大智度論 義疏通講 · 冊19Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 19

Overview

The title of "Training in All" has only the two Chinese characters 「遍學」 tr. "training in all", and yet what the whole chapter contends over is just one matter: since he takes the fruit by no path whatever, why must he still train through every path? The chapter's starting point is not in training in all but in a sentence of praise—Subhūti sees that the bodhisattva is 「大智慧成就，行是深法，亦不受果報」 tr. "accomplished in great wisdom, practises this deep dharma, and yet does not receive the retribution", and marvels at it as never before; the Buddha approves and gives the reason why, in just six Chinese characters: 「諸法性中不動。」 tr. "Immovable within the nature of dharmas." Since the place of immovability is without anything existent, the road of obtaining the path is driven into a dead end: something existent obtaining something existent, something existent obtaining nothing existent, nothing existent obtaining something existent, nothing existent obtaining nothing existent—the four alternatives are asked through once; to three of them the Buddha answers 「不也」 tr. "No", and the remaining one the Buddha had already laid bare himself beforehand: 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent". Subhūti then speaks out the sharpest question of all—then does the World-Honored One not obtain the path? The Buddha answers most sparingly: 「有得，不以此四句。」 tr. "There is obtaining; only not by these four alternatives." Since the gate opens separately at 「非所有、非無所有，無諸戲論，是名得道」 tr. "neither something existent nor nothing existent, without any kind of idle discourse: this is named obtaining the path", the chapter's line of questioning unfolds from here: what idle discourse is; by which path the bodhisattva enters the position; how training in all without becoming the two vehicles is possible; what training in all is for; since the dharmas that aid the path are empty, how they can take hold of awakening; how prajñā is cultivated while training neither in marks nor in the signless. The whole chapter, one sūtra and one treatise, is contained entire within fascicle eighty-six and does not cross fascicles; since there is no fascicle boundary to cut at, the boundary between the two units is taken from the base text's own boundary between its sūtra and treatise sections—the First Part unit is the sūtra, the Last Part unit is the treatise, and the Last Part begins straight off with 「釋曰」 tr. "Explanation" and has no continuation title. So the two parts of this chapter are not two arcs; they are the text of one and the same arc and its reason why: the First Part says what, the Last Part says why.

The First Part is, from end to end, one long sūtra passage, with Subhūti putting the questions first and the Buddha answering after, back and forth over forty rounds, and it sets fast the chapter's line of questioning and its right answers. Starting from the praise of not receiving the retribution, the Buddha brings out its cause with 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas", and goes through, item by item, the nature of form, the nature of the six perfections, the nature of the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, and the four formless absorptions, the nature of the limbs of the path and the three samādhi, up to the nature of great kindness and great compassion, and of every one says immovable; at the end he seals off the road of exchange with 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent". When the four alternatives are exhausted a separate gate opens, and the gate lies in being without idle discourse; of the marks of idle discourse the Buddha lists seventeen matters in one breath—form 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 should be cut off, the truth of cessation should be realised, and the truth of the path should be cultivated are in the list; and the last eight items every one run 「我當」 tr. "I shall", all the way to 「我當得一切種智」 tr. "I shall obtain the omniscience of all kinds" and 「我當斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues". The sickness is not in the dharma cultivated; the Buddha himself brings out the principle: 「性不戲論性，無性不戲論無性」 tr. "nature does not make idle discourse about nature; non-nature does not make idle discourse about non-nature". Idle discourse exhausted, the question of entering the position follows hard on its heels: dharmas are without nature, so by which path does the bodhisattva enter the bodhisattva's position? The śrāvaka path, the pratyekabuddha path, and the Buddha path, all three, are blocked at once, and the right answer is just one sentence—「不以聲聞道、不以辟支佛道、不以佛道得入菩薩位，菩薩摩訶薩遍學諸道，得入菩薩位」 tr. "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"—and it takes the person of the eight at the position of seeing the truths as a simile: 「譬如八人先學諸道然後入正位，未得果而先生果道。」 tr. "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." Subhūti at once lays bare the danger in this sentence: if training in all meant taking the fruit according to the path, then giving rise to the path of seeing he ought to become a srota-āpanna, and giving rise to the pratyekabuddha path he ought to become a pratyekabuddha; and once he had become so, there would be no such case as entering the position, and no such case either as obtaining the omniscience of all kinds without entering the position. The Buddha's answer is the pivot of the whole chapter—「以智觀過八地」 tr. "contemplates with knowledge and passes beyond the eight grounds": it is contemplating and passing beyond, not abiding and entering; and what the two vehicles attain is not set aside either: 「是八人若智若斷，是菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "whether knowledge or severance, that of this person of the eight is the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas". After this come three turns. One turn speaks of what training in all is for, which lies in the knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure—since he would speak the Dharma for all beings, he must understand all voices and must know beforehand, one by one, the causes and fruits of all the paths; and within this there is a measure of its own: of the three evil destinies and the paths of dragons, ghosts and spirits, and asuras it says 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed", while of humans and gods upward, all the way to the limbs of the path and the ten powers, it says only 「應知」 tr. "should be known". One turn speaks of the emptiness and the use of the dharmas that aid the path: dharmas are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is signless, like space, without taking and without giving up; and the Buddha, having approved 「諸法自相空」 tr. "all dharmas are empty of specific marks", still displays what aids the path for those who do not know, and himself marks its rank: 「以世俗法故，為眾生說令解，非以第一義」 tr. "by reason of worldly dharmas, explained for beings so that they understand; not by the highest meaning". One turn speaks of cultivating as cultivating: since he trains neither in marks nor in the signless, then 「修諸法壞，是修般若波羅蜜」 tr. "to cultivate the breaking of dharmas is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā", listed item by item from form to the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues, and returning at the last to one plain sentence, 「不念有色法，是修般若波羅蜜」 tr. "not thinking that there are dharmas of form is cultivating prajñāpāramitā"; and the whole part is gathered up in 「二者是有法，不二者是無法」 tr. "two is an existent dharma; not two is a non-existent dharma"—grasping at marks makes two, two is existence, existence is birth and death; the reason the four alternatives do not obtain has its root here.

The Last Part opens up the joints of the sūtra sentence by sentence. The treatise-author at the outset first supplies what the sūtra did not say: what the nature of dharmas is—「諸法性者，無所有、畢竟空，如、法性、實際」 tr. "the nature of dharmas is without anything existent, ultimate emptiness, suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality", and 「菩薩定心安住是中不動」 tr. "the bodhisattva's concentrated mind rests securely in this and is immovable"; why it is without anything existent—「眾因緣生故不自在、無定相，無定相故無所有」 tr. "born of many causes and conditions, and therefore not self-existent and without fixed mark; being without fixed mark, they are without anything existent". Only where there is a fixed mark is there a place that can be shaken. For the praise too he first sets down a distinction: 「是菩薩為大利故，不受小報」 tr. "this bodhisattva, for the sake of great benefit, does not receive small retribution"—not receiving means not taking, not that there is nothing. For why the four alternatives are all sealed off, the treatise-author uses only nine Chinese characters, 「所有、無所有，二俱有過」 tr. "something existent and nothing existent both have fault", and at once guards the path against being discarded: 「實有得道法，但不以是四句」 tr. "there really is a dharma of obtaining the path, only not by these four alternatives", 「若離是四句戲論，即是道」 tr. "if one parts from the idle discourse of these four alternatives, that is the path". The reason idle discourse does not hold is that the one who would make idle discourse also has no substance—「自性不能戲論自性」 tr. "self-nature cannot make idle discourse about self-nature". Why training in all must be in all, and why the paths are nonetheless not used, the treatise-author tells in two layers: 「菩薩大乘人故，不應用二乘道；六波羅蜜未具足故，不能用佛道」 tr. "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—and so he concludes, 「菩薩應遍學諸道，入菩薩位」 tr. "the bodhisattva should train in all the paths and enter the bodhisattva's position". And for why training in all does not fall into them, the treatise-author gives the most direct simile of the whole chapter: 「如人親親繫獄故，入而看之，亦不與同著杻械。」 tr. "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." Being able to go in does not mean having to put on the shackles along with him. As for why the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are the bodhisattva's acceptance, its qualifying words come first: 「二乘人於諸佛菩薩智慧得少氣分」 tr. "the people of the two vehicles obtain a small share of the wisdom of the buddhas and bodhisattvas"—it is the inclusion of a small share, not an equivalence of rank; and its ground falls on the number of truths: 「聲聞人以四諦得道，菩薩以一諦入道」 tr. "the śrāvaka obtains the path by the four truths; the bodhisattva enters the path by one truth". The section on the acceptance of non-arising most needs close reading: the treatise-author first sets three sayings side by side, then raises a question himself—entering the unarisen and unceasing, does the unarisen and unceasing not turn into permanence again? The answer lies in a neat set of paired contrasts: impermanence is of two kinds, and the acceptance of non-arising is also of two kinds; the one who does not cling does not fall, and the one who clings falls at once; and the last sentence decides it most weightily: 「從本已來常自無生，非以智慧觀故令無生。」 tr. "From the very beginning they have always been of themselves without arising; it is not that they are made to be without arising by contemplation with wisdom." Non-arising is not a result that wisdom produces. After that—the difference between knowing and seeing, the holy Dharma's being neither joined nor dispersed, training neither in marks nor in the signless, cultivating the breaking of dharmas—the treatise-author supplies the reason for each one by one: he says that what aids the path may be spoken of without passing itself off as the ultimate, 「是法雖空，以世諦故，為眾生說，欲令得入聖法，非第一義」 tr. "though these dharmas are empty, by reason of worldly truth they are spoken of for beings, wishing to let them enter the holy Dharma; it is not the highest meaning"; he says where neither joined nor dispersed comes down to the ground, 「不合故不輕凡人，不散故不自高」 tr. "because of not joining, one does not belittle ordinary people; because of not dispersing, one does not exalt oneself"; he says that breaking is not destroying, 「以諸法壞故，無相相亦壞」 tr. "because dharmas are broken, the mark of the signless is also broken", and takes the cart and the wheel as a simile—「車分壞故，車相亦滅」 tr. "when the parts of a cart are broken, the mark of the cart also ceases"—the mark goes along with the parts into nothing, and no separate power that does the breaking is needed. The last two questions close very low: which compliant acceptance this compliant acceptance is—「是小乘順忍。小乘順忍尚無，何況大乘！」 tr. "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!" Having spoken through a whole fascicle of training in all the paths, the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, and the omniscience of all kinds, what is measured at the very last is the very first rung.

The difference between the two parts can be settled in one phrase: the First Part brings out the text, the Last Part brings out the reason why. What the First Part sets up are verdicts—immovable, not obtaining, without idle discourse, training in all, contemplating and passing beyond, should be known, not the highest meaning, cultivating the breaking of dharmas; what the Last Part supplies are reasons—why immovable, why both have fault, why self-nature cannot make idle discourse, why he should not use and cannot use, why he enters and does not wear the shackles, why a small share, why the mark of the cart ceases of itself. So the road of the First Part is question and answer, Subhūti pressing in step by step and the Buddha opening a separate way step by step; the road of the Last Part is citation and explanation, the treatise-author first citing the sūtra's words and then asking and answering himself. And between the two parts one thread runs through, namely the distinction between the two Chinese characters 「學」 tr. "training" and 「用」 tr. "use": what is in all is the training; what is not taken is the use; training in all and using none, training in all and not realising have never been at odds. The reason the chapter's name is set on training in all and not on not realising is exactly this—the meaning of not realising was already spoken in the preceding chapter; what this chapter supplies is why one who does not realise still has to train in all.

Therefore, in reading each passage of this chapter, one may ask at least three layers. First, is what is blocked here the dharma, or the mind that grasps the dharma? The seventeen matters of idle discourse listed in the chapter are every one the Buddha's Dharma, even the four truths' should be seen, should be cut off, should be realised, should be cultivated are among them; and the principle the Buddha himself brings out lies only in the one sentence 「性不戲論性」 tr. "nature does not make idle discourse about nature", which shows that what is blocked is not the matter cultivated but that 「我當」 tr. "I shall" standing in the middle. So whenever one reads a negation, first ask whether what is negated is the matter or the posture of grasping the matter, and one will not come to read training in all as having no need to train, or read cultivating the breaking of dharmas as smashing dharmas apart. Second, where does the measure fall here? What most rewards reading in this chapter is not its negations but its measure: the dharmas of the two vehicles he 「分別知，不應用」 tr. "discerns and knows, and should not use", while the omniscience of all kinds he 「分別知，應用」 tr. "discerns and knows, and should use"; the three evil destinies 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed", while from humans and gods upward only 「應知」 tr. "should be known"; the dharmas that aid the path may be spoken of, but 「非以第一義」 tr. "not by the highest meaning"; the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are the bodhisattva's acceptance, and yet in the end only 「少氣分」 tr. "a small share". Not one of these four measures lies between existence and non-existence; they lie between knowing and using, knowing and blocking, speaking and the ultimate, inclusion and sameness. One grown used to reading texts that block both sides most easily blocks the measure away along with them, and this chapter is precisely the cure for that fault. Third, I have not yet reached this ground: what use is this chapter to me? The two last questions of the Last Part have already asked it on our behalf: to be able to speak out all the words of the Great Vehicle while standing in fact only at the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle is not a death sentence; it points out the ruler by which to measure oneself. There the treatise-author also adds one very plain sentence, saying that the person at the position of acceptance is 「於諸佛聖人為小，於凡夫為大」 tr. "small in relation to the buddhas and sages, and great in relation to ordinary people"; and acceptance is named acceptance only because 「見便能忍」 tr. "as soon as it is seen one is able to accept it"—hearing a meaning one has never thought of and the mind not pushing it away: that very moment is it. Reading on through the one sūtra and one treatise, one will in the end come back down to those six Chinese characters at the start: immovable within the nature of dharmas. Immovable is not standing firm; it is not even taking the place to stand as existent; and training in all can be in all only because there is not one place where one can settle down.

Reading On in the Order of the Treatise

Training in All, First Part: Immovable within the Nature and Otherwise Obtaining the Path; Training in All the Paths and Entering the Bodhisattva's Position; the Knowledge of the Kinds of Paths That Is Pure; Training Neither in Marks nor in the Signless; Cultivating the Breaking of Dharmas Is Cultivating Prajñā

What Is Being Asked

The name of this chapter shows at a glance that what it must answer is a question exceedingly hard to answer: since the bodhisattva does not take the realisation of the two vehicles, why must he still train in the path of the two vehicles? And it is not a cursory training but 「遍學」 tr. "training in all". The single unit of the First Part is wholly one passage of the sūtra, beginning from a sentence of praise by Subhūti—the bodhisattva, accomplished in great wisdom, practises a deep dharma and 「亦不受果報」 tr. "yet does not receive the retribution"—and the Buddha at once sets the reason for not receiving the retribution in one place: 「諸法性中不動故」 tr. "because he is immovable within the nature of dharmas". Since the place of immovability is 「無所有」 tr. "without anything existent", every road of obtaining the path is driven to a dead end: something existent obtaining something existent, something existent obtaining nothing existent, nothing existent obtaining something existent, nothing existent obtaining nothing existent—the four alternatives are asked through once; to three of them the Buddha answers only 「不也！」 tr. "No!", and the remaining one the Buddha had already himself laid bare in the preceding passage: 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent". Subhūti then speaks out the sharpest question—then does the World-Honored One perhaps not obtain the path? The Buddha's answer is extremely sparing: 「有得，不以此四句。」 tr. "There is obtaining; only not by these four alternatives." The path of questioning of the whole unit unfolds from here: if obtaining the path is not within the four alternatives, then where is it? The answer is: where there is no idle discourse; and as for the marks of idle discourse, the Buddha lists seventeen matters in one breath, and at the end even 「我當得一切種智」 tr. "I shall obtain the omniscience of all kinds" and 「我當斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues" are among them.

Once idle discourse is exhausted, the question of entering the position follows hard on its heels: all dharmas being without nature, by what path does the bodhisattva enter the bodhisattva's position? The paths of the three vehicles are denied one by one, and the right answer the Buddha gives is 「菩薩摩訶薩遍學諸道，得入菩薩位」 tr. "the bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains in all the paths, and obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position", taking as a simile the person of the eight at the position of seeing the truths, who first trains in the paths and afterwards enters the right position. Subhūti at once lays bare the danger in this sentence: if training in all the paths means taking the fruit according to the path, then a bodhisattva who gives rise to the path of seeing should become a srota-āpanna, and one who gives rise to the pratyekabuddha path should become a pratyekabuddha—and once he has become so, there is no such thing as his entering the position, and there is no such thing either as his obtaining the omniscience of all kinds without entering the position. The Buddha's reply is the pivot of this unit: the bodhisattva 「以智觀過八地」 tr. "contemplates with knowledge and passes beyond the eight grounds"—it is contemplating and passing beyond, not abiding and entering; the knowledge of the two vehicles and the severance of the two vehicles, falling on the bodhisattva, are 「菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas", are 「皆是菩薩忍」 tr. "all the bodhisattva's acceptance". The dividing line of training without realising is set precisely on this sentence.

After this the sūtra turns again, through three layers. One layer is the knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure—training in all is necessary because the bodhisattva must speak the Dharma for all beings, and so must thoroughly understand all voices and languages, and must know one by one the causes and fruits of the six destinies and so on up to the gods, and so on up to the limbs of the path and the ten powers—of the three evil destinies and the path of ghosts and spirits it says 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed", while of humans and gods upward it says only 「應知」 tr. "should be known". One layer is the emptiness and the use of the dharmas that aid the path—all dharmas are 「不合不散、無色、無形、無對，一相，所謂無相」 tr. "neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is what is called the signless"; since they are like space, without taking and without giving up, how can the dharmas that aid the path take hold of awakening? The Buddha answers with 「諸法自相空」 tr. "all dharmas are empty of specific marks", displays the dharmas that aid the path for those who do not know, and states plainly that this is 「以世俗法故，為眾生說令解，非以第一義」 tr. "by reason of worldly dharmas, explained for beings so that they understand; not by the highest meaning". One layer is what makes cultivation cultivation—since he trains neither in marks nor in the signless, how is prajñā still to be cultivated? The Buddha answers 「修諸法壞，是修般若波羅蜜」 tr. "to cultivate the breaking of dharmas is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā", lists item by item all dharmas from form to the cutting off of the afflictions and their habitual residues, at the end comes back to the one sentence 「不念有色法」 tr. "not thinking that there are dharmas of form", and with 「二者是有法，不二者是無法」 tr. "two is an existent dharma; not two is a non-existent dharma" settles the eye of the whole unit. Training in the paths without taking realisation, speaking of what aids the path without holding it as real, cultivating all dharmas without thinking them existent—what the First Part must answer is the one question these three combine into: how is it possible both to train and not to abide?

Passage by Passage

1. Great wisdom accomplished, practising the deep dharma and yet not receiving the retribution—the cause lies in 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas" . At the very start Subhūti praises: this bodhisattva-mahāsattva is 「大智慧成就，行是深法，亦不受果報」 tr. "accomplished in great wisdom, practises this deep dharma, and yet does not receive the retribution". The Buddha approves his words, with 「如是！」 tr. "Just so!" twice, and points out the cause and condition: 「是菩薩摩訶薩，諸法性中不動故。」 tr. "Because this bodhisattva-mahāsattva is immovable within the nature of dharmas." What is praised is the fruit—practising the deep dharma and yet not undergoing the retribution; what the Buddha answers is the cause—immovability. Note that 「不受果報」 tr. "not receiving the retribution" is not that there is no fruit; it is that the practitioner does not abide on the fruit; and the reason he is able not to abide lies not in the strength or weakness of his power of patience, but in that the place where he settles himself has from the first nothing that can move. The resolution of every difficulty in the whole unit is born from this one sentence.

2. Immovable within what nature—the nature of being without anything existent, listed item by item throughout, ending at 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent" . Subhūti presses to ask what being immovable within the nature of dharmas is; the Buddha first answers generally, 「於無所有性中不動」 tr. "he is immovable within the nature of being without anything existent", and at once lists item by item throughout: the nature of form, the nature of feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness; the nature of dānapāramitā and so on up to the nature of prajñāpāramitā; the nature of the four dhyānas, the nature of the four immeasurables, the nature of the four formless absorptions; the nature of the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the nature of the eightfold noble path; the emptiness samādhi, the signless, and the non-action samādhi, and so on up to the nature of great kindness and great compassion—from the five aggregates of the ordinary person, the six perfections of the practitioner, the dhyānas of the meditator, and the full list of the limbs of the path, right up to the great kindness and great compassion of the Buddha ground, each one is said to be 「性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature". Listing item by item throughout is not padding: what it means to cut off is precisely the hidden thought that ‘coarse dharmas are empty but subtle dharmas are not empty’. At the end the Buddha himself lays out the principle: 「是諸法性即是無所有」 tr. "the nature of these dharmas is precisely without anything existent", and passes a sentence of verdict—「以無所有法不能得所有法。」 tr. "By a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent." Immovability is immovable because the nature in which he rests is at root without anything existent; and since it is without anything existent, it cannot be taken to exchange for something existent. This sentence lays the groundwork for the question and answer on the four alternatives in the next passage.

3. The question and answer on the four alternatives—something existent and nothing existent obtaining each other in turn; the Buddha answers 「不也！」 tr. "No!" three times. Following the sentence above, Subhūti fills in the remaining three alternatives and asks them one by one: can a dharma of something existent obtain a dharma of something existent? Can a dharma of something existent obtain a dharma of nothing existent? Can a dharma of nothing existent obtain a dharma of nothing existent? All three times the Buddha answers only 「不也！」 tr. "No!"; add to these the 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent" that the Buddha himself laid out in the passage above, and all four alternatives are sealed shut. The questions are utterly mechanical and the answers utterly brief, precisely to let the reader see with his own eyes: any model that pictures obtaining the path as ‘exchanging one thing for another’, whether the two ends are existent or non-existent, cannot be made to work. The sūtra gives no explanation here; it only stops up the way, sentence by sentence—only when everything is stopped up can the next question be asked.

4. If none of the four alternatives obtains, is there then no obtaining the path?—the Buddha shows 「有得，不以此四句」 tr. "there is obtaining; only not by these four alternatives" . Subhūti sets the four alternatives side by side once over, and then asks the most crucial sentence of this passage: 「將無世尊不得道耶？」 tr. "Does the World-Honored One perhaps not obtain the path?" This question is not doubting the Buddha; it lays bare, on the reader's behalf, the blank left once the four alternatives are sealed shut—if the road of obtaining the path lay wholly within the four alternatives, the road would be cut off. The Buddha's answer is extremely short: 「有得，不以此四句。」 tr. "There is obtaining; only not by these four alternatives." The two Chinese characters 「有得」 tr. "there is obtaining" first cut off the doubt of annihilation; 「不以此四句」 tr. "not by these four alternatives" then turns the direction aside. The crucial point is this: the Buddha does not set up a separate fifth alternative; he only says that obtaining the path does not fall within the framework of these four alternatives.

5. What is it to have obtaining?—neither something existent nor nothing existent, without any kind of idle discourse: this is named obtaining the path. Subhūti presses once more with 「云何有得」 tr. "what is it to have obtaining?", and the Buddha answers: 「非所有、非無所有，無諸戲論，是名得道。」 tr. "Neither something existent nor nothing existent, without any kind of idle discourse: this is named obtaining the path." The first half, 「非所有、非無所有」 tr. "neither something existent nor nothing existent", steps back out of the four alternatives; only the second half, 「無諸戲論」 tr. "without any kind of idle discourse", is the positive answer. This sentence moves the centre of gravity of the whole unit from ‘whether or not there is a dharma that can be obtained’ to ‘whether or not there is still idle discourse in the mind’—obtaining the path is not getting hold of a thing; it is the place where all idle discourse comes to rest; and the so-called inability of the four alternatives to obtain is precisely because the four alternatives are themselves the format of idle discourse. The Buddha's extended account of the marks of idle discourse below follows straight down from this sentence.

6. What the bodhisattva's idle discourse is—the seventeen matters listed in full, ending at 「性不戲論性」 tr. "nature does not make idle discourse about nature" . Subhūti asks what the idle discourse of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is, and the Buddha lists it matter by matter, closing each matter with 「是為戲論」 tr. "this is idle discourse": contemplating form and so on up to consciousness as either permanent or impermanent; as either suffering or pleasure; as either self or non-self; as either quiescent or not quiescent—four layers of contemplation are set up first. Next come the four truths' ‘should be seen, should be cut off, should be realised, should be cultivated’; next, that one should cultivate the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions; next, that one should cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path; next, that one should cultivate the three gates of liberation of emptiness, the signless, and non-action; next, that one should cultivate the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions. Further down it turns to the 「我當」 tr. "I shall" sentence-form: I shall pass beyond the four fruits of the śramaṇa 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 give rise to the ten powers of the Buddha, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, and the eighteen unshared dharmas; I shall obtain the omniscience of all kinds; I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues—each and every one is idle discourse. The order of this list is itself a teaching: the first half lists methods of contemplation and methods of cultivation, the second half lists the mind of vows and the positions of fruit, and not even the highest and purest, 「我當得一切種智」 tr. "I shall obtain the omniscience of all kinds" and 「我當斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues", is let pass. What makes idle discourse idle discourse lies not in whether the dharma taken as object is high or low, but in that within the two Chinese characters 「我當」 tr. "I shall" a self that takes has been set up. At the end the Buddha gives the reason: 「性不戲論性，無性不戲論無性」 tr. "nature does not make idle discourse about nature; non-nature does not make idle discourse about non-nature"—the self-nature of a dharma will not go and make idle discourse about self-nature, and non-nature will not go and make idle discourse about non-nature; 「離性、無性，更無法可得，所謂戲論者、戲論法、戲論處。」 tr. "Apart from nature and non-nature there is no further dharma to be found—that is, what is called the one who makes idle discourse, the dharma of idle discourse, the place of idle discourse." The person who makes idle discourse, the dharma about which idle discourse is made, the place where idle discourse is—these three have no separate substance outside nature and non-nature. Therefore it concludes: form and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds are all without idle discourse, and the bodhisattva 「應行無戲論般若波羅蜜」 tr. "should practise the prajñāpāramitā that is without idle discourse".

7. How is it that idle discourse cannot be made—the nature of form is non-existent, which is precisely without idle discourse; one who practises thus obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position. Subhūti asks again: how is it that idle discourse cannot be made about form and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds? The Buddha answers most directly: 「色性無，乃至一切種智性無」 tr. "the nature of form is non-existent, and so on up to the nature of the omniscience of all kinds is non-existent"; 「若法性無，即是無戲論。」 tr. "If the nature of dharmas is non-existent, that is without idle discourse." That idle discourse cannot be made is not a prohibition; it is that there is nothing on which to set it up—since the nature is non-existent, idle discourse has nowhere to land. At the end the Buddha points out the position of fruit of this practice: when the bodhisattva is able to practise in this way the prajñāpāramitā that is without idle discourse, 「是時得入菩薩位」 tr. "then he obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position". The main theme of the whole chapter—entering the bodhisattva's position—appears here for the first time, and the cause of entering the position is set on being without idle discourse, not on obtaining a dharma.

8. All dharmas being without nature, by what path does one enter the position—not by the paths of the three vehicles, but 「遍學諸道，得入菩薩位」 tr. "he trains in all the paths, and obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position" . Subhūti's question is most thorough: if all dharmas are without nature, by practising which path does the bodhisattva enter the bodhisattva's position? And he himself lists three options—「為用聲聞道？為用辟支佛道？為用佛道？」 tr. "Is it by the śrāvaka path? Is it by the pratyekabuddha path? Is it by the Buddha path?" The Buddha denies the three options one by one: 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 right answer is 「菩薩摩訶薩遍學諸道，得入菩薩位」 tr. "the bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains in all the paths, and obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position". Here one must look closely: even 「佛道」 tr. "the Buddha path" is among those denied. What is denied is not the path; it is the way of taking that ‘uses a certain path to exchange for a certain position’—the paths of the three vehicles are each of them paths, yet once one takes them as a voucher for entering the position, one falls back into the format of the four alternatives. The 「遍」 tr. "in all" of training in all answers exactly to the listing throughout of being immovable within the nature in the text above: since dharmas are throughout unfindable, training too should be throughout and not abide.

9. The simile of the person of the eight—first training in the paths and afterwards entering the right position; not yet having obtained the fruit, first giving rise to the path of the fruit. The Buddha at once sets up a simile: 「譬如八人先學諸道然後入正位，未得果而先生果道。」 tr. "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." The person of the eight is the position, on the path of seeing the truths, of one who is about to obtain the fruit of the srota-āpanna and has not yet obtained it; such people first train in the paths and then enter the right position, and while the fruit has not yet arrived, the path of obtaining the fruit has already arisen first. By this the bodhisattva is likened: he first trains in all the paths and afterwards enters the bodhisattva's position, 「亦未得一切種智而先生金剛三昧，爾時以一念相應慧得一切種智」 tr. "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 weight of the simile is on the two Chinese characters 「先」 tr. "first" and 「未」 tr. "not yet": training comes before, the position after; the path has already arisen and the fruit is not yet obtained. Most crucial is that it gives a ready-made old precedent—training first and entering after, the path first and the fruit after, is a matter that already existed on the noble path; it is not a new pattern opened separately for the bodhisattva.

10. Subhūti's objection—if one takes the fruit according to the path, one becomes a person of the eight and so on up to a pratyekabuddha, and there is no such thing as entering the position. Subhūti brings the danger in the simile into the clearest light: the person of the eight, heading for srota-āpanna and attaining srota-āpanna, heading for sakṛdāgāmin and so on up to attaining arhat, the pratyekabuddha path, the Buddha path—「是諸道各各異」 tr. "these paths each differ"—since the paths each differ, the positions they give rise to also each differ. Then if the bodhisattva gives rise to the path of the person of the eight, he should become a person of the eight; if he gives rise to the path of seeing, he should become a srota-āpanna; if he gives rise to the path of reflection, he should become a sakṛdāgāmin, an anāgāmin, an arhat; if he gives rise to the pratyekabuddha path, he should become a pratyekabuddha. Once he has become so, both roads are at an end: to become a person of the eight and so on up to becoming a pratyekabuddha, and afterwards enter the bodhisattva's position—「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such thing"; to obtain the omniscience of all kinds without entering the bodhisattva's position—「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such thing" either. At the end he gives the question back to the Buddha: 「我云何當知菩薩摩訶薩遍學諸道得入菩薩位？」 tr. "How am I to know that the bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains in all the paths and obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position?" This objection carries great weight—it does not doubt training in all; it points out that training in all, if understood by the old pattern, contradicts itself. The joint of the whole unit lies in how the Buddha answers this question.

11. The Buddha approves the objection and further speaks the causes and conditions—「以智觀過八地」 tr. "he contemplates with knowledge and passes beyond the eight grounds" ; contemplating and passing beyond without abiding. The Buddha first approves Subhūti's difficulty, saying over the two 「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such thing" just as they were, and only then gives the right answer: the bodhisattva, 「從初發意行六波羅蜜時，以智觀過八地」 tr. "when from the first arousing of intent he practises the six perfections, contemplates with knowledge and passes beyond the eight grounds". The names of the eight grounds the Buddha lists himself: 「乾慧地、性地、八人地、見地、薄地、離欲地、已辦地、辟支佛地。」 tr. "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, and the pratyekabuddha ground." Note that the sūtra here gives only their names and not their meaning—the definition of each ground is not within the sūtra text of this unit; its explanation belongs to the treatise section and the apparatus, and it is not glossed on their behalf here. The whole force of the answer to the difficulty lies in the two Chinese characters 「觀過」 tr. "contemplating and passing beyond": it is not that he does not pass through, but that he passes through contemplating with wisdom; it is not entering a ground and taking its fruit, but passing beyond the ground and not staying. 「遍學」 tr. "Training in all" in the text above and 「觀過」 tr. "contemplating and passing beyond" here gloss each other—training in all is contemplating all the paths and not abiding in the paths. Therefore below it says 「以道種智入菩薩位；入菩薩位已，以一切種智斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "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"—the knowledge by which he enters the position is the knowledge of the kinds of paths; the knowledge by which he cuts off the habitual residues is the omniscience of all kinds; the two knowledges each have their place and must not be confused.

12. Knowledge and severance are all the bodhisattva's acceptance—what the two vehicles obtain is, in the bodhisattva, the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. The Buddha goes a layer further: 「是八人若智若斷，是菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "whether knowledge or severance, that of this person of the eight is the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas"; of the srota-āpanna, the sakṛdāgāmin, the anāgāmin, the arhat, and the pratyekabuddha, 「若智若斷」 tr. "whether knowledge or severance", 「皆是菩薩忍」 tr. "all are the bodhisattva's acceptance". The same knowledge, the same severance, is for the two vehicles the realisation of a fruit and for the bodhisattva acceptance—this sentence says to the full the dividing line of ‘training without realising’. The bodhisattva does not go around the content of the two vehicles; what he obtains is precisely that content; the difference is that what is obtained does not, in him, set into a position of fruit, but only accomplishes acceptance. At the end the Buddha gathers up the whole course: the bodhisattva trains thus in the paths of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha, with the knowledge of the kinds of paths enters the bodhisattva's position, having entered the position with the omniscience of all kinds cuts off all the afflictions and their habitual residues, and obtains the Buddha path; training in all the paths and making them complete, he should obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; 「得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提已，以果饒益眾生」 tr. "having obtained anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, with the fruit he benefits beings". The end of training in all is not self-satisfaction; it is benefiting others with the fruit—this sentence lays the fuse in advance for the knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure in the next passage.

13. What the knowledge of the kinds of paths is—rightly knowing the marks and features of dharmas and revealing them for others, understanding all voices and languages. Subhūti asks, taking up the above: among the śrāvaka path, the pratyekabuddha path, and the Buddha path of which the World-Honored One speaks, what is the bodhisattva's knowledge of the kinds of paths? The Buddha answers: 「菩薩摩訶薩應生一切道種淨智。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva should give rise to all the knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure." Its marks are two. One is knowing and being able to speak: 「若諸法相貌所可顯示法，菩薩應正知」 tr. "whatever dharmas can be shown by the marks and features of dharmas, the bodhisattva should know them rightly"; having known them rightly, he expounds and reveals them for others, causing beings to understand. The second is speaking and being able to reach everywhere: 「應解一切音聲語言」 tr. "he should thoroughly understand all voices and languages", and with these voices he speaks the Dharma, 「遍滿三千大千世界，如響相」 tr. "filling the three-thousand great-thousand world, like the mark of an echo". The reason why the knowledge of the kinds of paths must have 「遍學」 tr. "training in all" lies here—he must speak the Dharma to beings of every faculty and nature and of every language; if what he trains in does not reach to all, what he says will have places it does not reach. And the phrase 「如響相」 tr. "like the mark of an echo" at the same time marks out the mind-ground of the one who speaks the Dharma: the voice fills the three thousand and is like an echo; there is speaking, and no speaker is present.

14. Once the knowledge of the paths is complete, discerning and knowing the deep minds of beings—the causes and fruits of the three evil destinies and the path of ghosts and spirits should be known and should be obstructed; from humans and gods upward, and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, they should only be known. Once the knowledge of the paths is complete, what comes next in sequence is 「應分別知眾生深心」 tr. "he should discern and know the deep minds of beings". The sūtra lists on layer by layer: the beings of hell—the path of hell, the cause of hell, the fruit of hell—「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed"; the path, cause, and fruit of animals and hungry ghosts should be known, should be obstructed; the path, cause, and fruit of the dragons, ghosts and spirits, gandharvas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, and asuras should be known, should be obstructed. On reaching humans and gods the tone at once changes—「人道、因、果應知」 tr. "the path, cause, and fruit of humans should be known"; the path, cause, and fruit of the gods should be known; and it lists the gods by name one by one, from the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Heaven of the Thirty-three, the Yāma heaven, the Tuṣita heaven, the Heaven of Delight in Transformation, and the heaven of the gods Sovereign over Others' Transformations, through the Brahmā heaven, the Heaven of Light-Sound, the Heaven of Universal Purity, the Heaven of Abundant Fruit, the Heaven of No Perception, the Apoluohe heaven, the Heaven without Heat, the Heaven Easy to See, and the Joyful-to-See heaven, up to the Akaniṣṭha heaven; then the path, cause, and fruit of the sphere of boundless space, the sphere of boundless consciousness, the sphere of nothing whatsoever, and the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception should be known; then the cause and fruit of the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path should be known; then the cause and fruit of the three gates of liberation and of the ten powers of the Buddha, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, the eighteen unshared dharmas, and great kindness and great compassion should be known. This long list has one extremely important measure in it: of the three evil destinies and the paths of the ghosts and spirits it says 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed"; of humans and gods upward it says only 「應知」 tr. "should be known" and makes no mention of obstructing. Knowing is penetrating; obstructing is blocking—blocking what should be blocked, and only knowing and not blocking what should not be blocked: this is precisely why the knowledge of the kinds of paths is called 「淨」 tr. "pure". At the end the sūtra brings its use back to beings: by such paths the bodhisattva causes beings to enter the path of the srota-āpanna and so on up to the pratyekabuddha path, and so on up to the path of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; 「是名菩薩摩訶薩淨道種智」 tr. "this is named the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's pure knowledge of the kinds of paths".

15. Having trained in this knowledge of the kinds of paths, he penetrates the mark of the deep minds of beings—speaking the Dharma according to their minds, and what he says is not in vain. After training in the knowledge of the kinds of paths, the bodhisattva 「入眾生深心相」 tr. "penetrates the mark of the deep minds of beings"; having penetrated, 「隨眾生心，如應說法，所言不虛」 tr. "he accords with the minds of beings and speaks the Dharma as is fitting, and what he says is not in vain". Why is what he says not in vain? The Buddha himself gives the cause: 「是菩薩摩訶薩善知眾生根相，知一切眾生心、心數法生死所趣。」 tr. "This bodhisattva-mahāsattva knows well the marks of the faculties of beings, and knows where the minds and mental-factor dharmas of all beings tend within birth and death." Not in vain does not mean speaking pleasingly; it means that what is said accords with the other's marks of faculty, workings of mind, and destination in birth and death, every sentence landing on something real. At the end the Buddha brings this whole passage back into prajñā: the bodhisattva should practise the prajñāpāramitā of the path in this way; the reason is that 「一切諸善助道法皆入般若波羅蜜中」 tr. "all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter into prajñāpāramitā", and they are what the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, the śrāvakas, and the pratyekabuddhas should practise. Training in all the paths does not go outside prajñā because the dharmas that aid the path are from the first within prajñā—and this sentence in turn becomes the origin of the question in the next passage.

16. Since the dharmas that aid the path are empty, how can they take hold of awakening?—Subhūti raises space as a difficulty. Subhūti at once seizes on the sentence above and raises a difficulty: if the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi—「是一切法皆不合不散、無色、無形、無對，一相，所謂無相」 tr. "all these dharmas are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is what is called the signless"—then 「云何是助道法能取阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "how can these dharmas that aid the path take hold of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi"? He also gives the reasoning himself: such dharmas are 「無所取、無所捨」 tr. "without anything taken and without anything given up", 「譬如虛空無取、無捨」 tr. "just as space is without taking and without giving up". The difficulty is raised most squarely—emptiness was spoken by the Buddha himself, and that what aids the path can take hold of awakening was also spoken by the Buddha himself; put the two sentences together and they make a difficulty. One must see clearly the shape of this difficulty: what it asks is not whether things are empty or not, but how an empty dharma can have any function.

17. The Buddha answers—being empty of specific marks, there is no taking or giving up; for those who do not know, the dharmas that aid the path are displayed; spoken by worldly dharmas, not by the highest meaning. The Buddha first approves: 「如是！如是！須菩提！諸法自相空，無所取、無所捨。」 tr. "Just so! Just so! Subhūti! All dharmas are empty of specific marks, without anything taken and without anything given up." The side of emptiness is acknowledged in full. The turning word is in the next sentence: 「有眾生不知諸法自相空，為是眾生故，顯示助道法能至阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "There are beings who do not know that all dharmas are empty of specific marks; it is for the sake of these beings that it is shown that the dharmas that aid the path can reach anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." Displaying the dharmas that aid the path is set up for those who do not know; it is not setting up, outside emptiness, a separate dharma that can take. The Buddha at once lists throughout once more: form, feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness; the six perfections; the eighteen emptinesses; the first dhyāna and so on up to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception; the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path; the three gates of liberation; the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions; the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, and the eighteen unshared dharmas; great kindness and great compassion; the omniscience of all kinds; and such dharmas—「於是聖法中，皆不合不散、無色、無形、無對，一相，所謂無相」 tr. "within this holy Dharma all are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is what is called the signless". At the end the position of this setting-up is marked out with perfect clarity: 「以世俗法故，為眾生說令解，非以第一義。」 tr. "By reason of worldly dharmas they are explained for beings so that they understand; it is not by the highest meaning." This sentence is one of the most important dividing lines in the whole unit—that the dharmas that aid the path can take hold of awakening is a worldly saying; that all dharmas are empty of specific marks is the highest meaning. The two sayings do not contradict each other, because the levels at which they are spoken differ. The last sentence, 「於是一切法中，菩薩摩訶薩以智、見如法應學；學已，分別諸法應用、不應用」 tr. "within all these dharmas the bodhisattva-mahāsattva should train with knowledge and with seeing, in accordance with the Dharma; having trained, he discerns which dharmas should be used and which should not be used", hands the topic on to the next passage.

18. To be used and not to be used—the dharmas of the two vehicles are discerned and known and not used; the omniscience of all kinds is discerned and known and used. Subhūti asks which dharmas, once discerned, should be used and which should not be used, and the Buddha answers: 「聲聞、辟支佛法，分別知，不應用；一切種智，分別知，應用。」 tr. "The dharmas of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas he discerns and knows, and should not use; the omniscience of all kinds he discerns and knows, and should use." Both sentences have the same three Chinese characters 「分別知」 tr. "discerns and knows"; the difference lies only in the single character 「不」 tr. "not". This is exactly the grounded statement of ‘training in all without realising’: the dharmas of the two vehicles must be discerned and known—without knowing them there is no training in all; yet once known they are not used—using them would become realisation. The omniscience of all kinds is both known and used. The meaning of the chapter name, in the unit of the First Part, here receives its simplest formula: training in all is that of what he trains in there is nothing he does not know; not realising is that of what he knows there is something he does not use. The last sentence, 「菩薩摩訶薩於是聖法中，應學般若波羅蜜」 tr. "the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, within this holy Dharma, should train in prajñāpāramitā", draws out the next passage's question about the holy Dharma.

19. What the holy Dharma is—the worthies and sages are neither joined with nor dispersed from all dharmas; the fivefold ‘a dharma without such-and-such and a dharma without such-and-such are neither joined nor dispersed’. Subhūti asks: 「何以故說名聖法？何等是聖法？」 tr. "Why is it named the holy Dharma? What is the holy Dharma?" The format of the Buddha's answer is the same as the listing throughout of the previous passage, but what is listed differs: the dharmas of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, and the buddhas are neither joined with nor dispersed from desire, hatred, and delusion; neither joined with nor dispersed from the view of the body, grasping at precepts, and doubt; neither joined with nor dispersed from desire-attachment and anger; neither joined with nor dispersed from attachment to form, attachment to the formless, restlessness, conceit, and ignorance—first it lists the afflictions; next it lists the first dhyāna and so on up to the fourth dhyāna, kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, and the sphere of space and so on up to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, as neither joined nor dispersed; next it lists the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path as neither joined nor dispersed; next it lists inner emptiness and so on up to great compassion, the conditioned nature, and the unconditioned nature as neither joined nor dispersed. What is listed starts from the three poisons, the most defiled, and stops at great compassion and the unconditioned nature, the purest, all spoken of evenly as one. The Buddha at once gives the reason himself, in five parallel sentences: 「無色法與無色法不合不散，無形法與無形法不合不散，無對法與無對法不合不散，一相法與一相法不合不散，無相法與無相法不合不散。」 tr. "A dharma without form and a dharma without form are neither joined nor dispersed; a dharma without shape and a dharma without shape are neither joined nor dispersed; a dharma without resistance and a dharma without resistance are neither joined nor dispersed; a dharma of one mark and a dharma of one mark are neither joined nor dispersed; a signless dharma and a signless dharma are neither joined nor dispersed." Even those of the same kind are neither joined to nor dispersed from one another, how much less those of different kinds. What is called the holy Dharma is not a separate set of pure dharmas; it is not making the view of joining and dispersing about any dharma. The last sentence is 「是無色、無形、無對，一相，所謂無相般若波羅蜜，諸菩薩摩訶薩應學；學已，不得諸法相」 tr. "this prajñāpāramitā that is without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, called the signless, the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas should train in; having trained, they do not obtain the marks of dharmas"—the result of training is 「不得諸法相」 tr. "not obtaining the marks of dharmas", and this sentence directly invites the longest difficulty, in the next passage.

20. The difficulty of not training in the marks of dharmas—pressing with question after question item by item, until the matter of delivering beings is driven to come to nothing. Subhūti pushes the sentence above, 「不得諸法相」 tr. "not obtaining the marks of dharmas", to the end: does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva 「不學色相耶」 tr. "not train in the mark of form"? Not train in the mark of feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness, the mark of the eye and so on up to the mark of the mind, the mark of form and so on up to the mark of dharmas, the mark of the earth element and so on up to the mark of the consciousness element, the mark of the six perfections, the mark of inner emptiness and so on up to the emptiness of non-existent and existent dharmas, the mark of the first dhyāna and so on up to the mark of the fourth dhyāna, the mark of kindness and so on up to the mark of equanimity, the mark of boundless space and so on up to the mark of neither perception nor non-perception, the mark of the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the mark of the eightfold noble path, the mark of the emptiness samādhi and the mark of the signless and non-action samādhi, the mark of the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions, the mark of the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, the eighteen unshared dharmas, and great kindness and great compassion, the mark of the four noble truths, the mark of the twelve links of causes and conditions in reverse and forward order, the mark of the conditioned nature and the mark of the unconditioned nature? After questioning item by item, he pushes the consequences all the way down: if he does not train in the marks of dharmas, how does he train in the marks of dharmas, whether conditioned or unconditioned, and pass beyond the grounds of the two vehicles? Not passing beyond the grounds of the two vehicles, how does he enter the bodhisattva's position? Not entering the position, how does he obtain the omniscience of all kinds? Not obtaining the omniscience of all kinds, how does he turn the Dharma wheel? Not turning the Dharma wheel, how does he deliver beings out of birth and death by the three vehicles?—one sentence locks into the next, pressing straight on until the matter of delivering beings comes to nothing.

21. The Buddha answers—if there were really marks, one should train in them; because there are really no marks, he trains neither in marks nor in the signless; whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, all dharmas are of one mark. The Buddha answers with only two sentences. One is a supposition: 「若諸法實有相，菩薩應學是相。」 tr. "If dharmas really had marks, the bodhisattva should train in those marks." One is a statement of how things are: all dharmas really have no mark—without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is what is called the signless; 「以是故，須菩提！菩薩摩訶薩不學相、不學無相。」 tr. "For this reason, Subhūti! the bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains neither in marks nor in the signless." He does not train in marks because marks are from the first non-existent; he does not train in the signless because the signless too is a mark that is taken. At the end a verdict is set down: 「有佛、無佛，諸法一相，性常住。」 tr. "Whether there is a Buddha or there is no Buddha, all dharmas are of one mark, and their nature ever abides." That dharmas are thus does not come to exist because a Buddha appears in the world, and does not cease to exist because a Buddha does not appear—this sentence is the deepest layer of explanation of the earlier 「不得諸法相」 tr. "not obtaining the marks of dharmas": not obtaining is not losing; it is how things are from the first.

22. The difficulty again—if dharmas are neither with marks nor without marks, prajñā has no way to be cultivated, and so on up to the point that even the merit of giving, keeping the precepts, and cultivating concentration cannot be caused to be obtained. Subhūti then turns the difficulty over one layer more: if all dharmas are neither with marks nor without marks, how does the bodhisattva cultivate prajñāpāramitā? And he lists out in full the chain of consequences of not cultivating—not cultivating prajñā, he cannot pass beyond the grounds of the two vehicles; not passing beyond the grounds of the two vehicles, he cannot enter the bodhisattva's position; not entering the position, he does not obtain the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas; not obtaining the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, he cannot obtain the supernormal powers of the bodhisattva; not obtaining the supernormal powers, he cannot purify buddha-lands or bring beings to accomplishment; unable to purify lands and bring beings to accomplishment, he cannot obtain the omniscience of all kinds; not obtaining the omniscience of all kinds, he cannot turn the Dharma wheel; not turning the Dharma wheel, he cannot cause beings to obtain the four fruits of the śramaṇa, the pratyekabuddha path, and anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, 「亦不能令眾生得布施福，亦不能令得持戒、修定福」 tr. "nor can he cause beings to obtain the merit of giving, nor cause them to obtain the merit of keeping the precepts and of cultivating concentration". Even the shallowest merit, of giving, keeping the precepts, and cultivating concentration, is drawn in; this question is the one pushed furthest in the whole unit.

23. Cultivating the signless is cultivating prajñā; the general heading 「修諸法壞」 tr. "cultivating the breaking of dharmas" and its full account item by item. The Buddha's right answer is: 「諸法無相，非一相、非異相；若修無相，是修般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "All dharmas are signless, neither of one mark nor of different marks; to cultivate the signless is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā." Subhūti asks again how cultivating the signless is cultivating prajñā, and the Buddha answers with a sentence that holds the whole: 「修諸法壞，是修般若波羅蜜。」 tr. "To cultivate the breaking of dharmas is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā." Subhūti asks again how one cultivates the breaking of dharmas, and the Buddha then sets them out item by item, each in the sentence ‘to cultivate the breaking of such-and-such is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā’: form, and feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness; the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas; the contemplation of impurity; the first dhyāna and so on up to the fourth dhyāna; kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity; the four formless spheres; the recollection of the Buddha, the recollection of the Dharma, the recollection of the Saṅgha, the recollection of morality, the recollection of giving up, the recollection of the gods, the recollection of cessation, and the recollection of ānāpāna; the mark of impermanence, the mark of suffering, the mark of non-self, the mark of emptiness, the mark of origination, the mark of cause, the mark of arising, the mark of condition, the mark of closing, the mark of cessation, the mark of sublimity, the mark of departure, the mark of the path, the mark of rightness, the mark of the track, and the mark of separation; the twelve links of causes and conditions; the mark of a self, the mark of a being, the mark of a life-span, and so on up to the mark of a knower and the mark of a seer; the mark of permanence, the mark of pleasure, the mark of purity, and the mark of self; the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path; the emptiness, signless, and non-action samādhi; the eight liberations and the nine successive absorptions; the samādhi with initial and sustained thought, the samādhi without initial thought but with sustained thought, and the samādhi without initial or sustained thought; the four noble truths; the knowledge of suffering, the knowledge of origination, the knowledge of cessation, and the knowledge of the path; the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising; dharma-knowledge, subsequent knowledge, worldly knowledge, and the knowledge of others' minds; the six perfections; the eighteen emptinesses; the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, and the eighteen unshared dharmas; the four fruits of the śramaṇa and the pratyekabuddha path; omniscience; the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues. The sūtra here gives only the headings and not their explanation; the gloss of each item is not within this unit, and here they are recorded as they stand and not glossed on their behalf; what is to be looked at is the two ends of this list—it begins from form, the coarsest, and ends at 「斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues", the subtlest; even that dharma which can cut off the afflictions and their habitual residues is among what is broken. What is called ‘all’ only here becomes truly all.

24. The Buddha himself explains the word 「壞」 tr. "breaking" —「不念有色法」 tr. "not thinking that there are dharmas of form" ; one who has the thought of existent dharmas clings to dharmas, and has no liberation, no path, no nirvāṇa. Subhūti asks finally: how is it called that to cultivate the breaking of form, and so on up to cultivating the breaking of the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues, is to cultivate prajñā? The Buddha's answer unties the word 「壞」 tr. "breaking": 「菩薩摩訶薩行般若波羅蜜時，不念有色法，是修般若波羅蜜」 tr. "when the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, not thinking that there are dharmas of form is cultivating prajñāpāramitā"; and so on up to: not thinking that there is a dharma of breaking all the afflictions and their habitual residues is cultivating prajñāpāramitā. Breaking is not destroying; it is not thinking of a thing as existent. The Buddha at once makes it clear from the reverse side: 「有法念者，不修般若波羅蜜」 tr. "one who has the thought of existent dharmas does not cultivate prajñāpāramitā"; one who has the thought of existent dharmas does not cultivate the six perfections, and the reason is that 「是人著法」 tr. "this person clings to dharmas"; 「如是著者，無有解脫、無有道、無有涅槃」 tr. "for one who clings thus there is no liberation, no path, no nirvāṇa"; one who has the thought of existent dharmas also does not cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds, 「是人著法故」 tr. "because this person clings to dharmas". Again and again it comes back to the two Chinese characters 「著法」 tr. "clings to dharmas".

25. Two is an existent dharma, not two is a non-existent dharma—grasping at marks makes two, two is precisely the existent, the existent is precisely birth and death. Subhūti then asks what an existent dharma is and what a non-existent dharma is, and the Buddha answers: 「二者是有法，不二者是無法。」 tr. "Two is an existent dharma; not two is a non-existent dharma." He asks again what two is, and the Buddha answers: the mark of form is two; the mark of feeling, perception, constructions, and consciousness is two; the mark of the eye and so on up to the mark of the mind is two; the mark of form and so on up to the mark of dharmas is two; the six perfections and so on up to the mark of the Buddha, the mark of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and the mark of the conditioned and unconditioned nature are two. At the end it speaks generally and gathers up the whole passage: 「一切相皆是二，一切二皆是有法；適有法便有生死，適有生死不得離生、老、病、死、憂悲苦惱。」 tr. "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." Therefore it should be known that a person who abides within two marks has no six perfections, 「無有道、無有果，乃至無有順忍，何況見色相乃至見一切種智相！」 tr. "no path, no fruit, and so on up to no compliant acceptance—how much less seeing the mark of form and so on up to seeing the mark of the omniscience of all kinds!"—he has not even compliant acceptance, the very first step, how much less seeing the real mark. The sūtra section ends with a rhetorical question: 「若無修道，云何得須陀洹果乃至阿羅漢果、辟支佛道、阿耨多羅三藐三菩提及斷一切煩惱習？」 tr. "If there is no cultivating of the path, how could he obtain the fruit of the srota-āpanna and so on up to the fruit of the arhat, the pratyekabuddha path, anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues?" Grasping at marks makes two, two is precisely the existent, the existent is precisely birth and death—this thread strings together everything said in the whole unit since 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent": the four alternatives cannot obtain precisely because the four alternatives are all two.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「遍學諸道」 tr. "trains in all the paths" as broad dabbling. Among the three options the sūtra denies is the Buddha path, which shows that what training in all concerns is not how much knowledge one has, but the whole way of taking that ‘does not exchange a certain path for a certain position’. The right explanation that follows straight after is 「以智觀過八地」 tr. "contemplates with knowledge and passes beyond the eight grounds"—contemplating and passing beyond without abiding; the allness of training and the absence of abiding are two faces of one and the same matter. Read training in all as training in much, and one will think the bodhisattva merely trains in more than the two vehicles; what the sūtra means is that he trains in just as much and abides in not a single place.

Do not read 「若智若斷，皆是菩薩忍」 tr. "whether knowledge or severance, all are the bodhisattva's acceptance" as the bodhisattva having another kind of knowledge and severance. What the Buddha speaks of is the same knowledge of the person of the eight, the same severance of the arhat, which, falling on the bodhisattva, 「是菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "is the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas". If one reads it as the bodhisattva having a separate set of knowledge and severance not shared with the two vehicles, one leaves 「遍學」 tr. "training in all" hanging in the air—what training in all trains in is precisely these. The dividing line is not in the thing obtained; it is in that what is obtained does not, in him, set into a position of fruit.

Do not read 「顯示助道法能至阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "it is shown that the dharmas that aid the path can reach anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi" as the Buddha contradicting himself. The Buddha first acknowledges 「諸法自相空，無所取、無所捨」 tr. "all dharmas are empty of specific marks, without anything taken and without anything given up", then says that displaying the dharmas that aid the path is because 「有眾生不知諸法自相空，為是眾生故」 tr. "there are beings who do not know that all dharmas are empty of specific marks; it is for the sake of these beings", and at the end himself marks its level—「以世俗法故，為眾生說令解，非以第一義」 tr. "by reason of worldly dharmas they are explained for beings so that they understand; it is not by the highest meaning". One sentence speaks of the highest meaning, one speaks of the worldly; the two sentences each have their own place. To read them as contradicting is to press two levels into one layer; to read the dharmas that aid the path as having a separate real substance is to be precisely the kind of being ‘who does not know the emptiness of specific marks’ for whom the sūtra sets this up.

Do not read 「修諸法壞」 tr. "cultivating the breaking of dharmas" as destroying dharmas. The Buddha himself explains this phrase as 「不念有色法」 tr. "not thinking that there are dharmas of form", and so on up to not thinking that there is a dharma of breaking all the afflictions and their habitual residues; what is broken is ‘thinking of it as existent’, not the dharma. If one reads it as smashing the dharmas one by one, then the last item of the list, 「修斷一切煩惱習壞」 tr. "to cultivate the breaking of the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues", could not be spoken of at all—is one then to smash the very matter of cutting off the afflictions and their habitual residues? What makes breaking breaking lies precisely in not thinking of things as existent, and so even the dharma that can break is among what is broken.

Do not read the seventeen matters of idle discourse as forbidding the making of vows. In what the Buddha lists—「我當入菩薩位」 tr. "I shall enter the bodhisattva's position", 「我當得一切種智」 tr. "I shall obtain the omniscience of all kinds", 「我當斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues"—the sickness is not in the matter vowed but in the self that takes, set up by the two Chinese characters 「我當」 tr. "I shall"; the Buddha himself gives the reason, saying 「性不戲論性，無性不戲論無性」 tr. "nature does not make idle discourse about nature; non-nature does not make idle discourse about non-nature", and states plainly 「離性、無性，更無法可得，所謂戲論者、戲論法、戲論處」 tr. "apart from nature and non-nature there is no further dharma to be found—that is, what is called the one who makes idle discourse, the dharma of idle discourse, the place of idle discourse". Only when the three are at once without substance is idle discourse truly absent. If one reads it as the bodhisattva being forbidden to have aspirations and vows, then the sentence above, 「遍學諸道具足，應得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "training in all the paths and making them complete, he should obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi", has nowhere to be placed.

Bearing on Practice

Use 「不受果報」 tr. "not receiving the retribution" to test the mind that applies effort. Practising the deep dharma and yet not receiving the retribution is the first meaning with which this unit opens, and its cause is 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas". When one's effort begins to take hold a little, the mind naturally starts reckoning toward the fruit—this sitting went well, this passage was recited in accord. Here one can take the Buddha's answer and ask oneself: if the place where one rests is from the first without anything existent, where is this ‘went well’ to be placed? It is not suppressing the joy; it is seeing clearly that the joy has nowhere to abide.

Use the four alternatives to examine one's own model of seeking the path. Whenever one feels that practice is ‘using one thing to exchange for another’—using effort to exchange for states, using merit to exchange for positions of fruit, using the contemplation of emptiness to exchange for liberation—one can take up the four alternatives and check them one by one: something existent obtaining something existent, something existent obtaining nothing existent, nothing existent obtaining something existent, nothing existent obtaining nothing existent; the Buddha's three answers are all 「不也！」 tr. "No!", and adding the sentence the Buddha himself laid out in the earlier passage, all four alternatives are sealed. The four alternatives checked through, the road is still not cut off, because the Buddha says 「有得，不以此四句」 tr. "there is obtaining; only not by these four alternatives". This question and answer is an excellent daily test: knowing that it is not within the four alternatives, the mind naturally leaves the posture of trading.

Use the two Chinese characters 「我當」 tr. "I shall" to examine idle discourse. Among the seventeen matters of idle discourse, what most calls for self-reflection is the 「我當」 tr. "I shall" sentence-form of the second half. Daily vows, set practices, and hopes—every sentence can be the path, and every sentence can be idle discourse; the dividing line lies only in whether a 「我當」 tr. "I shall" stands in the middle. There is no need to abolish vows; one need only look back once at each vow: in this sentence, has the self that vows taken its stand or not?

Use 「分別知，不應用」 tr. "discerns and knows, and should not use" to set the measure for training in dharmas. The wider one's training in dharmas, the easier it is to take up every single thing trained in and use it—this dharma is good, so one moves in and dwells there; that dharma is wonderful, so one takes it as one's own realisation. The measure the sūtra gives is perfectly clear: of the dharmas of the two vehicles, 「分別知，不應用」 tr. "he discerns and knows, and should not use"; of the omniscience of all kinds, 「分別知，應用」 tr. "he discerns and knows, and should use". Of whatever is trained in, first ask whether one has come to know it; having come to know it, then ask whether it is something to be used or something only to be known. Knowing and not using is not waste; it is how training in all is able not to realise.

Use 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed" to judge what to take and what to give up. The knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure says of the three evil destinies and the path of ghosts and spirits 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed", and of humans and gods upward says only 「應知」 tr. "should be known". Applied to oneself, it is this: of the paths of the afflictions that are presently active, know them and also block them; of states that are not yet evil destinies, know them, and there is no need to block and cut them all off without distinction. The two commonest deviations in practice—not blocking what should be blocked, and blocking without distinction what should not be blocked—can both be corrected with this measure.

Practise all dharmas with 「不念有」 tr. "not thinking that they exist". The full account of cultivating the breaking of dharmas looks dense and intricate, but its use lies only in the one sentence 「不念有色法」 tr. "not thinking that there are dharmas of form". In daily practice there is no need to contemplate item by item; one need only not think of the dharma one is practising as a really existent thing: when giving, not thinking that there is a dharma of giving; when keeping the precepts, not thinking that there is a dharma of keeping the precepts; and so on up to, when cultivating the signless, not thinking that there is a dharma of the signless. At the very end even 「斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "the cutting off of all the afflictions and their habitual residues" is among what is broken—this sentence is the last checkpoint, and what it guards against is precisely setting oneself up in the highest dharma.

Further Resonances

The unit of the First Part, one passage of the sūtra from beginning to end, sets up the whole path of questioning and the right answers of the chapter "Training in All". From Subhūti's praise, 「大智慧成就，行是深法，亦不受果報」 tr. "accomplished in great wisdom, practises this deep dharma, and yet does not receive the retribution", onward, the Buddha gives its cause with 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas", gives its nature with 「無所有」 tr. "without anything existent", and with the three answers 「不也！」 tr. "No!", together with the 「以無所有法不能得所有法」 tr. "by a dharma of nothing existent one cannot obtain a dharma of something existent" he had already spoken himself, seals off completely the trading road of the four alternatives, and with 「有得，不以此四句」 tr. "there is obtaining; only not by these four alternatives" opens a separate gate; since the gate opens at 「無諸戲論」 tr. "without any kind of idle discourse", he goes on to list at length the seventeen matters of idle discourse and comes back to 「性不戲論性」 tr. "nature does not make idle discourse about nature". Next, taking entry into the position as the question, he denies the paths of the three vehicles and establishes 「遍學諸道」 tr. "trains in all the paths", taking as a simile the person of the eight who first trains in the paths; Subhūti presses him with the difficulty of taking the fruit according to the path, and the Buddha answers it with 「以智觀過八地」 tr. "contemplates with knowledge and passes beyond the eight grounds" and 「若智若斷，皆是菩薩忍」 tr. "whether knowledge or severance, all are the bodhisattva's acceptance"—the dividing line of training without realising is, for the whole unit, settled here. After this come three turns: the knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure makes clear what training in all is for—understanding all voices and knowing the causes and fruits of the six destinies, the gods, and so on up to the limbs of the path and the ten powers—while the three evil destinies and the path of ghosts and spirits are 「應知、應障」 tr. "should be known, should be obstructed", and from humans and gods upward only 「應知」 tr. "should be known"; neither joined nor dispersed, of one mark, signless, makes clear why the dharmas that aid the path can be spoken of: it lies in 「以世俗法故，為眾生說令解，非以第一義」 tr. "by reason of worldly dharmas they are explained for beings so that they understand; it is not by the highest meaning"; training neither in marks nor in the signless makes clear what makes cultivation cultivation: it lies in 「修諸法壞」 tr. "cultivating the breaking of dharmas", which in fact is 「不念有色法」 tr. "not thinking that there are dharmas of form". At the end, 「二者是有法，不二者是無法」 tr. "two is an existent dharma; not two is a non-existent dharma" gathers up the eye of the whole passage: grasping at marks makes two, two is precisely the existent, the existent is precisely birth and death—the root of why the four alternatives cannot obtain lies here. As for how the treatise-author explains this sūtra sentence by sentence—explaining immovability as ultimate emptiness, suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality; explaining the principle that in the four alternatives both alike have fault; explaining the two kinds of impermanence and the two kinds of the acceptance of non-arising; explaining the simile of the person of the eight with the comparison 「如人親親繫獄故，入而看之」 tr. "as a person whose kinsman is held in prison goes in to see him"; explaining the numbers of knowledge and severance and the opening and closing of the four truths and the one truth; explaining the difference between knowing and seeing and setting out the explanations of the various houses; explaining that the breaking of all dharmas is like the breaking of the parts of a cart, upon which the mark of the cart also ceases; and so on up to explaining the dispute over compliant acceptance and the dharma of the summit, and the judgement 「見色有二種」 tr. "seeing form is of two kinds"—the Last Part of this chapter unfolds this in continuation; it is not anticipated here.

Training in All, Last Part: Why He Does Not Receive Retribution, Obtaining by None of the Four Alternatives, Parting from Idle Discourse and Entering the Position, Training in All the Paths and the Acceptance of the Non-arising of Dharmas, the Knowledge of the Kinds of Paths, and Cultivating the Breaking of Dharmas

What Is Being Asked

The First Part, the unit before this one, is sūtra. The sūtra starts from a sentence of Subhūti's exclamation—that the bodhisattva practises the six perfections and yet does not receive worldly retribution is a thing that has never been before; the Buddha answers why, giving only six Chinese characters: immovable within the nature of dharmas. From these six Chinese characters the sūtra presses out, all the way along, four layers of questions: whether between something existent and nothing existent the one can obtain the other—of the four alternatives the Buddha three times answers ‘No’, and one he brings out himself; since by none of the four alternatives is it obtained, then what is idle discourse and what is without idle discourse; since being without idle discourse is the path the three vehicles share, by what path in the end does the bodhisattva enter the bodhisattva's position; since he must train in all the paths, how can it be that he trains in all and yet does not become one of the two vehicles and does not take the realisation of the fruit. At the end it turns to the knowledge of the kinds of paths, turns to all dharmas being neither joined nor dispersed within the holy Dharma, turns to not training in marks and not training in the signless either, turns to cultivating the breaking of dharmas being cultivating prajñā, and closes with 「二相人無有檀波羅蜜乃至無有順忍」 tr. "a person of two marks has no dānapāramitā, and so on up to has no compliant acceptance".

The Last Part is treatise. The treatise-author does not set up a separate way of speaking; he opens the joints of the sūtra sentence by sentence. So what the Last Part asks is in fact just what the First Part asked, only the way of asking has put on another face: the sūtra is the Buddha and Subhūti going back and forth; the treatise is Nāgārjuna setting up questions himself and answering them himself. The force of the whole unit is gathered in three places.

The first place is the reason for the four Chinese characters 「不受果報」 tr. "not receiving retribution". The sūtra says only 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas"; the treatise-author fills in two layers: what the nature of dharmas is—「無所有、畢竟空，如、法性、實際」 tr. "without anything existent, ultimate emptiness, suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality"; why it is immovable—because dharmas are 「眾因緣生故不自在、無定相，無定相故無所有」 tr. "born of many causes and conditions, and therefore not self-existent and without fixed mark; being without fixed mark, they are without anything existent". Only where there is a fixed mark is there a place that can be shaken; where there is no fixed mark, the mind has nothing by which it can be moved. Once this layer stands, the four alternatives, idle discourse, and training in all below have a root.

The second place is the reason the two Chinese characters 「遍學」 tr. "training in all" are possible. Subhūti's objection is put very concretely: the paths each differ; training in the path of the person of the eight, one becomes a person of the eight; training in the pratyekabuddha path, one becomes a pratyekabuddha; if one first became one of the two vehicles and then entered the bodhisattva's position, it would not make sense; if one obtained the omniscience of all kinds without entering the bodhisattva's position, that would not make sense either. The treatise-author's way of answering is not to dissolve the contradiction but to change the action—「以智見觀入八地直過」 tr. "contemplating with knowledge and seeing, he enters the eight grounds and passes straight through". The joint lies in the two Chinese characters 「觀」 tr. "contemplate" and 「過」 tr. "pass": entering, he contemplates them; having contemplated, he at once passes through, not abiding in them. And he gives an extremely intimate simile: a kinsman is held in prison; a person goes in to see him, and yet does not put on the shackles together with him. Being able to see does not mean having to be bound together with him.

The third place is the reason 「無生法忍」 tr. "the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas" is not a thing that can be taken. The treatise-author first cites the sūtra's compliant acceptance and acceptance of non-arising, next cites the explanations of two positions, 「論者言」 tr. "The treatise-author says" and 「又復言」 tr. "It is further said", then sets the two vehicles' contemplation of arising and ceasing against the bodhisattva's contemplation of arising and ceasing, and after that sets up a question himself: entering what is unarisen and unceasing—does what is unarisen and unceasing not become permanence again? The answer lies in a neat set of paired statements—impermanence is of two kinds, and the acceptance of non-arising is also of two kinds; the one who does not cling does not fall; the one who clings falls. The last sentence is the most essential: 「從本已來常自無生，非以智慧觀故令無生。」 tr. "From the very beginning they have always been of themselves without arising; it is not that they are made to be without arising by contemplation with wisdom." Non-arising is not a result made by wisdom.

With the three places established, the knowledge of the kinds of paths, the difference between knowing and seeing, the holy Dharma's being neither joined nor dispersed, not training in marks and not training in the signless either, and cultivating the breaking of dharmas in the latter half are all worked out from these three places. At the end the treatise-author closes with two questions—which compliant acceptance this compliant acceptance is, and, since the dharma of the summit is already able not to retreat, why it speaks only up to the dharma of acceptance—and so gathers the whole unit into an extremely low place: a person who grasps at two marks does not even have the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle. Having spoken for a whole fascicle of training in all the paths, of the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, and of the omniscience of all kinds, what is measured at the last is the very first step.

So what is to be read in the Last Part is not one more string of names and marks; it is turning over and bringing out the reason for each verdict-sentence of the First Part's sūtra. The First Part says what; the Last Part says why.

Passage by Passage

1. "The explanation" opens the treatise: the bodhisattva can make the cause and yet does not receive the fruit. The treatise section opens with the two Chinese characters 「釋曰：」 tr. "The explanation:", which is this treatise's fixed formula for explaining the sūtra; in the whole fascicle of the Last Part it appears only this once. The treatise-author first takes up what the sūtra says: 「佛說：「菩薩行六波羅蜜，不受世間果報。」」 tr. "The Buddha says: ‘The bodhisattva practises the six perfections and does not receive worldly retribution.’" Next he relates Subhūti's exclamation: 「須菩提歎未曾有，白佛言：「世尊！是菩薩大智慧成就，行是深法，能作因而不受果。」」 tr. "Subhūti exclaimed that such a thing had never been, and said to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! This bodhisattva's great wisdom is accomplished; practising this deep dharma, he can make the cause and yet does not receive the fruit.’" First ask a question: practising the cause and not receiving the fruit—why is that worth exclaiming over? By the principle of the world, one who makes a cause necessarily obtains a fruit; now to make the great cause of the six perfections and not receive the worldly fruit runs against ordinary feeling. On this the treatise-author at once passes a verdict: 「是菩薩為大利故，不受小報。」 tr. "This bodhisattva, for the sake of great benefit, does not receive small retribution." Not receiving is not being unable to receive; it is not taking; he does not take the small retribution precisely because what he seeks is great. This sentence is the first joint of the whole unit—every 「不」 tr. "not" below must be read by this sentence: it is not absence; it is not taking.

2. The Buddha approves his meaning and further states the causes and conditions: immovable within the nature of dharmas. 「佛可其意已，更自說因緣，所謂：「菩薩於諸法性中不動。」」 tr. "The Buddha, having approved his meaning, further himself stated the causes and conditions, namely: ‘The bodhisattva is immovable within the nature of dharmas.’" Here the treatise-author supplies two matters the sūtra did not explain. The first, what the nature of dharmas is: 「諸法性者，無所有、畢竟空，如、法性、實際。」 tr. "The nature of dharmas is without anything existent, ultimate emptiness, suchness, the nature of dharmas, the limit of reality." Five names are raised together and what they point to is one—being without anything existent and ultimate emptiness speak of it by negation; suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality speak of it by affirmation. The second, what being immovable is: 「菩薩定心安住是中不動。」 tr. "The bodhisattva's concentrated mind rests securely in this and is immovable." Being immovable is not not acting; it is the mind resting securely within this and not shifting. In reading this passage, guard against a slip: taking 「不動」 tr. "immovable" to be the state of a realm of concentration. If it were a state, there would be entering it and leaving it; in using the two Chinese characters 「安住」 tr. "rests securely", the treatise-author speaks of the place where one abides, not of a mark that appears.

3. Subhūti asks within what nature he is immovable; the Buddha answers: the nature of form, and so on up to the nature of great kindness and compassion. Subhūti's question is extremely precise: 「世尊！何等性中不動？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Within what nature is he immovable?" He does not ask what being immovable is; he asks ‘within what’ he is immovable—this presses a general statement into a specific one. The Buddha answers: 「色性中不動，乃至大慈悲等性中不動。」 tr. "He is immovable within the nature of form, and so on up to: he is immovable within the nature of great kindness and compassion and the rest." Beginning from form and ending with great kindness and great compassion, it raises everything one by one from the coarsest object up to the most excellent dharmas of practice; what is left out between the two Chinese characters ‘and so on up to’ is precisely all the dharmas the sūtra section sets out at length—the five aggregates, the six perfections, the dhyānas, the factors of the path. To raise the two ends and so include the middle is a constant way of this treatise.

4. Why he is immovable—because they are born of many causes and conditions, they are not self-existent and are without fixed mark. The Buddha himself explains why: 「是諸法性，眾因緣生故不自在、無定相，無定相故無所有。」 tr. "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." The three phrases are one chain: born of causes and conditions, therefore not self-existent; not self-existent, therefore without fixed mark; without fixed mark, therefore without anything existent. First ask a question: why is it that being 「不自在」 tr. "not self-existent" means being without fixed mark? Because what is called a fixed mark is a mark that is there of itself without depending on another; since it depends on many conditions, when the conditions gather it appears and when they disperse it is lost—where could a fixed mark be set? The 「無所有」 tr. "without anything existent" at the end of this chain joins exactly with 「諸法性者，無所有」 tr. "the nature of dharmas is without anything existent" explained in passage 2—from which it can be seen that what is called 「諸法性」 tr. "the nature of dharmas" is not some other nature outside dharmas; it is simply dharmas' very being without fixed mark. At the end the treatise-author adds a sentence, 「諸法者，所謂色等法」 tr. "all dharmas means form and the other dharmas", because he fears people will read 「諸法」 tr. "all dharmas" as pointing to something else.

5. Because of form and the other dharmas the unconditioned is spoken of; the unconditioned too is without anything existent. 「因是色等法故說無為，是故無為法亦無所有。」 tr. "Because of form and these other dharmas the unconditioned is spoken of; therefore the unconditioned dharma too is without anything existent." This passage pushes extremely far. Since the conditioned is without anything existent, then what of the unconditioned, set up over against the conditioned? The treatise-author's line of reasoning is: the name ‘unconditioned’ is spoken 「因」 tr. "because of" the conditioned—if there were no conditioned to stand against, the name ‘unconditioned’ would have nowhere to be established; since it exists by mutual dependence, the unconditioned too is without fixed mark and is likewise without anything existent. This sentence will appear again later: 「離有為不得說無為，離無為不得說有為實相」 tr. "apart from the conditioned one cannot speak of the unconditioned; apart from the unconditioned one cannot speak of the real mark of the conditioned" in passage 66 is a restatement of this meaning. The final sentence, 「何以故？不可以無所有法得所有法」 tr. "Why? One cannot by a dharma of nothing existent obtain a dharma of something existent", is a turning word, which draws out the four alternatives below.

6. The first of the four alternatives: can something existent obtain something existent? Subhūti, continuing from the foregoing, asks: 「若無所有不能得所有者，豈可以所有法得所有法耶？」 tr. "If nothing existent cannot obtain something existent, can one then by a dharma of something existent obtain a dharma of something existent?" This question infers forward—since nothing existent cannot obtain something existent, then what of like obtaining like? 「佛答：「不。」」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘No.’" The treatise-author himself explains why: 「無所有法，一切聖人所稱讚、所住處，尚不能有所得，何況所有法！」 tr. "A dharma of nothing existent, which all the sages praise and in which they abide, still cannot have anything obtained; how much less a dharma of something existent!" This is the method of reasoning from the superior to the inferior: nothing existent is what the sages praise and where they rest securely, and it stands above something existent; if even the superior has nothing obtained, the inferior need not be spoken of. Note that what is negated here is the action of 「得」 tr. "obtaining", not the existence or non-existence of the dharma of something existent.

7. The second of the four alternatives: does a dharma of something existent obtain nothing existent? 「「所有法得無所有不？」佛言：「不。」」 tr. "‘Does a dharma of something existent obtain nothing existent?’ The Buddha said: ‘No.’" The treatise-author explains: 「所有、無所有，二俱有過，故言「不」。」 tr. "Something existent and nothing existent both have fault; therefore he says ‘No’." This phrase is the pivot of the four alternatives. The previous phrase reasons from the superior to the inferior; this phrase points directly to each of the two sides having its own failing—something existent has the failing of arising and abiding; nothing existent has the failing of falling into annihilation; since the two each have fault, obtaining the one by the other or the other by the one cannot be established. The four Chinese characters ‘both have fault’ are this treatise's general rule for negating the four alternatives, not only here.

8. The third of the four alternatives: can one by nothing existent obtain nothing existent? 「「可以無所有得無所有不？」佛言：「不。」」 tr. "‘Can one by nothing existent obtain nothing existent?’ The Buddha said: ‘No.’" The treatise-author explains why: 「所有法有生相、住相，以虛誑故，尚無所得，何況無所有從本已來畢竟空而有所得！」 tr. "A dharma of something existent has the mark of arising and the mark of abiding, and because it is false and deceptive it still has nothing obtained; how much less could nothing existent, ultimately empty from the very beginning, have something obtained!" Here again the method of reasoning from the superior to the inferior is used, but in the direction opposite to passage 6: passage 6 says that even nothing existent cannot obtain, how much less something existent; here it says that even something existent has nothing obtained, how much less nothing existent. The two run in opposite directions and yet stand side by side, which shows precisely that the negation of the four alternatives is not a one-sided negation of one side. The seven Chinese characters of the final phrase, 「從本已來畢竟空」 tr. "ultimately empty from the very beginning", are the joint—it is not that it becomes empty only after observation; it is so from the first; if it became empty only after contemplation, there would still be one who contemplates and something obtained.

9. Once the four alternatives are negated, is there not then no path and no fruit—there really is a dharma of obtaining the path, only not by these four alternatives. 「此中，須菩提更問：「世尊！若以四句皆不得，將無道、無得果耶？」」 tr. "Here Subhūti asked further: ‘World-Honored One! If by the four alternatives none obtains, will there not then be no path and no obtaining of the fruit?’" This question is extremely honest: since the road has been sealed off on all four sides, he asks straight out whether there is still a road. 「佛答：「實有得道法，但不以是四句。」」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘There really is a dharma of obtaining the path, only not by these four alternatives.’" The answer is extremely essential—first affirming that there is a path, then saying that the path is not in the four alternatives. The treatise-author explains: 「四句有如上失故。若離是四句戲論，即是道。」 tr. "Because the four alternatives have the failings described above. If one parts from the idle discourse of these four alternatives, that is the path." Note the structure of this sentence: it is not that after parting from the four alternatives there is another thing called the path; the very matter of 「離」 tr. "parting from" is the path. Here the reader most easily gives rise to a mistaken notion, thinking that after everything has been negated there ought still to be something obtained; the treatise-author here directly establishes 「離」 tr. "parting from" as the path, precisely to cut this off.

10. What is the bodhisattva's mark of idle discourse—form and the rest, whether as permanent or as impermanent. 「復問：「世尊！何等是菩薩戲論相？」佛答：「色等若常、若無常，是菩薩戲論。」」 tr. "Again he asked: ‘World-Honored One! What is the bodhisattva's mark of idle discourse?’ The Buddha answered: ‘Form and the rest, whether as permanent or as impermanent—this is the bodhisattva's idle discourse.’" First ask a question: speaking of permanence and impermanence—why is that idle discourse? In the next passage the treatise-author will explain it point by point. Here the example is first set up: what is raised is the pair ‘permanent’ and ‘impermanent’, which is precisely another face of the four alternatives—what the four alternatives negate is something existent and nothing existent obtaining each other; what is negated here is permanence and impermanence being set up as marks.

11. Why permanence and impermanence are both idle discourse. The treatise-author explains along two roads. The first breaks permanence: 「若常則不生不滅，無罪福、好醜……」 tr. "If they were permanent, they would be unarisen and unceasing, without sin and merit, without fair and foul…" Since it is permanent there is no change; with no change there is nothing to speak of as doing sin or doing merit, nothing to speak of as fair or foul, rising or sinking—and so the matter of cause and fruit is wholly abolished. The second breaks impermanence, and again in two layers. The first layer is breaking by mutual dependence—「因常說無常，常既不可得，何況無常！」 tr. "Impermanence is spoken of because of permanence; since permanence is unfindable, how much less impermanence!" The name ‘impermanence’ is set up over against permanence; since what it stands against is already unfindable, where can what stands against it rest? The second layer is breaking by self-destruction—「若無常定是色等實相，亦不應有業因緣果報。何以故？色等諸法念念滅失故；若業因緣果報滅，則不名無常相。」 tr. "If impermanence were definitely the real mark of form and the rest, there should also be no causes and conditions of deeds and their retribution. Why? Because form and the other dharmas cease and are lost thought by thought; if the causes and conditions of deeds and their retribution ceased, it would not be called the mark of impermanence." This layer must be looked at closely: if impermanence were the real mark, dharmas would cease and be lost thought by thought, and deeds and retribution too would cease and be lost along with them; once deeds and fruits have ceased, the one matter of ‘continuing and receiving retribution’ cannot be established—and yet the meaning of impermanence can be made sense of precisely only by relying on continuity. So one who clings to impermanence as the real mark instead ruins impermanence itself in his account. It closes with 「如是等種種因緣故，無常非是色等實相，如先「破無常」中說」 tr. "for all such causes and conditions, impermanence is not the real mark of form and the rest, as was said earlier in ‘Refuting Impermanence’", pointing to the place where this appeared earlier, and does not repeat it here.

12. Even the thought of severing the habitual residues is idle discourse. 「乃至作是念「我當斷一切煩惱習」，是為戲論。」 tr. "And so on up to having this thought, ‘I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues’—this is idle discourse." The example raised in this sentence is the most dangerous—cutting off the afflictions and their habitual residues is the utmost of the Buddha path, and yet it is said to be idle discourse. What the idle discourse is about is not the matter of ‘cutting off the afflictions and their habitual residues’; it is the agent and the object set up by the two Chinese characters 「我當」 tr. "I shall". What the previous passage negates is the view of permanence and impermanence; what this passage negates is the taking of cultivation and realisation; the one is in view, the other in practice; only when they are put together is the meaning of idle discourse complete. The sūtra section lists seventeen matters at length as idle discourse; here the treatise-author covers them with a single sentence.

13. Self-nature cannot make idle discourse about self-nature—apart from nature and non-nature there is no third dharma. 「色等諸法不可戲論，而凡夫人戲論諸法，菩薩於不可戲論隨法不戲論。」 tr. "Form and the other dharmas are not subject to idle discourse, and yet ordinary people make idle discourse about dharmas; the bodhisattva, in what is not subject to idle discourse, is in accord with the Dharma and makes no idle discourse." First three phrases are set up: dharmas are from the first not subject to idle discourse; ordinary people forcibly make idle discourse about them; the bodhisattva is in accord with the Dharma and makes no idle discourse. What is called 「隨法」 tr. "in accord with the Dharma" is according with how dharmas are of themselves, not performing a separate practice of not making idle discourse. Next it explains why: 「自性不能戲論自性。」 tr. "Self-nature cannot make idle discourse about self-nature." Then it explains the reason for this reason: 「性從因緣生故，但有假名，云何能戲論？」 tr. "Since nature is born of causes and conditions, there is only a provisional name; how could it make idle discourse?" Since it is a provisional name, there is no real entity that can make idle discourse. Pushing further: 「若性不能戲論，何況無性！」 tr. "If nature cannot make idle discourse, how much less non-nature!" Even nature cannot; non-nature still less can. At the end it seals off the third road: 「離性、無性，更無第三法可戲論……」 tr. "Apart from nature and non-nature there is no further third dharma about which idle discourse can be made…", and lists the three matters negated: 「所謂戲論者，戲論法，戲論處——是法皆不可得。」 tr. "What is called the one who makes idle discourse, the dharma of idle discourse, the place of idle discourse—these dharmas are all unfindable." Person, dharma, and place are all three dismissed, in the same format as what is dismissed in the sūtra section of the First Part.

14. Form and the other dharmas are the mark not subject to idle discourse; one should practise the prajñā that is without idle discourse. 「「須菩提！色等法是不可戲論相，如是菩薩應行無戲論般若波羅蜜。」」 tr. "‘Subhūti! Form and the other dharmas are the mark not subject to idle discourse; in this way the bodhisattva should practise the prajñāpāramitā that is without idle discourse.’" This is the concluding sentence of the sūtra, taken up. Pay attention to the five Chinese characters 「不可戲論相」 tr. "the mark not subject to idle discourse": it does not say that form and the other dharmas have no mark; it says that their mark is precisely being not subject to idle discourse. It follows the same line of reasoning as 「無定相故無所有」 tr. "being without fixed mark, it is without anything existent" in passage 4—what is negated is a fixed mark that can be taken; what is established is still mark.

15. The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions of not being subject to idle discourse: a dharma without nature is not subject to idle discourse. 「復次，佛自說不可戲論因緣：「色等法無性，若法無性，即是不可戲論。」」 tr. "Moreover, the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions of not being subject to idle discourse: ‘Form and the other dharmas are without nature; if a dharma is without nature, it is not subject to idle discourse.’" This passage is where the treatise-author marks out the causes and conditions that the sūtra itself contains. The two Chinese characters 「復次」 tr. "moreover" appear only three times in the treatise section, all used where the treatise-author turns out a new layer, not set there idly as the text runs on. Between being without nature and not being subject to idle discourse the way is direct: idle discourse must have something to rely on; being without nature, there is nothing to rely on.

16. One who can practise the prajñā not subject to idle discourse then obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position. 「「若菩薩能行是不可戲論般若，便得入菩薩位。」」 tr. "‘If the bodhisattva can practise this prajñā not subject to idle discourse, he then obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position.’" This sentence is the conclusion of the first half of the whole unit, and also the start of the second half—as soon as the four Chinese characters 「入菩薩位」 tr. "enter the bodhisattva's position" come out, the question below, 「以何道入」 tr. "by what path does he enter", follows at once.

17. By what path does he enter the bodhisattva's position—to the paths of all three vehicles the answer is ‘No’. 「須菩提意：「無戲論是三乘道，菩薩以何道入無戲論菩薩位？」」 tr. "Subhūti's meaning is: ‘Being without idle discourse is the path of the three vehicles; by what path does the bodhisattva enter the bodhisattva's position that is without idle discourse?’" The ground on which this question is set up is extremely skilful: since being without idle discourse is the path the three vehicles share, then which vehicle's path is it, in the end, that the bodhisattva practises? 「佛答，皆言：「不。」」 tr. "The Buddha answered, saying to each: ‘No.’" Three questions, three noes. The treatise-author explains why, along two roads: 「菩薩大乘人故，不應用二乘道」 tr. "because the bodhisattva is a person of the Great Vehicle, he should not use the path of the two vehicles"—it is not that the path of the two vehicles cannot be without idle discourse; it is that he should not use it; 「六波羅蜜未具足故，不能用佛道」 tr. "because the six perfections are not yet complete, he cannot use the Buddha path"—it is not that the Buddha path is not good; it is that he cannot yet use it. One 「不應」 tr. "should not", one 「不能」 tr. "cannot": the two roads each differ and must not be read mixed into one sentence. Since the two vehicles he should not use and the Buddha path he cannot, only one road remains: 「此中佛自說因緣：「菩薩應遍學諸道，入菩薩位。」」 tr. "Here the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: ‘The bodhisattva should train in all the paths and enter the bodhisattva's position.’" The two Chinese characters 「遍學」 tr. "training in all" of the chapter title come to land only here.

18. The simile of the person of the eight: first training in all the paths and entering the right position, and yet not yet having obtained the fruit of the srota-āpanna. 「此中說譬喻：「如見諦道中八人，先時遍學諸道，入正位，而未得須陀洹果……」 tr. "Here a simile is told: ‘It is like the person of the eight in the path of seeing the truths, who earlier trained in all the paths and entered the right position, and yet has not yet obtained the fruit of the srota-āpanna…" This simile takes as evidence a matter of the Small Vehicle itself, and is most close at hand: the person of the eight in the path of seeing the truths has already entered the right position and yet has not yet obtained the first fruit—from which it can be seen that ‘entering the position’ and ‘obtaining the fruit’ are two matters: entering the position comes first, obtaining the fruit comes after. Since the Small Vehicle itself acknowledges such a stretch, then that the bodhisattva 「先遍學諸道，入菩薩位，而未得一切種智果」 tr. "first trains in all the paths and enters the bodhisattva's position, and yet has not yet obtained the fruit of the omniscience of all kinds" is no strange matter. At the end it adds the time of obtaining the fruit: 「若菩薩住金剛三昧，以一念相應慧，得一切種智果。」 tr. "If the bodhisattva abides in the vajra samādhi, with the wisdom associated with a single thought he obtains the fruit of the omniscience of all kinds." With a single thought associated, the fruit is accomplished—which stands exactly against the 「先遍學」 tr. "first trains in all" before it: training is a matter of long time; obtaining is a matter of a single thought.

19. Subhūti's objection: if he gives rise to the eight paths, he is the person of the eight. 「須菩提問：「世尊！若菩薩遍學諸道，然後入菩薩位，是諸道各各異。若菩薩遍學是諸道，若生八道即是八人，乃至生辟支佛道即是辟支佛……」 tr. "Subhūti asked: ‘World-Honored One! If the bodhisattva trains in all the paths and afterwards enters the bodhisattva's position, these paths are each different. If the bodhisattva trains in all these paths, then if he gives rise to the eight paths he is the person of the eight, and so on up to: if he gives rise to the pratyekabuddha path he is a pratyekabuddha…" The difficulty is extremely concrete: since the paths each differ, training in this path gives rise to a person of this path. Below follow two impossibilities: 「若菩薩作八人乃至作辟支佛，然後入菩薩位，無有是處！若不入菩薩位，得一切種智，亦無有是處！」 tr. "If the bodhisattva becomes the person of the eight and so on up to becomes a pratyekabuddha, and afterwards enters the bodhisattva's position, there is no such principle! If without entering the bodhisattva's position he obtains the omniscience of all kinds, there is no such principle either!" Both ends are blocked—first becoming one of the two vehicles and then entering the position does not work; obtaining the fruit without entering the position does not work either. The last sentence is a request for understanding: 「我當云何知菩薩遍學諸道入菩薩位？」 tr. "How shall I know that the bodhisattva trains in all the paths and enters the bodhisattva's position?" Like the objection of the same type in the sūtra section of the First Part, Subhūti wants to know the reason, not to refute.

20. The Buddha answers: contemplating with knowledge and seeing, he enters the eight grounds and passes straight through. 「佛可其意已，更自說因緣：「菩薩初發意行六波羅蜜時，以智見觀入八地直過……」 tr. "The Buddha, having approved his meaning, further himself stated the causes and conditions: ‘When the bodhisattva first arouses the intent and practises the six perfections, contemplating with knowledge and seeing he enters the eight grounds and passes straight through…" The key to answering the objection lies in the two Chinese characters 「觀」 tr. "contemplate" and 「過」 tr. "pass". What he enters is the eight grounds; what he does is contemplate; what is accomplished is passing through—entering is not abiding, contemplating is not taking, passing through is not going round. The premise the objector sets up is ‘training in this path gives rise to a person of this path’; the Buddha's answer does not refute this premise but changes the action: he does not go to give rise to it; he goes to contemplate it.

21. The simile of the prison: going in to see him, and not wearing the shackles together with him. 「如人親親繫獄故，入而看之，亦不與同著杻械。」 tr. "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." This simile is one of the most intimate places of the whole unit. The one held in prison is a kinsman, so one cannot but go in; going in to see him, one cannot but see; and yet the one who sees sees by himself and the one bound is bound by himself, and one does not, by entering the prison, receive the fetters along with him. By this it compares the bodhisattva in relation to the paths of the two vehicles: because he delivers beings, he cannot but know them; because he knows them, he cannot but go in and contemplate them; and yet he does not take the realisation of the fruit together with the two vehicles. The point the simile takes lies in the two Chinese characters ‘wear together’—what is negated is receiving their bonds together with them, not not entering their gate.

22. The sequence of entering the position: contemplating all the paths throughout; having entered the position, he obtains the omniscience of all kinds. 「菩薩欲具足道種智故，入菩薩位——遍觀諸道，入菩薩位；入菩薩位已，得一切種智，斷煩惱習。」 tr. "It is because the bodhisattva wishes to make complete the knowledge of the kinds of paths that he enters the bodhisattva's position—contemplating all the paths throughout, he enters the bodhisattva's position; having entered the bodhisattva's position, he obtains the omniscience of all kinds and cuts off the afflictions and their habitual residues." This passage fixes the sequence: contemplating all the paths throughout comes first, entering the bodhisattva's position stands in the middle, obtaining the omniscience of all kinds and cutting off the afflictions and their habitual residues come last. Pay attention to the phrase 「欲具足道種智故」 tr. "because he wishes to make complete the knowledge of the kinds of paths"—the aim of contemplating all the paths throughout lies here, not in knowing much. The knowledge of the kinds of paths is the theme of a large section later; here its name first appears.

23. The knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are all the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. 「佛示須菩提：「二乘人於諸佛菩薩智慧得少氣分，是故八人若智若斷乃至辟支佛若智若斷，皆是菩薩無生法忍。」」 tr. "The Buddha showed Subhūti: ‘The people of the two vehicles obtain a small share of the wisdom of the buddhas and bodhisattvas; therefore whether the knowledge or the severance of the person of the eight, and so on up to whether the knowledge or the severance of the pratyekabuddha, all are the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas.’" This sentence is the one in the whole unit that most needs careful reading. The four Chinese characters 「得少氣分」 tr. "obtain a small share" fix its bounds: what the two vehicles obtain of the wisdom of the buddhas and bodhisattvas is only the breath of a small part, not the whole substance. Since it is a small part of one and the same substance, the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles, seen from the bodhisattva's side, are nothing but matters within the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. To read it as ‘the two vehicles are the bodhisattva’ is a mistake; to read it as ‘what the two vehicles realise has nothing to do with the bodhisattva’ is also a mistake. What is spoken of is inclusion within bounds, not equality of rank.

24. The numbers of knowledge and severance. Here the treatise-author explains the names item by item. 「智名學人八智，無學或九、或十。」 tr. "Knowledge means the eight knowledges of the person in training; for the one beyond training, either nine or ten." The knowledges of the stage of training are eight; at the stage beyond training they are either nine or ten, according to whether, by the sharpness or dullness of the faculties, the knowledge of non-arising is had or not. 「斷名斷十種結使，所謂上、下分十結。」 tr. "Severance means cutting off the ten kinds of fetters, namely the ten fetters of the upper and lower divisions." Next it lists, briefly and broadly, what the four fruits cut off: 「須陀洹、斯陀含，略說斷三結，廣說斷八十八結。阿那含，略說斷五下分結，廣說斷九十二。阿羅漢，略說三漏盡，廣說斷一切煩惱。」 tr. "The srota-āpanna and the sakṛdāgāmin, briefly stated, cut off the three fetters; broadly stated, they cut off the eighty-eight fetters. The anāgāmin, briefly stated, cuts off the five lower fetters; broadly stated, he cuts off ninety-two. The arhat, briefly stated, has exhausted the three outflows; broadly stated, he cuts off all the afflictions." Stating briefly raises the outline; stating broadly exhausts the items; it is one severance stated in two ways. The last sentence returns to the previous passage: 「是名智、斷。智、斷皆是菩薩忍。」 tr. "This is called knowledge and severance. Knowledge and severance are both the bodhisattva's acceptance." The reason this passage lists the numbers one by one is precisely that the verdict of the previous passage is too large—if the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles were not brought down to solid ground, the sentence 「皆是菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "all are the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas" would become empty words.

25. The śrāvaka obtains the path by the four truths; the bodhisattva enters the path by one truth. 「聲聞人以四諦得道，菩薩以一諦入道。佛說是四諦皆是一諦，分別故有四；是四諦、二乘智斷，皆在一諦中。」 tr. "The śrāvaka obtains the path by the four truths; the bodhisattva enters the path by one truth. The Buddha says that these four truths are all one truth, and that there are four because of discrimination; these four truths and the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are all within the one truth." This passage is the grounds for the previous one. Between four and one, it is not abolishing four and setting up one; it is 「分別故有四」 tr. "there are four because of discrimination"—four is one stated by discrimination. Since four is at root one, what is obtained by one who obtains the path by the four truths does not go outside the one truth; since the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are within the four truths, they are also within the one truth. The reason for what the previous passages said, 「皆是菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "all are the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas", is only here given in full.

26. From compliant acceptance to the acceptance of non-arising: parting from the four views, extinguishing all idle discourse. 「菩薩先住柔順忍中，學無生無滅、亦非無生非無滅，離有見、無見、有無見、非有非無見等，滅諸戲論，得無生忍。」 tr. "The bodhisattva first abides in compliant acceptance and trains in non-arising and non-ceasing, and also in what is neither non-arising nor non-ceasing; he parts from the view of existence, the view of non-existence, the view of both existence and non-existence, the view of neither existence nor non-existence, and the like, extinguishes all idle discourse, and obtains the acceptance of non-arising." The sequence is: first he abides in compliant acceptance, and within it what he trains in is twofold—「無生無滅」 tr. "non-arising and non-ceasing" and 「亦非無生非無滅」 tr. "also what is neither non-arising nor non-ceasing"; the one negates arising and ceasing, the other negates as well what it has negated. The views parted from are listed as four: existence, non-existence, both existence and non-existence, neither existence nor non-existence. Once the four views are parted from, idle discourse is extinguished; with idle discourse extinguished, the acceptance of non-arising is accomplished. At the end it cites the sūtra to fix its name: 「無生忍者，佛後品中自說：「乃至作佛，常不生惡心，是故名無生忍。」」 tr. "As for the acceptance of non-arising, the Buddha himself says in a later chapter: ‘Up to becoming a Buddha he never gives rise to an evil mind; therefore it is named the acceptance of non-arising.’" What is cited here is a passage from a later chapter of this sūtra; the treatise-author marks where it comes from and does not explain it at length here.

27. The treatise-author says, and it is further said: two explanations of the acceptance of non-arising. Beyond the sūtra's explanation, the treatise-author brings out the words of two further positions. The first: 「論者言：得是忍，觀一切法畢竟空，斷緣，心心數不生，是名無生忍。」 tr. "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." This explanation establishes the meaning on the mind's not arising—the object being cut off, the mind and mental-factor dharmas that take the object also do not rise. The second: 「又復言：能過聲聞、辟支佛智慧，名無生忍。」 tr. "It is further said: being able to pass beyond the wisdom of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas is named the acceptance of non-arising." This explanation establishes the meaning on the transcending of rank. The two explanations each take one side: one the inner, one the outer; one speaks of its substance, one of its bounds. The treatise-author records both and does not judge which is better; this is this treatise's usual practice in citing divergent views.

28. The two vehicles' contemplation of arising and ceasing: weariness, parting from desire, obtaining liberation. 「聲聞、辟支佛智慧，觀色等五眾生滅，心厭，離欲，得解脫。」 tr. "The wisdom of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas contemplates the arising and ceasing of form and the rest of the five aggregates; the mind grows weary, parts from desire, and obtains liberation." One passage, the sequence distinct: contemplating arising and ceasing, the mind growing weary, parting from greed and desire, obtaining liberation. The reason this passage is raised on its own is to serve as a contrast for the next passage—contemplating arising and ceasing alike, the two vehicles and the bodhisattva arrive at different places.

29. The bodhisattva's contemplation of arising and ceasing: the mind is not afraid; seeking the real fixed mark with the wisdom-eye, it is unfindable. 「菩薩以大福德、智慧觀生滅時，心不怖畏如小乘人。」 tr. "When the bodhisattva contemplates arising and ceasing with great merit and wisdom, his mind is not afraid as the people of the Small Vehicle are." Why is he not afraid? Because what he relies on is great merit and great wisdom. Next it speaks of the difference in depth of their contemplation: 「菩薩以慧眼求生滅實定相不可得，如先〈破生品〉中說。但以肉眼麁心見有無常生滅。」 tr. "The bodhisattva with the wisdom-eye seeks the real fixed mark of arising and ceasing, and it is unfindable, as was said earlier in ‘Refuting Arising’. Only with the fleshly eye and a coarse mind does one see that there is the arising and ceasing of impermanence." What the wisdom-eye seeks is the real fixed mark of arising and ceasing, and seeking, it does not find it; the fleshly eye and the coarse mind see that there is arising and ceasing. From this it can be seen that what is called arising and ceasing differs according to the eye. Next it speaks of why the Buddha speaks of impermanence: 「凡夫人於諸法中著常見，是所著法還歸無常，眾生得憂悲苦惱，是故佛說：「欲離憂苦，莫觀常相！」」 tr. "Ordinary people cling to the view of permanence within dharmas; the dharmas they cling to return to impermanence, and beings meet with sorrow, grief, suffering, and vexation; therefore the Buddha says: ‘If you wish to part from sorrow and suffering, do not contemplate the mark of permanence!’" Impermanence is spoken of in order to break permanence, not to make people cling instead to an impermanence: 「是無常破常顛倒故，不為著無常故說……」 tr. "This impermanence is spoken of because it breaks the inversion of permanence, not for the sake of clinging to impermanence…" The last sentence is the conclusion of the whole passage: 「是故菩薩捨生滅觀，入不生不滅中。」 tr. "Therefore the bodhisattva gives up the contemplation of arising and ceasing and enters into what is unarisen and unceasing."

30. Question: entering what is unarisen and unceasing, does it not become permanence again? 「問曰：若入不生不滅，不生不滅即復是常，云何得離常顛倒？」 tr. "Question: If one enters what is unarisen and unceasing, what is unarisen and unceasing is then again permanence; how can one part from the inversion of permanence?" The formal questions and answers of the treatise section are five pairs in all; this is the question of the first pair. The question is extremely precise: since permanence has been said to be an inversion, and what is now entered—the unarisen and unceasing—means exactly the unchanging, does it not fall into permanence again?

31. Answer: impermanence is of two kinds; the acceptance of non-arising is also of two kinds. The treatise-author's answer uses a neat set of paired statements. First he sets up the two of impermanence: 「如無常有二種：一者、破常顛倒，不著無常；二者、著無常，生戲論。」 tr. "Just as impermanence is of two kinds: the first breaks the inversion of permanence and does not cling to impermanence; the second clings to impermanence and gives rise to idle discourse." Then by this example the acceptance of non-arising: 「無生忍亦如是：一者、雖破生滅，不著無生無滅故，不墮常顛倒；二者、著不生滅故，墮常顛倒。」 tr. "The acceptance of non-arising is also like this: the first, although it breaks arising and ceasing, does not cling to non-arising and non-ceasing, and therefore does not fall into the inversion of permanence; the second, because it clings to the unarisen and unceasing, falls into the inversion of permanence." The joint lies wholly in 「著」 tr. "clinging" and 「不著」 tr. "not clinging"—one and the same unarisen and unceasing: not clinging, one does not fall; clinging, one falls. So the questioner's difficulty lies in his taking the unarisen and unceasing as a dharma to be clung to. Next it speaks of the mark of true non-arising: 「真無生者，滅諸觀、語言道斷，觀一切法如涅槃相……」 tr. "True non-arising is the cessation of all contemplations, the way of words cut off, contemplating all dharmas as having the mark of nirvāṇa…" Going one sentence further, which is the most essential point of the whole passage: 「從本已來常自無生，非以智慧觀故令無生。」 tr. "From the very beginning they have always been of themselves without arising; it is not that they are made to be without arising by contemplation with wisdom." If non-arising came about only after contemplation, then non-arising would be a made dharma; what is made is broken. It closes by advancing layer upon layer: 「得是無生無滅、畢竟清淨，無常觀尚不取，何況生滅！」 tr. "Obtaining this non-arising and non-ceasing, this ultimate purity, he does not take even the contemplation of impermanence; how much less arising and ceasing!"

32. Such marks as these are named the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. 「如是等相，名無生法忍。」 tr. "Such marks as these are named the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas." One sentence gathers up the preceding passages. What is called 「如是等相」 tr. "such marks as these" refers in general to the meanings spoken of from passage 26 on—parting from views, extinguishing idle discourse, not clinging, true non-arising—and does not point to some other mark.

33. Obtaining the acceptance of non-arising he enters the bodhisattva's position, like a good fruit tree giving much benefit. 「得是無生忍故，即入菩薩位；入菩薩位已，以一切種智斷煩惱及習；種種因緣度一切眾生，如好果樹，多所饒益。」 tr. "Because he obtains this acceptance of non-arising, he at once enters the bodhisattva's position; having entered the bodhisattva's position, with the omniscience of all kinds he cuts off the afflictions together with their habitual residues; by all kinds of causes and conditions he delivers all beings, like a good fruit tree, which gives much benefit." This passage says the sequence of passage 22 over again, and adds a simile: a good fruit tree. The point taken lies in ‘gives much benefit’—a tree is a tree not by its own height but by being able to give people fruit. What makes the bodhisattva precious after entering the position lies not in the position but in the benefit.

34. What is the bodhisattva's knowledge of the kinds of paths—arising from the real mark into names, marks, and words. 「須菩提白佛言：「世尊！何等是菩薩道種智？」」 tr. "Subhūti said to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! What is the bodhisattva's knowledge of the kinds of paths?’" This question comes on from 「欲具足道種智故」 tr. "because he wishes to make complete the knowledge of the kinds of paths" in passage 22. The Buddha's answer is in three layers. The first, what it relies on: 「菩薩住無生忍法，得諸法實相……」 tr. "The bodhisattva abides in the dharma of the acceptance of non-arising and obtains the real mark of all dharmas…" The second, what arises: 「從實相起，取諸法名相語言，既自善解，為眾生說，令得開悟。」 tr. "Arising from the real mark, he takes up the names, marks, and words of dharmas; having himself well understood them, he speaks them for beings so that they may awaken." The real mark is from the first apart from names and marks, and yet for the sake of delivering beings he arises from the real mark and takes up names and marks—the Chinese character ‘arise’ is the joint: it is not a falling away; it is an intended going out. The third, the abilities he has: 「菩薩福德因緣故，解一切眾生音聲語言，以是音聲遍三千大千世界，亦不著是聲，知如響相。」 tr. "Because of the causes and conditions of his merit, the bodhisattva understands the voices and languages of all beings, and with this voice pervades the three-thousand great-thousand world, and yet does not cling to this voice, knowing it to be like the mark of an echo." The voice pervades and yet he does not cling, because he knows it is like an echo. At the end the treatise-author adds a sentence: 「是音聲，即是梵音相。」 tr. "This voice is the mark of the Brahmā voice." This ties the all-pervading voice the sūtra speaks of to the name ‘Brahmā voice’. Finally the treatise-author turns out the use of this knowledge with a sentence: 「以是故，菩薩應知一切道，遍觀眾生心，知其本末，以善法利益，遮不善法，如經中廣說。」 tr. "For this reason the bodhisattva should know all the paths, contemplate the minds of beings throughout, know their roots and branches, benefit them with wholesome dharmas, and block unwholesome dharmas, as is set out at length in the sūtra." 「應知一切道」 tr. "Should know all the paths" is what he trains in; 「遍觀眾生心」 tr. "contemplate the minds of beings throughout" is what he faces; 「知其本末」 tr. "know their roots and branches" is the order and depth of what he knows; knowing, he can then benefit them with wholesome dharmas and block what is unwholesome in them—the landing point of the knowledge of the kinds of paths lies just here: it does not stop at knowing all the paths for himself, but lies in being able to use them according to the roots and branches of beings' minds. The closing phrase, 「如經中廣說」 tr. "as is set out at length in the sūtra", is the treatise-author's pointer that the sūtra section has an extended text here, which the treatise does not repeat.

35. Entering and leaving the paths of the two vehicles freely; giving rise to the wisdom of the path, blocking the evil and opening the good. 「菩薩先知諸法實相故，於二乘道入出自在，觀已直過，入菩薩位……」 tr. "Because the bodhisattva first knows the real mark of all dharmas, he enters and leaves the paths of the two vehicles freely; having contemplated them, he passes straight through and enters the bodhisattva's position…" This sentence is the same matter as 「入八地直過」 tr. "enters the eight grounds and passes straight through" in passage 20; here the four Chinese characters 「入出自在」 tr. "enters and leaves freely" are added, saying that he is not detained. Next it speaks of what giving rise to the wisdom of the path does: 「為度眾生故，起道慧。欲為眾生說法，解一切眾生語言音聲，以梵音聲說法，所謂遮惡道，開善道。」 tr. "For the sake of delivering beings he gives rise to the wisdom of the path. Wishing to speak the Dharma for beings, he understands the languages and voices of all beings and speaks the Dharma with the sound of the Brahmā voice, namely blocking the evil destinies and opening the good destinies." At the end it lists the items: 「惡道者，三惡道；善道者，三善道：人、天、阿修羅。」 tr. "The evil destinies are the three evil destinies; the good destinies are the three good destinies: humans, gods, and asuras." Here the good destinies are listed as the three—humans, gods, and asuras—which differs from the upper, middle, and lower grades assigned to the ten wholesome paths in a passage below; these are two ways of dividing, which must not be dragged together.

36. The path of hell, the cause of hell, the fruit of hell. 「種種因緣，呵惡道、讚善道。遮惡道者，所謂地獄道、地獄因、地獄果。」 tr. "By all kinds of causes and conditions he rebukes the evil destinies and praises the good destinies. Blocking the evil destinies means the path of hell, the cause of hell, the fruit of hell." The treatise-author explains these item by item. The state of hell is 「如先說」 tr. "as said earlier", pointing to where it has already appeared, and is not repeated here. 「地獄道者，上不善道」 tr. "The path of hell is the unwholesome path of the upper grade"—it is the upper grade among the ten unwholesome paths. 「地獄因者，三毒」 tr. "The cause of hell is the three poisons", and he assigns one by one the unwholesome paths they give rise to: 「貪欲增長起貪嫉不善道，瞋恚增長起恚惱不善道，愚癡增長起邪見不善道。」 tr. "When greed grows, it gives rise to the unwholesome path of greed and jealousy; when hatred grows, it gives rise to the unwholesome path of hatred and vexation; when delusion grows, it gives rise to the unwholesome path of wrong view." Then it speaks of the three poisons and the unwholesome paths being causes layer upon layer: 「三毒，三不善道因；三不善道是七不善道因。」 tr. "The three poisons are the cause of the three unwholesome paths; the three unwholesome paths are the cause of the seven unwholesome paths." Among the ten unwholesome paths, the three mental deeds come first as cause, and the seven of body and speech come after as fruit; this is the usual order in which this treatise explains the ten unwholesome paths. 「地獄果者，以是因故受地獄身，身心受種種苦惱，是名果。」 tr. "The fruit of hell is that because of this cause one receives a body in hell, and body and mind undergo all kinds of suffering and vexation; this is called the fruit." The three names, path, cause, and fruit, each have their own reference: the path is the class of what is practised; the cause is the afflictions that can give rise to it; the fruit is the body and the suffering that are received.

37. The ten unwholesome paths and the ten wholesome paths each have upper, middle, and lower grades. 「菩薩應示眾生地獄果，然後為說法，令斷地獄道及因、果。」 tr. "The bodhisattva should show beings the fruit of hell, and afterwards speak the Dharma for them, so that they cut off the path of hell together with its cause and fruit." The sequence is first to show the fruit and afterwards to speak the Dharma—because the fruit can be seen, while the path and the cause cannot be seen. Next it lists two sets of three grades: 「十不善道，有上、中、下：上者，地獄；中者，畜生；下者，餓鬼。十善道亦有上、中、下：上者，天；中者，人；下者，鬼神。」 tr. "The ten unwholesome paths have upper, middle, and lower grades: the upper, hell; the middle, animals; the lower, hungry ghosts. The ten wholesome paths also have upper, middle, and lower grades: the upper, gods; the middle, humans; the lower, ghosts and spirits." The two sets are listed over against each other: the upper of the evil is the most painful; the upper of the good is the most pleasant. At the end it speaks of the two higher steps: 「住十善道，能離欲、生色界，離色、生無色界。」 tr. "Abiding in the ten wholesome paths, one can part from desire and be born in the form realm, and part from form and be born in the formless realm." The ten wholesome paths are the good of the desire realm; to go higher one must part from desire and part from form. Note that here 「鬼神」 tr. "ghosts and spirits" are listed in the lower grade of the ten wholesome paths, which differs from the 「餓鬼」 tr. "hungry ghosts" of the previous set being listed in the lower grade of the ten unwholesome paths—the one is ghosts and spirits brought about by the good paths, the other hungry ghosts brought about by the evil paths; the names are close, but what they refer to differs.

38. The three evil destinies should be known and should be obstructed; gods and humans should sometimes be blocked. 「三惡道中常受苦，故言「應知、應遮」。」 tr. "Within the three evil destinies one constantly undergoes suffering; therefore it says ‘should be known, should be obstructed’." That the evil destinies should be blocked admits no doubt. 「天、人中有得道因緣，為涅槃故，或時應遮，以不定故不說。」 tr. "Among gods and humans there are causes and conditions for obtaining the path; for the sake of nirvāṇa they should sometimes be blocked; because this is not definite, it is not said." This sentence most needs careful reading: the paths of gods and humans are in themselves good; why is it also said that they should be blocked? Because what is sought is nirvāṇa, and the pleasures of gods and humans can detain people; yet among gods and humans there are also causes and conditions for obtaining the path, so they cannot be blocked across the board. Since both are possible, then 「以不定故不說」 tr. "because this is not definite, it is not said"—on a matter not settled, the treatise-author does not pass a fixed verdict. This is this treatise's general practice in handling matters where both are possible: not forcing a statement.

39. The remaining dharmas that aid the path should not be said to be blocked. 「餘助道法故，不應說遮；乃至阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "Because they are the remaining dharmas that aid the path, they should not be said to be blocked; and so on up to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." What the previous passage blocks is the paths and fruits that belong to birth and death; this passage marks out the boundary of what is not blocked: all dharmas that aid the path, up to unsurpassed awakening, are not among what should be blocked. One blocked, one not blocked: the boundary line is distinct, and the bodhisattva's knowing all the paths is precisely to know where this boundary line lies.

40. Delivering according to the occasion: those who should be delivered by the Small Vehicle he delivers by the Small Vehicle. 「菩薩能如是分別已，知眾生應以小乘法度者，以小乘法而度之；應以大乘法度者，以大乘法而度之。」 tr. "Having been able to discriminate thus, the bodhisattva knows that beings who should be delivered by the dharma of the Small Vehicle he delivers by the dharma of the Small Vehicle, and those who should be delivered by the dharma of the Great Vehicle he delivers by the dharma of the Great Vehicle." This passage is the use of the preceding passages. The aim of discriminating the paths lies not in one's own understanding but in meeting the occasion. Note the Chinese character 「應」 tr. "should"—what is relied on is whether beings should or should not, not whether the bodhisattva likes it or not. The bodhisattva himself is a person of the Great Vehicle, and yet he still delivers by the dharma of the Small Vehicle those who should be delivered by the Small Vehicle—this is precisely the real effect of training in all the paths.

41. Knowing the deep mind, past lives, retribution, the time, and the place. 「是菩薩知眾生深心數事及宿命業因緣，又知未來世果報因緣，又知眾生可化時節及知處所；諸餘可度因緣，盡皆知之，是故所說不虛。」 tr. "This bodhisattva knows the many matters of beings' deep minds and the causes and conditions of their deeds in past lives; he further knows the causes and conditions of their retribution in future lives; he further knows the time when beings can be transformed, and knows the place; all the remaining causes and conditions by which they can be delivered he knows completely, and therefore what he speaks is not in vain." What he knows is fivefold: the many matters of the deep mind, the causes and conditions of deeds in former lives, the causes and conditions of retribution in the future, the time when they can be transformed, and the place where they can be transformed. The first two know what has already been; the middle one knows what is going to be; the last two know when and where it should be applied. The last phrase, 「是故所說不虛」 tr. "therefore what he speaks is not in vain", is where the whole passage comes home: that speaking the Dharma does not fall into emptiness lies not in the skill of the words but in knowing completely.

42. The wisdom of the kinds of paths and the dharmas that aid the path are all gathered within prajñā. 「如是道種慧及諸助道法皆攝在般若中，是故菩薩當行道慧般若。」 tr. "Such wisdom of the kinds of paths and all the dharmas that aid the path are all gathered within prajñā; therefore the bodhisattva should practise the prajñā of the wisdom of the path." This sentence is the conclusion of the large section on the knowledge of the kinds of paths. What it establishes is a relation of inclusion: the wisdom of the kinds of paths and the dharmas that aid the path are not outside prajñā, so practising the wisdom of the path is practising prajñā. The objection below, ‘the dharmas that aid the path are all empty; how can they take hold of awakening?’, is pressed out precisely from this sentence.

43. Subhūti's objection: the dharmas that aid the path are all empty; how can they take hold of awakening? 「須菩提白佛言：「若助道法、菩提，是法皆不合不散、無色、無形、無對，一相所謂無相。是助道法皆空，云何能取阿耨多羅三藐三菩提？……」 tr. "Subhūti said to the Buddha: ‘If the dharmas that aid the path and awakening—these dharmas—are all neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is the signless, then these dharmas that aid the path are all empty; how can they take hold of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?…" The difficulty is extremely precise: since the dharma that takes and the fruit that is taken are alike of one mark, the signless, the action of taking has nowhere to lay hold. At the end it takes space as a simile: 「空、無所有法，應無取、無捨；譬如虛空，無法故無取、無捨。」 tr. "Empty dharmas, dharmas without anything existent, should be without taking and without giving up; it is like space, which, because there is no dharma, is without taking and without giving up." The point this simile takes differs from the sūtra section of the First Part, which uses space as a simile for the mark of prajñā—that takes its being signless; this takes its having nothing to take or give up.

44. The Buddha approves his words, and says that all dharmas within the holy Dharma are also empty of specific marks. 「須菩提所說真實，無著心故，佛可言：「如是！如是！」」 tr. "What Subhūti said is true and real, because it was said with a mind without clinging; the Buddha approved, saying: ‘Just so! Just so!’" The treatise-author first fixes the character of Subhūti's objection: what he said is true and real, and he asked with a mind without clinging—this fixing of character is extremely essential; only so is the Buddha's approval below not mere indulgence. Next it brings out the causes and conditions the Buddha adds: 「有眾生不知如是諸法自相空故，為分別是助道法能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "There are beings who do not know that such dharmas are empty of specific marks; for their sake he discriminates that these dharmas that aid the path can obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." From this it can be seen that saying the dharmas that aid the path can obtain awakening is said for those who do not know the emptiness of specific marks. Then it extends it further: 「須菩提！非但三十七品空不合不散，所有色等乃至一切種智，於聖法中亦自相空，不合不散。」 tr. "Subhūti! Not only are the thirty-seven limbs of the path empty and neither joined nor dispersed; all of form and the rest, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds, are also, within the holy Dharma, empty of specific marks and neither joined nor dispersed." At the end the treatise-author explains two matters: 「不合不散者，是畢竟空義」 tr. "neither joined nor dispersed is the meaning of ultimate emptiness"; and he cites the sūtra's own words as evidence: 「如此中說：「一相，所謂無相。」」 tr. "As is said here: ‘One mark, which is the signless.’"

45. Though empty, they are spoken of by reason of worldly truth, not by the highest meaning. 「是法雖空，以世諦故，為眾生說，欲令得入聖法，非第一義。」 tr. "Though these dharmas are empty, by reason of worldly truth they are spoken of for beings, wishing to let them enter the holy Dharma; it is not the highest meaning." This sentence is one great key of the whole unit. The dharmas that aid the path, the knowledge of the kinds of paths, and the stages of the fruits spoken of above all belong to statements on the side of worldly truth; the one who speaks them is not ignorant of their emptiness; he speaks them to let people enter the holy Dharma. If one takes the statements of worldly truth as the highest meaning, that becomes clinging; if, because they are not the highest meaning, one abolishes the statements, beings have no way to enter. Both are failings.

46. Training in this dharma by knowing and seeing: the first knowing is called knowing; afterwards, going deep, it is called seeing. 「是中菩薩皆應以知、見學是法。」 tr. "Within this the bodhisattva should in every case train in this dharma by knowing and seeing." Next it explains the bounds of the two names: 「初知名知，後深入名見；知名未了，見名已了。」 tr. "The first knowing is called knowing; afterwards, going deep, it is called seeing; knowing means not yet thoroughly clear; seeing means already clear." Two distinctions: one by first and after, one by clear and not yet clear. The difference between these two names receives the explanations of three positions below; the treatise-author first sets up the simplest judgement himself, and then cites the various positions.

47. Question: what difference is there between knowing and seeing? 「問曰：知、見有何差別？」 tr. "Question: What difference is there between knowing and seeing?" This is the second of the five pairs of questions and answers of the treatise section. Since the previous passage has already given a distinction, why ask further? Because the previous judgement spoke only of depth and did not speak of their substance and nature; the three positions explained below all establish theirs on substance and nature.

48. Answer: someone says—a fourfold distinction of knowing and seeing. 「答曰：有人言：有知非見，有見非知，有亦知亦見，有非知非見。」 tr. "Answer: Someone says: there is knowing that is not seeing, there is seeing that is not knowing, there is what is both knowing and seeing, and there is what is neither knowing nor seeing." The four alternatives set up, dharmas are matched to them one by one. 「有知非見者，盡智、無生智，除世間正見及五見，餘慧皆名知，是慧非見。」 tr. "Knowing that is not seeing is the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising; apart from worldly right view and the five views, the remaining wisdom is all called knowing; this wisdom is not seeing." The knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising are knowledges of the stage beyond training, and are not named seeing. 「見非知者，五見、世間正見、見諦道中八忍，是見非知。」 tr. "Seeing that is not knowing is the five views, worldly right view, and the eight acceptances in the path of seeing the truths; these are seeing and not knowing." The five views are defiled views; worldly right view is a wholesome view with outflows; the eight acceptances are the acceptances in the path of seeing the truths—the three differ in nature and yet alike are named seeing, from which it can be known that 「見」 tr. "seeing" here is named by its function of inferring and deciding, not by its purity or defilement. 「餘無漏慧，亦名知、亦名見。離是見、知，餘法非見非知。」 tr. "The remaining wisdom without outflows is named both knowing and seeing. Apart from these seeings and knowings, the remaining dharmas are neither seeing nor knowing." With the four alternatives complete, the domain leaves nothing over.

49. Moreover, someone says: the concentrated mind is called seeing; and the Sūtra of Turning the Wheel of the Dharma is cited. 「復次，有人言：定心名為見，定、未定通名為知。」 tr. "Moreover, someone says: the concentrated mind is called seeing; the concentrated and the not yet concentrated are together called knowing." This is the second position's judgement, which instead takes concentrated and not yet concentrated as the boundary: the mind in concentration is named seeing; what runs through both the concentrated and the not yet concentrated is named knowing. And it cites a sūtra as evidence: 「如《轉法輪經》中說：「苦諦知已應見，知已分別知：是法應見，是苦諦；是法應斷，是集諦；是法應證，是滅諦；是法應修，是道諦。」」 tr. "As is said in the Sūtra of Turning the Wheel of the Dharma: ‘The truth of suffering, having been known, should be seen; having been known, it is discriminated and known: this dharma should be seen, namely the truth of suffering; this dharma should be cut off, namely the truth of arising; this dharma should be realised, namely the truth of cessation; this dharma should be cultivated, namely the truth of the path.’" The sūtra text cited matches each of the four truths with one matter—seeing, cutting off, realising, cultivating—and their general hold lies in the two Chinese characters 「知已」 tr. "having been known": first there is knowing, and afterwards seeing, cutting off, realising, and cultivating. This fits exactly the ‘knowing runs through the concentrated and the not yet concentrated’ that this position sets up.

50. Or, knowing that the afflictions are severed is called seeing, as with the nine knowledges of severance. 「或知煩惱斷名為見，如九斷知。」 tr. "Or, knowing that the afflictions are severed is called seeing, as with the nine knowledges of severance." The third position's judgement is the simplest, naming by the afflictions severed: being able clearly to know that the afflictions have been severed is named seeing. The 「九斷知」 tr. "nine knowledges of severance" cited is a name among the numbered dharmas of the Small Vehicle; the treatise-author raises the name and does not explain it at length. The three positions are set side by side and not judged as to which is better, in the same way as the two positions on the acceptance of non-arising cited in passage 27.

51. What is the holy Dharma—Subhūti hears another name of prajñā and asks. 「須菩提聞般若異名字，所謂聖法，故問：「何等是聖法？」」 tr. "Subhūti heard another name of prajñā, namely the holy Dharma, and so asked: ‘What is the holy Dharma?’" Here the treatise-author points out where the question comes from: the sūtra text of the previous passage said 「於聖法中亦自相空」 tr. "within the holy Dharma also empty of specific marks"; 「聖法」 tr. "the holy Dharma" is another name of prajñā, and Subhūti asks because he heard this name. This one point is extremely useful—if one did not know it is another name, one would think there were some other dharma named the holy Dharma.

52. The Buddha answers: the worthies and sages are neither joined nor dispersed with desire and the other dharmas. 「佛答：「聖法中諸賢聖——若佛、若辟支佛、聲聞等，以欲等諸法不合不散。」」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘The worthies and sages within the holy Dharma—whether buddhas, or pratyekabuddhas, or śrāvakas and the like—are neither joined nor dispersed with desire and the other dharmas.’" The answer does not speak from the self-substance of the dharma; it speaks from the worthies and sages in relation to dharmas: what is called the holy Dharma is the worthies and sages being neither joined nor dispersed with greed and desire and all such dharmas. Note that the worthies and sages raised include buddhas, pratyekabuddhas, and śrāvakas—the three vehicles are together within this, which corresponds exactly to ‘the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are all the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas’ explained in passage 23.

53. The explanation of not joining: not belittling ordinary people, not exalting oneself, neither hating nor loving. 「不合者，一切煩惱名顛倒，顛倒即無所有；若無所有，云何可合？若不合，云何有散？」 tr. "Not joining: all the afflictions are named inversions, and inversion is without anything existent; if it is without anything existent, how can it be joined? If it is not joined, how could there be dispersal?" This is a short chain: the afflictions are inversion; inversion is without anything existent; without anything existent, there is nothing to join; without joining, there is no dispersal. Next it speaks of the use: 「不合故不輕凡人，不散故不自高；於一切眾生不憎不愛。」 tr. "Because of not joining, one does not belittle ordinary people; because of not dispersing, one does not exalt oneself; toward all beings one neither hates nor loves." These three phrases are one of the few places in the whole unit that speak directly of the marks of practice—being neither joined nor dispersed is not a principle hanging in the air; when it lands on the mind with which one treats people, it is not belittling, not exalting oneself, neither hating nor loving. Belittling others comes from thinking oneself apart; exalting oneself comes from thinking oneself to have attained; once joining and dispersing are gone, both come to rest of themselves.

54. The prajñā of one mark and the signless should be trained in: self-nature does not join with self-nature. 「又復此中佛自說不合不散因緣，所謂：「是法皆無色、無形、無對，一相，所謂無相。」」 tr. "Again, here the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions of being neither joined nor dispersed, namely: ‘These dharmas are all without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, which is the signless.’" Next it pushes layer by layer: 「無色與無色法不合不散，乃至無相法與無相法不合不散。」 tr. "What is without form is neither joined nor dispersed with the dharma without form, and so on up to: the signless dharma is neither joined nor dispersed with the signless dharma." Then it asks the reason: 「是法皆一性故，自性不與自性合。」 tr. "Because these dharmas are all of one nature, self-nature does not join with self-nature." The joint is in this one sentence—joining must depend on two; since it is of one nature, there are no two that can join. At the end it concludes with its name and exhorts training: 「是名一相無相般若波羅蜜，菩薩應學；學已，無法可得相。」 tr. "This is named the prajñāpāramitā of one mark and the signless, in which the bodhisattva should train; having trained, there is no mark of a dharma that can be obtained." What training accomplishes is not obtaining a mark; it is 「無法可得相」 tr. "no mark of a dharma that can be obtained".

55. Subhūti's objection: if he does not train in the marks of dharmas, how does he pass beyond the grounds of the two vehicles and enter the bodhisattva's position? 「須菩提白佛言：「世尊！菩薩不學色相耶？乃至不學有為、無為相耶？……」 tr. "Subhūti said to the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! Does the bodhisattva not train in the mark of form? And so on up to: does he not train in the marks of the conditioned and the unconditioned?…" The first section of the objection questions his not training. The second section cites the sūtra to refute it: 「世尊！若不學是諸法相，云何經中說『菩薩先學諸法相，後過聲聞、辟支佛地』？」 tr. "World-Honored One! If he does not train in these marks of dharmas, why does the sūtra say ‘the bodhisattva first trains in the marks of all dharmas, and afterwards passes beyond the grounds of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha’?" The 「經中說」 tr. "the sūtra says" cited here takes up the sūtra's text in order to raise an objection, and must be looked at apart from the treatise-author's own words. The third section pushes on to the failing: 「若不過聲聞、辟支佛地，云何入菩薩位？」 tr. "If he does not pass beyond the grounds of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha, how does he enter the bodhisattva's position?" At the end the treatise-author notes a phrase, 「如此中廣說」 tr. "as is set out at length here", pointing out that the sūtra section has an extended text here, which the treatise does not repeat.

56. The Buddha answers: dharmas are really signless, therefore one should not train in marks; nor should one train in the signless. 「佛告須菩提：「若諸法實有相，應當學是相。須菩提！一切法實無相，是故菩薩不應學相……」 tr. "The Buddha told Subhūti: ‘If dharmas really had marks, one ought to train in those marks. Subhūti! All dharmas are really signless; therefore the bodhisattva should not train in marks…" The first half of the answer is a supposition—if there were marks, one ought to train in them; this grants the objector's principle and first sets up a condition; the second half states the fact directly: they are really signless. So not training in marks is not abolishing training; it is that there is no mark to train in. The last sentence is the most essential: 「無相亦不應學，以取相故。」 tr. "Nor should one train in the signless, because that is grasping at marks." Training in the signless also becomes grasping at marks—what is grasped is the mark 「無相」 tr. "signless". This sentence follows the same line of reasoning as 「不著無生無滅故，不墮常顛倒」 tr. "because it does not cling to non-arising and non-ceasing, it does not fall into the inversion of permanence" in passage 31.

57. Breaking marks is as said in "Asking about Marks"; whether there is a Buddha or there is no Buddha, dharmas abide always. 「破相事，如〈問相品〉中說。」 tr. "The matter of breaking marks is as said in ‘Asking about Marks’." The treatise-author points to its source and does not explain it again, in the same way as passage 11 points to "Refuting Impermanence" and passage 29 points to "Refuting Arising"—this treatise's method of cross-reference: wherever something has been spoken of at length earlier, here only its name is given. 「有佛、無佛，諸法常住，一相，所謂無相。」 tr. "Whether there is a Buddha or there is no Buddha, dharmas abide always, of one mark, which is the signless." This sentence establishes that it is so without depending on a Buddha: the signless is not set up by the Buddha; whether or not a Buddha appears in the world, it is so.

58. Subhūti asks in return: neither with mark nor without mark, how is prajñā cultivated? 「須菩提從佛聞一切法無相，今還問佛：「世尊！若一切法非有相、非無相，云何菩薩修般若？」」 tr. "Subhūti, having heard from the Buddha that all dharmas are signless, now asks the Buddha in return: ‘World-Honored One! If all dharmas are neither with mark nor without mark, how does the bodhisattva cultivate prajñā?’" For this question the treatise-author supplies its inner line of reasoning: 「若有無相，因無相可修般若，今相以無相皆無，因何事得修般若？」 tr. "If there were the signless, by means of the signless one could cultivate prajñā; now mark and the signless are both gone; by means of what matter can prajñā be cultivated?" Cultivation must have something by means of which it cultivates; with both sides gone, there is nothing by means of which. Then it pushes on to the failing: 「若不修般若，不能得過聲聞、辟支佛地，乃至不能安立於三福田。」 tr. "If one does not cultivate prajñā, one cannot pass beyond the grounds of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha, and so on up to: one cannot be established as the three fields of merit." The force of this difficulty is the same as passage 55—both use the fruit that is set up to press back against its cause.

59. The Buddha approves his words and states the causes and conditions of cultivating prajñā. 「佛可其言：「如是！如是！」而更說修般若因緣，所謂：「菩薩不以修相故，是修般若；修無相故，是修般若。」」 tr. "The Buddha approved his words: ‘Just so! Just so!’ And he further stated the causes and conditions of cultivating prajñā, namely: ‘It is not by cultivating marks that the bodhisattva cultivates prajñā; it is by cultivating the signless that he cultivates prajñā.’" First he approves the difficulty, then gives the answer. The two phrases of the answer are one negating and one affirming: not by cultivating marks is the negation; cultivating the signless is the affirmation. Read together with 「無相亦不應學」 tr. "nor should one train in the signless" of passage 56, one must note that the two face different things—that negates taking the signless as a mark to be trained in; this establishes the practice of cultivating the signless; the one is in taking, the other in cultivating, and they do not conflict.

60. Asked again about cultivating the signless: to cultivate the breaking of dharmas is to cultivate prajñā; the simile of the cart and the wheel. 「復問：「世尊！云何修無相是修般若？若無相云何可修？」」 tr. "Again he asked: ‘World-Honored One! How is cultivating the signless cultivating prajñā? If it is signless, how can it be cultivated?’" The question is direct: the signless is no thing; where does cultivation set its hand? 「佛答：「修諸法壞是修般若。」」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘To cultivate the breaking of dharmas is to cultivate prajñā.’" The answer turns another way: not cultivating on the signless, but cultivating on the breaking of dharmas. The treatise-author explains why: 「以諸法壞故，無相相亦壞。」 tr. "Because dharmas are broken, the mark of the signless is also broken." Even the mark 「無相」 tr. "signless" is broken along with them—this connects exactly with the meaning of passage 56. Next it makes this clear by a simile: 「譬如車分壞故，車相亦滅；又如輪分壞故，輪相亦滅，如是乃至微塵。」 tr. "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." When the parts of the cart are broken, the mark of the cart ceases; when the parts of the wheel are broken, the mark of the wheel ceases; analysing down layer by layer to the fine particles. The point this simile takes lies in ‘the mark breaks along with the parts’—the mark is not an independent thing; once the parts disperse, the mark of itself is gone, without waiting for some separate one who can break the mark.

61. What can be broken: to cultivate the breaking of the dharma of form, and so on up to cultivating the breaking of the severance of the habitual residues. 「「世尊！何等是諸法可破壞者？」佛答：「修色法壞，即是修般若波羅蜜；乃至修斷一切煩惱習壞，即是修般若波羅蜜。」」 tr. "‘World-Honored One! What among dharmas can be broken?’ The Buddha answered: ‘To cultivate the breaking of the dharma of form is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā; and so on up to: to cultivate the breaking of the severance of all the afflictions and their habitual residues is to cultivate prajñāpāramitā.’" Beginning from form and ending with the severance of all the afflictions and their habitual residues, what is left out between the words ‘and so on up to’ is all the dharmas the sūtra section sets out at length. Note the last item—even the matter of 「斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "cutting off all the afflictions and their habitual residues" is among what can be broken, which corresponds exactly with 「作是念「我當斷一切煩惱習」，是為戲論」 tr. "having this thought, ‘I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues’—this is idle discourse" in passage 12: the one negates in view, the other breaks in cultivation.

62. How cultivating the breaking of form is cultivating prajñā: single-mindedly fixing his thought on sarvajñā, not thinking of form as an existent dharma. 「須菩提白佛：「云何修色壞乃至修斷一切煩惱習壞是修般若？」佛答：「菩薩一心念薩婆若，憐愍眾生，欲得正行般若波羅蜜，不念色是有法；如是修，是修般若。」」 tr. "Subhūti said to the Buddha: ‘How is cultivating the breaking of form, and so on up to cultivating the breaking of the severance of all the afflictions and their habitual residues, cultivating prajñā?’ The Buddha answered: ‘The bodhisattva single-mindedly fixes his thought on sarvajñā, has pity for beings, wishes to obtain the prajñāpāramitā of right practice, and does not think of form as an existent dharma; to cultivate thus is to cultivate prajñā.’" The answer has four matters: single-mindedly fixing his thought on sarvajñā, having pity for beings, wishing to obtain the right practice of prajñā, and not thinking of form as an existent dharma. The first three are the mind that is kept; the last is the thought that is dismissed. The treatise-author explains why it is dismissed: 「以色是定實，有相過故。」 tr. "Because taking form as fixed and real has the fault of mark." Clinging to form as definitely real is precisely the fault of having marks. Next it cites the causes and conditions the Buddha himself states: 「有相者不修般若，般若中無法尚無，何況有法！是人不修般若波羅蜜，亦不修五波羅蜜；是人著有法戲論，不修布施等。」 tr. "One with marks does not cultivate prajñā; within prajñā there is not even a non-existent dharma, how much less an existent dharma! This person does not cultivate prajñāpāramitā, nor does he cultivate the five perfections; this person clings to existent dharmas and makes idle discourse, and does not cultivate giving and the rest." Note the four Chinese characters 「無法尚無」 tr. "there is not even a non-existent dharma"—within prajñā even the side of ‘non-existence’ is not set up, how much less existence.

63. One who clings thus: no liberation, no path, no nirvāṇa. 「如是著者，無有解脫，無道、無涅槃……」 tr. "For one who clings thus there is no liberation, no path, no nirvāṇa…" The treatise-author explains the reason item by item: 「無三解脫門故言無解脫，無聖人空法故言無道，無道故言無涅槃。」 tr. "Because there are no three gates of liberation, it says there is no liberation; because there is no empty dharma of the sages, it says there is no path; because there is no path, it says there is no nirvāṇa." The three phrases are one chain: without the three gates of liberation there is no liberation; without the empty dharma of the sages there is no path; without the path there is no nirvāṇa. The 「無」 tr. "no" here all speaks of the one who clings to existent dharmas; it does not say that the dharma itself does not exist—if this boundary is lost, it becomes the view of annihilation.

64. Question and answer: why is there no path? 「問曰：何以故無道？」 tr. "Question: Why is there no path?" This is the third of the five pairs of questions and answers of the treatise section. 「答曰：是人戲論諸法，不厭老、病、死，著法故生邪見；邪見故，不能如實觀身不淨等；不能觀身故，不修身念處；不修身念處故，不能修受、心、法念處；不修四念處故，不能修乃至一切種智。何以故？著有法故。」 tr. "Answer: This person makes idle discourse about dharmas and is not weary of old age, sickness, and death; because he clings to dharmas, he gives rise to wrong views; because of wrong views, he cannot contemplate as it really is that the body is impure, and so on; because he cannot contemplate the body, he does not cultivate the foundation of mindfulness of the body; because he does not cultivate the foundation of mindfulness of the body, he cannot cultivate the foundations of mindfulness of feeling, mind, and dharmas; because he does not cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness, he cannot cultivate anything, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds. Why? Because he clings to existent dharmas." This answer is the longest causal chain in the whole unit, seven links in all: idle discourse; not being weary of old age, sickness, and death; giving rise to wrong views; being unable to contemplate the body as impure; not cultivating the foundation of mindfulness of the body; not cultivating the other three foundations of mindfulness; being unable to cultivate anything up to the omniscience of all kinds. Note that the starting point of this chain is not not-knowing but 「戲論」 tr. "idle discourse"; and its breaking point lies in 「不厭老、病、死」 tr. "not weary of old age, sickness, and death"—not weary, one does not seek to get out; not seeking to get out, none of the factors of the path can arise. The last phrase, 「著有法故」 tr. "because he clings to existent dharmas", returns to the root of the sickness, and is the exact remedy set against 「不念色是有法」 tr. "does not think of form as an existent dharma" of passage 62.

65. What is an existent dharma, what is a non-existent dharma: two marks are existent. 「須菩提問佛：「世尊！何等是有法？何等是無法？」」 tr. "Subhūti asked the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! What is an existent dharma? What is a non-existent dharma?’" The treatise-author supplies where this question comes from: 「凡人或於有法中生無想，無法中生有想，欲分別是事故問。」 tr. "Ordinary people sometimes give rise to the thought of non-existence with regard to an existent dharma, and give rise to the thought of existence with regard to a non-existent dharma; wishing to distinguish this matter, he asked." The question is not for his own doubt; it is to distinguish the inverted thoughts of ordinary people. 「佛答：「二相是有，不二相是無。」」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘Two marks are existent; not two marks are non-existent.’" Existence and non-existence are judged by two and not two—not judged by how many or how few dharmas there are, but by whether the grasping of marks is two or not two.

66. What are two marks: grasping at the mark of form is two. 「復問：「何等是二相？」佛答：「取色相即是二。」」 tr. "Again he asked: ‘What are two marks?’ The Buddha answered: ‘Grasping at the mark of form is two.’" The treatise-author cites the words of an earlier chapter to make this clear: 「如先品中說：「離色無眼，離眼無色。」」 tr. "As was said in an earlier chapter: ‘Apart from form there is no eye; apart from the eye there is no form.’" Eye and form are set up in mutual dependence; apart from the one, the other is not established, and yet ordinary people take them to be two—this is the two of grasping at marks. Next it pushes to the extreme: 「乃至有為、無為性。何以故？離有為不得說無為，離無為不得說有為實相。」 tr. "And so on up to the nature of the conditioned and the unconditioned. Why? Apart from the conditioned one cannot speak of the unconditioned; apart from the unconditioned one cannot speak of the real mark of the conditioned." This is precisely the meaning set up in passage 5 appearing again. The treatise-author passes a verdict: 「是故，是二法不得相離；凡人謂此為二，是故顛倒。」 tr. "Therefore these two dharmas cannot be separated from each other; ordinary people call this two, and so are inverted." At the end it cites the Buddha's general statement: 「佛略說二相：「一切法中取相皆是二，一切二皆是有。」」 tr. "The Buddha briefly speaks of two marks: ‘Grasping at marks within all dharmas is in every case two; all that is two is existent.’"

67. As soon as there is existence there is birth and death. 「適有便有生死。」 tr. "As soon as there is existence there is birth and death." The treatise-author explains why, again with a chain: 「有中生著心，著心因緣生諸煩惱，煩惱因緣往來生死，生死因緣憂悲苦惱。」 tr. "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." Existence, the clinging mind, the afflictions, birth and death, sorrow, grief, suffering, and vexation: five links, each the cause of the next. At the end it cites the sūtra's words to conclude: 「是故說：「適有法便有生死，有生死不得免老病憂苦。」」 tr. "Therefore it says: ‘As soon as there is an existent dharma there is birth and death; with birth and death one cannot be free of old age, sickness, sorrow, and suffering.’" This passage can be read against the chain of passage 64: that one is the path not arising; this is where suffering comes from; both come out of one place, 「著有」 tr. "clinging to existence".

68. A person of two marks has no dānapāramitā, and so on up to has no compliant acceptance. 「「須菩提！以是當知二相人無有檀波羅蜜乃至無有順忍，何況見色實相！乃至見一切種智實相！是人若不見色等諸法實相，則無修道，云何有須陀洹果乃至斷一切煩惱習？」」 tr. "‘Subhūti! By this you should know that a person of two marks has no dānapāramitā, and so on up to has no compliant acceptance; how much less does he see the real mark of form! And so on up to: how much less does he see the real mark of the omniscience of all kinds! If this person does not see the real mark of form and the other dharmas, then he has no cultivation of the path; how could he have the fruit of the srota-āpanna, and so on up to the severance of all the afflictions and their habitual residues?’" This is the concluding sentence of the sūtra section, which the treatise-author takes up in full. The steps raised begin from dānapāramitā and stop at compliant acceptance; compliant acceptance is the lowest step, and to say he does not even have compliant acceptance is to say it all the way to the bottom.

69. The six perfections are of two kinds, worldly and world-transcending. 「六波羅蜜有二種：世間、出世間。此人無有出世間六波羅蜜故，是故說：「是有相人無有六波羅蜜。」」 tr. "The six perfections are of two kinds: worldly and world-transcending. Because this person has no world-transcending six perfections, therefore it says: ‘This person with marks has no six perfections.’" Here the treatise-author supplies a distinction, so that the sūtra's words are not read rigidly: saying that the person who grasps at marks has no six perfections speaks of the world-transcending ones; the worldly ones he may still have. 「若有者，但有世間波羅蜜，此中不說世間波羅蜜。」 tr. "If he has them, he has only the worldly perfections; here the worldly perfections are not spoken of." Setting up this distinction guards against two failings: one failing is thinking that the person who grasps at marks practises nothing at all; the other is thinking that whatever is practised is a perfection. The last sentence, 「聲聞道果尚無，何況有佛道」 tr. "he does not even have the fruit of the śrāvaka path, how much less the Buddha path", echoes the tone of passage 68.

70. Question and answer: which compliant acceptance is this compliant acceptance? 「問曰：順忍是何等順忍？答曰：是小乘順忍。」 tr. "Question: Which compliant acceptance is this compliant acceptance? Answer: It is the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle." This is the fourth pair of questions and answers. The reason for asking is that the name ‘compliant acceptance’ runs through both the great and the small; once it is judged to be the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle, the force of the next sentence is complete: 「小乘順忍尚無，何況大乘！」 tr. "If even the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle is lacking, how much more that of the Great Vehicle!" Speaking first of the lower one is the very same method as passage 68's 「何況見色實相」 tr. "how much less does he see the real mark of form".

71. Question and answer: the dharma of the summit is already able not to retreat; why does it speak only up to the dharma of acceptance? 「問曰：頂法已能不退，何以說「乃至忍法」？」 tr. "Question: The dharma of the summit is already able not to retreat; why does it say ‘and so on up to the dharma of acceptance’?" This is the fifth pair of questions and answers, and also the last pair of the whole unit. What the questioner relies on is one saying—that the dharma of the summit already does not retreat. 「答曰：聲聞法中亦說頂墮，摩訶衍亦說頂墮，汝何以故言「頂法不墮」？」 tr. "Answer: Within the śrāvaka Dharma it is also said that there is the summit-fall, and the Mahāyāna also says that there is the summit-fall; why do you say ‘the dharma of the summit does not fall’?" The answer does not establish a meaning head-on; it questions back what he relies on: both the Great and the Small Vehicle say that there is a summit-fall; where does this saying of yours, 「頂法不墮」 tr. "the dharma of the summit does not fall", come from? This is one of this treatise's methods of refuting divergent views: first dismantle what it relies on, without hurrying to set up one's own.

72. Someone says: though the dharma of the summit does not fall, it is not firm; acceptance abides long. 「有人言：雖頂法不墮，不牢固、不能一定故不說。」 tr. "Someone says: although the dharma of the summit does not fall, because it is not firm and cannot be definite, it is not spoken of." This is the third place in the treatise section where 「有人言」 tr. "someone says" is cited, supplying a milder explanation for the preceding question: even granting that the dharma of the summit does not fall, because it is not firm and not definite, the sūtra does not raise it. Next it speaks of why acceptance can be raised: 「忍是久住，已入正定，雖未得無漏而與無漏同。」 tr. "Acceptance abides long and has already entered among the rightly assured; although it has not yet obtained what is without outflows, it is the same as what is without outflows." Three matters are raised together—abiding long, having entered among the rightly assured, being the same as what is without outflows. Then it explains how acceptance gets its name, with two meanings: 「以隨順苦法忍故名為忍」 tr. "because it accords with the acceptance of the dharma of suffering, it is named acceptance" names it by what it accords with; 「未曾見是法故，見便能忍，是故名忍」 tr. "because this dharma has never been seen before, and as soon as it is seen one is able to accept it, therefore it is named acceptance" names it by its ability to accept. Next it fixes its bounds: 「是人於諸佛聖人為小，於凡夫為大。」 tr. "This person is small in relation to the buddhas and sages, and great in relation to ordinary people." At the end it adds an explanation of the two kinds of 「見」 tr. "seeing": 「見色有二種：一者、見色實相了了，二者、斷繫諸色煩惱故名為見。」 tr. "Seeing form is of two kinds: the first is seeing the real mark of form clearly; the second is called seeing because the afflictions that bind one to forms have been cut off." The one speaks of the clarity of what is seen; the other of the bonds that are cut. And it takes these as the example for the remaining dharmas: 「如色，乃至一切種智、一切煩惱習事，亦如是。」 tr. "As with form, so too with everything up to the omniscience of all kinds and the matter of all the afflictions and their habitual residues."

73. The closing words of the chapter: if he sees form, even cultivating the path is lacking, how much less obtaining the fruit and severing the habitual residues. 「若人見色、修道尚無，何況能得修須陀洹果乃至斷煩惱習！」 tr. "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!" The whole chapter is gathered up with this one sentence. Note which road it gathers on: it does not gather on the lofty heights of training in all the paths; it gathers on the place where the one who grasps at two marks has nothing at all. This is a way of closing frequent in this treatise—after the highest meaning has been spoken out in full, at the end it comes back to a lowest place of measuring, so that people may examine for themselves where they stand. The chapter is titled training in all, and yet it ends with 「修道尚無」 tr. "even cultivating the path is lacking", precisely to let people know: training in all is not training in much; first one must not grasp at two marks.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「不受世間果報」 tr. "does not receive worldly retribution" as there being no retribution. At the very start the treatise-author gives the distinction: 「是菩薩為大利故，不受小報。」 tr. "This bodhisattva, for the sake of great benefit, does not receive small retribution." Not receiving is not taking, not non-existence. If it is read as cause and fruit not being requited, then the passage below, 「若業因緣果報滅，則不名無常相」 tr. "if the causes and conditions of deeds and their retribution ceased, it would not be called the mark of impermanence", has nothing to rest on.

Do not read 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas" as a realm of concentration. What the treatise-author explains is 「菩薩定心安住是中不動」 tr. "the bodhisattva's concentrated mind rests securely in this and is immovable", and the weight is on 「安住是中」 tr. "rests securely in this"—it speaks of the place where one abides, not of a mark that appears. If it is taken as a realm that can be entered and left, it has the same sickness as the 「著不生滅」 tr. "clinging to the unarisen and unceasing" broken in passage 31.

Do not read the four 「不」 tr. "no" of the four alternatives as there being no path. Subhūti doubted in exactly this way, and the Buddha's answer is already there: 「實有得道法，但不以是四句。」 tr. "There really is a dharma of obtaining the path, only not by these four alternatives." The treatise-author says it more plainly still: 「若離是四句戲論，即是道。」 tr. "If one parts from the idle discourse of these four alternatives, that is the path." What is negated is four ways of obtaining, not the path itself.

Do not read the words ‘permanence and impermanence are both idle discourse’ as forbidding the teaching of impermanence. The treatise-author says plainly 「是無常破常顛倒故，不為著無常故說」 tr. "this impermanence is spoken of because it breaks the inversion of permanence, not for the sake of clinging to impermanence", and cites the Buddha's words, 「欲離憂苦，莫觀常相！」 tr. "If you wish to part from sorrow and suffering, do not contemplate the mark of permanence!"—impermanence is a medicine; what is idle discourse is taking the medicine to be the real mark. The second layer of breaking impermanence in passage 11 especially should be remembered: one who clings to impermanence as the real mark instead ruins, in his account, the continuity of deeds and fruits.

Do not read 「遍學諸道」 tr. "training in all the paths" as passing through the stages in sequence and becoming one of the two vehicles. Subhūti's objection lies exactly here, and the Buddha's answer is 「以智見觀入八地直過」 tr. "contemplating with knowledge and seeing, he enters the eight grounds and passes straight through". The joint is contemplating without taking, entering and at once passing through; what the simile of the prison negates is 「同著杻械」 tr. "wearing the shackles together", not not entering the prison gate. If it is read as the bodhisattva having first to become the person of the eight and so on up to a pratyekabuddha, it falls exactly into the 「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such principle" that Subhūti spoke of.

Do not read ‘whether the knowledge or the severance of the two vehicles, all are the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas’ as the two vehicles being the bodhisattva. The treatise-author's qualifying words come before it: 「二乘人於諸佛菩薩智慧得少氣分……」 tr. "The people of the two vehicles obtain a small share of the wisdom of the buddhas and bodhisattvas…"—it is the inclusion of a small part, not equality of rank; its grounds are 「四諦皆是一諦，分別故有四」 tr. "the four truths are all one truth; there are four because of discrimination" of passage 25.

Do not read 「無生忍」 tr. "the acceptance of non-arising" as a realm attained by cultivation. The treatise-author says it most decisively: 「從本已來常自無生，非以智慧觀故令無生。」 tr. "From the very beginning they have always been of themselves without arising; it is not that they are made to be without arising by contemplation with wisdom." If it existed only after contemplation, it would be a made dharma. The two kinds of acceptance of non-arising set up in passage 31 are told apart at one place only: clinging and not clinging.

Do not read 「以世諦故，為眾生說」 tr. "by reason of worldly truth they are spoken of for beings" as what is said being unreal. The full text of these words is 「是法雖空，以世諦故，為眾生說，欲令得入聖法，非第一義」 tr. "though these dharmas are empty, by reason of worldly truth they are spoken of for beings, wishing to let them enter the holy Dharma; it is not the highest meaning"—what is said is said to let them enter, not set up in vain; saying that it is not the highest meaning guards against people clinging to it as final, not abolishing its use. Both failings must be avoided: clinging to it, it becomes an obstruction; abolishing it, beings have no gate.

Do not read 「無相亦不應學」 tr. "nor should one train in the signless" as not even allowing the signless to be spoken of. What is negated is 「以取相故」 tr. "because that is grasping at marks"—taking the signless as a mark to be grasped. So below it still says 「修無相故，是修般若」 tr. "it is by cultivating the signless that he cultivates prajñā". One negation and one establishment exist together without conflict; the boundary lies in the difference between grasping and cultivating.

Do not read 「修諸法壞」 tr. "cultivating the breaking of dharmas" as destroying dharmas. What the simile of the cart and the wheel says is 「車分壞故，車相亦滅」 tr. "when the parts of a cart are broken, the mark of the cart also ceases"—the mark is gone along with the parts; it is not that there is some separate force that can break. What is broken is the mark that is grasped; the causes and conditions of the dharmas themselves are as before.

Do not read 「二相人無有檀波羅蜜」 tr. "a person of two marks has no dānapāramitā" as his doing nothing at all. The treatise-author has already supplied the distinction: 「若有者，但有世間波羅蜜，此中不說世間波羅蜜。」 tr. "If he has them, he has only the worldly perfections; here the worldly perfections are not spoken of." What he lacks is the world-transcending six perfections, not all practice whatever.

Do not read the closing 「見色、修道尚無」 tr. "if he sees form, even cultivating the path is lacking" as urging people to despair. What this sentence measures is the one who grasps at two marks, not the practitioner's present stage; moreover, in passage 72 the treatise-author says plainly that the person at the stage of acceptance is 「於諸佛聖人為小，於凡夫為大」 tr. "small in relation to the buddhas and sages, and great in relation to ordinary people"—the low place has its own greatness; speaking of lowness is to point out the root of the sickness, not to pass a death sentence.

Bearing on Practice

Take 「為大利故，不受小報」 tr. "for the sake of great benefit, he does not receive small retribution" to look at what you yourself seek. If, while applying effort, you feel at every turn that you cannot give things up, most likely it is not that your power of concentration is insufficient; it is that what you seek is not yet great enough. Seeking the small, one cannot give up the small; these are two sides of one matter.

Take 「眾因緣生故不自在、無定相」 tr. "born of many causes and conditions, and therefore not self-existent and without fixed mark" to treat the fixed views in the mind. Whenever you feel that some person or some matter is just so and cannot possibly change, first ask: this ‘just so’—from which conditions has it been pieced together? Since the conditions can be counted, the mark is not fixed; since the mark is not fixed, the mind of itself need not move with it.

Take 「若離是四句戲論，即是道」 tr. "if one parts from the idle discourse of these four alternatives, that is the path" to halt the mind that searches. When the mind circles round and round looking for a way of an obtainer and an obtained, this sentence can be used—it is not looking for a fifth alternative; it is right there in that one moment of parting.

Take 「乃至作是念「我當斷一切煩惱習」，是為戲論」 tr. "and so on up to having this thought, ‘I shall cut off all the afflictions and their habitual residues’—this is idle discourse" to check the posture of your effort. Cutting off the habitual residues is something one should do, but once the frame of 「我當」 tr. "I shall" is set up, what grows is mostly this frame. Doing it without setting the frame up—that is the use of this sentence.

Take the simile of the prison to look at yourself and the objects you contemplate. Observing afflictions, observing the faults of others, observing the matters of the world—all are going into the prison to see a kinsman: one must be able to go in, and also not wear the shackles together with him. One who looks so movedly that he traps himself has forgotten the second half of the sentence.

Take 「二乘人於諸佛菩薩智慧得少氣分」 tr. "the people of the two vehicles obtain a small share of the wisdom of the buddhas and bodhisattvas" to level your own mind of high and low. When you see someone whose practice is shallow, this sentence can be used: what he obtains is small, but it is a part of one and the same substance. Belittling him, you yourself first fall into the 「輕凡人」 tr. "belittling ordinary people" spoken of in passage 53.

Take 「非以智慧觀故令無生」 tr. "it is not that they are made to be without arising by contemplation with wisdom" to correct your expectations of realms. If you think that by applying effort for long you can make a state of mind of non-arising, this sentence has already exposed it. What one can do is not cling, not manufacture.

Take 「不合故不輕凡人，不散故不自高」 tr. "because of not joining, one does not belittle ordinary people; because of not dispersing, one does not exalt oneself" as a check in daily use. This is the most usable sentence in the whole unit. When, on seeing people, the mind gives rise to high and low, ask: where is what is high joined? Where is what is low dispersed? Since joining and dispersing have nowhere to rest, high and low naturally have nowhere to arise.

Take 「不厭老、病、死」 tr. "not weary of old age, sickness, and death" to look at where your own mind of the path leaks. The first link of that long chain in passage 64 is idle discourse; the second link is exactly not being weary of old age, sickness, and death. One whose mind gradually grows tired after applying effort for long mostly leaks at this link—it is not that he cannot contemplate; it is that he is unwilling to be weary.

Take 「一心念薩婆若，憐愍眾生」 tr. "single-mindedly fixing his thought on sarvajñā, having pity for beings" to settle the mind of your daily practice. These two matters, one for oneself and one for others, are the two feet of cultivating prajñā. With only the former, one withers; with only the latter, one is scattered; the treatise-author puts the two together in one sentence for exactly this reason.

Take 「小乘順忍尚無，何況大乘」 tr. "if even the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle is lacking, how much more that of the Great Vehicle" to measure your own real ground. Everyone can speak the words of the Great Vehicle, but compliant acceptance is real. Only one willing to measure himself by this step will not have his practice float in the air.

Take 「見便能忍，是故名忍」 tr. "as soon as it is seen one is able to accept it; therefore it is named acceptance" to practise your attitude toward dharmas never seen before. On hearing a meaning you have never thought of, if the mind does not reject it, that moment is acceptance. Acceptance is not bearing it reluctantly; it is seeing and being able to receive.

Further Resonances

The Last Part and the First Part together make one chapter, yet what they take charge of differs: the First Part is sūtra, the Last Part treatise; the First Part brings out the text, the Last Part brings out the reasons. The method the treatise-author uses in explaining this chapter is also worth seeing within the whole treatise—negating the four alternatives without abolishing the path, breaking permanence and impermanence without abolishing cause and fruit, speaking of training in all without allowing one to become one of the two vehicles, establishing the acceptance of non-arising without allowing it to be taken as something attained, and at the end, by the distinction between worldly truth and the highest meaning, settling one by one the dharmas that aid the path spoken of before. Within a single chapter negation and establishment go alternately; if the reader takes only the negation, it becomes annihilation; if only the establishment, it becomes clinging.

Of the ancient masters' explanations of this chapter, what can be seen today is chiefly Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra. Jizang first makes clear why training in all is so, saying 「所以須遍學者，欲以遍化故也」 tr. "The reason one must train in all is that one wishes thereby to transform all"; he also sets up a question and answer, saying 「善不學知二乘，何由得化他」 tr. "if one does not train in and know the two vehicles well, how can one transform others", and takes the Śākya World-Honored One's six years of ascetic practice as an example, saying 「如不苦行六年，何由得伏外道耶」 tr. "had he not practised austerities for six years, how could he have subdued those of the outside paths?"—so tying the reason for training in all to the need of transforming others. He divides this chapter into four sections: 「品為四：第一乘前品，歎菩薩方便具足，不受世間果報」 tr. "The chapter is in four: the first carries on from the previous chapter, praising the bodhisattva's skilful means as complete, not receiving worldly retribution", 「第二明離諸戲論故，得入菩薩位，得出世間果」 tr. "the second makes clear that by parting from all idle discourse one obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position and obtains the world-transcending fruit", 「第三明菩薩遍學諸道；第四明種種智，勸發心脩行」 tr. "the third makes clear the bodhisattva's training in all the paths; the fourth makes clear the knowledge of all kinds, exhorting to arouse the mind and cultivate practice". Checking these four sections against the treatise text of this unit: the first section corresponds to passages 1 to 2 of the treatise, the second to passages 6 to 16, the third to passages 17 to 25, the fourth to passage 34 onward—the boundaries of the four sections broadly correspond to the turns in the treatise-author's writing.

On the sentence 「皆是菩薩無生法忍」 tr. "all are the bodhisattva's acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas" explained in this unit, Jizang sets up a difficulty himself and answers it himself. His difficulty says: since the bodhisattva contemplates the arising and ceasing of the two vehicles and passes straight through into the contemplation of non-arising and non-ceasing, why is it also said that the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are the bodhisattva's acceptance? His answer cites this treatise's text, saying 「二乘智斷是菩薩無生忍也」 tr. "the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are the bodhisattva's acceptance of non-arising", and keeps side by side the two phrases 「二乘信氣分，故云是也」 tr. "the two vehicles truly have a share, so it says ‘are’" and 「二乘與菩薩所行懸遠，故云直過」 tr. "what the two vehicles and the bodhisattva practise are far apart, so it says ‘passes straight through’"—one phrase gives why it 「是」 tr. "is", one gives why he 「過」 tr. "passes through". This agrees with the boundary to be kept in passage 23 of this unit: inclusion without equality.

On the section on compliant acceptance and the dharma of the summit at the end of this unit, Jizang also has an explanation, saying 「大小乘經皆說煗頂退，故不說也」 tr. "the sūtras of both the Great and the Small Vehicle all say that warmth and the summit retreat; therefore it is not spoken of", and criticises one position of his time, saying 「成論人云處已不退，恐非正大小乘義也」 tr. "the people of the Treatise on the Establishment of Truth say that at this stage one already does not retreat; this is probably not the correct meaning of either the Great or the Small Vehicle", and finally comes home to 「以忍法不退故說也」 tr. "it is spoken of because the dharma of acceptance does not retreat". The treatise-author's answer in passage 71, 「聲聞法中亦說頂墮，摩訶衍亦說頂墮」 tr. "within the śrāvaka Dharma it is also said that there is the summit-fall, and the Mahāyāna also says that there is the summit-fall", seals exactly with this; and Jizang further points out that what is refuted is the saying of the treatise-masters of his own time. This belongs to the judgements and explanations of the ancient masters; it is recorded here together without choosing between them.

The explanations of the other ancient masters touching this unit were searched for and not found. The extant text of Huiying's Commentary stops within Chapter 69, and Chapter 74 lies far beyond it; so this chapter lacks his explanation, and the absence is not by chance; Junzheng's commentary also has nothing on this chapter.

The chapter numbering of this chapter differs in what the various texts hand down; they are recorded together below without forcing a decision. The base text's chapter title reads 「遍學品第七十四」 tr. "Training in All, Chapter Seventy-four"; the Ishiyama-dera manuscript titles it 「摩訶般若波羅蜜品第七十三遍學品」 tr. "Mahāprajñāpāramitā, Chapter Seventy-three, the Chapter of Training in All", the chapter number one less; the Shōgozō manuscript reads 「七十三品訖第七十四品上」 tr. "Chapter Seventy-three ends; Chapter Seventy-four, first part", likewise one less. As for the end of the fascicle, the Ishiyama text reads 「釋七十三品竟」 tr. "End of the explanation of Chapter Seventy-three", carrying the pattern of one less right through to the end; yet the Shōgozō at the end of the fascicle reads 「釋第七十四品上」 tr. "Explanation of Chapter Seventy-four, first part", in step with the base text—the Shōgozō is one less at the head of the chapter and in step at its end, inconsistent between before and after; it is recorded as it is, and the choice between them belongs to the translator. The chapter list of the variant-translation sūtra text of the Larger Sūtra agrees with the base text in the number marked for this chapter, while from the next chapter on its numbering has places where numbers are skipped and repeated; this belongs to the layer of markup, and is likewise recorded here without judgement.

Further Resonances

What "Training in All" inherits is joined to a single sentence that the treatise-author takes up directly. At the end of the preceding chapter, "Planting Roots of Goodness" (Chapter 73), the treatise-author was just speaking of the difference between having skilful means and lacking skilful means, and he gathered up its practising marks in one phrase: 「布施若多、若少，不受世間果報，但欲救度一切眾生故。」 tr. "Whether his giving is much or little, he does not receive worldly retribution; it is only because he wishes to rescue and deliver all beings." The very first sentence at the opening of this chapter's treatise text starts by taking up the Buddha's words, and reads 「菩薩行六波羅蜜，不受世間果報」 tr. "the bodhisattva practises the six perfections and does not receive worldly retribution"—what is taken up is not the wording of this chapter's sūtra section, for this chapter's sūtra section reads 「行是深法，亦不受果報」 tr. "practises this deep dharma, and yet does not receive the retribution", and the words used differ from it; it can be seen that the treatise-author takes the last sentence of the preceding chapter as the occasion for this chapter, and here the two chapters are directly joined. Subhūti's exclamation also springs from this; the treatise-author takes up his words, saying 「是菩薩大智慧成就，行是深法，能作因而不受果」 tr. "This bodhisattva's great wisdom is accomplished; practising this deep dharma, he can make the cause and yet does not receive the fruit", and at once divides it with a single sentence: 「是菩薩為大利故，不受小報。」 tr. "This bodhisattva, for the sake of great benefit, does not receive small retribution." The matter of not receiving retribution was spoken of at the end of giving in the preceding chapter; this chapter then presses, from this very sentence, after why it is so, and so there is the whole chapter from 「諸法性中不動」 tr. "immovable within the nature of dharmas" onward. What it opens likewise rests on a single term. This chapter's sūtra section closes its difficulty with 「乃至無有順忍，何況見色相乃至見一切種智相」 tr. "and so on up to there being no compliant acceptance—how much less seeing the mark of form and so on up to seeing the mark of the omniscience of all kinds", and at the very end the treatise-author further sets up two questions himself and answers them—「是小乘順忍。小乘順忍尚無，何況大乘！」 tr. "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!"—and divides seeing form into two layers, 「一者、見色實相了了，二者、斷繫諸色煩惱故名為見」 tr. "the first is seeing the real mark of form clearly; the second is called seeing because the afflictions that bind one to forms have been cut off", finally laying down the brush with 「若人見色、修道尚無，何況能得修須陀洹果乃至斷煩惱習」 tr. "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". The very first sentence at the opening of the next chapter, "Training in Sequence" (Chapter 75), takes this up and asks: 「世尊！若有法相者，尚不得順忍，何況得道！」 tr. "World-Honored One! If there is the mark of dharmas, one still does not obtain compliant acceptance—how much less the path!" The two Chinese characters for compliant acceptance are not changed, and yet the way of asking is turned over—this chapter says that one who grasps at two marks lacks even the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle, and the next chapter then presses the question, from where there is no mark of dharmas, whether compliant acceptance is to be obtained or not. One gathering-in and one setting-out: the hinge lies only in these two characters.

What the various texts hand down diverges on this chapter's title and chapter order; they are recorded together below without forcing a decision. This treatise's base text heads it 「大智度論釋遍學品第七十四」 tr. "Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa, Explanation of ‘Training in All’, Chapter Seventy-four"; the Ishiyama-dera manuscript, however, reads 「摩訶般若波羅蜜品第七十三遍學品」 tr. "Mahāprajñāpāramitā, Chapter Seventy-three, the Chapter of Training in All", which both changes the form of the title and puts the chapter order one step below the base text, and that text does not divide the fascicle here. The Shōgozō manuscript differs on three sides: first, the three Chinese characters 「遍學品」 tr. "Training in All" are missing; second, for the base text's character 「論」 tr. "treatise" the Shōgozō manuscript has the two characters 「經論」 tr. "sūtra-treatise"; third, its chapter order reads 「七十三品訖第七十四品上」 tr. "Chapter Seventy-three ends; Chapter Seventy-four, first part", likewise one step below the base text. The Song and Yuan editions add beneath the chapter order the phrase 「訖第七十五品上」 tr. "ends; Chapter Seventy-five, first part", and the Palace edition reads 「七十四品訖第七十五品上」 tr. "Chapter Seventy-four ends; Chapter Seventy-five, first part", all at the same step as the base text and only marking where they end; the Palace edition further adds, beneath the character 「卷」 tr. "fascicle", a character 「第」 tr. "the ordinal marker". As for the end of the fascicle, the base text stops at a single character 「習」 tr. "habitual residues"; the Shōgozō manuscript reads 「習釋第七十四品上」 tr. "habitual residues; Explanation of Chapter Seventy-four, first part", at the same step as the base text and not one less; the Ishiyama-dera manuscript reads 「習釋七十三品竟」 tr. "habitual residues; End of the explanation of Chapter Seventy-three", carrying its pattern of one less right through to the end. So the Shōgozō manuscript is one less at the head of the chapter and in step at its end, inconsistent between before and after within a single text; this is recorded as it is without forcing an explanation, and the choice between them belongs to the translator. The Ishiyama-dera manuscript further has a separate note, 「卷第八十六終」 tr. "End of Fascicle Eighty-six", while at the end of the fascicle the Ishiyama-bon has in addition the ten Chinese characters 「大智度論經卷第八十六」 tr. "Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa Sūtra, Fascicle Eighty-six", whose wording of the book's title also differs from the base text; these are recorded here together. In the transmitted text of the Larger Sūtra being explained, the number that its table-of-contents layer attaches to this chapter is in step with the chapter order, and in itself shows no divergence; yet the number attached to its next chapter skips a step, and further repeats the same number as the chapter after that—this is a shift within the table-of-contents markup layer itself, unrelated to this chapter, and it is recorded as it is without forcing an explanation.

Of the ancient masters' commentaries on this chapter, what can be seen today with an explanation of the whole section, text by text, is Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra. At its opening he first determines its place in the outline, saying 「此下第二，上明菩薩正行及方便具足，亦名菩薩遍學諸道」 tr. "From here down is the second: above, it made clear the bodhisattva's right practice and the completeness of skilful means; this is also named the bodhisattva's training in all the paths"; next he explains why there is training in all, and brings it home to the single road of transforming others—「所以須遍學者，欲以遍化故也。」 tr. "The reason one must train in all is that one wishes thereby to transform all." And he takes the Buddha's ascetic practice as a comparison: 「善不學知二乘，何由得化他？如不苦行六年，何由得伏外道耶？」 tr. "If one does not train in and know the two vehicles well, how can one transform others? Had he not practised austerities for six years, how could he have subdued those of the outside paths?" Explaining training in all by transforming all is a position of Jizang's own; this treatise does not here build its account on transforming others, but says 「菩薩大乘人故，不應用二乘道；六波羅蜜未具足故，不能用佛道」 tr. "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", its eye resting on should and should not, can and cannot; the two accounts stand side by side, each attached to its own author. His outline divides the sūtra being explained into four sections: 「品為四：第一乘前品，歎菩薩方便具足，不受世間果報；第二明離諸戲論故，得入菩薩位，得出世間果；第三明菩薩遍學諸道；第四明種種智，勸發心脩行。」 tr. "The chapter is in four: the first carries on from the previous chapter, praising the bodhisattva's skilful means as complete, not receiving worldly retribution; the second makes clear that by parting from all idle discourse one obtains entry into the bodhisattva's position and obtains the world-transcending fruit; the third makes clear the bodhisattva's training in all the paths; the fourth makes clear the knowledge of all kinds, exhorting to arouse the mind and cultivate practice." What these four sections divide is the sūtra, not this treatise's text; it is recorded, and not carried over to serve as an outline of the treatise. His explanation of what in the first part is worthy of praise is extremely clear in wording: 「菩薩行六度，能作無所得行，故不受有所得果，所以可歎。」 tr. "The bodhisattva practises the six perfections and can perform the practice with nothing to be attained; therefore he does not receive a fruit with something to be attained, and this is why he is to be praised." Explaining the Buddha's answer, he says 「以菩薩能於正法性中行，其心不為諸見所動」 tr. "because the bodhisattva can practise within the right nature of dharmas, his mind is not moved by any views".

On the two most pressing difficulties of this chapter, Jizang in both cases sets up a question and answers it himself. The first is training in all and yet not becoming the two vehicles: 「若菩薩學二乘不作二乘者，二乘者二乘，學二乘亦不作二乘也。」 tr. "If the bodhisattva trains in the two vehicles without becoming the two vehicles: those of the two vehicles are the two vehicles; training in the two vehicles does not make one the two vehicles either." He further asks himself why the sūtra text says give rise to and not train in—「問：但應云學二乘，何故文云生耶？答：學二乘觀即有二乘，有二乘觀心生故云也。」 tr. "Question: it ought only to say ‘train in the two vehicles’; why does the text say ‘give rise to’? Answer: when one trains in the contemplation of the two vehicles, there are the two vehicles; because the mind of the contemplation of the two vehicles arises, it says so." The second is why the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are both the bodhisattva's acceptance and yet must be passed straight through: on one side his answer cites the sense of this treatise, saying 「二乘智斷是菩薩無生忍也」 tr. "the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles are the bodhisattva's acceptance of non-arising", and attaches the reason why to 「二乘信氣分，故云是也」 tr. "the two vehicles truly have a share of it, so it says ‘are’"; on the other side he says 「二乘與菩薩所行懸遠，故云直過」 tr. "what the two vehicles and the bodhisattva practise are far apart, so it says ‘passes straight through’". One sentence says why they are, one sentence says why he passes through; the boundary of inclusion without equality accords exactly with what this treatise holds to. Only, the simile of being held in prison that he cites from this treatise reads in his book 「論云如人親繫獄著，乘之而與不其同，重桎梏也」 tr. "The treatise says: as when a person's kinsman is held fast in prison, mounting it and yet not its same, heavy fetters and shackles", which, set against this treatise's 「如人親親繫獄故，入而看之，亦不與同著杻械」 tr. "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", has its words and phrases out of joint and is hard to make sense of in reading; it must be a fault of transmission in copying, and the text is recorded together without being corrected on its behalf. As for the character 「淨」 tr. "pure" in the knowledge of the kinds of paths that is pure, Jizang's gloss and this treatise go by different roads—「而言淨智者，此智畢竟淨，異二乘取證不淨也」 tr. "It is called pure knowledge because this knowledge is ultimately pure, unlike the impurity of the two vehicles' taking realisation", and again he says 「菩薩遍知諸道而未曾有知，故是淨也」 tr. "the bodhisattva knows all the paths throughout and yet has never had any knowing; therefore it is pure"; this treatise explains it only by its content and does not set up a gloss on the ground of its differing from the two vehicles' taking realisation; this is Jizang's addition, and each is attached to its own as it is. As for why compliant acceptance at the chapter's end stops at the dharma of acceptance, Jizang's answer shares this treatise's conclusion but brings in a different party: 「大小乘經皆說煗頂退，故不說也。」 tr. "The sūtras of both the Great and the Small Vehicle all say that warmth and the summit retreat; therefore it is not spoken of." He further records one position of his time and refutes it: 「成論人云處已不退，恐非正大小乘義也，以忍法不退故說也。」 tr. "The people of the Treatise on the Establishment of Truth say that at this stage one already does not retreat; this is probably not the correct meaning of either the Great or the Small Vehicle; it is spoken of because the dharma of acceptance does not retreat." This treatise at that place reads 「聲聞法中亦說頂墮，摩訶衍亦說頂墮」 tr. "within the śrāvaka Dharma it is also said that there is the summit-fall, and the Mahāyāna also says that there is the summit-fall", of the same purport as his first words; as for the position of the school of the Treatise on the Establishment of Truth, this treatise does not touch on it and it is seen only in Jizang; it is recorded as a divergent explanation added by an ancient master, and no reconciliation is made on anyone's behalf.

For the other masters, what is obtained for this chapter is all on the negative side, and yet their negatives each differ and must be recorded separately. Huiying's Commentary is by design a book that explains this treatise chapter by chapter, following the text, and for the preceding chapters it mostly has dedicated sections; yet in its extant text the last heading is 「釋大方便品第六十九」 tr. "Explanation of ‘The Great Skilful Means’, Chapter Sixty-nine", and the writing of the whole book stops not far below this—this chapter lies far beyond it, so the explanation is lacking; it is not that the commentary passes over it without explaining, nor is it an oversight of the back-search. Elsewhere in his book the two Chinese characters 「遍學」 tr. "training in all" are seen in four places; checked one by one in their contexts, all belong to the discussion of the three gates of liberation and to the wording of the passages exhorting training, unrelated to this chapter's 「遍學諸道」 tr. "trains in all the paths", and they are not taken as commentarial evidence for this chapter. Junzheng's Profound Meaning of the Four Mahāyāna Treatises was back-searched with four strings, each string with zero hits; his book is in the form of essentials and not a running commentary on the text, so the zero hits are due to its genre and are not a defect, nor are the zero hits used to infer back that it has no bearing on the meaning of this chapter. Among the works of the Tiantai line, the two characters 「遍學」 tr. "training in all" are seen once in the Profound Meaning of the Lotus, twice in the Annotations on the Profound Meaning of the Lotus, and once in the Supporting Practice and Broad Resolution of Calming and Contemplation, while the Great Calming and Contemplation and the Explanation of the Graded Dharma-Gates of Dhyānapāramitā both have zero; checking each item's scene structure—who speaks, to whom, within what framework, and what is gone through in all—three of the occurrences all belong to the phrase 「四門遍學」 tr. "training in all through the four gates", a technical term of that school's own, within its framework of the classification of the teachings, for the thorough study of the four gates of the four teachings, and one occurrence reads 「自他始終須遍學故」 tr. "because, for self and others, from beginning to end, one must train in all", belonging to the teaching that what is to be trained in is immeasurable; differing in all four items from this treatise's meaning ‘the bodhisattva trains in all the paths and yet does not use them to enter the position’, they are judged to be the same in name and different in meaning, not citations of this chapter, and they are recorded as they are without judging whether or not they inherit from it.

Bringing this whole line of further resonances back to this chapter: the reason the chapters before and after it can each be joined to it by a single phrase precisely illuminates the two faces of the two characters 「遍學」 tr. "training in all". What inherits from before is 「不受果報」 tr. "not receiving the retribution"—the preceding chapter says that giving does not receive worldly retribution, and this chapter then presses after why it is not received, answering with immovability within the nature of dharmas; not receiving is not having no fruit, it is 「為大利故，不受小報」 tr. "for the sake of great benefit, he does not receive small retribution". What opens onto what follows is 「順忍」 tr. "compliant acceptance"—this chapter says that one who grasps at two marks lacks even the compliant acceptance of the Small Vehicle, and the next chapter then asks, from where there is no mark of dharmas, whether compliant acceptance is to be obtained or not. At one end is what is not grasped, at the other end what is not yet obtained: what is not grasped is retribution and marks; what is not yet obtained is the very first step. The meaning of training in all stands precisely between these two ends—above, he does not grasp the fruit, so he uses not one path and yet trains in all the paths; below, he does not set himself falsely high, so having spoken to the end of the omniscience of all kinds, at the last he measures only up to compliant acceptance. The ancient masters' commentaries here also each obtain one face of it: those who explain training in all by transforming all take its not grasping the fruit above and yet being able to reach everywhere below; those who explain the knowledge and severance of the two vehicles with 「直過」 tr. "passes straight through" and 「是也」 tr. "are" side by side take its training in all without dwelling. And this treatise's own verdict is the most sparing, lying only between the two characters 「學」 tr. "train" and 「用」 tr. "use": all three paths are trained in, not one path is used; all the eight grounds are contemplated, not one ground is dwelt in. So what one can carry away on finishing this chapter is not a new set of names and marks but a sentence one can ask oneself anywhere: this dharma—have I come to know it, or have I already moved in and dwelt in it?