大智度論 發趣品卷五十·七地至十地Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Setting Out, Part 5 of 6

Eighth Arc — The Ground of Deep Entry, Part One: How the Twenty Non-Attachments Empty Out What One Relies On

What Is Being Asked

The seventh ground first lists twenty non-attachments, and then lists twenty completions. The order matters greatly: if what one is attached to were not first cleared away, the emptiness, the signlessness, the kindness and compassion, the acceptance and knowledge that follow could all become new things to rely on; if there were only emptying and no completion, one would in turn read the seventh ground as pure negation. The first group asks: in which names of persons and of dharmas does the bodhisattva’s deepest attachment hide?

Passage by Passage

The treatise first divides the twenty non-attachments into two gates: the view of self and so on up to the views of a knower and a seer, together with the views that arise from relying on the Buddha and relying on the Saṅgha, belong to what the emptiness of beings breaks; the views of annihilation and permanence and so on up to the view that relies on morality belong to what the emptiness of dharmas breaks. The first four items are not being attached to self, not being attached to beings, not being attached to life-span, and not being attached to the one counted in the multitude, and so on up to the knower and the seer. The names differ, but all of them are seeking a place for an enduring master; the sūtra answers with “ultimately cannot be obtained.” The fifth and sixth are not being attached to the view of annihilation and not being attached to the view of permanence. Since all dharmas ultimately do not arise, there is no single real dharma that could be annihilated; and non-arising is not the fabricating of a permanent substance either, so both extremes are left behind.

Seventh, not grasping at marks; eighth, not forming the view of causes. There is no affliction that could serve as a mark to be grasped, and the views cannot be obtained. The treatise explains the view of causes in particular: conditioned dharmas become causes and effects for one another in turn; if within them one fixes the mind in attachment and grasps at marks, calling what is not a cause a cause, or clinging to cause and effect as wholly one or wholly different, that is the view of causes. Emptiness does not break the order of cause and effect; what it breaks is the mistaken fixed view that arises toward the relation of cause and effect.

The ninth to the thirteenth are not being attached to name-and-form, not being attached to the five aggregates, not being attached to the eighteen elements, not being attached to the twelve sense-fields, and not being attached to the three realms. The five aggregates are the five kinds of bodily and mental aggregation—form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness; the twelve sense-fields are the six faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind together with the six objects of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas; the eighteen elements further add the six consciousnesses, eye-consciousness and so on up to mind-consciousness. The sūtra answers with “the mark of place is absent, own-nature is absent,” showing that from the combinations of body and mind, through the classifications of cognition, to the domains of existence, nothing can be found that stands on its own. The fourteenth to the sixteenth are not making a place of attachment, not making a place of expectation, and not making a place of reliance; even the inner structure of ‘I rely on this for now, and later I will obtain that’ is loosened.

The seventeenth to the twentieth are not being attached to the views that arise from relying on the Buddha, relying on the Dharma, relying on the Saṅgha, and relying on morality. The Buddha cannot be seen by a fixed view of reliance; the Dharma cannot be made into a visible thing; the mark of the Saṅgha’s harmony has no own-nature; and neither offence nor non-offence is grasped at. This is not abandoning the Three Jewels and morality, but not letting reliance turn into the grasping of views; if one clings to ‘I rely on the Three Jewels, therefore I truly exist,’ reliance turns instead into material for the view of self.

Do Not Misread

The twenty non-attachments are not twenty kinds of refusal. In particular, not being attached to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṅgha, and morality must not be read as not revering, not training, not keeping; the first six grounds have already established revering teachers, seeking the Dharma, and pure morality, and the seventh ground only removes the view that makes them into substances. Nor should emptiness be used to negate cause and effect: what the passage on the view of causes criticises is precisely the misplacing of cause and effect.

Bearing on Practice

The twenty items can be observed in four circles: first look at the names of self and of beings; next at the views of annihilation and permanence and the view of causes; then at the aggregates, elements, sense-fields, and the three realms; and last at whether the most sacred reliances have been occupied by the self. The further toward the inner circle, the more what one is attached to resembles practice itself; only by being unattached here does one make room for the next group, the completions.

Ninth Arc — The Ground of Deep Entry, Part Two: The Twenty Completions and the Acceptance of the Non-Arising of Dharmas

What Is Being Asked

Once what one relies on has been emptied out, what is it that counts as completion? This chapter does not let the answer stop at the single word ‘emptiness,’ but speaks in order of emptiness, signlessness, non-action, the three kinds of action, kindness and compassion, the purified land, equal contemplation, the real mark, acceptance and knowledge, non-duality, turning views, turning afflictions, concentration and wisdom, quiescence, unobstructedness, and not being stained by love. The question becomes: how does the wisdom of emptiness not harm great compassion, how does quiescence not hinder teaching the Dharma, and how does non-arising not make practice rigid?

Passage by Passage

First, completing emptiness. The treatise sets three explanations side by side: being able to practise the eighteen emptinesses; being able to practise the emptiness of beings and the emptiness of dharmas; being able to practise ultimate emptiness without attachment. The Buddha speaks only of the emptiness of specific marks because these three gates are all gathered into the fact that the specific marks of dharmas cannot be obtained; at the sixth ground, merit being deep and faculties sharp, one is on the contrary prone to grasp at marks by the power of discrimination, and the seventh ground must cure this subtle illness with the emptiness of marks. The treatise also records side by side that the Buddha sometimes calls completing emptiness by the names of the emptiness of the conditioned and the emptiness of the unconditioned, and sometimes by the name of the emptiness of the unfindable, not ranking any one way of speaking as the only one.

Second, realising the signless. The signless is nirvāṇa itself; it can be realised, yet it is not some thing that could be fabricated and cultivated into being as a conditioned dharma; and because it cannot be discriminated, one does not speak of ‘knowing it exhaustively’ or of ‘completing it as a possession.’ Third, knowing non-action. Although all three gates of liberation can be known, the text sets up their names according to their different functions; for non-action it speaks only of knowing, to prevent it being taken once again for a dharma that can be made.

Fourth, purity in three parts. This is the ten wholesome paths of action made pure according to the three of body, the four of speech, and the three of mind. Some are pure in body but not pure in speech; some are pure in body and speech but not pure in mind; and there are also those whose three kinds of action look pure in the world’s eyes while the inner mind is still attached; the seventh ground requires that the three kinds of action and freedom from attachment be complete together.

Fifth, completing kindness, compassion, and knowledge toward all beings. Compassion takes beings as its object, dharmas as its object, or no object; here it is great compassion without an object that is taken. The nature of dharmas is empty, and even the real mark is empty; yet after entering deeply the bodhisattva still thinks of beings with compassion, as one with an only son, obtaining a treasure, wishes from the depths of the heart to give it. Being without an object does not mean there are no beings to care for, but that compassion is not confined by a fixed mark of beings.

Sixth, not thinking of any being. The questioner asks at once: without thinking of beings, how can one purify a land? The treatise answers that one teaches beings to abide in the ten wholesome deeds so as to adorn a buddha-land, yet does not grasp at the mark of beings; roots of goodness and merit are thereby made pure and become an unobstructed adornment. The fifth speaks of compassion not retreating, the sixth of marks not being grasped; only when the two are taken together is it great compassion without an object.

Seventh, contemplating all dharmas equally: adding no real existence to dharmas, and not diminishing the working of causes and conditions either. Eighth, knowing the real mark of all dharmas; the sūtra says the real mark is ‘without knowing’—not that there is no wisdom at all, but that there is no dual grasping in which a knower seizes a thing known. Equal contemplation keeps the mind from leaning; the real mark keeps what is contemplated from being fixed.

Ninth, the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. The treatise’s definition is at its clearest: toward the real mark of all dharmas, which neither arises nor ceases, one is able to believe and receive it, to penetrate it, to be unobstructed, and not to retreat. Believing and receiving is not forcing oneself to believe; penetrating is not merely being able to handle names and marks; being unobstructed is not being caught on the surface appearances of arising and ceasing; not retreating is no longer, because of the deep meaning, falling back into the view of real existence. Tenth, the knowledge of non-arising. First it is named acceptance, afterward knowledge: the coarser patient acceptance comes first, the finer clear seeing comes after; the sūtra takes knowing that name-and-form does not arise as its content. Acceptance and knowledge are the before and after of one and the same deepening, not two unrelated sets of realisation.

Eleventh, teaching that all dharmas have one mark. The treatise contemplates the inner and outer twelve sense-fields, and the six consciousnesses born of them, as Māra’s net; only the non-dual dharma, which does not fall into the two marks of eye and form and so on up to mind and dharmas, is real, and therefore it teaches non-duality through many kinds of causes and conditions, so that beings may leave the net. Twelfth, breaking the marks of discrimination: breaking the outward discriminations of the objects—male and female, long and short, large and small, and so on. Thirteenth, turning recollection and imagining: turning the inner mind’s repeated imagining and grasping of the large and the small, the measureless, and so on. Both layers, outer objects and inner imagining, must be turned.

Fourteenth, turning views. Earlier, wrong views such as the view of self and the extreme views had already been turned; now even the view of dharmas and the view of nirvāṇa are turned: not abiding in the nirvāṇa of the two vehicles, one heads straight for the buddha-path. Fifteenth, turning afflictions. First the coarse delusions were subdued by merit and keeping the precepts, and subtle craving, views, and conceit still remained; this ground goes further and leaves the subtle delusions, and moreover, with real wisdom, contemplates afflictions as not apart from the real mark, just as one with spiritual powers can turn the impure into the pure. This is not calling the doing of evil pure, but not fashioning a separate real mark outside the afflictions.

Sixteenth, the ground of equal concentration and wisdom. The treatise says that in the first three grounds wisdom is greater and concentration less, and in the latter three grounds concentration is greater and wisdom less; at the seventh ground the emptiness of beings and the emptiness of dharmas are present before one, concentration and wisdom are equal, and only then can one travel the path in peace and security. Seventeenth, taming the mind, tamed through knowing the real mark and not being attached to the three realms. Eighteenth, the mind’s quiescence; earlier the five faculties drawn along by the five desires were subdued, and here the hard-to-subdue mind faculty becomes still.

Nineteenth, unobstructed knowledge. Prajñā makes one unobstructed among dharmas both real and unreal, and with the wisdom of the path one leads beings into the real dharma, training close to the buddha-eye. The questioner asks how the seventh ground could have the buddha-eye; the treatise specifically limits it as ‘ought to train’ and ‘resembling,’ not speaking of the bodhisattva as a buddha ahead of time. Twentieth, not being stained by love. At the seventh ground there are still the body of flesh from past karma and the residual force of loving attachment; after emerging from concentration one may love a good person before one’s eyes, and may even love the wisdom of the seventh ground; therefore one cultivates relinquishment toward the six sense-objects, not grasping the pleasing or the displeasing.

Do Not Misread

Do not extract the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas into a single phrase, ‘nothing at all exists.’ This chapter gives it four positive verbs: believing and receiving, penetrating, being unobstructed, not retreating; and after it still goes on to speak of teaching the Dharma, turning views, taming the mind, and ferrying beings across. Nor should afflictions being the real mark be read as indulging afflictions, since the same passage states clearly that the coarse delusions are subdued first and the subtle delusions left afterward; what the ‘is’ breaks is the setting up of two separate worlds of own-nature.

Bearing on Practice

The practical order of the seventh ground is very precise: first be unattached in everything one relies on; then make emptiness, compassion, morality, acceptance, knowledge, concentration, and wisdom complete; and last let go even of the love of wisdom. When in practice emptiness and compassion collide, concentration and wisdom lean to one side, or quiescence and teaching the Dharma obstruct each other, one can come back to these twenty items and see that what is lacking is not more names and marks, but which two sides are not yet in balance.

Tenth Arc — The Immovable Ground: How Not Grasping at Marks Turns into Sovereign Benefit of Beings

What Is Being Asked

The seventh ground brings inner concentration and wisdom into balance; the eighth ground then turns toward sovereign activity with regard to beings and the world. The sūtra divides it into two groups of five dharmas each: the first group runs from knowing the minds of beings, roaming in spiritual powers, contemplating buddha-lands, and adorning a land, to contemplating the Buddha’s body as it truly is; the latter group runs from knowing the faculties, purifying worlds, the illusion-like samādhi, and constantly entering samādhi, to taking bodies in accordance with roots of goodness. What it asks is: since the mind does not move, how is this not an abiding apart from objects, but instead a more precise entry into objects?

Passage by Passage

First, entering in accord with the minds of beings. The bodhisattva distinguishes whether beings’ faculties are ripe or unripe, whether they can or cannot be ferried across, whether it must take long kalpas or they can be ferried across in this present life, and also knows by which vehicle they should be guided, as a good physician examining an illness knows whether recovery will be slow or quick. ‘Entering in accord’ is following the actual faculties and capacities to find a path, not complying with desires to please.

Second, sporting in spiritual powers. Spiritual powers were already present before; at this ground one gains sovereignty in them and can go to boundless worlds. The treatise looks back to how at the seventh ground one had once wished to take nirvāṇa, and through the protective mindfulness of the buddhas again aroused the mind of ferrying beings across; so the direction of spiritual powers is not displaying ability, but throwing oneself anew among beings. Seeing the buddha-lands, one still does not grasp at the mark of buddha-lands.

Third, contemplating the buddha-lands. Some bodhisattvas go in person to the ten directions, some view them led by a buddha, and some, abiding in their own land, see them with the heavenly eye; first they take up pure marks to make vows and practise, and afterward, attaining non-attachment, relinquish the marks. Fourth, adorning one’s own land as one has seen. The eighth ground is like the jewel-wheel of a wheel-turning king, unobstructed wherever it reaches, and can rain down Dharma-jewels to fulfil wishes; ‘grasping at marks’ serves only as a skilful means for making vows, and in the end never becomes possession.

Fifth, contemplating the Buddha’s body as it truly is. The Buddha’s body is seen as long or short and in all kinds of ways according to the past karma of beings, like an illusion, like a transformation, not held in a fixed way by the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields. Only seeing the dharma-body is seeing the Buddha; the dharma-body is the emptiness of dharmas that cannot be obtained, which is to say that dharmas born of causes and conditions have no own-nature. This keeps the adorning of the Buddha’s body from falling into the worship of form and marks.

The first of the latter five dharmas is knowing the higher and lower faculties. Earlier one knew where minds were heading; here one goes further and chooses the dharma of ferrying across according to strengths such as much giving or much wisdom. Second, purifying buddha-worlds. It has two sides, purifying one’s own body and purifying the minds of beings; only when the causes and conditions of the other and oneself are purified together is the land one vows for pure.

Third, entering the illusion-like samādhi. The treatise takes as its simile an illusory person who, abiding in one place, can manifest armies, palaces and cities, food and drink, sorrow and joy, and such things; the bodhisattva, abiding in samādhi, can pervade the ten directions, first satisfying beings with giving, then teaching the Dharma to break the evil destinies and establishing the three vehicles. All the work of benefiting beings is accomplished, while the mind still does not move and does not grasp at the mark of mind. Fourth, constantly entering samādhi. The former still requires employing the mind, whereas the samādhi born of recompense runs of itself through ripened habit, just as wealth may be obtained by exerting effort, or may also come of itself when causes and conditions ripen.

Fifth, taking bodies in accordance with the roots of goodness that beings call for. The bodhisattva knows with what body, what speech, what causes and conditions, what matter, what path, and what skilful means he should appear, even taking the body of an animal to ferry beings across. Immovability is not the same as fixity of form; precisely because the mind is not bound by a self-image, it can change its form according to need.

Do Not Misread

Do not take spiritual powers and illusory transformations as a list of the eighth ground’s performances. Every spiritual power in this chapter is bounded by the causes and conditions of those who can be ferried across, by purifying beings, by establishing the three vehicles, and by not grasping at marks. The sūtra text of the first group in fact asks about five matters one by one, yet its closing sentence calls them four dharmas; in understanding the modes of this practice one must still go by the five questions, and must not on this account leave out contemplating the Buddha’s body as it truly is. Nor should the spontaneity of the samādhi born of recompense be read as automatic and without cause; the treatise states clearly that it comes from earlier practice turning ripe.

Bearing on Practice

The eighth ground gives ‘skilful means’ a concrete measure: whether one can see faculties and capacities precisely, choose fitting language and identity, and accomplish benefit without fixing the other person, the land, or one’s own abilities. The mind’s not moving is not doing less, but not being dragged off by the self and its achievements amid a great deal of action.

Eleventh Arc — The Ground of Roots of Goodness: How the Great Vow Becomes Worlds, Languages, and the Taking of Birth

What Is Being Asked

The twelve dharmas of the ninth ground seem to turn suddenly from abstract cultivation and realisation to dwelling in the womb, family, clan name, retinue, and the tree of awakening. In fact this is precisely the answer to how the vow to benefit beings enters the concrete world: if one is to ferry boundless beings across, one must have vows, languages, conditions of birth, a social position, a retinue travelling together, and the adornment of the seat of awakening. Roots of goodness are not only stored within the mind; they must form causes and conditions that beings can encounter.

Passage by Passage

First, receiving the share of boundless worlds to be ferried across. In the three kinds of worlds—pure, impure, and mixed—wherever there are causes and conditions and benefit is possible, all are gathered in, as a lamp gives light to those who have eyes. This is not dividing beings into the worthy and the unworthy, but discerning which causes and conditions are already able to receive the light and which must first have causes sown. The treatise further widens the worlds layer upon layer: one three-thousand great-thousand world, one buddha-world, a world-ocean, a world-seed, up to the share ferried across by one buddha, showing that the measure of the vow is not of one place or one time.

Second, obtaining as one vows. The hearer may take the boundless share to be ferried across as impossible; the treatise answers that the six perfections are complete: the first five perfections make merit, prajñā makes wisdom, and because merit and wisdom are both complete the vow can be accomplished. A vow does not rest only on strong wishing; it is supported by long-standing causes and conditions.

Third, knowing the languages of gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, and others, and teaching the Dharma. The treatise lists the knowledge of past lives, the knowledge by vow, the samādhi of understanding the languages of beings, and the four unobstructed knowledges. The aim of linguistic ability is not wide learning for self-display, but enabling the Dharma to reach differing experiences of life.

Fourth, the accomplishment of dwelling in the womb. The treatise sets two accounts side by side: one says he rides a white elephant and enters the womb surrounded by the gods; one says the mother obtains the illusion-like samādhi, and within the womb it is like a vast palace, and the bodhisattva, without losing his activity in the heavens, manifests entering the womb. Both accounts present the taking of birth as a manifestation of skilful means, not letting the place of the womb confine the bodhisattva.

Fifth, the accomplishment of family: always taking birth in a great family; the treatise further uses the wisdom of the brahmin family and the power and influence of the kṣatriya family to explain two kinds of family that benefit the world, and turns the deepest layer into being born into the family of the dharma of non-retrogressing merit. Sixth, the accomplishment of what one is born into, which names explicitly the class of birth: born into a kṣatriya family, or born into a brahmin family, chosen because it is honoured by the world and makes it easy to gather in the multitude. The former speaks of how the family one relies on can form the conditions for benefiting beings; the latter speaks of which class of birth is concretely chosen; neither is pride of bloodline, but a skilful means for benefiting beings.

Seventh, the accomplishment of clan. The treatise first says that one observes which clan is valued by the world and able to gather in beings, and enters that clan; it also says that the deep mind first aroused, once firm, is itself the clan of the buddhas; and there are also some who take the acceptance of non-arising as the clan of the buddhas. The three accounts proceed from social approachability to the mind of the vow, and further to wisdom; the deepest clan is not a lineage, but the direction toward becoming a buddha having already entered the mind and its practice.

Eighth, the accomplishment of retinue. The retinue are wise and good people who have gathered virtue life after life, and the sūtra further says that bodhisattvas alone make up the retinue; the treatise cites Qupiye of the Inconceivable Sūtra, saying that bodhisattvas by the samādhi of skilful means manifest as men and as women and together form a retinue, and it also takes as a simile the householder-treasure of a wheel-turning king, originally a yakṣa spirit manifesting a human body. The point lies not in marvellous transformation, but in the fact that the work of becoming a buddha needs a community travelling together.

Ninth, the accomplishment of birth. When the bodhisattva is born there are a lotus seat, light, and bodhisattvas, gods, and nāgas coming to receive him; he is either womb-born or apparitionally born; being born into the two clans honoured in the world is for gathering in beings. The auspicious signs of birth turn an individual’s birth into a Dharma-condition that beings can hear of.

Tenth, the accomplishment of leaving home. In the palace he sees the palace women as if in the state of death; the gods hold offerings and come to receive him; Chandaka leads the horse, and the Four Heavenly Kings bear up its hooves as he leaves the city; that one so honoured still leaves home is precisely to show through his own person that the defilement of household life can be broken. Measureless multitudes follow him in leaving home, which turns an individual’s going forth into a condition for a community’s entering the three vehicles.

Eleventh, the accomplishment of adorning the buddha-tree. Golden roots, stems, joints, branches, and leaves of the seven treasures, and light shining everywhere show that the seat of awakening is brought about by merit and the power of vows; the buddhas may display different adornments, because what beings need differs, and there is no need to fix one form as the only one.

Twelfth, the fulfilment of all good merits. The treatise takes the breaking of afflictions at the seventh ground as benefiting oneself, and teaching beings and purifying lands at the eighth and ninth grounds as benefiting others; only when both sides are deep and great is it called complete. The two vehicles are heavy in benefiting self and light in benefiting others; bodhisattvas who are beginning to train benefit others while their own afflictions are not yet removed; neither can be called full on one side alone.

Do Not Misread

Do not read the ninth ground as a theory of sacred bloodlines. This chapter itself turns family and clan from worldly skilful means to the family of the dharma of merit, to the deep mind, and to the acceptance of non-arising; the honoured clans of the world count only because at that time they were better able to gather in the multitude, not because they are honoured by own-nature. Nor should the share to be ferried across be understood as ownership of territory: the treatise speaks of whether benefit can be received in terms of whether there are causes and conditions, and does not speak of to whom beings belong as possessions.

Bearing on Practice

The ninth ground reminds us that the mind of the vow must have a carrier. Though today we cannot discuss spiritual powers of dwelling in the womb, we can still ask: does the Dharma we teach use a language the other can understand? Do the family, community, and space we are in become conditions for roots of goodness? Do those who travel with us bring one another to accomplishment? If a vow has no form that can be encountered, it has not yet reached the concreteness shown by the ninth ground.

Twelfth Arc — The Ground of the Dharma Cloud: The Ten Grounds Like the Buddha, and the Close of the Whole Chapter

What Is Being Asked

The sūtra marks the tenth ground only with ‘one should know it is like the Buddha,’ and then speaks in detail of the six perfections, the four foundations of mindfulness, and so on up to the unshared dharmas of a buddha, omniscience of all kinds, and the cutting off of afflictions and their residual habits, and further of passing beyond, by skilful means, the nine names of the shared grounds and abiding in the buddha ground. The question is to what degree it is ‘like the Buddha,’ how the merits of ground after ground are turned into buddha-dharmas, and whether becoming a buddha still cannot do without the first six perfections and skilful means.

Passage by Passage

Having entered the tenth ground it is named Dharma Cloud; the treatise borrows a continuous great rain to speak of pure buddha-dharmas arising measurelessly thought after thought. The cloud simile takes up the lands and beings of the eighth and ninth grounds: the Dharma does not only ripen within the bodhisattva’s mind, but must rain everywhere over the world. The bodhisattva first knows that the Māra king of the desire realm has not yet been subdued, and emits light that darkens Māra’s palace; after Māra is subdued, the buddhas of the ten directions emit light that enters the crown of his head, showing that what has been cultivated ground by ground receives the seal of approval of the buddhas’ knowledge and is turned into buddha-dharmas.

At this point he cuts off all afflictions and their residual habits, and is endowed with the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, the eighteen unshared dharmas, great kindness and great compassion, and so on. The great earth quakes, the heavens rain flowers and incense, and the ten directions proclaim the attaining of buddhahood, showing that his merits are no longer merely approximate and partial, but have become the complete work of a buddha. When the preceding text spoke of the seventh ground training in the buddha-eye, it specifically limited this to resemblance; only here is it truly closed with the completion of a buddha’s virtues, and the order must not be inverted.

The treatise further restates the ten grounds in terms of the shared grounds: it is still practising the six perfections, still by the power of skilful means, passing beyond the nine grounds of dry wisdom, nature, the eight acceptances, seeing, thinning, freedom from desire, what has been done, the pratyekabuddha, and the bodhisattva, and abiding in the buddha ground. This way of closing has great force: becoming a buddha has not replaced the first six perfections, nor abandoned skilful means; it is only that the six perfections and skilful means have been fulfilled all the way to the buddha ground. The final phrase, ‘able to practise the ten grounds thus,’ draws the whole chapter back to practice, and does not end with the gaining of a name or rank.

Do Not Misread

Do not apply ‘like the Buddha’ ahead of time to the first nine grounds, and do not isolate the consecration, the light, and the quaking of the earth into a spectacle of marvels. In the treatise they have a strict before and after: first the practice of the ten grounds is fulfilled and Māra is subdued, then the light of the buddhas enters the crown, and only then are the merits turned into buddha-dharmas. Nor should the natural welling-up of the Dharma Cloud be used to deny the long, diligent seeking that came before; the rain from the cloud is precisely the result of the roots of goodness of ground after ground ripening.

Bearing on Practice

The ground of the Dharma Cloud answers one last question for the deep mind of the first ground: at the very beginning all roots of goodness were directed toward omniscience; at the very end, omniscience is not a private attainment, but falls everywhere like cloud and rain. If the deeper one’s practice goes, the fewer people can benefit, it is the opposite of the simile of the Dharma cloud; if one benefits many beings yet does not cut off self-conceit and afflictions, one has not yet reached the point where merits are turned into buddha-dharmas. Only when purifying oneself and raining everywhere are accomplished together is it this chapter’s end-point of the ten grounds.