The eighteenth gateway relinquishes all within the seas for the sake of seeking the Dharma. Chengguan sums it up in one sentence: this is the relinquishing of what a kingship governs. The sutra lists it out exhaustively: the lands, the cities and towns, the people, the storehouses, the gardens and pools, the dwellings, the groves, the flowers and fruits, and even the rare and wondrous things, the palaces and pavilions, wife and children and retinue, and the kingship as well.

And what is sought? “Even for the sake of but one phrase, one word, one sentence, one meaning he gives rise to the thought that it is hard to obtain.” On the one side all that lies within the seas, on the other a single word — the sutra sets this disparity before the reader and does not explain it, but only writes on: he diligently seeks the true Dharma, even to the least of it, for the sake of but one word prostrating himself full length upon the ground.

At the end of the ten vows it says “pulling out the arrow of doubt so that their minds attain safety.” Chengguan, glossing the arrow of doubt, cites the Nirvāṇa Sūtra: a man struck by a poisoned arrow ought to pull it out at once; if he stands there making idle discriminations, he will die before he has finished asking his questions. This simile shines back upon the gateway exactly — the reason the seeking of the Dharma is urgent is that doubt is an arrow.

Brought down to use: what this gateway asks about is the order of one's sense of value. Most people are willing to be busy a year for a large sum of money and unwilling to clear a month for one sentence of Dharma. The sutra turns that order clean over.

The gateway of cutting off killing and giving fearlessness: the giving of Dharma and the giving of fearlessness in one and the same act

From the nineteenth gateway on, what is spoken of is no longer the relinquishing of one's own body but the cutting off of killing by the power of kingship. The sutra writes that the bodhisattva becomes a great king and everywhere puts forth commands that the deed of killing be done away with, that all the slaughtering in the cities, towns and villages within Jambudvīpa be forbidden and cut off, and that to the footless, the two-footed, the four-footed and the many-footed, to the various kinds of living creatures, he “gives fearlessness everywhere”; he himself constantly abides in the three kinds of pure precept, and causes sentient beings likewise to abide in the five precepts and forever to cut off the deed of killing.

Chengguan makes here a clean determination: that he himself abides in the three groups of pure precepts and causes others to abide in the five precepts is the giving of Dharma; and since the five precepts have not-killing at their head, it is killing that is spoken of here in particular. And if one looks from the side of the living creatures that would have been killed, this is the giving of fearlessness. One and the same act divides into two kinds of giving as the recipients differ — this is the doctrinal eye of this gateway.

The ten vows all bear upon the life-span: keeping their life-span forever without end; abiding for measureless kalpas and increasing their life-span yet further; being apart from the dharmas of old age and death; a body without sickness or affliction and sovereignty in life-span; an inexhaustible life-span; becoming a gateway of life-span; obtaining an inexhaustible life-span and fulfilling great vows; abiding in an inexhaustible life-span; the gladness of the noble Dharma and an inexhaustible life-span; the life-faculty that abides constantly, without aging and without sickness. What is cut off is the deed that takes life away; what is vowed for is life without exhaustion — cause and fruit matched with perfect neatness.

There is one further difference of formal usage to record: the closing sentence of this gateway does not run ‘this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's dedication of roots of goodness when he gives such and such a thing,' but runs: the dedication of roots of goodness of abiding in the three groups of pure precepts and forever cutting off the deed of killing. Read the sutra word for word; there is no need to make it uniform.

Brought down to use: to cut off a single evil deed is at the same time to give fearlessness to countless sentient beings. This is a reckoning of merit far larger than that of one act of giving.

The gateway of rescuing those whose male form has been ruined: wealth rescues from present suffering, Dharma rescues from suffering to come

The twentieth gateway is also the last of this section. There are sentient beings who harbor cruelty in their hearts and ruin the male form of humans and beasts, causing their bodies to have lack and diminishment and to undergo all manner of bitter torment. The bodhisattva, seeing this, raises great kindness and compassion and pities and rescues them.

The structure of this gateway is worth close reading. Chengguan divides it into three parts: first, seeing the situation and raising compassion; next, remonstrating and admonishing by the Dharma; last, the twin rescue by wealth and by Dharma. And his determination of the third part is the finest sentence in the whole section — wealth rescues from the present suffering of the one harmed, Dharma rescues from the suffering to come of the one who harms. That is to say: to give the victim every implement of joy rescues him from the suffering already undergone before one's eyes; to preach the dharma of quiescence to the offender so that he forever casts away his offenses rescues him from the suffering he is yet to undergo. One act rescues both ends, and it rescues the offender the more deeply, because what it extinguishes is the cause that gathers.

Chengguan cites here one former story from the Abhidharmakośa: of old there was a eunuch who rescued five hundred oxen from being maimed, and by the power of that root of goodness his own male form was made complete. And among the ten vows he draws one very fine distinction: to cultivate the pure practices does not necessarily hold the mind in check, whereas the mind apart from desire spoken of afterward certainly has no fault upon the body; to be fully possessed of the form of a male is only to differ from a woman's body, whereas to be fully possessed of the great man means of necessity that the heart harbors the Way and its virtue.

For “the seven paths of the great man” at the end, Chengguan sets out four accounts: first, with respect to the world, following the Yuqie shidi lun, there are seven senses; second, following the Lesser Vehicle, the seven worthies and sages — though he says himself that here it ought not to be a vowing to become those of the Lesser Vehicle; third, following the Great Vehicle Yuqie shidi lun, the seven grounds are the seven worthies and sages; fourth, following the Pusa yingluo benye jing, the six stations together with faith; and besides these there is one saying that it is the seven kinds of good knowing. The four accounts are set side by side; here they are not adjudicated. He further records that a Sanskrit text names this word gati, which here means undertaking, and that the Jin translation reads ‘the destiny of a great man,’ which is close to ‘path.’

Here an important misreading must be sorted out. ‘Great man’ here is not a distinction of male and female. Chengguan cites the eighteenth fascicle of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and states it with perfect clarity: any man or woman who is fully possessed of four dharmas is called a great man — drawing near to a good friend, hearing the true Dharma, contemplating its meaning, and practicing as it is taught; and he further cites “though she be a woman, one who can have faith that her own body has the buddha-nature is a great man,” and appends a sentence: therefore a man who has no faith is a woman. Sutra and commentary are here in complete agreement: what is vowed for is virtue and wisdom, not bodily form.

Brought down to use: the twenty gateways of this section begin with cutting off one's own topknot and end with rescuing another's maimed body. The first seventeen gateways let go of what is upon oneself, the eighteenth lets go of realm and cities, wife and children and kingship, and the last two guard what is upon others — letting go and guarding were from the beginning the two ends of one and the same thing.

Lineage

The attribution of the outline-names. The names ‘the giving of inner wealth,’ ‘the sixty gateways’ and ‘outer wealth / inner wealth’ used in this section nowhere appear in the sutra; they are the outline Chengguan set up when he divided this sixth dedication — he determines that the first twenty-seven matters are the giving of outer wealth, that the one gateway of rescuing the prisoner which comes next partakes of both outer and inner, and that the twenty-nine matters below it clarify only inner wealth, this section being the head of that portion of inner wealth; and where he comments gateway by gateway he numbers the rescuing of the prisoner as the twenty-fifth and says it is “wholly inner wealth,” which differs slightly from the general outline. Both are recorded without adjudication. Wherever this exposition touches upon names of this class, they belong to that attribution, and are not the sutra speaking of itself. Chengguan further prefixes to each gateway a running number from twenty-six to forty-five, which is not the same set of numbers as the first through twentieth gateways used in this exposition — the order of gateways used here follows the order of the passages of the sutra, while Chengguan's outline-numbers may be seen separately in the apparatus.

The three commentators do not agree in the number of gateways. Over one and the same stretch of sutra text the three divide differently: the sutra joins ears and nose into one passage in the third gateway while setting up two vows separately, whereas Li Tongxuan splits them into two passages, the giving of the nose and the giving of the ears, and puts the nose before the ears, which is the reverse of the sutra's order in “he is able to give his ears and his nose to those who beg”; the sutra joins intestines, kidneys, liver and lungs into one passage in the eleventh gateway, whereas Tongxuan makes it only the giving of liver and lungs and does not bring out the intestines and kidneys, while Chengguan says it is four matters brought under a single dedication and notes that above there were the large and small intestine and that here they are combined into one intestine; and further, after the giving of blood, of marrow and flesh, and of the heart, Tongxuan separately brings out a passage on “the giving of the body,” for which the text of the eighty-fascicle sutra has no independent counterpart; and among Tongxuan's twenty-one divisions there is no division corresponding to the seventeenth gateway (undergoing the manifold sufferings). Tongxuan determines in sum that this one dedication has sixty-one kinds of giving, with ten great vows in each. The three are recorded without adjudication.

The two solutions on joining or dividing the bones of the limbs and joints. In the twelfth gateway Chengguan sets himself a question: since bone-marrow has been spoken of above and here the various bones of the limbs and joints are added, is this a repetition or not? The two solutions he gives are — taken together, it is only one matter, namely the bones of the limbs and joints; taken apart, the limbs and joints are a matter of their own, as with being dismembered joint by joint, and that was not listed before. He does not settle upon either, and neither does this exposition.

An instance cited and marked unsettled by the ancient worthy himself. In the thirteenth gateway the bodhisattva Pure Treasury is cited, and Chengguan says outright that no one of that name has been found; of the King of the Golden-Flanked Deer in the same gateway he says that what the Dazhidu lun and the fourth fascicle of the Pusa benyuan ji jing record is the rescue of a drowning man and not the giving of skin, and that broadly speaking the name is only the same. That an ancient worthy should mark as unsettled an instance he himself has cited is here recorded just as it stands, and no rounding-out is supplied on his behalf.

Variant readings of a Sanskrit text. The Sanskrit variant readings in this section are concentrated in three gateways. The first: Chengguan cites Jingfa's saying that, going by a Sanskrit text, one should obtain two marks in the hair, namely hair with the marks śrīvatsa and svastika; and he further says that of the sixth vow, obtaining hair with the marks of a buddha, a Sanskrit text has instead ‘whorling to the right.’ The fourth: as for the accomplishing of the svastika sign, a Sanskrit text says only ‘whorling to the right’ and ‘having delight.’ The fourteenth: going by a Sanskrit text, upon the inner face of the tips of the ten fingers is the mark of the thousand-spoked wheel and upon the inner face of the remaining joints the marks of punnāgata and svastika; ‘perfect’ should read ‘full vase’ and ‘whorling to the right’ should read ‘having delight’; the eighth vow, going by a Sanskrit text, should read fingers with the mark of the great lotus nandikāvarta, and yet it whorls to the right; and besides this there is recorded a saying introduced as “someone says” that the whorling of the svastika sign is stated with respect to the Chinese script, together with a citation of the Guanfo sanmei hai jing saying that at the end of each finger-joint there are twelve wheel-marks. The several readings are recorded without adjudication.

The difference of the sixty-fascicle text. The sixty-fascicle text does not lay this passage out gateway by gateway at all, but gathers up the names of the things let go in a single continuous enumerating sentence, with no passage on the act of giving for each gateway and no ten vows of dedication for each gateway. There are differences in wording as well: the eighty-fascicle text has “the topknot together with the skin,” while the sixty-fascicle text has the hair of the crown together with the skin, and the bright pearl within the topknot — and Fazang glosses this gateway of the eighty-fascicle text as being precisely two matters, the cutting away of the scalp with the hair and the opening of the skin of the crown to take out the divine pearl, which agrees with the wording of the sixty; the eighty-fascicle text's “fire pit” is written with a different graph in the sixty; the one gateway of “the skin of the body” in the eighty-fascicle text becomes two words in the sixty, the thick skin and the thin skin; the eighty-fascicle text's “fingernails together with the flesh” becomes in the sixty the nails of the fingers together with the flesh; and the eighty-fascicle text's twentieth gateway, “ruining the male form belonging to humans and beasts,” becomes in the sixty the ruining of beasts and of the human organ. This is the actual state of the two translations, recorded as it stands and not forced into correspondence.

Where the commentators are silent. Only Chengguan's Huayan jing shu has a gateway-by-gateway gloss on this section. The Yanyi chao sets up no separate outline for this section, and its language for the several gateways yields no occurrence anywhere in that text; Fazang's Tanxuan ji does have a gloss on this passage, but what this exposition cites verbatim stops halfway through the giving of the skin, and his continuing glosses on the gateways after that have not been cited verbatim — they are not cited, which is not the same as not found; Li Tongxuan takes up the framework of sixty-one divisions for the whole passage and does not gloss gateway by gateway. Besides this, among the treatises of the Huayan school no verbatim citation of the twenty gateways of this section has been found; the lack is recorded as it stands, and no text from elsewhere is used to fill it.

Cross-reading within this sutra. Chengguan ties several places in this section to passages that may be read across with it: the ten vows over the eye in the second gateway he says are much the same as, and slightly different from, those in “Detachment from the World”; the good marks among the vows over the nose in the third gateway he ties to the great person's mark of the Tathāgata's nose in “The Ocean of Marks”; the light emitted from the teeth in the fourth gateway and the mark of the broad and long tongue in the fifth he likewise ties to “The Ocean of Marks”; the body that is a treasury of awakening in the ninth gateway he ties to “The Appearing of the Tathāgata,” where at the time the Tathāgata accomplishes right awakening he sees within his own body all sentient beings accomplishing right awakening; and the mind of the vajra realm in the tenth gateway he ties to the mark of the vajra-adorned breast-virtue in the portion on the conferring of office in “The Ten Grounds,” and further to the minds of the same name in “The Inconceivable Dharmas of the Buddha” and “Detachment from the World,” saying that the vajra-realm faculty and vajra-flame faculty named in the ninth dedication of this chapter, the dedication of liberation that is unattached and unbound, are likewise this same name. All these places may be read across.

The gathering-in of a name of consciousness-only. Over the one vow of ‘the mind-made body’ in the ninth gateway, Chengguan cites the seven-fascicle Laṅkāvatāra to gloss the sense of the name, determines three kinds of such body and matches them with the stations before the fifth ground, before the eighth ground, and after the eighth ground, and further distinguishes it from the ‘mind-produced’ of the eighth fascicle of the Cheng weishi lun — that being produced in accordance with the will of the mind, only a transformation and not a fresh arising. At the end he brings it home to the Huayan formulation itself: this is now one of the ten bodies. That is to say, the name here cited from consciousness-only is spoken of as gathered into the frame of the Huayan ten bodies, and this attribution must be kept clear.

Inside and outside of the name of dedication. In the twenty gateways of this section, what is let go in the first seventeen is entirely a portion of his own body, in one gateway realm and cities, and in two gateways the guarding of life; and of the hundred and eighty-seven vows not one is for himself. The sixth dedication is named the according with and making firm of all roots of goodness, and what is accorded with is precisely this: roots of goodness are called firm only when they are not kept on one's own side. The more intimate to the body the thing let go, the more plainly this direction shows.

First, where this passage stands

Among the ten dedications, the sixth — the dedication that accords with and makes firm all roots of goodness — stands uniquely large, its prose stretching across four fascicles. The two preceding sub-units have already told out, gate by gate, the giving of outer wealth and the giving of inner wealth: lands and realms, wealth and jewels, carriages and mounts, on to head and eyes and marrow and brain. This sub-unit is the last portion of this one dedication: first it supplies the seven gates of the giving of Dharma and the eight remaining gates of outer wealth; then it draws all the gates together with a general conclusion; then it turns into the freedom from marks, explains how the two words “dedication” come by their name, states the fruit that such dedicating summons, and finally concludes the name and repeats it all in verse.

The speaker from beginning to end is one only: the bodhisattva Vajra Banner. The vocative “Sons of the Buddha” is a general form of address to the assembly of bodhisattvas present, not some named questioner. The single place in the whole passage where the breath changes is the narration just before the verses — “at that time, when the bodhisattva Vajra Banner had contemplated the ten directions, contemplated the great assembly, and contemplated the Dharma realm” — and that is the compilers of the scripture setting out the adornment of Vajra Banner's body and mind before he enters the verses, not another speaker.

The skeleton of this passage Chengguan sets up very clearly in his Huayan jing shu: the prose of this dedication divides into the two portions ‘the practice of the station’ and ‘the fruit of the station,’ and within the practice of the station there are again the three, ‘the restatement, the explanation, the conclusion.’ The place where this sub-unit stands is the tail of the portion of explanation, together with the freedom from marks, the explanation of the name, and the fruit of the station that follow the explanation. Fazang's Tanxuan ji sets up the same two divisions and three parts as Chengguan does, only calling the ‘restatement’ the ‘statement.’ It is worth fixing this frame in mind first, because when the reader reaches the passage on freedom from marks it is very easy to suppose that the scripture has suddenly changed the subject — it has not: that is the same one dedication turning from ‘breadth’ into ‘depth.’

Here a misreading should first be set right. The names ‘following marks / free of marks,’ ‘practice of the station / fruit of the station,’ ‘restatement, explanation, conclusion’ — not one graph of these occurs in the scripture; they are all outline names of the commentators. What the scripture itself utters is only the name of the dedication, “the dedication that accords with and makes firm all roots of goodness,” and that one self-explanation at the end, “by what meaning is it called dedication?” To read Huayan while taking outline names for scripture is to draw the map onto the ground. Wherever outline names are used below, this exposition names in every case whose outline it is.

And one more thing should be made plain first: the three commentators count the gates differently. Chengguan establishes no total number but simply numbers them in sequence following the sentences of the scripture, so that this sub-unit runs from his forty-sixth gate to his sixtieth; Fazang's Tanxuan ji counts to a seventieth gate; Li Tongxuan's Xin Huayan jing lun makes them sixty-one passages. The three divide and join their gates on different principles; there is no need to force them into agreement, and no need to judge which is right. Where this exposition speaks of a gate, it uses without exception the name in the scripture's own concluding sentence, and no commentator's gate number.

Gate one, praising the Buddha's appearing in the world: how is a proclamation counted as “giving”?

This gate opens with something surprising: the bodhisattva sees the Tathāgata appear in the world, and what he does is “with a great voice to proclaim to all everywhere,” crying out that the Tathāgata has appeared in the world. What sort of giving is that?

The answer lies in Chengguan's determination: he says that the practice of giving in this gate “is the practice of the giving of Dharma.” The giving of Dharma is not only expounding the scriptures; to bring a person to where he can hear the Dharma is already the giving of Dharma. The sequence the scripture then writes out is exceedingly fine: first he causes them to hear the Buddha's name and to cast off conceit and frivolous talk; then he urges them to hasten to see the Buddha, to call the Buddha to mind, to turn toward the Buddha, to take the Buddha as their object, to contemplate the Buddha, to praise the Buddha; and only then does he expound at length how hard a buddha is to meet. Chengguan points out these four layers of benefit one by one: the benefit of hearing the name and leaving delusion, the benefit of seeing his person and giving rise to practice, the benefit of praising his rarity and increasing reverence, the benefit of increase passed on from one to another. From hearing a name to going of oneself, leaping up in gladness, to make offerings — at every step in between a person is being pushed along by someone.

The misreading to be set right is this: to read “praising the Buddha's appearing in the world” as an outpouring of feeling. What the scripture writes is a sequence of actions, not a sigh of admiration. And it has a very hard place where it comes to rest — “those sentient beings all give rise, with respect to the bodhisattva, to the thought of the most excellent good friend.” The one who does this thing becomes, in the eyes of the one he has led in, a good friend; the leading-in is itself the accomplishing of the Dharma of the Buddha.

Where it comes down to use: the threshold of the giving of Dharma is far lower than one imagines. It is not that one must be able to expound; it is that one must be willing to say a word, willing to give one more push. Of the ten vows of this gate, the very first is “may all sentient beings, without waiting to be urged and enticed, go of themselves to see the Buddha” — the reason for urging and enticing today is precisely that in time to come no one shall need to be urged.

Gate two, giving the great earth: what is given is earth, and what is vowed is earth as well

The bodhisattva gives away the great earth — whether to raise monastic dwellings, or for the assembly of monks to live upon, or to his father and mother, to śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, on down to the poor and the orphaned and destitute — and he even furnishes them with the implements of daily use. The question this gate raises is: the recipients are so mixed; will not the merit then be high in some cases and low in others?

It is here that Chengguan spends the most ink. He first sorts the fields: the stūpas of the Buddha, bodhisattvas, good friends, and father and mother are fields of kindness and also fields of reverence; the assembly of monks and the two vehicles are fields of virtue and also fields of reverence; the poor and the orphaned are fields of compassion and also fields of suffering. And if one who is a field of reverence should also be sick and suffering, then he becomes at once an object of reverence and an object of compassion. He cites the three kinds of giving from the Da zhidu lun — giving out of pity, giving out of reverence, giving out of both pity and reverence — and gathers them into the two, compassion and reverence, saying that those who are neither objects of reverence nor objects of compassion are still taken in by the field of compassion, since they have no virtue to be revered. He then cites the Weimojie suoshuo jing, “the lowest beggar is no different from a field of merit such as the Tathāgata is,” to show that when the mind is governed by principle the two fields are equal.

But he does not stop at “equal.” He goes on to speak of two sides: if one discusses it simply in terms of the object, reverence is strong and compassion weak, because the kindness is deep and the virtue thick; if one discusses it in terms of the mind that gives, the field of compassion is on the contrary superior, because it directly draws forth compassion. And so “with reverence the field is strong but the mind of compassion is weak, and with compassion the field is weak but the mind of compassion is strong; each has its own fineness, and both are good fields.” This passage is the most rewarding place in the gate — it neither smooths the differences away nor lets the differences overwhelm the equality.

The misreading to be set right here is to suppose that speaking of grades among fields of merit is a matter of calculating gain. Chengguan at the last draws the words back to the measure of this scripture: the bodhisattva's mind of giving here has compassion and wisdom level with empty space and its matter and things reaching to the end of the Dharma realm, and so he concludes with four clauses — the three matters are empty of nature, the three matters are singular and excellent, the three matters are vast, the three matters interfuse. Since what is given, the giver, and the receiver are themselves empty of nature, the discussion of grades falls of itself below the level of “governing the mind by principle.”

Where it comes down to use: when the thought ‘is this person worth it?’ rises in the mind while giving, there is no need to suppress it, and no need to follow it either — the road Chengguan gives is first to see clearly which kind of field this is, and then to return to the emptiness of nature of the three matters. As for the assignment of the ten vows, Chengguan is fine here too: the first vow is the ground of the fruit, and the remaining nine are the ground of the cause.

Gate three, giving servants: why are they not set free?

This is the gate at which today's reader most easily sticks: the bodhisattva gives boy-servants and menservants to others, causing them to become other people's servants — why not simply restore them to freedom?

This question Chengguan himself raised, and himself answered. He first glosses the two graphs: “the young and comely are called boy-servants, and are meant for attending and waiting; those who hold to a charge are called menservants, and are furnished for labor.” Then he says that if he only set them free, three things would be wanting: first, the bodhisattva's ocean of practice would not be complete; second, the original vow of those servants themselves would not be fulfilled; third, at the fruit of buddhahood this virtue of responding to what is fitting would be wanting. The three reasons move outward layer by layer — the first with respect to the bodhisattva's own practice, the second with respect to the servants' vow, the third with respect to the ultimate virtue of a buddha.

The misreading to be set right is to read this gate as the canon defending servitude. The weight of the scripture in fact falls entirely upon the quality of the servants — their “dispositions are of themselves tamed and pliant, they are constantly diligent and vigorous,” they are furnished with a mind that is straight, a mind at ease, a mind of benefit, a mind of kindness, a mind of respectfulness, a mind without resentment, and a mind without enmity, and they are “able to follow what is fitting to the customs of the place where the recipient dwells”; and the scripture says plainly that these people “have all come by the summons of the bodhisattva's pure deeds.” What is given here is not a person who has been stripped, but a person who is able to bring benefit to the recipient; what is given is the very fact of being “well able to attend and serve so that the recipient's heart is made glad.”

Where it comes down to use: this gate is in fact asking a question that still stands today — when you hand a resource over to another to use, is what you hand over a burden or a capacity? Every servant the bodhisattva hands over carries seven kinds of mind and a body of skill. And so the ten vows of this gate all fall upon “being tamed” and “according”: from “obtain a tamed and pliant mind” at the beginning to “accord with the path of the Buddha” at the end.

Gate four, giving one's own body: beginning from six kinds of mind

The first three gates gave outer things; from this gate the giving of the body begins. And the scripture at the very outset writes not of the body but of the mind — at the time of giving he gives rise to six kinds of mind: the humble mind, the mind like the great earth, the mind that bears all suffering without wavering, the mind that attends upon sentient beings without weariness, the mind that is toward all sentient beings as a kind mother is and dedicates and turns over to them every good he has, and the mind that pardons and forgives every kind of encroachment on the part of sentient beings who are foolish and dangerous and utterly evil.

Why must the giving of the body first establish six minds? Because once the body is handed over, one's situation is no longer one's own to command. “Like the earth” is to be trodden upon by all and not move; “as a kind mother is” is to give every good outward; “pardons and forgives” is not to keep account even of being encroached upon. These six minds in fact turn ‘not being one's own to command’ beforehand into ‘not having sought to be one's own to command in the first place.’

The vows of dedication in this gate are especially long. Chengguan points out their structure: the practice of dedication in this gate “has twenty vows: the first ten advance in good, and the latter ten uphold and sustain” — the first ten advance upward, the latter ten hold steady what has been gained. In the second half the scripture uses nine constructions in a row, ‘cause all sentient beings to become foremost …,’ ‘to become the most excellent …’: the foremost stūpa, the most excellent field of merit, the most excellent recipient, the most excellent merit and benefit, the foremost good place for giving, the foremost guide. The one who gives his body vows that others may become those worthy to receive offerings.

The misreading to be set right is to suppose that giving the body is one heroic act. The scripture's point of rest is “he dwells upon his roots of goodness and diligently gives service” — it is doing things continuously, not offering oneself up once.

Where it comes down to use: to be willing to hand over one's time and labor to others over the long term is much harder than a single act of generosity. What this gate teaches is those six minds; with those six minds, long service will not turn into resentment.

Gate five, offering the body to the buddhas: the natural response after hearing the Dharma

The fourth gate gave the body to sentient beings; this gate gives the body to the buddhas. The scripture opens with “he hears the Dharma and is glad and delighted, gives rise to a mind of pure faith, and is able with his body to make offerings to the buddhas” — the sequence is hearing the Dharma, gladness, pure faith, and only then the offering of the body.

Chengguan says that the practice of giving in this gate “is an offering both of goods and of Dharma”: the body is the offering of goods, while the reason he is able to offer at all is that he has heard the Dharma, and in that there is also the offering of Dharma. He divides the text of this gate into three parts: first stating the substance of the practice, then separately displaying the aspects of the practice (the first half benefiting oneself, the latter half benefiting others), and last concluding the benefit accomplished by the practice. The sentence “he is able, with the Tathāgata's subtle and secret voice of Brahmā, to raise up clouds of the Dharma of the Buddha and to rain down the rain of Dharma of the Buddha” and what follows is precisely the half that benefits others.

The misreading to be set right is to read “offering the body to the buddhas” as sacrifice. What the scripture writes has not the tone of sacrifice at all — it is “measurelessly glad and dwelling in the true Dharma,” it is “his mind constantly cheerful and free-flowing, and his merit accomplished and full.” Offering the body here is the natural extension of the gladness of hearing the Dharma, not a forced severing.

Where it comes down to use: the eleven vows of this gate all turn about the “body” — the most excellent body, the unbreakable body, the body of no-self, the sovereign body, the body of the power of the Dharma, the body beyond comparison, the body of world-transcending merit. It is teaching one thing: the body can be a problem, and it can be a place of the way; the difference lies in what you take it up to do. And the vow that says “like a shadow appearing yet with no coming and no going” is especially to be remembered — to divide the body throughout the ten directions with no coming and no going is the last of the uses of the body.

Gate six, giving the body to all sentient beings: turning the body into ten things others can use

Both this gate and the fourth give the body to sentient beings; where do they differ? The fourth spoke of the mind with which the body is given; this one speaks of the use to which the given body is put — the bodhisattva vows of himself that his body shall be a great bright lamp, a means of joy, a subtle and wondrous treasury of the Dharma, a pure light, a light and shadow for the world, a cause and condition of roots of goodness, a true good friend, a level road, a complete ease and joy than which there is nothing higher, a bright and clear sun. Ten clauses of one construction, all making the body into a thing that others can use.

Chengguan has a very interesting determination here: the practice of giving in this gate “likewise holds both the giving of matter and the giving of Dharma.” If taken as matter, the body is the light of sun and moon, and rivers and pools and wells and springs, given directly for people to use; if taken as Dharma, it is the lamp of Dharma shining and the sun of Dharma benefiting. He says of the text that there is “now Dharma and now matter, but in meaning it truly holds both” — there is no need to sort out which clause is matter and which is Dharma.

He also points out that the vows of dedication in this gate contain a reversal: the practice of giving above “brings the body to beings” — it sends the body over to sentient beings; the vows below, however, are “that beings with their bodies draw near to the Buddha.” What is given out and what is vowed back run in opposite directions, and this is exactly the shape of dedication.

The misreading to be set right is to read a clause like “shall be a great bright lamp” as the rhetoric of metaphor. What the scripture uses is “he vows of himself that his body shall be” — not that it is like a lamp, but that it acts as one.

Where it comes down to use: ask yourself once, what can others take me and do with me? This gate gives ten answers, and the lowest of them is “shall be a level road, causing all sentient beings all to be able to tread upon it” — even being trodden across counts.

Gate seven, serving the buddhas: service of the body and service of the mind

This gate is the giving of the body to attend and serve the buddhas. Its difference from the fifth Chengguan points out with the utmost economy: the practice of giving in this gate “has also the service of the body and the service of the mind,” and its vows of dedication too “are established in reliance upon the two kinds of service” — service with the body is one road, and not departing in mind is another.

The scripture writes more of the service of mind than of the service of body: “at the place of the buddhas he thinks of repaying their weighty kindness, with the thought of them as father and mother,” “with a pure mind he guards and upholds the awakening of the Buddha, and dwells in the dharmas of the buddhas,” “he leaves behind the thought of the world and is born in the family of the Tathāgata,” “he accords with the buddhas and leaves behind the realm of Māra.” And so the “attending and serving” of this gate is not standing by to run errands; it is the whole direction of a life turned round to the same side as the Buddha.

The misreading to be set right is to read “attendant” as a low station. Among the ten vows of this gate there is one that reads “may all sentient beings be wholly equal with all the Tathāgatas, sovereign in every dharma of a buddha without exception” — what the one who serves the Buddha vows is that sentient beings be equal with a buddha. Service is not rank; it is relationship.

The concluding sentence of this gate is especially long, eleven “because he wishes” in a row — because he wishes to realize the awakening of the buddhas, because he wishes to rescue and guard all sentient beings, because he wishes to come forth from the whole of the three realms, because he wishes to accomplish a mind that does no harm … on to “because he wishes to fill out the mind without regret.” Where it comes down to use: before doing a thing, fill out eleven items of ‘what it is for,’ and the thing will not easily go crooked. The very length of this passage is itself a teaching.

Gate eight, giving the royal throne: casting away a realm of ten thousand chariots as one slips off a sandal

From this gate the remaining gates of outer wealth begin. The bodhisattva gives away all the things in the land of his realm, on to the royal throne itself. The question of this gate is: what is cast away, the seat, or the mind that the seat brings with it?

The scripture answers this itself. It divides the relinquishing into two layers: the first half writes the relinquishing in fact — “he gives away all the things in the land of his realm, and on to the royal throne itself, all of which he is able to relinquish”; the latter half writes the relinquishing in mind — the ten clauses from “toward every kind of worldly affair his mind attains sovereignty, without tie, without bond, and without any clinging attachment” onward. Chengguan divides it in just this way: first making clear the relinquishing in fact, afterward making clear the relinquishing in mind, and saying that “sovereignty is the general, and the ten clauses below are the particular.” Here he lets fall a most bracing line: “to cast away here and now a realm of ten thousand chariots is like slipping off a sandal; what tie could there be?” To cast away the empire as one takes off a shoe — where is there any room left to speak of ties?

The misreading to be set right is to suppose that once the seat is cast away the mind is cast away with it. Among the ten clauses of relinquishing in mind there is one that shows the most craft — “though he dwells within the world, it is not in this place that he takes birth.” The person is still in the world, and yet he is not born out of it; this is much harder than leaving the world.

Where it comes down to use: of the ten vows of this gate, seven say “king” outright — great king of the Dharma, king of the Dharma of the Buddha, throne of a buddha, king of wisdom, king complete in every good; and the remaining three speak of dwelling in the realm of the Buddha, being born in the family of the Tathāgata, and being a lord of the giving of Dharma, which are the same meaning of sovereignty. Having cast away the throne of the world, what he vows is that all sentient beings become kings of the Dharma. What is cast away is not the fact of ‘being king,’ but the “self” upon which being king relies. Chengguan also leaves a thread of lineage here, saying that for the remaining meaning of this gate one may look at the chapter “The Ten Inexhaustible Treasuries.”

Gate nine, giving the royal capital: the customs duties given along with it

People come to beg for the king's capital and his great city, together with all the duties gathered at the barrier-passes, and the bodhisattva gives them all away. The scripture of this gate is the shortest, and Chengguan's note is the shortest too — he says only “it may be known as it stands.” Why then does it still stand as a gate of its own?

Look at its ten vows and it becomes plain. What is given is a capital city, and yet what is vowed lies almost entirely upon ‘leaving the city’ — he vows that beings may “constantly delight to dwell in the araṇya,” vows that they may “never rely upon royal capitals and settlements,” vows that they may “obtain the mind of coming forth, casting away all the affairs of a household,” vows that they may “obtain a mind without attachment, leaving behind the dharma of dwelling at home.” Having given the city away, what he vows is that no one need depend upon a city.

The misreading to be set right is to read this gate as a weariness of the world. The first and last vows are exactly the opposite — the first vow is “may all sentient beings all be able to adorn and purify measureless lands, and present them to the buddhas as their dwelling place,” and the last is “may all sentient beings adorn and purify all the worlds of the ten directions, and present them to the buddhas.” What is left behind is the “relying upon,” not the “place”; only once the relying-upon is left behind can the worlds of the ten directions be adorned and purified at all.

Where it comes down to use: this gate is asking what it is you depend upon in order to be at ease. The scripture's answer is: not that you should have no dwelling place, but that you should not stake your mind upon the dwelling place.

Gate ten, giving the whole retinue of the inner palace: ten kinds of not clinging

The bodhisattva gives away the whole retinue of his inner palace, the attendant women and the singing girls, to those who come to beg. The difficulty of this gate lies not in the giving but in the mind at the time of giving.

The scripture writes of this with the utmost thoroughness: at the time of giving he has “no mind of loving delight, no mind of looking back with longing, no mind of indulgent attachment, no mind of being tied, no mind of grasping, no mind of craving and defilement, no mind of discrimination, no mind that follows after them, no mind that takes up their marks, and no mind of wishing for pleasure” — ten “no”s, each finer than the last. Loving delight is coarse; taking up marks and wishing for pleasure are fine. Not to look back with longing is not hard; not to take up marks is very hard.

Within this gate Chengguan handles a question of divergent translation, and in passing explains the usage of the two words “dedication.” He says that in the Jin translation the two graphs for dedication all stand at the head of the clause, and that this then means “dedicating toward awakening”; in the present translation they stand at the end of the clause, and that then means “the intent of dedication.” He goes on to distinguish “the intent of dedication” from “that for the sake of which one dedicates” as largely the same and slightly different — because one has this intent, therefore one dedicates; and one dedicates now in order to accomplish that intent. The distinction is drawn very finely; remember one sentence and it is enough: dedication is not a formality performed after an act, but first of all a direction of the mind.

He also explains an oddity: why do the ten vows of this gate speak of samādhi in every single clause? His answer is that meditative concentration makes body and mind light, at ease, and pliant, just as those precious women were, and so samādhi is taken as the retinue; and he cites Sudhana's verse, “the women of concentration constantly attend and serve,” as his evidence. What is given is a retinue of women, and what is vowed is concentration as one's retinue — which is the same procedure as giving the earth in gate two and vowing a mind like the earth.

The misreading to be set right is to read this gate as the making of women into things. The scripture's point of rest, from beginning to end, is upon the ten kinds of mind in the one who gives; and the ten things vowed are all that sentient beings may obtain samādhi, and may obtain the “samādhi without attachment, their minds constantly in right reception, not taking up dualistic dharmas.”

Where it comes down to use: the ten “no”s can serve as a checklist. When you relinquish something — loving delight, looking back with longing, indulgent attachment, being tied, grasping, craving and defilement, discrimination, following after, taking up marks, wishing for pleasure — at which of them do you break off?

Gate eleven, giving wife and children: there were such people of old

The scripture of this gate cites two persons of old: Prince Sudāna and the bodhisattva King Manifest Adornment. Chengguan says that Sudāna here means Good Love or Fine Love, and that the matter is as told in that scripture; the matter of King Manifest Adornment he attaches to the Da zhuangyan jing; and he further adduces from the Pusa benyuan jing the matter of the prince All-Upholding giving away his two sons. The scripture itself tells no story, saying only “just as of old,” and leaving the matter to the earlier examples.

What most needs to be made clear in this gate is: were those who were given willing? Chengguan sets up four clauses to exhaust the question — the one who begs is a transformation and what is given is real; the one who begs is real and what is given is a transformation; both are transformations; both are real. For the second clause he adduces from the She lun the example of King Viśvantara giving his son to a brahmin, and says that this was a transformation and so there was no distress. For the fourth, “both real,” he distinguishes two kinds: a bodhisattva at the beginning of his practice must, before giving, “ask them again and again beforehand,” and Chengguan cites the Yuqie shidi lun — when giving away wife and children one must first explain to them and make them glad, and never force them so as to make them sorrowful and distressed; and as for those who come to beg, though one explains to them in right speech, one does not give to enemies. In the other kind, where the faculties are ripe, those who are given have from the first shared the bodhisattva's vow and are host and guest to one another, so that to give them is precisely to fulfil the prayer that was originally their own — and for this Chengguan cites a verse below in the scripture, “in life after life, wherever there is giving, may I always be given away.”

The misreading to be set right is to read this gate as permitting one to send people as things. The whole apparatus of the four clauses and the law of explaining beforehand exists precisely to shut out that reading. The scripture itself also leaves a matching sentence — the bodhisattva at this point “contemplates his own body and sees that it belongs to all people and is not his own to command”; only after he has first come to see himself as one who does not belong to himself can this gate be spoken of at all.

Where it comes down to use: the eleven vows of this gate Chengguan assigns clearly — the first vow relies upon the mind of giving and vows in general, the next two are established in reliance upon the wife, the next three and the last one in reliance upon the children, and the rest rely upon all three together. The tightest sentence among the vows is “may all sentient beings cast away the mind of love and hate, and cut off the fetters of craving and anger” — love and hate were one and the same fetter from the start.

Gate twelve, giving house and home: knowing that a household is easily broken

The bodhisattva gives away his adorned house and home together with his goods. Chengguan says of this gate too only “it may be known as it stands,” but the scripture itself gives a reason well worth pausing over: “he knows that a household is easily broken and scattered, his mind constantly weary of it and casting it aside.”

Being able to let go is not because one does not like it, but because one has seen clearly that it will break. The scripture writes out a string of this mind: “toward his household he has no attachment, and is far removed from every thought and reflection about dwelling at home,” “he loathes the affairs of a household and the utensils that sustain life, neither craving them nor savoring them, his mind not tied to them” — and only then “he wishes only to leave home and cultivate the practice of a bodhisattva.”

The misreading to be set right is to read this gate as requiring that one leave home. Look at the ten vows and it is plainly not so — “may all sentient beings leave behind love for their kin, so that though they appear as dwelling at home their minds cling to nothing”; “may all sentient beings be well able to teach and guide others, and without leaving the dharma of the household expound the wisdom of a buddha”; “may all sentient beings, though their bodies appear within the home, have minds that constantly dwell in accord with the wisdom of a buddha”; “may all sentient beings, upon the ground of dwelling at home, dwell upon the ground of a buddha.” Four of the ten vows speak plainly of dwelling at home. What is relinquished is the being tied, not the house number.

Where it comes down to use: this gate and the ninth make a pair. The ninth says do not stake your mind upon a city; this one says do not stake your mind upon a house. And the reason in both cases is only one: it will break.

Gate thirteen, giving all gardens, groves, terraces and pavilions: a place of amusement made a place of delight in the Dharma

The structure of this gate's scripture is distinctive: first come twelve clauses of the thought “I shall be, for all sentient beings …,” and only afterward the giving. Chengguan divides it into two — first stating the thought that is raised, afterward making clear the leaving behind of faults and the accomplishing of virtue.

Among the twelve thoughts, one matched pair shows the greatest care: “I shall be toward all sentient beings as a kind father is” and “I shall be toward all sentient beings as a kind mother is.” What answers to the kind father is “contemplating with wisdom”; what answers to the kind mother is “growing every root of goodness and every great vow.” A garden and grove is a place of sport, and the scripture joins it to the joy of the Dharma — “I shall be a fine garden and grove for all sentient beings; I shall reveal to all sentient beings the joy of the Dharma.”

The real weight of this gate lies in its middle portion. It turns suddenly to speak of a very hard thing: “even if all the sentient beings that fill the world do not know his kindness, the bodhisattva has never had any dislike or resentment toward them, nor does he give rise to a single thought of seeking any return.” Why speak of this in the giving of gardens and groves? Because a garden is the kind of gift that most easily invites the expectation of return — you build a park for people to enjoy, and when they are not grateful it is hardest to bear. Here the scripture cuts off “the mind that seeks a return” outright, and gives what it relies upon: “toward all the worlds his mind is like empty space, stained by nothing.”

The misreading to be set right is to read ‘not seeking a return’ as coldness. The scripture says immediately after that the bodhisattva “wishes only to extinguish their measureless suffering and vexation,” and says further that he “makes the great vow to extinguish the suffering of sentient beings, and never wearies of or casts away his aspiration for the great vehicle.” Not seeking return and not giving up on the other are two faces of one thing.

Where it comes down to use: to have given and not be thanked is the most real barrier in practice. The method this gate gives is not endurance but “a mind like empty space” — empty space has never felt itself let down.

Gate fourteen, holding the great assembly of giving: not troubling one sentient being

The great assembly of giving is the largest in scale of all the gates in this passage: hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of measureless and countless vast assemblies of giving. Yet the first standard the scripture sets for it is not greatness but “from beginning to end he does not injure or trouble a single sentient being.”

Chengguan explains this sentence very concretely, and very bluntly. He says, “choosing the firewood before kindling it and straining the water before using it, and not forcing others to beg: this is called not troubling sentient beings” — the fuel is to be picked over before it is burned, the water strained before it is used, and no one pressed for contributions; only this is called not troubling sentient beings. Then he says, “nowadays most do the opposite of this — how should that accomplish any great benefit?” This is Chengguan's verdict upon his own age, and the reader may measure himself against it.

He divides the practice of giving in this gate into four layers: the general statement, the leaving behind of faults and accomplishing of virtue, the brief display of the form of the rite, and the display that the mind upon which the giving relies accomplishes the pāramitā. So the conditions for a great assembly of giving to stand run inward layer by layer: first the scale, then the not troubling of people, then the rite being in accord with the Dharma, and last the mind having accomplished the dāna-pāramitā. Lacking the last layer, the first three are only a crowd.

The misreading to be set right is to suppose that the merit of an assembly of giving is reckoned by its scale. The concluding sentence of the scripture lists eleven kinds of giving — unsurpassed giving, the ultimate giving of a buddha, the accomplishing of wholesome giving, unbreakable giving, the giving that offers to the buddhas, giving without anger or resentment, giving that rescues sentient beings, giving that accomplishes omniscience, giving that constantly sees the buddhas, giving of wholesome vigor, and vast giving — and not one of them is reckoned by quantity. “Giving without anger or resentment” is especially to be remembered: to hold a great assembly of giving without a thread of irritation is harder than to hold a large one.

Where it comes down to use: before doing anything on behalf of a crowd of people, ask first, ‘whom is this thing troubling?’ In raising funds, in mobilizing people, in putting on events, the cost most often falls upon those who are not seen. That the scripture puts this item first is not a courtesy.

Gate fifteen, giving the goods that sustain life: they cannot be told to the end, and so they are told together

At this gate the gates are gathered in. Why do they come to rest upon so general a heading as “the goods that sustain life”?

Chengguan answers directly: because “the several gates, expounded separately, cannot be exhausted, at the very last all the goods that sustain life are expounded together.” To go on setting them out gate by gate could never be finished, and so at the last one general name gathers in everything not yet said. Fazang's Tanxuan ji handles it in the same way here, and counts it as the seventieth of his own gates; the two accounts are almost identical.

There is one peculiarity in this gate that a reader easily misses: it has no concluding sentence of the form “this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's … dedication of roots of goodness.” The preceding fourteen gates each have a conclusion, and at this one it is suddenly absent, and the text passes straight into the general conclusion of the next passage. This is not a dropped line. Chengguan explained it long ago: the text of this gate “has only two parts: first the practice of giving, second the practice of dedication,” because immediately following is the general conclusion of the whole passage, and so “the latter two are wanting” — the concluding sentence and the sentence of what it is for are both omitted, and the general conclusion is left to gather them.

The misreading to be set right is to see the missing conclusion and suppose the scripture is defective. The scripture's manner is a living thing: the concluding sentences of the first fourteen gates were there in order to divide the gates, and since this gate is about to be gathered in by the general conclusion, it need not conclude itself again.

Where it comes down to use: among the ten vows, Chengguan says that “since the goods that sustain life are of many kinds, the vows too are of several classes,” and gives the first two as the vow of giving the goods for washing and the vow of giving the goods for sweeping and wiping, the rest to be pondered on this model; but he also leaves room — “the goods are set forth in general and the vows too are made in general, and they need not be matched one by one.” This blank space he leaves is important: in reading a scripture one need not match every sentence to death.

The general conclusion: gathering all the gates into one mind

The gates have been told out, and the scripture turns into the general conclusion: “following upon all that sentient beings need, he gives to them with such asaṃkhyeya goods as these.” Chengguan says this passage is “the general conclusion of the dedication of the roots of goodness of the several gates,” because the separate cannot be exhausted and so it is made clear in general; and he divides it into two — first concluding the roots of goodness, that is, the practice of giving above, afterward concluding the dedication above. The first half he further divides into three: concluding what is given, concluding that for the sake of which he gives, and concluding the mind that gives. And he particularly points out one sentence: what the bodhisattva gives “is not limited to sixty, and therefore it is likened to the asaṃkhyeya” — so the gate numbers assigned above are only examples, not a total.

The true center of gravity of this passage lies in “concluding the mind that gives.” The scripture writes a scene: from the lands of the ten directions, people of every kind of form and class, of every kind of destiny of birth, and of every kind of field of merit all come seeking and asking, and the bodhisattva on seeing them “gives rise to gladness in his mind, as at the sight of a good friend.” To call those who beg good friends is a most inverted way of speaking — ordinarily the one who asks is the weaker party, and here he is the one who comes to complete another. Then those who beg “pass the word from one to another, extolling and praising his virtue, so that his fine renown spreads far,” more and more people come, and the bodhisattva is “measurelessly glad.”

Then the scripture makes a comparative measure, and this is the most forceful stretch of the whole passage. Though one were to enjoy for a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of kalpas the joy of Śakra, for countless kalpas the joy of the Yāma Heaven, for measureless kalpas the joy of the Tuṣita Heaven, for boundless kalpas the joy of the Heaven of Good Transformation, for unequalled kalpas the joy of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Others' Emanations, for innumerable kalpas the joy of a Brahmā king, for unnameable kalpas the joy of a wheel-turning king ruling a three-thousandfold realm, for unthinkable kalpas the joy of the Heaven of Universal Purity, for inexpressible kalpas the joy of the Heaven of the Pure Abodes — the joys of the nine kings (Chengguan's outline counts ten kings, himself noting that Ābhāsvara is wanting) all added together “could not match” that one thought of gladness in the bodhisattva at the sight of one who begs.

At this comparative measure Chengguan states a doubt of his own, worth recording: he says that among the gods of the form realm the Ābhāsvara is wanting, and that if one goes by the Pusa yingluo benye jing fifteen the wheel-turning king should stand thirteenth and one should say “the joy of a king over two thousand”; and further that by the ten great numbers there should be an “unmeasurable” after the “unthinkable,” which the present text lacks, so that “it seems that the Sanskrit text has dropped out at the second dhyāna.” This is Chengguan's word of doubt and not a settled determination; here it is only recorded, without adjudication.

The misreading to be set right is to read this passage as an exhortation to give more. What the scripture asks is not how much one gives, but what the first response in the mind is at the sight of one who begs. In explaining this sentence Chengguan cites the Yuqie shidi lun on the four hindrances to giving — not having been used to it before, the goods to be given being scarce and lacking, indulgent attachment to fine and superior things, and delighting in the fruit of complete wealth in the time to come; and he says that the reason the bodhisattva is glad at the sight of one who begs is that “the practice of giving is ripe and the hindrances to giving are exhausted.” Gladness is not inborn; it is how one naturally looks once the hindrances are gone.

Where it comes down to use: this passage may serve as a mirror. When someone comes to ask something of you, what rises in your mind — a sense of burden, a sense of guardedness, or “as at the sight of a good friend”? Set the four hindrances to giving beside it, and one of them will most likely fit.

Freedom from marks: at the time of dedicating, not clinging even to dedication

Here is the turning point of the whole passage. After scores of gates of giving have been told, it turns suddenly into a string of negations: no perception of a sentient being, no perception of one who lives, no perception of a pudgala, no perception of a person, no perception of a child, no perception of one who is born, no perception of one who acts, no perception of one who receives, no perception of being, no perception of nonbeing, no perception of this world or the world hereafter, no perception of dying here and being born there, no perception of permanence, no perception of impermanence, no perception of the three states of existence, no perception of the absence of the three states of existence, neither perception nor non-perception.

Why must there be this turn? Chengguan's determination is exceedingly precise: he says that the dedication free of marks “is to direct toward the true limit,” and says that “this sets forth the depth of the practice, as the foregoing set forth its breadth. Depth and breadth are simultaneous; it is only that words cannot set forth both at once.” The scores of gates before are the breadth of the practice, and this passage is its depth; breadth and depth are simultaneous from the first, and it is only that language cannot say two things at once, and so they are said apart. Fazang's Tanxuan ji names this passage “the practice reaching its utmost and tallying with the real, which is the dedication to the true limit”; the name differs, and what it designates answers to the same thing. This sentence must be set up first, or the reader will suppose that the scripture has negated all the giving that went before.

The structure of the text Chengguan divides into two layers: first properly making clear the freedom from marks, and afterward, from “when the bodhisattva contemplates in this way” onward, making clear the not obstructing of the following of marks. Within the proper making clear of freedom from marks there are three again: the brief statement, the separate display, and the question with its explanation. The three opening clauses on bodily, verbal, and mental action all attaining liberation are the general statement; and Chengguan says “not clinging to release and not being bound by bondage is true liberation” — only when one does not cling even to the fact of ‘having been liberated’ is it liberation. In the separate display the pairs are cast out one pair at a time, and of the last pair he speaks best: “the foregoing perceptions of being and nonbeing and the rest are named perception in general, and that all are utterly cut off is called the absence of perception.”

The second section goes on to cast out “clinging” and “binding.” The scripture says that if one is able not to cling to these dharmas, then one does not bind form or the arising and ceasing of form; and if one is able not to bind, “then with respect to all dharmas there is also no releasing.” Even release is gone. Then it asks: why is this? The answer is “there is not the least dharma that is now arising, that has already arisen, or that will arise,” and such is the own-mark of all dharmas — not one and not two, not small and not great, not dharma and not non-dharma, not existent and not non-existent.

The misreading to be set right here is to read “not existent and not non-existent” as meaning that there is nothing at all. The scripture itself blocks that road at once: “when the bodhisattva contemplates dharmas in this way, they become non-dharma; and within the realm of words he sets them up in accord with the world, so that non-dharma is spoken of as dharma; he does not cut off the paths of action, does not cast away the bodhisattva practices, and in seeking omniscience never retrogresses.” He contemplates dharmas as non-dharma, and yet within words sets them up in accord with the world and speaks of non-dharma as dharma; the paths of action are not cut off, the bodhisattva practices are not cast away. And immediately after come the four most famous clauses of this passage — “he fully knows that all the conditions of action are like a dream, that sounds are like an echo, that sentient beings are like shadows, and that all dharmas are like an illusion, and yet he does not break the power of the deeds of causes and conditions.” After the four “likes,” one “does not break.”

Two of Chengguan's remarks here are worth keeping. Explaining “the working of deeds is vast,” he says: though deeds be like an illusion, a single thought of illusory evil sinks one for long kalpas and a single thought of illusory good raises one far toward the fruit of buddhahood, and so it is called vast. Explaining “the path of non-doing,” he says: even the true path of non-doing must still be cultivated, for without cultivation one does not tally with the real; how much more, when the common world is not broken, could there be no cultivation and no realization? And at the last he lets fall a general determination: “that these two are unobstructed is what differs from the common person and the lesser vehicles.” That the following of marks and the freedom from marks are mutually unobstructed is where this differs from the ordinary person and from the two vehicles. The Yanyi chao, in explaining the section on the not obstructing of the following of marks, further cites the verse on the two truths from the chapter on the four truths in the Zhong lun, to show the sense of expounding the Dharma in reliance upon the two truths.

Where it comes down to use: the most practical sentence in this passage is “no perception of a sentient being” together with still “not casting away the bodhisattva practices.” If while doing a thing one sets up in the mind an ‘I am helping him,’ then that ‘him’ and that ‘I’ both become burdens; take the perception away, and the thing is still done — this is not passivity, it is saving the effort that was going into the upkeep of an image of oneself.

The explanation of the name: why this is called “dedication”

Here the scripture raises a question of its own: “by what meaning is it called dedication?” This is the one place in the whole passage where the scripture questions and explains a name of its own accord, and it is of the first importance.

Chengguan first explains the general statement of the preceding sentence. He says that “dwelling in omniscience is his own root of goodness, since by this he is able to accomplish the meanings below”; and as for “whether in a place or in a non-place,” he gives two readings: if taken with respect to the object, a place is the good and a non-place is the evil; if taken with respect to one's own practice, a place is the following of marks and a non-place is the freedom from marks. Whichever it be, “place and non-place differ, and yet both are directed toward the nature of wisdom.” He then distributes the three terms of the name of the dedication: “that in every place he dedicates entirely is the meaning of ‘according with all roots of goodness.’ That he dedicates to the nature of wisdom is the meaning of ‘dedication,’ and that he does not retrogress is the meaning of ‘firm.’” According, dedication, and firmness — the three meanings each have that to which they attach, and this is the skeleton of how this dedication comes by its name.

Then comes the separate explanation. Here Chengguan makes clear a thing which is the very key of this passage: the dedication that follows marks explains itself without being explained — with a firm mind one cultivates every good practice, all of it vowing that sentient beings turn toward the fruit of awakening; what is there to explain? “But that it receives the name from being free of marks is not known without explanation, and this is why it is singled out and made clear.” That being free of marks it is still called dedication — this is what needs explaining, and this is why the scripture raises its question precisely here.

The scripture gives ten clauses, each of one construction: crossing the world forever, coming forth forever from the aggregates, crossing beyond the path of words, leaving every kind of perception, cutting off forever the view of a body, leaving forever the place of reliance, cutting short forever what is done, coming forth forever from the states of existence, casting away forever every grasping, coming forth forever from worldly dharmas — each of them “reaching the further shore, therefore it is called dedication.” Chengguan matches the ten clauses one by one to ten kinds of further shore: the shore of the unmoved, the shore of liberation, the shore of the true limit, the shore of true wisdom, the shore of the remainder, the shore of no remainder, the shore of giving and the rest, the shore of the nirvāṇa of no abiding, the shore of the dharma-body, and the shore of the noble wisdom of self-awakening. The Yanyi chao then explains each again — for instance the first: gain and loss, blame and praise, honor and ridicule, suffering and joy, these eight dharmas are the worldly dharmas, and that the eight dharmas do not move one is named the shore of the unmoved; and the second: in reliance upon the aggregates one reckons a self and so there are the two selves, and to leave the two selves is named liberation.

The misreading to be set right is to read these ten clauses as ten different dedications. Chengguan says it plainly — “it is by the single fact of being free of marks that dedication is accomplished”; the ten clauses only display one and the same thing from ten angles: if only one can be free of marks and accord with omniscience, then one's own crossing of the world and the rest all reach the further shore — how is this not the meaning of dedication? So being free of marks is not a failure to dedicate; being free of marks is itself the most thoroughgoing dedication.

Where it comes down to use: “to dedicate” is to turn, and “to direct” is to tend toward. To turn what one has cultivated in another direction, away from oneself and toward omniscience — while there are marks this takes an act of will, but when one is free of marks it is natural, because there is no “self” at which the roots of goodness could be brought to a stop.

The fruit of the station: dedicating in this way, there are these ten accordings

The name explained, the scripture states the fruit: dedicating in this way, “he becomes one who dwells in accord with the Buddha, dwells in accord with the Dharma, dwells in accord with wisdom, dwells in accord with awakening, dwells in accord with meaning, dwells in accord with dedication, dwells in accord with the realm, dwells in accord with practice, dwells in accord with the real, and dwells in accord with purity.” Chengguan determines this passage as the fruit of the station and lets fall six words: “following marks and being free of them are not two, and so these ten fruits are summoned.” Only because the following of marks and the freedom from marks are not two are these ten fruits summoned at all. Fazang's Tanxuan ji names this passage “setting forth the benefit accomplished by the practice,” designating the same thing.

Note that all ten clauses attach the graph “dwells.” It is not ‘accords with the Buddha,’ but ‘dwells in accord with the Buddha’ — not a momentary correspondence, but an abiding within. Explaining the meaning of according, Chengguan sets a very sharp question: within the true limit, what is it that accords, and what is it that is accorded with? His answer is: if only one can dedicate free of marks in this way, then one naturally accords with the Dharma of the Buddha and with wisdom and the rest, because the Dharma of the Buddha and the rest have the real as their substance. There is no one who accords and nothing accorded with, and only therefore is it called true according.

Then the scripture states a second layer of fruit: dedicating in this way, “he becomes one who fully understands all dharmas, and one who serves all the buddhas.” Then come six “there is not one”: there is not one buddha he does not serve, not one dharma to which he does not make offerings, not one dharma that can be extinguished and broken, not one dharma that can be gone against, not one thing that can be craved and clung to, not one dharma that can be wearied of and left behind. In explaining this set Chengguan is very fine — for instance the fifth and sixth clauses of his commentary (that is, the third and fourth of the scripture's six) he attaches to “the marks being just the absence of marks, there is no need to extinguish and break them” and “there is nothing that is not the absence of marks, so nothing can be gone against”; and the seventh and eighth he attaches to the defiled and the pure both arising, so that there is neither craving nor weariness.

The misreading to be set right is to read “not one dharma that can be wearied of and left behind” as license. The clause just before it is “not one thing that can be craved and clung to” — craving and weariness are a pair, and are removed together. And after neither craving nor weariness, the scripture's point of rest is “the power of the Dharma is complete in him, without rest”: it is not that nothing is done any longer, but that what is done never stops.

Where it comes down to use: to test whether one has really become free of marks, do not look at whether there is any feeling; look at whether one has stopped. The criterion the scripture gives is “without rest.”

The conclusion: this one dedication ends here

The scripture concludes the name: “this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's sixth dedication, the dedication that accords with and makes firm all roots of goodness.” Then it adds a passage on the aspect of one who dwells in this dedication: he is constantly guarded and kept in mind by the buddhas, firm and not retrogressing, entering the deep nature of dharmas and cultivating omniscience; he accords with the meaning of the Dharma, accords with the nature of dharmas, accords with all firm roots of goodness, accords with all perfect and great vows; he is complete in the dharma of according and being firm, “which none of the vajras can break, and among all dharmas he attains sovereignty.”

This passage takes the name of the dedication apart once more and shows it to you: four clauses of “according,” two of “firm,” and one each for “all roots of goodness” and “perfect and great vows.” Every graph in the name is redeemed at the conclusion. And the last sentence, “which none of the vajras can break,” is the closing note of the whole passage — vajra is the hardest thing in the world and can break everything; and here it is said that not even vajra can break this. Li Tongxuan counts this passage together with what follows as six lines of scripture, and calls it “generally concluding the merit of the dedication set forth above.”

Where it comes down to use: to what degree must a thing be carried before it counts as firm? The scripture's standard is “none of the vajras can break it,” and the cause of that is not force of will but that whole preceding passage on freedom from marks — with no mark to be clung to, there is naturally no place at which it can be broken.

The verses: forty-one verses, praising from the royal throne all the way to the nature of dharmas

The prose ended, the compilers narrate the ceremony of Vajra Banner's entering the verses: he contemplates the ten directions, contemplates the great assembly, contemplates the Dharma realm, enters into the profound meaning of the words and phrases, cultivates a measureless and vast mind, with a mind of great compassion everywhere covers and guards the world, and at the last “manifests a form-body in reliance upon the dharma-nature body, and, sustained by the spiritual power of the Buddha, speaks these verses.” Chengguan says this passage has twelve clauses — the first one setting forth the form of the rite in general, the last one making clear in general that upon which he relies, and the ten in between separately displaying two meanings; and he points out one fine thing, that the words “contemplate” in the scripture “run through both mind and eye,” and are not only a looking with the eyes.

The verses are forty-one in all. Chengguan and the Tanxuan ji count the same number of verses and divide them in largely the same way, but the scope of what they praise differs: Chengguan says the last five and a half verses “praise the meaning of according and the rest in the explanation of the name, and along with it praise the fruit of the station,” whereas the Tanxuan ji says “they praise only the practice of the station and do not praise the fruit of the station.” Both accounts stand together, and here no adjudication is made.

Following Chengguan's division: the first five verses praise the body upon which the practice relies — the bodhisattva manifests his body and becomes a king, with merit and awesome light, proclaiming and expounding the true Dharma, the disposition he has received kind, holding firmly to the pure precepts. Note that these five verses praise the “body,” not the practice; first is said who this one is, and only then what he does.

The next thirty and a half verses praise the practice that arises in reliance upon the body, and of these the first nineteen praise the dedication that follows marks. These nineteen verses walk once more through the scores of gates before: food and drink, perfume and garlands, clothing, carriages and mounts, beds and mats; head, eyes, hands, feet, skin, flesh, bones and marrow; opening the mouth and putting forth the tongue; wife and children and the royal throne; the retinue; cities and towns, palaces, towered pavilions, gardens and groves. Two verses are especially worth pausing at: “whether he gives away his head or gives away his eyes, whether he gives away his hands or gives away his feet” and “he opens his mouth and puts forth his tongue to give it to the flock of beings, his mind glad and without sorrow or longing” — and to the matter of giving the tongue there is appended at the end a vow, “that they may all obtain the broad and long tongue of a Tathāgata.” The tongue that is given away, and the mark of a buddha's broad and long tongue that is vowed in return: this is the one place in all the verses where cause and effect are matched so exactly.

After that, eleven and a half verses praise the dedication free of marks, and Chengguan divides them into four sections. The first section of five verses praises the cutting off of thought and perception within, opening with “the bodhisattva contemplates all dharmas: who is it that is able to enter this dharma?” — beginning with a question, of which Chengguan says that this line displays the power of contemplation in general, the next line is the emptiness of person, and the rest are all the emptiness of dharmas. Within this section lie the two most important verses of the whole set. The first is “he knows that the nature of awakening arises from conditions, and enters the deep Dharma realm with nothing that goes against it,” which Chengguan explains thus: the nature of awakening is originally pure, yet does not obstruct arising from conditions; with pure dharmas as condition there is an arising of awakening, and that arising is without nature, and so it does not go against the Dharma realm — and for this he lets fall the five graphs “this is awakening as nature-arising.” This is the most central term of the Huayan school, and in this sub-unit it appears this one time only. The second is “with wisdom he fully knows that deeds have no own-nature, and yet because of causes and conditions deeds are not lost,” for which Chengguan sets up a dilemma: if deeds exist in dependence upon the body, then they are not by the mind; if they dwell within the mind, then wherever there is mind, all is deed. Since it is granted that there is mind without deed, one may see that deeds arise borrowing conditions — where could their own nature be?

The second section of two verses praises the meeting of objects while apart from defilement, beginning at “the bodhisattva has already reached the further shore of form”; Chengguan says that because he has reached the shore of what cannot be obtained, therefore there is nothing to which he clings. The third section of two verses praises the foregoing question and its explanation, taking neither the mark of permanent abiding nor clinging to the mark of annihilation. The fourth section of two and a half verses praises the not obstructing of the following of marks, beginning at “if one is able to contemplate all dharmas in this way” — and here is a sentence that is the joint of the whole set of verses: “though its nature be sought and not obtained, still what the bodhisattva practices is not in vain.” It cannot be found, and yet the practice is not in vain.

The last five and a half verses praise the meaning of according and the rest, and along with it the fruit of the station. From “following it and pondering, one enters the right meaning” it goes on to say that dharmas neither arise nor cease and neither come nor go, and to say that one fully understands the true nature and yet makes no discrimination within the nature of dharmas, and then comes to rest in three verses: “the nature of dharmas is everywhere in every place, in all sentient beings and in all lands, the three times are wholly within it with nothing left over, and yet there is no shape or mark that can be obtained”; “all that the buddhas have awakened to they take in entirely with nothing left over”; and the closing verse, “just as the nature of dharmas pervades all, so too is it with the bodhisattva's dedication; dedicating in this way to all sentient beings, he is constantly in the world without retrogressing.”

The misreading to be set right is to read the “so too is it” of the closing verse as a comparison. It is not saying that dedication is as wide as the nature of dharmas is; it is saying that the reason dedication is able to pervade is precisely that the nature of dharmas already pervades — the bodhisattva's dedication does not manufacture a large scope of its own, but follows the measure that the nature of dharmas originally has. And only therefore does the last line dare to say “constantly in the world without retrogressing”: to retrogress is a thing that has a boundary, and what pervades the Dharma realm has nowhere it could retrogress to.

Where it comes down to use: the whole set of verses sets out from the bodily form of a king and comes to rest in the nature of dharmas being everywhere. All the giving in between — head and eyes, hands and feet, wife and children, royal throne — lies along this one line. If after reading the prose one still feels those gates have nothing to do with oneself, then reading these forty-one verses one can see that they were one thing all along: the exchanging of a self that has a boundary for a measure that has none.

Lineage

Its relation to the two preceding sub-units. This sub-unit, together with the gates of the giving of outer wealth and the gates of the giving of inner wealth, belongs to the sixth dedication, the dedication that accords with and makes firm all roots of goodness; and the three passages Chengguan determines — the freedom from marks, the explanation of the name, and the fruit of the station — gather in the whole station of this dedication, and not merely the fifteen gates of this sub-unit. In reading the freedom from marks in this passage one must bring the number of gates of the two preceding sub-units in along with it, or half of the “breadth of the practice” falls away.

The three accounts of the number of the gates. Chengguan establishes no total number but numbers them in sequence following the sentences of the scripture, and this sub-unit stands as his forty-sixth through his sixtieth; Fazang's Tanxuan ji counts on its own to a seventieth gate; Li Tongxuan's Xin Huayan jing lun makes them sixty-one passages and lists them by name one by one, this sub-unit answering to his forty-eighth through his sixty-first. The three divide and join differently; both are recorded without adjudication. Further, Li Tongxuan's fifty-first gate reads “relinquishing the body and giving it to all sentient beings, being humble and free of pride,” whose “humble” is attached to the scripture's gate of giving one's own body, while the gate name's “giving it to all sentient beings” is nearer to the gate of giving the body to all sentient beings; and between these two he does not separately set out a gate of offering the body to the buddhas — the density of the gates is not level with that of the base text; the fact is faithfully recorded, and his gate numbers are not forcibly altered so as to fit the passages of the scripture.

The divergent names of the passages. The passage of general conclusion Chengguan names the general conclusion of the dedication of the roots of goodness of the several gates, and the Tanxuan ji names “the dedication that gives rise to gladness”; the passage on freedom from marks Chengguan names the dedication free of marks, which is to direct toward the true limit, and the Tanxuan ji names “the dedication that tallies with the real, which is the true limit”; the passage on the fruit of the station Chengguan names making clear the fruit of the station, and the Tanxuan ji names “setting forth the benefit accomplished by the practice.” The names differ while the passages they designate answer to one another; both are recorded without adjudication.

Li Tongxuan takes prajñā as its substance. Li Tongxuan determines the sixth dedication, the dedication that accords with and makes firm all roots of goodness, as “making clear that the prajñā-pāramitā is its substance,” and takes Sudhana's good friend Veṣṭhila, dwelling in the city Good Crossing and making offerings at the stūpa of the Buddha of the sandalwood seat, as its symbolic betokening. This is Li Tongxuan's own regular procedure of matching the ten perfections with Sudhana's good friends, and does not run along the same road as Chengguan's explanation of the text sentence by sentence following the scripture; here it is recorded without adjudication.

Its divergences from the sixty-fascicle text. The dividing and joining of the gates in this passage of the Jin translation is not level with that of the base text: the Jin text makes the giving away of wife and concubines, sons and daughters the first of this passage, and has besides a gate of giving the household beginning “when he sees people come to beg for his household,” whose ten vows answer to the gate of house and home in the base text; the base text has no such separate gate. The pairs of “does not cling” in the passage on freedom from marks, the “not” and the “without” in the passage of question and explanation, the fourth, sixth, and seventh of the ten meanings in the explanation of the name, and the clauses of according in the fruit of the station — ten in the base text and nine in the Jin text — all these divergences are recorded without adjudication, and the word-for-word comparison is to be seen in the apparatus of this sub-unit.

Places for cross-reading. When Chengguan explains the gate of giving the royal throne he points out that for the remaining meaning one may look at the chapter “The Ten Inexhaustible Treasuries”; when he explains why all ten vows of the gate of the inner palace retinue speak of samādhi he cites Sudhana's verse as evidence, and Li Tongxuan likewise matches this dedication with one of Sudhana's good friends — the chapter “Entry into the Dharma Realm” is the point of comparison common to both commentators. Besides these, Chengguan cites the Yuqie shidi lun thirty-nine in three places within this sub-unit (the explaining beforehand in the giving of wife and children, giving with the four aspirations, and the four hindrances to giving), cites the Da zhidu lun fourteen on the three kinds of giving in one place, and cites the words of the Weimojie suoshuo jing on the lowest beggar in one place; and the Yanyi chao cites the verse on the two truths from the chapter on the four truths in the Zhong lun in one place — all of these are cited by the commentators, and are not attached by the scripture itself.

What is wanting in the lineage. Searching the several chapters and commentaries of the Huayan school for the three terms “according with and making firm,” “the dedication free of marks,” and “the dedication that accords with roots of goodness in equality,” the four works Huayan yisheng jiaoyi fenqi zhang, Kongmu zhang, Huayan jing zhigui, and Shixuan men all yield no occurrence. In the Pusa yingluo benye jing the name is seen only twice in the enumerated clauses of the names of the ten dedications, where it reads “the dedication that accords with roots of goodness in equality,” a divergent rendering from the name of the dedication in the base text; the passage explaining the name of that scripture's own sixth dedication does not cite the text of the present scripture and is not the same passage as this sub-unit, so that only the sameness of the name is recorded, without forced attachment. For the fifteen gates of giving and the passages on freedom from marks, the explanation of the name, and the fruit of the station in this sub-unit, no clause-by-clause citation is found in the treatises of the several schools; the want is recorded as it stands.

First See Clearly What This Section Is Doing

The ten dedications have reached the seventh, and its name is “the dedication that accords equally with all sentient beings.” In the first six dedications the roots of goodness have already been given away layer upon layer; at this one the scripture suddenly turns back and spends a long passage listing out, clause by clause, ‘those roots of goodness that are to be dedicated’ — thirty-one clauses in all — and only then sets to work at dedicating. This sequence is itself the character of this dedication: it is not that the posture of dedicating comes first, but that what is really in one's hands is counted up first.

The one who speaks, from beginning to end, is the single bodhisattva Vajra Banner. He himself asks, “what is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's dedication that accords equally with all sentient beings,” and himself answers on downward, with no other bodhisattva breaking in with a question and no voice from the Tathāgata in between, until at the last he concludes by himself with the sentence, “Sons of the Buddha! This is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's seventh dedication, the dedication that accords equally with all sentient beings,” and then, carried by the Buddha's spiritual power, speaks twenty-one verses. The whole section is one question and one answer, running straight through in a single breath.

How are the three graphs “according equally” to be taken? Chengguan explains this, saying: with roots of goodness one accords with beings and benefits them by a mind of equality; and this graph “equal” runs through to both ends — the beings who are accorded with are of themselves without marks and equal, and the mind and wisdom that does the according is equal too when its light falls on them; the name is taken from the side of the dedication, because “equal” just is “according.” He further cites one line from the Pusa yingluo benye jing in support: by contemplating that good and evil parents are not two, of one mark and one conjoined mark, it is therefore named the dedication of contemplating and according with all sentient beings. So this dedication is not ‘I treat everyone equally,’ but ‘the one accorded with and the one who accords are of themselves the two faces of a single thing.’

Li Tongxuan thinks otherwise. He establishes the name not from the equality of the one who accords and the one accorded with, but from the matching of the ten perfections to the stations: the seventh station has the pāramitā of skillful means for its master and great compassion for its gate; the first six perfections are the mind that cultivates going out of birth-and-death, and the latter four perfections, from the seventh on, are the taking of the wisdom of skillful means back into birth-and-death to transform sentient beings. He therefore matches Sudhana's teacher Guanshiyin to this station. The two accounts stand together, the one entering by the meaning of the name and the other by the station of practice; here they are recorded without adjudication.

As for the frame of the whole section: Chengguan outlines it as the two stretches of prose and repeated verses; the prose is further divided into the two layers of the practice of the station and the fruit of the station, and within the practice of the station there are the three parts of restating the name and raising the question, explaining broadly in accordance with the question, and concluding the name in accordance with the explanation. What follows here goes by the scripture's own passages, speaking part by part.

The Roots of Goodness Dedicated: Why Thirty-One Clauses Have to Be Listed So Finely

Ask first: the weight of dedication lies in the “dedicating” — why must the roots of goodness first be listed out as thirty-one clauses? Answer: because “dedicating” is not an empty act; it must have something that is dedicated. These thirty-one clauses are the spreading out of ‘what you actually have in hand.’ Chengguan explains this, saying that these thirty-one clauses divide into three portions — the first eleven clauses make clear the measure of the roots of goodness, the next ten the conditions on which the roots of goodness depend, and the last ten the nature of the roots of goodness.

The first eleven clauses are quantity. Small, great, and broad divide by the measure of the mind: Chengguan says that to give with a small mind is called a small goodness, to give for the sake of awakening is called great, and to give for the benefit of others is called broad. Many, measureless, and of every different kind divide by class: what has not yet reached the measureless can only be called many, and three set against five is called of every different kind. The remaining five clauses — as many as dust motes, asaṃkhyeya, without border, unthinkable, unweighable — speak of manyness by number, and the last two of them also show forth what is profound and hard to think, boundless at every side.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “small roots of goodness” as goodness not worth mentioning. It stands in one portion together with great and broad; these are three measures of mind in one and the same good deed, not three grades of goodness — one and the same giving is small if the mind is small, great if it is for awakening, broad if it is for others.

Brought down to the ground: this passage is an inventory sheet. The fault a practitioner most easily falls into is remembering only the “great deeds” he has done, whereas half of the thirty-one clauses are what you do every day and never count — the inner field, the outer field, the field of cultivating good minds of every kind. Only when you count these in do you know how much you actually have to dedicate.

The Three Portions Enter Into One Another: Here the Huayan Way of Reading Shows Its Face Once

Ask first: if the three portions are the three layers of quantity, condition, and substance, why should they not each be kept to itself? Answer: at this point Chengguan lets fall an important sentence — every one of the first eleven clauses runs through all of the middle ten, every one of the middle ten is able to give birth to all of the last ten, and every one of the last ten can hold within it all of the first ten; every one of the first eleven encompasses the twenty that follow. Having said this he adds only four graphs: “ponder it and it will show itself.”

This is a demonstration, upon a numbered set of dharmas, of the Huayan way of reading. Read in the ordinary way, the thirty-one clauses are a list; read by this sentence of Chengguan's, they are thirty-one mirrors reflecting one another — within a single “small root of goodness” there are contained the ten conditions of the field of the Buddha, the field of the Dharma, the field of the Saṅgha, and the rest, and also the ten substances of giving, precepts, patience, vigor, concentration, and wisdom.

Clear away a misreading: do not, because of this, wipe out the distinction of the three portions. Chengguan first divides three portions and afterward speaks of their mutual holding; the dividing is a real dividing and the holding a real holding, not first a dividing and then an overturning of it.

Brought down to the ground: in reading these thirty-one clauses there is no need to demand that ‘every clause be matched up one to one.’ Take hold of the one that touches you most nearly — say, “roots of goodness of diligently cultivating every kind of relinquishing” — and then ask: is the field of the Buddha in this clause? Is contemplating with wisdom in it? Is sheltering and nourishing the world in it? If all are there, you have read those four graphs of Chengguan's rightly.

The Middle Ten Clauses and the Last Ten: Where Roots of Goodness Come From, and What They Have for Their Substance

Ask first: since the middle ten clauses are called “roots of goodness of a field,” is the field the root of goodness, or are the roots of goodness born from the field? Answer: it is the latter. Chengguan explains this, saying that among the middle ten clauses the first five are the fields that serve as conditions — the first four (Buddha, Dharma, Saṅgha, good friend) are the fields that wisdom takes as its object, and the last one (all sentient beings) is the field that compassion takes as its object; the last five are the fields of making and cultivating — the first clause, skillfulness in means, is the wisdom that does the cultivating; the second, cultivating good minds of every kind, is the mind that does the cultivating; the third and fourth, the inner field and the outer field, are the fields contemplated; the fifth, the borderless dharmas that assist the path, is the dharma cultivated, for it is upon seeing this dharma that one can rouse up the practices of the ten perfections and the rest.

The last ten clauses are the nature. Chengguan says that the first seven can be understood; the eighth, “gathering together borderless merit,” is the piling up of virtue by the mind of vowing; the ninth, “diligently cultivating the practices that are the bodhisattva's work,” is the accomplishing of the work of practice by the power of mindfulness in practicing and the power of eloquence in speaking the Dharma; the tenth, “everywhere sheltering and nourishing every world,” is the being able to shelter and to nourish because of sovereignty in wisdom.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “the inner field” as merely the inner mind and “the outer field” as merely outer things. Chengguan judges these two clauses to be “the fields contemplated,” that is, the objects that are contemplated, not the mind that contemplates; the mind that contemplates is in the clause before.

Brought down to the ground: this passage points the road for a practitioner. If roots of goodness never manage to grow, it is most often because the fields that serve as conditions are narrow — of the four fields of wisdom (the Three Jewels and the good friend) only one or two are met with over long stretches, and the field of compassion (all sentient beings) hardly comes in at all. Widen the conditioning fields and the substance thickens of itself.

Having Cultivated These Roots of Goodness, What Does a Person Become

Ask first: once the roots of goodness have been listed, dedicating ought to follow — why is a long passage of “practicing and abiding, entering and gathering in” inserted in between? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as “virtue accomplished by cultivation,” that is, the function of the practice spoken of after the substance of the practice. This passage falls into two stretches: first a restating of the ten clauses of what has been cultivated, and then a showing of the virtue accomplished.

Of the first ten clauses, Chengguan says the first is general and the remaining nine are particular — abiding in attention, entering by applied effort, gathering the practice so that it is one's own, gradually accumulating so that it becomes much, borrowing conditions as support, illuminating the phenomena and the principle of it, the hindrances of confusion not arising: these seven are self-cultivation; the last two clauses, “setting forth and rousing up,” are the turning of it to teach others — opening it up and pointing it out, and urging others to practice as it is spoken. He adds one more important sentence: cultivate any single goodness and these ten are there. That is to say, these ten clauses are not ten stages, but ten faces that are all present at once whenever any good deed is cultivated to completeness.

The passage that follows, from “he obtains a mind able to bear” on, Chengguan judges as ten pairs, each pair containing cause and fruit: obtaining patience and stilling evil; gathering in the faculties and being complete in precepts; departing from what is upside down and carrying out what is right; receiving from above and supporting below; the buddhas' protection and the increase of goodness; abiding on the vow and rousing up the work; the mind being equal to the buddhas and so heading toward the place of awakening; entering the Buddha's power within and passing beyond the world in outer marks; not delighting in the reward to come and not being greedy for present ease; not clinging to the practices and yet cultivating dedication. He further gathers them up: of the ten pairs the first eight accomplish virtue and the last two depart from faults — the ninth departs from the ordinary person, the tenth from the lesser vehicle.

Clear away a misreading: of the last pair, which says “he does not cling to the practices; he takes all his roots of goodness and dedicates them,” Chengguan points out expressly that although the two graphs “dedicate” appear here, the sense is still speaking of the goodness that is to be dedicated, and dedicating has not yet begun. The boundary of the passage must be seen clearly.

Brought down to the ground: these ten pairs can be used as a checklist. The ninth pair is the one most easily missed — “he does not delight in being born among the gods, is not greedy for wealth and ease”; to cultivate well and then begin inwardly to expect a reward is to have fallen upon this very pair.

Gathering In by the Mind of Awakening: Here Lies the Seed of the Three Dedications

Ask first: since the roots of goodness have already accomplished virtue, one might simply dedicate them — why must one first “think in this way”? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as the first part within “gathering in and about to dedicate,” the calling to mind of the dharma that is the root cause of the goodness cultivated, and only then comes the properly dedicating. The scripture speaks five clauses: these roots of goodness are what the mind of awakening has gathered together, pondered out, roused up, resolved upon and delighted in, and increased and helped. Chengguan explains this, saying that these five clauses show in general that all goodness comes from the mind of awakening — gathered together by much hearing, pondered as to its meaning, roused up into practice, resolved upon and delighted in without weariness, and only thereby profound and only thereby broad.

Then the three clauses “all of it is for pitying all sentient beings, all of it is for seeking omniscience in all its modes, all of it is for accomplishing the Tathāgata's ten powers”: Chengguan says these three clauses show precisely the meaning of the three dedications of the mind of awakening — the wisdom of all modes realizes the true limit, and so the three minds of awakening dedicate to the three places. That is to say, the three places of dedicating to beings, to awakening, and to the true limit have their seed settled already in this one thought, and one need not wait for a later passage for them to appear.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “he thinks in this way” as a kind of self-encouragement. The scripture goes straight on to say, “when he thinks in this way, his roots of goodness increase and advance and will never retrogress” — this one thought has efficacy; it turns the roots of goodness from a state in which they might retrogress into one in which they do not.

Brought down to the ground: this passage gives a very concrete method. When you have done a good deed, do not at once think about its reward, but turn back and acknowledge once where it came from: this came from that first thought of aspiration of mine. Acknowledge it once, and the root of goodness advances a layer.

Vowing That They Become the Giving of Outer Wealth: Ten Kinds of Thing and One “Suppose There Were One Person”

Ask first: a dedication may be dedicated so as to become any practice — why does the scripture vow precisely that it accomplish giving? Chengguan here asks and answers himself, giving three reasons: first, one is oneself furnished with the supporting conditions of the practice, and so it says “cultivate the bodhisattva's practice”; second, sentient beings are benefited on the spot, and so it says “give it all away to all”; third, dāna (giving) is the head of the six perfections, and by raising one the other four are exemplified, so that this one practice of giving is complete in every practice. Fazang set himself the same question and answered somewhat differently: wealth and the like benefit them at present and cause them to leave suffering; by giving one gathers them in so that they enter the Dharma and accomplish practice; and the goodness so produced is dedicated and given to beings — the other practices do not carry these three meanings together, and so giving alone is taken.

The ten kinds of thing are precious things, clothing, fine incense, articles of adornment, measureless maṇi jewels, fine flowers, the finest flavors, goods and wealth, couches and seats, and jeweled crowns, and every one of them is to fill asaṃkhyeya worlds. Chengguan says that this part shows the vastness of the giving, because each single item is of the number of asaṃkhyeya.

The real barrier lies in the sentence that follows: “Suppose there were one person who, for all the kalpas of the future, came constantly to beg: I would give him these things and never grow weary and take rest.” Chengguan judges this as “setting forth the limitlessness of the giving” — long in time, many in fields, according with what is asked and without weariness. That one person keeps coming to ask, and asks until the kalpas of the future are exhausted, is far harder than ten kinds of thing filling the worlds.

Clear away a misreading: do not read this passage as a spreading out of the imagination. It is a test question about the measure of the mind: that things be many is not hard to imagine; what is hard is the four graphs “came constantly to beg.”

Brought down to the ground: reading this far, one may well ask oneself a question — if there were a person who asked today, asked again tomorrow, and asked for a whole lifetime, at which time would I begin to weary? The “never grew weary and took rest” of the scripture is the lesson that begins to be counted from that very time.

The Ten Clauses of Mind at the Time of Giving: Five Departing from Faults, Five According with Principle

Ask first: in giving it is enough to give the thing away — why bother about what mind there is? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as “making clear the surpassingness of the giving, departing from faults and according with what is present,” and judges the ten clauses as two halves — the first five depart from faults, the last five accord with principle. The first five are without pretense, without hope, without wanting a name, without regret partway, without fretting and burning, and between regret and fretting Chengguan marks a cause and effect: to go on regretting will give rise to fretting and burning. Of the last five, which accord with principle, the first two (the mind that seeks solely the road of omniscience, and the mind that gives everything away) are great wisdom, and the last three (the mind that pities beings, the mind that transforms and ripens them, and the mind that causes all of them to abide in the wisdom of omniscience) are great compassion.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “without a mind that hopes” as indifference. What it is aimed at is hoping for a return, not the not hoping that beings be benefited — the five clauses that immediately follow are precisely a strong hoping, hoping that they abide in the wisdom of omniscience. What is departed from is the hope for oneself; what is kept is the vow for others.

Brought down to the ground: the five “withouts” are for self-examination on the spot of giving, and the five “rouses only” for self-examination afterward. The hardest are the fourth and the fifth — when after the giving the mind churns up, that is regret and fretting, and Chengguan has already drawn out this line of cause and effect for us.

Vowing That They Become the Giving of Inner Wealth: From Elephants and Horses All the Way to the Marrow

Ask first: ten outer things have already been given above; what is different about listing ten more here? Chengguan explains this, saying that the division of inner and outer lies in “taking what has feeling and what has not for inner and outer” — what has the consciousness of feeling and what has not. So the ten items of this passage are jeweled elephants, jeweled horses, women musicians, men and women, one's own body, one's own head, one's own eyes, the blood and flesh and marrow of one's own body, sovereign royal stations, and servants and attendants — pressing on from things that have feeling all the way to one's own station and limbs and joints.

Chengguan judges that the inner giving too falls into four parts: first, over against a single field of merit it shows the vastness of the giving (giving to a single sentient being he gives all these things, each of them of the number of asaṃkhyeya); second, by one it exemplifies the rest and so displays the limitlessness of the giving, first raising a person to exemplify persons and then a place to exemplify places; third, it concludes what is done, encompassing six limitlessnesses — of thing, of time, of mind, of field, of giving, and of place; fourth, it shows the surpassingness of the giving, departing from faults and accomplishing virtue. He matches the six limitlessnesses one by one to the scripture: place reaches through the Dharma realm, and so it says “sheltering everywhere”; time exhausts the future, and so it says “never cut off or resting”; the field exhausts the realm of beings, and so it says “pitying them everywhere”; the giving accords with what is asked, and so it says “supplying and offering”; the things encompass every kind, and so it says “not letting his practice of giving stop on meeting some circumstance”; the mind abides in the great giving, and so it says “not giving rise to a weary mind.”

Clear away a misreading: do not read sentences of the sort “filled with my own body” as a bloody exaggeration. Every clause of the scripture has a mind attached to it — one's own body is “given away with the mind of awakening roused up,” one's own head “with a mind that is not heedless,” the blood and flesh and marrow “with no clinging or attachment in the mind at all.” The weight of what is relinquished lies in that mind, not in that thing.

Brought down to the ground: among the six limitlessnesses the one that breaks first is most often “time.” Most people can give greatly once; what is hard is “never cut off or resting.” And so the scripture says it exceedingly finely — “not, even for the space of a finger-snap, giving rise to a weary mind.”

The Nineteen Minds of Giving: Seven Layers of Surpassingness

Ask first: ten clauses of the mind of giving have been spoken already; are these nineteen clauses a repetition? Answer: they are not. The earlier ten clauses are the mind at the time of the giving of outer wealth; these nineteen clauses are the minds that arise after the great giving that reaches through the Dharma realm — their place and their weight are both different. Chengguan judges here that “there are twenty minds: the first restates what came before and raises what follows; from ‘that is to say’ on, the nineteen minds are properly shown,” and he gathers them under seven layers of surpassingness.

The first six minds (unstained, unbound, released, of great strength, most profound, gathering in well) are surpassingness of skillful device — not stained by the practice of giving, not bound by the giving, released by the blocking of the first two, not overturned by adverse conditions, reaching the most profound principle, gathering in well without marks. The next five minds (not grasping, not seeing a life-holder, well tamed, not scattered, not falsely reckoning) are surpassingness of purity, and Chengguan divides them very finely: the first clause, “not grasping,” is general, generally without the two graspings; the four clauses below are particular — not seeing a life-holder is the absence of the grasping at self, and the remaining three are the absence of the grasping at dharmas: first, not taking up the marks of dharmas; second, understanding that the nature is only mind; third, seeing that the nature is empty. The next three minds (complete in the nature of every kind of jewel, not seeking fruit and reward, penetrating all dharmas) are surpassingness of abiding. The next two minds (abiding upon the great dedication, deciding well every meaning) are surpassingness of dedication, because they are complete in the three places of dedication. The next one mind (causing all sentient beings to abide in unsurpassed wisdom) is surpassingness of intent, pitying all. The last two minds (giving birth to the great light of the Dharma, entering the wisdom of omniscience) are surpassingness of what is relied upon, established in dependence on the mind of awakening, the first clause being the cause and the latter the fruit. At the end Chengguan gathers it in one sentence: the vastness and limitlessness of the giving shown above is surpassingness of work; and only when the seven surpassingnesses are complete is the practice of the perfection of giving accomplished.

Clear away a misreading: do not take “the mind that does not see a life-holder” for an isolated term. Chengguan has already set it in the second place of “surpassingness of purity,” joined into one group with not taking up the marks of dharmas, understanding that the nature is only mind, and seeing that the nature is empty — after breaking the grasping at self comes the breaking of the grasping at dharmas, and this group has a sequence.

Brought down to the ground: the nineteen minds need not be cultivated one by one. Recognize which layer you are stuck at — most people are stuck at the second mind of the first layer, “unbound”: the giving has been given, but the mind is tied up by that act of giving and turns it over and over.

The Ten Vows of Dedicating in Each Thought-Moment: The First Vow Speaks of Wealth, the Rest Speak of Dharma

Ask first: since wealth and goods have been given already, why rouse ten further vows within each thought-moment? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as “dedicating this giving again and vowing that beings be complete in wealth and Dharma” — before, the roots of goodness were dedicated so as to become the articles of giving; here the giving itself is dedicated once again, dedicated to beings, causing them to be complete in wealth and in Dharma. He explains the ten vows, saying: the first clause, “rich in wealth and jewels,” is abundance of wealth, because what is practiced is the giving of wealth; the remaining nine clauses are all completeness in Dharma, because the root of goodness has been accumulated.

The sequence of the ten vows has a direction of its own: from being rich in wealth and jewels, on to the treasury of merit, peace and ease, the bodhisattva's work, dharmas of the first rank, the vehicle of omniscience that does not retrogress, seeing all the buddhas everywhere, being forever parted from confusion and defilement, and a pure and equal mind, and coming to rest at last on “leave every difficult condition and obtain omniscience.” The first clause is in the world, the last in the Buddha's wisdom.

Clear away a misreading: do not suppose that “may all beings be rich in wealth and jewels” is a vow of a low order and pass it over. Chengguan points out expressly that it comes carried by the giving of wealth — what was given was wealth, and so the first thing vowed is wealth; this is the vow answering to the practice, not a low vow.

Brought down to the ground: the most usable point of these ten vows lies in the four graphs “in each thought-moment.” It is not a single great dedication made once, but a short dedication set into every thought. When you have done one small thing, to run the first two clauses through your mind is just the practice of this passage.

The Hundred and Ten Clauses of What the Dedication Is For: The Sequential and the Fused Set Together in One Passage

Ask first: this passage runs a hundred and ten clauses of “so that all beings may … ” straight down without a single closing word in between — how is it to be read? Answer: Chengguan first restates a general judgment — there are a hundred and ten clauses in all, divided into two: the first seventy-two clauses cause the accomplishing of the sequential cultivating of cause up to fruit, and the latter thirty-eight clauses cause the accomplishing of the fused fullness of cause and completeness of fruit; that these two are unobstructed is the intent of the dedication. It may also be said that the former is one's own portion and the latter the advance beyond it.

The first seventy-two clauses he divides further into six portions matched to the stations: the first twenty-one clauses cause the cultivation of goodness so as to head toward the practice of the station of Worthy Head, and “yet they make clear the practice of giving purely,” the last clause, “gather in the wisdom of the Tathāgata,” being the illumining of the emptiness of the three wheels and the departing from every discrimination, and so the same as awakening; the next ten clauses accomplish the cultivation within the station of the lineage; the next ten accomplish the cultivation within the station of understanding-and-practice, and the tenth clause of them, which says “measureless,” refers to the four measureless minds; the next ten accomplish the cultivation of the practice of the ten perfections within the station of the ten grounds, where the seventh clause, “full in the borderless pure Dharma realm,” runs through both phenomena and principle and so says “borderless,” and is the perfection of skillful means, the eighth clause, “fulfill the spiritual penetrations,” is the great vow, the ninth clause, “abide in equality,” may then be named power, and the tenth clause, “enter the fields of the buddhas,” is the fullness of wisdom; the next ten accomplish the cultivation within the station of equal awakening, and so every clause carries the graph “everywhere”; the last eleven clauses accomplish the practice within the station of the Buddha's fruit.

The latter thirty-eight clauses divide into four portions: the first ten cause beings to be full in the practice of the cause within the station of the lineage; the next ten cause the station of understanding-and-practice to be full in cause and complete in fruit; the next eight cause the station of the ten grounds to be full in the practice of the cause; the last ten cause the fruit of buddhahood to be complete. Chengguan here sets up a guard for himself — if these thirty-eight clauses were assigned to the Buddha's fruit above, it would come out that ‘within the fruit one is still cultivating the bodhisattva's practice and still meeting good friends,’ which would go against right principle. And so they must be set up as a separate portion.

Clear away a misreading: do not read these hundred and ten clauses as a list of wishes. Chengguan himself adds two sentences at the end: as for the meanings above, each has its own ground with respect to each single station, but fearing a lengthy text he has raised only the general outline; moreover, the sequential and the fused are unobstructed and must not be fixedly grasped. The division into stations is so that one may read one's way in, not so that it may be cut dead.

Brought down to the ground: the best way to read this passage is to find the portion of it that is of use to you at this moment. If you are just setting out, read the first twenty-one clauses — they all speak of the mind of giving. If you are teaching others, read the ten clauses of the station of equal awakening — every one of them carries the graph “everywhere.”

Two Points of Apparatus Within the Hundred and Ten Clauses: The Sixty Kinds of Voice, and Neither One Nor Different

Ask first: within these hundred and ten clauses, is there anything that needs a separate explanation? Answer: Chengguan expressly stops and explains two places.

The first is “obtain the sixty kinds of voice.” He first points out that this number appears in the tenth dedication, the dedication equal to the Dharma realm and measureless, without being complete there, and then cites this scripture's chapter “The Inconceivable Dharmas of the Buddha” as evidence: the Tathāgata is complete in sixty kinds of voice, each voice having five hundred parts, and each part having measureless hundreds of thousands of pure sounds for its adornment. He further supplies the account of another line — that in some places sixty-four sounds are spoken of, because sound has eight turnings and each of the eight turning-sounds is complete in eight virtues (harmonious, gentle, clear, easily understood, without error, not thin and small, vast, and far-reaching), so that eight times eight is sixty-four. The two accounts stand together, and here they are recorded without adjudication.

The second is “obtain the sovereign spiritual penetration of all merit that is neither one nor different.” Chengguan explains this, saying that this is, among the ten penetrations, the penetration without substance-nature and without contrivance — knowing that all the conditioned and the unconditioned and the rest are neither one nor different, and so transforming with sovereignty within all the fields of defiled and pure, self and other, being each other and making each other without falling into oneness or difference, and unobstructed in the function of the work. He also points the road, saying that if neither one nor different is to be opened out into four propositions, it is as spoken in the chapter “The Ten Acceptances.”

Clear away a misreading: do not remember the sixty kinds of voice as one of the Buddha's spiritual penetrations. The scripture's sentence is “so that all beings may obtain the sixty kinds of voice, so that what they say is sincere and true and can be believed and accepted” — what is vowed is that what beings say be believed by others; the number of the sounds is a description, and being sincere and true is the bone of it.

Brought down to the ground: both places point at one and the same matter — the speaking of Dharma. The former speaks of the sound, the latter of the function. If what a person says no one is willing to believe, let him not yet seek spiritual penetrations; let him first seek that “what he says be sincere and true.”

What Kind of Person the One Who Dedicates in This Way Is: Thirteen Clauses

Ask first: after the hundred and ten clauses, the scripture turns to “in this way pities, benefits, and gives ease to all sentient beings” — is this a new passage? Answer: it is. Chengguan outlines this as “concluding the benefit accomplished,” and judges that the text has thirteen clauses, showing two kinds of birth and gathering in all virtue.

The first three clauses show the surpassing and wondrous birth: purity and being far from stinginess and envy are the cause, and receiving a surpassing and wondrous birth is the fruit. Chengguan says it very plainly — what is pure is the precepts, and so one receives a body among gods and men; what is far from stinginess is giving, and so one has great wealth and station; and wealth and station among gods and men are the surpassing and wondrous birth, and so it says “complete in great dignity and virtue.”

The latter ten clauses show the birth of merit. Chengguan first sets up a boundary: even one who has great wealth and station among gods and men, but is without faith and understanding and the rest, is not called a birth of merit; the birth of merit is the path of the settled and surpassing. The ten clauses are: giving rise to great faith and understanding (marked off from wrong views and from the lesser vehicle); being forever parted from anger and from screening and murkiness (Chengguan says “screening” is folly and “murkiness” is greed, and since it takes in the other hindrances too it says “every”); his mind being pure (this clause is general, and from “plain and upright” on is particular — through being parted from anger he is plain and upright and gentle, through being parted from greed he is without flattery or crookedness, through being parted from the screen of folly he is without confusion and folly); carrying out the practice of going forth (cultivating true concentration and wisdom); the firm and equal mind (setting in motion the compassion of one same substance); the power of the white and pure dharmas (entering the undefiled cause); without vexation and without fault (through being parted from the faults above he does not vex sentient beings, and his own practice is without fault and is besides able to be dedicated); constantly cultivating right practice so as to tame sentient beings (benefiting self and other together); putting an end to unwholesome deeds (putting an end to the causes of evil); practicing austerities and every root of goodness (cultivating the root of goodness).

Clear away a misreading: the four graphs “without vexation and without fault” slip by easily. Chengguan splits them into two stretches — “without vexation” is said with respect to sentient beings (he does not vex sentient beings), and “without fault” is said with respect to oneself (his own practice is without fault). One phrase governs both ends.

Brought down to the ground: these thirteen clauses are a checklist of results, and an ordered one. If the topmost, “far from stinginess and envy,” has not been done, then “his mind is pure, plain and upright and gentle” below is most likely put on. Read from the top downward; wherever you stick, begin your mending there.

Urging Others to Dedicate in This Way Too: Six Clauses and the Ten Ultimate Vows

Ask first: one's own dedicating is already enough — why “further urges beings to cultivate likewise”? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as “urging others to dedicate,” and says that the “intent” here runs through both the one who acts and the one acted upon — on the bodhisattva's side, it is that he teaches for this reason; on the side of those taught, it is that he teaches them to do likewise. And so the six clauses of “so that all beings may … ” below are not a repetition of the hundred and ten clauses above; they are the intent held while urging others. He further marks one point expressly: the “nature” in the second clause has the sense of substance-nature, and so runs through both principle and phenomena.

Then the ten clauses of “he further dedicates every root of goodness in this way,” which Chengguan judges as the ultimate dedication, explaining how it differs from what came before: the dedication that went turning above was spoken as fitted the occasion, running through cause and fruit or through the worldly and the world-transcending; but now that the dedicating has come to its close, one vows only to accomplish the ultimate fruit. He explains the first two clauses, saying: at peace is being without hindrance and vexation; at ease is being solely stilled and ceased.

Clear away a misreading: do not read these ten “ultimately”s as an intensifying of tone. They are determined by position — this is the last vow of the whole dedication, and so every clause has “ultimately” added, whereas the earlier ten vows do not.

Brought down to the ground: this passage gives a lesson easily overlooked: to teach the dharma you are cultivating to another is itself one part of dedication, not an extra good deed.

The Ten Non-Clingings: The Step of Dedicating to the True Limit

Ask first: before this, what was dedicated to was beings and awakening — what do these ten “does not cling” clauses dedicate to? Answer: to the true limit. Chengguan outlines this as the second of the three distinct parts — making clear the dedicating to the true limit — and judges the ten clauses as five pairs: first, one's own cause in deeds and reward of deeds; second, one's own body and things; third, the lands and the directions and places in which practice is roused; fourth, the being and non-being of the sentient beings transformed; fifth, the dharmas of practice that are dedicated.

The last pair is the most important. Chengguan explains this, saying: he does not cling to any dharma, because he understands that dharmas are empty; he does not cling to there being no dharmas at all, because emptiness too is empty. The first nine clauses may still be called “relinquishing”; the last clause relinquishes the very standpoint of relinquishing.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “he does not cling to sentient beings, does not cling to there being no sentient beings” as a contradiction between the two. The former clause blocks taking sentient beings as real, and the latter blocks taking sentient beings as nothing — the scripture blocks both throughout, and does not take a side. There is a verse among the repeated verses that says just this: constantly, of all dharmas he makes no duality, nor does he make of them a non-duality; from the two and the non-two alike he departs.

Brought down to the ground: these ten clauses are a very sharp instrument of inspection. Having done a good deed, if ‘I did it’ floats up in the mind, that is clinging to the body and clinging to deeds; if ‘everything is empty anyway, why bother’ floats up, that is clinging to there being no dharmas at all. Both ends are within the range of these ten clauses.

Giving Everywhere to the World: Here the Three Places of Dedication Become One

Ask first: since marks have been departed from, why does it further say “he gives these roots of goodness everywhere to the world”? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as the third of the three distinct parts, the general conclusion of the three kinds of dedication, and says that it ‘nearby still carries on from what came before, and at a distance concludes the text above’ — the near end carries on from the freedom from marks just spoken, making clear that freedom from marks does not obstruct the following of marks; the far end gathers in the whole passage before. He matches it clause by clause: giving everywhere to the world is dedicating to beings; vowing that all beings fulfill the Buddha's wisdom is dedicating to awakening; and from “obtain a pure mind” on is dedicating to the true limit; the last clause, “increase and accomplish the lineage of the buddhas of the three times,” is the general conclusion of what the three kinds of dedication can do.

Clear away a misreading: do not suppose that to speak of following marks after freedom from marks is a step backward. The scripture's order is exactly the reverse — first following marks (the hundred and ten clauses), then freedom from marks (the ten non-clingings), then the joining of them (giving everywhere to the world); the third step is higher than the first two, because it is a following of marks still willingly done after freedom from marks.

Brought down to the ground: this passage may be taken as the receipt for all the passages before it. Having done, and relinquished, and also seen through to emptiness, tomorrow you go on doing as usual — that is what “does not obstruct the following of marks” means.

What Virtue Is Accomplished on the Spot at the Time of Cultivating This Dedication: Twelve Clauses

Ask first: the dedication having been expounded, the scripture turns to say “when he practices a dedication such as this, he goes beyond everything” — is this the reward? Answer: not wholly. Chengguan outlines this as the first portion of “the benefit accomplished by the dedication” — the vast virtue of the station of the cause — and first points out the four graphs “restating the time of the benefit accomplished,” showing that this benefit is accomplished at the very time of proper cultivation, not waited for in the future.

Of the twelve clauses, the first two are general: “goes beyond everything with none able to surpass him” shows depth, and “all the words of speech there are in every world, all praising him together, could not exhaust it” shows breadth. The latter ten clauses Chengguan gathers into five pairs: first, the pair of what is practiced and what is seen (cultivating everywhere all the bodhisattva's practices; going to the buddha-lands and seeing the buddhas, and further being able to see what the bodhisattvas of all the worlds do — first the fruit seen, then the cause); second, the pair of the profundity and breadth of speaking the Dharma (distinguishing the most profound phrases and meanings; obtaining dhāraṇī and expounding the wondrous Dharma — skillful in phenomena and principle, and so the Dharma and its meaning are most profound; the total holding encompasses broadly, and so the words and eloquence are unbroken); third, the pair of manifesting the body and adorning the lands (manifesting his body everywhere and making offerings to the buddhas; adorning and purifying buddha-fields, and within the adorning of the fields the fruit comes first and the cause after); fourth, the pair of accomplishing and gathering beings in (causing beings to be purified and accomplished; diligently cultivating the pāramitās and gathering sentient beings in); fifth, the pair of hearing afar and going swiftly (obtaining the unobstructed ear and hearing the wheel of the Dharma; dividing his body and going everywhere to the buddha-worlds). He explains the three “withouts” of the last pair, saying: he does not borrow meditative absorption, and so it says without reliance; he does not rouse applied effort, and so it says without contriving; he is not stained by the fields of the penetrations, and so it says without clinging. And he explains “seeing the same as the bodhisattvas,” saying: though the lands he goes to are many, the wind of the path is not two.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “not giving rise to a single thought of casting them aside” as a phrase of description. It is in the half about “hearing afar,” and it says that after hearing the Dharma one must practice — Chengguan says “having heard, one must practice,” and to hear without practicing is just to cast it aside.

Brought down to the ground: among the five pairs, the one most open to being taken up is the second. To distinguish the most profound phrases and meanings and be able to expound them rests on “skill in phenomena and principle”; when the principle is thoroughly grasped and the phenomena are familiar as well, then what is said comes out both profound and unbroken.

How Much More at Buddhahood: Ten Equalities and Purities

Ask first: the passage before has already spoken so vastly — what does the “how much more” of this passage mean? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as the purity of the virtue of the fruit, and judges it as two parts: first, restating the present so as to face what is to come — concluding that if the virtue of the cause above is already so inexhaustible, how much more so when the virtue of the fruit is accomplished in the future: could that be measured? Second, from “all buddha-fields” on, understanding beforehand the aspect it will bear, that is, sketching out in advance the look of the accomplished fruit, ten kinds of it raised in outline.

Of the ten, Chengguan says the first six (buddha-fields, sentient beings, bodies, faculties, fruits of deeds, assemblies and places of awakening) are the aspects of the fruit fully prepared, and the latter four (full practice, the wisdom of skillful means in dharmas, the Tathāgatas' vows and dedications, the buddhas' fields of spiritual penetration) raise the cause so as to show the fruit — because this fruit is full precisely through the fullness of the cause. He further explains why every clause says both “pure” and “equal”: pure is being unstained through and through; equal is being without any principle unrealized; the defiled and the pure are alike unreal, and so it says equal; the pure aspect answers to the principle, and so it says only pure.

After this passage Chengguan lets fall a judgment: virtue and function of cause and fruit such as this — were it not for the mutual holding of the stations in the round teaching, how could one who is still before the grounds obtain such unobstructedness? Fazang, at the same place in the sixty-fascicle text, says almost the same thing. The two masters do not differ here — the ten dedications are still before the grounds, and yet the virtue accomplished already runs through to the station of the fruit; and the reason for it lies solely in the mutual holding of the stations.

Clear away a misreading: do not read these ten clauses as a field that exists only after buddhahood. The scripture's construction is “he is still able to … how much more so … ,” and the weight is on the first half — now, at the time of practicing, it is already so; as for the future, that goes without saying.

Brought down to the ground: this passage can cure a common discouragement: the feeling that one's own station is too low and the result too far off. Chengguan's answer is the mutual holding of the stations — a single part of what is cultivated before the grounds is itself running through to the station of the fruit.

Fifteen Pairs Not at Odds: Phenomenon with Phenomenon, Phenomenon with Principle, Principle with Principle

Ask first: suddenly there come thirty clauses of “not at odds” — what is this speaking of? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as the virtue of sovereignty in bringing what is at odds together, and first distinguishes two concludings at the opening of this passage: first, it nearby concludes the virtue of the fruit above (the virtue of the fruit is borderless, and the text above said “could not exhaust it,” and so here it says “all merit, purity”); second, it concludes cause and fruit generally, for the benefit of following marks has been fully spoken, and it is to be shown that the benefit of following marks is just the benefit of freedom from marks, and so it concludes generally, “obtains … all merit … and is fully adorned”; only from this do the various not-at-odds below follow.

The fifteen pairs he divides into four portions: the first eleven pairs are dharma set against dharma without being at odds, and within them the first six pairs are phenomenon with phenomenon not at odds (the dependent and the proper recompense, deed and fruit, the ruling mind and its factors, mind and field, deeds and reward, the principal and the auxiliary), the next two pairs are phenomenon with principle not at odds (the nature and the marks of dharmas, the arising of dharmas and their nature), and the next three pairs are principle with principle not at odds (dependent and proper, person and dharma, the one who acts and what is acted upon); the next two pairs are world with world not at odds; the next one pair is world with Dharma not at odds; the last pair is cause with fruit not at odds, which is also the general conclusion.

As for why phenomenon and phenomenon are not at odds, Chengguan gives three reasons: because they are fused in accordance with the nature; because in dependent origination they rely upon one another; because they are of one and the same meaning of dependent origination. As for why phenomenon and principle are not at odds, he says: the nature is not at odds with the marks, because the principle is able to bring the phenomena about; the marks are not at odds with the nature, because the phenomena are able to display the principle; and he adds two old sayings — without stirring the true limit, the dharmas are set up; without spoiling the provisional names, the real mark is spoken. For principle with principle not at odds he raises “the equality of the limit free of desire is not at odds with the equality of the abiding of all sentient beings” as the example: the limit free of desire is the principle realized, the abiding of beings is the wisdom that realizes, and the wisdom merges into the principle, and so the two are not at odds. He goes on to open out five layers of four propositions, probing to the end the being-each-other and not-being-each-other of lands and sentient beings, of phenomena and the absence of nature, and afterward gathers it up himself in one sentence: the gates being unlike, there are many distinctions, but as for the real principle, there is no clause that does not fuse and pass through.

Fazang thinks otherwise. He divides the thirty clauses and fifteen pairs into three portions — the first seven pairs make clear the fusing of the phenomena of dependent origination so that the marks of being at odds are exhausted; the middle one pair is principle and phenomenon fusing into each other; the last seven pairs bring the conditions back to the real and so show the principle fused and not at odds — and he says that this is also the gradual sequence of showing forth the Dharma. The reasons he gives for phenomenon and phenomenon not being at odds are two: first, because in dependent origination each supports and accords with the other, and so they are apart from being at odds; second, because each depends on the other and so each is without a nature of its own, and, the nature of its own being absent, what is there to be at odds with what. The number of the divisions and the reasons established by the two masters each differ; here they are recorded without adjudication.

Clear away a misreading: for the clause “deeds are not at odds with the paths of deeds,” the eighty-fascicle text has “the paths of deeds” and the sixty-fascicle text has “the traces of deeds.” Chengguan explains this, saying: the thought before the act contrives deeds by way of means and is only named deed; the acts of body, speech, and mind that thought rouses are named the path of deeds, because they are what thought travels along; the Jin scripture names it the trace of deeds, and trace is just path. Fazang, at the same place in the sixty-fascicle text, sets out besides the accounts of the two masters Yuan and Bian and puts forth four explanations of his own. Do not read “the path of deeds” as the “path” of the ten wholesome paths of deeds.

Brought down to the ground: the fifteen pairs may be used as a kind of remedy. Most of what is at odds in a person's mind lies in the first pair — the feeling that the circumstances one is in (the land) and oneself (the sentient being) are making difficulties for each other. The scripture says the two are not at odds, and Chengguan's reason is “in dependent origination they rely upon one another”: the circumstances are what shared deeds have brought forth, and you are within those shared deeds too.

The Twenty Equalities: What Is Obtained After Marks Are Exhausted

Ask first: the not-at-odds has been spoken already — are the twenty clauses from “obtains the equality of deeds” on a repetition? Answer: they are not. Chengguan outlines this as the virtue of equality with marks exhausted, and judges it as two parts: the first ten clauses are the benefit of obtaining equality and freedom from marks, and the latter ten clauses (from “comes to serve all the buddhas” on) are the benefit of obtaining the not-spoiling of the marks.

The first ten clauses are deeds, reward, body, skillful means, vows, all sentient beings, all lands, all practices, omniscience, and the buddhas of the three times, every clause saying “equality”; the latter ten clauses are serving the buddhas, making offerings to the bodhisattvas, planting roots of goodness, fulfilling great vows, transforming sentient beings, knowing all deeds, serving and making offerings to good friends, entering the pure assemblies and places of awakening, penetrating the right teachings, and fulfilling the white dharmas, no clause of which says equality but each of which says the matter accomplished. The one is freedom from marks and the other the not-spoiling of marks, and the two halves stand exactly over against each other.

Clear away a misreading: do not suppose that once “equality” has been spoken there is no more need to do anything. What the scripture goes straight on to give is ten clauses that are all matters — serving, making offerings, planting, fulfilling, transforming, knowing, entering, penetrating, fulfilling. The exhausting of marks is not the exhausting of matters.

Brought down to the ground: these twenty clauses are the settling of accounts for all the effort of this section. The first ten treat ‘having cultivated long, high and low arise in the mind’; the latter ten treat ‘speaking of equality until one is unwilling to lift a hand.’ Both ends are provided for.

The Concluding of the Name and the Nine Fruits of Accomplishing This Dedication

Ask first: after the scripture says “this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's seventh dedication, the dedication that accords equally with all sentient beings,” why is there still a long passage? Answer: Chengguan outlines this as the fruit of the station, which differs from the benefit accomplished above — the benefit accomplished is spoken with respect to the fruit obtained within the station, while the fruit of the station is spoken with respect to the station being full. He judges that this passage has twenty-one clauses: the first clause restates what came before, the last clause concludes generally, and the nineteen clauses in between are gathered into nine fruits.

The nine fruits are: first, the fruit of cutting off defilement (crushing and destroying the enemies of Māra is the stopping of evil conditions, pulling out the thorns of the desires is the cutting off of the causes of evil); second, the fruit of entering realization (obtaining the joy of going forth is the cause of realization, abiding in the nature in which there are not two is the proper realization); third, the fruit of benefiting beings (complete in great dignity and virtue, which is the cause of guarding beings); fourth, the fruit of surpassing within and without (virtue within and function without); fifth, the fruit of stillness and function unobstructed (going to all lands, entering the place of stillness and cessation); sixth, the fruit of vast practice and vow (complete in every body, accomplishing the bodhisattva's practice, the mind attaining sovereignty in every practice and vow); seventh, the fruit of surpassing wisdom and penetration (distinguishing and knowing all dharmas, being able to be born everywhere in all the buddha-fields); eighth, the fruit of sovereignty in seeing and hearing (obtaining the unobstructed ear, obtaining the pure eye of wisdom); ninth, the fruit of complete practice (within every field accomplishing roots of goodness is the accomplishing, and toward all dharmas obtaining what has nothing obtained is the nothing obtained).

Fazang thinks otherwise. Following the sixty-fascicle text he judges the fruit of the station as sixteen clauses, two clauses making one pair, gathered into eight pairs. The number of clauses and the number of fruits he judges both differ, the source lying in the difference in the number of sentences between the two texts; here it is recorded without adjudication.

Clear away a misreading: do not read “toward all dharmas he obtains what has nothing obtained” as an empty phrase sweeping up at the end. Chengguan sets it in the latter half of the ninth fruit, paired with the former half, “accomplishes roots of goodness” — first the accomplishing, then the nothing obtained; these are the two faces of one fruit, not a denial of what came before.

Brought down to the ground: among the nine fruits the ninth is the one most fit for daily work. Having brought a good deed to completion (accomplishing roots of goodness), let nothing of ‘what did I get’ remain in the mind at the end (obtaining what has nothing obtained), and within a single day one has walked once through the ninth fruit.

The Twenty-One Verses: How What the Prose Said Is Gathered Up in the Verses

Ask first: the prose has been so thorough — are the twenty-one repeated verses a saying of it all over again? Answer: they are not. Chengguan outlines this as three parts — the first eleven verses praise the dedicating, the next nine praise the benefit accomplished, and the last one verse concludes with praise — and matches them portion by portion to the prose: the first half-verse praises the roots of goodness dedicated, and the rest praise the gathering in and about to dedicate, within which the first three and a half verses praise “dedicating the goodness one has cultivated and vowing that it become articles of support to be given to beings,” the next five verses praise “dedicating this giving again and vowing that beings be complete in wealth and Dharma,” and the last two verses (from “the bodhisattva's words of speech” on) praise the dedicating to the true limit; from “he knows that all the worlds” on, the benefit accomplished is praised, the first two verses praising the vastness of the virtue of the cause, the next five the purity of the virtue of the fruit, and the last two the exhaustion of marks and equality. He points out one thing expressly: the portion on sovereignty in bringing what is at odds together is left out of the verses and not praised, because the prose has already spoken of it in full detail. He adds one more sentence: the force of the verses in these three portions differs slightly from the prose — the prose speaks the benefit straight out, while the verses show besides the cause of the dedication.

Fazang thinks otherwise. He judges the twenty-one verses as a first half-verse praising the aspect of the practice, the verses in between praising the dedicating, and the last one verse praising the benefit of the dedicating, and within the praising of the dedicating divides again into three verses, six verses, and ten and a half verses. What he divides does not agree with Chengguan; here it is recorded without adjudication. Li Tongxuan simply records the number of the lines without explaining, saying that the verses have forty-two lines in all, that the text and meaning are furnished of themselves, and that there is no need to explain further.

Clear away a misreading: do not suppose that the verses are only an abridgment of the prose. There are several lines in the verses that the prose does not state outright — “he knows that all the worlds are wholly equal, being nothing but mind, nothing but speech, nothing but every deed,” “there is none that is not brought about by the power of deeds, and if deeds are put an end to those too are all used up,” “the bodhisattva knows that the dharmas are empty … and yet the deeds and rewards of sentient beings are not lost” — these lines push the prose's “does not cling to deeds, does not cling to the reward” on to the relation between deeds and emptiness, and are a teaching the verses have of their own.

Brought down to the ground: the twenty-one verses may be taken as a pocket copy of the whole section. If you cannot hold in mind the thirty-one clauses of roots of goodness and the hundred and ten clauses of what the dedication is for, holding the first verse is enough — the merit done, however slight, down to the practice of a single thought-moment, can all be dedicated without any border. That one verse is the doorway of this whole dedication.

Lineage

The two tracks of the name “according equally.” Chengguan establishes the name from the equality of the one who accords and the one accorded with — the beings accorded with are without marks and equal, and the mind and wisdom that accords is equal too when its light falls on them; Li Tongxuan establishes the name from the matching of the ten perfections to the stations — the seventh station has the pāramitā of skillful means for its master and great compassion for its gate, entering the sea of birth-and-death with the wisdom of skillful means and practicing alongside beings according to the class of their faculties so as to benefit them, and therefore it is named according equally. The former is an explanation by the meaning of the name, the latter by the station of practice. Li Tongxuan besides matches Sudhana's teacher Guanshiyin to this station, and links the seventh of three stations together: the seventh of the ten abidings has the laywoman Xiushe standing for the station of compassion, the seventh of the ten practices has King Manzu standing for compassion, and the seventh of the ten dedications has Guanshiyin standing for compassion. The two tracks stand together, without adjudication.

The contention over “Guanzizai” and “Guanshiyin.” Li Tongxuan in this section strongly upholds the old rendering and rejects the new, saying that the new scripture's rendering “Guanzizai” cannot be relied upon — because what “Guanzizai” displays is sovereignty in the principle and wisdom, free of marks, that contemplates the worldly and the world-transcending, and not the practice of compassion; and that, speaking by the standing-for of the name, Guanzizai stands for the station of the sixth perfection of wisdom, and not for the name of the seventh, the pāramitā of skillful means that enters birth-and-death and practices alongside beings. He declares that this comes of an error of the translator, and states his own choice: “for this one station I follow the old and do not follow the new rendering.” This is a judgment passed by an ancient worthy upon a rendering, and it is recorded without adjudication.

The differences among the three masters in the number of clauses. As for the number of the roots of goodness dedicated, Chengguan, following the eighty-fascicle text, makes thirty-one clauses; Fazang, following the sixty-fascicle text, makes thirty clauses; Li Tongxuan, following the eighty-fascicle text, makes “thirty-two kinds of borderless roots of goodness.” As for the meaning of the three portions, Chengguan makes them measure, the conditions depended on, and nature; Fazang makes them the substance of goodness, with respect to fields, and with respect to the practice of the ten perfections; and Guangtong, whom Fazang cites, makes them “the first ten issue from within, the next ten arise from conditions, the last ten are accomplished and lodged in oneself.” As for the number of the minds of giving, Chengguan, following the eighty-fascicle text, makes twenty minds (one restating and nineteen shown); Fazang, following the sixty-fascicle text, makes fourteen minds. As for the number of what the dedication is for, Chengguan and Li Tongxuan both make a hundred and ten; Fazang, following the sixty-fascicle text and following Dharma Master Yuan's division, makes a hundred and eighteen clauses. As for the number of the fruit of the station, Chengguan makes twenty-one clauses and nine fruits, Fazang sixteen clauses and eight pairs. As for the division of the repeated verses, Chengguan makes eleven, nine, and one; Fazang makes a half-verse, the verses in between, and the last one verse. The source of what is contended lies half in the difference of the sentences listed in the base texts (the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle differ in the number of their sentences to begin with) and half in the difference of the ways of counting. Both are recorded without adjudication.

The name of this dedication is not consistent within the sixty-fascicle text itself. Within the chapter of the sixty-fascicle text, both the sentence raising the question and the sentence concluding it read “the seventh dedication of the mind that accords equally with all sentient beings,” one graph “mind” more than the eighty-fascicle text; while the sixty-fascicle text itself, at the place where the ten dedications are named in a list, reads “the dedication of according with and contemplating all sentient beings equally.” Two names in one and the same text, before and after, are recorded verbatim side by side without a choice being made between them. The title Fazang comments on follows the text within the chapter of the sixty-fascicle version, and Chengguan's title follows the eighty-fascicle version, each following his own text.

The connections with other chapters of this scripture. For the clause “obtain the sixty kinds of voice,” Chengguan cites this scripture's chapter “The Inconceivable Dharmas of the Buddha” as evidence, and points out that this number appears also at the tenth dedication, the dedication equal to the Dharma realm and measureless, without being complete there; for the clause “obtain the sovereign spiritual penetration of all merit that is neither one nor different,” Chengguan points out that the opening of it into four propositions is as spoken in the chapter “The Ten Acceptances”; for the clause “obtain all the buddhas' inexhaustible light of the Dharma,” Chengguan cites the eighth ground of the chapter “The Ten Grounds,” “the Tathāgata's light of the Dharma has measureless turnings,” as the explanation. Li Tongxuan, explaining “sentient beings are not at odds with any land,” points to the chapter “The Formation of the Worlds” as making clear in full the differences of the minds of sentient beings. All four of these places may be read across.

The citation of the Benye is tied to Chengguan alone. In explaining the name in his Shu, Chengguan cites the Benye as saying, “by contemplating that good and evil parents are not two, of one mark and one conjoined mark, it is therefore named the dedication of contemplating and according with all sentient beings; the name has no graph for ‘equal’ and yet explains the meaning of ‘equal’,” and appends one master's explanation — good and evil are enemy and kin, and the two being equal, both give birth to the dharma-body and are both named parents; the good parents are skillful means and wisdom, the evil parents are ignorance and craving, and without extinguishing folly and craving one rouses up brightness and release, and so there are no two marks, and wisdom tallying with the not-two is named one conjoined mark. This edition ties the citation to Chengguan alone and does not make a direct citation of the Benye in its own words.

Why this section is called “the mark of suchness”

When the ten dedications reach the eighth, the sutra opens by changing its manner of asking: the earlier sections all ask ‘what is it for a bodhisattva-mahāsattva to dedicate in such and such a way,’ while this section alone asks “what is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's dedication of the mark of suchness.” Once the manner of asking changes, the reader ought to pause: what this section has to say is not ‘how one dedicates,’ but ‘what dedication is.’

Where does the name come from? Chengguan explains it thus: roots of goodness joined with suchness make the dedication, and the name is set up from that upon which it depends, so that this name “extends in sense to both what is able and what is object” — it points at once to the mark of suchness depended upon and to the practice of roots of goodness that depends. Fazang's Tanxuan ji puts it still more plainly: the roots of goodness are themselves the mark of suchness, and being dedicated in accord with the principle, it is named the dedication of the mark of the such.

First set aside a misunderstanding. When ordinary people hear “dedication” they think of shifting merit from here to there, as though some sum were being transferred from one account to another. This section is precisely what takes that idea apart. Chengguan, distinguishing the order of the ten dedications, says: the seventh section gathers phenomena back into principle, and so is called equality; this eighth section is where phenomena have been exhausted and principle appears of itself, and so practice stands level with suchness; the ninth raises function from substance, and the tenth has function the same as substance. Fazang's determination runs along the same track. Brought down to the ground, in one sentence: by this section, dedication is not an act, it is roots of goodness showing what they were all along.

Then how are the two graphs “suchness” themselves to be understood? Chengguan sets up five gates of distinction before this passage, and the first gate explains the name: the true is the real, showing that it is not false; the such is the constant, showing that it is without alteration — this is the way the school of dharma-marks puts it. If one follows the school of dharma-nature, then the unaltering is called true and the according with conditions is called such: because it does not alter, it has the sense of ‘not one’ with conditioned dharmas; because it accords with conditions, it has the sense of ‘not other’ than conditioned dharmas. He also cites a line from the Qixin lun, “what has nothing to send away is called true, what has nothing to set up is called such,” saying that this is a sudden disclosing of the true principle purely by way of negating expression. Three ways of explaining stand side by side, each with its own transmission; here they are recorded, and no judgment is made as to which is higher.

The ten clauses of the substance of practice: what the one who dedicates must first be

The sutra, answering the question, does not first answer about suchness; it first answers about the person. “Rightly mindful and clear in understanding, his mind abiding firmly, far removed from delusion” and the string of ten clauses that follows set out the substance of this bodhisattva's practice — the roots of goodness that can be taken up and dedicated grow out of a person such as this.

Chengguan outlines it thus: the first clause is the general one, namely right mindfulness firm and bright; the nine below are the particular ones, and these divide again into three parts. The first three are right mindfulness of awakening — being far removed from delusion is the sense of “clear understanding,” and cultivating with concentrated intent is “right mindfulness”; right mindfulness is concentration and clear understanding is wisdom, and the paired working of concentration and wisdom is the source of the path; being unmoved because he accords with the principle is what is called the profound mind, and deeds cannot be damaged because conditions cannot spoil them, and this is the firm abiding of one's own portion; seeking the Buddha without turning back is the firm abiding of surpassing advance. The next four are right mindfulness of transforming beings: the first clause is the general one, since valiantly seeking to save both self and others is for the sake of the great Dharma; the three below open it out particularly — the paired working of compassion and wisdom is “clear understanding,” advancing in good and removing the outflows is “right mindfulness,” and compassion increasing with wisdom made perfect is “firm abiding.” The last three are right mindfulness of the Three Jewels: first mindfulness of the Buddha, second guarding the Dharma, third faith in the Saṅgha.

Set aside a misunderstanding: these ten clauses are not a list of ten virtues, they are a structure. Concentration and wisdom as root, firm abiding as bone, compassion and vow as direction, the Three Jewels as that to which one returns — with any one of the four layers missing, roots of goodness will not grow into something that can be dedicated. Brought down to the ground: when you ask yourself why your own practice does not move when you dedicate it, most often the fault is not that your vow was not made large enough, but that one of the parts among these ten clauses is empty.

The roots of goodness that are dedicated: ten gates of distinction, gathered back into one without a second

The sutra next says that the bodhisattva “universally contemplates with the eye of wisdom,” sees that all his roots of goodness are measureless and boundless, and sets out nine modes in which roots of goodness are gathered and cultivated — seeking out conditions, procuring implements, ordering and purifying, entering in, single-minded urging, rising up in practice, clear penetration, fine examination, revealing to others — and then lists ten kinds of distinction: gate, object, mark, matter, station, practice, name, discrimination, arising, cultivation.

Chengguan explains these ten clauses one by one: the first is that the ranging through is not of one kind, as with a single entering in — is it by way of the gate of existence? by way of the gate of emptiness? and so on without measure, which is why the girl Compassionate Practice says that the buddhas each caused her to enter this gate of universal adornment by a different gate. The second is that, according to whichever gate it is, what is taken as object differs — a buddha, a dharma, and so on. The third is that upon any one object the appearance differs. The fourth is the matter upon which the mark depends, namely form and mind and the rest. The fifth is that upon any one matter there are many kinds of station. The sixth is the ten thousand practices of giving and the rest. The seventh is the name that expresses. The eighth is discriminating and deciding. The ninth is the giving rise to many kinds of view and knowledge. The tenth is whether concentration or wisdom, and cultivation superior, middling, or inferior.

The vital point lies in how this passage closes: with all these gates and all these distinctions, the sutra gathers them up in a single clause — “all of them are established by the mind that heads toward the vehicle of the ten powers, and all alike are dedicated to the knowledge of all modes, one flavor only without a second.” Chengguan puts it well: since the original intent is such, how could there be no dedicating? The multitude of roots of goodness is a multitude of phenomenal marks; the direction of the mind is one only. Brought down to the ground: you need not first sort out and record your own good deeds by category; look first at whether they are all facing the same place.

The twenty vows dedicating toward awakening

From “taking these roots of goodness and dedicating them in this way” onward, the twenty vows are made for his own person. Chengguan divides them into three parts: the first ten vow the accomplishing of the practice of wisdom, which is the cause and fruit of awakening; the four vows from “may I obtain samādhi” onward pervade everywhere in benefiting beings, which is the cause and fruit of transforming function — first what transforming depends upon, second the time and place of transforming, third knowing the medicine to be applied, fourth recognizing what suits the illness; the six vows from “may I obtain mastery” onward adorn the buddha-lands everywhere, which is the cause and fruit of the pure land — first adorning the phenomenal land by the knowledge of spiritual powers, second adorning the land of the dharma-nature by the knowledge that enters the principle (which is also an adorning by ‘not adorning’), third adorning the Indra's-net land by the knowledge in which phenomena and principle are unobstructed, fourth delivering sentient beings by the function of the three foregoing adornings. He notes further: the first four are the cause complete, the last two the fruit fulfilled.

What makes these twenty vows worth reading vow by vow is this: they are not twenty separate wishes, they are one continuous arc that begins from the three actions of body, speech, and mind, passes through mastery of the dharmas and right mindfulness of the buddhas, and reaches at last to spiritual powers and pure lands. The first three vows speak of the action of body, of speech, of mind — action first, because action is where roots of goodness come to rest; the last two vows speak of displaying the boundless Dharma realm within a single buddha-land and of the masterful great knowledge of spiritual powers that goes everywhere to all the buddha-lands — closing upon the layer-within-layer inexhaustibility of the lands. Brought down to the ground: in making a vow one need not seek the extraordinary; seek first that the three actions be unobstructed. Once the three actions are unobstructed, the seventeen vows that follow are no longer empty talk.

Dedication to sentient beings: eight vows and the ten clauses of “so as to cause”

The sutra turns out the second passage with the single sentence “just as he dedicates in this way for himself, so likewise does he dedicate for all sentient beings.” Chengguan outlines it as three: first taking up what precedes and setting off what follows (taking up the three foregoing passages in reverse order), second the dedication properly displayed from “that is to say” onward, third the general conclusion of that for whose sake it is done, from “Sons of the Buddha” onward.

The eight clauses properly displayed Chengguan divides very finely: the first two vow the leaving of the three obstructions — and he notes in particular that the word “obstructing” takes in the afflictions as well; the next four accomplish the four knowledges; the last two conclude in the two fruits, namely awakening and nirvāṇa. He adds a further remark: awakening is not only the four knowledges, and so the sutra says “measureless.”

After the eight vows, the sutra changes to the pattern ‘so as to cause all sentient beings … therefore’ and says ten more clauses: cooling clouds letting fall the rain of Dharma, constantly meeting the field of merit, entering well the treasury of the mind of awakening, leaving the coverings and entanglements, obtaining the unobstructed knowledge of spiritual powers, obtaining a masterful body, accomplishing the knowledge of all modes, gathering in the many classes everywhere, reaching the ultimate of omniscience, being unshaken in mind. These ten clauses are the “for the sake of which” — the eight vows above say the content of the vow, these ten clauses say the intent with which the vow is made. Set aside a misunderstanding: the vow and the for-the-sake-of are not a repetition; the vow is the fruit sought, and the for-the-sake-of is why it is sought. Brought down to the ground: examine your own vows, and if you cannot say ‘why do I want this,’ then most likely that vow is no more than a wish.

Dedication upon contact with objects: seeing one lovely and delightful thing, making one lovely and delightful vow

The pattern changes in the passage that follows. The bodhisattva sees lovely and delightful lands, gardens and groves, grasses and trees, flowers and fruits, famous fragrances, fine garments, precious jewels, wealth and goods, implements of adornment, or hamlets and villages, or a sovereign's majestic virtue, or a dwelling place apart from clamor — and having seen, he contemplates, gathers goodness, dedicates, and makes thirty-one vows, every one of which says “lovely and delightful.”

Chengguan says this passage is “much the same as the making of vows over against objects in the chapter ‘Pure Practices,’” and explains why: because he sees a lovely and delightful object, a lovely and delightful goodness arises, and therefore he vows the accomplishing of lovely and delightful virtue. He also sets up two ways of reading. The horizontal one is that vows of like outflow are made over against the objects above: the first ten vows are over against lands — seeing a land, he vows that sentient beings may see the land of the dharma-nature; next come the implements of offering belonging to a land; next the pure lands of enjoyment and of transformation generally; and the rest are all matters within a land. He also explains why ten vows alone are made over against a single object — “taking one as the instance for all, there should be many in each case; not wishing to be prolix, what follows grows progressively more abbreviated.” The next three vows are over against gardens and groves, since the outflowless grove of the Dharma is where there is no fear, and dhāraṇī and samādhi are its parks. The next one vow is over against grasses and trees, contemplating well that the five vehicles are like the three grasses and two trees. The next three vows are over against flowers, since the dharmas of spiritual power and the rest are like flowers opening out. The vertical one is that stations are matched so as to display the general vow: the first seven vows are for causing those who have not yet entered the Dharma to enter it, that is, before the grounds; the seventeen vows from “may all sentient beings realize” onward are for causing those who have entered the Dharma to attain the grounds; the four vows after that are for causing those who have attained the grounds to accomplish the station of Samantabhadra; and the last three make plain the fulfilling of the fruit, namely the three virtues of cutting off, of knowledge, and of liberation. Chengguan has a confident word about these two readings — using the two foregoing explanations, the drift of the text has its warrant and the sequence is without discrepancy; this is the skillful discourse of Vajra Banner, and no forced construction of the expositor's own.

Brought down to the ground: this passage is the easiest place in the whole section to lay hold of. When you see something good, the thing to do is not to press down the gladness, but to change the object of that gladness — vowing that all sentient beings may also come by this good thing, and come by it in its ultimate form.

The benefit accomplished by the dedication: roots of goodness cultivated until they give light

After the thirty-one vows, the sutra says that when the bodhisattva cultivates roots of goodness such as these he “obtains the light of wisdom,” is gathered in by the good friend, the sun of the Tathāgata's wisdom brightly illumines his mind and forever extinguishes the gloom of delusion, and so on to “he exhausts the very source of the bodhisattvas' roots of goodness, and with wisdom enters deep into the ocean of great skillful means.”

Chengguan gathers these ten clauses into five pairs: first, by the cause the condition is met — because knowledge is bright within, the friend gathers him in from without; second, by the condition the cause is met — receiving the illumination of wisdom from without, delusion's gloom is extinguished within, and this is the benefit of removing obstruction; third, by diligent cultivation he enters the deeds of the three wisdoms, and this is the benefit of study; fourth, having studied above he realizes knowledge and his own goodness fills out everywhere, and this is the benefit of entering realization; fifth, exhausting the source of goodness and merit and entering the ocean of true knowledge, this is the benefit of accomplishing the two adornments. He also points out where this passage stands within the flow of the text — this benefit “is the very root of directing toward the true limit, since by knowledge one exhaustively enters.” That is to say: the long passage of dedication apart from marks that follows is not a sudden change of key; it is because the knowledge here has become deep enough to enter the true limit exhaustively that the words that follow can be said at all.

The fourteen clauses of the dedication apart from marks: first establishing “the practice that accords with suchness”

From “Sons of the Buddha! The bodhisattva-mahāsattva takes roots of goodness such as these and dedicates them in this way” onward, the text turns to the dedication apart from marks. Chengguan says that this passage differs slightly from the foregoing dedications: the earlier ones mostly gather marks back into nature and only seldom raise marks from nature, while here what is mostly displayed is the unobstructedness of nature and marks taken as the mark of suchness; and he notices one detail — the opening lines of the earlier passages all say “at this time,” while here the word for time is not used, because there is no need to stand over against the foregoing passage in order to accomplish unobstructedness.

This passage first makes the matter plain directly, and divides into two: first making plain the practice that accords with suchness, afterwards making plain the benefit of according with suchness. The practice that accords with suchness divides again into two: first with respect to mind — the paired working of calming and contemplation, attached neither to existence nor to non-existence; afterwards with respect to practice — the paired course of the provisional and the real, going against neither nature nor marks. Within the part on mind, the two clauses “he is not attached to the world and does not grasp at sentient beings” are the statement, and the two clauses “his mind is pure and has nothing it depends upon” are the explanation (the upper clause being that nothing is grasped, the lower that the grasper is left behind); from “he does not forsake the masterful wisdom of any buddha” onward, his not going against is made plain — first not going against the cause, second not going against the Dharma, third not going against the fruit; and the reason he does not go against is that he is not attached to non-existence. Within the part on practice, “although he cultivates right deeds well, he knows that the nature of deeds is empty” establishes the thesis, taking unobstructedness as the thesis; “he understands that all dharmas are like an illusory transformation” is the like simile, for the mark of an illusion exists while its substance is void; and the clauses that follow bring out the reasons one by one — first because dharmas are without nature, second because contemplation is without attachment (these two accord with the suchness that is empty), third because he knows things as they truly are (this accords with the suchness that is not empty), fourth that knowing the marks of the dharmas do not go against one another is the conclusion establishing that there is no going against, and fifth that “he dwells together with the bodhisattvas” is the conclusion establishing what is done, since he is able horizontally to enter one path and vertically to enter one gate.

The ten clauses on the benefit of according with suchness Chengguan gathers into five pairs, saying that they cause four minds to grow ever firmer: first, settling the profound dharma above and purifying sentient beings below, which is the vast mind; second, the two selves not arising and worldly views thereby cut off, which is the unmistaken mind; third, being unstained toward objects and diligently cultivating what transcends the world, and fourth, not depending upon the world with the right path alone made firm — these two pairs are the first mind, since the nirvāṇa of no abiding is first; fifth, deluded views thereby quieted and the substance understood to be the same as the real, which is the constant mind, since constancy is not forsaking the compassion of one substance.

Set aside a misunderstanding: being apart from marks is not doing nothing. Within these fourteen clauses stand “he diligently cultivates every world-transcending dharma,” “he is well able to gather in sentient beings,” “he practices their path” — what is left behind is grasping attachment, not practice.

The extended discourse over against suchness (one): the sense of pervading fullness — first making “pervading” clear

What follows is the main body of the whole section: a hundred clauses of ‘just as suchness is such and such; so too is the dedication of roots of goodness, such and such.’ Chengguan first accounts for why this simile has to be drawn: people have faith in the virtues of suchness but are confused about the virtue of dedication, and so the virtues of suchness are used to liken the virtue of dedication. He also marks out the structure of each gate: within the hundred gates each has two clauses, the upper being the virtue of suchness that is the same, the lower being the virtue of dedication that is able to be the same.

For the first group of ten gates Chengguan matches the sense of “pervading fullness.” Gate one speaks of pervading: suchness pervades all places and is without bound, and so too is the dedication of roots of goodness. Chengguan explains this gate as “displaying that it is within conditions, and therefore there is nothing it does not pervade” — suchness is not some thing hiding outside phenomena, it is right there within dependent arising, and so there is nowhere it does not pervade; and since dedication is of one substance with it, there is nowhere it does not reach. Only when this one clause has been established do the ninety-nine gates that follow have a place to stand.

Gate two speaks of having the true as its nature, which Chengguan explains as “making plain that it does not alter”; gate three speaks of constantly guarding its own nature without change, which Chengguan explains as “making plain that according with conditions is precisely not altering,” which is why the sutra uses the four graphs “constantly guards its own nature.” Gate four shows its nature (having the naturelessness of all dharmas as its nature) and gate five shows its mark (marklessness as its mark) — Chengguan says these first five gates are “throughout set forth with respect to suchness itself,” all spoken of suchness in its own right. Gates six and seven then “are spoken over against knowledge, and are therefore the object of knowledge”: attaining it, one in the end does not turn back; and it is the place where all the buddhas walk. Gate eight most needs attention, which Chengguan explains as “displaying that suchness, being no object, is the object” — one must forget the object to accord with the object that is suchness, since the original nature of suchness is not something established; gate nine is “precisely suchness established,” and gate ten is “precisely the sense of the constancy of the such.”

Within this one group, substance, non-alteration, according with conditions, nature, mark, the object of knowledge, the object that is no object, establishment, and constancy follow in good order. Brought down to the ground: in reading these hundred clauses do not seize on the meaning clause by clause; look first at how every ten clauses change the angle.

The extended discourse over against suchness (two): the sense of the most surpassing — so great that nothing can be set beside it

For the second group of ten gates Chengguan matches the sense of “the most surpassing,” and himself adduces two of them as evidence: “none can measure it” and “nothing can be set beside it.”

Gate eleven speaks of none being able to measure, and the virtue of dedication is then “equal to the realm of empty space, exhausting the minds of sentient beings, none can measure it” — note that the sutra lays the measuring rod upon the minds of sentient beings: it is not that it is great up to some number, but that wherever there is a mind that could measure, it is already beyond. Gate twelve speaks of filling all things, which Chengguan explains most finely: what is called filling is that whether form or mind, whether great or small, and so on down to the finest mote and the briefest instant, all are perfectly full, and not full by portions; because suchness cannot be divided, and to divide it would be an excess of many. He also strings this gate together with several later ones — precisely because this is so, gate forty says that it is not apart from the dharmas and that the dharmas, according with suchness, pervade a single mote, and only so does the fruit of the station come to have the sentence “within a single pore it is able to contain all the lands everywhere.” Gate fourteen speaks of nothing being able to be set beside it, and Chengguan explains it in one stroke: because the dharma-nature does not stand alongside the true — it is not that there is nothing that can match it, but that there is simply no second thing that could be placed beside it for comparison.

As for the rest — gate thirteen, constantly abiding and inexhaustible; gate fifteen, substance and nature firm; gate sixteen, unable to be broken (Chengguan says gates fifteen and sixteen “are both a matter of not being damaged,” differing only as persons and delusions differ); gate seventeen, illumination as substance (which Chengguan explains as “quiescent and yet constantly illumining, knowledge being precisely the function of suchness”); gate eighteen, nowhere it is not; gate nineteen, pervading all times; gate twenty, its nature constantly pure — taking the ten gates together, they say one and the same thing: surpassing is not a surpassing arrived at by comparison.

The extended discourse over against suchness (three): the sense of the surpassing outflow — the teaching and the eye that flow out from the principle

For the third group Chengguan matches the sense of “the surpassing outflow,” himself adducing the two gates “unobstructed with regard to the dharmas” and “the eye of the multitude of dharmas.”

Gate twenty-one speaks of being unobstructed with regard to the dharmas, and dedication is then “moving through all things everywhere and unobstructed.” What is called the surpassing outflow is that the teaching which flows out from suchness is the most surpassing; the teaching being unobstructed, practice too is unobstructed. Gate twenty-two speaks of being the eye of the multitude of dharmas, and dedication is then “able to act as an eye for all sentient beings.” Here Chengguan sets up a question and answer: since gate seventeen has already said that illumination is its substance, how should there be no eye that illumines and beholds? And further, it is by seeing suchness that the Dharma-eye is accomplished. He also cites a line from the Da bore as evidence — the buddhas of the three times all take the emptiness of nature as the buddha-eye. This one question and answer breaks open a point: the eye is not an organ added on, it is the illumination upon the substance falling upon an object.

Gate twenty-five says that suchness “has not a single thing,” and dedication then “knows that within its nature there is not a single thing”; gate twenty-six says that “the nature is not brought forth to view,” and dedication is then “its substance is subtle and hard to see” — these two gates standing beside “the eye of the multitude of dharmas” are just where the tension of this group lies: the very thing that can act as an eye is itself invisible. Gate thirty speaks of being without root, which Chengguan explains as “because there is nothing depended upon before it, that is, because non-abiding is the root” — non-abiding as root is an old saying that Huayan and Prajñā hold in common, and here it is brought out by the thirtieth gate.

The extended discourse over against suchness (four): the sense of being taken in by nothing — carried off by nothing whatever

For the fourth group Chengguan matches the sense of “being taken in by nothing,” himself adducing such gates as “without attachment” and “without abiding.”

Gate thirty-two says that substance and nature are without attachment, and dedication is then “ultimately far removed from every attachment”; gate thirty-five says that substance and nature are without abiding, and dedication is then “no birth-and-death is the place where it dwells.” What is called being taken in by nothing is that it is not gathered in or possessed by anything else. Suchness belongs to no dharma whatever, and therefore the dedication of roots of goodness belongs to no place whatever — this is precisely the enlargement of the earlier “not attached to the world and not grasping at sentient beings.”

Gate thirty-seven says that substance and nature abide securely, and dedication is then “it abides securely in the true.” Chengguan has an important explanation here: what is called abiding securely is that it is because of having no abiding that one abides securely in the true. Non-abiding and abiding securely are not two things — only by reading this gate together with gate thirty-five will one avoid reading “non-abiding” as a drifting instability. Gate thirty-eight says that it is in mutual accord with all dharmas, and dedication is then “in mutual accord with the hearing and cultivating of the bodhisattvas”; gate forty says that it is not apart from the dharmas, and dedication is then “to the end of the future it does not forsake the world” — not being taken in does not amount to having nothing to do with. This group puts “apart from” and “not apart from” into one and the same set, and the reader may not take only one half.

The extended discourse over against suchness (five): the sense of no difference of class — whichever class of dharma it falls upon, it is the same one

For the fifth group Chengguan matches the sense of “no difference of class,” himself adducing the two gates “ultimately inexhaustible” and “without alteration.”

Gate forty-one says that within all dharmas it is ultimately inexhaustible, and dedication is then “its dedication toward sentient beings is without exhaustion.” Chengguan's explanation of this gate has two layers: first, that although it is within the dharmas, the dharmas are exhausted while its substance is constant; second, that being precisely within the dharmas, it is taken from and yet cannot be exhausted — like the empty space within a mustard seed, which, small as the seed is, cannot be taken out to the end. This small simile shifts “inexhaustible” from an inexhaustibility of quantity to an inexhaustibility of kind: it is not that there is so much it cannot be counted, but that it is simply not the sort of thing that can be taken to exhaustion.

Gate forty-nine says it is without alteration, and dedication is then “it has pity and keeps sentient beings in mind, and its mind is without alteration” — this gate brings “no difference of class” down upon the mind of compassion: only what does not alter toward anyone is a true absence of difference. Gate forty-four says it is of one substance and nature with all dharmas, and dedication is then “of one substance and nature with the buddhas of the three times”; gate forty-five says it is not forsaken by nor forsakes any dharma, and dedication is then “it holds and sustains all the dharmas of the world and beyond the world.” Worldly dharmas and world-transcending dharmas are gathered in together here precisely because there is no difference of class. Brought down to the ground: what is called the mind of equality is not forcing different things to be seen as the same, it is seeing that they stood upon one substance and nature from the start.

The extended discourse over against suchness (six): the sense of neither defiled nor pure — not even “pure” is set up

For the sixth group Chengguan matches the sense of “neither defiled nor pure,” himself adducing the two gates “without discrimination” and “substance and nature unborn.”

Gate fifty-eight says it is without discrimination, and dedication is then “toward all the worlds it does not discriminate”; gate sixty says substance and nature are unborn, and dedication is then “by skillful means it manifests the taking of birth, and yet in truth nothing is born.” The sense of neither defiled nor pure is that upon suchness there is originally no defilement to be removed and no purity to be gained — once defilement and purity can be told apart, one has fallen into discrimination.

Several other gates within this group deserve separate mention. Gate fifty-one says the nature is constantly awake, which Chengguan explains as “because it is able to perfume from within and give rise to weariness and to seeking” — awakening is not a beam of light coming from outside, it is the substance and nature perfuming from within, and only so can a person come to feel weariness of the world and longing for what is beyond it. Gate fifty-two says it cannot be lost or damaged, which Chengguan explains as “because, being within birth-and-death, it is stained and yet not stained” — to be within birth-and-death and yet never lost is the very courage of this group. Gate fifty-three, able greatly to illumine, Chengguan says is the sense of the light of great knowledge illumining the Dharma realm everywhere; gate fifty-four, that cannot be spoken, Chengguan marks directly as “the suchness apart from words.” That illumining and being apart from words stand within one group is no contradiction: what is illumined is it, and what cannot be spoken is also it.

The extended discourse over against suchness (seven): the sense of no difference of dharma — every stretch within time is the whole of it

For the seventh group Chengguan matches the sense of “no difference of dharma,” himself adducing the two gates “nowhere it is not” and “dwelling in dharmas that are and are not.”

Gate sixty-one says there is nowhere it is not, and dedication is then “within the buddha-lands of the ten directions and the three times it manifests spiritual powers everywhere, and there is nowhere it is not.” Chengguan takes particular care to distinguish it from gate one: gate one says that pervading everything is precisely being without bound, while this gate is that it is wholly within each and every dharma — the former speaks of breadth, the latter of wholeness. These are the two layers in Huayan's reading of “pervading,” and they may not be run together.

The middle stretch of this group is the six divisions of time: night, day, the half-month and the month, the year, the eons of formation and destruction, and the end of the future, gate joined to gate. Chengguan gives one general explanation: in day and night and so on to the end of the future, one thought and the long eon each gathers suchness in and each depends upon suchness, and therefore thought and eon are able to gather each other in and enter each other. That is to say: it is not because time itself has some spiritual power that times can take each other in; it is because every stretch of time is wholly within suchness. Gate sixty-three is especially worth looking at — suchness pervades the day, and dedication is then to cause all the sentient beings who are in the daytime to see the spiritual transformations of the buddhas, to set forth the wheel that does not turn back, to be apart from stain and pure, with nothing passed by in vain: of what is done in the daytime, not one thing may be let pass in vain. Gate seventy says it dwells in dharmas that are and are not, which Chengguan explains as “since in the principle there is no deluded reckoning, being and non-being are constantly real.”

The extended discourse over against suchness (eight): the sense of neither increasing nor decreasing — purity and equality are not added on

For the eighth group Chengguan matches the sense of “neither increasing nor decreasing,” himself adducing the two gates “substance and nature pure” and “substance and nature equal.”

Gate seventy-one says substance and nature are pure, and dedication is then “able by skillful means to gather the dharmas that aid the path, and to purify every bodhisattva practice.” Note the difference of level within this pair: the purity of suchness is pure from the start, while the purity of practice must “gather the dharmas that aid the path” and only then purify — and this is just where the sense of neither increasing nor decreasing lies: the substance does not increase, while the marks of practice must be cultivated. Gate seventy-five says substance and nature are equal, and dedication is then “it obtains the equal knowledge of the knowledge of all, illumines and understands all dharmas, and is far removed from the various films of delusion.”

Gate seventy-two says substance and nature are bright and clean, and Chengguan explains it graph by graph: the nature being awake is “bright,” being apart from thought is “clean” — bright is awakening, clean is being apart from thought, each graph coming to rest in its own place, and the two are no mere synonym doubled. Gate seventy-four says it is without I and mine, and dedication is then “with a pure mind that is without I and without mine it fills the buddha-lands of the ten directions”; gate seventy-six says it goes beyond number and measure, and dedication then dwells together with the treasury of the dharma of great power of the vehicle of omniscience that goes beyond number and measure, and raises up a vast cloud of Dharma pervading the ten directions. To be without self and yet able to fill the ten directions — this is the most rewarding line in the group: precisely because no self is added in, there is room for the ten directions.

The extended discourse over against suchness (nine): the sense of mastery of knowledge — great enough to be the sphere of a buddha

For the ninth group Chengguan matches the sense of “mastery of knowledge,” himself adducing the two gates “pervading all dharmas” (gate eighty-three, “substance and nature broad and wide, pervading all dharmas”) and “the sphere of the buddhas.”

Gate eighty-seven says suchness is the sphere of the buddhas, and dedication is then “it causes all sentient beings to fulfill every sphere of great knowledge, and extinguishes the sphere of affliction, causing all to be pure.” What is called mastery of knowledge is knowledge attaining mastery over its object — the object being the sphere of a buddha, knowledge reaches everywhere. Gate eighty-three says substance and nature are broad and wide and pervade all dharmas, and dedication is then “its pure mindfulness is unobstructed, and it gathers in everywhere all the broad and wide Dharma-gates.”

Gate eighty-nine most needs opening out: suchness is “neither something that can be cultivated nor something that cannot be cultivated,” and dedication is then “it forsakes every deluded thought and grasping, and does not discriminate between cultivating and not cultivating.” Chengguan explains it in two strokes: that it is not something that can be cultivated is because there is nothing to be attained; that it is not something that cannot be cultivated is because it is the sphere of the sages. This gate answers directly the doubt a reader most easily falls into — if suchness is there from the start, then what is there to cultivate? The answer does not lie in choosing one of the two, but in laying down the very pair of discriminations ‘cultivating and not cultivating.’ Gate eighty-six says substance and nature do not stir, and dedication is then “it abides securely in the perfect practices and vows of Samantabhadra, and is ultimately unstirred” — that not stirring is raised together with the practices and vows of Samantabhadra shows that the not stirring here is not a not acting. Gate ninety says it is without falling back or forsaking, and dedication is then “it constantly sees the buddhas, gives rise to the mind of awakening, adorns itself with the great vow, and forever is without falling back or forsaking.”

The extended discourse over against suchness (ten): the sense of mastery of deeds — coming to rest upon the ground where sentient beings are

For the tenth group Chengguan matches the sense of “mastery of deeds,” himself adducing the two gates “dwelling upon all grounds” and “accomplishing all the buddhas and bodhisattvas.”

Gate ninety-three says suchness dwells upon all grounds, and dedication is then “it causes all sentient beings to forsake the ground of the world, to dwell upon the ground of wisdom, and to adorn themselves with the practice of Samantabhadra”; gate ninety-nine says suchness accomplishes all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and dedication is then “it gives rise to every great vow and skillful means, and accomplishes the vast wisdom of the buddhas.” What is called mastery of deeds is the doing of deeds within the world and yet unobstructed — and so these last ten gates come to rest, clause by clause, upon sentient beings.

Gate ninety-five speaks of forsaking the outflows. Here Chengguan leaves the one and only Sanskrit sound in the whole section: according to the Sanskrit text it says anāsrava, which here means outflowless; and he explains that graph “forsake” — what is now called forsaking is because the nature forsakes from the start, like the substance of the mind being apart from thought. It is not that there were outflows first and afterwards they were forsaken; there was never anything to forsake.

Gate ninety-six is the longest, and it draws out Chengguan's longest piece of analysis: within suchness “there is not the least dharma able to damage and disorder it so as to make any part of it not awake.” He raises a difficulty against himself: if suchness pervades what has no feeling, does it not then have a part that is not awake? And he sets two positions over against each other — the sutras have the saying that “buddha-nature excludes tiles and stones,” while the treatises have the determination that “among things without feeling it is called dharma-nature; among things with feeling it is called buddha-nature.” His way of resolving it is to speak on three levels: taking nature as following conditions, then what has feeling and what has not differ, and their natures too are diverse; effacing conditions and following nature, then awake and not awake are from the first cut off from the hundred negations and beyond the four propositions of speech; and if the two natures are mutually fused, then there is nothing that is not awake. He also cites the Qixin lun, “because the nature of form is precisely the nature of knowledge it is called the knowledge-body; because the nature of knowledge is precisely the nature of form it is called the dharma-body pervading all places,” as evidence. This passage is the most profound place in the whole section, and what Chengguan sets up is a threefold way of reading, not a single conclusion.

Gate ninety-seven says “in the past not a beginning, in the future not an end, in the present not an alteration,” and Chengguan explains: the past is the first limit and is therefore named beginning; the future is the end and is therefore called the not-yet; the present seems to exist and yet the division between its not-yet and its already has no moment of abiding, and is therefore named alteration; now it is made plain that although suchness pervades within the three times, its substance is cut off from the marks of beginning, middle, and end within the three times, and therefore all three clauses say “not.” Dedication is likewise — although for sentient beings it raises vows newly and newly, it causes them forever to leave the marks of birth-and-death within the three times, and only that is called pure. He also records that the Jin version reads here “in the past not the same, in the future not the old, in the present not other,” and that the Jin version takes the following gate, “within the three times it does not discriminate,” into this one, so that the hundred falls one short and explanations differ in confusion. The difference of joining and dividing here between the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle texts has been fully discussed by the ancients; here it is recorded, and no judgment is made as to which is higher.

Gate one hundred comes to rest upon “ultimately pure, not keeping company with any of the afflictions,” and dedication is then “able to extinguish the afflictions of all sentient beings, and to perfect all pure wisdom.” Chengguan has a word about this last gate: therefore the last clause says ultimately pure, whose sense is the same as the fruit — the hundred gates, having walked this far, have walked onto the ground of the fruit.

The outlining of the hundred gates: four sayings of the ancients recorded together

How this hundred is to be divided has never been read in only one way. Chengguan set out the sayings of his predecessors in full: Dharma Master Ying divides it ten by ten, matching in order the suchness within the ten stations — first the station of Foremost in Worthiness, second the ten abodes, third the ten practices, fourth the ten dedications, fifth the ground of the purified mind, sixth the ground of the traces of practice, seventh the ground of decision, eighth the ultimate ground, ninth the ground of equal awakening, tenth the ground of buddhahood; further, various worthies each divide it into ten gates, and Xianshou (Fazang) allows none of them; Master Yuan divides it into three, the first ten matched to what is before the grounds, the next eighty-eight clauses to what is upon the grounds, and the last two clauses to the suchness within the ground of buddhahood. Chengguan raises his own difficulty against Master Yuan's division: why should the ground of buddhahood lack the virtues of suchness set out above? Take gate two, “having the true as its nature” — why should it not run through all the stations?

His own way of taking it is “for now to outline it ten by ten, matching it to the ten suchnesses of the ten grounds,” and within each group he adduces one or two gates as warrant; at the end he adds the line “as for the remaining senses among them, they may be taken by class.” He also explains why he dares to divide and yet does not cling to his division: in truth the virtues of the hundred gates must all be run through by one suchness, and how should the virtue of what is able to be such be without differing marks? Differing marks being hard to see, he divides for the time being within what is undivided, and there is no fault in it either.

Fazang's Tanxuan ji has another track: within this passage, first suchness is explained, second the mark of suchness is displayed, third dedication is explained, and therefore it is named the dedication of the mark of the such; further, first the substance of suchness is set forth, second its mark, third its function, which are precisely the three greatnesses of suchness. Li Tongxuan for his part does not follow the outlining of gates at all and sets up the substance otherwise: the eighth, the dedication of the mark of suchness, takes the perfection of the vow as its substance, this station being the same as the eighth ground where knowledge is in the ascendant, since by the vow the deeds of knowledge are drawn forth and great compassion accomplished. The four sayings each have their own warrant; here they are recorded, and no judgment is made as to which is higher.

The benefit accomplished by the dedication: the ten equalities

The hundred gates finished, the sutra draws back to the benefit: when the bodhisattva dedicates in this way, he obtains the equality of all buddha-lands, of all sentient beings, of all bodhisattvas, of all buddhas, of all dharmas, of all worlds, of all bodhisattva practice, of all times, of all deeds and their fruits, and of all the masterful spiritual powers of the buddhas.

The pattern of the ten clauses is uniform: first it says what equality is obtained, then with “because … therefore” it gives the reason for that equality. Obtaining the equality of buddha-lands is because he adorns and purifies all worlds everywhere; obtaining the equality of the buddhas is because he contemplates that the substance of the buddhas is without a second; obtaining the equality of deeds and their fruits is because toward all the roots of goodness of the world and beyond the world he is without stain of attachment and all of them reach the ultimate. Set aside a misunderstanding: equality is not the smoothing away of differences, it is seeing one substance and nature upon the differences — the sutra says “because he knows everywhere that the nature of the dharmas is without alteration,” and since the nature does not alter, dharma is equal to dharma, and this is no hindrance to each of their marks being distinct. This is exactly where the two groups of the hundred gates, “no difference of class” and “neither increasing nor decreasing,” come down to earth.

The fruit of the station: what the one who abides in this dedication obtains

From “when the bodhisattva-mahāsattva abides within this dedication” onward is the fruit of the station. Chengguan outlines it as: first taking up the cause obtained, afterwards properly displaying what is obtained; the text has ten clauses, the first general and the rest particular. He also explains two turns of phrase within the particular clauses: the particular clauses all say “measureless,” because they are the same as the vastness and inexhaustibility of suchness; and eight of them all say “obtains a buddha's,” because what is realized is the same as what a buddha realizes and because the work of a buddha is done.

Among the ten clauses, the first of the nine particular ones is “by skillful means he teaches and brings to accomplishment measureless bodhisattvas, and at all times has never rested” — transforming others without rest is the first item of the fruit of the station; and the eight below it form one series of parallels: he obtains the measureless perfect body of a buddha, one body filling and pervading all worlds; the measureless perfect voice, one sound awakening all sentient beings; the measureless perfect power, within a single pore able to contain all lands everywhere; the measureless perfect spiritual powers, placing sentient beings within a single mote of dust; the measureless perfect liberation, upon the body of a single sentient being manifesting the spheres of all the buddhas and accomplishing equal right awakening; the measureless perfect samādhi, within a single samādhi manifesting everywhere all samādhis; the measureless perfect eloquence, speaking a single phrase of the Dharma to the end of the future and yet not to be exhausted; the measureless perfect sentient beings, furnished with the ten powers of a buddha, to the end of the realm of sentient beings manifesting the accomplishing of right awakening. The one and the all take each other in here to the very end — one body, one sound, one pore, one mote, one sentient being, one samādhi, one phrase of the Dharma. This is not the fruit of the station suddenly enlarging; it is the ground-of-fruit redemption of that earlier gate, “filling all things,” a line Chengguan had already drawn when he explained gate twelve.

At the end the sutra concludes the whole section with a single sentence: this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's dedication of all roots of goodness in accord with the mark of suchness. In the sixty-fascicle text this sentence reads “dedication according with the mark of the such,” and the sentence concluding the name reads “this is named the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's eighth dedication of the mark of the such” — the difference of naming between the two texts is recorded together without adjudication.

The twenty-nine verses

The prose finished, the bodhisattva Vajra Banner, sustained by the Buddha's majestic power, universally contemplated the ten directions and spoke the verses. Chengguan determines that these twenty-nine verses divide into four: the first six are verses on the following of marks, of which the first two are verses on the substance of the practice dedicated and the latter four verses on the practice of dedicating; the next sixteen are verses on the dedication apart from marks, of which the first nine are verses on the extended discourse over against suchness and the latter seven verses turning back to make the Dharma plain directly, “the bodhisattva abides within this inconceivable” and the rest; the six verses from “those sons of the Buddha” onward are verses on the benefit accomplished by the dedication; and the last one verse concludes the intent of the dedication.

The verses match the prose point for point and do not teach again, and only a few places say something the verses alone have, which must be looked at separately. The tenth verse presses the six divisions of time in the prose into four lines — in the night he abides accordingly, in the day too he abides, in the half-month and the month too he abides accordingly, whether year or eon he abides within them all, as suchness is thus so too is the practice; the prose sets six gates side by side, while the verse is read straight through in one breath, and the mutual taking-in of times is here at its most striking. The fourteenth verse uses “as” four times over — as is the mark of suchness so too are the deeds, as is the nature of suchness so too are the deeds, as the nature of suchness is originally true so too are the deeds, the same as suchness; this one verse compresses the pattern of the hundred gates of the prose into a single verse, and is the eye of the whole set of verses. The twenty-second verse says that the bodhisattva contemplates that the mind is not outside, nor can it be found within either, that knowing the nature of his mind has nothing at all, self and dharmas are both left behind and forever quiescent — the passage apart from marks in the prose says “he does not raise the mind that grasps at I and mine,” while the verse sweeps away both the outside and the inside of the mind directly. The seventeenth verse, “he awakens to the true dharma of the Dharma King, and within it is without attachment and without bondage,” and the eighteenth, “to say that the marks of all dharmas are markless — to know marks in this way is to know the Dharma,” are the opening of the latter seven verses that turn back to make the Dharma plain directly.

The verses of this passage in the sixty-fascicle text are in five-graph lines and in the eighty-fascicle text in seven-graph lines, and the pattern and the number of verses each form their own system; the two texts are recorded together without adjudication.

Lineage

Three lines open out downward from this section.

The first is the line of the study of suchness. Chengguan sets up five gates of distinction in this passage, and the second gate, “making plain the kinds,” lists one by one the divisions of suchness as the ancients transmitted them: or one flavor only, without distinction; or divided into two, namely the suchness of the emptiness of person and the suchness of the emptiness of dharmas, and again the established and the unestablished two, and again the empty and the not-empty two; or divided into three, set forth by way of the three natures, as in the Yuqie and the rest; or divided into seven, namely turning, true mark, consciousness-only, the established, wrong practice, purity, right practice — the first four being in order the substance and nature of the four truths, as the Xianyang says; or divided into ten, to be made plain in the ten grounds; or a hundred gates, ten by ten inexhaustible, as the present sutra sets forth. And he lays down a determination: all that has been listed above is one sense among them, and even to say that it runs through all dharmas is still only one sense. This section of the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka opens it into a hundred gates, and Chengguan says “all that has been listed above is one sense among them” — the coordinates of the several divisions are here set in order by him once and for all. The third gate, “setting forth virtue and function,” cites the three greatnesses of the Qixin lun — the greatness of substance, of mark, and of function — and from this draws out one sense: going against the true is named evil, and when it accords with suchness it is extinguished; according with the true is good, and when it is called suchness it is great; yet although going against and according differ, apart from suchness there would be nothing to go against, and therefore evil too has suchness as its substance. The ground on which goodness is able to be dedicated to suchness lies right here.

The second is the line of the ten suchnesses of the ten grounds. Chengguan says of suchness that it is “divided into ten, to be made plain in the ten grounds,” and he outlines this hundred gates precisely “so as to match them to the ten suchnesses of the ten grounds” — pervading fullness, the most surpassing, the surpassing outflow, being taken in by nothing, no difference of class, neither defiled nor pure, no difference of dharma, neither increasing nor decreasing, mastery of knowledge, mastery of deeds. These ten senses are the bone of the chapter “The Ten Grounds,” and yet at the station of the ten dedications they appear once beforehand in the form of a hundred gates. Chengguan says “before the grounds one cultivates them throughout, at equal awakening one is equal to them everywhere, and as a Tathāgata one realizes them exhaustively” — and by this the relation of the dedications to the grounds can be seen: it is not that one finishes the dedications and then cultivates the grounds; at the station of the dedications one has already walked once through the ten senses of the grounds, upon suchness.

The third is the line of the Huayan discourse of perfect fusion. Chengguan, explaining the hundred gates, says that if one comes together with this sutra, then within the hundred gates whether substance or mark, whether function or both, in truth each and every one of them runs through substance and the rest, and therefore they become a hundred gates fusing principle and phenomena, so that layer upon layer without end they are like Indra's net; and he says further that the ten suchnesses each contain all, ten by ten making a hundred, in order to display that the virtues of suchness are measureless and boundless, that before the grounds one cultivates them throughout, at equal awakening one is equal to them everywhere, and as a Tathāgata one realizes them exhaustively. The simile of the layer-upon-layer of Indra's net is here no mere figure of speech; it is the way these hundred clauses of the sutra are themselves to be read. Zhiyan's Kongmu zhang gathers the whole chapter in with the three senses of dedication — dedicating to the true limit, dedicating to unsurpassed awakening, dedicating to sentient beings; and in this section the passage following marks is over against awakening and sentient beings, the passage apart from marks over against the true limit, so that the three senses are complete. Li Tongxuan for his part sets out along another road: if one does not dedicate without limit by the great vow, the great compassion, and the great wisdom, but relies only upon uncontrived suchness to purify the afflictions, then one is the same as those of the two vehicles who delight in quiescence, and one is born only in a pure land of a single quarter and does not enter the true gate of the Dharma realm.

The text of this one section is on one side a general catalogue for the study of suchness, on another the forerunner of the ten suchnesses of the ten grounds, and on yet another the very warrant of the Huayan discourse of Indra's net — the eighth, the dedication of the mark of suchness, is just where these three roads come out together.

What this section is saying: one mind, sixty-one destinations

By the ninth of the ten dedications the look of the sutra text has suddenly changed. The first eight dedications are for the most part passage after passage of “that is to say”; this one is a single phrase repeated from beginning to end — “with a mind of liberation without attachment and without bondage,” not one graph altered, used sixty-one times. Beneath each repetition the virtuous functioning that follows is different: accomplishing the bodily activity of Samantabhadra, purifying the verbal activity of Samantabhadra, fulfilling the mental activity of Samantabhadra, giving rise to the vast vigor of Samantabhadra — on down to the last, “bringing forth all exceedingly subtle knowledge.”

Chengguan states this structure very clearly: “the mind of liberation without attachment and without bondage is the mind that is able to dedicate, and accomplishing the bodily activity of Samantabhadra is precisely what it is directed toward. All the rest follow this pattern; the roots of goodness above are precisely what is dedicated.” Three things are complete within the one sentence — what dedicates is that mind, what is dedicated are the roots of goodness spoken of above, and what it is directed toward is the virtue of Samantabhadra. He says further of these sixty gates that “within each and every gate there is gathered in the sovereign virtuous functioning of the Dharma realm — now principle, now practice; now knowledge, now object … and because each of them gathers in all dharmas as a whole, they cannot be outlined severally by grouping one under another.”

Let us first clear away a misreading: these are not sixty-one assignments to be worked through one after another. If they are taken as a checklist of tasks, one is already out of strength by the tenth gate. They are the sixty-one faces of a single thing — once that unattached, unbound mind is firmly set up, whichever face one turns toward is that mind. Brought down to the ground: the way to read this section is not to memorize the headings but to grow familiar with the eight graphs at the head of the sentence — at each clause, first ask, ‘if this clause did not have that mind, what would it turn into?’

Why it is called “liberation without attachment and without bondage”: Chengguan's two levels of explanation

The name of the station has to be asked about first. In explaining this name, Chengguan opens out two levels.

The first level is with respect to the substance of the practice: “that is: principle and knowledge rest upon nothing, and are not bound by the delusion of grasping at marks that sees a subject and an object; by this very fact it is named liberation — this explains it with respect to the substance of the practice.” Neither principle nor knowledge stands by leaning on anything else, and neither is tied up by that delusion of ‘there being a subject and an object, and a mark being seen’ — this is what is called liberation. He cites the Pusa yingluo benye jing as attestation: “because dharmas are not two, because prajñā is unborn, because the two truths are equal, and because the three times are of one single mark.”

The second level is with respect to the function of the practice: “again, liberation also means that its operation is sovereign, as with the inconceivable and the rest — this is with respect to the function of the practice, because the roots of goodness gathered in are all used to dedicate toward the boundless sovereign virtuous functioning of the three activities of Samantabhadra.” Liberation is not only not being tied up; it is also being sovereign in use. And so the sixty-one clauses that follow speak entirely of “virtuous functioning” — bodily activity, verbal activity, mental activity, dhāraṇī, sovereign power, spiritual power, exceedingly subtle knowledge; the whole way through it is what one is able to do, not what one refrains from doing.

The two levels taken together are the eye of this dedication: being without attachment and without bondage is not standing empty-handed; it is having one's hands freed. Clear away a misreading: to think that “without attachment” means wanting nothing and doing nothing — the sutra text says exactly the opposite. It is precisely because there is no attachment that so much can be done.

Of what exactly is there no bondage or attachment · by what exactly is one bound

After explaining the name, Chengguan puts two further questions to himself, and they are worth reading clause by clause.

The first question: “with regard to what is there no bondage or attachment? It is the ten, mind and the rest — because one's own person has mind, body, speech, deeds and their fruits, and the buddha-work one does; because there are worlds and buddha-lands; and because there are sentient beings, dharmas, and knowledge.” He points the answer directly at the ten clauses at the very end of this passage — “the mind is liberated without attachment and without bondage, the body is liberated without attachment and without bondage … knowledge is liberated without attachment and without bondage.” So “without attachment and without bondage” is not an adjective hanging in mid-air; the sutra itself lists ten places where it holds.

The second question: “by what is one not bound or attached?” He answers with “ten items in five pairs”: “first, because one departs from the ordinary one is not bound by birth-and-death, and because one goes out beyond the lesser vehicle one is not attached to the two vehicles. Second, departing from the grasping of the six consciousnesses one is not bound by outer objects, and departing from the clinging of the seventh one is not attached to the inner. Third, departing from the bondage of present activity, there is no attachment to seeds. Fourth, one does not take up the bondage of existence, nor cling with attachment to emptiness. Fifth, there is no bondage of the hindrance of delusion and no attachment of the hindrance to knowledge — in every case bondage is of the coarse and attachment is of the subtle.” In each of the five pairs, “bondage” is matched with the coarse and “attachment” with the subtle — Chengguan himself points out this rule: “in every case bondage is of the coarse and attachment is of the subtle.”

Brought down to the ground: ordinary people fear only the first pair (birth-and-death); practitioners easily get stuck at the fourth (not taking up existence, yet clinging to emptiness); and the subtlest is the fifth — even ‘I have wisdom’ is a kind of attachment.

The roots of goodness dedicated: first, “the mind gives rise to reverence”

Before the proper exposition, the sutra first states what roots of goodness are being dedicated. It does not begin by reporting a quantity; it begins by speaking of an attitude: “toward all roots of goodness, the mind gives rise to reverence” — and then nine clauses set it out severally: going forth from birth-and-death, gathering in roots of goodness, seeking roots of goodness, removing transgressions by repentance, rejoicing in roots of goodness, paying reverence to the buddhas, joining the palms in respect, bowing the head to stūpas and shrines, and exhorting the buddhas to expound the Dharma.

Chengguan's outline of this passage is: “reverence is first stated as a whole, because even a hair's worth of goodness is a cause of buddhahood and there is none that does not flow forth from the Buddha; next, from ‘namely’ onward, the several display; afterwards, from ‘toward such as these’ onward, the general conclusion.” The reason he gives carries great weight: even a hair's worth of goodness is a cause of becoming a buddha, and all of it flows forth from the Buddha's Dharma — and so one dare not slight it.

Let us first ask a question: why must dedication begin from “reverence”? Because dedication is the turning over of roots of goodness to somewhere else, and if in one's own mind one already regards them lightly, then what is turned over will be light as well. Among the nine clauses the one most worth noticing is that “removing transgressions by repentance” is also among them — repentance is itself a root of goodness, and it too is to be revered. This point is often missed: repenting is not a shameful matter, it is a matter to be undertaken with reverence.

Brought down to the ground: a small thing done today, if it is regarded as ‘nothing much,’ will never even reach the gate of dedication.

The ten clauses of advancing cultivation: turning reverence into the strength to dedicate

After reverence, the sutra text follows with ten clauses: “he delights in them and loves them to the utmost, and his faith and understanding are firm; he himself comes to abide securely, and he causes others to abide securely as well; he diligently cultivates without any grasping, and accumulates roots of goodness sovereignly; he brings to completion a surpassing resolve and delight, and abides in the sphere of the Tathāgata; his strength grows, and all of it comes to be known and seen.”

Chengguan divides these ten clauses into two: “the first five cultivate what precedes, that is, they explain the words ‘reverence’ and so on: first, because of delight he reveres; second, because of faith and understanding he accepts; third, he himself accords; fourth, he causes others to accord; fifth, without-attachment is displayed as a whole so as to cover the preceding four. The latter five are the advancing cultivation: first, accumulating and advancing in excellence; second, resolve and delight in the boundless virtuous functioning of Samantabhadra; third, entering upward into the sphere of the buddhas; fourth, the growth in strength of the roots of goodness; fifth, knowing and seeing ever brighter.”

This way of dividing resolves a place that is easily read past: the first five clauses are not new assignments; they are explaining the four graphs of the preceding passage, “reverence” and “according with and accepting” — because of delight, therefore reverence; because of faith and understanding, therefore acceptance; the self accords, others are caused to accord; and the fifth clause, “he diligently cultivates without any grasping,” gathers the preceding four together. Only the latter five go forward: accumulating, resolve and delight, entering the sphere of the buddhas, growth in strength, knowing and seeing.

Clear away a misreading: to think that “without attachment” is a high-level skill that only appears at the very end. It appears already in the fifth clause, and it appears there precisely in order to gather in the four most ordinary things before it — delight, and faith and understanding. Brought down to the ground: without-attachment is not far off; it is in that one thought, ‘I am doing this good deed, but I am not wringing my hands over it.’

The first four gates: body, speech, mind, and vigor

The first four of the sixty-one clauses are the shortest — accomplishing the bodily activity of Samantabhadra, purifying the verbal activity of Samantabhadra, fulfilling the mental activity of Samantabhadra, giving rise to the vast vigor of Samantabhadra.

Chengguan says that the standing of these four gates is particular: “with respect to the sixty gates of the vastness, which extensively display the sovereign virtuous functioning of Samantabhadra, the great division is twofold: the first four gates display it as a whole, and all the rest make it plain severally. Here is the first: the first three accomplish the three activities, since none of the gates below goes outside the three activities; the last one is vigor, since it drives the ten thousand practices throughout.”

First a question: why must the opening use the three activities? Because whatever the following fifty-seven clauses speak of — dhāraṇī, spiritual power, exceedingly subtle knowledge — none of it runs outside the three places of body, speech, and mind. The three activities are the general; all the rest are the several. The vigor of the fourth gate is then the strength that runs through them all; Chengguan says it “drives the ten thousand practices throughout,” like a single whip running through every practice.

Notice that the three verbs are different: of bodily activity the text says “accomplish,” of verbal activity “purify,” of mental activity “fulfil.” The sutra is not careless in its choice of graphs: bodily activity must be brought to accomplishment, verbal activity must be brought to purity, mental activity must be brought to completeness. Brought down to the ground: in examining one's own practice, these three words are exactly three different measuring-rods.

The four gates of dhāraṇī: only what can be held fast can be spoken of as pervading

The fifth through the eighth clauses speak of four gates of dhāraṇī. Dhāraṇī is total holding: what is able to hold without losing.

The first is “Samantabhadra's gate of dhāraṇī of unobstructed sound, whose voice is vast and pervades the ten directions” — what is held fast is the capacity of sound. The second is “Samantabhadra's gate of dhāraṇī of seeing all the buddhas, constantly seeing all the buddhas of the ten directions” — what is held fast is the condition for seeing the buddhas, and note that the sutra says “constantly sees,” not sees now and then. The third is “the gate of dhāraṇī of understanding all sounds, being one with all sounds and expounding measureless dharmas” — this gate and the first make a pair: the first gate speaks out, the third gate hears in, and moreover is able to expound the Dharma in the other's own sound. The fourth is “Samantabhadra's gate of dhāraṇī of abiding through all kalpas, cultivating the bodhisattva practice everywhere in the ten directions” — what is held fast is time, abiding long and not falling back.

The four gates read together are a sequence: able to speak, able to see, able to hear, able to endure. Clear away a misreading: dhāraṇī is not the same as an incantation. Not one of these four gates is a method of recitation; all of them are ‘holding fast some capacity and not letting it leak away.’ Brought down to the ground: what is most to be feared in practice is not failing to obtain something, but obtaining it and not being able to keep it — and these four gates are precisely about keeping.

The twelve kinds of sovereign power: from the body of a single sentient being to a single flower

The ninth through the twentieth clauses, twelve in all, begin with “accomplishes Samantabhadra's sovereign power” (of which two clauses read “accomplishes the sovereign power of Samantabhadra's buddhahood”). Chengguan's outline here reads “second, there are twelve vows to accomplish the sovereign power and functioning of Samantabhadra.”

The sequence of these twelve clauses has a rule: it extends from “one” to “all.” The ninth clause says “within the body of a single sentient being he displays the cultivation of all bodhisattva practices,” and then adds a line: “as it is within the body of a single sentient being, so it is within the bodies of all sentient beings” — this is the densest sentence-pattern of this dedication, used six times throughout the section. The eleventh and twelfth clauses are a pair: “within a single gate he displays himself” and “within various gates he displays himself,” the one few and the other many, and the sutra says outright that both are able to “cause all sentient beings to gain entry and awakening.”

The two most moving of these clauses stand in the middle and at the end. The sixteenth clause: “within the body of each and every sentient being he everywhere contains the bodies of all sentient beings, causing them all to know of themselves that they have accomplished the body of a buddha” — it is not that sentient beings are turned into buddhas, but that each is caused to know for himself that that very body is the body of a buddha. The seventeenth clause: “he is able with a single flower to adorn all the worlds of the ten directions” — a single flower, and the ten directions are adorned. In this one line, the one and the all are mutually identical upon a single flower.

The remaining clauses each have their own landing-place as well: the tenth clause, “he enters everywhere into all the places of awakening of the great assemblies, appears everywhere before all the buddhas, and cultivates the bodhisattva practice,” where sovereign power first lands upon reaching everywhere before the buddhas; the thirteenth clause, “in thought after thought he causes unspeakably unspeakable sentient beings to abide in the knowledge of the ten powers, and in his mind there is no weariness,” which is benefiting others thought after thought without tiring; the fourteenth clause, “within the bodies of all sentient beings he displays the sovereign spiritual powers of all the buddhas,” and the fifteenth, “within the language of each and every sentient being he makes the language of all sentient beings,” the one bodily and the other verbal, both displayed upon the sentient beings' own persons; the eighteenth clause, “he sends forth a great voice that pervades the Dharma realm and is heard throughout all the buddha-lands,” where the voice pervades the Dharma realm; and the nineteenth and twentieth clauses, “to the exhaustion of the future, through unspeakably unspeakable kalpas” and “throughout the kalpas in which he abides to the exhaustion of the future, he is constantly able to enter pervasively into all worlds,” which push sovereign power to the very end of time.

Brought down to the ground: what these twelve clauses teach is one thing — the ordinary person's way of doing things is ‘finish this and then do that,’ whereas the sovereign power of this station is ‘to do this one is to do all of them.’ The difference is not in efficiency but in whether the mind is partitioned.

Accomplishing the practice of Samantabhadra · cultivating the practice of Samantabhadra · abiding in the bodhisattva practice: the aspects of practice in seven gates

For the twenty-first through the twenty-seventh clauses Chengguan's outline reads “third, there are seven vows, vows to accomplish the practice of Samantabhadra.” The verbs of these seven clauses shift from “accomplish” to “cultivate” and then to “abide” — a line running from the fruit back toward the cause, and then toward settled abiding.

The first five clauses read “accomplishes the practice of Samantabhadra”: one light shining everywhere upon all worlds to the exhaustion of the realm of empty space · obtaining measureless wisdom and being complete in all spiritual powers · entering the Tathāgata's spiritual powers and knowledge that cannot be measured · abiding in the presence of all the tathāgatas throughout the Dharma realm and cultivating all the practices of bodhisattvas · not going against the meaning, not destroying the Dharma, and delighting in expounding without exhaustion. In the fourth clause one line deserves attention — “in bodily activity, verbal activity, and mental activity he has never been slack or weary”: the three activities appear again, answering from afar to the first four gates. The fifth clause, “he does not go against the meaning, he does not destroy the Dharma,” states the two bottom lines for one who expounds the Dharma: do not go against the sense of it, and do not damage the Dharma itself.

The sixth clause shifts to “cultivates the practice of Samantabhadra”: “when he enters a single gate of Dharma he releases measureless light and illumines and sees the inconceivable totality of the gates of Dharma; and as it is with a single gate of Dharma, so it is with all gates of Dharma, penetrated without obstruction.” The seventh clause shifts to “abides in the bodhisattva practice”: “he is sovereign with regard to dharmas and reaches the far shore of Samantabhadra's adornment … and yet omniscience is not thereby exhausted.” The last line is the most important — omniscience has been used to contemplate, and omniscience is not thereby used up. This is precisely the reverse of the world's view of resources.

From this life to the exhaustion of the future: cultivating the work of Samantabhadra and the ten kinds of skillful means

The twenty-eighth through the thirtieth clauses form a small group. The twenty-eighth clause speaks of the starting point and the end point of time: “from this very life on to the exhaustion of the future he abides in the practice of Samantabhadra and constantly does not rest.” Note “from this very life” — not from after some attainment, but reckoned from this present life.

The twenty-ninth clause, “he cultivates the work of Samantabhadra, skillful means are sovereign to him, and he obtains the light of the Dharma”; and the thirtieth clause then opens skillful means out into ten kinds: measureless skillful means, inconceivable skillful means, bodhisattva skillful means, the skillful means of omniscience, the skillful means of taming all bodhisattvas, the skillful means of turning measureless wheels of Dharma, the skillful means of unspeakable time, the skillful means of expounding dharmas of every kind, the skillful means of the borderless treasury of fearlessness, and the skillful means of expounding all dharmas without remainder.

First a question: why must skillful means be listed in ten kinds? Because once skillful means become fixed in form they are no longer skillful means. Among the ten there are some of quantity (measureless), some of quality (inconceivable), some of object (taming), some of time (unspeakable time), and some of dharma (expounding dharmas of every kind · expounding all dharmas without remainder) — every one of them is saying ‘according to a different condition there is a different point of entry.’ Brought down to the ground: it is the same in teaching others and in one's own practice — when one set of methods has been used for a long time one should be on guard, for it may by now be a habit rather than a skillful means.

Bodily activity · verbal activity · vastness: three clauses returning to the persons of sentient beings

The thirty-first through the thirty-third clauses draw the virtuous functioning spoken of above back to the place where one meets other people.

The thirty-first clause speaks of bodily activity: “causing all sentient beings who see him to rejoice and not to give rise to slander; they give rise to the mind of awakening and never turn back from it.” This clause states the effect of bodily activity very concretely — people see you and rejoice, they do not give rise to slander, and because of it they even arouse the mind. The thirty-second clause speaks of verbal activity: “he obtains the pure knowledge that understands the language of all sentient beings, all his words and phrases are complete in adornment, they answer everywhere to sentient beings, and all are caused to rejoice.” The thirty-third clause then strings the two graphs “vast” through seven occurrences: vast spiritual powers, vast wisdom, vast worlds, vast lands, vast multitudes of sentient beings, vast dharmas, and the treasury complete in vast adornment.

Clear away a misreading: the accomplishing of the two activities of body and speech is not image-management. The criterion in the sutra is “those who see him rejoice” and “all are caused to rejoice” — the criterion lies with the other person, not with how one feels about oneself.

Perfectly accomplishing the practices and vows of dedication, and the fourteen kinds of faculty

The thirty-fourth clause is a small conclusion: “he perfectly accomplishes the practices and vows of Samantabhadra's dedication, obtaining the pure body, the pure mind, and the pure understanding of all the buddhas,” followed by “he gathers in the merits of the buddhas, abides in the sphere of the buddhas, the seal of wisdom shines everywhere … and for all sentient beings he displays the accomplishing of right awakening.” The three purities (body · mind · understanding) stand over against the three activities above, the one at the station of the cause and the other in the virtue of the fruit.

The thirty-fifth clause speaks of “faculties,” and lists fourteen kinds in one breath: the keen and sharp faculty, the tamed and compliant faculty, the faculty of sovereignty in all dharmas, the inexhaustible faculty, the faculty of diligently cultivating all roots of goodness, the faculty of the equality of the spheres of all buddhas, the faculty of great vigor that confers upon all bodhisattvas the prediction of non-retrogression, the faculty of understanding the vajra-realm of all buddha-dharmas, the faculty of the vajra-flame illumined by the light of the wisdom of all tathāgatas, the faculty of sovereignty in discriminating all faculties, the faculty of establishing measureless sentient beings in omniscience, the borderless and vast faculty, the faculty complete in all things, and the pure and unobstructed faculty.

The “faculty” here is not the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind; it is the root of a capacity, the ground of being equal to something. Among the fourteen, four are set up for the sake of others (the faculty of great vigor that confers the prediction, the faculty of establishing measureless sentient beings in omniscience, and the like) — which shows that the faculties of this station do not grow for oneself alone.

The ten kinds of spiritual power and the entering of the gate of Samantabhadra

The thirty-sixth clause lists ten kinds of bodhisattva spiritual power, of which three most display the Huayan character: “the spiritual power of displaying all buddha-lands everywhere without moving his body” — unmoving and yet pervading; “the spiritual power of gathering all buddha-lands together and placing them in a single spot” and “the spiritual power of a single body filling all buddha-lands” — one drawing in and one letting out, exactly a pair; and the last, which is the longest: “the spiritual power of establishing in order, within a single pore, unspeakable worlds, of roaming everywhere through the places of awakening of all the buddhas of the Dharma realm, and of revealing this to sentient beings so that they all gain entry into the gate of great wisdom.”

The thirty-seventh clause, “he enters the gate of Samantabhadra and gives rise to the bodhisattva practice,” has a boundary-line for its last sentence: “he never gives rise to the mind of the two vehicles.” The thirty-eighth clause, “he cultivates Samantabhadra's practice of skillful means … he is born in the family of the Tathāgata and abides in the bodhisattva way” — “born in the family of the Tathāgata” is a term of station, and the sutra says it of itself.

Brought down to the ground: the ten kinds of spiritual power sound very far from human beings, but their common frame is only one sentence — unmoving and yet able to pervade. If today one cannot pervade the ten directions, one may begin by asking oneself whether one has that urgency of ‘I am not at ease unless I get moving.’

A single hair-tip · a single thought-moment · a single body: three clauses on containing

The thirty-ninth through the forty-first clauses are the most famous group in this dedication; the three clauses speak of three kinds of containing.

The thirty-ninth clause speaks of space: “within a place the size of a single hair-tip he wholly contains all the unspeakably unspeakable lands throughout empty space and pervading the Dharma realm, and causes them all to be clearly seen,” with the addition “as it is with a place the size of a single hair-tip, so it is likewise with each and every place the size of a hair-tip throughout the Dharma realm and the realm of empty space.” The fortieth clause speaks of time and mind: “within a single thought-moment of mind he displays the thought-moments of mind of a single sentient being through unspeakably unspeakable kalpas,” extended to all sentient beings. The forty-first clause speaks of the body: “within a single body he is able to contain the unspeakably unspeakable bodies of the whole Dharma realm,” and then adds one crucial line — “and yet the realm of sentient beings is thereby neither increased nor diminished.”

That line is the key to preventing a misreading: measureless bodies have been contained, and the realm of sentient beings is neither more nor less. So this is not gathering other people inside oneself; it is that there was never any partition to begin with. Brought down to the ground: containing is not expanding one's own capacity; it is taking away a wall that ought never to have been there.

Casting off the three inversions, and entering the upturned and overturned worlds

The forty-second clause speaks of casting off: “he casts off every inversion of conception, inversion of mind, and inversion of view” — the three inversions of conception, mind, and view. What is seen after the casting off is “the pure dharma-bodies of all the buddhas, equal to the realm of empty space,” and the last line turns: “and yet with regard to the body of the Tathāgata there is nothing at all that is obtained.” Precisely when the seeing is clearest, that is when nothing is obtained.

The forty-third clause speaks of entering worlds: the upturned worlds, the overturned worlds, and the vast worlds of every place woven like a net in the ten directions, “with the skillful means of discrimination that is the net of Indra he universally discriminates the whole Dharma realm.” The net of Indra is the net of the palace of the god Śakra, with a jewel in every opening and every jewel mirroring every other — the sutra here borrows it to speak of the skillful means of discriminating the Dharma realm. Then four clauses of “entering into a single world” advance layer by layer, and the last line sets up a boundary: “and yet he does not destroy the marks of their several establishings, and causes them all to be clearly seen.”

Clear away a misreading: being able to enter in is not the same as levelling away the differences. The sutra says expressly “he does not destroy the marks of their several establishings” — each world stays upturned where it should be upturned and overturned where it should be overturned, its look not altered in the least.

Receiving the buddhas' consecration: knowing forty-eight kinds of conception in a single thought

The forty-fourth clause is the longest. After receiving the consecration of the buddhas, “he is wholly able to understand all conceptions,” and the sutra lists forty-eight kinds of conception — beginning from the conception of sentient beings, the conception of dharmas, the conception of lands, the conception of directions, the conception of buddhas; in the middle come the bodhisattva's conceptions of forming, disintegrating, passing away, being born, liberation, and sovereignty; and at the end it comes down to the utterly ordinary conceptions of going, coming, standing, sitting, sleeping, and waking.

First a question: why must the list run all the way from “the conception of buddhas” to “the conception of sleeping”? Because inversion does not divide into great and small. Practitioners are easily on their guard among the conceptions in the high places, and easily let go among such conceptions as rising, sitting, and sleeping. That the sutra arranges the two extremes on a single list is precisely a refusal to let anyone grade them.

And the landing-place of this clause is: “in a single thought he is wholly able to understand them, and yet he is apart from all conceptions and discriminates nothing.” To know forty-eight kinds of conception and at the same time to be apart from all conceptions — knowing and being apart are not two successive steps. Brought down to the ground: being apart from conception is not forbidding thoughts to arise; it is that when they arise one is not dragged along by them.

One and all: five clauses on mutual knowing

The forty-fifth through the forty-ninth clauses are a run of five in the same sentence-pattern — knowing measureless minds within a single mind, knowing measureless places within a single place, knowing measureless deeds within a single deed, knowing unspeakable dharmas within a single dharma (and knowing a single dharma within all dharmas), knowing unspeakable spoken sounds within a single spoken sound.

The forty-eighth clause is the most worth savouring, because it runs both ways: “within a single dharma he knows unspeakably unspeakable dharmas, and within all dharmas he knows a single dharma” — from one to many, and from many to one. And then a line concludes: “such dharmas as these are each and every one differentiated, without obstruction, without contrariety, and without attachment.” The differences remain, and the obstruction is gone — and this is exactly the concrete look of the two graphs “without attachment” in the name of this dedication.

The forty-ninth clause speaks of the faculty of hearing: “he comes to be complete in Samantabhadra's unobstructed faculty of hearing: within a single spoken sound he knows unspeakably unspeakable spoken sounds … and yet he grasps at nothing.” He can hear measureless differences and yet does not stick to any one of them. Brought down to the ground: the stronger a person's power of discrimination, the more easily he is bound by the things he has discriminated; the faculty of hearing at this station is one that can distinguish and yet is not bound by its distinctions.

Expounding all dharmas within a single dharma: the aspect of expounding the Dharma

The fiftieth clause is the longest clause on expounding the Dharma in the whole section. “Within each and every dharma he expounds unspeakably unspeakable dharmas,” and the manner of the expounding is “through measureless times and through all times, according to whatever desires and understandings sentient beings have, according to their faculties and according to the time, he expounds the Dharma for them with the voice of a buddha.”

Three occurrences of “according to” are to be seen clearly: according to desires and understandings, according to faculties, according to the time. What is expounded is settled by the other person, and when it is expounded is settled by the other person too. Then, “with a single wondrous sound he causes the measureless sentient beings in unspeakable assemblies at the places of awakening all to rejoice” — one sound, and everyone receives the use of it: this is the Huayan aspect of expounding the Dharma. Afterwards it is said of one's own side: “according to whatever Dharma he expounds, in thought after thought he is able to enter into realization of it” — every sentence spoken out is one that he himself enters into on the spot.

Clear away a misreading: this is not eloquence. The criterion lies in the two graphs “enter into realization” — if it is spoken and he himself does not enter, the sutra does not count it. The fifty-first clause then says he “cultivates the gate of the practice of the faculties and becomes the great king of practice,” knowing within each and every faculty measureless faculties and measureless delights of the mind — which makes a pair with the fiftieth clause: the one speaks out, the other hears in.

The ten gates of exceedingly subtle knowledge (part one): the world · the destinies of sentient beings · the practices and virtues of bodhisattvas · the great functioning of the virtues of the station

From the fifty-second clause on, the sutra text puts on a different face, and ten clauses in a row all speak of “exceedingly subtle knowledge.” Chengguan sets up a general name for these ten gates: “third, the ten gates from ‘obtains the exceedingly subtle knowledge of form’ onward make plain the vow to obtain the subtle knowing of dharmas that is Samantabhadra's.” He names the ten gates one by one — first, the subtle knowledge of the dharmas of the world; second, the subtle knowledge that knows the destinies of sentient beings; third, the subtle knowledge that knows the practices and virtues of bodhisattvas; fourth, the knowledge that knows the great functioning of the virtues of the bodhisattva's station; fifth, the knowledge that knows the realm of sentient beings; sixth, the knowledge that knows the worlds; seventh, the knowledge that knows the Dharma realm; eighth, the knowledge that knows the entering of kalpas; ninth, the knowledge that knows dharmas; tenth, the exceedingly subtle knowledge that obtains the total knowing of all without remainder.

The first gate lists ten subtleties — form, body, lands, kalpas, ages, directions, times, numbers, the retribution of deeds, and purity — and its landing-place is not in knowing but in the mind: “and yet his mind is not terrified, his mind is not confused, not disturbed, not scattered, not turbid, not base; his mind is tied to a single object, his mind is well settled in quiescence.” First a question: to know so finely, why is it necessary to say “not terrified”? Because what is fine to the utmost can make a person afraid — the forming and disintegrating of worlds, the exact measure of the retribution of deeds; to see these clearly is no light matter. The sutra places the power of concentration after knowledge for just this reason.

The second gate knows the destinies of sentient beings, listing ten: destinies, dying, being born, standing, dwelling-places, kinds, spheres, practices, grasping, and clinging to conditions. Beneath this gate Chengguan notes the plainest of explanations: “‘standing’ means the standing of the lifespan.”

The third gate knows the practices and virtues of bodhisattvas, and the sutra lists twenty-one clauses — the first ten being the several kinds (dwelling-place, spiritual powers, roaming through buddha-lands, the light of the Dharma, the pure eye, the surpassing mind, going to the places of awakening, the knowledge of the gates of dhāraṇī, the expounding from the treasury of eloquence), and the latter eleven all attached to samādhi. Chengguan's outline reads “in the listing of what is obtained there are twenty clauses; the first ten are the several kinds, and the latter ten alike make plain samādhi.”

The fourth gate knows the great functioning of the virtues of the bodhisattva's station, and is the longest clause in the whole section: from the bodhisattva's knowledge of establishing, on through the final-birth bodhisattva, birth in the Tuṣita Heaven, abiding in the heavenly palace, entering the mother's womb, abiding in the mother's womb, being born, the lion-walk of seven steps, dwelling in the royal palace, going forth from the household, sitting at the place of awakening, and breaking the hosts of Māra and accomplishing right awakening, and on to the Tathāgata's releasing of light, his miraculous transformations, his lion-roar and great parinirvāṇa, his pervading of the Dharma realm, and his manifesting of measureless buddha-bodies within a single buddha-body. The sequence of the eight aspects of the accomplishing of the way is walked through completely within this one clause — and it is listed as “exceedingly subtle,” because what this station knows is not that event but every particle within that event.

The ten gates of exceedingly subtle knowledge (part two): the realm of sentient beings · the worlds · the Dharma realm · kalpas · dharmas · the total knowing

The fifth gate knows the realm of sentient beings, listing nine — discriminations, speech, attachments, differing kinds, same kinds, measureless destinies, the inconceivable doings of every kind of discrimination, measureless defilement, and measureless purity. Its landing-place is “with the sunlight of wisdom he illumines the minds of bodhisattvas, causing them to awaken and to be sovereign in wisdom.”

The sixth gate knows the worlds, listing twenty-one, of which two lines make a pair: “making the buddha-lands of the whole Dharma realm into a single buddha-land” and “making a single buddha-land into the buddha-lands of the whole Dharma realm”; and the last three lines turn into simile: knowing all worlds as a dream, as a reflected image, as an illusion. The seventh gate knows the Dharma realm, listing eleven, of which the two lines “knowing that in the whole Dharma realm nothing at all is obtained” and “knowing that in the whole Dharma realm there is no arising” are the places of profundity; and its landing-place is stated with utter plainness — “he accords with the world in giving rise to speech”: knowing that nothing at all is obtained, he goes on speaking properly all the same.

The eighth gate knows kalpas, and of its ten kinds six are the mutual entering of long and short (making unspeakable kalpas a single thought, making a single thought unspeakable kalpas, entering asaṃkhyeya kalpas into a single kalpa, entering a single kalpa into asaṃkhyeya kalpas, entering long kalpas into short kalpas, entering short kalpas into long kalpas); and there is besides the deepest line of all, “knowing that all kalpas are not kalpas” — a kalpa is a kalpa only because it is set up in mutual dependence.

The ninth gate knows all dharmas, and among its ten kinds three lines turn one into the next: “all dharmas entering a single dharma,” “a single dharma entering all dharmas,” “all dharmas entering non-dharma.” The tenth gate is the general gathering-in: “bringing forth all exceedingly subtle knowledge,” and at the very end ten knowledges are brought forth — like a shadow, like a dream, like an illusion, like an echo, like a conjuration, like empty space, quiescence, the whole Dharma realm, resting upon nothing, and all buddha-dharmas. The first six are similes, and yet they do not say that objects are like a dream or an illusion; they say that knowledge is like a dream or an illusion — the knowledge brought forth has of itself no substance that can be grasped. When Li Tongxuan took up this passage, it was precisely this string that he cited as the guiding thread of this dedication.

Brought down to the ground: these ten gates are a line running from coarse to fine and from outer to inner. The first gate knows the world; the last gate knows all and yet the knowledge it brings forth rests upon nothing — the more one knows, the less does a knowing self arise.

The ten pairs of not discriminating: dedicating all the way to the true limit

Here the prose turns. The sutra says: “when the bodhisattva-mahāsattva dedicates with a mind of liberation without attachment and without bondage, he does not discriminate the world or the dharmas of the world … does not discriminate dharma or knowledge” — ten pairs, twenty items. Chengguan determines this as “second, dedicating to the true limit,” and says “the text has ten pairs,” pointing out pair by pair what each attaches to: the first pair is the conventional and the real; the second is person and dharma (“because he seeks awakening he is named a bodhisattva”); the third is substance and function, also called subject and object; the ninth is cause and fruit (“‘perfectly awakened’ is with respect to the person tallying with the dharma, and differs from the ‘awakening’ above”); and the tenth is “the teaching-dharma and the teaching-knowledge set over against one another.” In explaining the third pair he cites the Liang She lun, “with regard to the discriminated other-dependent nature, he does not see the practice that is practiced nor the way that is able to practice,” and says “this is precisely that sense: that is, when the realizing knowledge is able to practice, one goes forth and is released.”

Of these ten pairs, the most intimate are the seventh, “does not discriminate self or other,” and the eighth, “does not discriminate the thing given or the one who receives what is given.” After all the virtuous functioning of the sixty-one clauses above, if there still remains an ‘I am dedicating’ and a ‘he receives my dedication,’ then the whole of it is still within bondage.

Chengguan says of the passage on the practice of the station as a whole, “the former makes plain the vastness, the latter displays the profundity” — the vastness is those sixty-one clauses, and the profundity is these ten pairs. First a question: why must the profundity be placed after the vastness? Because only when there has been gaining can there be talk of non-attachment; when a person who has never done anything says “I discriminate nothing,” that is empty talk. Brought down to the ground: these ten pairs are the measuring-rod for the preceding sixty-one clauses, not a replacement for them.

The ten liberations without attachment and without bondage: from the one place of mind, all ten places are freed

After the ten pairs the sutra concludes with ten clauses: mind, body, speech, deeds, retribution, the world, the buddha-lands, sentient beings, dharmas, and knowledge — all ten places are said to be “liberated without attachment and without bondage.” Chengguan attaches their sequence in a single line only: “because the mind is unbound, body and the rest are now all without bondage or attachment.”

That sentence nails down the structure of the whole passage: the ten places are not ten separate assignments to be cultivated; when the one place of mind loosens, the other nine loosen along with it. Looking back to the question Chengguan put to himself when explaining the name, “with regard to what is there no bondage or attachment?” — what he answered with was precisely these ten places; head and tail are buckled together here.

Clear away a misreading: do not read these ten clauses as a checklist of ten states. It is a sentence of cause and effect: the mind's being unbound comes first, and body and the other nine places come after. Brought down to the ground: when examining what still binds you, there is no need to go through the places one by one — examining that one place, the mind, is enough.

A dedication identical with that of the buddhas of the three times: seven rounds of matching

Next the sutra takes the buddhas of the three times as the standard: “he practices dedication as the buddhas of the three times practiced dedication when they were bodhisattvas” — note the four graphs “when they were bodhisattvas,” which take the buddhas as they were on the ground of the cause, not on the ground of the fruit.

Below this, round after round is matched to the three times: studying the past · accomplishing the future · abiding in the present (dedication); abiding securely · not abandoning · according with (the way of dedication); diligently cultivating · accomplishing · understanding (the teaching of the buddhas); fulfilling · accomplishing · abiding in (the equality of the buddhas); practicing · abiding in · being equal to (the spheres of the buddhas); and at the last four clauses spoken generally of “all the buddhas of the three times” — obtaining their roots of goodness, being complete in their lineage, abiding in what they practice, and according with their spheres.

First a question: why must it be matched round after round like this? Because what dedication most has to fear is inventing itself. The dedication of this station is not a scheme one thinks up oneself; it is walking the very road the buddhas of the three times walked on the ground of the cause. Chengguan determines this passage as belonging to what “makes plain how the dedication accomplishes benefit.” Brought down to the ground: so-called correct dedication has its criterion not in whether it feels right, but in whether it runs on the same track as what the buddhas practiced on the ground of the cause.

One graph in the concluding of the name: why it is “the dedication of the mind of liberation”

At the concluding of the name the sutra reads: “Sons of the Buddha! This is called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's ninth dedication of the mind of liberation without attachment and without bondage.” When the ten names were listed at the head of the chapter it read “the dedication of liberation without attachment and without bondage,” without the graph “mind”; at the concluding of the name a “mind” has been added.

Chengguan gives an account of this one graph's difference: “third, concluding the name. Because it has been expounded extensively from the very beginning, the word ‘mind’ is present.” — because from the very start the sixty-one clauses were expounded by way of that mind, the “mind” is carried along when the name is concluded. This is not a copyist's divergence; the text has its ground.

In the sixty-fascicle Avataṃsaka the name of this dedication reads “the dedication of liberation without bondage and without attachment,” the order of the two graphs “attachment” and “bondage” being inverted, and both its question raised and its concluding of the name carry the graph “mind”; the Pusa yingluo benye jing for its part reads “the dedication of liberation without bondage,” without even the graph “attachment.” The names in the three witnesses are all recorded here, and no adjudication is made.

The benefit accomplished by the dedication: three kinds of fruit

After the concluding of the name comes the fruit of the station. Chengguan determines it as three fruits: “first, the fruit accomplished at present, within which the earlier part is benefit to oneself and the later part, from ‘in order to’ onward, is benefit to others; second, from ‘wherever’ onward, the accomplishing of the fruit yet to be obtained, of which the first is benefit to oneself and the later part, from ‘to the exhaustion of the future’ onward, embraces both oneself and others; third, from ‘Samantabhadra’ onward, making plain the fruit finally accomplished, in which cause and fruit are unobstructed.”

The fruit accomplished at present is accomplished before one's eyes: “none of the vajra encircling mountains is able to destroy him; among all sentient beings he is first in form and appearance, with none who can equal him; he is able to crush all the evil works of Māra” — this is benefit to oneself; “in order to awaken all sentient beings he expounds the dharmas of the buddhas with skillful means” — this is benefit to others. The fruit yet to be obtained is what will certainly be obtained hereafter: “wherever he is born, whether walking or standing, he constantly meets with a retinue that will not be broken up” is benefit to oneself, and “to the exhaustion of future kalpas he cultivates the bodhisattva practice, constantly without rest and without any support” embraces both oneself and others. The fruit finally accomplished has only one sentence: “the practices and vows of Samantabhadra grow and become complete in him; and he obtains omniscience, does the work of a buddha, and accomplishes the sovereign spiritual powers of a bodhisattva.”

The end of the three fruits comes to rest upon Samantabhadra, joining head to tail with the opening of the sixty-one clauses, “accomplishes the bodily activity of Samantabhadra.” When Chengguan explains why this dedication “does not vow to become a buddha but vows to become Samantabhadra,” he says: “because Samantabhadra runs through both before the station and after the station, and having attained the way he does not abandon the practice of the cause, and to the very exhaustion of the realm of beings he benefits and gladdens sentient beings” — not seeking an early conclusion, but only to go on for a long time.

Fifty-one stanzas: the verses rearrange the prose once over

The verses restating are one hundred and two lines, fifty-one stanzas. Chengguan's outline is: “the fifty-one stanzas divide into two: first they restate the practice of the station, and the last two the fruit of the station. Within the former there are three: the first three stanzas restate the roots of goodness dedicated; second, from ‘what is cultivated’ onward, forty-four stanzas restate the practice of dedicating; third, from ‘the past’ onward, two stanzas restate how practice accomplishes benefit.” The numbers come out exactly: three plus forty-four plus two is forty-nine, and the remaining two restate the fruit of the station.

There are two places where the verses differ from the prose, and they are worth noting.

First, the verses restate only the vastness and do not restate the profundity. Chengguan says it plainly: “second, in restating the dedication he restates only the vastness and omits to restate the profundity, since it is present throughout the vastness.” — those ten pairs of not discriminating are not separately set up in the verses, because they are already present throughout the several gates of the vastness.

Second, the sequence of the verses differs from that of the prose. Chengguan matches them one by one: first, three stanzas restate the subtle knowledge of the world; second, one stanza restates the destinies of sentient beings; third, two stanzas restate, out of order, the fifth, the realm of sentient beings; fourth, three stanzas restate the third, the practices and virtues of bodhisattvas; fifth, from “the ten directions” onward, twenty-seven stanzas restate the fourth, the great functioning of the virtues of the station; sixth, from “numbered” onward, one stanza restates the eighth, the knowledge that knows kalpas; seventh, one stanza restates the sixth, the knowledge of the worlds; eighth, two stanzas restate the seventh, the knowledge of the Dharma realm; ninth, one stanza restates the ninth, the knowledge that knows dharmas; tenth, two stanzas restate how the knowledge of all dharmas accomplishes benefit. He uses the two graphs “restate out of order” particularly of the third — the realm of sentient beings, which ought to have come on stage fifth, has been brought forward to third, and he gives the reason too: “since the realm is precisely the nature of the faculties.” The ninth gate and the seventh are put together in one place, the reason being that “dharma and the nature of the Dharma realm raise one another up. In the division above, the meanings of the two gates must necessarily interpenetrate, and so the stanzas stand in one place.” The matching of the ten gates reckons up to forty-three stanzas; and out of these forty-four stanzas Chengguan further separates one stanza as restating the ultimate of Samantabhadra in his own portion, the remaining forty-three restating the ultimate of advancing beyond — and the one stanza of difference lies here.

The twenty-seven stanzas restating the great functioning of the virtues of the station are the weightiest passage of the whole verse section — from “all the buddhas of the worlds of the ten directions” onward, the descent of the spirit, the dwelling in the womb, the birth, the seven steps, the dwelling in the palace, the going forth from the household, the sitting at the place of awakening, the breaking of Māra, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, and the parinirvāṇa and the raising of stūpas — the eight aspects run through the verses more completely than they do in the prose. What the prose passed over with the three graphs “exceedingly subtle,” the verses spread out over a full twenty-seven stanzas.

The last four stanzas are the most memorable place in the whole chapter: “if a person knows this and dedicates, then he is equal to the practice of those buddhas”; “if a person is able to cultivate this dedication, then he is studying the way that the buddhas practice” — the vastness of the sixty-one clauses is gathered into a gate that even an ordinary person can take hold of. Brought down to the ground: it does not matter if one cannot finish reading those sixty-one clauses; these two stanzas are the key handed to the reader.

Lineage

As for the name of this dedication, the ancients each had their own way of reading it, each following his own track.

Chengguan, following the practice of sentence-by-sentence commentary that has come down from The Ten Grounds, determines the prose of the eighty-fascicle text as the two parts of the practice of the station and the fruit of the station, with the practice of the station in three parts and the practice of the vow in ten gates, and explains the name by the two senses of the substance of the practice and the function of the practice, citing the Pusa yingluo benye jing, “because dharmas are not two, because prajñā is unborn, because the two truths are equal, and because the three times are of one single mark,” as attestation. Fazang's Tanxuan ji speaks with respect to the sixty-fascicle text, and his outline reads “from here on, third, making plain that the practice at its utmost tallies with the real, which is the dedication to the true limit. Further, what precedes makes plain that the practice is vast; what follows here manifests that the practice is profound”; he explains the name by “not being fettered by conception and thought is named being without bondage or attachment. Roaming in emptiness without obstruction, one brings dedication to completion.” He determines the last four dedications generally by four phrases — “the preceding seven make plain the gathering of phenomena so as to be directed toward principle; this eighth makes plain that phenomena are exhausted and principle appears … after it, the ninth makes plain the arising of function from principle, and the tenth makes plain that the function is identical with the substance and that the substance is used as function” — and within his track this dedication is “the arising of function from principle.” Li Tongxuan for his part follows neither of these two tracks: he matches the perfection of power to this station, takes the deity whom Sudhana saw as what is symbolized, makes a long outline of this dedication into seven portions, and establishes of himself ten kinds of subtlety (the buddha-body · buddha-knowledge · the buddha's taking birth · gathering in all the sentient beings of the world · the lands · the ocean-assembly of bodhisattvas · the bodhisattva's seeing the buddhas · the buddha's voice · times and kalpas · spiritual powers and the strength of the way) so as to gather in the sutra's gates of exceedingly subtle knowledge, stating himself that “ten kinds of subtlety are set up so as to indicate them briefly, and all the rest follow this pattern.” The scriptural witness relied upon by the three, their method of dividing, and their track for explaining the name are each different; here they are recorded, and no adjudication is made as to which stands higher.

In the matter of numbers too there are things to be recorded. Chengguan states the vastness as “sixty gates,” whereas in the base text the enumerated clauses headed by “with a mind of liberation without attachment and without bondage” are in fact sixty-one; he determines the gate of the practices and virtues of bodhisattvas as “in the listing of what is obtained there are twenty clauses,” whereas the sutra lists twenty-one clauses. It is the same with the passage on reverence — the sutra makes its text of one general statement plus nine clauses of several display, and Chengguan's outline reads “reverence is first stated as a whole … next, from ‘namely’ onward, the several display,” whereas Li Tongxuan reckons it as “the portion that gives rise to the ten kinds of reverence,” raising it straight off by the number ten. The methods of reckoning differ, and both are recorded without adjudication.

It is the same with the divergence of a single name. The eighty-fascicle text reads “without attachment and without bondage,” the sixty-fascicle text reads “without bondage and without attachment,” and the Benye jing reads “liberation without bondage”; the eighty-fascicle text's enumeration of the name has no graph “mind” while its concluding of the name has one. These three names are all recorded here, and one is not taken up so as to discard the other two.

First, seeing clearly what this passage is saying

The ten dedications have reached here their tenth station, which is also the last step of the three worthy stages. Each of the first nine had its own thing to look at — rescuing and guarding sentient beings, indestructibility, equality with all buddhas, reaching every place, the treasury of inexhaustible merit, according with and making firm all roots of goodness, according equally with all sentient beings, the mark of suchness, liberation without attachment and without bondage — and in every one of them it is still possible to point out ‘which root of goodness is turned, and toward which place it is directed.’ At the tenth station the scripture changes its way of speaking: it no longer says what is turned or where it is directed, but says “measureless and equal to the Dharma realm.”

What does “equal” mean? Chengguan glosses it by saying that equal is the meaning of “entering,” because in the listing of the names in the root portion it was called entering the Dharma realm; and the Dharma realm being measureless is just that which is entered. Then what is it that enters? Chengguan opens this into four items — first, the practice-dharma that is turned, namely the practice of the giving of Dharma, because it is a giving that matches the Dharma realm; second, the substance of the practice performed, because it is vast and boundless; third, the wisdom that turns; fourth, the virtue toward which it is directed, that is, with the great wisdom that matches the Dharma realm turning roots of goodness that are equal to the Dharma realm, directing them toward a great function that is the same as the Dharma realm, and so accomplishing the substance of practice of the Dharma realm. The four taken together mean that the station is full to the utmost, and therefore “Dharma realm” is set up as the name. Fazang, commenting on the sixty-fascicle text, likewise opens four meanings, and their order is largely the same as Chengguan's; only in the fourth item he has “the virtue that is turned” and says “directing them toward the great function of the Dharma realm,” which differs from Chengguan's “the virtue toward which it is directed” by a single word, the two of them each making their own text.

There is also a misreading that must be set right at the outset. “Equal to the Dharma realm” does not mean ‘being equal to a thing called the Dharma realm.’ Chengguan says it very hard: those four items are wholly the same as the four kinds of Dharma realm, fused together and not two, so that what is able to be equal just is that to which it is equal, and it is not that there are two things that may lean upon one another; therefore what is said above about “entering” is in fact an entering with nothing entered. He further cites the words of the Pusa yingluo benye jing, “the Dharma realm has no equal, and is entered,” as an aid, saying that the markless middle way of the supreme truth is what is entered and that all dharmas being illumined as of one mark is what enters, and that these two being not two just is the Dharma realm — and so one may not take the “Dharma realm as phenomena” alone for this name. Chengguan's Yanyi chao then, on this ground, strikes at the earlier men's Kanding ji for construing “the Dharma realm being measureless” only as the phenomenal Dharma realm to which one is equal, saying that what one is equal to is fourfold and that “measureless” has two meanings, and how then may it be confined to phenomena.

“Measureless” too has two meanings. Chengguan says that the first is being without division into quantity, which is the Dharma realm as principle; the second is being without number, which is the Dharma realm as phenomena. In the text of this station the two meanings are both seen — where it says “as the Dharma realm is measureless, so too is the dedication of roots of goodness, and the wisdom obtained is in the end without measure,” that is being without division into quantity; where it says “there are measureless, boundless, unspeakably many great bodhisattvas,” that is being without number.

Last, look at the walk of the passage as a whole. Chengguan outlines the prose of this station into the two portions of the practice of the station and the fruit of the station; and the practice of the station is again three: first restating the name and raising the question, next explaining broadly in accordance with the question, and last concluding the name in accordance with the explanation. Within the broad explanation there are again three: first making clear the roots of goodness that are turned, next, from “with these roots of goodness” on, gathering in and about to dedicate, and last, from “when he dedicates in this way, he abides” on, the virtue accomplished by the dedication. And of that large portion, the gathering in and about to dedicate, Chengguan says that its way of outlining differs a little from that of the nine dedications before, that it comes in all to twenty-one gates, and that these fall into three sections — the first nine gates match the eleven clauses of the roots of goodness turned, one by one, to make clear the dedication, and these are the dedication of one's own portion; the middle four gates show the intent of the dedication generally; the last eight gates make clear the dedication separately by other gates, and these are the dedication of the advance beyond. And within those eight gates the order runs on as ‘dedicating to sentient beings, dedicating to awakening, what the dedication is for, dedicating to the true limit.’ The whole passage is prose, with no repeated verses; at the end of the section Chengguan says only the one sentence, “the prose is finished; the verses are below” — the verses belong to the end of the chapter, not to this station.

One. The question raised: what is asked is ‘what is called the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm’

First a question: this sentence is only a line long — why is it counted as a section of its own? Because every one of the ten dedications begins with this one question, and this is the joint between one station and the next. Chengguan outlines it as “restating the name and raising the question” — first the name of the station is restated, then a question is set, and only after that comes the “explaining broadly in accordance with the question.”

What must be noticed is the shape of the name. What the scripture asks here is “the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm,” whereas at the close of this station the scripture writes “the tenth dedication of abiding in the measurelessness equal to the Dharma realm,” with one graph more, the graph for abiding; the sixty-fascicle text names this station “the measureless dedication of the Dharma realm,” and its question-sentence reads “what is it that is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's tenth measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm,” its word order running “the Dharma realm, equal, measureless”; and Chengguan in setting up his outline writes yet again “the tenth measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm.” One and the same station with several ways of writing it: so it has been handed down from of old, and both are recorded without judging which is right.

Setting a misreading right: do not suppose that this question is someone breaking in to ask. From the first to the tenth of the ten dedications, the prose is spoken by the bodhisattva Vajra Banner alone; “Sons of the Buddha” is his call to the great assembly present, and the asking too is his own asking and his own answering. Bringing it down to the ground: in reading the ten dedications, when you see “Sons of the Buddha! What is the …,” you know the station has changed — this is the paragraph mark the scripture gives of itself.

Two. Binding the head and standing in the station: first setting up ‘the one who speaks the Dharma’

First a question: dedication is about where roots of goodness go — why does the opening speak a whole passage about ‘a white silk band bound about the head’? Because the substance of this station is the giving of Dharma, and the giving of Dharma must have someone who gives, so the bodily standing of that person is set up first. Chengguan glosses this by saying that it is as when on the tenth ground one obtains the stainless samādhi and receives the station of the anointing of wisdom: within, one obtains this concentration poured upon the head of the mind, and without, one shows the outward mark of the white silk bound about the head, and the dharma takes its name from the simile and is called “the stainless silk band.” Having this mark, one knows that concentration has been obtained, which shows that the station is full and accomplished, and only then can one, like clouds moving and rain falling, expound the Dharma and benefit the host of beings — hence “the station of a Dharma master.”

Then what is “the station being full”? Chengguan says that the fullness of a station comes in five layers in all — the fullness of faith, the fullness of understanding, the fullness of practice, the fullness of skillful vows, and the fullness of realization; and this station belongs to the fourth layer, the fullness of skillful vows. He adds a further word that matters: of these five layers, whichever one is accomplished, principle and practice must correspond within it, and so all of them are called the fullness of a station; and if one speaks by the fused view, then once one station is full that is the cause brought to its end, and there is no need to wait upon the rest — moreover, having obtained one, one has obtained all the other stations as well.

Of the eleven clauses that follow, Chengguan says the first one is general and the other ten are particular. The ten particular ones are: setting sentient beings up in the mind of awakening with loving-kindness and compassion, benefiting beings without rest, growing goodness with the great mind, taming and guiding to the very end, the sun of Dharma shining everywhere, equally urging the cultivation of goodness, the mind pure and unhindered, showing the fruit like a caravan leader, guiding by the cause that is the myriad practices, and increasing what cannot be broken, which is the guarding and keeping in mind. He also glosses in particular the clause “his mind-ground is pure and undefiled, his wisdom is sovereign,” saying that inversion is of two kinds — one is a mind defiled by the one who transforms and the one transformed, whereas here he does not give rise to transforming and yet the benefit of transforming is all the greater, which is why it is called wisdom being sovereign; the other is that, seeing that there is neither an agent nor an object, one heads toward extinction, whereas here he does not cast away good deeds and yet phenomena and principle are without obstruction.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “abiding in the station of a Dharma master” as the getting of a title. The sixty-fascicle text here has “receiving the prediction of a great Dharma master,” which speaks of the inner realization being already full while the outer mark may be verified; it is not a matter of rank and name. Bringing it down to the ground: this passage is the common root of the twenty-one gates below — the roots of goodness turned in every one of those gates come out of these eleven clauses of the giving of Dharma.

Three. The practice accomplished and the first gate: from “taking the giving of Dharma as foremost” to the twenty practices of purity

First a question: having already spoken the eleven clauses of the giving of Dharma, why speak a further passage, “taking the giving of Dharma as foremost, he gives rise to all the pure white dharmas”? Chengguan says this is “the practice accomplished” — the former passage was the rousing of the practice, and this passage shows the practice already accomplished; he further points out that the sixty-fascicle text here has “the bodhisattva practices the giving of Dharma and all good dharmas,” which is a restating of what went before.

After the practice is accomplished, from the sentence “with these roots of goodness he dedicates in this way” the first of the twenty-one gates begins. Chengguan says this gate is the vow to hear the Dharma, to see the buddhas, and to cultivate the practice of the two benefits, and that it matches the first two of the eleven clauses before. Within the gate there are three parts: first the general raising of what is vowed, next, from “that is to say” on, the listing of the practices cultivated, and last, from “Sons of the Buddha” on, the meeting of a difficulty and the completing of the explanation. The first clause of what is vowed is “may I be able to cultivate, accomplish, and increase all realms, vast and unhindered,” and Chengguan says that the three words “all realms,” though the text of them stands only in the first passage, run in meaning through all twenty-one passages — the dedication of every passage is upon all realms, and these all realms are as vast as the Dharma realm, principle and phenomena, and phenomena and phenomena, being without any obstruction.

What is listed from “that is to say” on is the practice of purity. The scripture lists twenty names, from “the practice of purity unbroken” down to “the practice of purity without anger.” Chengguan says these twenty practices of purity agree for the most part with the ten precepts listed in the Da zhidu lun, and he arranges them into the four classes of the restraints, the according with the path, completeness, and the according with concentration, and so reads them: the first six clauses are all the restraints, and among them the unbroken stands foremost, because to violate the four grave or the ten grave precepts is like a broken vessel, wholly useless; the second, without gap, is the keeping of the saṃghāvaśeṣa precepts — the remnant is like a vessel with a chip, which may still be mended; and further down, the unmixed, the unblotted, the unlost, and the unscreened are thought, fine conduct, correspondence with the concentrated mind, and the not being ruined by conditions. From the seventh on come being praised by the wise, not relying on fame and gain, and not gaining a holder or a held, and then one enters the according with the path; the thirteenth, “without attachment,” is seeing the true and becoming a noble one; the four clauses after that are the completeness of the precepts; and from “unmoving” on all are the precepts that accord with concentration. At the end he adds one fine reading: to abide beyond compare is to abide in great loving-kindness and compassion; unmoving and unconfused is the mind of equanimity constantly present; and without anger is joy — read so, the four measureless minds may also be called the practice of purity.

Setting a misreading right: do not read these twenty names as a list of twenty rules of precept. Chengguan himself says “now it is opened into twenty-one,” while the scripture actually lists twenty names; the number was from the first not fixed in the opening and joining, which shows that what is to be looked at is the layer upon layer of fineness in keeping and violating, not the count of the items. Bringing it down to the ground: this gate is the doorway of the whole station — first hearing the Dharma, then seeing the buddhas, then cultivating the two benefits of self and other; and because the practice of purity is the root of the myriad practices, it is opened out here for special notice.

Four. Meeting the difficulty and completing the explanation: only when you yourself stand firm is there any talk of delivering others

First a question: is a bodhisattva not supposed to put others first and himself last? Yet here it speaks first of ‘practicing the pure practice of purity for oneself’ — is this not contrary? Chengguan says this is precisely the difficulty the scripture has laid down beforehand, and so what follows explains it — only let one practice for oneself, and one is then naturally able to benefit others; and this also accomplishes the two clauses before, “setting sentient beings up in the mind of awakening” and “with the mind of awakening nourishing and growing the roots of goodness.”

The scripture's way of answering falls into two layers. The first layer speaks straight: if the bodhisattva is able to practice for himself a pure practice of purity such as this, he is able everywhere to act for all sentient beings, causing them to abide, to have understanding opened, to be accomplished, to be pure, to be stainless, to be illumined, to be free of dust and defilement, to be without screening hindrance, to be free of burning affliction, to be free of entangling bonds, to be forever free of every evil, and to be without vexation and harm and pure to the very end — twelve clauses in all. Chengguan says the first six clauses make clear that there is the virtue of keeping, and the last six that there is no fault of violating: not rousing a fault of mind, therefore no dust and defilement; not violating with body or speech, therefore no hindrance of the reward of deeds; not violating, therefore cool and clear in both lives; free of what is bound by shamelessness and the entanglement of regret; free of evil causes and evil fruits; and not vexing oneself or others, and so accomplishing the perfections.

The second layer is a twofold raising of the question and explaining. The first asks, ‘the practices of self and other are different — how is one's own practice being for others?’, and the answer is that if one's own person is not upright the command is not followed, and therefore one's own practice just is being for beings; and here Chengguan cites the Weimojie suoshuo jing, “that one who is himself bound should loose another's bonds — there is no such case,” and the She dacheng lun, “if he himself abides in wrong practice and yet would set right another's wrong, such a man will never be able to check another's faults,” as his proofs. The second raising of the question is the sharper: a whetstone is not itself sharp and yet can sharpen a blade; if I do not practice myself, what is to hinder my teaching others? The answer is that if one violates oneself and yet teaches another, this becomes inversion; a bodhisattva is without inversion and must have word and deed matching, and so he must practice as he speaks, that he may speak as he practices.

Setting a misreading right: this passage is not about an order of ‘first delivering oneself and afterward delivering others’; it is about one's own practice and the transforming of others being from the first one single thing. The sixty-fascicle text here strings ten instances of “there is no such case” one after another, and its force is the more decisive. Bringing it down to the ground: the first checkpoint of dedication does not lie in how many the roots of goodness are, but in whether the one who speaks stands firm himself.

Five. The second gate: to take the Dharma in hand, and then to speak the Dharma out

First a question: since the former gate has already spoken of vowing to hear the Dharma and see the buddhas, what is this gate for? Chengguan says this gate is the vow to obtain the Dharma and expound it at large so as to benefit self and other, and that it accomplishes precisely the clause above, “he acts for all sentient beings as the master who tames and guides, and shows sentient beings the path of omniscience.” Within the gate there are three: first restating what came before and raising what follows, next, from “that is to say” on, the proper making clear, and last, from “this is” on, the general conclusion.

Within the proper making clear there are two vows. The first vow makes clear the obtaining of the Dharma generally, and its text has four sections — obtaining the Dharma, explaining it, benefiting those to be taught, and, from “crushing and destroying” on, the accomplishing of one's own virtue. The second vow makes clear separately the expounding of the Dharma, and falls into five sections: first the general making clear, next, from “as to each single” on, making clear the obtaining of the Dharma, next, from “obtain fearlessness” on, making clear the ability to expound, next, from “in order that” on, making clear those for whose sake it is done, and last, from “he then gives rise to this thought and says” on, the accomplishing of virtue by his own cultivation. Here one difference of rendering is worth noticing: the base text has “may I obtain the inexhaustible Dharma-gates of all the buddhas,” which is a vow for oneself, whereas the sixty-fascicle text has “causing all sentient beings wholly to obtain the inexhaustible Dharma-gates of the buddhas,” which is a vow for others; and so Chengguan says that the sixty-fascicle text has no words “may I” below “divergent arguments.”

The last section, from “he then gives rise to this thought and says” on, accomplishes ten kinds of virtue, and Chengguan analyzes it very finely — the first two clauses speak of “pervading,” which is pervading both phenomena and principle; the remaining eight clauses speak of “equal,” carrying with it the sense of being equal to non-obstruction, and this is an eliding in the wording. He also glosses in passing the graph for abiding, saying that it is of the sort of the noble abiding, the divine abiding, and the pure abiding.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “crushing and destroying every divergent argument of the outsider ways” as a fondness for disputing. What the scripture says immediately after is “set up surpassing aspirations,” “all give rise to gladness,” “expounding without a break, following the speech of each of their kinds” — what is crushed is a way of speaking that makes people confused, not a wish to beat others. Bringing it down to the ground: what this gate teaches is the self-examination of one who speaks the Dharma — has the Dharma come into your hand, are those you speak to glad, and when you have finished speaking have you yourself grown.

Six. The third gate: what I obtain, may sentient beings obtain just the same

First a question: how does this gate differ from the one before? Chengguan says this is the vow that the practice of the two benefits be full, and that it accomplishes the two clauses above, “he acts as a sun holding the treasury of the Dharma, and the light of the roots of goodness shines everywhere upon all” and “toward all sentient beings his mind is equal,” because the sun of the treasury of Dharma is what shines everywhere. Within the gate there is first a general speaking of the two benefits and afterward, from “and may I moreover” on, a separate making clear of the two benefits — first oneself becoming equal to principle, and afterward, from “as I myself obtain” on, causing sentient beings to become equal to oneself.

The scripture strings nine clauses of “equal to the Dharma realm and measureless” one after another: seeing the buddhas, taming sentient beings, holding and sustaining buddha-lands, realizing the wisdom of a bodhisattva, obtaining fearlessness, accomplishing dhāraṇīs, obtaining inconceivable abidings, being furnished with merit, and bringing to fullness the roots of goodness that benefit sentient beings. It is precisely here that Chengguan takes this passage as the scriptural ground for “being equal to the Dharma realm as phenomena” — he says that these vows to rouse measureless practices equal to the Dharma realm, to accomplish measureless virtues equal to the Dharma realm, and to obtain measureless fruits equal to the Dharma realm are all phenomena that just are principle. Then follow eleven clauses of “equality”: merit, wisdom, power, fearlessness, purity, sovereignty, right awakening, expounding the Dharma, meaning, certainty, and every spiritual penetration. It closes upon “as I myself obtain, so may all sentient beings obtain, no different from me.”

Setting a misreading right: “no different from me” is not self-praise; it is the very bone of dedication — if a dedication still keeps back a fraction of the mind that says ‘I have more than you,’ it is not called being equal to the Dharma realm. Bringing it down to the ground: this one sentence is the sentence of the whole station that can be put to use at once — every good thing you pray for, pray for in just the same shape for every single person.

Seven. The fourth gate: as the Dharma realm is, so is the dedication of roots of goodness

First a question: on what ground is this gate divided from the one before? Chengguan says this gate is the vow that the practice match the Dharma realm, and that it accomplishes the two clauses above, “his mind-ground is pure and undefiled, his wisdom is sovereign” — because every stirring of thought matches the Dharma realm, therefore there is nothing defiled; and this is why at the end of the passage it says “never to lose and ruin any of their pure practices.” He further judges that this chapter agrees for the most part with the Dharma realm as principle, saying that just as wisdom issues from principle, so it is the same as the Dharma realm, and that all the other clauses may be inferred by the same rule; and this is what “directing toward the true limit” means.

The ten clauses of the scripture are without exception a parallel of the form ‘as the Dharma realm is such and such, so too is the dedication of roots of goodness, and such and such’: measureless matched to wisdom measureless, boundless to seeing the buddhas without bound, without limit to going to the lands without a set limit, without border to cultivating practice without a shore, unbroken to abiding in wisdom unbroken, of one nature to being of one nature of wisdom together with sentient beings, pure by its own nature to causing sentient beings to be pure to the very end, according to causing sentient beings to accord with the practices and vows of Samantabhadra, adorned to causing sentient beings to take the practice of Samantabhadra for their adornment, and not able to suffer loss and ruin to causing bodhisattvas never to lose and ruin their pure practices.

Chengguan takes the sixth and seventh clauses of this passage — “as the Dharma realm is of one nature only” and “as the Dharma realm is by its own nature pure” — as the scriptural ground for “being equal to the Dharma realm as principle,” and says that texts of this sort are more than one.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “as the Dharma realm” as the making of a comparison. It is not being said here that roots of goodness are ‘like’ the Dharma realm; it is being said that once roots of goodness are dedicated, their measure is the measure of the Dharma realm — which is why the second half of each clause falls at once upon something concrete: the wisdom is without measure, the seeing of the buddhas is without bound. Bringing it down to the ground: these ten clauses are a measuring rod; any gate of practice whatever may be laid against these ten clauses once, to see whether it matches the Dharma realm.

Eight. The fifth gate: fourteen vows, that sentient beings constantly see the Buddha

First a question: since the former gate has already spoken of the vow that the practice match the Dharma realm, what is this gate for? Chengguan says this gate has fourteen vows, the vow to obtain the seeing of the buddhas and the understanding of the Dharma, and that it accomplishes the clause above, “he acts as the greatly wise caravan leader of all sentient beings.”

All fourteen clauses of the scripture begin with “may I, with these roots of goodness.” The first three vows are for oneself — serving the buddhas and bodhisattvas and causing them to be glad, swiftly entering the nature of omniscience, and being everywhere in every place and cultivating omniscience; the eleven vows after that are for others, running on with “causing all sentient beings constantly to be able to see the Buddha,” and the second half of every one of those vows is different: being able to do the work of a buddha, giving rise to no neglect, minds glad and pure and without turning back, minds well understanding, giving rise to no clinging, penetrating without hindrance, accomplishing the practice of Samantabhadra, present before them and never for a moment cast aside, giving birth to measureless powers, and never forgetting or losing any dharma.

There is an order here that must be seen clearly. The earlier vows seek only ‘seeing’; the middle turns to ‘what the mind is like after seeing’; the last turns to ‘what one can do after seeing.’ Seeing the Buddha is not the aim; seeing the Buddha is for the sake of not forgetting and losing the Dharma.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “constantly to be able to see the Buddha” as the seeking of a response from above. The scripture itself lays the weight upon “gives rise to no mind of neglect toward the work of a buddha” and “gives rise to no clinging” — to be able to see and yet to give rise to clinging is the same disease as not being able to see. Bringing it down to the ground: these fourteen vows can be taken as a table of stages, to see at which layer one is stuck.

Nine. Dedicating as the ten natures of the Dharma realm: a dedication that points at no thing at all

First a question: the fourth gate above has already spoken the ten clauses of “as the Dharma realm is measureless”; here it speaks ten clauses of “as the unarisen nature of the Dharma realm” — is this not a repetition? The former spoke of the measure of roots of goodness from the virtues of the Dharma realm; here it speaks of the mark of dedication from the nature of the Dharma realm — the one speaks of measure, the other of substance.

The ten clauses of the scripture are extremely short, one nature to a clause: the unarisen nature, the root nature, the self-substance nature, the unsupported nature, the unforgetting nature, the empty and nonexistent nature, the still and quiet nature, the placeless nature, the unshifting nature, and the undifferentiated nature. Even the half-sentence “so too is the dedication of roots of goodness” is left out, and only ‘dedicating as such and such a nature of the Dharma realm’ remains.

What matters most in these ten clauses are the two ends, “unarisen” and “unsupported.” Unarisen says that this business of dedicating has of itself no place from which it arises; unsupported says that it hangs upon no single thing. The empty and nonexistent, the still and quiet, the placeless, and the unshifting in the middle are all a repeated setting out of this one matter, that ‘there is no thing to be found that one may point to.’ The last clause, “the undifferentiated nature,” gathers up the nine before it — not even the differences among these natures are set up.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “the empty and nonexistent nature” as there being nothing at all. The “still and quiet,” “placeless,” and “unshifting” that follow immediately are still describing different sides of one and the same matter; and if there were truly nothing at all, there would be no ten clauses either. Bringing it down to the ground: this gate is the specific cure for the disease of ‘keeping an account in the mind after one has dedicated’ — to keep an account is to have arising, to have support, and to have a place.

Ten. The twenty vows for Dharma masters: that all sentient beings become those who speak the Dharma

First a question: why is this gate especially long? Because the substance of this station is the giving of Dharma, and the utmost of the giving of Dharma is to make all sentient beings become Dharma masters. The scripture begins from “whatever showing forth and whatever awakening the giving of Dharma has, together with all the roots of goodness that arise therefrom,” and then runs on with twenty instances of ‘may all sentient beings become such and such a Dharma master.’

The twenty Dharma masters have each their own virtue. The earlier group speaks of standing — bodhisattva Dharma masters guarded and kept in mind by the buddhas, unsurpassed Dharma masters who by skillful means set sentient beings up in omniscience, unyielding Dharma masters whom no question or challenge can exhaust, unhindered Dharma masters who obtain the unhindered light of all dharmas, Dharma masters who are treasuries of wisdom and skillfully expound all the Dharma of the buddhas, and sovereign Dharma masters well able to set out and distinguish the wisdom of the Tathāgata. The middle group speaks of the quality of the speaking — Dharma masters like the eye, who expound the Dharma as it truly is and are not taught by another; Dharma masters who hold it in memory, expounding in accord with principle and not going against the meaning of the words; Dharma masters of the path of the markless, who adorn themselves with wondrous marks and send out light and enter into dharmas; Dharma masters of the great body, whose bodies pervade the lands and who raise the cloud of Dharma and rain down the Dharma; Dharma masters who guard the treasury of Dharma, who set up a banner none can overcome and cause the ocean of true Dharma to suffer no diminishing; Dharma masters who are the sun of all dharmas, who obtain the eloquence of a buddha and skillfully expound the dharmas; Dharma masters of wondrous voice and skillful means, who well expound the treasury of the boundless Dharma realm; and Dharma masters who reach the further shore of the Dharma, who open the treasury of the true Dharma by wisdom and spiritual penetration. The last group speaks of what is countered — Dharma masters who abide in the true Dharma and expound the ultimate wisdom of the Tathāgata; Dharma masters who penetrate all dharmas and expound measureless and inexhaustible merit; Dharma masters who do not deceive the world and by skillful means cause others to enter the true limit; Dharma masters who break the hosts of Māra and are well aware of every deed of Māra; Dharma masters gathered in by the buddhas, free of the mind that grasps at a self and what belongs to a self; and Dharma masters who bring peace and safety to the world and accomplish the power of the bodhisattva's vow to expound the Dharma.

Chengguan takes from among these the clause “become Dharma masters who cultivate the path of the markless, adorning themselves with all the wondrous marks” as the scriptural ground for “being equal to the Dharma realm of the non-obstruction of principle and phenomena” — mark and marklessness being unobstructed to one another is just what this clause is.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “Dharma master” as a profession. Among the twenty vows there is not one that speaks of a seat or of a following; what they speak of throughout is whether the questioning exhausts one, whether the meaning of the words is gone against, and whether there is in the mind a ‘what belongs to me.’ Bringing it down to the ground: this gate is the one in the whole station most easily laid against oneself — whoever opens his mouth to speak the Dharma may check himself against these twenty, one by one.

Eleven. The ten non-clingings: not seizing even upon “dedication”

First a question: dedication is of itself the turning of roots of goodness outward — why must it be said that “he does not dedicate by way of clinging to dedication”? Because the very act of turning them outward can also be seized upon. The scripture runs on with ten clauses of ‘he does not dedicate by way of clinging to such and such’ — deeds, the fruits of reward, mind, dharmas, affairs, causes, speech and sound, names and phrases and the body of letters, dedication, and benefiting sentient beings.

There is an order in the way the ten clauses run down. The first six clauses set aside the coarse marks of what is taken as object — the deeds done, the reward felt, the mind that takes an object, the dharma taken as object, the affair faced, and the cause depended on; the seventh and eighth turn into speech — speech and sound are sound, and names and phrases and the body of letters are the vehicle of meaning, and neither may be grasped; the ninth clause is the most vital, “he does not dedicate by way of clinging to dedication,” which sets aside once again all the setting-aside that has gone before; and the tenth clause, “he does not dedicate by way of clinging to benefiting sentient beings,” is finer still — benefiting sentient beings is a good thing, and yet once seized upon it is a bondage all the same.

Zhiyan, in the Kongmu zhang, sets under the name of this station the question “dedication — what meaning is this?” and answers, “no dedication is it,” which bears upon the setting-aside sentence pattern of this passage; this is recorded without adjudication.

Setting a misreading right: do not read ‘not clinging to benefiting sentient beings’ as not needing to benefit sentient beings. The gate just before has this moment roused twenty great vows for the benefit of others; what is set aside here is the “clinging,” not the “benefit.” Bringing it down to the ground: to check whether your own dedication has any “clinging” in it, the quickest question is this — if the fruit of this root of goodness were never to come to your knowledge at all, would you still do it.

Twelve. Seventeen things set aside and eleven “only for”: what he does not dedicate for, and what he dedicates only for

First a question: the gate before has already spoken the ten non-clingings; what is this gate for? The gate before set aside ‘seizing’; this gate sets aside ‘motive’ — for the sake of what one dedicates. The scripture goes first in the negative and then in the positive, forming the sharpest pair of contrasts in the station.

The negative side has seventeen clauses in all. The first twelve clauses are engrossment and seeking — being engrossed in the realm of form; being engrossed in the realms of sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas; seeking birth among the gods; seeking the pleasures of desire; clinging to the realms of desire; seeking a retinue; seeking sovereignty; seeking the pleasures of birth-and-death; clinging to birth-and-death; delighting in the states of existence; seeking the pleasure of coming together; and seeking a place that is lovely and to be clung to. The thirteenth clause, “he does not dedicate for the sake of harboring a mind of poison and harm,” is a matter of the working of the heart. The last four clauses change the sentence pattern, reading not “not for the sake of” but “he does not dedicate ruining roots of goodness, he does not dedicate in reliance upon the three realms, he does not dedicate clinging to the meditations, liberations, and samādhis, he does not dedicate abiding in the vehicle of the śrāvakas or of the pratyekabuddhas” — what is set aside is no longer the pleasures of the world but concentration and liberation and the fruit of the two vehicles.

The positive side has eleven clauses in all, every one of them beginning with “only for”: teaching and taming sentient beings; bringing to fullness the wisdom of omniscience; obtaining unhindered wisdom; obtaining pure roots of goodness free of hindrance; causing sentient beings to pass beyond birth-and-death and realize great wisdom; causing the great mind of awakening to be unbreakable like vajra; accomplishing the ultimate deathless Dharma; adorning the lineage of the buddhas with measureless adornment and manifesting the sovereignty of omniscience; seeking the bodhisattva's great wisdom of spiritual penetration that illumines all dharmas; practicing the practice of Samantabhadra full and without turning back in the whole Dharma realm and the whole realm of empty space and causing sentient beings to abide in the ground of Samantabhadra; and delivering sentient beings through all the kalpas of the future with never a rest.

Setting a misreading right: do not suppose that what is set aside is only bad things. Concentration, liberation, samādhi, and the vehicle of the śrāvakas and of the pratyekabuddhas are not bad things, and yet they stand in the same list of what is set aside — what is set aside is the taking of them for the destination of a dedication. Bringing it down to the ground: this gate is a set of true-or-false questions, seventeen on the negative side and eleven on the positive; ask yourself of each one, ‘in which column does this dedication of mine stand.’

Thirteen. The ten equal minds and the twenty “so that”: with what mind he dedicates, and for what he dedicates

First a question: the gates before spoke of the roots of goodness turned and of the motives set aside; what does this gate supply? It supplies “the mind that turns them.” The scripture says, “when he dedicates with those roots of goodness, it is with a mind such as this that he dedicates,” and runs on with ten clauses of mind — the mind equal as to root nature, the mind equal as to the nature of dharmas, the mind equal and measureless as to all sentient beings, the mind equal and without contention, the mind equal as to the arising of nothing from its own nature, the mind that knows all dharmas to be unconfused, the mind equal as to entering the three times, the mind that gives birth to the lineage of the buddhas of the three times, the mind that obtains spiritual penetrations not lost or turned back from, and the mind that gives rise to the practice of omniscience. The first five clauses all carry the two graphs for equality; the last five turn into knowing, entering, giving birth, obtaining, and giving rise — a passage from the still into the moving.

Then follow twenty clauses of “so that all sentient beings … he dedicates.” The first five clauses remove suffering — forever free of the hells, not entering the destiny of animals, not going to the place of Yama the king, extinguishing the dharmas that hinder the path, and satisfying the roots of goodness. The six in the middle accomplish virtue — turning the wheel of Dharma at the fitting time and causing all to be glad, entering the wheel of the ten powers, satisfying the boundless pure vows for the Dharma, following the instruction of good friends so that the vessel of the mind of awakening is filled full, receiving and upholding and practicing the most profound Dharma of the Buddha and obtaining the light of the wisdom of the buddhas, and cultivating practices free of hindrance so that they are constantly present. The last nine clauses are strung together throughout by the three graphs for “constantly present before them” — seeing the buddhas present, the light of the Dharma present, the fearless great mind of awakening present, inconceivable wisdom present, the mind of great compassion present — and then close upon adorning the buddha-lands, crushing the deeds of Māra, cultivating in all the buddha-lands with nothing relied upon, and rousing the mind of the wisdom of all modes and entering the vast gate of the Dharma of the Buddha.

Setting a misreading right: “the equal mind” is not an absence of discrimination so complete that right and wrong are no longer told apart. The scripture immediately after uses twenty clauses to divide things extremely finely — which destiny is to be left, which virtue is to be accomplished, which mind is to be present. Bringing it down to the ground: what this gate teaches is the tuning of the mind before one dedicates — first see with which kind of mind you are turning, and then see for which matter you are turning.

Fourteen. Dedicating with right mindfulness and purity: twenty-two things it is for, laid out in one breath

First a question: since the gate before has already listed twenty things it is for, and this gate lists twenty-two more, is this not an overlapping? The things the former gate is for are all tied to sentient beings, while the things this gate is for take in one's own realization and the expounding of the Dharma as well — the first three clauses, “dedicating with right mindfulness and purity; dedicating with wisdom that is decided; dedicating with the exhaustive knowing of all the skillful means of the Dharma of the buddhas,” do not even use the graph for “for the sake of,” but state directly the mark of the one who turns.

Below, it lays them out one after another. First one's own realization — accomplishing measureless and unhindered wisdom, and satisfying the pure and surpassing mind. Next the four measureless minds — for sentient beings abiding in great loving-kindness, great compassion, great joy, and great equanimity. Next being free of the two clingings and abiding in surpassing roots of goodness, and pondering, contemplating, setting out, and expounding all the dharmas of dependent origination. Next the setting up of banners — setting up the mind that is a banner of great valor, setting up the treasury that is a banner none can overcome, and breaking the hosts of Māra. Next the obtaining of mind — obtaining a mind pure and unhindered in all dharmas, cultivating the bodhisattva's practice without turning back, obtaining a mind that delights in seeking the foremost and most surpassing Dharma, and obtaining a mind that delights in seeking the dharmas of merit and the sovereign, pure wisdom of omniscience.

The last four clauses suddenly lengthen. One clause is “fulfilling every vow and removing every contention” and turning for sentient beings the wheel of Dharma that does not turn back; one is obtaining the sun of the wisdom of the Tathāgata's highest and most surpassing Dharma, adorned by a hundred thousand lights and shining everywhere upon the sentient beings of the Dharma realm; the third is the longest, speaking of taming sentient beings and constantly satisfying whatever they delight in, not casting away the original vow, and to the very end of the future hearing the Dharma and cultivating practice, and then five acts in a row — obtaining the stainless light of pure wisdom, cutting off conceit, extinguishing the afflictions, tearing the net of craving and desire, and breaking the darkness of delusion. The last clause, “for the sake of all sentient beings, that through asaṃkhyeya kalpas they may constantly and diligently cultivate the practice of omniscience without turning back, and that each and every one of them may obtain unhindered subtle wisdom and manifest the sovereign spiritual penetrations of the buddhas without any rest, he dedicates,” draws time out to asaṃkhyeya kalpas and pushes practice on to a state without rest.

Setting a misreading right: do not read these twenty-two clauses as a list of wishes. Every clause hangs upon the three graphs “he dedicates,” and what is spoken is what the dedication is for, not a table of the results of practice. Bringing it down to the ground: this gate may be read as one long text of dedication, running in a single breath from one's own realization to the benefit of others to the breaking of confusion.

Fifteen. The nine kinds of roots of goodness dedicated: the hand that dedicates may carry no greed

First a question: after so much has been said about what it is for, why does this gate suddenly turn back to “he should not cling with greed to the three states of existence or to the realms of the five desires”? Because the end of the gate before ran on to the breaking of the darkness of delusion, and its force was at its height; here it is drawn back at once and the root is held down. The scripture sets itself the question “why?” and then answers with nine clauses — he should dedicate with roots of goodness that are without greed, without anger, without delusion, doing no harm, free of conceit, without flattery, straight and honest, of diligent effort, and of cultivation.

The nine clauses divide clearly. The first three clauses are the positive side of the three roots of goodness; the fourth, “doing no harm,” counters the conduct of anger; the fifth, “free of conceit,” and the sixth, “without flattery,” counter the crookedness of the mind; the seventh, “straight and honest,” is the positive statement of the two before; and the last two, “diligent effort” and “cultivation,” turn into the carrying out. If the roots of goodness turned have themselves greed, anger, delusion, conceit, and flattery mixed into them, then however many the acts of dedicating, they only work in the service of those afflictions.

At the end of the passage the scripture states of itself what one who dedicates in this way obtains — obtaining a pure mind of faith, gladly forbearing in the practice of a bodhisattva, cultivating the pure great path of a bodhisattva; being furnished with the lineage of a buddha and obtaining the wisdom of a buddha; casting away every evil and being free of the deeds of Māra; drawing near to good friends and accomplishing one's own great vow; inviting all sentient beings and setting up a great assembly of giving. The last sentence, “inviting all sentient beings and setting up a great assembly of giving,” is especially worth turning over — the giving of Dharma here turns out into an assembly of giving again, and the fruit that benefits oneself is at once spread out once more.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “he should not cling with greed to the three states of existence or to the realms of the five desires” as a guarding only against the pleasures of desire. The three states of existence are existence in the three realms itself, and even the mind that ‘would still like to go on existing’ stands in what is guarded against. Bringing it down to the ground: before dedicating, look first at whether the handful of roots of goodness in your hand is clean; this gate gives nine items to check.

Sixteen. The vows of voice: the forty-four kinds of voice

First a question: why does a dedication suddenly begin to speak of sound? Because this station has the giving of Dharma for its substance, and the giving of Dharma must depend upon voice. The scripture runs on with forty-four clauses of ‘obtaining such and such a voice’: the first thirty-five clauses are spoken in one breath, and the last nine begin a separate group with “and again, with these roots of goodness.”

The earlier group may be divided again. The first thirteen clauses speak of the quality of the voice — pure and wondrous, soft and gentle, like the drums of the gods, measureless and numberless and inconceivable, to be loved and delighted in, pure, pervading all the buddha-lands, adorned with the merit of a hundred thousand nayutas beyond speaking, high and far-carrying, vast, extinguishing all scattering, filling the Dharma realm, and gathering in the speech of all sentient beings. The four clauses in the middle suddenly turn into “the wisdom of sounds of voice” — the wisdom of the boundless sounds of voice of all sentient beings, the wisdom of all pure speech and sounds of voice, the wisdom of measureless speech and sounds of voice, and the most sovereign voice with the wisdom that enters all sounds of voice. Chengguan here points out one layer: the reason “the wisdom of sounds of voice” is spoken in the middle is that in the mind it is wisdom and in the uttering it is called voice, and both sides ought properly to be furnished, the scripture merely eliding as it speaks. The eighteen clauses further down turn into the function of the voice — expounding all the Dharma of the buddhas so that the name is heard everywhere, causing sentient beings to obtain the adornment of dhāraṇī, reaching everywhere to the assembly-sites of the Dharma realm, holding and sustaining the vajra sentences, opening and showing all dharmas, being able to expound the treasury of wisdom that distinguishes letters and phrases beyond speaking, expounding with nothing clung to and without breaking off, shining brightly, causing the world to be pure and to reach to omniscience, everywhere holding the phrases and meanings of dharmas, guarded by spiritual power and sovereign and unhindered, and the wisdom that reaches the further shore of all the world, and the rest.

The later group of nine clauses inclines to “being without fault” — not lowly, without fear, without stain or clinging, gladdening all assembly-sites, concordant and beautiful, expounding well all the Dharma of the buddhas, cutting off doubt and causing awakening, complete in eloquence, and everywhere awakening from the sleep of the long night. Chengguan divides it in just this way: first with respect to being furnished with virtue, as with the soft and gentle and the rest; second with respect to being without fault, as with the not lowly and the rest.

Setting a misreading right: do not read this gate as the seeking of a fine voice. Of the forty-four clauses, only the first thirteen truly speak of the quality of the sound; all the rest speak of this voice being able to cut off doubt, to open and show, and to reach the further shore. Bringing it down to the ground: one who speaks the Dharma may check himself against these forty-four clauses — what is wanting is for the most part not in the timbre but in that one clause, “cutting off the doubting thoughts of all sentient beings.”

Seventeen. The ten freedoms from faults and evils: that sentient beings be free of faults and evils

First a question: the gate before vowed that sentient beings obtain voice; what is this gate for? Chengguan says the gate before caused sentient beings to obtain the virtue of voice, while this gate generally causes sentient beings to be furnished with virtue, and that its text has ten clauses, the first five being the fullness of the fruit and the last five the roundness of the cause.

All ten clauses without exception begin with “may all sentient beings obtain, free of every fault and evil,” each clause the same, only the thing obtained at the end being changed. The first five clauses are fruit — the pure dharma-body, pure and wondrous merit, pure and wondrous marks, pure fruits of deeds, and a pure mind of omniscience. The last five are cause — a measureless pure mind of awakening, the pure skillful means of knowing the faculties, pure faith and understanding, pure and diligently cultivated unhindered practices and vows, and pure right mindfulness and wisdom and eloquence.

The sentence pattern of these ten clauses is worth noticing. The scripture does not say ‘may sentient beings obtain a pure dharma-body,’ but says ‘may sentient beings obtain a pure dharma-body free of every fault and evil’ — the four graphs “free of every fault and evil” are driven in between, ten times without once being spared. What is prayed for is not one more good thing added on; it is the pulling of the thing already there out of faults and evils.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “fault and evil” only as evil in conduct. The seventh clause says “the pure skillful means of knowing the faculties,” and the tenth says “pure right mindfulness, wisdom, and eloquence” — even deviations in knowing and in speaking stand among what is to be left behind. Bringing it down to the ground: these ten clauses may be taken directly as a daily text of dedication, from the body to the mind to eloquence, with not one item missing.

Eighteen. The ten pure and wondrous bodies: like a mirror

First a question: the virtues vowed for above are already many — why open a passage on “body” by itself? Chengguan says that the ten clauses of the fruit sentient beings obtain should each have many, and that here only the “body” of the first clause is expounded at large, from which the rest may be inferred. Within the gate there are three parts: first making clear the obtaining of the body, next showing the function of the body, and last generally concluding what is accomplished.

The ten bodies have each what they are chiefly of. Chengguan divides them very finely — light is the light of the body and the light of wisdom, illumining all without exception; free of turbidity is the substance having no dark hindrance, able to be seen through; without stain is the substance not taking on defilement, like a warm and moist jade that is dyed and does not go black; pure is the pure virtue filled within, like a jade without a flaw; utterly pure is a purity that is not for a time only. These three clauses above are spoken with respect to the substance. The three clauses below face the object — free of dust is not being soiled by dust, utterly free of dust is not being touched by the most minute, and free of defilement is being unstained by filth; and if they are spoken with respect to inner virtue, the exhausting of the hindrance of the afflictions is called free of dust, the perishing of the habit-energies as well is called utterly free of dust, and not abiding in the knowable is called free of the defilement of mind. The ninth, to be loved and delighted in, is being furnished with marks and furnished with virtue; the tenth, without hindrance, is the form filling the Dharma realm and the wisdom pervading the ten directions, so that mountains and rivers, phenomena and principle, cannot hinder it.

The function of the body falls into two layers. The first four clauses are the function of the form-body — manifesting the reflected images of deeds in all worlds, manifesting the reflected images of speech in all the world, manifesting the reflected images of what is set up in all palaces, and then “just as in a pure bright mirror colors and images of every kind appear of themselves”; Chengguan says the first three clauses spread one body throughout the Dharma realm, and the last clause gathers the myriad images into one body. The five instances of “shows sentient beings” that follow are the function of the wisdom-body, and the last, “shows sentient beings the nature of omniscience that brings to fullness the practices and vows of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra,” is the function that runs through both bodies.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “the pure bright mirror” as a passive reflecting. The simile of the mirror here says ‘neither welcoming nor refusing, and the images appear of themselves,’ which is why what follows immediately is all “shows sentient beings” — an active teaching, not a still reflecting. Bringing it down to the ground: what this gate speaks of is the teaching by the body of one who speaks the Dharma — wherever the body appears, there the Dharma is shown.

Nineteen. The vow that the body abide wherever it goes: wherever the body reaches, there the practice is cultivated

First a question: the gate before has spoken of the body; what is this gate for? Chengguan says this gate is the vow that the cause of the second fruit be round, and that within the gate there are two — the first half is the practice of rousing function from principle, and the second half, from “enter all” on, is the practice of entering the deep by way of phenomena.

The first half lays them out one after another. The body abides wherever it goes and in all worlds cultivates the practice of a bodhisattva, and sentient beings who see it are none of them left empty-handed and rouse the mind of awakening never to turn back; according with the truly real meaning, he cannot be shaken; through all the kalpas of the future he abides in the path of a bodhisattva without weariness; his great compassion is even and everywhere, its measure equal to the Dharma realm; he knows the faculties of sentient beings and expounds the Dharma at the fitting time, constantly without rest; his mind holds good friends constantly in right mindfulness, not casting them aside for so much as the moment of a single thought; all the buddhas are constantly present before him and his mind holds them constantly in right mindfulness, never for a moment slack; he cultivates every root of goodness with nothing false in it; he sets sentient beings in omniscience and causes them not to turn back; he is complete in the light of the Dharma of the buddhas, holds the great cloud of Dharma and receives the great rain of Dharma. Chengguan says that this passage first makes clear the conditions for accomplishing practice, because the body abides wherever it goes; next, from “sentient beings who see it” on, is the benefit of others not being empty; and afterward, from “toward good friends” on, it runs through both the benefit of self and the benefit of others.

The second half strings ten instances of the graph for entering one after another — entering all sentient beings, all buddha-lands, all dharmas, all the three times, the wisdom of the deeds and rewards of sentient beings, the wisdom of the skillful means of bodhisattvas, the wisdom of the arising of bodhisattvas, the wisdom of the pure realms of bodhisattvas, the sovereign spiritual penetrations of the buddhas, and the boundless Dharma realm. Chengguan says this is entering the deep by way of phenomena, that wisdom's tallying is called entering, and that the boundless Dharma realm runs through both body and wisdom and is entered. The last sentence still draws back to “abiding herein, cultivating the practice of a bodhisattva” — having entered to the very end, it is still practice, and there is no separate place to settle the body.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “entering” as a going somewhere. Among the objects of the ten “enterings” there are sentient beings, there are dharmas, there are the three times, and there is wisdom — it is not an arriving in space, but the removing of a partition. Bringing it down to the ground: what this gate teaches is that ‘wherever the body is, there one cultivates,’ and there is no need to seek another place of practice.

Twenty. The jeweled adornment of the buddha-lands: why ninety-four uses of “asaṃkhyeya”

First a question: the two gates before spoke of the body and of practice — why does this gate begin to speak of the adornments of a buddha-land? Chengguan says this gate is the vow that the fruit that is the dependent reward be accomplished — the body is the direct reward and the land the dependent reward, and when the cause is round both fruits are full. Within the gate the general comes first and the particular after.

Of the ten general clauses, Chengguan says the first restates what came before and raises what follows, and that the other nine properly show the marks of what is vowed — that they be pure, that they be adorned, that their measure pervade everywhere, that they be purely good, that they be without hindrance, that they be furnished with pure light, that there be buddhas manifest, that they fuse and take in one another, and that one be raised as an example for the rest. Among them the one most to be looked at is “the pure realms within one buddha-land are all able to manifest all buddha-lands; and as with one buddha-land, so with all buddha-lands alike” — one land spread open and its measure is equal to the Dharma realm, one land rolled up and it manifests all without remainder, and the spreading and the rolling being unobstructed to each other, this is what one buddha-land is. It is precisely this clause that Chengguan takes as the scriptural ground for “being equal to the Dharma realm of the non-obstruction of phenomena and phenomena.”

Within the particular showing, the scripture caps each item with “asaṃkhyeya,” and counted out these come to ninety-four items. Chengguan here makes plain a matter of importance: the sixty-fascicle text here has throughout “measureless asaṃkhyeya,” from which it may be seen that “asaṃkhyeya” is not one number among numbers but only means “numberless” — and if it were fixed as some one number, it would on the contrary become a confining limit. As to the number one hundred, he picks out from within the ninety-four items six further attendant things carrying ‘measureless, numberless, a hundred thousand, inconceivable’ to make up the count — the flowers and fruits of the jeweled trees, the bodhisattvas in the palaces, the jeweled treasuries after the showing of the cause, the bodhisattvas upon the garlands, the birds among the jeweled branches, and the bodhisattvas within the jeweled flowers — and so fills the count of a hundred.

The ninety-four items have layers within them as well. Chengguan divides the hundred items, after the filling out, into the first eighteen items which briefly make clear what is surpassing and the latter eighty-two which show at large; and the showing at large falls again into five sections: twenty-four items adorned purely with outer jewels, fifteen items set up under the name of a thing and explained by a gate of Dharma, three items with respect to a gate of Dharma alone, twenty-two items which by a jewel that is a thing accomplish a gate of Dharma, and eighteen items which show that the six faculties and the three kinds of deeds of the inner body are all named jewels. At the end he passes one general judgment that matters — that these things, whether pure or mixed, whether direct or dependent reward and unobstructed, are all summoned by taking the gate of the non-obstruction of phenomena and phenomena as their cause.

Setting a misreading right: do not read this long passage as a spreading out of display. From “jeweled sentient beings” on, the eighteen items speak throughout of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind and the deeds of body, speech, and mind — the jewel at the last is one's own self, not an outward thing. Bringing it down to the ground: this gate is the most concentrated passage of the Huayan contemplation of the dependent reward, and in reading it one may go item by item and look at ‘what it takes for its cause.’

Twenty-one. Adornment by the jewel that is people, and the remaining adornments shown by kind: where the real jewel lies

First a question: since the jewels have been spoken to the end, why a further passage on bodhisattvas filling the land? Chengguan says the former was the general showing of the jeweled adornment, and here is the separate making clear of “adornment by the jewel that is people” — he cites the Miaofa lianhua jing, “why is that land named Great Jeweled Adornment? Because within that land bodhisattvas are taken for the great jewel,” as his proof, and brings alongside it the old matter of the courts of Chu and of Wei, which did not hold gold and jade for a treasure but held worthy ministers for their jewel, saying that only when in every dust-mote place throughout the Dharma realm there are many bodhisattvas may it be called adorning a land with the great mind.

The scripture's way of saying it is extremely brief: within one buddha-land, one quarter, one place, one space the size of the tip of a hair, there are measureless, boundless, unspeakably many great bodhisattvas who have accomplished pure wisdom and dwell there filling it full; and every space the size of the tip of a hair throughout the whole of empty space and pervading the Dharma realm is likewise. This is precisely the side of “being without number” among the two meanings of “measureless” above.

The last section, “the remaining adornments shown by kind,” has the scripture say that as with the jeweled adornment so it is expounded at large, and that besides these there are the eleven kinds of adornment by fragrance, flowers, garlands, unguent incense, burning incense, powdered incense, garments, canopies, banners, pennants, and maṇi jewels. Chengguan says that each of these eleven things has the hundred items above, and added to the original hundred this makes twelve hundred; and as to the scripture's phrase “in due order and on to a hundredfold beyond this,” he first passes judgment upon the rendering — if it be said that the matters of adornment go beyond, then it should not be said “all of them as with the jeweled adornment”; and if one follows the sixty-fascicle text's “garments, canopies, banners, and pennants, on to a hundred things of adornment,” then it takes fragrance and the rest as the hundred, and so the three graphs “multiplied beyond this” are not well rendered. He at once puts forth an explanation of his own as well — if one runs it through by a separate principle, then the jeweled adornment above listed only a hundred items and yet is not only a hundred, and should go a hundredfold beyond, so that a hundred hundreds make ten thousand, which is just what shows the fused ten thousand practices. This is recorded without adjudication.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “the space the size of the tip of a hair” as a tiny corner. The scripture's meaning is just the reverse — even a place as large as the tip of a hair has unspeakably many bodhisattvas dwelling in it. Bringing it down to the ground: this passage turns the center of gravity of the ninety-four items before it over — what makes a land a jewel lies in people, not in things.

Twenty-two. What the dedication is for, one: twenty-three clauses for the sake of sentient beings

First a question: so much of dedication has already been said — how does the “for the sake of … he dedicates” here differ from what came before? Chengguan says these are the two gates of “what the dedication is for” among the eight gates of the advance beyond, this gate being what should be done for sentient beings and the next what should be done for awakening. He says this gate has twenty-three clauses, of which the first two, though their text stands foremost, run in meaning through both places, and that the third clause, “he dedicates for the sake of accomplishing all sentient beings,” is the general clause, all below being particular clauses, running from the mind of faith all the way to the wisdom of all modes.

The way the twenty-three clauses walk is this. The first two clauses, “for the sake of nourishing and growing every root of goodness” and “for the sake of adorning and purifying all buddha-lands,” run through both self and other; the third clause states generally the accomplishing of sentient beings; and the twenty below open item by item — pure and unshaken minds, entering the most profound Dharma of the Buddha, obtaining pure merit none can surpass, obtaining pure power of blessedness that cannot be broken, obtaining inexhaustible power of wisdom to deliver beings and cause them to enter the Dharma of the Buddha, obtaining equal and measureless pure speech and voice, obtaining an equal and unhindered eye and accomplishing an equal wisdom, obtaining pure mindfulness and knowing all the worlds of the kalpas of the earlier limit, obtaining unhindered great wisdom and deciding and penetrating every treasury of Dharma, obtaining a great awakening without limit or measure pervading the Dharma realm, obtaining equal and undifferentiated roots of goodness of one same substance, obtaining pure deeds of the three kinds adorned with merit complete, obtaining what is the same as the practice of Samantabhadra, being able to enter all the pure buddha-lands of one same substance, contemplating omniscience and all tending toward its fullness, being far removed from unequal roots of goodness, obtaining equality without any differing mark and with a profound mind bringing omniscience in due order to fullness, abiding in every white dharma, in a single thought realizing omniscience and attaining its very end, and bringing to fullness the pure path of omniscience.

Setting a misreading right: do not suppose that this is merely a repetition of the vows for others before. Every clause of this gate hangs upon the three graphs “he dedicates,” and what is spoken is the direction of the dedication, not the items of practice; and moreover, apart from the two clauses at the head that run through both self and other, every clause is “causing all sentient beings to obtain.” Bringing it down to the ground: these twenty-three clauses are a complete text of dedication, dedicating from the mind of sentient beings all the way to their wisdom of all modes.

Twenty-three. What the dedication is for, two: fourteen clauses for the sake of awakening

First a question: since he has already dedicated for the sake of sentient beings, why set up a further gate of dedicating for the sake of awakening? Chengguan says this gate is what should be done for awakening, making clear that when the cause is round and the fruit full, the great function is inexhaustible. The scripture takes up from the gate before with “when he, with all his roots of goodness, has dedicated in this way everywhere for the sake of all sentient beings,” from which the order may be seen to be plain — first sentient beings, and afterward awakening.

The fourteen clauses fall into three layers. The first seven clauses use the graph for “wishing to” one after another, and speak of the fullness of the Dharma — wishing to bring wholly to fullness the power of expounding all the dharmas of pure practice, wishing to accomplish the majestic power of pure practice and obtain oceans of Dharma beyond speaking, wishing within each single ocean of Dharma to be complete in the pure light of wisdom equal to the Dharma realm, wishing to open and show and expound the phrases and meanings that distinguish all dharmas, wishing to accomplish the boundless and vast samādhi of the light of all dharmas, wishing to accord with the eloquence of the buddhas of the three times, and wishing to accomplish the sovereign body of all the buddhas of the three times. The two clauses in the middle change to the graph for “for the sake of” — for the sake of honoring the lovable and unhindered Dharma of all the buddhas, and for the sake of satisfying the mind of great compassion and rescuing and guarding sentient beings constantly without turning back. The last five clauses return again to “wishing to” and “for the sake of” alternating — wishing to accomplish inconceivable distinguished dharmas and unhindered wisdom and to enter everywhere the assembly-sites, wishing in all the buddha-lands, whether overturned or upright, whether coarse or fine, whether broad or narrow, whether small or great, whether defiled or pure, constantly to turn the equal wheel of Dharma from which there is no turning back, wishing in thought after thought to obtain fearless and inexhaustible eloquence of every kind and with the light of the wondrous Dharma to open and show and expound, for the sake of delighting to seek every goodness and rousing the mind to cultivate it so that the faculties turn surpassing and he obtains the great wisdom of spiritual penetration in all dharmas, and wishing in all assembly-sites to draw near and make offerings and to expound all dharmas for sentient beings and cause them all to be glad.

Among them the clause “whether overturned or upright, whether coarse or fine, whether broad or narrow, small or great, defiled or pure” is the most worth noticing — not choosing among the marks of lands, but constantly and without exception turning the equal wheel of Dharma from which there is no turning back: this is just the meaning of “equal to the Dharma realm” falling upon the expounding of the Dharma.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “dedicating to awakening” as seeking the fruit of buddhahood for oneself. Among the fourteen clauses there is not one that seeks a fruit-station; all of them seek the power to expound the Dharma, eloquence, light, and the entering everywhere of assembly-sites. Bringing it down to the ground: what this gate teaches is that to be directed toward awakening is to be directed toward that capacity ‘to be able to expound all dharmas for all sentient beings.’

Twenty-four. Dedicating to the true limit: twenty-nine clauses of “abiding in the measurelessness of the Dharma realm”

First a question: dedicating to sentient beings and dedicating to awakening have both been spoken — what is there left to dedicate? Chengguan says this is “dedicating to the true limit,” the last of the three places of dedication. He says this passage has twenty-nine clauses; that where every clause says “the Dharma realm,” it is the Dharma realm of the non-obstruction of principle and phenomena; and that where every clause says “abiding,” it is that wisdom tallies with the principle that just is phenomena and so has nothing it abides in, and abiding is the meaning of entering, because it is an abiding in peace; and that the Dharma realm being not two is just the meaning of “equal.” He also glosses the first clause, “the measureless abiding,” in particular — all roots of goodness are what is abided in, and now, with an abiding that is no abiding, it is the same as the Dharma realm's being measureless; and all the other clauses are to be seen in the same way.

There is an order in the arrangement of the twenty-nine clauses. The first clause is general, speaking of “abiding” itself. The second to the fourth are the three kinds of deeds — deeds of body, of speech, of mind. The fifth to the ninth enter the aggregates, the elements, and the sense-fields — the equality of form, the equality of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, the equality of the aggregates, the equality of the elements, the equality of the sense-fields. The tenth and eleventh are the inward and the outward. The twelfth to the sixteenth turn into the practice of the mind — arousing, the profound mind, skillful means, faith and understanding, and the faculties. The seventeenth is time — the earlier limit, the middle limit, and the later limit. The eighteenth and nineteenth are deeds and their rewards, and the defiled and the pure. The twentieth to the twenty-third are objects — sentient beings, buddha-lands, dharmas, and the light of the world. The twenty-fourth to the twenty-seventh are the noble stations — the buddhas and bodhisattvas, the practices and vows of a bodhisattva, the going forth of a bodhisattva, and the teaching and taming of a bodhisattva. The twenty-eighth clause, “the equality of the not-twoness of the Dharma realm,” gathers up all that has gone before. The last clause, “the equality of the assembly-sites of the Tathāgata,” falls back to the place where the Dharma is expounded.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “the true limit” as some higher place to go to. The scripture does not say in a single clause that one is to go anywhere; every clause is “abiding” — dedicating to the true limit is not a transferring, it is an abiding. Bringing it down to the ground: these twenty-nine clauses may be made into one extremely fine contemplation, looking from one's own deeds of body, speech, and mind all the way to the assembly-sites, to see whether in any of these places there is still a corner that is ‘not the Dharma realm.’

Twenty-five. The benefit accomplished by the dedication: eight abidings, giving rise to two functions

First a question: since he has dedicated to the true limit, why is there a further passage, “when he dedicates in this way, he abides”? Chengguan says this is the third of the three parts of the broad explanation, “the virtue accomplished by the dedication,” which is to say the benefit of the dedication. He says this passage has ten clauses in its text, all of them saying “abides,” because above, wisdom has already tallied, and therefore he is able to be at peace.

The eight clauses of abiding have each what they abide in. The first three clauses are body, speech, and mind; the fourth is the pure practices and vows of the bodhisattvas; the fifth is the pure assembly-sites; the sixth is the pure wisdom that expounds all dharmas at large for all bodhisattvas; the seventh is the body that is able to enter all the worlds of the whole Dharma realm; the eighth is the pure fearlessness of the light of all dharmas. Chengguan says that body and the rest are of themselves differentiated phenomena, and now they are just equal and pure; and equal and pure just is the Dharma realm being inexhaustible, and the Dharma realm being pure just is what is obtained, wisdom being able to abide and wholly the same as the Dharma realm.

From these eight abidings the two functions that follow are accomplished. The first function is “he is able with a single voice to cut off entirely the net of doubts of all sentient beings, and following their faculties and their desires to cause them all to be glad”; the second function is abiding within the unsurpassed wisdom of all modes, the powers, the fearlessnesses, the sovereign spiritual penetrations, the vast merit, and the dharmas of going forth. Chengguan says that the virtues of a buddha are many but that here four are briefly raised — the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the ten sovereignties, and the six spiritual penetrations — and are named the vast virtue; and set against the wisdom of all modes above, these are the two adornments of a buddha, which are just the dharmas of going forth.

Setting a misreading right: do not read “a single voice” as a marvelous power. The scripture itself says that the working of the single voice is to “cut off entirely the net of doubts of all sentient beings” — the cutting off of doubt is the point, and the single voice merely describes its being unpartitioned. Bringing it down to the ground: this section is the report card of the station — whether the eight places are abided in may be asked of oneself one by one; and the way to test it lies in the two functions that follow — can you cut off another's doubt.

Twenty-six. The concluding of the name and the fruit of the station: the three worthy stages are here brought to fullness

First a question: why is the concluding sentence written “the tenth dedication of abiding in the measurelessness equal to the Dharma realm,” with one graph more, the graph for abiding? The concluding sentences of the other nine dedications none of them carry this graph. The sixty-fascicle text here has “the tenth measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm,” and Chengguan in setting up his outline has yet again “the tenth measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm”: three places and three shapes, so handed down from of old, and both are recorded without judging.

Below the concluding of the name is the fruit of the station. Chengguan divides it into three sections — first stating the cause obtained, next, from “brings to fullness” on, listing what is obtained, and last, from “all such things as these” on, concluding the marks of what is obtained. What is obtained falls again into three kinds of fullness of fruit: the first is the fullness of the benefit of cause and fruit, that is, bringing to fullness the practices and vows of Samantabhadra, adorning and purifying all buddha-lands, and causing sentient beings to be complete in boundless wisdom and to penetrate all dharmas; the second is the fullness of sovereignty in seeing the buddhas, first stating generally that in thought after thought he sees all the buddhas arising in the world, and afterward showing sovereign power separately in fourteen clauses — vast, unattached, unhindered, inconceivable, purifying all sentient beings, establishing all worlds, manifesting speech beyond speaking, appearing in response to the time, abiding in the spiritual penetrations and wisdom from which there is no turning back, expounding the whole boundless Dharma realm with nothing left over, giving birth to the borderless eye of Samantabhadra, with unhindered ear-consciousness hearing and holding the true Dharma of the buddhas, with one body sitting cross-legged pervading the ten directions and yet crowding none of the sentient beings, and with full and complete wisdom entering everywhere the measureless dharmas of the three times; the third is the fullness of the fruit of purity, ten clauses in all — the purity of all sentient beings, of all buddha-lands, of all dharmas, of the wisdom that knows everywhere in all places, of the boundless wisdom pervading the realm of empty space, of obtaining the wisdom of distinguished speech and voice and responding everywhere to sentient beings, of sending out measureless and full light shining everywhere upon the boundless worlds, of giving birth to the wisdom of the practice of the bodhisattvas of the three times, of the wisdom that in a single thought enters everywhere the assembly-sites of the buddhas of the three times, and of entering the boundless worlds and causing sentient beings all to do what they ought to do. Chengguan says that the fullness of the fruit of purity is accomplished by the purifying of the hindrance of confusion and the seeing of the purity of one's own nature.

Last, nine clauses in parallel with the graph for “all” close it off — all attained complete, all attained accomplished, all cultivated and put in order, all attained equal, all present before him, all known and seen, all awakened into, all contemplated, all attained pure — and then it falls upon the four graphs “reach the further shore.” Of the two graphs for “equal” among them Chengguan glosses that it is because the knower and the known have been left behind; the rest he says are easily understood.

Setting a misreading right: do not suppose that the fruit of the station is a reward this station obtains for itself. Among the three kinds of fullness of fruit there is not one clause that says “I obtain”; the first group says outright “causing all sentient beings likewise to attain this,” and of the sovereign powers and the purities obtained in the latter two groups there is likewise not one that is for oneself. Bringing it down to the ground: the ten dedications are here brought to fullness, and below come the ten grounds; and what enables this station to lead through to the ten grounds lies precisely in this one sentence — what is brought to fullness are the measureless and boundless practices and vows of a bodhisattva of Samantabhadra.

Lineage

Chengguan, explaining the name of this station, opened “equal” into four Dharma realms and “measureless” into two meanings, and this set of readings afterward became the settled understanding of the station. His Yanyi chao divides the text of the Shu into ten sections, and in the section “striking at the men of old” sets out word for word the earlier men's Kanding ji, which took “the Dharma realm being measureless” as the phenomenal Dharma realm to which one is equal, and then strikes at it, saying that what one is equal to is fourfold and that “measureless” has two meanings, and how then may it be confined to phenomena. The text of the Kanding ji and the text of Chengguan's striking, the two makings, are both recorded as above, without judging which stands higher.

Fazang, commenting on the sixty-fascicle text, likewise sets up four gates to explain this station, and the four meanings of his explanation of the name agree largely with Chengguan's — the practice-dharma that is turned, the substance of the practice that is turned, the wisdom that turns, and the virtue that is turned — only that in the second meaning he has “the substance of the practice that is turned” where Chengguan has “the substance of the practice performed,” and in the fourth he has “the virtue that is turned” and “directing them toward the great function of the Dharma realm” where Chengguan has “the virtue toward which it is directed” and “directing them toward a great function that is the same as the Dharma realm.” As for the two gates of the coming of the meaning and of the substance of the dharma, what the two of them say is almost word for word the same, both saying that the former station makes clear the rousing of function from substance and this station makes clear substance and function unobstructed and fused to the utmost and sovereign, and both taking the giving of Dharma broadly accomplishing the sovereign and greatly skillful virtue of Samantabhadra as the substance of this station.

Li Tongxuan's rule is of itself different. He does not set up his explanation from the four Dharma realms, but says that this station has the perfection of wisdom for its substance, and takes as its symbolic showing the earth spirit Abiding Firmly whom Sudhana saw — the earth spirit is a goddess, and the position of earth lies in the southwest yet dwells in the central palace and governs the four seasons, showing that with wisdom in her dwelling place she practices compassion to fullness; and he says further that the sky spirit of the station before shows wisdom while the earth spirit of this station shows compassion, and that the two stations fuse in meeting to make one station. He urges the reader that “one must make one's wisdom like that spirit and one's mind like the earth, bearing and rearing the myriad things and not counting it a labor.” As for the long outline, Chengguan judges the prose of this station into the two portions of the practice of the station and the fruit of the station, and opens the gathering in and about to dedicate into twenty-one gates, while Li Tongxuan outlines this station at length into twenty-six passages. The scripture relied on and the way of outlining differ in each; this is recorded without adjudication.

The shape of the name of the station has now been seen four times — the base text's concluding sentence has “the tenth dedication of abiding in the measurelessness equal to the Dharma realm,” the sixty-fascicle text has “the tenth measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm,” Chengguan's outline has “the tenth measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm,” and Fazang's explanation of the name has “the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm.” As to the number of the practices of purity, the scripture lists twenty names while Chengguan says “now it is opened into twenty-one.” As to the number of the jeweled adornments, the items capped with “asaṃkhyeya” in the scripture are ninety-four while Chengguan supplies six to fill out a hundred. As to the phrase “a hundredfold beyond this,” Chengguan passes judgment upon the text of the sixty-fascicle version and says that the three graphs of the present rendering are not well done, and then puts forth a separate explanation of his own, taking a hundred hundreds for ten thousand to show the fused ten thousand practices. All these divergent accounts are texts made by the ancient worthies; they are recorded together, without adjudication.

As for how this station bears upon the treatises of later times: searching the Cheng weishi lun, the She lun, the Yuqie lun, and the Jie shenmi jing, none of them has the name “the measureless dedication equal to the Dharma realm”; and among the treatises of the Huayan school, only Zhiyan's Kongmu zhang lists this name and sets the question “dedication — what meaning is this?”, answering “no dedication is it,” which bears upon the setting-aside sentence pattern of the gate of the ten non-clingings in this station. Chengguan, at the head of this chapter, once cited the Jie shenmi jing, the Yuqie shidi lun, and the Liang rendering of the She dacheng lun to make clear the meaning of turning the cause and directing it toward the fruit; but that text of his belongs to the general meaning of the chapter “The Ten Dedications” and does not explain this station in particular, and so the want is recorded as it stands, and the text of another place is not taken to fill it.