大智度論 四攝品之中Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · The Four Means of Gathering, Part 2 of 3

The Four Means of Gathering, Middle Part: Why the Same Meaning of Emptiness Is Asked Again in Chapter after Chapter; Why the Buddha First Raises Ordinary People Still Giving Rise to the Three Kinds of Deeds within Dreams; Teaching the Dharma in the Two Emptinesses and Pulling Out in Sequence by Skilful Means; the Difference between the Fleshly Body and the Transformation Body; How the Buddha and Animals Can Be Equal; the Four Sayings on Not Giving Rise to a Different Mind When Cut and Severed; Why the Three Evil Destinies Are Not Empty; Why Eating the Bodhisattva's Flesh Instead Leads to Deliverance; Why the Human Destiny Alone Is Spoken of Broadly; Why among the Four Means of Gathering Giving Alone Is Spoken of Broadly and Why within Giving the Gift of Dharma Is Spoken of Broadly; Why the Question of Obtaining the Omniscience of All Kinds Is a Difficulty of Advance and Retreat; Why the Marks and Minor Signs Are Named World-Transcending and Unshared; Why the Fleshly Body Is Spoken of Only When the Sūtra Is About to Close; Why the Powers Are Only Ten; the Two Faculties, Sharp and Dull, and the Distinction between Desire and Nature; the Difference between the Power of the Paths Leading Everywhere and the Power of the Divine Eye; Why Only the Buddha Has the Last Three Powers; the Four Sayings on Whether the Thirty-two Marks Are Fixed or Not Fixed

What Is Being Asked

The unit of the First Part has sūtra and no treatise. The difficulties left in the earlier portion of the sūtra text, the sūtra itself does not go back to account for: the matter of giving up the body and being cut and severed is recorded only as an event with its proven effect, and its principle is not stated; the thirty-two marks and the eighty minor marks are listed among ‘the world-transcending dharmas not shared with ordinary people’, yet the marks and minor signs are something the wheel-turning sage king and others have in common—why they are called unshared, the sūtra only lists and does not explain; the four means of gathering are marked in general as four things, yet only the one gate of giving is opened, and why the three things from kind speech onward are left out it does not say either. The unit of the Middle Part is exactly where the treatise-author goes back one by one to gather up these blanks.

The way the treatise-author gathers them up shows from the very start where his concern lies. He does not begin from the meaning of emptiness itself; first he asks about something almost impolite: the same question, ‘the nature of dharmas is empty; how are the wholesome and the unwholesome distinguished’—why has Subhūti, since the preceding several chapters, asked it again and again under changing names? The answer has four layers—it has already been answered above; the clinging mind of beings is deep, and one answer cannot break it; emptiness is the essential meaning of prajñā, so he does not shrink from asking repeatedly; beings in the semblance Dharma five hundred years after the Buddha's passing instead fall into clinging to dharmas because they love and cling to the Buddha's Dharma, and Subhūti asks on behalf of the people of dull faculties of the future. Of these four layers the last is the weightiest: the repeated question is not that the asker does not understand; it is that the asker asks on behalf of those who have not yet understood. The pattern of question and answer of the whole treatise here speaks out its own reason.

Next, the treatise-author takes apart the sūtra's sentence ‘abiding in the two emptinesses, he teaches the Dharma for beings’. What emptiness speaks is twofold: ultimate emptiness breaks dharmas, and beginningless emptiness breaks the mark of beings; and what follows close upon the speaking of emptiness is pulling beings out from inversion by the power of skilful means—pulling them out from stinginess and making them give, again pulling them out from the retribution of giving and making them keep morality, again pulling them out from the retribution of keeping morality and making them cultivate meditation, and only at the last setting them in nirvāṇa and the path to nirvāṇa. Here the treatise-author lays down an extremely weighty sentence: 「若布施、持戒、禪定是定實法，則不應令遠離。」 tr. "If giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration were definitely real dharmas, one should not make people go far from them." The reason why giving and keeping morality must still be given up is precisely that they too are born from inversion and change in the long run. The meaning of emptiness here does not abolish wholesome dharmas; it explains how wholesome dharmas can be passed beyond one step after another.

Next again, the treatise-author answers one by one the difficult places left by the sūtra: how the Buddha and animals can be given to as one and equal; the bodhisattva's body is not wood or stone, so how, when cut and severed, does he not give rise to a different mind; since bodhisattvas are immeasurable, why are the three evil destinies not empty; beings who cut and sever and eat the flesh are making evil deeds, so why does this instead become a condition for deliverance; why among the four means of gathering giving alone is spoken of broadly, and why within giving the gift of Dharma alone is spoken of broadly; why Subhūti must ask ‘does the bodhisattva obtain the omniscience of all kinds or not’; the nine successive absorptions and the thirty-two marks are things the world has in common, so why are they listed among the world-transcending and unshared; why only when the sūtra is about to come to an end are the marks and minor signs of the fleshly body spoken of; the Buddha's powers of knowledge are immeasurable, so why are only ten powers spoken of; why beings have keen and dull faculties, and why keen and dull are traced back to desire and traced back to nature; the last question comes back to the marks and minor signs—since the Buddha's bodily marks surpass those of the kings of the gods, why are they exactly thirty-two marks, the same as the wheel-turning sage king's.

Among the treatise-author's answers there are two places where several sayings are plainly set side by side without judgement: not giving rise to a different mind when cut and severed, where four sayings are listed; and whether the thirty-two marks are fixed or not fixed, where four sayings are also listed. These two places are the key to how this unit is to be read—setting side by side without judging is not that the treatise-author has nothing to say; it is that these two matters differ according to the bodhisattva's stage and the aptitude of beings, and forcing one saying to be fixed would instead lose it.

Passage by Passage

1. The reason for the repeated question—the four layers of the answer. The treatise opens at once with a question: 「諸法性空，云何分別有善、不善？」 tr. "The nature of dharmas is empty; how are the wholesome and the unwholesome distinguished?" This sentence has already been said everywhere above—「須菩提何以從後已來，品品中義無異而作種種名問？」 tr. "Why does Subhūti, from the later chapters onward, in chapter after chapter where the meaning has no difference, still ask under all kinds of names?" The treatise-author's answer has four layers in all. The first layer is the simplest: 「是事上已答。」 tr. "This matter has already been answered above." The second layer traces it to how deep the sickness of beings is: 「眾生從無始生死已來著心深難解故，須菩提復作是重問。」 tr. "Because beings, from beginningless birth and death onward, have a clinging mind that is deep and hard to undo, Subhūti asks this repeated question once more." The clinging mind is not a delusion of one moment; it is accumulated habit from beginningless time, so one answer is not enough to break it, and the answer must be repeated. The third layer traces it to the substance of prajñā: 「是般若波羅蜜欲說是空，義要故，數問。」 tr. "What this prajñāpāramitā wishes to speak is this emptiness; because the meaning is essential, he asks again and again." Asking repeatedly is not repetition; it is because what is asked is precisely the vital point of the whole sūtra. The fourth layer traces it to the times and the hearers: 「佛在世時，眾生利根易悟；佛滅度五百年後，像法中眾生愛著佛法，墮著法中」 tr. "When the Buddha was in the world, beings had keen faculties and were easily awakened; five hundred years after the Buddha's passing into extinction, beings in the semblance Dharma love and cling to the Buddha's Dharma and fall into clinging to dharmas", and they give rise to the doubt 「若諸法皆空、如夢、如幻，何以故有善、不善？」 tr. "If all dharmas are empty, like a dream, like an illusion, why are there the wholesome and the unwholesome?"; Subhūti 「憐愍未來眾生鈍根不解故重問」 tr. "asks again because he pities the beings of the future with dull faculties who do not understand". Of the four layers, the first three say ‘why it is worth asking again’, and the fourth says ‘on whose behalf it is asked’. The last layer turns the whole pattern of question and answer over: Subhūti's question is not his own doubt; it is a difficulty set up on behalf of people of later ages.

2. The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions—because of the inverted mind of ordinary people, within a dream they still cling to what is seen in the dream. The treatise-author takes up the question in the sūtra, 「世尊！若諸法皆空，云何分別有善、不善等？」 tr. "World-Honored One! If all dharmas are empty, how are the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the rest distinguished?", and then points out that the Buddha's answer is in fact his own statement of the causes and conditions: 「凡夫顛倒心故，於法皆作顛倒異見，乃至不見一法是實。凡夫於夢中，著夢、得夢、見夢者，亦著夢中所見事。」 tr. "Because ordinary people have an inverted mind, toward all dharmas they make inverted and divergent views, up to not seeing a single dharma as real. Ordinary people, within a dream, cling to the dream, find the dream, find the one who sees the dream, and also cling to the things seen within the dream." Notice that this answer lands not on dharmas but on people: it does not say that dharmas are real; it says that the inversion of ordinary people is really and truly at work. ‘Clinging to the dream’ is seizing upon that dream; ‘finding the dream’ is taking it in; ‘the one who sees the dream’ is taking in, along with it, even oneself who is dreaming. Once these three are set up, the things seen in the dream are naturally all held as real along with them. The root of why discrimination can stand lies here.

3. The three kinds of deeds and the three kinds of retribution. Following on from the above, it distinguishes their fruits: 「是人若不信罪福，起三種不善業；若信罪福，起三種善業。」 tr. "If this person does not believe in sin and merit, he gives rise to the three kinds of unwholesome deeds; if he believes in sin and merit, he gives rise to the three kinds of wholesome deeds." Then it marks out the names of the three deeds and what they bring: 「善名欲界中善法，喜樂果報；不善名憂悲苦惱果報；不動名生色、無色界因緣業。」 tr. "The wholesome means the wholesome dharmas within the desire realm, with the retribution of joy and pleasure; the unwholesome means the retribution of sorrow, grief, suffering, and vexation; the immovable means the deeds that are the causes and conditions of birth in the form realm and the formless realm." The name ‘immovable’ needs explaining: the good and evil of the desire realm sway and move with their objects, while what the deeds of concentration of the form realm and the formless realm bring does not move and turn with the objects of desire, and so it is named immovable. Here the three deeds—wholesome, unwholesome, and immovable—are set against the three kinds of retribution precisely to make firm what the passage above said: of the deeds and retributions that arise within inversion, not a single one is lacking.

4. The bodhisattva abides in the two emptinesses and teaches the Dharma for beings. The difference between the bodhisattva and ordinary people lies not in his not seeing these deeds, but in his 「知是三種業皆是虛誑不實」 tr. "knowing that these three kinds of deeds are all false, deceptive, and unreal". Knowing them to be false and deceptive, he then teaches the Dharma, and what he teaches is the two emptinesses: 「畢竟空破諸法；無始空破眾生相。」 tr. "Ultimate emptiness breaks dharmas; beginningless emptiness breaks the mark of beings." The division of labour between the two emptinesses is very clear—grasping on the side of dharmas is broken by ultimate emptiness, grasping on the side of persons by beginningless emptiness. As for ‘beginningless’: if the mark of beings had a beginning, its root could be traced back, and once its root is traced back it becomes really existent; speaking of beginninglessness is exactly what cuts off this tracing. And after the two emptinesses have been spoken, the treatise-author follows closely with a sentence, 「住中道，為眾生說法」 tr. "abiding in the middle path, he teaches the Dharma for beings"—to speak of emptiness is not to abide in emptiness; it is to abide in the middle path and take emptiness as what is spoken. The marks that are spoken are precisely the words of the sūtra: 「五眾、十二入、十八界皆是空，如夢、如幻乃至如化，是法中無夢、亦無見夢者。」 tr. "The five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, and the eighteen elements are all empty, like a dream, like an illusion, and so on up to like a conjuration; within this dharma there is no dream, nor anyone who sees the dream." The last sentence exactly counters ‘clinging to the dream, finding the dream, the one who sees the dream’ of the second passage: what ordinary people grasp is three, and what the bodhisattva sends away is also three.

5. Because of your inverted mind you give rise to all kinds of clinging upon empty dharmas. A sentence of verdict that the bodhisattva speaks to beings, the treatise-author records word for word: 「汝等於空法顛倒心故生諸著！」 tr. "Because of your inverted mind, you give rise to all kinds of clinging upon empty dharmas!" This sentence is the pivot of the whole passage. It does not say ‘dharmas exist’, nor does it say ‘your clinging is empty’; what it says is—what is clung to is empty from the first, and what clings is inversion. That being so, the way of breaking cannot be to overturn dharmas; it can only be to pull out the inversion. The two Chinese characters ‘pull out’ in the next passage connect on from exactly here.

6. Pulling out from inversion by the power of skilful means—the sequence of four steps. For the sequence spoken of in the sūtra, the treatise-author here gives the reason step by step. The first step: 「慳貪是顛倒，以布施破慳貪法。」 tr. "Stinginess and greed are inversion; by giving he breaks the dharma of stinginess and greed." Breaking one inversion by another inversion—this is the beginning of skilful means. The second step: beings turn and cling to giving, and so 「為說布施果報無常、實空；從布施拔出眾生，令持戒」 tr. "he tells them that the retribution of giving is impermanent and in reality empty; he pulls beings out from giving and makes them keep morality". The third step: the retribution of keeping morality is birth in the heavens, so he warns them upon that very retribution—「天福盡時，無常苦惱！」 tr. "When the merit of the heavens is exhausted, there is impermanence, suffering, and vexation!"—and by this 「拔出眾生，令離欲、行禪定」 tr. "he pulls beings out and makes them part from desire and practise meditative concentration". The fourth step: meditative concentration and its retribution are likewise 「虛誑不實，能令人墮顛倒中」 tr. "false, deceptive, and unreal, and can make a person fall into inversion", and so at the end 「種種因緣，為說布施、持戒、禪定無常過失」 tr. "by all kinds of causes and conditions he tells them of the fault of impermanence in giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration", and then 「令住涅槃、得涅槃方便，所謂四念處乃至十八不共法」 tr. "makes them abide in nirvāṇa and in the skilful means of obtaining nirvāṇa, namely the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas". The principle running through the four steps is one and the same: the retribution of the step before is precisely the place from which the next step must pull away. When a practitioner tastes the retribution at some step and settles down there, he has given rise to a new inversion at that step; the reason the power of skilful means is named a power lies just in its being able to lift a person up again from the very place where he has only just sat down at ease.

7. If they were definitely real dharmas, one should not make people go far from them. From the passage above a doubt is easily read out: since giving and keeping morality are wholesome dharmas, why are they too among what beings are pulled out from? The treatise-author here answers it himself: 「若布施、持戒、禪定是定實法，則不應令遠離。」 tr. "If giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration were definitely real dharmas, one should not make people go far from them." In other words, teaching people to give them up is precisely the proof that they are not definitely real dharmas. Then he fills in why: though giving, keeping morality, and the rest can break the dharmas of ordinary people, 「此則因顛倒而生，雖少時益眾生，久則變異，能生苦惱故，亦教令捨離」 tr. "these, then, are born from inversion; although for a short time they benefit beings, in the long run they change and can give rise to suffering and vexation, and so he also teaches them to give these up". The phrase ‘born from inversion’ must be looked at precisely: it does not say that giving and keeping morality are inversion; it says that they are set up to counter inversion—the medicine that cures exists according to the sickness it cures, and when the sickness is gone the medicine too does not remain. The two phrases ‘for a short time they benefit’ and ‘in the long run they change’ state the weight of wholesome dharmas very exactly—not denying their benefit, nor allowing anyone to take them as the ultimate.

8. The general statement of the threefold sequence. The treatise-author gathers the text above into one sentence that holds it all: the bodhisattva, by the power of skilful means, 「先教眾生捨罪，稱讚持戒、布施福德」 tr. "first teaches beings to give up sin, praising the merit of keeping morality and giving"; 「次復為說持戒、布施亦未免無常苦惱」 tr. "next tells them further that keeping morality and giving too do not escape impermanence, suffering, and vexation"; 「然後為說諸法空，但稱讚實法，所謂無餘涅槃」 tr. "then tells them of the emptiness of all dharmas, and praises only the real dharma, namely nirvāṇa without remainder". The three terms ‘first’, ‘next’, and ‘then’ are the bones of the whole passage. The first layer is establishing the good and breaking the evil; the second layer is speaking of impermanence upon the good that has been established; only the third layer speaks of emptiness and returns to nirvāṇa without remainder. If one does not first establish but goes straight to speaking of emptiness, what is spoken only becomes an excuse for people's laxity; if one establishes and does not break, people stop at the fruits of humans and gods. That the sequence cannot be skipped—the meaning lies here.

9. Subhūti's joy and the Buddha's approval—one kind of rarity. Here the sūtra takes a turn, and the treatise-author records it as it is: Subhūti rejoices and exclaims, 「甚希有！菩薩能如是知是諸法實相，所謂畢竟空，而為眾生說法，令至無餘涅槃。」 tr. "Very rare! The bodhisattva can thus know the real mark of all dharmas, namely ultimate emptiness, and teach the Dharma for beings, bringing them to nirvāṇa without remainder." The Buddha's answer judges this exclamation to be 「是一種希有」 tr. "this is one kind of rarity", and opens a separate, deeper question—of the bodhisattva's rare dharmas, 「一切聲聞、辟支佛不能報是菩薩，何況餘人！」 tr. "all the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas cannot requite this bodhisattva, how much less other people!" Subhūti at once presses on and asks, 「何等是更有希有法？」 tr. "What are the further rare dharmas?" The treatise-author stops here and notes, 「佛答，如經中說」 tr. "The Buddha answered, as is said in the sūtra". The treatise-author's not restating the sūtra here is a matter of pattern: what the sūtra already has in full the treatise does not say again. The four Chinese characters ‘one kind of rarity’ are set down with great weight—knowing ultimate emptiness and yet still being able to teach the Dharma and deliver people is only one end of the rarity, not the whole; the whole must wait for the matters seen by the Buddha-eye and the unfolding of the four means of gathering below before it is seen.

10. The fleshly body and the transformation body—the difference in its being said once more now. The treatise-author sets himself a question: 「經中教令布施、持戒、禪定，今復更說，有何等異？」 tr. "In the sūtra people have been taught giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration; now it is said once again—what is the difference?" This question is asked on behalf of the reader: it is the same teaching of the six perfections, spoken in two places, earlier and later—is that not repetition? The answer is only two sentences, yet the boundary is very clear: 「先說生身菩薩，今說變化身。先說一國土，今說無量世界。」 tr. "What was spoken of before was the bodhisattva in a fleshly body; what is spoken of now is the transformation body. What was spoken of before was one land; what is spoken of now is immeasurable worlds." What was spoken of before is a body that has received birth carrying out transformation within one land; what is spoken of now is a transformation body pervading immeasurable worlds. Since the bodies that transform are different, the realms reached are different too, and so it is not repetition. The phrase ‘such differences as these’ leaves room—the two matters raised are examples, not an exhaustive list.

11. How the Buddha and animals can be equal—by the power of prajñā he cultivates the mind of ultimate emptiness. The sūtra judges the thought 「佛是福田、眾生非福田」 tr. "the Buddha is a field of merit, beings are not a field of merit" to be not the bodhisattva's dharma, and the treatise-author here presses on to ask why: 「菩薩以何力故能令佛與畜生等？」 tr. "By what power can the bodhisattva make the Buddha and animals equal?" The answer says: 「菩薩以般若波羅蜜力故，一切法中修畢竟空心，是故於一切法無分別。」 tr. "Because of the power of prajñāpāramitā, the bodhisattva cultivates the mind of ultimate emptiness within all dharmas, and therefore within all dharmas he is without discrimination." Below this he explains it by coming together and provisional names: 「如畜生，五眾、十二入、十八界和合生，名為畜生；佛亦如是，從諸善法和合，假名為佛。」 tr. "Just as an animal is born from the coming together of the five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, and the eighteen elements, and is named an animal, so too the Buddha comes from the coming together of wholesome dharmas and is provisionally named the Buddha." Both alike exist by coming together and have provisional names, and so upon the provisional names no high and low is made. But the treatise-author at once adds an extremely important sentence that sets limits to ‘equal’: 「若人憐愍眾生，得無量福德；於佛著心，起諸惡因緣，得無量罪。」 tr. "If a person pities beings, he obtains immeasurable merit; if toward the Buddha he gives rise to a clinging mind and gives rise to evil causes and conditions, he obtains immeasurable sin."—the difference between merit and sin is not reduced in the least. What is equal is the non-discrimination of the giving mind; what is not equal is the difference in retribution; the last sentence, 「不輕畜生，不著心貴佛」 tr. "he does not hold animals in contempt, and does not with a clinging mind prize the Buddha", is said precisely with regard to the giver's mind, not with regard to the realm given to.

12. Within signlessness the Buddha and animals are not discriminated—grasping at marks is to lose it. On the same meaning the treatise-author goes in one layer further: 「諸法實相，是一切法無相，是無相中不分別是佛、是畜生；若分別即是取相，是故等觀。」 tr. "The real mark of all dharmas is that all dharmas are signless; within this signlessness he does not discriminate whether it is the Buddha or an animal; to discriminate is to grasp at marks; therefore he contemplates them as equal." The passage before speaks of ‘being able to make equal’ from the power of prajñā; this passage speaks of ‘there being nothing to divide from the first’ from the real mark of dharmas. The two passages face different directions: the former says how the bodhisattva can practise thus, the latter says that dharmas are so from the first. The phrase ‘to discriminate is to grasp at marks’ points out the name of the sickness clearly—what is barred is not the wisdom that tells good from evil; it is that one thought of picking and choosing in the mind, grasping at marks, at the time of giving.

13. The bodhisattva's two dharma-gates—in the gate of emptiness, equal contemplation; in the gate of distinction, differences of rank are plainly there. The passage most easily read askew. The treatise-author plainly sets up two gates: 「一者、畢竟空法門，二者、分別好惡法門。」 tr. "First, the dharma-gate of ultimate emptiness; second, the dharma-gate of distinguishing the good and the bad." Then he judges what each accomplishes: 「入空法門，則得等觀；入分別法門，諸阿羅漢、辟支佛尚不及佛，何況畜生！」 tr. "Entering the dharma-gate of emptiness, he obtains equal contemplation; entering the dharma-gate of distinction, even the arhats and pratyekabuddhas do not come up to the Buddha, how much less animals!" This is the most important sentence in this chapter—in the gate of distinction, even the Buddha and the arhats are as far apart as heaven and earth, how much more the Buddha and animals. From this it can be seen that the ‘equality’ the sūtra speaks of in no way says that the Buddha and animals are without difference; it says that at the time of giving one should enter the gate of emptiness and not enter the gate of distinction. The last sentence says it more directly still: 「為其輕眾生不憐愍布施故，教不分別。」 tr. "It is because he holds beings in contempt and gives without pity that he is taught not to discriminate." Teaching not to discriminate is a word of counteraction; what it counters is the mind that holds beings in contempt, not the abolishing of the differences of rank among all dharmas. The two gates stand side by side, each with its own use; whoever reads this passage must not hold to one and discard the other.

14. The body is not wood or stone, yet when cut and severed he does not give rise to a different mind—four sayings recorded side by side. The treatise-author sets a question: 「菩薩身非木石，云何眾生來割截而不生異心？」 tr. "The bodhisattva's body is not wood or stone; how is it that when beings come and cut and sever it, he does not give rise to a different mind?" The answer lists four sayings, each headed with ‘some say’, and the treatise-author himself gives no verdict. The first saying comes back to patience: the bodhisattva has long cultivated kṣāntipāramitā, and so can be without sorrow and vexation, and one matter is raised as proof—「如羼提仙人被截手足，血皆為乳。」 tr. "Just as when the sage Kṣānti had his hands and feet cut off, his blood all became milk." The second saying comes back to kindness and compassion: for immeasurable lifetimes he has deeply cultivated the mind of great kindness and compassion, so though cut and severed he is not sorrowful or anxious, 「譬如草木無有瞋心」 tr. "just as grass and trees have no mind of anger". The third saying comes back to the retribution of prajñā: he deeply cultivates prajñā, and after turning to another body obtains the empty mind obtained as retribution, knowing emptiness clearly and distinctly, and so 「割截身時心亦不動；如外物不動，內亦如是」 tr. "when his body is cut and severed his mind too does not move; just as outer things do not move, so too is the inner". The fourth saying comes back to the kind of body: 「是菩薩非生死身，是出三界法性生身」 tr. "this bodhisattva's body is not a body of birth and death; it is the body born of the dharma-nature that has gone beyond the three realms"; he abides within the retribution of the noble mind without outflows, and so 「身如木石，而能慈念割截者」 tr. "his body is like wood or stone, yet he can think with kindness of those who cut and sever him". The four sayings each come back to their own place—patience, kindness, knowledge, body—their layers going from shallow to deep, and the treatise-author records them all side by side, closing at the end with 「是為菩薩希有法」 tr. "this is the bodhisattva's rare dharma". The intent of recording them side by side lies in this: the stages of bodhisattvas are not one, and the reasons they can be unmoved are not one either, so no single saying can be held to sum up the whole. The second saying and the fourth both use the simile of ‘grass and trees’ / ‘wood and stone’ yet point to different things, and this especially must be told apart: the second saying uses grass and trees being without anger as a simile for his not giving rise to anger; the fourth saying uses the body being like wood or stone to say that his body is not a body of birth and death, and the sentence immediately following, 「能慈念割截者」 tr. "he can think with kindness of those who cut and sever him", is exactly to guard against its being misunderstood as insentience.

15. Citing the sūtra to prove the rarity—entering the hells and teaching and transforming by three things. After the four sayings, the treatise-author further raises the sūtra text as proof: 「我以佛眼見十方如恒河沙等世界中菩薩，入地獄中，令火滅湯冷，以三事教化眾生。」 tr. "With the Buddha-eye I see bodhisattvas in worlds of the ten directions as many as the sands of the Ganges, who enter the hells, make the fire go out and the boiling water grow cold, and teach and transform beings by three things." And he notes, 「如經中說」 tr. "as is said in the sūtra". This is one pattern of the treatise's form: what is proved is already complete in the sūtra, and the treatise only marks its heading without restating it. Citing this one matter brings the ‘not moving’ discussed above down to the real—not moving is not the not moving of a withered tree; it is being able to do the work of rescue in the place of greatest suffering.

16. Bodhisattvas are immeasurable, so why are the three evil destinies not empty? The question following from the above comes very naturally: since bodhisattvas can enter the hells to rescue, and their number is immeasurable, then 「若爾者，不應有三惡道！」 tr. "if so, there should be no three evil destinies!" The treatise-author's answer does not slip away into principle; first he discusses their number: 「三惡道眾生無邊無量；菩薩雖無邊無量，眾生倍多無量。」 tr. "The beings of the three evil destinies are boundless and immeasurable; although bodhisattvas are boundless and immeasurable, beings are immeasurably more than they." Next he discusses the conditions: the bodhisattva 「隨眾生可度因緣，若於三惡道中有餘功德者，菩薩則度；重罪者則不見菩薩」 tr. "follows the causes and conditions by which beings can be delivered; if within the three evil destinies there are those who have remaining merit, the bodhisattva delivers them; people of heavy sin do not get to see a bodhisattva". Whether one is delivered or not lies not in whether the bodhisattva is willing, but in whether beings have the conditions by which they can be delivered. Next again he discusses the mind: 「菩薩一相見無分別心故，不一一求覓眾生」 tr. "because the bodhisattva sees with one mark and is without a mind of discrimination, he does not seek out beings one by one"—precisely because the bodhisattva sees with one mark and does not give rise to discrimination, he does not go searching one by one for who ought to be delivered. At the end he closes with a simile: 「譬如大赦，及者得脫，不及者則不蒙。」 tr. "It is as a great amnesty: those it reaches are freed, those it does not reach receive nothing." The decree of a great amnesty reaches everywhere and does not choose among people; yet those outside the prison, and those whose crimes are not within the articles of the amnesty, naturally do not receive it—not that the decree is partial. This simile is excellent: it both keeps the universality of the bodhisattva and explains the non-universality in fact.

17. Why cutting and severing and eating the flesh instead become a condition for deliverance. Another difficulty: 「若眾生割截菩薩、或食其肉，應當有罪，云何得度？」 tr. "If beings cut and sever the bodhisattva or eat his flesh, they ought to have sin; how can they come to be delivered?" The treatise-author's answer falls into three layers. The first layer is the original vow: 「若有眾生噉我肉者，當令得度。」 tr. "If there are beings who eat my flesh, may they come to be delivered." The condition for deliverance is tied to the vow the bodhisattva set up beforehand, not tied to the deed of eating flesh. The second layer is the proof from the sūtra: 「眾生食菩薩肉者，則生慈心。」 tr. "Beings who eat the bodhisattva's flesh then give rise to a kind mind." The third layer is a sifting distinction, and it is the most important: the treatise-author first takes form, sound, scent, and touch as a simile—with one and the same object, what people give rise to is either joy or anger—「味亦如是，有瞋者、有起慈心者」 tr. "so too with flavours: there are those by which anger arises, and those by which a kind mind arises"; he also cites the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, 「服食香飯，七日得道者，有不得者」 tr. "of those who eat the fragrant rice, there are some who obtain the path within seven days, and some who do not", as proof—eating the same fragrant rice, some obtain the path and some do not. From this he decides: 「非以噉肉故得度，以起發慈心故，得免畜生，生善處，值佛得度。」 tr. "It is not because of eating the flesh that they are delivered; it is because of the kind mind that is roused that they can escape from the animal destiny, be born in a good place, meet a Buddha, and be delivered." The deed of eating flesh has its own retribution; the cause of deliverance is something else, the kind mind; the two matters must not be confused as one. If this layer of sifting is lost, it becomes the mistaken understanding that ‘even doing evil can lead to deliverance’.

18. Why he gives his body—outer things are not enough to move people. The treatise-author goes on to set out the meaning of giving up the body, in two layers. The first speaks from the bodhisattva's mind: there are bodhisattvas who for immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas deeply practise a kind mind, and 「外物給施眾生，意猶不滿，并自以身布施，爾乃足滿」 tr. "giving outer things to beings, their minds are still not satisfied; when they also give their own bodies, only then are they satisfied"; and he raises as an example the Bodhisattva Medicine King in the Lotus Sūtra, who made offerings to the Buddha with precious jewels and his mind was still not satisfied, and made his body a lamp as an offering to the Buddha and only then was satisfied. The second speaks from the recipient's mind: 「人得外物，雖多，不以為恩。所以者何？非所愛重故。得其身時，乃能驚感，是故以身布施。」 tr. "When people obtain outer things, though they are many, they do not take them as a kindness. Why? Because these are not what they love and prize. Only when they obtain his body are they startled and moved; therefore he gives his body." The former says that when the giver's kindness reaches its utmost it naturally must give the body; the latter says that only at this can the recipient be startled and stirred. Seen together, the two layers make the meaning of giving up the body complete—it is not taking self-inflicted suffering as virtue; it is that both sides, the kind mind and the occasion for transformation, have reached the point where nothing but this will do.

19. Why the other four destinies are spoken of briefly and the human destiny alone broadly. Among the six destinies the sūtra speaks broadly of the four means of gathering only in the human destiny, and the treatise-author asks the reason. The answer goes destiny by destiny and distinguishes their aptitudes. Of the three evil destinies: 「三惡道中苦多故，眾生少疑，若見菩薩大神通希有事，則直信愛著得度」 tr. "because within the three evil destinies there is much suffering, beings have little doubt; if they see a bodhisattva's rare deeds of great supernormal power, they straightaway believe, love, and cling, and are delivered"—pressed by suffering, their doubting minds are few, and seeing supernormal power they at once believe. Of the gods: 「諸天有天眼故，自見罪福因緣；菩薩少現神足則解」 tr. "because the gods have the divine eye, they themselves see the causes and conditions of sin and merit; the bodhisattva need only slightly show the supernormal power of travel, and they understand"—they themselves see cause and fruit, so a brief showing and they awaken. Of the human destiny: 「人以肉眼不見罪福因緣果報，又多著外道邪師及邪見經書」 tr. "humans, with the fleshly eye, do not see the causes, conditions, and retributions of sin and merit, and moreover many cling to the wrong teachers of the outside paths and to the scriptures of wrong views"—they cannot see for themselves, and moreover are stained by wrong views, so they are the hardest to deliver. The place that is hard to deliver is exactly the place that must be spoken of broadly.

20. The two portions, views and craving—the three poisons make a heavy sin only on obtaining the power of wrong views. Following on from the above, it deepens the reason. The treatise-author divides the afflictions into two: 「一者、屬見，二者、屬愛。」 tr. "First, those belonging to views; second, those belonging to craving." Then he sets down a verdict: 「若但有一事，則不能成大罪。」 tr. "If there is only one of these, it cannot make a great sin." Greed and craving alone, or wrong views alone, are still not enough to make the heaviest evil; when the two obtain each other, it is made. So it says, 「三毒人得邪見力，能盡作重惡；邪見人得貪欲、瞋恚，能大作罪事」 tr. "a person of the three poisons who obtains the power of wrong views can commit heavy evils to the full; a person of wrong views who obtains greed and anger can commit sinful deeds on a great scale". The proof from the reverse side lies in the position of the sages: 「如須陀洹雖有三毒，無邪見故，不作墮三惡道重罪。」 tr. "Just as the srota-āpanna, though he has the three poisons, because he has no wrong views, does not commit the heavy sins that make one fall into the three evil destinies." The srota-āpanna has severed the defilements of views but has not yet severed greed and anger; he still has the three poisons and yet does not make the heavy deeds that make one fall into the evil destinies—this one example shows best of all that views are a graver affliction than craving. At the end it comes back to its conclusion: 「是故人中多有三毒、邪見」 tr. "therefore among humans there are many with the three poisons and wrong views", and the difficulty of delivering humans is settled by this too. The last sentence of the whole passage restates the earlier meaning: 「又眼不見罪福因緣故難度，難度故多說。」 tr. "Again, because their eyes do not see the causes and conditions of sin and merit, they are hard to deliver; because they are hard to deliver, much is said."

21. Why among the four means of gathering giving alone is spoken of broadly. The treatise-author asks again: that being so, 「於四事中何以多說布施，餘三略說？」 tr. "why among the four things is giving spoken of much, and the other three spoken of briefly?" The answer has two layers. The first speaks of what giving gathers: 「布施中攝三事故，以財施、法施教化眾生，則無所不攝。」 tr. "Because giving contains the three things; teaching and transforming beings by the gift of wealth and the gift of Dharma, there is nothing it does not gather." The treatise-author only says that it contains the three things and does not separately match which giving contains which thing; the meaning of the four containing one another is clear of itself, and so giving is spoken of broadly and the other three are within it. The second speaks of the pattern: 「四事中初廣開布施，則知餘三亦如是。」 tr. "Among the four things giving is opened up broadly at the very first; then one knows that the other three are likewise." Since the first of the four has already opened up its pattern broadly, the rest can be known by the example and need not be spoken again. This second layer is the treatise-author's general practice in explaining the sūtra, seen again and again elsewhere—raising the first as the example for what follows.

22. Why within giving the gift of Dharma is again spoken of broadly. Again he asks: 「若爾者，何以略說財施而廣說法施？」 tr. "If so, why is the gift of wealth spoken of briefly and the gift of Dharma spoken of broadly?" The answer says: 「財施少，法施廣故」 tr. "because the gift of wealth is little and the gift of Dharma is broad", and then it makes clear why by six layers set against each other: first, 「財施，有量果報；法施，無量果報」 tr. "the gift of wealth has a measured retribution; the gift of Dharma has an immeasurable retribution"; second, the gift of wealth is a retribution bound to the desire realm, while the gift of Dharma 「亦三界繫果報，亦是出三界果報」 tr. "has a retribution bound to the three realms as well, and is also a retribution that goes beyond the three realms"; third, 「財施，能與三界富樂；法施，能與涅槃常樂」 tr. "the gift of wealth can give the riches and pleasures of the three realms; the gift of Dharma can give the constant pleasure of nirvāṇa"; fourth, 「又財施從法施生，聞法則能施故」 tr. "moreover, the gift of wealth arises from the gift of Dharma, because having heard the Dharma one can give"—this layer is the most important: the very mind that can give comes only after hearing the Dharma, so the gift of Dharma is the root of the gift of wealth; fifth, 「財施果報，但富樂，無種種」 tr. "the retribution of the gift of wealth is only riches and pleasure, without variety"; sixth, 「法施亦有富樂，亦有餘事，乃至佛道涅槃果報」 tr. "the gift of Dharma has riches and pleasure and also has other things, up to the retribution of the Buddha path and nirvāṇa". Of the six layers, the first three divide by the measure, the realm, and the pleasure of the retribution; the fourth divides by root and branch; the last two divide by the retribution's being single or manifold. It concludes, 「以是等因緣故，廣說法施」 tr. "by such causes and conditions as these, the gift of Dharma is spoken of broadly", and then notes, 「二施義，如經中佛自廣說」 tr. "the meaning of the two gifts is, as in the sūtra, spoken of broadly by the Buddha himself"—again the pattern of the treatise not repeating the sūtra. This passage must be read together with the question: the question says 「略說財施」 tr. "the gift of wealth is spoken of briefly", while what the answer sets out lies wholly in the breadth of the gift of Dharma; the wording of the treatise-author's question and the centre of gravity of his answer are the outside and the inside of each other, and there is no contradiction in the text.

23. Does the bodhisattva obtain the omniscience of all kinds or not—the difficulty of advance and retreat and the division of the two truths. The treatise-author asks why Subhūti in the sūtra has this question, and then speaks out the asker's intent on his behalf: 「若菩薩時得一切種智，則不名菩薩，云何未得佛而能得一切種智？得一切種智故名為佛；若先作佛，何用一切種智為？」 tr. "If while a bodhisattva he obtains the omniscience of all kinds, then he is not named a bodhisattva; how could one who has not obtained buddhahood obtain the omniscience of all kinds? It is because of obtaining the omniscience of all kinds that one is named Buddha; if one has already become a Buddha first, what use is the omniscience of all kinds?" The reason this question is difficult lies in there being no ground to stand on either in advancing or in retreating—say that he obtains it while a bodhisattva, and the bodhisattva is already a Buddha; say that he obtains it after becoming a Buddha, and what further need has the Buddha to obtain it? The gist of the Buddha's answer is only two sentences: 「今得一切種智，名為菩薩；已得一切種智，名為佛。」 tr. "Now obtaining the omniscience of all kinds, he is named bodhisattva; having already obtained the omniscience of all kinds, he is named Buddha." At the very moment of obtaining he is named bodhisattva; having finished obtaining he is named Buddha; the two names are tied to the obtaining's being under way and being complete, not to two different persons. Here the treatise-author turns in one layer further, taking the words to the highest meaning: 「真實之言：菩薩不得，佛亦不得。」 tr. "Speaking truly: the bodhisattva does not obtain it, and the Buddha too does not obtain it." Why? The bodhisattva has not yet obtained it, and the Buddha has already finished obtaining it and does not obtain it further—what can say ‘is now obtaining’ is in fact only worldly speech. So it says, 「第一義中，則無一切法，何況佛及菩薩！」 tr. "Within the highest meaning there are no dharmas at all, how much less a Buddha and a bodhisattva!" At the end he cites the sūtra as proof, 「佛心不異菩薩，菩薩不異佛心」 tr. "the Buddha's mind is not different from the bodhisattva, the bodhisattva is not different from the Buddha's mind", and explains it with 「次第相續不斷故，有二心如，無異、無分別故」 tr. "because the sequence continues without break, there is the suchness of the two minds, because they are without difference and without discrimination": because the continuity of mind is unbroken, the suchness-nature of the two minds, earlier and later, is without difference, and so it is said that they are not different. That names and positions differ lies in worldly truth; that the suchness of mind is without difference lies in the highest meaning; the two statements must be read together, and taking either side alone loses it.

24. Why the nine successive absorptions and the marks and minor signs are named world-transcending and unshared. The treatise-author asks: 「九次第定、三十二相、八十隨形好，此是世間共有法」 tr. "the nine successive absorptions, the thirty-two marks, and the eighty minor marks are dharmas the world has in common"—why then are they named 「出世間不共法？」 tr. "world-transcending unshared dharmas?" The answer falls into three sections. The first explains the nine successive: 「四禪、四無色定、滅受想，名九次第。滅受定，但聖人能得。」 tr. "The four dhyānas, the four formless absorptions, and the cessation of feeling and perception are named the nine successive. The absorption of the cessation of feeling only sages can obtain." Of the nine, the last only sages can obtain; and the reason the first eight are unshared lies in the way they are cultivated—「不雜餘心而入二禪」 tr. "without mixing in any other mind he enters the second dhyāna", and from the second dhyāna up to the absorption of the cessation of feeling, 「念念中受，不雜餘心，名為次第」 tr. "receiving it in every thought, without mixing in any other mind—this is named successive". Though ordinary people can enter the four dhyānas and the four formless absorptions, they cannot enter them in continuity, unmixed in every thought, and so the names are the same but the reality is different. The second explains the thirty-two marks, first setting up its difficulty with a question: 「凡夫是罪人鈍根，云何能得三十二相？」 tr. "Ordinary people are sinners with dull faculties; how can they obtain the thirty-two marks?" Then it compares the marks of the wheel-turning sage king, Devadatta, and Nanda with the Buddha's marks: 「名字雖同，而威德、具足、淨潔、得處則不同於佛」 tr. "though the names are the same, in majesty, completeness, purity, and the place of their obtaining they are not the same as the Buddha's", and points out that the text before has already had a statement distinguishing the marks of the wheel-turning sage king from the Buddha's. The reason they differ lies in the cause, not in the marks of the fruit: 「又是相，聖無漏法果報，故自在隨意，無量無邊；轉輪聖王等相，是福德業因緣，不能自在，有量有限。」 tr. "Further, these marks are the retribution of the noble dharma without outflows, and so they are sovereign and as he wishes, immeasurable and boundless; the marks of the wheel-turning sage king and the like come from the causes and conditions of deeds of merit, cannot be sovereign, and are measured and limited." Again it distinguishes them by the facts: 「提婆達、難陀有三十相，無三十二相；轉輪聖王，雖有三十二相，無威德、不具足、不得處，與愛等煩惱俱。」 tr. "Devadatta and Nanda have thirty marks, not thirty-two marks; the wheel-turning sage king, though he has the thirty-two marks, is without majesty, is not complete, and does not obtain their place, and they are together with craving and the other afflictions." The third explains the eighty minor marks: 「八十隨形好具足，唯佛菩薩有之」 tr. "the eighty minor marks in completeness only the Buddha and bodhisattvas have"; what other people have is no more than a little, such as slender long fingers or the mark of the belly not showing, 「有如是等無威德之好，不足言」 tr. "there are such minor marks as these without majesty, not worth mentioning". When the three sections are finished, it concludes that to say 「出世間不共凡夫法」 tr. "world-transcending dharmas not shared with ordinary people" is 「無咎」 tr. "without fault". The principle of the whole passage is one: in judging shared and unshared, one does not look at the names of the marks; one looks at the cause from which they come and the virtue they possess.

25. Why the marks and minor signs of the fleshly body are spoken of only when the sūtra is about to close. Another question: 「從初來處處說諸法五眾乃至一切種智，不說是三十二相、八十隨形好；今經欲竟，何以品品中說？」 tr. "From the very first, everywhere, it has spoken of dharmas—the five aggregates and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds—without speaking of these thirty-two marks and eighty minor marks; now that the sūtra is about to close, why are they spoken of in chapter after chapter?" The answer is by the judgement of the two bodies: 「佛有二種身：法身、生身。於二身中，法身為大；法身大，所益多故，上來廣說。」 tr. "The Buddha has two kinds of body: the Dharma body and the fleshly body. Of the two bodies, the Dharma body is the greater; because the Dharma body is great and what it benefits is much, it was spoken of broadly above." Since what the Dharma body benefits is much, it is spoken of broadly first within the whole work; 「今經欲訖故，生身義應當說，是故今說」 tr. "now, because the sūtra is about to end, the meaning of the fleshly body ought to be spoken, and so it is spoken now". Again, it speaks by the sequence of retribution: 「是生身相好莊嚴是聖無漏法果報，今次第說；上雜諸波羅蜜說。」 tr. "The adornment of the marks and minor signs of this fleshly body is the retribution of the noble dharma without outflows; now it is spoken of in sequence; above, it was spoken of mixed in among the perfections." Before this, the meaning of the marks and minor signs was spoken of piecemeal, mixed in among the perfections; now it is spoken of on its own according to its rank as retribution. At the end of the passage the treatise-author makes clear the weight of what follows: 「四念處等諸法義，如先說。十力等是佛法甚深義，今當更略說。」 tr. "The meaning of the four foundations of mindfulness and the other dharmas is as was said before. The ten powers and the rest are the very deep meaning of the Buddha's Dharma, and should now be spoken of briefly once again."—the former has already been said and so is abbreviated; the latter is very deep, and so though it is called a brief speaking it is in fact a broad explanation. The broad explanation of the ten powers in the six passages below connects on from exactly this sentence.

26. Why the powers are not set up as thousands of myriads of koṭi according to the dharma, but only ten are spoken of. The treatise-author asks: the Buddha's power, if spoken of in general, is only the power of the omniscience of all kinds; if spoken of separately, there are thousands of myriads of koṭi of kinds, named according to the dharma; why is the number ten taken exactly? The answer does not speak from the reasoning of numbers; it speaks from beings: 「佛實有無量智力，但以眾生不能得、不能行故不說。」 tr. "The Buddha truly has immeasurable powers of knowledge; only because beings cannot obtain them and cannot practise them, they are not spoken of." What is not spoken of is not non-existent; it is that speaking of it is of no benefit. Then he sets the standard for what is taken and what is left: 「是十力，可度眾生事辦。」 tr. "With these ten powers, the work of delivering beings who can be delivered is done."—the ten powers are enough to accomplish the work of delivering beings, and so ten are taken. This one answer shows very well the character of this treatise: the setting up of the numbers of dharmas is tied not to how many the dharmas themselves have, but to how many their use requires.

27. The power of what is possible and what is impossible gathers all—the other nine powers all enter into this power. The treatise-author explains the ten powers one by one, and takes the first power as the general one. What is possible and what is impossible: knowing decisively, of cause and fruit within all dharmas, what can be and what cannot be: 「行惡業，墮惡道，有是處；行惡業，生天上，無是處」 tr. "one who does evil deeds falls into the evil destinies—there is such a thing; one who does evil deeds is born in the heavens—there is no such thing", and so too with the wholesome; again he takes the dharmas of the path as an example—「不離五蓋、不修七覺得道者，無有是處；離五蓋、修七覺得道者，有是處。」 tr. "That one obtains the path without parting from the five hindrances and without cultivating the seven limbs of awakening—there is no such thing; that one parts from the five hindrances, cultivates the seven limbs of awakening, and obtains the path—there is such a thing." Then he sets down a general verdict: 「餘九力盡入此力中。」 tr. "The other nine powers all enter into this power." What the nine powers know—deeds and retribution, meditative concentration, faculties, desire, nature, the paths to where one arrives, former lives, the divine eye, the exhaustion of outflows—not one is not a matter of cause and fruit, and so all are gathered into the one power of what is possible and what is impossible. The use of this power lies in weighing and measuring: with it the Buddha measures which beings in the six destinies of the ten directions can be delivered and which cannot: 「可度者，以種種因緣、神通變化而度脫之；不可度者，於此人中修捨心」 tr. "those who can be delivered he delivers and liberates by all kinds of causes and conditions and by supernormal transformations; those who cannot be delivered, toward such a person he cultivates the mind of equanimity". The three Chinese characters ‘cultivates the mind of equanimity’ must not be read as setting aside and paying no heed—equanimity is one of the four immeasurables; toward those who cannot be delivered, abiding in equanimity without giving rise to sorrow and vexation is precisely the other face of kindness and compassion. The simile says, 「譬如良醫，觀其病相，審定知其可活則治之，不可活者則捨之」 tr. "it is as a good physician observes the marks of the sickness and, judging and knowing for certain that the patient can live, treats him, and where he cannot live, gives him up"—the physician's giving up is not a lack of humanity; it is knowing, after judging, that it cannot be cured.

28. The two powers for delivering beings—the power of deeds and the power of concentration. Under the general power the treatise-author first raises two powers: 「度眾生方便者，所謂二力：業力、定力。」 tr. "The skilful means of delivering beings are namely two powers: the power of deeds and the power of concentration." Why raise these two alone? Because the pivot of birth and death and of liberation lies exactly here: 「人以業因緣故受身、縛著世間，禪定因緣故得解脫。」 tr. "Because of the causes and conditions of deeds, people receive bodies and are bound and attached in the world; because of the causes and conditions of meditative concentration, they obtain liberation." Seek out their causes and conditions of deeds and one knows why they are bound; seek out their causes and conditions of concentration and one knows why they are freed. So it says, 「行者必應求苦從何而生、由何而滅。是故用二力。」 tr. "The practitioner must seek out where suffering arises from and by what it ceases. Therefore the two powers are used." Below, he further analyses deeds into two portions: 「淨業名禪定、解脫、諸三昧；不淨業者，能於三界中受身。」 tr. "Pure deeds are named meditative concentration, the liberations, and the samādhis; impure deeds can receive bodies within the three realms." Then by the nature of their faculties he judges people into two kinds: 「鈍根，為受身故作業；利根，為滅身故作業。」 tr. "Those of dull faculties make deeds for the sake of receiving a body; those of keen faculties make deeds for the sake of extinguishing the body." Both alike make deeds, but where they are directed is, for one, receiving a body and, for the other, extinguishing the body—this sentence already lays the ground for the question of keen and dull below.

29. The linked chain of four questions on keen and dull—the distinction between desire and nature. From here the treatise-author sets himself four questions that follow on linked one to another, each layer pushing on from the last. The first question: 「若爾者，何以不皆令作淨業？」 tr. "If so, why does he not make them all make pure deeds?" The answer: 「以眾生根有利鈍故。」 tr. "Because the faculties of beings are some keen and some dull." The second question: 「眾生何因緣故有利鈍？」 tr. "By what causes and conditions are beings keen or dull?" The answer comes back to desire: 「以有種種欲力故」 tr. "because they have all kinds of power of desire"—people of evil desire constantly enter into evil and so are dull: 「欲名嗜好，嗜好罪事、生惡業故鈍。善欲者樂道、修助道法故利。」 tr. "Desire is named relish; because they relish sinful things and give rise to evil deeds, they are dull. People of good desire delight in the path and cultivate the dharmas that aid the path, and so are keen." The third question: 「眾生何以不皆作善欲？」 tr. "Why do beings not all take up good desire?" The answer comes back to nature: 「是故佛說世間種種性，惡性、善性」 tr. "that is why the Buddha says that the world has all kinds of natures: evil natures and good natures"; those of evil nature are precisely those of evil desire, and so their faculties are dull; and then he sets down a sentence of verdict that stops the further search—「如火熱性、水濕性，不應責其所以。」 tr. "Just as the hot nature of fire and the wet nature of water—one should not demand why they are so." Pushed as far as nature, it stops; there is nothing further to push to, just as in asking why fire is hot. The fourth question presses straight at the division between the two: 「惡欲即是惡性，有何差別而作二力？」 tr. "Evil desire is precisely evil nature; what difference is there, that they are set up as two powers?" The answer distinguishes them by six pairs: 「性先有，欲得因緣而生」 tr. "nature is there first; desire arises on obtaining causes and conditions", with the simile 「譬如先有瘡，得觸因緣則血出」 tr. "it is as there is first a sore, and on meeting the condition of a touch, blood comes out"; next it lists 「性在內，欲在外。性重，欲輕。性難除，欲易捨。性深，欲淺」 tr. "nature is within, desire is without. Nature is heavy, desire is light. Nature is hard to remove, desire is easy to give up. Nature is deep, desire is shallow"; at the end it divides them by whether the receiving of retribution is fixed or not: 「用性作業必當受報，用欲作業不必受報。」 tr. "Deeds made through nature must surely receive retribution; deeds made through desire do not necessarily receive retribution." Of the six pairs, the last pair bears most closely on practice—a deed done out of desire still has room to turn about; a deed done out of nature receives retribution with certainty. At the end of the passage the treatise-author records a further divergent saying: 「欲常習增長，遂成為性；性亦能生欲」 tr. "desire, through constant habit, grows and increases and so becomes nature; nature too can give rise to desire"—by this saying, nature and desire are cause and fruit of each other: desire of long habit becomes nature, and abiding within nature one does good or does evil: 「若住善性則可度，若住惡性則不可度」 tr. "if he abides in a good nature he can be delivered, if he abides in an evil nature he cannot be delivered". This saying stands alongside the former: the former takes nature as there first, this one takes nature as able to be formed by habit; the treatise-author records it and does not judge. At the end he closes with the Buddha's knowing the two natures and knowing their retributions: 「惡性者墮三惡道，善性者有四種道：人、天、阿修羅、涅槃道。」 tr. "People of evil nature fall into the three evil destinies; people of good nature have four kinds of path: humans, gods, asuras, and the path of nirvāṇa."

30. The difference between the power of the paths leading everywhere and the power of the divine eye. The treatise-author asks how the two powers differ. The answer says: 「天眼但見生死時；此中未死時知，見因知果。」 tr. "The divine eye sees only the time of birth and death; this power knows before death, seeing the cause and knowing the fruit." What the divine eye sees is the matter of beings at the moment of dying here and being born there, belonging to what is seen of retribution present before it—「天眼，見現前罪福果報」 tr. "the divine eye sees the retribution of sin and merit present before it"; whereas the power of the paths to where one arrives already knows, before they die, where they will arrive, knowing the fruit from the cause. The difference of the two powers lies in time and order: one sees the fruit at the time the fruit appears; the other knows the fruit at the time the cause appears.

31. Why only the Buddha has the last three powers. The treatise-author sets a difficulty of great weight: 「聲聞、辟支佛亦得涅槃、亦能化眾生，何以無是力？」 tr. "The śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas too obtain nirvāṇa and can also teach and transform beings; why do they not have this power?" The answer says: 「是故說後三力」 tr. "that is why the last three powers are spoken of"—precisely to show this difference, the three powers of former lives, of the knowledge of birth and death by the divine eye, and of the exhaustion of outflows are set at the end. Their use lies in knowing the three times completely: 「三世中眾生事盡能通達遍知」 tr. "of the affairs of beings in the three times he can penetrate and know all throughout"; by the power of former lives he knows completely the past, root and branch; by the power of the knowledge of birth and death by the divine eye he knows completely the immeasurable affairs of the future; having known past and future, he then 「知現世中眾生可度者為說漏盡法」 tr. "knows which beings in the present world can be delivered and teaches them the dharma of the exhaustion of outflows". Knowing all three times and only then teaching the Dharma—so only the Buddha can do it. The treatise-author raises one matter as proof: there was a person who should have obtained arhatship that day; Śāriputra at midday judged him, saying, 「汝無得道因緣」 tr. "You have no causes and conditions for obtaining the path", gave him up and did not deliver him; when late afternoon came, 「佛以宿命神通見過去八萬劫前得道因緣，今應成就，晡時說法，即得阿羅漢道」 tr. "the Buddha, with the supernormal power of former lives, saw his causes and conditions for obtaining the path from eighty thousand kalpas before in the past, which should now come to accomplishment; in the late afternoon he taught him the Dharma, and he at once obtained the path of the arhat". The knowledge of the two vehicles cannot reach back beyond eighty thousand kalpas, and so it missed him; this one example makes ‘only the Buddha has it’ as concrete as it can be. Below this the treatise-author further matches the ten powers one by one with what they know—the first power knows who can be delivered and who cannot; the second power knows whether they are covered by the three obstructions or not; the third power knows whether their meditative concentrations and liberations are pure or impure; the fourth power knows whether their faculties are keen or dull and whether they penetrate the nature of dharmas or not; the fifth power knows that the causes and conditions of keen and dull lie in good desire and evil desire; the sixth power knows that the causes and conditions of the two desires lie in the various natures; the seventh power knows the seven kinds of path of good and evil retribution; the eighth power knows whether the deeds of former lives obstruct or do not obstruct; the ninth power knows those who cannot yet be delivered in this present life but can be delivered in the place where they will be born in a future life; the tenth power knows by which gate—emptiness, signlessness, or non-action—they will enter nirvāṇa, and also knows the fetters they cut off in each thought within the path of seeing the truths and the path of reflection. The ten powers arise one from another in sequence, what an earlier power knows being what a later power relies on; and so it concludes, 「以是十力籌量眾生所應度緣而為說法。是故說法，初無空言。」 tr. "With these ten powers he weighs and measures the causes and conditions by which beings should be delivered, and teaches them the Dharma. Therefore his teaching of the Dharma has never been empty words."—the four Chinese characters ‘never been empty words’ are where the whole passage comes home: behind a single sentence of the Buddha there is the weighing and measuring of the ten powers.

32. Why the Buddha's body has exactly the thirty-two marks, the same as the wheel-turning sage king—four sayings recorded side by side. The last question comes back to the marks and minor signs: the Buddha's wisdom is immeasurable, so his bodily marks too should be immeasurable; moreover the Buddha's body surpasses the kings of the gods, so why is it exactly the same in number as the wheel-turning sage king's? The treatise-author first blocks the question with what was said before: 「三十二相不多不少，義如先說。」 tr. "The thirty-two marks are neither more nor fewer; the meaning is as explained before."—this is the first saying; the three sayings below are each headed with ‘some say’, and the four sayings are recorded side by side without judgement. The second saying holds that the marks are not fixed from the first: 「佛、菩薩相不定，如此中說；隨眾生所好，可以引導其心者為現。」 tr. "The marks of buddhas and bodhisattvas are not fixed, as is said here; according to what beings like, whatever can lead their minds, that he shows for them." Under this saying three matters are raised as proof: first, 「又眾生不貴金而貴餘色——琉璃、頗梨、金剛等」 tr. "further, there are beings who do not prize gold but prize other colours—beryl, sphaṭika, vajra, and the like", and in such worlds the Buddha does not show the golden colour but follows what they like; second, there are beings who do not prize slender long fingers and the webbing, 「以長指利爪為羅剎相，以網縵為水鳥相，造事不便，如著手衣，何用是為？」 tr. "they take long fingers and sharp nails as the mark of a rākṣasa, and the webbing as the mark of a water-bird, inconvenient for doing things, like wearing gloves—what use is this?", and he also raises a bodhisattva of the land of Jibin whose hands had webbing, which his father loathed and cut off with a knife, saying, 「我子何緣如鳥？」 tr. "Why is my son like a bird?"; third, 「有人不好肩圓大，以為似腫；有以腹不現，無腹如餓相；亦有人以青眼為不好，但好白黑分明。」 tr. "Some people do not like round, large shoulders, thinking them like a swelling; some take the belly not showing to be having no belly, like the mark of starving; there are also people who take blue eyes as not good, and like only black and white clearly distinguished." What the three matters make clear is one and the same principle: views of the fair and the foul differ from place to place. So it concludes, 「是故佛隨眾生所好而為現相好。如是等，無有常定。」 tr. "Therefore the Buddha shows the marks and minor signs according to what beings like. Such as these have nothing constant and fixed." The third saying holds that the marks are fixed in themselves while what is shown changes: 「此三十二相實定，以神通力變化身，隨眾生所好而為現相。」 tr. "These thirty-two marks are really fixed; by the power of supernormal powers he transforms his body and, according to what beings like, shows the marks for them." What is fixed is the original marks; what changes is the transformation body that is shown. The fourth saying further divides two cases: 「佛有時神通變化，有時隨世界處生，當生處不得言神通變化」 tr. "the Buddha is sometimes a supernormal transformation, and sometimes is born according to the place in the world; where he is born, it cannot be said to be a supernormal transformation"—the body that receives birth according to place cannot be spoken of across the board as a transformation; below this, following on from this saying, he comes to the difference of lands: within the three-thousand great-thousand world he is born according to the places of beings who can be delivered and shows marks for them, and he cites the Sūtra of Secret Traces as proof: 「或現金色、或現銀色、或日月星宿色，或長、或短，隨可引導眾生則為現相。」 tr. "He shows a golden colour, or shows a silver colour, or the colour of the sun, the moon, and the stars, long or short; according to the beings who can be led, he shows marks for them." After the four sayings, the treatise-author closes the whole passage with what the one region of India in Jambudvīpa likes: 「天竺國人于今故治肩髆令厚大、頭上皆以有髻為好」 tr. "the people of the land of India to this day still work at their shoulders to make them thick and large, and all take having a topknot on the head as good"; again, according to the sayings on the marks of people, five places being long is good, and the marks of the eyes, nose, tongue, arms, fingers, thighs, and hands and feet are like a wheel, like a lotus flower, like a conch, or like the sun and moon; 「是故佛手足有千輻輪、纖長指、鼻高好、舌廣長而薄」 tr. "therefore the Buddha's hands and feet have the thousand-spoked wheel, slender long fingers, a high and fine nose, and a tongue broad, long, and thin"—all surpassing what they had always prized, and so able to make them give rise to a mind of reverence. Yet in other regions and other lands it need not be so: 「有國土佛為現千萬相，或無量阿僧祇相，或五、六、三、四相。」 tr. "In some lands the Buddha shows for them thousands of myriads of marks, or immeasurable asaṃkhyeya marks, or five, six, three, or four marks." The number thirty-two is shown according to what this region likes; it is not a fixed measure of the Buddha's body. With this, the two questions left by the sūtra of the First Part—‘why the marks and minor signs are listed among the unshared’ and ‘why they are exactly the same in number as the wheel-king's’—have both been answered; while the listing of the eighty minor marks item by item belongs to the next unit.

Do Not Misread

Do not read ‘the repeated question’ as Subhūti not understanding. The last of the treatise-author's four layers of answer says it plainly: he asks for the sake of 「佛滅度五百年後，像法中眾生愛著佛法，墮著法中」 tr. "five hundred years after the Buddha's passing into extinction, beings in the semblance Dharma love and cling to the Buddha's Dharma and fall into clinging to dharmas"; it is 「憐愍未來眾生鈍根不解故重問」 tr. "asking again because he pities the beings of the future with dull faculties who do not understand". The asker sets the question on behalf of those who have not understood—this is the pattern of question and answer in this treatise, not the asker's own doubt. If the repeated question is read as the asker's dullness, then all the passages of self-posed question and self-given answer everywhere in the whole treatise become the author's going back and forth, and the teaching structure of this treatise is read away.

Do not read ‘pulling out’ as negating the wholesome dharmas of the step before. The treatise-author himself sets a guard: 「若布施、持戒、禪定是定實法，則不應令遠離。」 tr. "If giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration were definitely real dharmas, one should not make people go far from them." Teaching people to give them up does not say that giving and keeping morality are evil; it says that 「雖少時益眾生，久則變異」 tr. "although for a short time they benefit beings, in the long run they change". What beings are pulled out from is the new clinging mind that arises upon the retribution of wholesome dharmas, not the wholesome dharmas themselves. If it is read as the meaning of emptiness abolishing wholesome dharmas, then the sentence below, 「先教眾生捨罪，稱讚持戒、布施福德」 tr. "first teaches beings to give up sin, praising the merit of keeping morality and giving", has nowhere to rest—the treatise-author plainly says that the head of the sequence is precisely establishing the good.

Do not read ‘the Buddha and animals are equal’ as the Buddha and animals being without difference. Within the same passage the treatise-author has already set his own limit: 「若人憐愍眾生，得無量福德；於佛著心，起諸惡因緣，得無量罪」 tr. "if a person pities beings, he obtains immeasurable merit; if toward the Buddha he gives rise to a clinging mind and gives rise to evil causes and conditions, he obtains immeasurable sin", and the difference of retribution is not reduced in the least; he also sets up two dharma-gates and judges, 「入分別法門，諸阿羅漢、辟支佛尚不及佛，何況畜生！」 tr. "Entering the dharma-gate of distinction, even the arhats and pratyekabuddhas do not come up to the Buddha, how much less animals!" What is equal is the mind's not picking and choosing at the time of giving, not the realm given to being without superior and inferior. Teaching not to discriminate is set up to counter the sickness of 「輕眾生不憐愍布施」 tr. "holding beings in contempt and giving without pity"; it is not a general rule that can be applied everywhere.

Do not read the four sayings on not moving when cut and severed as one saying. The four sayings each come back to their own place—long cultivated patience, deep kindness and compassion, the empty mind obtained as the retribution of prajñā, the body born of the dharma-nature—and the stages of the bodhisattvas they address are different. The treatise-author sets them side by side and does not judge precisely because the reason one can be unmoved differs with the stage. Above all, the fourth saying's 「身如木石」 tr. "his body is like wood or stone" must not be read as insentience: the very next sentence is 「而能慈念割截者」 tr. "yet he can think with kindness of those who cut and sever him"; the body unmoved and the kind thought unceasing—this is the full meaning of what is to be said.

Do not read ‘beings who eat the bodhisattva's flesh then give rise to a kind mind’ as even doing evil being able to lead to deliverance. The treatise-author himself makes the most important sifting distinction: 「非以噉肉故得度，以起發慈心故」 tr. "it is not because of eating the flesh that they are delivered; it is because of the kind mind that is roused", and proves it by two similes—form, sound, scent, and touch being one object at which some rejoice and some are angered, and the same fragrant rice eaten with some obtaining the path and some not—with one and the same matter, those who give rise to kindness are delivered, and those who give rise to anger are not. The cause of deliverance is the kind mind, not the deed of eating flesh; the deed of eating flesh has its own retribution. If this layer is lost, this passage is read as sin and merit being undistinguished.

Do not read ‘the three evil destinies are not empty’ as the bodhisattva picking and choosing whom to deliver. The treatise-author's answer is threefold: the number of beings is many times that of bodhisattvas; whether one is delivered or not is tied to whether beings have the conditions by which they can be delivered; the bodhisattva 「一相見無分別心故，不一一求覓眾生」 tr. "because he sees with one mark and is without a mind of discrimination, does not seek out beings one by one". The simile of the great amnesty is set up exactly for this: the decree of amnesty reaches everywhere and yet not everyone receives the amnesty, not that the decree is partial. If it is read as the bodhisattva choosing whom to deliver, it contradicts the equal contemplation of 「不輕畜生」 tr. "not holding animals in contempt" in the text before.

Do not read ‘only ten powers are spoken of’ as the Buddha having only ten kinds of power of knowledge. The treatise-author says plainly, 「佛實有無量智力，但以眾生不能得、不能行故不說」 tr. "the Buddha truly has immeasurable powers of knowledge; only because beings cannot obtain them and cannot practise them, they are not spoken of". The number ten is set up by what the work of delivering beings requires, not reckoned by what the Buddha has. In the same way, the number of the thirty-two marks in the last passage too must not be read as a fixed measure of the Buddha's body—「有國土佛為現千萬相，或無量阿僧祇相」 tr. "in some lands the Buddha shows for them thousands of myriads of marks, or immeasurable asaṃkhyeya marks"; thirty-two is the number shown according to what this region likes.

Do not read ‘nature is hard to remove, desire is easy to give up’ as nature being unable to turn. Right after the six pairs, the treatise-author records a divergent saying: 「欲常習增長，遂成為性；性亦能生欲」 tr. "desire, through constant habit, grows and increases and so becomes nature; nature too can give rise to desire"—by this saying, nature itself too is formed by long habit, and so it can also be turned by habit. The two sayings stand together and the treatise-author does not judge; one who takes the former should know that it speaks of ease and difficulty at hand, and must not use it to assert that the nature of beings is fixed and does not shift.

Do not read ‘the Buddha's mind is not different from the bodhisattva’ as the bodhisattva being the Buddha. Within the same passage the treatise-author first judges names and positions: 「今得一切種智，名為菩薩；已得一切種智，名為佛」 tr. "now obtaining the omniscience of all kinds, he is named bodhisattva; having already obtained the omniscience of all kinds, he is named Buddha"; only then does he speak of the suchness of mind being without difference. That names and positions differ lies in worldly truth; that the suchness of mind is without difference lies in the highest meaning; going a layer further, 「真實之言：菩薩不得，佛亦不得」 tr. "speaking truly: the bodhisattva does not obtain it, and the Buddha too does not obtain it", and even obtaining and not obtaining cannot be spoken of. The three layers must be read down in order; taking one layer and discarding the rest all become one-sided understandings.

Bearing on Practice

Take 「若布施、持戒、禪定是定實法，則不應令遠離」 tr. "if giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration were definitely real dharmas, one should not make people go far from them" and shine it on the share of good you are now guarding. When practice reaches some point and you taste ease—the openness after giving, the self-respect after keeping morality, the lightness and ease after sitting in stillness—it is easiest to settle down there. Take this sentence and ask yourself: what I am now guarding—is it a place from which I am to be pulled out, or have I already taken it as my home? The treatise-author says it plainly: the retribution of the step before is precisely the place from which the next step must pull away.

Take 「入空法門，則得等觀；入分別法門，諸阿羅漢、辟支佛尚不及佛」 tr. "entering the dharma-gate of emptiness, he obtains equal contemplation; entering the dharma-gate of distinction, even the arhats and pratyekabuddhas do not come up to the Buddha" and tell two kinds of occasion clearly apart. When giving, enter the gate of emptiness: do not pick and choose, do not weigh whether the other is worth it; when deciding the meaning of the Dharma, choosing a teacher and choosing a path, enter the gate of distinction: what ought to be told apart must not be blurred by a hair. The sickness of most people is exactly the reverse: when giving they reckon closely, when choosing a dharma they are blurred throughout. Whenever it is time to give or to help, first ask yourself which gate you are entering.

Take 「非以噉肉故得度，以起發慈心故」 tr. "it is not because of eating the flesh that they are delivered; it is because of the kind mind that is roused" and check your own rough reading of cause and fruit. When one and the same matter comes to different people, the rising of kindness and the rising of anger each become a cause. When someone treats you with evil and it later turns out a good thing, do not say on this basis that evil deeds have no retribution; when you do good for a time and see no proven effect, do not say on this basis either that good deeds are of no use. Where the cause lies is in what arises in the mind, not in the surface of the matter.

Take 「不一一求覓眾生」 tr. "he does not seek out beings one by one" and ease your frustration at not being able to deliver everyone. Those who sincerely wish to help people often blame themselves over the few they could not help. The treatise-author says that even the bodhisattva delivers 「隨眾生可度因緣」 tr. "following the causes and conditions by which beings can be delivered", and people of heavy sin do not get to see a bodhisattva; a great amnesty reaches everywhere, and those it does not reach naturally do not receive it. Doing all that lies in oneself and not forcing what one cannot—this is not shirking; it is not presuming to put one's own strength in place of other people's causes and conditions.

Take 「行者必應求苦從何而生、由何而滅」 tr. "the practitioner must seek out where suffering arises from and by what it ceases" to fix the direction of daily effort. The treatise-author raises the two powers, the power of deeds and the power of concentration, and the reason lies in this very sentence. Whenever you feel your practice is scattered with nowhere to put your strength, come back to these two questions: from what conditions of deeds have I received my present suffering? By what power of concentration is it to be extinguished? Once the two questions are set up, what should be severed and what should be cultivated become clear of themselves.

Take 「用性作業必當受報，用欲作業不必受報」 tr. "deeds made through nature must surely receive retribution; deeds made through desire do not necessarily receive retribution" and look at your own habitual residues. An evil done on a passing impulse still has room to turn about; an evil done out of a nature formed by long accumulation receives retribution with certainty. The use of this sentence lies not in judging others but in examining oneself: this thought of mine—is it a desire that arose by chance, or has it already been perfumed into nature? If it has already become nature, one must not excuse oneself again with ‘just this once’. And what the divergent saying calls 「欲常習增長，遂成為性」 tr. "desire, through constant habit, grows and increases and so becomes nature" tells us exactly that the road to forming a nature lies in the habit of a single thought each day.

Take 「是故說法，初無空言」 tr. "therefore his teaching of the Dharma has never been empty words" and check the weight of your own speaking. Behind a single word of the Buddha there is the weighing and measuring of the ten powers—knowing whether one can be delivered or not, knowing whether the faculties are keen or dull, knowing desire and nature, knowing the obstructions of former lives. Ordinary people lack this weighing and measuring, and should be all the more careful in opening their mouths: before speaking, first ask one question—how much do I know about this person? To speak much without knowing his aptitude is of no benefit to him and becomes a fault for oneself.

Further Resonances

The unit of the Middle Part has treatise and no sūtra. What the treatise-author explains is the difficulties left in the earlier portion of the sūtra text of the First Part unit; so what is taken up here is the ancient masters' sectional divisions and questions and answers on the same passage of the sūtra, and the answers of this unit and the questions that wait for the next unit.

Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra has a sectional division of the whole of this chapter, and where it explains the sūtra passage corresponding to this unit, it often meets with the treatise-author's questions and answers. Explaining why Subhūti asks again, it directly records three meanings of this treatise: 「昔論有三義生起：一者云上來已作此問，今更問者，無始來有所得病難破故也。二者說經將訖，空是入道之要，如云離三解脫問無知無見，是故更問空義也。三者、佛在世眾利根易悟，佛滅度五百歲後眾生鈍根難悟，多生著心，聞說空便言：若空如夢幻者，何以有善惡報耶？須菩提愍末世眾生，是故問也。」 tr. "The treatise of old brings this forward with three meanings. First, it says that this question has already been asked above; asking it again now is because the sickness of having something to be attained, from beginningless time, is hard to break. Second, the teaching of the sūtra is about to end, and emptiness is the essential of entering the path—as it says, apart from the three liberations, asking about not-knowing and not-seeing—therefore he asks again about the meaning of emptiness. Third, when the Buddha was in the world, the multitudes had keen faculties and were easily awakened; five hundred years after the Buddha's passing into extinction, beings have dull faculties and are hard to awaken, often give rise to a clinging mind, and on hearing emptiness spoken of at once say: if emptiness is like a dream or an illusion, why are there the retributions of good and evil? Subhūti pities the beings of the last age, and therefore he asks."—the three meanings correspond one by one to the last three layers of the answer in the first passage of this unit (the first layer, 「是事上已答」 tr. "this matter has already been answered above", points back to the earlier chapters, and Jizang does not record it); its second meaning reads 「空是入道之要」 tr. "emptiness is the essential of entering the path", which is just the sense of this treatise's 「是般若波羅蜜欲說是空，義要故，數問」 tr. "what this prajñāpāramitā wishes to speak is this emptiness; because the meaning is essential, he asks again and again". And the boundary it draws between this chapter's answer and the previous chapter's answer says: 「上品末答明無所有破病，今品答明法雖無所有於凡夫有也。」 tr. "The answer at the end of the chapter above makes clear that being without anything existent breaks the sickness; this chapter's answer makes clear that though dharmas are without anything existent, for ordinary people they exist." This agrees with where the second passage of this unit lands.

Its explanation of the Buddha's first move in answering says: 「初中云凡夫著夢，著夢者此是著空亦著實，如是空有一切著也。以內有所著故起身口意三業，生三界諸法，雖無所有於凡夫成有也。」 tr. "In the first, it says that ordinary people cling to the dream; clinging to the dream is clinging to emptiness and also clinging to the real—thus clinging to everything, empty and existent. Because there is clinging within, they give rise to the three deeds of body, speech, and mind and produce the dharmas of the three realms; though without anything existent, for ordinary people they become existent."—taking clinging to the dream as gathering both sides, clinging to emptiness and clinging to the real, opens one more meaning than this treatise, which speaks only of inversion. Its explanation of the passage on pulling out in sequence by skilful means says: 「直為說實相不空有不虗實，但為眾生故漸漸化之。先於慳中拔出令持戒，持戒是中根人故；次於戒中拔出令修定，如是於三界拔出令得二乘，二乘中拔出令得大乘，大乘中拔出令悟無三無一。」 tr. "Directly, the real mark would be spoken of as neither empty nor existent, neither false nor real; but for the sake of beings he transforms them little by little. First he pulls them out from stinginess and makes them keep morality, because keeping morality is for people of middling faculties; next he pulls them out from morality and makes them cultivate concentration; thus he pulls them out from the three realms and makes them obtain the two vehicles, pulls them out from the two vehicles and makes them obtain the Great Vehicle, and pulls them out from the Great Vehicle and makes them awaken to neither three nor one."—this treatise's sequence stops at nirvāṇa and the limbs of the path, while Jizang continues it with the three steps of the two vehicles, the Great Vehicle, and neither three nor one; this is his own school's division, recorded side by side without judgement.

On the reason why among the four means of gathering some are broad and some brief, it sets a question and answer: 「問：何故廣釋布施？若布施在初既廣，後亦例廣，後略明亦略也。布施具財、法，故釋人也。」 tr. "Question: why is giving explained broadly? If giving, coming first, is broad, then what follows is broad by its example; when what follows is made clear briefly, it too is brief. Giving includes wealth and Dharma, and therefore it explains people."—sharing the same purport as this treatise's two answers, 「四事中初廣開布施，則知餘三亦如是」 tr. "among the four things giving is opened up broadly at the very first; then one knows that the other three are likewise" and 「布施中攝三事故」 tr. "because giving contains the three things". Explaining Subhūti's question ‘does the bodhisattva obtain the omniscience of all kinds or not’, it judges it 「此是進退難也」 tr. "this is a difficulty of advance and retreat", and sets out its two ends of advancing and retreating in detail: 「此問應云：為先得種智故作佛？為先作佛故得種智？若菩薩時先得種智者，既作佛云何佛？云何先得種智？若前作佛後得種智，既作佛竟何用一切種智？又未得種智云何作佛？」 tr. "This question should be put: is it by first obtaining the knowledge of all kinds that one becomes a Buddha? Or is it by first becoming a Buddha that one obtains the knowledge of all kinds? If while a bodhisattva one first obtains the knowledge of all kinds, since one has become a Buddha, how is one a Buddha? How does one first obtain the knowledge of all kinds? If one first becomes a Buddha and afterwards obtains the knowledge of all kinds, since one has finished becoming a Buddha, what use is the omniscience of all kinds? Again, without having obtained the knowledge of all kinds, how does one become a Buddha?" And it takes 「當得種智名菩薩，已得種智名佛也」 tr. "one who is to obtain the knowledge of all kinds is named bodhisattva; one who has obtained the knowledge of all kinds is named Buddha" as the intent of the answer—the same as this treatise's answer.

On the two questions about the marks and minor signs it also has something to say. Explaining why the marks and minor signs are world-transcending dharmas, it says: 「問：三十二相云何是出世間法？答：此是無漏果無漏業日起。」 tr. "Question: how are the thirty-two marks world-transcending dharmas? Answer: these are the fruit without outflows, arising day by day from deeds without outflows." This is the same as this treatise's judgement, 「是相，聖無漏法果報」 tr. "these marks are the retribution of the noble dharma without outflows". Explaining why the marks and minor signs are made clear only here, it says: 「問：上來何故不明相好，至此始明耶？答：生、法二身。上來明法身，法身最勝故；次明生身，生身劣故也。」 tr. "Question: why were the marks and minor signs not made clear above, and only made clear here? Answer: there are the two bodies, the fleshly and the Dharma. Above, the Dharma body was made clear, because the Dharma body is the most excellent; next the fleshly body is made clear, because the fleshly body is inferior." This is the same as this treatise's answer of the two bodies, but its phrase 「生身劣故」 tr. "because the fleshly body is inferior" is something this treatise does not have; this treatise says only 「法身大，所益多故」 tr. "because the Dharma body is great and what it benefits is much", and does not speak of the inferiority of the fleshly body; the weight the two give in their judgements differs, recorded without judgement. Jizang also sets himself a question that this treatise does not have: 「問：小般若以色見我，是人行邪道，今何云說相好為法施耶？答：經說相是般若，相即是非相。如作解相，起行耶道，不見如來。若見相非相，見佛；只見非相，相亦見佛也。」 tr. "Question: the Smaller Prajñā says that one who sees me by form is a person practising a wrong path; how is it now said that speaking of the marks and minor signs is a gift of Dharma? Answer: the sūtra says that the marks are prajñā, and marks are precisely non-marks. If one makes an understanding of marks, one rises up to practise a wrong path and does not see the Tathāgata. If one sees marks as non-marks, one sees the Buddha; seeing only non-marks, in the marks too one sees the Buddha."—harmonising the divergent sayings of the two sūtras by the non-duality of marks and non-marks; this is Jizang's own contribution, not the text of this treatise, recorded side by side to show where an ancient master turned his attention on this difficulty.

The extant text of Huiying's Commentary stops in the middle of chapter sixty-nine; for this chapter there is no commentary to take up, and his explanation is lacking—it is not that it was abbreviated and left unexplained. Junzheng's Profound Meaning of the Four Mahāyāna Treatises has one citation on this chapter, but what it cites belongs to the sūtra passage of the next unit, and so it is not listed here; this is not an omission.

The next unit, carrying on from the end of this unit, goes on to speak of the eighty minor marks item by item, and then turns to the three means of gathering—kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavour—and the forty-two gates of letters, finally coming home to the meaning of the nature of dharmas, the two truths, and teaching the Dharma without clinging. What this unit has not explained and leaves for the text below is twofold: first, the names of the eighty minor marks and the meaning of the one minor mark among them, ‘consciousness full’, on which the treatise-author has a separate question and answer in the next unit; second, the distinction between worldly truth and the truth of the highest meaning—this unit, on the question ‘does the bodhisattva obtain the omniscience of all kinds’, has for the first time raised the judgements 「世俗法故」 tr. "because it is a dharma of worldly convention" and 「第一義中，則無一切法」 tr. "within the highest meaning there are no dharmas at all", while the direct unfolding of the two truths is in the passage of the next unit where ordinary people do not know worldly truth and do not know the truth of the highest meaning.