大智度論 心要連讀Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Continuous Heart-Essence

The previous chapter praised the merits of prajñā at length; this one moves from merit to its fruit. When a bodhisattva practises prajñā and can perform every kind of merit, the Four Heavenly Kings are the first to rejoice, thinking to hold up four bowls and offer them to the bodhisattva, as bowls were once offered to the Buddhas of the past; then the gods of the Heaven of the Thirty-three up to the gods Sovereign over Others' Transformations, and even the hosts of gods throughout the three-thousand great-thousand world, all rejoice too, wishing to wait upon the bodhisattva and make offerings, and to ask that in time to come the bodhisattva turn the wheel of Dharma; even the good men and good women of the human world each rejoice, wishing life after life to be the bodhisattva's father and mother, wife and children, and kin. The treatise-author explains the causes of this joy one by one: why the gods rejoice; why the Four Heavenly Kings, who plainly no longer suffer the menace of the asuras, still rejoice; why, among so many offerings the gods make, it is the bowls alone that are offered; how the Four Heavenly Kings, whose lifespan is only five hundred years, could wait until the bodhisattva becomes a Buddha. In between he sets the jātaka of King Śibi cutting his own flesh to ransom a dove, and three past-life stories of good men and women who vowed to be the bodhisattva's kin life after life, so that the words 「果報終不虛」 tr. "the fruit of recompense is never in vain" are spoken with flesh and blood. The discourse then turns to leaving desire: the gods further wish that the bodhisattva cut off sexual desire from the first arousing of the mind and remain forever in the youthful state; so the Buddha says there are three kinds of bodhisattva: one who still has father and mother, wife and children; one who from the first arousing of the mind cuts off desire and cultivates the youthful state; and one who by the power of skilful means receives the five desires and only afterwards leaves home. And he gives the simile of a conjurer who conjures up the five desires and takes pleasure in them without any real receiving, to say that a bodhisattva manifests the five desires in order to deliver beings and is in truth unstained. Reading this far, you will most likely take the chapter to be about the glory of the offered bowls and the fullness of the fruit; its name, after all, is Recompense, and it is also called Offering the Bowls. But the real door opens in the last section. Śāriputra suddenly asks how, after all, a bodhisattva should practise prajñā. The Buddha's answer is this: when practising prajñā, one does not see a bodhisattva, does not see the bodhisattva's name, does not see prajñā, and does not see oneself practising or not practising; the bodhisattva and the bodhisattva's name are empty in their very nature, and within emptiness there is no form, feeling, perception, constructions, or consciousness; form is emptiness and emptiness is form; everything is only the coming together of conditions, a name borrowed for the sake of speaking, and therefore not even a name can be seen, and because it is not seen, it is not clung to. So it turns out that all this bustle of bowls offered, offerings made, and fruit received was, in the end, meant to lead a person to this one step: there is no real bodhisattva to be found, and yet the bodhisattva is born throughout the myriad kinds of beings and delivers beings everywhere; there is no dharma that can equal it, and yet from it all the Buddhas are born. The bowl the gods hold up is real, and the fruit the bowl holds is real; but the hand that lifts all of it is ultimate emptiness. This is what, beneath the two words Recompense, is truly being offered up.

If the bodhisattva, the Buddha, prajñā, and even form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness are names only, and if self and beings, life-holder, knower, and seer can none of them be found however one seeks them, then what is there left to ‘practise in accord’ with, and with what is one to ‘accord’? Does the whole thing not come to nothing? The Chapter on Practising in Accord sets this hard question on the table at its very opening, and at once gives the pivot of the whole chapter: the previous chapter already ended in emptiness, and the reason this chapter speaks of it again is to teach the emptiness of beings alongside the emptiness of dharmas. The practitioner contemplates outer dharmas as wholly empty, yet silently grants that the one who contemplates emptiness is not empty; so it must be said again that the contemplator too is empty. The emptiness of self is easy to know and the emptiness of dharmas hard to see, but in prajñā the two return alike to emptiness. Read on through this door and the eye of the whole chapter surfaces at the knot tied at its close: among all accords, accord with emptiness is called the foremost accord, for this one gate alone can break every wrong view and idle discourse and cannot itself be broken. Everything answered in between deepens this one matter. The bodhisattva’s wisdom surpasses that of all śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha for two causes only: by the emptiness of the unfindable he knows all dharmas as empty and yet does not see them as empty, and he uses this wisdom to free all beings and bring them to nirvāṇa. The wisdom of all the worthies and sages takes the same object, the truth of cessation, and is the same empty nature, unarisen, with no difference in its essence, as the many streams entering the sea become one taste; the difference lies not in higher or lower essence but in whether one has aroused the mind to deliver beings, and whether by skilful means one can dwell in the three gates of liberation without taking realisation, as arrows shot upward into the sky prop one another up and are not let fall to the ground. Part One uses the similes of bamboo, hemp, rice, and reeds, of the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions, and of fireflies against the rising sun, to show the two vehicles as fireflies lighting the night and the bodhisattva as the risen sun shining everywhere; and by the four kinds of discourse, the definite, the analytical, the counter-question, and the set-aside, it shows the Buddha using a counter-question to make Śāriputra say for himself that the two vehicles fall short of the bodhisattva. The Remainder, First Part, brings ‘practising in accord’ formally down to contemplative practice: practising in accord with the emptiness of form, of feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, up to the emptiness of the eighteen elements and the four truths; beyond the eighteen emptinesses it sets out seven more, the emptiness of nature, of specific marks, of all dharmas, of the unfindable, of non-existent dharmas, of existent dharmas, and of non-existent and existent dharmas; and it tightens layer by layer until one sees neither accord nor non-accord, neither arising nor ceasing, neither defilement nor purity, until form is emptiness and emptiness is form, the empty mark of all dharmas neither arises nor ceases, and there is no knowledge and no attainment, until emptiness does not join with emptiness and form does not join with the three times. The Remainder, Last Part, then teaches at length that sarvajñā does not join with the three times, that the six perfections are prajñā and not two dharmas, that the Buddha is sarvajñā, that one breaks the two extremes of the view of existence and the view of non-existence and walks the middle way, and so on to Māra finding no opening, the Buddhas keeping guard, grave offences being received lightly, and always meeting the Buddhas. At the last it states the foremost accord with emptiness through the eighteen elements not joining with emptiness, shows that the bodhisattva who practises emptiness does not fall to the stage of the two vehicles, that one of keen faculties is no different from one who has received the prediction and one of dull faculties is near to receiving it, and explains that beings are ultimately neither born nor extinguished by four propositions, not receiving beings, the emptiness of beings, beings as unfindable, and beings as apart, gathering it all into this: practising this accord with emptiness alone can give birth to great kindness and great compassion, and does not give rise to the six evil minds of stinginess, breach of precepts, anger, laziness, distraction, and lack of wisdom. In reading this chapter there is no need first to fit ‘practising in accord’ with some real set of contemplations to be mastered; one need only see the same one thing in every mark of accord: whether the dharma accorded with, together with the very joining of joiner and joined, has already been set down as unfindable, and whether contemplator and contemplated are already one taste in ultimate emptiness. With no self and no dharma to grasp, one contemplates all dharmas throughout; with no mark of accord to take hold of, one accords with prajñā throughout. This is the very path of practising in accord that prajñā opens by teaching the emptiness of dharmas and the emptiness of beings together.

If beings are ultimately unfindable, and even the name ‘bodhisattva’ is only a provisional name with no real dharma behind it, then is it not a superfluous question to ask from where one’s life ended, whence one came to be born here, and where one will be reborn next? The Chapter on Rebirth sets this hard question on the table at its very opening, and at once gives the pivot of the whole chapter: in the Buddha’s Dharma there are two truths; for the sake of the worldly truth it is said that there are beings, and for the sake of the truth of the highest meaning it is said that beings have no existence. To ask about rebirth is in fact to ask about the bodhisattva’s place of practice, and the bodhisattva’s place of practice falls exactly on this non-dual ground, where there is no self and no coming or going, and yet beings and rebirth are not abandoned. So the Buddha first answers where the bodhisattva comes from with three places: from another Buddha-land, from the Tuṣita heaven, or from among humans; then he distinguishes at length where the bodhisattva goes, laying out the many marks of rebirth. Those who come from elsewhere are of keen faculties and those who come from among humans of dull faculties, and the difference lies only in whether they constantly meet the Buddhas and whether, by the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha, they come swiftly into accord with prajñā. Everything listed thereafter deepens this one matter: there are bodhisattvas who have obtained the body born of dharma-nature, whose transformation bodies enter the three realms everywhere without being bound by karma; there are bodhisattvas who by the power of skilful means enter the meditations yet are not born according to the meditations, but return to a great clan of the desire realm to deliver beings; there are bodhisattvas whom the Brahmā king entreats to turn the wheel of Dharma, bodhisattvas in Tuṣita who are one birth from buddhahood, and bodhisattvas who with the six supernormal powers roam at play through the ten directions praising the Three Jewels. By the middle fascicle, skilful means and concentration and wisdom are gathered deeper still: the bodhisattva can enter the leaping absorption without falling under the limits of the small vehicle’s laws of absorption, can decline the four fruits and yet, by the eightfold noble path, bring beings to attain the fruits, and indeed the fruits and knowledge of all arhats and pratyekabuddha are, on the bodhisattva’s side, but one corner of the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas; and the division of pure from coarse karma turns from outward marks to the inside, where to grasp the mark of a dharma is itself offence, and the unfindability of dharmas is what is called purifying the Buddha path. The last fascicle closes with the sequence of the five eyes: the fleshly eye and the heavenly eye seek to see; the wisdom eye breaks through falsehood and sees the real mark; the Dharma eye distinguishes beings’ capacities and stages; the Buddha eye enters the vajra samādhi and illumines all without remainder. Prajñā can give birth to the five eyes, and one who trains in the five eyes attains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. So too the supernormal powers: each of the six is empty of own-nature and apart from own-nature, cultivated for nothing but the mind set on sarvajñā; and the six perfections each dwell in ultimate emptiness, like a vajra mountain with winds coming from four sides while the mind does not stir. At the end it returns to giving rise to an equal mind toward all beings and attaining the equality of all dharmas, being held in mind in this very life by the Buddhas of the ten directions, and closes with the case of three hundred bhikṣu who offered their robes and aroused the mind, the Buddha smiling and predicting their buddhahood sixty-one kalpas hence, and ten thousand people vowing to be born in a pure land under the name King of Adornment: the continuity of karma, cause, condition, and fruit is inconceivable. In reading this chapter there is no need first to fit rebirth with a real place gone to or come from; one need only see the same one thing in every mark of rebirth: whether where one goes still faces omniscience and all beings, and whether deliverer and delivered have already been made light in ultimate emptiness. With no being to be found, one is born everywhere to deliver beings; with no coming or going to grasp, one constantly meets the Buddhas. This is the very path of rebirth that prajñā’s two truths open.

The previous chapter spoke the marks of the bodhisattva’s rebirth to the end; this chapter has the assembly that heard the Dharma and awoke turn back to praise, and what they praise is nothing else than the prajñāpāramitā that accomplishes all of it. The chapter opens with four great arhats, the venerable Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, Subhūti, and Mahākāśyapa, leading the bodhisattvas and the fourfold assembly of householders to rise together from their seats and, with palms joined, extol prajñā by sixteen names. Great, honoured, foremost, superior, wondrous, unsurpassed, unequalled, equal to the unequalled: these eight names praise it as highest among all dharmas. Like space, empty of specific marks, empty of own-nature, empty as all dharmas are empty, empty of non-existent and existent dharmas: these five names show its body of ultimate emptiness, emptied all the way to ‘nothing whatever, and that too is nothing’, so that not even emptiness remains. Opening all merits, accomplishing all merits, indestructible: these three names praise it as empty yet able to accomplish every virtue, and once accomplished, beyond anything in the world to overturn. The names are sixteen, but what is praised is one dharma, and the treatise-author himself gathers the long string into a single sentence: ‘incomparable’ is ‘equal to the unequalled’; the Buddhas of the three times are all born from prajñā, so prajñā is equal to the Buddhas, and there is no further dharma that can equal it. Why single out these four to give the praise? Because they are the measureless fields of merit of this present world: whoever seeks a reward in this life obtains his wish by making offerings to them; and more, the arhats have cut off the fetters and done what was to be done, and it is precisely because they seek nothing and yet are willing to praise that their praise can stand as witness. The bodhisattva’s wisdom, though great, has not yet cut off the fetters and is not yet enough to make him honoured in himself; so the mouths of those who have finished their task are borrowed to bear witness to the truth of prajñā. Hearing this, the Buddha confirms it, ‘So it is, so it is’, and himself states the reason: it is because there are bodhisattvas dwelling in the world that the world brings forth the destinies of humans and gods, the great kṣatriya clans, and even all the Buddhas; that there are food and drink, treasures, and every kind of provision; that there is every kind of ease among humans, in the heavens, and even in the freedom from desire. Someone will ask: if all of this exists because of the bodhisattva, why must people still labour at the plough and struggle to make a living before they get it? The treatise answers: in a time of famine, spend all the strength you like and you get nothing, from which it is plain that what is obtained comes in truth from beings’ own merit, and that merit is the threefold cause of merit that the bodhisattva, life after life, has drawn out by praising giving, keeping the precepts, and the good mind; hence the difference of upper, middle, and lower, the upper obtaining as soon as the thought arises, the middle receiving respect and offerings that come of themselves, the lower obtaining only by effort, so that to say ‘obtained because of the bodhisattva’ is true and not false. Someone else objects: the pleasures of gods and humans are just where beings give rise to fetters and to greed and anger; why does the bodhisattva still teach people to seek such pleasure? The treatise answers that the bodhisattva is without fault. It is like a man who out of goodwill digs a well to relieve thirst, and a blind man loses his footing, falls in, and dies: this is not the crime of the one who dug the well. Or it is like a man who prepares good food and gives it away, and the receiver, not knowing measure, eats too much and falls ill: this is not the fault of the giver. The bodhisattva, with a mind of kindness, compassion, and purity, gives beings the causes and conditions of ease and teaches them to cultivate merit; that beings themselves cannot practise merit purely and so bring on misfortune is no fault of the bodhisattva’s. Besides, if the Buddhas and bodhisattvas did not teach people to make merit at all, there would be no gods and no humans in the world, and only the three evil destinies would grow. In the end the only one wholly without error or fault is the Buddha alone; the bodhisattva has not yet become a Buddha and has not obtained the Buddha eye, and can only teach according to the capacity by which beings can be delivered, first by the three pleasures, the pleasure of the gods, the pleasure of humans, and the pleasure of nirvāṇa, whereas the Buddhas teach beings directly by the pleasure of liberation. Read through, this chapter is really doing one thing only: gathering all the practices and fruits spoken of before, the bodhisattva’s rebirth, the six perfections, the perfecting of beings, into one praise of the prajñā that gives them birth. With no real being to be found, it is born everywhere to deliver beings; with no dharma able to equal it, it gives birth to all the Buddhas. This is the prajñā praised by the words ‘praise of the perfections’: ultimately empty, and no hindrance to the wondrous existent.

The previous chapter praised the virtues of prajñā to the end; this chapter carries on from an auspicious sign. The World-Honored One puts forth the mark of the broad, long tongue, covering the whole three-thousand great-thousand world, and from the mark of the tongue sends out measureless coloured light, illumining the Buddha-worlds of the ten directions, numerous as the sands of the Ganges. The bodhisattvas of the measureless worlds to the east, seeing this great radiance, each ask their own Buddha, ‘Whose spiritual power is this?’, and the Buddhas answer: to the west there is a world called Sahā, and the Buddha there is named Śākyamuni; he is putting forth the mark of the tongue and sending out light to illumine the ten directions, in order to teach prajñāpāramitā to the bodhisattvas. This one sentence points out where the whole chapter’s auspicious sign is going: what the mark of the tongue is for is only the teaching of prajñā. So the bodhisattvas one after another address their Buddhas, wishing to go to Sahā to make offerings to Śākyamuni Buddha and to hear prajñā, and the Buddhas grant it, ‘You yourselves know the time’; they, together with the Four Heavenly Kings and the gods up to the summit of the form realm, each bearing heavenly flowers and heavenly incense, set out, and the flowers they scatter turn in the empty sky into a great jewelled terrace with four pillars, its many different colours distinct and adorned. At this, in Śākyamuni’s assembly a hundred thousand koṭi of people rise from their seats and vow that in a future age they too will teach the Dharma as the Buddha does today; the Buddha, knowing their utmost sincerity, and that they have attained the acceptance that all dharmas neither arise nor cease, neither come forth nor are made, smiles and sends out light. Ānanda asks the cause of the smile, and the Buddha answers: these hundred thousand koṭi of people have attained the acceptance of non-arising among dharmas, and sixty-eight koṭi of kalpas hence they will become Buddhas, in a kalpa named Heap of Flowers, all with the Buddha-name Flower of Awakening. Here the sūtra text ends, and what follows is Nāgārjuna’s treatise, which brings out the sūtra’s meaning in three rounds of question and answer. The first question is the weightiest: in the first chapter the Buddha already put forth the mark of the tongue; why put it forth again here? The treatise answers: prajñā is not something that can be taught to the end in one day or at one sitting; this time it is at another time, for another assembly, taught for other people. The earlier time it was Śāriputra who asked and the Buddha who answered in person; this time, because Subhūti is skilled in teaching emptiness, the Buddha commands him to teach further, and so puts forth the light of the tongue-mark once more. The second question: Śāriputra is foremost in wisdom; what, after all, does he lack, that the Buddha turns instead to command Subhūti? The treatise answers: the Buddha’s disciples are many, and when one has finished speaking the next is commanded, as a king converses with his ministers in turn; it is not that Śāriputra falls short. The third question presses on: if it is by turns, Maudgalyāyana, Kāśyapa, and such are also many; why are they not each given a turn? The treatise answers: this sūtra is named Wisdom, and Śāriputra is foremost in wisdom, so he is asked first; and Subhūti is commanded to teach for two great causes. First, he loves to practise the samādhi of non-contention and is always kind and compassionate to beings; though he cannot deliver them widely, he always assists the bodhisattvas and asks the Buddha about the bodhisattva’s affairs. Second, he loves to practise the dharma of emptiness deeply, and prajñā for the most part teaches the dharma of emptiness; therefore he is commanded to teach it. After these questions and answers, the treatise-author ties the meanings of the light of the tongue-mark, the coming and going of the bodhisattvas, and the offering of the flower terrace to a single ‘as explained before’, referring them to the first chapter and not explaining them again here; he only points out that beings, on seeing this great power of spiritual penetration and hearing and seeing the Buddhas teach the Dharma, attain the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, in that dharmas neither arise nor cease, and make their vow; the Buddha, knowing they have attained acceptance, smiles; and those who attained acceptance, because they saw the bodhisattvas of the ten directions come bearing flowers of the seven treasures as offerings, which turned into terraces of seven-treasure flowers, had their minds made pure, so that when they become Buddhas the kalpa is named Heap of Flowers and the Buddhas Flower of Awakening. Read through, this chapter is really doing one thing only: settling the auspicious sign of the ‘mark of the tongue’ upon prajñā. What the mark of the tongue attests is prajñā; what prajñā mostly teaches is emptiness; therefore a Subhūti who practises the dharma of emptiness deeply is commanded to teach it; and those who hear this dharma of emptiness and can accept and abide in the non-arising and non-ceasing of dharmas attain the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, and even awaken through the flowers and receive the prediction of buddhahood. The mark of the tongue, the command to teach, the receiving of the prediction: one thread runs down through them, and what they return to is only that prajñā which is ultimately empty and yet gives birth to all and attests all.

The previous chapter returned from the auspicious sign of the tongue to the teaching of prajñā; this chapter formally opens the teaching, as the Buddha commands Subhūti to teach prajñāpāramitā to the bodhisattvas. The assembly at once wonders: is this Subhūti's own power of wisdom, or the Buddha's power? Subhūti answers that whatever the Buddha's disciples teach and expound is all the Buddha's power; what the Buddha teaches does not contradict the mark of dharmas, and it is only because the Buddha lights the way with the lamp of wisdom that it can be spoken at all; no śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha truly has the power to teach prajñā to bodhisattvas. Subhūti then puts to the Buddha the question on which the whole chapter turns: the World-Honored One constantly speaks of ‘the bodhisattva’ and of the name ‘bodhisattva’; which dharma, after all, is called bodhisattva? I search everywhere and see no dharma called bodhisattva; how then am I to teach him prajñā? The Buddha's reply is the very proposition of this chapter: prajñāpāramitā too is only a name; the bodhisattva and the name bodhisattva are only names; and this name is not inside, not outside, and not in between. To show this the Buddha gives seven similes in a row: it is like the name ‘I’, which exists only through the coming together of many conditions, neither arising nor ceasing, the world merely using a name to speak of it; the body and the five aggregates, the eye and the eighteen elements, the head, neck, shoulders, and arms of one's own body, the branches and leaves of grass and trees outside, the names of the Buddhas of the past, and even dream, echo, reflection, illusion, mirage, and what the Buddha conjures, not one of them but exists through combination, is spoken of only by a name, and is not inside, outside, or in between. Prajñā, the bodhisattva, and the word bodhisattva are all like this. So the Buddha gathers this passage into one sentence: a bodhisattva practising prajñā should train in the provisional designation of names, the provisional designation of what is received, and the provisional designation of dharmas; these are the ‘three designations’. The sūtra text only sets up these three headings, but Nāgārjuna's commentary inserts a whole passage here, unfolding the three designations as the three kinds of prajñapti (prajñapti means designation), and setting the principle firm with a simile of fire. Fire has two dharmas: one is the name ‘fire’, the other is what the name refers to (what illumines is derived form, what burns is the fire element); only when illumining and burning come together is the thing provisionally named fire; if apart from these two dharmas there were a separate fire, there would have to be a third function, but there is none, so fire is only the provisional name of two dharmas combined. This name fire is not inside the two dharmas (spoken together, the word fire does not burn the mouth, so it is not inside), not outside them (if it were outside, hearing the name fire one would not give rise to the thought of fire upon the two dharmas), and not in between (no conditioned dharma has a place to rest upon); pushed through all three places, fire is in none of them, and is only a provisional name. So too the bodhisattva: name and form, two dharmas combined, are provisionally named bodhisattva, and likewise it is not inside, outside, or in between. Following this, the treatise-author sets up the three designations one by one: dharmas such as the five aggregates are called ‘the prajñapti of dharmas’; the five aggregates combining through causes and conditions being named a being, the bones combining being named a skull, root, stem, branch, and leaf combining being named a tree, this layer is called ‘the prajñapti of what is received’; and then, upon these names, grasping the mark of those two dharmas and setting up a further general name (as beside beams, rafters, and tiles one sets up the name ‘house’, and beside branches and leaves the name ‘tree’), this is called ‘the prajñapti of names’. With the three designations set up, there is a path of practice and realisation: first break the designation of names and reach the designation of what is received; then break the designation of what is received and reach the designation of dharmas; break the designation of dharmas, and one arrives within the real mark of all dharmas; and what is called the real mark of all dharmas is that prajñāpāramitā in which dharmas together with their names are all empty. This is the most important point of the teaching of the three designations: it is not an annihilating emptiness that wipes out provisional names at a stroke, but a layer-by-layer breaking of attachment to provisional names, returning to the real mark in which provisional designation stands plainly and yet is ultimately empty, and ultimate emptiness does not destroy provisional designation. In the second half the Buddha goes on to say that a bodhisattva practising prajñā, regarding the names from form up to old age and death, does not see them as permanent, does not see them as impermanent, does not see pleasure, suffering, self, emptiness, up to defilement, purity, arising, and ceasing, makes no distinction at all, and knows only that the real mark of all dharmas is without stain and without purity; and in two rounds of question and answer he probes it back and forth: asking ‘is form the bodhisattva?’ up to ‘is form the meaning of bodhisattva?’, Subhūti answers ‘No’ to each, and pressed to the end, the answer is that beings are ultimately unfindable, how much less can they be called bodhisattva! The Buddha then praises him: since beings cannot be found, prajñāpāramitā too cannot be found, and one should train in just this way. If nothing can be found and nothing is seen among dharmas, why is the bodhisattva not alarmed, not afraid, not terrified, not sunk, not regretful? The Buddha's answer goes very deep: because all this bodhisattva's mind and mental dharmas cannot be found and cannot be seen, and even mind and the mind element cannot be found or seen; an ordinary person trying to enter emptiness still sees the mind as findable and only outer dharmas as unfindable, and so is afraid, whereas the bodhisattva finds neither mind nor outer dharmas, and seeing nothing at all, has nothing to fear. Read through, this chapter does one thing only: it returns ‘bodhisattva’ and ‘prajñā’ to provisional designations that are names only, and then, by the three designations, pushes all the way to the real mark in which dharmas and names are alike empty; the name is not destroyed and yet is ultimately empty, ultimately empty and yet the name stands plainly. This is the gate of prajñā that the Chapter on the Three Designations opens.

The previous chapter, by the contemplation of the three designations, returned ‘bodhisattva’ and ‘prajñā’ to names only, ultimately empty; this chapter carries on, as Subhūti, on the Buddha's behalf, exhorts people to train in this ultimately empty prajñā. He first sets before the Buddha, one after another, everything a bodhisattva wishes to accomplish: to perfect the six perfections; to know completely the five aggregates, the six faculties, the six objects, the six consciousnesses, the six contacts, and the feelings they give rise to; to cut off the three poisons and every fetter and bond; to know the ten wholesome deeds, the four meditations, the four immeasurables, up to the eighteen unshared dharmas; to enter the samādhi of the limbs of awakening, the six supernormal powers, and the many gates of samādhi and dhāraṇī; and even to fulfil the wishes of all beings. Each item he raises is gathered into the same sentence, 「當學般若波羅蜜」 tr. "one should train in prajñāpāramitā". This sentence appears word for word eighteen times in the chapter, and that is how the chapter gets its name: every dharma is brought forward, and at each one you are urged back to train in the prajñā that gives birth to them all. Nāgārjuna first resolves a doubt: the first chapter already said that one should train in prajñā; why say it again here? Because before, prajñā was only praised for the merits it can obtain, and the taste of prajñā had not truly been told; now that its taste has been tasted, one should still train in prajñā in order to accomplish the remaining merits such as the six perfections. He is also afraid that someone, hearing ‘all dharmas are empty’, will mistake the Buddha's Dharma for annihilation, with nothing to be done; so he says expressly that one must still practise merits such as giving; if prajñā really were an annihilating emptiness, there would be no need to go on speaking of practising merits. At this point the Buddha turns the edge of the teaching and points out the subtlest trap of the practitioner: he urges you not to fall into the evil destinies, not to be born in low estate, not to fall to the two vehicles, and beyond these, not to fall from ‘the bodhisattva's summit’. Śāriputra then asks what falling from the summit is. Subhūti answers with great precision: if a bodhisattva does not practise the six perfections with skilful means but only enters the samādhi of emptiness, of signlessness, and of non-action, unwilling to fall back to the stage of śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha yet not having entered the bodhisattva's stage, he is stuck in that middle, neither up nor down; this is called ‘rawness of dharma’, which is ‘falling from the summit’. What is ‘rawness’? Subhūti gives only four characters: 「生名愛法」 tr. "rawness means loving dharma". It turns out that a bodhisattva practising prajñā, plainly seeing that form is empty, yet gives rise to greedy love and grasping toward this ‘emptiness’, and even gives rise to attachment toward signlessness, non-action, quiescence, and every dharma; this is ‘the arising of love of dharma in accord with the path’: walking forward along the path, one falls in love with dharma halfway. Nāgārjuna gives two similes in a row to wake us: love of dharma is like eating too much and failing to digest it; a good thing in itself, it turns into illness when it piles up in the body; or like a man who is bound to die taking medicine, and the medicine itself becoming the disease; love of dharma is a fine good among humans and gods, but at the pass of the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas it becomes a drag. He then gathers the five names ‘summit’, ‘stage’, ‘falling’, ‘rawness’, and ‘ripeness’ into one matter: all the dharmas in the stretch between compliant acceptance and the acceptance of non-arising are called ‘the summit’, just as in the śrāvaka's dharma the stretch between the dharma of warmth and the dharma of acceptance is called the dharma of the summit; to be about to grasp it and yet lose it is called ‘falling’, as in climbing a mountain, once one has reached the top there is no fear of falling, and it is only before reaching the top that the danger is fearful; when this summit is firm and grows it is called ‘the bodhisattva's stage’, which is ‘the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas’; when the mind lacks the fire of wisdom of the real mark of all dharmas it is called ‘raw’, and when it has this fire it is called ‘ripe’, as a fired pot can hold water while a raw pot rots the moment water is poured in. Gathered into one sentence: being able to pull out every discriminating false contemplation of ‘this is permanent, this is impermanent’ is called entering the stage; unable to pull it out, one is in the arising of love of dharma in accord with the path. In the second half Śāriputra asks what the bodhisattva's ‘non-arising’ is, and Subhūti answers marvellously: when a bodhisattva practises prajñā, within inner emptiness he does not see outer emptiness, within outer emptiness he does not see inner emptiness; the eighteen emptinesses face one another two by two and none of them dwells inside another; only so does one enter the bodhisattva's stage. He says further that even if a bodhisattva has obtained ‘the mind of awakening’, ‘the mind equal to the unequalled’, and ‘the great mind’, he should give rise to no thought about them and not exalt himself; why? Because this mind is originally not mind, and the mark of mind is originally and always pure. Śāriputra presses on how the mark of mind is always pure, and Subhūti says: this mind neither joins with nor parts from lust, anger, and delusion, neither joins with nor parts from all the entanglements, outflows, bonds, fetters, and afflictions, and even the minds of the two vehicles; this is called ‘the mark of mind always pure’; asked further about ‘no mark of mind’, the answer is that dharmas neither destroyed nor discriminated is no mark of mind. Nāgārjuna, explaining this passage, matches the three minds with the six perfections: giving and keeping the precepts set up the mind of awakening; patience and vigour, as when someone comes to cut one's flesh and draw out the marrow, or fells one like a tree, and one still holds kind thoughts toward the enemy and one's blood turns to milk, this extraordinary quality resembles the Buddha's mind and is the mind equal to the unequalled; meditation and great compassion, even knowing ultimate emptiness and still being able to practise all practices within emptiness as if planting trees in it, this rare quality is the great mind. He borrows space as a simile too: the mark of space is pure of itself, and smoke, clouds, dust, and mist only drift over and cover it now and then; the mind is the same, originally and always pure, and ignorance and the other afflictions are only guest dust that comes to cover it; remove it and its original purity is restored; this purity is not something you produce by effort, so all the less should you exalt yourself. At the end Śāriputra praises Subhūti as ‘truly a son of the Buddha’, ‘born from the Buddha's mouth’, and Nāgārjuna borrows the simile of the brahmins who claim to be born from the mouth of Brahmā and stand first among the four castes, saying that Subhūti sees the Dharma and knows the Dharma and is therefore said to be born from the Buddha's mouth; and he points out where the whole chapter comes to rest: although prajñā is said to be the bodhisattva's affair, it teaches at length the marks of the three vehicles and states plainly that the real mark of all dharmas is nirvāṇa without remainder, so that whoever wishes to train in the stage of the śrāvaka, the stage of the pratyekabuddha, or the stage of the bodhisattva should come to hear, uphold, read, recite, rightly recollect, and practise as taught this prajñā. Read through, this chapter does two connected things: first it brings forward every dharma to urge you to train in prajñā, since prajñā gives birth to all and gathers the three vehicles; then it turns back to remind you that if in training in prajñā you lack skilful means and give rise to greedy love toward dharma, you will get stuck on the ‘summit’ and fall. To train and be able to practise, to practise and not be attached, to practise prajñā with a mind that attains nothing, returning to the mark of mind always pure and to ultimate emptiness: this is the prajñā that the Chapter on Exhortation to Train wants you to train in.

If dharmas have no gathering and no dispersal to begin with, is it not a superfluous question to ask from where they gather and to where they disperse? The Chapter on Gathering and Dispersal sets this hard question on the table at its very opening. Subhūti declares of himself that he does not perceive and does not find a bodhisattva practising prajñā, because he does not find the gathering or the dispersal of any dharma: from form up to consciousness, from the eye up to the mind, the twelve links of dependent arising, the six perfections up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, the dharmas of the three times, the Buddha and all the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and śrāvakas, and even the real mark of all dharmas; seeking each, he sees neither its gathering nor its dispersal; and since he sees neither gathering nor dispersal, there is no ground on which to force a name upon the bodhisattva: 「是字不住，亦不不住」 tr. "this word does not dwell, nor does it not dwell". The pivot of the whole chapter lies in one sentence of the treatise-author: all dharmas are empty because of the emptiness of the unfindable, and the reason they are all empty lies precisely in ‘no gathering, no dispersal’. So the treatise-author first sets the names ‘gathering’ and ‘dispersal’ right: eye and form as conditions give rise to consciousness, and the receiving of results goes on in succession without end; this is called gathering; this consciousness ceases of itself moment by moment, and as soon as the conditions part it disperses; at arising there is no coming and at ceasing no going; this is called dispersal. Having set the names right, he gathers them under four gates: because there is no coming or going, because there is no arising or ceasing, because ultimate emptiness does not lose the causes and conditions of karma, and because one contemplates the truth of cessation and the truth of origination, gathering and dispersal are each unfindable. Since gathering and dispersal cannot be found, the name has nowhere to dwell, as the name cart exists when rim, spokes, and hub combine and is lost the moment they disperse; hence the name neither dwells nor does not dwell. From this the first part opens out the many things one should not dwell in: form up to old age and death, the six perfections, letters, supernormal powers, impermanence, suffering, emptiness, up to the gates of dhāraṇī and samādhi, none should be dwelt in, because ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’; and on to receiving no mark at all, since 「取相著故，生諸結使」 tr. "grasping marks and being attached, one gives rise to the fetters"; and it ends with the passage on the brahmin ascetic Śreṇika, showing that even one within the small vehicle can believe and enter the principle of the emptiness of dharmas, not grasping marks but dwelling in the practice of faith, how much more one who practises the Great Vehicle. The last part extends the unfindability of gathering and dispersal into leaving the two extremes: permanence and annihilation, existence and non-existence, the six inner faculties and the six outer objects, and even this prajñā and what is not prajñā, wherever two extremes form, one leaves them and walks the middle way, 「離是二邊行中道，是為般若波羅蜜」 tr. "to leave these two extremes and walk the middle way is prajñāpāramitā"; then by the eighteen emptinesses it shows that the six perfections have no existence of their own, glosses prajñā as foremost among all wisdoms, and finally returns to the question ‘whose prajñāpāramitā is it?’: for the sake of the worldly truth prajñā ‘belongs to the bodhisattva alone’, and at the time of becoming a Buddha its name turns into ‘omniscience of all kinds’, so it belongs neither to the Buddha, nor to the two vehicles, nor to ordinary people; a bodhisattva who trains thus draws gradually near to sarvajñā, is always born by transformation, and is never apart from the Buddhas. In reading this chapter there is no need first to fit dharmas with a real place of gathering or dispersal; one need only see the same one thing in every failure to find gathering or dispersal: because dharmas have no gathering and no dispersal they are ultimately empty, and because they are ultimately empty the name does not dwell, no single dharma is dwelt in, and no mark at all is received. No gathering and no dispersal, yet no hindrance to provisional designation; dwelling in no single dharma, yet walking the middle way throughout. This is the path of prajñā opened by the unfindability of gathering and dispersal.

The previous chapter, Gathering and Dispersal, broke the existence of dharmas by the ‘gate of emptiness’; this chapter goes on to break the marks of dharmas by the ‘gate of signlessness’. Subhūti first sets before the Buddha the fault of practising prajñā ‘without skilful means’: if a bodhisattva lacks skilful means and, regarding form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, grasps their marks of permanence, impermanence, pleasure, suffering, self, no-self, separation, and quiescence and practises accordingly, this practising by grasping marks is called ‘practising marks’; even to think ‘I am practising prajñā, I have something attained’ or ‘only if I can practise thus does it count as cultivating prajñā’ is still practising marks. To practise thus by grasping marks is to lack skilful means, and one cannot get out of birth, old age, sickness, death, grief, and sorrow, cannot even realise the stage of śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha, how much less unsurpassed awakening. What, then, is ‘having skilful means’? Subhūti's answer is utterly simple: it is ‘not practising’: not practising form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, not practising their marks of permanence and impermanence. Why can one not practise and not grasp? Because ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’; form and emptiness are never apart to begin with. So this passage is gathered into the most important sentence of the whole chapter: when a bodhisattva practises prajñā, he does not receive practising, does not receive not practising, does not receive both practising and not practising, does not receive neither practising nor not practising, and does not receive even that ‘not receiving’ itself. Śāriputra asks why nothing at all is received, and Subhūti answers: the own-nature of prajñā is unfindable to begin with, and therefore it is not received; this is called ‘the samādhi in which no dharma is received’, the great working of prajñā that is not shared with śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha. When the four propositions, practising, not practising, both, and neither, have been dismissed, a fifth dismisses the very mind that dismisses; dismissing and dismissing again, only then is it this prajñā that receives nothing. Coming to the commentary, Nāgārjuna lays bare the method of the whole chapter: the previous chapter used the gate of emptiness to break dharmas, and this chapter is to use the gate of signlessness to break dharmas. He first resolves a doubt: the world plainly must grasp the marks of good and evil results in order to practise the path; how can it be said that dharmas are without marks? He answers: grasping marks is taught for beginners, signlessness for those walking the path; first grasp the mark of good to break the mark of evil, then use signlessness to break the mark of good, and at the last let signlessness break itself as well, as hail smashes the grain and the hail itself melts away at once. He sets several similes in a row to wake us to the fact that dharmas have no fixed mark: this body with its nine orifices always flowing is impure to begin with, yet through ignorance people force it to count as pure, like a small child taking a mark of purity in something impure and making it a pleasure, at which grown-ups only laugh, knowing it to be false; dharmas are like a crystal that changes with the colour before it and has no fixed colour of its own, like foam on water, like an illusion, like a dream. So even the thought ‘I can perform this contemplation of signlessness’, even the clinging to ‘separation and quiescence’, still falls within marks; such a person, however great his merit, cannot leave old age, sickness, and death, and because his practice of the path is mixed he cannot attain even the small vehicle. In the second half Śāriputra asks: besides this samādhi of receiving nothing, is there any other samādhi that lets a bodhisattva swiftly become a Buddha? Subhūti then lists a long series of samādhi beginning with the śūraṃgama. Nāgārjuna explains: when one is near nirvāṇa only one road remains, the three gates of liberation, emptiness, signlessness, and non-action, and all other samādhi enter these three gates, as a great city has many gates and every gate leads into the city, or as the ten thousand rivers and all their streams flow home to the sea. A bodhisattva can practise these hundred and eight samādhi and receive the prediction of the Buddhas of the ten directions precisely because, though he obtains the samādhi, he truly has none of that discriminating thought of self, ‘I shall enter, I am entering, I have entered’; prajñā, samādhi, and the bodhisattva, these three, are not different and cannot be grasped by marks or distinguished, and so it is said, 「不異故無授記」 tr. "because they are not different there is no receiving of prediction"; this does not deny the prediction, but screens off the misreading that ‘one receives the prediction by grasping the mark of samādhi’. The Buddha then praises Subhūti as foremost in the practice of the samādhi of non-contention, which accords exactly with this meaning of receiving nothing. In the final section Śāriputra asks: does training thus count as training in prajñā? The Buddha answers: it does, precisely because the dharmas trained in are all unfindable. Which dharmas are unfindable? Self up to knower and seer are unfindable, the five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, the eighteen elements, up to the Buddha, are all unfindable, all because of ‘ultimate purity’. What is ultimate purity? Not coming forth, not arising, no attainment, no making. Nāgārjuna pushes on: because on the side of causes nothing arises it is called ‘not coming forth’, and because on the side of conditions nothing arises it is called ‘not arising’; not coming forth and not arising, therefore unfindable; unfindable, therefore no making and no rising; all these made dharmas are false and deceptive, and to be apart from this mark of falseness is called ‘ultimate purity’. The ordinary person's sickness lies in insisting on existence at the very place of ‘nothing whatever’: dharmas have no existence to begin with, yet the ordinary person insists on taking there to be something where there is nothing, like an empty fist with nothing in it used to fool a small child, who really believes there is something inside. Or like a man pointing at the moon with his finger, while the fool only stares at the finger and does not look at the moon, and the wise laugh at him for not understanding what the pointer means; the finger is only the means for you to recognise the moon, yet you only look at the finger and do not see the moon; the Buddhas and sages teach the Dharma for ordinary people, and ordinary people only cling to sounds and words, do not take the sage's meaning, and do not get at the real meaning; failing to get at the real meaning, they give rise to attachment again within what they take for real dharma. So it is said that ordinary people who train in prajñā in this way fail to train in it and do not attain omniscience. How, then, should one train rightly? The Buddha's answer is decisive: when training in prajñā one does not see prajñā; one does not see prajñā, does not see the one who practises, does not see the dharma taken as object, and does not see even that ‘not seeing’. Śāriputra presses on what the cause of this ‘not seeing’ is, and the Buddha answers: this bodhisattva does not see because he has entered the eighteen emptinesses, not because he lacks wisdom. Read through, this chapter does one thing only: the previous chapter broke the existence of dharmas, and this chapter breaks the marks of dharmas; practising marks is practising by grasping marks, without skilful means one falls into marks, with skilful means one neither receives nor clings. With the five propositions of receiving nothing as its pivot, the three gates of liberation gathering in all samādhi, and ultimate purity as its home, it comes to rest at last on the sentence ‘not seeing because he has entered the eighteen emptinesses’. This is the prajñā, practised with nothing received and nothing attained, that the Chapter on Modes of Practice wants you to train in.

The previous chapter, Modes of Practice, broke the marks of dharmas by the ‘gate of signlessness’; this chapter goes on to use ‘illusion’ as its simile to show that dharmas are empty to begin with and make nothing. Subhūti first poses a question on others' behalf: World-Honored One, if someone asks, ‘can an illusory person train in prajñā, and even train in omniscience of all kinds and attain omniscience?’, how should I answer? The Buddha does not answer directly but asks Subhūti in return: is form different from illusion? Feeling, perception, constructions, consciousness, the eye up to the feeling born of mind-contact, the four foundations of mindfulness up to the limbs of the eightfold noble path, the three gates of liberation, emptiness, signlessness, and non-action, the six perfections up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, is each of them different from illusion? Subhūti answers ‘No’ to each, and pressed to the limit, even unsurpassed awakening is no different from illusion; so he himself speaks the gathering-up of the whole passage: form is not different from illusion and illusion is not different from form, form is illusion and illusion is form, and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. The Buddha presses further: does illusion have defilement or purity? Does it arise or cease? None of these. Since it neither arises nor ceases, can such a dharma train in prajñā and attain omniscience? It cannot. Then is this provisional name, the five aggregates of clinging, the bodhisattva? It is. But does this provisional name have arising, ceasing, defilement, or purity? It does not. If a dharma is only a name, neither body nor bodily action, neither speech nor verbal action, neither mind nor mental action, neither arising nor ceasing, neither stained nor pure, can such a dharma train and attain anything? It cannot. The Buddha then gathers this passage into one sentence: if a bodhisattva can train in prajñā in this way, he will attain omniscience, precisely because of ‘nothing being attained’. Subhūti answers in accord: a bodhisattva should train in prajñā and attain awakening the way an illusory person does; why? The five aggregates are the illusory person, and the illusory person is the five aggregates. Coming to the commentary, Nāgārjuna first explains why Subhūti poses this question: in the previous chapter the Buddha answered Śāriputra on the very deep meaning of emptiness, and Subhūti thought: if dharmas are of one mark and nothing can be distinguished, then would an illusory person be no different from a real bodhisattva? But an illusory person has no reality and only deceives people's eyes; how could he become a Buddha? So the Buddha again and again uses illusion as a simile to make him understand that the falseness of the five aggregates of clinging is just like illusion. Though the illusory person truly does not act, people see him as if acting, and so he is called acting; just as a conjurer, with a little spell, some props, and some words, can make appear cities, towers, and all manner of scenes, so too the five aggregates of clinging, from the causes and conditions of a little of the spell of ignorance in former lives, make appear the constructions, consciousness, name and form, and all the body and mind. People who see the illusion give rise to greed and attachment and neglect their livelihood, and regret it only when the illusion vanishes; beings cling to these five aggregates of clinging, and only when impermanence destroys them do they regret, saying ‘how could I have clung to these illusory five aggregates and lost the real mark of all dharmas?’ Since the bodhisattva is like an illusion, why must he still practise the path in all its forms and seek awakening? The Buddha answers: the five aggregates are false and deceptive, and it is only by a provisional name that he is called bodhisattva; in this provisional name there is no action and no causes and conditions of action, no mind and no mental dharmas, without stain and without purity, because of ultimate emptiness; and this is exactly the meaning of ‘making nothing’: not a denial of the activity of practice, but a screening-off of the clinging to ‘a real agent and a real thing done’. So the bodhisattva should practise prajñā the way an illusory person does; the five aggregates are the illusory person, no different. The second half turns to another question. Subhūti asks: when a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind of the Great Vehicle hears prajñā taught this way, will he be alarmed and afraid? The Buddha answers: if he lacks skilful means and does not meet a good friend, he will be alarmed and afraid. What, then, is skilful means? With the mind that seeks omniscience, to contemplate form up to consciousness as impermanent, suffering, without self, empty, signless, without action, quiescent, and apart, eight marks, and these eight marks too as all unfindable; and to vow to teach this dharma for all beings without grasping it; matched thus into the framework of the six perfections. One sentence among these is especially important: it is not that one takes emptiness to ‘make’ form empty; form itself is empty and emptiness is form; emptiness is not something produced by contemplation, it is the nature of dharmas as they are. Nāgārjuna explains that the root of this alarm lies in ‘inner and outer causes and conditions not being complete’: within, no right recollection, no keen wisdom, no deep compassion; without, being born where there is no Buddha-dharma, not hearing prajñā, not meeting a good friend who can cut off doubt; when inner and outer do not come together, alarm arises. He sets up a simile of a physician compounding medicine too: dharma has no fixed dharma to begin with; for a cold illness one gives a hot medicine, but met with a hot illness it becomes no medicine at all; the bodhisattva gives medicine according to the illness and his mind does not cling to any fixed real dharma; that is why, of the two kinds of giving, the gift of Dharma is the greater. The last section speaks of the reverse: if a bodhisattva lacks skilful means and has moreover followed an evil friend, he will be alarmed and afraid when he hears prajñā. The evil friend teaches people to keep far from the six perfections, and there are evil Māras who take the forms of a Buddha, a pratyekabuddha, a preceptor or teacher, a father or mother, or a bhikṣu, urging people to abandon the bodhisattva path and take the realisation of the śrāvaka, without ever telling you that this is Māra's deed and Māra's offence. Nāgārjuna closes with the simile of the ‘soft-spoken thief’: the evil friend is like a thief of gentle words who slowly draws near you and, once near, does you harm; an ordinary thief harms only this one life of yours, only takes your life and property, but the evil friend harms you life after life, cuts the root of your wisdom-life, and robs you of the measureless treasure of the Buddha's Dharma. So once he is recognised, one should quickly keep body and mind far from him. Read through, this chapter does one thing only: the previous chapter broke the marks of dharmas by the gate of signlessness, and this chapter uses ‘illusion’ to show that dharmas are empty to begin with and make nothing. Taking illusion as the simile for the five aggregates, using the provisional name to screen off a real agent and a real thing done, practising prajñā with a mind that attains nothing; with skilful means complete one is neither alarmed nor afraid, and following an evil friend one falls and should keep far away. ‘The five aggregates are the illusory person, the illusory person is the five aggregates’ is its eye; ‘because of nothing being attained’ is its pivot; and it comes to rest at last on the sentence ‘knowing this, one should quickly keep body and mind far away’. This is the prajñā, illusion-like, making nothing, and attaining nothing, that the Chapter on the Illusory Person Makes Nothing wants you to train in.

The previous chapter, The Illusory Person Makes Nothing, used ‘illusion’ as its simile to show that dharmas are empty to begin with and make nothing; this chapter goes on to press a question closer to home: the name ‘bodhisattva’, what after all is the meaning it expresses? At the very opening of the sūtra text Subhūti asks the Buddha: World-Honored One, what is the meaning of the phrase ‘bodhisattva’ (the meaning to which the one name bodhisattva points)? The Buddha's answer is unexpected; he does not answer with a meaning that ‘exists’, but says instead, 「無句義是菩薩句義」 tr. "no meaning of the phrase is the meaning of the phrase ‘bodhisattva’": the meaning of the phrase bodhisattva lies precisely in ‘no meaning of the phrase’. Why? Because in the unsurpassed awakening that is sought there is no fixed place of meaning to point to, and no self either; that being so, the meaning of the phrase for the bodhisattva who seeks it is likewise ultimately without existence. The Buddha then gives fourteen similes in a row to state this ‘no’ again and again: like a bird flying through the vast sky, leaving not a trace of a footprint, the meaning of the phrase bodhisattva likewise has nothing that can be sought; like what is seen in a dream, which has no real place; like an illusion, like a mirage, like an echo, like a shadow, like a person the Buddha conjures, all of them seen and heard yet without real substance. He goes further and sets the illusory person and the Tathāgata side by side: the form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness of an illusory person have no real meaning, and the five aggregates at the Tathāgata's stage of fruition, and indeed all the Buddha's dharmas, likewise have no fixed meaning that can be clung to; this meaning of ‘no meaning of the phrase’ reaches up to the Buddha's fruit-virtues and down through the falseness of the illusory person; ordinary and noble are one and the same, and this is the deepest move of the chapter. Further on, that when the sun rises there is no darkness, that when the fire at the end of the kalpa has burned everything there is not a single thing, that no breach of precept can be found within the Buddha's precepts, that when the Buddha's light appears the lights of sun, moon, and the gods do not show, all say ‘where this is, that is not’: once the meaning of the phrase bodhisattva enters the light of prajñā, it too cannot be found at all. Coming to the commentary, Nāgārjuna first resolves a doubt: since the previous chapters have already refuted the word ‘bodhisattva’ again and again (saying it is ultimately empty, only a provisional name), why now turn back and ask about the meaning of the phrase bodhisattva? The answer is that what was refuted was the clinging that takes the provisional name as really existent, whereas this chapter speaks a further layer of prajñā upon the ‘meaning’ this provisional name expresses. So Nāgārjuna glosses the origin of the two words ‘bodhi-sattva’ in detail: in the grammar of India many syllables make a word and many words make a phrase; ‘bodhi’ is translated unsurpassed wisdom, ‘sattva’ is translated either being or great mind, and joined together they make ‘bodhisattva’, meaning one who arouses the great mind in seeking unsurpassed wisdom and vows to make all beings walk the unsurpassed path together; and the Sanskrit sound for ‘phrase’ is ‘pada’. But, having said all that, the meaning so glossed is still empty: word, phrase, and name all point to the same one thing, yet there is nowhere it can be established. Nāgārjuna sets up a very vivid simile too: wash a stinking dead dog until skin, fur, blood, flesh, bone, and marrow are all gone, and at that point it is neither dog nor pig; to call it pure is wrong, and to call it impure is wrong; seeking the mark of self with the empty wisdom of no-self, one likewise cannot find it, and so there is neither a self nor no self; in the highest meaning there is from the first neither purity nor impurity. The second half of the sūtra text changes the angle. Subhūti asks: what are ‘all dharmas’? The Buddha then lists ten pairs of headings, wholesome and unwholesome, determinate and indeterminate, worldly and world-transcending, with outflows and without outflows, conditioned and unconditioned, shared and unshared, and gives a definition for each item. But in listing all these dharmas the Buddha is not establishing a really existent identity for them; he wants the bodhisattva ‘not to be attached within these dharmas empty of specific mark, because he is unmoved’: within these dharmas whose own-nature is originally empty, to give rise to no clinging and not be shaken. Nāgārjuna then clarifies a key distinction: form and suchness are not apart from each other, yet form is conditioned; how can suchness be unconditioned? He answers: form is of two kinds, the form that the fleshly eye of ordinary people distinguishes by recollection and imagining, and the real mark of form, like nirvāṇa, that the mind of the sage sees; the distinction lies just there. Read through, this chapter does one thing only: following the previous chapter's original emptiness and making nothing, it takes the meaning expressed by the name ‘bodhisattva’ and presses it all the way to ‘no’. By fourteen similes it shows that dharmas have no meaning of the phrase; by the emptiness of the meaning of the word bodhisattva it screens off the real existence of names and marks; and at the last it comes to rest on the sentence ‘the bodhisattva abides unmoved in this unobstructed dharma, enters the Dharma-gate by non-duality, and enters all dharmas unmoved’. Its eye is ‘no meaning of the phrase is the meaning of the phrase bodhisattva’; its pivot is ‘nothing to be attained’. This is what the Chapter on the Meaning of the Phrase wants you to grasp: even the meaning to which the name bodhisattva points is the prajñā that is ultimately empty, without support, and with nothing to be attained.

The previous chapter, The Meaning of the Phrase, asked what meaning the name ‘bodhisattva’ expresses; this chapter presses one layer further: why is the bodhisattva also called ‘mahāsattva’ (great bodhisattva)? At the very opening of the sūtra text Subhūti asks the Buddha: World-Honored One, for what reason is he named mahāsattva? The Buddha's answer is very plain, yet it is the pivot of the whole chapter: 「是菩薩於畢定眾中為上首，是故名為摩訶薩」 tr. "this bodhisattva is the foremost leader within the assembly of the assured; therefore he is named mahāsattva". The ‘assembly of the assured’ means those worthies and sages who are certain to enter the noble stages: those at the stage of nature, the person of the eight on the path of seeing the truths, the four fruits from srota-āpanna up to arhat, the pratyekabuddha, and the bodhisattvas from the first arousing of the mind up to the stage of non-retrogression; the bodhisattva can be the foremost leader, the one at the head, among this whole company of worthies and sages, and so he is called ‘great’. The Buddha then opens eight passages in a row on the mind a mahāsattva should give rise to. The first is ‘giving rise to the great mind, indestructible like vajra’, and this great mind holds ten great vows: from the great vow-adornment amid measureless birth and death, giving away all one possesses, regarding all beings with an equal mind, delivering beings by the three vehicles yet seeing no single person really delivered, knowing that dharmas neither arise nor cease, practising the six perfections with a pure mind and dedicating them to omniscience, penetrating all worldly and world-transcending matters, up to fully understanding the one mark and the measureless marks of dharmas; and further still, vowing to undergo in place of all beings of the ten directions every suffering of the hells, and to wait until all beings have entered nirvāṇa without remainder before planting one's own roots of goodness last of all and becoming a Buddha after measureless kalpas, with a mind that does not turn back or regret. Below this it speaks of the mind of great gladness (from the first arousing of intent to buddhahood, giving rise to no defiled mind, no anger, no delusion, no harming, and no small-vehicle mind of śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha), the unmoving mind (always mindful of omniscience of all kinds without clinging to having this mind), the mind of benefit and ease (rescuing beings and not abandoning beings), the mind that desires the Dharma, delights in the Dharma, and rejoices in the Dharma, abiding in the eighteen emptinesses, abiding in the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, and abiding in the vajra-like samādhi. Each of these eight passages is gathered into the same sentence, 「能為畢定眾作上首，是法用無所得故」 tr. "he can be the foremost leader of the assembly of the assured, because these dharmas are used with nothing to be attained": being able to be the leader does not rest on a lofty position; it is precisely because he practises all these dharmas with the mind of ‘nothing to be attained’. Coming to the commentary, Nāgārjuna first takes the word ‘mahāsattva’ apart and glosses it: ‘mahā’ is translated great, ‘sattva’ is translated mind, or translated being; this sentient one is first and highest among all the beings of the world, and moreover with the great mind knows all dharmas throughout and vows to deliver all beings without exception, and so is named ‘great’. He also says a sentence that glosses each by the other: the bodhisattva is the mahāsattva and the mahāsattva is the bodhisattva, because both rest alike on the arousing of the mind that heads for the unsurpassed path; and he fixes its place by three classes of beings: beings are of three kinds, rightly assured (certain to enter nirvāṇa), wrongly assured (certain to fall into the evil destinies), and unassured, and the one who can be the greatest within the rightly assured class is the mahāsattva. Nāgārjuna then explains the nine ranks of the assembly of the assured one by one: the person at the stage of nature is like a small child born in a noble family, still small and without ability, yet certain to be looked to for great things in time to come; the person of the eight is one within the fifteen mind-moments of the path of seeing the truths, so named because they abide in the eight acceptances; the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is like the crown prince of a wheel-turning sage king, who from the moment of conception surpasses all the other sons and is honoured by gods and humans; though still within the afflictions, his mind is already noble. Then Nāgārjuna gives the greatest space to the ‘vajra mind’: no fetter or affliction can shake this mind, like a vajra mountain not toppled by the wind; even if evil people and evil Māras come to rail, strike, bind, hack, and pierce, even come begging for head, eyes, marrow, brain, hands, feet, skin, and flesh, the bodhisattva can give them all, his mind enduring without change, just as a solid vajra mountain, however people hew and chisel it and however insects gnaw it, suffers no loss whatever. This vajra mind has a deeper layer still: the bodhisattva vows to undergo suffering in place of all the beings of the three evil destinies, taking on the sufferings of hell for them one by one until the beings have all left the three evil destinies, gathered roots of goodness, and entered nirvāṇa, and only then perfecting his own merits, dwelling long in birth and death with a mind that neither regrets nor turns back; a mind so firm that it is ‘like the vajra ground that can hold up the three-thousand great-thousand world and keep it from shaking’. But, having said that, even a vajra-firm mind must never be relied upon with pride: if a bodhisattva gives rise to the great mind like vajra and on that account grows arrogant, his fault exceeds an ordinary person's; so Nāgārjuna says it must be ‘used with nothing to be attained’, because dharmas have no fixed mark to begin with and are like illusion and transformation, and the firmness of this vajra stands precisely on nothing to be attained, on ultimate emptiness. He sets up two similes too, to distinguish two minds: a firm mind is not necessarily the ‘mind of great gladness’, as a horse may have great strength without being greatly glad; and beyond firmness the ‘unmoving mind’ must be set up separately, because a mind though firm may still increase and decrease, as a tree though firm may still sway, and only when one constantly recollects omniscience and the Buddha path is the mind truly unmoving. Read through, this chapter speaks of one thing only: why the bodhisattva is called ‘great’: great in his place (foremost leader within the assembly of the assured), great in his mind (indestructible like vajra), great in his vow (undergoing suffering in place of beings, and delivering them all before he himself is perfected); and all this greatness returns at the last to one sentence, 「若能為大者作上首，何況小者！是故名為『摩訶薩』」 tr. "if he can be the foremost leader of the great, how much more of the small! Therefore he is named ‘mahāsattva’". Its eye is the greatness of leading the assembly, ‘foremost leader within the assembly of the assured’; its pivot is the emptiness of non-clinging, ‘because these dharmas are used with nothing to be attained’: a mind firm as vajra that does not cling to its own firmness. This is the prajñā that the Chapter on the Mahāsattva wants you to grasp.

In the previous chapter, Mahāsattva, the Buddha himself said why the bodhisattva is also named ‘mahāsattva’, great bodhisattva. In this chapter the Buddha no longer speaks himself; two great disciples carry it on. Śāriputra and Subhūti each say to the Buddha, ‘World-Honored One, I too wish to speak: by what is the bodhisattva called mahāsattva’, and the Buddha permits them both. So the same question, ‘why is he called great’, receives two answers in this chapter, one meaning from each, making a matched pair. Śāriputra's answer is ‘cutting off all views’. He first counts off in one breath a long series of the views beings cling to: the view of self, the view of beings, the view of a life, the view of a life-force, on through the view of annihilation, the view of permanence, the view of existence, the view of non-existence, up to the view of a Buddha and the view of turning the wheel of Dharma; of these views Nāgārjuna says in the treatise that 「無始世界來，習著入於骨髓」 tr. "from the beginningless world they have been habitually clung to, entering into the very marrow", wrong clingings planted deep in the marrow from beginningless time and extremely hard to pull out. The bodhisattva is called great precisely because he can cut off these views one by one for beings and teach them the Dharma to that end: 「為斷如是諸見故而為說法，是名摩訶薩」 tr. "he teaches the Dharma in order to cut off such views; this is called mahāsattva". But cutting off views has a further point of proportion that matters: without skilful means one gives rise oneself to views upon form and the other dharmas and falls into having something attained; only cutting off by the power of skilful means, cutting off with the mind of nothing to be attained, is the bodhisattva's cutting off of views. Note too that the chapter's name, ‘Cutting Off Views’, speaks of this act of ‘cutting off all views’, and not of that one item in the long list, the view of annihilation, set against the view of permanence; the same two characters, but one is the practice that cuts and the other the view that is cut. To show that Śāriputra is qualified to teach the Dharma following the Buddha, Nāgārjuna inserts a story: by the pool of the nāga king the Buddha sent Maudgalyāyana to summon Śāriputra; Maudgalyāyana, foremost in supernormal power, could not even lift a belt Śāriputra had thrown on the ground; he entered a very deep absorption to lift it, and the great earth quaked while the belt still did not leave the ground; the Buddha then told the assembly that Maudgalyāyana did not even know the names of the absorptions Śāriputra entered and left, thereby showing the depth of Śāriputra's wisdom, sufficient to speak next after the Buddha. Subhūti's answer is ‘the mind equal to the unequalled’. He sets up three minds: the mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, the mind equal to the unequalled, and the mind not shared with śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha; ‘equal to the unequalled’ says that this mind is beyond compare and yet equal to the Buddhas, not something the two vehicles can share. Yet even so noble a mind may likewise not be relied upon with pride or clung to: the bodhisattva 「從初發意已來，不見法有生有滅、有增有減、有垢有淨」 tr. "from the first arousing of intent onward does not see any dharma as arising or ceasing, increasing or decreasing, defiled or pure"; this mind is ultimately empty, and so, though he has the mind equal to the unequalled, ‘he is not attached to this mind either’. Śāriputra presses further with a counter-question: not only is this mind of omniscience without outflows and unbound; is not the mind of ordinary people likewise without outflows and unbound, always empty in its nature? Nāgārjuna answers him with a simile, 「如先說：陰雲翳日月，不能污日月」 tr. "as said before: dark clouds veil the sun and moon, but cannot defile the sun and moon": dark clouds can cover the sun and moon, but cannot defile their light; though the ordinary person's mind is covered by afflictions, its real mark is from the first empty in nature and pure, no different from the mind of the sage; the difference lies only in confusion and awakening. So in this chapter Śāriputra shows greatness by ‘cutting off all views’ and Subhūti shows greatness by ‘the mind equal to the unequalled’, one refuting and one establishing, two roads in appearance that return in truth to one place: cutting off all views without clinging to what is cut off, a mind equal to the Buddhas without clinging to that mind, and at the last both come to rest on the sentence ‘because all dharmas have nothing to be attained’. The bodhisattva is ‘great’ in being able to cut off views for beings and great in arousing a mind equal to the Buddhas; and all this greatness hangs on one ‘non-clinging’, one ‘nothing to be attained’. This is the prajñā that the Chapter on Cutting Off Views wants you to grasp.

In the two previous chapters, Mahāsattva and Cutting Off Views, first the Buddha himself said why the bodhisattva is named mahāsattva, then the two great disciples Śāriputra and Subhūti carried it on. In this chapter the one who carries it further is a third person, Pūrṇa. He is the one foremost in teaching the Dharma at the Buddha's seat, best able to draw the feelings of the assembly and to teach the Dharma with every kind of adornment, so he too says to the Buddha, ‘I too wish to speak: by what is the bodhisattva called mahāsattva’, and the Buddha permits him. As soon as Pūrṇa opens his mouth he sets up three propositions: this bodhisattva is greatly adorned; this bodhisattva sets out toward the Great Vehicle; this bodhisattva rides the Great Vehicle. This chapter unfolds around the first proposition, ‘great adornment’, and the second, ‘setting out toward the Great Vehicle’, still with Pūrṇa answering and Śāriputra asking, round after round. Śāriputra first asks ‘what is called the great adornment of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’. Pūrṇa's answer has two layers. The first layer is ‘not setting a limit on beings’: when the bodhisattva arouses the mind and adorns himself, it is universally for all beings; he does not reckon ‘I will deliver only these so many people and not the rest’; this boundless measure of mind is the ‘great’. The second layer is that the six perfections contain one another: when the bodhisattva practises giving, all his giving accords with the mind of omniscience and is dedicated to unsurpassed awakening, so that within this one perfection the six perfections are all complete; Nāgārjuna calls this ‘one perfection fully giving birth to all the perfections’. To show this great adornment the treatise offers two similes: as one about to travel far must load heavy provisions, and as one about to break the bandits must have his weapons complete, so the bodhisattva, who is to break Māra and enter among the bandits of affliction, practises the six perfections to adorn himself, and the merit and wisdom gathered over measureless kalpas are his provisions. Again, as soldiers scattered apart have no fighting strength, and only when the great army gathers and takes up its weapons can it break the enemy, so the six perfections practised each alone are weak in force, and only when they join their strength at once in adornment can they break the bandit Māra of affliction and swiftly attain awakening. Then Śāriputra asks again ‘what is called setting out toward the Great Vehicle’. In this round Pūrṇa begins, however, from the perfection of meditation. The treatise asks: if the six perfections were spoken in order, giving should come first; why begin from meditation as the first step of setting out? The answer is good: if the bodhisattva has no meditative concentration and his mind has not left desire, then even when he practises the other perfections they are easily destroyed; once he enters meditation and enters the immeasurable of kindness, no one can destroy him, just as the sūtra says ‘one who practises the samādhi of kindness cannot be harmed by the knife nor hurt by water or fire’, and again ‘a bird without two wings cannot fly’, and a bodhisattva without supernormal powers and transformations cannot arouse the great adornment. And this round singles out the four immeasurable minds because the four immeasurables ‘grasp the mark of beings and take beings as object’, and the bodhisattva practises the path always for the sake of beings; this benefit is something the meditations such as the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions do not have. Yet setting out is not dwelling self-content in meditation: when the bodhisattva enters meditation and enters the immeasurable minds, he is not born in accordance with the meditations and the immeasurables, and further, with the wisdom of ‘neither permanent nor impermanent, neither pleasure nor suffering, neither real nor false, neither self nor no-self’, he screens off all grasping of marks; and practising the four immeasurable minds alone does not yet count as setting out toward the Great Vehicle; only when the six perfections join together is it called ‘setting out toward the Great Vehicle’. So in this chapter, one round on the great adornment and one round on setting out toward the Great Vehicle, two roads in appearance, return in truth to one place: at the last both come to rest on the sentence ‘used with nothing to be attained’. The ‘great’ of the great adornment is great in according with the mind of omniscience and not grasping the marks of those six perfections; the ‘setting out’ of setting out is a setting out in which the mind takes all beings as object without being born in accordance with meditation and without clinging to the mark of beings. That the bodhisattva is greatly adorned and can set out toward the Great Vehicle hangs entirely on one ‘not grasping marks’, one ‘taking beings as object without clinging’, one ‘nothing to be attained’. This is the prajñā that the Chapter on the Great Adornment wants you to grasp.

In the previous chapter, The Great Adornment, Pūrṇa set up three propositions as soon as he opened his mouth: this bodhisattva is greatly adorned; this bodhisattva sets out toward the Great Vehicle; this bodhisattva rides the Great Vehicle. The first two having been spoken, this chapter speaks precisely of the third, ‘riding the Great Vehicle’. Still Śāriputra asks and Pūrṇa answers: what is called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva riding the Great Vehicle. Pūrṇa's answer seems to spread out layer by layer, but in truth it turns around a single word, ‘ride’. The bodhisattva rides the perfection of giving up to the perfection of prajñā, yet does not find the perfection ridden, does not find the bodhisattva who rides, does not find the recipient of the gift; riding all of it with the mind of nothing to be attained, this alone is called riding the Great Vehicle; riding without clinging is the first layer of meaning. The second layer goes deeper. The bodhisattva contemplates thus: form is only a name, and form itself is ultimately unfindable; feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the eye up to the mind, the four foundations of mindfulness up to the limbs of the eightfold noble path, inner emptiness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, and even the suchness of dharmas, dharma-nature, the abiding of dharmas, and the limit of reality, all are only names set up, ultimately unfindable. At the most thoroughgoing point even ‘anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’, the fruit of unsurpassed, right, and complete awakening, even ‘the Buddha’ himself, is likewise a name only, and the Buddha cannot be found; it is not that other things are emptied while the Buddha still stands, but that even the Buddha-fruit itself is gathered into this ultimate emptiness, and only then can one speak of riding the Great Vehicle. The treatise explains the naming of ‘riding the vehicle’ by three steps: one who knows only how to give away inner and outer things and cannot yet break the clinging to self is called merely greatly adorned; one who can break the clinging to self and has entered the emptiness of beings but not yet the emptiness of dharmas is called arousing the great adornment; one who is complete in both the emptiness of beings and the emptiness of dharmas, and in practising giving finds the three spheres empty in substance, seeing no giver, no receiver, and no thing given, this alone is called riding the Great Vehicle. So this ‘riding’ does not rest on practising a few more perfections or adorning oneself a few degrees more, but on an unmixed mind: apart from all afflictions and apart from the two vehicles' intent of settling only oneself, practising with a single taste for sarvajñā, for omniscience; with this unmixed mind one cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas while even the mark of what is cultivated is unfindable, ultimately pure, and this is riding the Great Vehicle. So the whole chapter, when all is said, wants you to see clearly: the Great Vehicle is not a cart for you to seize and never let go; precisely because the one who rides it rides without finding what is ridden, contemplates all dharmas as names only and ultimately unfindable, and with an unmixed mind goes all the way for the sake of omniscience, he truly mounts this Great Vehicle, riding this Great Vehicle always and never resting from the first, until he becomes a Buddha and turns the wheel of Dharma. This is the prajñā that the Chapter on Riding the Vehicle wants you to grasp.

The previous chapter, Riding the Vehicle, asked ‘how does one ride the Great Vehicle?’; this chapter goes on to ask ‘what is the great adornment?’ It still turns on the three propositions Pūrṇa set up earlier, the great adornment, setting out toward the Great Vehicle, and riding the Great Vehicle. Subhūti asks the Buddha: what is called the great adornment of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva? The Buddha's answer first spreads out layer upon layer: the bodhisattva adorns himself with the six perfections, adorns himself with the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, transforms his body to be like a Buddha, emits light and shakes the earth, conjures himself into a wheel-turning sage king, turns the three-thousand great-thousand world into vaiḍūrya, gives beings one by one whatever they want, and then teaches them the dharma of the six perfections. But at once the Buddha sets up the simile of a conjurer: a conjurer at a crossroads conjures up a crowd and gives them food and gives them drink; would you say this conjurer really has beings to give to? Subhūti answers, No. The Buddha then says: so too the bodhisattva; though there is giving, in truth nothing is given, because the marks of dharmas are of themselves like an illusion. This simile is played out once more in each of the passages on the six perfections. In the second half of the chapter Subhūti turns it round and says something deeper still: no great adornment is the great adornment, because dharmas are empty of specific marks. What makes the adornment great lies precisely not in the existence of adornment but in contemplating the adornment as empty of its specific mark, with no adornment to be found. The Buddha confirms him and points out the root: sarvajñā is not a made dharma, and beings are not made dharmas; why? Because the maker cannot be found. Since even the one who makes cannot be found at all, omniscience, beings, and adornment are all without making and without arising. From this follows the question and answer that is the lifeline of the chapter: Pūrṇa asks Subhūti in return, is form neither bound nor freed? Subhūti says, So it is. What form is neither bound nor freed? Form like a dream is neither bound nor freed; form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness like an echo, like a reflection, like an illusion, like a mirage, like a conjuration are neither bound nor freed; past, future, and present are neither bound nor freed; wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate are neither bound nor freed; the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas are neither bound nor freed; pushed to the utmost, even anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, even the bodhisattva, even the Buddha are likewise neither bound nor freed. Why? Because they are without existence, because they are apart, because they are quiescent, because they do not arise. These four phrases are the root the whole chapter returns to without rest. In the treatise the Buddha brings this ‘neither bound nor freed’ down to the two ends of ordinary and noble: the dharmas of ordinary people are false and unfindable, so it cannot be said that there is really a bondage; the dharmas of the noble are ultimately empty and unfindable, so it cannot be said that there is really a release either. Dwelling on this path, the afflictions cannot pull you and cannot drag you down into the state of an ordinary person, hence it is called not bound; nor is there any need to take the dharmas without outflows to break the afflictions, hence it is called not released. This is the prajñā that the Chapter on Neither Bound nor Freed wants you to grasp: not first adorning beings and then turning back to see the adornment as empty, but seeing clearly right now that one adorns with nothing adorned and is freed with nothing freed; this very not-bound and not-released is itself the great adornment that the bodhisattva-mahāsattva arouses.

In this chapter the Buddha spreads the whole of ‘Mahāyāna’, the Great Vehicle, open for you to see. Subhūti ought to have asked about prajñā, yet he changes the name and asks about Mahāyāna; the treatise-author comes to his rescue, saying 「般若波羅蜜、摩訶衍一義，但名字異」 tr. "prajñāpāramitā and Mahāyāna are one in meaning; only the names differ": what prajñā and Mahāyāna point to is from the first one thing, only the names are different, and since among the six perfections prajñā is the greatest, to speak of Mahāyāna is already to have spoken prajñā to the full. What, then, is Mahāyāna after all? The Buddha first answers in one sentence, ‘the six perfections are the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's Mahāyāna’: the body of the Great Vehicle is these six perfections, giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and prajñā. The treatise-author then points out that the six perfections are the very body of Mahāyāna, and that the eighteen emptinesses and the hundred and eight samādhi opened up afterward are only a finer distinguishing of its meaning upon this body. So the rest of the chapter spreads out along two roads. One road is the eighteen emptinesses, inner emptiness, outer emptiness, up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas, of each of which it is said ‘because it is neither permanent nor destroyed; why? because its nature is so of itself’; the treatise-author explains the purpose of this closing sentence: if a person does not practise this emptiness, he falls either into ‘permanence’ or into ‘destruction’, so one must leave these two extremes and practise the eighteen emptinesses by the middle way, breaking ‘existence’ without clinging to ‘emptiness’, and further deliver beings with a mind of great compassion. This road uses the eighteen emptinesses to explain prajñāpāramitā. The other road, past the fascicle boundary, is the hundred and eight samādhi: śūraṃgama, jewel seal, lion's play, wondrous moon, all the way down to free of attachment, undefiled as space; the Buddha first lists all one hundred and eight names in one breath, then himself explains them very briefly; the treatise-author, afraid they will not be easily understood, again explains the meaning of each name one by one, 「首楞嚴三昧者，秦言健相」 tr. "the śūraṃgama samādhi, in the language of Qin, ‘the mark of valour’", like a great general able to know and distinguish the strength of all his troops, how many and how deep; the jewel seal can seal and settle all samādhi; the lion's play can enter and leave all samādhi at will; each is a simile set up upon the thing itself, and this is where the teaching lifeline of the whole chapter shows most. The treatise-author himself marks the place of this road: 「上以十八空釋般若波羅蜜，今以百八三昧釋禪波羅蜜」 tr. "above, the eighteen emptinesses explained the perfection of prajñā; now the hundred and eight samādhi explain the perfection of meditation": the eighteen emptinesses are matched to the perfection of prajñā, the hundred and eight samādhi to the perfection of meditation. Yet the hundred and eight samādhi of the perfection of meditation are in the end not outside prajñā: at the very end the treatise gives its charge, 「是諸三昧末後，皆應言用無所得，以同般若故」 tr. "at the end of each of these samādhi one should say ‘used with nothing to be attained’, because they are the same as prajñā": the closing of every samādhi must have this sentence ‘used with nothing to be attained’ added, because they are of one taste with prajñā. This is what the Chapter on Mahāyāna wants you to grasp: the greatness of the Great Vehicle lies not in the multitude of names and marks, but in the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the hundred and eight samādhi, and every kind of good dharma each taking nothing to be attained as its home, and joining together to form one body of the Great Vehicle: 「如是等無量無邊三昧和合，名為摩訶衍」 tr. "measureless, boundless samādhi such as these, joined together, are named Mahāyāna".

In this chapter the Buddha begins from the first group of the thirty-seven limbs of the path, the four foundations of mindfulness, spreads open the whole lineage of the limbs of the path, and labels each of them ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's Mahāyāna’. First the foundation of mindfulness of the body: in walking, standing, sitting, and lying one knows oneself clearly; in breathing in and out one is like a turner who knows the length of his cord; one contemplates the four great elements of the body as a butcher divides an ox into four parts; one contemplates the impurity of the thirty-six things as a clear-eyed farmer opening the granary and distinguishing the grains; and so on to seeing the nine perceptions of the corpse and the white bones like shells; contemplating the body all the way, and yet 「亦無身覺，以不可得故」 tr. "also without any notion of a body, because it is unfindable". You may ask: since it is called ‘foundation of mindfulness’, why not simply say ‘foundation of wisdom’? The treatise-author answers crisply: 「初習行時，未及有智；念為初門」 tr. "at the beginning of practice one has not yet reached wisdom; mindfulness is the first gate", while in truth 「四念處實體是智慧」 tr. "the real substance of the four foundations of mindfulness is wisdom"; mindfulness is only the gate of first entry, and wisdom is its substance. In the four foundations of mindfulness wisdom prevails, in the four right efforts vigour prevails, in the four bases of supernormal power concentration prevails; all are the one substance of the limbs of the path, differing in name according to which dharma is dominant. Then the treatise-author points out the most important dividing line of this chapter: śrāvakas contemplate the four foundations of mindfulness, attain heat, summit, acceptance, up to the four fruits, take them to realise cessation, and are done; the bodhisattva, however, 「不忘本願，不捨大悲」 tr. "does not forget his original vow and does not abandon great compassion", and though he cultivates these thirty-seven limbs he does not take nirvāṇa, 「本願牢故，大悲心深入故」 tr. "because his original vow is firm, because his mind of great compassion has entered deeply". He borrows the dream simile of the seventh abiding ground: the bodhisattva is like a man who in a dream binds a raft to cross a river and wakes midstream; just as he thinks ‘I have wearied myself for nothing; there is no river and no raft’ and is about to extinguish his inverted mind, 「十方佛伸手摩頭」 tr. "the Buddhas of the ten directions stretch out their hands and stroke his head", urging him to recollect his original vow and to deliver beings with this dharma of emptiness. The same four foundations of mindfulness: the śrāvaka takes them to realise for himself, the bodhisattva practises them to deliver beings, and the dividing line lies precisely in this original vow and great compassion that prajñā gathers in. Past the second threshold of the sūtra text, the Buddha lists all the remaining limbs of the path in one breath: the four right efforts, the four divisions of the bases of supernormal power, the five faculties and five powers, the seven limbs of awakening and the eightfold path, the three samādhi, the eleven knowledges, the three faculties, the ten recollections, the meditations and absorptions, up to the Buddha's ten powers, four fearlessnesses, four unobstructed knowledges, and eighteen unshared dharmas; every item is gathered into ‘because it is unfindable’. At the last it comes down to the forty-two syllable-gates: the gate of the syllable a, ‘because all dharmas from the first do not arise’, all the way to ‘beyond ḍha no syllable can be found’; the Buddha says 「因字有語，因語有名，因名有義」 tr. "from syllables come words, from words come names, from names comes meaning", and hearing one syllable one penetrates the real mark of all dharmas; and the bodhisattva distinguishes and breaks apart the syllables, words empty, names empty, meaning empty, 「得畢竟空，即是般若波羅蜜」 tr. "attaining ultimate emptiness, which is prajñāpāramitā". This is what the Chapter on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness wants you to grasp: from the four foundations of mindfulness to the forty-two syllable-gates, every enumerated limb of the path is sealed with ‘because it is unfindable’, all return alike to prajñā's nothing to be attained, and join together to form one body of the Great Vehicle: 「如是等種種分別，是名『菩薩摩訶薩摩訶衍』」 tr. "distinctions of every kind such as these are named ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's Mahāyāna’".

If all dharmas from the first neither come nor go, how can a bodhisattva walk from one ground to another? The Chapter on Setting Out puts the hardest contradiction of practice before us at its very opening: the grounds cannot be found, yet the grounds must still be cultivated; there is no real self that moves upward, yet not one of morality, patience, hearing the Dharma, giving, and delivering beings can be left out. The Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna gives the simile of horse, elephant, and dragon: when the earlier mount has carried a person to the edge of its strength, one changes to a greater bearer; this is not to deny the road already travelled, but not to take what has already been gained as the end. So the ten grounds become ten deeper acts of letting go and taking up. The Ground of Joy keeps the vow-mind from draining away toward fame and gain; the Ground Free of Stain lets it withstand kindness and enmity; the Ground Possessing Light turns wide learning into the gift of Dharma; the Ground of Increasing Radiance grasps no mark of renunciation within renunciation; the Ground Hard to Conquer guards the subtle points of entry such as intimacy, idle talk, anger, and pride; the Ground of Manifest Presence is still able to give without regret when the one who asks truly appears. Coming to the Ground of Deep Entry, first one clings to no view even of self, beings, the elements and sense-fields, or of reliance on the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṅgha, and the precepts, and then makes emptiness, compassion, patience, knowledge, concentration, and wisdom complete one by one; the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas does not say that all things are nothing, but that toward the non-arising and non-ceasing of dharmas one can believe and accept, penetrate, be unobstructed, and not turn back. Thereafter the Unmoving Ground can manifest a body and teach the Dharma according to capacity; the Ground of Roots of Goodness makes the vow into a language, a family, a retinue, and a world that beings can meet; and only the Ground of the Dharma Cloud, like a great cloud raining everywhere, turns what was cultivated ground by ground into unobstructed Buddha-work. In reading this chapter there is no need first to assign oneself a rank; one need only see, in every choice, whether what is gained grows lighter and what is taken up grows deeper, and test one's vow by the present thought, word, and deed. True setting out is therefore not asking how high one stands, but that with every step forward there is one part less of gain that can be possessed and one part more of beings one will not abandon. No one moves and yet wholesome dharmas deepen day by day; no ground can be grasped and yet great compassion widens day by day. This is the path of the ten grounds that prajñā opens.

The previous chapter spoke of the bodhisattva setting out toward the Great Vehicle, from one ground to another; this chapter goes on to answer the question Subhūti left hanging: from where does this vehicle go forth, where does it come to dwell, and who rides it forth? The Buddha first gives a brisk answer: this vehicle goes forth from the three realms and comes to dwell in sarvajñā. To come out of birth and death and settle in omniscience sounds like the plainest of roads. But the very next sentence pulls the road away: because of the dharma of non-duality. The Great Vehicle and sarvajñā, these two, neither join nor disperse, are without form, without shape, without opposition, of one mark, that is, without mark. Then the Buddha counts on down: the limit of reality, suchness, dharma-nature; form, feeling, perception, constructions, consciousness; eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; dream, illusion, mirage, echo, reflection, conjuration; giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, wisdom; the eighteen emptinesses; the thirty-seven limbs; all the way down to arhat, pratyekabuddha, and Buddha: whoever wishes to make any item among these go forth from the three realms in fact wishes to make a signless dharma go forth from the three realms. A signless dharma, where is its going forth, where its arriving? The treatise-author adds an important sentence: to speak of the dharma of non-duality is in order to cut off the bodhisattva's clinging; to speak of one mark is in order to guide ordinary people; even this ‘one’ is a skilful means for drawing people in. Asked again about the dwelling place: the Great Vehicle has no dwelling place, because all dharmas are without the mark of dwelling; if one speaks of dwelling, it is only dwelling by the dharma of not dwelling, like an illusion, like a dream, in which though there is sitting, lying, walking, and standing, it is not true dwelling. Asked again who rides this vehicle forth: there is no one. The vehicle is the six perfections, what it employs is kindness, compassion, and skilful means, the one who rides is the bodhisattva, and these three are all empty; the self cannot be found, up to knower and seer cannot be found; counting from the ground of dry wisdom and the ground of the stage of nature all the way to the ground of the Buddha, the ten grounds too are each unfindable, ultimately pure. Reading this far one cannot help asking: since there is no going forth, no arriving, no dwelling, and no one, why is this chapter named precisely Going Forth and Arriving? The treatise-author leaves the answer in the last sentence: the bodhisattva, by the dharma of unfindability, rides this vehicle forth to sarvajñā. It turns out that it is not that there must first be a dharma to tread on before one can go forth from the three realms; it is precisely because there is not a single dharma to be found underfoot that this vehicle is bound by nothing, goes forth clean, and arrives completely. Were there one hair's breadth that could be found or dwelt in, it would long since have been held fast within the three realms. The weight of the two words ‘going forth and arriving’ lies not in how much the vehicle carries, but in the vehicle carrying nothing whatever: having nothing, it goes forth from everything; dwelling nowhere, it arrives everywhere.

In the previous chapter Subhūti questioned the Mahāyāna on five matters, and the Buddha answered each in turn; this chapter is his praise once he has heard it all: the Mahāyāna surpasses all the world together with the gods, humans, and asuras, is equal to space, can receive immeasurable and boundless beings, has no place of coming, going, or abiding that can be seen, has no prior limit, later limit, or middle limit that can be found, and is equal across the three times, and so it is named the Great Vehicle. The Buddha approves, yet at once states a principle no one expects: the reason this vehicle can surpass everything is precisely not that it ‘exists’ more than everything else. The sūtra asks round after round: if the desire realm were truly existent, not false, not inverted, permanent, and indestructible, the Mahāyāna could not surpass it; it is precisely because the desire realm exists through false recollection, imagining, and discrimination, through coming together and names, being impermanent and a non-existent dharma, that the Mahāyāna surpasses it. So too the form realm and the formless realm, so too the five aggregates and the six faculties, and on to dharma-nature, the limit of reality, the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, and on to the dharmas of the noble ones, the minds of the bodhisattva from the first arousing of the mind onward, wisdom like vajra, and on to the thirty-two marks of the buddhas, their light, their Brahmā voice, their wheel of Dharma: the questioning runs all the way to the bottom, and the answer is always the same sentence: because these are non-existent and not dharmas, it surpasses them. The treatise-author, afraid that people will not take in this reversal, sets up a simile: three persons cross the same stretch of dangerous road; one flees by night and escapes alone, one pays money to be let off, and one, like a great king leading a great army, crushes the bandits and brings the whole army across. Śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas, the three vehicles, are alike delivered from birth and death, yet their paths of skilful means differ this much. The greatness of the Great Vehicle lies exactly in this, that it does not skirt the world but crushes it and surpasses it. But by what power does it crush? The treatise-author answers crisply: the three realms are like an illusion, like a dream, existing through causes and conditions, and everything impermanent, breaking, and wearing away is the mark of emptiness; the Mahāyāna runs contrary to the three realms, and so it can crush them. If the three realms were fixed, real, and not false, the two sides would be of equal strength and neither could break the other. So surpassing is not a greater ‘existence’ pressing down a smaller one, which would only ever be a deadlock of equal forces; surpassing is the surpassing of the illusory by emptiness, the surpassing of clinging to existence by the non-existent. That is why even the unconditioned dharmas are empty, and why even beings are non-existent and not dharmas: precisely because there is no real being to be extinguished, the Buddha's bringing beings into nirvāṇa without remainder carries no fault of uprooting, and beings can have been extinguished, be extinguished now, and be extinguished hereafter. This chapter is named Surpassing, and what it truly says is this: whoever wrestles with the ten thousand dharmas is only their equal in strength; only what does not wrestle with the ten thousand dharmas surpasses them all.

In the previous chapter Subhūti praised the Mahāyāna as surpassing everything, and the Buddha answered ‘surpassing’; in this chapter the Buddha takes up the rest of his praise sentence by sentence and approves it: you say the vehicle is equal to space, so it is, so it is; you say space receives immeasurable and boundless beings and the Mahāyāna likewise receives them, so it is, so it is; you say this vehicle has no place of coming, going, or abiding to be seen, so it is, so it is; you say its prior limit, later limit, and middle limit cannot be found and that this vehicle is called equal across the three times, so it is, so it is. Yet after each approval the reason the Buddha gives is unexpected. First, equal to space: space has no east, west, south, or north, is neither long nor short, neither blue nor yellow, without arising or ceasing, without stain or purity, and so on down through more than twenty kinds, and the Mahāyāna is so in every one. Someone naturally asks: giving and morality are conditioned dharmas, how can they be equal to unconditioned space? The treatise-author answers: the world-transcending six perfections come together with suchness, dharma-nature, the limit of reality, and wisdom, and after the acceptance of non-arising is attained there is no discrimination at all, and so they resemble space. Next, containing and receiving, and here lies the deepest reversal of the whole chapter. We always suppose that space holds the ten thousand things because it is vast and boundless; the Buddha says instead that because beings are without anything existent, space is without anything existent; because space is without anything existent, the Mahāyāna is without anything existent; and precisely because it is without anything existent, it can receive. The treatise-author presses the question to the end for us: space is only a provisional name for ‘the place form does not reach’, set up in dependence on the mark of form, with no mark of its own to be found; traced to the last, it is not called a mark, not called what is marked, not called existent, not called non-existent, all language cut off, still and extinguished like nirvāṇa without remainder. So what can contain and receive everything is not some larger thing but non-existence itself. Where one thing stands there is obstruction; only what is without anything existent can receive everything, as within the nature of nirvāṇa immeasurable beings are received. Then, no coming and no going: in what has already gone there is no going, in what has not yet gone there is no going, and in the time of going there is no going; the goer does not go, and the non-goer does not go either. The comings and goings the fleshly eye of the ordinary person sees, the Buddha says, are false and deceptive and without reality, no different from what animals see. Last, equal across the three times: the past is empty, the future is empty, the present is empty, and the equality of the three times is empty too; within that equality even equality cannot be found. A bodhisattva who understands this is not wearied by the beginningless past nor daunted by the boundless future. At the chapter's end the treatise-author records four views: some say the path is attained without causes and conditions, some say it comes of itself when the season arrives, some say it comes from merit alone, some say from wisdom alone; all of these are not causes and conditions, or scant causes and conditions, and Subhūti does not praise them. What the Buddha teaches is the full complement of causes and conditions, the six perfections; the bodhisattvas of the three times train in this vehicle in full and attain the Buddha path. In the transmitted texts this chapter bears two names, some heading it Equal to Space and some Containing and Receiving, and these are in truth two faces of one meaning: only because it is equal to space can it contain and receive; only because it is without anything existent does it exclude nothing. Emptiness does not push the world away; emptiness is exactly the place where the world can be set down.

At this point in the teaching of prajñā a small case arises. The Buddha charged Subhūti to teach prajñāpāramitā for the bodhisattvas, yet all along he has been speaking of the Mahāyāna, speaking of the Great Vehicle, and so Pūrṇa rises to ask the Buddha: the World-Honored One had Subhūti teach prajñā, how is it that he now speaks of the Mahāyāna? Subhūti does not defend himself but turns and puts the matter to the Buddha: in speaking of the Mahāyāna, have I departed from prajñāpāramitā? The Buddha answers: no. In speaking of the Mahāyāna you accord with prajñā and do not depart from prajñā. Why? All wholesome dharmas and dharmas that aid the path, the dharmas of the śrāvakas, of the pratyekabuddhas, of the bodhisattvas, and of the buddhas, are all gathered into prajñāpāramitā: the six perfections, the thirty-seven limbs of the path, the three gates of liberation, the ten powers of a buddha and on to the practice of constant equanimity, not one lies outside. Then a step further: the Mahāyāna and prajñā, and on to the five aggregates, the faculties, objects, consciousnesses, contacts, and feelings, the six elements, the four truths, the three realms, the eighteen emptinesses, the samādhi gates and dhāraṇī gates, the Buddha and nirvāṇa, all these dharmas neither join nor disperse, are without form, without shape, without opposition, of one mark, that is, without mark; the Mahāyāna is not different from prajñāpāramitā and prajñāpāramitā is not different from the Mahāyāna, without duality and without difference, and so to speak of the Mahāyāna is to speak of prajñāpāramitā. The treatise-author lays bare the point of the question for us: Pūrṇa himself had no doubt; he asked on behalf of newly trained people of dull faculties who do not understand that the meaning is one while the names differ. There are two names, and only one meaning. Why is the meaning one? Because all the wholesome dharmas of the three vehicles are for the sake of nirvāṇa, and so all are gathered together within prajñā; the gates of nirvāṇa are three, emptiness, the signless, and non-action, and just as keeping morality can give rise to meditation and meditation can give rise to real wisdom, all the way along there is no clinging to the world. The treatise-author also records side by side one further division: the thirty-seven limbs and the three gates of liberation are dharmas shared by the three vehicles, the six perfections are the bodhisattva's dharmas, and the ten powers up to the practice of constant equanimity are the Buddha's dharmas; others say instead that the six perfections divide into the complete and the incomplete, the incomplete shared with the two vehicles and the complete belonging to the bodhisattva alone. The two accounts stand together, and no verdict is added. And the final blow falls on emptiness: the Mahāyāna is empty and prajñāpāramitā is also empty; because the meaning of emptiness is one, the accord is without error; from prajñā on to nirvāṇa all alike neither join nor disperse and are without form, without shape, and without opposition, of one mark that is without mark; because the mark is the same, the Mahāyāna is prajñāpāramitā, without duality and without difference. The whole text of this chapter is barely more than a thousand characters, yet what it teaches is the largest measure of prajñā: converging on the tenet, gathering the ten thousand dharmas back to one tenet. However the names differ, within ultimate emptiness there is no dividing this from that; and so there is no need to abolish one name to accommodate the other. The two names stand together, and to speak of the Mahāyāna is to speak of prajñā.

The previous chapter has just reconciled the Mahāyāna with prajñā; in this chapter, the moment Subhūti opens his mouth, he takes apart the very one the teaching is addressed to until nothing can be found: the bodhisattva's prior limit cannot be found, the later limit cannot be found, the middle limit cannot be found; because form is boundless the bodhisattva too is boundless; that form is the bodhisattva, this too cannot be found; sought in every kind and every place the bodhisattva cannot be found; the bodhisattva has only a name; as with the name ‘I’, I am ultimately non-arising; what is ultimately non-arising is not called form; a dharma ultimately non-arising, whom then is one to teach prajñā; apart from ultimate non-arising there is no bodhisattva practising the path; and a bodhisattva who hears all this has a mind that does not sink, does not regret, is not startled, not terrified, not afraid. Ten layers in a single breath, and so the chapter is named The Ten Non-existents. Śāriputra then asks layer by layer and Subhūti answers layer by layer, from ‘because beings are without anything existent, because they are empty, because they are separate, because their nature is non-existent’, sifting all the way through the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness up to omniscience of all kinds, and the closing sentence of every gate is the same sentence: the bodhisattva's prior limit cannot be found. Why must the meaning of emptiness be spoken ten times over? The treatise-author answers with utter plainness: the emptiness of the bodhisattva is not attained at one telling, just as a deep-rooted great tree cannot be felled with a single stroke of the axe, and only with many strokes is it cut through. And why take ‘I’ as the simile? Because for everyone it is easy to know for oneself that there is no self and hard to believe in the emptiness of dharmas; those who have attained the path witness selflessness for themselves, while those who have not hear emptiness spoken with their ears yet see reality constantly with their eyes; and so the self is refuted first and dharmas afterward, using the small as a simile for the great, as rock sugar is a simile for ambrosia. The answers that follow unfold gate by gate: form is like space, its edge cannot be found and its middle cannot be found, without edge and without middle, and it is merely called space; form cannot be found within form, form cannot be found within feeling, sifted through self and other, and on to ‘within prajñā there is no instruction, within instruction there is no bodhisattva’; the bodhisattva has only a provisional name, like a conjured person, a name set up further within provisional names; I am ultimately unfindable, how then could there be arising? In the latter half of the chapter the edge turns to dharmas themselves: because all dharmas arise from a coming together they are without self-nature, just as eye-consciousness arises from the coming together of eye, form, light, space, and the mind that wishes to see, and sifting each one no seeing can be found in it, nor should there be seeing within the coming together; the seeing dharma is ultimately empty, like an illusion, like a dream. Again it says that all dharmas are impermanent and yet not lost: impermanence refutes the inversion of permanence, not being lost refutes the inversion of annihilation, and these five characters are exactly the gate of entry into the real mark. And ultimate non-arising? Ultimate non-arising is the real mark of all dharmas, the real mark is prajñāpāramitā, how could one teach prajñā by means of prajñā: the one who teaches and what is taught are without duality and without difference. To hear so thoroughgoing a non-existence without fear is not forced endurance; it is like a person who sees terrifying things in a dream and, once awake, has no fearful mind: knowing that all dharmas are false and deceptive like an illusion, there is from the start no real thing to fear. So the chapter's end returns to the place of practice: the bodhisattva contemplates all dharmas, does not receive, does not display, does not abide in, does not cling to, and does not say ‘this is form’, the five right contemplations, because within the five aggregates there is the fire of impermanence that can burn the mind, and because an empty village is where bandits lodge, and the wise should not stay there long. And the close falls exactly on non-duality: before form is refuted, love and clinging to form arise; after form is refuted, wrong view arises, clinging to the emptiness of form; first the clinging to existence is refuted, then the clinging to emptiness, both are set down, and form on to omniscience of all kinds, apart from these two, is called non-dual, and all enter the count of non-dual dharmas. The ten non-existents are not ten negations piled up but ten gates opened by one and the same ultimate emptiness; the contemplation of prajñā may enter by one gate, by two, and on to immeasurable gates. The place where everything has been sifted through and nothing is attained is exactly the place where prajñā is practised, and exactly the reason a bodhisattva hears it without being startled or afraid.

The previous chapter sifted the bodhisattva through ten layers to where nothing could be found; in this chapter Śāriputra opens his mouth and asks once more the three most elementary things: what is a bodhisattva? what is prajñāpāramitā? what is contemplation? As if everything were starting over from the beginning. The treatise-author says it plainly: the emptiness of the bodhisattva is like a deep-rooted great tree that no single stroke of the axe can fell; and the Buddha's Dharma is like a great cool and lovely pool, where those in front have drunk their fill and gone while those behind have not yet drunk. To ask again is not to repeat. Subhūti's answer takes the three names apart one by one: to arouse the great mind for unsurpassed awakening and yet cling to no dharma, that is a bodhisattva; separation, separation from the five aggregates, separation from the six perfections, separation from omniscience, and ‘separation’ is precisely another name for ‘emptiness’, that is prajñā; to contemplate form as neither permanent nor impermanent, neither pleasant nor painful, neither self nor non-self, falling into none of the eight, that is contemplation. Then the edge turns to the chapter's title: the non-arising of form is not form, the non-duality of form is not form, form enters the count of non-dual dharmas. Why? The mark of form is empty at root, and within the emptiness of form there is no form and no arising; to refute the duality of form is called non-dual, to refute the arising of form is called non-arising, one and the same emptiness entered by different gates. It is like tearing down a privy to build a house: though the privy is gone, the impression of impurity remains; only when one knows that the privy was from the start a conjured thing is that impression truly set down. Form is non-arising from the start; it is not that today wisdom has made it non-arising. So Subhūti says to the Buddha: a bodhisattva who contemplates all dharmas in this way sees the non-arising of form as ultimately pure, and on to seeing the non-arising of the Buddha and the Buddha's dharmas as ultimately pure. Śāriputra at once seizes the crux: if all dharmas are non-arising, why does the srota-āpanna cut off the three fetters and cultivate the path? why does the bodhisattva undertake difficult practices? why does the Buddha turn the wheel of Dharma? Subhūti answers cleanly: I do not wish that there be anything attained within the non-arising dharma. But this is not not-knowing and not-attaining: there is knowing and there is attaining, only not by way of a dual dharma; because of worldly names there are srota-āpanna on to the buddhas, while in the truth of the highest meaning there is no karma and no result, no arising and no ceasing. Asked again whether it is an arisen dharma that arises or an unarisen dharma that arises: an arisen dharma has already arisen and should not arise again; an unarisen dharma does not yet exist and should not have arising; half arisen and half unarisen does not arise either. The mark of arising is sifted through, and arising is like an illusion, like a dream, arising from false and deceptive dharmas. Here the treatise-author supplies two ladders: the contemplation of non-arising has two kinds, the compliant acceptance and the acceptance of non-arising, and ultimate purity is the purity of the acceptance of non-arising; from arousing the mind, subduing the mind, illumination, going forth and arriving, to the unsurpassed, the five kinds of awakening are laid out all the way to sitting at the seat of awakening. And the acceptance of non-arising is not cold: the bodhisattva regards beings as father and mother, as children, as his own body, and love arises of itself, not love by exertion; one who gives rise to a mind of difficulty and a mind of suffering cannot accomplish even the small affairs of the world, let alone the Buddha path. In the latter half of the chapter Śāriputra praises Subhūti as one who should stand foremost among teachers of the Dharma, and Subhūti replies with a single sentence: because all dharmas have nothing to rely on. The nature of form is always empty, relying neither on the inner, nor on the outer, nor on what is between the two, and so whatever is asked is answered, like wind moving through space, with nothing to obstruct it. The six perfections then divide into the worldly and the world-transcending: clinging to the mark of self, the mark of other, and the mark of giving, unmoving and unemerging within the world, this is worldly giving; purified in three parts, the self unfindable, no recipient seen, the thing given unfindable and no reward hoped for, able to move and able to emerge, this is world-transcending giving. What moves is the compliant acceptance; what emerges is the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. The six perfections, mixed with giving and morality, are the far path; the thirty-seven limbs, having only concentration and wisdom, are the near path. Where does all this power come from? It is the power of prajñāpāramitā: apart from the two extremes of annihilation and permanence, existence and non-existence, it can give rise to and can receive all wholesome dharmas, as the great ocean can receive the myriad rivers and streams; as in compounding medicines, the croton seed has the greatest force. Nor do the thought of great compassion and the thought of ultimate emptiness hinder each other: because beings are empty the thought too is empty, the names differ but the meaning is one, and objectless compassion is born exactly from ultimate emptiness. At this point the Buddha, who has been sitting and listening all along, speaks: excellent! excellent! The prajñāpāramitā as you have taught it is all by receiving the Buddha's intent; those who train in prajñāpāramitā should train as you have taught. The three-thousand great-thousand world quakes in six ways, and the Buddha smiles and declares: as I teach prajñā in this world, so too do the buddhas of the immeasurable worlds of the ten directions teach it. Why does the earth quake? When a bodhisattva arouses the mind, when a nāga king comes out of the water, by the Buddha's spiritual power, when gods and humans attain the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas; and to take the essential, the earth quakes always because the real mark of all dharmas is being taught, that is, prajñāpāramitā. Non-arising taught to its very end is not a dead stillness but a living word at which the great earth quakes in six ways.

The previous chapter spoke of the acceptance of non-arising; in this chapter the scene suddenly opens wide: the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Trāyastriṃśa, the Yāma, the Tuṣita, and on to the Brahmā heavens and the Pure Abodes of the three-thousand great-thousand world, each with countless hundreds of thousands of koṭi of gods, come together to the assembly at one time. Yet the bodily light of all these gods, the karmic light won by giving, morality, and meditation, when set beside the Buddha's constant light, ‘does not reach it by a hundredth, a thousandth, a ten-thousand-koṭith part’, like a burnt-out lamp wick set beside jambūnada gold, shining yet not showing. If even the light of the gods is like this, how much more the light of wisdom? Śakra sees this light and thinks: the Buddha's light can eclipse the light of the gods, so the Buddha's light of wisdom must surely be able to break our folly and darkness. And so he asks Subhūti the one most pressing thing: how should a bodhisattva-mahāsattva abide in prajñāpāramitā? what is prajñā? how should it be practised? Subhūti says: I now speak in accord with the Buddha's intent and by the Buddha's spiritual power. He first urges the gods who have not yet aroused the mind to arouse the unsurpassed mind; those who have entered the fixed position of the śrāvaka are not fit for it, but if they are willing to arouse the mind he rejoices with them too, for a superior person should only seek a superior dharma. Then he takes this ‘prajñā’ apart layer by layer: contemplating the five aggregates as impermanent, painful, empty, and not self, as a sickness, as an abscess, as an arrow lodged in the body, as pain, vexation, decay, ruin, sorrow, fear, and unease, fifteen faults in a row; one of sharp faculties enters the truth of suffering when four are spoken, one of dull faculties must pass through eight, and then the remaining seven, before disgust arises; then contemplating the five aggregates as still and extinguished, separate, non-arising and non-ceasing, undefiled and unpurified, all because there is nothing to be attained. Here stands the most crucial sentence of all: the mark of prajñā is that there is no nirvāṇa apart from the five aggregates and no five aggregates apart from nirvāṇa; the real mark of the five aggregates is itself nirvāṇa. Śakra asks further: the mind of dedication and the mind of awakening are not in each other and cannot be found in each other, so how can one still dedicate? Subhūti does not answer from the worldly truth of illusion and dream but only from the truth of the highest meaning: these two minds are both empty, they are the mark of what is not mind; in ultimate emptiness there is neither this mind nor not-mind; only if there really were two dharmas could there be dedication, as a cart travelling west turns toward a lodging to the south, and where there is no difference there is nothing to turn toward. The mark of mind is as if constantly abiding, non-arising and non-ceasing, and so it is called inconceivable, and this inconceivability is constantly inconceivable, not to be grasped, not to be measured. The Buddha, seated there all along, now speaks, and praises with one sentence only: excellent! excellent! Subhūti, you teach prajñā for the bodhisattvas and comfort their minds; you are a person of the Small Vehicle, yet you can teach so deep a prajñā so well. Subhūti answers with gratitude: by practising the real mark of all dharmas I have been freed from old age, sickness, and death; how could I not remember the great kindness of this dharma? And so for the bodhisattvas he teaches the six perfections by showing, teaching, benefiting, and gladdening, expounding the dharma adorned with these four. In the latter half of the chapter Subhūti properly expounds the meaning of ‘abiding’: form, and the emptiness of form; the bodhisattva, and the emptiness of the bodhisattva; and this emptiness of form and emptiness of the bodhisattva are not two and not different. From the five aggregates, the six inner and outer sense-fields, the twelve links of causes and conditions, the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, the three vehicles and omniscience of all kinds, every single dharma is this one sentence. The treatise-author lays it bare in a word: this is contemplation by the eighteen emptinesses; the emptiness of beings removes beings and there is no mark of the bodhisattva, the emptiness of dharmas removes the five aggregates and there is no mark of the five aggregates, and the two emptinesses are no different, as when a sandalwood fire goes out and a fire of dung and straw goes out, in the going-out there are from the start no two kinds. Having said ‘one should abide thus’, the text then says throughout ‘one should not abide’: one should not abide in the five aggregates; not in permanent or impermanent, painful or pleasant, pure or impure, self or not self, empty or not empty, still or not still, separate or not separate; not in the unconditioned mark of the four fruits nor in the field of merit; not in the first ground up to the tenth ground; not in the many great vows of the first arousing of the mind, the five eyes, the samādhi gates, the dhāraṇī gates, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, great kindness and great compassion, the thirty-two marks and eighty minor marks, none of these; and on to the person of the eight, the srota-āpanna of at most seven births, the one who goes from family to family, the one who enters nirvāṇa in the interval, the sakṛdāgāmin, the eight kinds of anāgāmin, the nine kinds of arhat, every stage of fruit one by one, one should not abide, each tied to the one phrase ‘because there would be something attained’. Why? If the mind can be separate and unabiding within the five aggregates, that is true abiding; not abiding is not a sweeping denial, it is cutting off love of dharma and separating from the grasping of marks. Śāriputra thinks: if there is nothing anywhere to abide in, where after all does one abide to accomplish the Buddha path? Subhūti asks him back: where do the buddhas abide? The mind of the buddhas abides nowhere among all dharmas, does not abide in the mind that abides nowhere, does not abide in the mind that is not non-abiding, ultimately pure; the bodhisattva trains after the Buddha just so: I shall abide in the dharma of non-abiding. At the last the gods in the assembly raise a doubt: the words and phrases of the yakṣas can still be understood, but the prajñā Subhūti teaches cannot be known at all. Subhūti says: you were never meant to ‘know’ it; I expound nothing, I do not speak so much as a single letter, and there is no hearer either. He uses four similes in a row: the Buddha conjures a conjured person, and the conjured person conjures a fourfold assembly and teaches them the dharma; one sees the Buddha teaching the dharma in a dream; two people on either side of a deep ravine each praise the Buddha's dharma and the two echoes answer one another; a skilled conjurer at a crossroads conjures a Buddha and a fourfold assembly teaching the dharma. Of each he asks: is there here a speaker, a hearer, a knower? The gods all answer: there is not. Names are empty from the start, false and deceptive and without reality; where there is a name there is speech, where there is no name there is no speech. Prajñā is not different from the five aggregates; the real mark of the five aggregates is prajñā; these five aggregates are neither deep nor subtle, and omniscience of all kinds is neither deep nor subtle. When the Buddha attained awakening there was likewise no speaking; in the mark of stillness and extinction there is truly no speaker and no hearer. So those who wish to abide in the fruit of srota-āpanna and on to the Buddha path can none of them do without this acceptance; the bodhisattva, from the first arousing of the mind, should abide in prajñā just so, because there is no speaking and no hearing. All contemplations cease and speech is cut off, and so it cannot be spoken, cannot be heard, cannot be known; receiving nothing and clinging to nothing among all dharmas, one enters nirvāṇa. A grand assembly of gods gathered like clouds and the Buddha's light shining alone, when all is said, only asks one to set down this single word ‘abide’: abiding without abiding anywhere, speaking without speaking anything, returning to receiving nothing and clinging to nothing.

The previous chapter sifted the place of ‘abiding’ down to abiding nowhere; this chapter begins from a single thought: the gods think to themselves, what kind of person should be used to hear Subhūti teach the dharma? Subhūti knows their thought and answers in a way no one expects: use a person like an illusion, like a conjuration, to hear it. Why? Because such a person has no hearing, no listening, no knowing, no realising. The gods press on: if beings are like illusion and conjuration, is the hearer of the dharma also like illusion and conjuration? Subhūti says: just so. Beings are like an illusion, and the hearer of the dharma is like an illusion too; I am like an illusion, like a dream, and so on to the knower and the seer, form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the emptinesses, the perfections, the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, the four fruits of the śramaṇa up to the pratyekabuddha path, counting all the way down, all like an illusion, like a dream; even the Buddha path is like an illusion, like a dream. At this the gods are shaken, and ask again: you say the Buddha path is like an illusion, like a dream; can it be that even nirvāṇa is like an illusion, like a dream? Subhūti answers without yielding an inch: I say nirvāṇa too is like an illusion, like a dream; and if there were a dharma surpassing nirvāṇa, I would say it too is like an illusion, like a dream. Why? Illusion, dream, and nirvāṇa are not two and not different. This sentence is where the whole chapter lands: to say nirvāṇa is like an illusion is not to say nirvāṇa is false and does not exist, but that illusion, dream, and nirvāṇa, all three, return alike to ultimate emptiness, not two and not different. The treatise-author takes over and unpicks it: among all beings the Buddha is first, among all dharmas nirvāṇa is first; to hear these two highest and most subtle dharmas called like an illusion, no wonder there is alarm and a second question. But these two dharmas, subtle as they are, both come from false dharmas and so are empty: from false dharmas there is nirvāṇa, from merit and wisdom there is the Buddha; they belong to causes and conditions and have nothing real and fixed. As for the supposition ‘if there were a dharma surpassing nirvāṇa it too would be like an illusion’, the treatise-author says plainly: the method of simile sometimes cites a real thing and sometimes is only a supposition, spoken according to causes and conditions, just as the Buddha says ‘if a tree could understand what I teach, I would predict for it too the attainment of srota-āpanna’; a tree from the start has nothing that can understand, and the Buddha only makes the supposition to open people's understanding. Nirvāṇa is already the ultimate and unsurpassed among all dharmas, like the sea to which all rivers return, like Sumeru among mountains, like space among dharmas, the exhaustion of all suffering, ultimately constant and blissful, and in truth no dharma surpasses it; and even supposing there were, the wisdom of prajñā would illumine and break it without obstruction. It is like a great red-hot iron ball placed on fine hairs pulled apart: it burns straight through with its heat undiminished, only there is nothing more to burn. Prajñā breaks all existent dharmas and on to nirvāṇa, passing straight through without obstruction, its power of knowledge undiminished, only there is no further dharma to break. The latter half of the chapter changes scene: Śāriputra, leading the great disciples and countless thousands of bodhisattvas, asks together: this prajñā, so very deep, hard to see, hard to understand, hard to know, still and extinguished, subtle, who after all can receive it? Ānanda, who has all along said little, now speaks and answers on their behalf: four kinds of person can believe and receive it: the non-retrogressing bodhisattva, the arhat whose outflows are exhausted, the three kinds of person still in training who have accomplished right view, and the bodhisattva who, though not yet at non-retrogression, has merit and sharp faculties and constantly follows good friends. The treatise-author raises a question especially for this: Ānanda ordinarily does not take part in debate, so why does he answer here? The answer is fine-grained too: although Ānanda's outflows are not exhausted and he is not yet skilled in the wisdom of emptiness, what is asked here is the matter of ‘who can believe and receive’, an existent matter and not a matter of emptiness; moreover at this moment the mind of delight in speaking has arisen and the power of faith is keen, and so he can ask and answer as the dharma requires. And the key to believing and receiving Subhūti states himself: not to discriminate form by means of emptiness, for form itself is emptiness and emptiness itself is form; because prajñā breaks nothing it has no fault, and so it does not speak what is not the dharma. Finally Śāriputra praises and helps complete it, pointing out that prajñā does not only teach emptiness but also teaches the three vehicles at length, gathers in bodhisattvas, and carries the seven eloquences as its practice and reward. Subhūti agrees, yet comes to rest in one place only: although prajñā teaches the three vehicles at length it has no fixed mark; all of it is taught because the eighteen emptinesses come together, and gathering in bodhisattvas and the seven eloquences are the same, everything resting on the one wisdom of emptiness. Beginning from the question of the illusory person hearing the dharma and ending in the eighteen emptinesses: so the hearer is like an illusion, what is heard is like an illusion, the one who teaches is like an illusion, and even the highest, nirvāṇa, is like an illusion; and this being like an illusion is not annihilation but the living word within ultimate emptiness.

The previous chapter told of prajñā heard by an illusory person; in this chapter the scene suddenly opens wide: the gods of the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings, of the Trāyastriṃśa, and on to the Akaniṣṭha heaven of the three-thousand great-thousand world have a thought at one time: the venerable Subhūti lets fall this rain of dharma for us; why do we not conjure flowers and scatter them over the Buddha, the bodhisattvas, the assembly of bhikṣus, Subhūti, and prajñāpāramitā? And so conjured flowers fill the whole of space and form a flower terrace, dignified and wondrous. But Subhūti sees through it at a glance: these flowers have never been seen in the heavens; they are conjured flowers, not flowers grown on a tree; they are born of the heart-tree. Śakra Devānām Indra, following his thought, says ‘these flowers are not born flowers, nor are they born of the mind-tree’, but Subhūti turns the question back on him: if they are not a dharma that is born, they are not called flowers. But is it only these flowers that are not born? Form too is not born. If it is not born, it is not called form; feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and on to the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness up to omniscience of all kinds, each is not born, and of each, ‘if it is not born, it is not called such-and-such’, not one sentence allowed to collapse. The treatise-author then opens up the reason the gods scatter flowers: the gods, having heard prajñā, are like long-parched ground that receives a timely rain; irrigating and planting are always short of water, but when one timely rain falls everywhere nothing is left unsoaked. The teaching of the Small Vehicle is measured and limited, while here Subhūti, from the first arousing of the mind to the Buddha path, teaches only the real mark of all dharmas, just as a great rain filling Jambudvīpa leaves nothing unmoistened. If there is grain already in the ground it will not sprout without rain, and the practitioner is the same: without the rain of dharma, one who has aroused the mind falls back. This rain of dharma can also remove foul winds, dust, and poisonous vapours, clearing away evil initial and sustained thought, the three unwholesome roots, wrong views, and evil friends. The scattering of these flowers also has its several destinations: to scatter them over the Buddha is to make offering to the Buddha-jewel; over the bodhisattvas, Subhūti, and prajñā is to make offering to the Dharma-jewel; over the assembly of bhikṣus is to make offering to the Saṅgha-jewel. Someone asks by whose power this flower terrace is so dignified, and the treatise records two accounts side by side without judging: one says it is the merit and mastery of the gods, the small able to become great; one says it is the Buddha's spiritual power and the merit of prajñā, a small cause bearing a great result. And as for ‘flowers not born’, the treatise points out that this means ‘non-arising, empty, coming forth from nowhere’; ‘the mind-tree’ means that whatever is thought of arrives the moment it is thought. Next it turns to the eye of the whole chapter: Śakra Devānām Indra praises in his heart, ‘Subhūti's wisdom is very deep; without destroying the provisional name he teaches the real mark of all dharmas’, and the Buddha, knowing his thought, answers ‘So it is! So it is!’ Śakra Devānām Indra then asks the Buddha: what is called teaching the real mark of all dharmas without destroying the provisional name? The Buddha himself answers him: form is only a provisional name, and Subhūti, without destroying this provisional name, teaches the real mark of all dharmas; feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and on to the srota-āpanna and on to the Buddha, are all only provisional names, and Subhūti in every case teaches the real mark without destroying the provisional name. Why? The real mark of all dharmas has from the start no destroying and no not-destroying, and so what Subhūti teaches has no destroying and no not-destroying either. This sentence, ‘without destroying the provisional name he teaches the real mark of all dharmas’, is said eight times through the chapter, and is the backbone of the whole: a name is the mundane truth and need not be destroyed; the real mark is the truth of the highest meaning and is of itself just as it is; the noble one knows these two levels and, when teaching the dharma, follows ordinary people in using names, while in the truth of the highest meaning there is neither this nor that and nothing to dispute; and so he can at once leave the provisional name undestroyed and speak the real mark directly, for the two truths were never two separate pieces. Following on this ‘not destroying’, Subhūti further teaches the bodhisattva how to train: to train in this way is in fact ‘not to train in form’, because one does not see any fixed form to be trained in; if in this way one does not train in emptiness, that is called training in emptiness, because of non-duality; and on to not training for the increase of form or for its decrease, not training for the receiving of form or for its cessation. Śāriputra joins in and asks: training thus, without receiving and without ceasing, how can one reach omniscience of all kinds? Subhūti answers: this form cannot be received and there is no one who receives form, because of inner and outer emptiness, because all dharmas are not received; and precisely for this reason one can reach omniscience of all kinds. When he practises prajñā he does not see form arising or ceasing, does not see receiving or not receiving, does not see stain or purity, does not see increase or decrease, because the nature of form is empty from the start. This non-arising and non-ceasing, non-receiving and non-relinquishing, unstained and unpurified, neither joining nor dispersing, neither increasing nor decreasing, is like the great ocean: all the rivers return to it and it does not increase, the fire-pearl boils it and it does not decrease; dharma-nature abides constantly and its self-nature cannot be found, and so training reaches its end in ‘nothing trained in, nothing reached’. The treatise-author adds a sentence: why speak only of inner and outer emptiness? Because the one who receives form does not exist, inner emptiness is spoken; because form cannot be received, outer emptiness is spoken; and these two, inner and outer emptiness, gather in the emptiness of all dharmas entirely. In the latter half of the chapter Śakra Devānām Indra asks Śāriputra: where should the bodhisattva's prajñā be sought? Śāriputra answers: it should be sought in the chapter of Subhūti. This saying was passed down widely in later ages, because Subhūti constantly enters deeply into emptiness, all he teaches tends toward emptiness, and even the emptiness he teaches is empty; though the prajñā the Buddha teaches everywhere surpasses Subhūti's a hundred thousand times ten thousand times over, what is wanted here is that teaching of one flavour tending toward emptiness, and so it does not say ‘seek it in the chapter of what the Buddha taught’. Śakra Devānām Indra presses on: whose spiritual power is this? Subhūti says it is the Buddha's spiritual power. He then objects: if all dharmas are received nowhere, how can one still speak of the Buddha's spiritual power? Apart from the mark of non-receiving, apart from suchness, even the Tathāgata cannot be found. Subhūti expounds at length following his words, and the treatise-author breaks the Tathāgata down all the way: the five aggregates are not the Tathāgata, apart from the five aggregates is not the Tathāgata, the five aggregates are not in the Tathāgata, the Tathāgata is not in the five aggregates, nor does the Tathāgata contain the five aggregates; it is only because of idle discourse that there is said to be a Tathāgata, and because idle discourse is cut off there is no Tathāgata; the Tathāgata is from the start a dharma non-arising and non-ceasing, so how could one seek him by the idle discourse of existence and non-existence? To seek prajñā one should likewise not seek it in the false five aggregates, just as one who seeks a precious treasure goes to the great ocean or the jewel mountain and does not seek it in ditches and filth. Finally Śakra Devānām Indra praises this prajñā three times: it is the mahāpāramitā, it is the immeasurable perfection, it is the boundless perfection. Subhūti explains each at length: because form is great, prajñā is great, because the prior limit, the later limit, and the middle limit of form cannot be found; ‘immeasurable’ takes space alone as its simile, because some things, though great, have measure, as Sumeru, great as it is, is still only eighty-four thousand yojanas, and only space is immeasurable; form is immeasurable like space and so prajñā is immeasurable; ‘boundless’ says that form is boundless, conditions are boundless, and beings are boundless, and what is called a being is in truth not a single dharma named being but only a provisional name; this name from the start has no dharma and no destination, a name forced upon it, and beings from the very beginning are constantly pure. So the whole chapter closes on one sentence: if the mark of beings can be broken, everything else is easy to break. A grand assembly of gods gathered like clouds and conjured flowers filling the sky points, when all is said, to one thing only: the flowers scattered are flowers of non-arising, the dharma spoken is the dharma that does not destroy the provisional name, the prajñā sought is to be sought in the chapter of Subhūti and in the end cannot be found, and the prajñā praised as great, immeasurable, and boundless is ultimately empty. Not destroying a single provisional name, not concealing a single part of the real mark, everything returning to nothing to be attained and constant purity: this is the heart of the chapter on Scattering Flowers.

In the previous chapter, Scattering Flowers, the gods conjured flowers that filled the sky and scattered them over the Buddha and prajñā; this chapter goes on to tell of another act of the gods, no longer scattering flowers but praising with one voice. The heavenly kings, the Brahmā kings, the gods of Īśāna, together with the spirits, sages, and goddesses of the three-thousand great-thousand world, ‘praise three times over’ at one moment: ‘How splendid! How splendid!’, joy reaching such a pitch that one sentence has to be said three times. What they praise is the prajñā the venerable Subhūti has taught, saying that all of it is expounded by the gracious power of the Buddha's appearing in the world; and they make a great vow in one sentence: if there is a bodhisattva who practises this prajñā and does not depart from it, ‘we shall regard that person as a Buddha’. How dare they regard a bodhisattva still cultivating the path as the same as a Buddha? Because within prajñā, though not a single dharma from form up to omniscience of all kinds can be found, there is still the teaching of the three vehicles, the śrāvaka, the pratyekabuddha, and the Buddha vehicle, plainly distinct. The Buddha approves them, and restates ‘one should regard that person as a Buddha, because there is nothing to be attained’, and himself brings out a birth-story as proof: long ago, in the time of Dīpaṃkara Buddha, at a crossroads in the city of Flower Adornment he saw the Buddha and heard the dharma, and at that very moment attained non-departure from the six perfections, non-departure from inner emptiness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, great kindness and great compassion, and all such practices, and attained nothing at all; and Dīpaṃkara Buddha then gave him the prediction that in a life to come he would become a Buddha named Śākyamuni. The treatise-author here marks the measure of ‘being a Buddha’: this is ‘worldly speech’, as a crown prince, though not yet enthroned, will surely be king in the end; this bodhisattva has attained the acceptance of non-arising, entered the bodhisattva position, and seen the buddhas of the ten directions, and so is called like a Buddha, not that he has already accomplished right awakening. This is the first half of the chapter. Next the scene turns from the praise of the gods to a single act of the Buddha, and this act is exactly what the chapter's name, ‘looking round’, is tied to. The Buddha contemplates the fourfold assembly gathered together, bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, upāsakas, and upāsikās, and on to the gods of the Akaniṣṭha heaven, all seated in one place; only ‘having looked round over all’ does the Buddha address Śakra, Kauśika. The treatise-author reads deep meaning in this ‘looking round over all’: the Buddha surveys the whole assembly so that each person may know for themselves that they are held in the Buddha's regard, and so dare not think lightly of themselves; not thinking lightly of oneself, one is fit to hear so deep a dharma, just as when a king glances once at his court, the court rejoices and congratulates itself. The Buddha's ‘looking round’ is no idle gazing; in a single glance it lets the whole assembly know they are kept in the Buddha's mind, and this is the origin of the name ‘the chapter on Looking Round’; while the gods' earlier threefold praise in one voice is the origin of the name of the sūtra chapter explained, ‘the chapter on Threefold Praise’: one chapter, two names, each established from one event; this edition follows the base text of this treatise in taking ‘Looking Round’, and the two names stand side by side without judgement. Having looked round, the Buddha addresses to Śakra a long passage of protective words: whoever can hear and receive, uphold, draw near to, read and recite, and on to teach to others and rightly bear in mind this prajñā without departing from the mind of omniscience, Māra and the gods of Māra cannot get the better of them. Why? Because this person knows truly that form up to omniscience of all kinds is empty, signless, and without action; emptiness cannot get the better of emptiness, and on to non-action cannot get the better of non-action; the self-nature of all dharmas is from the start unfindable, there is not one thing to be ridden upon and entered, and who then is left to suffer harm? The treatise-author opens this out at length: Māra is by origin the lord of the Sovereign heaven, who relies on his merit yet holds wrong views and treats the beings of the desire realm as his own subjects; he hates above all that the Buddha and bodhisattvas deliver beings out of his domain and empty it, and so he calls the Buddha and bodhisattvas his enemies. Māras are of four kinds, the Māra of afflictions, the Māra of the five aggregates, the Māra of death, and the Māra who is a son of the gods of the Sovereign heaven, and the power of prajñā can keep the four Māras from getting the better of one. The crux lies in a single sentence: this person ‘cultivates the emptiness of all dharmas well, and yet does not cling to emptiness’; one who does not cling to emptiness, where is Māra to lay a hand? Just as a body without a wound takes no poison, and as fire cannot put out fire but only water does, because of their differing marks. Not only can Māra not get the better of this person, but neither can humans or non-humans, because they cultivate kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity well; and they never die an untimely death, because they constantly practise giving and provide for beings with an even mind. The Buddha further urges those gods who have aroused the mind of awakening but have never yet heard prajñā, their minds covered by the five desires, savouring meditation, looking east and forgetting west, that they should now all come to hear, to receive and uphold it, because prajñā is the root of the Buddha path. One who receives and upholds this prajñā, even dwelling in an empty house, in the wilderness, or among people, has nothing to fear, first because they cultivate the eighteen emptinesses well, and second because the majestic virtue of prajñā protects them. At the last section the gods speak once more, this time not in praise but vowing to guard. The gods of the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings and on to the Śuddhāvāsa gods of the three-thousand great-thousand world say to the Buddha together: this good man or good woman who receives and upholds prajñā, we shall constantly guard! Why? ‘Because of the bodhisattva as cause and condition’: it is precisely because there are bodhisattvas in the world that the three evil destinies, the poverty of gods and humans, and every kind of calamity, sickness, and famine can be cut off; that the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the four formless concentrations, the six perfections, and on to omniscience of all kinds appear in the world; that there are the great kṣatriya clans, kings and wheel-turning sage kings, and on to the Akaniṣṭha heaven; that there are srota-āpanna up to arhats and pratyekabuddhas; that there is the bringing of beings to maturity, the purifying of Buddha-worlds, the appearance of buddhas, the turning of the wheel of Dharma, and the abiding in the world of the three jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. The Buddha approves each in turn, and pushes the matter to its limit: even if the three-thousand great-thousand world were full of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, as many as bamboo, reeds, rice, hemp, and forest thickets, the merit of making offerings to them would not equal the merit of making offerings to a single bodhisattva who has first aroused the mind and does not depart from the six perfections. Why? It is not by the cause and condition of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas that bodhisattvas and buddhas appear in the world; on the contrary, it is by the cause and condition of the bodhisattva that śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and buddhas appear in the world. The treatise-author gathers this as ‘the three things in which they fall short’: the bodhisattva of the first arousing of the mind practises prajñā with the mind of omniscience, constantly does not depart from the six perfections and such merits, and by his cause and condition the three evil destinies can be cut off and the three vehicles brought forth; these three things are what the two vehicles lack; though the two vehicles have already realised the limit of reality and are fit to be fields of merit for beings, they cannot cut off the three evil destinies or bring forth the three vehicles, and so they fall short. Only here does the saying ‘regard that person as a Buddha’ show its full weight: prajñā is the mother of the buddhas of the three times, and to make offerings to a bodhisattva who practises prajñā is to make offerings to the Buddha. This chapter, from the gods' threefold praise, to the Buddha's looking round, to the gods' vow of guarding and this weighing of the two vehicles against the bodhisattva, over and over points to one thing only: within prajñā not a single dharma can be found, and yet the teaching of the three vehicles, the appearance of the Buddha, and the preciousness of the bodhisattva are each plainly present and not lost; the Buddha looks round on the one who receives and upholds prajñā and regards them as a Buddha, precisely because what that person holds in hand is the prajñā that can give birth to the buddhas of the three times. As for this chapter saying only ‘regard that person as a Buddha’ without explaining in detail what ‘as a Buddha’ means, the treatise's later text, in fascicle fifty-eight, will supply it of itself: ‘as a Buddha’ means the dharma-nature-body bodhisattva who abides in non-retrogression and has attained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas up to the tenth ground; ‘next to a Buddha’ means the flesh-body bodhisattva who can teach prajñā and its right meaning; a call before and an answer after, which is also this treatise's consistent way of reading. The heart of the chapter on Looking Round lies in this one ‘look’ and this one ‘as’: the Buddha with a single thought looks round upon the whole assembly so that no one thinks lightly of themselves, and the practitioner with a single thought of prajñā is fit for the Buddha's regard and fit to be called as a Buddha.

In the previous chapter, Looking Round, the Buddha with a single thought looked round upon the whole assembly and regarded the one who receives and upholds prajñā as a Buddha; this chapter goes straight on to answer a most practical question: will a person who holds prajñā in hand, walking in the world, be broken by others and troubled by every kind of strife? First Śakra, Kauśika, speaks to the Buddha, praising prajñā as ‘most rare and wonderful’: if a bodhisattva hears, receives and upholds, reads and recites, teaches to others, and rightly bears in mind this prajñā, he at once attains the merits of this present life: bringing beings to maturity, purifying Buddha-worlds, making offerings to the buddhas, hearing the dharma without forgetting it, and on to the ten accomplishments of family, mother, birth, retinue, marks, light, eye, ear, samādhi, and dhāraṇī; and by the power of skilful means he can transform his body to be like a Buddha's, go from one Buddha-world to another, and in places where there is no Buddha praise and teach the six perfections, the four dhyānas, and the four immeasurables, delivering beings by the dharma of the three vehicles. The Buddha approves his words and, on his behalf, divides the merits into two lives: the merits of the present life are that the bodhisattva through the long night practises the six perfections, gives away all things inner and outer, and establishes beings one by one in giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and prajñā, and on to establishing them in the four fruits, the pratyekabuddha path, and the Buddha path; the merits of the life to come are attaining anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, turning the wheel of Dharma, fulfilling one's vows, and entering nirvāṇa without remainder. Next the Buddha speaks of a matter of real weight: this person who receives and upholds prajñā will meet three kinds of people who wish to break prajñā: brahmin ascetics of the outsiders' paths, who love and cling to their own dharma and, hearing the dharma of the emptiness of the real mark, do not believe it and wish to break it; Māra and Māra's people; and people of overweening pride, who have attained meditation yet take themselves to have already attained the noble path, and who, as soon as they hear that there are no four fruits, no path, and no nirvāṇa, grow angry and vexed and raise the mind to break it. But the breaking mind of these three kinds of people is extinguished as soon as it arises and never attains its wish. Why? The Buddha here gives a simile, and it is the pivotal simile of the chapter: there is a herb named moqi; a snake, famished and hunting everywhere for food, sees a small insect and is about to swallow it, but the insect hurries to where the herb is, and the herb's vapour presses upon the snake so that it cannot advance and has only to retreat, because ‘the power of this herb overcomes poison’. The person who receives and upholds prajñā is the same: no sooner do the various quarrels and strife arise than, by the majestic power of prajñā, they are extinguished as they arise. The treatise-author adds another simile: one who wishes to break prajñā is like one who puts out a hand to block a long spear: ‘he only wounds his own hand, and the spear is not harmed’; the real mark of prajñā cannot be harmed, and one's own evil mind is wounded instead. Why can it not be broken? Because the bodhisattva ‘does not cling to inner or outer dharmas’; beings from beginningless time have constantly clung to inner and outer dharmas, and the moment they cling, quarrels arise; the bodhisattva has already relinquished the inner and outer places of clinging and moreover teaches beings to relinquish the inner and outer ways of quarrelling, so that the root of quarrelling being exhausted, even if occasions of strife come, they gain no advantage. Only at this point does the sūtra's own proof for the chapter's name formally appear: what prajñā can quell is not only the quarrels outside but the strife of all dharmas: lust, anger, and delusion; ignorance and on to the great mass of suffering; every kind of hindrance, fetter, bond, and entanglement; every kind of view, the view of self, the view of a person, the view of a being, the view of annihilation and the view of permanence, the view of defilement and the view of purity, the view of existence and the view of non-existence; the practices of stinginess, breaking the precepts, and hatred; and on to clinging to the five aggregates, clinging to the six perfections, clinging to the eighteen emptinesses, clinging to the thirty-seven limbs of the path, clinging to omniscience and omniscience of all kinds, even clinging to nirvāṇa: ‘the strife of all these dharmas it can quell entirely, and not let them grow’. The three characters ‘quelling strife’ are taken straight from this sentence of the sūtra. The Buddha continues: the gods of the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Śakras Devānām Indra, the Brahmā kings, and on to the Akaniṣṭha gods of the three-thousand great-thousand world, together with the buddhas presently in the ten directions, all guard this good man or good woman who receives and upholds prajñā; in this person unwholesome dharmas cease and wholesome dharmas increase, what they say everyone believes and accepts, their friends are firm, and hatred and the other afflictions cannot cover their mind. Even if fetters arise, with one thought of wisdom they do not let them cover the mind; if fetters arise, they do not give rise to karma of speech; if karma of speech arises, it does not become karma of the body; if karma of the body arises, it does not reach the great evil ordinary people commit; and so ‘though lowly, mean, and base, by practising the superior dharma they are counted among superior persons’. This person, further, can be complete in four right practices with respect to wholesome dharmas: oneself refraining from killing, teaching others not to kill, praising the dharma of not killing, and rejoicing gladly on seeing those who do not kill; practising oneself, teaching others, praising the dharma, and rejoicing, all four together; and on to practising at large the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the samādhis and dhāraṇīs, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the four formless concentrations, the eight liberations, the nine successive concentrations, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen unshared dharmas, and omniscience of all kinds, in every one complete in these four, sharing the results attained with all beings and dedicating them together to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. Here Śakra puts in a sentence: the bodhisattva's prajñāpāramitā is ‘for the sake of the mind of dedication to sarvajñā, and also for the sake of the mind that is not haughty’. The Buddha does not answer directly but asks him back ‘how so?’, and Śakra himself goes on with a long passage. Here the reader must see clearly who is speaking: this is not the Buddha expounding, but Śakra setting out to the Buddha his own understanding. He speaks of the worldly and the world-transcending six perfections set against each other. The worldly six perfections ‘give rise to a haughty mind because of clinging to I and mine’: giving while thinking ‘I am practising giving, I can complete it’, cultivating the limbs of the path while thinking ‘I cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness, I am complete in the four foundations of mindfulness’, all clinging to a self, without skilful means, and so pride arises; the world-transcending six perfections ‘do not find a giver, do not find a receiver, do not find a thing given’, the six perfections and on to omniscience of all kinds are all unfindable, and because it is for the sake of dedication to sarvajñā, no haughty mind arises. The treatise-author closes the whole chapter with two rounds of question and answer. First: it was already said above that three kinds of people wish to break prajñā; why is it said again here? Answer: the three kinds who come first come to seek an advantage, to terrify, and to cause grief, harming in general the one who practises prajñā; those who come in the middle come to break and destroy the dharma of prajñā; those who come last, though they raise the mind to break it, have that mind extinguished at once: the three passages differ in intent and are not repetition. Second: since the worldly perfections are not the right path, why does the Buddha still teach them within prajñā? The answer is exquisite: ‘this is the practitioner's first gate, because it resembles the right path’; ‘first one practises the resembling dharma, afterwards one attains the true path’. The worldly six perfections, though they cling to a self, are the first gate of entry to the path and resemble the right path; one first walks this resembling stretch, and only then attains the true path. The heart of the chapter on Quelling Strife lies in this one word ‘quell’: prajñā is not a weapon for contending with others for victory, but a fire that burns away every ‘clinging’; the root of strife is clinging, and when clinging is extinguished, strife ceases of itself. To the person who holds this prajñā in hand the various kinds of strife cannot come near, and the gods and the buddhas together guard them; and what they hold is exactly the prajñā that can give birth to the buddhas of the three times and can quell entirely the strife of all dharmas.

In the previous chapter, "Quelling Strife", the Buddha made prajñā the fire that burns away every attachment, and said that the person who holds prajñā in his hand cannot be approached by strife of any kind, for the gods and the buddhas together guard him. This chapter takes that guarding to its furthest point, and then turns out a scale of the most concrete sort: a person who receives and upholds prajñā, this one scroll of sūtra he holds, set beside the most solemn offering in the world, the offering to the Buddha's relics and the raising of a stūpa of the seven jewels, which after all is lighter and which heavier? First the Buddha tells Śakra, Kauśika: the person who receives and upholds prajñā, draws near to it, reads and recites it, rightly recollects it, and ‘does not part from the mind of sarvajñā’, when ‘two armies join battle’ and he enters the ranks, will never lose his life, and neither blade nor arrow will wound him; because through the long night he has practised the six perfections and has removed one by one, in himself and in others, the ‘blades and arrows’ of lust, hatred, delusion, wrong views, entanglements, and fetters, so that even poison, sorcery, pits of fire, deep water, and death by the sword, none of these evils can harm him. Why? ‘This prajñāpāramitā is the great bright spell, the unsurpassed spell.’ But look closely: this ‘great bright spell’ is not a worldly spell for averting disaster; it is another name for ‘unfindability’. The one who trains in this bright spell ‘does not afflict himself, does not afflict others, does not afflict both’, precisely because he ‘does not find a self, does not find a being, does not find a life’, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, none of it findable; the one who would afflict and the one who would be afflicted have nowhere to stand. The buddhas of the three times, past, future, and present, all trained in this great bright spell and thereby attained anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. Then the Buddha says: even if one ‘only writes out the scroll of the sūtra and makes offerings to it in one's house’, without receiving, reading, or reciting it, humans and non-humans still cannot find an opening against him, for the gods of the ten directions all come to guard the place where this prajñā rests. This is hard to believe, so the Buddha gives the simile of the tree of awakening: by the power of prajñā the Buddha attained the unsurpassed path beneath the tree of awakening, and that place to this day still has majesty and power, and beings who enter it cannot be reached by any evil; how much more so prajñāpāramitā, which is the mother of the buddhas? At this point Śakra raises the pivotal question of the chapter: to write out and make offerings to prajñā, or after the Buddha's nirvāṇa to make offerings to the relics and raise a stūpa for them, which of these two gains the more merit? The Buddha does not answer directly but asks Śakra back: from where did the Buddha learn omniscience of all kinds and this body of marks and signs? Śakra answers for himself: they were learned from within prajñāpāramitā. On that answer the Buddha makes clear one thing of importance: ‘it is not by this body that one is called a Buddha; it is by attaining omniscience of all kinds that one is called a Buddha’. What makes a Buddha a Buddha lies in the attainment of omniscience of all kinds, not in this body of marks and signs. Why then are the relics precious? Precisely because ‘this body of the Buddha is the place on which omniscience of all kinds depends’; the body is the place on which the knowledge of all kinds rests, ‘and therefore after my nirvāṇa the relics should receive offerings’. The relics are precious not because the body is precious in itself but because it was once the place on which the ‘attainment of omniscience of all kinds’ depended; and if so, then to make offerings to prajñā is directly to make offerings to the omniscience of all kinds that gives birth to buddhas, and its merit naturally exceeds that of offerings to the relics. Going on, the Buddha says further: from prajñāpāramitā are born the five perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, the bringing of beings to maturity and the purifying of buddha-worlds; the great kṣatriya clans and so on up to the buddhas are all born from prajñā; and one who attains this dharma of the real mark of prajñā ‘does not fall into the two extremes of existence and non-existence, but by the Middle Way penetrates giving and morality’. Every wholesome dharma has prajñā as its root and as the place to which it returns. So the Buddha lifts this ‘weighing’ step by step to its furthest point: if someone, to make offerings to the Buddha, builds a stūpa of the seven jewels one yojana high, is the merit he gains great? Śakra says very great; the Buddha says it ‘does not equal’ hearing and upholding prajñā. Lift it again: stūpas of the seven jewels filling Jambudvīpa, filling the four continents, filling a small thousand world, a middle two-thousand world, a three-thousand great-thousand world, and then every single being in a three-thousand great-thousand world each raising a stūpa of the seven jewels, every single being in worlds of the ten directions as many as the sands of the Ganges each raising a stūpa of the seven jewels and making offerings for the whole of life. At every step Śakra says very great, and at every step the Buddha says it ‘does not equal’ the merit of writing out and upholding prajñā. By now Śakra has himself grasped it, and twice in succession he restates it: to make offerings and pay reverence to prajñāpāramitā ‘is to make offerings to the buddhas of the past, the future, and the present’; ‘all wholesome dharmas enter into prajñāpāramitā’, the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas and the four immeasurables, the thirty-seven limbs of the path, the three gates of liberation, the four truths, the six supernormal powers, the eight liberations, the nine successive absorptions, the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, ‘and this is called the Dharma seal of all the buddhas’; all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas and the buddhas of the three times train in this Dharma seal and thereby reach the other shore. At the end the treatise-author explains, first bearing witness from something easily understood in the world: when people see an earthen stūpa that is high and great, they at once give rise to a mind and infer that the merit of the stūpa's master must be very great; how much more a stūpa of the seven jewels one yojana high! And when someone asks whether these stūpas are real or invented, the treatise-author answers crisply: the Buddha only wants people to distinguish from this the greater and lesser measure of merit, and ‘one should not ask whether it is real or invented’; and he cites, as examples of what ‘really existed’, King Kṛkin in the time of Kāśyapa Buddha raising a stūpa fifty li high, and the wheel-turning king Dezhu of the past raising five hundred stūpas in a single day. Gathered up at the last, the scale of the whole chapter comes to rest on one sentence: ‘if this prajñā gave birth to buddhas alone, it should still be given offerings’; how much more when prajñā also gives birth to the three vehicles and to every kind of happiness among humans and gods; how could one not make offerings to it? And the difference between the relics and prajñā is seen to the bottom right here: ‘the relics are an indeterminate dharma; because they are the place on which all wholesome dharmas rest, only afterwards can they give a person their result’. The relics are indeterminate; they must wait until they have been the resting-place of wholesome dharmas, and only afterwards can they give a person a result. ‘To practise prajñāpāramitā is to attain the fruit at once, and afterwards also to attain the result’: to practise prajñā is to attain its fruit here and now, and afterwards to gain its result as well. Jewelled stūpas may be raised until they fill a three-thousand great-thousand world, relics may be offered to in ten directions as many as the sands of the Ganges, and that merit cannot be called anything but vast; yet when the weighing is carried to the end, the merit of offerings to relics and jewelled stūpas is after all an indeterminate result that waits for later, while the one who holds this single scroll of prajñā and practises according to it ‘attains the fruit at once’. This is the weight that the chapter "Weighing the Jewelled Stūpa" sets out to weigh.

In the previous chapter, "Weighing the Jewelled Stūpa", the Buddha lifted the merit of offerings to prajñā step by step to its furthest point: stūpas of the seven jewels raised until they fill a three-thousand great-thousand world, and even every single being in worlds of the ten directions as many as the sands of the Ganges each raising one, none of it equals receiving and upholding this one scroll of prajñā; and Śakra by then had himself grasped it, restating that to make offerings to prajñā ‘is to make offerings to the buddhas of the past, the future, and the present’, and that ‘all wholesome dharmas enter into prajñāpāramitā’. This chapter, following straight on, is the Buddha's ‘declaring and confirming’ of that weighing by Śakra: ‘declaring’ is the Buddha restating Śakra's words, ‘confirming’ is his sealing them as not mistaken. Śakra is after all not an omniscient person, and what he says may well contain error; so the Buddha himself says his words over again and confirms them once more: ‘Just so! Just so! Kauśika!’ The meaning of the chapter's title, ‘Declaring the Truth’ (declaring and confirming), lies just here. The Buddha first restates the measure of merit from the previous chapter: a good man or good woman who writes out, receives and upholds, draws near to, reads, recites, and rightly recollects prajñā, and adds to this offerings of flowers, incense, and necklaces, ‘will gain merit immeasurable, innumerable, inconceivable, incalculable, and boundless’. Why? The omniscience and omniscience of all kinds of the buddhas, the six perfections, inner emptiness and so on up to the emptiness of non-existent dharmas and existent dharmas, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, the five eyes of the buddhas, the bringing of beings to maturity and the purifying of buddha-worlds, and on to the śrāvaka vehicle, the pratyekabuddha vehicle, and the Buddha vehicle, in five successive rounds ‘are all born from within prajñāpāramitā’. Precisely because all wholesome dharmas are born from prajñā, the merit of offerings to prajñā ‘exceeds the earlier offering of stūpas of the seven jewels by a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a thousand koṭi ten-thousandfold’, beyond what calculation and simile can reach. Going on, the Buddha speaks the most important sentence of the chapter: ‘if prajñāpāramitā is present in the world, then the Buddha Jewel, the Dharma Jewel, and the Jewel of the Bhikṣu Saṅgha will never perish’. If prajñā is in the world, the Three Jewels do not perish, the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the six perfections and so on up to omniscience of all kinds all appear in the world, and the world then has great kṣatriya clans, great brahmin clans, and so on up to the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings, the fruit of srota-āpanna and so on up to the fruit of arhat, the path of the pratyekabuddha, the bodhisattva, and the unsurpassed Buddha path. When the treatise-author comes to explain, he first gathers up the narrative: Śakra answered the Buddha that the merit of offerings to prajñā is very great; other great gods raised doubts; Śakra is not an omniscient person and what he says may be mistaken; and so the Buddha sealed his words, saying ‘Just so! Just so!’ Then the treatise-author sets out two rounds of question and answer, untying two difficulties for this chapter. The first question is sharp indeed: the mark of prajñā is that ‘all contemplations cease, the path of speech is cut off, it is non-arising and non-ceasing, like the mark of space’; that being so, how can prajñā be said to be present in the world or not present? Why then is it now said that ‘when prajñā is in the world the Three Jewels do not perish’? The treatise answers just as crisply: ‘the nature of prajñāpāramitā, whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, abides always and does not perish’. The nature of prajñā, whether a Buddha appears in the world or no Buddha appears, abides always and does not perish; there is from the start no arising and ceasing, no present and absent, in it. Then what does ‘present in the world’ refer to? It refers to ‘the scroll of the prajñā sūtra, which can be studied, read, and recited’, and this is ‘speaking of the result in the cause’: taking the result of prajñā (the scroll that can be read and recited) to speak of prajñā's presence in the world, not saying that the nature of prajñā has arising and ceasing. The treatise-author gives a most apt comparison: ‘it is like a well that is deep and a rope that is too short to reach; one then says the well is lost, but the well is not really lost’. The well is very deep, the rope for drawing water is short and cannot reach the water, and so one says the well is gone, but in truth the well was never lost; the real mark of prajñā is like this deep well, the scroll is that rope, and it is because practitioners cannot write it out and study it that one says prajñā has perished, but when did prajñā ever perish? What perishes is not prajñā; it is only that people can no longer draw from it. The second question asks about the boundary between the Three Jewels and the wholesome dharmas: since the Three Jewels are said to include all wholesome persons and wholesome dharmas, why is it further said that when prajñā is in the world the world has the ten wholesome paths and so on up to omniscience of all kinds? The treatise answers: ‘these dharmas and these paths are all the broad explanation of the meaning within the Three Jewels’. These dharmas and these paths are all the broad unfolding of what the Three Jewels mean. The Buddha Jewel is the five aggregates of one beyond training, included in the Buddha's dharmas; the Dharma Jewel is the third truth, that is, nirvāṇa, and apart from the merits of training and beyond training included in the four śramaṇa fruits, the remaining merits of the pratyekabuddha and the merits of the bodhisattva also enter the Dharma Jewel; the Saṅgha Jewel is the five aggregates of those in training and beyond training of the four directions and four fruits. As for the rest, the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, and the like, ‘they are all gates of skilful means to the path, and therefore they are spoken of separately’. They are not something existing apart from the Three Jewels; they are only the gates of skilful means for entering the path, and that is why they are set out separately. This chapter, though short, one passage of sūtra and one of treatise and no more, makes clear the turn that comes once the previous chapter's ‘weighing’ has been lifted to its furthest point: prajñā is precious not for the presence or absence of its scroll but for its nature that abides always and does not perish; the scroll's presence in the world, its being readable and recitable, is the result shown on the ground of the cause by this ever-abiding prajñā; and what the one who holds this scroll and practises according to it draws up is precisely that deep well which was never lost and never will be.

In the previous chapter, "Declaring the Truth", the Buddha lifted the merit of offerings to prajñā to its furthest point and sealed Śakra's weighing; by this chapter the voices urging one to uphold prajñā grow louder and more numerous. First the gods of the three-thousand great-thousand world, from the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings up to the Akaniṣṭha heaven, all together say to Śakra: ‘You should receive this prajñāpāramitā, you should uphold it, you should draw near to it, you should read it, recite it, expound it, and rightly recollect it!’ Because prajñā is received and upheld, every wholesome dharma is complete, the gods are increased and the asuras diminished, the Three Jewels are not cut off, and the six perfections and so on up to the four fruits and the three paths all appear in the world. The Buddha too approves the gods' praise and himself tells Śakra to receive and uphold prajñā: when the asuras wish to fight, if one recites and recollects prajñā their evil mind at once ceases; when the five signs of death appear to the gods, if they recite and read prajñā they are born again in their own place; and even for one who has prajñā pass but once through his ear, ‘by the merit of this he will gradually attain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’. The meaning of the chapter's title, ‘Exhortation to Receive and Uphold’, lies in these layer upon layer of urgings to uphold.

But the true eye of this chapter is a sentence that Śakra next speaks. He declares to the Buddha: ‘Prajñāpāramitā is the great bright spell, the unsurpassed bright spell, the bright spell equal to the unequalled.’ Why? ‘This prajñāpāramitā can remove all unwholesome dharmas and can give all wholesome dharmas.’ The Buddha at once seals it, ‘Just so! Just so! Kauśika!’, and unfolds the sentence: precisely because it is this great bright spell, the buddhas of the past, present, and future attained anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; because of this bright spell, the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, the four formless absorptions, the six perfections, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, and on to the nature of dharmas, suchness, the mark of dharmas, the abiding of dharmas, the position of dharmas, the limit of reality, the five eyes and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, one by one appear in the world. A ‘bright spell’ is a spell that can break darkness; prajñā, which can remove all that is unwholesome and give all that is wholesome, is exactly that great brightness which shines through the long darkness of birth and death. The Buddha also closes this passage with a comparison: ‘just as the full moon shines and gives light, the stars too can shine and give light’; every wholesome dharma and right dharma in the world, when no Buddha has appeared, is born from the bodhisattvas, and the bodhisattvas' power of skilful means is all born from prajñā.

When the treatise-author comes to explain, it is on this one name, ‘the great bright spell’, that he makes the most strenuous analysis of the whole chapter. Someone asks: why does Śakra call prajñā ‘the great bright spell’? The treatise-author answers: in the world the outsiders' paths and the seers all have spells of many kinds, which can benefit the people and command ghosts and spirits, and which people prize; Śakra is borrowing this spell-craft that all people prize in order to praise prajñā: ‘among all spell-crafts, prajñāpāramitā is the great spell-craft’. But this spell of prajñā is utterly different from worldly spell-craft: worldly spell-craft follows a person's greed and hatred and does evil at will, whereas this spell of prajñā can extinguish every attachment to dhyāna, to the Buddha path, and to nirvāṇa, let alone the coarse sicknesses of greed and hatred; it can free a person from old age, sickness, and death, and can establish beings in the Great Vehicle, and so it is called ‘the great bright spell, the unsurpassed spell, the spell equal to the unequalled’. The three words ‘equal to the unequalled’ matter most of all: before this the world already had the Īkṣaṇī spell that can know the minds of others, the Gāndhārī spell that can fly and transform, and the life-prolonging spell that can keep one alive for ten million years, and among the spells of the world these are already without peer; yet among these peerless spell-crafts prajñā still ‘surpasses them immeasurably’, and so it is called ‘equal to the unequalled’: even what is unequalled has nothing that can equal it. How much more so when the dharma of the buddhas is by its nature called unequalled, and the buddhas among all beings are by their nature called unequalled, and prajñā is exactly the cause and condition by which the buddhas become buddhas, exactly the spell-craft the buddhas practise; therefore it is said to be ‘equal to the unequalled’. The treatise-author concludes by citing the sūtra's own account of the cause and condition of the three spells: this spell ‘can cast off all unwholesome dharmas and can give all wholesome dharmas’, answering exactly to the sentence with which Śakra began.

The treatise-author also borrows a simile of the Buddha's to mark the place of prajñā in lighting the world: ‘because the buddhas can greatly break the darkness of ignorance, they are like the full moon; because the bodhisattvas' breaking of darkness falls short of that, they are like the stars.’ Just as in the dark of night whatever is seen is by the power of the stars and the moon, so in the long night of birth and death whatever beings know and see is by the power of the buddhas and bodhisattvas. When there is no Buddha in the world, it is the bodhisattvas who teach the Dharma to beings and gradually lead them to the happiness of nirvāṇa, and all the wisdom the bodhisattvas have is the power of prajñāpāramitā. Going on, the Buddha sets out in detail the merits in this life of receiving and upholding prajñā: one will never die by poison, weapons will not wound one, water and fire will not harm one, the four hundred and four sicknesses cannot strike one, excepting only the karmic results of past lives; and the merits in later lives: one does not fall into the three evil destinies, one receives a body whole and complete, one always gains the thirty-two marks, one is born by transformation in the buddha-worlds of the present, and one gradually attains unsurpassed awakening. Among these is one sentence spoken with the utmost honesty, on karmic results that must be undergone: ‘all dharmas are born from the coming together of causes and conditions, there is no maker … a karmic result that must be undergone the Buddha cannot save one from, let alone prajñā’. However great the might of prajñā, it does not overstep cause and result; the karmic result that is due, even the Buddha cannot bear in one's stead. So the final charge of this chapter lies not in how many disasters prajñā can ward off for a person, but in the one phrase ‘not parting from the mind of sarvajñā’: the practitioner should hear, receive and uphold, and so on up to rightly recollect prajñā, his mind never parting from omniscience. The one who grasps this great bright spell is guarding not a passing ease but prajñā itself, which removes all that is unwholesome, gives all that is wholesome, and shines through the long night of birth and death.

This chapter begins from a provocation that came on in force and dispersed without a sound. A crowd of brahmin ascetics of the outsiders' paths come to where the Buddha is, intent on finding fault with him. Śakra, seated in the assembly, is stirred in his mind and begins to recite the prajñāpāramitā he received from the Buddha, certain that once prajñā is recited these ascetics ‘will never be able to make an obstacle midway or cut off the teaching of prajñāpāramitā’. And indeed those of the outside paths circle the Buddha once at a distance and withdraw the way they came. Śāriputra watches, puzzled: what is the reason for this? The Buddha tells him that this is exactly the power of Śakra's reciting prajñā; and the deeper reason is that the gods of the three-thousand great-thousand world from the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings up to the Akaniṣṭha heaven, the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, the bodhisattvas, and even the buddhas of the ten directions all guard this prajñā, ‘because all these gods and humans are born from within prajñāpāramitā’. Even the buddhas, the bodhisattvas, and the gods are born from prajñā, and so whoever comes with evil intent while prajñā is being taught can find no opening. Then the evil Māra too makes his trial, conjuring the four kinds of troops to break the bodhisattvas' mind of receiving the prediction; Śakra sees through it at a glance: this display is too far out of the ordinary, ‘it is not like the four kinds of troops of King Bimbisāra, nor like the four kinds of troops of King Prasenajit’; where in the human world are there troops like these? He again recites prajñā, and that Māra too ‘gradually turns back along the road and goes away’. That Māra and those of the outside paths alike find no opening is one and the same principle.

The provocation dispersed, there follows a rain of conjured flowers and vows. The Four Heavenly Kings and on up to the Akaniṣṭha gods conjure heavenly flowers and scatter them over the Buddha, vowing together ‘may prajñāpāramitā long abide in Jambudvīpa’, for if prajñā long abides, the Buddha Jewel, the Dharma Jewel, and the Saṅgha Jewel all abide with it and do not perish. The gods further vow before the Buddha: whenever a good man or good woman receives and upholds prajñā and so on up to rightly recollects it, ‘we regard this person as being the Buddha, or as next to a Buddha’, and therefore we will always protect him. This phrase ‘being the Buddha, or next to a Buddha’ carries weight: the treatise-author later makes it clear that ‘as a Buddha’ means the bodhisattva of the Dharma-nature body who abides in avaivartika, has attained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, and so on up to the tenth ground; ‘next to a Buddha’ means the bodhisattva still in a fleshly body who can nevertheless expound prajñā and its right meaning. The person who receives and upholds prajñā is equal in virtue to these two ranks, and so the gods guard him as they guard a Buddha.

But the true eye of this chapter is a sentence Śakra next speaks to the Buddha, and which the Buddha at once seals. Śakra says: the omniscience of the buddhas should be sought from within prajñā; and prajñā should be sought from within omniscience. Why? ‘Prajñāpāramitā is not different from omniscience, and omniscience is not different from prajñāpāramitā; prajñāpāramitā and omniscience are not two and not different.’ The Buddha immediately answers in accord: ‘Just so! Just so! Kauśika! The omniscience of the buddhas is prajñāpāramitā, and prajñāpāramitā is omniscience’, because the omniscience of the buddhas is born precisely from prajñā. These words, ‘not two and not different’, are the pivot on which the whole chapter gathers: the reason the person who receives and upholds prajñā is ‘being the Buddha, or next to a Buddha’ is that the prajñā he holds is not two and not different from the ultimate omniscience of the buddhas.

When the treatise-author comes to explain, he first turns back to lay bare the inside story of that provocation, and then with one simile nails down the words ‘not two and not different’. Why did those of the outside paths dare to come and press their questions? Because they had heard that the Buddha taught that ‘all dharmas are ultimately empty, without anything existent’, and thought they had caught a flaw and could come to break this ‘doctrine of emptiness’; the treatise-author cuts them off in one sentence: ‘it is like a madman who wishes to wound empty space and only wearies and pains himself!’ Space cannot be wounded, and in the ultimately pure prajñā there is no fault to be found. Someone asks: since those of the outside paths came, why did they not simply leave, but insisted on circling the Buddha once before going? The treatise-author answers: the spiritual power of prajñā had already subdued them from afar; knowing that ‘having come, they were leaving empty-handed’, and fearing to be taken for cowards, they feigned an offering and withdrew after circling the Buddha. Śāriputra had himself been born a brahmin ascetic, and seeing those of his own kind come empty and go empty, he felt a moment's pity; the Buddha tells him the truth: these ascetics ‘have not so much as a single thought of a wholesome mind, but hold only evil intent, with wrong views clinging to their minds, seeking a fixed mark in dharmas, and therefore they are not fit to be delivered’; ‘it is like a fatal sickness which, though there be a good physician and divine medicine, cannot be saved’. When the capacity does not receive, the Dharma cannot deliver; this is not that the power of prajñā is insufficient but that that mind is shut. Finally the treatise-author closes the whole chapter with the most everyday of similes: milk becomes curd, and apart from milk there is no curd, yet one cannot say that milk ‘is’ curd; prajñā becomes omniscience of all kinds, and apart from prajñā there is no omniscience of all kinds, yet one cannot say that prajñā ‘is’ omniscience of all kinds. Prajñā and omniscience of all kinds, the one as the cause that gives birth, the other as the cause that is spoken of: ‘because cause and result are not apart from each other, it is said “not two and not different”’, neither one nor different; cause and result are identical to each other and yet not confused with each other. The measure between this one taste of milk and this one taste of curd is the eye of prajñā that this chapter asks one to hold.

This chapter begins from a question of Ānanda's. He has listened to the Buddha teach prajñā for a long while, and cannot help asking what is on his mind: why does the World-Honored One always praise prajñāpāramitā alone, and not praise the other five perfections, giving, morality, patience, vigour, and meditation, and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas? The Buddha does not directly extol prajñā but asks him back: giving that is not dedicated to sarvajñā, that does not dedicate the gift to omniscience, can such giving still be called ‘dānapāramitā’? Ānanda answers: ‘No, World-Honored One.’ Morality and so on up to wisdom are the same: not dedicated to sarvajñā, none of them counts as a ‘pāramitā’. Only then does the Buddha make it plain: precisely because prajñā can make these five all become pāramitā, ‘prajñāpāramitā is the honoured guide of the five perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas’, and so it alone receives praise. Guiding in front, the perfections following behind: these words, ‘honoured guide’, are the thread of this chapter.

Then on what does this ‘dedication to sarvajñā’ rest? The Buddha answers more deeply: on ‘non-duality’. Giving must be dedicated to sarvajñā by ‘the dharma of non-duality’, by ‘non-arising and unfindability’, before it is called dānapāramitā; and what is meant by non-dual is that ‘form is empty of the mark of form’: dānapāramitā and form are not two and not different, and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi and dānapāramitā, which are also not two and not different. The marks of dharmas are empty and dharmas are not two with one another; that prajñā is the honoured guide stands exactly on this ground of ultimate emptiness, not two and not different. The Buddha also gives the plainest of comparisons: like the great earth, into which seeds are sown, and when causes and conditions come together the ten thousand things are born from it; the five perfections are the same, all born in dependence on this great earth of prajñā. Apart from this earth the seeds have nowhere to settle; this is why prajñā is the honoured guide.

Next Śakra rises and praises, saying that the Buddha has not yet finished telling the merits of receiving and upholding prajñā. The Buddha then tells him: the person who receives and upholds prajñā and does not part from the mind of sarvajñā accomplishes immeasurable aggregates of morality, aggregates of concentration, aggregates of wisdom, aggregates of liberation, and aggregates of the knowledge and vision of liberation; once these five aggregates of the Dharma body are accomplished, ‘know that this person is as a Buddha’. The five aggregates of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, set beside such a good man or good woman, ‘do not reach them by a hundredth, a thousandth, a thousand koṭi ten-thousandth part, nor by any calculation or simile’. When the treatise-author explains this passage, he again asks through several points of doubt for us one by one: the Buddha from beginning to end has been speaking the names of the six perfections; how can it be said that he ‘does not praise’ them? Answer: speaking their names is not in order to extol them; it is all in order to lead people into prajñā. Among all conditioned dharmas wisdom is foremost, just as on a long journey, however many the companions, the guide who leads the way matters most; without prajñā, even if one practises giving and the other wholesome dharmas, one receives one's result according to one's karma, and the result is at last exhausted; one cannot even reach the nirvāṇa of the Small Vehicle, let alone the unsurpassed path. Again it is asked: on what ground does Śakra say the merits have not been told to the end? Answer: prajñā is by its nature immeasurable and boundless, and moreover in the previous chapter the brahmin ascetics of the outsiders' paths and the evil Māra came to disturb, and the discourse was broken off midway, and now he wishes to go on hearing; it is not that the Buddha held anything back, but that these merits can never be told to the end.

The treatise-author also reckons for us the most concrete of accounts. Someone asks: the merits in this life and the next are so deep and weighty, while writing out, receiving and upholding, and making offerings to prajñā are but slight matters of outward form; how can so small a thing be exchanged for the great merits of two lives? Answer: offerings are of two kinds, one the ‘offering in imitation of others’ made by following others, the other the ‘offering from a deep mind’ made by one who truly knows the merits of prajñā and receives it in faith with a single mind; what gains the merits of two lives is that ‘deep mind’, not the thickness or thinness of the outward form. It is like the wish-fulfilling jewel, which is by its nature an indeterminate form-dharma without mind and without consciousness, and yet if someone makes offerings to it he can still obtain whatever he wishes; how much more prajñā, which is unsurpassed wisdom, the mother of the buddhas, the foremost jewel among all the jewels of the Dharma; making offerings to it with a single mind, how could one fail to gain the merits of two lives? Then the sūtra sets out in still finer detail the many marks of this present life: when one reads, recites, and expounds prajñā, immeasurable hundreds of thousands of gods come to hear the Dharma and secretly lend the teacher courage; when one teaches the Dharma amid the fourfold assembly, one's mind is not timid and no one can pose a question that defeats one; where the scroll is written out and upheld, the gods of the three-thousand great-thousand world and even of the ten directions come to see prajñā, make offerings, and pay homage. How does a person know the gods have come? The Buddha says: when one sees a great pure light and smells a strange and wondrous fragrance, one knows that gods of great virtue have come; once they come, the petty ghosts cannot stay and at once withdraw. Such a person lies down at ease and wakes at ease, and in his dreams there are only the thirty-two marks and eighty minor marks of the buddhas; and all these merits added together surpass making offerings to the buddhas of the ten directions and raising stūpas of the seven jewels for them.

And the move that truly gathers up the whole chapter lies in the final question and answer, which seems an affront and is in truth the deepest. Someone asks: prajñā is plainly right there in the Buddha's body, and to make offerings to one Buddha is to have made offerings to prajñā; how then can it be said that ‘making offerings to the buddhas of the ten directions does not equal making offerings to prajñāpāramitā’? The treatise-author answers with utter steadiness: offering lies in that mind. If you make offerings to a Buddha, you can hardly avoid ‘grasping the mark of a person’, grasping a form of a Buddha; but the mark of a person is ultimately unfindable, and once a mark is grasped, though the field of merit is great, the merit is on the contrary thin and small. The person who makes offerings to prajñā, in accord with the prajñā he has heard, grasps neither the mark of a person nor the mark of a dharma, and it is precisely because of this mind that grasps no mark that the merit is great. Why does prajñā deserve such offerings? Because ‘prajñāpāramitā is the mother of all the buddhas of the ten directions and is also the teacher of the buddhas’: the thirty-two marks and eighty minor marks of the buddhas, their immeasurable light, their supernormal powers and transformations, not one of these is not accomplished by the power of prajñāpāramitā. So making offerings to prajñā surpasses making offerings to the buddhas of the ten directions, and yet this is not a failure to revere the Buddha; on the contrary, to revere the mother and teacher who gives birth to the buddhas and teaches the buddhas is the deepest reverence for the Buddha. This sentence, ‘it is not that one does not revere the Buddha’, closes the whole chapter, and links the words with which it opened, ‘prajñā is the honoured guide’, end to end into a single ring.

In this chapter the Buddha sets a hard problem on the scales. He asks Śakra: put the Buddha's relics filling Jambudvīpa on one side, and one written scroll of prajñāpāramitā on the other; of these two portions, which do you take? Śakra answers without the least hesitation: I would rather take the scroll of prajñā. It is not that he does not revere the relics; he says plainly that making offerings even to a relic the size of a mustard seed brings merit immeasurable and boundless. It is only that he sees one layer deeper: the relics are honoured because they ‘are born from prajñāpāramitā and are perfumed and cultivated by prajñāpāramitā’, and only therefore receive people's offerings. The relics are the fruit; prajñā is the root that perfumes them and brings them to be. To take prajñā is to take that from which the relics are born. This one weighing, one question, and one choice are the backbone of the whole chapter: the four Chinese characters rendered here as ‘weighing the relics’ weigh precisely which of relics and prajñā is root and which is branch.

Yet Śāriputra puts in a pointed challenge from the side: prajñā cannot be taken—it is without form, without shape, without resistance, only one mark, namely the signless; how can you ‘take’ it? Śakra's answer is fine: it is precisely because ‘prajñāpāramitā does not practise dual dharmas; the mark of non-dual dharmas is prajñāpāramitā’. What he takes is not some thing possessed of marks; what he takes is that prajñā which falls on neither side, without duality and without discrimination; it is for the benefit of those who have newly aroused the mind that he speaks, following worldly truth, of a ‘taking’. The Buddha hears this and praises him again and again, and pushes it one step deeper for him: the nature of dharmas and prajñā are without duality and without difference; the limit of reality and the nature of the inconceivable are likewise without duality and without difference from prajñā. Since prajñā is without mark and without appearance, without speech and without utterance, when the mind of one who receives and upholds it enters deeply, he ‘does not see any mark to be feared’—there is no mark there that could be feared. Śakra also offers an intimate comparison: he customarily sits in the Hall of Good Dharma, and even when he is not in his seat the gods pay homage to his empty seat and depart; in the same way, wherever a scroll of prajñā is, the gods, nāgas, and yakṣas of the ten directions come to pay homage and make offerings—because to see prajñā is no different from seeing the Buddha, since ‘prajñāpāramitā and the Buddha are without duality and without difference’. So the Buddha loads the scales heavier and heavier: from filling Jambudvīpa, to the three-thousand great-thousand world, and then to relics filling worlds as many as the sands of the Ganges; through three rounds of weighing Śakra takes prajñā alone, in a single taste.

Why are the relics honoured only in dependence on prajñā? The treatise-author explains it through the most down-to-earth comparison: it is like a debtor who draws near to the king and serves at the king's side, so that his creditors, reversing themselves, pay him reverence and make him offerings—the king is a simile for prajñā, the debtor for the relics. The relics were originally formed by the karmic causes of past lives, and the debts that must be repaid cannot be escaped; it is precisely because prajñā has perfumed and cultivated them that those retributions of past lives, hunger and thirst, cold and heat, cannot come near them, and instead they receive the offerings of gods and humans. Then the treatise-author spreads out the merits of prajñā in the most splendid passage of the whole chapter: the simile of the wish-fulfilling jewel. That priceless maṇi jewel of the world, having neither mind nor consciousness, can yet remove the four hundred and four sicknesses, break the darkness, remove heat and remove cold, dissolve snake-poison, and make muddy water clear; prajñā is likewise: it can remove the eighty-four thousand sicknesses, whose roots are the four sicknesses of greed, hatred, delusion, and their equal mixture, curing them one by one with the contemplation of impurity, the mind of kindness and compassion, and the contemplation of causes and conditions. The treatise-author goes on to distinguish it layer by layer: the jewel can heal only the fleshly eye, while prajñā can heal the wisdom-eye; when the jewel has healed the fleshly eye the sickness will later recur, but when prajñā heals the wisdom-eye it is ultimately pure—the merit of the jewel stops at one corner, while the merit of prajñā reaches through to the ultimate. If a jewel that is an indeterminate form-dharma is already like this, how much more prajñā, which is the unsurpassed wisdom, the mother of the buddhas, the first jewel among all the jewels of the Dharma.

In the lower half of the chapter Śakra changes his manner of asking: what is the mark of conditioned dharmas, and what the mark of unconditioned dharmas? The Buddha answers: the wisdom within inner emptiness and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas is the mark of conditioned dharmas; the ‘self-nature of dharmas’, which is without arising and without ceasing, without stain and without purity, without increase and without decrease, is the mark of unconditioned dharmas—and both of these marks of dharmas are wholly gathered within prajñāpāramitā: the conditioned is the place where practice moves, the unconditioned the place on which it relies. Following this ‘gathering of all dharmas’, the Buddha sets out the essential meaning of prajñā governing the six perfections: when a bodhisattva practises giving, upholds morality, and so on up to contemplating all dharmas, it is by having ‘prajñāpāramitā act as the bright guide’ that each can be fully accomplished as a perfection. It is like the trees of Jambudvīpa: their leaves, flowers, fruits, and colours each differ, yet their shade is without difference; when the perfections enter prajñā and reach sarvajñā, they too are of one taste, without difference. The treatise-author adds two cautionary similes: salt is the master of all flavours, yet a fool who hears this and eats salt alone loses the flavour and brings on sickness instead—to practise prajñā alone without joining it with the other five perfections is likewise to fall into wrong view and be unable to advance in wholesome dharmas; although it is said that all practices join together with prajñā as their master, it must not be practised alone. Again, it is like the four great rivers of Lake Anavatapta: once they enter the great sea they lose their own names and merge into one taste; giving and the rest, apart from prajñā, are variously different, but once they enter prajñā they are of one mark without difference.

The whole chapter closes on a choice that looks like an offence yet is the deepest of all. Śakra asks: to write out and make offerings to a scroll of prajñā oneself, or to give the scroll to another so that he may practise and learn—which merit is greater? The Buddha does not answer directly, but sets a question in turn using the relics: to make offerings to the relics oneself, or to divide off a relic the size of a mustard seed and give it to someone so that he may make offerings—which merit is greater? Śakra answers: the merit of dividing it and giving it to another to make offerings is greater—and the treatise-author lays bare the reason: because ‘it is given without any self and with a mind of kindness and compassion’. Reading and reciting alone may still carry the mind of self, and the merit is then small; to give the scroll to others and explain its meaning to them at length is to become for them the cause and condition of becoming a buddha; being without self, the merit is great. Someone presses one question further: since merit lies in the mind, why did the Buddha break his body into pieces the size of mustard seeds for people to make offerings to? The answer is entirely steady: a mind of pure faith is born from two causes and conditions—inwardly there is right recollection, outwardly there is a good field of merit; even good grain must fall into a good field before the harvest is great; though the mind be good, it must still rely on the relics before it brings forth the great result. Finally the Buddha himself bears witness that prajñā is supreme: the sages of the three times all learned the holy path from this, and he himself, having attained by this Dharma the unsurpassed holy state, now still turns back to honour this Dharma as his teacher. A weighing of relics against prajñā, weighed to the very end, weighs out a single sentence—‘prajñā is the root cause and condition of the bodhisattvas; the bodhisattvas are the root cause and condition of the buddhas; the buddhas are the cause and condition of great benefit and ease for all the world’. The relics are venerable because they are what prajñā has perfumed; the Buddha is venerable because he is what prajñā has given birth to. To take prajñā and make offerings to prajñā has never been a failure to revere the Buddha—to revere the source that gives birth to the Buddha and teaches the Buddha is precisely the deepest reverence for the Buddha. This is the heart of the chapter on weighing the relics.

In this chapter the Buddha once more sets up a pair of scales, and what is weighed is ‘the gift of wealth’ against ‘the gift of Dharma’—on one side the giving that teaches people to practise the ten wholesome paths and so on up to realising the fruits, on the other the gift of Dharma that writes out and upholds the scroll of prajñā and expounds it for others. He asks Śakra: to teach the people of one whole Jambudvīpa to practise the ten wholesome paths—is this merit great? Śakra answers: very great, World-Honored One. Yet the Buddha rules: it still does not equal someone who writes out and upholds the scroll of prajñāpāramitā and gives it to another, so that he may read, recite, and expound it; that one gains the greater merit. Why? Because ‘within prajñāpāramitā the dharmas without outflows are set out at length’, and those who learn this Dharma can enter the position of the right Dharma and attain the fruit of the srota-āpanna and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; whereas the ten wholesome paths ‘are merely wholesome dharmas with outflows: one receives the impermanent blessings and pleasures of the world and then falls back into suffering’. The outflow-free accomplishes the paths of the three vehicles and enters nirvāṇa without returning; that with outflows receives one round of impermanent blessing and pleasure and falls again into suffering—one is ultimate, the other cycles on, and this is the main thread of why the gift of Dharma surpasses the gift of wealth. The Buddha then loads the scales one grade at a time: to teach one person to attain the fruit of the srota-āpanna surpasses teaching the people of one Jambudvīpa to practise the ten wholesome paths, because those who practise the ten wholesome paths still ‘are not free of the sufferings of the hells, the animals, and the hungry ghosts’, while one who has attained the fruit of the srota-āpanna has already left the three evil destinies; then from Jambudvīpa he adds up to the four continents, the small thousand, the middle thousand, and the three-thousand great-thousand world, until the people filling worlds as many as the sands of the Ganges all practise the ten wholesome paths and all establish the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, the four formless absorptions, and the five supernormal powers—and still the gift of Dharma wins, because from within prajñā all the noble ones are born.

Then on what ground of the mind does this gift of Dharma win? The Buddha's answer is deep: it wins in ‘right recollection’, and right recollection is ‘not by way of dual dharmas and not by way of non-dual dharmas’. The treatise-author presses the question for us: receiving and upholding, reading, reciting, and expounding have all been spoken of; why is ‘right recollection’ alone explained? The answer is entirely practical: receiving and upholding, reading and reciting are like having gathered the medicine and compounded it well but not yet swallowed it, which does nothing to the sickness; only right recollection is like swallowing the medicine, and only then is the sickness cured. Therefore right recollection alone is explained. And the reason the gift of Dharma is a further layer superior lies in ‘expounding, disclosing, and distinguishing it for others so that it is easy to understand’—to receive and uphold it oneself is to heal oneself, while to explain it clearly to others is to cure others' sickness, and this one move surpasses receiving and upholding for oneself. The Buddha further lays bare the marrow of the right meaning of prajñā: if giving is done ‘with something to be attained’, with the thought held in mind that ‘I give, he receives, and this is the thing given’, one gains only the name of giving and it does not become a perfection; only with ‘nothing to be attained’—not finding a giver, not finding a receiver, not finding a thing given—is it called the full accomplishment of dānapāramitā. The reason the merit of the gift of Dharma is so very great is precisely that it is expounded with nothing to be attained.

And precisely because this pass of nothing to be attained is the hardest to hold, the Buddha exposes in advance what ‘resembling prajñā’ looks like. There will be people in the future age who expound prajñā, and what they expound is a resembling article ‘with something to be attained’: they say that form is impermanent and teach people to seek a mark of impermanence; they say that one who practises prajñā will attain the first ground and so on up to the tenth ground, will pass beyond the grounds of the two vehicles, will attain immeasurable merit… These ‘names and words’ are exactly the same as true prajñā, ‘yet the meaning in the mind differs’. To expound it with an attached mind and by grasping at marks is the resembling; to expound it without an attached mind and without grasping at marks is the true—true prajñā is that ‘the nature of form is empty; the nature of form is not a dharma; and what is not a dharma is called prajñāpāramitā’: even permanence and impermanence are unfindable, how much less can one seek a mark of impermanence. Why does the Buddha speak of it in advance? Because he pities the beings of the future age who will not see the Buddha and will not see the great bodhisattvas, and can only hear the Dharma from the scriptures; by first drawing the likeness of wrong recollection, just as a person must first recognise which is the path and which is not the path before he can abandon the non-path and walk the right path, he teaches people to abandon the resembling and cultivate true prajñā—and this is what it means to expound the right meaning of prajñā.

In the lower half of the chapter the scales are loaded further on the side of ‘nearness to the Buddha's path’. The Buddha takes the people of Jambudvīpa and on up to worlds as many as the sands of the Ganges and teaches them all to attain the paths of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha, and says that this still does not equal expounding the right meaning of prajñā for a single person—because ‘all these worthy and noble ones come forth from within prajñāpāramitā’. Here the sharpest doubt arises: that the dharmas of ordinary people and the dharmas of the two vehicles do not equal it can still be understood; but now it is said that ‘teaching people to arouse the mind for the unsurpassed path and to attain avaivartika’—already a matter of the Buddha's path—still does not equal it; how can that be? The treatise-author answers in detail: within the right meaning of prajñā there are two kinds of bodhisattva, one the bodhisattva in a fleshly body who is still within birth and death, the other the bodhisattva whose body is born of the Dharma-nature, who has gone out of the three realms and is neither born nor dies; to teach one bodhisattva whose body is born of the Dharma-nature, who has already passed beyond the ground of avaivartika, to convert beings and purify buddha-worlds—this merit surpasses teaching the people of worlds as many as the sands of the Ganges to arouse the mind and so on up to attaining avaivartika: ‘because the field of merit is great, the merit too is great’. The treatise-author gives two penetrating comparisons: to make offerings to the noble ones of worlds of the ten directions as many as the sands of the Ganges does not equal making offerings to a single Buddha; the fault of offending the crown prince exceeds that of offending all other people, and the grace of making offerings to the king surpasses that of making offerings to the crown prince—the nearer the field of merit is to the Buddha, the deeper it is, the heavier the fault of offending it, and the greater the merit of making offerings to it.

Weighed to the end, what the scales weigh out is the ground of the whole chapter. Subhūti praises Śakra: as a noble disciple you are able to comfort and encourage the bodhisattvas with the two gifts, ‘the gift of Dharma and the gift of wealth’, and this is indeed as it should be—the gift of wealth is making offerings of clothing, food, and other necessities; the gift of Dharma is teaching people the six perfections. Why are these two gifts so important? Because ‘all these noble assemblies come forth from among the bodhisattvas’: if the bodhisattvas did not practise the six perfections, they would not accomplish the unsurpassed path, and then there would be no srota-āpanna and so on up to no pratyekabuddha; it is precisely because there are bodhisattvas that the ten wholesome paths and so on up to the immeasurable dharmas of the Buddha appear in the world, that the three evil destinies are cut off, and that the great kṣatriya clans and so on up to the buddhas appear in the world. A weighing of the gift of wealth against the gift of Dharma, weighed to the root, weighs out a single sentence—‘therefore, when a bodhisattva expounds the right meaning of prajñāpāramitā and teaches nearness to the Buddha's path, the merit is greatest’. That the gift of Dharma ultimately surpasses the gift of wealth is not a slighting of giving; it is because the right meaning of prajñā can give birth to bodhisattvas, and bodhisattvas can give birth to all the buddhas and the noble assemblies; to give one scroll of prajñā to someone, to explain one sentence of prajñā clearly to someone, is to carry on for this world the root cause and condition that gives birth to the buddhas. This is the heart of the chapter on weighing the gift of Dharma.

In this chapter the speaker changes. The three preceding chapters were all the Buddha answering Śakra, weighing the merit of making offerings to prajñā; as this chapter opens, it is the bodhisattva Maitreya speaking to Subhūti: there is a bodhisattva who ‘rejoices in merit, shares it with all beings, and dedicates it to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, with nothing to be attained’, and this merit is ‘supreme, foremost, most wondrous, unsurpassed, and without equal’. Why can one thought of rejoicing surpass the giving, the upholding of morality, and the cultivation of concentration of the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, and even all beings? Because their merit is ‘for their own taming, their own purification, their own deliverance’—upholding morality tames oneself, cultivating dhyāna purifies oneself, wisdom delivers oneself; each settles his own affair; but the bodhisattva's rejoicing ‘arises for the taming of all beings, the purification of all beings, the deliverance of all beings’. The treatise-author puts it intimately: rejoicing is ‘without labouring with the karma of body or speech to make merits, but merely, by the skilful means of the mind, seeing another cultivate merit and rejoicing accordingly’—seeing someone do good and truly rejoicing in one thought of the mind, that single thought, because it carries all beings, weighs more than the ten thousand practices of one who perfects himself alone. Even ‘sharing it with all beings’ is accounted for honestly: the substance of merit cannot be given away, ‘but its result can be given’—the preaching of the Dharma after becoming a buddha, the light, the relics of the body broken into pieces, all are the results of merit given back to beings; ‘the substance of a wholesome dharma cannot be given to another; here one simply gives beings fearlessness and freedom from vexation to use’.

But Subhūti at once drives this matter to the wall with ultimate emptiness. What you rejoice in is all the roots of goodness of the immeasurable buddhas of the ten directions who have passed into extinction, from their first arousing of the mind until the Dharma's end—those buddhas passed into extinction long ago, those roots of goodness were long ago exhausted; if you grasp at marks to think of them and dedicate them, ‘can it be found as it is thought of?’ Maitreya answers crisply: ‘If a good man grasps at marks, it cannot be found as it is thought of.’ Subhūti presses again: since ‘the objects and the matters are without anything existent’, is dedication that grasps at marks not ‘taking the impermanent for permanent’, falling into the inversion of perception, the inversion of mind, the inversion of view? Then what, after all, ‘is the object? what is the matter? what is anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi? what is the root of goodness? what is the mind of rejoicing and dedication?’ This string of questions turns a wholesome act that anyone can perform into the great case of the whole chapter: if rejoicing and dedication cannot part from grasping at marks, then it is recollection, imagining, and discrimination; if everything is empty, then with what does one rejoice, and to what does one dedicate?

The answer comes from two sides. One side is the capacity: those who have long practised the six perfections, made many offerings to the buddhas, kept company with good friends, and learned well the dharma of the emptiness of specific marks can do it—the treatise-author's comparison is that ‘iron, though hard and tough, once it enters the furnace becomes soft and can be made into any vessel’; only a mind long in practice, having entered the furnace of prajñā, can dedicate without grasping at marks; and for just this reason this deep Dharma ‘should not be taught to bodhisattvas new to the training’, for they are like ‘fledglings whose wings are not yet grown, who must not be forced to fly high’; those who have newly aroused the mind are first taught to rejoice while grasping at marks, and gradually gain the power of skilful means. The other side is the Dharma: when one uses the mind to rejoice and dedicate, one knows that ‘this mind is exhausted, ceased, changed, and departed’—thinking of the buddhas and the saṅgha one ‘does not give rise to the thought of a buddha, does not give rise to the thought of a saṅgha’, and in the dedicating mind ‘one does not give rise to the thought of a mind either’; the mind, following the gate of impermanence, ceases and enters the nature of dharmas, and ‘in the nature of dharmas there is no discrimination of this being mind and this not being mind, this being the Buddha and this the disciple, this being the root of goodness and this the unsurpassed path’; to dedicate in this way is right dedication, true dedication. The treatise-author's single ruling holds both sides together: ‘Having marks is one extreme; being without marks is one extreme; leaving these two extremes and walking the middle way is the real mark of the buddhas.’ It is not that one does not dedicate; it is that one dedicates within not grasping at marks.

The lower half of the chapter states the judgement between wrong and right until it draws blood. Dedication that grasps at marks is ‘like fine food mixed with poison’—of good colour and good fragrance, a fool eats it with delight, and ‘when the food is about to be digested, he suffers death or what is equal to death’. The treatise-author matches the similes phrase by phrase: the food is the merit of rejoicing, the poison is the afflictions of craving and views born of grasping at marks; the good colour is the blessed pleasures of human kings and heavenly kings, the good fragrance is fame, wealth, and rank; and that fool is precisely ‘the bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind, grasps at marks, and has an attached mind’—the finer the blessings received, the more bitter the death when impermanence breaks them; to lose one's wealth is what is equal to death, to lose the life of wisdom is death itself. Graver still: one who does not truly receive, does not truly grasp the marks, does not truly recite and read, does not understand the meaning, and yet teaches others to grasp at marks, join together, and dedicate, ‘thereby slanders the Buddha, does not follow the Buddha's teaching, does not speak according to the Dharma’. Then what is right dedication? There is only one road: ‘As the buddhas know with their unsurpassed wisdom the mark of these roots of goodness and the nature of these roots of goodness, so too do I rejoice; as the buddhas know, so too do I dedicate.’ One's own discrimination is not to be relied on, so one rejoices according to the real mark as the buddhas know it—‘like shooting at the ground, which never fails to hit; if one shoots at other things, one may hit or may not hit’. Shooting at the ground one is sure to hit; rejoicing according to what the buddhas know one is sure to obtain true rejoicing; rejoicing by one's own other paths, one may hit or may not.

Finally the Buddha himself comes forth and loads the scales to the top. That the beings of the three-thousand great-thousand world should practise the ten wholesome paths and attain the four dhyānas and the five supernormal powers does not equal one thought of dedication ‘with the mind not attached to the roots of goodness’; even the offerings of beings in worlds as many as the sands of the Ganges through kalpas as many as the sands of the Ganges do not equal it—because form and so on up to omniscience of all kinds are all ‘not bound to the three realms’ and are not named by the three times; ‘if a dharma is unarisen then there is no dharma, and within no dharma there can be no dedication’; dedication that grasps at marks with something to be attained is wrong dedication, which the buddhas do not praise. From the heavens of the Four Heavenly Kings up to the Akaniṣṭha heaven the gods come to praise it: this is ‘the greatest dedication’, which does not fall into dual dharmas. Subhūti asks: what is called the supreme rejoicing? The Buddha answers: to think of the dharmas of the three times as ‘neither grasped nor relinquished, neither thought of nor not thought of, neither found nor not found’, and then to think thus—giving is equal to liberation; morality, patience, vigour, dhyāna, and wisdom are equal to liberation; form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness are equal to liberation; and so on up to the buddhas of the ten directions, the buddhas' passing into extinction, and the marks of all dharmas are all equal to liberation; ‘I, with the merit of rejoicing according to the marks of these roots of goodness, dedicate it to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and this too is equal to liberation, because it neither arises nor ceases’. The treatise-author concludes with five pairs of difference: merit with something to be attained is measurable, exhaustible, mixed with poison, follows birth and death, and now advances and now retreats; rejoicing with nothing to be attained is immeasurable, inexhaustible, without poison, follows nirvāṇa, and is sure to make a buddha quickly. Ordinary people seek the pleasure of the world, the two vehicles seek the pleasure of nirvāṇa, the bodhisattva seeks the pleasure of the Buddha—one thought of rejoicing that is equal to liberation surpasses the ascetic practices of immeasurable kalpas with something to be attained. This is the heart of the chapter on rejoicing and dedication: place the easiest single thought of gladness into the most thoroughgoing nothing to be attained, and it becomes the merit that is supreme, foremost, most wondrous, unsurpassed, and without equal.

In this chapter the voice praising prajñā suddenly rises—yet the one who opens his mouth is Śāriputra, foremost in wisdom among the śrāvaka assembly. In the preceding chapter the Buddha, Maitreya, Subhūti, and Śakra together spoke of the meaning of rejoicing and dedication, and Śāriputra had listened all the while in silence; hearing that the meaning of rejoicing is so deep and its benefit to beings so great, this elder, whose outflows are exhausted and who is at rest in stillness, rises from his seat, joins his palms, and says to the Buddha: ‘Is this prajñāpāramitā?’ The Buddha answers: ‘This is prajñāpāramitā.’ Thereupon Śāriputra praises it sentence upon sentence: prajñā ‘can illuminate all dharmas, because it is ultimately pure’; it is to be worshipped; it is not attached to the three realms; it removes all darkness; among all the dharmas that aid the path it is supreme; it is peace and security; it can give light; it can show and guide beings who have fallen onto wrong paths away from the two extremes; it is omniscience of all kinds; it is ‘the mother of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, because it can give birth to the dharmas of the buddhas’; it neither arises nor ceases; it is far from birth and death; for those without refuge it acts as protector; it is complete in power; it can turn the wheel of the Dharma of three turnings and twelve aspects; it can show the nature of all dharmas. The chapter's name, ‘Illumination’, comes precisely from this first sentence—prajñā illuminates and sees the real mark of all dharmas, and within the real mark there is no stain or turbidity of idle discourse, hence it is ultimately pure; being ultimately pure, there is nothing it does not illuminate. His praise done, Śāriputra asks: how then should one make offerings to prajñāpāramitā? The Buddha's answer is direct: ‘As one makes offerings to the World-Honored One.’ Why? ‘The World-Honored One is not different from prajñāpāramitā, and prajñāpāramitā is not different from the World-Honored One; the World-Honored One is prajñāpāramitā, and prajñāpāramitā is the World-Honored One.’ The buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the pratyekabuddhas, and the arhats, and on up to the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the Buddha's ten powers, and omniscience of all kinds, are all born from within prajñā. The treatise-author lays bare for us the deep device of this question and answer: prajñā is the mark of the signless, and one whose mind is not yet ripened, seeking in it a fixed mark, cannot find one and instead gives rise to a proud mind; and people since time without beginning have been deeply attached to the mark of beings and thin in feeling toward the precious Dharma—so the Buddha borrows the ‘World-Honored One’, whom everyone is willing to revere, to lead people toward the prajñā that no one can see. To the wise who contemplate it, the Buddha and prajñā are equal and without difference: ‘prajñā cultivated and gathered turns into omniscience.’

Śakra, at the side, raises a doubt: Śāriputra is one whose outflows are exhausted and who has left desire; how is it that he praises prajñā like someone attached to the Dharma? Śāriputra tells his own reason: the bodhisattva, guarded by prajñā, with upāya-kauśalya—the power of skilful means—joins together all the roots of goodness of the buddhas of the three times and their disciples in rejoicing and dedicates them to the unsurpassed awakening, without breaking the mark of prajñā; this is rare, and therefore he honours prajñā. Then he brings out the most famous simile of the whole chapter: ‘It is like men blind from birth: whether a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand, without a guide in front they cannot set out on the road or enter the city.’ The five perfections are likewise: apart from prajñā they are ‘like the blind without a guide’, unable to set out on the path, unable to attain omniscience of all kinds; only when prajñā comes to guide them are the five perfections ‘called possessed of eyes’ and only then do they obtain the name of perfections. Śakra does not let him off: you yourself say that the six join together and support one another, as the four great elements cannot be parted—without giving, the other five perfections likewise do not obtain the name of perfection; on what ground do you praise prajñā alone? Śāriputra answers: it is just so; but it is by abiding in prajñāpāramitā that the bodhisattva can fully accomplish the five perfections of dāna, śīla, kṣānti, vīrya, and dhyāna; therefore prajñā among the five perfections is ‘supreme, foremost, most wondrous, unsurpassed, and without equal’. The treatise-author adds two more similes: each of many medicines has its own power, yet because the mineral's power is the greatest the compound is named a mineral powder; when a great army crushes the enemy, every man has his strength, yet the general's strength is greatest, and the name of victory goes to the general—the six join together, the power of prajñā is greatest, and so the five dharmas obtain their name through it. The doubtful points of the blind men the treatise-author also takes apart one by one: to speak of a hundred thousand blind men is to show that strength does not depend on numbers; to say that giving has no eyes is because the wisdom within giving is a guest that has come, not the proper substance. This layer must be heard evenly: that prajñā alone is honoured does not mean the five perfections can be dispensed with—the eye is there to guide the blind, not to do away with the feet.

Asking further inward, the question reaches prajñā itself: how should one give rise to prajñāpāramitā? The Buddha answers: ‘Because form does not arise, prajñāpāramitā arises’; because feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, do not arise, prajñāpāramitā arises. How is it that because form does not arise, prajñā arises? ‘Because form does not originate, does not arise, is not found, and is not lost.’ The practitioner knows that form arises falsely from the coming together of causes and conditions, and does not let it originate; not originating, it does not arise; not arising, it is not found; not found, it is not lost—right there, in this contemplation of non-arising, prajñā arises. Then, prajñā having arisen, with what dharma does it join? The Buddha answers: ‘It joins with nothing, and for this reason it obtains the name prajñāpāramitā.’ It does not join with wholesome dharmas, does not join with unwholesome dharmas, does not join with worldly or world-transcending dharmas, with dharmas with outflows or without outflows, conditioned or unconditioned—prajñā does not arise in order to obtain some dharma. Śakra presses to the bottom: does it not join even with sarvajñā? The Buddha says: neither does it join, nor is it found—prajñā ‘does not join according to names, does not join according to marks, does not join according to dharmas that originate and act’. Then how does it join now? The Buddha opens five ‘nots’: ‘As it does not grasp, does not receive, does not abide, is not attached, and does not cut off, so does it join, and there is nothing it joins with.’ The treatise-author explains: because all marks are deceptive, it does not grasp at marks; because all dharmas have the fault of impermanence, it does not receive; because the bondage of the mind of self and mine to the world is all a moving mark, it does not abide; because what can give birth to suffering and vexation must afterwards change, it is not attached; because the world is inverted, like an illusion and like a dream, with nothing to be extinguished, it does not cut off—the Buddha is not attached to dharmas and does not give rise to a haughty mind, ‘entering the wholesome mark of ultimate emptiness, entering deeply into great compassion in order to save beings’, and the bodhisattva should join as the Buddha's mind joins. Such joining is joining with nothing joined.

Here Subhūti comes forward and blocks both sides. He first says: if a bodhisattva thinks ‘prajñāpāramitā either joins with all dharmas or does not join’, he has abandoned prajñā. The Buddha approves his words and adds one more stroke: if one grasps at this mark of emptiness ‘neither joined nor unjoined’ and thinks ‘prajñā is empty, without anything existent, not firm’, one likewise loses prajñā—to be attached to existence certainly loses it, and to be attached to emptiness loses it just the same. Subhūti then asks after the place of faith: to have faith in prajñāpāramitā, what dharma does one have faith in? The Buddha's reply is the sharpest sentence of the whole chapter: ‘Having faith in prajñāpāramitā, one does not have faith in form’, does not have faith in feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and so on up to not having faith in omniscience of all kinds. Why? ‘Because form is unfindable, having faith in prajñāpāramitā one does not have faith in form’; and so on up to omniscience of all kinds, because it is unfindable. Faith carried to its limit has not a single dharma to lean on—this is not the destroying of dharmas; it is that the self-nature of dharmas is unfindable and therefore cannot be trusted; to have faith in prajñā is precisely to have faith in this unfindability.

In the lower half of the chapter Subhūti sums up the whole with another name: ‘This prajñāpāramitā is called mahāpāramitā’—the great perfection. Where is its greatness? Not in being able to make things great, but precisely in not making them great: prajñā does not make form great and does not make form small, and so on up to not making the buddhas great or small; it does not make joined or dispersed, does not make measureless or not measureless, does not make broad or narrow, does not make possessed of power or without power. The treatise-author sees through the ordinary person's sickness of mind: when a person is pressed, his mind shrinks small; when at ease, rich, and happy, his mind is broad; in the eight liberations, following the mind, outer form is now large and now small; some declare coarse form deceptive and the fine particle real—large and small, broad and narrow, are all laid on by recollection, imagining, and discrimination, and ‘following recollection, imagining, and discrimination, one breaks the nature of dharmas’; prajñā contemplates the nature of form as it really is and makes it neither large nor small. Yet if a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind does not keep apart from the six perfections and, holding this one thought ‘neither large nor small’, still discriminates, he is still not practising prajñā—because he uses something to be attained, there is a great fault, and ‘for one with the mark of something to be attained there is no anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’; for awakening is the mark of quiescent extinction, the mark of nothing to be attained, the mark of ultimate purity. Beings and dharmas gather in everything, and both are born from the coming together of causes and conditions, ‘having only a provisional name, without any fixed nature’—because beings do not arise, prajñā does not arise, and so on up to: because power is not accomplished, the power of prajñā too is not accomplished. There is a further admonition for the place of practice: to practise prajñā alone, apart from the five perfections, is for the mind to scatter and for many doubts, regrets, and wrong views to arise, losing the mark of prajñā; to practise it joined with the five perfections is to be pliant and without error, able to bring the many tasks to accomplishment—as in the eight limbs of the noble path right view is the path, yet without the seven other matters to assist it, it cannot accomplish the task. All wholesome dharmas are born together from the coming together of causes and conditions, and there is not one dharma that arises by itself alone. At the last the treatise-author sets down even prajñā itself: prajñā is born from dharmas and so has no power of its own; having no power of its own, it too, like all dharmas, is ultimately empty—lest someone should say ‘prajñāpāramitā is able to make this contemplation, and so it has great power’, the treatise says further that its power is not accomplished. Praised to its highest, ‘the World-Honored One is prajñā’; illuminated to its utmost, prajñā too is ultimately empty. What the illumination of ‘Illumination’ illuminates is just this nothing to be attained—for all these various causes and conditions it is called mahāpāramitā. This is the heart of the chapter on illumination.

This chapter sets two things on the same scales: the person who has faith in prajñā, and the person who slanders prajñā. It opens with Śāriputra asking: ‘One who has faith in and understands this prajñāpāramitā—dying in what place does he come to be born here?’ Those who can have faith in this deep sūtra—where have they come from? how long since they aroused the mind? how many buddhas have they made offerings to? The Buddha's answer gives the faithful a lineage: such a one is a bodhisattva who ‘has made offerings to the buddhas of the ten directions and comes to be born here’, immeasurable and boundless asaṃkhyeya kalpas since he aroused the mind, constantly practising the six perfections from his first arousing of the mind; such a person, seeing a scroll of prajñā, ‘thinks: I see the Buddha, and from the Buddha I hear the Dharma’, and therefore ‘can, in accordance with it, understand the meaning of deep prajñāpāramitā, because of the signless, the non-dual, and nothing to be attained’. The treatise-author states it clearly: faith and understanding is not a vague faith; it is ‘not grasping at marks, not being attached to emptiness, practising the practice of emptiness’, practising prajñā for all beings with a mind of great kindness and compassion. Faith in the deep Dharma is never a matter of chance; it is the fruit of long-gathered merit and wisdom, of sharp faculties and a pliant mind.

Subhūti at once turns the discussion to the other face: since to see the scroll is to see the Buddha, can prajñā be heard and seen? The Buddha answers: ‘Prajñāpāramitā has no hearer and no seer; prajñāpāramitā is not heard and not seen, because dharmas are dull.’ The six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness, and on up to the Buddha and the Buddha's path, are all unheard and unseen. The treatise-author offers a comparison: ‘All dharmas enter prajñāpāramitā as the hundred rivers return to the sea and all become one taste.’ The hundred rivers each have their own taste, but entering the sea they are alike salt; all dharmas each have their own mark, but entering prajñā they are alike one mark, the signless—where then is any distinction of one who can hear and something heard? At the level of the scroll it can be seen and heard; at the level of the real mark it cannot be seen or heard—only when both sides are stated is it the full face of prajñā, and only so is the next question forced out: what kind of person can practise this between existence and non-existence?

The dark face of the answer is the heaviest passage of this chapter. There are bodhisattvas who have made offerings to a thousand myriad koṭi of buddhas and long practised the six perfections, yet ‘all with something to be attained’—hearing deep prajñā expounded, ‘they rise from the assembly and leave’. In a former life they heard it and abandoned it; in this life they hear it and abandon it again, sowing the karma of the causes and conditions of delusion; delusion grows and grows, ‘doubt, regret, evil, and wrongness, and the attached mind grow and grow’, until at last, in the midst of the great assembly, they revile, disparage, and destroy prajñā. The sūtra states the full weight of this one slander: to disparage prajñā is ‘to disparage the omniscience and omniscience of all kinds of the buddhas of the past, the future, and the present’—prajñā is the mother of the buddhas of the three times, and to slander this one Dharma is to overturn the wisdom of the buddhas of the three times, ‘giving rise to the karma of breaking the Dharma; because its causes and conditions gather, for immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭi of years one falls into the great hells’. From one great hell to another great hell; when the fire-kalpa arises one is moved to another region; the sin not yet exhausted, one comes back here, passing through all ten directions; as the sin gradually thins one is reborn as an animal; lighter still, ‘one may obtain a human body, born into a family of the blind, born into a family of caṇḍālas, born into families that clear latrines or carry corpses, all manner of low and base families; either without eyes, or with one eye, or with eyes gone blind; either without a tongue, without ears, without hands’. The treatise-author matches each to its cause: because they did not wish to see prajñā they are born blind; because they despised those who expound the Dharma they are without a tongue; because they did not wish to hear it they are without ears; because they waved their hands to wave it away they are without hands. Śāriputra asks, with the common sense of a śrāvaka: is this like the five heinous sins? The Buddha answers: ‘It should not be said to be like them’—the five heinous sins ‘only destroy the fleshly body; they do not destroy the Dharma body’, but the slanderer of prajñā destroys it himself and teaches others to destroy it, breaks it himself and breaks others' too, and what he breaks is the mother of the buddhas, which can make people buddhas: ‘the sin of disparaging prajñā has no comparison’. Such a person is called one who defiles the Dharma, and falls into ‘a nature of decline, turbidity, and blackness’: like a person struck by decline, who has fine clothes and good food yet has no colour or strength; ‘like turbid, muddy water, in which one cannot see one's face, and which is not fit to drink’. Even the size of the body in which the sin is undergone the Buddha will not tell—lest the faithful, hearing it, ‘vomit hot blood’, ‘as if an arrow had entered the heart’, and lest the unfaithful add to their heavy sin; he says only this much, ‘which is enough to serve as a bright warning for the future age’. Śāriputra, speaking for the pure and good, closes the upper half of the chapter with a vow: ‘I would rather lose body and life than ever break the Dharma.’

In the lower part Subhūti takes over the questioning, pursuing the cause of the sin of slander. Is it merely the karma of speech, and yet there is so heavy a sin? The Buddha answers that it is so—and the treatise-author lays it bare: ‘the karma of mind is the root of the karma of speech’; this person has no pressing business of his own and nothing to gain, ‘and by his own tongue alone makes such a sin: this is great madness!’ And from what does slander arise? The Buddha opens four causes and conditions: being driven by Māra; not having faith in the deep Dharma, the mind not attaining purity; keeping company with evil friends and being firmly attached to the five aggregates of clinging; much practising anger and hatred, exalting oneself and despising others. The treatise-author adds one more cut, pointing to the sickness of attachment to the Dharma: five hundred years after the Buddha's passing the teaching divided into five schools, each holding fast to its own Dharma and firmly attached to its words, and ‘hearing it said that prajñā and all dharmas are ultimately empty, it was as if a knife had wounded the heart’—and so they slandered it, saying it was not the Buddha's teaching. The three words ‘knife wounds heart’ say everything about the psychology of slander: the words of ultimate emptiness cut straight into what one clings to, and in extremity of pain one bites back. From this the whole chain of slandering prajñā unfolds: to break prajñā is to break the omniscience of the buddhas of the ten directions, to break the Buddha Jewel, the Dharma Jewel, and the Saṅgha Jewel, to break the right view of the world, to break the four foundations of mindfulness and on up to omniscience of all kinds—one word of slander cuts off every cause of happiness, worldly and world-transcending.

Then what, after all, is it that the faithful have faith in? The latter half of the chapter turns to the deepest place. Why is prajñā so deep, so hard to believe and hard to understand? The Buddha answers: ‘Form is neither bound nor released. Why? Because form is a nature without anything existent.’ Feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the six perfections, the eighteen emptinesses, and on up to omniscience of all kinds, are so in all three limits. The treatise-author explains this double dismissal of bondage and release: ‘the three poisons are bondage, the three gates of liberation are release’—the three poisons are deceptive and unreal, without self-nature, and so there is no bondage; without bondage there is no release; bondage being empty, release too is empty. Going one layer further, the Buddha speaks of purity causing purity: ‘Because form is pure, prajñāpāramitā is pure; because prajñāpāramitā is pure, form is pure’, without duality and without difference, without cutting and without breaking; and on to ‘because lust is pure, form is pure’, ‘because ignorance is pure, the constructions are pure’, each link of the twelve links of dependent arising pure in dependence on the next, the chain running straight up to the purity of omniscience of all kinds; because the conditioned is pure, the unconditioned is pure; through the three times purity causes purity. Are the three poisons not defilement? The treatise answers: ‘Because the real nature of the three poisons is pure, form and the other dharmas are also pure.’ Ignorance is ultimately empty, and ‘what is empty is precisely pure’—‘thus prajñāpāramitā is ultimately pure, the Dharma treasury of the buddhas of the three times’. To have faith in prajñā is to have faith in precisely this ultimate purity; to slander prajñā is to slander precisely this ultimate purity—and that is why one who breaks ‘the spoken words and written letters that can proclaim and show the real-mark prajñā’ falls into the hells.

At the chapter's end the Buddha points the needle of the scales back to the ground of the mind. ‘Breaking prajñā is of two kinds’: the first is to slander the scroll that the Buddha's mouth spoke, saying ‘it is not spoken by the Buddha’, that it is made by Māra, that others have added to it—such a person falls into the great hells; the second is to expound prajñā with an attached mind and grasping at marks, ‘speaking the Dharma of emptiness with the mouth while the mind is attached to existence’—to argue with an attached mind is not called breaking it. It is as when Devadatta drew blood from the Buddha's body and Jīvaka also drew blood from the Buddha's body: the same drawing of blood, yet because the minds differed, one gained sin and the other gained merit; as when a painted image of the Buddha is broken by one person because the image is poor and by another out of an evil mind—one gains merit and the other gains sin. Faith too is of two kinds: to know the real meaning of prajñā and have faith in it obtains the result as it is spoken; merely to have faith in the words and letters of the scroll obtains little merit. The sin of wrong view is heavy—‘like planting a bitter seed: although it is formed of the four great elements, it all turns to a bitter taste’; a person of wrong view, though he uphold morality and be vigorous, turns it all into evil dharmas. Whereas a person of the five heinous sins, though his evil sin covers his mind and he is very far from prajñā, still has one thread: ‘as King Ajātaśatru's sin of killing his father, through the Buddha and Mañjuśrī as good friends, had its heavy sin removed’, so he obtains the result of prajñā as it is spoken and receives the prediction of the unsurpassed path. Faith and slander, merit and sin, are all judged at the last by a single mind—this is the heart of the chapter on faith and slander: the Dharma is neither bound nor released and is ultimately pure, and yet upon this pure Dharma a person enters the Buddha's path by one thought of faith, or overturns the three times by one tongue of slander.

This chapter is one long praise, and what is praised never once consents to leave behind a mark that could be grasped. The chapter opens with Śāriputra saying to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! This purity is very deep!’ The Buddha answers in four Chinese characters only, rendered here as ‘Because it is ultimately pure.’ From here on, in fifteen rounds, Śāriputra changes to fifteen gates of praise—this purity is bright; this purity is not continuous; this purity is without stain; this purity is without attainment and without attachment; this purity is without arising; this purity does not arise in the desire realm, the form realm, or the formless realm; this purity is without knowing; this purity is pure; it neither benefits nor harms sarvajñā; it receives nothing among dharmas—and the Buddha's general answer, from beginning to end, is only that same one sentence, ‘because it is ultimately pure’, and only then does he answer each question in particular: because form is pure; because its nature is ever pure; because its self-nature is empty; because it is unfindable; because dharmas have the mark of ever abiding; because the nature of dharmas does not move. The gates of praise are fifteen; the substance of purity is one. This structure is itself the teaching: the marks of purity are immeasurable, and the ground of purity is only ultimate emptiness.

The treatise-author first takes ‘purity’ apart for you to see. Purity is of two kinds: first, the purity of wisdom; second, the purity of the dharmas it takes as its object—the wisdom that contemplates and the objects contemplated are established in mutual dependence, ‘as when there is no firewood, fire has nothing to burn’; apart from wisdom there is no purity of the object, apart from the object there is no purity of wisdom, and this is the ordinary way of the world. Yet right above this mutual dependence the treatise-author turns up the true foundation of this chapter: ‘Apart from wisdom and apart from the object, the real mark of all dharmas is of itself pure from the beginning.’ The purity of the real mark is not made by the Buddha and is not produced by practice; whether there is a buddha or no buddha, it ever abides and is not destroyed; it is only that, when it is taken as an object by mind and mental factors, it is stained with inversion—‘as when a hundred kinds of fine food are put in the same vessel with poison, they cannot be eaten’; the reason they cannot be eaten lies in the poison, not in the food, and the reason for impurity lies in the taking as object, not in the real mark. This purity has immeasurable names: suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality, prajñāpāramitā, the path, ultimate emptiness. The Buddha then gathers it up one level further: among all dharmas it is ultimately pure and attached to nothing, and even to the substance of purity it is not attached; the master of purity is the buddhas of the ten directions and the three times, and the buddhas too are not attached to this purity—only when one abides in neither purity itself nor the master of purity does it deserve the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘ultimate’. Therefore prajñā neither benefits nor harms sarvajñā: ‘As in a dream or an illusion, though there is gain and loss, there is neither benefit nor harm’; as space brings all things to completion, yet one may not say that space does anything, nor may one say that space brings no benefit.

In the lower half of the fascicle Subhūti takes over, and brings purity back from dharmas to the person. ‘World-Honored One! Because I am pure, form is pure.’ The Buddha says: ‘Because it is ultimately pure.’ Why? ‘Because I am without anything existent, form is without anything existent and ultimately pure.’ Because I am pure, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness are pure; the six perfections are pure; the four foundations of mindfulness up to the eighteen unshared dharmas are pure; the fruit of the srota-āpanna up to the path of the Buddha is pure; omniscience is pure—all the way, ‘because I am pure’. The treatise-author brings out the intent of this pattern of sentences: the self is born as a provisional name from the coming together of causes and conditions, and in what is without self there is the inversion of a self, which everyone easily understands; ‘to understand the emptiness of the person is easy, to understand the emptiness of the five aggregates is hard; therefore what is easily understood is used as a simile for what is hard to understand’—the emptiness of the person is made the ladder by which people are led up to the emptiness of dharmas. And purity itself is also of two kinds: purity by way of dual dharmas is purity in name; purity by way of non-dual dharmas is true purity. In the end, ‘ultimate emptiness’ is ‘ultimate purity’—‘because people fear emptiness, it is called purity’. This one sentence is the card held under the whole chapter's names and marks: purity is the consoling name of emptiness. Then, if the bodhisattva knows that all dharmas are ultimately empty, why does the sūtra still say ‘to be able to know thus is called prajñā’? The Buddha answers: ‘Because he knows the seeds of the path.’ The treatise-author explains: though the bodhisattva knows all dharmas to be ultimately empty, he wishes beings to attain this ultimate emptiness and to leave far behind the attached mind; ‘ultimate emptiness is spoken only in order to break the attached mind; it is not a real emptiness’. Ultimate purity is not a new place in which one may abide; it is the tool for pulling down the house—and even the tool may not be set up on an altar.

In fascicle sixty-four Śakra asks the question most intimate to the gate of practice: for a good man who seeks the bodhisattva path, what are the obstructing dharmas? Subhūti answers: grasping at the mark of the mind. To discriminate the mind of stinginess from the mind of giving, to abandon the mind of stinginess and grasp the mind of giving; to grasp the mark of dānapāramitā up to the mark of prajñāpāramitā; to grasp the mark of inner and outer emptiness; to grasp the mark of the buddhas; to grasp the mark of planting roots of goodness; and, joining all this merit together, to grasp its mark and dedicate it to the unsurpassed path—this is obstruction. It is not evil dharmas that obstruct a person; it is wondrous dharmas which, grasped by their marks, become obstructions: ‘It is like food that, though fragrant and fine, makes one sick when eaten to excess.’ The sickness lies not in the food's not being fine but in the excess of eating; the obstruction lies not in the wholesome dharma's not being wondrous but in grasping with attachment to marks. Therefore, in teaching people to arouse the mind of the unsurpassed path, one should show, teach, benefit, and gladden them with the real mark of all dharmas; and the real dharma is the extinguishing of all recollection, imagining, and discrimination—when practising giving one does not think ‘I give to him’, and of itself there is no error, and one teaches people the Dharma as the Buddha permits it.

The Buddha praises Subhūti, yet goes on to say: listen now as I tell you the subtle marks of obstruction. To arouse the mind and grasp marks in recollecting the buddhas—‘whatever marks there may be, all are marks of obstruction’; to grasp marks and recollect and dedicate the roots of goodness of the buddhas from the first arousing of the mind up to the abiding of the Dharma, to grasp marks and dedicate the roots of goodness of the buddhas' disciples and of the remaining beings—whatever marks there may be, all are marks of obstruction. Even recollecting the buddhas, even dedicating roots of goodness: once a mark is grasped, it is obstruction. The treatise-author distinguishes the coarse from the subtle: above, ‘I am the giver, he is the receiver’ was the coarse obstruction; now only ‘grasping at marks’ is spoken of; the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha is a subtle mind, and the obstruction of one whose mind is subtle is therefore called a subtle obstruction. Why must even this be forbidden? ‘The mark of the signless is prajñāpāramitā’; the Buddha comes forth from prajñā, and is likewise the mark of the signless; roots of goodness dedicated with an attached mind that grasps at marks are a worldly result, exhaustible and mixed with poison, and cannot attain the unsurpassed path. Pure to the point that even the goodness of recollecting the Buddha may not be grasped by its mark—it is here that the thoroughness of ultimate purity shows its true face.

The chapter ends with a passage of question and answer that presses step by step. Subhūti praises prajñā as ‘very deep’; the Buddha answers, ‘because all dharmas are ever apart’—prajñā is far from all dharmas, and no subtle mark can enter it. Subhūti rejoices: ‘I shall worship prajñāpāramitā!’ The Buddha answers: because prajñā is without origination and without action, the buddhas of the ten directions, as many as the sands of the Ganges, are none of them able to attain it—how can you, a śrāvaka, speak of attaining it? Subhūti says that all dharmas are without knowing and without attainment, and the Buddha then speaks to the utmost: ‘All dharmas are of one nature, not of two natures’—the one nature is ultimate emptiness, and this one nature of dharmas is also without nature, ‘this absence of nature is precisely the nature, and this nature does not originate and does not act’; knowing that all dharmas are of one nature and without nature, without origination and without action, one leaves far behind all marks of obstruction. Subhūti praises it as hard to know and hard to understand; the Buddha answers: it is not hard for you alone—among all beings there is no seer, no hearer, no knower, no cognizer, no attainer; it is not known by ear, nose, tongue, or body, and not cognised by mind: prajñā goes beyond the six kinds of knowing. Subhūti praises it as inconceivable; the Buddha answers: prajñā is not born from the mind, not born from the five aggregates, and so on up to not born from the eighteen unshared dharmas, because it has no mark of arising. The treatise-author gathers up the whole chapter with one simile: the five aggregates up to the eighteen unshared dharmas can serve as causes and conditions for prajñā, but cannot give birth to prajñā—‘as a fierce wind, removing the clouds, can let the sun and moon appear, yet cannot make the sun and moon’. The wind can remove clouds; it cannot make sun and moon. The myriad practices can remove obstructions; they cannot create prajñā—prajñā, like the sun and moon, is there from the beginning, of itself pure from the beginning. The chapter of praise of purity, praised to the last, finds nothing to be praised, no one to praise, and no dharma of praise to be found—this is the utmost of praise, and only this is the utmost of purity.

This chapter opens with a sentence that seems to pull the floor from under itself. Subhūti says before the Buddha: ‘This prajñāpāramitā is without anything done.’ The Buddha not only does not correct him but gives the reason: ‘Because the doer is unfindable; because form is unfindable, and so on up to all dharmas being unfindable.’ The treatise-author pushes this sentence to its end: ‘Even a knower there is not—how much less a doer?’—if even the one who could know cannot be found, where is there a doer who could make prajñā? Yet to be without anything done is not to down tools and stop working. Straight away Subhūti asks: since nothing is done, how should one practise? The Buddha's answer is a long string of ‘does not practise’: does not practise form, and so on up to omniscience of all kinds; does not practise permanent or impermanent, suffering or bliss, self or no-self, pure or impure—‘this form is of a nature without anything existent; how could it be permanent or impermanent?’ Even ‘impermanence’, the medicine that breaks permanence, is not accepted within prajñā, ‘because it can give rise to the attached mind’. He does not practise incompleteness, does not practise obstruction or non-obstruction, and the treatise-author brings out the pivot: ‘Obstruction is the non-path; non-obstruction is the path.’ Being without anything done means that in all the marks of practice no doer is set up; the practice of prajñā sets out from exactly here.

Then is there any use in speaking this dharma? Subhūti praises: ‘This very deep dharma, if spoken, neither increases nor decreases; if not spoken, neither increases nor decreases.’ The Buddha follows with two similes: to praise or revile space to the end of one's life—space neither increases nor decreases; to praise or revile an illusory person—the illusory person ‘is not glad when praised and not grieved when reviled’. The treatise-author matches the dharma to it: ‘This real mark of all dharmas, even if one were to destroy it with the karma of the body, could not be made other—how much less by speech!’ And he turns the simile one more layer—space is prajñā, the illusory person is the practitioner; though the practitioner is a false dharma born from the causes and conditions of sinful karma, because he joins with prajñā he is not different from it, ‘as the various colours, coming to the side of Mount Sumeru, all alike become golden’. Dharmas are from the first not different, do not wait on being spoken, and are not diminished by being reviled—this is the ground on which being without anything done can stand.

From this comes the most magnificent passage of the chapter: the great adornment. ‘To cultivate prajñāpāramitā is like cultivating space’—in space there is no prajñā, no six perfections, no form, feeling, perception, constructions, or consciousness, and so on up to no awakening, and it is right here that the bodhisattva cultivates and gathers wholesome dharmas; ‘this person, wishing to deliver beings, is like one wishing to deliver space’. The treatise-author says: space is without colour and without form, ‘and if anyone wished to lift space, that would be hard’; the dharma of beings is ultimately empty, and yet the bodhisattva wishes to lift the beings of the three realms and set them in nirvāṇa, and therefore it is called the great adornment—like wishing to paint space with all kinds of colours. The sūtra supplies its own ground: the buddhas of the ten directions, as many as the sands of the Ganges, each deliver immeasurable asaṃkhyeya beings into nirvāṇa, and yet ‘the nature of beings neither decreases nor increases’. If beings really existed and really decreased, the buddhas would on the contrary bear the sin of diminishing beings; beings are a provisional name from coming together, without any fixed mark, and therefore delivered without decrease, undelivered without increase. To raise an adornment in emptiness—precisely because it is hard, ‘one should worship these bodhisattva-mahāsattvas’. At the end of the sūtra passage a bhikṣu, hearing this, speaks out in astonished joy: ‘I shall worship prajñāpāramitā!’ Within prajñā, though no dharma arises and no dharma ceases, there is the aggregate of morality, of concentration, of wisdom, of liberation, and of the knowledge and vision of liberation; there are the Three Jewels; there is the turning of the wheel of the Dharma—where no dharma arises or ceases, the work of the Dharma is plainly there, and this one sentence is the whole chapter in miniature.

Śakra next comes on and asks the question that most concerns a protector of the Dharma: for one who receives and upholds prajñā, ‘what protection should I give?’ Subhūti asks back: ‘Do you see any dharma here that could be protected?’ Śakra answers that he sees none. Thereupon the right meaning is established: ‘If good men and good women practise as it is taught within prajñāpāramitā, that is protection.’ To wish to protect from outside a person who practises prajñā is ‘to wish to protect space’—can you protect a dream, a mirage, a shadow, an echo, an illusion, a transformation? Can you protect what the Buddha has conjured? Can you protect the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality? The treatise-author cites an event from this transmission: a yakṣa named Kāla struck Śāriputra on the head with his fist while Śāriputra was in the absorption of cessation, and he felt no pain from the blow—‘the very breath of prajñāpāramitā is the absorption of cessation’, and neither human nor non-human can find an opening in it. True protection does not come from outside; it comes from abiding as it is taught. Śakra asks again about the wisdom that sees dharmas as a dream: the bodhisattva knows all dharmas to be like a dream—why does he ‘not think of the dream, not think that it is a dream, not think of using the dream, not think that he dreams’? The treatise-author glosses the terms one by one: ordinary people use the dream as a simile for the five aggregates, and then turn round and grasp at the dream itself. The similes of dream and the rest are from the first meant to break attachment to the five aggregates; because attachment is broken, ‘one does not err even within the dream’—when the medicine has reached the sickness, the medicine too is not kept.

The First Part closes in a great direct showing. By the Buddha's supernormal power, the gods of the three-thousand great-thousand worlds scatter sandalwood over the Buddha and see, in each of the ten directions, a thousand buddhas expounding the Dharma—the bhikṣus all named Subhūti, the questioners all named Śakra Devānām Indra. Subhūti and Śakra rejoice: ‘It is not we alone who can speak and can ask.’ The Buddha further predicts that when Maitreya attains awakening he too will expound prajñā in this very place, and cites at length the coming event of Maitreya opening the summit of Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa with his toe and Kāśyapa's skeleton coming forth holding staff and bowl, as proof—‘this prajñāpāramitā is spoken by the buddhas of the past, the future, and the present, and should be believed and received’. And the gate of the Dharma that Maitreya will expound is no different from the present Buddha's: form is neither permanent nor impermanent, neither bound nor freed, not of the three times, because it is ultimately pure. From this come ten rounds of question and answer on purity: because form is pure, prajñā is pure; because space is pure, prajñā is pure; because it is undefiled; because it cannot be grasped; because it can be spoken; because it cannot be spoken; because it is unfindable—‘because all dharmas are ultimately pure, prajñāpāramitā is pure’. The treatise-author closes with the simile of the echo in the mountain valley: the voice from the mouth and the echo that comes back are both false sounds, yet people take the voice for real and the echo for false; the dharmas of ordinary people and the dharmas of the noble are all ultimately empty, yet lesser bodhisattvas still take the noble dharmas for real—the purity of prajñā goes deeper than this one line of division.

The Last Part turns to the results of receiving and upholding. Subhūti says: one who receives and upholds prajñā, draws near to it, and rightly recollects it ‘will never suffer sickness of the eye’; ear, nose, tongue, and body will not be sick; the body will suffer no mutilation, will not decline into senility, will not die an untimely death; on the six fast-days the gods gather like clouds to hear and receive. The treatise-author at once asks the doubt on the reader's behalf: in fact those who receive and uphold still have many afflictions—how can it be said that they never suffer sickness of the eye? Answer: ‘it is not that they must necessarily receive the karmic result, and therefore they have no afflictions’—as a fine medicine can break all sicknesses, ‘but if one cannot follow its regimen, it does not remove the affliction, and that is not the medicine's fault’; again, as when a person has obtained a sharp weapon but cannot ward off danger, that is not the weapon's fault. Heavy sins from former lives, and not practising in this life as it is taught—therefore one does not obtain the power of prajñā, ‘and that is not the fault of prajñā’. The promise of the result of merit is tied to the four Chinese characters rendered here as ‘practising as it is taught’, and the sūtra itself states clearly the dividing line of cause and effect. The Buddha then gives prajñā a new name: the great precious treasure. ‘It can pull beings out of the hells, out of the animals, out of the hungry ghosts, and out of poverty among humans’; it can give great families, the heavens, the four fruits, and so on up to awakening—like a wish-fulfilling jewel, able to satisfy the wishes of all beings, namely to leave suffering and to gain happiness. And it surpasses the wish-fulfilling jewel: the jewel, once obtained and then lost, brings grief and vexation, while prajñā ‘neither arises nor ceases, is never lost, gives beings happiness life after life, and at the last makes them attain the path of the Buddha’; one who obtains a jewel grows proud in mind and despises others, and instead opens the door of sin, whereas prajñā, the world-transcending treasure, does not discriminate between wholesome and unwholesome: ‘even wholesome dharmas cannot defile it, how much less unwholesome dharmas’. And the ground of this treasure is still that same sentence: ‘whether there are buddhas or no buddhas, this mark of dharmas ever abides and is not other’—because the nature of dharmas is constant, it is not lost.

The end of the chapter returns to the greatest wheel. The gods scatter four kinds of lotus in the air and proclaim: ‘We in Jambudvīpa see the second turning of the wheel of the Dharma’—and immeasurable hundreds of thousands of gods attain the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. Yet the Buddha says: ‘This wheel of the Dharma is neither a first turning nor a second turning. This prajñāpāramitā does not come forth in order to turn, nor in order to return, because of the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas.’ The treatise-author first relieves the difficulty: from the first turning until the Dharma is exhausted, all alike is called turning; at the first turning eighty thousand gods attained acceptance and one person attained the first path, and now immeasurable gods attain acceptance, and therefore the gods praise it as the second. He also says that the affairs of the buddhas are partly hidden and partly manifest: the śrāvakas see few attain the path at the first turning, while the bodhisattvas see countless asaṃkhyeya people attain the path and even sit on the seat of awakening and swiftly accomplish the path of the Buddha—‘as in a great rain, a great tree receives much and a small tree receives little’. Going deeper: the wheel of the Dharma is prajñāpāramitā, and because its mark is without origination and without action it neither turns nor returns; to speak of the worldly dharma of arising is called turning, to speak of the worldly dharma of ceasing is called returning, and within prajñā there are neither of these two—‘no turning is the emptiness of existent dharmas; no returning is the emptiness of non-existent dharmas’. Someone objects: if all dharmas are empty, why is prajñā still praised as mahāpāramitā? Answer: ‘within the emptiness of self-nature there is not even the emptiness of self-nature; therefore it is called mahāpāramitā’—though awakening is attained, nothing is attained; though the wheel of the Dharma is turned, nothing is turned; fearing to fall into permanence, it does not turn; fearing to fall into annihilation, it does not return; entering the three gates of liberation and abandoning the mind of self and mine, this is called speaking of the attainment of liberation. At the last the treatise-author glosses word by word the ten meanings—speaking, teaching, illuminating, opening, showing, distinguishing, manifesting, expounding the Dharma, explaining, and making plain and easy: illuminating is like holding up a lamp to light things; opening is like opening the door of a treasure-house, opening the leaves of the door of wrongness and doubt and breaking down the barrier of ignorance; making plain and easy is like dividing a deep water so that all who cross may cross easily—to be able to speak the very deep meaning with these ten at the head is called the pure expounding of prajñā. And in the highest meaning there is really nothing spoken: since nothing is spoken, nothing is received; since nothing is received, nothing is realised; since nothing is realised, there is no one who extinguishes the afflictions, and so on up to no fixed field of merit. The chapter rises from ‘nothing done’ and ends at ‘nothing spoken’—the uncontrived real mark never once blocked a single word of Dharma or a single person's deliverance; spoken to the utmost, delivered to the utmost, the doer and the speaker are still unfindable. This is the heart of the chapter on the uncontrived real mark.

This chapter is a calling of names in ninety rounds. At the end of the preceding chapter the Buddha said that prajñā is the great precious treasure pāramitā; Subhūti, having heard it, ‘thereupon of himself praised prajñā as mahāpāramitā’, and ‘contemplated prajñāpāramitā as the waters of the great sea, immeasurable and boundless’, and, unable to contain his joy, opened his mouth: ‘World-Honored One! The boundless pāramitā is prajñāpāramitā.’ The Buddha answers: ‘Because it is boundless like space.’ From here one name follows another—equal, apart, indestructible, without a further shore, of the kind of emptiness, unspeakable, nameless, not going, unmoving, exhausted, unarisen, unceasing, without anything done, without knowing, not arriving, not lost—and for every name Subhūti calls, the Buddha must give a reason: because dharmas are equal; because of ultimate emptiness; because all dharmas are unfindable. Ninety names, ninety reasons why. Under the very first name the treatise-author already shows his hand: ‘The meaning of “boundless”, from the beginning of the chapter to its end, is everywhere the meaning of boundlessness’—the waters of the sea are immeasurable, so one chapter can bring forth ninety names and not run dry; and what the ninety names speak of is, from first to last, the same one thing.

The Buddha's manner of answering, looked at closely, has one direction: the name is a word of praise, the reason is the real meaning. You praise it as boundless; I tell you where boundlessness lies—permanence is one extreme, impermanence is one extreme; self and no-self, existence and non-existence—all these are called the extremes of wrong view, and one who attains prajñā has none of these extremes; again, ‘as the place where a thing runs out is called its bound, space, being without colour and without form, is without bound’. You praise it as without a further shore; I tell you: ‘this shore is called birth and death, the further shore is called nirvāṇa, and between them is the great river of the afflictions’—everyone hurries to abandon this shore and covets the further shore, and yet the further shore is nirvāṇa, without colour and without name, with no shore to land on. Even ‘pāramitā’ (reaching the further shore), the general name itself, takes itself apart under the name of the pāramitā without a further shore. Each praise is handed up, and what comes back is always ultimate emptiness, unfindability; and so the praise becomes the teaching.

In the second passage Subhūti changes to a set of similes for his praise: dream, echo, shadow, mirage, illusion. The Buddha's way of answering goes one level further. Worldly people take the voice for real and the echo for false, take a person's face for real and the image in the mirror for false, take wind, dust, and sunlight for real and the water of a mirage for false—‘Subhūti praises prajñā by using similes for emptiness; the Buddha says that both the simile and the matter itself are empty; because the matter itself is empty, the simile too is empty.’ To compare emptiness to something false still leaves a real original standing; the Buddha seizes even the original—what illustrates and what is illustrated are both empty, and only this is the emptiness of prajñā. For the names that follow—without stain, without purity, without desire, without hatred, without delusion—the treatise-author gives the most important key of the whole chapter: ‘Greed and desire are false, and their self-nature is unfindable; therefore it is called the pāramitā without desire; it is not called without desire because desire has been left behind’—without hatred, not because hatred has been left behind; without delusion, not because delusion has been extinguished. The ‘without’ of prajñā is not a without that comes only after cutting off; it is that the self-nature is unfindable from the beginning. Therefore ‘these beings from the very beginning do not arise and are without anything existent’; therefore ‘because dharmas have the mark of being cut off of themselves, it is called cut off’—among the ninety names, every one that carries a ‘without’, a ‘not’, or a ‘cut off’ must be read from this ground pattern.

The third passage is the longest, with forty-seven names set out in one breath: impermanent, suffering, no-self, empty, signless; the eighteen gates of emptiness from inner emptiness up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas; the thirty-seven limbs of the path from the foundations of mindfulness up to the eightfold noble path; the three gates of liberation, the liberations, the nine successive absorptions; the six perfections from dāna up to prajñā; and at the last the ten powers, the fearlessnesses, the unobstructed knowledges, the dharmas of the Buddha, speaking as it really is, of itself, and the Buddha—from the gate of arising and ceasing all the way up to the ground of the Buddha. The treatise-author sets himself three questions. Since above it was said that prajñā is the nature of dharmas that ever abides, why is it now said to be impermanent? Answer: prajñā is wisdom, and it contemplates that dharmas are born from the coming together of causes and conditions; being a conditioned dharma, it is impermanent; what it takes as its object—suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality—is unconditioned dharma and therefore permanent—what Subhūti speaks of is the conditioned prajñā. The other dharmas may be used to praise prajñā; how can prajñā again be used to praise prajñā? Answer: ‘There are two kinds of prajñā: first, the ever-abiding prajñā; second, the prajñāpāramitā that has a use, which practises together with the five perfections’—what Subhūti praises is the prajñā that has a use, what the Buddha answers with is the ever-abiding prajñā—under the same name, question and answer each have their own referent. And the pattern of the whole passage the treatise-author states in one sentence: ‘Subhūti speaks of the marks of all dharmas to praise prajñā; the Buddha raises all dharmas to answer.’

The chapter closes on ‘the Buddha pāramitā’. Tathāgata is rendered the Tathāgata, or ‘one who speaks as it really is’, or ‘one who knows as it really is’; one who is so of himself is called Buddha; ‘the dharma of the śrāvaka surpasses the dharma of ordinary people, the dharma of the pratyekabuddha surpasses the dharma of the śrāvaka, and the dharma of the Buddha is supreme among all dharmas’, as among all forms space is vast. ‘Buddha, in the language of Qin, means the awakened one, the knower’—rightly knowing all dharmas and all kinds, he is therefore called awakened; knowing broadly is all kinds, and all kinds are all the immeasurable and boundless gates of the Dharma. The last sentence is where the whole chapter comes to rest: ‘It is not because of the Buddha's body that it is called the Buddha pāramitā, but only because of omniscience of all kinds.’ Ninety rounds of praise rise from boundlessness and end at the Buddha; and what makes the Buddha the Buddha lies not in the marks of his body but in the wisdom that knows all dharmas everywhere. The calling of names, come to this point, has used up its names, and what is named is still like the waters of the great sea, immeasurable and boundless—which is exactly what the first name had already made plain.

This chapter begins with a thought in the mind of the lord of the gods. Śakra thinks: ‘If good men and good women have the prajñāpāramitā sūtra reach their ears, these people made merit under the buddhas of former lives and kept company with good friends’—for the sound of prajñā to pass once by the ear is already no small thing; how much more to receive and uphold it, draw near to it, read, recite, rightly recollect it, and practise as it is taught. Śāriputra then sets up the standard: one who hears this deep prajñā and is not startled, not terrified, not afraid—‘know that this good man or good woman is like an avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva’. The converse holds just the same: one who in this life disparages the deep prajñā—‘know that this person in a former life also disparaged the deep prajñāpāramitā’—and the treatise-author says it plainly: ‘As one of thick merit comes from long accumulation, so one who disbelieves and disparages also comes from long habit.’ Faith and unbelief are neither of them a thought raised on the spur of this one life; they are the fruit of long practice and long habit. Therefore Śakra sings out the first praise of the chapter: ‘I worship prajñāpāramitā! To worship prajñāpāramitā is to worship omniscience.’ The Buddha confirms it and shows the ground: ‘The omniscience of the buddhas is all born from prajñāpāramitā, and omniscience is prajñāpāramitā.’ The treatise-author fits the power of faith with a simile: ‘It is like freshly split dry wool, which goes east and west with the wind; wet wool, densely felted, cannot be moved’—one who has newly aroused the mind, thin in merit, follows what others say, like dry wool with the wind; one who has long cultivated merit cannot be blown.

Then, having faith, how does one practise? Śakra asks: how does one abide in prajñā, how does one train in prajñā? The Buddha's way of answering is all negation: ‘If one does not abide in form, that is training in prajñāpāramitā’; with the six perfections likewise, ‘not abiding in prajñāpāramitā is training in prajñāpāramitā’; and it turns one level further—‘not training in form; if one does not train in form, this is called training in form’. On what ground? ‘Because the prior limit of form is unfindable, its middle limit is unfindable, its later limit is unfindable’; to abide is to grasp at marks, and to grasp at marks is to lose prajñā. Śāriputra three times praises it—‘very deep’, ‘hard to fathom’, ‘immeasurable’—and the Buddha three times answers by tying it to all dharmas: ‘because the suchness of form is very deep, prajñāpāramitā is very deep’; and the dharma of practice is still non-practice—not practising the depth of form is practising prajñāpāramitā. Here the treatise-author lays bare the secret of deep and shallow: ‘It is like water, whose depth and shallowness are not fixed: to a small child it is deep, to a grown man it is shallow’; even the great sea is deep to a human and shallow to the asura king Rāhu—‘the buddhas are like the asura king Rāhu: among all dharmas there is none that is deep to them, because they have attained unobstructed liberation.’ Depth is not the self-nature of prajñā; it is the reflection of the power of beings' faith.

From this comes the famous set of questions and answers: should so deep a dharma be spoken before a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind? Śāriputra says it should not—for fear that he will be startled and terrified, doubt and regret, disparage it, and plant the karma of the three evil destinies. Śakra presses: then is there anyone who, without having received the prediction, hears the deep prajñā and is neither startled nor terrified? Śāriputra answers: there is; such a person ‘will receive the prediction of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi before long, within no more than one buddha or two buddhas’. Being able to have faith is itself the prior sign of receiving the prediction. Śāriputra gives four similes in a row: a person crossing a dangerous road of four hundred yojanas first sees herdsmen, boundary marks, and gardens, and knows that the town and village are not far; one who wishes to see the great sea, seeing level ground without the mark of trees or the mark of mountains, knows that the sea is not far; in early spring, when the old leaves have already fallen, one knows that new leaves, flowers, and fruit will come forth before long; a woman with child, her body heavy and weary of her habits, knows that the birth is not far. The treatise-author matches the simile of the dangerous road item by item to the Dharma—the ‘bandits’ are the sixty-two wrong views, the ‘evil insects’ are the afflictions of craving and hatred, the ‘village’ is the compliant acceptance of dharmas, the ‘town’ is the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, the ‘city’ is anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; and adds one more simile: ‘like a fish that has swallowed the hook: though it still plays in the pond, know that it will be out before long’—one who deeply believes in and delights in prajñā will not long abide in birth and death.

At the end of the First Part the chapter turns to the entrusting. Subhūti praises the Buddha for ‘entrusting well the affairs of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas’, and the Buddha enumerates how the bodhisattva, by the four means of gathering—giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavour—brings beings to accomplishment, practising himself and teaching others to practise, teaching beings to attain the four fruits and the path of the pratyekabuddha while ‘he himself does not realise them within’. The Last Part opens by turning to the question of fully practising prajñā. What is full prajñā? ‘He sees no mark of increase in form, nor any mark of decrease in form’; why? ‘Because dharmas are signless; because dharmas are empty, deceptive, not firm, without a perceiver, without a life.’ Who can have faith in and understand such a dharma? The Buddha answers: one who ‘has long practised the six perfections, planted roots of goodness, drawn near to and made offerings to many buddhas, and kept company with good friends’; and ‘long’ is not reckoned by years—‘not discriminating form, not discriminating the mark of form, not discriminating the nature of form’: one who can practise thus is called long-practised. Subhūti twice praises prajñā as the heap of precious treasure and the heap of purity, and straight away discovers the price of treasure: ‘This very deep prajñāpāramitā has many hindrances.’ In the world, because of precious things, many bandits appear; prajñā is the great precious treasure, and so the deeds of Māra swarm—which is why the Buddha teaches people to write it quickly, read it quickly, cultivate it quickly, and not to drag out to a year what can be accomplished in a month. But hindrance can never destroy it: ‘by the Buddha's power, the evil Māra cannot hinder’; ‘prajñāpāramitā is the mother of the buddhas of the ten directions; when someone wishes to ruin it, they cannot but protect it.’ Prajñā gives birth to the buddhas, and the buddhas in turn protect prajñā; the buddhas of the ten directions all know, and all see with the Buddha-eye, the person who writes, upholds, reads, and recites it—a person writing out the sūtra under a lamp, and the Buddha-eyes of the ten directions are upon him.

The end of the chapter is a map of the fortunes of the Dharma. The Buddha appears in the east and there expounds prajñā; after his parinirvāṇa, this deep prajñāpāramitā will go to the south, from the south pass to the west, from the west pass to the north—‘at that time the north will do the work of the Buddha’. Why? ‘When my Dharma flourishes, it has no mark of extinction.’ The Buddha is not in the world and yet prajñā moves through the world; the work of the Buddha need not borrow the Buddha's body; in the north the snowy mountains are cold, the medicinal herbs can kill all poisons, beings are pliant, and the five faculties beginning with faith all gain strength, and so prajñā will spread widely there, ‘as when one lamp is lit, one from another they are all lit’. This is exactly where the whole chapter comes to rest: the non-extinction of the Dharma is tied to the hands of those who practise in faith—to write, to receive and uphold, to read, to recite, to rightly recollect, to cultivate as it is taught: this is the work of the Buddha in the age of the Dharma's end. So the chapter leaves an admonition at its close: ‘If one begrudges the Dharma, one is ever born in a border land where there is no Buddha-dharma.’ To hear and hold is merit; to pass on and hold is practice; the praise of practising in faith is praise of that pair of hands which can hold prajñā fast and can also hand it on.

The preceding chapter said that prajñā is the heap of precious treasure and has many hindrances, and that the buddhas of the ten directions watch over with the Buddha-eye the person who copies the sūtra—the name was set out, but the marks were not yet told. So this chapter opens with Subhūti asking: ‘How do good men and good women who seek the path of the Buddha give rise to hindrances?’ The Buddha's way of answering is unexpected—he speaks not of mountain sprites and ghosts but first of a most ordinary thing: ‘When the eloquence of delighting in speech does not arise at once, know that this is a deed of Māra for the bodhisattva.’ On the high seat, expounding the Dharma, eloquence slow in coming, the hearers' minds spoiled—this is a deed of Māra. Yet he goes on to say: ‘When the eloquence of delighting in speech arises suddenly, know that this too is a deed of Māra for the bodhisattva.’ Eloquence surging up in a flood, ‘indulging in delight in speech with no meaning or principle, like a runaway horse hard to rein in; again like a great water in sudden spate, muddied with every kind of filth’—this too is a deed of Māra. Slow is Māra, quick is Māra; the chapter has hardly opened and the reader's accustomed idea of Māra is already taken apart. From here the marks are counted off one by one: when copying the sūtra, sprawling and haughty, jesting and laughing with a distracted mind, sneering without respect, each at odds with the others; when reading and reciting, mocking one another, despising one another; and even, ‘I do not find the savour in this sūtra’—and so one abandons it and goes away; with one thought arising, ‘thought by thought one is set back a kalpa’.

What, in the end, is Māra? The treatise-author's answer begins from the bottom of conditioned dharmas: ‘Every conditioned dharma has its dominant; the dominants oppose one another, and to oppose is to be an enemy and a thief.’ Water quenches fire, fire dries up water; even grass and trees injure one another—how much more beings. The bodhisattva has a mind of great compassion and does not make himself an enemy of beings, yet beings make themselves enemies of the bodhisattva; and the bodhisattva's own body is a conditioned dharma, and can itself make hindrances. ‘All such things of difficulty the Buddha names together as Māra.’ Then the framework of the whole chapter is set up: ‘Māra is of four kinds: the Māra of the afflictions, the Māra of the five aggregates, the Māra of death, and the Māra who is a son of the gods.’ Māra, in the language of Qin, is ‘one who can seize life’—not only the life of the body but the life of wisdom too. The four Māras look like four, and the treatise-author at once gathers them back: ‘In reality it is one Māra; because its meaning is distinguished, there are four’; three of the Māras are never far from one another—where there are the five aggregates there are afflictions, and where there are afflictions the Māra of the heavens finds his opening. Māra is not an army come from outside; it is the tension within the net of the conditioned itself. And so the intent of the Buddha's speaking of hindrances is not opposition either: ‘The Buddha does not have the practitioner injure and harm what hinders him; he only has him be aware of it and not follow along with it.’ The chapter on the deeds of Māra is not a method for driving out Māra; it is a method of awareness.

The second passage of the sūtra turns to a more hidden place of loss: having obtained the deep prajñā, one abandons it and goes away, and takes up the sūtras that śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas should practise. The Buddha sets up seven similes in a row, each a challenge. It is like a dog that does not seek food from the great household but instead begs it from the servant; like one who wishes to see an elephant and, having seen it, turns round to examine its footprints; like one who wishes to see the great sea and, having seen it, turns round to seek the water in an ox's hoofprint; like a craftsman who wishes to model the victorious palace of Śakra Devānām Indra and takes his measure instead from the palaces of the sun and moon; like one who wishes to see a wheel-turning sage king and, seeing him, does not recognise him, but takes instead the appearance of a petty king and says ‘how does the wheel-turning sage king differ from this?’; like a hungry man who obtains food of a hundred flavours and instead eats sixty-day grain; like one who obtains a priceless maṇi jewel and instead sets it beside a crystal bead. At each simile the Buddha must ask: ‘Is this person clever?’ And Subhūti answers each time: ‘Not clever.’ Ten challenges, ten times not clever—the same thing asked ten times over, because this is the thing people are doing for the eleventh time. The treatise-author matches it to the Dharma: ‘the dog is the practitioner, prajñāpāramitā is the master of the house’; prajñā is the root of the three baskets, and the other sūtras are branches and leaves spoken in order to deliver beings—‘abandoning the root to climb the branches and leaves’, though they bear the name of the tree, they are of no use. Someone will ask: the thirty-seven limbs and the three gates of liberation are in the prajñā sūtras too—on what ground are they called śrāvaka sūtras only? The treatise answers cleanly: ‘In the Mahāyāna, though these dharmas are present, they are joined with ultimate emptiness, the mind is attached to nothing, and, not abandoning sarvajñā and the mind of great compassion, they are spoken for the sake of all beings; the śrāvaka sūtras are not so, being for the sake of the realisation of the Small Vehicle.’ The dharma is the same and the mind differs; the mind differs and the vehicle differs.

The list of the deeds of Māra grows ever finer, so fine that even ‘nothing’ is not let off. Prajñāpāramitā has no mark of delighting in speech—the mark of the inconceivable, the mark of neither arising nor ceasing, the mark of neither stained nor pure, the mark of neither disordered nor scattered, the mark of no speech, the mark of no words and no meaning, the mark of nothing to be attained: all seven marks are negated. Subhūti asks: then can prajñā be written? The Buddha answers: ‘It cannot be written’, because its self-nature is non-existent, and ‘a non-existent dharma cannot write a non-existent dharma’. Yet to think ‘the non-existent dharma is the deep prajñāpāramitā’—know that this too is a deed of Māra; to attach to prajñā as letters is a deed of Māra, and to attach to a prajñā without letters is also a deed of Māra. The treatise-author states this double negation openly: ‘ultimate emptiness and non-existence are likewise not the mark of prajñāpāramitā’—to know non-existence as the mark of prajñā is itself a deed of Māra. Neither end may be attached to, because Māra does not sort existence from non-existence; he recognises only the one word ‘attachment’. The most dangerous move comes at the end of the chapter: the evil Māra need not appear in an evil form—‘the evil Māra, as a device, holds out other deep sūtras’ to the bodhisattva; the deep sūtras of the śrāvakas are truly deep sūtras—emptiness, the signless, non-action, the exhaustion of the root of suffering—and Māra takes the real thing to trade for the thing in your hand that is more real still. ‘It is like a ball of gold heated red-hot: though its colour is fine and beautiful, it cannot be grasped.’

The whole chapter is gathered up in one simile: ‘It is like a person who mixes poison with ghee: the force of the poison then subsides and cannot harm anyone.’ The same three gates of liberation, in the śrāvaka sūtras, are like taking poison alone; within prajñā they are like poison that has got ghee—because within prajñā the bodhisattva's path of skilful means is widely taught: ‘contemplating the path of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha and not realising it, practising the three gates of liberation with the mind of great compassion’. To contemplate and not realise—the four Chinese characters rendered here by these words are the way out of the whole chapter: prajñā does not refuse the dharmas of the two vehicles; it only does not permit the realisation of the two vehicles. Therefore the deeds of Māra fill the chapter and the intent of the chapter is not fear—the hindrances are counted out mark by mark precisely so that the practitioner may recognise them mark by mark; to recognise is to be aware, and to be aware is not to follow. ‘Therefore one should not seek the bodhisattva path in the śrāvaka sūtras’—this closing sentence looks like a judgement of the teachings, but in fact it points the way: seek it within prajñā, and the unsurpassed path is easily attained.

The Māra of this chapter does not show a fearsome face. He hides between two good people. ‘The hearer wishes to write out and uphold prajñāpāramitā, to read, recite, ask its meaning, and rightly recollect it; the speaker of the Dharma is slack and does not wish to speak it. Know that this is a deed of Māra for the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’—and the other way round, the speaker's mind is not slack but the hearer does not wish to receive it: ‘the two minds are not in accord; know that this is a deed of Māra.’ One wants to learn and the other will not teach: a deed of Māra. One wants to teach and the other will not learn: also a deed of Māra. The fault lies on neither side; the fault is that the two sides do not come together. The treatise-author lays the principle bare: ‘Every conditioned dharma arises because causes and conditions come together; when the conditions part, it is not. It is like seeking fire with a fire-drill: there is the drill and there is the base, and by the two together the fire is got.’ Writing out prajñā too is a dharma born of conditions: ‘only because teacher and disciple are of one mind and one undertaking can the writing out be completed.’ Take one side away and the fire will not catch.

The weighty matter of the First Part is the twelve dhūta practices: dwelling in the araṇya, always begging for food, wearing robes of cast-off rags, eating at one sitting, eating in measured quantity, not drinking juices after midday, dwelling among the tombs, dwelling under a tree, dwelling in the open, always sitting and never lying down, begging from house to house in order, and keeping only the three robes. One person takes them up and the other does not; the two are not in accord, and this too is a deed of Māra. But the treatise-author first draws a clear line: ‘the twelve dhūta practices are not called precepts; if one can practise them, the precepts are adorned; if one cannot practise them, one does not break the precepts.’ The dhūta practices are the doing of good, not the laying down of precepts; not doing them is no offence. That a deed of Māra can arise even where there is no offence is the finest cut of this chapter: two wholesome dharmas meet and neither yields, and the loss is equal to that of evil. Then the reasons are explained practice by practice, every sentence carrying the felt reality of the life of the Saṅgha: one meal a day is because ‘the Buddha's Dharma is for the sake of practising the path, not for the benefit of the body, as one feeds a horse or feeds a pig’; for eating in measured quantity Śāriputra's own words are cited, ‘if I eat five or six mouthfuls and fill up with water, that is enough to support the body’; not drinking juices is like a horse fitted with the bridle, and only then is the mind that ‘will not go forward on the road’ cut off; dwelling under a tree follows in the Buddha's footsteps, ‘as when the Buddha was born, when he attained the path, when he turned the wheel of the Dharma, and when he entered parinirvāṇa, all under a tree’; dwelling in the open, ‘the moonlight shines everywhere, the sky is bright and clear, and the mind easily enters the emptiness samādhi.’ And the whole is governed by a single sentence: ‘The Buddha's Dharma takes wisdom alone as its root; it does not put suffering first.’

The Last Part spreads out the list of pairs one after another: having faith and having no faith; able to give and begrudging; wishing to make offerings and not wishing to receive them; quick to understand and dull and dark; knowing and not knowing the order and meaning of the twelve divisions of the scriptures; having and not having accomplished the six perfections; having and not having the power of skilful means; obtaining and not obtaining dhāraṇī; parted and not parted from the five hindrances; and on to danger to life in another region, famine and dear grain, a prosperous and pleasant land or a wilderness, the circumstances of a donor—every pair is stated both ways, and speaker and hearer take turns on the wrong side. The treatise-author tracks down the root of the sickness: ‘Among all the dharmas that beings practise, where they are the same there is accord; one person has left the five hindrances and one has not, and so they belittle each other, and because they belittle each other they are not in accord.’ The two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘belittle each other’ gather up more than twenty pairs. A teacher sees that a disciple does not practise the six perfections and so will not teach him, not knowing that this person, having heard prajñā, will accomplish the great matter; a disciple sees the teacher break up and scatter the six perfections and suspects that the teacher does not deeply delight in them, not knowing that this is the skilful means that cuts off a person's attachment. Dhāraṇī too are of many kinds: the disciple has obtained the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining but cannot explain the meaning; the teacher can explain the meaning but has not obtained the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining—each holds one half, yet each uses his own half to belittle the other.

Further on, Māra comes forward in person, and each time more presentable than the last: he comes in the form of a bhikṣu and says, ‘the sūtra I speak is prajñāpāramitā; this sūtra is not prajñāpāramitā,’ and the bodhisattva who has not received the prediction falls into doubt; he comes in the body of a Buddha, golden-coloured with a fathom of light, and the bodhisattva craves and clings to it, ‘and because of craving and clinging, sarvajñā is diminished’; he makes the body of a Buddha with a Saṅgha of bhikṣus, and conjures countless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭi of bodhisattvas practising the six perfections, and the one who sees them clings in mind, and sarvajñā is diminished in the same way. The treatise-author's simile is merciless: ‘like a person not yet free of desire who sees the form of a heavenly maiden and is deeply stained with attachment, cannot bear to receive the pleasures of heaven, and dies in a swoon’; again, like a person holding a heavy treasure in his hand, ‘whom someone deceives with a little gold, so that he lets go the treasure of great price and takes the cheap thing—this is called diminishment.’ Even good dharmas can act as Māra: ‘to practise the six perfections with a clinging mind is called the semblance’; the sūtras of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, ‘though they are good things, break the bodhisattva path, and so are called deeds of Māra’—and here the chapter states its criterion to the very bottom: ‘every affliction and every grasping at marks is a deed of Māra.’ Māra does not ruin a person with evil; he ruins him with the semblance, he ruins him with the good.

Why then does prajñā in particular have so many hindrances? The Buddha himself sets a simile: ‘It is like the precious things of Jambudvīpa—gold, silver, beryl, giant clam, agate, coral and such treasures—which have many difficulties and many thieves.’ Thieves come out for treasure, not for tiles and stones; that the hindrances are many is exactly the proof that prajñā is precious. Māra is the lord of the desire realm, ‘the root of birth and death in the world’; prajñā leads many beings into nirvāṇa, and so Māra makes himself an enemy and a thief. But the protection too comes from above: for the one who can write out, uphold, and rightly recollect, and in whom the deeds of Māra do not arise, ‘know that it is by the Buddha's power’; the buddhas of the ten directions and the avaivartika bodhisattvas all guard, protect, and assist him—‘as when thieves surround a city, the grown men keep guard and the small children do not notice.’ The beginner is inside the protection and does not know it. The chapter's last sentence gathers up the whole and also writes out the remedy: ‘The Buddha's intent is only that the practitioner accomplish the great matter of prajñā; therefore teacher and disciple should be in accord, and should not take any evil thing to heart.’ To be aware of Māra is the guarding; to be in accord is the accomplishing. The chapter of the two discords speaks of dozens of ways of coming apart, only in order to hold on to one way of coming together—when teacher and disciple are of one mind and one undertaking, the fire catches, and the sūtra gets written.

At the end of the preceding chapter it was said that the buddhas of the ten directions and the great bodhisattvas guard prajñā and guard the person who writes out, upholds, reads and recites it; and when the words reach this point a doubt rises in the hearer's mind: the buddhas are already of the mark of quiescence, with neither hatred nor love towards dharmas or beings—why then do they guard this one sūtra alone, and alone guard the person who upholds it? The treatise-author writes the doubt out in full: ‘The anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi of the buddhas is of the mark of quiescence; towards dharmas and beings they have neither hatred nor love; why then do they guard the one who writes out and upholds prajñā, and so on up to the one who rightly recollects it?’ The chapter opens, and the Buddha makes no argument; he sets one most ordinary simile: ‘It is like a mother who has sons, whether five, or ten, or twenty, or thirty, or forty, or fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand.’ The mother falls ill, and the sons each diligently seek her cure, fearing wind and cold and heat, fearing that mosquitoes, gadflies, snakes, and vipers might harm their mother's body. Why? ‘She gave us birth and raised us; she showed us the world.’ Such is the relation of the buddhas of the ten directions to prajñā. The treatise-author breaks it open in one sentence: ‘As sons who know their debt of kindness guard their mother—because prajñā is the mother of the buddhas of the ten directions.’ It is not love; it is knowing the debt of kindness. From this the chapter's name, ‘the Mother of the Buddhas’, is established; and the Shōgozō manuscript titles this chapter ‘Repaying Kindness’, taking exactly this side of it.

What makes the mother a mother lies in two things only: she can give birth, and she can show. Subhūti at once sets four questions: how does prajñā give birth to the buddhas? how does it show the mark of the world? how are the buddhas born from prajñā? how do the buddhas speak of the mark of the world? The Buddha answers only three matters. The treatise-author raises this doubt himself and resolves it himself: ‘that prajñā gives birth to the buddhas and that the buddhas are born from prajñā do not differ in meaning’—just as to say ‘a falling branch killed a man’ and to say ‘a falling tree killed a man’ are the same event, and so there is no separate answer. As to giving birth: the ten powers and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds are all born within prajñā, and ‘by obtaining these dharmas one is called a Buddha.’ As to showing: the Buddha himself glosses ‘world’: ‘the buddhas say that the five aggregates are the mark of the world.’ Yet the way prajñā shows the five aggregates is unexpected—‘prajñāpāramitā does not show the five aggregates as broken or as ruined; it does not show arising or ceasing, it does not show defilement or purity’, because ‘the mark of emptiness is not broken and not ruined.’ The treatise-author judges the reason: ‘that is the matter of the Small Vehicle; this is the matter of the Great Vehicle. The Dharma of the Small Vehicle speaks much of impermanence; in the Dharma of the Great Vehicle much is said of the emptiness of dharmas.’ The Small Vehicle first speaks of impermanence and afterwards of the emptiness of dharmas, so that beings may fear; the Great Vehicle speaks of the emptiness of dharmas from the start. To show the world is not to point at the world and show you how fearful it is; it is to turn the world through and through.

Next comes the closest-woven passage of the whole chapter: because of prajñā the Buddha knows the minds of all beings as they really are, knowing them in nine successive layers. In the first layer he knows the collected mind and the distracted mind, and what this rests on is the mark of dharmas, while ‘in this mark of dharmas there is not even the mark of the mark of dharmas, how much less a collected mind or a distracted mind.’ The second layer changes to six gates: ‘he knows by the mark of exhaustion, he knows by the mark of no staining, he knows by the mark of cessation, he knows by the mark of severance, he knows by the mark of quiescence, he knows by the mark of separation’—and the treatise-author glosses them gate by gate: exhaustion is the wisdom of impermanence; cessation is using the worldly path to hold back and extinguish the fetters; severance is severing with the path without outflows; once severed, one contemplates nirvāṇa's mark of quiescence and separation. In the third and fourth layers he knows the stained mind and the unstained mind, and yet ‘the stained mind, in its real mark, has no mark of a stained mind’; within the mark of the unstained mind, stained and unstained are both unfindable, and the reason is startlingly clean: ‘because two minds are not together’—the past stained mind has already ceased, the future one is not yet, and in the present there is no stained mind, so a dharma that depends on its counterpart naturally cannot stand. In the fifth to eighth layers he knows the broad mind, the great mind, the immeasurable mind, and the invisible mind, and what the Buddha knows is that ‘the mark of the mind is neither broad nor narrow, neither increases nor decreases, neither comes nor goes’, for ‘since the nature of this mind is non-existent, who makes it broad, who makes it narrow, and so on to coming and going?’ At the last even the five eyes withdraw: ‘the Buddha knows the minds of beings; the five eyes cannot see them’—the fleshly eye and the divine eye take form as their object and so do not see; the wisdom-eye takes nirvāṇa as its object and so does not see; the Dharma-eye enters the real mark and so makes no distinction; the Buddha-eye contemplates the mark of quiescence and so should not see. Nine layers of knowing as it really is, layer upon layer stripping away every ‘mark that could be known’, and yet the knowing is not lost. The treatise-author states where this knowing stands: ‘Now the Buddha has passed beyond all the false dharmas of recollection, imagining, and discrimination, and abiding securely in the real mark, knows the minds of all beings as they really are.’

Fascicle seventy changes the axis: ‘emerging, sinking, bending, stretching.’ The treatise-author first takes fish as a simile: ‘Like a person standing above a clear pool watching fish: some are always in the water; some come out for a moment and sink again; some come out and look at the four quarters; some come out wishing to cross, come near the bank, and sink again.’ The minds of beings in the six destinies emerge and sink in the same way—some are always attached to the five desires and do not seek to get out; some can give and can keep the precepts, but ‘because wrong doubt covers the mind they sink again’; some obtain the dharma of warmth and the dharma of the summit and contemplate the four truths, but ‘because they have not obtained the real dharma they sink again’; some leave the five desires and reach the sphere of nothing whatsoever, but ‘because they do not obtain nirvāṇa they sink again.’ What then is the content of the emerging and sinking? It is the fourteen difficult questions of the outside paths: the soul and the world are permanent, impermanent, both permanent and impermanent, neither permanent nor impermanent, each resting on form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness; the world has a limit or has no limit; the soul is the body, the soul is other than the body; after death there is one who goes on thus, there is not one who goes on thus. The treatise-author sets out the various theories of the outside paths one by one and will not skip a single school: the nature of the world, as a lump of clay holds within it the nature of pots and jars; the atoms that ‘cannot be broken, cannot be burnt, cannot be rotted, cannot be destroyed’; spontaneity; the lord of heaven; those who say that suffering and pleasure exhaust themselves of their own accord, ‘as when a ball of thread is thrown from a mountain-top, it stops of itself when the thread runs out’; those who say the soul has a limit, ‘the soul is in the body, like a mustard seed, like a grain of rice, or, some say, one inch.’ Someone objects: the soul is non-existent from the start, so to call it permanent or impermanent is of course wrong; but the world really exists—how can it too fall into the same wrong views? The treatise-author's answer is exact: ‘it only refutes the marks of permanence and impermanence raised upon the world; it does not refute the world. It is like a blind man who gets hold of a snake and takes it for a necklace, and a man with eyes tells him: this is a snake, not a necklace.’ The snake is still the snake; what is refuted is the view that it is a necklace.

The way out of the fourteen difficult questions is not to refute them one by one. The Buddha knows only the suchness of the five aggregates—‘he only knows the suchness of the five aggregates, not as ordinary people see, falsely, deceptively, and invertedly.’ And so the closing passage of the sūtra pushes on, layer after layer of identity: the mark of the suchness of the five aggregates is the mark of the suchness of all dharmas; the mark of the suchness of the six perfections is the mark of the suchness of the thirty-seven limbs of the path; and so it proceeds up to ‘the marks of the suchness of the buddhas are all one mark of suchness, not two and not different, not exhausted and not ruined.’ The treatise-author gives only one sentence of reason: ‘seeking the reality of dharmas, one reaches ultimate emptiness, and there is no further difference.’ Once the one suchness is established, the fourteen difficult questions have nothing to rest on and exhaust themselves. And here the Buddha's name too falls into place: ‘because he has obtained this mark of suchness, the Buddha is called the Tathāgata.’ Subhūti marvels that this one suchness is very deep and asks who can believe and understand it; the Buddha answers: ‘this suchness is very deep because it is of the mark of inexhaustibility’—‘because all dharmas are inexhaustible.’ The whole chapter rises from the simile of mother and sons and closes in the one mark of suchness: what is born is suchness, and what gives birth is suchness too. Here is the very ground of prajñā's being the mother of the buddhas; and the buddhas' repaying of kindness is no more than holding on to this one thing.

The preceding chapter established prajñā as the mother of the buddhas by the simile of mother and sons, and said that the buddhas with the Buddha-eye constantly watch over this deep prajñā—the debt of kindness has been set out, but the mark has not yet been asked. So this chapter opens, and the one who asks is not Subhūti but the gods. ‘At that time all the gods of the desire realm and the gods of the form realm in the three-thousand great-thousand world scattered flowers and incense from afar, came to where the Buddha was, bowed their heads at the Buddha's feet, and stood to one side’, and asked a question of the plainest kind: ‘World-Honored One! The prajñāpāramitā you speak of is very deep; what is the mark of deep prajñāpāramitā?’ Prajñā is everywhere said to be very deep; where, in the end, does its depth lie, and by what can it be recognised? The treatise-author explains for the reader where this question comes from: although the Buddha speaks of prajñā everywhere, ‘sometimes he speaks of emptiness and the like, sometimes of existence, sometimes of the fruit of retribution, sometimes of sin and merit; it is not fixed, and so they now ask, what is definitely the mark of prajñā’; and he says further that prajñā ‘is like an illusion, like a transformation, seemingly to be got hold of, yet with no fixed mark that can be grasped; only the buddhas can rightly and fully know its mark’—the gods, keen-witted though they are, can only ask.

The Buddha's way of answering is to negate ‘mark’ all the way down: ‘the mark of emptiness is the mark of deep prajñāpāramitā; the signless, non-action, non-origination, no arising and no ceasing, without stain and without purity, the dharma without anything existent, the signless, no support, the mark of space is the mark of deep prajñāpāramitā.’ And then the Buddha himself first takes a step back: ‘The Buddha speaks for beings using worldly dharmas; it is not the highest meaning.’ This sentence is the dividing line of the whole chapter—every word about ‘marks’ that follows is a finger within worldly truth pointing at the highest meaning. The treatise-author makes this stepping back plain: if it were spoken from the standpoint of the highest meaning, then one might come and object; but ‘the Buddha, out of pity for beings, speaks of emptiness and the other marks from the standpoint of worldly truth, not from the standpoint of the truth of the highest meaning’, and so one should not object. Thus the marks listed in this chapter do not set up some further mark outside emptiness; they use words that can be said to speak of a matter that cannot be said. The treatise further divides their shallowness and depth: emptiness, the signless, and non-action, the three gates of liberation, are ‘the mark of first entering prajñāpāramitā, held in common by the three vehicles’; only above that come ‘neither arising nor ceasing, neither stained nor pure, without support, equal to space, and the like, which are the deep marks of prajñāpāramitā.’ Emptiness is one, and yet it is taught differently; the treatise-author ties this to the person, not to the dharma: ‘though emptiness is one, people's faculties are keen or dull and their entry is deep or shallow, and so emptiness is taught with distinctions.’

Next come the four hardest sentences of the chapter: ‘A mark cannot break a mark; a mark cannot know a mark; a mark cannot know the markless; the markless cannot know a mark.’ Why can the gods, humans, and asuras of the world not break these marks? Because the one who would break them is himself a mark—‘because all these gods, humans, and asuras of the world are also marks.’ Like does not break like, ‘as water can quench fire, but fire does not itself quench fire.’ Though one insist again and again on breaking them, ‘it is like a blind man who treads on precious things and says with his mouth that they are not precious, and yet cannot make them not precious.’ Looked at from the side of the knower it is just as blocked: with wisdom within and, without, emptiness with no dharma to take as object, ‘it is like a knife that, however sharp, cannot cut space’; with wisdom within that has no fixed mark and, without, an object that has a fixed mark, ‘it is like having no knife: though there is a thing, there is no knife to cut it.’ One knife turned to both sides, matching exactly the two sentences of the sūtra. As to how ‘a mark cannot break a mark’ can stand, the treatise-author gives three layers: first, because they are alike marks; second, ‘there is a dharma that can dissolve, and the coming together of dharmas is dissolved, yet in the end nothing is broken and nothing lost; as when an axe splits firewood, piece by piece it is dissolved, and in the end nothing is lost’; third, ‘dharmas have no fixed mark, as with a tree: because root, trunk, branches, and leaves come together it is called a tree, and since the tree has no fixed mark there is nothing to break.’ Splitting firewood loses nothing; the tree has no fixed mark—what is called breaking never had a breakable thing standing there in the first place.

What then is the Buddha's position here? The Buddha says: ‘Whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, the mark and the nature abide always. Because the Buddha obtains the real mark and nature, he is called the Tathāgata.’ The mark is not made by the Buddha. The treatise-author, fearing misunderstanding, deliberately pulls out the thought in the hearer's mind: if there were no Buddha we would not hear of this mark, and the Buddha is supreme among beings, so surely this mark is the Buddha's making? Hence ‘the Buddha says to the gods: whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, this mark abides always. Because the Buddha can know this mark, he is called the Buddha.’ The Buddha is Buddha by knowing, not by making. Then comes a long ledger, mark by mark—‘the mark of vexation and ruin is the mark of form; the Buddha obtains this as markless’; the one who perceives is the mark of feeling, the one who grasps the mark of perception, the one who initiates and makes the mark of constructions, the one who discerns the mark of consciousness; the one who can relinquish is the mark of dānapāramitā; and so on up to the one who knows fully in the present as the mark of the omniscience of all kinds, each and every one closing with ‘the Buddha obtains this as markless.’ The gathering sentence is: ‘The Buddha obtains all dharmas as markless, and for this reason the Buddha is called unobstructed knowledge.’ Unobstructed is not knowing much; it is not dividing dharmas up into pieces—the treatise-author's converse is the cleanest: ‘if one distinguished dharmas as having fixed marks, that would be obstructed knowledge.’

The second passage of the sūtra changes the person addressed. The Buddha no longer speaks to the gods but turns and tells Subhūti: ‘prajñāpāramitā is the mother of the buddhas; prajñāpāramitā can show the mark of the world’; since it is the mother, the Buddha makes offerings to prajñā, reveres, honours, and praises it, and says of himself that ‘the Buddha is one who knows what has been done for him’—one who knows who has been kind to him. From this the treatise-author draws a most intimate passage: ‘among all unwholesome dharmas there is none worse than wrong view; because of wrong view one does not recognise a debt of kindness’; the Buddha says of himself that he knows kindness to the utmost, ‘I know even the kindness of giving, keeping the precepts, and the rest; how much more that of prajñāpāramitā’; and to those who do not hold prajñā precious he says, ‘I am the honoured one of the three realms, and even I make offerings to prajñāpāramitā; how much more should others.’ Someone doubts: the Buddha is attached to nothing, so why does he alone hold prajñā precious, as if he craved it? The treatise-author's answer is level—the Buddha does not crave; he simply knows that this road is good to walk, ‘like a person who walks a safe road, escapes every trouble and danger, and constantly keeps this road in mind to show it to others.’ As for ‘showing the mark of the world’, what it shows is not a world but emptiness: the five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, the eighteen elements, the twelve links of dependent origination, the sixty-two wrong views, the ten wholesome paths, the meditative absorptions, the thirty-seven limbs of the path, the six perfections, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds—it shows each of them as empty; and further as inconceivable, separate, quiescent, ultimately empty, empty of nature, empty of non-existent dharmas, empty of non-existent and existent dharmas, down to ‘prajñāpāramitā shows the Buddha the world as solitary emptiness.’ Why is solitary emptiness solitary? ‘The eighteen emptinesses all depend on causes and conditions and on their counterparts, as inner emptiness is called inner emptiness because of inner dharmas’; where there is dependence there is a counterpart; ‘this solitary emptiness has no cause and no counterpart, and so it is called solitary emptiness’—‘solitary emptiness is like space, like suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality, nirvāṇa.’ And it can show precisely because there is no knowing and no seeing: ‘all dharmas are empty, false, and not solid, and so for all dharmas there is no knower and no seer’; the showing that is showing lies in ‘if consciousness does not arise taking form as its object, this is called showing because the mark of form is not seen.’ To show without seeing is this chapter's way of showing. The passage closes on the middle way: the outside paths who say there is only this world fall into annihilation, and those who say the soul of this world passes into the next fall into permanence; ‘prajñāpāramitā leaves the two extremes and speaks the middle way: though empty, it is not attached to emptiness, and so it speaks of sin and merit.’

In the third passage Subhūti takes over the questioning and raises five matters in one breath: ‘this prajñāpāramitā arises for the sake of the great matter’, and so on to its arising for the sake of the inconceivable matter, the unweighable matter, the matter without measure, the matter equal to the unequalled. The Buddha explains each himself: ‘the great matter of the buddhas is to save all beings and not to abandon any being’; ‘the inconceivable matter is the dharmas of the buddhas, the dharmas of the Tathāgata, the dharmas of the one who is so of himself, the dharmas of the omniscient one’; that which is equal to the unequalled, ‘among all beings there is none who can equal the Buddha, how much less surpass him.’ Subhūti at once presses on—are only these four dharmas inconceivable? what of form? The Buddha answers that form is likewise; by what cause is form inconceivable? ‘because the measure of form is unfindable’; by what cause is the measure of form unfindable? because form is inconceivable. Asked this far, it comes round in a circle, and the Buddha turns the question on Subhūti: within the inconceivable and so on up to that which is equal to the unequalled, can form and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds be found? Subhūti answers: ‘World-Honored One! They cannot be found.’ The whole lands on one sentence: ‘These dharmas of the buddhas are inconceivable because they pass beyond the mark of conceiving; unweighable because they pass beyond weighing; without measure because they pass beyond measure; equal to the unequalled because they pass beyond equalling.’ At the end space is taken as the comparison, and even space is not really a comparison—‘inconceivable, as space is inconceivable.’ The treatise-author's glosses bring these great words back to the ground: ‘weighing means wisdom; prajñā is fixed in the real mark, very deep and extremely heavy, and wisdom is light and thin, and so it cannot weigh it’; ‘grasping at marks is called measuring; this prajñāpāramitā cannot be grasped by a mark, and so it is without measure.’ That the scale does not move is not that the scale is broken; it is that what is weighed is too heavy. That no measure can be taken is not that the rule is short; it is that there is no mark at all to give you a measure. Of the four explanations of ‘equal to the unequalled’, the one that cuts closest is: ‘the unequalled is nirvāṇa; among all conditioned dharmas there is none equal to nirvāṇa’—nirvāṇa has three portions, and ‘prajñā can give the nirvāṇa of the Great Vehicle, and so it is called equal to the unequalled.’

The two strokes at the end of the chapter are the most rewarding to read. First, the treatise-author does not let the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘great matter’ hang in the air; he brings them down onto the Buddha's body: beings are ‘immeasurable and boundless, more than the atoms in world-systems equal to the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions’, and the buddhas with the ten powers and the other dharmas wish to save them all—this is the great matter; and when the bodhisattva attains the path of the Buddha he accepts five things for the sake of beings—‘first, he accepts every toil and hardship; second, he gives up the pleasure of quiet concentration; third, he shares his undertakings with evil people; fourth, he deals with people face to face; fifth, he enters great assemblies’—‘the Buddha has deeply obtained the pleasure of freedom from desire, and yet for the sake of beings he gladly accepts these five things and every kind of weariness and hardship as if receiving merit; this is the great matter.’ Gladly to accept weariness and hardship as if receiving merit—the greatness of the great matter is here, not in the grandeur of the words. Second, when this chapter has been spoken, five hundred bhikṣus in the assembly exhaust their outflows and become arhats, twenty bhikṣuṇīs exhaust their outflows and become arhats, in sixty thousand upāsakas and thirty thousand upāsikās the Dharma-eye arises—and the bodhisattvas who obtain the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas are only twenty. The treatise-author sets himself a question: ‘When this chapter was spoken, why were the bhikṣuṇīs and bodhisattvas who obtained the path so few?’ The answer is utterly honest: ‘here the dharmas of the buddhas are much praised’, so the hearers mostly increased their root of faith, and hence those who obtained the path among the white-robed were many; women, though their faith may be great, have less wisdom, and so those who obtained the path were few; as for the bodhisattvas, ‘entering the dharma of the acceptance of non-arising is very deep and hard to obtain, and so they were few; further, those who have planted causes and conditions for this dharma are few.’ A chapter that speaks to the full of the inconceivability, unweighability, measurelessness, and being equal to the unequalled of the Buddha's dharmas ends by honestly recording the number of those who obtained the path and the reason they were few—a chapter of asking about marks, and even this question it asks without fail.

Only two Chinese characters in the chapter's name are in motion: arising, and accomplishing. As the chapter opens Subhūti addresses the Buddha, and five sentences in a row use one and the same form—prajñā ‘arises for the sake of the great matter’, arises for the sake of the inconceivable matter, for the sake of the unweighable matter, for the sake of the matter without measure, ‘this deep prajñāpāramitā arises for the sake of the matter equal to the unequalled.’ Prajñā does not appear of its own wish; it is called forth by a matter. What matter? This chapter does not explain it again; the treatise-author writes only one sentence, ‘the meaning of the great matter and the rest is as explained before’—the preceding chapter, Asking about Marks, has already answered: ‘the great matter of the buddhas is to save all beings and not to abandon any being.’ So beneath the first Chinese character of this chapter, rendered here as ‘arises’, lie beings. The other half of the name, ‘accomplishing’, is also in the sūtra: having answered the five sentences, the Buddha concludes, ‘all of it is within prajñāpāramitā; prajñāpāramitā can accomplish its matter.’ Arising speaks of where it comes from; accomplishing speaks of what it brings about; two faces of one matter—and the chapter's names in the two later lineages each hold on to one face.

How does the Buddha prove that prajñā can accomplish? First he speaks of containing and receiving: ‘within prajñāpāramitā the five perfections are contained and received’; inner emptiness and so on up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas are contained and received; the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path are contained and received; the Buddha's ten powers and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds are contained and received. Then he gives a simile of a king: ‘It is like a consecrated king, honoured in the land, who entrusts all the affairs of state to his great minister, and the king is at ease and without a care.’ The treatise-author matches the simile word for word: ‘the consecrated king is like the Buddha; the affairs of state are the various dharmas for delivering beings; the great minister is prajñāpāramitā.’ So the Buddha ‘dwells at ease in meditative concentration, joyful and without a care’—not that the Buddha does nothing, but that everything has been handed over to prajñā to do. The simile lands on the one word ‘entrusts’. The treatise-author is not yet satisfied, and adds a simile of his own: ‘Again, it is like one who wishes to clear away dry firewood, grass, and trees: he throws fire into them, and the power of the fire can burn them up entirely, and the person then has no more to do.’ The first simile says prajñā can do the work in one's stead; the second says prajñā burns of itself—and both close with ‘the person then has no more to do.’

Next the Buddha turns a further layer and states the real reason prajñā can accomplish: ‘this prajñāpāramitā, because it does not grasp form and does not cling to form, can accomplish.’ Subhūti does not understand: how can not grasping and not clinging be what gets the matter done? The Buddha does not answer directly but turns the question on him: ‘Do you see any form that can be grasped or clung to?’ Subhūti answers, ‘No, World-Honored One!’ The Buddha asks again of feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and the answer is still ‘No, World-Honored One!’ Then the Buddha says ‘Good, good!’ and states his own realisation: ‘I too do not see any form that can be grasped or clung to; because I do not see it I do not grasp it, and because I do not grasp it I do not cling to it.’ Three clauses each the cause of the next—not seeing first, not grasping second, not clinging third; it is not that one first holds back from grasping; it is that one never saw anything to grasp at all. The treatise-author adds a gloss of two clauses, eight Chinese characters in all: ‘the first staining is called grasping; the arising of love is called clinging’, and he joins not grasping and not clinging to containing and receiving into a single meaning: ‘because this prajñāpāramitā does not grasp and does not cling to form and the other dharmas, it is called containing and receiving.’ Grasping confines what is grasped; not grasping, there is nothing it does not receive—this is the last explanation this chapter gives of ‘containing and receiving’.

The treatise's explanation begins by heading off a question: these very deep causes and conditions have already been spoken of several times before; ‘why are they now spoken of again?’ The answer: ‘to speak of the very deep in place after place brings much benefit; ordinary people do not know this and call it repetition.’ And then a story is told. A great king had no legitimate son, and prayed to the gods for many years without response; once, while he was away travelling, his consort gave birth to a boy and sent a messenger to tell the king. The king heard it with joy and did not answer, and the messenger told it ten times over. At last the messenger could not help asking: did the king not hear what I just reported? The king said: ‘I heard it at once; my long-cherished wish is fulfilled, my heart rejoices within, and I delight in hearing it without end!’ And he rewarded the messenger with a million taels of gold, a hundred thousand taels for each telling. The treatise-author gathers it exactly: ‘the king heard the messenger's words, and in the words there was benefit; it was not repetition, and only one who does not know calls it repetition.’ Whether it is repetition lies not in the words but in the hearer's mind. Going a step further, the treatise-author takes apart even the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘very deep’: ‘deep and shallow are not fixed; they follow beings: to one who understands there is nothing deep; one who does not understand calls it deep.’ Apart from the Buddha no one can know prajñā fully, and so it is constantly said to be very deep; but ‘it has no fixed mark of being very deep; if it were fixedly very deep, no one could practise it’—being very deep is a skilful means spoken for beings, not a fixed mark of prajñā. Hence that sentence turned on its head: ‘for a bodhisattva to take prajñā to be very deep is not to practise prajñāpāramitā.’

In the middle a passage is inserted: the gods of the desire and form realms come forward and praise prajñā as ‘very deep, hard to see, hard to understand, not to be known by thinking and comparison; it can be known by the subtle, the skilful, the wise, and the quiescent’; and they make a startling comparison—if all the beings in the three-thousand great-thousand world became persons who practise in faith and persons who practise by the Dharma, and so on up to arhats and pratyekabuddhas, their knowledge and their severance added together ‘would not equal this bodhisattva's practising deep prajñāpāramitā for one day, accepting, wishing, considering, and reckoning.’ The reason is stranger still: because that knowledge and severance ‘are precisely the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas.’ If they are precisely the acceptance of non-arising, why say they do not equal it? The treatise-author sets this objection himself and answers in three layers. First, the difference in the measure of the mind: ‘persons who practise in faith and the rest have no great compassion and abandon beings, and so do not equal him; they have no power of skilful means and cannot turn themselves back from nirvāṇa’—like the many waters that flow into the Ganges and rush together to the great sea, ‘when they are about to enter the sea the force of the water gathers and quickens, and no being within it can turn itself back; only one of great strength can get himself out.’ Second, the difference in station: though the merits of knowledge and severance of the worthy and holy ones are already accomplished, ‘they do not reach the bodhisattva's first acceptance; as the achievements of a great minister, however great, do not reach the crown prince.’ Third, the difference of gate: ‘the dharmas of warmth, summit, and acceptance are the first gate of the Small Vehicle; the bodhisattva's acceptance of dharmas is the first gate of the Great Vehicle’, and the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, even if they finally accomplish it, still do not reach the gate by which the bodhisattva first enters the path. Last, the treatise-author accounts too for the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘are precisely’: ‘the object is the same; suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality are also the same. The wisdom differs in keenness and dullness, and further there is the guarding of immeasurable merits and the mind of great compassion, and so it is superior.’ The object is the same and the mind is not—this is the finest cut of the whole chapter.

After the gods have bowed to the Buddha and gone, Subhūti asks a very down-to-earth question: those who believe and understand deep prajñā the moment they hear it—where have they come from to be born here? The marks the Buddha answers with are plain—such a person, hearing prajñā, ‘does not sink, does not shrink back, finds no difficulty, has no doubt, has no regret, gladly delights in hearing it, and having heard, recollects it’; walking, standing, sitting, lying down, he never sets it aside or forgets it, ‘constantly following the teacher of the Dharma, like a new-born calf that does not leave its mother.’ Not leaving is not diligence; it is life itself. As for the cause, the Buddha says it straight out: ‘this seeker of the path of the Buddha in a former life heard deep prajñāpāramitā, wrote out and upheld it, revered, honoured, and praised it, and made offerings of flowers and incense and so on up to banners and canopies’, and so at the end of his life among humans he is born again among humans, and understands at the first hearing.

Then the Buddha turns his words to another kind of person, and here lies the real point of the chapter: one who in a former life also heard it, but ‘did not ask about what was in it.’ The Buddha counts them off one by one—in a former life he heard dhyānapāramitā but did not ask, and so in this life, hearing prajñā, doubt and regret keep arising; vīrya, kṣānti, śīla, and dānapāramitā, and so on up to inner emptiness and the emptinesses below it, the four foundations of mindfulness and the dharmas below them, item by item the same. The sickness has a name of only two Chinese characters: not asking—and the treatise at the end judges this the lowest grade. The middle grade is one who asked but did not practise: such a person, hearing prajñā, ‘for one day, two days, three days, four days, five days, is firm in mind and nothing can break him; but when he is parted from what he has heard, he falls away’, and the mark of his mind is ‘the mind light and unfixed, the resolve scattered and unsettled, like a light feather that follows the wind east and west.’ The calf before could not leave of itself; this feather cannot stand of itself. The Buddha judges his station: ‘know that this bodhisattva-mahāsattva has newly set his mind on the Great Vehicle, with little faith and little delight’, and judges where he goes: ‘he falls into one of the two grounds—either the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground.’

At the end of the chapter the treatise-author gathers the three kinds of person side by side: ‘the lowest, having heard prajñāpāramitā, simply believes and receives it and does not ask about its meaning; the middle, having heard, asks about the meaning but cannot practise; the highest hears, understands, and can practise.’ Then he gives each his retribution in this life: the lowest, dull in faculties and thin in merit, hears prajñā and, doubting and regretting, is hard to awaken; the middle can be firm for one day up to four or five, and beyond that falls away, because in a former life ‘though he understood the meaning, he could not practise’; ‘the highest obtains a human body, hears prajñā, understands it deeply at once, believes and delights and does not let go, and constantly follows the teacher of the Dharma.’ A whole very deep prajñā, when it lands on a person, comes down to only two things—whether one is willing to ask, and whether one is willing to practise. Finally the treatise-author points out the end for the middle and lower persons, and leaves a hook for the next chapter: ‘the two lower kinds of bodhisattva cannot obtain the higher ground, and so fall into the two vehicles, because they are not guarded by prajñā.’ ‘To make this matter clearer still, the Buddha in the following chapter makes a parable: as when a ship breaks up in the waters of the great sea, one who gets something to hold on to can cross, and one who gets nothing to hold on to cannot cross.’ Prajñā arises for the sake of the great matter; but however great its arising, there must still be someone willing to hold on to it.

This chapter opens with no question asked. The preceding chapter has just finished speaking of what prajñā accomplishes, and the Buddha goes straight on to set a parable: ‘It is like a ship breaking up in the great sea: if the people in it do not take hold of a plank, do not take hold of a vessel, do not take hold of a float, do not take hold of a corpse—Subhūti! know that these people will not reach the further shore; they sink in the sea and die.’ And the other way round, if they will take hold, ‘know that these people will never sink and die; safe and unhindered, they reach the further shore.’ The ship has already broken up; that is the premise, not an accident—in a shipwreck, whether one reaches the shore does not depend on the ship, but on whether the hand can hold on to one floating thing. When it is matched to the Dharma the Buddha speaks very heavily: a seeker of the path of the Buddha, ‘if he has only faith and delight and does not rely on deep prajñāpāramitā, does not write it out, does not read it, does not recite it, does not rightly recollect it’, and so on up to not relying on the omniscience of all kinds, then ‘know that this good man wastes away midway; this person, not having reached the omniscience of all kinds, takes realisation on the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha ground.’ Faith and delight are not bad things; faith and delight are good things; the harm is in having only faith and delight. From its first sentence the whole weight of this chapter falls not on rebuking evil people but on keeping its eye fixed on a good person who is already on the road.

How good this good person is the sūtra lists in full: ‘he has faith, has acceptance, has a pure mind, has a deep mind, has wish, has understanding, has relinquishment, has vigour’—all eight dharmas complete. The five parables are set one after another, and every one is set after these eight dharmas are already there. The second parable is the unfired pot: ‘It is like a man or woman who carries water in an unfired pot: know that this pot will soon crumble and break’, because ‘this pot is not yet fired, and so it returns to the earth.’ The third is the fired pot: the same pot, the same potful of water, but ‘because this pot is fully fired’ it carries the water safely. The fourth is the ship: ‘It is like a ship at the edge of the great sea not yet fitted out and repaired, on which one loads goods’; midway it breaks up and sinks, ‘and the ship and the goods are each in a different place; because this merchant has no power of skilful means, he loses his heavy treasure’; and the Buddha at once glosses the simile himself—‘the great precious treasure is the omniscience of all kinds. Wasting away is falling to the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha ground.’ The fifth parable comes closest to home: ‘It is like a person a hundred and twenty years old, aged in years and ripe in faculties, who moreover has illnesses of wind, cold, and heat, or mixed illnesses.’ The Buddha asks Subhūti: ‘Can this person get up from his bed?’ The answer: ‘He cannot.’ The Buddha asks again: ‘Suppose this person could get up—what then?’ The answer: ‘Though this person could get up, he could not travel far, ten leagues or twenty, because of his age and illness.’ This is the only exchange in the chapter, and the Buddha deliberately leaves it open so that Subhūti may say for himself the six Chinese characters rendered here as ‘can get up but cannot travel.’ Turning to the side of attainment, the old man has not grown young; it is only that ‘there are two strong men who each support him under one arm’, and the two say to him: ‘Have no fear of difficulty; go wherever you wish; we two will never leave you.’

The treatise-author takes over, and his first sentence points out the number: ‘Here the Buddha himself speaks five parables’, and then he matches them one by one to the Dharma. ‘The ship is the practitioner's body. The float and the other things are prajñā and skilful means.’ The ship is going to break; this body was always going to break; and so the problem was never how to repair the ship. ‘The pot is the bodhisattva path. Prajñā and skilful means are the fire.’ This sentence overturns the reader's habitual thought: prajñā and skilful means are not the water held in the pot; they are the fire that fires the pot; without passing through this fire, ‘one cannot receive and hold the water of the merits of the six perfections up to the unsurpassed path.’ ‘Not fitting out and repairing the ship is the bodhisattva without skilful means’; faith and the other merits are the treasure, the five perfections and the other wholesome dharmas are the ship, and when ship and treasure end up in different places, ‘it goes against the original vow, and one either receives the pleasures of humans and gods or falls into the two vehicles.’ As for the old sick man, ‘the old sick man is the bodhisattva who has faith and the other merits. Because he has not cut off the sixty-two wrong views he is called old; because he has not cut off the hundred and eight and the other afflictions he is called sick’—old is not years, sick is not wind and cold; and getting up from the bed is ‘to get up from the bed of the three realms: I shall become a Buddha.’ And the two strong men? ‘The two persons are prajñā and skilful means.’ The treatise-author divides their duties, and divides them with great sharpness: ‘prajñāpāramitā can extinguish all wrong views, afflictions, and idle discourse, and bring one into ultimate emptiness. Skilful means brings one out of ultimate emptiness.’ One brings a person into ultimate emptiness, the other brings him out of it; that it takes two men, one under each arm, has its meaning here.

In the second half of the chapter the Buddha turns to speaking of the name. The mark of being without skilful means lies not in practising little but in practising with self-satisfaction: in giving one thinks, ‘I am the giver, I give to this person, I give this thing’, and so on to ‘thinking that there is this giving, that this is my giving, and by this giving exalting oneself.’ And what is the mark of the six perfections themselves? ‘In dānapāramitā there is no such discrimination; being far from this shore and the further shore is the mark of dānapāramitā’—śīla, kṣānti, vīrya, dhyāna, and prajñā are all alike, their mark lying in being far from this shore and the further shore. To practise, with a discriminating mind, a dharma whose mark is to be far from discrimination—thus ‘this person does not know this shore and does not know the further shore’; he practises all six perfections and is not guarded by the six perfections, falls to the śrāvaka or to the pratyekabuddha, and cannot reach sarvajñā. The person with skilful means has not practised anything more; he simply does not have this thought: he does not think ‘I give’, does not think ‘I keep the precepts’, does not think ‘I cultivate wisdom’, and so ‘this bodhisattva-mahāsattva knows this shore and knows the further shore’ and swiftly attains unsurpassed awakening. The treatise-author gathers it in one sentence: ‘but to practise with discrimination and clinging is the loss.’

At the end of the chapter the treatise-author adds one more layer of care about sequence. What the five parables of the first half say is in fact already the meaning of being without skilful means, only without giving it the name—‘above, the Buddha, though he spoke the meaning of being without skilful means, did not speak the name of being without skilful means; wishing to make this matter clear, he commanded Subhūti: what is having skilful means, and what is being without skilful means?’ Meaning first and name after—the treatise-author himself accounts for why the sūtra is divided in two passages. Last he gives the chapter's knot: ‘Within, having no mind of I and mine; without, contemplating all dharmas as empty and not grasping at marks; because prajñā and skilful means and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds guard the bodhisattva, this is called having skilful means. As for guarding: on the side of the five perfections one obtains the power of merit, on the side of prajñāpāramitā one obtains the power of wisdom—by these two causes and conditions one does not lose the path.’ What is called guarding, then, is not a relief force arriving from outside; it is the strength that merit and wisdom, on their two sides, generate of themselves. Read to this point, the five parables really say only one thing: the eight dharmas are water, prajñā and skilful means are fire; however full the water is poured, if the pot has never been fired, it still returns to the earth.

The preceding chapter set five parables in a row to show the gain and loss of taking up deep prajñā and setting aside the other sūtras—that was the side of ‘the Dharma’. As this chapter opens, what Subhūti asks is the most practical thing of all: ‘How should bodhisattva-mahāsattvas new to the training train in prajñāpāramitā, dhyānapāramitā, vīryapāramitā, kṣāntipāramitā, śīlapāramitā, and dānapāramitā?’ The six perfections are counted backwards, from prajñā down to dāna—where is a beginner to start? The Buddha's answer does not begin from the Dharma; it begins from a person: ‘He should first draw near to and make offerings to a good friend who can expound this deep prajñāpāramitā.’ What makes a good friend a good friend is a single criterion—being able to expound this deep prajñā. Not marvels, not rank, not seniority in years. And what this good friend teaches is almost entirely negation: all giving and keeping of precepts and so on up to wisdom are dedicated wholly to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; and then comes a long run of ‘do not’—‘you must not take form to be anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’, must not take the five aggregates, the six perfections, the emptinesses, the limbs of the path, the four dhyānas, the ten powers, and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas to be it; and then, turned around, ‘not grasping form, one obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ Then one Chinese character is changed and the whole run comes again: do not crave form, do not crave the six perfections, do not crave the four fruits or the path of the pratyekabuddha, and so on up to ‘do not crave the bodhisattva's Dharma-position, do not crave anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ The last sentence closes very short: ‘Anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is not something that can be craved. Why? Because all dharmas are empty of nature.’

The treatise-author asks the reader's question for him: ‘Subhūti asked about what those new to the training practise; why does the Buddha answer with the subtle matters practised by bodhisattvas of long practice?’—the question was about beginners, but the answer is the not-grasping of any dharma, which only a bodhisattva of long practice can do; is this not skipping grades? The treatise's reply opens the gate with a single sentence: ‘The emptiness of nature of all dharmas is of two kinds: one, what the great bodhisattvas attain; two, what the small bodhisattvas train in, compliant acceptance, arousing the mind by wisdom.’ One and the same ‘emptiness of nature’ is, for the great bodhisattva, something attained, and for the small bodhisattva, something trained in; ‘here only the emptiness that the small bodhisattvas train in is spoken of.’ Then it sets up a still harder criterion: ‘one who has a share of the flavour of real wisdom the Buddha counts as a bodhisattva’—a share, a flavour: the quantity is small but the substance is already real, as with the dharma of the summit in the śrāvaka teaching, which is small beside the Buddha and great beside the ordinary person. So when the Buddha teaches beginners with the Dharma of long practice, he is not making it hard for them; he is acknowledging them. Two similes follow at once: ‘It is like the chick of the golden-winged bird just born, which goes from one Mount Sumeru to another’—the chick is only just born, and one flight already crosses Sumeru; ‘if one new to the training can give rise to such deep wisdom, how much more one long in the training!’ And again, ‘as a small fire can burn, how much more a great one!’—both make their point on the one Chinese character rendered here as ‘small’. And why the Buddha does not expound the emptiness of nature at the very outset, the treatise also points out: ‘the Buddha does not expound the emptiness of nature of all dharmas directly; he first teaches making offerings to and drawing near to a good friend…’ The emptiness of nature is not a thing that can simply be handed across; there must be someone to hand it.

The second passage of the sūtra takes a very wide turn. Subhūti exclaims: ‘Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas can do what is hard—within all dharmas empty of nature, they seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi…’ Everything has been emptied, and still one seeks awakening within it; this is what is hard. After the Buddha confirms it, he at once lists nine matters as the reason for arousing the mind: to make the world safe, to make the world at ease, to save the world, to be the world's refuge, to be the world's place of support, to be the world's island, to be the world's guide, to be the world's ultimate path, to be that toward which the world tends. Nine names look like nine matters, but in truth they are the nine responses of one mind of awakening to nine marks of suffering in beings. And the way each gate gives is never the way the world expects to be given to. The world seeks a refuge, and the Buddha ‘expounds to beings that all dharmas are without a place of support’; Subhūti presses, ‘how are all dharmas without a place of support?’, and the Buddha answers, ‘form not continuing is form's non-arising; form's non-arising is form's non-ceasing; form's non-ceasing is form's being without a place of support.’ The treatise-author glosses gate by gate, and glosses very concretely: safety ‘can break all afflictions, and is ultimately unchanging and unfailing’, ‘like a good medicine that can break an illness, regardless of whether it is sweet or bitter’; the difference between safety and ease is settled by one comparison of bitter medicine—‘as when one takes bitter medicine, the belly is settled, but the mouth is not pleased’: the settledness in the belly is safety, the sweetness in the mouth is ease, and the Buddha gives both. Saving the world is ‘as when a person is pursued by an enemy and thief, and either kin or the power of officials can save him’; being the world's refuge is ‘as when a person meets violent wind and sudden rain, he is sure to take refuge in a house.’

Of the nine gates the most winding is ‘place of support’. The treatise says: ‘all conditioned dharmas are born from the coming together of causes and conditions, and so have no power of their own and cannot be taken as support’, and therefore ‘beings, pressed by suffering, come to take support in the Buddha, and the Buddha expounds to them the dharma without support.’ At once someone will want to ask—and the treatise-author asks it himself: ‘If there is no place of support, why speak of support?’ If nothing at all can be relied on, then the Buddha's expounding the Dharma to beings would be empty talk too. The answer is very finely measured: ‘Support is of two kinds: one, taking support in conditioned dharmas by way of the afflictions, love, views, and the rest; two, pure wisdom speaks of taking support in nirvāṇa.’ What is negated is the one layer of support, that of the afflictions, not the other, that of wisdom; ‘it is because of the afflictions and views that no support is spoken of.’ One sentence separates the two layers, and only then does ‘without a place of support’ not collapse into the view of annihilation. The two gates of island and guide share one stretch of water: the sūtra says, ‘as with rivers and the great sea, when the water is cut off on four sides, this is called an island’, and the treatise says the water on the four sides is the afflictions, the three outflows and the four floods, the ground in the middle is the place where the prior and later limits are cut off, and the island is the nirvāṇa that is ultimately empty and with nothing grasped—‘it is quiescence, it is the wondrous treasure—that is, emptiness, nothing to be attained, the exhaustion of love without remainder, separation from desire, nirvāṇa.’ With an island there must also be a ship: ‘beings are sunk in the waters of the four floods, and the Buddha, with the ship of the eightfold noble path, draws them onto the island of nirvāṇa.’ The island is where one arrives; the ship is what brings one there; and the one who draws is called the guide.

The ninth of the nine matters, ‘tending’, the Buddha keeps for last, and once he speaks of it, it takes up half the chapter. The pattern is extremely regular: ‘All dharmas tend toward emptiness; this tending does not pass beyond. Why? Because within emptiness, tending and not tending are unfindable.’ Then the heading changes and it comes again: tending toward the signless, toward non-action, toward non-origination, toward being without anything existent; ‘all dharmas tend toward a dream; this tending does not pass beyond’, tending toward an illusion, an echo, a shadow, a transformation; tending toward being without measure and without limit, toward not given and not taken, toward not raised and not lowered, toward not increased and not decreased, toward not coming and not going; tending toward self, being, life, and person; tending toward permanence, happiness, purity, and self, and also toward impermanence, suffering, impurity, and non-self; tending toward the matters of desire, hatred, delusion, and views; tending toward suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality, the nature of the inconceivable, equality, the mark of immovability; tending toward the five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, the eighteen elements, toward the six perfections, toward the emptinesses, toward the limbs of the path, toward the ten powers and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds; tending all the way to ‘all dharmas tend toward the srota-āpanna and so on up to the Buddha; this tending does not pass beyond.’ Reading on, one comes to see that this is not saying that dharmas rush toward some place. The treatise-author himself explains why this one gate alone is spoken of so broadly: ‘it gathers up the nine matters above and is where they return, and so it is spoken of at length’, and again, ‘ease and the rest, and tending, are all of one meaning: all of them draw beings out and set them in nirvāṇa’—the nine matters are of one meaning; one gate is taken up and spoken of broadly, and the rest can be known by analogy. And the meaning of the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘does not pass beyond’ the treatise brings out with space: ‘as space has only a name and no dharma’, ‘as with a person who at first speaks well, and only after a long time is his real disposition known’, and at the end the most direct sentence of all: ‘No dharma passes out beyond the marks of emptiness and the rest, as a person who wishes to pass out beyond space cannot do so.’ It is not that all dharmas rush toward emptiness; it is that no dharma can get outside emptiness. Tending carried to its limit is precisely tending nowhere.

At the end of the chapter it circles back to the person of the opening. Subhūti asks: ‘Who can believe in and understand this deep prajñāpāramitā?’ Of the four conditions the Buddha answers with, the last is still the good friend—‘one who has long practised the six perfections under the buddhas of the past, whose roots of goodness are fully ripened, who has made offerings to countless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭi of buddhas, and who keeps company with good friends.’ Asked further what nature, what mark, what appearance this person has, the Buddha answers: ‘the severance and separation from desire, hatred, and delusion is his nature, mark, and appearance…’ Here the treatise-author sets the last question of the chapter: ‘this person has not yet obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas’—he has not yet reached the station of the acceptance of non-arising; on what ground is he said to have severed the three poisons? The answer: ‘Severance is of two kinds: one, severance at the root; two, severance that thins and lessens. Here it is severance that thins and lessens that is meant.’—the same device as the ‘emptiness of nature is of two kinds’ of the opening: one and the same name, at different stations, is not to be taken all in one way. Yet the treatise-author does not stop at the division of stations; at the last he steps back once more and dismisses the mark of a severer: ‘The practitioner does not discriminate that this is severance and this is affliction. Why? Because the mark of the afflictions is inverted and not fixed, the afflictions are themselves severance, and so it says separation.’ The whole chapter closes on this sentence. The opening begins from a person—first go and draw near to the good friend who can expound deep prajñā; the close also lands on a person—the one who keeps company with good friends and whose three poisons have thinned and fallen away. The long passage in between, ‘this tending does not pass beyond’, says precisely that on this road there is no place that can be stopped at and taken for the end; and the one thing that is not negated is the person who tells you so.

The preceding chapter spoke of the good friend, spoke of all dharmas tending toward this or that while the tending does not pass beyond, and at the end asked what nature, what mark, what appearance the person who believes in and understands deep prajñā has—the names and marks had been spoken, but the person had not yet been tested. As this chapter opens, Subhūti asks very directly: ‘World-Honored One! These bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who understand deep prajñāpāramitā—toward what should they tend?’ The Buddha's answer is just as short: ‘They should tend toward the omniscience of all kinds.’ One question, one answer, nothing to doubt; yet the moment the treatise-author opens his mouth he sets this question and answer in the air: ‘prajñāpāramitā neither tends nor does not tend’—if it neither tends nor does not tend, why need Subhūti ask about tending, and why need the Buddha answer with tending? This is the entrance to the whole chapter. The treatise-author's solution is not to harmonise the two ends but to point out that the phrase ‘no tending’ was from the start a medicine, not a dharma: the outside paths say ‘dharmas tend from cause to fruit, enter this life from the former life, tend from this life to the next life’, and ‘to break this inversion of permanence, it is said “no tending, not tending”.’—to say ‘no tending’ is to break that view of permanence which strings the three times into a single line of cause and fruit; once the view of permanence is broken, the medicine too is not kept. And so the question and answer are naturally unobstructed: ‘Subhūti asks with a mind without clinging; the Buddha answers with a mind without clinging.’ One and the same sentence, ‘tend toward the omniscience of all kinds’, spoken from a clinging mind is the tending of the outside paths; spoken from a mind without clinging it is the tending of prajñā. Tending or not tending was never in the wording; it is in the mind of the one who speaks.

The second face of tending turns out at once: while the bodhisattva himself tends toward the omniscience of all kinds, he ‘is that toward which all beings return and tend, because he practises prajñāpāramitā.’ Tending oneself and being that toward which others return are not two stages, one after the other; they are two faces of one matter. The treatise-author fits it with a simile as near to hand as could be: ‘as a child, pressed by pain and distress, tends toward its father and mother.’ Returning is not a phrase of admiration; it is the place one's feet go of themselves when the pain is at its worst—the whole weight of the simile is in the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘pressed by’. Someone will ask: why is it the bodhisattva alone toward whom beings return and tend? The answer lies in great compassion and in practice: ‘because of his mind of great compassion toward beings, the bodhisattva constantly trains in prajñāpāramitā.’ What can be returned to is not a fruit already reached; it is a practice pushed along by great compassion.

Next the chapter turns the one Chinese character rendered here as ‘practise’ completely over. The sūtra says: ‘practising nothing is practising prajñāpāramitā; the practice of not receiving and the practice of ruin are practising prajñāpāramitā.’ Three negating terms come down in a row, but the Buddha does not let them rest as words; he sets the question himself: ‘By the ruin of which dharmas is prajñāpāramitā the practice of ruin?’ Subhūti then counts through the five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, the eighteen elements, the self and so on up to the knower and the seer, the six perfections, the emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds, item by item, and answers each with ‘by its ruin, prajñāpāramitā is the practice of ruin.’ The treatise-author gathers the gloss: there is no fixed, real dharma to be found, hence practising nothing is spoken of; ‘all contemplations have faults and so are not received; this is called the practice of not receiving’; ‘the practice of ruin: all dharmas are impermanent, scatter, and fall to ruin; hence it is called the practice of ruin.’—ruin is not something the practitioner does to them; the dharmas practised are of themselves already scattering and falling to ruin. The three terms are linked layer to layer, and the linking ends in one sentence only: ‘the dharmas that can be broken and ruined are form and the rest, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds.’ Even the omniscience of all kinds toward which one tends is among what can be ruined, and only with this sentence is the Chinese character rendered here as ‘tend’ truly driven into the corner.

The first half of the chapter argues tending; the second half tests the person. After ‘the Buddha approved what Subhūti said’, the treatise-author states what he is carrying forward: ‘at the end of the preceding chapter the nature, mark, and appearance of the avaivartika bodhisattva were spoken of; now they should be tested and known.’—the preceding chapter spoke of the marks; this chapter tests them for real. There is only one criterion: within deep prajñā, clinging or not clinging: ‘if he clings, then it is not; if he does not cling, then that is his mark.’ Why must there be a test? Because two kinds of bodhisattva who practise prajñā are hard to tell apart from outside: one ‘by means of prajñāpāramitā contemplates all dharmas as ultimately empty, and prajñā too as empty of itself’, the other ‘cannot contemplate prajñā as empty as well.’ ‘Therefore the sūtra tests whether he clings or not.’ The sūtra then lists mark by mark the points at which he can be tested: ‘he does not take others' words as what is firm and essential, nor does he practise following others' teaching’; he is not dragged by the three poisons, he does not stray far from the six perfections, and hearing deep prajñā ‘his mind is not startled, does not sink, is not terrified, is not afraid, has no regret; he gladly delights in hearing it.’ In explaining the last mark the treatise-author sets a simile of contrast: ‘as with a thunderclap: small birds are terrified and die of fright, while the peacock, a great bird, rejoices and dances.’ The same peal of thunder is death to the small bird and delight to the peacock; ‘ordinary people of wrong view hear it and are terrified; the avaivartika bodhisattva hears it and rejoices, his mind never sated.’ The depth of prajñā neither increases nor decreases; the vessel of the hearer shows at the first test—fright and joy are precisely the least laborious way of testing a person.

The person having been tested, the practice must still be spoken. Subhūti asks how one practises prajñā, and the Buddha answers with only seven Chinese characters, rendered here as ‘in accord with the mind of the omniscience of all kinds’, and opens their headings as ‘accords by emptiness’ and so on up to ‘accords by being like a dream, an illusion, a mirage, an echo, a transformation; this is practising prajñāpāramitā.’ The treatise-author asks the most practical doubt for the reader: ‘this bodhisattva has not yet obtained the omniscience of all kinds; how can he accord with it?’—how does one accord with a realm not yet reached? The answer is clean: ‘the mind that accords with ultimate emptiness accords with the mind of the omniscience of all kinds.’ The omniscience of all kinds is the mark of quiescence; the mind of ultimate emptiness is also the mark of quiescence; the marks are the same, hence they accord; there is no need first to obtain it, only to be of the same mark. Below this the Buddha speaks of the bodhisattva's place of practice, and it is all negating terms: ‘he does not practise form, does not practise feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and so on up to does not practise the omniscience of all kinds’, ‘a dharma without making, a dharma without ruin, coming from nowhere, going nowhere, with no place of abiding.’ The treatise-author glosses them term by term—he does not come from the six perfections, hence coming from nowhere; he does not enter into the Buddha's dharmas, hence going nowhere; the conditioned, being false and deceptive, does not abide, and the unconditioned, being without recollection, imagining, and discrimination, does not abide either; because the five aggregates come together there is the count of the six destinies, and because the continuity of the five aggregates is broken there is neither number nor measure; being without number and without measure, the way of words is cut off. Only when the negating has reached the cutting-off of the way of words does the positive come out: ‘form is sarvajñā, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds is sarvajñā.’ The sarvajñā toward which one tends was never outside form. ‘The mark of suchness of form and so on up to the mark of suchness of the omniscience of all kinds are all one suchness, without duality and without difference.’—the opening sentence, ‘toward what should they tend’, only here receives its final answer: there is nowhere to tend, and the tending does not cease. The debate of tending and not tending closes on the one Chinese character rendered here as ‘suchness’.

This chapter speaks of only one Chinese character: suchness. The gods in the heavens first say aloud the Dharma they have heard—‘form is sarvajñā; sarvajñā is form’—and then go one layer deeper: ‘the mark of suchness of form and the mark of suchness of sarvajñā are one suchness, without duality and without difference.’ The Buddha confirms it, and adds a sentence harder still: ‘Anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi has no one who obtains it, no place of obtaining, no time of obtaining; this is called the very deep mark of all dharmas—that is, there are no two dharmas.’ Precisely because it is deep to this degree, ‘when the Buddha first attained the path, his mind delighted in silence and did not delight in expounding the Dharma.’ The treatise-author fears that people will hear ‘very deep’ as if the Dharma had a near and a far, and asks at the very opening: prajñā is deep everywhere; why is it at times praised in particular as deep? The answer: ‘at times all dharmas are discriminated as empty, and this is shallow; at times it is said that “the dharmas of the world are the same as nirvāṇa”, and this is deep.’ ‘It is like the water of a river, which has eddies and deep places and has shallow places.’ Deep and shallow lie in the river, and also in the person—‘the hearer, hearing it expounded, believes the Buddha's words in his mind, and because his own wisdom does not reach it he says “very deep”.’ As for the ‘all’ in ‘what all the world cannot believe’, the treatise-author does not let that pass either: ‘“All” is of two kinds: one, the all of names; two, the real all.’ It is because those who do not believe are many that it is put this way, not that there is truly not a single one.

Then what, after all, is suchness? ‘Suchness is the name for the real mark of form and the other dharmas.’ The treatise-author first sets it straight with two similes. One is burning: ‘as when palaces and mean huts are removed, or as when sandalwood and mixed woods are burned, the space where they stood is no different’—once palaces and mean huts have been torn down, once sandalwood and mixed woods have burned away, the space that remains is the same. The other is a wall: ‘as in a wall there is already the mark of space; a small child drives a peg into it, and because his strength is small it does not go in, while one of great strength can drive it in’—the space was in the wall from the start; no one makes the space; it is only that the one whose strength is small cannot drive the peg in. So suchness is neither outside form nor simply that false appearance of form: ‘form and the other dharmas are all made dharmas, conditioned, false, born from inversion’, and yet ‘knowing form and the other dharmas as they really are is precisely suchness; it is because of form and the other dharmas that suchness gets its name.’

Then comes the most beautiful piece of handling in the chapter: setting up and then breaking down. The gods praise Subhūti as ‘a son of the Buddha, born following the Buddha’; Subhūti does not accept the praise, but uses the mark of suchness to explain, turn after turn, why this sentence holds—‘the mark of suchness of the Tathāgata does not come and does not go; the mark of suchness of Subhūti also does not come and does not go’, ‘the mark of suchness of the Tathāgata is the mark of suchness of all dharmas; the mark of suchness of all dharmas is the mark of suchness of the Tathāgata. And within this mark of suchness there is no mark of suchness either’, setting it up all the way to ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, because he obtains this suchness, is called Tathāgata.’ For this the great earth shook in six ways. Yet in the next passage the same mouth takes it apart: ‘Subhūti is not born following the Buddha from within form, nor is he born following the Buddha from within the suchness of form’; neither from it, nor apart from it—none of the four alternatives is allowed—and at the last it says, ‘all these dharmas are without anything existent and unfindable; there is no one born following, and no dharma of being born following.’ The treatise-author brings out the intent: the gods, having heard the praise, begin in their minds to prize this ‘suchness’, and so Subhūti must cut off their minds. Setting up a name is so that it can be said clearly; breaking the name is so that one does not stick to it; this is the family rule of prajñā.

Then comes the heaviest passage of the chapter. As Śāriputra speaks of the mark of suchness, two hundred bhikṣus exhaust their outflows, five hundred bhikṣuṇīs obtain the purity of the Dharma-eye, five thousand bodhisattvas obtain the acceptance of non-arising—and in the same assembly there is another group of bodhisattvas who, ‘because they did not receive any dharma, exhausted their outflows, their minds attained liberation, and they became arhats.’ They were not slack people: ‘in former lives they met five hundred buddhas, drew near to them and made offerings’, and they had practised all five perfections. Where did it go wrong? ‘Because they practised the mark of difference, they did not obtain the mark of no difference; because they did not obtain the mark of no difference, they could not enter the bodhisattva's position.’ The Buddha then sets a simile: ‘It is like a bird whose body is a hundred yojana long, or two hundred, or three hundred, and which has no wings’, which throws itself down from the Heaven of the Thirty-three toward Jambudvīpa; midway it wishes to fly back and cannot, wishes to be free of pain and vexation and cannot—‘because this bird's body is great and it has no wings.’ The treatise-author matches it clause by clause: ‘“the bird's body” is the bodhisattva's body’, ‘“without two wings” is being without prajñāpāramitā and without skilful means’, ‘“Mount Sumeru” is the three realms’, ‘“space” is the immeasurable dharmas of the Buddha.’ The greater the body, the heavier the fall; the thicker the merit without skilful means, the fiercer the momentum of the fall. The same emptiness, signlessness, and non-action—why does one person become a Buddha and another an arhat? The treatise-author answers with a single sentence: ‘though there are causes and conditions of many kinds, the great cause and condition of becoming an arhat is practising emptiness and the rest with a mind that has left sarvajñā.’ The watershed is not in which dharma one practises, but in whether the mind has left sarvajñā. And that those who hear the same thing do not obtain the same, one need not blame on the Dharma: ‘as when people carry vessels to the sea, each according to the size of his vessel takes his fill.’

The last part first debates hard and easy. The gods say ‘anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is hard to obtain’; Subhūti insists, ‘in my view anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is easy to obtain’, because there is no one who obtains it and no dharma that can be obtained. Śāriputra pushes back with the facts: ‘now bodhisattva-mahāsattvas equal to the sands of the Ganges seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; why do they retrogress and turn back?’ Then Subhūti presses on with question after question: does form retrogress or not? Apart from form, is there a dharma that retrogresses or not? Does the suchness of form retrogress or not? Apart from the suchness of form, is there a dharma that retrogresses or not? And so on up to suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality—and Śāriputra answers each sentence with ‘no’. Pressed to the end, the treatise-author gives a boundary: ‘“acceptance of dharmas” is the gate of the Dharma, the practice of the Dharma, the conduct of the Dharma.’ Once inside this gate there is no retrogressing; outside this gate there is retrogressing; retrogressing or not is not in the dharmas but in the person, inside the gate or outside it. Even the division of the three vehicles is gathered in the same way: ‘if one enters the gate of ultimate emptiness, all dharmas are wholly of one mark; if one comes out of ultimate emptiness, the three vehicles then differ.’ Śāriputra at the last still has to ask ‘what awakening does he accomplish?’, and the Buddha answers with the utmost directness: ‘He accomplishes the Buddha's anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’

Up to this point it has all been ‘no’; but this chapter does not stop at ‘no’. Subhūti asks: to accomplish this awakening, how should one practise? What the Buddha gives is a long string of ‘yes’—first seven kinds of mind: ‘he should arouse an equal mind, and speak to all beings too with an equal mind, without partiality’, a mind of kindness, a lowly intent, a mind of safety, an unobstructed mind, a mind without vexation, a mind of love and respect; then the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the four formless absorptions, the six perfections, the emptinesses, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path, the three samādhi, the eight liberations, the nine successive absorptions, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen unshared dharmas, the twelve links of causes and conditions, the four truths, the four fruits, the path of the pratyekabuddha, the bodhisattva's position, purifying buddha-worlds, the supernormal powers, the omniscience of all kinds, severing the fetters and their habitual residues, the accomplishment of life-span, the accomplishment of the abiding of the Dharma—and every item is to be done in all four ways at once, ‘practising it oneself, teaching others, praising, rejoicing.’ In explaining these kinds of mind the treatise-author lands every sentence on human feeling: one must have a lowly mind because ‘all dharmas are impermanent, and all beings, high, middle, and low, return alike to being ground away’, and also because ‘pride is the root of hatred, and hatred is the root of all grave sins’—‘as when a master beats a slave, the slave dares not hate’: having first made oneself low, one does not rise in hatred at being scolded or beaten; the other way round, exalting oneself and belittling others, ‘as when a slave beats the master, hatred and anger arise.’ And again, ‘as when a host invites guests, he should honour the guests and humble himself’: having vowed to deliver beings, one owes them this seat. Nor is the mind of safety a matter of giving people a moment's comfort: ‘“a mind of safety” gives the happiness of this life, of the next life, and of the ultimate.’ Putting the seven kinds of mind together, the treatise-author gives them a name: ‘obtaining this soft, pure, good mind is called the acceptance of beings; it is the first gate of the acceptance of dharmas.’

At the end the treatise-author himself says why the chapter is arranged as it is. The ten wholesome paths are old dharmas—‘the ten wholesome paths, whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, are always in the world; this is the teaching of wholesome dharmas’; the six perfections and so on up to the abiding of the Dharma are guest dharmas: only when a Buddha has expounded them is there the bodhisattva's practice. The first half speaks of suchness, the second half of practice; speaking of suchness is the gate of wisdom, speaking of practice is the gate of goodness. ‘Now the two dharmas, existence and non-existence, are spoken of, and because both are complete, one obtains the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas; as a cart with both wheels complete can get somewhere.’ Speaking only of emptiness, the cart has one wheel; speaking only of practice, the cart still has only one wheel. This chapter ends with ‘two thousand bodhisattvas obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas’, and the treatise-author states the reason plainly: ‘because here the two truths were well expounded, two thousand bodhisattvas obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas.’ One suchness without duality and without difference speaks of the bottom of all dharmas; practising oneself, teaching others, praising, and rejoicing are the things done day by day. Only when both wheels, the bottom and the things, are there does the cart move.

The preceding chapter said that the grounds, in the mark of suchness, are without duality and without difference; as this chapter opens, what Subhūti asks is a thing that looks very hard to answer: ‘World-Honored One! By what conduct, what kind, what appearance is one known to be an avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva?’—the non-retrogressing bodhisattva: by what is he recognised? The question is not what non-retrogressing is, but how one knows that this person has become non-retrogressing. The Buddha's way of answering does one thing only from beginning to end: it lists marks. He can know the ground of ordinary people, the śrāvaka ground, the pratyekabuddha ground, and the Buddha ground, and does not discriminate them; ‘nor does he utter useless talk, but speaks only speech that accords with benefit, and does not look at others' strengths and shortcomings’; he does not look at the features and words of the outside paths, does not give rise to doubt, does not cling to grasping at precepts, does not fall into wrong view, nor does he seek worldly auspicious matters and take them for purity; he is never born in a low and mean family, never receives a woman's body; he constantly practises the ten wholesome paths, and ‘even in dreams does not practise the ten unwholesome paths.’ One mark, one conclusion, and the closing is always the same sentence: ‘By this conduct, kind, and appearance, know that this is called an avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva.’ Counting through twenty-odd ‘furthermore’s, it is like a checklist that can be matched item by item. The station cannot be seen; the marks can be—the very method of this chapter is to test the station by the marks.

The further down the list goes, the more concrete it becomes, concrete to the point of surprise. His deeds of body, speech, and mind are soft; he is accomplished in deeds of body, speech, and mind of kindness; he is not together with the five hindrances; in every place he has nothing he loves and clings to; and then comes the way he walks: ‘going out and coming in, going and coming, sitting, lying, walking, standing, lifting the foot and setting it down, he is safe and composed, ever mindful and single-minded, and walks looking at the ground.’ Then his clothes and bedding: ‘the clothes he wears and his bedding are not found foul by people; he delights in cleanliness and is little troubled by illness.’ Then the body itself: ‘in the body of an ordinary person there are eighty thousand families of worms that eat away at his body; in the body of the avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva there are no such worms.’ Why? ‘This bodhisattva's merit passes beyond the world.’ Further down, he does not prize gain and offerings—‘though he practises the twelve dhūta practices, he does not prize the practice of dwelling in the araṇya, and so on up to not prizing the practice of keeping only the three robes’: even austerity he does not take up and prize, because it is a cause and condition of a small part of the ultimate path, not the ultimate path. The last mark closes widest of all: ‘his mind abides unmoved, his wisdom enters deeply, single-mindedly he listens and receives, and whatever he hears of the Dharma and of worldly matters, all of it he joins with prajñāpāramitā.’ And again, ‘this bodhisattva-mahāsattva does not see any matter of livelihood that does not enter the nature of dharmas.’ Not even the business of earning a living falls in a single case outside the nature of dharmas.

In the middle a small self-contradiction is inserted, and it is the pivot of the whole chapter. Subhūti asks: ‘World-Honored One! If all dharmas are without conduct, without kind, without appearance, in what dharmas does the bodhisattva turn, so as to be called not turning?’ The Buddha answers: ‘If the bodhisattva-mahāsattva turns within form, turns within feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, this is called the bodhisattva's not turning.’ Turning within form is what is called not turning—on the face of it, it sounds reversed. The treatise-author unties it: ‘because dharmas are empty, he can turn the clinging mind; because he turns the clinging mind he is called not turning.’ What is turned is not the mind of the path but the clinging mind; only when the clinging mind can be turned is the mind of the path unturnable. Not retrogressing is not being unmoved; it is that everything one clings to can be turned away. The treatise-author also divides the chapter for us: ‘the matters above are the proper substance of the avaivartika; from here down, all is the fruit of the practice of ultimate emptiness.’ The passage above, entering the suchness of all dharmas and not clinging to prajñā, is the substance; the long string of marks of conduct below is the fruit—so this checklist is not a table of precepts; it is a register of the marks of the fruit. As for whether the three names ‘conduct, kind, and appearance’ are to be distinguished, the treatise-author sets the question ‘what difference is there among these three matters?’ and then sets two views side by side: ‘someone says: these three matters are all of one meaning’; and again someone says that conduct is the three deeds as they differ from other people's, kind is knowing by discrimination, and appearance is whatever, apart from conduct and kind, can be known by causes and conditions of various sorts. The two views are set down together, and the treatise-author does not take one and discard the other.

The second half of the chapter changes scene: Māra comes. Three things, each finer than the last. First the coarse—he conjures up the eight great hells, in which thousands of myriads of koṭi of bodhisattvas are burned and boiled, and Māra says these are all people to whom the Buddha has given the prediction of non-retrogressing: ‘if the Buddha has given you the prediction of avaivartika, you will enter these great hells.’ The treatise-author brings out Māra's design: it is precisely because this bodhisattva has vowed to take on suffering in place of all beings that Māra uses the prediction of hell to speak to him. Next, robbing him of what he has heard—Māra conjures himself into a bhikṣu and comes to say: ‘What you heard before is all not the Buddha's Dharma, not the Buddha's teaching; it is all mere ornamented compilation! What I say is the true Buddha-Dharma.’ This move looks most like the Dharma, and so is most dangerous; the sūtra takes the arhat whose outflows are exhausted as the comparison, and says that the avaivartika likewise does not believe others' words or follow others' practice, even to the point that ‘even the Buddha's words he does not simply believe and take, how much less the words of those seeking the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha, or of evil Māra, or of the brahmin ascetics of the outside paths!’—not that he does not revere the Buddha, but that he sees no dharma whatever that can be followed in belief. The third move is the finest: expounding the dharma of the semblance path. Contemplating impurity, contemplating the skeleton, contemplating the breath going out and in, the four dhyānas and the four formless absorptions, by which one can obtain the srota-āpanna and so on up to arhatship—the headings are all the Buddha's Dharma, but the fruit Māra promises is false: the bodhisattva says plainly that by this semblance path not even the fruit of the srota-āpanna is obtained, how much less unsurpassed awakening. And the bodhisattva, having heard it, rejoices instead: ‘this bhikṣu benefits me not a little, expounding to me the dharma of the semblance path.’ The treatise-author states this thought still more thoroughly: ‘this bhikṣu greatly benefits me, expounding to me the dharma of the semblance path; obtaining this dharma of the semblance path, I know at once the true path.’ Then he gives an utterly plain comparison: ‘as a traveller who knows the wrong track thereby knows the right road.’ Recognising the side-track, one recognises the road. As for why the bodhisattva does not argue, the treatise-author says only one sentence: ‘the avaivartika is a great person; being of weight, he does not wrangle with this bhikṣu.’

So in this chapter Māra is not an obstacle but a test. The simile the treatise-author uses for testing the real is false gold: ‘as with false gold: burned in fire, rubbed, and beaten, whether it turns black, or red, or white, one then knows it is not real.’ Burning, rubbing, and beating do not destroy the gold; they tell the real from the false; whether one is moved or unmoved shows in these three strokes. And again, ‘as when a dog wears a lion's skin: though the beasts fear it when they see it, when they hear its voice they know it is a dog’—even if Māra comes transformed into the body of a Buddha, what he says differs from the mark of the Dharma, and the moment he opens his mouth he is exposed. The chapter before this one said the deeds of Māra are hindrances; this chapter says the same deed of Māra becomes a confirmation: ‘if the bodhisattva knows this to be a deed of Māra, he gains great benefit and loses nothing.’ At the very end the chapter circles back to the pivot of the opening. Subhūti asks once more ‘in what dharmas does he turn, so as to be called not turning?’, and the Buddha answers once more, ‘he turns back within the mark of form and the other such dharmas.’ The treatise-author says that what came before was the brief explanation and this is the extended one: being able to turn within the marks of form and the rest is precisely practising the emptiness of nature of all dharmas, is precisely obtaining the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas and entering the bodhisattva's position. And what is the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas? ‘The acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas: even the subtlest dharma is unfindable, how much less a great one!’ Fine down to the subtlest dharma, nothing is findable; being unfindable, nothing is made; nothing being made, nothing arises—only this is called non-arising. The closing sentence is so short it seems unfinished: ‘conducts, kinds, and appearances such as these, without measure, are the marks of the avaivartika.’ The list has run a whole chapter, and at the last it admits that it cannot be listed to the end; what can be listed are the marks, and the one who cannot be listed you must recognise for yourself in the burning, the rubbing, and the beating.

This chapter first lets Māra speak, and what Māra says is a passage that sounds very much like prajñā. He comes before the bodhisattva and says: ‘Sarvajñā is equal to space, without the mark of anything existent; dharmas too are equal to space, empty and without mark.’ Since everything is like space, there is no one who obtains unsurpassed awakening, and no one who does not obtain it—‘all these dharmas are like space, without the mark of anything existent; you toil and suffer for nothing!’ Your labour is wasted. This is the place in the chapter most worth pausing at: Māra need not say anything wrong; Māra need only set the right words in a bad place. The bodhisattva's reply is not to refute that emptiness, but to accept it and take one step further: ‘This is a deed of evil Māra, to ruin my mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ Dharmas are indeed like space; it is only that beings do not know and do not see it; and it is precisely with this emptiness that is like space that I take as my adornment, that I go to expound this Dharma to them. To use emptiness to tear down the adornment is Māra's talk; to use emptiness to accomplish the adornment is the Buddha's Dharma.

So the Buddha exhorts: ‘From the first arousing of intent onward, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, hearing this Dharma, should make his mind firm, unmoved, not turning.’ The treatise-author takes these three Chinese characters apart one by one: ‘Because none of the arrows of the afflictions enters, it is called firm. Because none of the outside paths or Māra's people can turn it, it is called unmoved. Because it does not retrogress from anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, it is called not turning.’ Within, the afflictions cannot shoot in; without, Māra's people cannot pull it; above, awakening cannot be lost—the three names each guard one side, and only together are they one mind. That this chapter is also called the chapter on Firmness comes from this first gloss.

Then comes the eye of the whole chapter. Subhūti asks: ‘Is one called avaivartika because of not turning? Is one also called avaivartika because of turning?’ The Buddha answers yes to both. How can both sides be right? ‘If the bodhisattva-mahāsattva does not turn in the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground, for this reason he is called not turning. If the bodhisattva-mahāsattva turns in the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground, for this reason he is also called not turning.’ Not falling into the two vehicles is not turning; turning out from within the two vehicles is also not turning. The treatise-author holds it in place with the two truths: ‘The Buddha answers in two ways because of the two truths, namely worldly truth and the truth of the highest meaning.’ In worldly truth, ‘turning away the mind of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha and entering straight into the bodhisattva's position is called turning’; in the highest meaning, ‘within the one mark of all dharmas, that is, the signless, there is not even a fixed mark of one vehicle, how much less of three vehicles! So there is nothing to turn.’ If there is not even a fixed mark of one vehicle, where would the turning or not turning of three vehicles stand? So not retrogressing is not standing firm; it is that there is no place to retrogress to.

Below this is a long string of appearances, every one closing with ‘by this conduct, kind, and appearance, know that this is called the mark of an avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva.’ He can enter the four dhyānas and so on up to the absorption of cessation and yet not take the fruit; ‘though this bodhisattva cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the five supernormal powers, this person does not receive the fruit of the four foundations of mindfulness’; he takes a body only for the sake of beings, and ‘benefits them according to what suits them.’ He prizes nothing—does not prize form, does not prize marks, does not prize the two vehicles, does not prize the six perfections or the four dhyānas, does not prize purifying buddha-worlds, does not prize seeing buddhas and planting roots of goodness, because ‘all dharmas are empty of specific marks; he sees no dharma that can be prized, nor any that can give rise to a prizing mind.’ The householder among them receives the five desires by skilful means, and the treatise-author's simile is extremely neat: ‘as when one takes up fire with tongs: though one holds it, one is not burned.’ What he had first thought over was, ‘I, having gone forth, a single body, how can I gather in beings by giving?’ What beings want is mostly food, drink, and clothing, and so he is born in a rich and noble family and gives them whatever they need, ‘as with the great earth, on which people, birds, and beasts all receive its benefit.’ Further, the vajra-holding spirit king constantly follows him, and so on up to the vajra-holding spirits of the five clans constantly follow and guard him, so that ‘whether gods, or Māra, or Brahmā, or any other of great strength in the world, none can break this bodhisattva-mahāsattva's mind of sarvajñā’—but the treatise-author adds a sentence: the guarding is drawn to him by his merit, not borrowed for want of strength. So too with the five faculties: ‘as a person without the eye and the other four faculties is no different from wood or stone’, without faith and the other four faculties one is still an ordinary person. As for what a superior person is, the Buddha gives only one sentence: ‘If the bodhisattva-mahāsattva single-mindedly practises the mind of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, without distraction, this is called a superior person.’ The treatise-author explains why this one matter alone is taken: ‘Here the Buddha himself speaks briefly: a single mind without distraction gathers in all wholesome dharmas entirely.’ Last is pure livelihood: he does not practise spell-craft, does not compound medicines, does not cast spells on ghosts and spirits or tell people their fortune and life-span, because ‘knowing that all dharmas are empty of specific marks, he does not see the marks of dharmas, and so practises pure livelihood.’

Fascicle 74 continues: ‘Now I shall further speak of the conduct, kind, and appearance of the avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva; listen single-mindedly and attentively!’—and this half is finer still. First, he does not speak of worldly matters: he does not like to speak of matters of officials, of thieves, of armies, of fighting, of women, of villages, of towns, of the country, of self, and a reason is given for each one, such as ‘this bodhisattva abides within the mark of emptiness of all dharmas and sees no dharma as noble or as base.’ Then comes the most important sentence of this last part of the chapter: ‘He is clear about his own ground, and does not doubt whether I am avaivartika or not avaivartika.’ Why does he not doubt? Because ‘he does not see even the least dharma within anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi that either turns or does not turn.’ The treatise-author takes the substance of doubt apart before your eyes: ‘Doubt means grasping at a mark with something attained. As when a person at night sees a tree stump, and then a thought arises that a human form is like this too, and so a doubting mind arises’—doubt is not born from seeing something; it is born from grasping two marks at once; and so ‘because the bodhisattva practises the signless samādhi, he grasps no mark in any dharma, and so there is no place for doubt to arise.’ Doubt has nowhere to dwell, and without needing to be severed it is gone. The Buddha gives two more similes: one who has obtained the fruit of the srota-āpanna ‘abides in the ground of the srota-āpanna, knows it clearly of himself, and never doubts or regrets’; and one who has committed the five heinous sins—that sinful mind ‘even at the time of death follows him and does not let go.’ The treatise-author puts them together: ‘the mind of the srota-āpanna never shrinks back; the mind of the five heinous sins is removed only when the sin is exhausted’, and ‘as when a person is beset by misfortune, a ghost follows him constantly. The mind of the avaivartika surpasses even this.’ One good mind and one evil mind are held up together; what is taken is not good or evil but that weight which cannot be snatched away.

Further down, Māra comes in person to test him, each time more convincing than the last. He takes the body of a Buddha and says: take arhatship in this very life; you have received no prediction, you have no acceptance of non-arising, you have no appearance of an avaivartika; he takes the image of a Buddha and comes to give him the prediction of a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha; he takes the body of a Buddha and comes to say, ‘the sūtras and books you have studied were not spoken by the Buddha, nor spoken by śrāvakas; they were spoken by Māra.’ By what does the bodhisattva recognise him? The treatise-author's answer is only five Chinese characters and one simile: ‘The body is right but the words are wrong. As when one tests a gold coin: flick it, the sound comes out, and one knows whether it is real or false.’ The appearance can be false; the words cannot; besides which, ‘the buddhas with skilful means of every kind wish to bring all people entirely into the path of the Buddha; how would they draw a bodhisattva aside and give him the prediction of a śrāvaka?’ And to test in the other direction whether one is oneself real, one does not rely on one's own say-so either: on hearing the deep Dharma, ‘as soon as he hears it his mind goes deep, the hair on his skin stands on end; recollecting the Buddha's great compassion, he rejoices and weeps’—‘as with a great army: when it is routed, the men are terrified and dazed and lie on the ground as if dead; their kin, seeing them and wishing to know whether they live, flog them with a rod, and if a weal rises they know they will surely live.’ Whether the Dharma one hears enters the mind or not is precisely that one stroke of the rod. There is also giving up one's life for the Dharma: in a great assembly all dharmas are expounded as ultimately empty, and ‘at that time there are foolish people who break it and do not receive it’, saying that in that case there is no Buddha and no retribution of deeds of sin and merit; the bodhisattva, knowing full well that the expounder may for this bring death upon himself, still helps with all his might, because ‘it is not for the sake of protecting one Buddha's Dharma that I do this; it is for the sake of protecting the Dharma of the buddhas of the three times and the ten directions’, and again because ‘to die with benefit is better than to live without benefit.’

At the last it closes on dhāraṇī and on station. Obtaining the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining and the rest, ‘hearing the Buddha expound the sūtras, he does not forget, does not lose, does not doubt, does not regret’; and not only the Buddha's words—what the two vehicles and the gods and nāgas say he holds just as firmly. The treatise-author takes this apart into three powers: ‘by the power of faith he can receive; by the power of the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining he does not lose; by the power of the dhāraṇī of severing doubt he does not doubt’; and what has reason in it he can believe and can hold, while what has no reason in it he holds without doubting yet does not believe—holding and believing are separated into two matters, and so he can receive every kind of speech without being indiscriminate. The avaivartika is further divided into two bodies, the fleshly body within birth and death and the body born of the Dharma-nature; and those who have not yet arrived are also divided into two, those of little faith and much doubt and those of little doubt and much faith; the latter, on obtaining meditative concentration, obtain compliant acceptance, only their love of dharmas is not yet severed, and they may still cling and may still retrogress. This chapter sets out sixty-odd appearances, like an account that can be checked item by item; and at the end the treatise-author writes only one sentence: ‘The meaning of the marks of the avaivartika has been briefly explained.’—this is still only a brief explanation. Not retrogressing is not a title one confers on oneself; it is having marks one can produce to be checked.

This chapter takes its name from a lamp-wick. But what it asks first is a word that sounds very abstract. Subhūti asks: ‘World-Honored One! What is the profound place in which the avaivartika bodhisattva-mahāsattva, abiding and practising the six perfections, fulfils the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to fulfilling the omniscience of all kinds?’ What the Buddha answers is a string of names: ‘The profound place: emptiness is its meaning—the signless, non-action, non-origination, non-arising, non-staining, separation, quiescence, suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality, nirvāṇa.’ Subhūti presses: are only these deep, and the other dharmas not deep? The Buddha says, ‘All dharmas too have the profound meaning.’ He presses again: how can form be deep? The Buddha answers with a single word—suchness: ‘because the suchness of form is profound, form is profound’, and ‘this suchness of form is not form and is not apart from form.’ The treatise-author lays out the measure of this word ‘deep’ with the utmost care: deep does not mean hard to understand; ‘it is not empty merely because the mouth says the name’; one must see no self within and no fixed real dharma without—‘this emptiness is the emptiness of attaining the path, not merely what the mouth says; therefore it is called deep.’ And there is one layer deeper still: ‘Furthermore, emptiness too is empty; if one clings to this emptiness, there is a fault, and it is not called deep.’ To be emptied and still clutch at emptiness does not count as deep. And the relation of suchness to form the treatise-author finishes with a single pot: ‘As when clay is made into a pot: the clay is not the pot, yet there is no pot apart from the clay, nor can one say there is no pot.’

The second half of the First Part is a weighing. Apart from prajñā, to give to the Three Jewels for kalpas equal to the sands of the Ganges, to make offerings to the four fruits, the pratyekabuddhas, and so on up to the buddhas, to practise the six perfections, to practise the gift of Dharma, to cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds, to dedicate, to rejoice—all the way down the questions run, ‘is the merit obtained great?’, and all the way down Subhūti answers, ‘Very great’, and all the way down the Buddha says: ‘It does not equal the bodhisattva-mahāsattva who for a single day practises as taught within the deep prajñāpāramitā; his merit is greater.’ One day surpasses kalpas as the sands of the Ganges; the criterion does not lie in quantity. The Buddha first sets up a simile that sounds most unlike a Buddhist sūtra: ‘As when a man of much lust makes an appointment with a beautiful, clean, and comely woman’—the woman cannot come, and the man's thoughts are all with her, moment after moment: ‘in one day and one night this man's thoughts are very many!’ What is taken is the density of the thought, not the thing thought of; the bodhisattva's mindfulness of prajñā is like this too, ‘in the space of a single thought he passes beyond a number of kalpas.’ The treatise-author adds two more similes: ‘As when a person takes a mild medicine and is cured of the illness only after a year, but takes a medicine of great strength and can be cured in a single day.’ ‘As with the vajra: though small, it can shatter a great mountain.’ Medicine is alike medicine, but its strength is great or small; merit is alike merit, but clinging or not clinging decides whether it is great or small. Subhūti thereupon objects: since the Buddha has said, ‘dharmas arising from causes and conditions are born from false thinking and are not real’, how can a false and deceptive dharma give birth to great merit? The Buddha answers crisply: precisely because the bodhisattva ‘knows that dharmas arising from causes and conditions are also empty, without firmness, false and deceptive and unreal’ and his mind does not cling, this merit is pure, and is superior. The First Part closes on a sentence that can hardly be pared down any further: ‘The mark of all dharmas that cannot be spoken is emptiness, and this emptiness cannot be spoken.’ If it cannot be spoken, there is neither increase nor decrease; how then is awakening obtained? The Buddha says: ‘The mark of suchness of all dharmas is called anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’

Turning the fascicle, the first sentence of the Last Part is the sharpest difficulty in the whole chapter. Subhūti asks: ‘World-Honored One! Does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi by the first mind? Or obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi by the last mind?’—‘This first mind does not reach the last mind, and the last mind is not in the first mind.’ The earlier thought has ceased before the later thought arises; the two thoughts never meet; since they are not together, how are roots of goodness accumulated? If they are not accumulated, how is buddhahood accomplished? This is no abstruse question; it is the question that everyone who has practised long asks himself on some night or other: the I who aroused the mind yesterday and the I of today—are they, in the end, the same person walking the same path?

The Buddha does not argue; he first lights a lamp. ‘I shall tell you a simile; when the wise obtain a simile, the meaning is easily understood.’ ‘As when a lamp is lit: is it the first flame that burns the wick? Or the last flame that burns the wick?’ Subhūti answers with great precision: ‘World-Honored One! It is not the first flame that burns the wick, nor is it apart from the first flame. World-Honored One! It is not the last flame that burns the wick, nor is it apart from the last flame.’ All four positions are negated. Yet the Buddha asks one more question: ‘Is the wick burned or not?’ Subhūti can only admit: ‘World-Honored One! The wick is really burned.’—This sentence is the backbone of the whole chapter. All four positions negated, the lamp-wick burns down all the same; that one cannot find which flame burned it does not mean it was not burned. The bodhisattva path is like this too: ‘he does not obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi by the first mind, nor does he obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi apart from the first mind’, and yet in the end ‘from the first arousing of intent he practises prajñāpāramitā’ and ‘fulfilling the ten grounds, obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ The treatise-author takes the simile apart and matches it: ‘The lamp stands for the bodhisattva path; the wick stands for ignorance and the other afflictions; the flames are like the wisdom that accords with the first ground and so on up to the wisdom that accords with the vajra samādhi.’ And he hands the test back to the person: ‘You yourself see that the wick is burned: it is neither the first nor the last, and yet the wick is burned’—the wick your own eyes see is the evidence. The first mind is not the Buddha: ‘if it were obtained only by the first mind and not by the last mind, then the bodhisattva, on first arousing the mind, would already be the Buddha’; but without the first mind there is no last mind either: ‘the first mind gathers all kinds of immeasurable merit, and the last mind then fulfils it; because it is fulfilled, he can sever the afflictions and their habitual residues and obtain the unsurpassed path.’ Continuity is not some permanent thing running through from end to end; it is condition following condition without loss.

Next the Buddha opens the ten grounds: ‘he fulfils the ground of dry wisdom, the ground of the stage of nature, the ground of the person of the eight, the ground of seeing, the ground of thinning, the ground of freedom from desire, the ground of what has been done, the pratyekabuddha ground, the bodhisattva ground, the Buddha ground.’ The treatise-author matches each ground with two roads, one for the śrāvaka and one for the bodhisattva—the ground of dry wisdom is that ‘though he has wisdom, without obtaining the water of meditative concentration he cannot attain the path; therefore it is called the ground of dry wisdom’; the ground of the person of the eight is for the śrāvaka the fifteen minds of the path of seeing, while ‘for the bodhisattva it is the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, entering the bodhisattva's position.’ The ten grounds look like a staircase, but the closing sentence is still the principle of the lamp-wick: ‘because the ten grounds are fulfilled, he obtains the unsurpassed path.’ After this comes a string of counter-questions, ‘what do you think?’: when the mind has ceased, does it arise again? Is the arising of the mind the mark of ceasing? Is the mark of ceasing itself ceasing? Subhūti is turned this way and that until his reasoning is exhausted, and can only answer from what he has realised: ‘World-Honored One! It abides just so, abiding as suchness abides.’ And abiding as suchness abides may not, in turn, be taken as the limit of reality. Asked where he practises, he answers, ‘he practises for no place at all’; fearing people will fall into emptiness, the Buddha asks again, and only then does he answer, ‘he practises within the highest meaning, because the two practices are unfindable.’

The whole chapter closes in a very practical place. Since ‘this bodhisattva-mahāsattva knows that all dharmas are empty of specific marks’, he stands on neither side: ‘to grasp at a mark is the dharma of existence; not to grasp at a mark is the dharma of non-existence; by the power of skilful means he leaves these two extremes of existence and non-existence and practises the middle way.’ Then the three samādhi are set against three kinds of beings: for those who crave a vow and receive a body, non-action—‘as when a bird is tied with a cord: when the cord runs out, it comes back again’; the power of the vow is like the cord, and the cord always runs out; for those who reckon a self and what belongs to a self, emptiness; for those who grasp at the marks of male and female, beautiful and ugly, the signless. And the reason there must be three gates is only that people's faculties differ: ‘Beings' faculties are keen or dull. Those of keen faculties, hearing emptiness, at once obtain the signless and non-action.’ Those of dull faculties, hearing emptiness, instead seize on a mark of emptiness, and so the signless is taught separately; those who know emptiness and the signless yet still want one more body, and so non-action is taught separately. Thus this chapter begins from the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘profound’ and comes to rest on its last sentence: ‘For these reasons the three samādhi are fully taught, to teach and transform beings.’ Depth carried to its utmost is not having nothing to say; it is that the words can be spoken and the Dharma can be put to use—like that wick, of which one cannot say which flame burned it, yet which really and truly burned down.

The previous chapter spoke of the simile of the lamp-wick, and of the bodhisattva entering the three samādhi and widely transforming beings—that was while awake. As this chapter opens, Śāriputra pushes the whole matter into a place no one had guarded against: ‘If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in a dream enters the three samādhi—the emptiness samādhi, the signless samādhi, and the non-action samādhi—is there any benefit to prajñāpāramitā or not?’ A samādhi entered while asleep—does it count? The question looks like a clever trick, but in fact both edges are blades: the treatise-author speaks Śāriputra's mind for him—‘because a dream is false and deceptive, like madness, not a real seeing; and these three samādhi are real dharmas.’ A dream is a deceptive dharma; samādhi is a real dharma; how can a real dharma be accomplished inside a deceptive one? Yet the sūtras also say that dreams run through the three natures: ‘in a dream too there are three kinds: wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate.’ Since there is a wholesome mind, how could practising samādhi be without benefit? To say it benefits will not do; to say it does not benefit will not do either. Subhūti's way of answering is to lift the whole question up: ‘because day, night, and dream are equal and without difference.’—Not that the dream too is real, but that what is practised by day has no fixed, real ‘benefit’ to be found either. The treatise-author points out the edge of this blade: this answer ‘refutes even what is practised by day, how much more what is in a dream’, because ‘prajñāpāramitā does not discriminate between day and night.’

Śāriputra no longer contends over the increase or decrease of prajñā; he shifts to a harder place to ask: ‘If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva performs a deed in a dream, does that deed gather and come to completion or not?’—A deed done in a dream, does it bear fruit or not? Subhūti does not answer directly; he sets up a case and questions him in turn: ‘If a person in a dream kills a being and, upon waking, recalls it, grasps at the mark and discriminates: “was my killing a pleasure?”’ Śāriputra answers with the utmost cleanness: ‘Without a condition, no deed arises; without a condition, no construction arises. With a condition, a deed arises; with a condition, a construction arises.’ The question thereupon unties itself. The treatise-author glosses the names as the text goes: deeds are the deeds of body and speech, construction is the deed of the mind, ‘construction is the true deed’; and what the three deeds arise from is no more than four dharmas—seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing. Since what is seen in a dream all comes from prior seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, the mind in a dream is not without a condition; it is only that ‘because this dream-mind is feeble, it cannot gather and come to completion.’ Sleep covers the mind, and it is not free: ‘it has no strength and cannot gather to complete a retribution … if this deed is obtained at the time of waking, then because the wholesome or unwholesome mind comes together with it, it can help to complete a retribution.’ Śāriputra objects again from emptiness: all deeds and all constructions are separated from their own marks; how can one still say for certain that with a condition they arise? Subhūti's closing words are where the whole chapter's teaching on deeds comes to rest: ‘Though dharmas are empty and separated from marks, ordinary people grasp at marks, and because there are causes and conditions, deeds arise’—deeds are not tied to the division between dream and waking; they are tied to whether there is grasping at marks or not.

The third difficulty is the deepest: cultivating the six perfections in a dream and dedicating it to the unsurpassed path—is that a real dedication? Even by day, if the mind clings and grasps at marks it is not yet called dedication, how much less when sleep covers the mind. Here Subhūti yields of himself, saying, ‘the bodhisattva Maitreya is now present before us; the Buddha gave him the prediction of non-retrogression, that he will become a Buddha; we should ask Maitreya, and Maitreya will answer.’ Maitreya's way of answering sets up not a single dharma: the name cannot answer, the five aggregates cannot answer, the emptiness of the five aggregates cannot answer either—‘I see no dharma that can answer, and no one who can answer.’ Śāriputra presses: speaking thus, do you then take this as your realisation? Maitreya answers: ‘As is the Dharma I have spoken, just so I do not realise it.’ The treatise-author brings out his meaning: ‘You take nirvāṇa as realisation; I, because nirvāṇa too is empty and there is nothing to be attained, do not realise it.’—The two vehicles take nirvāṇa as the place of realisation; the bodhisattva knows the mark of nirvāṇa and does not take realisation; the treatise-author judges outright, ‘to be able to know the mark of nirvāṇa and not take realisation is called very deep.’ Here he also records the saying of another house (that Maitreya says he does not realise because he has not yet fulfilled the dharmas of a Buddha), setting it side by side without adopting or rejecting it. Last the Buddha himself comes forward, yet does not expound; he only asks Śāriputra one question in return: by this dharma you obtained arhatship—do you see this dharma? The answer: ‘I do not see it.’—The wisdom-eye has no mark of discrimination; from the start it does not see. The Buddha uses this ready answer to seal the bodhisattva in place: when the bodhisattva obtains the acceptance of non-arising, he too does not have the thought, ‘I see this dharma, I obtain the prediction’, and yet he also ‘does not doubt whether I obtain it or do not obtain it; he knows of himself that he really obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ Not seeing and not doubting are established at the same time; the ‘does it count?’ over which the three rounds of difficulty had contended is, at this point, not explained away but gathered up by not doubting.

The second half of the chapter suddenly changes its face: the Buddha tells Subhūti that the bodhisattva, when practising the six perfections, sees the various marks of suffering of beings and makes vows. Thirty passages in parallel push forward one by one, and each begins from a single word, ‘sees’—sees hunger and cold and freezing and starvation, sees killing and wrong view, sees hatred and abuse, sees laziness, sees those covered by the five hindrances, sees folly and delusion and the loss of right view; then sees the hells, the animals, the hungry ghosts, sees the great earth with stumps and thorns, sees the great earth of pure soil without precious things, sees the four castes, sees the six destinies, sees the four kinds of birth, sees those without the five supernormal powers, sees the trouble of excretion, sees the absence of light, sees the sun and moon and the seasons and years, sees short life, sees the absence of the marks and minor signs, sees the three poisons and the four illnesses, sees that there are three vehicles, sees overweening pride. The vows too are matched passage by passage: ‘May my land have no such evil; may its ground be level as the palm of a hand.’ ‘May my land be spread with golden sand.’ ‘May the beings in my land all take Dharma-joy as food, without the trouble of excretion.’ ‘May the beings in my land have no name of the two vehicles, purely the one Great Vehicle.’ The treatise-author states the intent of this passage: the bodhisattva who has come this far ‘has no other matter left; he practises only purifying buddha-worlds and bringing beings to accomplishment.’ And the reason the vows can be accomplished is also only one sentence: ‘All conditioned dharmas belong to causes and conditions; because the wholesome causes and conditions are fulfilled, all obtain their retribution as wished.’ The thirty passages need not be explained one by one; the treatise-author himself says, ‘the remaining vows are likewise; discriminate them according to their meaning.’

Only the last passage he refuses to pass over: ‘the meaning of the last vow is not clear; now I shall explain it briefly.’—Because the greater the vow made, the faster the retreating mind comes. The Buddha path requires immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas, and the years of a single kalpa are already past counting; beings are without measure and without limit; beings equal to the atoms of the three-thousand great-thousand world are already hard to deliver, how much more those of the ten directions. Reckoned to this point, ‘the mind may give rise to retreat and sinking; this is called wrong recollection.’ The remedy is not encouragement but a change of view: ‘Though birth and death are long, all this is empty, like space, like what is seen in a dream; it is not really long and far, and one should not give rise to a mind of weariness.’—The dream comes back again. At the chapter's head the dream is used to ask, ‘does that practice of yours really count?’; at the chapter's end the dream is used to answer, ‘that length you fear is not real to begin with’; the same word, a difficulty in front and a medicine behind. The Buddha speaks at the last the great causes and conditions: ‘Birth and death are like space, and beings likewise; though beings are many, there are no fixed, real beings either.’ Beings are without measure and without limit, and the Buddha's wisdom too is without measure and without limit, and so ‘delivering them is not hard either; therefore the bodhisattva should not give rise to a mind of exhaustion and weariness.’

In an assembly where the purifying of buddha-lands is being taught, many people are seated. Everyone has heard that passage on practice and vow, yet only one person rises from her seat: ‘At that time there was a woman named Gaṅgadevī, seated in the assembly.’ She bares her right shoulder, sets her right knee on the ground, joins her palms, and speaks her own vow: ‘World-Honored One! I shall practise the six perfections and take up a pure buddha-world; as it is taught in prajñāpāramitā, I shall practise it all.’ Having spoken, she scatters flowers as an offering to the Buddha—flowers of gold and silver, flowers born of water and land, and two fine cloths woven of gold thread—‘and scattered them over the Buddha; when she had scattered them, in the space above the Buddha's head they turned into a jewelled terrace with four pillars, upright and finely adorned.’ Then she hands this merit over: ‘This woman, holding this merit, shares it with all beings and dedicates it to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’—Making the vow, making the offering, dedicating: three steps done, and that is all the event of the whole chapter. Then comes the Buddha's smile: ‘At that time the World-Honored One, knowing the causes and conditions of this woman's deep mind, at once smiled.’ Ānanda asks with care: ‘For what cause and condition does the Buddha smile? The buddhas' way is not to smile without cause and condition.’ The Buddha thereupon gives the prediction: ‘This sister Gaṅgadevī will in a future age become a Buddha; the kalpa will be named Constellation, and the Buddha will be called Golden Flower.’

The treatise-author takes over, and his first question asks the very thing in everyone's mind: ‘When so great an assembly heard the practice of purifying the land taught, why did only one woman take up the vow of a pure land?’ Why her, of all people? The answer is unexpectedly blunt: ‘Many made the vow of a pure land, but did not speak it aloud; a woman's nature is light and impulsive and fond of winning, and because of the habitual residues of life after life she spoke aloud.’ Those who made the vow were many to begin with; they merely did not speak; she spoke, and the treatise-author attributes it straight to habitual residue, without adding a single kind word. Yet it is precisely this unsparing sentence that takes two things apart—speaking aloud is habit; obtaining the prediction is real ripeness. Only with the turn that follows does the teaching come fully out: some hold that ‘great persons have a share in attaining the path, and the rest have none’, and the treatise-author answers: ‘The Buddha's Dharma is not so; it follows the beings' causes and conditions of deeds.’ And he gives a most ordinary comparison: ‘As good medicine cures the various illnesses without choosing between the noble and the base.’ Medicine cures illness without asking whether the one who takes it is noble or base; the Dharma brings attainment of the path without asking whether the one who practises it is great or small. Thus that most essential sentence can stand: ‘Though this woman is of shallow wisdom, yet by the causes and conditions of deeds in former lives she should receive the prediction …’—‘shallow wisdom’ and ‘should receive the prediction’ set in one sentence and not hindering each other. What the prediction sees into has never been present cleverness; it is the causes and conditions of former lives.

Then why did the Buddha wait for her to open her mouth? The treatise-author turns again: ‘Furthermore, if the Buddha were to give the prediction in silence, people would give rise to doubt …’—if the Buddha handed over the prediction without a word, the bystanders could not fathom the reason, and doubt would arise at once; ‘therefore the Buddha gave her the prediction because she herself had spoken.’ The prediction needs a public occasion, not to reward that one sentence, but so that those present may see where it comes from. This is one thing with two faces in the sūtra: what the Buddha knows is ‘the causes and conditions of her deep mind’; what the assembly sees is the scattering of flowers and the speaking aloud. The treatise-author's gloss on that smile is the same meaning: ‘The Buddha, repaying her with the prediction, contemplated this woman's conduct in former lives, and so smiled.’ ‘Here a small cause and condition gives rise to a great matter; therefore the Buddha smiled.’—The small cause and condition is what everyone can see; the great matter is what the Buddha sees.

The second question is the shortest, and its negation the most thorough. Someone wants to ask the meaning of this name, and the treatise-author does not first answer the meaning; he first asks whether the question should be asked at all: ‘Everything has a name, for the sake of recognition; why go looking for a meaning?’ The use of a name lies in its enabling recognition; why insist on seeking its meaning. Only after negating this does he let the old account out: ‘Someone says: this woman's father and mother made offerings to the spirit of the Gaṅgā, and obtained this daughter, and so she is called Gaṅgadevī. Gaṅgā is the name of a river; devī means a deity.’—First negate, then preserve; the order may not be reversed. If the etymology were explained first and the negation came after, the etymology would become the master; now that the negation comes first and the explanation after, the etymology is merely one account that may or may not be kept. This is also precisely why the later editions each take one or the other of the two names, ‘Gaṅgadevī’ and ‘River Goddess’, without this chapter becoming a problem on that account: since a name is only for recognition, the two names were never higher or lower.

The third question is the weightiest in the whole chapter: ‘By her merit this woman should long ago have turned from being a woman; why does she turn her woman's body only in the land of Akṣobhya Buddha?’ Since her merit was long since sufficient, why drag it out so far? The treatise-author's answer lies not in the amount of merit but in where the obstruction is tied: ‘The five desires of the world are hard to sever; because a woman's clinging to desire and passion is much, though life after life she practises the various merits, she cannot obtain a man's body …’—merit cannot directly be exchanged for a body; what can change the body is the thinning of desire and passion; and the thinning of desire and passion takes the receiving of the prediction as its condition: ‘Now, having received the prediction, her afflictions are broken and thinned; therefore in the land of Akṣobhya Buddha she at last obtains a man's body.’ The turning of the body comes after the receiving of the prediction, not before it. Next the treatise-author preserves an opposite account: ‘Someone says: this woman in a former life, because people mostly despise women, vowed to receive the prediction in a woman's body.’ If so, the woman's body is not an obstruction but the power of a vow, ‘and by such causes and conditions she receives the prediction without turning her woman's body.’ The two accounts are set side by side, yet both return to a single conclusion: receiving the prediction does not take the turning of the body as its condition. Last, the treatise-author closes this whole difficulty with the measure of the sūtra: ‘Furthermore, the sūtra speaks of the five obstacles of women; it does not say that they cannot receive the prediction; therefore one should not raise the difficulty.’—The sūtra has the text on the ‘five obstacles’; it has no text saying ‘women cannot receive the prediction’; to use what is there to object with what is not there—that difficulty never stood to begin with. What the sūtra negates stops at what it negates; it may not be pushed outward.

The whole chapter closes on a look back to a very great distance. Ānanda still finds it rare: such a person, who has heard so little and whose fruit is so great—where in the end do her roots of virtue come from? The Buddha's answer returns to the day of his own prediction: ‘When Dīpaṃkara Buddha gave me the prediction, this woman, holding golden flowers, scattered them over the Buddha, and made this vow: “When this person later becomes a Buddha, may he also give the prediction to me.” From that she planted roots of goodness, and now obtains the fruit.’ What she did at that time was likewise no more than to scatter a handful of golden flowers and make a vow—the vow that the one before her, who was about to become a Buddha, would one day turn and give her a prediction in return. Today's scattering of flowers and speaking aloud in the hall, and that day's scattering of flowers and making of a vow, are one and the same event across immeasurable kalpas. The prediction has never been a reward for services rendered; it is the seal of ripened occasion; and whether the occasion is ripe or not lies not in the marks of the body, but in whether that one thought of vow has truly taken root.

The previous chapter told of the Golden Flower woman obtaining the prediction and of the marks of the non-retrogressing bodhisattva; the person has been spoken of, but the step by which the person is able not to retrogress has not yet been spoken of. As this chapter opens, Subhūti asks with the utmost fineness: ‘World-Honored One! If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva wishes to practise prajñāpāramitā, how does he train in the emptiness samādhi? How does he enter the emptiness samādhi?’ Beyond the samādhi, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path, of each one he asks ‘how does he train in it’ and ‘how does he cultivate it’. The Buddha's way of answering is unexpected—he does not say how to take hold, he first says how not to be disordered: ‘When he makes this contemplation, he does not let the mind be disordered.’ Only the words after not being disordered are the gate of the whole chapter: ‘If this bodhisattva-mahāsattva's mind is not disordered, then he does not see this dharma; if he does not see this dharma, then he does not realise it.’ So not realising is not holding back from taking; it is that there is simply nothing to be seen that could be taken. Why is nothing seen? ‘Because he has trained well in the emptiness of specific marks, there is no remainder and no part; the dharma realised and the one who realises are both not to be seen.’ Among the dharmas of form not even an atom is left over; among the formless dharmas not even a single thought is left; only when the dharma realised and the person realising are emptied out at both ends can the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘not realising’ be spoken of at all.

Subhūti has understood half of it, and presses more closely: ‘World-Honored One! How does the bodhisattva abide in the dharma of emptiness and yet not realise it?’—Since he abides in emptiness, how can he not realise emptiness? The Buddha's answer falls on a division of time: before the bodhisattva fully contemplates emptiness he has long since made the vow, ‘I should not now realise the dharma of emptiness; now is my time of training, not the time of realising.’ And ‘he does not exclusively gather the mind and bind it to the object.’ From here one sentence follows another in count: when he trains in dānapāramitā it is not the time of realising, when he trains in śīla, kṣānti, vīrya, and dhyāna it is not the time of realising, when he cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path it is not the time of realising, when he cultivates the emptiness samādhi, the signless samādhi, and the non-action samādhi it is not the time of realising—what is cultivated and what is realised were the same dharma to begin with; the difference lies only in that the time has not yet come. Therefore ‘he cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness and does not realise the four foundations of mindfulness, and so on up to cultivating the eightfold noble path and not realising the eightfold noble path.’ The thirty-seven limbs of the path are the path by which the two vehicles take nirvāṇa; the bodhisattva walks it all the same, only he does not stop halfway to receive it.

To make this matter plain, the sūtra brings out three similes in a row. The first is the stalwart man: ‘As a stalwart man, strong, brave, fierce, and robust, skilled in the arts of war and the sixty-four skills, firmly holding his weapons, standing steady and unmoved’, who leads the old and the weak through a dangerous road, comforting his father, mother, wife, and children all the way: ‘Do not be afraid! I can pass through this; there will surely be no harm.’ Enemies and thieves lie in ambush to rob and kill, yet this man is fully endowed with wisdom and strength, and can cross the evil road and return to his own place. The second is the bird: ‘As a bird with wings, flying up into space and not falling, though it is in space it also does not abide in space.’ Not falling and not abiding are set side by side; drop either end and it does not hold. The third is archery: ‘As a strong man, having trained in the arts of archery and being skilled in the archer's craft, shoots upward into space, and then with a later arrow shoots the earlier arrow, arrow supporting arrow, not letting the arrows fall, at will and unhindered’—and what most reveals the mechanism of this simile is its close: ‘If he wishes them to fall, he simply stops the later arrow, and only then do they fall to the ground.’ The reason the earlier arrow does not fall is not that something holds it up; it is that the later arrow does not stop. Not realising is not stillness; it is unceasing further launching. Only on hearing this does Subhūti sigh: ‘World-Honored One! What the bodhisattva-mahāsattva does is very hard!’

Where the hardness lies, the Buddha answers, does not matter; what matters is how the hard thing can be done: ‘Because this bodhisattva-mahāsattva does not abandon any being, he makes this vow.’ The content of the vow is recorded word for word in the sūtra: ‘I should not abandon any being! Beings are sunk in the dharma of nothing whatsoever; I should deliver them!’—Having made this vow and then entering the three gates of liberation, he ‘does not take the realisation of the limit of reality midway.’ Below this are four ‘furthermores’, each beginning from the illness of beings: beings through the long night cling to the mark of self, the mark of a knower and a seer; cling to the four inversions, ‘the notion of permanence, of happiness, of self, and of purity’; cling to attaining a dharma; cling to the mark of male and the mark of female, the mark of form and the mark of the formless—the bodhisattva seeks awakening in order to sever these marks, and so emptiness, the signless, and non-action all become places of practice and do not become places of abiding. The distinction between a place of practice and a place of abiding is the whole measure of this chapter.

The treatise-author takes over and first glosses two words: ‘At first it is called training in emptiness; afterwards it is entering emptiness; because of training in emptiness as cause, the fruit is entering emptiness; skilful means is called training in emptiness, attainment is called entering emptiness. Such are the two paths.’ Then he marks where the difficulty lies: ‘The three gates of liberation and the thirty-seven limbs are the nirvāṇa path of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha; the Buddha commands the bodhisattva to practise this path.’—Walking the same road, how can he not arrive at the same end? Subhūti asks on the reader's behalf: ‘This is the path of nirvāṇa; how does the bodhisattva practise this path-dharma and yet not take the realisation of nirvāṇa?’ The Buddha answers: ‘The bodhisattva contemplates form and all the other dharmas as empty. Because this bodhisattva enters deeply into meditative concentration, his mind cannot be disordered, and by the power of keen wisdom he does not see this dharma of emptiness; because he does not see it, there is nothing realised.’ The two vehicles sever I and mine, abandon love and clinging, and go straight toward nirvāṇa; the bodhisattva enters straight into ultimate emptiness, and does not see even this emptiness as something that could be realised. What entering deeply means as entering deeply, the treatise-author breaks open with a simile from the hand: ‘As when one grasps a blade of coarse grass: hold it loosely and it wounds the hand; grip it tightly and there is no wound’—the grass-blade cuts the hand; a loose hold wounds, a tight grip does no harm. So it is with emptiness: ‘because he enters deeply into emptiness, he knows that emptiness too is empty and nirvāṇa too is empty; therefore there is nothing realised.’

Someone at once wants to catch the treatise-author in his own words: just above it was said that entering deeply into meditative concentration does not let the mind be disordered, and here it is said that he is not exclusively attentive—is that not self-contradictory? The treatise-author raises this question himself and answers with the utmost clarity—the ‘not exclusively attentive’ spoken of here ‘is at the time of first entering, lest he be unable to come out by himself’; the ‘entering deeply’ spoken of above is that ‘having entered deeply, he knows that emptiness too is empty, and does not let the mind rest on any other matter; therefore it is said not to be disordered.’ At the time of first entering, one part is kept not exclusive so that one can still come out—‘if the mind is exclusively bound to the object of emptiness, then the mind becomes soft and cannot come out of emptiness by itself.’ Only when the entering is deep is it said not to be disordered, for at that time there is no other matter left to be disordered by. One loose, one tight, each tied to its own time; not two principles.

Only now are the three similes restored object by object by the treatise-author: the ‘stalwart man’ is the bodhisattva; the ‘father, mother, and kin’ are the beings who can be delivered; the ‘dangerous road’ is birth and death in the three realms; the ‘evil thieves’ are Māra's people and the afflictions; the ‘weapons’ are the bodhisattva's five supernormal powers and all the other kinds of the power of skilful means; ‘standing steady and unmoved’ is the bodhisattva abiding in ultimate emptiness. The reason the bird simile has to be told once more is that ‘those in the assembly doubted’—‘in space there is nothing whatsoever; how can one practise there?’ Only then did the Buddha say, ‘as a bird flying in space, with no support, goes far and does not fall’; and the reason the bird does not drop midway is that ‘as a bird that has not yet reached where it is going never stops midway.’ The archery simile is matched most closely: the ‘bow’ is the bodhisattva's meditative concentration, the ‘arrow’ is wisdom, ‘space’ is the three gates of liberation, ‘the ground’ is nirvāṇa—with the arrow of wisdom he shoots into the space of the three gates of liberation, and then with the later arrow of the power of skilful means he shoots the earlier arrow, ‘not letting it fall to the ground of nirvāṇa.’ Bow, arrow, and skilful means—lacking any one, the earlier arrow drops to the ground at once. And what enables all this to continue the treatise-author traces to a single sentence at the very root: ‘This bodhisattva's original vow is to bring all beings to leave suffering; because he is held by this original vow and by the mind of great compassion, though he practises emptiness he does not realise it.’ What holds not-realising in place is not the power of wisdom; it is the vow.

The whole chapter closes on a most plain method of testing a person. The sūtra says that when a bodhisattva trains in the dharmas that aid the path and practises the dharmas that aid the path, one ‘should test him by asking’—ask him: how do you train in this dharma, contemplating emptiness without realising the limit of reality? If he answers, ‘One should only be mindful of emptiness and practise it single-mindedly, as in the dharma of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha; it is not merely a matter of training and knowing’, then ‘know that this bodhisattva has not yet received the prediction from the buddhas’; the treatise-author points to the root of the illness: ‘because he does not speak of contemplating emptiness by training and knowing skilful means.’ If he answers otherwise than this, then one knows he is avaivartika, ‘he has trained and entered the ground of thinning’—‘thinning’ is not the name of a fruit-station: ‘training means first training and knowing emptiness; the ground of thinning means that within the ground of the avaivartika the afflictions are thinned.’ Subhūti asks again: can one who has not obtained avaivartika answer like this? The Buddha says he can—one who has heard the six perfections hears it from a teacher; one who has not heard them thinks it over by himself and rightly recollects; though he has not obtained the acceptance of non-arising, he too can seek the marks of dharmas and answer in this way. The treatise-author glosses in passing the terms training and beyond training: ‘Not yet having obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas is called the ground of training; having obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas is called the ground beyond training.’ At the last the Buddha says that such bodhisattvas are very few, and as to why, the treatise-author's closing stroke is very heavy: ‘The real mark of dharmas only the Buddha can know completely; the Buddha, knowing that this person can answer according to the Dharma, gives him the prediction in advance.’—The method of testing a person is set up among human beings, but the ground of the test lies in the Buddha's wisdom. And once such a person stands firm, then ‘this person's roots of goodness are clear and bright, and the gods and the people of the world cannot break them.’; and why they cannot be broken, sūtra and treatise return to a single sentence: ‘because the bodhisattva enters deeply into emptiness, his faculties are fierce and keen, surpassing those of the two vehicles.’ Training in emptiness without realising it is not stopping halfway through the training; it is training in emptiness until even emptiness is emptied out, and only then is there truly no ground underfoot onto which one could fall.

This chapter moves the place where the bodhisattva is tested into a dream. The Buddha says at the outset: ‘If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva even in a dream does not crave the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground, nor craves the three realms, and contemplates dharmas as like a dream, like an illusion, like an echo, like a mirage, like a transformation, and also does not realise them.’ Not craving and not taking realisation while awake can still be said to be kept by holding the mind on guard; in a dream, too, not craving and not taking realisation—there is no room left for guarding. The treatise-author says this plainly: ‘Because this bodhisattva constantly trains in emptiness by day, in his dreams by night too he does not crave the three realms.’ What is practised by day is emptiness; what appears at night is emptiness. And he adds a sentence that joins the two ends: ‘Because this bodhisattva's mind is firm and he enters deeply into emptiness and the mind of kindness and compassion, even in a dream he does not crave the three realms or the two vehicles—how much less when awake!’—Since it is so in a dream, waking need not be asked about again.

And the dream in this chapter is not merely a simile; it is itself the object contemplated. The bodhisattva dreams of armies rising, cities broken, fire breaking out, fierce beasts, of seeing someone come to cut off his head, of seeing his father, mother, and brothers die, and ‘is not startled, not terrified, nor grieved and vexed’; on waking he thinks: ‘The three realms are false; all are but like a dream! When I obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, I too shall teach beings that the three realms are like a dream.’ The sūtra itself passes the verdict: ‘This dream and all dharmas are without duality and without difference.’ The treatise-author follows it through: ‘Not dying and yet seeing death, not fearing and yet seeing fear—the whole of the three realms is like this; why only in a dream!’ The death in the dream is not a real death, and everything in the three realms is seen in the same way—the dream is not brought in to compare with the three realms; the dream is what the three realms look like.

Next comes the origin of this chapter's other name. The bodhisattva dreams that hell-fire is burning beings, and ‘makes this oath: “If I am really an avaivartika, may this fire go out!” and the fire goes out at once.’ On waking he remembers this mark, and by day, seeing fire break out in a city, he likewise makes the oath. The reason the treatise-author gives is only seven Chinese characters long: ‘because the Buddha has said that dream and waking are without difference.’ What is interesting is that the fire does not necessarily go out entirely—‘if the fire does not go out, it burns one house and leaves one house, burns one lane and leaves one lane’; the Buddha attributes the places not extinguished to the deeds of those who suffer them, ‘these beings are burned because in this life they suffer the remaining calamity of having broken the Dharma’, and yet the treatise-author still judges the oath to be a test: ‘by the power of the bodhisattva's oath it does not burn in sequence; only those of heavy sin are not saved; this does not hinder its being a mark of the avaivartika.’ The oath cannot overcome the deed, but that it cannot overcome the deed does not make it any less an oath. There is another kind of oath for driving off non-humans: the bodhisattva declares of himself in utmost sincerity, ‘I shall surely obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, not fail to obtain it’, and ‘by this oath of utmost sincerity … may this non-human go far away!’—If it goes, he is one who has received the prediction; if it does not go, he is one who has not yet received the prediction.

Yet this same matter is also the greatest trap in the chapter. There are bodhisattvas who have not practised the six perfections for long and have no power of skilful means, and who make the oath all the same; evil Māra by their side employs a means, and commands the non-human to withdraw; the bodhisattva does not know that it was Māra's power, ‘and by this empty oath, having no power of skilful means, gives rise to overweening pride’, and turns to despise other bodhisattvas: ‘I have already received the prediction from the buddhas; you have not yet obtained it.’ The treatise-author punctures it in one sentence: ‘This bodhisattva himself has no power as yet; because Māra came and sent the ghosts and spirits away, he presumes it to be his own power.’ Where he stands is the oath, and where he falls is the oath; the dividing line lies only in whether the power of skilful means is there or not.

A finer path still is Māra's telling of names. Māra takes on all kinds of bodies to tell you your clan, tell you your father, mother, and brothers, tell you your ancestors for seven generations; seeing that your nature is gentle he says, ‘in former lives you were gentle too’; seeing that you cultivate the araṇya he says, ‘in former lives you cultivated the araṇya practice too’; seeing that you practise the dhūta he praises the dhūta, and at the last pushes it to that one sentence: ‘You have such merit, such marks; you have really received from the buddhas the prediction of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ Yet the Buddha says behind it, with iron finality: ‘The conduct, kind, and appearance of the real avaivartika that I have taught, this person forever lacks!’ The treatise-author's gloss on this word ‘subtle’ is extremely fine: ‘As for subtle deeds of Māra, subtle means not going against his intent; following his own thoughts, it helps his mind along.’ Māra does not sing against you; Māra merely carries on from what you were already thinking. The sin of this move is also astonishingly heavy: the Buddha first compares it with the four grave prohibitions, ‘as when a bhikṣu, with regard to the four grave prohibitions, breaks any one of them, he is no śramaṇa, no son of the Śākya’, then says, ‘know that this sin is heavier than a bhikṣu's four prohibitions’, and not only that—‘setting aside this heavy sin, its sin exceeds the five heinous sins.’ Where does the weight lie? The false speech among the four prohibitions is to claim oneself an arhat; here it is to say of oneself, ‘I shall become a Buddha.’

Seclusion too can go wrong in the same way. Māra comes into the empty mountains to praise a person: ‘Good man! What you practise is the dharma of seclusion that the Buddha praises.’ The Buddha at once disowns it: ‘I do not praise this seclusion, namely merely being in empty and quiet mountains, marshes, and far-off places.’ The seclusion he approves refers to something else: ‘If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is secluded from the mind of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha, and dwells in empty and quiet mountains, marshes, and far-off places, this is the dharma of seclusion the Buddha approves.’ One whose mind has not left the two vehicles is still in the marketplace though he dwells a hundred yojanas away; and one who, clinging to the name of seclusion, despises the pure bhikṣus at the city's edge has turned it upside down, ‘taking clamour for non-clamour and non-clamour for clamour, not respecting what should be respected and respecting what should not be respected.’ The Buddha gives this kind of person a name: ‘know that this is called a bodhisattva caṇḍāla, who defiles the bodhisattvas.’ And he says, ‘this person resembles a bodhisattva, but is really a great thief among the gods above and the humans among people, and a thief in the garb of a śramaṇa.’ And the way of setting oneself right is only one sentence, which the bodhisattva says to himself: ‘I practise the bodhisattva path; I should not give rise to such faults and sins; if they arise, I shall quickly extinguish them!’

So the first half comes to rest on the good friend. On the side of persons, ‘the buddhas are the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's good friends’, and even the arhats count; on the side of dharmas, the six perfections and so on up to suchness, the limit of reality, and the nature of dharmas, and the sūtra praises them with twelve names in a row: ‘The six perfections are the World-Honored One; the six perfections are the path; the six perfections are the great light … the six perfections are father, are mother.’ The treatise-author's explanation of why dharmas too are called good friends has a reason simple almost to plainness: ‘Because dharmas can accomplish the matter, the six perfections and the other dharmas are said to be called good friends.’ What can bring the matter to accomplishment is the good friend, whether it be a person or a dharma.

Fascicle 77 takes it up, and the topic turns to another face: what is the mark of prajñā. The Buddha's answer is only one sentence: ‘The mark that is like space is the mark of prajñāpāramitā. Subhūti! Prajñāpāramitā is without the mark of anything existent.’ Subhūti at once objects: since all dharmas are separated from marks and are of the mark of emptiness, how are stain and purity to be spoken of? Who obtains the unsurpassed path? The Buddha does not go to argue that emptiness; instead he takes his evidence from birth and death: beings through the long night practise the mind of I and mine, and this mind too is separated from marks and of the mark of emptiness, yet ‘by this mind of I and mine, beings go and come within birth and death’—‘because beings go and come within birth and death, one knows that there are stain and vexation’; ‘if beings had no mind of I and mine, no clinging mind, these beings would not go and come within birth and death any more … thus, Subhūti, beings have purity.’ Stain and purity are set not on marks but on going and coming or not going and coming. The treatise-author pushes one layer further in: ‘because there is no self, the mind of what belongs to self is false and deceptive’, and so on downward, one falsehood after another; and conversely, contemplating with prajñā the five aggregates as empty of specific marks, ‘at that time the mind of I and mine ceases; as when the sun rises, all darkness is dispelled’—the darkness need not be chased; when the sun rises it is gone.

The last is the eye of this chapter. The Buddha asks four questions in a row, and Subhūti answers with four noes in a row: does he see a dharma that practises prajñā? No. Does he see a place where prajñā can be practised? No. Is the dharma that he does not see findable? No. Should the unfindable dharma arise? No. Only when the four rounds have stripped everything away does the Buddha set the name: ‘This is called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas.’ Even the prediction is stripped in the same way: is the prediction obtained in the mark of non-arising? In the mark of arising? In the mark of neither arising nor non-arising? No, in every case; and Subhūti says of himself: ‘I see no dharma that obtains the prediction of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, nor do I see any dharma that has one who obtains it or a place of obtaining.’ At the last the treatise-author explains why the Buddha says no at both ends—not that there is no prediction to be received, but that the questioner comes with a clinging mind: ‘The practitioner really receives the prediction by the acceptance of non-arising, but Subhūti, for the sake of the bodhisattvas, asks with a clinging mind and a mind of attaining, and therefore it is said, “no”.’ He cites an old matter as witness: someone asked the Buddha whether there is a self, and the Buddha was silent; asked whether there is no self, the Buddha did not answer either, because that person came with a clinging mind to make sport of non-self. Answering or not answering is tied to the questioner's mind, not to whether the dharma exists or not.

The treatise-author leaves the most concrete comparison of all for the acceptance of non-arising: ‘Before obtaining the dharma of the acceptance of non-arising, effort is arduous, as in travelling by land; having obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, effort is very easy, as in riding a boat.’ The same road; the difference between having obtained the acceptance and not having obtained it lies only in the effort. And when Subhūti has heard that even the one who receives the prediction is empty, ‘the feeling of difficulty then ceases; he understands of himself and has no doubt.’ From not taking realisation in a dream to the prediction accomplished without seeing any prediction, this chapter walks in fact along one and the same principle: not retrogressing is not standing firm; it is not taking even the place where one would stand; and the oaths and vows still stand there, sentence by sentence, not annulled because of emptiness.

This chapter opens on a sentence that is a pair of scales. Śakra says to the Buddha that one who receives and upholds the deep prajñā, ‘not mixed with other minds and mental-factor dharmas, has not come from small merit.’—the measure of merit lies not in how much has been done but in whether the mind is mixed or not. The Buddha approves his words, and at once presses down with a weighing that is utterly lopsided: were the beings of Jambudvīpa all to accomplish the ten wholesome paths, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions, then compared with one who receives and upholds the deep prajñā and practises as taught, it is still ‘a hundredfold, a thousandfold, ten million koṭi-fold, and so on up to being beyond the reach of calculation and simile.’ The treatise-author explains this lopsidedness: ‘Though this merit is much, because it is apart from the real mark of all dharmas it is false, not firm, impermanent, exhausted, and ceasing, and does not count as much’, ‘as blades of grass, though many, are not equal to one small vajra.’—Much and heavy were never one matter; grass can be heaped up, a vajra need not be heaped. As for what counts as ‘mixed’, the treatise-author sets out the accounts of four schools, each layer deeper than the last: the evil minds of stinginess, greed, and the rest that break the six perfections are mixed; when an evil mind comes, it is not allowed to grow and gain strength—when it comes it is extinguished; the mind of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha is not allowed to enter; and the last layer says it most thoroughly—‘the indeterminate and scattered mind, though not evil, because it blocks the wholesome path is also not allowed to enter.’ Even the mind that is not evil counts as mixed, because the measure never lay in good and evil; it lies in whether it has blocked the road of prajñā.

Next comes an interlude full of human feeling. A bhikṣu seated in the assembly suddenly says to Śakra: ‘The merit of this good man or good woman who practises prajñāpāramitā surpasses yours, sir!’—saying to his face that he is not the equal of another. Śakra is not only not vexed; he takes up the words and makes them heavier still: ‘This good man or good woman with a single arousing of the mind surpasses me, how much more on hearing this prajñāpāramitā …’; he surpasses not only me, he also surpasses all the gods, humans, and asuras of the world, also surpasses the srota-āpanna and so on up to the pratyekabuddha, also surpasses the one who practises the five perfections and is far from prajñā, and so on up to ‘also surpasses the bodhisattva who practises prajñāpāramitā without the power of skilful means.’ The treatise-author says on Śakra's behalf why he can bear it: ‘Śakra's reward of merit is slight and thin; this bodhisattva's merit is pure and thick.’—Śakra's merit is for his own person; the bodhisattva's meritorious virtue is dedicated, for the sake of all beings, to the Buddha path. And the reason he has to say it once more, and at greater length, is that ‘the listeners in the assembly at the time, hearing the bhikṣu say “surpasses yours, sir” and Śakra accept his words, all gave rise to a mind that slighted Śakra.’—he feared that the great assembly would on this account slight the lord of the gods, and so he himself said the words out in full. The whole chapter speaks of how practitioners are to treat one another, and this passage first gives a living pattern of it.

The proper theme of the chapter begins from Māra. When the bodhisattva trains in the deep prajñā, the evil Māras in the three-thousand great-thousand world ‘all give rise to doubt and suspicion’; and when the bodhisattva does not part from prajñā, ‘Māra is greatly grieved and pained, as though an arrow had entered his heart.’—the reason this chapter is also named Māra's Grief lies in this one sentence. Māra does not grieve over one who practises the ten wholesome paths, does not grieve over one who practises the five perfections and is far from prajñā, does not grieve over one who practises prajñā without the power of skilful means; Māra's grief has a most exact point of landing, and so, once Māra grieves, this becomes for the practitioner the confirmation that costs the least effort. What Māra seeks is also very small: he lets loose great fire and wind, rising in all four directions, only ‘wishing to make the bodhisattva's mind sink, be terrified, and grow lazy, and within sarvajñā give rise to even a single disordered thought.’ Ānanda thereupon asks: does Māra trouble and disorder all bodhisattvas, or are there also those he does not trouble and disorder? The Buddha answers very briefly: ‘There are those he troubles, and there are those he does not trouble.’—This one sentence turns the whole passage from fear into diagnosis.

Which bodhisattvas are troubled by evil Māra? The Buddha lists nine matters, and among the nine matters not one is a ghost or spirit showing its form: in a former life he heard the deep prajñā and did not have faith and understanding; hearing it taught, his mind doubts, ‘is it really existent? is it really non-existent?’; being far from the good friend and taken in by the evil friend, he does not hear, does not know, does not see, does not ask; being far from prajñā, he takes up evil dharmas; he says to others, ‘This prajñāpāramitā is very deep; even I cannot reach its bottom; what use is it for you to hear and to train in this prajñāpāramitā?’; he slights other bodhisattvas, saying, ‘I practise prajñāpāramitā, I practise the emptiness of seclusion; you have no such merit.’; presuming on his name and clan and on being known to many people, he slights other bodhisattvas who practise the good; one who practises the bodhisattva path fights and contends with the household of those who seek the śrāvaka path; bodhisattva fights and contends with bodhisattva, with hatred and abuse. Of the nine matters, the greater part falls on words between those of the same path—the ‘opening’ that Māra finds is that little crack between practitioner and practitioner. And what Māra does once he has found his opening the sūtra writes down very concretely: ‘Now my domain and palaces will not be empty, and the three evil destinies are increased.’, ‘The retinue and palaces of Māra grow more numerous.’—contending together is not only a loss of virtue; it is building houses for Māra.

Ānanda asks more concretely still: such an evil mind must pass through that many kalpas; is there a way out in between? The Buddha's way of answering first closes and then opens. Of the one who holds his resentment, does not repent, and does not let go, ‘I do not say there is a way out; he must surely pass again through that number of kalpas’—the treatise-author explains why it is cut off so decisively: ‘Because he holds resentment, though he makes other merit, none of it is pure; because it is not pure it has no strength; because it has no strength it cannot extinguish the sin.’ To think of taking merit from elsewhere to offset the hatred here—it cannot be offset. The road that is opened is also only one: ‘One who does not abandon omniscience and with a lowly intent repents makes up that number of kalpas, and only then arouses the great adornment.’ The two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘lowly intent’ are the eye of this passage, and the sūtra says it more fully: ‘I should bear all beings treading upon me as upon a bridge, as one deaf, as one dumb; how could I answer people with evil words?’—It is not pressing the hatred down; it is setting oneself in the position of the bridge.

At the last, Ānanda asks the question that is the title of this chapter: ‘How do bodhisattva and bodhisattva dwell together?’ The Buddha answers with only one sentence: ‘Bodhisattva and bodhisattva dwelling together should look on one another as on the World-Honored One.’ How can they look on one another so? ‘This is my true companion, riding together in one boat; what he trains in I train in, namely dānapāramitā and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds.’ The treatise-author takes this simile apart and matches it: ‘The boat is the six perfections; the three realms and the three outflows are the water; the further shore is the Buddha path.’—Of those who ride together in one boat, his training is my training, and so there is nothing to slight; and the boat has not yet reached the shore, and so there is nothing to presume upon either. Yet training alike is not going along with everything: ‘If this bodhisattva practises mixedly and parts from the mind of sarvajñā, I should not train in that way’, and the treatise-author settles it in one sentence—‘In excellent matters one should train after the other; evil matters should be abandoned.’ What is alike is the mind of sarvajñā, not every act and movement. The whole chapter closes on one sentence of cause and effect: ‘If the bodhisattva trains in this way, the matters of slighting and hatred all cease; this then is called the bodhisattvas' training alike.’ Of the nine deeds of Māra counted out above, the greater part are slighting and hatred; once the dharma of training alike is set up, the deeds of Māra dissolve of themselves. The two names, Māra's Grief and Training Alike, here join into one matter.

This chapter starts from a very short question. Subhūti asks: ‘What is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's dharma of equality, in which the bodhisattva should train?’—what is the bodhisattva's ‘dharma of equality’, the one in which the bodhisattva ought to train? The Buddha's answer adds not one new heading; it simply brings the eighteen emptinesses over: ‘Inner emptiness is the bodhisattva's dharma of equality; outer emptiness and so on up to the emptiness of specific marks is the bodhisattva's dharma of equality.’ And at once he gathers the words into one sentence: ‘This is called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's dharma of equality. Abiding in this dharma of equality, he obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ What is called ‘equal’ is not looking on the ten thousand dharmas as of one appearance; it is that dharmas each have their differences, and once emptiness shines on them they are level. The treatise-author, fearing that people will take ‘equal’ for a thing that can be laid hold of, first brings a scale for comparison: ‘As the two ends of a scale come to rest level, so inner emptiness and the other emptinesses are equal among all dharmas.’ The two ends of a scale have light and heavy to begin with; what is called coming to rest level is not planing the two ends flat, it is that light and heavy match; and he adds one more sentence to explain how it is made level: ‘As inner dharmas have all kinds of differences, on obtaining inner emptiness they are all equal and without dharmas’. The differences need not first be removed; once emptiness shines, the differences level of themselves.

The second question is asked more finely: to train for the sake of the exhaustion of form, to train for the sake of the separation of form, to train for the sake of the cessation of form, to train for the sake of the non-arising of form—does this count as training in sarvajñā or not? The Buddha first approves his question—‘As Subhūti has said, to train for the sake of the exhaustion, separation, cessation, and non-arising of form is to train in sarvajñā’; and having approved, he at once blocks the road with a counter-question: ‘Are these suchnesses exhausted, ceased, severed, or not?’ Subhūti can only answer: ‘No, World-Honored One!’ Thereupon the Buddha brings out the tightest sentence of the whole chapter: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva who trains in suchness in this way trains in sarvajñā. This suchness is not realised, does not cease, is not severed.’ The treatise-author makes this turn plain: ‘This suchness from the beginning has not been gathered, has not come together; how could there be exhaustion? From the beginning it has not arisen; how could there be cessation?’, ‘This dharma from the beginning is false and deceptive and has no fixed mark; how could it be severed?’ So the exhaustion, separation, and severing spoken of before are all only counteractions—‘This suchness is permanent, cannot be realised, cannot be made to cease, cannot be severed; this exhaustion, separation, and severing are practised in order to remove the inversions; they are not the ultimate.’ Removing the inversions is a means, not the end-point; having arrived at ‘suchness’, even the single thought that is just then doing the removing has to be put down.

Next the Buddha sets out ‘training in this way’ all along the line: training in this way, Māra and the gods of Māra cannot break him; training in this way, he goes straight to the ground of the avaivartika; training in this way is training in the path the Buddha practises, is training in great kindness and great compassion, is training in purifying buddha-worlds and bringing beings to accomplishment, is training in delivering beings, is training in not cutting off the seed of the Buddha, is training in opening the gate of ambrosia, all the way to ‘training in this way is training in wishing to show the unconditioned nature.’ In the treatise-author's hands this long string is joined into one chain of cause and effect: ‘He can give rise to great kindness and great compassion; because of great kindness and great compassion he can teach and transform beings; because beings' minds are pure, the Buddha's realm is pure’, ‘because he delivers beings by the Great Vehicle, he does not cut off the seed of the Buddha; because he does not cut off the seed of the Buddha, in the world he constantly opens the Dharma-gate of ambrosia and constantly shows beings the unconditioned nature.’ At the end he takes apart the heading that is hardest to understand and shows it to people: ‘The unconditioned nature is what is called suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality, nirvāṇa. Ambrosia is the unconditioned nature; the gate is the three gates of liberation.’ And the pivot phrase of the whole passage is the four Chinese characters rendered here as ‘exhausts the limits of all training’—in the entire treatise these four Chinese characters appear only in this chapter. It does not say that the training is finished; it says that the training has gone until no limit is left over: on one side, ‘If he trains in sarvajñā, this is training in the six perfections and the rest; if he can train in the six perfections and the rest, this is exhausting the limits of all training.’, on the other side, ‘Because he obtains this merit, of all beings of the three times and the ten directions he can know completely their minds and mental-factor dharmas, and the causes and conditions of the various deeds to which the workings of their minds give rise’. The former speaks of the wholeness of the training, the latter of the function of the training.

Then the Buddha states a fact that is not pleasant to hear: those who can train in this way are very few. ‘As on the great earth, few are the places that yield gold, silver, and precious things’, ‘few are the people who can train in prajñāpāramitā; most fall to the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground.’; and turning it another way he says: ‘As few are the people who take up and practise the work of a wheel-turning sage king, and most take up and practise the work of a minor king’, where what is pointed to is ‘few practise as taught; most abide in the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground’. The purpose of the two similes lies not in reproaching the many but in telling the practitioner: rarity has always been the normal state—gold and silver have always come only from few places; the work of the wheel-turning king has always been taken up by few. The treatise-author closes more bluntly: ‘Few can train in this way; such a person is hard to find!’ Set against this are the three ways in which the so-called inferior person settles himself: my own body and my kin are what I ought to protect; ‘beings are immeasurable and boundless and cannot be delivered to the last; if they could be delivered to the last, they would be measurable and bounded, and a single Buddha could deliver them all.’; ‘the Buddha says all dharmas are empty, not arising and not ceasing; what then is there for me to deliver? Seeking the Buddha path and not seeking the Buddha path are alike like an illusion and a dream.’ The treatise-author settles it in one sentence: ‘This is what inferior people say; how is it worth taking as proof?’ and points to the root of the illness—‘All are included within the sixty-two wrong views.’ The pattern of the great person is only one sentence: ‘As a great person gives wealth to others simply with a giving mind and does not take a price.’ The reverse is ‘as a petty person trades in the market, and gives only when he seeks a profit.’ The division between the inferior and the great person never lay in the size of ability; it lies in whether there is anything sought in the mind.

In the same passage there is also hidden a matter not easy to accept: ‘does not take in evil people and those who break the precepts’. Someone raises the difficulty—the bodhisattva appeared in the world precisely in order to deliver evil people, ‘as a good physician cures the various illnesses’; why on the contrary does he not take in evil people? The treatise-author's way of answering is not to change the words but to distinguish: ‘Of evil people and those who break the precepts, there are those who can be transformed and those who cannot be transformed; here only those who cannot be transformed are spoken of.’ To force the taking in of one who cannot be transformed is ‘as in rescuing the drowning: one who cannot himself float and yet wishes to bring the other across—neither of the two escapes.’ The simile of the good physician stands on being able to cure; the simile of rescuing the drowning stands on not yet being able to float; which of the two similes prevails lies not in the similes themselves but in the practitioner's own weight. So this is not teaching people to pick and choose; it is teaching people first to measure themselves.

The whole chapter closes in a harder place still. At the end of the sūtra three kinds of ‘having this thought’ come out: the first is ‘This is prajñāpāramitā; by this prajñāpāramitā I obtain the omniscience of all kinds.’—the Buddha rules directly, ‘If he has such a thought, it is not called practising prajñāpāramitā.’; the second is not having such a thought, which is called practising prajñā; and yet there is even a third—‘There is no such prajñāpāramitā; no person has this prajñāpāramitā’ is also called practising prajñā, the reason being ‘because all dharmas constantly abide in suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality.’ The treatise-author himself sets the question: ‘Having this thought and not having this thought—the matter is already exhausted; why is there further a third statement?’ and himself answers in two layers: ‘The first is the mark of wrong practice; the second blocks wrong practice; the mark of right practice has not yet been spoken, and therefore the third speaks the mark of right practice.’, ‘Again, the first is a clinging mind grasping at marks; the second refutes this mark of clinging but does not say what the marks of dharmas are; in the third, wrong clinging is refuted and the real mark is also spoken.’ Why does the first thought already count as wrong? The treatise-author dissects it most finely: ‘The coming together of the five aggregates is provisionally named bodhisattva; the bodhisattva, following after the provisional name, reckons it to be a self, and by this prajñā has something that is done.’, ‘prajñā is the mark of non-clinging, and yet this person says that a prajñā possessed of marks is the highest meaning’, ‘prajñā is the mark of non-action, and yet this person wishes to use prajñā to have something done’—prajñā is by origin without clinging and without action, and yet the person insists on taking it to ‘have something done’, and the ‘self’ within that single thought is set up once more. So the last sentence is spoken most lightly: ‘In all places he does not display the mark of prajñāpāramitā’, ‘he only knows that all dharmas constantly abide in suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality, and within suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality he does not contend.’ The two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘does not contend’ are the knot of the whole chapter. The equality of Equal Training, when the training reaches its end, is not levelling out some thing; it is that not even the mind to dispute one sentence with emptiness remains—the treatise-author, already in the earlier passage, set the definition of prajñā here: ‘Penetrating, not contending with emptiness: this is called prajñāpāramitā.’

The title of this chapter is a state of feeling that is seldom singled out and held up by itself. Śakra, seated in the assembly, suddenly has this thought: when the bodhisattva practises the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, he has already ‘gone above all beings’, how much more when he becomes a Buddha; and those who hear of omniscience and give rise to faith have already ‘obtained the good benefit among humans and the foremost among lives’, how much more one who can truly arouse the mind. So he speaks out the eye of the whole chapter's title—‘When these beings are able to arouse the intent of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, the remaining beings should aspire to it and delight in it.’ Aspiration and delight is not envy, nor is it calling a thing good with a passing word; it is that share of gladness and willingness which arises in the mind on seeing another set out upon this road. The treatise-author takes ‘the good benefit’ apart into four accounts—the six perfections are the benefit, the retribution of the six perfections is the benefit, obtaining non-retrogression is the benefit, abiding in the supernormal powers of retribution and everywhere making offerings in the ten directions and teaching and transforming beings is the benefit; and he takes ‘the foremost among lives’ apart into two kinds of life—‘first, the life-faculty; second, the life of wisdom.’ What is called foremost lies not in the length of the life-faculty but in whether there is the life of wisdom.

Next Śakra scatters heavenly flowers over the Buddha and turns this aspiration and delight into a vow: ‘By this merit, if there are those who seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, may these people be fully endowed with the dharmas of a Buddha … if they seek to be śrāvakas, may they be fully endowed with the dharmas of a śrāvaka.’ He further states of himself a sentence of great weight—though he has himself already obtained the śrāvaka path, he ‘never gives rise to a single thought to make them turn back’, has never had a single thought of pulling the bodhisattva back to the two vehicles. Here the treatise-author sets a question: sin and merit cannot be given to others, and even if one wished to give them one could not; why does Śakra say ‘by this merit may those who seek the Buddha path be fully endowed with the dharmas of a Buddha’? The answer is very plain: ‘Though it cannot be given to others, yet one makes one's own mind good.’—the first to benefit from dedication is one's own mind; and Śakra's speaking in this way also shows precisely that toward merit he has nothing he clings to.

Then comes the most shaking weighing of the whole chapter. Śakra asks: giving rise to the mind of rejoicing toward the meritorious virtue of the bodhisattvas of the four stages—the one who has first aroused intent, the one who has long aroused intent, the non-retrogressing, and the one bound to buddhahood in one more birth—how much merit does one obtain for each? The Buddha answers in three layers: the four continents can be weighed and their weight known, the three-thousand great-thousand world can be weighed and its weight known, but the merit of the mind of rejoicing cannot be weighed; and at the third layer he presses one step further—‘Were the three-thousand great-thousand world filled with sea-water, and one took a single hair and split it into a hundred parts, and with one part of the hair drew up the sea-water drop by drop, the number of drops could be known; the merit of this mind of rejoicing cannot be known by number.’ Split one hair into a hundred parts, and with one of those parts dip into the sea-water, taking it thus drop by drop—the number of drops can even so still be counted; what can be counted is, of all things, the great sea, and what cannot be counted is, of all things, a single thought of rejoicing. The treatise-author explains why it is so great: ‘This merit is immeasurable and boundless, because it is planted in an immeasurable and boundless field’—the measure of the merit does not hang on the strength of the mind that plants; it hangs on the field that is planted; what is rejoiced in is the immeasurable bodhisattvas from the first arousing of the mind up to the one bound to buddhahood, and so the merit too is immeasurable. And within this there are still grades: ‘Though the virtue of rejoicing is immeasurable and boundless, toward those who are near the Buddha path the merit of rejoicing is greater still.’

Śakra thereupon speaks a sentence that is almost like a verdict: ‘If beings' minds do not rejoice in anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, they are all Māra's retinue’. The treatise-author finds the causes and conditions for this sentence, and his tone on the contrary slows: ‘Being in Māra's domain, because they have accumulated evil minds they do not rejoice.’—not rejoicing is not a moment's coldness; it is a habitual residue laid down over long years; to see a person practise the path and be unable to raise gladness in the mind is itself the testing mark of Māra's domain. Conversely, ‘the mind of rejoicing can break Māra's realm.’ So for the person who wishes to love and revere the Three Jewels and not abandon them, the place to apply effort is nowhere else; it is in the five Chinese characters rendered here as ‘should give rise to the mind of rejoicing’. The Buddha approves his words, and speaks the retribution of rejoicing—‘Because this person constantly recollects the merits of the buddhas of the ten directions and rejoices, he quickly obtains the sight of the buddhas.’ Rejoicing is in truth a direction of memory: the person who constantly remembers the merits of the buddhas is naturally near to the Buddha.

But if rejoicing stops at a single thought of gladness, it is still something attained. So the sūtra goes on at once to give a mark that falls to neither side: after rejoicing one should dedicate to unsurpassed awakening, ‘by the mark of neither one nor two’, and moreover this dedication is ‘not mind, and not apart from mind’. The treatise-author sorts this out most finely: ‘he does not see that dharmas have any one fixed mark that does not belong to causes and conditions’, and so it is said to be not one—not one refutes its fixedness; ‘he does not discriminate between the mind of rejoicing and the mind of dedication’, and so it is said to be not two—not two refutes its separateness. And the whole is held in one sentence only: ‘within the real mark the mind is unfindable’, and so it is said, ‘not mind, and also not apart from mind’. This step is the most perilous place in the whole chapter: say that it is mind, and the dedication becomes something attained; say that it is apart from mind, and there is no one who is able to dedicate.

It is from here that Subhūti presses the words to the bottom. He asks nothing else, only: ‘This mind is like an illusion; how can it obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?’ The Buddha asks him in return whether he sees this mind that is like an illusion, and he answers, ‘No, World-Honored One! I do not see the illusion, nor do I see the mind that is like an illusion.’; the Buddha asks again whether, apart from illusion and apart from mind, there is some other dharma that can obtain awakening, and he still answers that he does not see it, and draws out a dilemma: prajñā is ultimately separated, awakening too is ultimately separated, ‘within two separations how can there be anything attained?’ The treatise-author says this difficulty out in full with one gesture—‘As when one touches space with a finger: because space has no contact the finger cannot touch it; how much less when both have no contact!’ When one side has nothing that can be touched, touching already fails; when both sides have nothing that can be touched, what talk is there of touching?

The Buddha's answer does not retreat one step; on the contrary it pushes ‘separation’ more thoroughly still: ‘Excellent! Excellent! This prajñāpāramitā is ultimately separated’, and precisely because it is ultimately separated it can obtain awakening; ‘it is not that anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is obtained not because of prajñāpāramitā, nor is it that by separation one obtains separation, and yet anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is obtained’. The treatise-author makes for this sentence a string of proofs from the contrary: if there were one dharma that definitely had a real mark and was not empty, it would be a permanent dharma and would not arise; not arising, it would not cease; without arising and ceasing there are no four truths, ‘if there are no four truths then there is no Dharma Jewel’; without the Dharma Jewel there is no awakening, no Buddha Jewel, no Saṅgha Jewel, and so on up to ‘if there are no Three Jewels then there are no dharmas at all’—the person who holds to a fixed mark on the contrary makes it that no dharma whatever can stand; therefore ‘with the mark of ultimate separation, one penetrates without obstruction.’ And the treatise-author, still fearing that people will take ‘separation’ for a place in which one can abide, pushes one layer further: ‘If ultimate separation is spoken of, know that it is also separated from emptiness; if it is not separated from emptiness, it is not called ultimate separation.’

After that there is a most interesting passage in which master and disciple differ. The Buddha says that the bodhisattva ‘is able to do what is hard’, able to practise a meaning so very deep and not realise the two vehicles; Subhūti, however, says, ‘As I have heard the meaning from the Buddha, what the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises is not hard’—since there is no very deep meaning to be realised, no prajñā to be obtained, and no one who realises, from where would the hardness come? The treatise-author does not harmonise them and does not rule on higher and lower; he only points out that the truths on which the two stand are not the same: ‘The Buddha speaks by reason of worldly truth; Subhūti speaks by reason of the truth of the highest meaning.’ Moreover, the reason the Buddha says it is hard is for the sake of beings: ‘There are people who, hearing of a hard matter, arouse the mind, and so the hard matter is spoken of; there are people who, hearing of a hard matter, give up and retreat, and so it is said there is no hardness.’—hard and not hard are neither of them descriptions of fact; they are gestures of receiving and guiding.

The whole chapter closes on ‘non-discrimination’, and this meaning Subhūti, receiving what the Buddha has said, draws out with six similes: space does not think of far and near; the illusory person does not think of which is nearer, the conjurer or the onlookers; the image in a mirror does not think of which is nearer of those on which it depends; the Buddha has no love and no hate, ‘all discriminating notions are severed, because of ultimate emptiness’; the person conjured by the Buddha is without discrimination and yet has something he does; the wooden puppet made by the craftsman—‘this that is made can also have something it does, and this too is without discrimination’. Of the six similes, the first three make clear non-discrimination, and the last three make clear being without discrimination and yet still able to accomplish a matter—the treatise-author points out the intent of setting the similes: ‘Here the similes of space and the rest are spoken; these similes are for the sake of making clear the meaning of ultimate emptiness.’, ‘and so on up to: like the wooden puppet, whatever matter it is made to do, it can accomplish it all.’ Śāriputra thereupon presses the question: if all dharmas are without discrimination, from where do the differences of the six destinies and the four fruits come? Subhūti's answer does not cancel the differences; it only puts the differences back in the position where they belong: ‘Because of the causes and conditions of beings' inversions, they perform deeds of body, speech, and mind, and according to the retribution of the original deeds of their desire they receive the bodies of the six destinies’, and the fruits of the worthies and sages too ‘exist because of non-discrimination’, and so on up to ‘the buddhas of the past too exist because of non-discrimination, because discrimination is severed.’ The treatise-author gathers it in with one more simile: ‘As the four rivers, before they have met the great sea, have separate names, and once they have entered the great sea are without difference’—the separate names belong to the time before entering the sea, not to the water's own substance; ‘within the truth of worldly convention there are differences; in the truth of the highest meaning there is no discrimination.’

And so the last sentence of the whole chapter sets all three layers—cause, practice, and fruit—down on the same word: ‘In this way the bodhisattva-mahāsattva should practise the prajñāpāramitā of non-discrimination; having practised the prajñāpāramitā of non-discrimination, he then obtains the anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi of non-discrimination.’ It rises from Śakra's single thought of aspiration and delight and closes on the awakening of non-discrimination—the place where it rises is very near to human feeling: no more than seeing a person arouse the mind and gladness arising in one's own mind; the place where it closes is very far from words: even the one who obtains and what is obtained cannot be discriminated. And in between there is no break. For this the treatise-author also tells a story: an arhat of the six supernormal powers was travelling on the road with a śrāmaṇera, and the śrāmaṇera carried his robe and bowl for him. On the road the śrāmaṇera suddenly aroused the mind to enter nirvāṇa by the Buddha vehicle; the master knew it, at once took over the robe and bowl and shouldered them himself, and had the śrāmaṇera walk in front; the śrāmaṇera, on second thought, again felt the Buddha path too hard and wished to take the Small Vehicle, and the master again handed the robe and bowl back to him and ordered him to walk behind. So it went three times. The śrāmaṇera at last understood, and said: ‘My master can know my mind! With a single arousing of intent I have already surpassed the arhat, how much more on accomplishing it!’—the proof of who surpasses whom lies not in words; it lies in the arhat's own willingness to shoulder that bundle. And what the śrāmaṇera obtained was not pride either; it was ‘at once he firmly abided of himself in the Dharma of the Great Vehicle’. The treatise-author then at once reins in this word ‘surpass’, so that people will not misread it: ‘The name surpassing need not be surpassing in all matters’, ‘as, speaking in terms of flying, the bird surpasses the human.’ What surpasses is only that single thought of arousing the mind; meditative concentration, liberation, and the rest he does not yet have. The chapter Aspiration and Delight rises from seeing another's good and gladness arising in the mind, and ends where even ‘good’ and ‘gladness’ cannot be discriminated; and that single thought of gladness is from beginning to end never negated.

This chapter opens on a question that is very easily let pass lightly. Śāriputra asks Subhūti: when the bodhisattva practises prajñā, is it ‘practising a true and real dharma, or practising a dharma without true reality?’ Subhūti answers without the least hesitation: ‘It is practising a dharma without true reality.’ The reason lies not in the person who practises but in prajñā itself—‘Because this prajñāpāramitā is without true reality, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds is without true reality.’ And so on up to ‘what is without true reality is unfindable, how much less the true and real!’ The treatise-author, fearing that people will set up ‘without true reality’ once more as a really existing thing, first glosses the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘true and real’ clearly: ‘A true and real dharma is settled and certain and does not change; this is what can be taken hold of and can be clung to; if it is not true and real, it is false and deceptive, lying speech.’ And he gathers it in by the two truths: ‘By reason of worldly truth the true and real is spoken of; within the highest meaning the true and real is unfindable, how much less the not true and real!’—Even ‘not true and real’ is unfindable; if this layer is not supplied, the preceding sentence at once turns into a new place of clinging.

Next, the word ‘hard’ is moved from its position. The gods of the desire realm and the form realm, seeing that the bodhisattva within the equal dharma does not realise the limit of reality and does not fall to the ground of the two vehicles, feel that this is already extremely hard and that they should bow to him; Subhūti, however, says that this does not count as hard: ‘That the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas within the dharma of equality do not realise the śrāvaka ground or the pratyekabuddha ground is not hard.’ What is truly hard is another matter—‘To know that beings are ultimately unfindable and yet to deliver beings: this indeed is hard!’ He speaks of this matter in a way that comes near to the absurd: ‘This person's wishing to deliver beings is like wishing to deliver space.’ Space is separated, space is empty, space is without firmness, space is false and deceptive, and beings are likewise; to make the vow to deliver such beings is the same as ‘wishing to fight together with space.’ For this ‘one hard, one not hard’ the treatise-author brings out the measure: ‘Beings, because they are false and deceptive provisional names, are a place that is clung to; the equal dharma, because it is unconditioned, is not a place that is clung to.’ Therefore ‘to be able not to cling at the place of inverted clinging is hard; not to cling at the place where there is no clinging is not hard.’—Hard and easy were never settled by the depth of the object; they are settled by whether it is a place of clinging or not a place of clinging. In the three editions, the Song, the Palace, and the Ming, this chapter is titled "Delivering Space", and what that title takes is precisely this passage.

To hear such words and have a mind that is not startled—only that is the testing place of practising prajñā, and this test has two layers. The sūtra first says that on hearing that beings are separated from marks he is not startled, and next says that on hearing that all dharmas are separated from marks ‘his mind is not startled, does not sink, is not terrified, is not afraid’. The treatise-author opens up the seam between these two layers: ‘If beings were empty and dharmas were not empty, there would have to be terror and fear; if dharmas too are empty, there is no place for terror and fear to arise.’—Terror and fear must after all have some place in which one can be terrified; if dharmas too are empty, not even that place remains. So the closing words say: ‘Above, because he heard of the emptiness of beings he was not afraid; now, because he hears of the emptiness of dharmas he is not afraid.’ ‘If on hearing of these two emptinesses he is not afraid, this is truly practising prajñā.’ As to how not being startled is possible, the treatise-author gives a very homely simile: ‘As a tamed horse, seeing its own shadow, is not startled.’ Why is it not startled? ‘Because it knows of itself that the shadow comes out of its body.’—What people fear was never emptiness; it is taking the shadow they themselves cast for something that has come from outside.

The latter half of the chapter turns to the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘extolling’. The Buddha says that when the bodhisattva accomplishes two dharmas Māra cannot break him: ‘He contemplates all dharmas as empty, and he does not abandon any being.’ The treatise-author first speaks of the fault of leaning to one side: ‘If he only has the mind of pity and has no wisdom, then his mind sinks into the inversion of there being beings where there are no beings; if he only has the mind of emptiness and abandons the mind of pitying and delivering beings, then he falls into annihilation.’ Then he says how the two can be held together—the key lies in that emptiness too must be emptied: ‘He contemplates all dharmas as empty, and because emptiness too is empty he does not cling to emptiness; therefore it does not hinder pitying beings’, and at the end he gathers it in with one simile: ‘By the causes and conditions of the sun and the moon, the ten thousand things are moistened and grow. With only the moon and no sun, the ten thousand things would be wet and ruined; with only the sun and no moon, the ten thousand things would be scorched and spoiled.’ ‘As the sun and moon need one another.’—Emptiness and compassion are not two different things added together; they need one another, and only then does each stand. The other pair of two dharmas lands more concretely still: ‘What he does is as what he says, and he is also kept in mind by the buddhas.’ When words and conduct do not match, then ‘the five kinds of vajra-holding spirits abandon him and no longer guard him, and evil ghosts find an opening’; when he is not kept in mind by the Buddha, his roots of goodness rot of themselves—‘as fish-roe, when the mother does not keep them in mind, rot and are ruined and do not come to life.’

Thereupon, when the buddhas teach the Dharma in the great assembly, they ‘themselves praise and extol the name and clan of this bodhisattva-mahāsattva’, as Śākyamuni himself extols the bodhisattva Jewel Mark and the bodhisattva Śikhin. Subhūti presses the question: just which rank of bodhisattva is it? The Buddha first answers the avaivartika; Subhūti asks again, and the Buddha's answer, however, is layer by layer lower, and at the last comes down upon the person who ‘has faith in and understands that all dharmas are non-arising, and has not yet obtained the dharma of the acceptance of non-arising’. The treatise-author explains on behalf of this low place the reason for its rarity: ‘This person has gone out from the compliant acceptance of dharmas and has not yet obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, has gone out from the dharma of ordinary people and has not yet entered the dharma of the sages, and yet can believe and accept the dharma of the sages, like a person who has obtained the dharma of the sages; therefore he is rare.’—He is already no longer an ordinary person and is not yet a sage, and stands exactly in that middle which has the least to go upon; the Buddha's extolling first reaches those already accomplished, and then with one ‘again’ is pushed to here—even the person who has not yet obtained the acceptance of non-arising and yet can have faith and understanding is among them. And why the Buddha should extol, the treatise-author says most plainly: the buddhas by origin ‘do not discriminate wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, and look upon arhats and those of the outside paths also without hate or love’; their praise and disparagement are only for one matter—‘wishing to make beings rely on and attach themselves to good people, their minds following wholesome dharmas, so as to have them go out from the world.’ As to why those two alone are raised and not Samantabhadra and Avalokiteśvara, the treatise-author does not evade it either, and brings out three explanations, of which the plainest is the third: ‘The merits of the bodhisattvas Samantabhadra, Avalokiteśvara, and the rest are extremely great, and people all know them; these two bodhisattvas people do not yet know, and therefore they are extolled.’ The function of extolling lies in supplying what people do not know, not in adding flowers to brocade.

The gathering-in at the end of the chapter rests on a simile of bow and arrow. Subhūti teaches the Dharma without obstruction, and Śakra Devānām Indra praises him, saying: ‘It is only for the matter of emptiness, with nothing that hangs or obstructs. As when one shoots upward into space, the arrow goes without obstruction …’ The treatise-author takes this simile apart limb by limb and matches it: ‘Space is ultimate emptiness; the arrow is Subhūti's wisdom.’ The arrow is shot toward space, and so there is no obstruction; the arrow's falling to the ground is not because space has been used up—‘as an arrow in space is without obstruction, and when its force is exhausted it falls of itself, not because space is exhausted’; the stopping of Subhūti's teaching of the Dharma, too, is not because the Dharma has been spoken to the last; it is only that ‘the matter of the causes and conditions for teaching the Dharma being accomplished, he then stops’. The reverse side is said more sharply still: ‘If there is a person who, though he has a sharp arrow, shoots at a wall, it cannot pass through; though a person has sharp wisdom, if by wrong views he clings to existence, then he is obstructed and cannot get through.’ The arrow is the same arrow; the difference between shooting at space and shooting at a wall lies only in where it is aimed. So although the name of the whole chapter is ‘Extolling’, what is extolled is first the person already accomplished, and it reaches also to the person who is willing to shoot his arrow upward toward space—he has not yet arrived, and the direction of his shot is already right.

This chapter opens on a sentence of self-doubt. Śakra, having gone back and forth for a long while with Subhūti and with the Buddha, suddenly turns round and asks one sentence: ‘Speaking thus and answering thus, am I in accord with the Dharma or not? Am I answering rightly or not?’—having said so much, is it after all right or not? The Buddha answers most crisply: ‘Kauśika! What you have said and what you have answered are really all in accord.’ The treatise-author speaks out on his behalf where this question comes from: though Śakra has obtained the first path, the three poisons are not yet exhausted, and what he says may contain errors of which he himself is not aware; moreover those seated in the assembly are all non-retrogressing bodhisattvas and arhats whose outflows are exhausted, and people are just then murmuring in their minds, ‘This Śakra Devānām Indra's outflows are not yet exhausted; how can he question and raise difficulties and exhaust the limits of dharmas?’; so he is not being modest; he is seeking approval, so that those who listen can bring themselves to believe. Śakra then at once praises Subhūti: ‘Rare, World-Honored One! What Subhūti delights to teach is all for the sake of emptiness, for the sake of the signless and non-action …’

Unexpectedly the Buddha, following on this sentence of praise, presses down a weighing that is utterly lopsided. The Buddha first speaks in agreement of Subhūti's emptiness: ‘When the bhikṣu Subhūti practises emptiness, dānapāramitā is unfindable, how much less one who practises dānapāramitā! …’ all the way to the eighty minor marks, to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, all unfindable, how much less one who obtains them. Having said it to the end, he nevertheless closes with one sentence: ‘This is what the bhikṣu Subhūti practises; were one to compare it with the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's practice of prajñāpāramitā, it does not reach one in a hundred’. Both alike practise emptiness; why are they so far apart? The treatise-author's way of answering does not divide two kinds in emptiness; it divides keen and dull in the person who obtains emptiness: ‘As when, in order to break the darkness, a lamp is lit, and there is further a great lamp, the brightness is then greater still.’ It is not that the earlier lamp does not break the darkness; it is that the faint darkness is not exhausted; ‘only the Buddha's wisdom can exhaust all ignorance.’ Closer to hand still are the two later similes: ‘as a thirsty man drinking from a river takes no more than suffices himself’, ‘and again, as for the space of a pore wishing to compare itself with the space of the ten directions—there is no such principle!’—Space is only one space; the difference between the pore and the ten directions lies in the opening, not in the space. And by what is the size of the opening settled? The treatise-author says it very concretely: ‘Again, the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha have no mind of kindness and compassion, no mind of delivering beings’—the presence or absence of kindness and compassion is the bore of that opening.

Eight hundred bhikṣus seated in the assembly, having heard up to here, rise and scatter flowers, and make the vow, saying: ‘World-Honored One! We shall practise this unsurpassed practice, which the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha cannot practise!’ The Buddha smiles, the light shines everywhere over the three-thousand great-thousand world, and he gives them the prediction: ‘These eight hundred bhikṣus will in the Constellation Kalpa obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’, the Buddha-name of all alike being ‘Scattering Flowers’, becoming Buddhas at the same time. This passage is the pivot of the whole chapter: what was weighed before was deep and shallow; here it comes down upon one arousing of the mind—the road can be walked, and moreover it can be walked to completion.

Only then comes the entrustment. The Buddha hands prajñā over to Ānanda, and when he hands it over he first makes light and heavy plain: ‘If you receive and uphold all dharmas, with the exception of prajñāpāramitā, and forget or lose them, the fault is very small, and there is no great sin.’ ‘Ānanda! If you receive and uphold the deep prajñāpāramitā and forget or lose a single phrase, the fault is very great!’ A single phrase is heavier than all dharmas; why does it come to this? Because ‘as I am the World-Honored One, prajñāpāramitā too is the World-Honored One.’; because ‘Ānanda! The six perfections are the mother of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, because they give birth to the bodhisattvas.’; because to lose it is to cut off the place from which buddhas come forth. Here the treatise-author sets the sharpest question of the whole chapter: the Buddha does not crave even the omniscience of all kinds or unobstructed liberation; why is it that toward prajñā alone he ‘earnestly entrusts’, so that it rather looks like craving and begrudging? The answer lies not in arguing that the Buddha does not crave; it lies in discerning that what it is done for is not himself: ‘The buddhas appear in the world for the sake of benefiting beings’, and ‘of what benefits beings, nothing is foremost beyond prajñāpāramitā, because it can exhaust all suffering.’ Earnestness is not being unable to let go; it is that beings cannot do without it. At once there comes out the first great simile of the whole chapter: ‘As a very rich elder, when his life is about to end, gives his many jewels to his son, and of the wish-fulfilling jewel in particular earnestly entrusts him’—the words of his charge are: ‘Do not, because this jewel has of itself no fixed colour, has a substance like space, and is subtle and hard to recognise, fail to guard it!’ Precisely because no colour can be seen in it and no weight can be felt, it is most easily taken for a thing not worth putting safely away. The elder is the Buddha, the jewel is prajñā, and that charge is: ‘Receive and uphold it well and guard it; do not let it be forgotten or lost!’

Going further on, the Buddha says the measure of prajñā out to the end: ‘prajñāpāramitā is without measure’; what has measure is only ‘the collection of names, the collection of phrases, the collection of letters’. Ānanda asks: why is it without measure? The Buddha answers with two causes—‘Because prajñāpāramitā is inexhaustible it is without measure; because prajñāpāramitā is separated it is without measure.’ And its ultimate move lies in non-arising: ‘All these dharmas are non-arising; if a dharma is non-arising, how could there be exhaustion?’ Since it is so, a thing that is inexhaustible—why must a stack of exhaustible scrolls of scripture still be solemnly handed over? The treatise-author gives the answer of the whole chapter that comes closest to the practitioner: ‘The Buddha knows that prajñā is truly inexhaustible; it is because the collections of names, words, speech, and phrases are exhaustible that he entrusts it.’—Then follows the second great simile: ‘As a person entrusts a jar of fragrant oil to his sons and younger brothers: though he does not begrudge the jar, it is for the sake of receiving and holding the fragrant oil’, ‘that words and speech can hold the meaning is likewise; if the words and speech are lost, then the meaning cannot be obtained.’ The jar is not the oil, and yet without the jar the oil is not kept; to guard the words and speech is precisely to guard the meaning. At the last the Buddha puts forth the mark of the tongue that covers the face, himself attesting that these words are not false: ‘I now, in the midst of the fourfold assembly, entrust prajñā to you; you should for the sake of beings explain, display, and distinguish it, and make it easy to understand.’ The treatise-author does not allow people to look on this as a supernormal power: ‘It is not displayed by the power of the supernormal powers.’ It is only ‘simply by reason of the original vow, the oath to deliver beings, and the mind of great compassion pitying all’ and no more.

The whole treatise section closes on a string of different names. Someone asks: since prajñā is already a pāramitā, why is it also named dhāraṇī? The treatise-author answers: ‘The real mark of all dharmas is prajñā; it can benefit in all kinds of ways, and because beings love and keep it in mind, all kinds of names are made.’—When it can reach the limit of all wisdoms it is called prajñāpāramitā; on becoming a Buddha its name changes to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; falling within the mind of the Small Vehicle it is called the thirty-seven limbs of the path and the three gates of liberation; within the mind of one who wishes to hear and not forget it is called dhāraṇī. ‘Therefore the Buddha speaks the simile of the wish-fulfilling jewel: following the colour of the thing before it, it changes, and that is taken as its name.’ The name changes following the vessel; the jewel has never changed. At the beginning of the chapter, the Buddha says that Subhūti's emptiness does not reach the bodhisattva's emptiness; at the end of the chapter, the treatise-author, answering the question, makes plain that all the names are different appellations of the one real mark. What is handed over is, from beginning to end, only this one thing; and the reason for the earnestness is only that it has no fixed colour and is most easily put down by people.

This chapter opens on a very short question. Subhūti first has a thought in his mind: ‘The anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi of the buddhas is very deep; I shall ask the Buddha.’—what he wants to ask is really only two Chinese characters. Spoken aloud it is: ‘World-Honored One! Is this prajñāpāramitā inexhaustible?’ The Buddha's answer is shorter still: ‘Because space is inexhaustible, prajñāpāramitā is inexhaustible.’ Why is space inexhaustible? The treatise-author takes it apart to the bottom: ‘Like space, which has no dharma and has only a name’—where there is no thing, there is no talk of using it up. It is inexhaustible not because there is so much of it that it cannot be used up, but because there is at root no thing that could be exhausted.

But this answer at once forces out a harder question, and Subhūti asks it straightaway: ‘World-Honored One! How should one give rise to prajñāpāramitā?’—since it is, like space, without anything existent, from where then does prajñā arise? The treatise-author lays this difficulty open himself: ‘If prajñāpāramitā is inexhaustible because, like space, it is without anything existent, how can the bodhisattva give rise to this prajñāpāramitā?’ The unfolding of the whole treatise section of the chapter is the answering of this one sentence. The Buddha's way of answering is to push ‘inexhaustible’ all the way to the end: because form is inexhaustible prajñā should arise; because feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the six perfections, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds are inexhaustible prajñā should arise. The treatise-author explains the principle: ‘If form had arising it would certainly have exhaustion; because it is without arising it is also without exhaustion.’—A thing that can be used up must once have arisen; without arising, there is nothing to be called exhaustion. And the non-arising of form does not say that form is not there; it says that the arising and ceasing that are seen are not real: ‘Because the two dharmas are unfindable, form is like an illusion, like a dream, and only deceives the human eye.’ Thereupon what gives rise and what is contemplated come together, in the real mark, as one matter: ‘The true mark of form is precisely the mark of prajñāpāramitā’—what is called ‘should arise’ is not the making of a prajñā out of empty nothing; it is that when the true mark of form appears, prajñā appears of itself.

Next the Buddha lays the same road over the twelve links of causes and conditions, speaking of them link by link: ‘Because the emptiness of delusion is inexhaustible, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's prajñāpāramitā should arise’, the emptiness of constructions, the emptiness of consciousness, the emptiness of name-and-form, the six sense-bases, the six contacts, feeling, craving, grasping, existence, birth, straight on to ‘Because the emptiness of old age and death, sorrow, grief, suffering, and vexation is inexhaustible, the bodhisattva's prajñāpāramitā should arise.’ Then he gives the weightiest verdict of the whole chapter: ‘These twelve links of causes and conditions are a dharma of the bodhisattvas alone, able to remove the extremes and the inversions. When sitting at the seat of awakening, one should contemplate thus, and will obtain the omniscience of all kinds.’—The twelve links of causes and conditions are taught in common to the three vehicles; why do they belong to the bodhisattva alone? The treatise-author's answer lies in two pits: ‘If a person contemplates only ultimate emptiness, he mostly falls into the extreme of annihilation; if he contemplates existence, he mostly falls into the extreme of permanence.’ Emptiness and existence are both of them cliffs, and the twelve links of causes and conditions are exactly the road in between: ‘If a dharma arises from the coming together of causes and conditions, this dharma has no fixed nature; if a dharma has no fixed nature, this is precisely the mark of ultimate emptiness and quiescence.’—Arising from causes and conditions, it is therefore not permanent; without fixed nature, it is therefore not annihilated. ‘Because it leaves the two extremes, it is provisionally named the middle way.’ The ordinary person walks along the twelve links of causes and conditions and does not ask; the two vehicles know them to be a fault and hurry to extinguish them; only the bodhisattva is willing to follow them through to the root, and so they are said to be his alone. Even ignorance itself is no exception: ‘The real mark of delusion is precisely wisdom; to grasp and cling to the mark of wisdom is precisely delusion.’—Wisdom and delusion are not two different things; they are the distinction, in one and the same matter, between grasping at marks and not grasping.

The treatise-author then divides the twelve links of causes and conditions into three levels to look at them: what the ordinary person sees with the fleshly eye, giving rise to afflictions, making deeds, and going and coming within birth and death; what the worthies and sages distinguish with the Dharma-eye, wearying of old age, sickness, and death and seeking to go forth, but ‘this is only extinguishing suffering and therefore entering nirvāṇa; it does not seek the marks of suffering through to the end.’; what the bodhisattva contemplates is ‘only seeking to go through to the end of the root-mark of the twelve links of causes and conditions, not sinking himself in sorrow and fear.’—The first two levels both act upon suffering: one undergoes suffering, one avoids suffering; the third level turns the root of suffering open and looks at it, and is not frightened back by it.

Where the hand shows most is the passage that follows, which breaks ‘old age’. The treatise-author does not speak from a height; he begins asking from the most solid place: everyone speaks of old age, but what after all is old age? First he asks after the definition—someone says ‘Old age is a construction not associated with mind.’ With one sentence the treatise-author cuts it off: this mark cannot be produced; white hair is only a mark of form, not the mark of old age. Then he asks after worldly experience—‘The people of the world name the marks of old age: hair white, teeth falling out, face wrinkled, body bent, emaciated, strength thin, the faculties dark and blocked’, and the treatise-author breaks them one by one: there are those who are white in the prime of their years, there are those who are black in old age, there are those who are old and whose faculties are bright and keen, and young and whose faculties are dark and blocked, and even ‘Again, one who takes the medicine that restores the years, though old, is vigorous.’ Again someone says that old age is the mark of the five aggregates of retribution, and this too the treatise-author does not allow: ‘All conditioned dharmas arise and cease thought after thought and do not abide; if they do not abide then there is no oldness, and without oldness there is no old age.’ At the last he gathers it into a very plain and near simile: ‘Again, as wheels, axle, shafts, spokes, and the rest are provisionally taken as a cart, this is a provisional name and not real.’—The cart is not outside the wheels, axle, shafts, and spokes, nor is it within them; old age is the same. And having gone through to this point, the treatise-author does not stop at emptiness: ‘The bodhisattva contemplates the real mark of all dharmas as ultimately empty, without anything existent, with nothing to be attained, and does not cling to this matter either; therefore amid beings he gives rise to great compassion’—the next step after contemplating emptiness is not letting go; it is great compassion: beings are just now, upon a thing of which no real substance can be produced, undergoing suffering that is fully real.

The latter half of the chapter turns to Māra. The sūtra text writes it very heavily: ‘When the bodhisattva practises the prajñāpāramitā with nothing to be attained, the evil Māra is grieved and pained, as though an arrow had entered his heart. It is as when a person has newly lost his father and mother’; Subhūti asks whether this is one Māra or all the Māras, and the Buddha answers: ‘The evil Māras in the three-thousand great-thousand world are all grieved and pained, as though an arrow had entered their hearts, and each upon his own seat cannot be at ease.’ Why does Māra grieve to this degree? The treatise-author gives the reason: ‘Because this bodhisattva enters deeply into the ultimate emptiness of the twelve links of causes and conditions, and does not cling to Māra's net of the sixty-two wrong views of existence, non-existence, neither existence nor non-existence, and the rest’—Māra's skill is the spreading of nets, and a net hooks only the mind that has something it clings to. The treatise-author thereupon puts forth a further simile of his own: ‘It is as when a fisherman sees a fish enter deep into the great water, where hook and net do not reach, and he despairs and grieves. It is also like having newly lost father and mother.’—It is not that the fish has beaten the fisherman; it is that the fish has gone where the net does not reach. Māra's grief, therefore, is not a threat; it is the outward proof that this contemplation has gone through.

The whole chapter closes on a scale that is unexpectedly plain. Subhūti asks how, when practising prajñā, one fulfils the six perfections, and the Buddha answers that all giving is dedicated to sarvajñā. The treatise-author, however, points out that there are two kinds of people who dedicate alike and still do not fulfil them: those of soft faculties dedicate grasping at marks; those of keen faculties have broken the grasping at marks and yet make idle discourse of the dharma of emptiness, ‘the power of faith turns thin; they do not use sarvajñā, and only seek the real mark of all dharmas.’—‘The first is because the power of faith is much and the power of wisdom little; the second is because the power of wisdom is much and the power of faith little.’ Only one kind can fulfil them: ‘Because the power of faith and the power of wisdom are equal, he is able to dedicate to sarvajñā.’ The treatise-author also matches each of the two with what it really is: ‘Keeping sarvajñā in mind is the power of faith; dedicating in the manner of sarvajñā is the power of knowledge.’ At this point the four Chinese characters of the chapter title come together into one meaning: the inexhaustible is the principle that is contemplated; skilful means is the power that is able to practise. And in the sūtra text the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘skilful means’ appear in only one place—those who turn back ‘all because they do not obtain this power of skilful means’, those who do not turn back ‘all because they obtain this power of skilful means’. However inexhaustible the principle, if the power does not reach it, one still must fall back; the words ‘skilful means’ come down exactly here.

The title of this chapter is ‘the six perfections contain one another’, yet what the sūtra text asks is not one abstract sentence about mutual containing but thirty very concrete questions. Subhūti asks group by group: ‘World-Honored One! How does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, abiding in dānapāramitā, take up śīlapāramitā?’ Each of the six perfections is one ‘abiding’, and each abiding takes up the other five perfections; leaving out the group that would take up itself, there are exactly thirty. Fascicle eighty finishes asking the two groups of giving and morality, ten questions; fascicle eighty-one goes on to ask the four groups of patience, vigour, meditation, and prajñā, twenty questions, not one group spared, not one question merged. The shape of the whole chapter is this table of thirty squares being filled in square by square.

The way of filling is very plain, and every square comes down upon the mind. Abiding in giving and taking up morality is ‘When the bodhisattva-mahāsattva gives, he holds this giving and dedicates it to sarvajñā, and amid beings abides in kindly deeds of body, speech, and mind.’—at the very moment of giving no mind of vexing another arises, and morality is within the giving. Abiding in giving and taking up patience is ‘When the bodhisattva gives, the receiver is hateful, reviles and insults him, and heaps evil words upon him; at this time the bodhisattva is patient and does not give rise to a mind of hatred.’—the one who receives the gift turns round and reviles you, and at this time patience is within the giving. Abiding in giving and taking up vigour is, after being reviled, to make the mind of giving larger instead: ‘I should give, and should not begrudge anything.’ Abiding in giving and taking up meditation is ‘only with a single mind keeping sarvajñā in mind.’ Abiding in giving and taking up prajñā is ‘knowing that giving is empty, like an illusion, and not seeing that giving for the sake of beings has benefit or has no benefit.’ The five perfections are not five other things done besides; they are five turnings within the one act of giving. It is the same when one changes to the group of abiding in morality: someone comes and cuts him apart joint by joint and he does not give rise to a single thought of hatred, and the words in the bodhisattva's mind are ‘I obtain a great benefit; beings come and take my limbs and joints to use, and I have not a single thought of hatred.’; the vigour in which body and mind do not give up is ‘All beings are within birth and death; I shall pull them out and set them on the ground of ambrosia.’

How can it be so? The treatise-author gives two reasons. The first lies in skilful means: ‘Because of the power of skilful means, the bodhisattva, practising one perfection, is able to contain the five perfections.’ The second lies in the continuity of wholesome dharmas themselves: ‘Because these perfections are all wholesome dharmas, practising one then contains the five; one perfection is taken as the master, and the other perfections have a share.’—This pair of words, ‘is the master’ and ‘have a share’, is the bone of the whole chapter. The perfection in which one abides is the master, and the other five perfections are the shares; it is not six things queued up and done one after another; it is six faces growing upon one thing.

Then why must one perfection in particular be set up as the master? The treatise-author raises this question himself—‘Why is only one perfection the master?’—and answers very plainly: ‘The sequence of the causes and conditions of practice should be so.’ Then, without speaking of higher and lower, he goes straight to dividing the householder from the one who has gone forth: the householder bodhisattva, because of merit, is very rich, ‘since he has wealth, and also knows sin and merit, and moreover has a mind of kindness and compassion towards beings, it is fitting that he first practise giving’; ‘the bodhisattva who has gone forth, because he has no wealth, in sequence fittingly upholds the precepts, is patient, and practises meditative concentration. Because it is what is fitting in the sequence it is named the master.’—The master is the master because that is the place where you can at this moment stand firm, not because it is higher than the other perfections. Connected with this there is also a sentence of careful measure that matters: abiding in patience and taking up morality looks as though the order had been turned upside down, and the treatise-author answers ‘Here the marks are spoken of; arising one from another in sequence is not spoken of.’, and adds a sentence, ‘If it were the graded dharmas, morality should come first and patience after.’ The graded dharmas have only one direction; the dharmas of mutual containing have thirty directions; what this chapter speaks of is the latter. That morality and patience can take up one another is precisely because the two really are distinct—‘“Morality” names not taking the life of another; “patience” names not begrudging one's own life’.

Nor does the treatise-author avoid saying how poor and thin it is to abide in only one perfection and not take up the other perfections: ‘It is as when a person on an island of jewels obtains only a crystal bead; what benefits him is then thin.’—It is not that the island of jewels has no jewels; it is that the one who takes has taken too small. And among the thirty groups the ones that best repay reading are often those situations which look as though nothing can be done. Abiding in vigour and taking up giving is to pass through hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭi of lands and yet be unable to deliver even one person, and the mind still does not regret; the treatise-author gathers it in with one sentence of the real mark: ‘The mark of one person is precisely the mark of all persons, and the mark of all persons is precisely the mark of one person, because the marks of these dharmas are not two.’ Abiding in vigour and taking up patience is, at the time of being cut and severed, to ask ‘Who is it that cuts me? Who is it that severs me? Who is it that robs me?’, and then to say ‘I greatly obtain the good benefit; it is for the sake of beings that I took a body, and beings come back of themselves to take it.’ Abiding in meditation and taking up wisdom is as ‘It is as when a lamp is lit in a closed room, its light shines clear and bright’—a closed room means that there is no wind; the brightness of the lamp needs no added oil, only not to be moved. The group of abiding in prajñā pushes the sūtra text further still to the end: ‘The bodhisattva abides within these fourteen emptinesses’ and does not obtain a single dharma, and so on up to entering and leaving, in reverse and forward order, the eight liberations, the nine successive absorptions, and the samādhi of the lion's rousing, and at the last ‘This is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva abiding in the leaping samādhi and obtaining the mark of the equality of dharmas.’

Arriving at the end of the whole chapter, the treatise-author suddenly no longer matches them group by group. He changes to taking each of the six perfections as the head, speaks six rounds in succession, and in every round the six perfections are complete within a single thought: ‘This person subdues his mind, and within a single thought is able to practise the six perfections’ begins from giving, and afterwards reaches morality, reaches patience, reaches vigour, reaches meditation, reaches prajñā. The round of vigour is gathered in with the finest measure—‘The unmoving vigour does not depart from prajñāpāramitā.’ That they can be fulfilled within a single thought depends not on doing six things faster; it is still the power of prajñā. The last sentence of the whole chapter is also the place to which this table of thirty squares is really going: ‘Bodhisattvas such as these, because their wisdom is keen, are able within a single mind, at a single time, to fulfil the six perfections.’ The thirty groups before are the sequence of the gate of practice; this sentence is the direct seeing when the sequence has been walked to its end; the treatise-author does not by the latter set aside the former, and so he first fills in the thirty groups without missing a square, and only then is willing to say this sentence.

The way of asking in this chapter is out of the ordinary from the start. Subhūti does not ask what skilful means is; he first asks how long it takes before there is skilful means: ‘This bodhisattva-mahāsattva who has thus accomplished the power of skilful means—how long is it since he aroused intent?’ The Buddha's answer is ‘This bodhisattva-mahāsattva who is able to accomplish the power of skilful means has, since arousing the mind, passed immeasurable koṭi of asaṃkhyeya kalpas.’ He asks further how many buddhas he has made offerings to, and the answer is as the sands of the Ganges; he asks further what roots of goodness he has planted, and the answer is ‘The bodhisattva who accomplishes such a power of skilful means has, from the first arousing of intent onward, in dānapāramitā nothing that is not fulfilled’, and of the six perfections not one is lacking. Three questions and three answers move ‘skilful means’ wholly away from the side of cleverness—it is not a trick of the hand on the spot; it is an accumulation so long that its number cannot be told. Having heard it, Subhūti says only one sentence: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva who accomplishes such a power of skilful means is very rare!’ The treatise-author goes on to explain where the rarity lies: ‘From beginningless birth and death onward evil dharmas have been accumulated; the bodhisattva-mind comes afterwards, and yet he is able to use the mind that came afterwards and not follow the evil mind accumulated before; this is rare!’ Evil came first, the arousing of the mind came afterwards, and what came afterwards is actually able to overcome what came first—and to this is added ‘All beings have done the bodhisattva no kindness, and yet the bodhisattva constantly wishes to benefit them.’

The Buddha then brings up ten similes in a row, all speaking of the same matter: what place prajñā has among the five perfections. ‘It is as the sun and moon go round, illuminating the four continents and greatly benefiting them. Prajñāpāramitā is likewise: it illuminates the five perfections and greatly benefits them.’ A wheel-turning sage king without the wheel-jewel is not called a wheel-turning sage king; ‘the five perfections are likewise: if they are apart from prajñāpāramitā, they do not obtain the name of pāramitā’. Again he says ‘It is as a woman without a husband is easily encroached upon and abused’: the five perfections without prajñā, Māra can ruin with the greatest ease. Again he says ‘It is as a person's right hand, with which what is done is convenient—prajñāpāramitā is likewise; as a person's left hand, with which doing things is inconvenient—the five perfections are likewise.’ At the last he returns to the wheel-jewel: the four kinds of troops advance, the wheel-jewel leads the way in front, when the king wishes the wheel to stop it stops, and the wheel itself does not leave its place—‘Prajñāpāramitā is likewise: it guides the five perfections to sarvajñā, and constantly abides therein, not passing beyond its place.’ The treatise-author states the matching of the simile of the general outright: ‘The stalwart general is precisely the bodhisattva; the weapons are prajñā.’ And the reason he gives why the five perfections must rely on prajñā before they are called pāramitā is only half a sentence: ‘Though the bodhisattva practises the five perfections, if he does not obtain prajñāpāramitā they do not obtain the name of pāramitā, because the clinging mind is not broken.’ The difference lies not in what more has been done; it lies in whether the clinging mind has been broken or not.

Hearing that ‘the nature of the perfections has nothing it is able to do, and their self-nature is empty’, Subhūti at once raises the difficulty: ‘World-Honored One! If all dharmas are empty of self-nature, how will the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, practising the six perfections, obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?’ The Buddha does not argue over that emptiness; instead, right within emptiness he sets up skilful means: when the bodhisattva practises the six perfections he has this thought—‘The minds of this world are all inverted; if I do not practise the power of skilful means, I cannot deliver beings from birth and death.’ Thereupon for the sake of beings he gives up inner and outer things, and as he gives them up he still thinks ‘I have given up nothing. Why? Because these things must certainly decay and be ruined.’ For the sake of beings he never breaks the precepts, does not give rise to a single thought of hatred, does not give rise to laziness, does not give rise to distraction, never departs from wisdom, and item by item he ‘is able to fulfil’ them. For this place where the two do not obstruct one another the treatise-author adds two sentences of the most solid kind: ‘To the people of the world one cannot speak only of the real mark of all dharmas; hearing it they are bewildered and give rise to doubt and regret.’ So ‘Therefore he takes the highest meaning as his mind, and uses worldly language to speak.’ The mind is in the highest meaning; the words are in the worldly—emptiness and speaking do not cancel one another. And it is exactly here that the five perfections obtain their name: ‘Because of prajñāpāramitā, the five perfections obtain the name of pāramitā.’

Then how is prajñā itself practised? In the sūtra it is negation all the way: ‘Prajñāpāramitā has no dharma that can be taken and no dharma that can be given up. Why? Because all dharmas cannot be taken and cannot be given up.’ Not taking is precisely not thinking, ‘because of thinking one clings to the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm; because of not thinking there is nothing one clings to.’ Not thinking, one then does not abide, ‘because of not clinging one does not abide. Why? This bodhisattva does not see that there is any dharma that can be clung to or that can be abided in.’ Here Subhūti asks very practically: if one does not think of form, how do roots of goodness increase? The Buddha's reply is turned the other way round—it is precisely because of not thinking that roots of goodness increase. The treatise-author explains with a comparison from tilling the fields: ‘Though there are roots of goodness, because of the inversion of the mind that grasps at marks and clings they do not increase; it is as when grain is planted: though its sprouts are good, because foul weeds are many they cannot increase.’ It is not that the sprouts are not good; it is that the weeds are too many.

The passage of this chapter that matters most is losing. The first kind of losing is to have practised the two emptinesses of beings and of dharmas and to say in one's mind ‘I am able to practise thus’; ‘if he grasps at marks in this way, he is far from prajñāpāramitā’. The second kind of losing is, after having broken emptiness, to turn and cling to prajñā's being without nature. The third kind is the hardest to notice: the bodhisattva thinks that the buddhas obtained the unsurpassed path because they knew that dharmas have no mark of receiving, and that he will expound to people according to what the Buddha knew—this too is losing. The sūtra itself draws the bottom out: ‘The Buddha, with regard to dharmas, has nothing he knows and nothing he attains, and has no dharma that can be spoken; how much less could there be something attained! There is no such case!’ For these three kinds the treatise-author gathers in one sentence: ‘The bodhisattva clings to ultimate emptiness, clings to being without nature, clings to the path the bodhisattva practises; the Buddha says that all three kinds are losing.’ And the place of not losing is likewise only one sentence: ‘Because of nothing to be attained, he does not covet and prize the Buddha and does not slight and despise other people; towards all beings his mind is equal.’ Coveting and prizing the Buddha and slighting and despising people are, it turns out, two faces of one and the same sickness.

At the end of fascicle eighty-two, the Buddha gathers in the brief and extensive marks of all dharmas by four dharmas. Knowing the mark of suchness—‘The mark of suchness of form is without arising, without ceasing, without abiding-and-changing; this is named the mark of suchness of form’; knowing the limit of reality—‘Being without limit is named the limit of reality.’; knowing the nature of dharmas—‘The nature of form is named the nature of dharmas; this nature is without parts and without non-parts.’; knowing neither joined nor dispersed—‘These dharmas are without self-nature; how could there be joining and dispersing?’ The four gates having been spoken, Subhūti himself sets down the heading of this chapter: ‘This is named the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's brief gathering of prajñāpāramitā.’ And how wide is the range of those who train in it he says along with it: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva who has first aroused intent should train in it, and so on up to the bodhisattva-mahāsattva of the ten grounds should also train in it.’ The treatise-author explains why everyone should train in it, and the reason is so plain as to be nearly a household saying: ‘Because the brief gathering, when heard, is the path of peace and security, it is what all bodhisattvas should train in.’ The brief gathering is not leaving out what is extensive; it is gathering what is extensive into four gates.

Fascicle eighty-three takes it up, and what is asked is this very gate. Subhūti says: ‘World-Honored One! This gate is what the bodhisattva-mahāsattva of keen faculties enters.’ The Buddha at once pushes the gate open: ‘The bodhisattva of dull faculties can also enter this gate; the bodhisattva of middling faculties and the bodhisattva of scattered mind can also enter this gate; this gate is without obstruction; if a bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains with a single mind, all enter this gate.’ Those who cannot enter are other people—‘What the lazy, those of little vigour, those of false recollection, and those of disordered mind cannot enter, the vigorous, the not lazy, those of right recollection, and those of collected mind can enter.’ The treatise-author gives a comparison that is very easy to remember: ‘It is as, in the time of heat, a clear and cool pool: all who have eyes and have feet can enter; though it is near, one who does not wish to enter does not enter.’ The gate does not choose people; it is only that the person who does not wish to enter does not go in of himself. He also divides the words of the two persons very clearly: Subhūti is of the Small Vehicle, his knowledge short, and so he says only that keen faculties can enter; the Buddha is of the Great Vehicle, of great knowledge, and so he says that those of middling faculties and dull faculties, with the eight dharmas coming together, can also enter. As to why the Buddha speaks in this way, his reason is only one sentence—‘The Buddha here speaks because of the breath of great compassion’ that those of middling faculties and dull faculties can all obtain entry.

After this there is a long string of ‘knows well’: knows well the gates of letters and what are not gates of letters, knows well speech and non-speech, knows well the speech of men and the speech of women, knows well the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields, the truths, and the twelve links of causes and conditions, knows well the five destinies, knows well the four fruits and the path, knows well the eleven wisdoms … The treatise-author glosses them heading by heading and will not be vague. And the whole chapter comes to rest upon the definition of the two Chinese characters rendered here as ‘skilful means’ themselves: ‘Skilful means names wishing to accomplish a matter, being able to make the causes and conditions complete, in the right measure of more and less, and within it not letting there be any loss.’ Right after it comes the place of proof: ‘As the bodhisattva, though he practises emptiness, does not realise the limit of reality; though he practises merit, he also does not cling.’ Practising emptiness without taking realisation, making merit without abiding and clinging—only this is the great skilful means of which this chapter speaks. At the last the treatise-author closes with the travelling merchants: the person riding a swift horse could plainly arrive first, yet he stops and waits for those who travel with him; ‘the bodhisattva is likewise: riding the swift horse of wisdom, though he could quickly enter nirvāṇa, he too, because he waits for beings, does not enter.’ Being able to enter and not entering, and practising emptiness and not realising it, speak of what was from the first the same matter.

This chapter begins from three questions, and the three questions are really one. ‘World-Honored One! How does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practise prajñāpāramitā? How does he give rise to prajñāpāramitā? How does he cultivate prajñāpāramitā?’ The Buddha answers very quickly, one gate to each question: practising is ‘because form is quiescent, because form is empty, because form is false and deceptive, because form is not firm and real, one should practise prajñāpāramitā’; giving rise is ‘because it arises like space, one should give rise to prajñāpāramitā’; cultivating is ‘because one cultivates the breaking up of dharmas, one should cultivate prajñāpāramitā’. Quiescence, space, breaking up—three gates, and not three stretches of road. So of the time too there is only one sentence: ‘From the first arousing of intent up to sitting at the seat of awakening, one should practise, should give rise to, should cultivate prajñāpāramitā.’ The treatise-author says the gate of practising more solidly: ‘The five aggregates are the place where all worldly minds move and are bound; nirvāṇa is the mark of quiescence’; to break the five aggregates and penetrate them so that they are empty is precisely quiescence, and to come out from quiescence and, abiding among the six faculties, still keep quiescence in mind—only this is called prajñā. The gate of giving rise does not borrow the space of the outside paths: ‘In the Mahāyāna, space names a non-existent dharma’; one may not say permanent and may not say impermanent, may not speak of existence and may not speak of non-existence; all idle discourse is extinguished, undefiled and without clinging, and also without letters. The gate of cultivating is the shortest: ‘The bodhisattva, having obtained prajñā, enters very deep meditative concentration’, and then by the power of prajñā contemplates that meditative concentration and the objects of meditative concentration are all broken up—not even the concentration that is able to cultivate is kept.

Next come four ‘no’s. Cultivating prajñā, does one obtain sarvajñā? ‘No.’ Not cultivating, does one obtain it? ‘No.’ Cultivating and not cultivating, does one obtain it? ‘No.’ Neither cultivating nor not cultivating, does one obtain it? ‘No.’ The four roads are all cut, and Subhūti can only ask ‘If it is not so, how will one obtain sarvajñā’. The treatise-author points out that the sickness lies not in the four alternatives but in the person who asks: ‘Subhūti asks with a mind that grasps at marks and clings, and therefore the Buddha says “No”’; if one speaks of neither cultivating nor not cultivating with a mind that does not grasp at marks, there is no fault. The same method is played once more in the latter half of the chapter: abiding in the path, abiding in what is not the path, abiding in both the path and what is not the path, abiding in neither the path nor what is not the path—can one realise it? The Buddha answers no to all, and then asks Subhūti in return how he himself obtained it—he answers ‘I have nowhere I abide; not receiving any dharma, with the outflows exhausted, my mind obtained liberation’. What the four alternatives break has always been ‘abiding’, not ‘practising’. And ‘nothing to be attained’ itself is not allowed to stand either: the sūtra says ‘All that has duality is with something to be attained; what is without duality is with nothing to be attained’, yet it does not allow obtaining from within something to be attained, and does not allow obtaining from within nothing to be attained; it sets up only ‘The equality of something to be attained and nothing to be attained—this is named nothing to be attained’. The treatise-author says this stroke of the knife through to the end: ‘By nothing to be attained one breaks something to be attained; the matter once done, one gives up nothing to be attained as well.’ When the medicine has been used, the medicine too is to be put down.

Fascicle eighty-four turns into the section on the conjured body, the most concrete passage of the whole chapter. The Buddha uses the conjured person to make plain ‘obtaining with nowhere to abide’: ‘It is as a person conjured by the Buddha does not abide in the mark of the conditioned and does not abide in the mark of the unconditioned’; the conjured person comes and goes, also sits and also stands, and so on up to practising the six perfections, turning the wheel of the Dharma, and conjuring immeasurable beings—and asked whether he really exists, the answer is ‘No’. Going a step further he even says ‘The Buddha and the conjured person are without difference’, and brings up ‘It is as in the past there was a Buddha named Suśānta’, who, in order to deliver bodhisattvas, conjured a Buddha and then himself passed into extinction; the conjured Buddha abode for half a kalpa doing the work of a Buddha, and beings knew only that the Buddha had really passed into extinction, whereas ‘the conjured person really has no arising and no ceasing’. Here the treatise-author sets four questions: can the conjured person really practise the six perfections—‘It is not said that the conjured person can really practise; the eyes of beings see what seems to be something practised’; the conjured Buddha has not the ten powers, so why is he equal to the true Buddha—‘The ten powers and all such merits enter the real mark of all dharmas’; does one who with an evil mind draws blood from the body of a conjured Buddha incur a heinous sin—he does; and what then of the Vinaya's saying that killing a conjured person does not violate the precept against killing—‘In the Vinaya the precepts are all laid down for the sake of worldly matters and of holding the Saṅgha together; the real mark is not discussed’, whereas when the true and real place is discussed ‘the deed of mind is greatest, not the deeds of body and speech’. The passage on the field of merit lowers the threshold further still to the lowest: seeing an image of stone or clay and keeping the Buddha in mind with a mind of kindness, scattering a single flower into space while keeping the Buddha in mind, and so on up to ‘If a person once calls out namo Buddha, up to the ending of suffering his merit is not exhausted’—‘Therefore, because the field of merit is immeasurable, though one gives with a soft mind, his merit too is inexhaustible’.

The conjured body having been spoken of, the difficulty turns to speech: the Buddha distinguishes this is form and this is consciousness, this is wholesome and this is evil—does this not ruin the real mark of all dharmas? The Buddha answers ‘By the marks of names he shows dharmas, wishing to make beings understand; the Buddha does not ruin the dharma-marks of dharmas’; following worldly dharmas there are names and marks, and yet ‘there is really no place of clinging’; his counter-question is extremely sharp—‘If name clung to name and mark clung to mark, emptiness too should cling to emptiness, and the signless too should cling to the signless’. The concluding sentence is ‘All these dharmas have only names and marks; these dharmas do not abide within names and marks’. The treatise-author gathers it into one middle way: ‘Thus leaving existence and leaving non-existence, and dwelling in the middle way, he is able to deliver beings.’ Names and marks are not real and so existence may not be held to; the emptiness of names and marks is also empty and so non-existence may not be held to; what is able to deliver beings is exactly upon this one line.

Though the chapter is named for the three wisdoms, the weight falls on the three knowledges. ‘Sarvajñā is the knowledge of all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas; the knowledge of the kinds of paths is the knowledge of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas; the omniscience of all kinds is the knowledge of the buddhas’—the three knowledges are not three things; the mark of the omniscience of all kinds is only ‘because of one mark it is named the omniscience of all kinds, namely that all dharmas have the mark of quiescence’, and the treatise-author ties to it one simile: ‘As in the waters of the great sea the wind cannot stir it, and because it is deep no waves arise; …’ Quiescence is not not-knowing; it is that idle discourse cannot get in. And the difference of the three vehicles does not lie in what is cut off either: ‘In the cutting off of the afflictions there is no difference; the buddhas' habitual residues of the afflictions are all entirely cut off’; the difference is only in the residues—‘The habitual residue is not an affliction’, ‘These habitual residues of the three poisons the buddhas do not have’. The treatise-author brings them up most vividly: ‘It is as the arhat Madhuvāsiṣṭha, who for five hundred lives was among monkeys’; though now he has obtained the path he still leaps and bounds among the trees, and people then mock him as being like a monkey, when in fact ‘this arhat has no mind of affliction and yet still has his original habits’; Pilindavatsa for five hundred lives was born among brahmins, and after obtaining arhatship ‘still spoke to the spirit of the river Ganges, saying: “Little slave-girl! Stop the flow!”’; the Buddha taught him to repent, and having repented he still called her little slave-girl. With the Buddha it is not so: a brahmin ‘at one time reviled the Buddha with five hundred matters, and the Buddha had no look of displeasure’, and turned and praised him with five hundred good matters, and ‘the Buddha also had no look of joy’; a good name filling the ten directions and the brahmin ascetic woman Sundarī slandering the Buddha by her being killed, going out with an empty bowl and the offering of heavenly food, thorns and cold wind and the heavenly white jewel-stone, ‘Devadatta with a hateful mind rolled a rock at the Buddha; Rāhula with a reverent mind joined his hands and bowed to the Buddha; towards these two persons his mind was equal, as one loves one's two eyes’. One simile sums it up: ‘It is as true gold: burned, ground, forged, and cut, its colour does not change.’

The last section explains the name of prajñā, and also explains the measure of prajñā. ‘It obtains the foremost crossing, and all dharmas reach the further shore’; the treatise-author explains ‘foremost’ layer by layer: the difference of the higher, middle, and lower knowledge of the three vehicles, the difference of the general mark and the specific marks, the difference of pervading or not, the difference of the provisions being complete—for the last, one simile comes closest, ‘As a person rides a ship of the seven jewels, with the gear for the journey made firm and ready’, has good food, has a guide, and meets a good wind, and only then is it called a good crossing; to ride a raft of grass and cross in terror is not named a good crossing. He further puts out another gloss: ‘Prajñā names wisdom; pāramitā, reaching the further shore’, and ‘the further shore names exhausting the limit of all wisdom’. Someone raises a difficulty: the three baskets have only the ten knowledges; why is the knowledge of things as they really are set up here in addition? The treatise-author answers roundly: ‘That is why it is named the Great Vehicle! The great Dharma can receive the small dharma; the small cannot receive the great.’ If it is further asked: if the knowledge of things as they really are is obtained only by the Buddha, why then do the two vehicles and the great bodhisattvas obtain nirvāṇa and obtain the acceptance of non-arising? The treatise-author takes the lamp as simile—‘It is as in a dark room, because there is something to be done, a lamp is lit’, and what was to be done is done; ‘a lamp that comes afterwards, its brightness is increased still more’, and the portion of darkness that the later lamp removes is not what the first lamp could remove, and yet ‘it cannot be said that the first lamp gave no light’. So his division is broad and level: ‘The pervading knowledge of things as they really are is the Buddha's; the knowledge of things as they really are simply is shared by the two vehicles and the bodhisattvas.’ The whole chapter closes on the shortest of sentences: ‘Nothing to be attained is precisely attaining; by this, one attains nothing to be attained.’ It is not that one has attained a thing called nothing-to-be-attained; it is that this matter of attaining is from the first with nothing to be attained—the three wisdoms are asked about for a fascicle and a half, and the answer is only the twelve Chinese characters of this sentence.

This chapter opens not on praise but on a sentence that can hardly keep its feet. Subhūti says: ‘World-Honored One! This prajñāpāramitā is very deep!’, and at once points out where the depth lies—‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattvas do not find beings, and yet for the sake of beings seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; this is very hard!’. Beings are from the first unfindable, and yet for the sake of beings one is to seek the unsurpassed path; this is hard not in its toil but in contradicting itself. For this he sets a simile that is extremely exact: ‘It is as a person wishing to plant a tree in space; this is very hard!’—it is not that the tree is hard to plant; it is that there is no ground at all. The Buddha does not loosen this difficulty for him; he only takes over the words ‘very hard’ and gives them another place to come down: ‘Just so! Just so! What the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas do is very hard: for the sake of beings they seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and deliver beings who cling to the inversion of I and self.’ What is hard is not that there is no ground in space; it is that the people to be delivered are just now firmly clinging to there being a self. Once the place of the difficulty has been moved, the matter changes from the impossible back to what is one's own part.

The Buddha then changes one word of Subhūti's simile, and the meaning of the whole chapter stands up: ‘It is as a person plants a tree, not recognising the tree's root, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit, and yet cherishes and guards it and waters it; little by little it grows large; flowers, leaves, and fruit are accomplished, and all obtain the use of them.’—Of the people in the world who plant trees, not one first recognises root, trunk, branch, and leaf in full before he is willing to put in the seed; not recognising, he waters, and the tree grows of itself. The bodhisattva too is like this: ‘Little by little he practises the six perfections, obtains the omniscience of all kinds, and accomplishes the Buddha-tree, and with leaves, flowers, and fruit benefits beings.’ The words ‘little by little’ are the eye of this simile. That planting a tree in space is possible lies not in the planter's having ability; it lies in the Dharma's having of itself its gradual sequence; and the words ‘not recognising’ are more crucial still—the tree-planter's not recognising is exactly the bodhisattva's not finding. Not finding beings and yet delivering beings, and not recognising the tree's root and yet the tree being accomplished of itself, are one and the same matter.

After the tree is accomplished, what benefits beings has three levels, and the sūtra text itself divides them very finely. The leaves: ‘Because of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva they obtain freedom from the three evil destinies; this is the leaves benefiting beings.’; the flowers: ‘Because of the bodhisattva they obtain birth in the great clans of the kṣatriyas, the great clans of the brahmins, the great families of the householders, the abode of the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings, and so on up to the abode of the heaven of neither perception nor non-perception; this is the flowers benefiting beings.’; the fruit: ‘He causes beings to obtain the fruit of the srota-āpanna, the fruit of the sakṛdāgāmin, the fruit of the anāgāmin, the fruit of the arhat, the pratyekabuddha path, and the Buddha path’. The treatise-author matches to each of the three one virtue of the tree—‘as the shade of the tree's leaves, cool and pleasant in the time of heat’, ‘as the flowers, fine in colour, fragrant, pure, and soft’, ‘as the tree's fruit, with colour, fragrance, flavour, and strength’, and gathers them in one general gloss: ‘The tree is taken as the simile; leaves, flowers, and fruit go from thin to thick.’ Shading from the heat, gladdening the eye, curing hunger: the three things cannot stand in for one another. Here there is a layer of meaning most worth turning over: when the tree has not yet borne fruit, its leaves are already shading people; when the bodhisattva has not yet become a Buddha, beings are already obtaining benefit. What is called ‘not finding beings and yet delivering beings’ has its solid place exactly here.

Thereupon Subhūti utters a very weighty sentence: ‘It should be known that this bodhisattva is as a Buddha.’ He states his reasons himself—‘Because of this bodhisattva, all the seeds of the hells, all the seeds of the animals, all the seeds of the hungry ghosts are cut off; all the difficulties are cut off; all the paths of the poor, the low, and the mean are cut off; all of the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm is cut off.’ The Buddha approves his words and adds a more fundamental layer: ‘If the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas did not arouse the mind to seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, the world would have no buddhas of the past, the future, and the present’. Below this the Buddha, with the one word ‘suchness’, threads the Buddha and the bodhisattva together: ‘By reason of suchness the Tathāgata is spoken of; by reason of suchness the pratyekabuddha, the arhat, and all the worthies and sages are spoken of’, ‘All these suchnesses are, in reality, without difference; for this reason it is named suchness.’ The treatise-author, fearing that people will hear this sentence as flattery, makes a special declaration: ‘It is not because my mind covets and prizes the bodhisattva that I say he is as a Buddha; it is because he obtains suchness that he is said to be as a Buddha.’, and pushes the words through to the end—‘Apart from suchness, there is no further dharma that does not enter suchness.’ Since it is so, there is a question: ‘If it is because of being the same in suchness that the bodhisattva is named as a Buddha, then down to the animals too there is this suchness; why are they not named as a Buddha?’ The treatise-author's answer divides higher and lower not in ‘suchness’ but in ‘practising suchness’: ‘Though the animals also have suchness, because the causes and conditions have not yet come forth, they cannot benefit beings and cannot practise suchness up to sarvajñā.’ Suchness is equal; practising suchness is not.

The middle stretch of the chapter is a long string of weighings of merit: the beings of a thousand lands all arouse the intent of the two vehicles, and ‘their merit does not come up to that of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva who has first aroused intent, by a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a vast koṭi of myriads-fold, and so on up to being beyond the reach of calculation and simile.’ The reason is only one sentence: ‘Those who arouse the intent of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha all come forth because of the bodhisattva; the bodhisattva never comes forth because of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha.’ The weighing being finished, Subhūti asks a very practical question: ‘What dharma should the bodhisattva-mahāsattva of the first arousing of the mind keep in mind?’ The Buddha answers with only six Chinese characters: ‘He should keep in mind the omniscience of all kinds.’ The treatise-author explains why the Buddha teaches this one thought alone—‘The bodhisattva who has first aroused intent has not yet obtained deep wisdom; since he has given up the pleasures of the five desires of the world, the Buddha teaches him to bind his mind and keep sarvajñā in mind’, and on behalf of the person of the first arousing of the mind he says out in full the content of this one thought: ‘Though you give up small and mixed pleasures, you will obtain pure and great pleasure; giving up inverted, false, and deceptive pleasure, you obtain real pleasure; giving up the pleasure of bondage, you obtain the pleasure of liberation; giving up the pleasure of being good alone, you obtain the pleasure of being good in common with all beings.’ Having given up the pleasure before one's eyes and not yet obtained the pleasure that transcends the world, the empty stretch in between is held up exactly by this one thought. And the omniscience of all kinds that is kept in mind is itself ‘The omniscience of all kinds is without anything existent, without perception, without thought, without arising, without showing.’, and its object and its mark are likewise only one sentence: ‘The omniscience of all kinds has the non-existent dharma as its object, thought as its dominant condition, quiescence as its practice, and the signless as its mark.’—What is kept in mind is without anything existent; that which keeps in mind is still dominant.

Since all dharmas are all without nature, how does the gate of practice still stand? Subhūti raises this difficulty to the end: ‘If all dharmas are without nature, by what power of skilful means is the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent able to practise dānapāramitā, purify buddha-worlds, and bring beings to accomplishment?’ The Buddha's answer is only to say ‘without nature’ once more, but in a changed position: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is able to train in dharmas’ being without nature, and is also able to purify buddha-worlds and bring beings to accomplishment, and knows that worlds and beings are also without nature; this is precisely the power of skilful means.’—Knowing them to be without nature and still purifying and still accomplishing: this matter is itself called the power of skilful means; it is not the finding of some other technique outside of being without nature. The treatise-author supplies its positive meaning: ‘Namely, because the two dharmas of existence and non-existence can be practised at one time—namely, ultimate emptiness, and the gathering of all merits.’ The words ‘at one time’ are the joint of the whole chapter: it is not first emptiness and afterwards existence, nor is it emptiness to emptiness and merit to merit; it is the two matters practised together within one and the same thought. Its fruit too is sudden: ‘Sitting at the seat of awakening, using the wisdom associated with a single thought, he obtains the omniscience of all kinds; it is as a person who at night loses a string of pearls: the lightning flashes for a moment, and at once he obtains it back.’ The pearls were from the first his own, lost in the dark; the lightning does not give a person a pearl; it only gives one flash of light. What is called ‘obtaining’ the omniscience of all kinds is in fact obtaining back.

At the last it is gathered into the two truths. Subhūti asks: ‘Are dharmas separated from the nature of dharmas?’ Since they are separated, ‘How can a separated dharma know of a separated dharma whether it exists or does not exist?’ The Buddha answers: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, by reason of worldly truth, shows beings whether it exists or does not exist, not by the highest meaning.’—Saying existence and saying non-existence is a skilful means set up for people who do not know and do not see, and the one who sets it up himself knows that it is set up. Are the two truths then not different? The Buddha cuts it off with one more sentence: ‘Worldly truth and the truth of the highest meaning are without difference.’, and puts forth the reason: ‘The suchness of worldly truth is precisely the suchness of the truth of the highest meaning.’ Between speaking and not speaking there are not two realities; there is only the difference of knowing and not knowing. The treatise-author carries the meaning on: ‘Beings have something they cling to within the five aggregates of clinging; it is in order that these beings may leave what they have and obtain being without anything existent’ that the bodhisattva distinguishes dharmas. The last sentence of the whole chapter is both a gathering in and a charge: ‘The bodhisattva should train in the prajñāpāramitā that is without anything existent.’—It begins by asking about planting a tree in space, and concludes with training in prajñā within being without anything existent; the ground for planting the tree never once appeared, and yet the tree has already been accomplished.

This chapter opens with only one question: ‘World-Honored One! The World-Honored One speaks of the bodhisattva's practice; what is the bodhisattva's practice?’ The Buddha's answer is likewise only one sentence: ‘The bodhisattva's practice is practice for the sake of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; this is named the bodhisattva's practice.’—The criterion falls wholly on the one word ‘for the sake of’, not on what is done. The reason the treatise-author still asks this question once more on the Buddha's behalf is that the world has from the first a broader saying: ‘The bodhisattva's practice: whatever is done by the bodhisattva's deeds of body, speech, and mind is all named the bodhisattva's practice.’ If ‘practice’ takes only what is done, then the unwholesome, the indeterminate, and the practising of good with a clinging mind would all count as the bodhisattva's practice. So the treatise-author adds a sifting to the Buddha's answer: ‘The bodhisattva's unwholesome, indeterminate, and clinging-minded practising of wholesome dharmas is not the bodhisattva's practice’, and keeps two things: ‘Only by reason of the mind of compassion and the wisdom of emptiness, practice for the sake of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi is named the bodhisattva's practice.’—The mind of compassion is what it faces toward, the wisdom of emptiness is what it rests on; lacking either, however much is done, it is not this ‘practice’. As for the appearance of the practice, the treatise-author asks and answers himself with the utmost cleanness: ‘What is pure practice? Namely, the practice of form being empty’, and so on up to ‘like anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, the extinguishing of idle discourse, the mark of non-duality: this is named the bodhisattva's practice.’ Non-duality is the shape of the bodhisattva's practice.

Next Subhūti turns to a question more at the root: since the retribution of the bodhisattva's practice is to become a Buddha, then ‘the sūtras constantly speak of the Buddha; what is the meaning of Buddha?’ The Buddha answers with four sentences, the first being ‘Because he knows the real meaning of all dharmas, he is named Buddha.’ The treatise-author at once sets an objection: arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and the great bodhisattvas, these people also know the real meaning of all dharmas; why are they not named Buddha? The answer is extremely short and extremely weighty: ‘For the ordinary person it counts as real; for the Buddha it does not count as real.’—The same one ‘knowing’ counts as real at the position of the ordinary person, and at the position of the Buddha does not count as real. The reasons it does not count as real are also only two: ‘Because they are covered by the afflictions and their habitual residues, it is not named real’, ‘Because they cannot obtain the omniscience of all kinds and cannot cut off doubt and regret within all dharmas, it is not named the real meaning of right knowledge.’ The afflictions can be exhausted but the habitual residues are hard to exhaust; dharmas can be known but doubt and regret are hard to cut off; that the Buddha is the Buddha lies not in knowing more, but in being covered or not covered. So the last of the four sentences is ‘he knows all dharmas as they really are’, and the treatise-author himself makes plain the reason: ‘it gathers up the three matters above, both meaning and dharma’, ‘he knows both the mark of quiescence and the mark of the conditioned.’—Only when both sides are known is it called as it really is.

What awakening is, this chapter gives not as a definition but as a string set side by side. On the sūtra's side, nine layers: ‘The meaning of emptiness is the meaning of awakening; the meaning of suchness, the meaning of the nature of dharmas, the meaning of the limit of reality is the meaning of awakening.’ And so on up to name, mark, and verbal expression; indestructible and indiscriminable; not deceptive and not different; what the buddhas possess; the buddhas' right and complete knowing. On the treatise's side, first comes one most sparing root gloss—‘Awakening is named knowledge; the Buddha is named the knower.’—and thereupon seven ‘someone says’ in a row: from the narrowest, ‘The knowledge of exhaustion knows that birth is forever exhausted; this is named awakening.’, to ‘The four unobstructed knowledges are awakening.’, to the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, and the rest of the immeasurable dharmas of the Buddha all being named awakening, to ‘true awakening is named the Buddha's ten knowledges without outflows’, gathering at last into the broadest: ‘The meaning of awakening is immeasurable and boundless; only the Buddha can know it completely, and others know a small share of it’, matched with one simile—‘It is as with the jewels in the treasury of a wheel-turning sage king: there is none who can distinguish and know their worth’; the sage king bestows the jewels on a person, and that person too knows only the one share he has obtained. Seven sayings set out together, and the treatise-author does not pronounce a single word of judgement. This is exactly the body of this chapter: what is to be weighed is not the higher and lower of the sayings but how much one's own ‘what is obtained’ amounts to. And knowledge and the knower are from the first not two matters, so the text below says it more directly still: ‘As he is named Buddha because he obtains awakening, so now it is named awakening because the Buddha obtains it.’ The two names gloss each other, with no before and after.

The gate of practice in this chapter comes down on the two Chinese characters ‘not two’. The sūtra answers decisively: ‘If one practises two dharmas, the roots of goodness do not increase.’ Why? ‘All ordinary people rely on two dharmas and do not increase the roots of goodness.’ The treatise-author gives a simile everyone recognises: ‘It is as a person who in a dream obtains great wealth, and in the end has obtained nothing’; how much is obtained after waking is what is truly named obtaining. Practising two dharmas and cultivating goodness is not failing to cultivate; it is cultivating inside a dream. Conversely, the bodhisattva practises the dharma of non-duality, and from the first arousing of intent to the last intent the roots of goodness increase in between, so that ‘none among all the world's gods, humans, and asuras can subdue him’—whether or not one can be broken is seen not in the thickness of merit but in whether one relies on two dharmas.

The most perilous question of the whole chapter comes at the end: since the roots of goodness are said to increase, why is it further asked, ‘Does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practise prajñāpāramitā for the sake of the roots of goodness?’, and the Buddha answers ‘No.’ The treatise-author lays the Buddha's intent bare: ‘Here the Buddha's intent is: because he prizes anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, though he practises the roots of goodness, he practises them in order to accomplish the task and does not take them as prized.’ And he cites one sentence of sūtra as proof: ‘Even wholesome dharmas should be given up, how much more unwholesome dharmas!’ Then he gives the match himself—‘The roots of goodness are dharmas that aid the Buddha path. A person crosses not for the sake of the raft; he crosses in order to reach the other shore.’ It is not that the roots of goodness are unwanted; it is that one is not permitted to take them as the shore. And yet the one who does not take them as prized must still make offerings to the buddhas, plant roots of goodness, and keep close to good friends; the treatise-author matches these three things into one most down-to-earth simile and gathers in the whole chapter: ‘It is as a sick person should seek a good physician and medicinal herbs; the Buddha is the good physician, the roots of goodness are the medicinal herbs, and the one who tends the sick is the good friend.’ For the sick person to get well, none of the three may be lacking. And what is nurtured all along this road the sūtra calls ‘the deep mind is pure’, which the treatise-author explains to the full: ‘The deep mind being pure means: kind and loving toward all beings, doing no evil even to a person among enemies and thieves’, ‘toward beings he obtains the mind of kindness and compassion, the mind that does not abandon, the mind of rescuing and delivering’, ‘toward dharmas he obtains the mind of impermanence, suffering, emptiness, non-self, and ultimate emptiness’, right up to ‘even toward the Buddha he does not give rise to the thought of a Buddha or the thought of nirvāṇa; this is named the deep mind being pure.’—Toward beings, always kindness; toward dharmas, always emptiness; even of the Buddha and nirvāṇa no further thought is formed. Here at last ‘practising not by reason of two dharmas’ truly comes down upon a person: it is not doing nothing at all; it is doing without setting up a shore.

This chapter opens with a question that seems not to need asking. Subhūti says to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva does not make offerings to the buddhas, does not fulfil the roots of goodness, and does not obtain true friends, will he obtain sarvajñā?’—Without making offerings, without planting roots of goodness, without meeting good friends, can one become a Buddha? The answer looks ready-made. Yet the Buddha does not answer along the ready-made line; he moves the scale upward: ‘For a bodhisattva-mahāsattva who makes offerings to the buddhas, plants roots of goodness, and obtains true friends, the omniscience of all kinds is still hard to obtain, how much more for one who does not make offerings to the buddhas, does not plant roots of goodness, and does not obtain true friends!’—Even with all three things done in full it is still hard to obtain; of one who does not do them there is all the less need to speak. The gate of the whole chapter opens from this one phrase, ‘still hard to obtain’: since the hardness does not lie in the three things' falling short, where does it lie?

Subhūti at once presses into this crack: ‘World-Honored One! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva who makes offerings to the buddhas, plants roots of goodness, and obtains true friends—why is the omniscience of all kinds hard for him to obtain?’ The Buddha's answer is only one sentence: ‘This bodhisattva-mahāsattva is far from the power of skilful means; he has not heard the power of skilful means from the buddhas; the roots of goodness he plants are not complete; and he does not constantly follow the teaching of the good friend.’—The hardness lies not in the three things but in skilful means. Thereupon the third question follows in train: ‘World-Honored One! What is the power of skilful means, such that a bodhisattva-mahāsattva practising this power of skilful means obtains the omniscience of all kinds?’—The main text of the whole chapter is the answer to this question.

The Buddha answers with the six perfections in sequence, and the six passages come out in one pattern. In giving, ‘at that time he does not give rise to the thought of giving or the thought of a recipient.’; in keeping morality, ‘keeping morality, he does not receive worldly retribution’; in patience, ‘because the power of skilful means is accomplished, he practises the path of seeing the truths and the path of reflection, and yet does not take the fruit of the srota-āpanna, the fruits of the sakṛdāgāmin, the anāgāmin, and the arhat.’, and its concluding name is ‘this is named the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas.’—to practise its path and not take its fruit: this is what is called acceptance. In vigour he enters the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions, and ‘though he goes in and out of the dhyānas, he does not receive the retribution.’; in dhyāna, ‘he enters the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions, and yet does not realise the fruit of the srota-āpanna, and so on up to not realising the fruit of the arhat.’; in prajñā, ‘up until he has not yet obtained the omniscience of all kinds, not yet purified buddha-lands, not yet brought beings to accomplishment, in the interval he should practise thus.’—What the six passages do not take rises one layer higher than the last: first the thought of giving is not taken, then worldly retribution, then the four fruits of the śramaṇa, and at the last not even any attainment in the interval. And what makes the not-taking possible, the six passages return to as one and the same matter, phrased in three ways: the passages on giving and morality read ‘he contemplates all dharmas as empty of specific marks, non-arising, without fixed mark, without anything turning, and enters the real mark of all dharmas, namely the mark of all dharmas without making and non-rising’; the three passages on patience, dhyāna, and prajñā read ‘he knows all dharmas to be empty of specific marks, non-arising, without fixed mark, without anything turning’; and the passage on vigour, in terms of what it practises, reads instead ‘he knows the dhyānas and absorptions to be empty of specific marks, non-arising, without fixed mark, without anything turning’. Skilful means is skilful means not because one more dharma is added, but because in every dharma one thing less is taken.

The treatise-author takes over, and the first thing he does is ask why this question needs to be asked: ‘Why does Subhūti ask so coarse a question?’ He brings out two doubts on others' behalf: one, that the meaning of emptiness has slipped its footing—‘If all dharmas are without any existent nature and ultimately empty, then within ultimate emptiness, planting roots of goodness and not planting roots of goodness are alike without difference.’; two, the thought that there is some other shortcut—‘There are all kinds of other gates to obtaining sarvajñā, so perhaps one need not plant roots of goodness and the rest.’ That the coarse question cannot but be asked is exactly because what it rests on is a fine meaning: once ultimate emptiness comes down upon the gate of practice, the first thing to come loose is this sentence, ‘planting and not planting are alike without difference’.

Then comes the shortest round of the whole chapter—this question and answer come from the treatise section and are not in the sūtra. Subhūti presses: ‘Since within ultimate emptiness there is neither merit nor non-merit, why is it obtained only by reason of merit?’ The Buddha answers in only eight Chinese characters: ‘Because within worldly truth there is merit, it is obtained.’ The treatise-author points out the mechanism of this question and answer: ‘Subhūti asks for the sake of beings who cling to there being nothing existent; the Buddha answers with a dharma that does not cling to existence’—the question is asked on behalf of those who cling to emptiness; the answer is given with a dharma that does not cling to existence. Were he to answer within ultimate emptiness, he would fall exactly into what they cling to; were he to answer with a really existent merit, he would fall to the other side. So the Buddha's words are: ‘Even cultivating merit with vigour, it is unfindable, how much less without cultivating merit!’

For this sentence the treatise-author matches a small affair of the marketplace. A home-leaver begging for food goes all through a village, from one house to the next, and ‘begging for food, obtains none’; coming out, he sees a hungry dog lying starving on the ground, strikes it with his staff and says: ‘You beast without knowledge! I, with all kinds of causes and conditions, seeking food from house to house, still cannot obtain it, how much less you, who lie down and hope to obtain it!’—The force of the simile lies wholly in the one word ‘lie’. That the man of the path can say these words is not because he got his food; it is exactly because he did not; the one who did not get it and yet still goes seeking from house to house, and the dog that lies starving and waits, have never differed in what is obtained, but in what is practised. The syntax of this sentence, ‘I myself cannot obtain it, how much less you who lie down and hope to obtain it’, is exactly a reprint of the Buddha's opening sentence, ‘still hard to obtain, how much more one who does not’; and at the chapter's end it appears a third time—‘Without such skilful means, though a bodhisattva makes offerings to the buddhas, plants roots of goodness, and obtains true friends, he still does not obtain it, how much less one who does not make offerings!’ The three places lock into one another and become the bone of the whole chapter.

Then what, after all, is skilful means? The treatise-author gives the most essential definition of the whole chapter: ‘Skilful means, namely prajñāpāramitā.’—Skilful means is not another set of cleverness prepared apart from prajñā; it is just the side of prajñā that comes down upon affairs. So when skilful means is left behind, the three things come to nothing one by one, and the treatise-author points to them in three sentences with the utmost precision: ‘Though he sees the buddhas' form bodies, he does not see the Dharma body with the eye of wisdom; though he plants a few roots of goodness, they are not complete; though he obtains good friends, he does not keep close to them and consult and receive from them.’ The three things are all plainly there, and yet all three pass by in vain—having seen the Buddha without seeing the Dharma body, the offering is merely a meeting; with the roots of goodness planted not enough, the planting is merely piling up; having met good friends without keeping close and consulting and receiving, the obtaining is merely running into them.

At the end the treatise-author splits giving into the two sides of with mind and without mind. With mind is not reaching out and clinging: ‘With mind means: giving with a mind that accords with sarvajñā, keeping in mind the buddhas' all kinds of immeasurable merits, and giving out of pity for beings.’; without mind is not cutting off thought: ‘Without mind means: whether giving to a Buddha or down to an ordinary person, he does not give rise to the three thoughts, namely giver, recipient, and the thing given.’ The two are not two kinds of people or two stages; they are the two sides of one and the same giving—what is kept in mind is not empty, what is taken is wholly empty. Its proving-place the treatise-author states most plainly: ‘All dharmas can make nothing; he does not give rise to a haughty mind and hopes for nothing.’ Since nothing can be made, there is nothing by which to exalt oneself; since there is nothing by which to exalt oneself, he does not hope for its retribution; and only after that is there ‘by such power of skilful means he can increase the roots of goodness and part from the roots that are not good, teach and transform beings, and purify buddha-worlds.’

This chapter even leaves a passage for those who cannot yet do it. The bodhisattva who has first aroused intent gives to beings ‘in measured and limited amounts’, and so thinks to himself: ‘In former lives I did not practise deep merit; now I cannot give widely to beings. I should now deeply, really, and much practise dānapāramitā, and having obtained this retribution, I will be able to benefit fully and give widely to immeasurable beings, whether benefit in this life, benefit in later lives, or the benefit of the path and its virtue.’—Not pretending that one is already immeasurable, but only applying skilful means to one's own present measure. The whole chapter gathers in that reflecting sentence: without skilful means, even with the three things done in full it is still ‘still not obtained’; between the two ‘still … how much less …’ at head and tail, what lies is the two Chinese characters ‘skilful means’. And the two Chinese characters skilful means, the treatise-author has already explained: they are prajñā.

This chapter starts from a sentence of praise. Subhūti sees the bodhisattva practising so deep a dharma and yet not receiving that retribution, and finds it rare; the Buddha also nods and says so, and then gives the reason: ‘Because this bodhisattva-mahāsattva is immovable within the nature of dharmas.’ Not receiving the retribution is not not making the cause; it is that the place where he rests has from the first no one to receive. The treatise-author, afraid that people will hear ‘not receiving’ as losing out, adds a very practical sentence: ‘For the sake of great benefit this bodhisattva does not receive small retribution.’ He also gives ‘nature’ five names: ‘The nature of dharmas is without anything existent, ultimate emptiness, suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality. The bodhisattva's concentrated mind rests securely in this and is immovable.’ Why is it without anything existent? Because ‘this nature of dharmas, being born of many causes and conditions, is not self-existent and is without fixed mark; being without fixed mark, it is without anything existent.’

So the question presses on downward. Since the nature is without anything existent, how after all is the path obtained? The sūtra lines up the four alternatives from the two ends ‘something existent’ and ‘nothing existent’ and asks them one by one; the Buddha three times answers ‘No’, and the remaining one the Buddha had already himself laid bare before. Subhūti grows anxious: if none of the four alternatives holds, is there then no obtaining the path? The Buddha's answer is very short: ‘There is obtaining; not by these four alternatives.’ The mark of obtaining the path lies only in leaving idle discourse: ‘Neither something existent nor nothing existent, without any idle discourse: this is named obtaining the path.’ The treatise-author shrinks the reason for denying all four alternatives at once into nine Chinese characters: ‘Something existent and nothing existent both have fault’, and then says straight out: ‘There really is a dharma of obtaining the path, only not by these four alternatives.’ ‘If one leaves the idle discourse of these four alternatives, that is the path.’

Then what counts as idle discourse? The list this chapter opens is frighteningly long. Form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness as permanent or impermanent, suffering or pleasure, self or non-self, needless to say; even that the truth of suffering should be seen, the truth of its arising cut off, the truth of cessation realised, the truth of the path cultivated; the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, the four formless absorptions; the thirty-seven limbs of the path; the three gates of liberation; the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions; down to ‘I shall pass beyond the fruit of the srota-āpanna, the fruit of the sakṛdāgāmin, the fruit of the anāgāmin, the fruit of the arhat, and the pratyekabuddha path’, ‘I shall fulfil the bodhisattva's ten grounds’, ‘I shall enter the bodhisattva's position’, ‘I shall purify buddha-lands’, ‘I shall bring beings to accomplishment’, ‘I shall obtain the omniscience of all kinds’, ‘I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues’—counted down all the way, every sentence is judged idle discourse. If one looks at it by the dharma, would the Buddha's Dharma itself not become idle discourse? No. The Buddha himself lays bare the boundary: ‘Nature does not make idle discourse about nature; non-nature does not make idle discourse about non-nature’; the treatise-author goes on: ‘Self-nature cannot make idle discourse about self-nature.’ ‘Since nature is born of causes and conditions, there is only a provisional name; how could it make idle discourse?’ The sickness is not in the dharma cultivated; it is in that ‘I shall’. So the remedy too is not not cultivating; it is that ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva should practise the prajñāpāramitā that is without idle discourse’.

Next comes the origin of the chapter's name. Subhūti asks: since dharmas are without nature, by which path after all does the bodhisattva enter the bodhisattva's position—the śrāvaka path? the pratyekabuddha path? the Buddha path? The Buddha first blocks off all three roads at once, and then sets up one sentence: ‘Not by the śrāvaka path, not by the pratyekabuddha path, not by the Buddha path does he obtain entry into the bodhisattva's position; the bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains in all the paths and obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position.’ Training in all is not opening another road outside the three; it is training in all three while taking not one of them as the road by which to enter the position. The treatise-author states the two reasons for ‘not using’ very clearly: ‘Because the bodhisattva is a person of the Great Vehicle, he should not use the path of the two vehicles; because the six perfections are not yet complete, he cannot use the Buddha path.’—The former is that he should not; the latter is that he cannot yet.

Hearing this, Subhūti finds it harder still: the paths each differ; one who trains in the path of seeing should become a srota-āpanna, one who trains in the pratyekabuddha path should become a pratyekabuddha; ‘if this bodhisattva gives rise to the eight paths, he should become the person of the eight!’ Then how does the bodhisattva train in all and yet not fall into them? The Buddha answers without evading, first taking a ready example: ‘It is as the person of the eight first trains in the paths and afterwards enters the right position; not yet having obtained the fruit, he first gives rise to the path of the fruit.’ Brought over, it becomes: ‘The bodhisattva too is like this: he first trains in all the paths and afterwards enters the bodhisattva's position; likewise, not yet having obtained the omniscience of all kinds, he first gives rise to the vajra samādhi, and at that time, with the wisdom associated with a single thought, obtains the omniscience of all kinds.’ The key is in that word ‘first’—the path of the fruit arises before the fruit, training is set up before realisation, so training in all and not taking realisation have never conflicted.

The treatise-author adds another simile, the most direct sentence of the whole chapter: ‘It is as a person whose kinsman is held in prison goes in to see him, and yet does not wear the shackles together with him.’ One's kin has gone to prison; one goes in to visit; one has indeed gone in, but one has not put on the shackles along with him. The bodhisattva's passing through the eight grounds—‘the ground of dry wisdom, the ground of the stage of nature, the ground of the person of the eight, the ground of seeing, the ground of thinning, the ground of freedom from desire, the ground of what has been done, the pratyekabuddha ground’—is likewise: ‘with the knowledge of the kinds of paths he enters the bodhisattva's position; having entered the bodhisattva's position, with the omniscience of all kinds he cuts off all the afflictions and their habitual residues.’ He goes in so as to see them all, not so as to settle there.

More worth noting is how the Buddha gives the attainments of the two vehicles their place. He does not set them aside but says: ‘The knowledge and the severance of this person of the eight are the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas’—the same knowledge, the same severance, is the fruit for the two vehicles and, for the bodhisattva, is acceptance. The treatise-author finds the reason for this sentence: ‘the people of the two vehicles obtain a small share of the wisdom of the buddhas and bodhisattvas’; and in passing lays the difference of great and small on the number of truths: ‘The śrāvaka obtains the path by the four truths; the bodhisattva enters the path by one truth.’ ‘These four truths and the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are all within the one truth.’ As for what the acceptance of non-arising is, this chapter holds three sayings together: the one the treatise-author himself ties to the Buddha's own words further on, ‘up to becoming a Buddha he never gives rise to an evil mind; therefore it is named the acceptance of non-arising.’; ‘The treatise-author says: obtaining this acceptance, he contemplates all dharmas as ultimately empty, cuts off the object, and mind and mental factors do not arise; this is named the acceptance of non-arising.’; ‘It is further said: being able to pass beyond the wisdom of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas is named the acceptance of non-arising.’ Three sayings set out together, each with its own place of landing. The treatise-author also guards against one turn: having entered the unarisen and unceasing, if one again grasps at that unarisen and unceasing, one still falls back into the view of permanence, so it says ‘true non-arising is the cessation of all contemplations, the way of words cut off, contemplating all dharmas as having the mark of nirvāṇa’, ‘from the beginning they have always been of themselves unarisen; it is not that they are made unarisen by contemplation with wisdom.’ Obtaining this acceptance is not thenceforth standing still; rather it is being able to give rise: ‘by all kinds of causes and conditions he delivers all beings, like a good fruit tree, which gives much benefit.’

Training in all accomplished, next is spoken the use of training in all, which is the knowledge of the kinds of paths. The Buddha's answer has two limbs: one is speech—‘with this voice he speaks the Dharma, filling the three-thousand great-thousand world, like the mark of an echo’; the voice fills everywhere and yet does not cling to being a voice, and the treatise-author gives it a name: ‘This voice is the mark of the Brahmā voice.’ One is knowing—‘he should first fully train in all the paths’: the paths, causes, and fruits of hell, animals, and hungry ghosts, the paths, causes, and fruits of dragons, ghosts and spirits, and asuras, each ‘should be known, should be obstructed’; on reaching humans and gods up to the four formless spheres, the limbs of the path, and the ten powers, the tone changes: only ‘should be known’, with no word of obstructing. The treatise-author states this measure one layer finer: the three evil destinies constantly undergo suffering, so they should be known and should be blocked; among gods and humans there are causes and conditions for obtaining the path, so for the sake of nirvāṇa they are only ‘sometimes to be blocked’, and because that is indefinite the sūtra does not say it; the remaining dharmas that aid the path should not be said to be blocked. At the last it is gathered as ‘this is named the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's pure knowledge of the kinds of paths’. And this great heap of dharmas that aid the path, in the end, are still in one place: ‘all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter into prajñāpāramitā’.

At this point Subhūti raises a very hard objection: since the dharmas that aid the path are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is signless, then they are empty, and how can something empty take hold of awakening? ‘It is as space, without taking and without giving up.’ The Buddha does not refute this simile; rather he first approves it: ‘All dharmas are empty of specific marks, without anything taken, without anything given up.’ That the dharmas that aid the path must still be displayed is for those who do not know the emptiness of specific marks, ‘by reason of worldly dharmas, speaking for beings so that they understand, not by the highest meaning.’ The treatise-author says it over as it stands: ‘Though these dharmas are empty, by reason of worldly truth they are spoken for beings, wishing to let them enter the holy Dharma; it is not the highest meaning.’—Emptiness does not hinder speaking, and speaking does not pass itself off as the highest meaning.

The last section presses back once more to an old question: all dharmas are neither with mark nor without mark, so how is prajñā still to be cultivated? The general formula the Buddha gives is: ‘To cultivate the breaking of dharmas is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā.’ Then from form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the six entries and the six sense-objects, the contemplation of impurity, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions, the ten recollections, the various practising marks, the twelve links of causes and conditions, self, person, and life, permanence, pleasure, purity, and self, the thirty-seven limbs of the path, the three samādhi, the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions, the four truths and the four knowledges, the six perfections and the eighteen emptinesses, the ten powers and the four fearlessnesses, down to the four fruits of the śramaṇa and the pratyekabuddha path, omniscience, and the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues, it counts all the way down in the form ‘to cultivate the breaking of such-and-such is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā’. This word ‘breaking’ is the easiest to misunderstand, and the treatise-author at once blocks it with a simile of parts: ‘Because dharmas are broken, the mark of the signless is also broken.’ ‘It is as when the parts of a cart are broken, the mark of the cart also ceases; again, as when the parts of a wheel are broken, the mark of the wheel also ceases; so on down to the fine particles.’ Breaking is not taking a hammer and smashing a thing; once the parts are dispersed, the mark of itself no longer stands; the mark of the cart need not be separately broken, for when the parts of the wheel are broken it is already gone. So the Buddha himself turns ‘breaking’ into plainer words: ‘Not thinking that there are dharmas of form is cultivating prajñāpāramitā’. Conversely, ‘this person clings to dharmas and does not practise dānapāramitā and so on up to prajñāpāramitā.’ ‘For one who clings thus there is no liberation, no path, no nirvāṇa.’

At the last it comes down on ‘two’. What is an existent dharma, what a non-existent dharma? The Buddha says: ‘Two is an existent dharma; not two is a non-existent dharma.’ Pushing further down: ‘All marks are two; all that is two is an existent dharma; as soon as there is an existent dharma there is birth and death; as soon as there is birth and death one cannot be free of birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, suffering, and vexation.’ The treatise-author takes this chain apart into four links: ‘Within existence a clinging mind arises; from the clinging mind as cause and condition the afflictions arise; from the afflictions as cause and condition one goes and comes within birth and death; from birth and death as cause and condition come sorrow, grief, suffering, and vexation.’ And the reason people see marks as two is that marks are from the first mutually dependent and cannot be parted from one another: ‘ordinary people call this two, and so are inverted.’ A person of two marks does not even have compliant acceptance—the treatise-author even asks in particular which kind of compliant acceptance this is, and answers crisply: ‘It is the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle. If even the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle is lacking, how much more that of the Great Vehicle!’ So the last sentence of the whole chapter is gathered very coldly: ‘If a person sees form, even cultivating the path is lacking, how much less can he obtain the cultivation of the fruit of the srota-āpanna and so on up to the cutting off of the afflictions and their habitual residues!’

Looking from the beginning, this chapter speaks in fact of only one thing: training may be in all; taking may not be. The paths of the three vehicles are all walked once, the eight grounds all looked over once, and the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are also all acknowledged—acknowledged to the point of saying that they are exactly the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas; yet not one step is halted to receive a fruit. And the capital for not halting is still that opening sentence: immovable within the nature of dharmas. Immovable is not standing firm; it is not even taking the place to stand as existent.

What this chapter asks is a very practical difficulty: since all dharmas are without any existent nature, do the stages of practice still count. Subhūti puts the matter plainly: ‘How do bodhisattva-mahāsattvas new to the training, within dharmas that are without any existent nature, practise in sequence, train in sequence, and follow the path in sequence, and by this sequential practice, sequential training, and sequential path obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?’ Emptiness has been spoken to the end, yet a person must after all start from some place; starting has a before and after, and before and after is sequence. Emptiness and sequence look like two things that are about to cancel each other. What this chapter does from beginning to end is to keep them from cancelling each other.

The Buddha does not first speak of principle; he first calls himself as witness. He says that when I formerly practised the bodhisattva path I cultivated the six perfections, parted from the desires, parted from evil and unwholesome dharmas, and entered the first dhyāna and so on up to the fourth dhyāna—yet the very next sentence turns the whole matter over: ‘I did not think that there was this dhyāna, did not receive the flavour of dhyāna, did not obtain this dhyāna’, and so ‘in these dhyānas I did not receive the retribution’. The five supernormal powers too: they arose, and yet I did not grasp at their marks or receive their flavour. Cultivating all the way up, at the last it was ‘at that time I, with the wisdom associated with a single thought, obtained anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’. Every layer of the sequence was walked through, yet at no layer was there a halt; when the walking was done, there was no walked-through thing either. Subhūti presses: since dharmas are without anything existent, how could the Buddha give rise to the four dhyānas and the six supernormal powers within them, and further distinguish beings into the three groups? The Buddha's way of answering is very crisp: exactly because the five desires and evil and unwholesome dharmas have neither self-nature nor other-nature could I part from them and enter the first dhyāna; if they really had a fixed nature, I could not have parted from them at all. Emptiness is not a reason that obstructs practice; emptiness is exactly the reason practice can be established.

Fascicle eighty-seven takes it up, and the Buddha answers where a bodhisattva new to the training should start. The starting place is hearing the Dharma: from the buddhas, from bodhisattvas who make offerings to the buddhas, from the four kinds of śrāvaka sages, one hears a sentence—‘because he obtains that nothing exists, he is a Buddha’, and arhats down to srota-āpannas too have their names because they obtain that nothing exists; ‘all conditioned, made dharmas are without any existent nature, with not even so much as a hair's tip existent’. Having heard it, a thought turns in his mind: since whether obtained or not obtained all dharmas are ever without nature, why do I not arouse the mind to become a Buddha? Having aroused the mind, ‘all beings practise within marks; I shall cause them to dwell within there being nothing existent’. The treatise-author adds a softer layer of reason to this thought: it is not forced out by principle; it is forced out by not being able to bear it—‘It is as a person who obtains a good medicine, while his kin and friends suffer the pains of sickness: how should he not give it?’

Next come the six perfections. In each perfection there are four things, not one sentence less: ‘he himself practises giving, he also teaches others to practise giving, he praises the merit of practising giving, and he rejoices in and praises those who practise giving’. The treatise-author counts out one by one the five kinds of people who cannot complete them: there are those willing to give themselves but unwilling to teach others, fearing to provoke their anger and fearing too that others will feel they owe them a debt; those willing to teach others but not themselves giving; those who praise the virtue of giving without end and can move others, but cannot move themselves; those who do all three things and yet, seeing another give, cannot rejoice—because the donor is a precept-breaking evil person; and those who, seeing a donor, do rejoice yet will not praise, because they hold wrong views and do not believe that giving has retribution. The hardest of the four things turn out to be the last two. And the reason the bodhisattva can do all four is that ‘he has well pulled up the root of stinginess and greed, deeply loves dānapāramitā, is kind and compassionate toward beings, and penetrates the real mark of all dharmas’.

To whom giving should first be given, the treatise-author does not evade either. He first lists an order: first make offerings to the buddhas, the great bodhisattvas, the pratyekabuddhas, and the arhats; next to those who keep morality, are vigorous, are in meditation, are wise, and are free of desire; next to the Buddha's disciples who have left home; next to those who keep the five precepts and practise the ten wholesome paths; next to the middling people who are neither right nor wrong; last to the evil people of the five heinous sins and to the animals—‘it may not be withheld’. Yet at once he cites another saying: it should be turned round, giving first to the people of the five heinous sins, to those who have cut off the roots of goodness, to the poor, the old, the sick, the lowly, and the begging, down to the animals, ‘as a kind mother with many children first thinks of the weak and sick and gives them what they need’. He judges neither order, saying only ‘all beings are the bodhisattva's field of merit, because they can give rise to great compassion’, and then distinguishes two kinds of mind: the one in whom the mind of compassion is greater gives first to the poor—‘among the fields of merit in which to plant, though the retribution is great, out of pity for beings he first benefits the poor’; the one in whom the discriminating mind is greater makes offerings first to the buddhas—‘though his mind is small, because the field of merit is good, the merit too is great’. Only when one has truly obtained the real mark and entered the power of skilful means does one ‘practise both things together—pitying beings, and also regarding all as a Buddha’. The most moving sentence of this section comes further on: the sūtra says ‘to one who needs food, give food’ and does not say ‘give food, clothing, and the rest’; the treatise-author asks why this is so, and answers, ‘there are people who to one who needs food give drink, and to one who needs drink give clothing; because it does not suit the recipient's wish, the merit is small’—the aim of giving lies in the recipient's need, not in the giver's intention. Some are ashamed, some afraid, and cannot say it out; then ‘observe their appearance, what is needed at the time, and what suits the land’.

After the six perfections come the six recollections: recollection of the Buddha, of the Dharma, of the Saṅgha, of morality, of giving up, and of the gods. And the way of cultivating recollection has throughout only one gesture, which is to withdraw one by one the things recollected. Recollecting the Buddha, ‘he does not recollect by form, does not recollect by feeling, perception, constructions, or consciousness’; he does not recollect by the thirty-two marks, the golden body, the light of one zhang, or the eighty minor marks; not by morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation, or the knowledge and vision of liberation; not by the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, or the eighteen unshared dharmas; not by great kindness and great compassion; not by the dharma of the twelve links of causes and conditions; with each layer withdrawn, it is drawn back to recollecting nothing; the closing words of the five passages in fact have three phrasings—the first two are ‘because there is no remembering, this is recollection of the Buddha’, the middle one is ‘recollection that nothing exists: this is recollection of the Buddha’, the last two are ‘recollecting nothing: this is recollection of the Buddha’: the wording changes three times, and what it gathers is one and the same matter. Recollecting the Dharma, he recollects neither good nor not good, neither worldly nor beyond the world, neither conditioned nor unconditioned; recollecting the Saṅgha, morality, giving up, and the gods, it is in every case ‘up to there not being even a little recollection, how much less recollecting the Saṅgha’. That recollection is accomplished lies exactly in recollecting nothing. This is not first cultivating a recollection with something to be attained and then afterwards emptying it out; it is cultivating from the first move with a mind that accords with the omniscience of all kinds, so that from the first step there is nothing to be grasped. So the treatise-author says the six recollections are the first sequential practice, ‘because they are easy to practise and easy to obtain’—the deepest contemplation is set, rather, at the very front.

Then the treatise-author answers head-on what difference there is among the three names ‘practice’, ‘training’, and ‘path’, and his way of answering is itself the posture of this chapter. He lists six sayings in a row: someone says there is no difference, ‘the meaning is one and the words differ’; someone says ‘the beginning is named practice, the middle is named training, the end is named path’; someone assigns them to giving, morality, and wisdom, someone to morality, concentration, and wisdom; someone splits the eightfold right path into three parts, right speech, right action, and right livelihood being practice, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration being training, right view and right thought being path, and points out that ‘right view is the body of the path’; someone assigns them to the six perfections, dāna and vigour being practice, śīla and dhyāna being training, patience and prajñā being path, ‘patience is goodness, prajñā is wisdom; because goodness and wisdom are complete it is named path. It is as a person who has eyes and feet and goes wherever he wishes’. The six sayings listed, he writes only one sentence: ‘Such as these are named the differences of the three matters.’ He takes no one saying as fixed. The three names are from the first a setting-up of provisional names; fix on one, and the setting-up turns into a real dharma—not judging is exactly where the judging is most exact.

As for the two Chinese characters ‘sequence’ themselves, the treatise-author sets another question. Since the dharma of emptiness is hard to understand, how can one who has first aroused the mind be gradual? The answer is two sentences. One speaks the principle: ‘Though dharmas are empty and hard to understand, because sequential practice gains strength, one can reach accomplishment’; one is the general simile of this chapter: ‘It is as climbing a ladder: from the first rung one gradually goes up, and though the place above is high and hard, one can still reach it.’ The ladder is not the high place; the ladder is only the way of getting up. And why the person new to the training should from the very start contemplate ultimate emptiness has a more homely comparison too: ‘It is as a small child taking medicine: it needs honey to go down.’ Emptiness is the medicine; giving and keeping morality are the honey; honey is not medicine, yet without honey the medicine will not go down. Emptiness and practice have never been a matter of one replacing the other; it is ‘combining the practices of giving, keeping morality, and the rest with there being nothing existent and ultimate emptiness’. At the chapter's end the treatise-author settles sequence: ‘first coarse then fine, first easy then hard, gradually practising and training, is named sequence’, and the standing of sequence is likewise made clear—‘though the nature of dharmas is without anything existent, one practises following worldly truth, in order to break inversion.’ Sequence is not set up as a real dharma; it is set up only as a use for breaking inversion.

The last section shows Subhūti's heart most of all. He suddenly says: if all dharmas are without any existent nature, ‘then there is no path, no knowledge, no fruit’. The Buddha does not dispute emptiness with him; he only asks one question back: ‘Do you see this nature of form as really existent?’ Subhūti answers that he does not see it. The Buddha asks again: ‘If you do not see dharmas as really existent, why do you ask this question?’ Only then does Subhūti speak the real intent of his question—it is not that he himself has doubt; it is for the sake of those in the world to come who seek the paths of the three vehicles. Those people ‘because their sins are heavy and their knowledge dull, grasp at the mark of emptiness’, and hearing emptiness say who is defiled and who pure, who bound and who released; and not understanding, they break morality, break right view, break deportment, break pure livelihood, and ‘planting these sins, fall into the three evil destinies, or worse than the white-robed’. He is asking this question away beforehand on behalf of those who come after. In the last sentence he states his own position: ‘Further, I constantly cultivate the samādhi of non-contention and pity beings; therefore I ask the Buddha.’

So the two ends of this chapter are to be read together. If sequence is not set up, emptiness falls into denying cause and effect; if sequence is set up without knowing that sequence itself is unfindable, emptiness falls into another kind of something to be attained. The way it gives is not a compromise; it is the two faces of one and the same matter: going up step by step, and every step unfindable—the ladder is climbed as before, and rung by rung nothing is kept.

This chapter opens with the plainest and also the hardest question to answer. Subhūti asks: ‘World-Honored One! If the nature of all dharmas is without anything existent, what benefit does the bodhisattva see, that for the sake of beings he seeks anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?’—Since not a single dharma is other than unfindable, what after all is the bodhisattva after? The Buddha's answer takes no detour; it only shifts the position of the word ‘because’ in the question: ‘Because the nature of all dharmas is without anything existent, the bodhisattva for the sake of beings seeks anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ Not ‘although nothing exists, one must still arouse the mind’, but ‘exactly because nothing exists can the mind be aroused at all’. The treatise-author lays bare the force of this sentence for the reader: if all is without anything existent, then ‘the bodhisattva, beings, and anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi are likewise all empty and without anything existent; how can one raise the objection?’—The objection becomes an objection because emptiness has been placed only at the end that is sought, forgetting that the end that seeks is just as empty; put both ends in together, and the objection scatters of itself. ‘Ultimate emptiness is without obstruction toward all dharmas; what hinders arousing the mind?’ As for the road of grasping, the Buddha says it very directly: ‘Those with something attained and something clung to are hard to liberate.’, ‘Those who have the mark of attaining have no path, no fruit, no anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’

Next comes the weighing sentence of the whole chapter. Subhūti presses: then does the one without the mark of attaining have a path, a fruit, and awakening, or not? The Buddha answers: ‘Nothing to be attained is precisely the path, precisely the fruit, precisely anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, because the nature of dharmas is indestructible.’—It is not that outside nothing to be attained there is some other path and fruit; nothing to be attained is itself that. Said the other way round it is sharper still: ‘If with the dharma of nothing to be attained one wishes to obtain the path, wishes to obtain the fruit, wishes to obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, one wishes to destroy the nature of dharmas.’ To wish to add an ‘attaining’ on top of nothing to be attained is not obtaining anything more; it is pulling the nature of dharmas apart. The treatise-author gathers it more thoroughly still: ‘If a person does not discriminate this as something to be attained and that as nothing to be attained, and enters the real mark of all dharmas, ultimate emptiness, this too is nothing to be attained, and is precisely the path, precisely the fruit, precisely anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’—only when even ‘nothing to be attained’ is not set up as one side is it truly nothing to be attained. Then how do ‘the nature of dharmas is indestructible’ and the wrong practice of beings stand together? The treatise-author borrows space to answer: ‘Though the nature of dharmas cannot be destroyed, because of beings' wrong practice it is named destroyed.’ Like space, ‘though clouds, mist, earth, and dust cannot stain it, it is also named impure.’—That it cannot be stained and yet is said to be impure is said with regard to the one looking; as for really going to stain space, ‘this person wishes to defile the nature of dharmas, and there is no such thing.’

The third section is the most practical question: this being so, from the first ground up to the tenth ground, the acceptance of non-arising, the supernormal powers obtained as retribution, the six perfections obtained as retribution, down to the relics receiving offerings after parinirvāṇa—where does this whole sequence find a place to settle? The Buddha's answer is still the same turning sentence: ‘Because dharmas have the mark of nothing to be attained, he obtains the bodhisattva's first ground up to the tenth ground’—sequence is not propped up by ‘something to be attained’; it is exactly by nothing to be attained that it stands firm. And the higher and lower among the six perfections and the supernormal powers the sūtra says straight out is expedient: ‘In the dharma of nothing to be attained, giving, keeping morality, patience, vigour, meditation, wisdom, and the supernormal powers are without difference.’, ‘Because beings cling to giving and so on up to the supernormal powers, they are spoken of with distinctions.’ So the look of the dharma of practice is settled too: ‘not finding giving, with giver and recipient both unfindable, he practises giving; not finding morality, he keeps morality; not finding patience, he practises patience …’ all the way to ‘not finding the dharmas of the buddhas, he obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ One who practises thus ‘Māra and the gods of Māra cannot destroy.’ The treatise-author also points out why Subhūti asks and asks again: ‘because beings' clinging minds are hard to loosen, he asks further.’—‘The Buddha breaks their clinging, and they cling to the dharma that has been broken.’ The dharma that has been broken away will also be seized afresh by people; the reason this chapter asks again and again lies here.

Only here does the proper topic of the chapter's name come out. Subhūti asks: how can the bodhisattva within a single thought be complete with the six perfections, the four dhyānas, and so on up to the thirty-two marks and the eighty minor marks? The Buddha's three answers go a layer deeper each: first he says ‘all the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's giving is not far from prajñāpāramitā’; then he says the look of not being far from it is ‘all his giving is not far from prajñāpāramitā and is of the mark of non-duality, and when keeping morality it is likewise of the mark of non-duality’; third he says where the mark of non-duality comes down is ‘wishing to complete dānapāramitā, within dānapāramitā he contains all the pāramitā and the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eighty minor marks.’—Within one practice all practices are contained, so there is no need to stand in line. And what ‘a single thought’ after all is, the treatise-author himself defines, and this is the most essential sentence of the whole chapter: ‘What is a single thought? Namely, the bodhisattva obtains the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, cuts off all the afflictions, removes all recollection, imagining, and discrimination, rests securely within the mind without outflows, and gives all.’—A single thought is not quickness; it is there being no mark in the mind; ‘the mind without outflows is the mark of the signless.’ With no mark there is no sequence of taking this and giving up that; without sequence can one speak of being complete at one time. Its reverse the treatise-author himself adds: ‘If he is far from prajñāpāramitā, then he practises little by little in sequence.’—Sequential practice is not wrong; it is the way of walking at the time when one has not yet reached the signless.

In a long middle section the Buddha goes through the six perfections one by one, asking of each the same question: dharmas being signless, without making, and without attaining, how can this perfection still be made complete? At giving it is said in the finest detail: having given, he does not see ‘who gives? who receives? what thing is given?’; even when someone comes to rebuke him he does not waver—‘Though this person comes to rebuke my giving, I shall never regret it! I should practise giving diligently and should not fail to give.’ When dedicating, he does not even set up the dedication: ‘“Who is it that dedicates? Where is it dedicated? By what dharma is it dedicated?” This is named right dedication.’ At keeping morality he lines up every possible retribution—heavenly kings, human kings, down to the fruits of the two vehicles—and ‘takes none of them’. At patience two kinds of acceptance come out: one is being reviled and beaten and yet ‘the mind of hatred does not arise’; the other is ‘the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, that all dharmas are unarisen’; and the way to break hatred is not holding it in but pushing one by one at the persons in this affair: the first three questions push at the one doing harm—‘Who is it that reviles me? Who ridicules and rebukes? Who strikes and throws?’, and only the last question asks about the one who receives—‘Who is there that receives?’ When neither the one able to harm nor the one harmed can be pushed out, patience too no longer counts as patience. At vigour it divides into the two roads of body and mind, and the crux of mental vigour lies in one sentence: ‘One may not grasp at a mark by nature, because this nature does not exist.’ At dhyānapāramitā it says ‘except for the dhyānas and absorptions of the buddhas, all the other dhyānas and samādhi he can make complete’, and yet does not take their fruit: ‘this bodhisattva sees all made dharmas as like an illusion, and yet benefits beings’. At prajñā it is gathered in not receiving: ‘at that time this bodhisattva does not receive form, and so on up to consciousness’, and even at the time of becoming a Buddha, ‘all the goods that sustain life in his land have no owner.’—It is not that there are none; it is that there is no owner.

The whole chapter is gathered in the treatise-author's last round of question and answer, and the question is extremely sharp. The bodhisattva in a fleshly body has not yet removed greed and attachment; when his flesh is cut it hurts severely, and this is what is called hard; the bodhisattva who has obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas ‘is as what a conjured person does: cut and severed, he feels no pain’, so what grace is there to speak of? The treatise-author's answer moves the whole word ‘hard’ to another place: ‘For the bodhisattva who has obtained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, practising these six perfections is hard!’ Why? Having obtained the quiescent mind of the acceptance of non-arising, he ought to rest in the pleasure of nirvāṇa, ‘and yet he gives up this pleasure of quiescence and enters among beings to receive all kinds of bodies, now as a lowly person, now as an animal and the like: this is what is hard!’ The hardness lies not in whether it hurts but in whether one gives up. Conversely, the bodhisattva in a fleshly body gives his body in giving while his mind still clings to the body of a Buddha, and the treatise-author cuts it off in one sentence: ‘This is hoping for something, not pure giving; therefore it is not as good.’—Hurting while hoping for something is not as good as not hurting and giving up all. The last sentence locks the title down: ‘Further, practising the six perfections without outflows and without marks, at that time he can make them complete; with outflows and with marks he cannot make them complete. Therefore the one who can make them complete has a great share of grace.’ Only here do the two Chinese characters ‘make complete’ truly find their footing: signless, therefore able to make complete; able to make complete, therefore having a great share of grace. One mind complete with all practices speaks, it turns out, of this.

This chapter opens with a difficulty that every practitioner runs into sooner or later. Subhūti asks four questions in one breath: since they are ‘dharmas that are signless, indiscriminable, and empty of specific marks’, how can the six perfections still be cultivated one by one? ‘How, within dharmas that are without difference, are differing marks spoken of with distinctions?’; and how can prajñā gather the other five perfections into itself? ‘How does one practise dharmas of differing marks and obtain the fruit by the path of one mark?’—At bottom there is only one doubt: if all is empty, does today's giving and keeping of morality still count. The Buddha does not answer the questions one by one. He gives only a place: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva abides in the five aggregates as like a dream, like an echo, like a shadow, like a mirage, like an illusion, like a conjuration, and abiding in this he practises giving, keeps morality, cultivates patience, is diligent in vigour, enters meditative concentration, and cultivates wisdom.’—The answer lies not in how to reconcile emptiness and existence, but in where one abides while practising. The six similes are not figures of speech to exhort the world; they are the ground abided in; once the abiding-place is settled, the four questions dissolve at once.

That the six similes can stand, the sūtra itself gives the argument for, and most briefly: ‘A dream has no self-nature; echo, shadow, mirage, illusion, and conjuration all have no self-nature.’, ‘If a dharma has no self-nature, that dharma is signless; if a dharma is signless, that dharma is of one mark, namely the signless.’—The unreality of a dream lies not in its being false but in its having no nature of its own. With no self-nature there is no mark; with no mark there remains only one mark, and this one mark is not some other mark; it is precisely the signless. So the very next sentence comes straight down upon giving: ‘By reason of these causes and conditions, Subhūti! know that the bodhisattva's giving is signless, the giver is signless, the recipient is signless.’ The emptiness of the three wheels is not a realm cultivated into being; it is so from the first, and the practitioner merely knows it so.

Below this the Buddha speaks of each perfection separately, and for each he gives a most concrete proving-place. The proving-place of morality is ‘he does not make this vow’: the sūtra first speaks of the body of morality, ‘this morality is not deficient, not broken, not mixed, not clinging, the morality without outflows praised by the sages’, and at once says that this bodhisattva does not vow by this morality to be born among the great clans of the kṣatriyas, and so on up to the gods Sovereign over Others' Transformations, nor does he vow by this morality to obtain the four fruits and the pratyekabuddha path. Whether morality is with marks or signless is proved not by how strictly it is kept, but by whether there is still in the mind a place one wants to go. And why no vow need be made, the sūtra blocks the whole road: ‘A signless dharma cannot obtain a signless dharma; a dharma with marks cannot obtain a dharma with marks; a signless dharma cannot obtain a dharma with marks; a dharma with marks cannot obtain a signless dharma.’ The four alternatives are blocked together—not making a vow is not a low aspiration; it is that this road was never open. This passage brings out two matters of conjuring: ‘It is as a conjured wheel-turning sage king, who, though sitting, lying, walking, and standing, is not seen coming from anywhere nor going anywhere’ and yet can benefit beings; and again, ‘It is as the Buddha Suśānta’, who, having conjured a conjured buddha, himself gave up his body and life and entered nirvāṇa without remainder, while the conjured buddha still teaches the Dharma. To be able to benefit and yet not find the one benefited: this is exactly signless practice.

The proving-place of patience is a single thought that turns back and illumines. The sūtra writes very practically: all beings come to revile with harsh and evil words and assail him with tiles, stones, knives, and staves, and the bodhisattva ‘does not give rise to even a single evil thought’. By what does he endure? Not by great strength of endurance, but by asking one question on the spot: ‘Who is it that reviles me? Who is it that harms me? Who is it that assails me with evil words and harms me with tiles, stones, knives, and staves?’—What is asked is exactly ‘who is reviling’: the one who can revile and can harm, when one turns round to look, cannot be found. The sūtra itself says what he relies on: ‘because this bodhisattva has obtained signless acceptance toward all dharmas’. Patience, reaching here, turns into the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, and the definition of the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas is not in the least abstruse: ‘he obtains acceptance of dharmas, and so on up to not giving rise to even a little unwholesome dharma; therefore it is named the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas.’ It is not that something has been seen; it is that not even a little of the unwholesome arises any more. Subhūti presses on to ask how the acceptance of the two vehicles differs from the acceptance of the bodhisattva; the Buddha does not weigh higher and lower, but answers only with inclusion: ‘the knowledge and the severance of the srota-āpannas are named the bodhisattva's acceptance’, and so on up to the knowledge and severance of the pratyekabuddhas also being the bodhisattva's acceptance—‘this is the difference’. What the four fruits and the pratyekabuddha sever and know becomes, in the bodhisattva's share, wholly his ground of acceptance.

The proving-place of dhyāna is not receiving the flavour. The sūtra lists a long string of samādhi, even ‘entering the like-lightning samādhi, entering the like-vajra samādhi, entering the noble right samādhi’, all realised and all entered, and then adds one sentence: ‘he also does not receive the flavour of the samādhi, nor does he receive the fruit of the samādhi.’ Why does he not receive them? ‘How should one receive the flavour of a signless dharma within a signless dharma, or the flavour of a dharma without anything existent within a dharma without anything existent?’—A signless thing has no flavour to be tasted. The real effect of not receiving the flavour is extremely concrete: ‘If he does not receive the flavour, he is not born, following the power of meditative concentration, in the form realm or the formless realm.’ The power of concentration is enough for birth among the gods, and he is not born there. One layer further in, even the one who enters and that which is entered are not seen: ‘he also does not see this dhyāna, does not see the one who enters dhyāna, does not see the one who enters dhyāna by means of some dharma.’

The shortest criterion of the whole chapter appears here. Subhūti asks what the bodhisattva's position is and what is not the position, and the Buddha answers in only nineteen Chinese characters: ‘All that is with something to be attained is not the bodhisattva's position; all that is with nothing to be attained is the bodhisattva's position.’—The position is settled not by stages but by something to be attained and nothing to be attained. What counts as something to be attained? The sūtra answers without mercy: form is with something to be attained, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness are with something to be attained, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds with something to be attained, all are not the position. Even the omniscience of all kinds, as soon as the three Chinese characters ‘something to be attained’ are hung upon it, falls out of the position. What is the one who has entered the position like? ‘This bodhisattva who has entered the position is complete with all meditative concentrations and samādhi, and is still not born following the power of meditative concentration and samādhi, how much less does he abide in lust, anger, and delusion and give rise to sinful deeds within them!’ He still delivers beings, only ‘the bodhisattva abides only in dharmas like an illusion and enriches beings, and does not find beings or dharmas like an illusion either.’ At the end even the wheel of the Dharma is emptied along with the rest: ‘and so on up to being able to turn the wheel of the Dharma, namely the unfindable wheel of the Dharma.’

Coming to the passage of general gathering, the Buddha blocks off the six similes themselves as well: ‘he does not see the dream, does not see the one who sees the dream; he does not see the echo, does not see the one who hears the echo’, and so on up to not seeing the conjuration and not seeing the one who sees the conjuration. Why does he not leave even the similes? ‘Because this dream, echo, shadow, mirage, illusion, and conjuration are all the inverted dharmas of ordinary foolish people.’—The six similes are medicine given to those who grasp at marks, and medicine is not meant to stay in the body. Below this there is layer upon layer of not clinging: not clinging to form and so on up to consciousness, not clinging to the three realms, not clinging to the dhyānas, liberations, and samādhi, not clinging to the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path, not clinging to the six perfections; ‘because he does not cling, he can make complete the bodhisattva's first ground, and within the first ground he gives rise to no clinging either.’ And so up to the ten grounds. Even prajñā itself is not found: ‘this bodhisattva practising prajñāpāramitā also does not find prajñāpāramitā’, and exactly because he does not find it, ‘at that time he sees all dharmas enter into prajñāpāramitā’—not finding is the true entering.

Subhūti then pushes the doubt to its last step: since all is signless and without discrimination, how can wholesome and unwholesome, with outflows and without outflows, worldly and beyond the world, conditioned and unconditioned still be spoken of? The Buddha does not answer but asks him in return: within the real mark of all dharmas, is there any dharma that can be said to be wholesome or unwholesome, and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi? Subhūti has only one sentence: ‘World-Honored One! It is unspeakable!’ The Buddha then takes himself as witness: ‘When I formerly practised the bodhisattva path, there was likewise no dharma whose nature could be found’. The whole sūtra section gathers in one instruction—‘one should train well in the nature of dharmas; because one trains well in the nature of dharmas, this is named the path to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’

The treatise-author takes over and first asks the doubt more sharply on the reader's behalf: Subhūti asks with emptiness, and the Buddha answers again with emptiness; is this question and answer not asked for nothing? The answer lies only in the one word ‘see’. The treatise-author says that the ordinary person's difficulty is that ‘ordinary people are far from real wisdom, grasp at marks, and see the bodhisattva practising the six perfections and becoming a Buddha; because they cling to this empty dharma, they raise the objection.’ But the bodhisattva, though abiding in the five aggregates, ‘abides in the five aggregates as in the empty dharma of what is like an illusion and like a dream, and also practises giving with an empty mind’, so ‘though he practises all dharmas and makes the six perfections complete, this does not hinder emptiness.’ At once he brings out a simile to gather it: ‘It is as with clouds and mist: seen from afar they are seen; drawing near, nothing is seen.’, ‘Ordinary people too are like this: because they are far from the real mark, they see buddhas. The bodhisattva, because he is near the real mark, sees all as empty’—the same one thing, seen from afar as a thing, seen from near as nothing; it is not that there are two worlds, but that there are two distances. Not hindered, and so ‘he can, within dānapāramitā, within a single thought, practise all wholesome dharmas to completion.’ And the treatise-author in passing glosses the two Chinese characters ‘obtained as retribution’: ‘obtained as retribution means obtained of itself without further cultivation; it is as the eye-faculty obtained as retribution can of itself see forms.’

The second question is more practical still: since all is empty and signless and the practitioner himself does not discriminate, who is it that says ‘each is complete with the other perfections’? The treatise-author answers most plainly: ‘Though the practitioner does not himself discriminate, the buddhas and bodhisattvas say that he practises dāna and practises śīla and is complete with all the practices.’ And he takes the śrāvaka as example—the person who has entered the seeing of the truths, within the dharma without outflows, signless, and without discrimination, does not himself discriminate, yet ‘the other sages also count the dharmas he has entered’: knowing the real mark of all dharmas, namely the mark of the signless, he is given the name right view; when right view gains strength, it is named right practice; when he does not vex beings and does no evil, it is named right speech, right action, and right livelihood. ‘At that time, though nothing is said and nothing is made, it is named right speech and right action.’—The names are counted on his behalf by others; they are not set up by himself. The four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the seven limbs of awakening are all so: ‘within the four foundations of mindfulness too, as within the eightfold straight noble path, the sages count them for him.’ The bodhisattva is likewise: ‘practising this signless dānapāramitā, he can make complete śīlapāramitā and the other wholesome dharmas.’

At the end the treatise-author sets himself one question to conclude: the preceding chapter said ‘by one perfection he is complete with all the perfections’, and this chapter says ‘this signlessness gathers all dharmas’; what difference is there between the two? The answer is only one sentence: ‘Above, it was that within a single thought he can be complete with all the perfections; here, it is that though all dharmas are empty and signless he can be complete with all the perfections—this is the difference.’—The preceding chapter speaks of when one is complete; this chapter speaks of why one can be complete; the one is in time, the other in essential nature. The difficulty the whole chapter debates is gathered in this one distinction.

This chapter begins with a very impolite question. The preceding chapters have said ‘emptiness’ to the end, and so Subhūti asks: ‘If dharmas are like a dream, like an echo, like a shadow, like a mirage, like an illusion, like a conjuration, without real substance, without any existent nature, and empty of specific marks, how are wholesome dharmas and unwholesome dharmas distinguished’, and so on up to the four fruits, the pratyekabuddha path, and unsurpassed awakening? Since everything is empty, by what are good and evil still told apart? The Buddha's answer argues no principle; it only points to a fact: ‘Ordinary foolish people find the dream and find the one who sees the dream, and so on up to finding the conjuration and finding the one who sees the conjuration, and give rise to wholesome deeds, unwholesome deeds, and indeterminate deeds of body, speech, and mind’. The dream is empty, yet the deeds done in the dream truly arise—emptiness does not hinder their arising, exactly because they arise from inversion in the first place.

What the bodhisattva has to do is not to expose this dream in one word, but to lead people out layer by layer. The sūtra says the bodhisattva ‘abides in the two emptinesses—ultimate emptiness and beginningless emptiness—and teaches the Dharma for beings’; on one side he says that all dharmas are like a dream and like a conjuration, on the other ‘he pulls beings out from the dharma of stinginess and teaches them to practise dānapāramitā’; when a person has come to crave the reward of giving, he pulls him out again from the reward and teaches him to keep morality; keeping morality he is born among the gods, and again he is pulled out of the heavens and made to abide in meditative concentration; only at the last is he ‘set in nirvāṇa without remainder and in the path to nirvāṇa’. The treatise-author lays bare the mechanism here: giving, keeping morality, and meditative concentration themselves also ‘arise because of inversion’, ‘though for a short time they benefit beings, in the long run they change and can give rise to suffering and vexation, so he also teaches them to give these up’. First give him a good thing he can hold on to, then take away what he holds—this is the skilful means this chapter speaks of. Hearing this far, Subhūti praises, ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas are very rare and hard to equal’; the Buddha approves, and says that this dharma, rare and hard to equal, ‘no śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha can requite, how much less other people’.

Of the rare dharmas spoken of below, the first is giving, and the first article of giving is not picking and choosing. Making offerings to a Buddha and giving to birds and beasts ‘are without difference’; giving to a person on the right path and giving to an ordinary person ‘are all without discrimination, one and the same giving’. The reason is only one sentence: ‘because all dharmas are not different and without discrimination.’ The retribution too is only one sentence: ‘This bodhisattva, having given without difference and without distinction, will obtain the retribution of the dharma without discrimination, namely the omniscience of all kinds.’ Only when there is no discrimination on the ground of the cause is the wisdom without discrimination obtained on the ground of the fruit; cause and fruit are one and the same mark. Conversely, if the thought arises, ‘the Buddha is a field of merit, I should make offerings; birds and beasts are not a field of merit, I should not make offerings’, the sūtra speaks with the utmost weight—‘this is not the bodhisattva's dharma’; ‘if he discriminates and picks and chooses, he falls into the place of rebuke by the buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas, those in training and beyond training, and all the gods and humans of the world’, and that rebuke leaves no room: ‘Who asked you to rescue all beings? You are the house of all beings, the protection of all beings, the refuge of all beings’; since you yourself have promised to be the refuge of all beings, where is there still room to pick and choose?

Beyond picking and choosing there is one more layer, which is the body. When someone comes to beg the bodhisattva's limbs and joints, the sūtra says ‘at that time he should not give rise to two minds’, not reckoning ‘shall I give? shall I not give?’, because ‘this bodhisattva-mahāsattva receives his body for the sake of beings; when beings come to take it, how can he not give?’ This body was received for the sake of beings from the first. And what truly makes this deed doable is not gritting the teeth but a contemplation: ‘Who here gives, who receives? What thing is given? The self-nature of all these dharmas is unfindable, because of ultimate emptiness’—‘abiding in these emptinesses he gives, and at that time he makes dānapāramitā complete’. The treatise-author later also asks: the bodhisattva's body is not wood or stone; how is it cut and severed without a different mind arising? The answer sets four sayings side by side: one who has long cultivated patience, one who has long cultivated kindness and compassion, one who has obtained the empty mind that is the retribution of prajñā, and one who is already the body born of the dharma-nature beyond the three realms. The four sayings stand together, and the treatise-author rules none of them the settled one.

The bodhisattvas seen by the Buddha-eye, looked at all the way down, are all of this same not picking and choosing: ‘he enters the great hells and makes the fire go out and the boiling water grow cold’, and then ‘teaches and transforms by three things: first, supernormal power; second, knowing others' minds; third, teaching the Dharma’; he serves as attendant to the buddhas and does not forget or lose the Dharma; ‘for the sake of animals he gives up his life, cuts and severs his body, and scatters it in all directions’, so that the beings who eat the bodhisattva's flesh thereby leave the animal destiny. Someone asks: is it not a sin to eat the bodhisattva's flesh; how do they instead come to be delivered? The treatise-author answers clearly: this is the bodhisattva's original vow—‘if there are beings who eat my flesh, may they come to be delivered’—and the real cause of deliverance lies not in the flesh but in the kind mind the flesh calls forth. As for why the three evil destinies cannot be delivered to the last one, the treatise-author uses a very worldly simile: ‘It is as a great amnesty: those it reaches are freed, those it does not reach receive nothing.’

The four means of gathering to which the chapter's name is tied are marked in general here: ‘by four things he gathers in beings. What are the four? Giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavour.’ Giving is further divided into two—‘the bodhisattva gathers in beings by two kinds of giving: the gift of wealth and the gift of Dharma’. The list of the gift of wealth is very long: gold, silver, and precious jewels, food, drink, and clothing, and so on up to giving his own body; but the gift of wealth never stops at the thing; having given, he always goes on to teach: he teaches the three refuges, teaches the five precepts, teaches meditative concentration, teaches the thirty-seven limbs of the path, teaching all the way to ‘the unsurpassed nirvāṇa of peace and security’. The gift of Dharma too is divided into two: the worldly is the contemplation of impurity, ānāpāna, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions, whatever counts as ‘dharmas practised in common with ordinary people’; the world-transcending is ‘the thirty-seven dharmas that aid the path and the three gates of liberation’, whose fruit is only one thing—‘the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues; this is named the fruit of the noble dharma without outflows’. In between, Subhūti puts in a question whether the bodhisattva obtains the omniscience of all kinds, and the Buddha answers most simply: ‘The bodhisattva's mind and the Buddha's mind are without difference’; the treatise-author tightens this sentence further: ‘now obtaining the omniscience of all kinds, he is named bodhisattva; having obtained the omniscience of all kinds, he is named Buddha.’ The difference lies only in ‘now’ and ‘having’.

Among the four means of gathering, giving is spoken of for three pages, while the other three things are each gathered in one sentence only in fascicle eighty-nine: ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva teaches the Dharma for beings by the six perfections’ is kind speech, ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva through the long night teaches beings and makes them practise the six perfections’ is beneficial action, ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva by the power of the five supernormal powers transforms himself in all kinds of ways, enters the five destinies, and shares in endeavour with beings’ is shared endeavour. This disparity is not partiality; the treatise-author himself sets the question and answers twice: why, among the four things, is giving alone spoken of broadly? Because ‘giving contains the three things; teaching and transforming beings by the gift of wealth and the gift of Dharma, there is nothing it does not gather’, and raising one gives the pattern for three. Why within giving is the gift of Dharma again spoken of broadly? Because ‘the gift of wealth is little and the gift of Dharma is broad’—‘the gift of wealth has a measured retribution; the gift of Dharma has an immeasurable retribution’, the gift of wealth gives only the riches and pleasures of the three realms while the gift of Dharma can give the constant pleasure of nirvāṇa, and moreover ‘the gift of wealth arises from the gift of Dharma, for having heard the Dharma one can give’. So ‘by such causes and conditions, the gift of Dharma is spoken of broadly’. The division of detail and brevity is as the measure of the retribution is from the first.

The passage on the marks and minor signs is the easiest to take as ornament, yet the treatise-author sets it in a very hard place. The thirty-two marks and the eighty minor marks—the wheel-turning sage king, Devadatta, and Nanda have some share of them; why are they still called ‘world-transcending dharmas not shared with ordinary people’? Answer: ‘though the names are the same, in majesty, completeness, purity, and the place of their obtaining they are not the same as the Buddha's’—the same name, a different source. Again it is asked: from beginning to end it has spoken of the five aggregates and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds; why does it speak of the marks and minor signs only when the treatise is about to close? Answer: ‘The Buddha has two kinds of body: the Dharma body and the fleshly body. Of the two bodies, the Dharma body is the greater’, the Dharma body's benefit is great, so it is spoken of first; the marks and minor signs of the fleshly body are the retribution of the noble dharmas without outflows, so they are placed last. In between, discussing the ten powers and discussing nature and desire, the similes grow more concrete one after another: the Buddha reckons which beings can be delivered and which cannot, ‘as a good physician looks at the marks of the sickness and, judging and knowing for certain that the patient can live, treats him, and where he cannot live, gives him up’; the difference between nature and desire is ‘nature is within, desire is without. Nature is heavy, desire is light. Nature is hard to remove, desire is easy to give up. Nature is deep, desire is shallow’; the difference between the power of the paths leading everywhere and the power of the divine eye is that ‘the divine eye sees only the time of birth and death’, while this power knows cause and fruit before death. As for why the thirty-two marks are exactly the same in number as the wheel-turning sage king's, the treatise-author first answers ‘the thirty-two marks are neither more nor fewer; the meaning is as explained before’, and then sets out three further sayings, four sayings recorded side by side, one of them most interesting—that the marks are shown according to what beings like, for in some places the golden colour is not prized, and in some places long fingers and sharp nails are taken as the mark of a rākṣasa and webbed hands as the mark of a water-bird, so ‘therefore the Buddha shows the marks and minor signs according to what beings like. Such as these have nothing constant and fixed’. Four sayings set side by side, and again the treatise-author does not rule.

Coming to the eighty minor marks, two of them do not look like bodily marks: one is ‘consciousness full’, one is ‘secure in his dwelling-place’. The treatise-author sets questions specially for these two. What is consciousness full? ‘This consciousness is a consciousness born as retribution, which knows of itself the fair and the foul of the world’, not learned. What is secure in his dwelling-place? ‘Secure in his dwelling-place is like a white-robed warrior who, firmly holding his weapons and securely occupying his place, cannot be moved’—at the time of leaving home, Māra's people and evil ghosts cannot shake him either. Right after come the forty-two gates of letters: ‘each one letter enters all forty-two letters, and the forty-two letters also enter one letter’, and the sequence is ‘having trained well in the forty-two letters, he can speak well of the dharma of letters; having spoken well of the dharma of letters, he speaks well of the dharma without letters’, and the conclusion is ‘because it passes beyond all names and letters, it is named the Buddha's Dharma’. The treatise-author states this sequence more thoroughly: ‘Because he knows letters well, he knows well the names of dharmas; because he knows well the names of dharmas, he knows well the meaning of dharmas. Being without letters is precisely the meaning of the real mark of all dharmas.’ Letters are the gate, being without letters is the meaning; without letters one does not enter, and stopping at letters one does not arrive.

The last passage is the tightest place of the whole chapter. Beings are unfindable, dharmas are unfindable, the nature of dharmas too is unfindable; by what then does the bodhisattva still teach the Dharma for beings? The Buddha first empties everything once more, and then says: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, thus seeing all dharmas as empty, teaches the Dharma for beings and does not lose the marks of the emptinesses’, and raises the simile of the conjured person—a person conjured by the Buddha further conjures immeasurable people and teaches them giving and teaches them to keep morality, and ‘this conjured person is without mind and without mental-factor dharmas; how could he discriminate and destroy dharmas?’ To speak while without mind is exactly not to destroy the marks of dharmas. Then comes that string of four not-abidings: ‘the dharma without anything existent does not abide in the dharma without anything existent; the existent dharma does not abide in the existent dharma; the dharma of self-nature does not abide in the dharma of self-nature; the dharma of other-nature does not abide in the dharma of other-nature’; the treatise-author matches it with two similes: ‘It is as space does not abide in space’, ‘It is as fire does not abide within fire.’

Further on, Subhūti presses step by step. Since form is not different from the nature of dharmas, why are black and white retributions still distinguished, and the four fruits of the śramaṇa? The Buddha answers, ‘by reason of worldly truth retribution is spoken of with distinctions; it is not the highest meaning’. Then should ordinary people too have the fruit of the srota-āpanna? The Buddha gathers it with a question in return: ‘Because ordinary people really do not know worldly truth, do not know the truth of the highest meaning, do not know the path, and do not know how to distinguish the fruits of the path, how should they have the fruits’; ‘the sages know worldly truth, know the truth of the highest meaning, have the path, and have the cultivation of the path; therefore the sages have the various fruits with distinctions.’ That distinction can be established hangs on whether the one who distinguishes knows; ordinary people do not know the two truths, so even the fruits within worldly truth are no share of theirs. Then the Buddha dispels this ‘knowing’ too: ‘Cultivating the path he does not obtain the fruit; not cultivating the path he does not obtain the fruit either; nor does he obtain the fruit apart from the path; nor does he obtain the fruit abiding within the path.’ The treatise-author explains with great consideration: when the Buddha earlier said that cultivating the path one obtains the fruit, this was said with regard to the mind without clinging; now Subhūti asks with a clinging mind, ‘wishing to bring the fruit out from within the path, as oil is brought out from sesame’, and so one can only say that it is not obtained. Fearing again that people will hear this as no need to cultivate, he adds a sentence, ‘even cultivating, it is not obtained, how much less without cultivating’, and sets a simile: ‘It is as two people who wish to reach somewhere: one stays and does not go; one loses the road. Neither of the two arrives.’ Not cultivating and cultivating with a clinging mind alike fail to arrive; the watershed lies in ‘if the mind grasps at marks and cultivates the path, though there is the pleasure of meditative concentration that gathers the mind, there is no fruit of the path’.

The closing stroke of the chapter comes back upon the one who teaches: ‘this bodhisattva himself obtains the dharma without clinging, and also teaches others and makes them obtain the dharma without clinging’, the six perfections and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds, all taught to others without clinging. And that last sentence seems to set down the whole chapter's strength—‘One who thoroughly penetrates does not grasp at the mark of the nature of dharmas and does not abide within the nature of dharmas; within the nature of dharmas he teaches the Dharma without doubt and without oppression, without hindrance, without obstruction, without blocking: this is to penetrate the nature of dharmas.’ One who penetrates the nature of dharmas does not abide in the nature of dharmas, just as fire does not abide within fire. The chapter on the four means of gathering has spoken of so many ways of gathering in beings, and at the end leaves only this one posture: able to speak, yet not abiding in what is spoken; able to deliver, yet not standing in the position of the one who delivers.

This chapter opens with only one question: ‘How does the bodhisattva thoroughly penetrate the marks of dharmas?’—What is asked is penetration, and what answers is wholly ‘not’. The Buddha takes the conjured person as simile: ‘It is as a conjured person does not practise lust, anger, and delusion, does not practise form and so on up to consciousness, does not practise inner and outer dharmas’, and so on up to ‘nor is there any holy fruit’. And the closing sentence does not stop at absence, but adds one more clause: ‘The bodhisattva too is like this: there is no such matter, nor does he discriminate these dharmas; this is named thoroughly penetrating the marks of dharmas.’—There being no such matter is emptiness on the side of the object; not discriminating is emptiness on the side of the mind; only when the two clauses stand together is it called thorough penetration. So Subhūti at once presses: since it is a conjured person, ‘how does a conjured person have cultivation of the path?’ The Buddha answers with great steadiness: ‘The conjured person cultivates the path, neither stained nor pure, nor is he within the birth and death of the five destinies.’ Cultivating the path is not discarded; it is only that the one who cultivates no longer falls into the ledger of stain and purity, birth and death, to be reckoned there. Pressing one more step, ‘Does the person conjured by the Buddha have a real root-substance, have stain or purity?’, Subhūti himself answers: ‘The person conjured by the Buddha has no real root-substance, nor stain nor purity’—the six Chinese characters ‘has no real root-substance’ are the ground of every argument the whole chapter makes from here on.

Since all is like a conjuration, for whose sake does the bodhisattva practise the six perfections? This chapter asks this question three times. The Buddha's way of answering is not to say that beings really exist, but to shift the question's position: ‘Beings abide only within names and marks and the false recollection, imagining, and discrimination; therefore the bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā and pulls beings out from within the falseness of names and marks.’—What is pulled out is not a person but an abiding-place. So the sūtra text at great length distinguishes name and mark. Name is ‘this name is a forced and provisional setting-up’: it is form, it is feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, it is man, it is woman, it is hell, it is heaven, it is the four fruits, it is the Buddha path—‘all dharmas that come together are provisional names; by the name one takes dharmas, therefore it is a name.’ Marks are of two kinds: ‘first, the mark of form; second, the mark of the formless’, both born of ‘the clinging mind of recollection, imagining, and discrimination’. The bodhisattva's teaching too is only one thing: ‘he teaches and transforms beings to part from marks and makes them abide within the signless nature.’ The treatise-author adds one more cut to this sequence: what difference is there between name and mark? ‘A name is the designation of a crowd of things, as the designation of a hot thing is fire’, and ‘the mark is the root, the name the branch’—the sickness is in the mark, not in the name; the name is only what arises after the mark; the criterion too is not whether the name is true or false, but ‘because it can give rise to a stained and clinging mind, it is named a mark’.

Next comes the most forceful syntax of this chapter. By what can the bodhisattva make complete the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas? The sūtra text appends three Chinese characters to each item: ‘he can make complete dhyānapāramitā, because of signlessness’, vigour, patience, morality, giving, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, the four formless absorptions, the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path, inner emptiness and so on up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas, the eight liberations, the nine successive absorptions, the Buddha's ten powers and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas—not one item but is ‘because of signlessness’. Signlessness is not the lack of something; signlessness is exactly that by which they come to be established. And the reverse is said more fiercely still: ‘If the marks of dharmas really existed even so much as a hair's breadth’, the bodhisattva ‘could not know that dharmas are signless and without recollecting and so obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’. The treatise-author pushes this counterfactual to the end: ‘If the nature of dharmas were fixed and really existent, that would be non-arising’, non-arising then non-ceasing, non-ceasing then no sin and merit, no sin and merit then no bondage and release, no world, no nirvāṇa. If even a hair's breadth really existed, the whole matter of practice would not be established. The treatise-author also in passing refutes the atom: is it that ‘the atom, being the finest and most minute, cannot be divided into parts’? ‘If the atom is form, it should have parts’; and if one says the divine eye can see it—‘the divine eye too is a false and deceptive seeing’. Refuted to the end comes one sentence, ‘the atom, as explained before, has only a name and no substance’, returning to the two Chinese characters name and mark.

For the way of knowing the five aggregates, the sūtra text uses five similes, one aggregate one simile, matched with great strictness: form like foam, ‘he knows form to be ultimately empty, its inner parts differing, hollow and without substance; it is as foam on water has no solidity’; feeling like a bubble, ‘he knows the marks of feelings to be like bubbles on water, arising and ceasing one after another’; perception like a mirage, ‘this perception is like a mirage: water is unfindable, yet falsely one gives rise to the perception of water’; constructions like a plantain, ‘constructions are like a plantain: leaf after leaf is stripped away, and no solid core is found’; consciousness like an illusion, ‘as a conjurer conjures the four kinds of troops, which have no substance, so too is consciousness’. The treatise-author, discussing the ordinary person's clinging, likewise brings out two similes in a row: ‘as a person in the dark sees something resembling a person, takes it for a real person, and gives rise to fear’; ‘and again as an evil dog facing a well barks at its own shadow’—there is no dog in the water, only a shadow, yet it ‘gives rise to an evil mind, throws itself into the well, and dies’. What is feared never existed; what is hated is precisely one's own shadow; one throws itself into the well and dies, and the harm of clinging to marks is written to the full. As for how the bodhisattva still gives rise to great compassion within ultimate emptiness, the treatise-author uses only one simile: ‘as an elder has a son who is blind and drinks poison’; the father knows he must die, and ‘sets up all kinds of skilful means to block him and stop him drinking’.

The latter half of the chapter turns to the nature of dharmas. Subhūti doubts: since all dharmas are precisely the nature of dharmas, why train further in the six perfections and so on up to the dhāraṇī? The Buddha's answer first cuts off the outside: ‘Dharmas outside the nature of dharmas are unfindable; therefore it is not destroyed’; then opens the inside: ‘If the bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains in the nature of dharmas, he trains in all dharmas’, because ‘all dharmas enter into the signless, unconditioned nature’, and so on up to ‘form is precisely the nature of dharmas; the nature of dharmas is precisely form’. The treatise-author, fearing people will hear this as partial training, specially adds a sentence: if the nature of dharmas had some separate nature, or took having no nature as its nature, only then should one ‘train only in the nature of dharmas and not train in all dharmas’; now since the nature of dharmas has neither a separate nature nor the absence of nature, one ‘trains in all dharmas throughout’—exactly because the nature of dharmas is not some separate dharma apart from dharmas, training in the nature of dharmas is not training in less but training in all. And that ultimate emptiness does not hinder teaching the Dharma by skilful means has its guarantee in one place only: ‘because the nature of dharmas is without difference before, after, and in the middle’. The treatise-author refutes both sides: ‘If the nature of dharmas were first non-existent and afterwards existent, born of causes and conditions, it would be no different from the dharmas shared with ordinary people’; ‘if the nature of dharmas were first existent and afterwards non-existent, beings and dharmas would fall into annihilation’. The sentence that establishes it positively is the plainest and most essential of the whole chapter: ‘because the nature of dharmas is empty at first, and so in the middle and after; it is not made empty by the power of wisdom’—emptiness is not contemplated into being; it is so from the first. So the whole chapter gathers in one sentence the bodhisattva says to beings: ‘If you contemplate the ultimately empty nature of dharmas, you know that from the very beginning they have always been empty, and now nothing is lost.’ What makes ultimate emptiness frightening is that it seems one is about to lose something; but if from the first it has always been empty, there is nothing that can be lost. The two Chinese characters ‘thorough penetration’ penetrate exactly this ‘now nothing is lost’.

This chapter begins with a question that all but overturns everything said before. Subhūti asks: ‘World-Honored One! If beings are ultimately unfindable, for whose sake does the bodhisattva practise prajñāpāramitā?’ In the preceding chapter what he objected to was dharmas—since dharmas are empty, how are there the births and deaths of the five destinies, wholesome and unwholesome? This time he changes sides and objects to the person. The treatise-author marks this turn most exactly: ‘Before he objected to dharmas for the sake of beings; now he objects to beings for the sake of dharmas.’ Emptiness having been said to the end, the practitioner has no place to set his foot: there is no real being waiting there to be delivered, so for whom after all is the bodhisattva busy?

The Buddha's answer is only one sentence, yet it holds up the whole chapter: ‘The bodhisattva practises prajñāpāramitā for the sake of the limit of reality.’—Not for the sake of beings, but for the sake of the limit of reality. But if these words stopped here, it would be abandoning beings to take hold of truth, so the Buddha at once adds the criterion: ‘If the limit of reality and the limit of beings were different, the bodhisattva would not practise prajñāpāramitā’; ‘the limit of reality and the limit of beings are not different’, and so the bodhisattva practises prajñā in order to benefit beings. If the two limits were truly two things, practising prajñā would have nothing to do with beings; exactly because they are not different, acting for the limit of reality is acting for beings. The treatise-author renders it into a harder sentence: beings are a provisional name, false and deceptive, ultimately unfindable, while what the bodhisattva acts for is the real dharma, and ‘the real dharma is precisely the limit of reality’. And what is the limit of reality? The treatise-author gives the answer at the end of the passage on the twelve links of causes and conditions: the bodhisattva seeks the substance of ignorance, and when he has sought to the end, ‘the bodhisattva seeks the substance of ignorance, and at that very moment it is illumination, namely the real mark of all dharmas, which is named the limit of reality’. Seek ignorance until there is nowhere left to seek, and that place is called the limit of reality; it is not that some other pure place waits far away.

Subhūti at once seizes the gap in this sentence. If the two limits are one limit, then ‘without destroying the dharma of the limit of reality, to establish beings in the limit of reality’ becomes setting the limit of reality inside the limit of reality: ‘if the limit of reality is precisely the limit of beings, the bodhisattva would be establishing the limit of reality in the limit of reality’, ‘he would be establishing self-nature in self-nature’, and this is impossible—‘self-nature cannot be established in self-nature’. The Buddha's reply is very strange—he does not argue against the objection but straightway concedes it. ‘The limit of reality cannot be established in the limit of reality; self-nature cannot be established in self-nature.’ Only after conceding does he take up the second half: ‘Now the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, when practising prajñāpāramitā, by the power of skilful means establishes beings in the limit of reality; the limit of reality too is not different from the limit of beings; the limit of reality and the limit of beings are without duality and without difference.’ For this step the treatise-author matches a simile ready to hand: ‘Self-nature should not abide within self-nature, as the tip of a finger cannot touch the tip of that finger.’ In principle this road is sealed off; in practice it can be walked; at the seam there are only three Chinese characters—the power of skilful means.

So Subhūti asks directly: ‘What is the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas' power of skilful means?’ The five passages below are the answer, and the five passages proceed in exactly the same way. Teaching giving, he says at the very moment of teaching that giving is empty: ‘Such giving is empty in the former limit, empty in the latter limit, empty too in the middle limit; the giver too is empty, the retribution of giving too is empty, the recipient too is empty’, the reason being ‘because these dharmas are ultimately empty of self-nature’. Teaching the keeping of morality, he says at the very moment of teaching that the retribution is empty, and speaking of cutting the fetters and entering nirvāṇa he must add ‘this is a worldly dharma, not the foremost real meaning’, because ‘within emptiness there is no cessation, nor one who causes cessation. All dharmas being ultimately empty is precisely nirvāṇa’. Teaching patience, he teaches people to ask themselves in return: ‘Within what dharma am I angry? Who is the one who is angry? Who is the one angered at?’—since the matter angered at is empty, anger has nowhere to settle; gathered in ‘this is named the dharma of the limit of reality and the emptiness of nature’ and ‘all dharmas are apart from the mark of beings’. Teaching vigour, he teaches no slackening in any of the six perfections, the limbs of the path, and the three gates of liberation, yet at the end says ‘as to these dharmas, you must not think of the mark of two, nor think of the mark of not two!’—even ‘not two’ may not be grasped. Teaching meditative concentration, he grants him all that he wishes: ‘You will all obtain according to your wishes, because you practise the emptiness of nature’, and guarantees that ‘the emptiness of nature does not retreat, nor is there one who retreats’.

Put the five gates together and they are one posture: first give him a good thing he can hold on to, then say that this good thing is empty from the first. Emptiness does not withdraw this good thing; it keeps it from becoming the next thing held. The treatise-author lays this mechanism bare with the bodhisattva's own words from the heart: ‘I pulled him out of stinginess, and now he again clings to giving.’ Beings receive the merit of giving, and when the merit is exhausted they suffer again; obtaining riches and honour, they again commit great sins. So the bodhisattva must teach him the real mark of giving. And what is given at the end of all the pulling out? The treatise-author fixes the names: ‘the flavour of ambrosia is the eightfold noble path; the fruit of ambrosia is nirvāṇa.’

In the middle of the chapter Subhūti asks once more, more fundamentally: if the nature of dharmas is ever empty, and within emptiness beings are unfindable and dharma and non-dharma too are unfindable, by what does the bodhisattva seek the omniscience of all kinds? The Buddha first concedes everything, and then turns the words over: ‘If the nature of all dharmas were not empty, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva would not, relying on the emptiness of nature, accomplish anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi and teach beings the dharma of the emptiness of nature.’—It is not that emptiness hinders becoming a Buddha; it is non-emptiness that would hinder it. If the nature of the eighteen emptinesses were not empty, the nature of emptiness would be destroyed. And the look of the emptiness of nature is ‘this emptiness of nature has no abiding-place, nor does it come from anywhere, nor does it go anywhere’, and its name is ‘this is named the mark of the abiding of dharmas’. Next the Buddha sets up the most beautiful simile of this chapter: ‘It is as the Buddha conjures the fourfold assembly—bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, upāsakas, upāsikās—and constantly teaches the Dharma for these assemblies, unbroken for thousands of myriads of koṭi of kalpas’—can these conjured people obtain the four fruits and receive the prediction? Subhūti answers that they cannot, ‘because these conjured assemblies have no real root’. The Buddha says that the bodhisattva's teaching beings the dharma of the emptiness of nature is exactly like this. Teaching the Dharma has never waited for the one transformed to be real first.

Then what is the bodhisattva doing after all? The sūtra says: pulling out. Beings fall into inversion, and the bodhisattva pulls them out and makes them abide in non-inversion; and this matter itself may not be held as real either—‘inversion is precisely non-inversion; though inversion and non-inversion are of one mark, there is much inversion and little non-inversion.’ The side that is much is inversion, the side that is little is non-inversion, yet the two sides are in fact one and the same mark. The four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path, though without outflows, ‘are likewise not like the mark of the highest meaning’, because ‘the mark of the highest meaning is without making, unconditioned, non-arising, signless, and unspeakable’—and this one name is also called the emptiness of nature, and also called the path of the buddhas. The treatise-author gathers the whole matter very considerately: someone objects that beings and dharmas never existed from the first, so for whom is skilful means made and whom does it deliver? The treatise-author asks back: ‘The emptiness of nature means that even the nature of emptiness does not exist; why do you take hold of this mark of the nature of emptiness to make your objection?’—You seize a thing called ‘emptiness’ to interrogate me, and that thing is exactly what I said does not exist. Ordinary people have not obtained the real mark and recollect, imagine, and discriminate in all kinds of ways, ‘as a madman falsely sees things and takes them to really exist’; so the bodhisattva ‘only breaks beings' false imaginings; he does not break beings’. That distinction can still be spoken of is because ‘within the highest meaning there is no discrimination; within worldly truth there is discrimination’. And the emptiness of nature is not something anyone made: ‘It is as space, whose nature is ever pure and is not touched by stain and darkness’; when wind and clouds come people say it is impure, when the wind has blown them away people say it is pure, ‘yet space in reality is without stain and without purity’. The buddhas with the fierce wind of teaching the Dharma blow away the clouds and films of inversion; what is blown away is only the film, and space has never been added a single portion of purity. The treatise-author judges at the end: ‘The emptiness of the nature of all dharmas is the true Dharma of the buddhas’, and its place of practice is ‘practising the dharma of the emptiness of nature and not clinging to the emptiness of nature either—this is precisely nirvāṇa’.

The closing section of the chapter is the tightest. Subhūti praises the bodhisattva for practising the emptiness of nature without destroying the mark of the emptiness of nature; the Buddha approves, and says ‘it is only that form is precisely the emptiness of nature, and the emptiness of nature is precisely form’; the principle of not destroying is only ‘as space does not destroy space, inner space does not destroy outer space, outer space does not destroy inner space’, because ‘these two dharmas have no nature that could destroy anything’. Since all dharmas are without discrimination, where then does the bodhisattva's original vow, ‘I shall obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’, stand? The Buddha answers: one who practises the mark of two has no awakening, one who makes two divisions has no awakening; ‘awakening is the mark of non-duality, the indestructible mark’, and awakening does not practise even within awakening—‘this awakening is practised neither by taking nor by giving up’. The treatise-author glosses these two Chinese characters: ‘taking names the real dharma; giving up names the empty dharma’; taking is clinging practice, giving up is non-clinging practice.

So the Buddha asks three times ‘where does it practise’. Where does the conjured person practise? Not within taking, not within giving up. Where does the arhat's awakening in a dream practise? Subhūti answers more absolutely still: ‘The arhat ultimately does not sleep; how could the awakening in a dream practise within taking or within giving up?’ Here the treatise-author stops to settle a case: does the arhat truly not sleep? The Buddha himself ordered Ānanda to spread his robe so that he might sleep a little, and when the Nirgrantha Satyaka asked the Buddha whether he slept by day, the Buddha too answered that at the end of spring and the start of summer, because of the heat, he slept and rested a little. The treatise-author's solution is to divide sleep into two: ‘There are two kinds of sleep: first, sleeping with dreams; second, sleeping without dreams.’ The arhat does not sleep for the sake of settling into pleasure; it is only that the body of the four elements must have food, rest, sleep, and waking, and that little while of rest is also called sleep, yet he does not sleep for dreaming. Others explain the difference between the one liberated by wisdom and the one liberated both ways by whether the four elements of the form realm enter the body or not, and the treatise-author records this too without ruling. As for the Buddha, ‘the Buddha, by the power of skilful means, in order to deliver beings, having taken on the dharma of humans, shows sleep’. The same one word ‘sleep’: for ordinary people it is the mark of delusion, for sages it is the dharma of the body, for the Buddha it is skilful means—the word the same, what it points to in three layers.

At the last Subhūti pushes the doubt to the summit: ‘Can it be that the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, not practising the ten grounds, not practising the six perfections’, and so on up to not bringing beings to accomplishment, obtains awakening? The Buddha's answer is in two halves: first he fully grants his words—awakening indeed has no place in which it practises; then he sets a bottom line that may not be loosened: not making complete the ten grounds, the six perfections, the four dhyānas, and so on up to the eighty minor marks, ‘not making complete these dharmas, he never obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’. Having no place to practise is not the same as not having to practise; to say it has no place to practise is with regard to the highest meaning; to say it must be practised is with regard to worldly truth. The Buddha at once sets these two layers upon Subhūti himself: when you first obtained the path, did you obtain anything? Answer: I did not. Then by what is it said that you are an arhat? Answer: ‘By reason of worldly dharmas the path of the arhat is named with distinctions’, ‘by reason of worldly dharmas it is said, arhat’. On one and the same person the two truths are thus aligned.

The closing stroke of the chapter comes back upon the bodhisattva: ‘by reason of worldly truth he is named bodhisattva’, and form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness are named, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds; while within awakening no dharma is to be found that increases or decreases. The treatise-author pushes to the bottom-most layer: ‘the nature of dharmas, which is the root of all dharmas, is itself unfindable’, how much less could the six perfections and other made dharmas have a fixed reality. Yet this does not stop there; the last sentence is the only place in the whole chapter where the strength is set back into the human world—‘The bodhisattva practising the nature of these dharmas, when he becomes a Buddha, can greatly benefit beings.’

The chapter on the limit of reality has spoken a whole chapter of ‘cannot be established’, and what it establishes at the end is a person willing to keep walking in a place where there is no footing.

The question with which this chapter opens is one that practitioners run into on reaching the middle of the road. Subhūti says: the six perfections have been practised, the eighteen emptinesses, the thirty-seven dharmas that aid the path, the Buddha's ten powers and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas have all been cultivated; if ‘not making complete the bodhisattva path, one cannot obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’, then how after all is it to count as complete? What he is really asking is: what is still lacking.

The Buddha's answer is not on the side of addition. He says only that when practising dāna, ‘by the power of skilful means he practises dānapāramitā, not finding the giving, not finding the giver, not finding the recipient, nor being far from this dharma as he practises dānapāramitā: this is the illumination of the bodhisattva path’. Not finding the three things, giving, giver, and recipient, is not falling into existence; still giving all the same without fail is not falling into non-existence. The treatise-author gives the most essential verdict of this chapter: ‘Illumination and completeness are one meaning.’ To illumine the emptiness of the three wheels is illumination; to be able, within this illumining, to go on and finish the deed is completeness—not two things, but two names of one and the same thing. He also says the sicknesses of both sides to the full: ‘If the bodhisattva definitely finds the three things of giving and the rest, he falls straight into the inversion of permanence, grasping at marks, clinging to dharmas, and the other faults; if he does not find these three things, he falls to the side of annihilation, clings to emptiness, and gives rise again to wrong views and the other afflictions, and so parts from the bodhisattva path.’ So ‘such giving is named complete’—the opposite of completeness is not doing too little; it is standing to one side while doing it.

The second eye is on the word ‘train’. Śāriputra asks how it counts as training in prajñā, and the Buddha gives only two negations: ‘by the power of skilful means he does not destroy form and does not follow form.’ Here it is easiest to go astray in reading. Not following is easy to understand—‘not following form means not, as the eye sees form, grasping at marks and giving rise to clinging’; the hard one is not destroying: ‘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.’ Are not contemplating impermanence and contemplating emptiness right cultivation; how do they become destroying? The treatise-author's boundary lies in the next sentence: ‘permanence, impermanence, and the rest are all not the real mark of form.’ To break permanence with impermanence is still to take one mark and break another mark with it. What prajñā trains in lies not in breaking but in knowing that it has from the first no fixed substance—‘this form is provisionally named form from the coming together of all the four elements; within it there is no fixed single dharma named form.’ Knowing this layer, neither of the two things need be done: there is no need to destroy it, because it has from the first nothing that can be destroyed; there is no need to follow it, because it has from the first nothing that can be followed.

So Śāriputra presses the matter to the end: if dharmas are without nature, without substance, without root, and without foundation, then where does the distinction between ordinary people and the Buddha stand? The Buddha does not look for the difference in dharmas but asks him in return: ‘The form to which ordinary people cling—does it have nature, does it have substance?’ Śāriputra himself answers: ‘No! World-Honored One! It is only by reason of an inverted mind.’—The difference between sage and ordinary person lies not in whether the dharma clung to has self-nature, but in whether the mind that clings is inverted or not. So the Buddha can say ‘now, whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, the marks of dharmas abide constantly and do not differ’ without hindering the going and coming within the five destinies, and can say that the nature of dharmas is ever empty without hindering the bodhisattva's arousing of the mind. The marks of dharmas do not move; what moves is inversion; what the delivering of beings delivers is exactly this layer of inversion, not the substance of beings.

The third eye falls on teaching the Dharma. Since beings are unfindable, to teach them to obtain the fruit of the srota-āpanna and so on up to awakening—does nothing to be attained not become something to be attained? The Buddha answers most plainly: practising prajñā he does not see beings, ‘it is only that the continuity of empty dharmas is named a being’; and ‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva abides in the two truths and teaches the Dharma for beings: worldly truth and the truth of the highest meaning’. The treatise-author sets the use of the two truths upon the hearer's sickness: ‘for beings who love and cling he teaches emptiness; for beings who grasp at marks and cling to emptiness he teaches existence; in the two places of existence and non-existence he is stained by neither.’ The two truths are not two layers of reality; they are the two kinds of words a person stained by neither side speaks to two kinds of sickness.

Śāriputra therefore sighs: ‘This bodhisattva-mahāsattva's mind is vast and great!’—finding not a single dharma, yet able to arouse the great adornment of the oath; not born in the three realms, yet delivering people within the three realms. The treatise-author reflects him against trading: ‘As when a person buys in the market, there must be an exchange; the person of great mind is not so.’ Trading is exchanging what one gives for what one gets; the person of great mind has nothing to rely on; so ‘thus within the ultimate emptiness of all dharmas to take on the great adornment—this is rare!’ And he strikes another comparison: ‘It is as a person plants a tree in space, and the tree's leaves, flowers, and fruit give much benefit.’

And the true scale of this chapter is the conjurer. The Buddha says that a conjurer conjures hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭi of people, gives them food and drink and fills them, and himself, delighted, cries aloud that he has obtained great merit—were those people truly filled? No. The treatise-author matches the simile closely: ‘the conjurer is precisely the bodhisattva’, the gardens conjured are the dharmas for delivering beings, the people conjured are the beings delivered; if the conjurer takes the conjured matter as real and turns round to demand gratitude from the conjured people, that is a madman. Someone raises an objection right here: the conjurer really exists and what he conjures is unreal; the bodhisattva and beings are alike empty, so how can it still serve as a simile? The treatise-author answers crisply: ‘Within the real mark of all dharmas there are not even dharmas, how much less beings!’ And he says that a simile never had to match at every point, ‘taking a little point of likeness as the simile—why take the whole of it to make a difficulty?’ As when a lion is used to compare a king, what is taken is fearlessness and sovereignty; who goes on to inquire into the four legs and the long hair.

So this chapter, speaking to the end, does not stop at emptiness. The treatise-author tells a very long story: an empty house haunted by ghosts in the mountains, to which two guest monks came one after the other, each relying on his own keeping of morality and much learning, each saying that a little ghost was nothing and he could subdue it; one shut the door and sat upright waiting for the ghost, the other knocked at the door at night asking for lodging, each taking the other for the ghost, and they fought the whole night through. ‘When they saw each other at dawn, they were old fellow-students, and each apologised to the other in shame.’ The treatise-author at once lays it bare: ‘the five aggregates are without self and without person; vainly grasping at marks leads to fighting and strife’—those who fought were fellow-students from the first, and the reason they fought was only that each had grasped at a mark. Then he counts the eight difficulties one by one and urges people, ‘know that a human body is hard to obtain, the age of a Buddha hard to meet, and a good time easily passes’.

And the latter half of the chapter is the most down-to-earth. The bodhisattva abiding in giving, when he sees a person break morality, supplies him with clothing and food; when he sees a person angry, he gives him a wish-fulfilling jewel; when he sees a person lazy, scattered in mind, or foolish, he one by one makes up the causes and conditions he lacks—the treatise-author gives this sequence a name: ‘this is named “morality born from giving”.’ Even for one who sits in meditation, he supplies clothing, food, drink, and medicine, and further gives him the meditation scriptures, the meditation prop, and the skeleton, and asks someone to teach him the dharma of meditation. The sentence in the sūtra text says it most frankly: ‘For the sake of beings I receive birth and death; out of pity for you I am complete with great compassion.’ And the tone in which he tells people to take the things is only ‘This is your thing; take it yourself, do not hesitate, I begrudge nothing!’

‘As giving, being the head, gives birth to the five perfections, so it is with the other perfections.’ This chapter begins its speaking from not finding the three wheels, and gathers in the clothing and food given out piece by piece. After the talk of emptiness one must still practise giving, and at the time of practising giving the three things are not found—illumination and completeness are from the first this one matter.

The opening of this chapter is very quiet. Subhūti does not speak; he only thinks in his mind: ‘What is the path of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva? Abiding in this path, the bodhisattva can take on such a great adornment?’ Nor does the Buddha wait for him to ask it aloud: ‘the Buddha knew what Subhūti was thinking in his mind’, and answered directly. The treatise-author supplies two layers of reason for this not speaking: first, ‘above, Subhūti has constantly asked about the dharma of emptiness in all kinds of ways’, and there were already some in the assembly who doubted how a person who has realised quiescent extinction and is without idle discourse could still ask so much; second, ‘there were bodhisattvas and gods who had entered deeply into meditative concentration, who did not like words yet wished to obtain the benefit of the Dharma’—not making a sound leaves a road open for those who are in concentration. As for why the Buddha answered aloud, the treatise-author explains that too: ‘the Buddha's bodily form one looks at without ever being satisfied’, and the voice is the same; hearing the Buddha speak does not hinder subtle meditation. On the one side, thinking without asking; on the other, speaking without hindering—from its very head this chapter is about how to do a thing without falling into the look of doing it.

The bodhisattva path the Buddha answers with is counted off from the six perfections all the way to the eighteen unshared dharmas, and ends with ‘all dharmas too are the path of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’. Subhūti at once seizes on this sentence and asks back: since all dharmas are empty, how can it also be said that one must train in all dharmas? Is this not making idle discourse within the absence of idle discourse? The Buddha answers very straight: it is precisely because all dharmas are in reality empty that the bodhisattva can obtain unsurpassed awakening; were all dharmas not empty, on the contrary he could not obtain it. And the reason one must still distinguish them one by one is that ‘now beings in reality do not know that all dharmas are empty’. Training is for the sake of distinguishing on behalf of those who do not know; to train and not cling is to practise the bodhisattva path. The treatise-author writes the heart of the matter here into one very light sentence—‘I only sever the clinging mind, and the path arrives of itself.’

So he practises the six perfections without abiding in them, and obtains the four fruits and the pratyekabuddha path without abiding in them. The Buddha himself gives two reasons: ‘first, the fruits of the paths are empty of nature, without a place of abiding, and there is neither a dharma made use of nor one who abides; second, he is not content with a small matter’. The second reason is said very close to human feeling: it is not that he should not obtain the first fruit, it is that ‘I only should not abide in it’, because ‘from my first arousing of intent until now I have had no other mind; with one mind I face anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’.

Next comes the tightest exchange of the whole chapter. Is awakening obtained by the path of arising? No. By the path of non-arising? No. By the path of neither arising nor non-arising? Still no. After all three sentences have been blocked, Subhūti can only ask: then how after all is it obtained? The Buddha answers: ‘Awakening is not obtained by means of the path, nor is awakening obtained by means of what is not the path. Subhūti! Awakening is precisely the path, the path is precisely awakening.’ Subhūti presses one layer further: if so, is the bodhisattva who practises the path not simply a Buddha? The Buddha takes the words back with a counter-question—does the Buddha obtain awakening? Subhūti answers it himself: ‘No! World-Honored One! The Buddha does not obtain awakening. Why? The Buddha is precisely awakening, awakening is precisely the Buddha.’ The treatise-author explains this ‘precisely’ very clearly: the one who obtains is the Buddha, the dharma obtained is awakening, the one still seeking is the bodhisattva; in the dharma there is no duality, in station there is a difference. The difference falls only within a single instant—‘by the wisdom associated with a single thought he obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and at that time he is named Buddha’.

Only when the questioning has reached this point does Subhūti ask the question that is this chapter's title: ‘How does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva purify buddha-lands?’ The Buddha's reply is unexpectedly plain—no talk of the seven jewels, no talk of palaces, only: ‘There are bodhisattvas who, from their first arousing of intent until now, themselves remove the coarse deeds of body, remove the coarse deeds of speech, remove the coarse deeds of mind, and also purify the coarse deeds of body, speech, and mind of others.’ The cause of the pure land falls entirely upon the three kinds of deeds; and not only purifying one's own, but purifying other people's too.

What is called a coarse deed? The Buddha divides it into five layers, each finer than the last. The coarsest is the ten unwholesome deeds; next the six minds of stinginess, breaking morality, anger, slackness, scatteredness, and delusion; next impure morality; next being far from the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the three samādhi; and the last layer is the most unexpected of all—‘the bodhisattva-mahāsattva craving the fruit of the srota-āpanna, and so on up to craving the realisation of the fruit of the arhat and the pratyekabuddha path: this is named the coarse deed of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’. At the end of the fascicle the sūtra text adds yet another layer: grasping at the marks of form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, and so on up to the marks of the conditioned and the unconditioned, is also a coarse deed. The later layers all rebuke wholesome dharmas. Fearing that people will not accept this, the treatise-author first makes the criterion plain: ‘because coarse and subtle are not fixed’—one and the same thing is subtle in one of the white-robed and coarse in a seeker of the path; wholesome in the Small Vehicle, while in the Mahāyāna ‘grasping at the mark of a wholesome dharma, and so on up to nirvāṇa, is all named coarse’. As to why craving the first fruit counts as a heavy sin, the treatise-author's words are the least sparing of all: at the arousing of the mind one plainly promised ‘I shall become a Buddha and deliver all beings’, and now to take realisation for one's own self ‘is to deceive the Buddha and also to betray beings’; just as ‘when a person invites guests and means to set out food and drink, yet in the end does not give it, this is false speech and a betrayal of the guests’.

Then how do the three kinds of deeds become a piece of land? The treatise-author answers very concretely: a pure land is not made by one person, ‘not one person alone, but those born in the land all together make the causes and conditions’, and moreover ‘the inner dharmas make causes and conditions for the outer dharmas’—‘because of much evil speech, the ground grows thorns; because of flattering, deceitful, crooked minds, the ground is high and low and uneven; because of much stinginess, water and drought are out of season and the ground grows sand and gravel’; conversely, when these evils are not done, the ground is level and yields many precious things. The closing sentence is one sentence only: ‘Because the inner dharmas are pure, the outer dharmas too are pure; just as, because the face is pure, the image in the mirror too is pure.’ Someone asks further: giving and meditative concentration can also bring the retribution of a pure land, so why speak of the three kinds of deeds alone? Answer: all making has construction at its head, ‘as in sewing a garment the needle leads the way’; to speak of the three kinds of deeds gathers in all wholesome dharmas.

Fascicle 93 goes on to speak of the vow. Giving precious things filling the three-thousand great-thousand world to the Buddha and the Saṅgha, he vows ‘may my land be made wholly of the seven jewels’; heavenly music, heavenly fragrance, the hundred flavours, fine smoothness, the five desires at will—one by one he vows and dedicates them; last the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the thirty-seven limbs of the path, vowing ‘I shall myself enter the first dhyāna, and also teach all beings to enter the first dhyāna’. Among these the easiest to raise doubt is the five desires. How can a bodhisattva vow that beings obtain the five desires? The treatise-author's answer stays close to the ground: poverty drives people to the ten evils, and ‘if a person is complete in the five desires, then what he desires is at his will, and he does not practise the ten unwholesome deeds’; the beings of a pure land are rich and happy and lack nothing, and what remains are only the soft fetters of the kind of love and pride, and a soft mind is on the contrary easily taught. Moreover the giving was from the first for the sake of taking it all away at once—‘just as a garment soiled with grease is soaked in ash and mud, and after a night is washed in water, and all goes at one time’; ‘the bodhisattva, not wishing to make beings cling, gives the five desires; only wishing to make them relinquish at one time does he give them’. As for the bhikṣu in the Vinaya who said ‘though one receives the five desires it does not hinder the path’ and was expelled, the treatise-author judges that his error was not this sentence, but moving what the Buddha said to the white-robed into the dharma of those gone forth and saying it there. In the pure land the two kinds of beings, gone forth and at home, each have their own portion; to whom the words should be spoken is the watershed of this passage.

When the vow is spoken, the fruit comes out, and the fruit is a string of ‘there is nots’: there is not the name of the three evil destinies, there is not the name of wrong views, the three poisons, or the two vehicles, ‘the ear does not hear the sound of impermanence, suffering, or emptiness’, and even the names that distinguish the several fruits are not there. What remains is only the sound the wind brings out from the trees of the seven jewels, and that sound is the Dharma: ‘whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty; in emptiness there is no mark; in the signless there is no making’. Someone asks: the Buddha has immeasurable supernormal powers, so why does he not manifest immeasurable bodies to teach the Dharma, but must borrow trees? The treatise-author's answer is of great interest: were the Buddha to manifest his body everywhere, beings would on the contrary ‘take it for conjuration and transformation, and their minds would not revere it’; there are people who hear a person teach the Dharma and are not awakened, yet hear an animal teach the Dharma and believe; and fearing again that some will say an animal too can deceive, ‘since trees have no mind and yet have sound, all believe and accept it’. The ladder of faith steps down like this, rung by rung—not believing the Buddha's transformation body, one believes an animal; doubting the animal, one believes a tree that cannot lie.

Last it gathers into two things. One is hearing the name. The Buddha of that land is praised by the buddhas of the ten directions, and ‘beings who hear this Buddha's name will surely reach anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’. Someone asks: other buddhas teach the Dharma with bitter effort and beings still do not obtain the path, so how is it that here one hears a name and it is done? The treatise-author answers: that is because when one hears the names of other buddhas, what one thinks in one's mind is ‘he takes birth no differently from a human being’, the reverence is not deep, and the roots of goodness planted are not deep either; but this one is the Dharma-nature body, ‘the Buddha's body is immeasurable and boundless’, its light and its teaching of the Dharma fill the ten directions, from its pores there constantly issue immeasurable conjured buddhas, and ‘the root true Buddha has no distinction of great and small’—how could the roots of goodness planted by such seeing and hearing not be assured of becoming a Buddha? The other is the absence of doubt. When the Dharma is taught in that land, not one person will say ‘is this the Dharma? is this not the Dharma?’, because ‘within the real mark of all dharmas, all is Dharma; there is nothing that is not the Dharma’. Those who would raise doubt have their root in meagre merit, not planting roots of goodness, not following a good friend, and so ‘they call what is not the Buddha's word the Buddha's word, and the Buddha's word not the Buddha's word’, and so on up to destroying the Dharma and falling into the evil destinies. At the very end the treatise-author distinguishes one more layer: those who constantly see the Buddha and constantly hear the Dharma ‘quickly become buddhas’, while those who only hear the name, ‘though both are alike ultimately assured, are slightly inferior’.

A whole chapter speaking of purifying buddha-lands, and in the end it has not described an inch of scenery. It has said only three things: the cause of the land lies in the three kinds of deeds, and the three kinds of deeds are made by everyone together; whatever is given to beings is given so that one day they will be willing to let go; and the cleanest place in that land is that no one there will hear the Dharma the Buddha teaches as not the Dharma. ‘Such as these are named the marks of a pure land.’

The fascicle opens with the most direct question of all: can this road be walked to the end or not? Subhūti asks: ‘Is this bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured, or not assured?’ The Buddha answers just as directly: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is assured, not unassured.’ Then three layers tighten it. Assured on which path? ‘Not assured in the path of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha; assured in the path of the Buddha.’ Which kind of person is assured? ‘The bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured, the avaivartika bodhisattva is also assured, the bodhisattva in his last body is also assured.’—Even the one who has only just aroused the mind is counted in. Assured of what matter? The treatise-author uses only one sentence: ‘The assured will surely become a Buddha.’

Yet just before, retreat was spoken of. The ‘Avaivartika’ chapter plainly has retreat and non-retreat, and the preceding chapter still said ‘those who obtain avaivartika are one or two’; how is it that here, all at once, all are said to be assured? The treatise-author first hands over a master key: ‘This prajñāpāramitā has all kinds of gates and all kinds of paths. Avaivartika was spoken of within one gate; now the question is about assurance, and asks through a different gate of approach.’ When one and the same matter is entered through different gates the words differ, but the matter does not. Pressing further, he places assured and unassured in the one who is able to see: ‘In the Buddha's mind all beings and all dharmas are all assured; because human knowledge does not reach so far, they are named unassured.’ The Buddha knows both that there are people who accumulate merit for aeons and in the end retreat into the Small Vehicle, and that ‘a tiny worm, though it has as yet no wholesome mind, after so many aeons will arouse the mind and afterwards become a Buddha’. Assurance is not a mark we can feel in ourselves; it is a mark seen in the Buddha's eye. So neither way of speaking need be discarded: ‘Both matters are real. What the Buddha's mouth speaks is never unreal.’—‘For those who have first aroused the mind he says “dharmas exist”; for those long in training who cling to wholesome dharmas he says “dharmas are empty and without anything existent”’; to the slack he speaks of how many retreat, so that they dare not loosen their grip; to ‘those who are fit to obtain Buddhahood but whose mind of great compassion is thin and whose love of their own body is heavy’ he says that all are assured, so that they dare not let their minds retreat. One sentence, two medicines, depending on who is listening.

Assurance being spoken of so fully, the sūtra text nevertheless does not take prediction as its warrant, but not falling into evil places: not falling into the evil destinies, not being born among the heavens of long life, not being born in a border land, not being born in a family of evil wrong views or a family of the view that nothing is to be done. And the reasons the treatise-author traces out item by item are all things he has severed himself, not things given him by another: the causes and conditions of the three evil destinies are already exhausted, hence he does not fall; ‘not clinging to the flavour of dhyāna, when his life is about to end he thinks of the dharmas of the realm of desire and so retreats from the path of dhyāna’, hence he is not born among the heavens of long life; he has long since pulled out the root of stinginess with the Dharma, and ‘always loves the middle way and relinquishes the two extremes’, hence he is not born in a border land—and a border land is not reckoned by the map either, ‘a border land is where there is no name of the Three Jewels, where the seven assemblies are not known, where only the present matters of this life are valued and merit and the dharma of the path are not valued’, so one may be born outside Jambudvīpa and it not be a border land, or be born in a city and it be one. Among the sixty-two wrong views one in particular is singled out as the heaviest: ‘though all sixty-two kinds are wrong views, that of no-doing is the heaviest’, because ‘no-doing says one should not make merit or seek nirvāṇa’—other wrong views still leave room for making merit; this one blocks the road. The bodhisattva is not born in such places, and it is not that he dares not go: a bodhisattva of great power ‘does not avoid border lands or wrong views’, while one newly aroused who goes there ‘can neither deliver people nor keep from being ruined himself’, so ‘it is like true gold in the mud, which in the end is not spoiled; copper and iron are spoiled’. To sum it up in one sentence: ‘Because this bodhisattva severs all unwholesome dharmas and cultivates and gathers all wholesome dharmas, he is not born in the eight places of difficulty and always obtains the eight good places.’ Assurance is not a certificate of guarantee; it is a record already achieved.

Then if all are assured, why does the Buddha still rebuke the two vehicles? The treatise-author's verdict is severe, and also measured: ‘You wish to leave and go, yet you will not be able to part … this is a roundabout way, a lingering on the Buddha path.’—In the end one cannot leave the Buddha path; one has only taken the long way round. Where arhats whose outflows are exhausted will later become buddhas he too states according to the sūtra, yet at once he halts the discussion: ‘the Buddha-dharma is the foremost of the five inconceivables’, this matter ‘only a Buddha can know’, ‘therefore one should not make idle discourse’. What can be said is said to the end; what cannot be said is stopped—this is the stroke in this chapter that most shows its measure.

Yet the bodhisattva in the jātakas plainly was a deer, was an elephant, and underwent suffering; how is this to be explained? The Buddha answers: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, for the sake of benefiting beings, takes a body accordingly’, and that is a thing the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha cannot do—‘with unsurpassed patience and an unsurpassed mind of kindness and compassion he gives up his body and does not vex enemies and thieves’. The passage of the six-tusked white elephant shows its bones most of all: a hunter shot him in the chest with a poisoned arrow, and the elephant, on the contrary, shielded the hunter with his trunk and did not let the other elephants harm him, saying to the female elephant: ‘The hunter is the sin of the afflictions, not the fault of the person!’ And he strikes a simile within the simile—‘Just as when a ghost possesses a person and the master of spells comes, he only treats the ghost and is not angry at the person.’ At the end ‘the elephant went to a cleft in the rock, pulled out his tusks and gave them to him, blood and flesh coming out together, and did not take it as pain; he supplied him with provisions and showed and told him the way’. The treatise-author gathers it up crisply: ‘With a good mind like this, how could he take the body of an animal? Know that this was transformation, to deliver beings.’ As to why he did not manifest a human body, the reason is plain almost to the point of worldly wisdom: ‘There are times when beings see a human body and do not believe or accept, but see an animal's body teaching the Dharma and give rise to faith and delight, and accept its teaching.’ The Buddha again uses the conjurer as a simile, asking whether the elephants, horses, men, and women ‘are real or not’, and Subhūti answers ‘not real’—manifesting without being real, using without undergoing: this is what ‘accomplished in the white and pure dharmas without outflows, he manifests all kinds of bodies’ means.

Fascicle 94 turns a corner, from ‘how does he take a body without being stained’ to ‘by what means’. The Buddha hands over the bottom of it: by prajñā. ‘The one who clings, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—these three dharmas are all unfindable, because they are empty of self-nature’; and one layer further, ‘emptiness does not cling to emptiness; in emptiness there is no one who clings, nor any place of clinging’, and this is called the emptiness of the unfindable. Nor is emptiness allowed any exception—‘if the lands of the ten directions and the natures of the buddhas were not empty, emptiness would be partial; because emptiness is not partial, all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty.’ If emptiness kept back one plot that was not empty, it would not be emptiness. Yet the treatise-author does not pretend that everyone can do this at once: the Buddha obtained this body by immeasurable asaṃkhyeya real merits, and practitioners life after life deeply love and revere the Buddha and for a time contemplate it as not empty, ‘therefore it is not spoken of together with the lands’—the doctrine is not partial, the teaching has its sequence; the two sentences must be read together.

After emptiness it is not that one does not act; it is that one acts freely. Here the supernormal powers are not marvels but the path: ‘this bodhisattva-mahāsattva's perfection of the supernormal powers is the path of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi’; ‘just as a bird without wings cannot soar high, so a bodhisattva without the supernormal powers cannot teach and transform beings at will.’ Using the supernormal powers he contemplates the roots and branches of beings and the season in which they should be delivered, and only then teaches the Dharma; and ‘just as a white egret, when about to take a fish, measures its advance and halt and does not miss the moment’, so he does not act in vain. And the guard within the powers is one sentence only: ‘emptiness clings to nothing; if one clings, one takes the taste, and in this emptiness there is no taste.’ Beings stick to everything, ‘just as a fly sticks everywhere, only not to a flame’—the only thing it cannot stick to is the fire of prajñā's emptiness of nature. As for why such great use is only called ‘sport’, the treatise-author gives both meanings at once: ‘sport is named after the conjurer's manifesting all kinds of transformations’; and compared with the emptiness samādhi, the other practices ‘are all named the lowest of the low, like a little child’. Named sport, yet also said to be ‘in bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands the most essential of uses’—one demotion and one commendation, which guard exactly both ends.

The final passage speaks of the clinging mind, and is the place in the whole chapter that comes closest to the body. The wholesome deed done with a clinging mind is not that it fails to become merit; it is merit with poison in it: ‘though it has a small benefit, it has a great fault; like fine food mixed with poison, though it has the benefit of being fine, one loses one's own life’. Giving with clinging, ‘if something does not accord with his wishes, he gives rise to anger; if the recipient does not feel the kindness, it becomes resentment’; craving and clinging to wealth until, when it is seized, he does harm, and for the heavy sin enters the three evil destinies; giving while grasping at false and deceiving marks is ‘like a person who, wishing to reap a great harvest, uses a great deal of seed’—the more seed sown, the less the harvest. The deeper layer comes after hearing emptiness: a person who was practising good hears ultimate emptiness, drops what he was practising, and embraces the mark of emptiness, and so ‘loses two kinds of dharma: he loses his former wholesome dharmas and falls into wrong view’—and the treatise-author gives the sharpest simile of all: ‘Just as with a person gravely ill, though there are many medicines, treating him does no good, and the medicine in turn becomes the disease.’ Emptiness is the medicine; to cling to emptiness is for the medicine in turn to become the disease. So this chapter comes to rest not in emptiness but in not discriminating: ‘the bodhisattva relinquishes the clinging mind and does not grasp at the mark of emptiness; as he sees suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality, so too does he see giving and the rest’, ‘knowing them with pure wisdom, he makes them all the truth of the highest meaning’. The last sentence of the whole chapter is also the chapter's principle: ‘With a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path.’—What was asked at the head was ‘will I surely become a Buddha’; what is answered at the close is ‘not discriminating the very mind that is becoming a Buddha’. Only here do the two Chinese characters ‘assured’ come to ground.

This chapter opens with a question that sounds very small. Subhūti asks: ‘If these dharmas are the bodhisattva's dharmas, what are the Buddha's dharmas?’—Since what the bodhisattva practises is what the Buddha teaches, what is left over for the Buddha's dharmas? The Buddha's answer is smaller still: ‘The bodhisattva's dharmas too are the Buddha's dharmas.’ The difference lies in one place only—‘the Buddha, having known all dharmas by the wisdom associated with a single thought, obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ The sūtra at once gives a simile: ‘Just as heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit differ, yet these two people are both sages.’—The one heading toward the path and the one who has obtained the fruit are alike sages, but one is on the road and one has arrived. The treatise-author states this ‘arrived’ more exactly: ‘Though the bodhisattva practises the six perfections as they truly are, he has not yet been able to be all-pervading, not yet able to enter every gate; therefore he is not named Buddha.’ Not that he does it wrongly; he is not yet all-pervading. From this comes one of the finest similes in the whole treatise: ‘Like the moon of the fourteenth day and of the fifteenth day: though both are the moon, the moon of the fourteenth cannot make the waters of the great ocean rise in tide’, while the moon of the fifteenth ‘can make the waters of the great ocean rise in tide’. The moon of the fourteenth is not without brightness; only its brightness is not yet enough to move the sea. The difference is one day; what is judged is whether it can move the sea.

The question at once turns over to the bottom layer. Subhūti says: ‘If all dharmas are empty of specific marks, then within dharmas empty of specific marks how can there be the difference of distinctions’—the various distinctions from the hells and hungry ghosts up to the buddhas, how can they stand within emptiness? Moreover, ‘just as the persons are unfindable, so the causes and conditions of deeds are unfindable, and the retribution too is unfindable!’ The Buddha's way of answering first concedes the whole: ‘Just so! Just so! As you say, within dharmas empty of specific marks there are no beings, no causes and conditions of deeds, no retribution.’ Only after conceding does he turn out that one turning sentence: ‘beings do not know that these dharmas are empty of specific marks; these beings make the causes and conditions of deeds’.—The difference is not in the dharmas but in the mind that does not know the dharmas. The treatise-author pushes this line to its utmost: if beings themselves knew that dharmas are empty of nature, the bodhisattva would have no need at all to arouse the mind, ‘just as without disease there is no need of medicine, and without darkness no need of a lamp’. The whole bodhisattva path exists only because of this one ‘not knowing’. And within not knowing there is again light and heavy: ‘if they give rise only to the notion of beings and dharmas, the fetters are still light and they can easily be delivered’; once ‘they give rise to craving and anger and within these raise up heavy deeds’, it becomes heavy bondage—‘just as atoms heaped up make a mountain, hard to move’. Each atom is utterly light; heaped up, they cannot be shifted.

Then comes the chapter's proper subject: since the Buddha has the subtle and wonderful dharmas practised through immeasurable asaṃkhyeya aeons, why is what leaves his mouth only the four Chinese characters suffering, origin, cessation, path? The treatise-author answers with the utmost plainness: ‘What beings fear most urgently is nothing more than suffering; once suffering is removed, he then shows them the Buddha path.’ And he says: ‘As with a person gravely ill, removing the disease comes first as the urgent thing; afterwards one adorns his body with precious things and clothing.’—The four truths are not the summit of the Buddha-dharma; they are its urgency. And they are not only urgent: the sūtra says ‘all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter into the four noble truths’, and the reason the Three Jewels stand distinct also issues from here. The four truths are the place where the Buddha-dharma is gathered in whole, so to speak of them first does them not the slightest wrong.

Yet the sūtra then takes these four Chinese characters apart itself. Subhūti asks: is one delivered by the truth of suffering, or by the knowledge of suffering? The Buddha answers: ‘Not by the noble truth of suffering is one delivered, nor by the knowledge of suffering is one delivered’, and pronounces straight off: ‘because these four noble truths are equal, I say they are precisely nirvāṇa’. Fearing that people will take this for a foolish question, the treatise-author first lays out its distinctions on its behalf, then refutes both sides: if one could obtain the path by the truth of suffering alone, then ‘all beings, oxen, sheep, and the rest, should also obtain the path!’—suffering is what beings have in common, and what is held in common will not on its own save anyone; if by the knowledge of suffering alone, ‘apart from suffering there is no knowledge’—without the object contemplated, knowledge too cannot stand. So one can only say ‘it is born because the truth of suffering and the knowledge of suffering come together’. One layer further, even the four truths themselves may not be grasped: ‘these four dharmas, suffering and the rest, all arise from conditions and are false and unreal’. Someone objects: suffering and origin are with outflows, and to call them deceiving is acceptable, but the truth of the path is without outflows and the truth of cessation is unconditioned, so how can they too be deceiving? The treatise-author answers cleanly: when the time comes to enter nirvāṇa without remainder, even the truth of the path is known to be deceiving, and ‘by the emptiness-of-emptiness samādhi and the rest one relinquishes the truth of the path, as the simile of the raft says’. As for cessation, ‘the cessation of suffering is like the going out of a lamp; one should not seek its whereabouts in idle discourse’. When the lamp goes out, the fire has not run off somewhere else. To call the four truths false is not to deny the four truths; it is not to allow one to set up on the four truths one more thing that can be grasped. What is called equality is precisely this meaning: ‘if there is no suffering and no knowledge of suffering, no origin and no knowledge of origin, no cessation and no knowledge of cessation, no path and no knowledge of the path, this is named the equality of the four noble truths.’ And what remains when these eight dharmas have been effaced is not annihilation—‘whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, the marks of dharmas abide constantly, because they do not deceive and are not lost’.

The final passage speaks of entering the station. The sūtra says that when the bodhisattva sees that ‘the dharmas contained by the four noble truths and the dharmas not contained by the four noble truths are all empty’, at that time ‘this is the bodhisattva abiding in the ground of the stage of nature, not falling from the summit’. The treatise-author sets a question: why not say separately ‘the contemplation that emptiness too is empty’ before one enters the bodhisattva's position? The answer is utterly economical: ‘If one says that dharmas are empty, this is emptiness, and emptiness too is empty; if this emptiness were not empty, it would not be named the emptiness of all.’—If the words ‘the emptiness of all’ are truly said to the end, emptiness-too-is-empty is already inside them, and need not be added from outside. And the emptiness contemplated the Buddha names ‘the emptiness of self-nature’; the treatise-author ranks it for him: inner and outer emptiness and the rest are the small emptinesses, ultimate emptiness, the emptiness of nothing to be attained, and the rest are the very deep emptinesses, and ‘the emptiness of specific marks is the middle emptiness’. Why take the middle? ‘Because specific marks have a principle that can be refuted, the mind does not sink, and it can enter into the very deep emptiness.’—The emptiness of specific marks still leaves in the hand a principle that can be refuted, so when the practitioner refutes it his mind does not sink; once the mind sinks, the deep emptiness cannot be entered. The whole chapter at its end still falls back upon difference: though the bodhisattva has thoroughly penetrated the truth of the highest meaning, he is unwilling to state it directly, because ‘if I were to state this dharma directly, they would not believe or accept it, and would destroy the Dharma and fall into hell!’ So ‘I shall now accomplish all wholesome dharmas and adorn my body with the thirty-two marks, to lead beings on’. In the highest meaning there is no difference; in the place where the Dharma is taught there cannot but be difference—the two names, the four truths and difference, here join into one matter.

This chapter opens with an extremely hard difficulty. Subhūti asks: since the nature of dharmas is ‘without anything existent, not made by the Buddha’, and not made by the worthy and the sages either, then the distinctions of the six destinies and the fruits and stations of the three vehicles—from where are they divided out? He states it with no way out: ‘In dharmas without nature there is no function of deeds.’—Without nature, no deeds; without deeds, no retribution; without retribution, all distinctions have nowhere to land. The Buddha does not evade it, but directly concedes what he says: ‘Just so! Just so! Dharmas without nature have no deeds and no retribution.’ Then he moves the source of distinction and sets it down in another place: ‘Ordinary people do not enter the holy Dharma, do not know the mark of dharmas being without nature, and because of inversion and delusion raise up all kinds of causes and conditions of deeds.’ Distinction does not come from the nature of dharmas; it comes from inversion—this sentence is the pillar of the whole chapter. Below it, two posed questions pin down the word ‘without nature’: ‘Can a dharma without nature obtain a dharma without nature?’ ‘Can a dharma with nature obtain a dharma with nature?’ Both questions are answered ‘No’. Being neither what obtains nor what is obtained, it goes on to say ‘dharmas without nature and the path—all these dharmas are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, namely the signless.’ And the bodhisattva's business lies precisely in this place where nothing can be clung to: ‘within what has nothing existent, he pulls beings out.’

The first eye is the seven similes. Subhūti asks again, more concretely: what ordinary people cling to—is there not even a little that is real? The Buddha answers: ‘In the place where ordinary people cling and raise up deeds there is not a hair's breadth of real matter; it is only by reason of inversion.’ And at once he says ‘now I shall tell you a simile; the wise understand by means of a simile.’ What follows are the seven things, dream, image in a mirror, echo, mirage, city of the gandharvas, illusion, and conjuration, and each thing is asked twice: can it raise up the causes and conditions of deeds and fall into the six destinies? can it cultivate the path and have stain and purity? Seven things, fourteen questions, and Subhūti answers each with no—thirteen of the questions are answered ‘No! World-Honored One!’, and only the one question ‘in a dream, is there the going and coming of birth and death in the five destinies?’ is answered ‘World-Honored One! There is not!’ What matters is that what the seven similes liken is not ‘there is nothing’, but ‘without reality, yet able to appear’. The seven things each appear before one and each can deceive, and the point where the deceiving lands differs for each: the image in a mirror ‘deceives only little children’, the echo is ‘an empty sound without reality’, the mirage ‘deceives only the eyes of those without wisdom’, the city of the gandharvas ‘deceives only the eyes of fools’—even the city, the houses and towers, and the gardens are seen distinctly, and yet it is ‘ultimately unfindable’. That it can deceive is precisely the proof that it is without reality, not the proof that it has reality. Among the seven similes only the simile of the dream has two more questions added before the two: first ‘as with the people seen in a dream enjoying the pleasures of the five desires, is there a real place where they abide?’, and next ‘of dharmas with outflows or without outflows, conditioned or unconditioned, is there any that is not like a dream?’ The answer: ‘There is none that is not like a dream.’ With outflows and without outflows, conditioned and unconditioned, all alike are included, and not one dharma lies outside the dream—this one question and answer is in truth the general gathering of the seven similes. And the seven similes close on ‘like a person conjured by the Buddha’: even what the Buddha conjures is just as much without reality—only when the simile reaches here has it been said to the end.

The second eye is on the two Chinese characters ‘asking again’. The treatise first sets itself a difficulty: the Buddha has already answered this matter everywhere, so why need Subhūti ask again? The answer is excellent: ‘though the meaning is one, the matters that occasion it differ’—the meaning is one and the same meaning, but the matter that occasions it is different each time. Prajñā is ‘very deep and subtle, hard to understand and hard to measure’, so the buddhas, the worthy, and the sages ‘teach it by all kinds of words, names, and similes’; and ‘those of keen faculties understand the sages' intent, while those of dull faculties give rise to clinging everywhere, clinging to the words and names’: hearing emptiness taught they cling to emptiness, hearing that emptiness too is empty they still cling, and even hearing ‘all dharmas have the mark of quiescence, and the way of words is cut off’ they cling just the same. The treatise gathers this with one simile: ‘Like a person with a film over his eyes who looks at a pure jewel, sees the shadow of his own eye, and says the jewel is impure.’ The jewel is pure from the first; the impurity seen is the film in one's own eye. So asking again is not for the Buddha's sake but for the hearers'—Subhūti, ‘the sūtra being about to end, asks about this matter everywhere for the sake of beings; therefore he asks again.’ The Buddha's assent too must be read in two halves: ‘the Buddha assents to his statement “dharmas are empty and abide constantly, no different whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha”, and does not assent to his difficulty “how are the six destinies and the rest distinguished”.’ Within one and the same passage he assents to what Subhūti has grasped and does not assent to what he objects, because that objection ‘wishes to refute emptiness’.

The third eye is the most pressing: both are unreal, yet within the unreal there is difference. The questioner presses step by step—if inversion is unreal, then the ‘real’ that stands over against it ought at least to exist? The treatise answers: ‘It is only by reason of inversion that clinging arises; if there were no inversion, how could there be a real dharma standing over against it?’ Pressing again: ultimate emptiness and the highest meaning are surely real? The treatise does not shield even the highest meaning: ‘This emptiness of the highest meaning too is spoken of on account of the discriminations and inversions of ordinary people; if there were no inversion, there would be no highest meaning either.’ Pressing again: if both are unreal, ‘as when a person's hands are dirty and he washes them with dirt, how can they become clean?’ The treatise's answer does not set up a real footing, but sets up only what can refute and is not refuted: ‘the highest meaning is in reality pure’, and the reason it is pure lies in ‘because it cannot be destroyed and does not change’. Then he opens it out: ‘Though both dharmas are unreal, within the unreal there is difference.’ The ten wholesome and the ten unwholesome are alike conditioned and deceiving, yet ‘because of the dharma of killing one falls into the evil destinies; because of not killing one is born in the heavens’; giving and stealing alike grasp at marks with a clinging mind, yet ‘vexing beings has great sin, kindly thought for beings has great merit’; ‘as kindness can refute anger and giving can refute stinginess, though both things are unreal, they can refute each other’.—It is not that one first finds a plot of real ground and then practises; it is that within what is alike unreal there is still light and heavy that can be turned, and this is the whole ground of cultivating the path.

At the end it returns to its principle in non-self. The Buddha asks back where the one who is stained or pure is, and Subhūti answers with ‘in all dharmas there is non-self’. The questioner cites ‘in the Abhidharma and other scriptures there is stain and there is purity’ and objects: in the dharmas there really are stain and purity, it is only that ‘the one who undergoes stain and purity does not exist’—the three poisons and the afflictions are stain, the three gates of liberation and the dharmas that aid the path are purity. The treatise does not refute the items he lists; it only pulls away his footing: ‘if the dharmas of beings belong to nothing, there is no maker either’, and then there is neither bondage nor release. And the absence of bondage and release does not hinder liberation: ‘Like a person burnt by fire, who in fear relinquishes and leaves it—it is not the fire that leaves the fire; beings too are so: fearing the suffering of the five aggregates they relinquish and leave it—it is not the suffering that leaves the suffering.’ What leaves is the person, not the fire; what is released is the being, not the suffering. The whole chapter closes on four sentences: toward the real mark of dharmas ‘he also does not cling, therefore there is no stain’; ‘the real mark of dharmas has no mark that can be grasped, therefore there is no purity’; ‘not clinging within the eightfold noble path, this is named no purity’; ‘removing the afflictions and not clinging to inversion, this is named no stain’. No stain and no purity is not the absence of cultivation; it is cultivation reaching the point of not clinging—and the reason the seven similes had to be carried all the way to the person conjured by the Buddha is exactly to make this point: what deceives a person was never the object, but that one speck of grasping.

This chapter opens with a question that looks unreasonable. Subhūti says to the Buddha: the person who sees the real mark is neither stained nor pure, and the person who does not see the real mark is also neither stained nor pure, ‘why? because the nature of all dharmas is without anything existent.’—Since all dharmas are from the first without anything existent, stain and purity alike have nowhere to be settled. Then are cultivating and not cultivating, seeing the real and not seeing the real, not just the same? He pushes the sentence to the end: ‘How is it that the one who speaks as it truly is is neither stained nor pure, and the one who does not speak truly is also neither stained nor pure?’ The Buddha's answer does not rank stain and purity once more, but changes the name: ‘This mark of the equality of dharmas—I say this is purity.’—What is called ‘purity’ is not that something has been washed away; it is the very fact that dharmas are from the first equal. Its items the Buddha himself lists: ‘namely suchness, not-different, not-deceiving, the mark of dharmas, the nature of dharmas, the abiding of dharmas, the position of dharmas, the limit of reality; whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha the nature of dharmas abides constantly—this is named purity.’ And having said this sentence, the Buddha at once takes his own words back: ‘It is said because of worldly truth, not as the very highest meaning; the very highest meaning passes beyond all words, discussion, and sound.’—To set up a name and at the same time withdraw the name is the gesture of this chapter from head to tail. The treatise-author matches this gesture with a simile: ‘the hearer's mind at once grasps at a mark and clings to this equality of dharmas; as when a person points at the moon with a finger, one who does not understand looks only at the finger and does not look at the moon.’ The fault is not in there being a finger; it is in stopping at the finger.

But once the words are withdrawn, another question comes: since all is like a dream and like a conjuration, where does vowing and cultivating the six perfections still find footing? Subhūti asks very concretely on behalf of new learners: ‘one should not be able to make complete dānapāramitā and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas by means of unreal, false dharmas.’ The Buddha first honestly concedes: ‘unreal, false dharmas cannot make complete dānapāramitā and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas’, ‘all these dharmas are dharmas made by recollection and reflection; by means of these dharmas made by reflection and recollection one cannot obtain the omniscience of all kinds.’ Yet the next sentence rescues the whole passage from annihilation: ‘all these dharmas can aid the dharmas of the path; they cannot add to its fruit’—things such as giving and keeping morality cannot add anything to nirvāṇa, but they can add to the path. The treatise-author explains it with a rain: ‘As a timely rain can benefit grass and trees, but does not benefit space.’ That rain cannot moisten space is not because the rain's power is weak; space never waited to be moistened. So ‘cannot add to the fruit’ is not ‘of no use’. The treatise-author sets himself one more question: once the real mark is known, what use is giving? The answer is utterly short: ‘If giving and the rest are not complete, one cannot bring beings to accomplishment.’—The reason the gate of practice is not abandoned lies in beings, not in oneself.

So this chapter speaks of arousing the mind more fiercely than elsewhere. The sūtra text says that all the bodhisattva's giving from his first arousing of intent is ‘for the sake of all beings’, ‘he does not seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi for any other matter, but only for the sake of all beings.’ The treatise-author divides those who enter the path into three grades: ‘the lowest practise wholesome dharmas only to deliver themselves; the middle do so for themselves and also for others; the highest practise wholesome dharmas only for the sake of others.’ And he proves it by the most ordinary thing in the world: ‘Such is the way of the world: one who makes offerings to himself obtains no merit from it, and one who harms his own body incurs no sin.’—Inviting oneself to a meal does not count as merit; only one who can relinquish his own happiness and practise wholesome dharmas solely for beings is called a superior person. Yet having said this much, the treatise-author stops himself: if only benefiting others is spoken of, why does the sūtra text also say that one must ‘oneself obtain non-clinging’ in order to make beings cling to nothing? The answer: ‘Because there is no other way! If one has no wisdom oneself, how can one benefit others?’ And the reason one cannot undergo it in another's stead is likewise one sentence: ‘It cannot be that I do it and another obtains it.’—To be oneself without clinging first is not to keep back a portion for oneself; it is so that one can truly give it out.

The chapter's proper subject shows its edge only in the middle section. The sūtra text says: ‘Equality—whether ordinary people or sages, none can practise it, none can reach it.’ Subhūti is greatly startled and pursues it all the way to the Buddha himself: ‘and so on up to the Buddha—can he too neither practise nor reach it?’ The Buddha answers without the least mercy: ‘This equality of dharmas, all sages cannot practise, cannot reach’, from the srota-āpanna up to the buddhas, not one left out. This sounds like belittling the Buddha, and Subhūti asks exactly that: the Buddha is sovereign in the power of practice among all dharmas, so how can he be unable to practise it, unable to reach it? The Buddha's answer is not about power but about same and different: ‘If the equality of dharmas were different from the Buddha, one should ask thus.’ The treatise-author takes this sentence apart: ‘Self-nature cannot practise within self-nature, cannot reach within self-nature; self-nature should practise within other-nature.’—The words practise and reach were from the first set up only for two things; since the Buddha is precisely equality, there is no ‘reaching’ to speak of. So the treatise-author adds in particular one sentence to seal off the misreading: ‘it is only because the Buddha is precisely equality that he does not practise and does not reach—not because his wisdom is small.’ Not being able to reach is not that the distance is great; it is that there is already no distance.

Since equality is of one taste, should not ordinary people and the Buddha, the Three Jewels and the six destinies, all be levelled flat? The most crucial turn of this chapter is right here. Subhūti asks: if there is no discrimination, how do the Three Jewels appear in the world? The Buddha asks him in return: are the Three Jewels different from the equality of dharmas? Subhūti answers that they are not different, yet still concedes one thing: ‘the Buddha has this power, to distinguish the places of the signless dharmas’. The Buddha thereupon himself ties up the bone of this chapter: ‘Know that the Buddha has the great power of kindness: within the equality of dharmas he does not move, and yet he distinguishes dharmas.’—Not moving belongs to equality, distinguishing belongs to worldly truth; the two things proceed at the same time, and this alone is called the power of kindness. The treatise-author tells the origin of difference very smoothly: ‘Within equality there is no difference; because of worldly truth there is difference within the dharmas of ordinary people.’ And the Three Jewels stand precisely because equality has been obtained: ‘when he had not yet obtained the dharma he was not named Buddha; because he obtained the equal dharma he is named Buddha’. As for why distinguishing does not fall into idle discourse, the treatise-author divides knowing into two: ‘Knowing is of two kinds: first, the false knowing of ordinary people; second, knowing as it truly is.’ And he says the whole principle through with an ox: horns, feet, and tail come together and there is an ox, and the ox-dharma and its parts ‘the one does not make the many, the many do not make the one’; someone says that apart from these parts there is a further function of the ox that can be seen, and the treatise-author refutes him: ‘the ox-dharma is born from the coming together of its parts, and the ox-dharma is not different from the parts.’ The four sentences refute all the way down—‘different refutes one, one refutes different, neither one nor different refutes one-and-different’—and only then does he give the most crucial sentence: ‘If one enters into this equality of dharmas, at that time one first obtains the mark of the ox as it truly is.’ To see an ox as it truly is is not to look for a further ox outside one and different; it is where one and different have both been used up.

Last it asks about equality itself: is it conditioned, or unconditioned? The Buddha answers ‘not a conditioned dharma, not an unconditioned dharma.’ The reason is that the two stand only by leaning on each other: ‘apart from conditioned dharmas, unconditioned dharmas are unfindable; apart from unconditioned dharmas, conditioned dharmas are unfindable.’ The treatise-author compares it to long and short: ‘as apart from long there is no short—this is the meaning of standing over against each other.’ And he compares it to a prison: ‘as when a person shut in a prison bores through the wall and gets out: the broken wall is space, and there is no other space’—the very place of the wall that was bored through is the space; it is not that outside the wall there is another space waiting for a person to enter. So ‘to break the conditioned is precisely the unconditioned’; the unconditioned was never a thing outside the conditioned. And the Buddha's saying all this is still worldly truth: ‘in the highest meaning there is no bodily action, no verbal action, no mental action’. The whole chapter closes on one sentence of practice: ‘When the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, he does not move within the highest meaning, and yet he practises the bodhisattva's business and enriches beings.’ The treatise-author's last words answer to it: ‘the bodhisattva does not move within the highest meaning and yet benefits beings’.—Equality is not a place where there is nothing to be done; it is the place where one does everything and does not move. From ‘I say this is purity’ to ‘does not move and yet benefits beings’, this chapter has been speaking of one and the same thing throughout.

The question with which this chapter opens is the threshold that one who trains in emptiness is bound to strike halfway along. Subhūti asks: ‘World-Honored One! If dharmas are equal and there is nothing to be done, how does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practising prajñāpāramitā not move within equality and yet practise the bodhisattva's business, by giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavour?’—The treatise-author later puts this difficulty with one stroke to the point: ‘The equal dharma has the mark of non-doing; benefiting has the mark of doing.’ On one side nothing need be done; on the other the four means of gathering must every one be done; how can these two be true at the same time?

The Buddha's answer does not go to reconcile the two sides, but looks from a different angle: ‘If beings themselves knew that dharmas are equal, the Buddha would not use his supernormal power, not moving within the equality of dharmas, to pull beings out of the notion of I and self …’ The treatise-author gathers this with one simile: ‘If the patient knows of himself how to tend himself, the physician has no work.’—Benefiting beings is not another thing added on top of equality; it holds only for ‘those who do not yet know equality of themselves’. If beings already knew of themselves, the two Chinese characters ‘benefiting’ would have nowhere at all to be set down. So the treatise-author pronounces: ‘The bodhisattva teaching and transforming beings is the siddhānta of counteraction; Subhūti makes his difficulty with the siddhānta of the highest meaning, in which there is no benefit.’ The two ways of speaking each have what they address, and do not obstruct each other.

Subhūti goes on to press: ‘World-Honored One! By what emptiness are all dharmas empty?’ This question is asked with the utmost fineness. The treatise-author points out on his behalf why it had to be asked: ‘Emptiness is of all kinds: as there is no water in fire and no fire in water, that too is emptiness’—the absence of this in that is also called emptiness, so of which kind of emptiness is ‘all dharmas are empty’ after all? At the time, moreover, someone said: ‘Though dharmas are empty, they are not wholly empty; as in the emptiness of form the root atoms remain.’ To keep back one atom at the end of emptiness is exactly the place where those who train in emptiness most often stop. The Buddha's answer goes in one sentence to the end: ‘By the ultimate emptiness of nothing to be attained, far from all marks.’—Nothing kept back at the bottom.

Yet the five Chinese characters ‘far from the marks of all dharmas’ easily breed a misunderstanding: is it only by smashing dharmas that one is far from them? The treatise-author's answer is of the utmost importance: ‘All dharmas cannot be wholly destroyed; only leave their wrong recollection and imagining, and all dharmas are left of themselves.’—What is left is the recollection and imagining, not the dharmas. Dharmas from the first need not be destroyed, nor can they be; what is destroyed is the mind that grasps dharmas. He at once cites one matter as proof: ‘As when a person of supernormal power destroys the mark of form, stone walls do not obstruct him.’ The wall is still the wall; what obstructs is the mark of form; once the mark is left, the obstruction naturally does not stand.

A Conjuration Making a Further Conjuration

The chapter's main simile is here. The Buddha does not answer sentence by sentence, but brings it out straight with a counter-question: ‘If there were a conjured person who conjured a conjured person, would this conjuration have any real matter that is not empty?’ Subhūti answers: ‘No! World-Honored One! This conjured person has no real matter that is not empty.’—The grammar of this sentence must be seen clearly: it is not saying ‘the conjuration is false’, but that there is not one real matter that is not empty. When a conjured person conjures yet another person, in neither layer can a real place be pointed to.

The Buddha thereupon blocks the last crack from this: ‘These two things, emptiness and the conjured person, are neither joined nor dispersed; because of the emptiness of emptiness they are empty, and one should not discriminate “this is emptiness, this is conjuration”.’—If ‘emptiness’ is set up as what refutes and ‘conjuration’ as what is refuted, one more layer of grasping is added. The treatise-author asks himself what this ‘emptiness of emptiness’ means, and answers himself: ‘To refute the eighteen real matters there are the eighteen emptinesses; to refute the dharma of transformation and emptiness in the minds of beings one uses the emptiness of emptiness.’ The eighteen emptinesses refute dharmas; the emptiness of emptiness refutes the mind that ‘takes emptiness as real’. He explains further why conjuration must be used as a simile, while sages need none: ‘Ordinary people know that transformation is empty and unreal, and take the other dharmas as real; therefore conjuration is used as a simile, so that they may know the other dharmas are no different from conjuration.’ As for ‘the way sages understand, conjuration cannot be used as a simile, because there is no discrimination’.—A simile is a medicine for those who grasp at marks, not something to be kept on the body.

All Dharmas Are Conjuration, Yet Each Has Its Causes and Conditions

Subhūti does not let go: let worldly dharmas be conjuration; but the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas? The srota-āpanna and so on up to the buddhas? The Buddha answers without the least mercy: ‘All dharmas are conjuration.’ And he divides them into six kinds—the transformation of the śrāvaka dharmas, the transformation of the pratyekabuddha dharmas, the transformation of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva dharmas, the transformation of the buddhas' dharmas, the transformation of the dharmas of the afflictions, the transformation of the dharmas of the causes and conditions of deeds. Even the Buddha-dharma, even the Buddha himself, is within conjuration.

Then if all is empty and all is conjuration, where do these thousandfold distinctions before our eyes come from? The treatise-author answers with the utmost steadiness: ‘As with what the Buddha conjures and what other people conjure, though unreal they have all kinds of different shapes and images’, ‘like images in a mirror, which though without real matter follow the original form, and the images are fair or ugly’, and he gathers it with ‘dharmas too are so: though empty, each has its causes and conditions.’—Emptiness does not cancel causes and conditions; it cancels only the ‘real’ on top of the causes and conditions. Not a hair of the reflection in the mirror is true, yet when the face is crooked the reflection is crooked.

Why the six kinds of transformation are alike named transformation, the treatise-author also gives a rule by which each can be tested: ‘This dharma was from the first non-existent and now exists, has existed and returns to non-existence: this is the śrāvaka transformation.’—From the first there was none, now there is, having been there is none again: this is conjuration. So with the thirty-seven limbs of the path, so with the ten powers, so with the afflictions, so too with the retribution of deeds.

The most practical passage among these is how the afflictions can give birth to wholesome deeds. Someone objects: ‘The afflictions are a stained mind, a wholesome mind is a pure mind; stain and purity cannot come together’—how can clean things grow in a dirty mind? The treatise-author does not argue whether stain and purity can join, but cites a matter ready to hand in everyone: ‘Every mind arises together with wisdom; in the mind of ignorance too there should be wisdom; wisdom and ignorance are mutually contrary dharmas, and yet arise within one mind.’ If even the mind of ignorance has wisdom in it, what is strange about there being good in a stained mind? Only at the end does the real distinction come out: ‘Because the mind of self is indeterminate and soft, therefore within the afflicted mind wholesome deeds and unmoving deeds are born; there is no fault.’—Self-grasping is not itself evil; it is indeterminate; what is indeterminate is soft, and so it can carry good and can carry evil too; as for anger and the other hard afflictions, they cannot carry them. Ordinary people who have not obtained the holy path can from the first practise good only while carrying the mind of self; this is not a flaw, it is the actual state of things.

Why are deeds too called transformation? The treatise-author gives the deepest simile of the whole chapter: ‘Ordinary people see dharmas as not like conjuration; sages, because they know the mark of ultimate emptiness, with the divine eye contemplate beings as all without end, beginning, or middle.’ Then comes the simile—‘As the master of conjuration makes transformations from a distant place; deeds too are so, making the transformation of the present body from within the past world.’ The one who makes the conjuration is not in the place where the conjuration appears; the deeds of the past are not in this body of today, and yet this body of today is plainly what they transformed into being. Below he joins it to human feeling: a transformed thing can make people give rise to sorrow, joy, fear, and dread; the wise contemplate it as all without reality, while people perversely give rise to sorrow and joy.

Only the One Dharma, Nirvāṇa, Is Not Like a Conjuration

The chapter's joint is here. The Buddha first sets up three layers: ‘If a dharma has the mark of arising and ceasing, it is all transformation’, ‘if a dharma is without arising and without ceasing, it is not transformation’, ‘nirvāṇa with the mark of non-deception, this dharma is not transformation.’—The criterion lies only in the two Chinese characters arising and ceasing, and nirvāṇa is without arising and without ceasing, so it does not enter the count of transformations. The treatise-author makes clear, moreover, where the word ‘deceiving’ comes from: ‘From the first non-existent and now existent, now existent and afterwards non-existent, it deceives and deludes people's minds.’ The going and coming between existence and non-existence is what deceives; since nirvāṇa neither comes nor goes, there is nothing to deceive with.

But Subhūti at once uses the Buddha's own words to make his difficulty: the equality of dharmas is not made by śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, or buddhas, ‘whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha the nature of dharmas is ever empty’; since ‘the emptiness of nature is precisely nirvāṇa, how is it said that the one dharma, nirvāṇa, is not like a conjuration?’—If the emptiness of nature is nirvāṇa, nirvāṇa ought to be as empty as all dharmas and as much like a conjuration; on what ground does it stand alone in a class by itself. This is the sharpest question of the whole treatise: having spoken a whole sūtra of emptiness, to keep back at the end one thing that is not empty.

The Buddha's answer is not a defence; it is to say to whom this sentence is spoken: ‘If a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind hears that all dharmas are ultimately empty of nature, and so on up to nirvāṇa too being all like a conjuration, his mind is startled and afraid; it is for the sake of these bodhisattvas who have newly aroused the mind that I distinguish what arises and ceases as like a conjuration and what does not arise or cease as not like a conjuration.’ The treatise-author pursues this layer to the end: since ‘the Buddha alone is the one who does not deceive’, does the Buddha then change his words to suit the person? The answer lies in ‘what is changed is not the dharma’—when the Buddha first obtained the real mark of dharmas, ‘his mind tended only toward nirvāṇa and quiescent extinction’, and it was the buddhas of the ten directions and the gods who begged the Buddha not to enter nirvāṇa, and ‘the Buddha accepted the request; the Buddha abides only in order to deliver beings.’ Since there are beings who can be delivered, he speaks according to the matter; what he follows is the matter, not the marks of dharmas.

Why the two sayings stand together the treatise-author gives two layers of reason. The first is on the word ‘clinging’: ‘Contemplating that conditioned dharmas are false and deceiving, nirvāṇa is real, unchanging and not different. There are bodhisattvas who have newly aroused the mind who cling to this nirvāṇa, and from this clinging raise up the afflictions; to sever this clinging it is said that nirvāṇa is like a conjuration. If there is no clinging mind, at that time it is said that nirvāṇa is not like a conjuration.’—The sentence ‘nirvāṇa is like a conjuration’ is not a higher truth; it is a medicine made specially to treat the one disease of ‘clinging to nirvāṇa’; a person without this disease need not take this dose. The second is on faculties: ‘Again, there are two paths: the path of the Small Vehicle and the path of the Great Vehicle. The discussion of the Small Vehicle takes nirvāṇa as real; the discussion of the Great Vehicle, because it enters deeply with keen wisdom, contemplates form and the other dharmas as all like nirvāṇa.’ The Small Vehicle sees nirvāṇa as real; the Great Vehicle sees all dharmas as the same as nirvāṇa. So he gathers it: ‘Therefore the two sayings are without fault.’—Not one right and one wrong, but one medicine for one disease.

There Never Was Anything; What Is There to Fear

At the end Subhūti asks: then how is one to teach new learners to recognise the emptiness of nature without being afraid? The treatise-author first writes out honestly where people are afraid: ‘The emptiness of nature is the place of great fear for ordinary people; hearing that the emptiness of nature is without anything existent is like standing at the edge of a deep pit.’ The words in their minds are: ‘The Buddha teaches people to cultivate good conduct diligently, and in the end it all returns into nothing existent!’—After cultivating so laboriously for so long, to end up cultivating one's way into emptiness.

The Buddha's answer is only a counter-question: ‘Did dharmas exist from the first and now not exist?’—What you fear is ‘afterwards there will be nothing’; then let me first ask you: did it ever exist before? The treatise-author brings this counter-question down to the ground, and gathers the whole chapter into this plainest of distinctions: ‘If dharmas existed first and by practising the path became non-existent, one should be afraid; since from the beginning they did not exist of themselves, one should not be afraid; it is only to remove inversion.’

If cultivating the path were to turn what exists from the first into nothing, then indeed one should fear; since from the very beginning there was nothing, what cultivating the path removes is only inversion, and nothing whatever has been lost. Fearing that people will not be at ease, the treatise-author adds one more sentence: ‘to remove inversion and make them obtain true seeing; in the end nothing is lost’.

The whole chapter rises from the simile of the conjured person and ends on the four Chinese characters ‘should not be afraid’. In between it has argued nine rounds of ‘nirvāṇa is like a conjuration’ and ‘nirvāṇa is not like a conjuration’, and here they all fall back onto one matter: the one who fears emptiness fears it because in his mind he still truly holds that there is a thing that will be lost.

This chapter is special within the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa: it does not speak of a dharma; it speaks of a person. What the preceding chapter asked to the end was this—the dharma of the emptiness of nature is ultimately without anything existent, so how does a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind get in? The Buddha's answer is not to say one more layer of principle, but to tell a jātaka: ‘A bodhisattva-mahāsattva seeking prajñāpāramitā should be like the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Sadāprarudita.’ The treatise-author lays bare the ground of this turn: the difficulty of the dharma of the emptiness of nature lies not in the dharma but in the human mind's fright—‘from the first it has always been non-existent; there is nothing new and strange’; so long as one ‘with one mind diligently makes vigour and does not spare body or life’, it can be obtained. Therefore ‘here the jātaka of Sadāprarudita is told as proof’; among the twelve divisions of the scriptures it is the jātaka that is specially taken here, so that the hearer may give rise to one thought: ‘that person could obtain it; I too should obtain it.’ A whole chapter's long story is the shape of one answer.

Who is Sadāprarudita? A person who sought the Dharma in an age without a Buddha, in an empty forest. For the origin of the name the treatise-author lists three explanations and judges none: some say ‘because as a small child he liked to weep, he was named Ever Weeping’; some say he saw beings ‘poor, old, sick, grieved, and suffering, and wept for them in sorrow’, and the crowd therefore called him so; some say he heard the voice of teaching in the sky and the voice suddenly ceased, and ‘he grieved and wept for seven days and seven nights. Because of this the gods, nāgas, and spirits called him Ever Weeping.’ The three explanations go one layer deeper than the last, and their common ground colour is the one Chinese character ‘weeping’—this person sought the Dharma weeping. And the difficulty is exactly here: prajñā is signless and ultimately empty, hard to obtain even in the practice of meditative concentration, how much more with a mind scattered by weeping? The treatise-author answers crisply: ‘Sadāprarudita is told for the sake of bodhisattvas who have newly aroused the mind.’ And then he sets down the most crucial stroke of the whole chapter—‘Bodhisattvas new to the training are of two kinds: first, those who in their deep mind cling to worldly pleasure and arouse intent with a soft mind; second, those who arouse intent with a deep mind and do not cling to worldly pleasure.’ ‘One who arouses intent with a soft mind the Buddha does not count as having aroused the mind; one who arouses intent with a deep mind is alone named as having aroused the mind.’ Whether the arousing of the mind is true or false is not judged by seniority but by deep or soft; a new learner of one lifetime's austerities may also see the buddhas of the ten directions before his eyes.

What the voice in the sky taught him is gate of practice in every sentence: go east from here, do not think of weariness, sleep, food and drink, day and night, cold and heat, inside and outside; as you go do not look left or right, ‘do not destroy the mark of the body, do not destroy the mark of form, do not destroy the marks of feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness.’ What is called destroying a mark? The treatise says it with the utmost fineness: ‘If one says there is a separate and definitely existing dharma of the body, this destroys the mark of the body; if one clings to the dharma of no body, this too destroys the mark of the body. Leaving these extremes of one and different, existence and non-existence, one practises the middle way’—existence destroys it, and non-existence destroys it too—the middle way is not a compromise; it is not falling into these two. Next it teaches drawing near to the good friend, and the reason is not abstruse either: ‘Though there is a good dharma, if there is no one to teach it, one goes wrong often in practising it; just as though there is good medicine, one still needs a good physician.’ This chapter's discussion of the closeness of teacher and disciple is the fullest in the whole book, and what most shows its measure is that both ends are kept complete: on one end, ‘prajñāpāramitā is obtained from a teacher, therefore one regards the teacher with the notion of a Buddha’, ‘the teacher's faults do not attach to me; I only receive from the teacher the dharma of prajñāpāramitā’—‘as when a dog-skin bag holds fine jewels, one should not discard the jewels because of the bag’, ‘as when a criminal holds a torch to light the road, one may not, because of the person's crime, refuse his light and fall oneself into the ditch’; yet on the other end, ‘do not follow the Dharma teacher out of a mind for worldly gain; only out of love of the Dharma and reverence for the Dharma follow the bodhisattva who teaches the Dharma.’ To follow the teacher and not follow gain, to revere the teacher and not reproach the teacher—such a person alone is ‘like a whole and sound vessel, which does not leak what it receives’.

As the story goes on, it is the process of a person handing himself over. Because he asked and did not find the place to go he wept for seven days, and the Buddha writes his mind with ‘as when a person's only son suddenly dies, and he is grieved and in bitter pain, harbouring only anguish and giving rise to no other thought’; when he heard the names of the City of Many Fragrances and of Dharmodgata, the Buddha again writes his urgency with ‘as when a person is struck by a poisoned arrow and has no other thought’. Halfway along the road, having nothing on his person, he thought of what he could offer to the teacher who taught the Dharma—and right here the treatise-author sets down a judgement: ‘Poverty is of two kinds: first, poverty in wealth; second, poverty in the dharmas of merit.’ ‘Poverty in the dharmas of merit is the greatest shame! Poverty in wealth even good people have; poverty in the Dharma good people do not have.’ So he sold himself. Why he did not go straight to offering the Dharma, the treatise-author does not hide the worldly side either: ‘Though offering the Dharma is the higher, when worldly beings see one come from afar seeking the Dharma with nothing at all, they do not give rise to a joyful mind’; and why he gave up his body lies in ‘among outer and inner things, inner giving is the weightier, because one treasures it more deeply.’ He ‘on the way entered a great city’ and in the market cried three times ‘Who needs a person? Who will buy a person?’ and no one answered—because Māra had blocked the sound. The most brilliant question of the whole chapter is right here: why did Māra not come to ruin him when he heard the voice in the sky, nor when he saw the buddhas of the ten directions, but come precisely today? The answer: ‘Sadāprarudita's mind was earlier not yet settled, and his sparing of his body not yet exhausted; having seen the buddhas of the ten directions and obtained the samādhis, his mind then became settled. Now the mark of a settled mind appears, and therefore Māra is alarmed.’ ‘If a bodhisattva's mind is not yet settled, he cannot yet move Māra; if a great bodhisattva's mind is already settled, Māra does not come either.’ When Māra comes is exactly when the station is about to turn; the coming of hindrance at its height is not the mark of retreat but the mark of waiting. It is like a debtor: ‘while he does not yet wish to go far away, the creditor does not block him; when he wishes to leave for another realm, he is not allowed to go’.

So there came the scene of piercing the arm, cutting the thigh, breaking the bone, and drawing out the marrow, and the buyer was in fact Śakra transformed—‘I truly have no use for a human heart, blood, or marrow; I came only to test you.’ Why the testing had to be so bitter the treatise-author gathers in one simile: ‘And as with gold, silver, and the other jewels, which are not burnt, forged, ground, and beaten because they are cheap’; one who can cut his flesh and draw blood, break his bone and draw out marrow, and whose mind does not move, ‘this is a bodhisattva rightly assured’. Śakra asked him what he wanted, and he said only one sentence: ‘Give me anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi!’—he did not even know of whom he should ask it; yet it was this very non-discrimination that took an elder's daughter watching the commotion from an upper storey for a fellow traveller. The treatise-author points out why she aroused the mind at this moment: to sell oneself with empty words is a light matter; to break the body and draw out marrow is heavy. The five hundred attendant maidens and the jewelled carriages went east together, and when they saw the supernormal power and transformations of Dharmodgata they too all aroused the mind—and the source of their arousing was in fact love and pride: ‘relying on love one severs love, relying on pride one severs pride’, ‘love, pride, and the other afflictions are all the root of the Buddha path’, ‘just as the lotus is born in mud’. The mud is not the flower, yet the flower opens only in the mud.

The last layer is the most honest. Sadāprarudita had already obtained the samādhis of breaking ignorance, of contemplating the nature of dharmas, and the rest, and had seen the buddhas of the ten directions, yet he still gave rise to great love and clinging toward the Buddha's body—the treatise-author sets this question himself and answers it himself: ‘If a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind can know by the general mark that dharmas are empty and signless, yet because of his deep love and clinging toward the buddhas he cannot understand that the mark of a Buddha is ultimately empty, then though he knows emptiness he cannot be united with emptiness.’ It is not retreat; it is that ‘because his faculties are keen, he enters deeply and clings deeply’. So his question is: ‘From where do the buddhas come? Where do they go?’—this question the chapter does not answer. At the chapter's end there remains only his one sentence standing before the Dharma seat: ‘Because I look at the Buddha's body without ever being satisfied, I never part from seeing the buddhas.’ The answer is in the next chapter. The Sadāprarudita chapter has told the whole price of one person's seeking the Dharma, and has left the last step at the threshold: having known emptiness one must still be united with emptiness; having seen the Buddha one must still know the Buddha's absence of coming and going. The story stops here, and the road is not yet walked to the end—this is exactly the way this chapter hands it over.

The road of five hundred yojanas has reached its end. Sadāprarudita at last sees the teacher he sold his body and pierced his body to seek, and the teacher's first words are not comfort but a taking away: ‘The buddhas come from nowhere, and in going reach nowhere.’—The ‘coming’ you came through a thousand hardships to see never existed from the first. Why? ‘The suchness of dharmas has the mark of not moving; the suchness of dharmas is precisely the Buddha.’ It is not that the Buddha refuses to move; it is that this ‘suchness’ has from the first no mark of moving, and the Buddha is precisely suchness. So the dharma of non-arising, the dharma of non-ceasing, the dharma of the limit of reality, emptiness, the undefiled, quiescent extinction, the nature of space, each ‘neither comes nor goes’ and ‘is precisely the Buddha’, and the last sentence cuts it clean: ‘Apart from these dharmas there is no further Buddha.’ The Buddha is not some further one outside dharmas.

Then come five similes, each pressing closer than the last. At the end of spring, at midday, a person sees a mirage shimmering and chases it seeking water; from what pool, what mountain, do you say that water comes, and where does it go? Sadāprarudita answers himself: ‘In the mirage there is not even water; how could there be a place it comes from or a place it goes to?’ The teacher closes it: ‘The fool without wisdom, pressed by heat and thirst, sees the mirage shimmer and, where there is no water, gives rise to the notion of water.’—Those who discriminate the buddhas as having coming and going are people of this kind, because ‘the buddhas cannot be seen by the form body; the Dharma body of the buddhas neither comes nor goes’. Asked again about the elephants, horses, oxen, and sheep made by illusionist's art, he answers ‘an illusory thing has no reality; how could it have a place of coming and going’; asked again about what is seen in a dream, he answers ‘what is seen in a dream is false; how could it have coming and going’. The three similes take away ‘reality’ to the last. Yet once it is all taken away, one must not fall into annihilation, so the fourth and fifth similes turn round to establish: the jewels in the ocean do not come from the ten directions, ‘by the causes and conditions of beings' roots of goodness the ocean produces these jewels’, and when they perish they do not go to the ten directions either, ‘when the conditions join they exist; when the conditions part they perish’; the sound of the konghou is finer still, ‘just as the sound of a konghou, when it comes out has no place it comes from, and when it ceases has no place it goes to’—the body, the neck, the skin, the strings, the pegs, the plectrum, together with the person's hand: not one of these alone can bring out sound, ‘only when the many conditions come together is there sound’. The Buddha's body too is so, ‘born from the causes and conditions of immeasurable merits, not born from one cause, one condition, one merit’. Three similes refute existence, two similes establish dependent arising, and only then do the four Chinese characters ‘neither coming nor going’ stand firm.

The treatise-author takes over, and first explains on Sadāprarudita's behalf where he is stuck: it is not that he does not understand emptiness, ‘as the waves of the great ocean, though their force is great, when they reach the side of Mount Sumeru retreat and are of no use’—the knowledge of emptiness, once it reaches the Buddha's body, cannot be used. So a new section must be begun. Then comes the hardest section of the whole chapter: someone sets up the Buddha with ‘as the five fingers coming together are named a fist’, saying that the five pure aggregates coming together are called the Buddha; the treatise-author answers with ‘in the Buddha-dharma there are two truths: worldly truth and the truth of the highest meaning’; by worldly truth one says that the Buddha speaks prajñā; by the highest meaning one says that the buddhas are empty. Then he presses with five gates: ‘The five aggregates are not the Buddha; apart from the five aggregates there is no Buddha either; the five aggregates are not in the Buddha; the Buddha is not in the five aggregates; the Buddha does not possess the five aggregates.’ The five aggregates are five, the Buddha is one, ‘the one does not make the five, the five do not make the one’; if the fist really existed, ‘apart from the five fingers there should be a further fist that can be seen’, and in fact it is unfindable. The five gates walked to the end, the Buddha is unfindable; because the Buddha is unfindable, there is no coming and no going.

When the words have reached this point, someone at once grows anxious: is it not wrong view to say there is no Buddha, and then what mind is one to arouse to seek to become a Buddha? The treatise-author's reply is the watershed of this chapter: the words ‘no Buddha’ are only to refute the notion of ‘clinging to the Buddha’, not to have you change to a notion of ‘no Buddha’ and embrace that instead—‘if even where there is a Buddha one is not allowed to grasp, how much less to grasp the wrong view that there is no Buddha!’ The right position is one place only: ‘Leaving these two extremes of existence and non-existence, abiding in the middle way: this is the real mark of dharmas.’ To obtain the real mark is called obtaining the Buddha. And the Buddha's body is here divided clearly: ‘The Buddha has two bodies: first, the Dharma body; second, the form body. The Dharma body is the true Buddha; the form body exists for the sake of worldly truth.’ This is not to belittle the form body; it is to return each to its place; the one who can practise the real mark is the true disciple of the Buddha, ‘he does not falsely eat the faithful gifts of people; this person should receive offerings, and is a field of merit for the world’, just as ‘planting seed in a good field, the harvest gathered is surely great’. As for the marks, minor signs, and light of the form body, the treatise-author leaves no room either: ‘Just as a skilled archer shoots upward into space; though the arrow goes far, it will surely fall to the ground’—since the Buddha's body belongs to the retribution of causes and conditions, it too returns to wearing away.

A long passage in the middle is story, and it is the most moving place in this chapter. The teacher taught the Dharma until sunset, rose, and went into his palace; Sadāprarudita took an oath, ‘I have come for the sake of the Dharma; I should not sit or lie down’, and so he walked and stood for seven years, not sitting, not lying down, without sleep. When the seven years were full and he was to spread the Dharma seat and sprinkle the ground to clear the dust, Māra hid the water away—what he thought was not to go elsewhere to look for water, but ‘I shall pierce my own body and sprinkle the ground with my blood, so that no dust rises to soil the great teacher’, and he himself spoke the reason: ‘From beginningless birth and death until now I have lost my body again and again, and never once for the Dharma.’ Through immeasurable aeons he had died so many times, and not once was it for the Dharma. When the teacher came out of concentration and ascended the seat, he was only ‘pure in mind, delighted and glad, like a bhikṣu entering the third dhyāna’. The treatise-author questions this passage sentence by sentence: why could he not sit or lie down, how could a human body so weak hold out seven years, and why did the teacher have to enter concentration for seven years? Among these one answer most shows its care—entering concentration for seven years was to remove the doubt of new learners, ‘just as when an abscess is not yet ripe the physician does not open it, but only applies medicine to ripen it; when ripe it is easily opened’; and teaching the Dharma is from the first of two kinds, ‘first, teaching the Dharma by mouth; second, showing the Dharma by the body’, and not moving for seven years is showing the Dharma by the body.

In Fascicle 100 the teacher at last speaks the thing he waited seven years for: ‘Now I shall teach you the marks of prajñāpāramitā.’ The sentence pattern of the teaching is very strange; more than twenty items are all cast in one and the same mould—‘because dharmas are equal, know that prajñāpāramitā too is equal’, apart, unmoving, without thought, without fear, of one flavour, boundless, adorned, without discrimination, nature unfindable, without anything existent, without making, all the way to ‘because dharmas are inconceivable, know that prajñāpāramitā too is inconceivable’. Note the direction: it never says that because prajñā is equal dharmas are equal. The treatise-author points out its order: first contemplating the equality of dharmas is the cause, obtaining prajñā with a settled mind is the fruit, ‘because cause and fruit are alike’. And every item withdraws the clinging the previous item might have left behind: fearing you will grasp at the mark of equality, it says apart—‘apart from the two extremes of equal and unequal: this is the mark of prajñāpāramitā’; apart and securely abiding, then unmoving; ‘if there is thought, that is a place where marks are clung to’, so without thought; without thought, fearing you will be bewildered and afraid, so without fear; as for one flavour it says that emptiness ‘sometimes has flavour, sometimes has no flavour’, the great joy of first obtaining the mind of equal emptiness is flavour, ‘as when a person pressed by heat and thirst obtains clear cool water and takes it for a true flavour without compare’, while at ultimate emptiness there is neither flavour nor non-flavour, and when the power of the knowledge of emptiness is great the myriad dharmas follow it, ‘just as when boiling rock sugar is about to be done, though different things come together, all become rock sugar’, ‘and as the great ocean, to which the hundred rivers return, all become one flavour, namely the flavour of ultimate emptiness’. For boundless it says ‘an edge is named a mark, whether existence or non-existence’, and the signless is precisely the boundless; and it divides ‘the boundless into two kinds: first, really boundless; second, boundless because people cannot reach it’. The longest simile is given to Sumeru: the outside books say it is ‘pure yellow gold’ of one colour, the Abhidharma treasury says each of its four sides is made of one jewel, and on the summit are the heavenly palaces, cities, halls, and gardens—when prajñā is not yet complete this is the adornment of the retribution of humans and gods, when complete it is the adornment of the fruits of the paths; Sumeru is formed by the wind gathering the essences and flavours, and again made firm by the wind's blowing, and prajñā too is ‘the foremost among all wholesome dharmas, solid, firm, and strong, coming together to make prajñā’, and ‘wrong views, the outside paths, idle discourse, and Māra's people cannot move it’. Toward the last items the words grow ever more thorough: ‘nature is named a definitely real matter that exists from the first’—if a nature arose from causes and conditions it would not be a nature, so the nature of all dharmas is unfindable; ‘because beings are refuted there is no maker; because dharmas are refuted there is nothing made’; and the reason the inconceivable is inconceivable is that ‘the real nature of all dharmas passes beyond mind and mental-factor dharmas, and goes out beyond the way of names, words, and speech’.

Right there on his seat Sadāprarudita obtained six million samādhi gates. The treatise-author explains in passing why it is samādhi and not merely wisdom: what is understood by a scattered mind is only wisdom; reflecting with one mind, it becomes samādhi, ‘as a lamp in the wind cannot give light, while in a quiet room with the door shut its light fills everywhere’; and ‘as water, before the cold wind has come, has not become ice and so has no firm use’. But the real closing stroke is the question below: he had long known the empty mark of dharmas, so what benefit after all did seven years of bitter standing obtain? The answer is unexpected—earlier, in seeing the buddhas and obtaining the samādhis, he had come down with a sickness: valuing prajñā highly he gave rise to clinging to marks. Dharmodgata's teaching of these twenty-odd marks of prajñā was precisely to refute this clinging mind of his: all dharmas are from the first empty of themselves; it is not prajñā that makes them empty; the marks of prajñā are taught so as ‘not to let him despise the other dharmas and value prajñā highly’, and ‘again one may not grasp the mark and give rise to a clinging mind; like hot gold, though fine, it cannot be held in the hand’. However fine the gold, when heated red it cannot be seized with the hand. A whole treatise walks a hundred fascicles, and what it withdraws at the last is prajñā itself.

At the chapter's end the Buddha tells Subhūti in conclusion: the causes and conditions of prajñā can bring to accomplishment all the merits of the bodhisattva and obtain the omniscience of all kinds, so one should receive and uphold it, read and recite it, rightly recollect it, teach it widely to people, write it out and make offerings to it, because ‘prajñāpāramitā is the mother of the buddhas of the ten directions in the past, future, and present, and is what the buddhas of the ten directions revere’. And the manner of seeking the Dharma the treatise-author names: ‘one should be like the bodhisattva Sadāprarudita, firm and upright with one mind, not to be shaken!’ In the last two sentences the treatise-author answers himself a small matter of deep import—why is prajñā not entrusted to Subhūti but entrusted to Ānanda? ‘Though Subhūti always delights in the practice of emptiness and the Buddha taught prajñā together with him, and he has moreover obtained the samādhi of non-contention, therefore it should not be entrusted to him’, ‘Ānanda has obtained the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining, and moreover is always close to the World-Honored One, therefore it is entrusted to him at length.’ The practitioner of emptiness need not be entrusted; it is the one who remembers who is entrusted: for prajñā to be passed down depends on the one who kept the words whole. The last sentence of this chapter falls on the two Chinese characters ‘entrustment’, and with that the door is pushed open toward the next chapter.

This is the last chapter of the whole treatise. The Buddha is about to go, and is to hand a book over to one person—and the first words out of his mouth are not instructions about the Dharma, but a question about standing: ‘What do you think? Is the Buddha your great teacher? Are you the Buddha's disciple?’ Ānanda answers: ‘World-Honored One! The Buddha is my great teacher, the Sugata is my great teacher; I am the Buddha's disciple.’ Only then does the Buddha confirm it: ‘I am your great teacher; you are my disciple.’ The treatise-author explains this with the utmost concreteness; this question is no courtesy: under the Buddha's seat there really were people who came seeking other things, ‘the Buddha had evil disciples, Sunakṣatra and others’, ‘and again Susīma became a disciple in order to steal the Dharma. Such as these are named disciples in name.’ Outsiders too had indeed suspected that Ānanda attended the Buddha only because of kinship. So the point of this question lands on the sentence that follows—‘if you say you are a true disciple, you should follow my command.’ If the standing is not settled, the Dharma has nowhere to be entrusted. That a treatise of a hundred fascicles is gathered in here and not in some higher passage of doctrine, the intent lies exactly here.

The proper text of the entrustment is only one sentence of transfer: ‘While my body is present, you love, revere, make offerings to, and provide for it, and your mind is always pure; after my passing into extinction, all this loving, revering, making offerings, and providing you should turn to loving, revering, and making offerings to prajñāpāramitā!’ One and the same portion of reverence: while the Buddha is here, it is placed on the Buddha's body; after the Buddha's extinction, it is placed on prajñā. The treatise-author here sets himself a question that follows human feeling closely: since prajñā is the teacher of the buddhas, why does Ānanda not revere that teacher, and instead revere the Buddha? The treatise-author's answer does not avoid the fact: ‘Though Ānanda has obtained the first path, because his outflows are not yet exhausted he does not deeply know the reality of dharmas as the Buddha knows it’; ‘prajñāpāramitā is subtle and very deep, without shape, without form; the wise can know it’, ‘the Buddha's body with its marks and minor signs, whether the foolish or the wise look at it, none is ever satisfied; therefore the Buddha uses his body as a simile for prajñā.’—The Buddha's body here is not the end-point of what is revered but the step toward it: the one who can be seen is for leading the mind on to the one dharma that cannot be seen.

The first question the treatise-author sets himself is asked very bluntly: since the Buddha has already severed love of dharmas, ‘why now, by all kinds of causes and conditions, does he entrust this Dharma, as if in love and clinging?’ The answer takes three roads. One road is great compassion—‘the mind of great kindness and compassion of the buddhas, from the first arousing of intent until arriving at the gate of nirvāṇa, is never abandoned’, and its utmost proof lies in ‘between the twin śāla trees, by the vajra samādhi he broke his body into pieces like hemp seeds and rice for the sake of beings; how much more would he entrust the sūtra-dharma, which enriches so many!’ If even the body can be broken, how much more one entrusting word. One road is the recipient—‘just as a merchant chief, about to go far away to another country, though he entrusts his wealth and jewels to his son, is specially and earnestly insistent about the precious jewels of great price, because his son does not yet know how heavy their price is.’ That the earnest insistence falls specially on this one thing is not because the holder loves it, but because the one taking it over does not yet recognise it; moreover ‘if others were to hear his son praise the price of the jewels, they would not believe it.’ So the Buddha too does not praise his own Dharma before other assemblies. The deepest road is in the middle way: ‘The Buddha, wishing to show the middle way, entrusts: first he taught that dharmas are empty, to block the extreme of existence; now he earnestly entrusts, and this refutes the extreme of non-existence; this then is the middle way.’—Having taught a whole book of emptiness, without this earnest insistence people would read emptiness as annihilation; the earnestness of the entrustment is precisely the blocking of the other extreme. As for why he stops after three tellings, the treatise-author gives the constant rule, and also a measure of the plainest kind: ‘The constant way of the buddhas is that their speech does not exceed three’, ‘again, if said once, it is still too slack; beyond three, too urgent, like an ordinary person who craves and clings.’

Next comes the sharpest difficulty of the whole chapter: since prajñā ‘is not increased by being taught nor decreased by not being taught, having the mark of ultimate quiescent extinction’, then ‘like space, who could extinguish it?’—is saying ‘do not let it be cut off and extinguished’ not self-contradictory? The treatise-author's answer is in two layers. As to what is entrusted, it refers to the circulation of the written word: ‘and the scrolls of the prajñāpāramitā sūtra written in letters and words, taught to others, are the prajñā here; its result is spoken of within this cause.’ The scroll is not prajñā, yet it is the cause of prajñā, so within the cause the name of the fruit is spoken. As to what is called extinguishing, what can truly extinguish prajñā was never a difficulty from outside: ‘ordinary people, hearing that prajñāpāramitā is subtle, at once give rise to a clinging mind, grasp at the mark of prajñā, and discriminate dharmas’, ‘because of discriminating, within this dharma they give rise to a clinging mind; because of the clinging mind, fighting and strife; because of fighting and strife, they raise up all sinful deeds’, ‘such people are named those who extinguish prajñāpāramitā.’—The one who extinguishes the Dharma is not outside the Dharma; he is that speck of grasping at marks in the mind of the one who reads the Dharma. So the dharma of not extinguishing too is only one sentence: ‘You should, in accordance with the marks of prajñāpāramitā, not cling to letters and words, and teach and transform beings.’ To teach and transform in accordance with the marks of prajñā alone is called circulation; to teach and transform while grasping the letters is precisely cutting it off. Linked to this passage are two similes: one is the look of what is passed on—‘you should teach and transform disciples, and the disciples in turn teach others, teaching one another in turn; just as one lamp lights other lamps, and its light grows ever more’; one is the look of what is not passed on—‘when people of the world have sons, if they do not continue the line, it is named cutting off the lineage, the greatest shame’, and the Buddha uses this comparison to warn Ānanda: ‘Do not let prajñā be cut off in your person!’ Both things fall upon the one who passes it on.

The last admonition of the whole treatise is one pronouncement: ‘For so long a time as prajñāpāramitā is in the world, know that for so long a time there is a Buddha in the world teaching the Dharma.’ The treatise-author explains the reasons for this as two: ‘prajñāpāramitā is the mother of the buddhas; the buddhas take the Dharma as their teacher’, ‘if the teacher is present and the mother is present, it is not named losing the benefit’; ‘again, the Dharma Jewel is not apart from the Buddha Jewel’, ‘a bodhisattva with the thirty-two marks and the eighty minor marks is not named Buddha; because he obtains the Dharma Jewel he is named Buddha.’ Marks and minor signs do not suffice to make a Buddha; obtaining the Dharma Jewel makes a Buddha; so when the Dharma is present the Buddha is present—‘therefore it is said that prajñā being in the world is like the Buddha being in the world teaching the Dharma, with no difference.’ And whether this sentence can stand again depends wholly on how the one who receives the Dharma receives it. The treatise-author sets himself a question: people of heavy sin also hear prajñā; does that too count as not being apart from seeing the Buddha? The treatise-author answers very crisply; the criterion is not in hearing but in receiving: ‘first, those who only hear and do not believe, receive, and practise; second, those who hear and believe, receive, and carry it out’, ‘if one hears with one mind, believes, receives, and carries it out, grows weary of the world and loves nirvāṇa, leaves the Small Vehicle and delights in the Great Vehicle—to hear and receive thus is named true hearing.’ Continuous with this is the instruction on right recollection—‘rightly recollect, following the Buddha's intent, parting from the two extremes of existence and non-existence, practising the middle way.’ Right recollection is not memorising and reciting; it is the practice of the middle way.

The final round of question and answer fills in the reverse side: since prajñā is so weighty, why was it not included when the three baskets were compiled? The treatise-author's answer is not to belittle the three baskets but to make clear their measure and their occasion—‘the Mahāyāna is very deep, hard to believe, hard to understand, hard to practise’; ‘the three baskets have exactly three hundred thousand verses, making nine million six hundred thousand words’, while the Mahāyāna is immeasurable and unlimited, so ‘how could it enter into the three baskets? A small thing should be within a great one; a great thing cannot enter a small one.’ If one must ask, one should ask the other way round: ‘why is the Small Vehicle not within the Mahāyāna?’—‘because the Mahāyāna can include the dharma of the Small Vehicle, therefore one should not ask as you do.’ And the flavour of the two is from the first one: ‘the Buddha-dharma is all of one kind and one flavour, namely the flavour of liberation that is the exhaustion of suffering.’ Their difference lies only in ‘first, being only for one's own person; second, being also for all beings.’

At the very end of the chapter the kind of writing suddenly changes. ‘The Dharma master Kumārajīva, in the third year of Hongshi of the Qin, the year xinchou, on the twentieth day of the twelfth month, arrived at Chang'an’, ‘in the summer of the fourth year, in the upper storey of the western gate in the Xiaoyao Garden, he brought out this Expository Treatise for the Heavenly King Yao, and on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the seventh year it was finished.’ That is the record of the translation hall—in what year he arrived, where he translated, how long he translated, and what other sūtras, Vinaya, and treatises he brought out at the same time. Below it states further the pattern of this book: ‘The treatise's first chapter, thirty-four fascicles, explains one chapter, and is the full complete text of the treatise; from the second chapter onward the Dharma master abridged it, taking what sufficed to open up and explain the meaning of the text, and no longer providing its full extended explanation’, and the last sentence is ‘we obtained these hundred fascicles; were it brought out in full, it would be ten times this.’—A treatise that speaks of prajñā leaves in its last line not a mysterious saying but an account: the hundred fascicles in our hands are only a tenth of the original book. Just before, it had finished saying ‘when prajñā is in the world, it is as if the Buddha is in the world’, and immediately after comes this account; that admonition thereby lands in the most concrete of places—for the Dharma to be in the world, there must first be someone willing to translate, willing to pass on, willing to read, and to read without clinging to the letters.