大智度論 信謗品之下Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Faith and Slander, Part 2 of 2

Faith and Slander, Last Part: The Heavy Sin of Breaking the Dharma through the Karma of Speech, and Its Four Causes and Conditions; Prajñā Neither Bound nor Released, Hard to Believe and Hard to Understand; Because Form Is Pure, Prajñā Is Pure; the Three Poisons, the Twelve Links, and the Three Times All Pure; the Two Kinds of Breaking Prajñā and the Two Kinds of Faith

What Is Being Asked

The First Part carried the sin of slandering the Dharma to its extreme: to disparage prajñā is precisely to disparage the omniscience of the buddhas of the three times; because of the causes and conditions of the karma of breaking the Dharma, one falls for immeasurable koṭi of kalpas into the great hells, passing through the ten directions, and when the sin has thinned and one obtains a human body, one is still born blind, without a tongue, without ears, without hands, born into low and base families without the Buddha’s Dharma; moreover it judged that the five heinous sins are not like breaking the Dharma, the sin of breaking the Dharma being so heavy that the Buddha will not even tell the size of the body in which it is undergone. The Last Part takes up this sin and begins by asking where it comes from: is so heavy a sin accomplished merely by gathering the karma of speech? The Buddha answers that it is so, and opens four causes and conditions of disparaging and slandering the deep prajñā—being driven by Māra, not having faith in the deep Dharma, keeping company with evil friends, and anger and arrogance. Once the source of the sin is clear, the sūtra turns to the very thing the sin slanders: why is prajñā so very deep, hard to believe and hard to understand? The answer lies in 「不縛不解」 tr. "neither bound nor released", and in 「無所有性」 tr. "a nature without anything existent"; from neither bound nor released it advances further to ‘because form is pure, prajñā is pure’, and on to the purity of lust, hatred, and delusion, the purity of the twelve links link by link, the purity of the conditioned and the unconditioned, the purity of the three times—purity all the way until ‘ultimately pure, like space’. At the end the treatise-author gathers up the whole chapter: prajñā is ultimately pure, the Dharma treasury of the buddhas of the three times, and because one breaks it one falls into the hells; he further divides the breaking of prajñā into two kinds and faith in prajñā into two kinds, and answers the question of how hard it is for a person of the five heinous sins to have faith in prajñā, with the example of King Ajātaśatru, whose sin was removed and who received the prediction. What the Last Part asks, in the end, is a pair of outside and inside: why is the Dharma that is slandered pure to such a degree, and why is the sin of the one who slanders heavy to such a degree—the purer the Dharma, the heavier the sin of slandering it; the heaviness of the sin takes its measure precisely from the purity of the Dharma.

Passage by Passage

1. Guard the three karmas well, and escape six kinds of suffering. At the opening of the Last Part, Subhūti addresses the Buddha: good men and good women should well guard and protect the karma of body, speech, and mind, and not undergo such sufferings as these—either not seeing the Buddha, or not hearing the Dharma, or not drawing near to the Saṅgha, or being born in a world without a Buddha, or being born among humans but falling into a poor family, or others not believing and accepting their words. Each of the six sufferings is a suffering of being cut off from the Three Jewels and from one’s connection with the Dharma: seeing the Buddha, hearing the Dharma, and drawing near to the Saṅgha are the provisions of the Dharma body and the wisdom-life; being born in an age with a Buddha, being born in a family with sufficient means, and having one’s words believed by others are the conditions for cultivating the path; what the sin of breaking the Dharma takes away is precisely this whole line of connection with the Dharma. Subhūti places the guarding of the three karmas at the head of the sentence, bringing the heavy hell-retribution spoken of in the First Part back to the careful guarding of the three karmas in daily life—sin arises from karma, and to guard against sin one first guards against karma.

2. By gathering the karma of speech there is the heavy sin of breaking the Dharma; breaking one Dharma breaks the Three Jewels and right view together. Subhūti asks: is it because of gathering the karma of speech that there is this heavy sin of breaking the Dharma? The Buddha answers: just so. A deluded person leaves home and receives the precepts within the Buddha’s Dharma, yet disparages and does not accept the deep prajñā—to break prajñā is precisely to break the omniscience of the buddhas of the ten directions; because omniscience is broken, the Buddha Jewel is broken; because the Buddha Jewel is broken, the Dharma Jewel is broken; because the Dharma Jewel is broken, the Saṅgha Jewel is broken; because the Three Jewels are broken, the right view of the world is broken; because the right view of the world is broken, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the dharma of omniscience of all kinds are broken; from this one obtains immeasurable and boundless asaṃkhyeya sins, and undergoes immeasurable and boundless asaṃkhyeya sorrows and sufferings. This one chain is the skeleton of the meaning of sin and retribution in the whole chapter: prajñā is the mother of the buddhas, that from which omniscience comes forth, and so to slander this one Dharma is not to ruin one scroll of scripture, but to cut off at the root the entire lifeline of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha, of worldly and world-transcending right view; the sin is immeasurable precisely because what is broken is immeasurable. Above all, keep an eye on the four characters 「出家受戒」 tr. "leaving home and receiving the precepts"—this sin does not come from the outsiders’ paths, but from people attached to the Dharma within the gate of the Buddha’s Dharma.

3. The four causes and conditions of disparagement and slander, set out in summary. Subhūti asks how many causes and conditions there are for disparaging and destroying the deep prajñā, and the Buddha answers that there are four: first, being driven by Māra; second, not having faith in the deep Dharma, not believing and not understanding, the mind not attaining purity; third, keeping company with evil friends, the mind sunk in laziness, firmly attached to the five aggregates of clinging; fourth, much practising anger and hatred, exalting oneself and despising others. In the four conditions outer and inner intertwine: Māra is an outer condition, lack of faith and anger with arrogance are inner causes, and the third condition joins the outer condition of evil friends with the inner cause of laziness attached to the aggregates. Under each condition the sūtra repeats 「是愚癡人欲毀呰破壞深般若波羅蜜」 tr. "this deluded person wishes to disparage and destroy the deep prajñāpāramitā", chanting it four times over, so that a person will examine himself condition by condition—slandering the Dharma need not appear as evil speech; if even one of the four conditions is in the mind, the root of slander already lies hidden.

4. The karma of mind is the root of the karma of speech. The treatise-author first poses a question: it is the karma of speech that breaks the Dharma, so why does it say 「攝身口意業」 tr. "guard the karma of body, speech, and mind"? The answer: the karma of mind is the root of the karma of speech; to guard the karma of speech, one first guards the karma of mind; because the karma of mind is guarded, the karma of body and speech is also wholesome, and when the karma of body and speech is wholesome, the karma of mind is also wholesome. The three karmas give rise to one another, and their pivot lies in the mind: the mouth does not move of itself; it moves from the mind. So guarding against the sin of slandering the Dharma lies not in sealing the mouth but in treating the mind; if doubt and arrogance in the mind are not removed, the disparagement of the karma of speech will in the end have its time to break out. The treatise-author further points out the cause and condition Subhūti himself states—「莫受是諸苦」 tr. "not undergo these sufferings": the guarding against the six sufferings hangs entirely on this one word, guard.

5. To make a sin with one’s own tongue is great madness. People of the world take the karma of body as heavy and the karma of speech as light, and so Subhūti specially asks: is it only through the karma of speech that one obtains this sin? The Buddha approves his intent and shows: this deluded person has no pressing business of his own, no one to drive him, and nothing to gain, and yet by his own tongue alone he makes such a heavy sin—this is great madness! This mad person in a future age will leave home within the Buddha’s Dharma; those who have left home form five assemblies, and those who have received precepts form seven assemblies. The judgement of 「大狂」 tr. "great madness" must be looked at closely: the sins of killing and stealing still have profit and desire to aim at, but the sin of slandering the Dharma has no profit to gain and no one pressing him—it is made purely by his own tongue; to make the heaviest sin without any cause is why it is called great madness. And this mad person appears precisely within the Buddha’s gate, which connects directly with the passage below on the śrāvakas’ attachment to the Dharma.

6. The śrāvakas’ attachment to the Dharma: hearing of ultimate emptiness is as if a knife had wounded the heart. The treatise-author explains where this madness comes from: śrāvakas are attached to the śrāvaka Dharma; five hundred years after the Buddha’s passing they divided into five schools, each holding to its own Dharma and seeking a fixed mark of dharmas, not knowing that the Buddha taught the Dharma for the sake of liberation, and firmly attached to words; so when they hear prajñā say that all dharmas are ultimately empty, it is as if a knife had wounded the heart! They all say: a fixed dharma—how can it now be said not to exist? Within the mark of prajñā, where there is no attaining and no attachment, they make a mark of attaining and of attachment, and so they disparage and destroy it, saying it is not the Buddha’s teaching. This passage is the most piercing pathological dissection in the whole chapter: those who slander prajñā are not people who do not study the Buddha’s teaching, but people who have studied it too 「定」 tr. "fixed"—taking the verbal teaching the Buddha established for the sake of liberation and holding it as a fixed mark, then using the Buddha’s Dharma they hold to slander the mother of the Buddha’s Dharma. These three characters—knife, wound, heart—say everything about the pain, cutting to the skin, that one who is attached feels on first hearing the Dharma of emptiness; in pain and without reflection, it becomes the karma of slander.

7. One mark, the signless; wrong view gains strength, and the chain of destruction plays out again. The Buddha, out of pity for beings, speaks of the path and the non-path; now within prajñā the path and the non-path are wholly one mark, namely the signless. Those who hold to a fixed mark first give rise to doubt here, and afterwards, settling the mind on the Dharma of emptiness, give rise to wrong view; because wrong view gains strength, in the midst of the great assembly they everywhere destroy prajñā—and so they break the omniscience of the buddhas of the ten directions and the three times and the other merits of the buddhas; because the merits of the buddhas are broken, the Three Jewels are broken; because the Three Jewels are broken, the causes and conditions of worldly happiness, namely the right view of the world, are broken; when the right view of the world is broken, the causes and conditions of world-transcending happiness are broken—the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to omniscience of all kinds. This Dharma is the cause and condition of immeasurable and boundless merit; because one breaks it, one obtains immeasurable and boundless sin and undergoes immeasurable and boundless sorrow, suffering, and vexation. The treatise-author plays out the chain of the second sūtra section once again from its psychological source: doubt → wrong view → gaining strength → open destruction → the whole chain cut off together. The phrase 「於大眾中處處毀壞」 tr. "in the midst of the great assembly, everywhere destroys it" deserves attention—once wrong view gains strength, it must turn into teaching others; the heaviness of the karma of slander lies in how widely it spreads.

8. The four conditions explained at length, first: being driven by Māra, and the four Māras. The treatise-author poses a question: the causes and conditions of breaking the Dharma were already spoken of earlier in the treatise, so why does Subhūti ask again? The answer: before, it was spoken in the treatise; now it is spoken in the sūtra; before, it was not spoken in full; now it is spoken in full and at length. And so he explains the conditions one by one. As for being driven by Māra: Māra, or Māra’s people, come and enter a person’s mind and turn his body and speech, making him break prajñā. Thus with Ānanda: the Buddha asked three times, 「閻浮提樂，壽命亦樂」 tr. "Jambudvīpa is delightful, and life too is delightful", and because Māra had entered his body, three times he did not answer the Buddha—Ānanda had already attained the first path and was still harassed by Māra, how much more ordinary people! Again, Māra is of four kinds: the Māra of the five aggregates, the Māra of the afflictions, the Māra of death, and the Māra who is a son of the gods of the Sovereign heaven; among the four Māras it is mostly the Māra of the afflictions and the Māra who is a son of the gods of the Sovereign heaven that make people not have faith in prajñā; greedily attached to their own dharma, resentful and envious of the dharmas of others, deluded and inverted, they are therefore able to break prajñā. Someone says: the first cause and condition is the Māra of the afflictions, and the fourth is the Māra who is a son of the gods of the Sovereign heaven; because one is driven by these two Māras, it is called being driven by Māra. The example of Ānanda is the most sobering: even a noble one could not escape Māra entering his body—how can an ordinary person presume that he will not be turned by Māra?

9. The four conditions explained at length, second and third: not having faith in the deep Dharma, and keeping company with evil friends. As for not having faith in the deep Dharma: because one is firmly attached to wrong views, greedily loves one’s own dharma, and has dull faculties of wisdom, one does not recognise the Buddha’s intent, and because one neither believes nor accepts the very deep prajñā, one breaks it. As for keeping company with evil friends, the treatise-author distinguishes three grades of people: there are those whose faculties are sharp and fit for faith, and to whom Māra does not come, yet who break prajñā only because they follow the teaching of an evil teacher; there are those who, though they belong to an evil friend, have thin fetters and so are diligently vigorous and can have faith in prajñā; therefore two things must come together as one—both belonging to an evil friend, and also being deeply attached to the five aggregates, with thick fetters, giving rise to a lazy mind—and for this reason one does not have faith. This judgement of three grades has the finest sense of measure: a teacher’s wrongness need not ruin the disciple, and the disciple’s sharp faculties need not protect him either—only when outer condition and inner cause, the two things, come together does the root of slander take shape. From this the learner can know: choosing a teacher is certainly important, but treating one’s own fetters is more important still.

10. The four conditions explained at length, fourth: anger and arrogance. As for much practising anger and hatred, exalting oneself and despising others: such a person has, life after life, gathered much anger and hatred until it has become his nature—the mark of anger is precisely the mark of lack of faith; hard and stubborn and exalting himself, he despises those who expound the Dharma: 「我智德如是，尚不能解，況汝愚賤而能知之！」 tr. "With wisdom and virtue such as mine, I still cannot understand it—how much less could you, foolish and base, know it!" Because anger and arrogance are many, he breaks prajñā. This condition comes closest to the sickness of the learned: not understanding the deep Dharma, not reflecting on the dullness of their own faculties of wisdom, but instead, relying on their own wisdom and virtue, despising the one who expounds—and so slander of the Dharma issues from the arrogant mind. The sentence 「瞋相者是不信相」 tr. "the mark of anger is the mark of lack of faith" is the treatise-author’s discerning eye: anger and lack of faith share a single root; both are the mark of a mind that will not bow its head to receive the Dharma.

11. The people for whom it is hard to believe and hard to understand; the Buddha approves his words. Subhūti says to the Buddha: this prajñāpāramitā is hard to believe and hard to understand for people who are not diligently vigorous, who plant roots that are not good, and who keep company with evil companions! The Buddha repeats: Just so! Just so! And between question and answer the real question is forced out: in what way is this prajñā very deep, hard to believe and hard to understand? This one question is the pivot between the two halves of the Last Part—the first half speaks of the sin of slandering the Dharma and the marks of the slanderer; with this question it turns, and turns to the very Dharma that is slandered; the two great passages below, on neither bound nor released and on all dharmas being pure, both answer this 「云何甚深」 tr. "in what way is it very deep". The reason it is hard to believe lies not in the Dharma having anything dangerous or remote, but in its being deep and plain to the utmost—so deep that there is no mark to grasp, and shallow capacities, on the contrary, find nowhere to lay a hand.

12. Neither bound nor released, because of a nature without anything existent; the three limits likewise. The Buddha answers: form is neither bound nor released. Why? Because form is a nature without anything existent. Feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the six perfections, inner emptiness and so on up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to omniscience and omniscience of all kinds, are each neither bound nor released, each for the reason that that dharma is a nature without anything existent. It is further carried to the three limits: the original limit of form is neither bound nor released, for the original limit is a nature without anything existent, and this is form; the later limit and the present are likewise, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, which in all three limits is neither bound nor released. The sūtra passes over all dharmas in the same sentence pattern dozens of times, precisely so that a person may meet, on each dharma, the same encounter in person: bondage and release are set up provisionally in dependence on each other; the substance of dharmas is without anything existent—on whom is bondage placed, on whom release? With one push through the three limits, even the temporal narrative of ‘once bound, now released’ is taken apart entirely—vertically exhausting the three limits and horizontally pervading all dharmas, there is not one place where someone who grasps at marks can set foot; this is the reality of its being very deep and hard to believe.

13. The people with seven marks truly find it hard to believe and understand; the Buddha adds 「繫屬於魔」 tr. "bound over to Māra". Subhūti further describes the marks of people who find it hard to believe: not diligently vigorous, not planting roots of goodness, keeping company with evil companions, lazy, of little progress, prone to forgetting, without skilful, expedient wisdom—such people truly find it hard to believe and hard to understand. The Buddha approves his words, but into the seven marks adds one phrase, 「繫屬於魔」 tr. "bound over to Māra". This addition corresponds exactly to the treatise-author’s question and answer below: Subhūti speaks directly of the inner and outer causes and conditions being incomplete; the Buddha speaks of them completely—beyond inner cause and outer condition there is also being bound over to Māra; a practitioner of the path, while examining himself for the seven marks, must not forget this further outer enemy. The sūtra then, with 「何以故」 tr. "Why?", brings out that because form is pure the result too is pure, and from here the Dharma that is hard to believe turns into the gate of purity.

14. Because form is pure, prajñā is pure; because the non-dual is pure, form is pure. The Buddha says: because form is pure, the result too is pure; because feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, are pure, the result too is pure. Again, because form is pure, prajñāpāramitā is pure; because prajñā is pure, form is pure; and so on up to: because omniscience of all kinds is pure, prajñā is pure—without duality and without difference, without cutting and without breaking. Again, because the non-dual is pure, form is pure, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds being pure; because self is pure, beings are pure, and so on up to the knower and the seer being pure, form is pure; because form is pure, self, beings, and so on up to the knower and the seer are pure—not two and not different, without cutting and without breaking. The three instances of 「復次」 tr. "Again" are three stages of advance: first it establishes that cause and result are both pure; next it establishes that what illuminates and what is illuminated purify each other; last it takes even the sixteen names of knowing and seeing—self, beings, and the rest—into purity. Purity is not a separate purity obtained after washing away defilement; it is that all dharmas, being a nature without anything existent, are pure of themselves; so purity has no this and that: to say that one dharma is pure is precisely to say that all dharmas are pure, and to say that all dharmas are pure is still only one purity—these words—without duality and without difference—are the heart of this passage.

15. The three poisons are bondage yet without self-nature; because bondage is empty, release too is empty. The treatise-author explains 「不縛不解」 tr. "neither bound nor released": the three poisons are bondage, the three gates of liberation are release; yet the three poisons and the other afflictions are deceptive and unreal, born from the coming together of causes and conditions, and without self-nature, so there is no bondage; since there is no bondage, there is no release; because the three poisons are broken, the three gates of liberation too are empty. Again, the inverted afflictions of grasping at marks and being attached to dharmas are bondage—if the dharma of bondage really and definitely had a self-nature, it could not be released; if it really and definitely existed, who could break it? If it were broken, one would fall into annihilation; if the afflictions are from the start deceptive and unreal, there is also nothing to cut off. Again, all minds and mental-factor dharmas—recollection, imagining, and discrimination, grasping at marks—are all bound within their objects; if one enters the real mark of all dharmas and knows all of them to be deceptive, then, as said in an earlier chapter, 「心清淨相者，即是非心相」 tr. "the mark of a pure mind is precisely not the mark of mind"—because bondage is empty, release too is empty. The three layers of explanation press in step by step: first they break the substance of bondage; next, with a dilemma, they break the real existence of bondage (if it really existed it could not be released; if it could be broken one would fall into annihilation); last, even the mind that binds is illuminated as empty. The crucial point is this: to say that bondage is empty is not to indulge the afflictions; it is precisely why the afflictions can be broken—only because they are deceptive can they be broken; if they really existed, they could not, on the contrary, be broken.

16. The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions; neither bound nor released in the three times. Here the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: form and the other dharmas are conditioned, made dharmas, because they are born from the coming together of causes and conditions and because they have no fixed nature; so it says 「無所有性是色等諸法」 tr. "form and the other dharmas are a nature without anything existent". Again, form and the other dharmas are neither bound nor released in the three times, as said in the refutation of the three times. The treatise-author specially marks 「佛自說因緣」 tr. "the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions" so that a person will see clearly: a nature without anything existent is not a profound speculation that a treatise-master has deduced; it is a ground of reason that the sūtra itself provides—born from the coming together of causes and conditions, it is without self-nature; without self-nature, it is a nature without anything existent. The one phrase on the three times gathers the sūtra’s repeated chant of the original limit, the later limit, and the present into the meaning of refuting the three times, so that sūtra and treatise, before and after, are of one thread.

17. Neither very deep nor not very deep; to evil people prajñā is very deep and hard to understand. Having heard this far, Subhūti knows that prajñā is neither very deep nor not very deep—as a later chapter says: 「若謂般若波羅蜜甚深，則遠離般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "If one says that prajñāpāramitā is very deep, one is far removed from prajñāpāramitā." So he says to the Buddha: to evil people it is very deep and hard to understand, not to good people. This turn is extremely subtle: earlier the Buddha himself said that it is very deep and hard to believe; here it says instead that holding to its being very deep is being far removed from prajñā—very deep is a word of negation spoken to those who grasp at marks; it is not that prajñā itself has a mark of depth to be found; within a nature without anything existent, neither deep nor not deep can be established. So whether it is hard or not hard to understand lies wholly on the side of the person, not on the side of the Dharma: the Dharma has no depth or shallowness; people have sharp and dull, defiled and pure—「惡人以般若波羅蜜甚深難解」 tr. "to evil people prajñāpāramitā is very deep and hard to understand": the difficulty is the difficulty of evil people, not a difficulty of the Dharma.

18. The seven marks of evil people explained one by one; the Buddha speaks completely of the deeds of Māra. The treatise-author opens the seven marks one by one: not being in accord with prajñā and not being single-mindedly diligent and vigorous; not planting roots of goodness for understanding prajñā; following an evil teacher who destroys prajñā; the lazy, attached to worldly happiness and not wishing to leave the world; such people, if they have any vigour, have so little it is not worth mentioning; because afflictions disturb the mind, they are prone to forgetting; because the marks of wholesome and unwholesome dharmas are not broken, arrogance is not removed, and there is wrong view and idle discourse, they seek the real mark of all dharmas yet do not know how to distinguish the good and bad in the marks of dharmas—this is called being without skilful, expedient wisdom. Because they have such evil dharmas, they find the very deep prajñā hard to understand. He also poses a question: in Subhūti’s account there are no deeds of Māra, so why does the Buddha’s account add the deeds of Māra? The answer: Subhūti speaks directly of the inner and outer causes and conditions being incomplete; the Buddha now speaks of them completely, and so says 「是人為魔所使」 tr. "this person is driven by Māra". The definition of 「無巧便慧」 tr. "without skilful, expedient wisdom" at the end of the seven marks is the most worth savouring—it is not a lack of worldly intelligence; it is failing, within the gate of the real mark, to tell good from bad; if arrogance and wrong view are not removed, then however clever one is, within prajñā one is still without wisdom.

19. Because the result is pure, one knows that the cause too is pure. The Buddha, wishing further to speak of the mark of being very deep and hard to understand, tells Subhūti: because form and the other dharmas are pure, the result too is pure. The treatise-author explains: the four foundations of mindfulness are the result of form and the other dharmas—contemplating form and the rest as impure, impermanent, and so on, one obtains the foundation of mindfulness of the body, and the other foundations are as said above; the four foundations of mindfulness are by nature without outflows, cut off the afflictions, and are for the sake of nirvāṇa, and are therefore pure; seeing that the result is pure, one knows that the cause too is pure. The meaning of cause and result purifying each other is established from this: since the four foundations of mindfulness that contemplate are without outflows and pure, how could form and the rest that are contemplated alone be defiled? The result is born from the cause, and the place where the result is pure illuminates exactly the pure substance of the cause—this is saying the Dharma that is hard to believe over again from the gate of cause and result.

20. The contemplation of impurity is the first gate of entry and is not among the sixteen noble practices. The treatise-author raises an objection against himself: earlier it was said that by contemplating form as impure one obtains the foundation of mindfulness of the body; how then can it say that because the result is pure one knows that the cause too is pure? The answer: the contemplation of impurity is the first gate of entry, not a real contemplation, and so it is not among the sixteen noble practices; among the sixteen practices one contemplates impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and non-self, and does not contemplate impurity. Because of the inversion of purity lustful desire arises; to break purity it says 「不淨」 tr. "impure", but this is not real; so impurity is only a contemplation of resolved understanding. Within prajñā one does not contemplate permanence or impermanence, does not contemplate purity or impurity; where the contemplations of permanence and impermanence, purity and impurity, empty and real, and the rest cease, and idle discourse ceases, that is the real mark of form; the real mark of form is pure, and so the result too is pure. This answer sets the place of 「不淨」 tr. "impure" exactly right: the contemplation of impurity is a medicine that counteracts the inversion of purity, and the medicine is not the real mark; only where medicine and sickness are both dismissed and all contemplations and idle discourse have ceased is the real mark of form, pure. From this the learner can know: the purity that prajñā speaks of is neither the ordinary person’s inversion of purity nor the counteracting impurity, but the ultimate purity where all contemplations have ceased.

21. Prajñā is like space, ultimately pure; right contemplation, right practice, right cultivation. Again, the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: prajñāpāramitā is like space, ultimately pure, without any defilement. Contemplating the real mark of form and the other dharmas as neither arising nor ceasing, practising the six perfections, cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness and the rest—in this way prajñā can be obtained; these are the three causes and conditions of prajñā: right contemplation, right practice, and right cultivation. So it says: because prajñā is pure, form and the rest are pure; because form and the rest are pure, prajñā is pure; form and the other dharmas and prajñā, within the real mark, are without duality and without difference, not different and not distinct, not apart and not scattered, and therefore not cut and not broken. The simile of space and the three causes and conditions are set side by side, and their deep intent is this: ultimate purity does not obstruct advancing in cultivation—though prajñā is like space, without defilement, it is still obtained by three roads: rightly contemplating the real mark, rightly practising the six perfections, and rightly cultivating the foundations of mindfulness; purity does not brush practice aside, and practice does not obstruct purity.

22. The dharma of self is a provisional name; all dharmas are likewise. Again, the dharma of self, sought throughout the ten directions and the three times, is unfindable; within the five aggregates there is only a provisional name; beings and so on up to the knower and the seer are likewise. Just as self is empty, without anything existent, and pure, so too are all dharmas. The treatise-author uses the dharma of self as the key to close the third treatise section: the emptiness of self is a meaning accepted in common by all the schools of the Buddha’s Dharma—seeking a self within the five aggregates, it is unfindable; there is only a provisional name; now, taking this commonly accepted emptiness as an example, he extends it to all dharmas—that dharmas are without anything existent and pure follows one and the same line of reason as the emptiness of self. Where the sūtra said earlier, ‘because self is pure and beings are pure, form is pure’, the reason lies precisely here: self is from the start empty and pure, so taking self as the example for dharmas, dharma after dharma is pure.

23. Because lust, hatred, and delusion are pure, form is pure, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds being pure. The fourth sūtra section advances to a further realm: because lust is pure, form is pure, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds being pure; lust being pure and form being pure, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds being pure, are not two and not different; because hatred and delusion are pure, form is pure, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds being pure, and these too are not two and not different. The three poisons are defiled dharmas that all the sūtras alike condemn, yet here it says lust, hatred, and delusion are pure—this is the sharpest sentence in the whole chapter, and precisely because it is sharp, the sūtra follows it at once with the words not two and not different to settle its meaning: it is not indulging the three poisons as pure conduct; it is illuminating that the nature of the three poisons is from the start empty and from the start pure; the marks of the poisons are deceptive, and the nature of the poisons is without anything existent—the same nature without anything existent as the purity of form and the purity of omniscience—and so they are not two and not different. The meaning of this sentence is only fully disclosed when the fourth treatise section says 「三毒實性清淨」 tr. "the real nature of the three poisons is pure"; at this point the reader should hold the doubt and wait for the treatise’s explanation, and not first make up an understanding of his own.

24. The twelve links purify one another link by link, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds being pure. Again: because ignorance is pure, the constructions are pure; because the constructions are pure, consciousness is pure; because consciousness is pure, name-and-form is pure; because name-and-form is pure, the six sense-fields are pure; because the six sense-fields are pure, contact is pure; because contact is pure, feeling is pure; because feeling is pure, craving is pure; because craving is pure, grasping is pure; because grasping is pure, existence is pure; because existence is pure, birth is pure; because birth is pure, old age and death are pure; because old age and death are pure, prajñā is pure; because prajñā is pure, and so on up to dānapāramitā is pure; because dāna is pure, inner emptiness is pure; because inner emptiness is pure, and so on up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas is pure; because the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas is pure, the four foundations of mindfulness are pure; because the four foundations of mindfulness are pure, and so on up to omniscience is pure; because omniscience is pure, omniscience of all kinds is pure—not two and not different, without cutting and without breaking. The twelve links are the chain of the flowing on of birth and death, yet the sūtra passes the word pure down the chain link by link, and further, going beyond old age and death, enters straight into prajñā, the six perfections, the contemplations of emptiness, and the limbs of the path, reaching straight to omniscience of all kinds: the gate of flowing on and the gate of return to cessation, defiled dharmas and pure dharmas, are one and the same vein of purity upon the nature without anything existent. To speak of purity link by link is precisely to speak of emptiness link by link; not one link on the chain really exists, so not one link is not pure.

25. Because prajñā is pure, all dharmas are pure; because omniscience is pure, prajñā is pure; because the conditioned is pure, the unconditioned is pure; the three times purify one another. Again: because prajñā is pure, form is pure, and so on up to omniscience being pure, not two and not different; because dhyānapāramitā and so on up to dānapāramitā are pure, and so on up to omniscience is pure; because inner emptiness is pure and the four foundations of mindfulness are pure, and so on up to omniscience is pure. Again, because omniscience is pure, and so on up to prajñā is pure, each one as said before. Again, because the conditioned is pure, the unconditioned is pure—because the purity of the conditioned and the purity of the unconditioned are not two and not different, without cutting and without breaking. Again, because the past is pure, the future and the present are pure; because the future is pure, the past and the present are pure; because the present is pure, the past and the future are pure—because they are not two and not different, without cutting and without breaking. Here the fourth sūtra section draws the net of mutual purity to its widest: dharma and dharma purify one another, the position of cause and the position of result purify one another, the conditioned and the unconditioned purify one another, the three times purify one another—take any one dharma as the head, and the remaining dharmas all become pure along with it. The net of purity has no head and no tail; this is precisely the mark of the real mark’s non-duality.

26. The real nature of the three poisons is pure. The fourth treatise section first asks: the Buddha says the three poisons are defiled, filthy, and impure; how then does it say here that because lustful desire and the rest are pure, form and the rest are also pure? The answer: because the Buddha says the real nature of the three poisons is pure, form and the other dharmas are also pure; because the three poisons are pure and form and the rest are pure, they are not two and not different. The judgement of defiled and pure lies in the mark; the illumination of the real nature lies in the substance: to condemn the three poisons as defilement is to speak of the marks of their delusion and karma, from the gate of counteraction; to say that the three poisons are pure is to speak of their real nature—deceptive, without self-nature, ultimately empty. The two statements do not contradict each other: precisely because the real nature is pure from the start, the defiled marks can be removed; if the nature of the poisons really existed, they could never be purified. The doubt held in the earlier passage is resolved here.

27. Ignorance is ultimately empty; in turn, all are pure. The treatise-author continues the explanation: wishing to speak at length of the purity of the three poisons and of the causes and conditions of its result, it says that because ignorance is pure, the constructions too are pure. 「無明淨」 tr. "ignorance is pure" means that ignorance is ultimately empty, as said in the ten similes refuting ignorance; from the twelve links on up to omniscience of all kinds it is likewise. Because form and the rest, ignorance and the rest—all these dharmas—are pure, prajñā is pure; because prajñā is pure, the dhyānapāramitā practised by the bodhisattva, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, are all pure. Again, because the eighteen emptinesses are used, form and the rest, on up to omniscience of all kinds, are empty; because omniscience of all kinds is empty, the eighteen emptinesses too are empty; omniscience of all kinds is not apart from the eighteen emptinesses, and the eighteen emptinesses are not apart from omniscience of all kinds, and so it says not two and not different—what is empty is precisely pure. Now, from form up to omniscience of all kinds, one dharma as head, each of the remaining dharmas as head, in turn all are pure. The sentence 「空者即是清淨」 tr. "what is empty is precisely pure" is the master key to the meaning of purity in the whole chapter: purity is not a separate dharma; it is simply another name for emptiness; emptiness can empty both subject and object, so purity pervades everything, each in turn the head, without obstruction.

28. The real mark of conditioned dharmas is precisely the unconditioned dharma. Again, because dharmas are many and without measure, it speaks briefly of the conditioned and the unconditioned. The real mark of conditioned dharmas is precisely the unconditioned dharma: one who knows pure conduct seeks within all dharmas for permanence, bliss, self, and purity and finds them unfindable; that they are unfindable—this is truly knowing conditioned dharmas; truly knowing unfindability is precisely the unconditioned dharma—and so it says that because conditioned dharmas are pure, the unconditioned dharma is pure. Again, through conditioned dharmas one knows the unconditioned dharma; the noble ones, having obtained this unconditioned dharma, speak of the marks of conditioned dharmas—and so it says that the conditioned and the unconditioned purify each other. The purity of the conditioned and the unconditioned is not two purities of equal standing, but the outside and inside of one real mark: right where the four virtues are sought in the conditioned and found unfindable, that is the unconditioned; the unconditioned is not outside the conditioned, and so the two purities are not two.

29. Because the three times are empty, the conditioned and the unconditioned are all empty; ultimately pure, like space. Conditioned dharmas are within the three times, and so it speaks of the three times purifying one another. Why is this so? The past, having broken apart, scattered, and ceased, is without anything existent, and therefore empty; the future, not yet arisen and not yet existent, is empty; since the two times do not exist, the present too does not exist—only when there is a before and an after does one know there is a present. Again, conditioned dharmas arise and cease moment by moment, and so have no time of abiding; since there is no time of abiding, there is no present time. Because the three times are empty, conditioned dharmas are empty; because conditioned dharmas are empty, the unconditioned dharma is empty. Emptiness is precisely ultimate purity, not broken and not destroyed, without idle discourse, like space. The treatise-author refutes the present by two roads (it is set up in dependence on before and after; moment by moment it has no abiding), grounds the purity of the three times in the emptiness of the three times, and then from the emptiness of the three times gathers in the emptiness of the conditioned and the unconditioned—the great net of mutual purity in the fourth sūtra section here returns entirely to one phrase, ‘ultimately pure, like space’.

30. Conclusion: because one breaks the Dharma treasury that is ultimately pure, one falls into the hells. Thus prajñāpāramitā is ultimately pure, the Dharma treasury of the buddhas of the three times; because one breaks the spoken words and written letters that can proclaim and show the real-mark prajñā, one falls into the hells. This sentence is the seam where the two halves of the whole chapter join: the first half speaks of the heaviness of the sin of slandering the Dharma, the second half of the utmost purity of prajñā—here they join into a single sentence of cause and result. Above all, see clearly 「能宣示實相般若言說文字」 tr. "the spoken words and written letters that can proclaim and show the real-mark prajñā": what is broken is only spoken words and written letters, yet these letters are where the ultimately pure real mark is lodged and how the Dharma treasury of the buddhas of the three times is handed down; to break what proclaims it is to cut off the gate by which beings enter the real mark, and so the sin reaches as far as falling into the hells. Purity and sin are not two chapters; they are facing toward and turning away from one Dharma.

31. Breaking prajñā is of two kinds. Question: One who does not have faith in prajñā falls into the hells, and one who has faith obtains buddhahood; if a person of the five heinous sins, of broken precepts, of wrong view, or of laziness has faith in this prajñā, can he become a buddha or not? And again, there are those who uphold the precepts and are vigorous yet do not have faith in prajñā—how is it that they fall into the hells? Answer: Breaking prajñā is of two kinds. First: what the Buddha’s mouth spoke, and the disciples recited, practised, and wrote down as scrolls of scripture, deluded people slander, saying: 「非是佛說！是魔、若魔民所作，亦是斷滅邪見人手筆，莊嚴口力者說。」 tr. "It is not spoken by the Buddha! It is made by Māra or by Māra’s people; it is also the handiwork of people of annihilationist wrong view, spoken by those who adorn the power of their mouths." Or they say that although it was spoken by the Buddha, others have added to it here and there. Second: there are those who, with an attached mind, discriminate and grasp at marks in expounding prajñā, speaking the Dharma of emptiness with the mouth while the mind is attached to existence. This question takes upholding the precepts and faith in the Dharma apart and sets them against each other precisely to show: conduct in the precepts is the wholesomeness of body and speech, while faith and slander are the direction of knowledge and view; once knowledge and view are wrong, the wholesomeness of body and speech is not enough to save oneself—the simile of the bitter seed of wrong view below answers exactly this.

32. The first breaking falls into the great hells; arguing with an attached mind is not called breaking. The one who breaks in the first way falls into the great hells, because he does not obtain the intent of the noble ones in speaking prajñā. The second breaking—arguing with an attached mind—is not called breaking prajñā. As when Devadatta drew blood from the Buddha’s body, and Jīvaka too drew blood from the Buddha’s body: though it is the same name, drawing blood, because the minds differed, one person gained sin and the other gained merit; as when an image of the Buddha is painted, and one person breaks it because the image is not good, and another breaks it out of an evil mind: because the minds are not the same, one person gains merit and the other gains sin—breaking prajñā is likewise. The judgement between the two kinds lies wholly in the mind and not in the traces: one who slanders it as not spoken by the Buddha cuts the root of the Dharma, and so falls into the great hells; one who speaks of emptiness with the mouth while the mind is attached to existence has an understanding not yet arrived, not the evil mind of slander, and so it is not called breaking. The same traces with different minds, sin and merit as far apart as heaven and earth—the two similes set side by side establish clearly the standard of the mind-ground by which the Buddha’s Dharma judges sin.

33. Grasping at marks with an attached mind, one gives rise to karma of speech and of body in disparagement. Again, there may be someone who breaks prajñā who, though not angry and not despising the Buddha, uses his own mind in recollection, imagining, and discrimination: this is a very deep Dharma, spoken by one who is omniscient; there ought to be a deep and wondrous Dharma in it—how can it say that all is empty? The Buddha taught the Dharma with an unattached mind for the sake of delivering beings; this person, because of grasping at marks with an attached mind, gives rise to karma of speech that disparages and destroys prajñā, and can give rise to karma of body, waving it away with the hand and rejecting it, pointing at it in disparagement and sending it away. This is a third face—one who reveres the Buddha and slanders the Dharma: he does not despise the Buddha; on the contrary, because he honours the Buddha he measures the Buddha by his own surmise—thinking that what an omniscient one spoke must contain some deep and wondrous Dharma that can be attained, and refusing to have faith in 「都空」 tr. "entirely empty". The root of the sickness is still grasping at marks with an attached mind: the Buddha spoke with an unattached mind, and he listens with an attached mind; once attachment enters the listening, words of reverence turn into words of slander. Slandering the Dharma need not carry a mark of anger; holding to one thought of 「應有深妙」 tr. "there ought to be something deep and wondrous", the waving of the hand and pointing in disparagement already follow upon it.

34. The two kinds of faith. Being the opposite of the two kinds of lack of faith, they are called the two kinds of faith: first, faith that knows the real meaning of prajñā, which obtains the result as it is spoken; second, faith in the words and letters of the scroll, which obtains little merit. Faith too has grades: one who has faith by knowing the real meaning has faith that reaches the meaning of being without anything existent and ultimately pure, and so the result is as it is spoken; one who has faith only in the letters reveres the volumes but has not reached their meaning, and has merit, but little. This judgement does not belittle faith in the letters—the letters are where the Dharma treasury is lodged, and faith in them has its own merit; it is only that faith must go the upward road: from faith in the letters entering into faith in the real meaning, one then obtains the full fruit of prajñā.

35. The sin of wrong view is heavy: the simile of the bitter seed. Because the sin of wrong view is heavy, although the karma of body and speech, such as upholding the precepts, is good, it all follows the evil mind of wrong view. As in the simile the Buddha himself spoke: 「如種苦種，雖復四大所成，皆作苦味。」 tr. "It is like planting a bitter seed: although it is formed of the four great elements, it all turns to a bitter taste." A person of wrong view is likewise: though he uphold the precepts and be vigorous, it all becomes evil dharmas; what is opposite to this is called right view. The simile of the bitter seed answers completely the earlier question, ‘how is it that those who uphold the precepts and are vigorous fall into the hells?’: since the nature of the seed is bitter, the richer the nourishment of the four great elements, the more the bitter taste is formed; since knowledge and view are wrong, the more diligent the power of precepts and practice, the more firmly the evil dharmas are fixed. The good of the gate of practice cannot stand by itself; it depends wholly on whether knowledge and view are right or wrong as its seed-nature—this is the meaning in the Buddha’s Dharma of right view standing at the head.

36. The difficulty for a person of the five heinous sins to have faith in prajñā; King Ajātaśatru’s sin removed and the prediction received. For a person of the five heinous sins, evil sin constantly covers the mind; he doubts the karmic results of this life and later lives—how much less could he have faith in the very deep prajñā? Even if he writes out scrolls of scripture and makes offerings hoping to escape his evil sin, he is very far from prajñā. Or there may be one who meets a good friend, was vigorous in former lives, and is foremost in merit and sharp wisdom, who has faith in prajñāpāramitā, and through pure causes and conditions can obtain the result as it is spoken—as King Ajātaśatru’s sin of killing his father, through the Buddha and Mañjuśrī as good friends, had its heavy sin removed, and he obtained the result of prajñā as it is spoken and received the prediction of the unsurpassed path. This answers the earlier question, ‘can a person of the five heinous sins who has faith in prajñā become a buddha or not?’: on the common road it is hard—heavy sin covers the mind, the root of faith is hard to give rise to, and the outward help of scrolls and offerings cannot accomplish the matter; yet the gate is not closed—when three conditions are complete, a good friend, goodness from former lives, and sharp wisdom, heavy sin can be removed and the prediction of the path can be received. The example of Ajātaśatru is set at the very end of the whole chapter, a single thread of great bright light left amid the stern severity of sin and retribution: the sin of slandering the Dharma is spoken of to its extreme, yet the gate of repentance and deliverance has never once been shut.

Do Not Misread

Do not misread ‘by gathering the karma of speech there is the heavy sin of breaking the Dharma’ as meaning that the karmas of body and mind are not involved. The sūtra states plainly that one should well guard the karma of body, speech, and mind, and the treatise-author further points out that the karma of mind is the root of the karma of speech—the karma of speech is singled out because the mark of the sin of slandering the Dharma appears in speech; its root is in the mind, and its helper is in the body (waving it away with the hand and rejecting it is precisely karma of body). If it is read as only needing to seal the mouth, one loses exactly the teaching that treats the root, 「先攝意業」 tr. "first guard the karma of mind".

Do not misread the śrāvakas’ attachment to the Dharma in ‘hearing of ultimate emptiness is as if a knife had wounded the heart’ as the sūtra condemning the śrāvaka vehicle. What is condemned is the sickness, after the Buddha’s passing, of the five schools each holding to its own Dharma, firmly attached to words, seeking a fixed mark—not the śrāvaka Dharma itself; not knowing that the Buddha taught the Dharma for the sake of liberation is the root of the sickness. The sickness of attachment to the Dharma is not confined to śrāvakas—whoever holds the verbal teaching established by the Buddha as a fixed mark is among them.

Do not misread ‘the purity of lust, hatred, and delusion’ as indulging the three poisons. The treatise-author explains clearly: because the real nature of the three poisons is pure, form and the rest are also pure—purity is spoken of with regard to the emptiness of the real nature, not with regard to the marks of delusion and karma. The Buddha says the three poisons are defiled, filthy, and impure, and here it says they are pure; each statement has its own gate: the gate of counteraction condemns their marks, the gate of the real mark illuminates their nature. If one holds to the purity of their nature and indulges in poisonous conduct, that is exactly the kind of speaking the Dharma of emptiness with the mouth while the mind is attached to existence.

Do not misread 「非甚深、非不甚深」 tr. "neither very deep nor not very deep" as overturning the Buddha’s own statement that it is very deep and hard to believe. The Buddha says it is very deep, speaking to capacities that grasp at marks and find it hard to believe; to say that holding to its being very deep is being far removed from prajñā is to block the grasping of a further mark of depth upon prajñā. A mark of depth is also a mark, and to grasp it is to lose it; the two statements do not contradict each other, and precisely show the substance of prajñā, apart from the four propositions.

Do not misread ‘arguing with an attached mind is not called breaking prajñā’ as meaning that speaking of emptiness with the mouth while the mind is attached to existence carries no fault to speak of. Not being called breaking means not entering the category of slandering the Dharma and falling into the great hells; it does not mean there is no sickness: people who grasp at marks with an attached mind are placed by the sūtra precisely in the current of the four causes and conditions of disparagement and destruction; and the third kind, who reveres the Buddha and slanders the Dharma, gives rise to karma of speech and body precisely from the attached thought of 「應有深妙」 tr. "there ought to be something deep and wondrous". Between not falling into the great hells and obtaining prajñā there still lies the whole sickness of the attached mind not yet broken.

Do not misread the example of King Ajātaśatru as meaning that sinful karma can be escaped by luck. The one whose heavy sin was removed had the power of the Buddha and of Mañjuśrī as good friends, together with the causes of vigour in former lives and of merit and sharp wisdom—only when the three conditions are complete is it obtained; the sūtra at the same time states plainly that the person of the five heinous sins on the common road has evil sin covering the mind, and that writing scrolls and making offerings is very far from prajñā. This example opens the gate of repentance, not the gate of luck.

Bearing on Practice

Take 「意業是口業之本」 tr. "the karma of mind is the root of the karma of speech" as the place to set one’s hand to guarding karma. In daily life, if one wishes not to slander and not to disparage, it lies not in forcibly restraining oneself at the moment of speaking, but in treating the mind at ordinary times: when doubt arises toward the deep Dharma, first ask oneself—is it the Dharma’s fault, or have my faculties of wisdom not yet reached it? If one doubts and knows to reflect on oneself, the doubt will not turn into wrong view; if wrong view is not established, the karma of speech of disparagement has nowhere to arise from.

Take the four causes and conditions as a mirror for examining oneself. Being driven by Māra, not having faith in the deep Dharma, keeping company with evil friends, anger and arrogance—the four conditions need not all be present; if one condition is in the mind, the root of slander already lies hidden. Above all, the sentence that the mark of anger is the mark of lack of faith can serve as a daily lesson: whenever a mind of anger, arrogance, and despising others arises, one should recognise that this mind shares a root with lack of faith, and is precisely the seed of breaking the Dharma.

Take 「不縛不解」 tr. "neither bound nor released" as the right contemplation when afflictions appear. When an affliction arises, contemplate this affliction as born from the coming together of causes and conditions, deceptive and without self-nature—without self-nature there is no bondage, and without bondage there is no need to seek a separate release. This contemplation is not indulging afflictions; it is precisely why afflictions can be broken: only because they are deceptive can they be broken. Bondage being empty, release too is empty, and subject and object are laid down together at both ends.

Take ‘because form is pure, prajñā is pure’ as the contemplation of purity in daily life. There is no need to look for a pure realm outside defiled dharmas: contemplate one dharma as a nature without anything existent, and that one dharma is pure; when one dharma is pure, in turn all dharmas are pure. The twelve links in the gate of flowing on, and the six perfections and limbs of the path in the gate of return to cessation, upon the same nature without anything existent, have not one link that is not pure—when the contemplation of purity is accomplished, daily life in the defiled land is nothing other than the pure Dharma-realm.

Take the two kinds of faith to test one’s own position of faith. Having faith in the words and letters of the scroll, revering, reading, and reciting it, is the first step of faith, with merit, but little; one should advance to seek to know the real meaning—giving rise to faith upon the meaning of being without anything existent and ultimately pure, one then obtains the result as it is spoken. In daily life one can ask oneself: is what I have faith in the scroll of prajñā, or the meaning of prajñā? Entering from the scroll into the meaning is the upward road this chapter points out to the faithful.

Take the simile of the bitter seed to check one’s own knowledge and view. The power of upholding the precepts and being vigorous depends wholly on whether knowledge and view are right or wrong as its seed-nature: plant a bitter seed, and whatever the four great elements nourish all turns to a bitter taste; if one’s view is wrong, whatever precepts and vigour cultivate all turns to evil dharmas. So before applying effort in the gate of practice, first set right one’s knowledge and view; once knowledge and view are right, the same precepts and vigour all become provisions for awakening.

Further Resonances

What the Last Part carries on from the First Part is a single line that goes from the marks of sin into the source of sin, and further turns over from the source of sin into the substance of purity. The First Part set up the full picture of the retribution for slandering the Dharma: to disparage prajñā is precisely to disparage the omniscience of the buddhas of the three times; because of the causes and conditions of the karma of breaking the Dharma, one falls for immeasurable koṭi of kalpas into the great hells, passing through the ten directions, and on obtaining a human body is still born blind, without a tongue, without ears, without hands, born into low and base families without the Buddha’s Dharma; the five heinous sins are not like it, the sin being so heavy that the Buddha will not tell the size of the body in which it is undergone, leaving only the words ‘enough to serve as a bright warning’ and the vow ‘I would rather lose body and life than ever break the Dharma’. The Last Part takes it up first from the source of sin: by gathering the karma of speech there is the heavy sin of breaking the Dharma, and the karma of mind is its root; the four causes and conditions of disparagement and slander—being driven by Māra, not having faith in the deep Dharma, keeping company with evil friends, anger and arrogance—dissect to the end the face of the 「愚癡人」 tr. "deluded person" of the First Part, and the passage on the śrāvakas’ attachment to the Dharma, where hearing of emptiness is as if a knife had wounded the heart, further moves the slanderer from outside the gate to inside the gate. Once the source of sin is clear, the sūtra turns and asks why the Dharma that is slandered is very deep and hard to believe: the answer lies in neither bound nor released, in a nature without anything existent—and from this it opens the great net of purity: because form is pure, prajñā is pure; lust, hatred, and delusion are pure; the twelve links are pure link by link; the conditioned and the unconditioned and the three times purify one another; the treatise-author threads it all on one key, 「空者即是清淨」 tr. "what is empty is precisely pure", and gathers it into ultimately pure, like space. The one sentence at the end joins the seam: prajñā is ultimately pure, the Dharma treasury of the buddhas of the three times, and because one breaks it one falls into the hells—the sin of the First Part and the purity of the Last Part were from the start facing toward and turning away from one Dharma: the purer the Dharma, the heavier the sin of slandering it; knowing the heaviness of the sin, one should give rise to faith precisely at the purity of the Dharma. And the passages on the two kinds of breaking prajñā, the two kinds of faith, the bitter seed of wrong view, and Ajātaśatru’s sin removed and prediction received, judge the standard of the mind-ground for the two roads of faith and slander down to the finest hair—sin and merit hang on the mind and not on the traces, the gate of practice hangs on view and not on marks; the stern severity of sin and retribution is spoken of to its extreme, yet the gate of repentance and deliverance has never once been shut. From the head of the chapter to its tail, the two words faith and slander are here fully weighed: slander arises from grasping at marks with an attached mind, and faith is born from knowing the real meaning; to leave the attachment of grasping at marks and enter the purity of being without anything existent is precisely to cross from the shore of slander and the hells to the shore of faith and becoming a buddha.