大智度論 照明品之下Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Illumination, Part 2 of 2

Illumination, Last Part: Illumination and Completeness Are One Meaning, Not Destroying and Not Following Form, the Prajñā without Grasping, Teaching the Dharma in the Two Truths and the Vast and Great Mind, the Simile of the Conjurer, and the Path of Bringing Beings to Accomplishment and Purifying Buddha-lands

What Is Being Asked

The First Part is sūtra; the Last Part is treatise. The sūtra passage of the First Part is made up of questions and answers taken in turn among three parties, Subhūti, Śāriputra, and the Buddha: first Subhūti asks 「菩薩摩訶薩當云何具足菩薩道」 tr. "how should the bodhisattva-mahāsattva make complete the bodhisattva path", and the Buddha answers him that practising dāna by the power of skilful means while not finding the giving, not finding the giver, and not finding the recipient is named the illumination of the bodhisattva path; then Śāriputra turns to ask about training in prajñā, and the Buddha answers with not destroying form and not following form; again he asks how dharmas without nature can be trained in, how it can be known that there are ordinary people and so on up to there being a Buddha, and how what has nothing to be attained can cause beings to have something to be attained; at the last Subhūti asks again about the path of bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands, and the Buddha answers that the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas are precisely the bodhisattva path, and concludes it with the simile of the conjurer. The Last Part is the treatise-author explaining this whole passage sentence by sentence as it goes.

So in the Last Part there is no new sūtra text, only one thing: taking apart the three places in the sūtra text of the First Part that are most easily misread. The first place is in the two Chinese characters 「照明」 tr. "illumination". The sūtra says that practising dāna by the power of skilful means and not finding the three things is named the illumination of the bodhisattva path; the text below further says that by the power of skilful means one makes complete the bodhisattva path. Are illumination and completeness two different things? The treatise-author's very first sentence fixes it firmly: illumination and completeness are one meaning. Only once it is fixed can the content of the power of skilful means be spoken—it is not that there is a separate ability called skilful means; it is not falling to either of the two sides, 「決定得」 tr. "definitely finding" and ‘not finding at all’. The second place is in 「不壞、不隨」 tr. "not destroying, not following". Destroying and following look like an ordinary pair of words, yet the treatise-author explains them along two separate roads: not destroying is not pronouncing form to be impermanent, empty, and without anything existent; not following is not following what the eye sees and so grasping at marks and giving rise to clinging. The former guards against the fault of entering emptiness by destroying its marks; the latter guards against the fault of following what the eye sees and grasping at marks. The third place is in 「成就眾生」 tr. "bringing beings to accomplishment". All dharmas are empty of nature and beings too are empty of nature; then who is it that is brought to accomplishment? The treatise-author does not answer from principle; he answers from practice—beginning from teaching people not to cling to giving, he speaks all the way on to supplying those who sit in meditation with clothing, food and drink, a meditation ball, and a meditation prop, setting down the four Chinese characters 「成就眾生」 tr. "bringing beings to accomplishment" as things that can be done one by one.

Within the treatise section there are also six sets of questions and answers, questions the treatise-author sets for himself. Of what the six questions ask, not one is a general discussion: the first asks why Subhūti asks again; the second asks what more superior dharma there is beyond the six perfections; the third asks how the simile of the conjurer can hold; the fourth asks how those who are angry because people do not suit their wishes can be supplied to the full; the fifth asks why, the five perfections having been spoken of, the six perfections are spoken of again; the sixth asks how, since the thirty-seven limbs of the path come forth from the mind, they can be said to be causes and conditions that can be given. Strung together, the six questions are exactly one line running from principle into practice.

The treatise section also has two similes. One is the simile of the conjurer that the sūtra text already has; the treatise-author makes the matching for it—the conjurer is the bodhisattva, the gardens, huts, and pavilions are the dharmas of the six perfections for delivering beings, the elephants, horses, men, and women are the beings delivered; and he blocks a difficulty raised against it: the conjurer himself is still empty, so how can he serve as a simile? The other is the simile of the haunted room that the treatise-author adds himself: two guest monks each take the other for a ghost, and on either side of the door they fight each other until dawn, and only on seeing each other's faces do they find that they are old fellow-students. This simile is not in the sūtra text; the treatise-author sets it up for 「五眾無我、無人，空取相致鬪諍」 tr. "within the five aggregates there is no self and no person; vainly grasping at marks leads to fighting and strife". The most vivid passage of the whole unit is here, and the heaviest passage is here too—what follows right after the simile is a long string: a human body is hard to obtain, the age of a Buddha hard to meet, and those in the eight difficulties cannot be taught and transformed.

So what is to be read in the Last Part is a line that begins from ‘illumination is completeness’ and ends at 「如布施為首生五波羅蜜」 tr. "as giving, being the head, gives birth to the five perfections": the first half speaks of principle, and the principle lies in being free of the two sides; the second half speaks of practice, and the practice lies in bringing beings to accomplishment. And the reason principle and practice are one matter lies in the three Chinese characters 「方便力」 tr. "the power of skilful means".

Passage by Passage

1. The treatise-author's first self-set question: why ask again. The opening of the treatise section is not an explanation of the text but the setting of a difficulty: 「先說『菩薩行六波羅蜜等諸助道法，不具足菩薩道，則不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提』，今須菩提應自知『行六波羅蜜等，具足菩薩道，應得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提』，何以更問？」 tr. "It has already been said earlier: ‘If a bodhisattva practises the six perfections and the other dharmas that aid the path but does not make complete the bodhisattva path, he cannot obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’; now Subhūti ought himself to know ‘practising the six perfections and the rest, and making complete the bodhisattva path, one should obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’—why then does he ask again?" First ask a question: where does the difficulty of this difficulty lie? It lies in the sūtra's question seeming already to contain its answer—since it has been said that without making it complete one cannot obtain, then conversely it follows naturally that making it complete one can obtain; why must Subhūti ask once more? The treatise-author brings this ‘seeming’ forward precisely so that the reader will not slide past it. Here the treatise's way of explaining the sūtra can be seen: first it voices the question on the reader's behalf, and then it answers. Without this question, the answer of the next passage would have nothing to be tied to.

2. Answer: what is asked lies in making complete, not in obtaining. The treatise-author answers: 「須菩提不疑『云何得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提』，今但問『云何具足菩薩道，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提』。」 tr. "Subhūti is not in doubt about ‘how one obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’; what he now asks is only ‘how one makes complete the bodhisattva path and so obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’." In one sentence he picks out where the question lies: what Subhūti wants to ask is not the fruit but how to walk the whole of the stretch of road that leads to the fruit. What is in doubt lies in the two Chinese characters 「具足」 tr. "make complete", not in the Chinese character 「得」 tr. "obtain". This is the treatise's standard way of distinguishing questions—within one sentence there are two topics; first make clear which one is asked, and the answer will not be out of place. All the explanations of the treatise in the text below are tied to this: what the whole passage explains is the dharma of making complete, not the mark of obtaining the fruit.

3. Taking up the Buddha's answer: the content of the power of skilful means. The treatise-author takes up the Buddha's words: 「用六波羅蜜等諸法，以方便力和合故能行；是時，具足菩薩道。方便力者，不決定得是布施等三事，亦不離是三事，行檀波羅蜜；是時，照明菩薩道。」 tr. "Employing the six perfections and the other dharmas, one is able to practise because they come together by the power of skilful means; at that time, one makes complete the bodhisattva path. The power of skilful means is this: not definitely finding the three things of giving and the rest, and yet not departing from these three things, one practises dānapāramitā; at that time, this is the illumination of the bodhisattva path." What matters most in this passage is the definition from 「方便力者」 tr. "the power of skilful means is this" onward. Skilful means is not a separate dharma; it is an attitude toward the three things: on the one side not finding them definitely, on the other side not departing from them. 「三事」 tr. "The three things" are the giving, the giver, and the recipient listed in the sūtra text of the First Part. The former phrase guards against their becoming real; the latter guards against their becoming non-existent. Only when the two phrases stand together is it one skilful means. One should also note: within the Buddha's words, completeness and illumination are spoken of as tied to two separate places—when they come together and one is able to practise, it is called completeness; when one does not find and yet does not depart, it is called illumination. This is the ground on which the treatise-author in the next passage joins them together.

4. Illumination and completeness are one meaning—free of the two sides, giving is then accomplished. The treatise-author next lays down a verdict: 「照明、具足是一義。」 tr. "Illumination and completeness are one meaning." How does he dare to join them? Because what the two point to are two faces of the same matter: being able to be free of the two sides, it is called illumination; being free of the two sides so that the six perfections are accomplished, it is called completeness. Having joined and fixed them, the treatise-author then explains the reason along two roads, the negative and the positive. The negative, two roads: 「若菩薩決定得布施等三事，直墮常顛倒、取相著法等過罪」 tr. "If a bodhisattva definitely finds the three things of giving and the rest, he falls straight into the inversion of permanence and the faults of grasping at marks, clinging to dharmas, and the rest"—this side is existence; 「若不得是三事，則墮斷滅邊，著空，還起邪見等諸煩惱，便離菩薩道」 tr. "if he does not find these three things, he falls to the side of annihilation, clings to emptiness, and on the contrary gives rise to wrong views and the various other afflictions, and so parts from the bodhisattva path"—this side is non-existence. Note the phrase 「著空，還起邪見等諸煩惱」 tr. "clings to emptiness, and on the contrary gives rise to wrong views and the various other afflictions": clinging to emptiness does not make the afflictions fewer; on the contrary it raises a further kind of affliction—this is the treatise's consistent verdict on the sickness of emptiness. The positive road then speaks of the actual way of being free of the two sides: 「因空捨是施等假名字虛誑法，因諸法實相離是著空無施者、無受者」 tr. "because of emptiness he gives up giving and the rest, which are false and deceptive dharmas that are only provisional names; because of the real mark of all dharmas he parts from this clinging to emptiness that holds there is no giver and no recipient"; the Chinese character 「因」 tr. "because of", occurring twice, each time has what it faces—because of emptiness, to break their reality; because of the real mark, to break their emptiness. At the end it is gathered in with 「如阿耨多羅三藐三菩提相，觀是布施亦爾無異」 tr. "as the mark of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is, so he contemplates this giving too, without difference": the mark of giving and the mark of awakening are seen in one and the same way. Only at this point does he draw the conclusion: 「如是布施名為具足。」 tr. "Giving such as this is named complete." And he extends it to everything with 「乃至十八不共法亦如是」 tr. "and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas: it is likewise".

5. Why Śāriputra asks about training in prajñā. The treatise-author explains the occasion of Śāriputra's question: 「舍利弗在會中，聞佛與須菩提說：『般若甚深果報，大有利益。』雖有利益，無決定性，云何可習？」 tr. "Śāriputra, in the assembly, heard the Buddha say to Subhūti: ‘The retribution of the very deep prajñā is of great benefit.’ Though there is benefit, there is no definite nature; how then can one train in it?" This is a supplementary stroke the treatise often uses—the sūtra text records only his question; the treatise-author supplies his mind. The doubt supplied is precisely the doubt of the ordinary reader: a matter that is both deep and beneficial—if it is also said to have no definite nature, then how is one to set one's hand to training in it? Note the turn between 「無決定性」 tr. "there is no definite nature" and 「云何可習」 tr. "how then can one train in it": the questioner has already tacitly assumed ‘what can be trained in must have a fixed mark’, and it is this tacit assumption that the text below is to take apart.

6. The Buddha answers with not destroying and not following; the treatise-author supplies its sequence. The treatise-author takes up the Buddha's answer: 「菩薩行般若波羅蜜時，不壞色、不隨色，如是名習般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "When a bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā, he does not destroy form and does not follow form; this is named training in prajñāpāramitā." The answer is only this one sentence, and the treatise-author at once supplies the sequence of the gate of practice: 「菩薩初發心，為知實法故，常行般若波羅蜜；次第隨其所宜，行布施等諸法。」 tr. "From the first arousing of the mind, in order to know the real dharma, the bodhisattva constantly practises prajñāpāramitā; next, according to what is fitting, he practises giving and the other dharmas." This supplement is most important—it makes clear that between prajñā and the other perfections there are not two stages, one before and one after; there is the one practised constantly and the rest according to what is fitting. So the treatise-author further cites the general formula as proof: 「菩薩行般若波羅蜜時，行布施等諸法。」 tr. "When the bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā, he practises giving and the other dharmas." The Chinese character 「時」 tr. "when" is the joint: it is not practising giving after having finished practising prajñā; it is practising giving at the very time of practising prajñā.

7. The meaning of not destroying form. 「色不壞者，不言是色無常，不言是色空無所有，是名不壞色。」 tr. "Not destroying form means not saying that this form is impermanent, not saying that this form is empty and without anything existent; this is named not destroying form." First ask: not saying impermanent, not saying empty—does this not on the contrary turn into permanence, into existence? It does not. What is blocked here is the procedure of ‘pronouncing’ form to be impermanent, ‘pronouncing’ it to be empty and without anything existent—that is, breaking and destroying its marks by analysis and only then calling it empty. Destroying has the meaning of breaking and destroying. So not destroying is not preserving the reality of form; it is not using the method of breaking and destroying to see its emptiness. What this road treats is precisely this way of seeking emptiness by breaking and destroying.

8. The meaning of not following form. 「不隨色者，不如眼見色取相生著。」 tr. "Not following form means not, as the eye sees form, grasping at marks and giving rise to clinging." It is the opposite of the road above: not destroying treats breaking too far; not following treats following too smoothly. When the eye sees form it at once grasps its marks and at once gives rise to clinging; this is a road one can travel without any learning, and so it is called following. Looking at the two roads together, one can see that 「習般若」 tr. "training in prajñā" walks between the two failings: neither following what the eye sees nor breaking and destroying its dharma.

9. Further: not making the judgements of the four alternatives. The treatise-author pushes one layer further: 「不說『是色若常、若無常、若苦、若樂等』，是名不隨色。」 tr. "Not saying ‘this form is permanent, is impermanent, is suffering, is happiness, and so forth’—this is named not following form." And he judges it: 「常、無常等皆非色實相。」 tr. "Permanence, impermanence, and the rest are all not the real mark of form." The not following of the previous passage speaks of grasping and clinging when faculty and object meet; the not following of this passage speaks of passing judgement on form within the mind. The point lies in the last sentence: of the pair permanence and impermanence, and the pair suffering and happiness, to cling to either one is not the real mark—it is not saying that one who takes permanence is wrong and one who takes impermanence is right. Whoever thinks ‘contemplating impermanence is the very height of right view’ should here know the bounds the treatise lays down.

10. Further: not setting up causes that give birth. 「不說『是色根本從世性中來、若從微塵中來、從大自在天中來』，亦不說『從時來』，亦不說『自然生』，亦不說『無因無緣而強生』。」 tr. "Not saying ‘the root of this form comes from the nature of the world, or comes from atoms, or comes from the Great Sovereign Heaven’, nor saying ‘it comes from time’, nor saying ‘it arises spontaneously’, nor saying ‘it is forcibly born without cause and without condition’." This passage blocks the various causes that give birth set up by the outside paths: the nature of the world, atoms, the Great Sovereign Heaven, time, spontaneity, no cause—six in all. Though what the six set up differs, all alike look for a root for form. The treatise-author lists them one by one and takes none of them—it is not that he breaks them one by one; it is saying that one who practises prajñā does not follow any of them at all. Here one can see how broad the two Chinese characters 「不隨」 tr. "not following" are: not following what the eye sees is not following the matter; not making the four alternatives is not following judgements; not setting up causes that give birth is not following where it comes from. At the end he gathers it all: 「如是等名為不隨、不壞。」 tr. "Things such as these are named not following and not destroying."

11. The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: because the nature of form is non-existent. The treatise-author points out that in the sūtra the Buddha himself explains the reason: 「是色性無故，不隨、不壞。」 tr. "Because the nature of this form is non-existent, there is no following and no destroying." He at once explains the two Chinese characters 「性無」 tr. "the nature is non-existent": 「是色從一切四大和合，假名為色；是中無定一法名為色。」 tr. "This form is provisionally named form from the coming together of all the four elements; within it there is no definite single dharma called form." He further cites the earlier text of the treatise: 「如先『破色』中說。」 tr. "As was said earlier in ‘the refutation of form’." Then he draws out a chain of cause and effect: 「是色從因緣和合生故，即是無性；若無性，即是性空。」 tr. "Because this form arises from the coming together of causes and conditions, it is without nature; if it is without nature, it is the emptiness of nature." The last sentence matters most: 「若得是色相性空，即是習般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "If one obtains the emptiness of nature of this mark of form, that is training in prajñāpāramitā."—so the content of 「習般若」 tr. "training in prajñā" is precisely obtaining the emptiness of nature of the mark of form; it is not some other kind of cultivation. Looking back at Śāriputra's doubt in passage 5, 「無決定性，云何可習」 tr. "there is no definite nature; how then can one train in it", only here is it resolved: precisely because there is no definite nature, there is something that can be trained in; what is trained in is this very being without nature. At the end it is extended with 「乃至十八不共法亦如是」 tr. "and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas: it is likewise".

12. Śāriputra asks again: without self-nature there is nothing that can be destroyed or followed. 「世尊！若諸法無自性可壞可隨者，云何菩薩習般若波羅蜜？不學般若波羅蜜，不得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提！」 tr. "World-Honored One! If dharmas have no self-nature that can be destroyed or followed, how then does the bodhisattva train in prajñāpāramitā? Not training in prajñāpāramitā, one does not obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi!" This question presses one layer harder than the previous one: the previous question only doubted that what has no fixed nature is hard to train in; this question points out that even the two words 「不壞、不隨」 tr. "not destroying, not following" fall empty—since there is no self-nature, there is from the first nothing that can be destroyed or followed; why say not destroying and not following? The last sentence, 「不學般若波羅蜜，不得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "not training in prajñāpāramitā, one does not obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi", adds a further weight: if this road does not go through, then awakening too is unfindable. The question is asked with the greatest weight, and so in the text below the Buddha does not rebut his difficulty but first acknowledges his meaning.

13. The Buddha approves his meaning and himself states the causes and conditions—the prajñāpāramitā without grasping. The treatise-author records the Buddha's way of answering as 「佛可舍利弗意，自說因緣」 tr. "the Buddha approves Śāriputra's meaning and himself states the causes and conditions". First approving and then answering—this is the pattern of this passage; in the text below 「佛可舍利弗意」 tr. "the Buddha approves Śāriputra's meaning" is seen several times, all in this same frame. The causes and conditions stated are: 「若菩薩用方便力行六波羅蜜，是人雖知諸法空，而能起般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "If a bodhisattva practises the six perfections by employing the power of skilful means, this person, though he knows that dharmas are empty, is able to give rise to prajñāpāramitā." The four Chinese characters ‘though he knows … is able to …’ are the eye of the whole passage: knowing emptiness and giving rise to practice do not hinder each other, and what is relied on is still the power of skilful means. Next the Buddha sets up a supposition as a contrasting mirror: 「若菩薩求一切法，若得少許定性，則可取可著」 tr. "if a bodhisattva seeks all dharmas and finds even a little fixed nature, then they can be grasped and clung to"—only where there is fixed nature can grasping and clinging be spoken of; but the fact is 「今菩薩實求覓一切法，不得定實」 tr. "now the bodhisattva truly seeks and searches out all dharmas, yet does not find anything definite and real", and so 「不可得故，何所取？」 tr. "because they are unfindable, what is there to grasp?" From this the name is set up: 「是名菩薩無取般若波羅蜜。菩薩應學無取般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "This is named the bodhisattva's prajñāpāramitā without grasping. The bodhisattva should train in the prajñāpāramitā without grasping." At the end the treatise-author pushes one more sentence, loosening this name too along with it: 「無取尚不可得，何況般若等諸法！一切法無性故。」 tr. "Not grasping itself is unfindable, how much less prajñā and the other dharmas! Because all dharmas are without nature."—if one holds on to 「無取」 tr. "without grasping" as something attained, one falls again into a further layer of grasping.

14. Śāriputra asks again: without nature, where does the distinction between the ordinary and the sage lie. 「若一切法無性，云何知是凡人乃至佛？」 tr. "If all dharmas are without nature, how then does one know that this is an ordinary person, and so on up to a Buddha?" This question turns from dharmas to persons: since dharmas are without nature, then the division between the ordinary and the sage too has nothing to rest on. This is the question that touches one most closely under the meaning of emptiness—if there is neither ordinary nor sage, the matter of practice loses both its ends. It is asked most simply and most sharply.

15. The Buddha answers: ordinary people cling because of inversion. 「一切法雖無根本定相，但凡人顛倒故著。菩薩行般若波羅蜜時，以方便力故，見一切法無根本，而發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。」 tr. "Though all dharmas have no fixed mark that is their root, ordinary people cling because of inversion. When the bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā, by the power of skilful means he sees that all dharmas have no root, and arouses the mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." The way of answering is the same as the road of the earlier answer on stain and purity: the ground of the ordinary and the sage is not sought in dharmas; it is divided by the mind's being inverted or not inverted. An ordinary person is an ordinary person not because there is an ordinary nature in dharmas, but because he is inverted and clings; a bodhisattva is a bodhisattva not because there is a holy nature in dharmas, but because he sees there is no root and arouses the mind. So the distinction between the ordinary and the sage can be spoken of, and the meaning that all dharmas are without nature is not destroyed.

16. The treatise-author explains why the bodhisattva is not slack and does not retrogress—teaching the Dharma like a conjurer. This passage is the treatise-author's own exposition, and shows most of all his intent in teaching. First he says why he does not retrogress: 「是菩薩深行諸法性空故，不見一切法有根本，不見故不懈不退」 tr. "because this bodhisattva practises deeply in all dharmas being empty of nature, he does not see that any dharma has a root; because he does not see it, he is not slack and does not retrogress". Why does not seeing make him, on the contrary, able not to be slack? Because all slackness arises from seeing something that can be gained or lost; when no root can be seen, nothing is lost, and so he does not retrogress. Next he says what he knows: 「了了知一切法無我、無所有性、性常空。」 tr. "He knows clearly and distinctly that all dharmas are non-self, without any existent nature, their nature ever empty." Then he says why beings are not so: 「但眾生愚癡顛倒故，著是陰、界、入。」 tr. "It is only that beings, because of delusion and inversion, cling to these aggregates, elements, and sense-fields." After setting the two side by side, he speaks of what the bodhisattva does: 「菩薩自立如幻師，種種神通變化，說法度人，如幻所作，無憎無愛，等心說法」 tr. "The bodhisattva sets himself up like a conjurer, and with various supernormal powers and transformations teaches the Dharma and delivers people, like what is made by conjuring, without hatred and without love, teaching the Dharma with an equal mind"; the four Chinese characters 「無憎無愛」 tr. "without hatred and without love" are the main point of this simile—the conjurer has no partiality toward the things he conjures, and so can have an equal mind. At the end he speaks of the sequence of his teaching: 「所謂慳者教施等六法；復為說轉勝法，令出生死，得須陀洹果乃至阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "That is, for the stingy he teaches giving and the rest of the six dharmas; further he teaches them a still more superior dharma, causing them to leave birth and death and obtain the fruit of srota-āpanna and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." The three Chinese characters 「轉勝法」 tr. "a still more superior dharma" at the end of this sentence are where the question and answer of the next passage arise from.

17. The treatise-author's second self-set question: what superior dharma is there beyond the six perfections. 「六波羅蜜外更有何法為勝？何以言更為說勝法？」 tr. "Beyond the six perfections, what dharma is there that is more superior? Why does it say that he further teaches them a superior dharma?" This question has its grounds: the six perfections are already the whole practice of the Great Vehicle; if it is said that there is a further superior dharma, does that not mean the six perfections still have something lacking? What the questioner holds to is reading the 「施等六法」 tr. "giving and the rest of the six dharmas" of the previous passage straight off as the six perfections. What the treatise-author answers below, in its very first sentence, takes apart this misreading.

18. Answer: giving and the rest of the six dharmas are not the six perfections but the initial dharmas. 「此中不說波羅蜜，但為慳者說施，乃至癡者為說智慧。」 tr. "Here it is not the pāramitās that are spoken of; it is only that for the stingy giving is taught, and so on up to for the deluded wisdom is taught." In one sentence the misreading is undone: the six dharmas spoken of in the text above are six kinds of wholesome practice that treat the six obscurations; they are not the six perfections. Having made this clear, the treatise-author sets up a general formula: 「諸佛、菩薩法，有初、有後。」 tr. "The Dharma of the buddhas and the bodhisattvas has an initial part and a later part." The initial dharmas are 「布施、持戒；受戒施果報，得天上福樂」 tr. "giving and keeping morality; receiving the retribution of morality and giving, one obtains the blessings and happiness of the heavens"; going further, 「為說五欲味利少失多，受世間身，但有衰苦；讚歎遠離世間、斷愛法」 tr. "they teach them that the flavour of the five desires has little benefit and much loss, and that to receive a worldly body is only decline and suffering; they praise the dharma of being far from the world and severing craving"; and then 「為說四諦，令得須陀洹果」 tr. "they teach them the four truths, causing them to obtain the fruit of srota-āpanna". Here one should note a sentence the treatise-author adds: 「此中菩薩但說欲令眾生得佛道故，先教令行六法」 tr. "here the bodhisattva, only because he wishes to cause beings to obtain the Buddha path, first teaches them to practise the six dharmas"—the intent with which the bodhisattva teaches the initial dharmas lies not in gods and humans but in the Buddha path; only the sequence is so. He also gives a definition especially for the item wisdom among these six dharmas: 「此中善智慧不名為三解脫門所攝；是善智慧能生布施等善法，能滅慳貪、瞋恚等惡法，能令眾生得生天上。」 tr. "The wholesome wisdom here is not named as included in the three gates of liberation; this wholesome wisdom can give rise to giving and the other wholesome dharmas, can extinguish stinginess and greed, anger, and the other evil dharmas, and can cause beings to obtain birth in the heavens."—it is worldly wholesome wisdom, not the contemplative wisdom that transcends the world. At the end he proves it himself with one question and one answer: 「何以知之？更有勝法故。」 tr. "How is this known? Because there is still a superior dharma."

19. The superior dharma is the holy Dharma of the four truths, the dharma of going forth. 「勝法者，所謂四諦聖法、出法。」 tr. "The superior dharma is the holy Dharma of the four truths, the dharma of going forth." He at once explains the meaning name by name: 「一切聖人所行法，名為聖法；出三界生死，名為出法。」 tr. "The dharma practised by all the sages is named the holy Dharma; going forth from birth and death in the three realms is named the dharma of going forth." The two names each take one aspect—named holy with respect to persons, named going forth with respect to the matter. Its use is: 「以是四諦說法故，隨眾生根因緣，令得須陀洹果乃至得一切種智。」 tr. "Because the Dharma is taught by way of these four truths, according to the causes and conditions of beings' faculties, they are caused to obtain the fruit of srota-āpanna and so on up to obtaining the omniscience of all kinds." The last sentence fills in the account for the sūtra text: 「此中雖不說初六法，說布施等，當知已攝。」 tr. "Here, though the initial six dharmas are not spoken of, since giving and the rest are spoken of, one should know that they are already included."—the sūtra text does not list the names of the initial six dharmas, yet in reality they are already contained; one must not say the matter is absent because the words are absent.

20. Further: because beings' resolve is low, the initial six dharmas are not spoken of. 「菩薩為佛道故說是六法；但眾生意劣故，自取小乘，是故不說『布施、持戒生天受報等初六法』。」 tr. "The bodhisattva teaches these six dharmas for the sake of the Buddha path; only because beings' resolve is low and they themselves take up the Small Vehicle, therefore ‘giving and keeping morality, birth in the heavens and receiving retribution, the initial six dharmas, and so forth’ are not spoken of." This supplies another reason for the same matter. The previous passage says they are already included; this passage says why they are not spoken of. Why are they not spoken of? Because if the blessings and retribution of gods and humans were spoken of, those of low resolve would stop right there. From this it can be seen that the choosing and setting aside in teaching the Dharma depends not only on principle but also on the capacity of the hearer—this is the treatise's consistent point of focus when it discusses the gates of teaching the Dharma.

21. Śāriputra's difficulty: is not nothing to be attained something to be attained. 「世尊！先說菩薩是畢竟不可得法；今為無所有眾生說法，令得無所有法，所謂須陀洹果乃至一切種智。世尊！菩薩今得無所有法故，能令眾生得無所有法——無所得是有所得？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Earlier it was said that the bodhisattva is a dharma ultimately unfindable; now he teaches the Dharma for beings who are without anything existent, causing them to obtain the dharma without anything existent, namely the fruit of srota-āpanna and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds. World-Honored One! The bodhisattva now, because he has obtained the dharma without anything existent, is able to cause beings to obtain the dharma without anything existent—is nothing to be attained then something to be attained?" This difficulty is set most cleverly: it puts 「無所有」 tr. "without anything existent" in three places—what the teacher of the Dharma has obtained is without anything existent, the beings for whom he teaches are without anything existent, and the dharma he causes them to obtain is also without anything existent; in all three places there is nothing existent, and yet there can after all be 「得」 tr. "obtaining" and 「令得」 tr. "causing to obtain", and so the last sentence presses: then does not this nothing to be attained become a kind of something to be attained? This is the most finely made difficulty in the whole unit; its difficulty lies in not attacking the meaning of emptiness but turning the meaning of emptiness to its own use.

22. The Buddha answers: not seeing beings and dharmas, a being is a provisional name. 「菩薩行般若波羅蜜時，無有有所得過！何以故？菩薩行般若波羅蜜時不見眾生及法，但諸因緣和合，假名眾生。」 tr. "When the bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā, there is no fault of having something to be attained! Why? Because when the bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā he does not see beings and dharmas; it is only the coming together of causes and conditions that is provisionally named a being." The answer does not lie in arguing over the Chinese character 「得」 tr. "obtain"; it lies in pointing out that what is called obtaining has from the first no such person and no such dharma: when neither the one who obtains nor what is obtained is seen, the phrase 「有所得」 tr. "something to be attained" has nowhere to be set up. The last sentence, 「但諸因緣和合，假名眾生」 tr. "it is only the coming together of causes and conditions that is provisionally named a being", is where the answer comes to rest—it is not that there are no beings; it is that beings exist only as provisional names. The reason the one raising the difficulty can turn nothing to be attained into something to be attained is precisely that there still remains in his mind a really existent one who obtains.

23. The treatise-author explains: the bodhisattva abides in the two truths and teaches the Dharma. The treatise-author supplies for this answer one more layer, the way of teaching the Dharma: 「菩薩住二諦中，為眾生說法，不但說空、不但說有」 tr. "The bodhisattva abides within the two truths and teaches the Dharma for beings, not teaching emptiness alone and not teaching existence alone". Why not alone? The text below at once gives its use: 「為愛著眾生故說空，為取相著空眾生故說有」 tr. "for the sake of beings who love and cling he teaches emptiness, for the sake of beings who grasp at marks and cling to emptiness he teaches existence"—emptiness and existence are each one dose of medicine, given according to the sickness. Since they are given according to the sickness, the speaker himself cannot dwell partially on either, and so it says 「有、無中二處不染」 tr. "in the two places of existence and non-existence he is stained by neither". At the end he concludes with the words of the bodhisattva teaching beings: 「眾生！現在我身及我尚不可得，何況當得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提！」 tr. "Beings! Now my body, and I myself, are still unfindable, how much less being about to obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi!" These words are precisely a real instance of using the two truths together: in terms of worldly truth he calls out 「眾生」 tr. "beings", in terms of the highest meaning he says 「我尚不可得」 tr. "I myself am still unfindable"; within one sentence both truths are present.

24. Śāriputra joyfully praises the vast and great mind. 「舍利弗歡喜白佛言：『世尊！曠大心是菩薩！』」 tr. "Śāriputra joyfully said to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! Vast and great of mind is the bodhisattva!’" Here one should note a turn: before this, Śāriputra all along raised difficulties; here he turns to praise. When the difficulties are exhausted, praise arises, because the previous answer has untied his knot. The two Chinese characters 「歡喜」 tr. "joyfully" are not mere accompaniment; they mark the turning point in the course of the questions and answers—from this passage on, there are no more questions raising difficulties against emptiness.

25. The causes and conditions of the vast and great mind—without bondage and without release; planting a tree in space. The treatise-author first points out that the sūtra text explains the name itself: 「曠大心者，此中自說因緣，所謂：『無有法可得若一相、若異相。』」 tr. "As for the vast and great mind, here the causes and conditions are themselves stated, namely: ‘There is no dharma that can be found, whether as one mark or as a different mark.’" Why is not finding one or different precisely vast and great? The text below shows it by contrast with a simile: 「如人市買，必須交易；大心人則不然。」 tr. "As when a person buys in the market, there must be an exchange; the person of great mind is not so."—one who buys in the market has taking and giving, and his mind must be tied to the thing exchanged; the person of great mind 「無所依止而能發大莊嚴」 tr. "taking support in nothing, is able to arouse the great adornment", and so is vast. Since there is no support, the use of the adornment is twofold: 「不生三界，亦拔眾生令出三界」 tr. "he is not born in the three realms, and he also pulls beings out, causing them to leave the three realms"—not entering himself, yet able to pull others out. And the beings pulled out 「不可得」 tr. "are unfindable"; as for why they are unfindable, the treatise-author pushes it to the bottom: 「不縛不解故，一切法空。」 tr. "Because they are neither bound nor released, all dharmas are empty." He further explains the reason for not being bound: 「從久遠以來，煩惱顛倒皆是虛誑不實，是故名無縛；縛無故亦無解。」 tr. "From long ago, the afflictions and inversions have all been false, deceptive, and unreal, and so it is named without bondage; since bondage does not exist, there is also no release." The text below is a chain: 「縛即是垢，解即是淨。無淨無垢故，無六道分別；不分別六道故，無罪福業；罪福業無故，無煩惱能起罪福業者；不起罪福業，亦不應有果報。」 tr. "Bondage is stain; release is purity. Because there is no purity and no stain, there is no discrimination of the six destinies; because the six destinies are not discriminated, there are no deeds of sin and merit; because deeds of sin and merit do not exist, there are no afflictions that can give rise to deeds of sin and merit; when deeds of sin and merit do not arise, there also should be no retribution." The six links cause one another ring by ring; in reading, one must keep hold of them link by link and may not skip. At the end it comes back to where the rare lies: 「如是諸法畢竟空中而作大莊嚴，是為希有！」 tr. "Thus, within the ultimate emptiness of all dharmas, to take on the great adornment—this is rare!" And he gathers it with a simile: 「譬如人虛空中種樹，樹葉花果，多所利益。」 tr. "It is as a person plants a tree in space, and the tree's leaves, flowers, and fruit give much benefit."—space does not receive planting, and yet there is the benefit of leaves, flowers, and fruit; this is the mark of taking on the great adornment within ultimate emptiness.

26. The Buddha approves Śāriputra's meaning. 「佛可舍利弗意。」 tr. "The Buddha approved Śāriputra's meaning." One sentence, six Chinese characters. The 「可」 tr. "approve" here seals what he praises, not what he raises as a difficulty—in the next passage the treatise-author is going to distinguish exactly this point. Looked at alone, this sentence is easily overlooked; only with the next passage does its use appear.

27. Both answering and approving—if they existed before and do not exist now, the worthies and sages have fault. The treatise-author gives an explanation of the sentence above: 「舍利弗難是空故，佛亦答、亦可——以其說空故可，以其難空故答」 tr. "Because Śāriputra raised a difficulty against this emptiness, the Buddha both answers and approves—he approves because he speaks of emptiness, and answers because he raises a difficulty against emptiness". One person's words hold both difficulty and teaching, and so the Buddha's response holds both answer and approval, each facing its own object. This is a fine point of the treatise in analysing debates, worth noting: approving and answering are not the same thing, and in reading debate texts they should be looked at separately. What is answered is the text below: 「舍利弗！若眾生及諸法先有今無，諸佛賢聖有過罪。」 tr. "Śāriputra! If beings and all dharmas existed before and do not exist now, then the buddhas, the worthies, and the sages have fault." The treatise-author at once explains the two Chinese characters 「過罪」 tr. "fault": 「所謂令眾生入無餘涅槃，永滅色等一切法；入空中皆無所有，以斷滅眾生及一切法，故有過罪。」 tr. "That is, causing beings to enter nirvāṇa without remainder, forever extinguishing form and all dharmas; on entering into emptiness, everything is without anything existent; because they annihilate beings and all dharmas, there is fault."—if dharmas existed from the first and only became non-existent on entering nirvāṇa, then nirvāṇa would become annihilation, delivering beings would become extinguishing beings, and the blame would go back to the worthies and sages who deliver. This uses the unacceptability of the effect to show by contrast that the cause cannot stand.

28. All dharmas are non-existent from the first, abiding constantly and not differing. 「眾生及一切法先來無，若有佛、無佛，常住不異，是諸法實相」 tr. "Beings and all dharmas are from the first non-existent; whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, they abide constantly and do not differ; this is the real mark of all dharmas". The passage above having broken 「先有今無」 tr. "existed before and do not exist now", this passage squarely sets up 「先來無」 tr. "non-existent from the first". The point lies in 「若有佛、無佛，常住不異」 tr. "whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, they abide constantly and do not differ"—this non-existence does not wait for the Buddha's speaking before it comes to be, and so it is not something the Buddha makes. Since it is from the first non-existent, then 「無六道生死，亦無眾生可拔出」 tr. "there is no birth and death in the six destinies, nor are there beings who can be pulled out". At this point it seems the earlier difficulty is pressed out again, and right here the treatise-author turns out the bodhisattva's arousing of the mind: 「一切法先空，是故菩薩於諸佛所聞諸法如是相故，發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心」 tr. "all dharmas are empty from the first; therefore the bodhisattva, because he hears in the presence of the buddhas that dharmas have such a mark, arouses the mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi"—arousing the mind is not arousing it in disregard of emptiness; it is precisely arousing it on hearing of emptiness. What he thinks is: 「菩提中亦無有法可得，亦無實定法令眾生著而不可度，但眾生癡狂顛倒故，著是虛誑法。」 tr. "Within awakening too there is no dharma that can be found, nor is there a real, definite dharma that makes beings cling so that they cannot be delivered; it is only because beings are deluded, mad, and inverted that they cling to this false and deceptive dharma." This thought contains two matters: one, that in the fruit there is nothing that can be found; two, that what beings cling to has from the first no real dharma, so they can certainly be delivered. The second matter is the ground for the arousing of the mind not retrogressing.

29. Arousing the great adornment and not turning back. 「是故菩薩發大莊嚴，不轉於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "Therefore the bodhisattva arouses the great adornment and does not turn back from anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". What he thinks: 「我必當得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，非不得；得已，用實法利益眾生；利益眾生故，眾生從顛倒得出。」 tr. "I shall certainly obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; it is not that I shall not obtain it; having obtained it, I shall benefit beings with the real dharma; because beings are benefited, beings will get out from inversion." Note how affirmative the tone of this passage is—「必當得」 tr. "shall certainly obtain", 「非不得」 tr. "it is not that I shall not obtain". The text before has all along spoken of the unfindable, and here suddenly a decisive word is spoken; this is not self-contradiction: what is unfindable is the fixed nature of dharmas; what shall certainly be obtained is the non-retrogression of practice and vow. What the two speak of is not on the same layer; if a reader uses that one to make a difficulty against this one, he is mixing layers.

30. The matching of the simile of the conjurer. 「欲明了是事故，經中說幻師譬喻」 tr. "In order to make this matter clear, the sūtra speaks the simile of the conjurer". The treatise-author matches it item by item: 「幻師即是菩薩，幻師所作園林、廬觀即是六波羅蜜等度眾生法，幻師所作象馬、男女即是菩薩所度眾生。」 tr. "The conjurer is precisely the bodhisattva; the gardens, huts, and pavilions that the conjurer makes are the six perfections and the other dharmas for delivering beings; the elephants, horses, men, and women that the conjurer makes are the beings whom the bodhisattva delivers." The three matches being fixed, he then speaks of the use of the simile: 「如幻師一身，以幻力故，幻作眾生、園林、廬觀等娛樂眾生」 tr. "as the conjurer, only one body, by the power of his conjuring conjures up beings, gardens, huts, pavilions, and the rest to entertain beings"—one body able to do many things; this shows the bodhisattva's power. Then he points out the warning of the simile: 「若幻師以所幻作事為實，於所幻人求其恩惠，即是狂人！」 tr. "If the conjurer takes what he has conjured as real and seeks favour from the people he has conjured, then he is a madman!" At the end he joins it to the dharma: 「菩薩亦如是，從諸佛聞一切法性空如幻，而以布施等利益眾生；欲求恩惠福報，即是顛倒。」 tr. "The bodhisattva is likewise: hearing from the buddhas that all dharmas are empty of nature, like an illusion, he benefits beings with giving and the rest; if he wishes to seek favour and the reward of merit, that is inversion."—what the simile weighs lies not in being able to conjure but in not seeking reward.

31. The treatise-author's third self-set question: the conjurer really exists, how can he serve as a simile. 「幻法呪術實有，幻所作物可虛。如眾生空，菩薩亦空，菩薩不化作眾生，何得為喻？」 tr. "The dharma of conjuring and spell-craft really exist; the things made by conjuring can be false. As beings are empty, the bodhisattva too is empty, and the bodhisattva does not conjure up beings; how can this serve as a simile?" This difficulty has two sections: first, in the simile the conjurer and the art of conjuring are real and the things conjured are false—real and false are clearly divided; but in the dharma the bodhisattva and beings are both empty, both sides false, and what illustrates and what is illustrated do not match. Second, the bodhisattva does not really conjure beings into being, so the matter too is not alike. The difficulty is raised most finely; it is a question directed at the method of simile itself.

32. Answer: taking a small share of likeness; the lion as a simile for the king. The treatise-author's answer falls into three sections. The first section answers in terms of the dharma: 「諸法實相中，法尚無，何況眾生！眾生異名，名為幻師，幻師實無，何以言『幻師有而所幻者無』？」 tr. "Within the real mark of all dharmas there are not even dharmas, how much less beings! Another name for beings is conjurer; the conjurer really does not exist, so why say ‘the conjurer exists and what is conjured does not exist’?"—the division of real and false set up by the one raising the difficulty does not itself hold; the conjurer too is only another name for beings, alike really non-existent. And he adds a sentence: 「如汝以幻師實有、所幻者無，聖人觀幻師及所幻物不異。」 tr. "As you take the conjurer to exist really and what is conjured to be non-existent, the sages contemplate the conjurer and the things conjured as not different." The second section answers in terms of the method of simile, and this is the essential point of the whole passage: 「以明了事故說譬喻，取其少許相似處為喻，何以盡取為難？」 tr. "A simile is spoken in order to make a matter clear, taking only a little point of likeness in it as the simile—why take the whole of it to make a difficulty?" And he gives an example as his own proof: 「如師子喻王，師子於獸中無畏，王於群下自在無難，故以為喻」 tr. "as when a lion is used as a simile for a king: the lion among the beasts is without fear, the king among his subjects is sovereign and without difficulty, and so it is used as a simile", and then asks back: 「復何可責四腳負毛為異也？」 tr. "Why then find fault over the difference of four legs and the bearing of fur?"—every simile takes one point; if one seeks sameness at every point, there is nothing in the world that can serve as a simile. The third section speaks of why this simile must be set up: 「佛說性空法，諸法皆空，猶有眾生，是故說幻為喻。」 tr. "The Buddha teaches the dharma of the emptiness of nature: all dharmas are empty, and yet there still are beings; therefore conjuring is spoken of as a simile." At the end he gathers it with a rhetorical question: 「我今說喻以破眾生，汝云何復以眾生為難？」 tr. "I now speak this simile in order to break beings; how is it that you turn round and again take beings to make a difficulty?"—the simile set up was meant to break the clinging to beings, yet the one raising the difficulty takes beings to attack it, using its material the wrong way round.

33. Subhūti asks about the path of bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands. 「爾時，須菩提白佛言：『世尊！何等是成就眾生、淨佛國土道？』」 tr. "At that time, Subhūti said to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! What is the path of bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands?’" Here the questioner changes back to Subhūti. Through the whole passage since Śāriputra took up the questioning, only here does it return to Subhūti, and the topic too turns from 「習般若」 tr. "training in prajñā" into 「成就眾生」 tr. "bringing beings to accomplishment". The question of the First Part is practice for oneself; this question is transforming others—the whole second half of the unit is opened by this one question.

34. The treatise-author explains why he asks. 「須菩提雖知菩薩道，以中說甚深性空故，聽者生疑，是故發問。」 tr. "Though Subhūti knew the bodhisattva path, because the very deep emptiness of nature is spoken of within it and those who listen give rise to doubt, he therefore asked." This explanation matters: the one asking is not in doubt himself; he asks for the listeners. Wherever the treatise meets a place of ‘already knowing and yet asking again’, it mostly explains it this way—the question is not for himself but for the assembly. Here the reader can be spared one layer of misunderstanding: there is no need to think that Subhūti lost track between before and after.

35. The Buddha answers: the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas are precisely the bodhisattva path. 「菩薩從初發心，行六波羅蜜乃至十八不共法，是菩薩道；行是道，成就眾生、淨佛國土。」 tr. "The bodhisattva, from the first arousing of the mind, practises the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas; this is the bodhisattva path; practising this path, he brings beings to accomplishment and purifies buddha-lands." The answer is most plain and down-to-earth: he does not set up separately a path of bringing beings to accomplishment; practising the bodhisattva path is precisely it. So bringing beings to accomplishment is not another undertaking outside the six perfections; it is where the practice of the six perfections naturally arrives. The four Chinese characters 「從初發心」 tr. "from the first arousing of the mind" also may not be passed over: it is not that only on reaching some stage can one bring beings to accomplishment.

36. Subhūti asks again: how does one practise this dharma and bring beings to accomplishment. 「云何行是法成就眾生？」 tr. "How does one practise this dharma and bring beings to accomplishment?" The previous question asked the name of the path; this question asks the reality of its practice. One name, one reality—the way of asking has a sequence.

37. The treatise-author lays bare the intent of his question. 「須菩提意：若是法性空，眾生亦性空，云何可得成就？」 tr. "Subhūti's meaning is: if this dharma is empty of nature, and beings too are empty of nature, how then can they be brought to accomplishment?" Once again the treatise-author supplies the mind of the one asking. This supplement is most crucial—if it were not supplied, the reader would think Subhūti only wanted a set of operating details; once it is supplied, one knows that what is asked is still the mutual obstruction of emptiness and practice. The reason the whole passage below must speak from the most concrete place is just this.

38. The Buddha's answer and the explanation of 「方便者」 tr. "the skilful means is this" . The Buddha answers: 「菩薩以方便力故，以布施法教化眾生，不教令著布施以為真實。」 tr. "By the power of skilful means, the bodhisattva teaches and transforms beings with the dharma of giving, but does not teach them to cling to giving as real." The answer is only this one sentence, and the treatise-author at once explains the two Chinese characters 「方便」 tr. "skilful means": 「方便者，菩薩語眾生：『汝曹，善男子！來布施，莫著是布施。』如經中說。」 tr. "The skilful means is this: the bodhisattva tells beings: ‘You good men! Come and give, but do not cling to this giving.’ As is said in the sūtra."—skilful means is set down as two sentences: one sentence urging giving, one sentence warning against clinging. Next, saying why clinging must be warned against, the treatise-author lays out a chain of falling: 「眾生以布施生貴樂處，貴樂因緣故生我憍慢，我憍慢增長故破善法，破善法故墮三惡道」 tr. "because of giving, beings are born in places of nobility and happiness; because of the causes and conditions of nobility and happiness they give rise to the pride of self and arrogance; because the pride of self and arrogance increase, they destroy wholesome dharmas; because they destroy wholesome dharmas, they fall into the three evil destinies". Giving is a wholesome cause, yet its retribution becomes, on the contrary, a condition for the evil destinies, and what lies between is only the single Chinese character for clinging. Hence 「是故菩薩先教言：『莫著布施！』」 tr. "therefore the bodhisattva first teaches: ‘Do not cling to giving!’" The text below speaks of its right use: 「但因是布施、修持戒等善法，皆迴是法向涅槃。」 tr. "Only, by means of this giving, and by cultivating the keeping of morality and the other wholesome dharmas, he turns all these dharmas toward nirvāṇa." And he explains why: 「是性空諸法實相，不可取相。」 tr. "This real mark of all dharmas, which is the emptiness of nature, cannot be grasped as a mark." At the end he concludes: 「如是菩薩方便力故教化眾生，令得須陀洹果乃至佛道。」 tr. "Thus by the power of skilful means the bodhisattva teaches and transforms beings, causing them to obtain the fruit of srota-āpanna and so on up to the Buddha path."

39. Practising it himself and also teaching others—practising giving in four ways, he is born into noble clans. This passage explains why the bodhisattva must himself practise giving, listing four causes in all. The first cause is to stop people's doubt: 「若不自施，或有人言：『若施是好法，何不自行？』是故菩薩先自布施。」 tr. "If he does not himself give, perhaps someone will say: ‘If giving is a good dharma, why do you not practise it yourself?’ Therefore the bodhisattva first himself gives." The second cause is his own mind's love and delight: 「菩薩深愛善法，布施是初門，是故行是布施。」 tr. "The bodhisattva deeply loves wholesome dharmas, and giving is the first gate, so he practises this giving." The third cause is what kindness and compassion require: 「菩薩深慈悲眾生，以慈悲心雖大，而不能充滿眾生，是故先行布施，令其心濡，可以引導。」 tr. "The bodhisattva has deep kindness and compassion for beings; though his mind of kindness and compassion is great, it cannot fill beings, so he first practises giving, so that their minds become soft and they can be guided."—the two Chinese characters 「心濡」 tr. "minds become soft" deserve the most attention: the use of giving does not stop at relieving want; it lies in making the recipient's mind soft and able to be guided. The fourth cause is the use of retribution: 「布施因緣生於四姓及作轉輪王；以四攝法攝取眾生，漸漸以三乘法令得涅槃。」 tr. "Through the causes and conditions of giving, one is born in the four castes and becomes a wheel-turning king; with the four means of gathering he gathers in beings, and little by little with the dharma of the three vehicles causes them to obtain nirvāṇa." The four causes listed, the treatise-author further counts out the four modes of practising giving: giving by oneself, 「教他布施」 tr. "teaching others to give", 「讚歎布施法」 tr. "praising the dharma of giving", and 「歡喜讚歎行布施者」 tr. "joyfully praising those who practise giving"; and he explains the mind behind each: teaching others and praising come from 「深愛布施，見同行故」 tr. "deeply loving giving, and seeing others practising it together with him", and joyful praise comes from 「憐愍心於眾生，若見修福，則為之歡喜」 tr. "a mind of pity toward beings: if he sees them cultivating merit, he is glad for them", and he makes it clear with a simile: 「如慈父見子行善，心則歡喜。」 tr. "As a kind father, seeing his son do good, is glad at heart." At the end he concludes its retribution: 「是人四種行布施，生剎利等貴姓中。」 tr. "This person practises giving in four ways, and is born among noble clans such as the kṣatriya."

40. Having gathered them in by giving, he teaches them little by little; he is constantly a wheel-turning sage king and is mostly born in the desire realm. This passage, following the retribution of the previous passage, speaks of its use. First it speaks of the sequence: 「以布施攝已，漸漸教令持戒、禪定等，乃至令得辟支佛道。」 tr. "Having gathered them in by giving, little by little he teaches them keeping morality, meditative concentration, and the rest, and so on up to causing them to obtain the path of the pratyekabuddha." Next it speaks of one kind of difficulty—those who have aroused the great mind but are afraid of the long duration: 「或見眾生有大心者，有少許慈悲心，是人怖畏生死長遠故，其心懈退」 tr. "or he sees among beings one who has the great mind and has a little mind of kindness and compassion; this person, because he fears the long duration of birth and death, becomes slack in mind and retrogresses". The bodhisattva's words to treat this are: 「咄！眾生！阿耨多羅三藐三菩提易得，汝等何以為難？眾生所著處，此中無有定實法能遮者、難解者。」 tr. "Ho! Beings! Anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is easy to obtain; why do you take it to be hard? In the places to which beings cling, there is no definite, real dharma that can obstruct, nor any that is hard to undo."—saying 「易得」 tr. "easy to obtain" is not a light promise; it points out that the reason one feels it hard is only that one holds there is a real dharma as an obstacle; since the obstacle is not real, the hardness too is not real. Then he urges them to arouse the mind: 「汝等當發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，既自得度，復當度脫眾生！」 tr. "You should arouse the mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; having yourselves been delivered, you should also deliver beings!" The treatise-author at once explains the four Chinese characters 「度脫眾生」 tr. "deliver beings": 「菩薩自乘大乘得度，以三乘隨眾生所應度而度之」 tr. "the bodhisattva himself rides the Great Vehicle and is delivered, and with the three vehicles delivers beings according to what each should be delivered by", and divides the two benefits, of self and of others: 「既自利益，復利益他人。利益他者，既自作佛，而以三乘度脫眾生。」 tr. "Having himself obtained benefit, he also benefits others. Benefiting others means this: having himself become a Buddha, he delivers beings with the three vehicles." At the end he speaks of the mark of his places of birth: 「若菩薩能如是行般若波羅蜜者，從初發心，終不墮三惡道，常作轉輪聖王」 tr. "if a bodhisattva can thus practise prajñāpāramitā, then from the first arousing of the mind he never falls into the three evil destinies, and is constantly a wheel-turning sage king"; and he explains why he is born among humans in the desire realm—each of three places has its reason for being impossible to transform: 「無色界中無形故，不可教化」 tr. "because in the formless realm there is no shape, they cannot be taught and transformed", 「色界中多味著禪定樂，無厭惡心故難化」 tr. "within the form realm they mostly relish the pleasure of meditative concentration and have no mind of aversion, so they are hard to transform", 「亦不生欲天。所以者何？著妙五欲多故難化」 tr. "nor is he born among the gods of the desire realm. For what reason? Because they cling too much to the subtle and wonderful five desires and are hard to transform". So he concludes: 「在人中，世世以四事攝眾生故，作轉輪聖王。」 tr. "Among humans, because life after life he gathers in beings with the four things, he is a wheel-turning sage king." The line of reasoning of this section is: choosing the place of birth so as to go to the ground where beings can be transformed.

41. The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: according to what he plants. 「此中佛自說因緣：『隨其所種，得大果報等。』如經中說布施相。」 tr. "Here the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: ‘According to what he plants, he obtains great retribution, and so forth.’ As the mark of giving is spoken of in the sūtra." The treatise-author does not unfold it further here, stating plainly that its details are already seen in the sūtra text. Wherever the treatise says 「如經中說」 tr. "as is spoken of in the sūtra", it is pointing the reader back to the sūtra passage; it is not abridging and leaving it undiscussed.

42. Morality born from giving—the two kinds of breaking morality. This passage is the first example of the six perfections giving birth to one another. The bodhisattva, 「行檀波羅蜜時，見眾生破戒」 tr. "when practising dānapāramitā, sees beings breaking morality", and his words are: 「汝曹以因緣不具足故破戒，我當給汝所須，令無乏少。」 tr. "You break morality because your causes and conditions are not complete; I shall supply what you need, so that you lack nothing." The treatise-author at once distinguishes the occasions faced: 「破戒人有二種：一者、持戒因緣不具足故，如貧窮人，飢寒急故作賊；二者、持戒因緣雖具足，以習惡心故，好行惡事。」 tr. "People who break morality are of two kinds: first, because the causes and conditions for keeping morality are not complete, as poor people, pressed by hunger and cold, become thieves; second, though the causes and conditions for keeping morality are complete, because of a mind habituated to evil, they like to do evil things." The distinction of the two kinds is most important—what giving can rescue is only the former kind. So the text below plainly limits the object of giving: 「貧窮破戒者，菩薩語之言：『汝但持戒，我當給汝所須！汝等住持戒中，漸漸以三乘而得度脫。』」 tr. "To one who is poor and breaks morality, the bodhisattva says: ‘Just keep morality, I shall supply what you need! Abiding in the keeping of morality, you will little by little be delivered by the three vehicles.’" At the end it sets up its name: 「是名『因布施生戒』。」 tr. "This is named ‘morality born from giving’."

43. Calming anger through giving. 「眾生以不如意事故瞋」 tr. "Beings become angry because of things not going as they wish"; the treatise-author divides this into two conditions: 「若以求物不如意故瞋，人不稱意故瞋。」 tr. "Either they are angry because what they seek does not go as they wish, or they are angry because people do not suit their wishes." What the former seeks lies in things; what the latter seeks lies in people. For the former, 「菩薩住檀中，隨其意而給足之」 tr. "the bodhisattva, abiding in giving, supplies and satisfies them according to their wishes"—it can be resolved by giving. The latter cannot be resolved by things, and so there is the question of the next passage.

44. The treatise-author's fourth self-set question: what of those whom people do not suit. 「若貧乏者給施令不瞋，可爾；人不得稱意，惱之令瞋，復云何？」 tr. "If someone is poor and in want, giving to him so that he is not angry is acceptable; but when people cannot suit his wishes and vex him so that he becomes angry, what then?" This question arises from the division of the previous passage, and where it asks is most precise: what giving can supply is things, but the cause of anger lies in people not suiting one's wishes, which things cannot reach.

45. Answer: the wish-fulfilling jewel and the samādhi of kindness. 「以如意珠施之，則使人皆稱意。」 tr. "Giving him a wish-fulfilling jewel makes every person suit his wishes." How can it? 「珠之威德故，人無瞋者」 tr. "Because of the majestic virtue of the jewel, people have no anger." The treatise-author takes one more matter as a comparison: 「如行者入慈三昧故，人無瞋者。」 tr. "As when a practitioner enters the samādhi of kindness, people have no anger."—the two matters share one principle: it is not satisfying what each person seeks one by one; it is that the place where he is naturally makes people not give rise to anger. At the end he cites the sūtra's words to conclude: 「少何因緣故瞋？我當令汝所少具足。」 tr. "For lack of what causes and conditions are you angry? I shall make complete what you lack."

46. Further: do not receive great sin for the sake of false and deceptive things. The treatise-author brings out a second road of treatment, speaking not of supplying to the full but of the object of anger: 「一切法性皆空無所有，汝所瞋因緣亦皆虛誑無定」 tr. "the nature of all dharmas is empty and without anything existent; the causes and conditions of your anger too are all false, deceptive, and indefinite". Since they are indefinite, the next question is most weighty: 「汝云何以虛誑事故，瞋罵、加害乃至奪命？」 tr. "How can you, for the sake of false and deceptive things, angrily revile, harm, and even take life?" Angrily reviling, harming, and taking life grow heavier in order, yet their cause is alike false and deceptive. So its effect too is stated at its heaviest: 「起此重罪業故，墮三惡道，受無量苦。」 tr. "Because of committing such heavy deeds of sin, one falls into the three evil destinies and receives immeasurable suffering." At the end he gathers it with an admonition: 「汝莫以虛誑無實事故，而受大罪！」 tr. "Do not, for the sake of false, deceptive, and unreal things, receive great sin!"—what is to be regretted is not the matter one is angry at but the price paid for that matter.

47. The simile of the haunted room. This simile is set up by the treatise-author himself, the longest narrative of the whole unit, and one must look at its design section by section. The opening: in the mountains there is a Buddhist monastery with a separate room, where a ghost harasses people, and the men of the path all abandon the room and leave. A guest monk comes, the weina has him stay, and first tells him the facts: 「此房中有鬼神喜惱人，能住中者住。」 tr. "In this room there is a ghost-spirit that likes to harass people; if you can stay in it, stay." What the guest monk relies on is 「持戒力、多聞故」 tr. "the power of keeping morality and much learning", and his words are: 「小鬼何所能？我能伏之！」 tr. "What can a little ghost do? I can subdue it!"—relying on virtue and taking the enemy lightly; this is the first foreshadowing. At dusk another monk comes, the weina also has him stay in this room and also tells him first, and what that man says is the same: 「小鬼何所能？我當伏之！」 tr. "What can a little ghost do? I shall subdue it!"—what the two rely on is the same and what they say is the same; this is the second foreshadowing. Then comes the meeting of the matter: 「先入者，閉戶，端坐待鬼；後來者，夜闇，打戶求入。」 tr. "The one who had gone in first shut the door and sat upright waiting for the ghost; the one who came later, the night being dark, knocked at the door seeking to come in." One guarding, one knocking, each originally in the right, yet 「先入者謂為是鬼，不為開戶」 tr. "the one who had gone in first took him for the ghost and did not open the door for him"—the misrecognition arises from here. From here on, step by step they provoke each other: 「後來者極力打戶。在內道人以力拒之，外者得勝，排戶得入；內者打之，外者亦極力熟打。」 tr. "The one who came later knocked at the door with all his strength. The man of the path inside held it back with force; the one outside won, pushed open the door, and got in; the one inside struck him, and the one outside also struck back fiercely with all his strength." At daybreak the truth shows itself: 「至明旦相見，乃是故舊同學，各相愧謝。」 tr. "When they saw each other the next morning, they were old fellow-students, and each apologised to the other in shame." At the end it closes with the bystanders: 「眾人雲集，笑而怪之。」 tr. "The people gathered like clouds, laughing and finding it strange." In the whole simile there is not one ghost, and yet they fight the whole night through—what is fought is, from beginning to end, only one misrecognition.

48. Beings are likewise—vainly grasping at marks leads to fighting and strife; those in the eight difficulties cannot be transformed. The treatise-author joins the simile to the dharma: 「眾生亦如是，五眾無我、無人，空取相致鬪諍」 tr. "Beings are likewise: within the five aggregates there is no self and no person, yet vainly grasping at marks leads to fighting and strife", and at once tests it by one matter: 「若支解在地，但有骨肉，無人、無我。」 tr. "If the body is dismembered upon the ground, there are only bones and flesh; there is no person and no self."—the self over which they contend, when its body is analysed and it is sought, is not found. So the bodhisattva's words are: 「汝莫於根本空中鬪諍作罪」 tr. "Do not, within what is empty at the root, fight and commit sin", and he says how heavy the loss is: 「鬪諍故，人身尚不可得，何況值佛！」 tr. "Because of fighting, even a human body is unfindable, how much less meeting a Buddha!" Then he sets up the two matters hard to obtain: 「當知人身難得，佛世難值，好時易過；一墮諸難，永不可治！」 tr. "You should know that a human body is hard to obtain, the age of a Buddha hard to meet, and a good time easily passes; once you fall into the difficulties, you can never be cured!" The text below lists, place by place, the difficulties in which one cannot be transformed: those in the hells, 「燒炙屠割，何可教化」 tr. "burned, roasted, butchered, and cut—how can they be taught and transformed"; animals, 「共相殘害，亦不可化」 tr. "harming and killing one another, they also cannot be transformed"; hungry ghosts, 「飢渴熱惱，亦不可化」 tr. "hungry, thirsty, hot, and vexed, they also cannot be transformed"; those in the heavens of long life, 「千萬佛過，著禪定味故，皆不覺知」 tr. "thousands of myriads of buddhas pass by, and because they cling to the flavour of meditative concentration, they are wholly unaware and do not know"; those in the border lands, 「如安息國諸邊地生者，皆是人身，愚不可教化」 tr. "as people born in the land of Anxi and the other border lands, though all have human bodies, are dull and cannot be taught and transformed"; those born in the Middle Country yet lacking faculties, 「或六情不具、或四支不完、或盲聾瘖啞、或不識義理」 tr. "some lack the six faculties, some have the four limbs incomplete, some are blind, deaf, mute, and dumb, some do not recognise meaning"; the last difficulty is most to be feared—those whose faculties are complete but whose views are wrong: 「或時六情具足、諸根通利，而深著邪見、言無罪福，不可教化。」 tr. "Or sometimes, though the six faculties are complete and the faculties penetrating and keen, they cling deeply to wrong views and say there is no sin and no merit, and cannot be taught and transformed." This last kind differs from the several kinds before: what the former lack lies in the body; what these lack lies in view; so even having a human body and good faculties they still cannot be transformed. At the end he gathers it with concluding words: 「好時易過，墮諸難中不可得度。」 tr. "A good time easily passes; falling into the difficulties, one cannot be delivered."

49. The other perfections are not explained again. 「餘波羅蜜，如經中廣說故，不復解之。」 tr. "The other perfections, because they are widely spoken of in the sūtra, are not explained again." The treatise-author states plainly why he stops his brush here: the sūtra text is already broad; it is not that the meaning has been abridged. Statements of this kind are seen often in the treatise, and the reader should not think that an explanation is missing.

50. The treatise-author's fifth self-set question: why speak again of the six perfections. 「住檀波羅蜜行五波羅蜜訖，何以復更說六波羅蜜？」 tr. "Abiding in dānapāramitā and practising the five perfections has been finished; why speak again of the six perfections?" Where it asks lies in the repetition in the text: earlier, within the one perfection of dāna, the other five perfections were gathered in and practised, and that was finished; why does the sūtra text then speak once more of the six perfections all together?

51. Answer: within one perfection the five are made complete, and now all are spoken of together at one time. 「上一度中次第具足五，今則一時總說。」 tr. "Above, within one perfection the five were made complete in sequence; now they are spoken of all together at one time." One sentence divides into two forms: the former, within one perfection, gathers in the rest in sequence; the latter lists the six perfections together and speaks of them at the same time. The dharma spoken of in the two is the same, but the form in which the dharma is presented differs, so it is not a repetition.

52. Further: now the thirty-seven limbs of the path and the fruits of the paths are spoken of throughout. 「先但說六波羅蜜，今通說三十七品及諸道果。」 tr. "Earlier only the six perfections were spoken of; now the thirty-seven limbs of the path and the fruits of the paths are spoken of throughout." This is the second reason, speaking of the dharmas contained: what was spoken of before stopped at the six perfections; now it includes also the thirty-seven limbs and the fruits. The former answer concerns form, this answer concerns measure; the two answers stand together and do not hinder each other.

53. The treatise-author's sixth self-set question: the thirty-seven limbs come forth from the mind of themselves, so how can their causes and conditions be given. 「三十七品自從心出，云何是因緣可與？」 tr. "The thirty-seven limbs of the path come forth from the mind of themselves; how can it be said that their causes and conditions can be given?" This question is most fine: giving can give people clothing and food, but the thirty-seven limbs of the path are dharmas of the mind-ground; dharmas of the mind have no shape, so how can they be called causes and conditions that can be given?

54. Answer: supplying the requisites for sitting in meditation. The treatise-author's answer is set down wholly on the two Chinese characters 「因緣」 tr. "causes and conditions": what is given is not the limbs of the path but the conditions that help bring the limbs of the path to accomplishment. He lists them item by item: 「菩薩供給坐禪者衣服、飲食、醫藥、法杖、禪毱、禪鎮」 tr. "the bodhisattva supplies those who sit in meditation with clothing, food and drink, medicine, a Dharma staff, a meditation ball, and a meditation prop"—clothing, food, and medicine are what sustain the body; the Dharma staff, the meditation ball, and the meditation prop are tools for sitting in meditation that drive away sleep. Next he comes to the conditions of persons: 「令得好師教照，令得好弟子受化」 tr. "so that they get a good teacher to instruct and look after them, so that they get good disciples to receive their transformation"—teacher and disciples are also causes and conditions. Further he comes to the tools of contemplation and the persons who teach the dharma: 「與骨人令觀，與禪經，令人為說禪法」 tr. "he gives them a skeleton so that they may contemplate, gives them the meditation scriptures, and asks people to expound the dharma of meditation for them". At the end he sums up: 「如是等三十七助道法因緣。」 tr. "Such things as these are the causes and conditions of the thirty-seven dharmas that aid the path." The principle of the whole answer is only one sentence: the dharmas of the mind cannot be given, but the conditions that the dharmas of the mind depend on can be given.

55. Further he asks people to expound the dharma of the Mahāyāna. The highest layer of giving is here: not only giving them requisites, but further 「令人為說摩訶衍法」 tr. "asking people to expound the dharma of the Mahāyāna for them". The words spoken have three sections: first, giving the things and removing their doubt—「汝等所須衣服、飲食，盡來取之，便是汝物，莫自疑難！」 tr. "The clothing, food, and drink that you need, come and take all of it; these are your things, do not doubt or hesitate yourselves!" Next, teaching them to practise themselves and also transform others—「汝等得是物已，自行六波羅蜜，亦教化他人令行六波羅蜜。」 tr. "Having obtained these things, practise the six perfections yourselves, and also teach and transform others, causing them to practise the six perfections." Last, warning them against clinging—「是布施性皆空，汝等莫著是施及以果報。」 tr. "The nature of this giving is all empty; do not cling to this giving or to its retribution." The order of the three sections is of a piece with the 「來布施，莫著是布施」 tr. "come and give, but do not cling to this giving" above: every giving must end in teaching not to cling.

56. Beings obtain this emptiness of nature and little by little obtain awakening. 「眾生得是性空，漸漸得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，入無餘涅槃。」 tr. "Beings, obtaining this emptiness of nature, little by little obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi and enter nirvāṇa without remainder." The two Chinese characters 「漸漸」 tr. "little by little" deserve attention: from receiving one garment and one meal up to entering nirvāṇa without remainder, in between is a road of gradual advance, not reached in one leap. The whole passage, from 「以布施法教化眾生」 tr. "teaches and transforms beings with the dharma of giving" to here, is joined head to tail.

57. As giving, being the head, gives birth to the five perfections, so it is with the rest. 「如布施為首生五波羅蜜，餘波羅蜜亦如是。」 tr. "As giving, being the head, gives birth to the five perfections, so it is with the other perfections." This last sentence extends the examples given before: everything said earlier—morality born from giving, anger calmed through giving, the conditions for the limbs of the path born from giving—is only one example with giving as the head; each of the other five perfections, with itself as the head, gives birth to the rest, and the principle is the same. In one sentence the meaning of the whole passage extends to the six perfections, and the Last Part stops here.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「照明」 tr. "illumination" and 「具足」 tr. "completeness" as two stages. The treatise-author decides it as soon as he opens his mouth: 「照明、具足是一義。」 tr. "Illumination and completeness are one meaning." The reason the sūtra text speaks of them separately is that the faces they refer to differ—when one does not definitely find and also does not depart from the three things, it is called illumination; when the six perfections come together and one can practise, it is called completeness. If it is read as first illumination and afterwards completeness, or as illumination being shallow and completeness deep, then the passage below, 「離是二邊」 tr. "being free of these two sides", has nothing to be tied to.

Do not read 「不壞色」 tr. "not destroying form" as maintaining the real existence of form. What the treatise-author blocks is the verdict-like kind of breaking in 「不言是色無常，不言是色空無所有」 tr. "not saying that this form is impermanent, not saying that this form is empty and without anything existent"; it is not a refusal to speak of emptiness. So right after it, the causes and conditions the Buddha himself states are still 「是色性無故」 tr. "because the nature of this form is non-existent", and at the end it still returns to 「若得是色相性空，即是習般若波羅蜜」 tr. "if one obtains the emptiness of nature of this mark of form, that is training in prajñāpāramitā". The sickness of destroying lies in using breaking as a method; not destroying is not being non-empty; it is not taking emptiness by breaking.

Do not read 「不隨色」 tr. "not following form" only as not following what the eye sees. The treatise-author speaks of not following in three layers: not grasping at marks as the eye sees is one layer; not making the judgements 「若常、若無常、若苦、若樂」 tr. "permanent, impermanent, suffering, happiness" is one layer; not setting up causes that give birth, such as 「從世性中來」 tr. "comes from the nature of the world" and 「從微塵中來」 tr. "comes from atoms", is yet another layer. If one holds only to the first layer, then contemplating impermanence and searching for an original source both slip through the net, whereas the treatise-author says plainly 「常、無常等皆非色實相」 tr. "permanence, impermanence, and the rest are all not the real mark of form".

Do not read 「無取般若波羅蜜」 tr. "the prajñāpāramitā without grasping" as a gate of dharma that can be held and kept. Right after setting up the name, the treatise-author at once loosens it himself with one sentence: 「無取尚不可得，何況般若等諸法！」 tr. "Not grasping itself is unfindable, how much less prajñā and the other dharmas!" If one clings to not grasping as something attained, that is precisely the grasping it is meant to send away. This carries on in one meaning from ‘not finding even a little fixed nature’ in the earlier passage.

Do not read 「一切法無性」 tr. "all dharmas are without nature" as there being neither ordinary nor sage. The Buddha answers this difficulty with only one sentence: 「一切法雖無根本定相，但凡人顛倒故著。」 tr. "Though all dharmas have no fixed mark that is their root, ordinary people cling because of inversion." The division of ordinary and sage lies in inversion and non-inversion, not in there being, in dharmas, a separate ordinary nature or holy nature. If because of being without nature one abolishes the ordinary and the sage, then the bodhisattva's 「不懈不退」 tr. "not being slack and not retrogressing" and beings' 「著是陰、界、入」 tr. "clinging to these aggregates, elements, and sense-fields" in the text below would both have no way to be spoken of.

Do not read the 「六法」 tr. "six dharmas" the treatise-author speaks of as the six perfections. The first sentence of the treatise-author's answer to the second question is precisely 「此中不說波羅蜜」 tr. "here it is not the pāramitās that are spoken of"; what is pointed to is the initial dharmas of teaching giving to the stingy, and so on up to teaching wisdom to the deluded. If they are confused with the six perfections, then the phrase 「更有勝法」 tr. "there is still a superior dharma" becomes a claim that the six perfections are insufficient, which runs against the whole of this treatise.

Do not read the difficulty 「無所得是有所得」 tr. "is nothing to be attained something to be attained" as the Buddha granting that there is attaining. The Buddha's answer is 「不見眾生及法，但諸因緣和合，假名眾生」 tr. "he does not see beings and dharmas; it is only the coming together of causes and conditions that is provisionally named a being"—it takes away the one who attains; it does not acknowledge what is attained. The reason the one raising the difficulty can turn nothing to be attained into something to be attained is precisely that there still remains in his mind a really existent person who attains; the answer lies right there.

Do not read 「先來無」 tr. "non-existent from the first" as annihilation. The treatise-author sets up these words to break the fault of 「先有今無」 tr. "existing before and not existing now", and what he sets up is 「若有佛、無佛，常住不異，是諸法實相」 tr. "whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, they abide constantly and do not differ; this is the real mark of all dharmas"—what is from the first non-existent does not wait to be extinguished, so it is not annihilation. If it is read as annihilation, then the next sentence, 「菩薩於諸佛所聞諸法如是相故，發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心」 tr. "the bodhisattva, because he hears in the presence of the buddhas that dharmas have such a mark, arouses the mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi", would have nothing from which to arise.

Do not read the simile of the conjurer as meaning that those the bodhisattva delivers are all set up in vain and need not be delivered. The point the simile takes, the treatise-author has already stated plainly, lies in 「若幻師以所幻作事為實，於所幻人求其恩惠，即是狂人」 tr. "if the conjurer takes what he has conjured as real and seeks favour from the people he has conjured, then he is a madman"—what is warned against is seeking reward; it is not a call to refrain from acting. So where it is joined to the dharma, what is said is 「而以布施等利益眾生；欲求恩惠福報，即是顛倒」 tr. "he benefits beings with giving and the rest; if he wishes to seek favour and the reward of merit, that is inversion"; the one matter of benefiting beings is not sent away.

Do not read 「取其少許相似處為喻」 tr. "taking only a little point of likeness as the simile" as meaning a simile can be used at will. The treatise-author sets up this rule to answer the difficulty 「幻師實有、所幻者無」 tr. "the conjurer really exists and what is conjured does not exist", and proves it himself with the lion as a simile for the king: what is taken is the one point of fearlessness and of being sovereign and without difficulty, and so there is no need to find fault over 「四腳負毛」 tr. "four legs and the bearing of fur". This says that a simile has a point it takes; it does not say that a simile need not correspond; one who uses a simile should first know where its point lies.

Do not read 「阿耨多羅三藐三菩提易得」 tr. "anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is easy to obtain" as a light promise. These words are spoken to those who, 「怖畏生死長遠故，其心懈退」 tr. "because they fear the long duration of birth and death, become slack in mind and retrogress", and their ground is in the next sentence: 「眾生所著處，此中無有定實法能遮者、難解者。」 tr. "In the places to which beings cling, there is no definite, real dharma that can obstruct, nor any that is hard to undo." What is easy is that there is no real obstacle to block; it is not that what is practised need not be long. If one leaves the next sentence and takes only the two Chinese characters 「易得」 tr. "easy to obtain", it would run against the meaning of long practice spoken of throughout the whole treatise.

Do not read the passage on the eight difficulties as talk of fate. The reason the treatise-author lists the difficulties from the hells up to wrong views is that it follows on from fighting—「鬪諍故，人身尚不可得，何況值佛」 tr. "because of fighting, even a human body is unfindable, how much less meeting a Buddha". His intent lies in urging that the present time must not be lost, and so the concluding words are 「好時易過」 tr. "a good time easily passes". The last difficulty especially deserves attention: those who, 「六情具足、諸根通利，而深著邪見、言無罪福」 tr. "though the six faculties are complete and the faculties penetrating and keen, cling deeply to wrong views and say there is no sin and no merit", also cannot be transformed—from which it can be seen that the difficulty lies not only in circumstance but also in view.

Do not read the answer to 「三十七品自從心出」 tr. "the thirty-seven limbs of the path come forth from the mind of themselves" as meaning that the limbs of the path can be given by another. What the treatise-author answers is from beginning to end 「因緣」 tr. "causes and conditions"—clothing, food and drink, medicine, a Dharma staff, a meditation ball, a meditation prop; a good teacher, good disciples; a skeleton, the meditation scriptures, people who expound the dharma—all are conditions that help bring it to accomplishment. The dharmas of the mind must still be cultivated oneself; what is given is the outer conditions on which the cultivation of these dharmas of the mind depends.

Bearing on Practice

Take 「不決定得是布施等三事，亦不離是三事」 tr. "not definitely finding the three things of giving and the rest, and yet not departing from these three things" and examine by it your own mind when you do a good deed. To do it and think that the matter certainly exists, that there certainly is a person who receives, that there certainly is merit—this is definitely finding; to do it and think that since everything is empty anyway, doing or not doing makes no difference—this is departing. Neither failing needs to wait until it has been argued out in principle; right at the time of doing the matter one can examine oneself: is the mind stuck, or has it slid away?

Take 「照明、具足是一義」 tr. "illumination and completeness are one meaning" and reflect by it on how you imagine ‘progress’. The most common illusion in practice is to break one matter into several steps of a ladder and then fret over which step one is on. These words of the treatise-author can serve as an antidote: what are called illumination and completeness are from the first two faces of one matter, not two stretches of road.

Take 「不如眼見色取相生著」 tr. "not, as the eye sees form, grasping at marks and giving rise to clinging" and train by it in not following in the present moment. What this sentence points to is very near and does not wait for entering absorption: the moment the eye touches an object, the mark has already been grasped and clinging has already arisen, and in between there is no gap. So the place to apply effort lies not in regretting after the event but in recognising, at the first touch, that this road is 「隨」 tr. "following". To recognise it is already not wholly to follow.

Take 「常、無常等皆非色實相」 tr. "permanence, impermanence, and the rest are all not the real mark of form" and check by it the bias of your contemplative practice. Those who have long cultivated the contemplation of impermanence easily take impermanence as the ultimate view. These words of the treatise-author do not abolish the contemplation of impermanence; they say that it may not be clung to as the real mark. To use the contemplation to treat clinging to permanence is acceptable; to make a further layer of clinging out of the impermanence obtained by contemplation must again be sent away.

Take 「無取尚不可得」 tr. "not grasping itself is unfindable" and examine by it the dharma you hold on to. Whoever, applying effort, feels he has already let go, already grasps at nothing—this sentence is said precisely for him. Once 「無取」 tr. "not grasping" becomes the one thing kept in the mind, it is already grasping. Here there is no other method; only look once more at what it is that you are keeping.

Take 「為愛著眾生故說空，為取相著空眾生故說有」 tr. "for the sake of beings who love and cling he teaches emptiness, for the sake of beings who grasp at marks and cling to emptiness he teaches existence" and weigh by it your speaking of the Dharma to others. One who, speaking the Dharma to others, can go only one way is mostly so not because the Dharma has a fixed teaching but because he himself is familiar with only one way. See whether the other's sickness lies in clinging to existence or in clinging to emptiness, and then decide which side to speak—this is the use of the two truths, not a trick of expedient skill.

Take 「來布施，莫著是布施」 tr. "come and give, but do not cling to this giving" as the two-line formula for all wholesome practice. The first line accomplishes the matter, the second guards the mind; neither can be lacking. With only the first line, giving becomes a cause of arrogance—the treatise-author has already laid out that chain: nobility and happiness, arrogance, destroying wholesome dharmas, falling into the evil destinies. With only the second line, the matter is not accomplished.

Take 「令其心濡，可以引導」 tr. "so that their minds become soft and they can be guided" and reassess by it the use of giving. The most real function of giving does not stop at relieving want; it lies in making the recipient's mind soft enough to receive teaching. So in forming bonds with people there is no need to hurry to teach the Dharma; when the mind is not yet soft, what is said does not go in.

Take 「破戒人有二種」 tr. "people who break morality are of two kinds" and learn by it to distinguish the occasions faced. Those who break it because their causes and conditions are not complete—giving to them is enough; those who break it from a mind habituated to evil—giving to them is of no use. Whoever wishes to help people should first divide these two kinds—use the wrong medicine and not only is there no result, one may also wrongly think the person cannot be saved.

Take 「汝云何以虛誑事故，瞋罵、加害乃至奪命」 tr. "how can you, for the sake of false and deceptive things, angrily revile, harm, and even take life" and stop by it a moment's anger. When anger arises there is no need first to go and prove that all dharmas are empty; only look at how much reality the matter you are angry at will still have after three days or three months. What one is angry at is false and deceptive, while the retribution received is the real three evil destinies—once this account is reckoned, anger lessens of itself.

Take the simile of the haunted room and look by it at the times you contend with others. Two people who kept morality and had much learning fought each other the whole night, only because each took the other for a ghost. In the midst of contention what should be asked first is not who is right but ‘is the object I am now so sure of something I have put there myself’. Seeing each other at daybreak they at once apologised in shame, from which it can be seen that what they fought over had from the first no reality.

Take 「好時易過」 tr. "a good time easily passes" and spur by it today's diligence. The treatise-author lists the eight difficulties not to make people afraid but to make people know how precious the present time is—complete faculties, right view, and meeting the Buddha's Dharma: to have the three together is very hard. Since one already has them together, what should be cherished is time, not circumstance.

Take 「隨其意而給足之」 tr. "supplies and satisfies them according to their wishes" and train by it in the first step of treating anger. People's anger mostly arises from what they seek not being met. Give first what can be given—this is not indulgence; it is first removing the condition of their anger; once the condition is removed, the Dharma can be spoken. The treatise-author places this step before speaking of emptiness; the sequence is very clear.

Take 「令得好師教照，令得好弟子受化」 tr. "so that they get a good teacher to instruct and look after them, so that they get good disciples to receive their transformation" and look again by it at the weight of outer conditions. Though the thirty-seven limbs of the path come forth from the mind, their conditions cannot be lacking. Seeking a good teacher for someone, bringing a place of practice to accomplishment, protecting a person who applies effort—the merit of this is not below that of one's own cultivation, because this is precisely the share the treatise-author calls 「可與」 tr. "can be given".

Further Resonances

The place this unit holds within this chapter is the explanation of the whole chapter. The First Part is sūtra: the three-way questions and answers begin from 「當云何具足菩薩道」 tr. "how should one make complete the bodhisattva path" and end at the simile of the conjurer and the path of bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands; the Last Part is the treatise-author's explanation sentence by sentence as it goes. Looking at the two units together, what the sūtra asks and what the treatise answers run through from front to back: the sūtra asks about completeness, and the treatise answers that illumination and completeness are one meaning; the sūtra speaks of not destroying and not following, and the treatise explains along two roads what each treats; the sūtra speaks of bringing beings to accomplishment, and the treatise sets it down as a whole series of doable matters—himself practising giving, morality born from giving, anger calmed through giving, supplying the requisites for sitting in meditation, and so on. So the Last Part does not set up a separate meaning; it sets down every sentence of the First Part at a place where one can put one's hand to it. And the pivot of the whole chapter is still in the three Chinese characters 「方便力」 tr. "the power of skilful means"—the sūtra uses it to answer completeness, the treatise-author uses it to explain illumination, and the second half, speaking of bringing beings to accomplishment, also takes it as what it rests on.

The title of this chapter is not handed down alike in the various editions; they are recorded side by side below without forcing a judgement. The base text titles it "Illumination"; the four editions, the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions and the Palace edition, all read 「釋具足品」 tr. "Explaining the Chapter on Completeness", and their collation note records both names, saying 「釋照明品【大】，釋具足品【宋】【元】【明】【宮】」 tr. "Explaining the Chapter on Illumination (Taishō); Explaining the Chapter on Completeness (Song, Yuan, Ming, Palace)". The Shōgozō manuscript uses its own chapter numbering, reading 「釋第八十品」 tr. "Explaining the eightieth chapter", always one fewer than the base text; the Ishiyama-dera manuscript reads 「摩訶般若波羅蜜品第八十成就眾生品九十二」 tr. "Mahāprajñāpāramitā, chapter eighty, the Chapter on Bringing Beings to Accomplishment, ninety-two", which is both one fewer in the chapter count and sets up separately the name 「成就眾生」 tr. "Bringing Beings to Accomplishment", corresponding to the 「成就眾生、淨佛國土道」 tr. "path of bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands" asked about in the sūtra text of this chapter. The author's title 「龍樹菩薩造」 tr. "composed by the Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna" is absent from both the Shōgozō and the Ishiyama-dera manuscripts; the translator's title reads in the base text 「後秦龜茲國三藏鳩摩羅什譯」 tr. "translated by Kumārajīva, Tripiṭaka master of the land of Kucha, of the Later Qin", in the four editions, the Song, Yuan, and Ming editions and the Palace edition, 「姚秦三藏法師鳩摩羅什譯」 tr. "translated by Kumārajīva, Tripiṭaka Dharma master, of the Yao Qin", while the Shōgozō and Ishiyama-dera manuscripts lack this title. In the Larger Sūtra text of the variant-translation side, the main title reads 「具足品第八十一」 tr. "Completeness, chapter eighty-one", while the interlinear note under its chapter title reads 「丹照明品」 tr. "Khitan: the Chapter on Illumination"—that is, what the Khitan edition hands down agrees with the base text of this treatise; its collation note further says 「具足【大】，照明【宮】，卷第廿六具足【聖】」 tr. "Completeness (Taishō); Illumination (Palace); fascicle twenty-six, Completeness (Shōgozō)", the Palace edition too reading Illumination—that is, the Palace edition reads 「具足」 tr. "Completeness" on the side of this treatise and 「照明」 tr. "Illumination" on the side of this sūtra, the two lines being exactly reversed; they are recorded side by side without judgement. The two names run side by side within the transmissions of the two lines, and neither is simply a corruption: 「照明」 tr. "Illumination" is set up from its illumining the bodhisattva path, 「具足」 tr. "Completeness" from its making complete the bodhisattva path, and since the treatise-author says plainly that the two are one meaning, each name gets one face of it. Further, this treatise has another chapter, chapter forty, also named "Illumination"; it shares the name with this chapter but is not the same chapter, and in reading the commentaries of the various masters one must take especial care to tell them apart.

Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra has an explanation of this chapter, and the chapter name he uses is also 「具足」 tr. "Completeness". On the general meaning of the chapter, Jizang says: 「此品初明以方便故具足菩薩道故能得佛道，名具足品。」 tr. "This chapter first makes clear that, because of skilful means, one makes complete the bodhisattva path and therefore can obtain the Buddha path; it is named the Chapter on Completeness." His divisions fall into three sections, corresponding exactly to the order of the sūtra and treatise of this unit: 「第一明方便故具足菩薩道能得佛道，二明習般若故以本方便，第三以般若成就故能化度眾生而無所度。」 tr. "The first makes clear that because of skilful means one makes complete the bodhisattva path and can obtain the Buddha path; the second makes clear that, because of training in prajñā, it is taken as the root of skilful means; the third, that because prajñā is accomplished one can transform and deliver beings and yet there is none delivered." On the meaning of skilful means in the first section, Jizang explains the Buddha's answer: 「不具二事故不墮有見中，亦不離不事故不著無也」 tr. "because he does not take up the two things, he does not fall into the view of existence; because he also does not depart from the not-things, he does not cling to non-existence", and pushes it further: 「見於一施中得中道觀，遠離二邊名為方便，然既離二邊亦不著中道始是方便，取如此而行是菩薩道也」 tr. "seeing that within one act of giving one obtains the contemplation of the middle path, being far from the two sides is named skilful means; yet having parted from the two sides, also not clinging to the middle path—only this is skilful means; taking it thus and practising is the bodhisattva path"—the phrase 「亦不著中道」 tr. "also not clinging to the middle path" goes one explanation further beyond the treatise-author's 「離是二邊」 tr. "being free of these two sides", and is recorded side by side for reference. On the second section, Jizang marks where it begins: 「舍利弗白佛下，第二、明修習般若故成方便。」 tr. "From ‘Śāriputra said to the Buddha’ onward: second, it makes clear that because of cultivating and training in prajñā skilful means is accomplished." His explanation of destroying and following assigns them to the two vehicles and to ordinary people: 「二乘折色空為壞，凡夫論眼見色墮想，心言色可見，見色想墮色，生三毒為墮也」 tr. "The two vehicles break form down into emptiness—this is destroying; ordinary people, discussing the eye's seeing form, fall into perception; the mind says that form can be seen; seeing the perception of form, they fall into form and give rise to the three poisons—this is falling", and he explains its meaning squarely: 「不觀色常無常、真俗等為不壞也，心不墮起常無等見為不墮也」 tr. "not contemplating form as permanent or impermanent, real or conventional, and the like, is not destroying; the mind not falling into giving rise to views of permanence, non-existence, and the like, is not falling"—agreeing with the treatise-author's intent in dividing not destroying and not following into two roads. On the difficulty of how one trains when there is no self-nature, Jizang answers: 「良由了法無性無取故，既是習是般若，得菩提也。」 tr. "It is truly because one understands that dharmas are without nature and without grasping that this is training, this is prajñā, and one obtains awakening." On the third section, Jizang marks where it begins and judges the division between practice for oneself and transforming others: 「菩薩見諸法無所有下，第三、明般若成就化度眾生而無所度。上來自行成，今是化他成也。」 tr. "From ‘the bodhisattva sees that dharmas are without anything existent’ onward: third, it makes clear that, prajñā being accomplished, one transforms and delivers beings and yet there is none delivered. What came above was the accomplishment of practice for oneself; now it is the accomplishment of transforming others." His explanation that the six dharmas taught are not the six perfections is the same as the treatise-author's: 「說法中先說布施乃至智慧，此非六度中，乃是凡夫世間之行。下云然後乃為說聖法，謂四諦等等，是為說出世法也。」 tr. "In teaching the Dharma he first teaches giving and so on up to wisdom; these are not within the six perfections but are the worldly practices of ordinary people. Below it says that only after that does he teach them the holy Dharma, meaning the four truths and the like; this is teaching the world-transcending dharma." On the passage of teaching the Dharma in the two truths, Jizang says: 「菩薩不得有亦所得無，但以方便住空有二，常為眾生說法，為著有者說無、著無者說有，說二令二離，菩薩亦著二，故是無所得，亦是方便也。」 tr. "The bodhisattva does not find existence, nor does he find non-existence; only by skilful means does he abide in the two, emptiness and existence, and constantly teach the Dharma for beings: for those clinging to existence he teaches non-existence, for those clinging to non-existence he teaches existence; he teaches the two to make them part from the two; the bodhisattva also clings to the two; therefore it is nothing to be attained, and it is also skilful means." On the vast and great mind, Jizang explains it with five alternatives: 「次菩薩心不依有無五句而能度，故廣大。心若有無，則是小心人也。」 tr. "Next, the bodhisattva's mind does not rely on the five alternatives of existence and non-existence and yet is able to deliver, and so it is vast and great. If the mind is in existence or non-existence, then he is a person of small mind." On why Subhūti asks again about the path of bringing beings to accomplishment, Jizang directly cites this treatise as his ground: 「論云：須菩提雖知菩薩道俱，中間說甚深空義，今聽者生疑，云何的明菩薩道耶？」 tr. "The treatise says: though Subhūti knew the bodhisattva path in full, in between the very deep meaning of emptiness was spoken, and now those who listen give rise to doubt: how is the bodhisattva path to be made precisely clear?" His divisions of the second half fall into three: 「初中三：第一、別佛六度廣化眾生；第二、總約六度道品成就眾生；第三、明展轉傳化也。」 tr. "Within the first there are three: first, separately, the Buddha's six perfections broadly transforming beings; second, in general, bringing beings to accomplishment by way of the six perfections and the limbs of the path; third, making clear the passing on of transformation from one to another." On the choosing of places of birth, Jizang says: 「色天著縛樂故不作梵王，欲天著妙五欲難化之不作天王，故但作轉輪王也。」 tr. "The gods of form cling to the bondage of pleasure, so he does not become a Brahmā king; the gods of desire cling to the subtle and wonderful five desires and are hard to transform, so he does not become a king of the gods; therefore he only becomes a wheel-turning king." On the two sections of morality born from giving and anger calmed through giving, Jizang sums them up: 「住檀攝戒成就眾生中，此是必貪故破戒，次則化之得持戒。若以富是習惡破戒者，更以餘法化之。忍中不稱意瞋者，以如意珠施之也。」 tr. "Within abiding in dāna, gathering in morality, and bringing beings to accomplishment: this is breaking morality necessarily because of greed, and next he transforms them so that they keep morality. If one is wealthy and breaks morality from habituation to evil, he transforms him further by other dharmas. Within patience, for one who is angry because things do not suit his wishes, he gives him a wish-fulfilling jewel." After the difficulties, Jizang gathers their meaning: 「今得人身無此諸過，正是受化時名好時也。」 tr. "Now having obtained a human body without these faults, it is precisely the time to receive transformation; this is named a good time." On the causes and conditions of the thirty-seven limbs that can be given, Jizang says: 「以供養具修之生道品者，菩薩以四事供養坐禪者，或以諸攸禪、或以禪經等給之，後教其禪法令得禪也。」 tr. "As for cultivating with the requisites of offering so as to give birth to the limbs of the path: the bodhisattva makes offerings of the four things to those who sit in meditation, supplying them perhaps with the various youchan, perhaps with the meditation scriptures and the like, and afterwards teaches them the dharma of meditation so that they obtain dhyāna." At the end, on the section of the dharma of the Mahāyāna, he marks its meaning of passing on: 「汝等從哉取下，第三、明展轉化菩薩以財施，令人更行施也。」 tr. "From ‘you … come and take’ onward: third, it makes clear the passing-on transformation—the bodhisattva gives by the gift of wealth and causes people further to practise giving."

Huiying's Commentary lacks an explanation of this chapter—the extant text of his commentary does not reach this chapter; it is not that there is a commentary on it that has been left unrecorded. Where Junzheng's commentary and the writings of the Tiantai masters mention "Illumination", all go back to chapter forty of this treatise and are not what this chapter is tied to, and so they are not forcibly attributed to it.