大智度論 集散品第九下Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Gathering and Dispersal, Part 2 of 2

Gathering and Dispersal, Last Part: Three Questions Open Up the Substance of Prajñā—Non-existent and Unfindable, Walking the Middle Way Apart from the Two Extremes; Prajñā Belongs Only to the Bodhisattva, Yet in the End He Is Never Apart from the Buddhas

What Is Being Asked

When the Chapter on Gathering and Dispersal reaches this second half, the sūtra suddenly draws itself together into three very short questions: a bodhisattva who wishes to practise prajñā should ask himself 「何者是般若波羅蜜」 tr. "What is prajñāpāramitā?", 「何以故名般若波羅蜜」 tr. "Why is it called prajñāpāramitā?", and 「是誰般若波羅蜜」 tr. "Whose prajñāpāramitā is it?" All through the first half the chapter has said that in the bodhisattva, in the five aggregates, in the twelve causes and conditions, and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, no gathering and no dispersal can be seen, and has gone so far as to say that not one among all dharmas can have a name forcibly set up for it; having come this far, the reader can hardly avoid a doubt that turns back on itself: since everything is unfindable, can the name ‘prajñā’ itself then stand? The second half turns the spearhead precisely onto prajñā itself—asking first what it is, then why it bears this name, and last whose, after all, it is. The three questions look ordinary, but in fact they draw back the blade of ‘seeing no gathering and no dispersal’ that runs through the whole chapter and turn its light upon the illuminating prajñā itself: if prajñā too is non-existent and unfindable, on what ground can it still serve as the bodhisattva’s practice, and still bring about sarvajñā? What this part sets out to answer is precisely this question.

Passage by Passage

The moment the treatise opens its mouth, it points out for the sūtra where these three questions land: what, after all, is the substance of prajñā? Its answer cuts like a nail through iron—prajñāpāramitā 「是一切諸法實相，不可破，不可壞」 tr. "is the real mark of all dharmas; it cannot be broken, it cannot be destroyed"; whether there is a buddha or there is no buddha, this mark of dharmas and this position of dharmas abide permanently without change, and it is not something that buddhas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, śrāvakas, or even gods and humans can make. This sentence matters most: it turns the first half’s ‘dharmas are unfindable’ into a positive foothold—precisely because the real mark of dharmas is made by no one and cannot be broken or destroyed, within it there is from the very start nothing to be called gathering and nothing to be called dispersal; that gathering and dispersal are unfindable does not negate prajñā along with them, but points out that the real mark which prajñā illuminates is of itself just so. The sūtra itself had long since set down its own comment—「若法無所有、不可得，是般若波羅蜜」 tr. "if a dharma is non-existent and unfindable, that is prajñāpāramitā"; non-existent and unfindable is not ‘utterly nothing at all’; it is precisely what makes prajñā prajñā.

Next the treatise marks out, with a long string of ‘two extremes’, the way this real mark is walked: 「常是一邊，斷滅是一邊」 tr. "permanence is one extreme, annihilation is one extreme"; only to leave these two extremes and walk the middle way is prajñā. Permanence and impermanence, suffering and happiness, form and the formless, the resistant and the non-resistant, the conditioned and the unconditioned, the worldly and the world-transcending, and so on up to ignorance and the exhaustion of ignorance, old age and death and the exhaustion of old age and death, the existence of dharmas and the non-existence of dharmas—each and every one is a paired extreme. Here there is one sentence most worth savouring—even 「此般若波羅蜜是一邊，此非般若波羅蜜是一邊」 tr. "‘this is prajñāpāramitā’ is one extreme, ‘this is not prajñāpāramitā’ is one extreme" must be left: only when even the discrimination ‘this is prajñā, that is not prajñā’ is laid down is it true prajñā. It is then gathered into three gates—「離有、離無、離非有非無」 tr. "apart from existence, apart from non-existence, apart from neither existence nor non-existence"—not falling into foolish delusion and able to walk the good path. This sentence must not be taken lightly: to dismiss existence and non-existence without falling into annihilation and without falling into inert emptiness is 「不墮愚癡」 tr. "not falling into foolish delusion"; after the two extremes are dismissed, still honestly to practise the six perfections and do the work of a bodhisattva is 「能行善道」 tr. "able to walk the good path"—so it can be seen that leaving the two extremes does not mean dismissing all good practices along with them; it dismisses the attachment and does not dismiss the practice. This section is precisely the direct statement of the whole chapter’s ‘seeing no gathering and no dispersal’: to see that there is gathering is one extreme, to see that there is dispersal is one extreme; leave the two extremes and fall into neither annihilation nor permanence—the reason gathering and dispersal are “unfindable” is made concrete on this middle way, and is not reduced to a stretch of inert emptiness.

Then on what ground does the phrase “non-existent and unfindable” itself stand? Here the treatise sets down three successive layers of explanation, taking it apart from a single conclusion into reasons that can be told apart. First is Subhūti’s own statement: 「是法無所有、不可得」 tr. "this dharma is non-existent and unfindable"—prajñāpāramitā 「空故無所有」 tr. "is non-existent because it is empty," which is said with respect to its substance; 「常無常等諸觀，求覓無定相故不可得」 tr. "through the contemplations of permanence, impermanence, and the rest, one searches and seeks and there is no fixed mark; therefore it is unfindable," which is said with respect to contemplation: pressing the inquiry with every kind of contemplation, of permanence, of impermanence, and so on, searching here and seeking there, one cannot lay hold of a single fixed mark, and so it is called unfindable. ‘Non-existent’ rests on ‘emptiness’, ‘unfindable’ rests on ‘no fixed mark’; each of the two words has its own footing, and they are not a repetition of synonyms. Next, the treatise explains the meaning of “non-existent”: the reason the dharmas of prajñā and of the other five perfections are non-existent is that they 「不可取、不可受、不可著」 tr. "cannot be grasped, cannot be received, cannot be attached to"—they cannot be taken hold of, cannot be held on to, cannot be clung to; this is what is called non-existent, and it does not mean blankly empty with not a single thing at all. The third layer is the most forceful: precisely because the “eighteen emptinesses” are there, these six perfections are non-existent and unfindable; the treatise at once receives three similes and sets them side by side—「大風能破散諸雲」 tr. "a great wind can break up and scatter the clouds": the clouds gather, and once the wind rises they scatter; 「大火燒乾草木」 tr. "a great fire burns dry grass and trees": the grass and trees grow thick, and once the fire is lit they are consumed; 「金剛寶摧破大山」 tr. "the vajra jewel shatters great mountains": the mountain is solid, and at one stroke of the vajra it is smashed; 「諸空亦如是能破諸法」 tr. "the emptinesses, too, are like this: they can break all dharmas." The three similes together show one meaning: the eighteen emptinesses break dharmas not by adding some other thing outside dharmas to strike them, but because dharmas are by nature like floating clouds, dry grass, and precarious mountains, which at a single touch of the contemplation of emptiness scatter of themselves, are consumed of themselves, and are smashed of themselves—what is called ‘able to break’ breaks precisely the mind that grasps at marks, ‘taking it to be really existent’.

Why, then, is it still called by this name, prajñā? The treatise answers: prajñā is 「一切諸智慧中最為第一」 tr. "the very foremost among all kinds of wisdom," 「無上、無比、無等，更無勝者，窮盡到邊」 tr. "unsurpassed, incomparable, unequalled; there is nothing further that surpasses it; it is exhausted to the very limit"; and it sets out three similes to bear witness to ‘foremost’—「如一切眾生中佛為第一，一切諸法中涅槃為第一，一切眾中比丘僧為第一」 tr. "just as among all beings the Buddha is foremost, among all dharmas nirvāṇa is foremost, and among all assemblies the saṅgha of bhikṣus is foremost." Among beings there is none who can reach the Buddha; among dharmas there is nothing that goes beyond nirvāṇa; among assemblies the saṅgha of bhikṣus is the most honoured—the standing of prajñā among all wisdom is just like the standing of these three within their kinds. Someone at once raises a difficulty: you said first that prajñā is simply the real mark of all dharmas, permanent and unchanging—how can you now say that it is foremost among the kinds of wisdom, like nirvāṇa foremost among dharmas? The real mark is principle and ‘foremost’ is a matter of phenomena; principle is permanent while phenomena admit of comparison—is this not a contradiction? The treatise resolves it by 「因中說果」 tr. "speaking of the effect within the cause" and 「果中說因」 tr. "speaking of the cause within the effect," attaching a simile to each. Speaking of the effect within the cause is 「如人日食數匹布」 tr. "like a person who eats several bolts of cloth a day"—cloth by nature cannot be eaten, yet one says that a person eats several bolts of cloth a day, because the cause, cloth, can be exchanged for the effect, food; on the basis of the cause the name of the effect is spoken. Speaking of the cause within the effect is 「如見好畫而言好手」 tr. "like seeing a fine painting and saying ‘a fine hand’"—what is praised is the painting (the effect), yet the mouth calls it a fine hand (the cause); on the basis of the effect the credit is given to the cause. The provenance of this name prajñā is precisely the latter kind: 「因諸法實相生智慧，是則果中說因」 tr. "wisdom arises from the real mark of all dharmas; this, then, is speaking of the cause within the effect"—the real mark is the cause and wisdom is the effect; now, on the basis of this wisdom at the stage of the effect, it is called the foremost of the real mark, and principle and phenomena do not clash. Further, the bodhisattva 「入不二入法門」 tr. "enters the Dharma-gate of entering non-duality"; when he directly practises prajñā he does not distinguish at all whether it is cause or effect, inner or outer, this or that—what is called 「一相，無相」 tr. "one mark, that is, no mark"—and this difficulty dissolves of itself.

The treatise further grounds prajñā’s being called ‘foremost’ in a lateral comparison: 「世間三種智慧」 tr. "the three kinds of wisdom in the world." The first is 「世俗巧便」 tr. "worldly skill and expedience"—worldly cleverness of the sort of broad learning, letters and arts, benevolence, wisdom, propriety, and reverence; the second is 「離生智慧」 tr. "the wisdom born of separation," that is, what is separated from through cultivating concentration: the wisdom of the stages of absorption, from separation from the desire realm all the way up to the sphere of nothingness; the third is 「出世間智慧」 tr. "world-transcending wisdom," that is, the wisdom of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas who are 「離我及我所」 tr. "apart from self and what belongs to self" and whose outflows are all exhausted. Each of the three kinds is higher than the one before, yet prajñā 「為最殊勝」 tr. "is the most surpassing," because it is 「畢竟清淨、無所著故」 tr. "ultimately pure and attached to nothing," and also 「為饒益一切眾生故」 tr. "because it is for the benefit of all beings." The world-transcending wisdom of the two vehicles, though its outflows are exhausted and it is pure, 「無大慈悲，不能饒益一切故不如」 tr. "has no great loving-kindness and compassion and cannot benefit all, and therefore does not equal it"—pure to spare but short of compassion; as for the worldly kind, 「罪垢不淨、欺誑智慧」 tr. "a wisdom stained with offence, impure, and deceiving," there is still less need to speak of it. None of the three kinds of wisdom reaches this, and so it alone is named prajñā. The treatise next supplies another mechanism by which prajñā gets its name—why a pāramitā is named as it is. This wisdom operates 「為度一切眾生故、為得佛道故」 tr. "for the sake of liberating all beings, for the sake of attaining the Buddha-path"; the feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness associated with it, the bodily and verbal actions arising from it, and the constructions not associated with mind such as arising and abiding—these many dharmas 「和合」 tr. "come together," and only then are they named in sum a pāramitā; and within this same mass of coming-together, 「智慧多故名為般若波羅蜜，念定等多故名為禪波羅蜜」 tr. "because wisdom predominates it is called prajñāpāramitā; because mindfulness, concentration, and the like predominate it is called the perfection of meditation," and the other four perfections are named by the same rule. So the six perfections are not six unrelated things, but one and the same mass of wholesome dharmas come together, named after whichever dharma within it predominates—the name prajñā is got precisely because within this mass wisdom is predominant. 「如是等種種無量因緣故，名為般若波羅蜜」 tr. "for such immeasurable causes and conditions of every kind as these, it is called prajñāpāramitā"—only here is the provenance of this name fully told.

It is asked further whose prajñā this is. The treatise answers by the two truths: in the highest meaning there is 「無知者、見者、得者」 tr. "no knower, seer, or attainer"; all dharmas are without self and without what belongs to self, and from the start belong to no one; but spoken of in terms of worldly truth, prajñā 「不屬佛，不屬聲聞、辟支佛，不屬凡夫，但屬菩薩」 tr. "does not belong to the Buddha, does not belong to śrāvakas or pratyekabuddhas, does not belong to ordinary people; it belongs only to bodhisattvas." It does not belong to ordinary people because the dharmas of ordinary people have faults and offences of every kind and are impure—here the treatise sets down a simile to wake us: prajñā is ultimately pure, yet ordinary people do not delight in it, just 「如蠅樂處不淨，不好蓮花」 tr. "as flies delight in dwelling on impurity and do not care for the lotus flower"; what the fly craves is rot and filth, and even with a lotus flower set before it, it pays no heed—ordinary people, attached to defilement and not delighting in pure prajñā, look just like this. Even if ordinary people have attained freedom from desire through cultivation, they still keep the notion of an I and cling to that dharma of freedom from desire, and so they still do not delight in prajñā. Those of the two vehicles, though they wish to delight in prajñā, 「無深慈悲」 tr. "have no deep loving-kindness and compassion" and are single-mindedly bound for nirvāṇa, and so they 「不能具足得」 tr. "cannot attain it in full." Only the bodhisattva, being ultimately pure and benefiting beings, is fit for it. And this prajñā, on reaching buddhahood, 「轉名一切種智」 tr. "changes its name to omniscience of all kinds"—so it can be seen that ‘belongs to bodhisattvas’ does not lock prajñā into the single stage of the bodhisattva, but points out that prajñā is precisely that living road which runs from cause to fruit, from bodhisattva to buddha. This attribution is still an extension of the meaning of gathering and dispersal: prajñā is unfindable yet not annihilated into nothing, precisely because it is the true support, provisionally designated, along this course of cultivation and realisation.

Tucked in here there is one more question, which the treatise answers with great care: the standing order of this sūtra puts the five aggregates first and omniscience of all kinds last—why here, on the contrary, are the six perfections spoken of first? The treatise answers: what Śāriputra asked about is the single meaning “non-existent,” and 「五眾種種因緣觀，強令無所有，難解」 tr. "the five aggregates, contemplated through causes and conditions of every kind and forcibly made non-existent, are hard to understand"—the five aggregates must be contemplated by bringing to bear causes and conditions of every kind, forcing them by contemplation into non-existence, which is laborious and hard to make clear; 「般若波羅蜜即是無所有，易解」 tr. "prajñāpāramitā is itself non-existent, and is easy to understand"—prajñā in its very substance is non-existent, seen at a single stroke. The treatise at once fixes the degrees of difficulty with a simile: 「譬如水中月，易明其空；天上月，難令無所有」 tr. "it is like the moon in the water, whose emptiness is easy to make clear; the moon in the sky is hard to make non-existent"—the moon in the water everyone knows at a glance to be an empty reflection, needing no laboured explanation; but the true moon hanging high up there in the sky—to make people believe that it too is non-existent is hard. The five aggregates are like the moon in the sky, laborious to contemplate; prajñā is like the moon in the water, attained as soon as its emptiness is seen—so the easily understood prajñā is raised first, and the hard-to-understand five aggregates are reached afterwards. 「五波羅蜜與般若波羅蜜同名、同事」 tr. "the five perfections have the same name and the same concern as prajñāpāramitā," so the five perfections are spoken of right after, and only then is the non-existence of the five aggregates and so on up to omniscience of all kinds spoken of in turn. When a bodhisattva enters this gate and contemplates the real mark of dharmas without fear and without terror, that is 「不離」 tr. "not being apart from" prajñā; and the treatise also points out the weight of the meaning of 「不離」 tr. "not being apart"—「常行般若波羅蜜不虛，必有果報」 tr. "always practising prajñāpāramitā is not in vain; it will surely have its fruit and recompense"—not being apart is not guarding an empty title; it is that the practice is surely not wasted, and a stage of fruition will certainly repay it. Subhūti’s own statement of the causes and conditions of not being apart still returns to the sentence 「色離色性，色中無色相，虛誑無所有」 tr. "form is apart from the nature of form; in form there is no mark of form; it is false, deceiving, and non-existent."

At the end the sūtra brings all of this down to the stage of fruition. When a bodhisattva trains in this way, how is he able to accomplish sarvajñā? The sūtra answers 「以諸法不生、不成就故」 tr. "because all dharmas do not arise and are not accomplished"—because form is empty, the arising and the accomplishment of form are unfindable, and so on up to the reality-limit likewise; not arising and not being accomplished are just another way of saying, at the stage of fruition, ‘seeing no gathering and no dispersal’. Training thus, one 「漸近薩婆若，漸得身清淨、心清淨、相清淨」 tr. "gradually draws near to sarvajñā, and gradually attains purity of body, purity of mind, and purity of marks"; because of the three purities, minds of lust, hatred, delusion, pride, stinginess, and wrong views do not arise, and so one 「常得化生」 tr. "is always born by transformation" and does not enter a mother’s womb, and 「終不離諸佛」 tr. "in the end is never apart from the buddhas." Question: having such power, why be born by transformation and take a body, rather than going straight to nirvāṇa? The answer lies in just two things—the buddhas are the jewels among beings, and in making offerings to them one is never sated; and the original vow to liberate beings, and the pure land, are not yet fulfilled. By the power of merit and skilful means the bodhisattva 「常不離諸佛」 tr. "is always not apart from the buddhas." The whole chapter, beginning from the question of what prajñā is, has come here to answer with the long path of a bodhisattva who is never apart from the buddhas; the close of the Chapter on Gathering and Dispersal lies right here.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「無所有、不可得」 tr. "non-existent and unfindable" as nihilistic annihilation. The sūtra and the treatise plainly say both that prajñā is the real mark of all dharmas and cannot be broken or destroyed, and that it is non-existent and unfindable—the two statements do not obstruct each other: non-existent is 「空故」 tr. "because it is empty," unfindable is 「求覓無定相故」 tr. "because in searching and seeking there is no fixed mark"; what both speak of is not falling into fixed marks, being impossible to grasp, receive, or cling to, and not being blankly empty with not a single thing at all.

Do not read the “eighteen emptinesses” as some other thing called ‘emptiness’, outside dharmas, that strikes at dharmas. The three similes—the great wind breaking up the clouds, the great fire burning the grass, the vajra shattering the mountain—show that dharmas are by nature like floating clouds, dry grass, and precarious mountains, which, meeting the contemplation of emptiness, scatter of themselves, are consumed of themselves, and are smashed of themselves; what breaks breaks the mind that grasps at marks, and does not add some thing to counteract them.

Do not read 「離是二邊行中道」 tr. "leaving these two extremes, walking the middle way" as a compromise that takes half between existence and non-existence. It leaves even the discrimination ‘is prajñā, is not prajñā’; it thoroughly falls to neither end, rather than taking a position in the middle between the two ends; and the phrase 「不墮愚癡而能行善道」 tr. "not falling into foolish delusion and able to walk the good path" reminds us further: after the two extremes are left, the good practices of the six perfections are to be practised just as before; what is left behind is attachment, not practice.

Do not read “prajñā is foremost” and “prajñā is the real mark” as contradicting each other. The real mark is principle and ‘foremost’ is a matter of phenomena; the treatise reconciles them by “speaking of the effect within the cause, speaking of the cause within the effect”—to call the wisdom at the stage of the effect the foremost of the real mark is “speaking of the cause within the effect,” as on seeing a fine painting one praises a fine hand; it is not two statements in conflict.

Do not read 「但屬菩薩」 tr. "belongs only to bodhisattvas" as meaning that prajñā is the private possession of bodhisattvas, in which the Buddha has no share. The sūtra says plainly that on reaching buddhahood it 「轉名一切種智」 tr. "changes its name to omniscience of all kinds"; “belongs to bodhisattvas” is said in terms of worldly truth and of the stage of cultivation, pointing out that this is the path a bodhisattva ought to practise as his own proper task, and does not exclude the fruit of buddhahood. Nor misread “as flies do not care for the lotus flower” as words disparaging ordinary people—it only likens ordinary people’s attachment to defilement and their lack of delight in purity; it speaks of the illness, it does not revile anyone.

Do not take the three purities and birth by transformation merely as wondrous rewards and neglect their cause. Their cause lies in that layer of the contemplation of emptiness, 「以諸法不生、不成就故」 tr. "because all dharmas do not arise and are not accomplished"; only then comes the fruit—purity of body, of mind, and of marks, and in the end never being apart from the buddhas; to take away the contemplation of emptiness and covet its fruit is to read it backwards.

Do not treat the second half as a fresh start unrelated to gathering and dispersal. It turns the blade of the first half’s ‘seeing no gathering and no dispersal’ back to shine on prajñā itself, and only here does the whole chapter truly close together.

Bearing on Practice

The three questions can serve as a daily turning of the light back on oneself: of what one cultivates, what one understands, and what one attains, ask whether it is, after all, prajñā—if within it there is still a mark to be attained, a name to be clung to, an ability to be boasted of, one is still circling in the old rut of ‘seeing that there is gathering and dispersal’.

The threefold explanation of 「無所有、不可得」 tr. "non-existent and unfindable" gives those who apply themselves exactly three measuring-rods: can the dharma being contemplated still be grasped, still be received, still be clung to? When pressing the inquiry with contemplations of permanence, impermanence, and the like, is one still pinching on to some fixed mark and not letting go? If it can still be grasped, received, and clung to, if there is still a fixed mark to pinch on to, one has not yet arrived at non-existent and unfindable. And the three similes of the eighteen emptinesses breaking dharmas are a ready-made gate of contemplation—when you meet an object you cannot let go of, you may well contemplate it as a great wind breaking up the clouds, a great fire burning grass, a vajra shattering a mountain, and see that it is by nature like floating clouds, dry grass, and a precarious mountain, which scatter at the touch of emptiness.

The teaching on leaving the two extremes lies closest to the afflictions: when the mind stirs over the favourable and the adverse, gain and loss, praise and blame, look whether you have again fallen to one extreme; only when you can leave the two extremes, neither annihilating nor permanent, leaving attachment without abandoning the practice of the good path, can you be said to be walking 「離是二邊行中道」 tr. "leaving these two extremes, walking the middle way."

The phrase “belongs only to bodhisattvas” reminds the practitioner: prajñā is not cultivated for one’s own release, or to hasten towards nirvāṇa, but for the benefit of beings and as the way through to buddhahood; the moment a mind arises that is weary of the world and seeks only its own release, one shares the two vehicles’ 「無深慈悲、不能具足」 tr. "no deep loving-kindness and compassion, unable to attain it in full." And the distinction of the three kinds of wisdom is also worth holding up to oneself: worldly cleverness, the concentration-wisdom born of separation, even the world-transcending wisdom of the two vehicles—if the great compassion that benefits all is lacking, they never reach the surpassing excellence of prajñā; those who apply themselves should always ask whether their own wisdom holds this measure of compassion.

The simile of the moon in the water and the moon in the sky can serve as a teaching on the easy and the hard in contemplating emptiness: where something is readily empty in its very substance (as the non-existence of prajñā), first make its emptiness clear, then turn back to contemplate where emptiness is hard (as the five aggregates), going from the easy into the hard, with no need to grapple to the death with the hardest object from the very first.

The passage on the stage of fruition can serve as ground for long-range faith: the three purities of body, mind, and marks, and always being not apart from the buddhas, all accumulate gradually from the contemplation of emptiness 「以諸法不生、不成就故」 tr. "because all dharmas do not arise and are not accomplished," and are not reached in a single leap; and for one who is “not apart,” there 「必有果報」 tr. "will surely be fruit and recompense," and the practice is not in vain—therefore at the end the sūtra urges again and again that one should practise thus, and train thus.

Further Resonances

Later readers of the Last Part of the Chapter on Gathering and Dispersal have each received a section according to what they themselves valued. There were those who singled out the one phrase 「離是二邊行中道」 tr. "leaving these two extremes, walking the middle way," adapting its sentence pattern in other writings to make clear the purport of the middle way; this use is recorded alongside, without judging which is higher—another ancient master had a comprehensive explanation of his own of this chapter’s name and meaning, the details of which are left to the general account at the end of the chapter. Brought back to our own proper task, what is most worth keeping is still the sense that the sūtra and the treatise return to again and again: the substance of prajñā cannot be broken or destroyed, yet it is non-existent and unfindable; it leaves the two extremes and walks the middle way; the eighteen emptinesses break dharmas as wind breaks clouds and fire burns grass; it is foremost among all wisdom, yet belongs only to bodhisattvas, and in the end returns to 「一切種智」 tr. "omniscience of all kinds"—the reason no gathering can be seen in any dharma, and no dispersal can be seen, finds its direct statement precisely here.