大智度論 義疏通講 · 冊25Dazhidulun — Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 25

Overview

"Certainty" opens at once with a question of the most direct kind: 「世尊！是菩薩摩訶薩為畢定？為不畢定？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Is this bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured? Or is he unassured?" The Buddha's answer does not take a roundabout way either: 「菩薩摩訶薩畢定，非不畢定。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is assured; he is not unassured." Subhūti asks again where he is assured, and the Buddha says 「非聲聞、辟支佛道中畢定，是佛道中畢定」 tr. "not assured in the path of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha; assured in the path of the Buddha"; he asks again which kind of bodhisattva is assured, and the Buddha says 「初發意菩薩亦畢定，阿鞞跋致菩薩亦畢定，最後身菩薩亦畢定」 tr. "the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured, the avaivartika bodhisattva is also assured, the bodhisattva in his last body is also assured". Under these three questions and three answers the meaning of the two Chinese characters ‘assured’ is already settled: it is not being assured of entering nirvāṇa, it is being assured of becoming a Buddha; it is not being assured only for those whose stage is high—the first arousing of the mind is already assured. The treatise-author, explaining these two Chinese characters, likewise uses only four Chinese characters—「畢定者，必當作佛」 tr. "the assured will surely become a Buddha". The whole chapter, two sūtras and two treatises, spans the two fascicles ninety-three and ninety-four: the First Part, one sūtra and one treatise, asks from the meaning of assurance on to why the assured do not fall into the evil destinies, while in the jātakas he still manifests the body of an animal; the Last Part, one sūtra and one treatise, asks from how, within the emptiness of nature, the supernormal powers can arise, on to why the supernormal powers are named sport and why giving with a clinging mind turns, on the contrary, into a great fault, and lays down the brush at the end with 「無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道」 tr. "with a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path".

The First Part asks about assurance and comes to rest on taking a body. The questions of Sūtra ① are fourfold in all, each layer pressing closer than the last: what assurance is, where one is assured, who is assured, and whether the assured fall into the evil destinies. To the first three questions the Buddha answers directly; to the fourth the Buddha does not answer directly but asks in return—「若八人，若須陀洹、斯陀含、阿那含、阿羅漢、辟支佛，生惡道中不？」 tr. "Whether the person of the eight, or the srota-āpanna, the sakṛdāgāmin, the anāgāmin, the arhat, or the pratyekabuddha—will they be born in the evil destinies?" Subhūti answers 「不也」 tr. "they will not", and the Buddha at once makes this the pattern: the bodhisattva, 「從初發意已來，布施、持戒、忍辱、精進、行禪定、修智慧，斷一切不善業」 tr. "from the first arousing of intent onward, gives, keeps the precepts, is patient, is vigorous, practises meditative concentration, and cultivates wisdom, and cuts off all unwholesome deeds", so that 「若墮惡道、若生長壽天、若不得修善法處、若生邊國、若生惡邪見家、無作見家，是中無佛名、無法名、無僧名，無有是處」 tr. "that he should fall into the evil destinies, or be born among the heavens of long life, or in a place where he cannot cultivate wholesome dharmas, or be born in a border land, or be born in a family of evil wrong views or a family of the view that nothing is to be done, places where there is no name of the Buddha, no name of the Dharma, no name of the Saṅgha—there is no such possibility". Here the mark has been set and fixed, and the sūtra text at once raises a difficulty against itself: if so, then 「如佛自說本生受不善果報，是時善根為何所在？」 tr. "As the Buddha himself has said, in the jātakas he received unwholesome retribution—at that time, where were his roots of goodness?" The Buddha's answer does not evade but turns it: 「菩薩摩訶薩為利益眾生故，隨而受身，以是身利益眾生。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, for the sake of benefiting beings, takes a body accordingly, and with this body benefits beings." The reason he can do so is that even in an animal's body there is one thing that the two vehicles do not have—when enemies and thieves come to kill him, the bodhisattva 「以無上忍辱、無上慈悲心捨身，不惱怨賊」 tr. "with unsurpassed patience and an unsurpassed mind of kindness and compassion gives up his body and does not vex the enemies and thieves", whereas 「汝諸聲聞、辟支佛，無有是力」 tr. "you śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas do not have such a power". Asked again by abiding in what roots of goodness he can take such bodies, the Buddha answers 「從初發意乃至道場，於其中間，無有善根不具足者」 tr. "from the first arousing of intent all the way to the seat of awakening, in between there is not a single root of goodness that he does not make complete". The last layer is the most important: why is one who is accomplished in the white and pure dharmas without outflows born among animals? The Buddha again breaks it with counter-questions—the Buddha too is accomplished in all white and pure dharmas without outflows: 「若佛自化作畜生身，作佛事，度眾生，實是畜生不？」 tr. "If the Buddha himself conjures the body of an animal, does the Buddha's work, and delivers beings, is he really an animal?" The answer is 「不也」 tr. "he is not"; again, it is like an arhat making a transformation body that can make beings rejoice; again, it is like a conjurer conjuring up elephants, horses, men, and women: 「是象、馬、牛、羊、男、女等有實不？」 tr. "Are these elephants, horses, oxen, sheep, men, women, and so on real or not?" The answer is 「不實也！世尊！」 tr. "They are not real, World-Honored One!" With the three similes set down together, the bodhisattva's taking the body of an animal comes back to one matter: 「現作種種身以示眾生故，以是身饒益一切，亦不受眾苦。」 tr. "For the sake of manifesting all kinds of bodies for beings to see, with this body he enriches all, and he himself does not undergo the many sufferings." Sūtra ① then closes with Subhūti's praise—「菩薩摩訶薩大方便力，得聖無漏智慧，而隨所應度眾生身，而作種種形以度眾生！」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva has the power of great skilful means; having obtained the noble wisdom without outflows, he yet, according to the bodies of the beings he should deliver, makes all kinds of forms to deliver beings!"

Treatise ① first explains why the question is asked again. Since the "Avaivartika" chapter has already spoken of the marks of retreat and non-retreat, and avaivartika is precisely assurance, why is the question asked again now? The treatise-author answers it saying 「是般若波羅蜜有種種門、有種種道」 tr. "this prajñāpāramitā has all kinds of gates and all kinds of paths", 「阿鞞跋致是一門中說；今問畢定，更問異門」 tr. "avaivartika was spoken of within one gate; now, in asking about assurance, he is asking again through a different gate of approach". Going a layer further, assurance was never set up on the basis of what people see: 「佛心中一切眾生、一切法皆畢定；人以智不及故，名為不畢定」 tr. "in the Buddha's mind all beings and all dharmas are assured; because people's knowledge does not reach so far, they are named unassured"—that those who, though they accumulate merit through immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas, must yet retreat into the Small Vehicle, the Buddha knows; that a tiny worm, though it has as yet no wholesome mind, after passing through so many kalpas will arouse the mind and will later become a Buddha, the Buddha knows too: 「定知一切法皆如是，從是因得是果，是故名佛」 tr. "he knows decisively that all dharmas are like this—from this cause one obtains this fruit—and for this reason he is named the Buddha". Moreover, the reason Subhūti gives rise to this question is that he heard it said in the Lotus Sūtra that 「於佛所作少功德，乃至戲笑一稱南無佛，漸漸必當作佛」 tr. "one who has done a little merit toward the Buddha, even to the point of once saying in jest ‘Namo Buddha’, will little by little surely become a Buddha", and also heard that in the "Avaivartika" chapter there is retreat and there is non-retreat; with the two teachings standing side by side, he has this doubt. Thereupon the treatise-author faces squarely the contradiction between what the preceding chapter said—「佛以佛眼見十方菩薩，求佛如恒河沙，得阿鞞跋致者若一、若二」 tr. "the Buddha, with the Buddha-eye, sees the bodhisattvas of the ten directions seeking Buddhahood like the sands of the Ganges, yet of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two"—and what is said here, 「三種菩薩盡皆畢定」 tr. "all three kinds of bodhisattva are without exception assured"; and his judgement is exceedingly clear and decisive: 「二事皆實。佛口所說無不實者。」 tr. "Both matters are real. What the Buddha's mouth speaks is never unreal." Both are real because of to whom each is spoken—for those who have first aroused the mind he says 「諸法有」 tr. "dharmas exist"; for those long in training who cling to wholesome dharmas he says 「諸法空無所有」 tr. "dharmas are empty and without anything existent"; to those who are slack and not firm toward awakening he must say 「發心如恒河沙，得阿鞞跋致者若一、若二」 tr. "those who arouse the mind are like the sands of the Ganges; of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two", so that they know the difficulty and take their own measure; to those who are fit to obtain Buddhahood, but whose mind of great compassion is thin, whose love of their own body is heavy, and who are stirred by the thought 「我或不能得佛，不如早取涅槃，何用世世受勤苦為」 tr. "perhaps I cannot obtain Buddhahood; better to take nirvāṇa early—what use is it to undergo toil and suffering life after life", he must say that all bodhisattvas, even those who have first aroused the mind, are assured, so that their minds may be at peace. One and the same dharma is taught in two ways; the sicknesses it treats each differ. Below this he explains difficulty by difficulty. Since all are assured, why does the Buddha still rebuke the two vehicles in all kinds of ways? Because those who take realisation of a small portion 「便自止息，捨佛道、不度眾生」 tr. "then stop of themselves, relinquish the Buddha path, and do not deliver beings", the buddhas and bodhisattvas reproach them, saying 「汝欲捨去，會不得離，得阿羅漢證時，不求諸菩薩深三昧，又不廣化眾生，是則迂迴，於佛道稽留」 tr. "You wish to leave and go, yet in the end you will not be able to part from it; when you obtain the realisation of the arhat, you do not seek the deep samādhis of the bodhisattvas, nor do you widely transform beings—this is a roundabout way, a lingering on the Buddha path". When the causes and conditions of the three realms are exhausted for the arhat, where does he abide so as to make complete the Buddha path? 「有淨佛土，出於三界，乃至無煩惱之名，於是國土佛所，聞《法華經》，具足佛道。」 tr. "There are pure Buddha-lands, beyond the three realms, where even the name of the afflictions does not exist; in the presence of the Buddha of such a land he hears the Lotus Sūtra and makes complete the Buddha path." Having been born in a pure land and received the Dharma-nature body, why is it still named a roundabout way? Because 「是人著小乘因緣，捨眾生、捨佛道，又復虛言得道」 tr. "this person clung to the causes and conditions of the Small Vehicle, relinquished beings and relinquished the Buddha path, and moreover falsely said of himself that he had obtained the path", therefore 「於菩薩根鈍，不能疾成佛道，不如直往菩薩」 tr. "in the bodhisattva's share his faculties are dull, and he cannot quickly accomplish the Buddha path; he is not equal to the bodhisattva who goes straight ahead". And here the treatise-author sets a limit for himself: 「佛法於五不可思議中最第一」 tr. "among the five inconceivables the Buddha-dharma is the foremost"; the matter of arhats whose outflows are exhausted becoming buddhas again is something 「唯佛能知」 tr. "only a Buddha can know"; those who discuss can discuss the matter but cannot fathom it, 「是故不應戲論」 tr. "and for this reason one should not make idle discourse". After this he explains why the assured do not fall into the evil destinies, layer upon layer coming down on causes: the cause of falling into the three evil destinies is precisely the unwholesome dharmas; 「不善道有上、中、下：上者墮地獄，中者墮畜生，下者墮餓鬼」 tr. "the unwholesome paths are of the upper, the middle, and the lower: the upper fall into the hells, the middle fall among animals, the lower fall among the hungry ghosts", and 「是菩薩三種已盡，深心悲念眾生，是故不墮」 tr. "this bodhisattva has exhausted all three kinds, and with a deep mind thinks of beings in compassion; therefore he does not fall". He is not born among the heavens of long life because the bodhisattva, 「雖能入禪波羅蜜，和合慈悲行，不著禪味，命欲終盡，念欲界法故退禪道」 tr. "although he can enter the perfection of dhyāna, practises it in accord with kindness and compassion and does not cling to the flavour of dhyāna; when his life is about to end, he thinks of the dharmas of the realm of desire and so retreats from the path of dhyāna". He is not born in a border land because he has already pulled out the root of stinginess with the Dharma, and moreover 「是菩薩常好中道、捨離二邊故，不生邊國」 tr. "because this bodhisattva always loves the middle way and relinquishes the two extremes, he is not born in a border land"; and what is called the border does not lie in a direction or a place either—「邊國者，無三寶之名，不識七眾，但貴今世現事不貴福德道法，故名邊地」 tr. "what is called a border land is a place where there is no name of the Three Jewels, where the seven assemblies are not known, where only the present matters of this life are valued and merit and the dharma of the path are not valued; therefore it is named a border land"—so one who, though born outside Jambudvīpa, knows the Three Jewels and understands the real mark is not named border. Someone asks: the power of great merit and wisdom ought precisely to be born in border lands and families of wrong views so as to transform them; why does he, on the contrary, avoid them? The answer lies in the distinction of stages—a bodhisattva of great power does not avoid border lands or wrong views, while a bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind, if born in such places, 「既不能度人，又自敗壞」 tr. "can neither deliver people nor keep himself from being ruined"; 「譬如真金在泥，終不敗壞；銅鐵則壞」 tr. "it is like true gold in the mud, which in the end is not spoiled; copper and iron are spoiled". Among wrong views, further, he singles out the view of no-doing alone as the heaviest: 「雖六十二種皆是邪見，無作最重」 tr. "although all sixty-two kinds are wrong views, that of no-doing is the heaviest", because 「無作言不應作功德、求涅槃」 tr. "no-doing says that one should not make merit or seek nirvāṇa"—the other wrong views, though mistaken, do not block the making of merit; this one view cuts off the very place where people practise. At the end he gathers it up with the matter of the six-tusked white elephant: a hunter shot him in the chest with a poisoned arrow, and the bodhisattva elephant, on the contrary, shielded the hunter in the embrace of his trunk and did not let the other elephants harm him, and said to the female elephant 「獵師是煩惱罪，非人過也！」 tr. "The hunter is the sin of the afflictions, not the fault of the person!", and said further 「譬如鬼著人，呪師來但治鬼而不瞋人。是故莫求其罪！」 tr. "Just as when a ghost possesses a person and the master of spells comes, he only treats the ghost and is not angry at the person. Therefore do not seek to punish his sin!"; and when the hunter said he needed his tusks, the elephant at once went to a cleft in the rock, 「拔牙與之，血肉俱出，不以為痛」 tr. "pulled out his tusks and gave them to him, blood and flesh both coming out, and did not take it as pain", and moreover supplied him with provisions and showed and told him the way. Why did he not make a human body but the body of a beast? The answer, too, is utterly plain: 「有時眾生見人身則不信受，見畜生身說法則生信樂，受其教化。」 tr. "There are times when beings see a human body and do not believe or accept, but seeing the body of an animal teaching the Dharma, they give rise to faith and delight, and accept his teaching and transformation."

The Last Part carries at the head of its fascicle the continuation title with 「之餘」 tr. "the remainder", and turns from taking a body to what he abides in. Sūtra ② at its very opening takes up the preceding question and goes a step further: 「菩薩摩訶薩住何等白淨法，能作如是方便力而不受染污？」 tr. "Abiding in what kind of white and pure dharma is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva able to bring about such a power of skilful means, and yet not be stained?" The Buddha answers that what he abides in is precisely prajñā, and that the reason prajñā can keep him unstained lies only in three things all being unfindable—「著者、著法、著處，是三法皆不可得，自性空故。空不著空，空中無著者，亦無著處。」 tr. "The one who clings, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—these three dharmas are all unfindable, because they are empty of self-nature. Emptiness does not cling to emptiness; within emptiness there is no one who clings, nor any place of clinging." Since emptiness does not itself cling to emptiness, there is not one place where staining can arise; so it says 「是名不可得空。菩薩住是空中，能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "This is called the emptiness of the unfindable. The bodhisattva, abiding in this emptiness, can obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". Subhūti at once raises a difficulty: if he abides only in prajñā and does not abide in the other dharmas, then where are the other dharmas? The Buddha asks in return: 「頗有法不入般若波羅蜜者不？」 tr. "Is there any dharma at all that does not enter prajñāpāramitā?" Subhūti then challenges this with emptiness—since prajñā is empty of self-nature, 「空中無有法若入、若不入」 tr. "within emptiness there is no dharma that can be said to enter or said not to enter"; the Buddha presses further in return: since all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are all empty, 「若一切法、一切法相空，云何言一切法不入空中？」 tr. "If all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty, how can you say that all dharmas do not enter into emptiness?" After one challenge and one counter-question, the sūtra text turns to the most wondrous section of this part: abiding in the emptiness of all dharmas, how can he, on the contrary, give rise to the supernormal powers and go to the ten directions to make offerings to the buddhas? The Buddha's answer rests not on existence but on emptiness—the bodhisattva 「觀是十方如恒河沙等國土皆空，是國土中諸佛亦性空，但假名字故，諸佛現身所假名字亦空」 tr. "contemplates these lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions as all empty, and the buddhas within these lands as also empty of nature; only because of provisional names, the provisional name of the bodies the buddhas manifest is also empty", and 「若十方國土及諸佛性不空者，空為有偏；以空不偏故，一切法、一切法相空」 tr. "if the nature of the lands of the ten directions and of the buddhas were not empty, then emptiness would be partial; because emptiness is not partial, all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty". Emptiness has no place where it is partial, so it is without obstruction; being without obstruction, it penetrates and goes everywhere. Thereupon the supernormal powers are no longer a side matter: 「是菩薩摩訶薩神通波羅蜜，是阿耨多羅三藐三菩提道」 tr. "this bodhisattva-mahāsattva's perfection of the supernormal powers is the path of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi", and 「若菩薩遠離神通波羅蜜，不能得饒益眾生，亦不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "if the bodhisattva is far from the perfection of the supernormal powers, he can neither enrich beings nor obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". The use of the supernormal powers, too, lies not in displaying marvels but in seeing and teaching—「見是法空，不取相、不作業；亦為人說是法，亦不得眾生相、不得眾生名」 tr. "seeing this dharma as empty, he does not grasp at marks and does not make deeds; he also proclaims this dharma for others, and he does not find the mark of beings and does not find the name of beings". The passage below on teaching the Dharma according to each capacity shows most the fineness of his kind mind: for the stingy he says 「諸眾生！當行布施，貧窮是苦惱法，貧窮之人自不能益，何能益他？」 tr. "Beings! You should practise giving; poverty is a dharma of suffering and vexation; the poor cannot even benefit themselves, so how could they benefit others?"; for those who break morality he speaks of the retribution of the three evil destinies: 「汝等墮三惡道中，自不能救，何能救人？」 tr. "When you fall into the three evil destinies, you cannot even save yourselves, so how could you save others?"; for those who hate and quarrel he says 「瞋亂心人，不順善法」 tr. "one whose mind is disturbed by hatred does not accord with wholesome dharmas"; the slack he causes to obtain vigour, the scattered he causes to obtain meditative concentration, the deluded he causes to obtain wisdom. Further, he gives the medicine according to the sickness—「行婬欲者，令觀不淨；瞋恚者，令觀慈心；愚癡眾生，令觀十二因緣。」 tr. "Those who practise lust he causes to contemplate impurity; those given to anger he causes to contemplate with the mind of kindness; deluded beings he causes to contemplate the twelve links of causes and conditions." And the medicine given at the very end still comes back to emptiness: 「汝等所著是法性空，性空法中不可得著，不著相是空相。」 tr. "These dharmas that you cling to are empty of nature; within dharmas empty of nature they are unfindable, and so cannot be clung to; not clinging to marks is the mark of emptiness." That the supernormal powers cannot be done without, the sūtra settles with one simile: 「譬如鳥無翅不能高翔；菩薩無神通，不能隨意教化眾生。」 tr. "It is like a bird without wings, which cannot fly high; a bodhisattva without the supernormal powers cannot teach and transform beings at will." Below this it lists one by one the uses of the six supernormal powers: the divine eye sees the lands and beings, the divine ear hears the Dharma taught by the buddhas of the ten directions, the knowledge of others' minds teaches according to what suits them, the knowledge of former lives manifests his past deeds for those who have faith in and delight in former lives, the power of going at will goes to the buddha-lands to make offerings and plant roots of goodness, the power of the exhaustion of outflows teaches the Dharma as is fitting; and in taking a body he does not undergo its suffering—「菩薩用修是神通故，隨意受身，苦樂不染；譬如佛所化人，作一切事，苦樂不染。」 tr. "Because the bodhisattva cultivates these supernormal powers, he takes a body at will, and is stained by neither suffering nor pleasure; just as a person conjured by the Buddha does all things and is stained by neither suffering nor pleasure." Only here is the necessary condition for becoming a Buddha set up: 「不淨佛國土、不成就眾生，不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "if he does not purify buddha-lands and does not bring beings to accomplishment, he cannot obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi", because the causes and conditions are not complete. What are the causes and conditions? 「一切善法是菩薩阿耨多羅三藐三菩提因緣。」 tr. "All wholesome dharmas are the causes and conditions of the bodhisattva's anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." And that wholesome dharmas are causes and conditions is also bound to non-discrimination—dānapāramitā at the head: 「是中無分別是施者、是受者，性空故」 tr. "within it there is no discriminating who is the giver and who is the receiver, because they are empty of nature"; and down through śīla, kṣānti, vīrya, dhyāna, and prajñā; the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, the four formless absorptions; the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path; the eighteen emptinesses; the eight liberations, the nine successive absorptions; the dhāraṇī gate; the ten powers of the Buddha, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, the eighteen unshared dharmas—all are the path of awakening. Sūtra ② then closes with a single sequence: 「具足是善法已，當得一切種智；得一切種智已，當轉法輪；轉法輪已，當度眾生。」 tr. "Having made these wholesome dharmas complete, he will obtain the omniscience of all kinds; having obtained the omniscience of all kinds, he will turn the wheel of the Dharma; having turned the wheel of the Dharma, he will deliver beings."

The form of Treatise ② differs from that of Treatise ①: at its start it takes up the sūtra under "Explanation", first restating the questions and answers of Sūtra ② once through, and then turns to formal question and answer. Within this taking up of the sūtra, the three things that are unfindable are stated most clearly: 「一者、是菩薩身，二者、所作鹿、馬，三者、所用法」 tr. "first, this bodhisattva's body; second, the deer and horse he makes himself into; third, the dharma he uses"—the body manifested, the things he transforms into, the dharma used: all three are empty of nature, and emptiness too does not cling to emptiness. Why are they unfindable? 「空中空不可得。」 tr. "The emptiness within emptiness is unfindable." Being unfindable, there is nothing to crave and cling to: 「是名無所得空般若波羅蜜」 tr. "this is called the prajñāpāramitā of the emptiness of nothing to be attained"; and why, abiding in this, he obtains awakening easily also takes just one sentence—「以無障礙故易得」 tr. "because there is no obstruction, it is easy to obtain". On the section of all dharmas entering prajñā, the treatise-author judges cleanly: 「若住般若波羅蜜，則住一切法」 tr. "if he abides in prajñāpāramitā, he is abiding in all dharmas"; what Subhūti held to was 「一切法性空中，無有法出、無有法入」 tr. "within the emptiness of the nature of all dharmas, there is no dharma going out and no dharma entering", and after the Buddha's counter-question the treatise-author records his yielding, saying 「爾時，須菩提心伏受解」 tr. "at that time Subhūti was subdued in his mind and received understanding". Coming to the question of the supernormal powers, what the treatise-author answers on the Buddha's behalf is only four Chinese characters: 「空故能行。」 tr. "It is because of emptiness that he can practise." The question below is especially worth savouring: since the lands are empty, the Buddha too should be empty; why speak of him separately? The answer has two sides—on the one side, 「佛以無量阿僧祇實功德得是身，能以一足指動十方如恒河沙國土」 tr. "the Buddha obtained this body by immeasurable asaṃkhyeyas of real merit, and with a single toe can shake lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions"; on the other, 「又菩薩世世來深愛重佛，不能疾觀使空。是故不共國土合說」 tr. "moreover, bodhisattvas, life after life, have deeply loved and revered the Buddha, and cannot quickly contemplate him so as to make him empty. For this reason he is not spoken of together with the lands". The reason emptiness is spoken of separately here is not that the Buddha is not empty; it is that for the practitioner the Buddha is hard to make empty. The reason the divine eye must be sought the treatise-author draws out by force from the limits of the fleshly eye: 「見上、不見下，見前、不見後，通見、障不見，晝見、夜不見」 tr. "seeing above, it does not see below; seeing in front, it does not see behind; where it is open it sees, where there is a barrier it does not see; by day it sees, at night it does not see"; knowing that its power is slight, he seeks the divine eye besides by skilful means; and the substance of the skilful means is likewise just 「令他界四大來在身中」 tr. "to cause the four elements of another realm to come into his body". The divine eye sees only form; how can it see wholesome dharmas and see all dharmas as empty of nature? The answer is 「因中說果」 tr. "speaking of the result in the cause"—with the divine eye he sees his own body and the beings of the ten directions, and afterwards with the knowledge of others' minds and the knowledge of former lives he seeks out their roots of goodness of this life and later lives, and 「是善根及果報，久皆磨滅，磨滅故見空」 tr. "these roots of goodness, together with their retribution, will in time all be worn away, and because they are worn away he sees them as empty". Since they are empty they cannot be clung to; here the treatise-author sets down the simile most easily remembered: 「譬如蠅無處不著，唯不著火焰。」 tr. "It is like a fly, which settles everywhere, only it does not settle on a flame." Among wholesome and unwholesome dharmas there is nothing that beings do not cling to, to the point that they cling even to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception and cannot enter nirvāṇa; 「唯不能著般若波羅蜜性空火」 tr. "the only thing they cannot cling to is the fire of prajñāpāramitā's emptiness of nature"—prajñā cannot be clung to precisely because prajñā and the mark of prajñā are both empty; were it not empty, it would become a taste, would become a place that can be clung to. In the section on the supernormal powers benefiting beings, he makes clear with another simile that they are not set off in vain: 「譬如白鷺欲取魚時，籌量進止，不失期會，知其可得，即便取之，終不空也。」 tr. "It is like a white egret about to take a fish: it measures its advance and halt, does not miss the moment, and knowing the fish can be had, takes it at once, and in the end does not come away empty." The bodhisattva contemplates the roots and branches of beings, the causes and conditions by which they should be delivered, and the lands and seasons, and teaches the Dharma only when their faculties have grown keen and the causes and conditions are complete; in the same way he is not in vain. As for the two Chinese characters ‘sport’, the treatise-author sets himself a question and answers it: since the power of the supernormal powers has something it does, why is it named sport? 「戲名如幻師種種現變；菩薩神通種種現化，名之為戲。」 tr. "What is called sport is like a conjurer's manifesting all kinds of transformations; the bodhisattva's supernormal powers manifest all kinds of transformations, and so they are called sport." Further, among the three samādhi 「空名為上行」 tr. "emptiness is named the upper practice", resembling nirvāṇa in clinging to nothing and attaining nothing; 「諸餘行法，皆名為下下，如小兒」 tr. "the other practices are all named the lowest of the low, like a little child"; therefore their sovereign use is called sport, and this sport is, in bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands, the most essential use. The last great section of the whole treatise section is devoted entirely to refuting the practice of giving with a clinging mind. Giving with a clinging mind is not without benefit, yet 「雖有小利而有大過；如美食雜毒，雖有美利而自喪命」 tr. "though it has a small benefit, it has a great fault; it is like fine food mixed with poison: though there is the benefit of its fineness, one loses one's own life". Its faults deepen layer by layer: if things do not accord with his wishes he gives rise to anger; if the receiver does not feel grateful for the kindness it becomes resentment; if, having made offerings to good people, he meets with some slight misfortune, he resents the giving as having had no corresponding reward and regrets and grudges what was given, and 「若布施心悔，所受果報則不清淨」 tr. "if one gives and regrets it in one's mind, then the retribution received is not pure"; one who deeply craves wealth, when it is seized, does harm, and through the causes and conditions of heavy sin undergoes the suffering of the three evil destinies; one who gives grasping at false, deceptive, and unreal marks is 「譬如人欲求多收故，大用穀子」 tr. "like a person who, wishing to reap a large harvest, uses a great deal of seed", expecting a great retribution, yet the retribution is small and impure, and in the end comes to exhaustion. There is one kind still more to be warned against: a person who practises good with a clinging mind, once he hears that all dharmas are ultimately empty, at once abandons the dharma he was practising and turns to clinging to the mark of emptiness, taking emptiness as real and his former practice as false—「是人則失二種法：失先善法，而墮邪見」 tr. "this person then loses two kinds of dharma: he loses his former wholesome dharmas, and falls into wrong view"; the treatise-author likens it, saying 「譬如重病之人，雖有眾藥，療之無損，藥復作病」 tr. "it is like a person gravely ill: though there are many medicines, treating him does no good, and the medicine in turn becomes the disease". Only after refuting all these faults does he establish what is right: 「菩薩捨於著心，不取空相」 tr. "the bodhisattva relinquishes the clinging mind and does not grasp at the mark of emptiness", sees giving and the other dharmas as suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality, and for all beings dedicates them to awakening; at the time of giving he has this thought: just as the ultimately pure wisdom of the buddhas of the ten directions and the three times knows the real mark of all dharmas and also knows this mark of giving, 「我今欲知諸法實相迴向，是諸虛誑入實相中，皆無有異」 tr. "I now wish to know the real mark of all dharmas and dedicate; these false and deceptive things, entering into the real mark, are all without difference"; and when he comes to know it with pure wisdom, then 「入第一義諦中，皆為清淨，無有別異」 tr. "entering into the truth of the highest meaning, all becomes pure, without distinction or difference". Treatise ② then closes the chapter with one sentence: 「無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道。」 tr. "With a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path."

The difference between the arcs of the two parts can be settled in a word: the First Part speaks of the body of the assured, the Last Part of the practice of the assured. What the First Part discerns is why a person already assured still manifests the marks of one not yet assured—not falling into the evil destinies, yet manifesting the taking of an animal's body; accomplished in the white and pure dharmas without outflows, yet entering the three evil courses; the Buddha saying that all are assured, and yet saying that those who obtain non-retreat are one or two; what is answered is uniformly ‘what is manifested is not what is’: the conjurer's elephants and horses, the Buddha's conjured person, the arhat's transformation body—three similes pointing alike to one matter. What the Last Part discerns is how a person already assured practises—abiding in the emptiness of nature he gives rise to the supernormal powers, giving rise to the supernormal powers he sports, sporting he purifies buddha-lands, purifying buddha-lands he makes complete the causes and conditions; what is answered is uniformly ‘what is practised cannot be clung to’: the three dharmas being unfindable, the fly not settling on a flame, the medicine in turn becoming the disease—three similes, again, pointing alike to one matter. And between the two parts one thread runs through, namely the three Chinese characters 「不可得」 tr. "unfindable": the unfindability of the First Part comes down on the body—the body manifested is not real, so he takes it and is not stained; the unfindability of the Last Part comes down on dharmas—the dharmas practised do not exist, so he practises and does not cling. That the assured can be assured lies precisely here: if the body were real, one who entered the evil destinies would surely be ruined; if dharmas existed, one who practised wholesome dharmas would surely cling. Only because both are unfindable is it so that 「隨意受身，苦樂不染」 tr. "he takes a body at will, and is stained by neither suffering nor pleasure", and so that 「無所分別心，能行布施等」 tr. "with a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest".

Therefore, in reading each entry of this chapter, one can ask at least three layers of questions. First, is what this entry settles the fruit or the cause—when the sūtra text speaks of assurance, the hearer most easily reads it as a written certificate of guarantee, yet the treatise-author's explanation lies wholly on the cause: not falling into the evil destinies is because of 「斷一切不善業」 tr. "cutting off all unwholesome deeds"; not being born among the heavens of long life is because of 「不著禪味」 tr. "not clinging to the flavour of dhyāna"; not being born in a border land is because of 「常好中道、捨離二邊」 tr. "always loving the middle way and relinquishing the two extremes". Assurance is not being adjudged so; it is that the cause is already thus and the fruit cannot but be thus; so wherever one sees the two Chinese characters ‘assured’, first ask where its cause lies. Second, if this entry were read in reverse, what would it become—there are two places in this chapter most easily read in reverse: the first is hearing 「初發意菩薩亦畢定」 tr. "the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured" and growing slack, thinking that since it is settled one may go slowly; yet the treatise-author says plainly that this saying is set up for those whose mind of great compassion is thin, whose love of their own body is heavy, and who wish to take nirvāṇa early—it is to stop their retreat, not to permit their slackness. The second is hearing 「一切法、一切法相空」 tr. "all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty" and abandoning practice; yet the treatise-author has already guarded against this in advance—one who practises good with a clinging mind, hearing of ultimate emptiness, abandons the dharma he practised and turns to cling to the mark of emptiness: this is precisely 「失二種法」 tr. "losing two kinds of dharma", precisely the medicine in turn becoming the disease. So whoever hears one sentence of emptiness and grows careless in mind—this chapter has already named that sickness beforehand. Third, I have not yet given rise to the supernormal powers; of what use is this chapter to me—the Last Part is set up precisely for this: the supernormal powers can arise not because one first has their power, but 「空故能行」 tr. "because of emptiness he can practise"; and the supernormal powers are to be used not for displaying the extraordinary, but in order to 「隨眾生意善說法」 tr. "teach the Dharma well in accord with the minds of beings". For one who has not obtained the powers, what he should learn is the same one matter—within what is given, not to discriminate giver and receiver; within what is practised, not to grasp at the mark of emptiness; this is what the sūtra calls 「一切善法是菩薩阿耨多羅三藐三菩提因緣」 tr. "all wholesome dharmas are the causes and conditions of the bodhisattva's anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". Reading on along the two sūtras and two treatises, one will in the end come down on the treatise-author's plainest sentence of judgement: the true bodhisattva path lies not in how high the dharmas practised are, but only in whether, while practising, there is a discriminating mind.

Reading On in the Order of the Treatise

Certainty, First Part: Four Questions on the Meaning of Assurance; Taking an Animal's Body without Losing the Roots of Goodness; Both Teachings Are Real; Why the Two Vehicles Are Rebuked

What Is Being Asked

The name of this chapter is only two Chinese characters—assured. The first of them means final, coming to an end; the second means decided. Taken together, the treatise-author gives, within the treatise section, an extremely short definition: 「畢定者，必當作佛。」 tr. "The assured will surely become a Buddha." What matters is that in these four Chinese characters there is no sense of ‘already being so now’. Assured speaks of the end point being decided; it does not say that one's stage at this moment is already high. Almost all the difficulties of the whole unit arise from this gap in time.

The sūtra text opens with Subhūti's question: 「是菩薩摩訶薩為畢定？為不畢定？」 tr. "Is this bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured? Or is he unassured?" The Buddha answers very directly: 「菩薩摩訶薩畢定，非不畢定。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is assured; he is not unassured." Then three questions follow one after another, each one pressing this word 「定」 tr. "decided" into a narrower place. The second question asks where—「何處畢定？為聲聞道中？為辟支佛道中？為佛道中？」 tr. "Where is he assured? Is it in the path of the śrāvaka? Is it in the path of the pratyekabuddha? Or is it in the path of the Buddha?" The Buddha answers that it is not in the paths of the two vehicles, it is in the path of the Buddha; this layer fixes the place to which assurance is directed firmly in the Buddha path, and the decidedness of the two vehicles does not count. The third question asks who—is it the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent who is assured, or the bodhisattva in his last body? The Buddha answers that all three kinds of bodhisattva are assured, the one who has first aroused intent included; this layer is the most unexpected, because it places the person who has only just aroused the mind and the person about to become a Buddha under the same verdict. The fourth question is the hardest to answer, and is also the main axis of the first half of this unit: since he is assured, 「畢定菩薩墮惡道中生不？」 tr. "Will the assured bodhisattva fall into the evil destinies and be born there?"—The Buddha does not answer head-on at first, but turns and asks Subhūti: will these sages, the person of the eight and so on up to the pratyekabuddha, be born in the evil destinies? Since the answer is that they will not, then the bodhisattva is likewise. Yet in the jātakas (birth-stories) the Buddha himself has told, the bodhisattva plainly was an elephant, a deer, a tortoise, a dove, a peacock, a parrot, and underwent all kinds of suffering. So Subhūti at once follows up with a question: 「如佛自說本生受不善果報，是時善根為何所在？」 tr. "As the Buddha himself has said, in the jātakas he received unwholesome retribution—at that time, where were his roots of goodness?"

The first question the First Part has to answer is right here: how an animal's body and the position of assurance can stand together. The answer the sūtra text gives goes in two steps. First it says why he takes a body—「為利益眾生故，隨而受身」 tr. "for the sake of benefiting beings, he takes a body accordingly", and that among animals he can have a power the two vehicles do not have: 「若怨賊欲來殺害，以無上忍辱、無上慈悲心捨身，不惱怨賊；……」 tr. "if enemies and thieves come to kill him, with unsurpassed patience and an unsurpassed mind of kindness and compassion he gives up his body and does not vex the enemies and thieves; …" Then it says that he takes a body without losing anything—the Buddha does not dispute with Subhūti on the level of particular matters, but sets up three counter-questions in a row: if the Buddha himself conjures the body of an animal and does the Buddha's work, is that really an animal? When an arhat makes a transformation body, can he make beings rejoice? When a conjurer conjures up elephants, horses, oxen, sheep, men, and women for people to see, are they really existent? Three questions and one answer separate 「現」 tr. "manifesting" from 「是」 tr. "being": manifesting the form of an animal is not the same as undergoing an animal's retribution. So Sūtra ① closes on one sentence of Subhūti's praise—the bodhisattva, by the power of great skilful means, 「隨所應度眾生身，而作種種形以度眾生」 tr. "according to the bodies of the beings he should deliver, makes all kinds of forms to deliver beings".

The treatise section takes over, and the second question at once stands up: the "Avaivartika" chapter has already spoken broadly of the marks of the avaivartika, and avaivartika is precisely assured—why does Subhūti still ask again? The treatise-author answers in three layers in a row: prajñā has all kinds of gates, and this is asking again through a different gate of approach; in the Buddha's mind all dharmas are from the first assured, and it is because people's wisdom does not reach so far that they are called unassured; Subhūti had heard the Lotus Sūtra say that one who does a little merit, even to the point of once uttering the Buddha's name in jest, will become a Buddha, and had also heard that in the "Avaivartika" chapter there is retreat and there is non-retreat; the two sides differ, and only for that reason does he ask. The third layer especially must be looked at—the real point of doubt in this unit is not that a name recurs, it is that the words of two sūtras do not match.

So comes the weightiest set of questions and answers in this unit. The treatise-author himself pushes the difficulty to its extreme: the preceding chapter plainly said 「求佛如恒河沙，得阿鞞跋致者若一、若二」 tr. "those seeking Buddhahood are like the sands of the Ganges; of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two", yet here it says that all three kinds of bodhisattva are without exception assured—of these two meanings, which one is real? The answer is only four Chinese characters—「二事皆實」 tr. "both matters are real"—and then it gives the criterion: 「佛口所說無不實者」 tr. "what the Buddha's mouth speaks is never unreal"; the difference lies in the capacity addressed. For those who have first aroused the mind he says dharmas exist; for those long in training who cling to wholesome dharmas he says they are empty; for people who are slack and not firm he says that of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two, so that they know the difficulty and take their own measure; for those 「堪任得佛而大悲心薄、自愛身重」 tr. "fit to obtain Buddhahood, yet whose mind of great compassion is thin and whose love of their own body is heavy", who on hearing that Buddhahood is hard to obtain want to take nirvāṇa early, he says that all bodhisattvas, even those who have first aroused the mind, are assured, so that their minds are set at ease. One and the same matter, two ways of speaking it, each with the people it rescues.

The third question follows close behind: if all are assured, why does the Buddha still rebuke the two vehicles in all kinds of ways and not permit bodhisattvas to take the realisation of the two vehicles? The treatise-author's answer lies not in stages but in consequences—taking a realisation of a small portion of the nature of dharmas and then stopping of oneself, relinquishing the Buddha path and not delivering beings, is 「迂迴，於佛道稽留」 tr. "a roundabout way, a lingering on the Buddha path". From this is drawn out the passage on the arhat becoming a Buddha again: where the body whose outflows are exhausted abides so as to make complete the Buddha path; why, having received the Dharma-nature body, it is still called a roundabout way; how far this matter can be discussed. At the end the treatise-author himself seals it with one sentence—the Buddha-dharma is the foremost among the five inconceivables, this matter 「唯佛能知」 tr. "only a Buddha can know", 「不應戲論」 tr. "one should not make idle discourse".

The latter half of the unit returns to the particulars of not falling into the evil destinies and accounts for them item by item: why he does not fall into the three evil destinies, why he is not born in the heavens of long life, why he is not born in a border land, why he is not born in a family of wrong views, why among the sixty-two wrong views the view of no-doing alone is singled out, why the bodhisattva who has first aroused the mind does not practise the ten unwholesome paths with a deep mind. At the end it closes with the jātaka of the six-tusked white elephant, and answers the last question—since he can make a human body, why does he deliberately make the body of a beast to teach the Dharma.

Passage by Passage

1. Subhūti asks whether the bodhisattva is assured or unassured; the Buddha answers that he is assured, not unassured. Sūtra ① opens at once with one question and one answer, and the pivot of the whole chapter is set up right here: 「須菩提白佛言：『世尊！是菩薩摩訶薩為畢定？為不畢定？』佛告須菩提：『菩薩摩訶薩畢定，非不畢定。』」 tr. "Subhūti addressed the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! Is this bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured? Or is he unassured?’ The Buddha told Subhūti: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is assured; he is not unassured.’" The Buddha's answer uses two clauses—first stating directly 「畢定」 tr. "assured", then negating the opposite with 「非不畢定」 tr. "not unassured". This negating clause is not a repetition; it first blocks off that vague line of thought, ‘perhaps assured, perhaps unassured’. Here it is not yet said what assurance is; only whether there is assurance or not is first fixed; the definition must wait until, within the treatise section, the treatise-author supplies that sentence 「畢定者，必當作佛」 tr. "the assured will surely become a Buddha". In reading, it is best to keep this definition in mind first, so that the earlier questions do not fall into emptiness.

2. Where is he assured—not in the paths of the two vehicles, but in the path of the Buddha. The second question presses out where the 「定」 tr. "decided" lies: 「何處畢定？為聲聞道中？為辟支佛道中？為佛道中？」 tr. "Where is he assured? Is it in the path of the śrāvaka? Is it in the path of the pratyekabuddha? Or is it in the path of the Buddha?" The Buddha answers: 「菩薩摩訶薩非聲聞、辟支佛道中畢定，是佛道中畢定。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is not assured in the path of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha; he is assured in the path of the Buddha." This layer is extremely important. Assurance is not an abstract 「決定」 tr. "decidedness"; it must have a path to which it is directed; one and the same person may be decided in the path of the two vehicles, yet not necessarily in the path of the Buddha. The sūtra text ties the bodhisattva's assurance solely to the Buddha path, which is as much as to say: the bodhisattva is named assured with respect to this matter, that he will surely become a Buddha, and not with respect to what he has realised at this moment. Later, when the treatise section explains this question, it also supplies the frame of mind behind Subhūti's need to ask—「須菩提心以入涅槃為畢定」 tr. "in Subhūti's mind, entering nirvāṇa was being assured"; he had originally taken entering nirvāṇa as the mark of decidedness, and so he asks in which path the decidedness lies.

3. Who is assured—the three kinds, the one who has first aroused intent, the avaivartika, and the one in his last body, are all assured. The third question asks about the person: 「為初發意菩薩畢定？為最後身菩薩畢定？」 tr. "Is it the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent who is assured? Or is it the bodhisattva in his last body who is assured?" The Buddha's answer takes in all three without exception: 「初發意菩薩亦畢定，阿鞞跋致菩薩亦畢定，最後身菩薩亦畢定。」 tr. "The bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured, the avaivartika bodhisattva is also assured, the bodhisattva in his last body is also assured." What Subhūti originally expected, the treatise-author says plainly later on—「須菩提意謂為『阿鞞跋致已上，畢定住佛道中』故」 tr. "this is because Subhūti's meaning was ‘only those from the avaivartika upward abide assured in the Buddha path’"; he thought one counts only from non-retrogressing upward. The reason the Buddha's answer counts in even the one who has first aroused intent is precisely that assurance speaks of the end point and not of this moment: the person who has first aroused intent is extremely far from becoming a Buddha, yet the end point of that road is still decided. This entry is the place in the whole chapter most easily misread, and the section ‘Do Not Misread’ below will speak of it again.

4. Does the assured bodhisattva fall into the evil destinies—the counter-question by way of the person of the eight and so on up to the pratyekabuddha. The fourth question pushes assurance onto particular matters to test it: 「畢定菩薩墮惡道中生不？」 tr. "Will the assured bodhisattva fall into the evil destinies and be born there?" The Buddha first answers 「不也」 tr. "he will not", and at once asks in return: 「於汝意云何？若八人，若須陀洹、斯陀含、阿那含、阿羅漢、辟支佛，生惡道中不？」 tr. "What do you think? Whether the person of the eight, or the srota-āpanna, the sakṛdāgāmin, the anāgāmin, the arhat, or the pratyekabuddha—will they be born in the evil destinies?" Subhūti answers 「不也」 tr. "they will not". What the Buddha uses is an analogy and not a proclamation—that sages are not born in the evil destinies is a ready-made fact both sides acknowledge; since the bodhisattva has entered the same path, the conclusion is self-evident. The stages listed here, the person of the eight and the four fruits and the pratyekabuddha, the sūtra text gives only by name and not by meaning, and this unit does not gloss them on its behalf; only one thing needs to be known: these are all people who have entered the noble path, and those who have entered the noble path are not born in the evil destinies.

5. From the first arousing of intent he cultivates the six practices and cuts off unwholesome deeds, so that the places of the eight difficulties are out of the question. The Buddha unfolds the reason: 「菩薩摩訶薩從初發意已來，布施、持戒、忍辱、精進、行禪定、修智慧，斷一切不善業」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, from the first arousing of intent onward, gives, keeps the precepts, is patient, is vigorous, practises meditative concentration, and cultivates wisdom, and cuts off all unwholesome deeds", and therefore 「若墮惡道、若生長壽天、若不得修善法處、若生邊國、若生惡邪見家、無作見家」 tr. "to say that he falls into the evil destinies, or is born in the heavens of long life, or is born in a place where he cannot cultivate wholesome dharmas, or is born in a border land, or is born in a family of evil wrong views or a family of the view that nothing is to be done"—all of these 「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such thing". The six practices listed are just the names of the six perfections, listed by the sūtra text itself; to the places in which he is not born that it lists, the sūtra text itself attaches their sickness—「是中無佛名、無法名、無僧名」 tr. "in these there is no name of the Buddha, no name of the Dharma, no name of the Saṅgha", that is, there are no Three Jewels to rely on. At the end it adds one more sentence, the weightiest: 「初發意菩薩於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提以深心行十不善道，無有是處！」 tr. "That a bodhisattva who has first aroused intent should, with regard to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi (unsurpassed, right, and complete awakening), practise the ten unwholesome paths with a deep mind—there is no such thing!" The two Chinese characters 「深心」 tr. "a deep mind" are the joint: it does not say that not a single evil thought arises in him; it says he will not do it with a deep mind. This measure the treatise section will explain again later.

6. Since his roots of goodness are accomplished, where are his roots of goodness when in the jātakas he receives unwholesome retribution. Subhūti's follow-up question comes extremely precisely: 「若菩薩摩訶薩有如是善根功德成就，如佛自說本生受不善果報，是時善根為何所在？」 tr. "If the bodhisattva-mahāsattva has such roots of goodness and merit accomplished, then, as the Buddha himself has said, in the jātakas he received unwholesome retribution—at that time, where were his roots of goodness?" He is not calling the Buddha's word into question; he is taking the jātakas the Buddha himself has told and checking them against it. What the question really amounts to is: since he has cut off unwholesome deeds, why is there still the retribution of undergoing suffering? If this question is not answered, the three answers before it all hang in the air.

7. The Buddha answers why he takes a body—for the sake of benefiting beings he takes a body accordingly; among animals he gives up his body with unsurpassed patience and kindness and compassion, which the two vehicles do not have. The Buddha's answer is in two parts. First he answers why he takes it: 「菩薩摩訶薩為利益眾生故，隨而受身，以是身利益眾生。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, for the sake of benefiting beings, takes a body accordingly, and with this body benefits beings." The character 「隨」 tr. "accordingly" is the joint—he does not take it because his deeds drag him into it; he takes it according to those who are to be delivered. Next he answers what he does once he has taken it: 「菩薩摩訶薩作畜生時，有是方便力，若怨賊欲來殺害，以無上忍辱、無上慈悲心捨身，不惱怨賊；……」 tr. "When the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is an animal, he has such a power of skilful means: if enemies and thieves come to kill him, with unsurpassed patience and an unsurpassed mind of kindness and compassion he gives up his body and does not vex the enemies and thieves; …" And he sets the two vehicles opposite: 「汝諸聲聞、辟支佛，無有是力。」 tr. "You śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas do not have such a power." The verdict falls on the last sentence: the bodhisattva takes an animal's body because he 「欲具足大慈悲心、為憐愍利益眾生」 tr. "wishes to make complete the mind of great kindness and compassion, and for the sake of pitying and benefiting beings". So the suffering undergone in the jātakas is not a remnant of retribution; it is the working of kindness and compassion.

8. Abiding in what roots of goodness does he take such bodies—from the first arousing of intent to the seat of awakening, there is no root of goodness not made complete. Subhūti asks again what he relies on: 「菩薩摩訶薩住何等善根中受如是諸身？」 tr. "Abiding in what kind of roots of goodness does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva take such bodies?" The Buddha's answer does not point to some single root of goodness but to the whole course: 「從初發意乃至道場，於其中間，無有善根不具足者；具足已，當得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "From the first arousing of intent all the way to the seat of awakening, in between there is not a single root of goodness that he does not make complete; having made them complete, he will obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." And from this he turns to an exhortation to cultivate and train—「從初發意，應當學具足一切善根；學善根已，當得一切種智，當斷一切煩惱習」 tr. "from the first arousing of intent he should train in making complete all roots of goodness; having trained in the roots of goodness, he will obtain the omniscience of all kinds, and will sever all the afflictions and their habitual residues". This answer echoes the third question: the reason the one who has first aroused intent is also assured is precisely that on that stretch of road 「無有善根不具足者」 tr. "there is not a single root of goodness that he does not make complete", and in the end he must arrive at completeness.

9. The question of accomplishing the white and pure dharmas without outflows and yet being born among animals; the Buddha's counter-question by way of himself conjuring an animal's body. Subhūti asks again from another angle: 「云何菩薩摩訶薩成就如是白淨無漏法，而生惡道畜生中？」 tr. "Why is it that the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, having accomplished such white and pure dharmas without outflows, is yet born among animals in the evil destinies?" The Buddha does not answer directly, but first sets up an example neither side can deny: 「佛成就白淨無漏法不？」 tr. "Has the Buddha accomplished the white and pure dharmas without outflows?" The answer: 「佛一切白淨無漏法成就」 tr. "the Buddha has accomplished all the white and pure dharmas without outflows". Then he infers: 「若佛自化作畜生身，作佛事，度眾生，實是畜生不？」 tr. "If the Buddha himself conjures the body of an animal, does the Buddha's work, and delivers beings, is he really an animal?" The answer: 「不也」 tr. "he is not". Thereupon the Buddha draws the conclusion: 「菩薩摩訶薩亦如是，成就白淨無漏法，為度眾生故受畜生身，用是身教化眾生。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is also like this: having accomplished the white and pure dharmas without outflows, for the sake of delivering beings he takes the body of an animal, and with this body teaches and transforms beings." This step separates ‘manifesting a certain form’ from ‘being of a certain kind’—the form is what is manifested, the kind is what is undergone, and the two are not one and the same.

10. The two similes of the arhat's transformation body and the conjurer's conjuring; he manifests all kinds of bodies and yet does not undergo suffering. The Buddha adds two more similes. One is the arhat's transformation body: 「如阿羅漢作變化身，能使眾生歡喜不？」 tr. "When an arhat makes a transformation body, can he make beings rejoice?" The answer: 「能」 tr. "he can"; even the transformations of the two vehicles are of use and yet not real, how much more the bodhisattva's. The other is the conjurer: 「幻師幻作種種形，若象、馬、牛、羊、男、女等，以示眾人」 tr. "a conjurer conjures up all kinds of forms, such as elephants, horses, oxen, sheep, men, women, and so on, to show to the crowd"; asked whether these 「有實不」 tr. "are real or not", the answer is 「不實也」 tr. "they are not real". Both similes come down on the same verdict: the bodhisattva, 「現作種種身以示眾生故，以是身饒益一切，亦不受眾苦」 tr. "for the sake of manifesting all kinds of bodies for beings to see, with this body enriches all, and he himself does not undergo the many sufferings". The five Chinese characters 「亦不受眾苦」 tr. "and he himself does not undergo the many sufferings" are the eye of this passage—it does not say there is no such form; it says there is no retribution of suffering that comes along with that form. With this the sixth question has been fully answered.

11. The closing sentence of Sūtra ①—Subhūti praises the power of great skilful means. Sūtra ① does not close with the Buddha's words but with one sentence of Subhūti's praise: 「菩薩摩訶薩大方便力，得聖無漏智慧，而隨所應度眾生身，而作種種形以度眾生！」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva has the power of great skilful means; having obtained the noble wisdom without outflows, he yet, according to the bodies of the beings he should deliver, makes all kinds of forms to deliver beings!" This sentence gathers the meaning made clear by the three similes above into one matter, and gives it a name—the power of great skilful means. The answer to what the earlier question doubted, ‘where are his roots of goodness’, lies right here: his roots of goodness are nowhere else; they are precisely in his being able to manifest bodies in this way without losing anything.

12. The treatise-author poses a question—the "Avaivartika" chapter has already spoken of it, so why ask again now. The treatise section asks at its very opening: 「上〈阿鞞跋致品〉中說：『如是相是阿鞞跋致，如是相非阿鞞跋致。』阿鞞跋致即是畢定，須菩提今何以更問？」 tr. "Above, in the ‘Avaivartika’ chapter, it was said: ‘Such marks are avaivartika; such marks are not avaivartika.’ Avaivartika is precisely assured; why does Subhūti now ask again?" The question is put directly: since avaivartika is precisely assured and the earlier chapter has already listed its marks, is this not a recurrence here? The first layer of the answer is: 「是般若波羅蜜有種種門、有種種道。阿鞞跋致是一門中說；今問畢定，更問異門。」 tr. "This prajñāpāramitā has all kinds of gates and all kinds of paths. Avaivartika was spoken of within one gate; now, in asking about assurance, he is asking again through a different gate of approach." One and the same matter can be entered through different gates; the gates differ and the matter does not—this is this treatise's general practice for handling 「重說」 tr. "repetition", not a makeshift expression of this chapter.

13. The second answer—in the Buddha's mind all beings and all dharmas are assured; because human knowledge does not reach so far, they are named unassured. The treatise-author next pushes it to the root: 「佛心中一切眾生、一切法皆畢定；人以智不及故，名為不畢定。」 tr. "In the Buddha's mind all beings and all dharmas are assured; because people's knowledge does not reach so far, they are named unassured." Then he cites two extremes as proof: the Buddha knows that there are people who, 「雖無量阿僧祇劫積大功德，必退作小乘」 tr. "although they accumulate great merit through immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas, must yet retreat into the Small Vehicle", and he also knows that 「微細蜫虫雖未有善心，過爾所劫發心，後當作佛」 tr. "a tiny worm, though it has as yet no wholesome mind, after passing through so many kalpas will arouse the mind and will later become a Buddha". At one extreme is a person who seems extremely steady and in the end retreats; at the other a creature that seems extremely far away and in the end is accomplished—neither extreme can be judged by what is before one's eyes. The concluding sentence says it plainly: 「定知一切法皆如是，從是因得是果，是故名佛；……」 tr. "He knows decisively that all dharmas are like this—from this cause one obtains this fruit—and for this reason he is named the Buddha; …" So the three Chinese characters 「不畢定」 tr. "unassured" have never been a matter on the side of dharmas; they are a matter on the side of knowledge and views. Once this layer is set up, half the difficulty of the earlier 「三種菩薩皆畢定」 tr. "all three kinds of bodhisattva are assured" is loosened.

14. The third answer—the Lotus Sūtra and the "Avaivartika" chapter speak differently, and so the question arises. Only at the end does the treatise-author state the actual reason for Subhūti's asking: he had heard it said in the Lotus Sūtra that 「於佛所作少功德，乃至戲笑一稱南無佛，漸漸必當作佛」 tr. "one who has done a little merit toward the Buddha, even to the point of once saying in jest ‘Namo Buddha’, will little by little surely become a Buddha", had also heard that in the "Avaivartika" chapter there is retreat and there is non-retreat, and had also heard that the śrāvakas will all become buddhas—「若爾者，不應有退」 tr. "if that is so, then there should be no retreat". Set side by side, the words of the two sides do not fit together, and 「是故今問為畢定、為不畢定」 tr. "for this reason he now asks whether one is assured or unassured". This layer makes clear that the question of this chapter is not curiosity about names; it is an actual conflict between the texts of two sūtras. The closing sentence, 「如是等種種因緣故，問定、不定」 tr. "for all such kinds of causes and conditions as these, he asks about assured and unassured", sets the three answers side by side without choosing one.

15. The treatise-author takes up the sūtra's three questions and three answers, and supplies Subhūti's meaning. The treatise-author next takes up the sūtra text's three questions and three answers one by one: 「佛答：『菩薩是畢定。』」 tr. "The Buddha answers: ‘The bodhisattva is assured.’" 「須菩提心以入涅槃為畢定，是故問：『為何道中畢定？』佛答：『非畢定二乘，但於大乘中畢定。』」 tr. "In Subhūti's mind, entering nirvāṇa was being assured; for this reason he asks: ‘In which path is he assured?’ The Buddha answers: ‘He is not assured in the two vehicles; he is assured only in the Great Vehicle.’" 「求佛道者，有上、中、下，是故問：『為初發意？為阿鞞跋致？為最後身畢定？』」 tr. "Among those who seek the Buddha path there are the upper, the middle, and the lower; for this reason he asks: ‘Is it the one who has first aroused intent? Is it the avaivartika? Is it the one in his last body who is assured?’" Then he supplies what Subhūti expected—「須菩提意謂為『阿鞞跋致已上，畢定住佛道中』故」 tr. "this is because Subhūti's meaning was ‘only those from the avaivartika upward abide assured in the Buddha path’"—and again takes up the Buddha's answer: 「『三種菩薩皆畢定。』畢定者，必當作佛。」 tr. "‘All three kinds of bodhisattva are assured.’ What is called assured is precisely: he will surely become a Buddha." The last four Chinese characters are the direct definition of the word 「畢定」 tr. "assured"; though their position is not conspicuous, their weight is the greatest. Later there is another sentence, 「畢定者，即是阿鞞跋致」 tr. "what is called assured is precisely avaivartika", which speaks of the names of the stages containing one another, and the two complete each other.

16. The difficulty of the preceding chapter's 「若一、若二」 tr. "one or two" against this 「盡皆畢定」 tr. "without exception assured" ; both meanings are real. The treatise-author himself poses the hardest question of this unit: 「如上品中說『佛以佛眼見十方菩薩，求佛如恒河沙，得阿鞞跋致者若一、若二』；今何以言『三種菩薩盡皆畢定』？」 tr. "As was said in the preceding chapter, ‘the Buddha, with the Buddha-eye, sees the bodhisattvas of the ten directions seeking Buddhahood like the sands of the Ganges, yet of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two’; why is it now said ‘all three kinds of bodhisattva are without exception assured’?" The answer first cites the immeasurable gates of prajñā as the general rule, and then cites in turn Subhūti's question in the "Avaivartika" chapter—from where does the one who retreats retreat, 「畢竟空故，諸法皆不退」 tr. "because of ultimate emptiness, no dharma retreats"—and asks in return 「此中佛何以更說不退」 tr. "why then does the Buddha here speak again of non-retreat". Thereupon the treatise-author poses one more question to lay the difficulty bare: 「是二義何者是實？」 tr. "Of these two meanings, which one is real?" The answer is only four Chinese characters: 「二事皆實。」 tr. "Both matters are real." The ground is 「佛口所說無不實者」 tr. "what the Buddha's mouth speaks is never unreal". And he cites a ready-made pair as an example: the Buddha sometimes says 「諸法空無所有」 tr. "dharmas are empty and without anything existent", and sometimes says 「布施、持戒等是有」 tr. "giving, keeping the precepts, and the rest exist"; 「為初發心者說『諸法有』，為久學人著善法者說『諸法空無所有』」 tr. "for those who have first aroused the mind he says ‘dharmas exist’; for people long in training who cling to wholesome dharmas he says ‘dharmas are empty and without anything existent’". So the difference between the two teachings has never lain in true and false; it lies in the people addressed.

17. Each of the two teachings has the people it rescues—the slack hear 「若一、若二」 tr. "one or two" ; those thin in great compassion hear 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured" . The treatise-author divides the capacities addressed very finely. On one side are 「懈怠於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提不牢固者」 tr. "those who are slack and not firm with regard to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi": such people 「應從聲聞道得度而不求聲聞，久於生死中受苦」 tr. "ought to be delivered through the śrāvaka path, yet do not seek the śrāvaka path, and for a long time undergo suffering within birth and death", and so to them it is said 「發心如恒河沙，得阿鞞跋致者若一、若二」 tr. "those who arouse the mind are like the sands of the Ganges; of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two"—having heard it, 「能堪受眾苦者，畢定阿耨多羅三藐三菩提；若不能者，取聲聞、辟支佛道」 tr. "those who can bear the many sufferings are then assured of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi; those who cannot bear them take up the path of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha", each going according to his own strength. On the other side are 「有人堪任得佛而大悲心薄、自愛身重」 tr. "people who are fit to obtain Buddhahood, yet whose mind of great compassion is thin and whose love of their own body is heavy": such people in fact have enough strength, only because 「聞佛難得，多有退者」 tr. "they hear that Buddhahood is hard to obtain and that many retreat", they have the thought 「我或不能得佛，不如早取涅槃，何用世世受勤苦為」 tr. "perhaps I cannot obtain Buddhahood; better to take nirvāṇa early—what use is it to undergo toil and suffering life after life"—and for the sake of such people it is 「說一切菩薩乃至初發心皆畢定」 tr. "said that all bodhisattvas, even those who have first aroused the mind, are assured". One sentence is a barrier, one sentence is a support; what is barred is shallowness, what is supported is timidity. One and the same Dharma, simply medicine given according to the illness.

18. If all are assured, why are the two vehicles rebuked and the realisation not permitted—to take the realisation midway is to relinquish the Buddha path and not deliver beings. The third question follows on its heels: 「若菩薩皆畢定，佛何以故種種呵二乘，不聽菩薩取二乘證？」 tr. "If bodhisattvas are all assured, why does the Buddha rebuke the two vehicles in all kinds of ways, and not permit bodhisattvas to take the realisation of the two vehicles?" The treatise-author's answer does not speak from stages but from consequences: those who seek the Buddha path ought to know the nature of dharmas pervasively, yet this person, 「畏老、病、死故，於法性少分取證，便自止息，捨佛道、不度眾生」 tr. "because he fears old age, sickness, and death, takes a realisation of a small portion of the nature of dharmas and then stops of himself, relinquishes the Buddha path and does not deliver beings". Then he cites the words of rebuke of the buddhas and bodhisattvas: 「汝欲捨去，會不得離，得阿羅漢證時，不求諸菩薩深三昧，又不廣化眾生，是則迂迴，於佛道稽留。」 tr. "You wish to leave and go, yet in the end you will not be able to part from it; when you obtain the realisation of the arhat, you do not seek the deep samādhis of the bodhisattvas, nor do you widely transform beings—this is a roundabout way, a lingering on the Buddha path." The two verdicts are extremely precise—「會不得離」 tr. "in the end you will not be able to part from it" says that he wants to get away and in the end cannot get away; 「迂迴」 tr. "a roundabout way" and 「稽留」 tr. "lingering" say that it is not that he does not arrive, only that he goes the long way round and stops for long. So the rebuke is aimed at the long way round, not at his being unable to become a Buddha; on this point it does not conflict with 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured".

19. Since the body the arhat received in former lives is extinguished, where does he abide to make complete the Buddha path. The difficulty goes one layer further: 「阿羅漢先世因緣所受身必應當滅，住在何處而具足佛道？」 tr. "The body that the arhat received through the causes and conditions of his former lives must surely be extinguished; where then does he abide to make complete the Buddha path?" The treatise-author answers: 「得阿羅漢時，三界諸漏因緣盡，更不復生三界。有淨佛土，出於三界，乃至無煩惱之名，於是國土佛所，聞《法華經》，具足佛道。」 tr. "When one obtains arhatship, the causes and conditions of the outflows of the three realms are exhausted, and one is no longer born in the three realms. There are pure Buddha-lands, beyond the three realms, where even the name of the afflictions does not exist; in the presence of the Buddha of such a land he hears the Lotus Sūtra and makes complete the Buddha path." And he cites the text of the Lotus Sūtra as proof: 「有羅漢，若不聞《法華經》，自謂得滅度；我於餘國為說是事，汝皆當作佛。」 tr. "There are arhats who, if they do not hear the Lotus Sūtra, think of themselves that they have obtained passing into extinction; in another land I will speak this matter for them: you shall all become buddhas." Here only the place and what is heard are accounted for, and no further names are set up; what the treatise text does not have, this unit does not supply on its behalf.

20. Having received the Dharma-nature body, why is it still named a roundabout way and lingering. At once someone will ask: 「若阿羅漢往淨佛國土受法性身，如是應得疾作佛，何以言迂迴、稽留？」 tr. "If the arhat goes to the pure Buddha-land and receives the Dharma-nature body, then he ought to become a Buddha quickly; why is it said to be a roundabout way and a lingering?" The treatise-author answers without sparing him: 「是人著小乘因緣，捨眾生、捨佛道，又復虛言得道」 tr. "This person clung to the causes and conditions of the Small Vehicle, relinquished beings and relinquished the Buddha path, and moreover falsely said of himself that he had obtained the path", and therefore 「雖不受生死苦惱，於菩薩根鈍，不能疾成佛道，不如直往菩薩」 tr. "although he does not undergo the suffering and vexation of birth and death, yet in the bodhisattva's share his faculties are dull, and he cannot quickly accomplish the Buddha path; he is not equal to the bodhisattva who goes straight ahead". The three causes of the sickness all lie not in states but in the mind—clinging, relinquishing, false words. And the retribution is not undergoing suffering; it is 「根鈍」 tr. "dull faculties". So the verdict of 「迂迴」 tr. "a roundabout way" is from beginning to end spoken of speed, not of whether he can or cannot.

21. Among the five inconceivables the Buddha-dharma is foremost; that they become buddhas again only a Buddha can know, and one should not make idle discourse. At this point the treatise-author himself seals this topic: 「佛法於五不可思議中最第一，今言『漏盡阿羅漢還作佛』，唯佛能知。論議者正可論，其事不能測知，是故不應戲論。」 tr. "Among the five inconceivables the Buddha-dharma is the foremost; now it is said that ‘arhats whose outflows are exhausted become buddhas again’, and only a Buddha can know this. Those who discuss can only discuss; that matter cannot be fathomed, and for this reason one should not make idle discourse." The last sentence leaves a measure: 「若求得佛時，乃能了知；餘人可信而不可知。」 tr. "When one seeks and obtains Buddhahood, only then can one fully know it; other people can believe it, but cannot know it." This is the place in the whole unit where the tone is weightiest—it does not forbid thinking; it separates 「可論」 tr. "what can be discussed" from 「可知」 tr. "what can be known": discussion goes as far as the line of reasoning, and the particular matters further in are believed and accepted, not conjectured about. The items of the five inconceivables the treatise text does not list here, and this unit does not list them on its behalf.

22. The Buddha answers with a counter-question—the person of the eight and the other sages have no causes and conditions for falling into the evil destinies, and the bodhisattva is likewise. The treatise-author turns back to explain the fourth question of the sūtra text. First he states why Subhūti asked: he 「聞佛說無量本生因緣，或象、鹿、龜、鴿、孔雀、鸚鵡等受種種苦」 tr. "heard the Buddha tell of immeasurable causes and conditions of the jātakas, in which he was an elephant, a deer, a tortoise, a dove, a peacock, a parrot, and so on, and underwent all kinds of suffering", and so he asked 「若菩薩受如是等畜生身，云何言一切菩薩畢定」 tr. "if the bodhisattva takes the bodies of such animals as these, how can it be said that all bodhisattvas are assured", and he himself makes clear his ground—「畢定者，即是阿鞞跋致；阿鞞跋致者，不墮三惡趣」 tr. "what is called assured is precisely avaivartika; what is called avaivartika is one who does not fall into the three evil courses". Then he states the Buddha's way of answering: 「佛反問答：『於汝意云何？八人等聖人為墮三惡道不？』」 tr. "The Buddha answered with a counter-question: ‘What do you think? Do the person of the eight and the other sages fall into the three evil destinies or not?’" Subhūti reflected 「是諸聖人入聖道故，無墮三惡道因緣」 tr. "because these sages have entered the noble path, they have no causes and conditions for falling into the three evil destinies", and then answered 「不也」 tr. "they do not"; the Buddha accordingly concludes 「菩薩亦如是，墮三惡道因緣盡故，云何墮三惡道」 tr. "the bodhisattva is also like this: because the causes and conditions for falling into the three evil destinies are exhausted, how could he fall into the three evil destinies". The treatise-author further makes the two Chinese characters 「因緣」 tr. "causes and conditions" concrete: the causes and conditions for falling into the three evil destinies are 「所謂諸不善法」 tr. "precisely the unwholesome dharmas", while this bodhisattva, 「從初發心已來，修習布施、持戒等諸善法，斷諸殺生等十不善道」 tr. "from the first arousing of the mind onward, has cultivated and practised giving, keeping the precepts, and the other wholesome dharmas, and has cut off killing and the rest of the ten unwholesome paths". And he divides the unwholesome paths by weight: 「不善道有上、中、下：上者墮地獄，中者墮畜生，下者墮餓鬼。」 tr. "The unwholesome paths are of the upper, the middle, and the lower: the upper fall into the hells, the middle fall among animals, the lower fall among the hungry ghosts." The meaning of the three the treatise text itself gives, so they can be looked at item by item—unwholesomeness of the upper grade brings on the hells, of the middle grade animals, of the lower grade the hungry ghosts; this bodhisattva has 「三種已盡」 tr. "exhausted all three kinds", and adds to it 「深心悲念眾生」 tr. "with a deep mind thinks with compassion of beings", and so he does not fall.

23. Why he is not born in the heavens of long life—he does not cling to the flavour of dhyāna, and because he thinks of the dharmas of the realm of desire he retreats from the path of dhyāna. Since he is not born in the three evil destinies, a question at once follows: 「是菩薩福德多，何以不於長壽天中生？」 tr. "This bodhisattva has much merit—why is he not born in the heavens of long life?"—one with much merit ought by rights to be born among the gods, so why is he not born even among the gods? The treatise-author answers: this bodhisattva 「憐愍眾生，行六波羅蜜；雖能入禪波羅蜜，和合慈悲行，不著禪味」 tr. "pities beings and practises the six perfections; although he can enter the perfection of dhyāna, he practises it in accord with kindness and compassion and does not cling to the flavour of dhyāna", and so 「命欲終盡，念欲界法故退禪道」 tr. "when his life is about to end, because he thinks of the dharmas of the realm of desire, he retreats from the path of dhyāna". The reason is supplemented by one more layer: the heavens of long life are 「無苦惱、深著禪味，難可得度」 tr. "without suffering or vexation; they cling deeply to the flavour of dhyāna and are hard to deliver". The dividing line here is extremely clear—not being born in the heavens of long life is not that he cannot get there; it is that he will not dwell there; meditative concentration he has, he simply does not take its flavour. And the reason for not taking it is still the delivering of beings: the beings in that place are hard to deliver.

24. Why he is not born in a border land—he has pulled out the root of stinginess with the Dharma and always loves the middle way; the meaning of a border land. Next he answers not being born in a border land: 「以邊國障礙，不得修善法，故不生。」 tr. "Because a border land has obstructions and one cannot cultivate wholesome dharmas there, he is not born there." There are two reasons: one is that 「是菩薩拔出悋法根本」 tr. "this bodhisattva has pulled out the root of stinginess with the Dharma", while 「悋法因緣故，生邊國不知法處」 tr. "it is through the causes and conditions of stinginess with the Dharma that one is born in a border land, a place where the Dharma is not known"—the deed-cause of being born in a border land is precisely stinginess with the Dharma, and this bodhisattva has already pulled out its root. The other is that 「是菩薩常好中道、捨離二邊故，不生邊國」 tr. "because this bodhisattva always loves the middle way and relinquishes the two extremes, he is not born in a border land". After this the treatise-author himself gives the definition of the word 「邊國」 tr. "border land": 「邊國者，無三寶之名，不識七眾，但貴今世現事不貴福德道法，故名邊地，……」 tr. "What is called a border land is a place where there is no name of the Three Jewels, where the seven assemblies are not known, where only the present matters of this life are valued and merit and the dharma of the path are not valued; therefore it is named a border land; …" And at once he clears away a misunderstanding—「不但生邊國故名為邊地」 tr. "it is not only being born in a border country that is named a border land"; conversely, 「若識三寶，知罪福相續因緣，解諸法實相，是人雖生閻浮提外，不名為邊」 tr. "if one knows the Three Jewels, knows the causes and conditions by which sin and merit continue, and understands the real mark of all dharmas, then although this person is born outside Jambudvīpa, it is not named a border". So border and not border are judged by whether there is the Dharma or not, not by geography.

25. Why he is not born in a family of wrong views—life after life he himself practises right view and teaches others right view. He answers next not being born in a family of wrong views. The treatise-author first states its direct cause: this bodhisattva 「常樂為他說法，亦深愛善法故，得隨意善眾生共生，所謂為中國」 tr. "always delights in teaching the Dharma for others, and moreover deeply loves wholesome dharmas, and so is able, according to his wish, to receive birth together with good beings; this is what is called the Middle Country"; born within the Middle Country, he naturally 「不生邪見家」 tr. "is not born in a family of wrong views". Then he states why it is so: 「是菩薩世世常自行正見，亦教他正見，讚正見法，歡喜讚歎行正見者，……」 tr. "This bodhisattva, life after life, always himself practises right view, also teaches others right view, praises the dharma of right view, and joyfully praises those who practise right view; …" The four clauses are one string—practising oneself, teaching others, praising the dharma, praising the people; from oneself reaching to others, layer upon layer growing thicker. The reason the retribution is like this is not some separate arrangement; it is the manifestation of what he himself has practised life after life.

26. The distinction between the two kinds, the bodhisattva of great power and the bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind. Here there is a very natural counter-objection: 「是菩薩大福德、智慧力，應生邊地、邪見家而教化之，何以畏而不生？」 tr. "This bodhisattva has the power of great merit and wisdom; he ought to be born in border lands and in families of wrong views and teach and transform them—why does he fear them and is not born there?"—since he has the power, he ought to go to the hard places to deliver people, so why does he on the contrary avoid them? The treatise-author's answer is to distinguish persons: 「菩薩有二種：一者、成就大力菩薩，二者、屬因緣新發心菩薩。」 tr. "Bodhisattvas are of two kinds: the first is the bodhisattva who has accomplished great power; the second is the bodhisattva who, depending on causes and conditions, has newly aroused the mind." The meaning of the two the treatise text itself gives—the great bodhisattva 「為眾生隨所應度受身，不避邊地、邪見」 tr. "for the sake of beings takes a body according to those who are to be delivered, and does not avoid border lands or wrong views"; the bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind, 「若生是處，既不能度人，又自敗壞，是故不生」 tr. "if he is born in such places, can neither deliver people nor keep himself from being ruined; for this reason he is not born there". And it is closed with a simile: 「譬如真金在泥，終不敗壞；銅鐵則壞。」 tr. "It is like true gold in the mud, which in the end is not spoiled; copper and iron are spoiled." So avoiding or not avoiding is judged by whether one is equal to it oneself, not by whether one has kindness and compassion. That earlier it is said 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured" while here it is said that the one who has newly aroused the mind must avoid such places—the two teachings do not conflict either: assurance is a word about the end point, avoiding places is a matter of the road.

27. Among the sixty-two wrong views the view of no-doing is the heaviest. The treatise-author explains specifically why the sūtra text marks out 「無作見家」 tr. "a family of the view that nothing is to be done": 「邪見者，所謂無作見。雖六十二種皆是邪見，無作最重。」 tr. "What is called wrong view is precisely the view of no-doing. Although all sixty-two kinds are wrong views, that of no-doing is the heaviest." Why it is the heaviest the treatise text itself explains: 「無作言不應作功德、求涅槃。」 tr. "No-doing says that one should not make merit or seek nirvāṇa." And it compares other wrong views: 「若言天作、若言世界始來，雖是邪見，而不遮作福德。」 tr. "To say that things are made by a god, or to say that the world has been like this from its very beginning—although these are wrong views, they do not stop people from making merit." The dividing line thus becomes very clear—alike errors of view, some err yet are still willing to make merit, while some err so far that even making merit is abandoned. 「以無作大惡，故不生。」 tr. "Because no-doing is a great evil, he is not born there." The items of the sixty-two kinds the treatise text does not list here, and this unit does not list them on its behalf; all that needs to be known is this one judgement of weight.

28. The bodhisattva who has first aroused the mind does not practise the ten unwholesome paths with a deep mind; he is not born in the eight difficulties and always obtains the eight good places. The treatise-author returns to the weightiest sentence of the sūtra text to explain it: 「又初發心菩薩深惡心行十不善道，無有是處！」 tr. "Also, that a bodhisattva who has first aroused the mind should practise the ten unwholesome paths with a deeply evil mind—there is no such thing!" The reason is that 「是菩薩一心迴向，貴重阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，不貴世間法」 tr. "this bodhisattva dedicates with one mind, values anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, and does not prize worldly dharmas". Then he gives an extremely important measure: 「是人未離欲因緣故，雖起諸煩惱，終不深心作惡；雖加杖楚，終不奪命，不取他財令其失命。」 tr. "Because this person has not yet parted from desire, although he gives rise to the afflictions, in the end he does not do evil with a deep mind; although he inflicts beatings with staves, in the end he does not take a life, and does not take another's wealth so as to cause him to lose his life." It admits that he will still give rise to afflictions, and will even still raise his hand, but there is a bottom line he does not cross—not with a deep mind, not taking life. So 「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such thing" judges the deep mind; it does not judge that not a single thought arises in him. The last sentence sums it up: 「是菩薩斷一切不善法、修集一切善法故，不生八難處，常得八好處。」 tr. "Because this bodhisattva cuts off all unwholesome dharmas and cultivates and gathers all wholesome dharmas, he is not born in the eight places of difficulty, and always obtains the eight good places." The items of the eight difficulties and the eight good places the treatise text does not list, and this unit does not list them on its behalf.

29. The question of being a deer or a horse in the jātakas and the Buddha's answer; among animals he has kindness and pity toward enemies and thieves, which the two vehicles do not have. The treatise-author restates the question and answer of the sūtra text: 「須菩提問：『若菩薩有如是善根成就，云何本生因緣作鹿、馬等？』佛答：『菩薩實有福德善根成就，為利益眾生，故受畜生形，亦無畜生罪。』」 tr. "Subhūti asked: ‘If the bodhisattva has such roots of goodness accomplished, how is it that in the causes and conditions of the jātakas he was a deer, a horse, and the like?’ The Buddha answered: ‘The bodhisattva in truth has merit and roots of goodness accomplished; it is for the sake of benefiting beings that he takes the form of an animal, and he also has no sin of an animal.’" The last four Chinese characters are the verdict—he takes its form and has none of its sin. After this the treatise-author points to the causes and conditions the Buddha himself states: 「菩薩在畜生中慈愍怨賊，阿羅漢、辟支佛所無有。」 tr. "The bodhisattva, among animals, has kindness and pity toward enemies and thieves, which the arhat and the pratyekabuddha do not have." And he states the limit of the two vehicles quite plainly: 「阿羅漢、辟支佛，怨賊來害，雖不加報，不能愛念供養供給。」 tr. "When enemies and thieves come to do harm to the arhat or the pratyekabuddha, although they do not retaliate, they cannot love and cherish them, or make offerings to them and supply them." Not retaliating is already hard to do, and the bodhisattva goes one layer further—not only does he not retaliate, he also loves and cherishes, makes offerings, and supplies. The difference does not lie in whether one can hold back, but in where one goes after holding back.

30. The jātaka of the six-tusked white elephant—pulling out his tusks for the hunter, with the master of spells treating the ghost as a simile. The treatise-author cites a jātaka as proof, and this is the longest narrative in the whole unit. The bodhisattva was a six-tusked white elephant, and 「獵師以毒箭射胸」 tr. "a hunter shot him in the chest with a poisoned arrow", yet the bodhisattva-elephant's first act was to protect the hunter—「以鼻擁抱獵者，不令餘象得害」 tr. "he embraced the hunter with his trunk and did not let the other elephants harm him". Next he stopped the anger of the female elephant, and the words he spoke are the eye of the whole passage: 「汝為菩薩婦，何緣生惡心？獵師是煩惱罪，非人過也！我得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，當滅除其煩惱罪；……」 tr. "You are the wife of a bodhisattva; for what reason do you give rise to an evil mind? The hunter is the sin of the afflictions, not the fault of the person! When I obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, I shall extinguish the sin of his afflictions; …" He ties the sin to the afflictions and not to the person, and makes it clear with a simile: 「譬如鬼著人，呪師來但治鬼而不瞋人。」 tr. "Just as when a ghost possesses a person and the master of spells comes, he only treats the ghost and is not angry at the person." Then comes the asking and the giving: slowly he asks 「汝何以射我」 tr. "why did you shoot me", the answer is 「我須汝牙」 tr. "I need your tusks", and thereupon 「就石罅，拔牙與之，血肉俱出，不以為痛」 tr. "he went to a cleft in the rock, pulled out his tusks and gave them to him, blood and flesh both coming out, and did not take it as pain", and at the end he also 「供給糧食，示語道徑」 tr. "supplied him with provisions and showed and told him the way". The treatise-author's concluding words connect it back to the main topic: 「如是好心，云何受畜生身？當知是變化，度於眾生。」 tr. "With a good mind such as this, how could it be the taking of the body of an animal? You should know that this was transformation, for the sake of delivering beings."—testing the body by the mind: since the mind is like this, the body is surely not retribution.

31. Why he does not make a human body but makes the body of a beast to teach the Dharma. The last question of the unit: 「何以不作人身而為說法，而作此獸身？」 tr. "Why does he not make a human body and teach the Dharma for beings, but makes the body of a beast like this?" The treatise-author answers with two meanings. One is spoken from the side of those who are transformed: 「有時眾生見人身則不信受，見畜生身說法則生信樂，受其教化。」 tr. "There are times when beings see a human body and do not believe or accept, but seeing the body of an animal teaching the Dharma, they give rise to faith and delight, and accept his teaching and transformation." The other is spoken from the side of the one who transforms: 「菩薩欲具足大慈悲心，欲行其實事；眾生見之驚喜，皆得入道。」 tr. "The bodhisattva wishes to make complete the mind of great kindness and compassion, and wishes to carry out the real matter; beings, seeing it, are startled and delighted, and all are able to enter the path." The former is responding to capacity; the latter is his own practice—if kindness and compassion are to be made complete, he cannot speak only in the places where speaking comes easily. The unit closes with this, and fascicle ninety-three also ends here.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「畢定」 tr. "assured" as having already arrived. The definition the treatise-author gives is 「畢定者，必當作佛」 tr. "the assured will surely become a Buddha"—the two Chinese characters 「必當」 tr. "will surely" point to a decision about the future, not to a stage at present. That the sūtra text counts even the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent among the assured is precisely speaking of the end point; if it is read as the person who has first aroused intent being at this moment at the same stage as the person in his last body, then the passage below, 「新發意菩薩若生是處，既不能度人，又自敗壞」 tr. "if the bodhisattva who has newly aroused the mind is born in such places, he can neither deliver people nor keep himself from being ruined", is left with nothing to rest on. Within one and the same unit it is said both that all are assured and that the one who has newly aroused the mind must avoid hard places; the two sentences do not conflict: one sentence speaks of the end point, one sentence speaks of the road.

Do not read 「二事皆實」 tr. "both matters are real" as equivocation. The ground the treatise-author gives is 「佛口所說無不實者」 tr. "what the Buddha's mouth speaks is never unreal", and he at once points out where the difference lies—for those who have first aroused the mind he says dharmas exist, for those long in training who cling to wholesome dharmas he says they are empty; for those who are slack and not firm he says that of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two, for those whose great compassion is thin and whose love of their own body is heavy he says that all bodhisattvas are assured. Each of the two teachings has the people it addresses, each has the sickness it rescues. If it is read as ‘whatever is said is right’, then this layer of the capacity addressed is lost, and that is precisely the only criterion of this passage.

Do not read 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured" as not needing to make effort. In the very same passage of the sūtra text that says all are assured, the Buddha also says 「從初發意，應當學具足一切善根」 tr. "from the first arousing of intent he should train in making complete all roots of goodness", and 「無有善根不具足者」 tr. "there is not a single root of goodness that he does not make complete" is precisely the reason why assurance holds. Assurance is not a result issued in advance; it is that on that stretch of road the roots of goodness of necessity come to completeness. To take assurance as grounds for being able to dispense with cultivation and training is exactly to cancel its ground.

Do not read the rebuke of the two vehicles as the two vehicles being unable to become buddhas. What the treatise-author rebukes is 「於法性少分取證，便自止息，捨佛道、不度眾生」 tr. "taking a realisation of a small portion of the nature of dharmas and then stopping of oneself, relinquishing the Buddha path and not delivering beings", and the verdict is 「迂迴」 tr. "a roundabout way" and 「稽留」 tr. "lingering"—what is spoken of is going the long way round and stopping for long, not failing to arrive. In the very same passage it is plainly said that the arhat, in a pure Buddha-land, hears the Lotus Sūtra and 「具足佛道」 tr. "makes complete the Buddha path". So rebuke and assurance go together without contradicting each other: assurance speaks of its end, rebuke speaks of its course.

Do not read 「唯佛能知」 tr. "only a Buddha can know" as discussion not being permitted. The treatise-author's own words are 「論議者正可論，其事不能測知，是故不應戲論」 tr. "those who discuss can only discuss; that matter cannot be fathomed, and for this reason one should not make idle discourse", and he adds 「餘人可信而不可知」 tr. "other people can believe it, but cannot know it"—「可論」 tr. "what can be discussed" is permitted; what is forbidden is 「戲論」 tr. "idle discourse", that is, taking particular matters that cannot be fathomed and conjecturing about them to win the argument. The dividing line lies in this: the line of reasoning may be spoken to its end; the particular matters are, at this point, kept and not discussed.

Do not read the bodhisattva's taking an animal's body as undergoing evil retribution. The sūtra text sets up three similes in a row—the Buddha himself conjuring an animal's body, the arhat making a transformation body, the conjurer conjuring up elephants, horses, men, and women—and all of them come down on 「現」 tr. "manifesting" and not on 「受」 tr. "undergoing"; the verdict is 「現作種種身以示眾生故，以是身饒益一切，亦不受眾苦」 tr. "for the sake of manifesting all kinds of bodies for beings to see, with this body he enriches all, and he himself does not undergo the many sufferings", and the treatise-author too closes it with 「亦無畜生罪」 tr. "and he also has no sin of an animal" and 「當知是變化」 tr. "you should know that this was transformation". If it is read as the bodhisattva still paying off retribution, then the question 「善根為何所在」 tr. "where were his roots of goodness" is as good as unanswered.

Do not read not being born in the heavens of long life and not being born in a border land as being unable to be born there. The treatise-author says it plainly: he is not born in the heavens of long life because there they are 「無苦惱、深著禪味，難可得度」 tr. "without suffering or vexation; they cling deeply to the flavour of dhyāna and are hard to deliver"; meditative concentration he has from the first, he simply does not take its flavour; he is not born in a border land because he has already 「拔出悋法根本」 tr. "pulled out the root of stinginess with the Dharma", and moreover 「常好中道」 tr. "always loves the middle way". In both places it is that he will not, not that he cannot. More important still is that the definition of 「邊」 tr. "border" lies in the Dharma and not in the land—「若識三寶，知罪福相續因緣，解諸法實相，是人雖生閻浮提外，不名為邊」 tr. "if one knows the Three Jewels, knows the causes and conditions by which sin and merit continue, and understands the real mark of all dharmas, then although this person is born outside Jambudvīpa, it is not named a border".

Do not read 「終不深心作惡」 tr. "in the end he does not do evil with a deep mind" as having no afflictions at all. The treatise-author admits that 「是人未離欲因緣故，雖起諸煩惱」 tr. "because this person has not yet parted from desire, although he gives rise to the afflictions", and even admits 「雖加杖楚」 tr. "although he inflicts beatings with staves"; the bottom line kept is only two items—not doing evil with a deep mind, not taking a person's life. What the sūtra text calls 「無有是處」 tr. "there is no such thing" judges this one matter, practising the ten unwholesome paths with a deep mind; it does not judge that he has no more afflictions to arise. To raise the standard to having no afflictions at all would, on the contrary, lead readers to take their own afflictions as grounds for concluding that assurance has nothing to do with them.

Bearing on Practice

Fix the far term with 「必當作佛」 tr. "will surely become a Buddha", and fix the near term with 「應當學具足一切善根」 tr. "should train in making complete all roots of goodness". This unit hands both things to the reader at once: the end point is decided, the road must be walked. In daily effort these two sentences divide the work exactly—when the mind hesitates, ‘can I really do it or not’, use the first sentence; when the mind slackens, ‘I will become a Buddha in the end anyway’, use the second. Taking only one sentence will go astray.

Read teachings that seem opposed with the eye of ‘the capacity addressed’. The examples the treatise-author gives are entirely ready to hand: alike spoken by the Buddha, in one place it is said that dharmas are empty and without anything existent, in another that giving, keeping the precepts, and the rest exist; in one place it is said that of those who obtain avaivartika there are one or two, in another that all bodhisattvas are assured. On meeting words between scriptures that do not fit together, do not be in a hurry to judge which sentence is the definitive meaning, but ask: to what kind of person is this sentence spoken, and what sickness does it treat? What this unit demonstrates is precisely this way of reading.

Warn yourself with 「若一、若二」 tr. "one or two", support yourself with 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured"—and use each in the right place. The treatise-author divides the use of the two sentences very clearly: to the self that is slack and not firm, apply 「若一、若二」 tr. "one or two"; to the self that is timid and wants to take nirvāṇa early, apply 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured". Used the wrong way round, they become a disaster—when slack, taking 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured" to set the mind at ease; when timid, taking 「若一、若二」 tr. "one or two" to deepen one's self-belittling. Each time, before taking one up, first see clearly which sickness it is at the present moment.

Take 「迂迴、稽留」 tr. "a roundabout way, lingering" as the measuring rule for choosing the road. What the treatise-author rebukes is not a measure of realisation; it is 「少分取證，便自止息」 tr. "taking a realisation of a small portion and then stopping of oneself". The daily counterpart is: whenever there is a little benefit, a little peace and stability, one wants to stop there. At such times these four Chinese characters can be used to question oneself—is this step going forward, or turning round on the spot? Stopping is not falling, but stopping is going the long way round.

Turn resentment with 「煩惱罪，非人過也」 tr. "the sin of the afflictions, not the fault of the person". The passage of the six-tusked white elephant gives the most concrete method of all: after being struck by the arrow, the bodhisattva-elephant's first act is to protect the person who shot him, and his first words tie the sin to the afflictions and not to the person, with the master of spells treating the ghost and not being angry at the person as a simile. When harmed by someone in daily life, this turn is extremely usable—it is not forcibly suppressing anger; it is changing what is faced: if what is hated is that person, there is no way to resolve it; if what is faced is the afflictions, then there is naturally something that can be done.

Do not take not retaliating as enough; go one layer further, to loving and cherishing. The treatise-author deliberately marks out the dividing line between the two vehicles and the bodhisattva: 「怨賊來害，雖不加報，不能愛念供養供給。」 tr. "When enemies and thieves come to do harm, although they do not retaliate, they cannot love and cherish them, or make offerings to them and supply them." Not retaliating is already not easy, yet this passage counts it as not yet enough. This gives a very practical sequence: first manage not to retaliate, then see whether one can ask after the person, whether one can give. With the sequence clear, one will not, through being unable to take the later step, also give up the earlier one.

Examine yourself with the two Chinese characters ‘deep mind’, not with ‘whether there are afflictions or not’. The treatise-author admits that the bodhisattva who has first aroused the mind still gives rise to afflictions and may still inflict beatings with staves, and only holds the two lines, not doing evil with a deep mind and not taking life. In daily self-reflection, rather than asking ‘how many times did afflictions arise in me today’, it is better to ask ‘did I set my mind on doing it’. The former way of asking easily leads to discouragement; only the latter way of asking is the boundary this passage sets up.

Do not take the flavour of dhyāna; take the delivering of beings. The treatise-author says the bodhisattva, 「雖能入禪波羅蜜，和合慈悲行，不著禪味」 tr. "although he can enter the perfection of dhyāna, practises it in accord with kindness and compassion and does not cling to the flavour of dhyāna", and so is not born in the heavens of long life. When one's effort has obtained a little and one feels at ease, this sentence can be taken up to calibrate: is the ease obtained for resting in, or for using? The criterion this unit gives is only one—whether the beings of that place can be delivered.

Settle border and not border for yourself by ‘knowing the Three Jewels, knowing sin and merit, understanding the real mark’. The treatise-author draws the definition of 「邊地」 tr. "border land" extremely broadly—it lies not inside or outside Jambudvīpa, but in whether there is the Dharma. This gives a criterion that sets people very much at ease: whether the place one lives is lively, whether it has a great place of practice, is not the joint; whether one can know the Three Jewels, know the continuity of sin and merit, understand the real mark of all dharmas—that is. Conversely, if these three matters are all empty, every place is a border land.

Further Resonances

The First Part is one sūtra segment and one treatise segment. The sūtra text sets up the skeleton of this chapter with four questions—is he assured or unassured, where is he assured, who is assured, does the assured one fall into the evil destinies—and takes the passage on taking an animal's body as its difficulty, resolving it with the three similes of the Buddha's own conjuring, the arhat's transformation, and the conjurer's conjuring, and closes with Subhūti praising the power of great skilful means. The treatise-author first answers the three meanings of 「何以更問」 tr. "why ask again", next takes up the sūtra's three questions and three answers and brings out the definition 「畢定者，必當作佛」 tr. "the assured will surely become a Buddha", then judges the differing teachings of the two sūtras with 「二事皆實」 tr. "both matters are real", judges the intent of the rebuke of the two vehicles with 「迂迴、稽留」 tr. "a roundabout way, lingering", seals the discussion of arhats becoming buddhas again with 「唯佛能知」 tr. "only a Buddha can know", and at the end explains item by item why he does not fall into the evil destinies, is not born in the heavens of long life, is not born in a border land, is not born in a family of wrong views, closing with the jātaka of the six-tusked white elephant and the two meanings of teaching the Dharma in a beast's body. The centre of gravity of the whole section can be gathered into one sentence: assurance speaks of the end point being decided, not of having arrived at this moment.

Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra has a dedicated section on this chapter, and it matches the range of sūtra and treatise of this unit. His sectional division first fixes the position of this chapter within the whole sūtra: 「此下第二大段，明自他行成位階不退。就中為二：第一明自德成；第二明化他德成。」 tr. "From here on is the second great section, making clear that, the practice for self and others being accomplished, the stages do not retreat. Within it there are two: first, making clear the accomplishment of one's own virtue; second, making clear the accomplishment of the virtue of transforming others." Then within the first he opens two again—「第一所但大乘畢定作佛；第二明畢定菩薩所於果報永無八難」 tr. "first, that only in the Great Vehicle is one assured of becoming a Buddha; second, making clear that the assured bodhisattva, in his retribution, forever has none of the eight difficulties"—which corresponds exactly to the first half of this unit (the four questions of assurance) and the latter half (not falling into the evil destinies, not being born in the places of the eight difficulties). His explanation of why Subhūti asks says: 「上章明菩薩大行成就兼濟無方，應形同迹真偽難明，未達之源懷疑不決……故釋其所疑而致問。」 tr. "The section above made clear that the bodhisattva's great practice is accomplished and that he aids others together with himself without limit; responding in form and sharing the same traces, the true and the false are hard to make clear, and those who have not reached the source harbour doubts and cannot decide … therefore, to resolve what they doubt, he raises the question."

On the treatise-author's three answers to 「何以更問」 tr. "why ask again", Jizang records them entry by entry, corresponding to the treatise text of this unit: 「論生起三義：一者上不退品已明不退，今更以異門明菩薩相，故云畢定也。」 tr. "The treatise gives three meanings for how this arises: first, the Non-retreat chapter above has already made non-retreat clear; now, through a different gate of approach, the marks of the bodhisattva are made clear again, and therefore it speaks of being assured." 「二者佛三達洞照已知其畢定，但於餘人智身未及，故云不畢定耳。」 tr. "Second, the Buddha, with the three penetrations illuminating thoroughly, already knows that they are assured; it is only that the wisdom-body of other people does not reach it, and therefore it is said they are unassured." 「三者須菩提聞法華經所作功德皆作佛，又聞上不退品有退不退，是故生疑為畢竟為不畢竟空也。」 tr. "Third, Subhūti heard in the Lotus Sūtra that whatever merit is done all become buddhas, and also heard that in the Non-retreat chapter above there is retreat and non-retreat; therefore doubt arose as to whether it is ultimately empty or not ultimately empty." The order of the three meanings agrees with the treatise text. On the Buddha's answer he says: 「佛答皆是畢定者，明一切不退無有退也。」 tr. "The Buddha's answer that all are assured makes clear that all are non-retreating and there is no retreat."

On the sūtra text's three questions and three answers, Jizang also attaches his comment question by question: 「次問三乘中何乘畢定者，須菩提入涅槃為畢定者，問三乘何乘畢定？佛答大乘中畢定也。」 tr. "Next, the question in which of the three vehicles one is assured: Subhūti took entering nirvāṇa as being assured, and so asks in which of the three vehicles one is assured. The Buddha answers that one is assured in the Great Vehicle." 「第三問大乘中初心中後心故問何心人畢定？佛答上中下三人皆畢定也。」 tr. "The third question: within the Great Vehicle there are the first mind, the middle mind, and the last mind, and so he asks the person of which mind is assured. The Buddha answers that the upper, the middle, and the lower, all three persons, are assured." His judgement of 「初心中後心」 tr. "the first mind, the middle mind, and the last mind" as the items of three persons points to the same thing as the treatise text's division 「求佛道者，有上、中、下」 tr. "among those who seek the Buddha path there are the upper, the middle, and the lower", though the wording is not borrowed from it. Jizang also poses a question of his own, asking why the Buddha says that all bodhisattvas do not retreat, and his answer brings out a separate meaning: 「此即證一切眾生皆有佛性，無有二乘性，無退詺也。」 tr. "This proves that all beings have the Buddha-nature, that there is no nature of the two vehicles, and that there is no name of retreat." This explanation takes the Buddha-nature as its ground, while the treatise-author takes 「佛心中一切眾生、一切法皆畢定」 tr. "in the Buddha's mind all beings and all dharmas are assured" as his ground; each of the two forms a teaching of its own, recorded without judgement.

On reconciling the preceding chapter's 「若一若二」 tr. "one or two" with this chapter's 「皆畢定」 tr. "all are assured", Jizang also has his explanation: 「此亦如大經，以遲得故名退也，終無有退。」 tr. "This too is as in the Great Sūtra: it is because of obtaining late that it is named retreat; in the end there is no retreat." Explaining retreat by obtaining late, and the treatise-author's explaining the two teachings by the capacity addressed, show between them the full and the brief. In stating the treatise's intent he says that the teaching of retreat is set up for those 「為人增惡小乘，不求小乘欲求大乘，而於大乘後生懈怠」 tr. "who loathe the Small Vehicle all the more, who do not seek the Small Vehicle but wish to seek the Great Vehicle, and yet afterwards become slack in the Great Vehicle", and 「為此人說：汝若能取小乘，則宜取之；若不能取大乘，宜退取小。為此人故說退也」 tr. "for this person it is said: ‘If you are able to take the Small Vehicle, then you had better take it; if you cannot take the Great Vehicle, you had better retreat and take the small.’ It is for the sake of this person that retreat is spoken of". He also records the capacity on the other side: 「又有人堪任得佛，而大悲亦得，云菩提難得，多有退者，不如早取涅槃。」 tr. "Again, there are people who are fit to obtain Buddhahood, and great compassion too they obtain; it is said that awakening is hard to obtain and that many retreat, and so it is better to take nirvāṇa early."—which points to the same thing as the passage of the treatise text 「有人堪任得佛而大悲心薄、自愛身重」 tr. "there are people who are fit to obtain Buddhahood, yet whose mind of great compassion is thin and whose love of their own body is heavy".

On the objection about rebuking the two vehicles, Jizang's question and answer run parallel to the treatise text: 「問：若此文云菩薩皆不退，何故呵二乘不許言取？」 tr. "Question: if this text says that bodhisattvas all do not retreat, why does it rebuke the two vehicles and not permit them to be taken?" His answer says: 「菩薩欲退作二乘，會不得離，汝從目迂迴，於佛道稽留也，是故呵之。」 tr. "The bodhisattva wishes to retreat and become one of the two vehicles, yet in the end cannot part from it; you thereby take a roundabout way and linger on the Buddha path—therefore he is rebuked." On the objection about where the arhat abides, his answer says: 「生於三界淨土，此中無煩惱之名，於中發心修行作佛也。」 tr. "He is born in a pure land of the three realms; in it there is no name of the afflictions, and within it he arouses the mind, cultivates practice, and becomes a Buddha." On the objection about why, having received the Dharma-nature body, it is still named a roundabout way, his answer says: 「此人著小，捨眾生及佛道，又虗言得道，是故相鈍。」 tr. "This person clings to the small, relinquishes beings and the Buddha path, and moreover falsely says he has obtained the path; therefore his marks are dull." The order of the three objections and three answers is entirely the same as the treatise text. At the end, at the sentence 「唯佛能知」 tr. "only a Buddha can know", Jizang too stops along with the treatise-author: 「論云二乘作此，唯佛能知，不敢釋也。」 tr. "The treatise says that the two vehicles' becoming this only a Buddha can know; I do not dare to explain it."

On the latter half of this unit, Jizang judges its section thus: 「隨惡道中生者，第二、明畢定菩薩不生八難。前是得果，今是難果也。先問，次答。」 tr. "As to falling and being born within the evil destinies: second, it makes clear that the assured bodhisattva is not born in the eight difficulties. The former is the fruit obtained; now it is the fruit of difficulty. First the question, then the answer." And he states why Subhūti raised the question: 「以上言初意菩薩只畢定時，橫謂此菩薩未勉惡道，是以致問也。」 tr. "Because above it was said that the bodhisattva of first intent is already assured, he wrongly supposed that this bodhisattva had not yet escaped the evil destinies, and so raised the question." On the item of the view of no-doing, his explanation and the treatise text throw light on each other: 「惡邪見家六十二見皆名耶見也。無作見家者，無作見亦是耶見，但無作見最重，不作一切善以求涅槃名無作，是故別說也。」 tr. "As for ‘a family of evil wrong views’, the sixty-two wrong views are all named wrong views. As for ‘a family of the view that nothing is to be done’, the view of no-doing is also a wrong view, but the view of no-doing is the heaviest; not doing any good in order to seek nirvāṇa is named no-doing, and therefore it is spoken of separately." Explaining no-doing by 「不作一切善以求涅槃」 tr. "not doing any good in order to seek nirvāṇa" has the same meaning as the treatise-author's 「無作言不應作功德、求涅槃」 tr. "no-doing says that one should not make merit or seek nirvāṇa", though the wording differs; the two are seen side by side.

The extant text of Huiying's Commentary stops, in its fascicles, far before this chapter, and has no commentary on this chapter that can be examined; here the lack is marked according to the facts, and it is not filled with general remarks on 「畢定」 tr. "assurance" from elsewhere.

The two Tiantai masters also cite this unit, and this too is recorded. Zhiyi's Profound Meaning of the Lotus, discussing the order in time of the teaching of the Prajñā and the Lotus, directly cites the treatise-author's question in this unit as evidence: 「《釋論》云：須菩提何故更問菩薩畢定不畢定？答云：須菩提於《法華》中，聞諸菩薩受記作佛，今於《般若》中，更問畢定不畢定。當知《法華》之後，更明般若也。」 tr. "The Expository Treatise says: Why does Subhūti ask again whether the bodhisattva is assured or unassured? The answer says: in the Lotus, Subhūti heard that the bodhisattvas receive the prediction of becoming buddhas; now, in the Prajñā, he asks again whether they are assured or unassured. It should be known that after the Lotus, prajñā is made clear again." What he takes is precisely the passage of this unit's Treatise ①, 「復次，須菩提聞《法華經》中說」 tr. "Further, Subhūti heard it said in the Lotus Sūtra"; but that passage of the treatise-author explains why Subhūti came to doubt, while Zhiyi takes it to fix the order of the two sūtras—the judgement of an ancient master, recorded without judgement. Zhanran's Annotations on the Profound Meaning of the Lotus, explaining this entry of the Profound Meaning, cites the sūtra text of this unit word for word, first saying 「《大論》九十三先舉經云」 tr. "fascicle ninety-three of the Great Treatise first cites the sūtra, saying", and below this citing 「須菩提白佛言：世尊！菩薩摩訶薩為畢定，為不畢定？佛告須菩提：畢定，非不畢定。」 tr. "Subhūti addressed the Buddha: World-Honored One! Is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured, or is he unassured? The Buddha told Subhūti: He is assured, not unassured." on to 「佛言：初心及跋致，皆悉畢定。」 tr. "The Buddha said: The first mind and the avaivartika are all without exception assured.", which are precisely the four questions at the opening of this unit. But his citation is an abridged citation and not wholly word for word—this treatise's 「非聲聞、辟支佛道中畢定」 tr. "not assured in the path of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha" is abridged as 「非二乘道中」 tr. "not in the path of the two vehicles", and this treatise's 「初發意菩薩亦畢定，阿鞞跋致菩薩亦畢定，最後身菩薩亦畢定」 tr. "the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured, the avaivartika bodhisattva is also assured, the bodhisattva in his last body is also assured" is combined as 「初心及跋致，皆悉畢定」 tr. "the first mind and the avaivartika are all without exception assured"—the differences of abridged citation are recorded as they are, and are not taken as a variant edition.

As for such topics as the three dharmas—the one who clings, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—being unfindable, the marks of all dharmas all being empty and neither entering nor not entering prajñā, giving rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers by the power of the skilful means of prajñā, teaching the Dharma according to the faculties and capacities of beings, and awakening being obtained only when the causes and conditions are complete—the Last Part of this chapter unfolds them in continuation of this, and they are not anticipated here.

Certainty, Last Part: The Three Dharmas Are Unfindable; All Dharmas Enter Prajñā; the Perfection of the Supernormal Powers and Teaching the Dharma according to the Occasion; the Causes and Conditions Complete and the Faults of Giving with a Clinging Mind

What Is Being Asked

The fascicle of the First Part answers, from beginning to end, a single question: is the bodhisattva assured, or unassured? The sūtra text starts from Subhūti's question, and the Buddha answers that he is assured; asked in what path he is assured, the Buddha answers not in the paths of the two vehicles but in the path of the Buddha; asked what kind of person is assured, the Buddha answers that the three kinds—the one who has first aroused intent, the avaivartika, and the one in his last body—are all without exception assured. Once it is granted that even the one of first intent is assured, the difficulty arises in its wake—does the assured person still fall into the evil destinies? The Buddha asks back, taking as his example that sages such as the person of the eight and the srota-āpanna are not born in the evil destinies, and Subhūti himself answers that they do not fall. Then the sūtra text turns to a still harder place: since the bodhisattva does not fall into the evil destinies, why is it said in the sūtras that the bodhisattva takes the body of an animal in order to deliver beings? The Buddha answers that this is a manifestation by skilful means, not something received as the retribution of deeds; and with three similes—the animal body conjured by the Buddha, the transformation body of the arhat, and the elephants, horses, men, and women conjured by a conjurer—he presses Subhūti one by one, 「是實不」 tr. "is this real or not?", and Subhūti answers one by one that it is not real. The sūtra text of the First Part ends with Subhūti's praise—that the bodhisattva, by the power of great skilful means and having obtained the noble wisdom without outflows, takes all kinds of forms according to those who are to be delivered, in order to deliver beings; below this comes the treatise-author's explanation, and fascicle 93 ends with the treatise text's answer. Since it is not a real receiving, then on what grounds can the bodhisattva manifest in this way and not be stained? That question lies in the Last Part.

The Last Part comes on from this, and the very first sentence of the sūtra text as the fascicle opens is a complete question—「世尊！菩薩摩訶薩住何等白淨法，能作如是方便力而不受染污？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Abiding in what kind of white and pure dharma is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva able to bring about such a power of skilful means, and yet not be stained?" What is asked is no longer whether he is assured or not, but where the assured person's capital lies. Everything said in the whole unit from here on grows out of this question.

The Buddha's answer has the bones of only one sentence: by means of prajñāpāramitā. But under this one sentence a cause and condition is at once laid in—「著者、著法、著處，是三法皆不可得，自性空故」 tr. "the one who clings, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—these three dharmas are all unfindable, because they are empty of self-nature". So not being stained is not holding oneself back from being stained; it is that the three matters—the person able to cling, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—do not stand at all, from the root; the three matters not standing, staining has nowhere to settle. This is the first joint of the whole unit.

Once the first joint is set up, the second difficulty follows hard upon it: if it relies only on prajñā, then do not the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas all fall empty? The Buddha does not answer head-on, but asks back with one sentence: 「頗有法不入般若波羅蜜者不」 tr. "is there any dharma at all that does not enter prajñāpāramitā?" Subhūti presses again on this very question: since prajñā is empty of self-nature, how can there still be going out and entering within emptiness? The Buddha asks back a third time—since you grant that all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are all empty, then all dharmas ought precisely to enter into emptiness; how is it that you say, on the contrary, that within emptiness there is no going out and no entering? When the questioning reaches this point, the sūtra text does not record Subhūti's answer, but turns directly to the next question; the treatise-author, explaining this place, says that Subhūti 「心伏受解」 tr. "was subdued in his mind and received understanding". What is subdued is not that he was beaten down; it is that he saw that his own way of asking had taken emptiness as a place with boundaries.

The mind once subdued, the topic turns. Subhūti no longer asks about emptiness, but changes to asking about matters: abiding within the emptiness of all dharmas, how can one give rise to the supernormal powers? How can one go to the lands of the ten directions to make offerings to the buddhas, hear the Dharma, and plant roots of goodness? This is the second joint of the whole unit, and also the longest passage. The Buddha's answer still plants its feet on emptiness—precisely because the lands are empty and the buddhas too are empty, and emptiness is partial to nothing, the power of the skilful means of prajñā is able to give rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers. Then the Buddha lays out the use of the supernormal powers in two layers: first, in general, that with the divine eye he sees the ten directions and flies there to enrich beings; next, setting up the teaching according to the occasion—for the stingy he speaks of giving, for those who break morality he speaks of morality, for those who hate and quarrel he speaks of kindness, for the lazy he speaks of vigour, for the distracted he speaks of meditative concentration, for the deluded he speaks of wisdom; further on come the broad marks of the six supernormal powers one by one—the divine eye sees lands and beings, the divine ear hears the Buddha-dharma and the voices of humans and non-humans, the knowledge of others' minds knows minds, the knowledge of former lives recollects former births, the supernormal power of going at will goes and comes to make offerings to the buddhas, the supernormal power of the exhaustion of outflows speaks the dharma of the exhaustion of outflows. At the end it is held fast with one simile, 「如鳥無翅不能高翔」 tr. "like a bird without wings, which cannot fly high": a bodhisattva without the supernormal powers cannot teach and transform beings at will.

The third joint comes at the end. The Buddha says that sporting in the supernormal powers can purify buddha-lands and bring beings to accomplishment, and says further that if one does not purify buddha-lands and does not bring beings to accomplishment one does not obtain awakening, because 「因緣不具足」 tr. "the causes and conditions are not complete". Subhūti thereupon asks what it is for the causes and conditions to be complete, and the Buddha answers: all wholesome dharmas; asked again what wholesome dharmas are, the Buddha lays out dānapāramitā and everything below it up to the eighteen unshared dharmas as one full ledger, and at the very first item points out the vital point—「無分別是施者、是受者，性空故」 tr. "there is no discriminating who is the giver and who is the receiver, because they are empty of nature". When the treatise-author's explanation reaches this place, he turns this one sentence into a whole passage written from the reverse side: what faults has giving with a clinging mind? The faults are threefold—if things do not accord with one's wishes, anger arises; if one craves wealth and it is seized, one commits a heavy sin; if one grasps at false and deceptive marks, the retribution is small and impure; and there is a further fault, the deepest of all: hearing of ultimate emptiness, one relinquishes the dharma one was practising and turns to cling to the mark of emptiness, 「失二種法」 tr. "losing two kinds of dharma". At the end it closes with the bodhisattva relinquishing the clinging mind, not grasping at the mark of emptiness, and dedicating to the Buddha path, and comes home to one sentence of summary: 「無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道。」 tr. "With a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path."

So what is to be read in the Last Part is the full account of the capital behind the First Part's two Chinese characters 「畢定」 tr. "assured". The First Part speaks of who the assured person is, in what path he is assured, whether or not he falls into the evil destinies—it speaks of position. The Last Part speaks of on what grounds the assured person can enter birth and death and not be stained, on what grounds he can give rise to the supernormal powers and not cling, on what grounds he can practise wholesome dharmas and not grasp at marks—it speaks of the root. Position is the mark of the fruit; the root is the causal practice. The two Chinese characters of the chapter's name, "Certainty", are complete only when the First Part and the Last Part are viewed together: being assured is not being granted a title; it is that the three dharmas are unfindable and the mind has nothing to cling to, and so there is no ground for retreat.

Passage by Passage

1. Subhūti asks about the white and pure dharma. After the continuing title of fascicle 94, the sūtra text at once raises a question: 「世尊！菩薩摩訶薩住何等白淨法，能作如是方便力而不受染污？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Abiding in what kind of white and pure dharma is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva able to bring about such a power of skilful means, and yet not be stained?" First a question: where does this question come from? At the end of the First Part's sūtra text, the Buddha, by the simile of the conjurer conjuring elephants, horses, men, and women, pressed out the two Chinese characters 「不實」 tr. "not real", and Subhūti followed with his praise of the bodhisattva's power of great skilful means; below this, separated by a long passage of the treatise-author's explanation, fascicle 93 ends with the treatise text's answer. In the sūtra being explained, the praise and the question were originally Subhūti's continuous words; once it is granted that it is not real, he naturally has to press on and ask what dharma this unreal manifestation relies on. Before reading this passage set up one preparation: what is asked about is 「白淨法」 tr. "the white and pure dharma", not the supernormal powers, not the power of vows; what is sought is the root without outflows, not a conditioned art.

2. The Buddha answers: by means of prajñā, and the three dharmas are unfindable. The Buddha said: 「菩薩用般若波羅蜜作如是方便力，於十方如恒河沙等國土中饒益眾生，亦不貪著是身。」 tr. "The bodhisattva brings about such a power of skilful means by means of prajñāpāramitā, and in lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions he enriches beings, and yet he does not crave and cling to this body." The answer is extremely short, and at once he himself states the causes and conditions: 「著者、著法、著處，是三法皆不可得，自性空故。」 tr. "The one who clings, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—these three dharmas are all unfindable, because they are empty of self-nature." These three matters must be looked at separately: what is able to cling is the person, what is clung to is the dharma, where the clinging lands is the place; the three matters being set aside together, staining has nowhere to be established. The text below goes a layer further—「空不著空，空中無著者，亦無著處」 tr. "emptiness does not cling to emptiness; in emptiness there is no one who clings, nor any place of clinging"—which guards against setting up 「空」 tr. "emptiness" once again as a new thing clung to. At the end the Buddha gives it a name: 「須菩提！是名不可得空。」 tr. "Subhūti! This is called the emptiness of the unfindable." Here one slip must be guarded against: the emptiness of the unfindable does not say that emptiness is unfindable; it says that even the matter of 「得」 tr. "finding" does not, from the first, stand within emptiness; if unfindability is taken as a higher kind of thing found, then the former three matters are still there. Brought down to use, the bodhisattva's not being stained is not pressing down the craving mind; it is first seeing through the three matters—the one able to crave, what is craved, and the place of craving—as all unfindable.

3. Subhūti objects again: does he abide only in prajñā? 「世尊！菩薩但住般若波羅蜜中得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，不住餘法中耶？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Does the bodhisattva obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi only by abiding in prajñāpāramitā, and not by abiding in the other dharmas?" This question is not quibbling. Since the Buddha above took up only the one dharma of prajñā as the root, the standing of the dharmas from the six perfections downward has to be accounted for. The question is asked with great measure—with the Chinese character 「但」 tr. "only" and the two Chinese characters 「餘法」 tr. "other dharmas" the difficulty is pointed out: if he abides only in prajñā, what use are the other dharmas? If the other dharmas are used too, why speak only of prajñā?

4. The Buddha asks back: is there any dharma that does not enter prajñā? The Buddha does not answer head-on whether there is or is not; he asks back with one sentence: 「須菩提！頗有法不入般若波羅蜜者不？」 tr. "Subhūti! Is there any dharma at all that does not enter prajñāpāramitā?" The way of answering objections can be glimpsed here—he does not break the two extremes that have been set up, but asks about the premise those two extremes presuppose. The questioner first assumes that prajñā and the other dharmas are two places, and so the Buddha asks: is there one dharma outside prajñā? The premise once overturned, the difficulty of the two extremes resolves of itself.

5. Subhūti presses again on the emptiness of nature. 「世尊！若般若波羅蜜自性空，云何一切法皆入般若波羅蜜中？世尊！空中無有法若入、若不入。」 tr. "World-Honored One! If prajñāpāramitā is empty of self-nature, how then is it said that all dharmas enter into prajñāpāramitā? World-Honored One! Within emptiness there is no dharma that can be said to enter or said not to enter." This pressing presses with great precision: since it is said that all enter, there is something able to enter and something entered; since it is said that prajñā is empty of self-nature, where within emptiness is there room for the matter of going out and entering? Subhūti's last sentence passes judgement himself—「空中無有法若入、若不入」 tr. "within emptiness there is no dharma that can be said to enter or said not to enter"—negating even 「不入」 tr. "not entering" along with it, which shows that he is not trying to establish the meaning of 「不入」 tr. "not entering", but to bring out the instability of the very expression 「入」 tr. "entering".

6. The Buddha's second asking back: are the marks of all dharmas empty? The Buddha asks: 「須菩提！一切法、一切法相空不？」 tr. "Subhūti! Are all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas empty?" Subhūti answers: 「世尊！空。」 tr. "World-Honored One! They are empty." This one question and one answer look like nothing much, but in fact they take out the meaning Subhūti himself has granted and set it down in the middle. The Buddha's way of answering objections is always not to break what is set up, but to push on from what is set up; everything pushed in the text below rests on this one 「空」 tr. "empty".

7. The Buddha's third asking back: if empty, they should enter. 「須菩提！若一切法、一切法相空，云何言一切法不入空中？」 tr. "Subhūti! If all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty, how can you say that all dharmas do not enter into emptiness?" Pushed to this point, the objector has nowhere to retreat: since he grants that all dharmas are empty, then all dharmas and emptiness are not two; not being two, one may say they enter and one may say they do not enter; what one may not do is look on emptiness as an external container and ask whether dharmas can go into it. Here one misreading must be guarded against: the Buddha is not trying to set up ‘all dharmas enter emptiness’ as a fixed teaching, but to bring out that the pair of words ‘entering’ and ‘not entering’ does not, from the first, apply to emptiness.

8. Subhūti turns to ask about the supernormal powers. 「須菩提白佛言：『世尊！云何菩薩摩訶薩行般若波羅蜜時，住一切法空中，能起神通波羅蜜；住是神通波羅蜜中，到十方如恒河沙等國土，供養現在諸佛，聞諸佛說法，於諸佛所種善根？』」 tr. "Subhūti addressed the Buddha: ‘World-Honored One! When the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, abiding in the emptiness of all dharmas, how can he give rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers; and, abiding in this perfection of the supernormal powers, go to lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions, make offerings to the buddhas of the present, hear the buddhas teach the Dharma, and plant roots of goodness in the presence of the buddhas?’" At this point the topic turns. What the previous four rounds discussed was principle; what is asked from here on is matters. The question is still the other face of the same difficulty: since within emptiness there is no going out and no entering, where then are such matters as going and coming in the ten directions, making offerings to the buddhas and hearing the Dharma, to be established? Here the reader should see the structure of the whole unit—the difficulty of principle once subdued, the difficulty of matters follows; and the Buddha's answer too still plants its feet on emptiness, without changing to another set of reasons.

9. The Buddha answers: lands and buddhas are all empty of nature; emptiness is not partial. The Buddha told Subhūti: 「菩薩摩訶薩行般若波羅蜜時，觀是十方如恒河沙等國土皆空，是國土中諸佛亦性空，但假名字故，諸佛現身所假名字亦空。」 tr. "When the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, he contemplates these lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions as all empty, and the buddhas within these lands as also empty of nature; only because of provisional names, the provisional name of the bodies the buddhas manifest is also empty." First a question: since what is asked is where the supernormal powers arise from, why does the Buddha first say that the lands and the buddhas are all empty? Because the place to which the supernormal powers go is the lands, and those to whom offerings are made are the buddhas; if these two were not empty, then emptiness would have an exception. So the text below follows at once with a sentence—「若十方國土及諸佛性不空者，空為有偏；以空不偏故，一切法、一切法相空」 tr. "if the nature of the lands of the ten directions and of the buddhas were not empty, then emptiness would be partial; because emptiness is not partial, all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty". The Chinese character 「偏」 tr. "partial" is the eye of this passage: if emptiness had an exception, it would not be emptiness, but a kind of partial view. Here one misreading must be guarded against: saying that the buddhas too are empty of nature is not slighting the Buddha; it is saying that the Buddha's manifested body too is a provisional name; the treatise-author below sets up a separate question on this and answers it separately—see section 38.

10. Giving rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers, and the items of the five supernormal powers. 「是故菩薩摩訶薩行般若波羅蜜，用方便力，生神通波羅蜜；住是神通波羅蜜中，起天眼、天耳、如意足、知他心智、宿命智，知眾生生死。」 tr. "Therefore the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, practising prajñāpāramitā, by the power of skilful means gives rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers; abiding in this perfection of the supernormal powers, he gives rise to the divine eye, the divine ear, the power of going at will, the knowledge of others' minds, and the knowledge of former lives, and knows the births and deaths of beings." The five matters listed here are all items this treatise has of its own, and they are now explained in present-day words: the divine eye is the power of seeing form without depending on light and regardless of barriers; the divine ear is the power of hearing sound without depending on near or far; the power of going at will is the power by which the body can go and come and manifest transformations as the mind wills; the knowledge of others' minds is the power of knowing the minds and mental factors of others; the knowledge of former lives is the power of recollecting matters in past lives. All five arise from the power of the skilful means of prajñā, and so they are named a perfection and not named a divine art. A verdict follows at once: 「若菩薩遠離神通波羅蜜，不能得饒益眾生，亦不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "If the bodhisattva is far from the perfection of the supernormal powers, he can neither enrich beings nor obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." It can be seen that the supernormal powers here are not for the sake of the marvellous; they are for enriching.

11. The supernormal powers are precisely the path of awakening; he sees wholesome dharmas and does not cling. 「是菩薩摩訶薩神通波羅蜜，是阿耨多羅三藐三菩提道。」 tr. "This bodhisattva-mahāsattva's perfection of the supernormal powers is the path of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." Why is it the path? The Buddha himself explains it: 「用是天眼自見諸善法，亦教他人令得諸善法，於善法亦不著，諸善法自性空故。」 tr. "With this divine eye he himself sees the wholesome dharmas, and also teaches others and causes them to obtain the wholesome dharmas, and he does not cling to the wholesome dharmas either, because the wholesome dharmas are empty of self-nature." Three matters are raised together—seeing for himself, teaching others, not clinging. The first two are the function, the last is the root; if there were only the first two without the last, the wholesome dharmas would instead become something clung to. The text below says further: 「空無所著，若著則受味，是空中無有味。」 tr. "Emptiness clings to nothing; if one clings, one takes the taste, and within this emptiness there is no taste." The two Chinese characters 「受味」 tr. "takes the taste" deserve attention: the reason clinging becomes a sickness lies in tasting sweetness and sticking to it; within emptiness there is no taste to be tasted, and so nothing to stick to.

12. Giving rise to the supernormal powers by means of the dharma of nothing to be attained. 「是菩薩摩訶薩行般若波羅蜜時，能生如是天眼，用是眼觀一切法空；見是法空，不取相、不作業；亦為人說是法，亦不得眾生相、不得眾生名。」 tr. "When this bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, he is able to give rise to such a divine eye, and with this eye he contemplates all dharmas as empty; seeing this dharma as empty, he does not grasp at marks and does not make deeds; he also proclaims this dharma for others, and he does not find the mark of beings and does not find the name of beings." This passage gathers up what precedes and sets up a general rule: 「如是菩薩摩訶薩用無所得法故起神通波羅蜜，用是神通波羅蜜，神通所應作者能作。」 tr. "In this way the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, by means of the dharma of nothing to be attained, gives rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers, and with this perfection of the supernormal powers he is able to do whatever the supernormal powers ought to do." Having nothing to be attained and yet being able to act—this is the common meaning of the whole unit. One misreading must be guarded against: 「不作業」 tr. "does not make deeds" does not mean not doing things; it means not creating deeds with outflows; the treatise-author below has a sentence of his own, 「不起有漏業」 tr. "does not raise deeds with outflows", as proof—see section 46.

13. Flying to the ten directions, he enriches beings with the six perfections and the dharmas that aid the path. 「是菩薩用天眼通過於人眼，見十方國土；見已，飛到十方，饒益眾生——或以布施、或以持戒、或以忍辱、或以精進、或以禪定、或以智慧，饒益眾生……」 tr. "This bodhisattva, with the supernormal power of the divine eye surpassing the fleshly eye of humans, sees the lands of the ten directions; having seen them, he flies to the ten directions and enriches beings—whether by giving, or by morality, or by patience, or by vigour, or by meditative concentration, or by wisdom, he enriches beings …" Below this are further listed 「三十七助道法」 tr. "the thirty-seven dharmas that aid the path", 「諸禪、解脫、三昧」 tr. "the dhyānas, the liberations, and the samādhis", and the dharmas of the śrāvaka, the dharmas of the pratyekabuddha, the dharmas of the bodhisattva, and the dharmas of the Buddha. The items listed all take their meaning from this treatise's own text: the six perfections are the six kinds of practice for delivering oneself and delivering others; the thirty-seven dharmas that aid the path is the general name for the thirty-seven kinds of practice-dharma that tend toward nirvāṇa; the dhyānas are the concentrations in sequence, liberation is the realisation of parting from bonds, samādhi is abiding in the one-pointedness of the mind. The list of four dharmas is ordered by vehicle—śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, Buddha—which shows that enriching is not confined to one vehicle; he gives according to what each can bear.

14. Three passages of setting up the teaching according to the occasion: the stingy, those who break morality, those who hate and quarrel. This passage is the place in the whole sūtra that most shows the air of teaching; the Buddha drafts out, sentence by sentence, the words in which the Dharma is taught. For the stingy he speaks of the suffering of poverty and the happiness of giving, and closes with the heaviest of sentences—「莫以貧窮故共相食噉，不得離三惡道」 tr. "do not devour one another because of poverty, for then you will not get free of the three evil destinies". For those who break morality he speaks of the painful retribution of breaking morality in the three evil destinies, and warns them with the four Chinese characters 「死時有悔」 tr. "regret at the time of death". For those who hate and quarrel he says that one whose mind is disturbed by hatred does not accord with wholesome dharmas, and cuts it off with 「不應生一念瞋恚心，何況多」 tr. "you should not give rise to a single thought of anger, how much less to many". The three passages each have the same format: first saying that their dharma is suffering, next that if one cannot benefit oneself how could one benefit others, and last that therefore one should practise thus. This format must be seen—the teaching of the Dharma does not enter from doctrine; it enters from the suffering of the person concerned at this moment.

15. The three—laziness, distraction, delusion—follow the same pattern. 「為懈怠眾生說法，令得精進；散亂眾生，令得禪定；愚癡眾生，令得智慧亦如是。」 tr. "Teaching the Dharma for lazy beings so that they obtain vigour; for distracted beings, so that they obtain meditative concentration; for deluded beings, so that they obtain wisdom—it is also like this." The sūtra text here no longer drafts the words one by one, but closes with the three Chinese characters 「亦如是」 tr. "it is also like this". This is not a stroke of abbreviation; it shows people a pattern: the six obscurations set against the six perfections—the first three having been spoken of at length, the latter three can of themselves be inferred according to the pattern.

16. The remedies for the three poisons, and bringing in those who walk what is not the path. 「行婬欲者，令觀不淨；瞋恚者，令觀慈心；愚癡眾生，令觀十二因緣。」 tr. "Those who practise lust he causes to contemplate impurity; those given to anger he causes to contemplate with the mind of kindness; deluded beings he causes to contemplate the twelve links of causes and conditions." Three contemplations set against three poisons is the consistent teaching of this treatise. The twelve links of causes and conditions are the principle by which the twelve limbs, from ignorance up to old age and death, give rise to one another in turn; contemplating them one knows where delusion comes from, and so they are used to treat delusion. 「行非道眾生，令入正道，所謂聲聞道、辟支佛道、佛道」 tr. "beings who walk what is not the path he causes to enter the right path, namely the path of the śrāvaka, the path of the pratyekabuddha, and the path of the Buddha"—all three vehicles are named the right path, which shows that what is called not the path points to the wrong byways outside these three, not to the two vehicles.

17. For those who cling he teaches the emptiness of nature and non-clinging. 「為是眾生如是說法：『汝等所著是法性空，性空法中不可得著，不著相是空相。』」 tr. "For these beings he teaches the Dharma thus: ‘These dharmas that you cling to are empty of nature; within dharmas empty of nature they are unfindable, and so cannot be clung to; not clinging to marks is the mark of emptiness.’" This sentence is the last occasion of setting up the teaching according to the occasion, and also the most vital. What the earlier occasions treat are coarse sicknesses; what this occasion treats is a subtle sickness—being already within the path and still having something clung to. The last phrase, 「不著相是空相」 tr. "not clinging to marks is the mark of emptiness", must be guarded against misreading: it does not say that there is a separate mark of 「不著」 tr. "not clinging" that can be grasped; it says that emptiness, as a mark, lies precisely in its having nothing to cling to.

18. Apart from the supernormal powers one cannot teach the Dharma at will—like a bird without wings. Here the Buddha himself gathers up the preceding passage: 「須菩提！菩薩若遠離神通，不能隨眾生意善說法。」 tr. "Subhūti! If the bodhisattva is far from the supernormal powers, he cannot teach the Dharma well in accord with the minds of beings." Then he sets up a simile: 「譬如鳥無翅不能高翔；菩薩無神通，不能隨意教化眾生。」 tr. "It is like a bird without wings, which cannot fly high; a bodhisattva without the supernormal powers cannot teach and transform beings at will." This simile takes one point—wings, in relation to flying, are not a separate thing besides flying; they are what makes flying possible. The supernormal powers in relation to teaching and transforming are likewise: not an ornament outside teaching and transforming, but what makes it possible to arrive according to the occasion and speak according to the occasion. At the end he adds a further reminder, 「應起諸神通；起諸神通已，若欲饒益眾生，隨意能益」 tr. "he should give rise to the supernormal powers; having given rise to the supernormal powers, if he wishes to enrich beings, he can benefit them at will", which shows that the weight lies on the two Chinese characters 「隨意」 tr. "at will".

19. The broad marks of benefiting beings by the six supernormal powers. This passage is the longest; the sūtra text matches each of the six supernormal powers with its use: the divine eye sees lands as many as the sands of the Ganges and the beings within them, goes to where they are, knows their minds, and teaches the Dharma; the divine ear hears two kinds of sound, of humans and of non-humans, and also hears the Dharma taught by the buddhas of the ten directions and can receive and uphold it, and in turn proclaim it for others; the knowledge of others' minds knows the minds of beings and teaches the Dharma according to what suits them; the knowledge of former lives recollects all kinds of former births, recollecting both his own and those of others, and also recollects the names of the buddhas of the past and their assemblies of disciples, and for those who believe in and delight in former lives manifests the matters of former lives and teaches the Dharma; the supernormal power of going at will goes to immeasurable buddha-lands, makes offerings to the buddhas, plants roots of goodness, and returns to his own land; the supernormal power of the exhaustion of outflows, realised by knowledge, teaches the Dharma for beings according to what suits them. For the Dharma taught by all six, the sūtra text uses uniformly the one phrase 「或說布施乃至或說涅槃」 tr. "whether speaking of giving, and so on up to speaking of nirvāṇa" to carry it through, which shows that though the supernormal powers are six, the Dharma taught is one. At the end it closes with one sentence: 「菩薩用修是神通故，隨意受身，苦樂不染；譬如佛所化人，作一切事，苦樂不染。」 tr. "Because the bodhisattva cultivates these supernormal powers, he takes a body at will, and is stained by neither suffering nor pleasure; just as a person conjured by the Buddha does all things and is stained by neither suffering nor pleasure." This sentence returns precisely to what was discussed in the fascicle of the First Part—taking an animal's body without being stained; the two fascicles interlock here.

20. Sporting in the supernormal powers; purifying the land and bringing to accomplishment, and the causes and conditions not being complete. 「菩薩摩訶薩行般若波羅蜜時，應如是遊戲神通，能淨佛國土、成就眾生。」 tr. "When the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, he should sport in the supernormal powers thus, and be able to purify buddha-lands and bring beings to accomplishment." The two Chinese characters 「遊戲」 tr. "sport" seem abrupt at first sight; the treatise-author below has a dedicated explanation of his own—see section 52. A turn follows at once: 「復次，須菩提！菩薩摩訶薩不淨佛國土、不成就眾生，不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。何以故？因緣不具足故……」 tr. "Further, Subhūti, if the bodhisattva-mahāsattva does not purify buddha-lands and does not bring beings to accomplishment, he cannot obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. Why? Because the causes and conditions are not complete …" This turn pushes the use of the supernormal powers to its extreme—not that it is better to have them, but that without them it does not come about. The five Chinese characters 「因緣不具足」 tr. "the causes and conditions are not complete" are the source from which the three rounds of question and answer below arise.

21. Subhūti asks about the causes and conditions being complete. 「世尊！何等是菩薩摩訶薩因緣具足已，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提？」 tr. "World-Honored One! What is it that, once the causes and conditions of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva are complete, he then obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?" The question is asked very concretely: since it is said that if the causes and conditions are not complete one does not obtain it, one has to know what is called complete. This question differs from the earlier questions—the earlier questions were all objections; this question seeks the items.

22. The Buddha answers: all wholesome dharmas. 「佛告須菩提：『一切善法是菩薩阿耨多羅三藐三菩提因緣。』」 tr. "The Buddha told Subhūti: ‘All wholesome dharmas are the causes and conditions of the bodhisattva's anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’" The answer is extremely simple and extremely broad. Simple: it is only one sentence; broad: of all wholesome dharmas none is left out. One misreading must be guarded against: here the cause of awakening is not being scattered into countless trivial pieces; it is said that every good can be a cause, and what enables it to be a cause lies in the 「無分別」 tr. "non-discrimination" pointed out in the next passage.

23. Subhūti asks again what wholesome dharmas are. 「世尊！何等是善法，以是善法故，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提？」 tr. "World-Honored One! What are wholesome dharmas, because of which wholesome dharmas he then obtains anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi?" Since all wholesome dharmas are granted, one has to know their items. This second question is the pivot of the whole passage—precisely because there is this second question, the Buddha opens the full ledger below.

24. The Buddha opens the full ledger of wholesome dharmas. The Buddha first raises dānapāramitā as the head, and at the very first item points out its essential: 「是中無分別是施者、是受者，性空故。」 tr. "Within it there is no discriminating who is the giver and who is the receiver, because they are empty of nature." Next he speaks of its use: 「能自利益，亦能利益眾生，從生死拔出，令得涅盤。」 tr. "He can himself obtain benefit and can also benefit beings, pulling them out of birth and death and causing them to obtain nirvāṇa." Next he speaks of its running through the three times: 「過去、未來、現在諸菩薩摩訶薩得度生死——已度、今度、當度。」 tr. "The bodhisattva-mahāsattvas of the past, the future, and the present cross over birth and death—those who have already crossed, those who are now crossing, and those who will cross." Then he lists the items: the five perfections of śīla, kṣānti, vīrya, dhyāna, and prajñā; the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, the four formless absorptions; the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path; the eighteen emptinesses; the eight liberations, the nine successive absorptions; the dhāraṇī gate; the ten powers of the Buddha, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, the eighteen unshared dharmas. The items explained in present-day words: śīla is morality, kṣānti is patience, vīrya is vigour; the four dhyānas are the four levels of concentration of the form realm, the four immeasurable minds are the four kinds of mind—kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—that take all beings universally as their object, the four formless absorptions are the four levels of concentration that go beyond form; the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the eightfold noble path are the head and tail of the thirty-seven dharmas that aid the path; the eighteen emptinesses are the contemplation that dismisses self-nature at eighteen places; the eight liberations are the eight kinds of concentration that in sequence relinquish and part from their objects, the nine successive absorptions are the four dhyānas and the four formless absorptions together with the absorption of the cessation of feeling and perception, in sequence and without interval; the dhāraṇī gate is the gate of total retention without loss; the ten powers of the Buddha, the four fearlessnesses, the four unobstructed knowledges, and the eighteen unshared dharmas are the virtues and functions belonging to the Buddha alone. At the end it closes with three sentences in sequence: 「具足是善法已，當得一切種智；得一切種智已，當轉法輪；轉法輪已，當度眾生。」 tr. "Having made these wholesome dharmas complete, he will obtain the omniscience of all kinds; having obtained the omniscience of all kinds, he will turn the wheel of the Dharma; having turned the wheel of the Dharma, he will deliver beings." Practising for oneself, accomplishing knowledge, teaching the Dharma, delivering beings—the four matters are of one thread, and Sūtra ② ends here.

25. The treatise-author takes up the sūtra under "Explanation", first taking up the question and answer on abiding in what roots of goodness. At its head the treatise section does not write 「問曰」 tr. "Question:" but writes 「釋曰」 tr. "The explanation:", and at once restates the gist of the sūtra text in prose: 「爾時，須菩提問：『住何等善根故能受此身？』佛答：『菩薩摩訶薩一切善法具足。』」 tr. "At that time Subhūti asked: ‘Abiding in what kind of roots of goodness is he able to take on such a body?’ The Buddha answered: ‘The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is complete in all wholesome dharmas.’" This is the treatise-author himself taking up the sūtra text, not setting up a separate question and answer; the reader must distinguish—every 「須菩提問」 tr. "Subhūti asked" and 「佛答」 tr. "the Buddha answered" in this passage is the treatise-author relaying the sūtra's words, not the treatise-author's own question and answer. Only where 「問曰：」 tr. "Question:" formally begins below is it the treatise-author's self-posed question and answer.

26. Taking up Subhūti's greatly delighted question. 「乃至須菩提大歡喜白佛言：『菩薩摩訶薩大方便成就力，住何等聖無漏法，能受此身而不為畜身所染？譬如幻師，亦如變化。住何等白淨法，能作如是方便？』」 tr. "And so on up to Subhūti, greatly delighted, addressing the Buddha: ‘By the power of the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's accomplishment in the great skilful means, abiding in what kind of noble dharma without outflows is he able to take on such a body and not be stained by the body of an animal? It is like a conjurer, or like transformation. Abiding in what kind of white and pure dharma is he able to bring about such skilful means?’" The treatise-author uses the two Chinese characters 「乃至」 tr. "and so on up to" to omit what lies between, taking it up directly to the first question of this unit. Here the treatise-author's eye in reading the sūtra can be seen—he views the praise at the end of the First Part's fascicle and the question at the head of the Last Part's fascicle as one breath.

27. Taking up the Buddha's answer: because of the power of prajñā. 「佛答：『菩薩以般若波羅蜜力故，能成就如是方便，作種種身，能利益十方國土中眾生，亦不貪是身。』」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘Because of the power of prajñāpāramitā, the bodhisattva is able to accomplish such skilful means, bring forth all kinds of bodies, and benefit the beings in the lands of the ten directions, and yet he does not crave this body.’" It takes up the sūtra text very closely, with slight trimming: the sūtra text has 「用般若波羅蜜作如是方便力」 tr. "brings about such a power of skilful means by means of prajñāpāramitā", while the treatise-author has 「以般若波羅蜜力故，能成就如是方便」 tr. "because of the power of prajñāpāramitā is able to accomplish such skilful means"; the word order differs slightly but the meaning is the same.

28. The explanation of the three dharmas being unfindable. 「佛此中說因緣：『是菩薩三法不可得：一者、是菩薩身，二者、所作鹿、馬，三者、所用法。』」 tr. "Here the Buddha states the causes and conditions: ‘For this bodhisattva three dharmas are unfindable: first, this bodhisattva's body; second, the deer and horse he makes himself into; third, the dharma he uses.’" The treatise-author brings the sūtra text's 「著者、著法、著處」 tr. "the one who clings, the dharma clung to, the place of clinging" down onto the matters of this chapter: the one who clings is the bodhisattva's body, the place of clinging is the deer and horse made, the dharma clung to is the dharma used. The two Chinese characters 「鹿、馬」 tr. "deer, horse" carry on from the animal manifestations raised in the fascicle of the First Part, which shows how tightly the two fascicles interlock. The text below pushes a layer further: 「法無故眾生無，眾生無故法亦無。」 tr. "Because there is no dharma there are no beings; because there are no beings there is no dharma either." Person and dharma depend on each other; set one aside and both are set aside. Here a misreading must be guarded against: it is not that first the dharma is set aside and afterwards the person; the two have, from the first, no before and after.

29. The emptiness within emptiness is unfindable. 「此中佛說因緣：『空中空不可得。』不可得故，菩薩云何貪是智慧？」 tr. "Here the Buddha states the causes and conditions: ‘The emptiness within emptiness is unfindable.’ Because it is unfindable, how could the bodhisattva crave this wisdom?" This question is extremely vital—what it guards against is the last layer of craving: craving prajñā itself. Since even emptiness is unfindable, there is no wisdom to crave. The last sentence, 「是名無所得空般若波羅蜜，菩薩住是中，能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。以無障礙故易得」 tr. "this is called the prajñāpāramitā of the emptiness of nothing to be attained; the bodhisattva abiding in it is able to obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. Because there is no obstruction, it is easy to obtain"—here the two Chinese characters 「易得」 tr. "easy to obtain" are especially worth savouring: having nothing to be attained, it is on the contrary easy to obtain, precisely because one who has nothing to be attained has no obstruction.

30. Subhūti asks why only abiding in prajñā is spoken of. 「須菩提問：『菩薩住六波羅蜜乃至十八不共法，今何以但說住無所得般若波羅蜜中得？』」 tr. "Subhūti asked: ‘The bodhisattva abides in the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas; why is it now said only that he obtains it by abiding in the prajñāpāramitā of nothing to be attained?’" This is the treatise-author taking up the second question of Sūtra ② and making it slightly more explicit: the sūtra text only says 「菩薩但住般若波羅蜜中得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，不住餘法中耶？」 tr. "does the bodhisattva obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi only by abiding in prajñāpāramitā, and not by abiding in the other dharmas?", while the treatise-author lists 「餘法」 tr. "the other dharmas" explicitly as the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, making the difficulty clearer.

31. The Buddha answers: all dharmas enter prajñā. 「佛答：『須菩提！何法不入般若中？』一切法皆入般若波羅蜜中；若住般若波羅蜜，則住一切法。」 tr. "The Buddha answered: ‘Subhūti! Which dharma does not enter prajñā?’ All dharmas enter into prajñāpāramitā; if he abides in prajñāpāramitā, he is abiding in all dharmas." The first half takes up the sūtra; the second half is the treatise-author's own verdict. This verdict is the essential of this passage—abiding in prajñā is abiding in all dharmas, so 「但住」 tr. "abiding only" is not abandoning the other dharmas, but gathering in the other dharmas entirely.

32. He asks again how, if empty of nature, all enter. 「復問：『若般若波羅蜜性空，云何一切法皆入中？』」 tr. "He asked again: ‘If prajñāpāramitā is empty of nature, how is it said that all dharmas enter into it?’" This 「復問」 tr. "asked again" is still the treatise-author taking up Subhūti's renewed objection in the sūtra, not the treatise-author asking himself. The reader should note the format of the first half of the treatise section: every 「須菩提問」 tr. "Subhūti asked", 「復問」 tr. "asked again", and 「佛答」 tr. "the Buddha answered" is words taken up from the sūtra.

33. Subhūti himself states the causes and conditions. 「此中須菩提自說因緣：『一切法性空中，無有法出、無有法入。』」 tr. "Here Subhūti himself states the causes and conditions: ‘Within the emptiness of the nature of all dharmas, there is no dharma going out and no dharma entering.’" The treatise-author pointedly brings out the four Chinese characters 「自說因緣」 tr. "himself states the causes and conditions", to show that Subhūti's objection has its grounds and is not forced argument. The sūtra text originally has 「空中無有法若入、若不入」 tr. "within emptiness there is no dharma that can be said to enter or said not to enter", and the treatise-author has 「無有法出、無有法入」 tr. "there is no dharma going out and no dharma entering", setting going out and entering against each other to show that it is a view of emptiness as a place.

34. The Buddha questions back and forth, and Subhūti grants emptiness. 「佛告須菩提：『一切法、一切法相空耶？』『世尊！空。』『須菩提！若一切法、一切法相空，一切法應入空中，汝云何言空中無有法出入？』」 tr. "The Buddha told Subhūti: ‘Are all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas empty?’ ‘World-Honored One! They are empty.’ ‘Subhūti! If all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty, all dharmas should then enter into emptiness; how can you say that within emptiness there is no dharma going out or entering?’" The treatise-author takes up these three utterances without adding an explanation, presumably because the sūtra text is clear of itself. One should see the Buddha's way of questioning: first take what the other grants, then use what he grants to challenge what he sets up.

35. Subdued in mind and receiving understanding, he turns to ask about the supernormal powers. 「爾時，須菩提心伏受解；聞是菩薩化身度眾生，今問：『世尊！菩薩云何住一切法空中，能起神通波羅蜜，到十方如恒河沙國土供養佛、聽法、種甚深善根？』」 tr. "At that time Subhūti was subdued in his mind and received understanding; having heard that this bodhisattva delivers beings by transformation bodies, he now asks: ‘World-Honored One! How can the bodhisattva, abiding in the emptiness of all dharmas, give rise to the perfection of the supernormal powers, go to lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions, make offerings to the buddhas, hear the Dharma, and plant very deep roots of goodness?’" The four Chinese characters 「心伏受解」 tr. "subdued in his mind and received understanding" are added by the treatise-author and are not originally in the sūtra text; this is the treatise-author's judgement in reading the sūtra, saying that only at this point was Subhūti won over. Then the treatise-author explains the word 「善根」 tr. "roots of goodness": 「善根者，諸陀羅尼、三昧門、無礙解脫之根本。」 tr. "Roots of goodness are the root of the dhāraṇīs, of the gates of samādhi, and of unobstructed liberation." This explanation should be remembered—the roots of goodness of this passage do not refer broadly to all good, but specifically to what can give rise to total retention, samādhi, and liberation.

36. The treatise-author points out Subhūti's meaning. 「須菩提意：般若波羅蜜性空，云何菩薩安住性空波羅蜜中能行是神通有法？」 tr. "Subhūti's meaning: prajñāpāramitā is empty of nature; how can the bodhisattva, abiding in a perfection that is empty of nature, practise an existent dharma such as these supernormal powers?" The treatise-author breaks open the presupposition unspoken in the questioner's mind: he regards the supernormal powers as 「有法」 tr. "an existent dharma", and regards prajñā as 「空」 tr. "empty"; since emptiness and existence are cut off from each other, abiding in emptiness while practising existence cannot be understood. Why the difficulty is difficult lies precisely in this one separation.

37. The Buddha answers: because of emptiness he can practise. 「佛言：『空故能行。所以者何？須菩提！菩薩行般若時，觀十方如恒河沙國土皆空，是國土諸佛亦空。』」 tr. "The Buddha said: ‘It is because of emptiness that he can practise. Why is that? Subhūti! When the bodhisattva practises prajñā, he contemplates the lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions as all empty, and the buddhas within these lands as also empty.’" The four Chinese characters 「空故能行」 tr. "because of emptiness he can practise" are the answer of the whole passage, and also the pivot of the whole unit. It is not that though it is empty he can practise; it is that precisely because it is empty he can practise—if each thing really existed, they would obstruct one another, and going and coming and manifesting transformations would all be impossible.

38. The treatise-author poses his own question and answer: if the lands are empty the Buddha too should be empty—why speak of them separately? Here for the first time the formal 「問曰：」 tr. "Question:" and 「答曰：」 tr. "Answer:" appear, the treatise-author asking and answering himself. Question: 「若國土空，佛亦應空，何以別說？」 tr. "If the lands are empty, the Buddha too should be empty; why speak of them separately?" Answer: 「佛以無量阿僧祇實功德得是身，能以一足指動十方如恒河沙國土；又菩薩世世來深愛重佛，不能疾觀使空。是故不共國土合說。」 tr. "The Buddha obtained this body by immeasurable asaṃkhyeyas of real merit, and with a single toe can shake lands as many as the sands of the Ganges in the ten directions; moreover, bodhisattvas, life after life, have deeply loved and revered the Buddha, and cannot quickly contemplate him so as to make him empty. For this reason he is not spoken of together with the lands." There are two intentions in the answer: one is spoken from the Buddha's side—the Buddha's body is made by immeasurable real merits, and its mark is not of the same kind as the lands; the other is spoken from the bodhisattva's side—the bodhisattva has a love and reverence for the Buddha over life after life, and it is hard for him to make the contemplation of emptiness all at once. One misreading must be guarded against: the treatise-author is not saying that the Buddha is not empty—the sūtra text plainly says 「是國土中諸佛亦性空」 tr. "the buddhas within these lands are also empty of nature"; what the treatise-author explains is why they are spoken of separately, not why he is not empty.

39. The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: emptiness would be partial. 「此中佛自說因緣：『若十方國土及諸佛不空者，空為有偏。有偏名有空、不空處。今實不偏，故一切法、一切法相空。』」 tr. "Here the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: ‘If the lands of the ten directions and the buddhas were not empty, then emptiness would be partial. To be partial is called having places that are empty and places that are not empty. Now it is really not partial, and so all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty.’" The treatise-author adds to the two Chinese characters 「有偏」 tr. "would be partial" a gloss—「有偏名有空、不空處」 tr. "to be partial is called having places that are empty and places that are not empty"—explaining the word partial as having places of exception. This gloss is extremely vital: emptiness is pervasive precisely in having no exception; if one place were kept back as not empty, what is called emptiness would be only a kind of partial view.

40. Because the fleshly eye's power is small, he seeks the divine eye. 「菩薩行般若波羅蜜，一切法無礙；以肉眼觀色不通：見上、不見下，見前、不見後，通見、障不見，晝見、夜不見；知肉眼力少故，以方便更求天眼。」 tr. "The bodhisattva practising prajñāpāramitā is without obstruction toward all dharmas; yet contemplating form with the fleshly eye he does not penetrate it: seeing above, he does not see below; seeing in front, he does not see behind; where it is open he sees, where there is a barrier he does not see; by day he sees, at night he does not see. Knowing that the power of the fleshly eye is slight, he uses skilful means to seek the divine eye besides." Four pairs, eight matters—each pair is a limit of the fleshly eye. The treatise-author further explains what is called skilful means: 「方便力者，令他界四大來在身中。」 tr. "The power of skilful means is to cause the four elements of another realm to come into his body." This is this treatise's own account of how the divine eye comes to be accomplished, and it is recorded as it is. Brought down to the reader: the reason for seeking the divine eye is not curiosity; it is being aware that one's own power is insufficient and seeking further.

41. The other supernormal powers are as said before. 「用天眼義，如先說。生天耳、如意足、他心智、宿命智，知眾生生死所趣等。」 tr. "The meaning of using the divine eye is as was said before. He gives rise to the divine ear, the power of going at will, the knowledge of others' minds, and the knowledge of former lives, and knows the places toward which beings tend in birth and death, and so forth." The treatise-author does not explain again here, but points to what was said before. This is a constant practice of this treatise—what has been explained is not explained again, and the reader should take it from the earlier text himself.

42. Without the supernormal powers he cannot enrich beings. 「菩薩若無神通，不能得饒益眾生。何以故？若無神通，云何能令多眾生發心？菩薩有神通，猶尚不能盡令眾生發心，何況無！」 tr. "If the bodhisattva has no supernormal powers, he cannot enrich beings. Why? If he has no supernormal powers, how can he cause many beings to arouse the mind? Even a bodhisattva who has the supernormal powers cannot cause all beings to arouse the mind; how much less one who has none!" The force of this passage lies in one 「猶尚」 tr. "even": having the supernormal powers one still cannot deliver all, how much less without them; it shows their necessity by words that step back a pace. The last sentence, 「是故神通波羅蜜是菩薩所行道」 tr. "for this reason the perfection of the supernormal powers is the path the bodhisattva walks", corresponds to the sūtra text's 「是阿耨多羅三藐三菩提道」 tr. "is the path of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi".

43. He himself sees wholesome dharmas and also does not cling. 「菩薩自見善法，亦令他人得見善法，亦不著是善法。何以故？是法性皆空故。」 tr. "The bodhisattva himself sees wholesome dharmas, and also causes others to see wholesome dharmas, and yet does not cling to these wholesome dharmas. Why? Because the nature of these dharmas is entirely empty." The treatise-author takes up the sūtra in abbreviation, and the three matters are as before—seeing for himself, causing others to see, not clinging. The order of these three matters should be remembered: not clinging comes last, which says that not clinging does not obstruct seeing for oneself and causing others to see; if one takes not clinging as a reason to abandon the first two as well, it is an error.

44. The treatise-author poses his own question and answer: how does the divine eye see wholesome dharmas? Question: 「天眼可見色，云何見善法？又言見一切法性空？」 tr. "The divine eye can see form; how can it see wholesome dharmas? And it is further said that it sees all dharmas as empty of nature?" This question is asked extremely well—what the divine eye sees is form; wholesome dharmas are not form, and the emptiness of nature is still less form; how can it be said to see them? Answer: 「因中說果。以天眼見，自見己身及見十方眾生，然後用他心智、宿命智求其今世、後世善根；是善根及果報，久皆磨滅，磨滅故見空。」 tr. "This is speaking of the result in the cause. Seeing with the divine eye, he sees his own body and sees the beings of the ten directions, and then with the knowledge of others' minds and the knowledge of former lives he seeks out their roots of goodness of this life and later lives; these roots of goodness, together with their retribution, will in time all be worn away, and because they are worn away he sees them as empty." The joint of the answer lies in the four Chinese characters 「因中說果」 tr. "speaking of the result in the cause": the divine eye is the cause, the knowing accomplished is the result; the matter of the result is spoken of under the name of the cause, and so it is said that the divine eye sees wholesome dharmas. In fact what sees wholesome dharmas is the knowledge of others' minds and the knowledge of former lives, and the seeing of emptiness is known from the wearing away of retribution. This passage is one of the places in the whole unit that most shows the treatise-author's fineness.

45. Roots of goodness have no self-nature; the simile of the fly that does not settle on a flame. 「是善根皆是有為法、無自性，無自性故空，空故不可著，亦不可受味，不可受味故不著。」 tr. "These roots of goodness are all conditioned dharmas, without self-nature; because they are without self-nature they are empty; because they are empty they cannot be clung to, nor can their taste be taken; because their taste cannot be taken, he does not cling." Four layers advance one upon another—conditioned, therefore without self-nature; without self-nature, therefore empty; empty, therefore not to be clung to; not to be clung to, therefore the taste is not taken. Then he sets up a simile: 「譬如蠅無處不著，唯不著火焰。」 tr. "It is like a fly, which settles everywhere, only it does not settle on a flame." What the simile takes is extremely precise: the reason the fly can settle everywhere is that what it settles on are things that can be settled on; the flame cannot be settled on—not that the fly does not wish to settle, but that it cannot get a hold. The treatise-author at once explains the simile: 「眾生愛著亦如是，善、不善法中皆著，乃至非有想非無想著故，不能入涅槃；唯不能著般若波羅蜜性空火。」 tr. "The craving and clinging of beings is also like this: they cling within both wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, and so on even up to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, where because of clinging they cannot enter nirvāṇa; the only thing they cannot cling to is the fire of prajñāpāramitā's emptiness of nature." At the end he further explains the reason himself: 「般若波羅蜜、般若波羅蜜相空；若般若波羅蜜不空，即是味，是可著處。」 tr. "Prajñāpāramitā and the mark of prajñāpāramitā are empty; if prajñāpāramitā were not empty, it would be a taste, and a place that could be clung to." With this simile one misreading must be guarded against: it does not say that prajñā can burn away clinging; it says that prajñā has no face that can be clung to; the simile of the flame takes its being impossible to cling to, not its being able to burn.

46. Abiding in this wisdom, he makes complete the matters of the supernormal powers. 「菩薩住是智慧中，不起有漏業，為眾生說法，亦知眾生假名不可得。安住是無所得般若波羅蜜中，而能具足神通事；若菩薩不得是無障礙般若，則不能得無礙神通。」 tr. "The bodhisattva abiding in this wisdom does not raise deeds with outflows, teaches the Dharma for beings, and also knows that beings are a provisional name and unfindable. Abiding peacefully in this prajñāpāramitā of nothing to be attained, he is able to make complete the matters of the supernormal powers; if the bodhisattva does not obtain this unobstructed prajñā, he cannot obtain the unobstructed supernormal powers." This passage clasps the earlier and later halves together: the knowledge of nothing to be attained is the cause, the unobstructed supernormal powers are the result. The last sentence sets it up from the reverse side—if unobstructed prajñā is not obtained, the unobstructed supernormal powers are not obtained either. It can be seen that whether the supernormal powers are obstructed or unobstructed hangs on whether knowledge has something attained or nothing to be attained.

47. Having obtained the unobstructed supernormal powers of emptiness, he benefits beings. 「菩薩得是無障礙空神通，飛到十方國土，利益眾生，如經中廣說，或以布施、或以持戒等。慳者為說布施等六波羅蜜義，如此中佛自廣說。」 tr. "Having obtained these unobstructed supernormal powers of emptiness, the bodhisattva flies to the lands of the ten directions and benefits beings, as is spoken of at length in the sūtra, whether by giving, or by morality, and so forth. For the stingy he proclaims the meaning of the six perfections, giving and the rest, as the Buddha himself here speaks of at length." The treatise-author does not restate what the sūtra text speaks of at length, but only points to it with the two phrases 「如經中廣說」 tr. "as is spoken of at length in the sūtra" and 「如此中佛自廣說」 tr. "as the Buddha himself here speaks of at length". This is the format of a treatise's explanation: what the sūtra text has made clear, the treatise does not repeat.

48. The simile of the bird without wings. 「如此中說譬喻：如鳥無翅不能飛翔；菩薩亦如是，無神通波羅蜜，不能教化眾生。」 tr. "As the simile spoken of here has it: just as a bird without wings cannot fly; so it is with the bodhisattva too: without the perfection of the supernormal powers he cannot teach and transform beings." The treatise-author takes up the sūtra's simile without explaining it further, presumably because the meaning of the simile is clear of itself. Here the reader can see a place where sūtra and treatise interlock—the sūtra sets up the simile, and the treatise only points to it.

49. The broad marks of benefiting beings by the six supernormal powers. In this passage the treatise-author restates the use of the six supernormal powers in the sūtra text and makes it more fine-grained: the divine eye sees the lands of the ten directions, the buddhas, and all beings; the divine ear hears the Dharma from the buddhas; the supernormal power of going at will 「放大光明，或現水火作種種變化，現奇特事，令眾生發希有尊重心」 tr. "emits a great light, or manifests water and fire and works all kinds of transformations, manifesting wondrous matters, causing beings to give rise to a mind of wonder and reverence"; the knowledge of others' minds 「知他心心數法所著、所厭，可度、不可度，是利、是鈍，是善根成就、是未成就」 tr. "knows what the minds and mental-factor dharmas of others cling to and what they are weary of; who can be delivered and who cannot be delivered; who is keen and who is dull; whose roots of goodness are accomplished and whose are not yet accomplished"; the knowledge of former lives and the knowledge of birth and death 「觀其本末」 tr. "contemplate his roots and branches", and the items contemplated are drafted out—「何所從來？種何善根？所好何行？從此終當生何所？何時當得解脫？」 tr. "Where has he come from? What roots of goodness has he planted? What kind of practice does he delight in? When his life ends here, where will he be born? When will he obtain liberation?"—five questions one by one, showing the fineness of his contemplation. Further, by the supernormal powers he manifests the hells or the heavenly halls, delivering by terror or by delight according to what suits each; at the end, by the supernormal power of the exhaustion of outflows he proclaims the dharma of the exhaustion of outflows, 「破其著心，以三乘而得涅槃」 tr. "breaking their clinging minds, so that by the three vehicles they obtain nirvāṇa". In this passage one thread must be seen: the supernormal powers are the means, teaching the Dharma is the business, breaking the clinging mind is the target. If one sees only the divine transformations and not the breaking of clinging, one has read it with something left out.

50. The simile of the white egret taking a fish. 「譬如白鷺欲取魚時，籌量進止，不失期會，知其可得，即便取之，終不空也。」 tr. "It is like a white egret about to take a fish: it measures its advance and halt, does not miss the moment, and knowing the fish can be had, takes it at once, and in the end does not come away empty." What the simile takes lies in the two matters of 「籌量」 tr. "measuring" and 「不失期會」 tr. "not missing the moment", not in the taking of the fish itself. The treatise-author at once explains it: 「菩薩亦如是，以神通力故，觀眾生本末，應度因緣、國土、時節，知其信等諸根增利、諸因緣具足而為說法，則不空也。」 tr. "The bodhisattva is also like this: because of the power of the supernormal powers, he contemplates the roots and branches of beings, and the causes and conditions, the land, and the season for their deliverance, and knows that their faculties of faith and the rest have grown keen and that the causes and conditions are complete, and then teaches them the Dharma; so it does not come to nothing." That delivering beings does not come to nothing hangs on discerning the season and the causes and conditions; that this discernment is possible hangs on the contemplation of the supernormal powers. At the end he cites a sentence as conclusion: 「是故說：『菩薩離神通，不能饒益眾生；如鳥無翅。』」 tr. "Therefore it is said: ‘The bodhisattva apart from the supernormal powers cannot enrich beings; he is like a bird without wings.’", which answers back and forth to the simile of section 48.

51. The rest of the supernormal powers, and taking a body without being stained. The treatise-author cites the words the Buddha himself spoke: 「以天眼見十方眾生生死，亦知眾生心，隨意說法。乃至善修神通力，而為眾生受身，不為苦樂所污。」 tr. "With the divine eye he sees the births and deaths of the beings of the ten directions, and also knows the minds of beings, and teaches the Dharma according to their minds. And so on up to: well cultivating the power of the supernormal powers, he takes a body for the sake of beings, and is not stained by suffering or pleasure." Then he lays out the items of taking a body: 「或為父、或為子，或為師、或為弟子，或為主、或為奴，或為象馬、或為乘象馬者，或時富貴力勢、或時貧賤……」 tr. "sometimes a father and sometimes a son; sometimes a teacher and sometimes a disciple; sometimes a master and sometimes a slave; sometimes an elephant or horse and sometimes one who rides an elephant or horse; at times rich, noble, and powerful, and at times poor and lowly …" The list of five pairs reaches across the honoured and the humble, the near and the far, and uniformly 「不為染污」 tr. "he is not stained". The treatise-author further explains two phrases himself: 「一切事者，如先作種種阿僧祇身度眾生」 tr. "what is called all things is as was said before: bringing forth all kinds of asaṃkhyeyas of bodies to deliver beings"; 「苦樂不染者，樂中不生愛，苦中不生瞋；不如生死眾生隨處起煩惱。」 tr. "Not stained by suffering or pleasure means that within pleasure he does not give rise to love, and within suffering he does not give rise to anger; he is not like the beings within birth and death, who give rise to afflictions wherever they are." The last sentence is the most vital—the criterion of not being stained lies not in the suffering or pleasure of the circumstance, but in whether love and anger arise or do not arise when meeting the circumstance.

52. The treatise-author poses his own question and answer: why is it named sport? Question: 「菩薩神通力有所作，何以名遊戲？」 tr. "The bodhisattva's power of the supernormal powers has something it does; why is it named sport?" This question is asked most naturally—since it is a matter of doing something, why use a word close to child's play? Answer: 「戲名如幻師種種現變；菩薩神通種種現化，名之為戲。」 tr. "What is called sport is like a conjurer's manifesting all kinds of transformations; the bodhisattva's supernormal powers manifest all kinds of transformations, and so they are called sport." What the answer takes lies only in the two Chinese characters 「現變」 tr. "manifesting transformations": what the conjurer manifests is not real, and what the bodhisattva transforms is also not real; not real and yet able to act—therefore it is named sport. One misreading must be guarded against: sport is not carelessness; it is being unreal and yet able to act.

53. Among the three samādhi, emptiness is named the upper practice. 「復次，佛法中三三昧，空名為上行。何以故？似如涅槃無所著、無所得故。諸餘行法，皆名為下下，如小兒。」 tr. "Further, among the three samādhi within the Buddha-dharma, emptiness is named the upper practice. Why? Because, like nirvāṇa, it clings to nothing and has nothing to be attained. The other practices are all named the lowest of the low, like a little child." The three samādhi are the three kinds of samādhi—the emptiness samādhi, the signless samādhi, and the non-action samādhi—the consistent items of this treatise; here emptiness is taken as upper because it is closest to nirvāṇa's having no clinging and nothing attained. The treatise-author further describes the other practices with 「如小兒」 tr. "like a little child", speaking in comparison with emptiness, not saying that the other practices are useless. The last sentence brings it back to the topic: 「是故說神通力名為遊戲，於成就眾生、淨佛土中，最為要用。」 tr. "For this reason it is said that the power of the supernormal powers is named sport, and in bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands it is of the most essential use." He also cites a sentence: 「成就眾生，如是中說：『淨佛土，共修善根。』」 tr. "Bringing beings to accomplishment is as is said here: ‘Purifying buddha-lands, they cultivate roots of goodness together.’"

54. The treatise-author poses his own question and answer: why must one use bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands? Question: 「何必要用成就眾生、淨佛國土？」 tr. "Why must one necessarily use bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands?" Answer: 「佛自說因緣：『不成就眾生、淨佛國土，不能得無上道。何以故？因緣不具足，則不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。』因緣者，所謂一切善法。」 tr. "The Buddha himself states the causes and conditions: ‘If one does not bring beings to accomplishment and does not purify buddha-lands, one cannot obtain the unsurpassed path. Why? Because the causes and conditions are not complete, one cannot obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi.’ The causes and conditions are namely all wholesome dharmas." The treatise-author's answer does not set up a meaning of its own, but directly cites the Buddha's words as its ground, and the last sentence fixes the explanation of the two Chinese characters 「因緣」 tr. "causes and conditions" as all wholesome dharmas—connecting precisely with the Buddha's answer to Subhūti in Sūtra ②. Here the treatise-author's strictness can be seen: where the sūtra has explicit text, the treatise does not make up another.

55. The causes and conditions are precisely all wholesome dharmas, without recollection, imagining, and discrimination. 「從初發意行檀波羅蜜乃至十八不共法，於是行法中，無憶想分別：是施者、是財物、是受者；乃至十八不共法亦如是。」 tr. "From the first arousing of intent, practising dānapāramitā and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, within these practices there is no recollection, imagining, and discrimination: this is the giver, this is the wealth, this is the receiver; and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, it is also like this." The list of three matters has one more item than the sūtra text, 「財物」 tr. "wealth", dividing the matter of giving into three faces: the one who gives, the thing given, and the one who receives the giving. At the end he sets up a general rule: 「若菩薩不著心、無所分別行六波羅蜜乃至十八不共法，是為阿耨多羅三藐三菩提因緣。以是道得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，亦能自度，又能度眾生。」 tr. "If the bodhisattva practises the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas without a clinging mind and without discriminating anything, this is the cause and condition of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi. Obtaining anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi by this path, he can both deliver himself and deliver beings." It can be seen that what enables something to be the cause and condition of awakening lies not in how much or how little is practised, but in whether the practice clings or does not cling.

56. The treatise-author poses his own question and answer: what faults has giving with a clinging mind? Question: 「菩薩若著心布施，有何等過而不名具足？著心布施，受者恩重。」 tr. "If the bodhisattva gives with a clinging mind, what faults are there such that it is not called complete? When one gives with a clinging mind, the kindness the receiver owes is heavy." The question carries a reason within itself—giving with a clinging mind, the feeling is on the contrary deeper, and the kindness the receiver feels is on the contrary heavier. This is the view of ordinary feeling, and the question is asked very truly. Answer: 「雖有小利而有大過；如美食雜毒，雖有美利而自喪命。」 tr. "Though it has a small benefit, it has a great fault; it is like fine food mixed with poison: though there is the benefit of its fineness, one loses one's own life." The answer first establishes the overall situation with a simile: the benefit is a real benefit, and the poison too is real poison; it does not deny the small benefit, it only states the great fault. What the simile takes lies in the Chinese character 「雜」 tr. "mixed"—the poison is not outside the food; it is in the food.

57. The treatise-author asks again what the faults are, and answers with three matters. Question: 「何者是過？」 tr. "What are the faults?" Answer: 「若著心布施，有不稱意事，則生恚怒；若受者不感其恩，即成怨嫌。若著心供養善人，有少凶衰，則嫌布施無應，悔惜所施；若布施心悔，所受果報則不清淨。」 tr. "If one gives with a clinging mind, on meeting with something that does not accord with one's wishes, one gives rise to anger; if the receiver does not feel grateful for the kindness, it becomes resentment. If one makes offerings to good people with a clinging mind, on meeting with some slight misfortune, one resents that the giving had no corresponding reward, and regrets and grudges what was given; if one gives and regrets it in one's mind, then the retribution received is not pure." The three matters one by one: first, anger when things do not accord with one's wishes; second, resentment when the receiver does not feel grateful; third, regret when meeting misfortune after giving. All three arise from one 「著」 tr. "clinging"—because a reward one is due to obtain has been stored in the mind in advance. The last sentence is the target of this passage: 「若布施心悔，所受果報則不清淨。」 tr. "If one gives and regrets it in one's mind, then the retribution received is not pure." It can be seen that the fault lies not in giving but in regret; regret does not come of itself, it comes from clinging.

58. Craving and clinging to wealth, when it is seized he does harm. 「復次，著心布施者，深心貪著財物，若有侵奪，則便加害；自念：『我為福德好事集財，汝何故侵奪？』」 tr. "Further, one who gives with a clinging mind deeply craves and clings to wealth; if someone seizes it, he does him harm, thinking to himself: ‘I gathered this wealth for the good matter of merit; why do you seize it?’" This passage most shows the subtleties of human feeling—the one who does harm has his own righteous indignation, and the reason he holds to is precisely 「我為福德好事」 tr. "I did it for the good matter of merit". The treatise-author further traces why it runs so deep: 「先貪財物，為今世事而作布施，為後世事，愛惜轉深；以染著故，若有侵奪，能為重罪；重罪因緣故，受三惡道苦。」 tr. "Formerly he craved wealth, and gave for the sake of the matters of this life; for the sake of the matters of later lives, his grudging becomes in turn deeper; because of being stained and clinging, if someone seizes it, he can commit a heavy sin; because of the causes and conditions of the heavy sin, he undergoes the suffering of the three evil destinies." Gathering wealth for the sake of merit, the grudging is on the contrary deeper than before he trained; this is a sickness peculiar to those who do good, and must not go unknown.

59. Craving and clinging give rise to anger; anger gives rise to knives and staves. 「復次，貪著因緣故生瞋恚，瞋恚因緣故加刀杖；刀杖殺害，受諸苦惱。」 tr. "Further, because of the causes and conditions of craving and clinging, anger arises; because of the causes and conditions of anger, one takes up knives and staves; with knives and staves one kills and harms, and undergoes all kinds of suffering and vexation." The three matters give rise to one another in descent; the words are extremely simple and the momentum extremely steep. This passage carries on from the previous one: the previous passage spoke of the causes and conditions of the heavy sin; this passage speaks of the road it travels—craving, anger, killing, in clear sequence.

60. Grasping at false and deceptive marks, the retribution is small and impure. 「復次，人起愚癡業，大不安隱，行此虛誑不實事故，後必致大患。」 tr. "Further, a person who raises deeds of delusion is greatly without peace and security; because he practises these false, deceptive, and unreal matters, afterwards he will surely bring on great calamity." The treatise-author at once cites a ground: 「十方諸佛皆說無相解脫門，諸法無相相是為實。」 tr. "The buddhas of the ten directions all speak of the signless gate of liberation; the mark of the signless of all dharmas is what is real." Since the signless is taken as real, all that the one who grasps at marks grasps is false. The text below speaks of how his mind works: 「若人取是財物虛誑不實相，然後心著；心著故，期大果報而能施與。」 tr. "If a person grasps at the false, deceptive, and unreal mark of this wealth, the mind then clings; because the mind clings, he expects a great retribution and so is able to give." Further he sets up a simile: 「譬如人欲求多收故，大用穀子。」 tr. "It is like a person who, wishing to reap a large harvest, uses a great deal of seed." What the simile takes lies in the three Chinese characters 「求多收」 tr. "wishing to reap a large harvest"—though much seed is used, the mind is on the harvest; though the giving is great, the mind is on the reward. At the end he judges it: 「如是著心布施，果報少而不淨，終歸於盡，受諸憂惱，不可稱說，皆由取相故，有如是過。」 tr. "Giving with a clinging mind in this way, the retribution is both small and impure, and in the end comes to exhaustion, and one undergoes all kinds of sorrow and vexation beyond telling—all because of grasping at marks there are such faults." And he closes with a sentence from the positive side: 「若以如實相行布施，無有如是過；無量阿僧祇生死中，受諸福樂而亦不盡，乃至得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "If one practises giving with the mark as it truly is, there are none of these faults; within immeasurable asaṃkhyeyas of births and deaths one receives all kinds of merit and happiness and they are not exhausted, and so on up to obtaining anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." Small and impure against not exhausted—set side by side, the greatness of the fault comes to be seen.

61. Losing two kinds of dharma: clinging to emptiness and falling into wrong view. 「復次，若人以著心行善法，是人若聞諸法畢竟空，即時捨所行法，著是空法取相，以此為實，先者為虛誑；是人則失二種法：失先善法，而墮邪見。」 tr. "Further, if a person practises wholesome dharmas with a clinging mind, should this person hear that all dharmas are ultimately empty, he at once abandons the dharma he was practising, clings to this dharma of emptiness and grasps at its mark, takes this as real and what came before as false and deceptive; this person then loses two kinds of dharma: he loses his former wholesome dharmas, and falls into wrong view." This is the deepest fault of the whole passage, and also the place in the whole unit most in need of attention: the earlier faults are faults of clinging to existence; this fault is the fault of hearing emptiness and turning to cling to emptiness. What is lost is twofold—the wholesome dharmas formerly practised are lost, and a further layer of wrong view is added. The treatise-author's simile is extremely apt: 「譬如重病之人，雖有眾藥，療之無損，藥復作病。」 tr. "It is like a person gravely ill: though there are many medicines, treating him does no good, and the medicine in turn becomes the disease." Emptiness is originally a medicine; clinging to emptiness, the medicine becomes a disease. This passage clasps with section 17's 「不著相是空相」 tr. "not clinging to marks is the mark of emptiness": what the sūtra text guards against, the treatise-author here says to the end.

62. A general gathering-up of the faults and offences of practising merit with a clinging mind. 「著心行諸功德，有如是等過罪。」 tr. "Practising the various merits with a clinging mind has all these kinds of faults and offences." One sentence gathers up the preceding six passages. The treatise-author here no longer gives examples, but concludes with a general sentence; this is where the structure of the whole passage lies.

63. The bodhisattva relinquishes the clinging mind and does not grasp at the mark of emptiness. 「菩薩捨於著心，不取空相；如如、法性、實際，於布施等法亦如是見。為一切眾生迴向阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」 tr. "The bodhisattva relinquishes the clinging mind and does not grasp at the mark of emptiness; as toward suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality, so too he sees giving and the other dharmas. For the sake of all beings he dedicates it to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi." Two relinquishings are raised together—relinquishing the clinging mind, and also not grasping at the mark of emptiness; precisely the remedy for the two faults of the preceding passages. The three names 「如如、法性、實際」 tr. "suchness, the nature of dharmas, and the limit of reality" are used throughout this treatise for three faces of the one real mark: suchness is said of its not being different, the nature of dharmas is said of its being the nature of all dharmas, the limit of reality is said of its being the ultimate limit. Seeing giving too in this way, the giving falls neither into existence nor into emptiness. The last phrase, 「為一切眾生迴向」 tr. "for the sake of all beings he dedicates it", connects the view that falls into neither extreme to practice.

64. The dedication according to the pure wisdom of the buddhas. 「復次，菩薩布施時，作是念：『如十方三世諸佛畢竟清淨智慧，知諸法實相，亦知是布施相；我亦以是性迴向。』」 tr. "Further, when the bodhisattva gives, he has this thought: ‘Just as the ultimately pure wisdom of the buddhas of the ten directions and the three times knows the real mark of all dharmas and also knows this mark of giving, I too dedicate it with this nature.’" What the dedication relies on is not one's own discrimination, but the real mark the buddhas know. The teaching of this passage lies in the five Chinese characters 「我亦以是性」 tr. "I too with this nature"—one dedicates not with the emptiness one has understood oneself, but with the nature of the real mark the buddhas know.

65. Not using and not practising within the five sense-faculties and mental factors, he enters the truth of the highest meaning. 「復次，是菩薩一切五情、心心數法中不用不行，不能知諸法相故。」 tr. "Further, this bodhisattva does not use and does not practise within all the five sense-faculties and mind and mental-factor dharmas, because they cannot know the marks of dharmas." The five sense-faculties are the sense-faculties of the five faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body; mind and mental-factor dharmas are mind and mental factors; these two are both insufficient to know the marks of dharmas, and so he does not use them and does not practise in them. The treatise-author himself explains why: 「是法皆是因緣邊生，虛誑，無有自性故……」 tr. "These dharmas all arise from the side of causes and conditions; they are false and deceptive, because they are without self-nature …" Then he speaks of the bodhisattva's vow: 「我今欲知諸法實相迴向，是諸虛誑入實相中，皆無有異。」 tr. "I now wish to know the real mark of all dharmas and dedicate; these false and deceptive things, entering into the real mark, are all without difference." And he honestly states his own present position: 「我今未能得諸法清淨實智慧故，有所分別是虛、是實。」 tr. "Because I am not yet able to obtain the real wisdom of the purity of dharmas, I discriminate this as false and this as real." At the end he speaks of its ultimate: 「以清淨智慧知之，則皆作第一義諦；入第一義諦中，皆為清淨，無有別異。」 tr. "If one knows it with pure wisdom, then one makes it all the truth of the highest meaning; entering into the truth of the highest meaning, all becomes pure, without distinction or difference." The layers of this passage are extremely clear—first stating that the instruments relied on are insufficient, next the vow, next the insufficiency of the present position, and last the ultimate absence of difference.

66. The concluding sentence: a mind that discriminates nothing is the true bodhisattva path. 「如是布施等，迴向，直至佛道。是故說：『無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道。』」 tr. "Giving and the rest in this way, he dedicates, all the way to the Buddha path. Therefore it is said: ‘With a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path.’" The whole unit closes with this sentence. One should see how head and tail join: this unit's first question is 「住何等白淨法，能作如是方便力而不受染污」 tr. "abiding in what kind of white and pure dharma is he able to bring about such a power of skilful means and yet not be stained", and its last answer is 「無所分別心，能行布施等」 tr. "with a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest". What is asked is the root, and what is answered is the root too; the three dharmas being unfindable, all dharmas entering prajñā, being able to practise the supernormal powers because of emptiness, the causes and conditions being complete in all wholesome dharmas, and the faults of giving with a clinging mind, which lie in between, are all the unfolding of this one sentence. The Last Part, as one unit, ends here.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「三法皆不可得」 tr. "these three dharmas are all unfindable" as there being nothing at all. The sūtra text follows at once with the sentence 「菩薩住是空中，能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "the bodhisattva abiding in this emptiness is able to obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi"—if there were nothing at all, the one matter of obtaining awakening would have nothing to hang on. What is unfindable is the self-nature of the three matters—the one able to cling, what is clung to, and the place of clinging—not the matter-marks of practice and fruit. The treatise-author's explanation makes it clearer: 「法無故眾生無，眾生無故法亦無」 tr. "because there is no dharma there are no beings; because there are no beings there is no dharma either"—what is set aside is the view of self-nature in which the two prop each other up, not giving, keeping morality, and delivering beings.

Do not read 「空不著空」 tr. "emptiness does not cling to emptiness" as setting up yet another emptiness of non-clinging. This phrase is there precisely to guard against a person, after breaking what is clung to, setting up 「空」 tr. "emptiness" as a new thing clung to; so the Buddha at once says 「空中空相不可得」 tr. "the mark of emptiness within emptiness is unfindable", dismissing even the mark of emptiness along with it. If it is read as there being another, subtler emptiness one can abide in, it runs directly counter to the 「不可得空」 tr. "emptiness of the unfindable" that the sūtra text sets up.

Do not take 「空中無有法若入、若不入」 tr. "within emptiness there is no dharma that can be said to enter or said not to enter" as Subhūti's settled teaching. These are the words with which Subhūti sets up an objection, and the Buddha then breaks it with two rounds of asking back—since you grant that all dharmas and the marks of all dharmas are empty, then all dharmas ought precisely to enter into emptiness. The treatise-author, explaining this passage, plainly says that Subhūti at this point 「心伏受解」 tr. "was subdued in his mind and received understanding". So these words are the difficulty, not the conclusion; if the words of the difficulty are taken as the conclusion, the answer of the whole passage below has nowhere to land.

Do not read 「諸佛亦性空」 tr. "the buddhas too are empty of nature" as the Buddha and the lands being without difference. The treatise-author poses a question himself precisely to guard against this sickness: 「若國土空，佛亦應空，何以別說？」 tr. "If the lands are empty, the Buddha too should be empty; why speak of them separately?"; and he answers 「佛以無量阿僧祇實功德得是身」 tr. "the Buddha obtained this body by immeasurable asaṃkhyeyas of real merit", and further says that the bodhisattva 「深愛重佛，不能疾觀使空」 tr. "deeply loves and reveres the Buddha, and cannot quickly contemplate him so as to make him empty". So what the sūtra text speaks of is the emptiness of nature, and what the treatise-author distinguishes is why they are spoken of separately; the emptiness of nature does not obstruct the Buddha's being made by immeasurable merits, and speaking separately does not obstruct their sharing the one emptiness of nature.

Do not read 「空故能行」 tr. "because of emptiness he can practise" as: because there is nothing at all, anything goes. What these words of the treatise-author answer is the difficulty ‘how can one, abiding within the emptiness of nature, practise the supernormal powers’; the intent of the answer lies in non-obstruction—if every dharma really had self-nature, they would be cut off from one another, and going and coming and manifesting transformations would all be impossible. So emptiness is the reason one can practise, not an indifference about practice. The text below, 「若菩薩不得是無障礙般若，則不能得無礙神通」 tr. "if the bodhisattva does not obtain this unobstructed prajñā, he cannot obtain the unobstructed supernormal powers", is precisely this meaning stated from the reverse side.

Do not read the supernormal powers as the master of this chapter. The sūtra text speaks of the supernormal powers at greatest length, yet at the end of every passage it comes home to enriching and teaching the Dharma: 「若菩薩遠離神通波羅蜜，不能得饒益眾生」 tr. "if the bodhisattva is far from the perfection of the supernormal powers, he cannot enrich beings", 「菩薩若遠離神通，不能隨眾生意善說法」 tr. "if the bodhisattva is far from the supernormal powers, he cannot teach the Dharma well in accord with the minds of beings". The treatise-author's passage gathering up the broad marks of the six supernormal powers also comes home to 「破其著心，以三乘而得涅槃」 tr. "breaking their clinging minds, so that by the three vehicles they obtain nirvāṇa". So the supernormal powers are the instrument by which one can act, and what is acted on is breaking the clinging mind; if one sees only the divine transformations and not the breaking of clinging, one has read root and branch the wrong way round.

Do not read 「遊戲」 tr. "sport" as carelessness. The treatise-author's own question and answer has already fixed its meaning: 「戲名如幻師種種現變；菩薩神通種種現化，名之為戲。」 tr. "What is called sport is like a conjurer's manifesting all kinds of transformations; the bodhisattva's supernormal powers manifest all kinds of transformations, and so they are called sport." What it takes is being unreal and yet able to act, not being unserious. A sentence following at once says further that it is 「於成就眾生、淨佛土中，最為要用」 tr. "in bringing beings to accomplishment and purifying buddha-lands, of the most essential use"—since it is of essential use, it is not an idle matter.

Do not read 「一切善法是菩薩阿耨多羅三藐三菩提因緣」 tr. "all wholesome dharmas are the causes and conditions of the bodhisattva's anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi" as: doing good is enough. At the head of the full ledger the Buddha points out 「無分別是施者、是受者，性空故」 tr. "there is no discriminating who is the giver and who is the receiver, because they are empty of nature"; the treatise-author too sets up a general rule in 「若菩薩不著心、無所分別行六波羅蜜乃至十八不共法，是為阿耨多羅三藐三菩提因緣」 tr. "if the bodhisattva practises the six perfections and so on up to the eighteen unshared dharmas without a clinging mind and without discriminating anything, this is the cause and condition of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". It can be seen that what enables them to be causes and conditions hangs on non-discrimination; the same giving, with a clinging mind, has a retribution small and impure, and without a clinging mind receives merit that is not exhausted through immeasurable lives.

Do not read the faults of giving with a clinging mind as advising people not to give. The first sentence of the treatise-author's answer is 「雖有小利而有大過」 tr. "though it has a small benefit, it has a great fault"—the small benefit is acknowledged. What is broken is the clinging mixed into the giving, not the giving; the sentence from the positive side at the end says it clearly: 「若以如實相行布施，無有如是過……」 tr. "If one practises giving with the mark as it truly is, there are none of these faults …" If, for fear of clinging, one does not give, one commits precisely the 「失二種法」 tr. "losing two kinds of dharma" spoken of below.

Do not read 「聞諸法畢竟空，即時捨所行法」 tr. "hearing that all dharmas are ultimately empty, he at once abandons the dharma he was practising" as a fault of the dharma of emptiness. The treatise-author's simile for it is 「藥復作病」 tr. "the medicine in turn becomes the disease"—the sickness is not in the medicine, but in the person taking the medicine who makes the medicine in turn a thing clung to. What is lost is twofold: the wholesome dharmas formerly practised are lost, and he falls into wrong view. This is this unit's most pressing admonition to the reader: to hear emptiness and make light of practice is more perilous than not to have heard emptiness.

Do not read 「五情、心心數法中不用不行」 tr. "does not use and does not practise within the five sense-faculties and mind and mental-factor dharmas" as abandoning seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing. The treatise-author himself explains its reason as 「不能知諸法相故」 tr. "because they cannot know the marks of dharmas"—what is set aside is taking the five sense-faculties and mental factors as the instrument for knowing the real mark, not their daily use. The bodhisattva's own words that follow at once, 「我今未能得諸法清淨實智慧故，有所分別是虛、是實」 tr. "because I am not yet able to obtain the real wisdom of the purity of dharmas, I discriminate this as false and this as real", show that this person is still within discrimination and knows it as discrimination; to know it as discrimination is precisely the meaning of not using and not practising.

Bearing on Practice

Take 「著者、著法、著處，是三法皆不可得」 tr. "the one who clings, the dharma clung to, and the place of clinging—these three dharmas are all unfindable" as the root of not being stained in daily life. On meeting a circumstance one sticks to, do not first press down the craving; first ask three things: who is the one able to crave, what is it that is craved, where does the craving land. Looking at the three places one by one, from the first one cannot find a real thing; not finding it, the craving naturally has nowhere to take root. Pressing it down is wrestling with it; looking is drawing the firewood from under the cauldron.

Take 「空不著空」 tr. "emptiness does not cling to emptiness" to check one's own lopsidedness in effort. After practising long, it is easiest of all to set up the few words 「空」 tr. "emptiness", 「無所得」 tr. "nothing to be attained", and 「放下」 tr. "letting go" as a new place to abide in, and on meeting matters to use them as a cover. Covering is not breaking. What really not clinging to emptiness looks like is still doing things honestly when they come, and while doing them not keeping in the mind a further self-approval, ‘I have already let go.’

Take 「若著則受味，是空中無有味」 tr. "if one clings, one takes the taste, and within this emptiness there is no taste" to examine whether one's practice is tasting sweetness. States, lightness and ease, the respect of others—all are tastes that can be tasted; once tasted, they stick. This sentence does not forbid anything pleasant; it makes one know: whatever yields a flavour to be tasted is a place that can be clung to, and so is not the ultimate support.

Take 「用是天眼自見諸善法，亦教他人令得諸善法，於善法亦不著」 tr. "with this divine eye he himself sees the wholesome dharmas, and also teaches others and causes them to obtain the wholesome dharmas, and he does not cling to the wholesome dharmas either" as the way to regard the good one does. The three matters must be complete: practising oneself, teaching others to practise, not clinging. Lacking the third matter, the first two slowly turn into bargaining chips; with the third, the first two do not give rise to resentment.

Take the phrase 「因中說果」 tr. "speaking of the result in the cause" to practise distinguishing where one's own knowing and seeing comes from. The treatise-author plainly says that what sees wholesome dharmas is in fact the knowledge of others' minds and the knowledge of former lives, and that the seeing of emptiness is in fact known from the wearing away of retribution; it is only by their cause that they are called what the divine eye sees. Daily life is likewise: what one takes to be what one has 「看見」 tr. "seen" oneself is often inferred by another road. Once the source is distinguished, one's words will not exceed the facts.

Take 「蠅無處不著，唯不著火焰」 tr. "the fly settles everywhere, only it does not settle on a flame" to look at the range of one's own clinging. Wholesome and unwholesome dharmas can both be clung to, and even the subtlest states of concentration are clung to; knowing oneself to be such a fly, one will not suppose that on reaching a certain point of practice one will naturally cease to cling. The only thing one cannot cling to is the fire of the emptiness of nature—so the key to effort lies not in exchanging for a better thing to cling to, but in walking to the place where clinging cannot take hold.

Take 「知其信等諸根增利、諸因緣具足而為說法，則不空也」 tr. "knows that their faculties of faith and the rest have grown keen and that the causes and conditions are complete, and then teaches them the Dharma; so it does not come to nothing" to weigh the timing of one's teaching the Dharma to others. What the simile of the white egret taking a fish takes lies in measuring and not missing the moment. To press one's words on a person before his time has come mostly earns only a refusal; not to speak when the time has come is to let it slip by. So the difficulty of teaching the Dharma to others lies not in what to say, but in knowing the time.

Take 「樂中不生愛，苦中不生瞋」 tr. "within pleasure he does not give rise to love, and within suffering he does not give rise to anger" as the measure of taking a body without being stained. Not being stained is not failing to feel suffering and pleasure; it is feeling them and not following them. Within a single day there is much to examine: when a favourable circumstance arises, see whether one wants to keep it; when an adverse circumstance arises, see whether one wants to push it away; the moment of keeping or pushing is where love and anger arise.

Take 「若著心布施，有不稱意事，則生恚怒；若受者不感其恩，即成怨嫌」 tr. "if one gives with a clinging mind, on meeting with something that does not accord with one's wishes, one gives rise to anger; if the receiver does not feel grateful for the kindness, it becomes resentment" to observe one's mind after giving. If after giving one waits in one's heart for a word of thanks, or reckons how the other will repay in future, this waiting and this reckoning are the clinging mind. At such a time there is no need to be vexed; only see through the reward stored in advance as one's due, and the giving is still good giving.

Take the phrase 「我為福德好事集財，汝何故侵奪」 tr. "I gathered this wealth for the good matter of merit; why do you seize it?" to warn oneself of the sickness peculiar to those who do good. Accumulating for good matters, one's grudging is on the contrary deeper than when it was for oneself, because a layer of righteousness has been added. Righteous grudging is hardest to perceive, and once it is touched, the anger it raises is also the heaviest. There is only one way to perceive it: see whether what one is guarding is the matter, or that ‘I am doing it for this matter.’

Take 「聞諸法畢竟空，即時捨所行法」 tr. "hearing that all dharmas are ultimately empty, he at once abandons the dharma he was practising" to check one's conduct after learning emptiness. Those whose practice grows slacker after learning emptiness are mostly not those who have learned emptiness too deeply, but those who have taken emptiness as a new thing grasped. The test is extremely simple: after learning emptiness, have keeping morality, giving, and reverent worship in daily use become finer, or looser? Finer is gaining strength; looser is clinging to emptiness.

Take 「我今未能得諸法清淨實智慧故，有所分別是虛、是實」 tr. "because I am not yet able to obtain the real wisdom of the purity of dharmas, I discriminate this as false and this as real" to settle one's own discriminating mind. There is no need to reproach oneself for still having discrimination; the bodhisattva in the treatise-author's writing says this of himself too. What matters is to know that this discrimination is an expedient of the present position, not the ultimate; knowing this, discrimination does not become an obstacle, and the road of dedication still runs straight to the Buddha path.

Further Resonances

The thread by which the Last Part carries on from the First Part is turning the capital of the two Chinese characters 「畢定」 tr. "assured" over from position to root. What the First Part discusses is all position: the question of assured and unassured, being assured not in the paths of the two vehicles but in the path of the Buddha, the three kinds—the one of first intent, the avaivartika, and the one in his last body—all being assured, the assured person not falling into the evil destinies, not being born among the heavens of long life, not being born in a border land or in a family of evil wrong views; at the end, by the jātaka of the six-tusked white elephant it says that the bodhisattva, even in the body of an animal, can still have kindly pity on enemies and thieves, and by the three similes of the animal body conjured by the Buddha, the transformation body of the arhat, and the elephants and horses conjured by a conjurer it presses out the two Chinese characters 「不實」 tr. "not real". The Last Part then turns to ask about the root: manifesting in this way and not being stained, what is the white and pure dharma relied on? The Buddha answers by means of prajñā, and takes the three dharmas being unfindable as its cause and condition; from this three difficulties are pressed out—if he abides only in prajñā, what use are the other dharmas; if prajñā is empty of nature, going out and entering have nowhere to settle; if he abides in the emptiness of all dharmas, the supernormal powers have nowhere to arise from. The answers to the three difficulties each have their one sentence: for the difficulty of the other dharmas, 「何法不入般若中」 tr. "which dharma does not enter prajñā?"; for the difficulty of going out and entering, the questioning-back 「一切法應入空中」 tr. "all dharmas should enter into emptiness"; for the difficulty of the supernormal powers, 「空故能行」 tr. "because of emptiness he can practise". The three answers once set up, the sūtra text then lays out the broad marks of the six supernormal powers benefiting beings, and at the end with 「因緣不具足」 tr. "the causes and conditions are not complete" presses out the full ledger of all wholesome dharmas; and the treatise-author, from the first item of the full ledger, 「無分別是施者、是受者」 tr. "there is no discriminating who is the giver and who is the receiver", turns out the threefold fault of giving with a clinging mind and the deep fault of losing two kinds of dharma, coming home to 「無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道」 tr. "with a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path". Viewing the First and Last Parts together, the chapter's name is complete: the assured one is not someone who has a portion of title and position to rely on; it is that the three dharmas are unfindable and so there is no retreat possible.

The continuing title at the head of this unit's fascicle is handed down differently in the various editions; they are recorded side by side below without forcing a judgement. The base text titles it 「大智度論釋畢定品第八十三之餘」 tr. "The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa's explanation of the Chapter on Certainty, the eighty-third: the remainder", and for the two Chinese characters 「之餘」 tr. "the remainder", the Song, Yuan, and Palace editions have 「下」 tr. "lower", and the Ming edition has 「之下」 tr. "the lower part"; for the character 「畢」 tr. "final", the Yuan and Ming editions have 「必」 tr. "surely". All three are words customary for a continued fascicle, the same in meaning but differing in the choice of characters. The fascicle title of the Shōgozō manuscript is of a different form, recording with ‘explanation of chapter so-and-so, lower part, through to chapter so-and-so’ what one fascicle spans across chapters; it is titled 「大智度經論卷第九十四釋第八十二品下訖第八十三品」 tr. "Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra-Treatise, fascicle ninety-four: explanation of the eighty-second chapter, lower part, through to the eighty-third chapter", and its end-of-fascicle title of fascicle 93 likewise reads 「大智度經論卷第九十三釋第八十一品下訖第八十二品上」 tr. "Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra-Treatise, fascicle ninety-three: explanation of the eighty-first chapter, lower part, through to the eighty-second chapter, upper part"; this is the Shōgozō manuscript's way of recording fascicle titles. Compared with what the base text's two fascicles span—fascicle 93 spans the remainder of chapter eighty-two and the First Part of this chapter, fascicle 94 spans the Last Part of this chapter and chapter eighty-four—the numbers recorded in the Shōgozō manuscript are all one less than the base text (eighty-one and eighty-two, each plus one, are eighty-two and eighty-three; eighty-two and eighty-three, each plus one, are eighty-three and eighty-four), while its fascicle numbers correspond to the base text. At the boundary at the chapter's end, the Ishiyama-dera manuscript has 「道釋八十二品竟大智度經卷第九十四」 tr. "‘… path.’ The explanation of the eighty-second chapter ends. Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra, fascicle ninety-four", taking this chapter as the eighty-second, one less than the base text, which corresponds to what its chapter title records; the Ishiyama-dera manuscript further sets out a separate line, 「卷第九十四終」 tr. "end of fascicle ninety-four". The Shōgozō manuscript at the same place has 「道釋八十三品」 tr. "‘… path.’ Explanation of the eighty-third chapter", without the character 「竟」 tr. "ends"; by the numbers of its fascicle titles, the Shōgozō manuscript's eighty-third chapter is the base text's chapter eighty-four, so this is the opening mark of the Shōgozō manuscript's next chapter, not the closing record of this chapter. So the chapter numbers recorded by the Shōgozō and Ishiyama lines are both one less than the base text—the Shōgozō manuscript shows it in its fascicle titles, the Ishiyama-dera manuscript in its chapter title and at the chapter's end. Each edition has its own way of recording; they are kept side by side and recorded as they are, and choosing between them belongs to the translator.

Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra, explaining this chapter, sets up a great division at the chapter's beginning, judging this chapter to be 「明自他行成位階不退」 tr. "making clear that, the practice for self and others being accomplished, the stages do not retreat", and within it dividing two: 「第一明自德成；第二明化他德成。」 tr. "First, making clear the accomplishment of one's own virtue; second, making clear the accomplishment of the virtue of transforming others." What the fascicle of the First Part explains belongs to the former section; what this unit explains belongs wholly to the latter. His division of the text of this unit says: 「世尊！菩薩如說自在本生下，第二、如化他位成。為二：初、正明自位既成故能化物無染；第二、出其化本。」 tr. "From ‘World-Honored One! As the bodhisattva's sovereign jātakas are told’ on: second, the stage of transforming others is accomplished. It is in two: first, making clear directly that since his own stage is accomplished he can transform beings without stain; second, bringing out the root of his transforming." And at the place of this unit's first question he divides it into three layers, saying: 「白佛：菩薩住何等善根下，第二、出其化本。為三：初、以般若方便力故現生惡道惡道不染；二、以般若方便力起神通；三、以神通力化眾生淨佛土滿菩提。」 tr. "From ‘He addressed the Buddha: abiding in what roots of goodness does the bodhisattva’ on: second, bringing out the root of his transforming. It is in three: first, by the power of the skilful means of prajñā he manifests birth in the evil destinies and is not stained by the evil destinies; second, by the power of the skilful means of prajñā he gives rise to the supernormal powers; third, by the power of the supernormal powers he transforms beings, purifies buddha-lands, and fulfils awakening." These three divisions correspond exactly to the three sections of this unit—the section on the three dharmas being unfindable, the section on giving rise to the supernormal powers, and the section on purifying buddha-lands and bringing beings to accomplishment.

On the three dharmas being unfindable, what Jizang cites is wholly the same as the treatise-author: 「論云：一者、菩薩身，二者、所作鹿馬，三者、所用法，此三皆性空。」 tr. "The treatise says: first, the bodhisattva's body; second, the deer and horse he makes himself into; third, the dharma he uses—these three are all empty of nature." On the section on giving rise to the supernormal powers, Jizang first points out the intent of Subhūti's question, saying: 「須菩提問意：神通是有，有般若是空，云何住般若中起神通？」 tr. "The intent of Subhūti's question: the supernormal powers are existent—existent, while prajñā is empty; how does one, abiding in prajñā, give rise to the supernormal powers?" This and what the treatise-author points out, 「須菩提意：般若波羅蜜性空，云何菩薩安住性空波羅蜜中能行是神通有法」 tr. "Subhūti's meaning: prajñāpāramitā is empty of nature; how can the bodhisattva, abiding in a perfection that is empty of nature, practise an existent dharma such as these supernormal powers", are precisely one meaning. His explanation of the Buddha's answer says: 「佛答以空無礙故得起通，此是空有不二觀故能爾也。」 tr. "The Buddha answers that because emptiness is without obstruction one is able to give rise to the supernormal powers; this is possible because of the contemplation in which emptiness and existence are not two." To sum up with the four Chinese characters 「空有不二」 tr. "emptiness and existence are not two" the treatise-author's 「空故能行」 tr. "because of emptiness he can practise" is Jizang's own interpretive judgement; it is recorded without being set up as the treatise-author's teaching.

On the division of the supernormal powers' benefiting beings into brief and broad, Jizang's division says: 「菩薩用天眼通人眼下，第二、明以神通成化他行」 tr. "From ‘the bodhisattva with the divine eye penetrating beyond the human eye’ on: second, making clear the accomplishment of the practice of transforming others by the supernormal powers", and further says: 「是菩薩用天眼見如恒沙下，第二、廣明神通利物。上但用天眼故略，今具用六通利物為廣。」 tr. "From ‘this bodhisattva with the divine eye sees as many as the sands of the Ganges’ on: second, making clear at length the supernormal powers benefiting beings. Above, only the divine eye is used, and so it is brief; now all six supernormal powers are used to benefit beings, and that is the broad." The division into brief and broad hangs on one eye against six supernormal powers, and agrees with the order of the sūtra text. On the section on taking a body without being stained, Jizang explains: 「次歎苦樂不法者，不因苦生瞋、受樂生貪也」 tr. "Next, the praise of ‘suffering and pleasure, not …’ means not giving rise to anger because of suffering, nor to greed on receiving pleasure"—which has the same purport as the treatise-author's phrase 「樂中不生愛，苦中不生瞋」 tr. "within pleasure he does not give rise to love, and within suffering he does not give rise to anger".

On the last section, Jizang's division says: 「菩薩應如是遊戲神通淨佛土下，第三、以神通力化眾生淨佛土滿菩提願也」 tr. "From ‘the bodhisattva should thus sport in the supernormal powers and purify buddha-lands’ on: third, by the power of the supernormal powers he transforms beings, purifies buddha-lands, and fulfils the vow of awakening", and divides it into the two practices of self and others, saying: 「論土成就眾生是他行，淨佛土具自行……」 tr. "As to the land: bringing beings to accomplishment is the practice for others; purifying buddha-lands is complete with the practice for oneself …" On the faults of clinging, what Jizang lists is simpler than the treatise-author's, but the order corresponds: 「論云著之所行故多過：一者、既著三事便失出世間道，若破三事便著空，則世出世俱失也」 tr. "The treatise says that because of what clinging does there are many faults: first, since one clings to the three matters one loses the world-transcending path; if one breaks the three matters and then clings to emptiness, then both the worldly and the world-transcending are lost"—this item is precisely the 「失二種法」 tr. "losing two kinds of dharma" the treatise-author speaks of, and Jizang further sums it up with 「世出世俱失」 tr. "both the worldly and the world-transcending are lost". The text of the several items after this has, as transmitted in the Supplement to the Canon, wording that is corrupt or missing and hard to make sense of; it is not forced into an explanation, but left as a gap and not recorded. At the end he closes with one sentence: 「是故菩薩忘三事行施，具足菩薩行故得佛，餘事亦爾也。」 tr. "Therefore the bodhisattva forgets the three matters in practising giving, and because he makes the bodhisattva's practice complete he obtains Buddhahood; the other matters are likewise." To sum up with 「忘三事」 tr. "forgets the three matters" the text 「無憶想分別：是施者、是財物、是受者」 tr. "there is no recollection, imagining, and discrimination: this is the giver, this is the wealth, this is the receiver" agrees with the treatise-author's text.

Zhanran's Supporting Practice and Broad Resolution of Calming and Contemplation, explaining the phrase 「遊戲神通淨佛國土」 tr. "sporting in the supernormal powers and purifying buddha-lands", directly cites as ground the question and answer of this unit of this treatise; his text is an abridged citation and not word for word, and it is recorded below with its being an abridged citation made clear: 「大論九十三問云。神通所作何名遊戲。答。猶如幻師種種變現。菩薩亦爾。故名為戲。復次三三昧中空名為上。諸餘行法皆名為下。下如兒戲。故名為戲。」 tr. "Fascicle ninety-three of the Great Treatise asks: what the supernormal powers do—why is it named sport? The answer: just as a conjurer manifests all kinds of transformations, so is the bodhisattva; therefore it is named sport. Further, among the three samādhi, emptiness is named the upper; the other practices are all named lower—lower like a child's play; therefore it is named sport." What is cited is precisely the two sections of question and answer that the treatise-author poses himself in this unit—this treatise's original text has 「戲名如幻師種種現變；菩薩神通種種現化，名之為戲」 tr. "what is called sport is like a conjurer's manifesting all kinds of transformations; the bodhisattva's supernormal powers manifest all kinds of transformations, and so they are called sport" and 「佛法中三三昧，空名為上行」 tr. "among the three samādhi within the Buddha-dharma, emptiness is named the upper practice", 「諸餘行法，皆名為下下，如小兒」 tr. "the other practices are all named the lowest of the low, like a little child". Zhanran abridges the text and keeps the meaning; with the four Chinese characters 「下如兒戲」 tr. "lower like a child's play" he sums up together this treatise's 「下下，如小兒」 tr. "the lowest of the low, like a little child"; this is the form of abridged citation, not a variant reading; the reader should take this treatise's original text as the standard, and by this see the traces of the Tiantai house's use of it.

Huiying's Commentary lacks an explanation of this chapter. The extant text of his book stops at fascicle 24, and what it explains does not reach this chapter; although the phrase 「畢定品」 tr. "the Certainty chapter" appears once in the book, it is a plan of sectional division made in an earlier chapter, anticipating that this chapter will have three parts making clear the stage of assurance, and not commentary text on this chapter, and so it is not entered into the Further Resonances. What the word 「畢定」 tr. "assured" in Junzheng's Profound Meaning of the Four Mahāyāna Treatises cites is the text of the "Adornment" chapter of the Larger Sūtra, not this chapter, and it too is not attached here. Zhiyi's Profound Meaning of the Lotus cites this chapter, but what it takes is the treatise-author's text of the First Part, already noted in the Further Resonances of the First Part, and it is not given again here.

Further Resonances

What "Certainty" inherits lies in the very last question at the end of the treatise text of the preceding chapter. The preceding chapter, "Purifying the Buddha-land," speaks at length of the marks of a pure land, and at its end the treatise-author sets up a question of his own: above it was said 「聞佛名畢定至佛」 tr. "hearing the Buddha's name, one is assured of reaching buddhahood"; here it is said 「於諸法無礙必得作佛」 tr. "being unobstructed in all dharmas, one will surely become a Buddha"; what difference is there between the two? The answer says that in the former case 「眾生常見佛、常聞法、深種善根、多集佛法故，疾得作佛」 tr. "beings constantly see the Buddha, constantly hear the Dharma, deeply plant roots of goodness, and gather many of the dharmas of the Buddha; therefore they quickly become buddhas," while 「聞名者，雖俱畢竟定而小不如」 tr. "as for those who hear the name, although both are alike ultimately assured, they are slightly inferior." The two Chinese characters for ‘assured’ have already appeared there, and have already been used in two places—「若聞淨國佛名，則畢定作佛」 tr. "if one hears the name of the Buddha of a pure land, one is assured of becoming a Buddha" and 「云何不畢定作佛」 tr. "how could they not be assured of becoming a Buddha"—yet there they are only the proven effect of the pure land, and are not yet set up squarely as a question. The very first sentence at the opening of this chapter raises it into the question proper: 「世尊！是菩薩摩訶薩為畢定？為不畢定？」 tr. "World-Honored One! Is this bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured? Or is he unassured?" What the preceding chapter settles is the fruit of beings' hearing the name; what this chapter settles is the bodhisattva's own position. The preceding chapter says that purifying buddha-lands can make people assured; at its end this chapter says, the other way round, that without purifying buddha-lands one does not obtain awakening—「不淨佛國土、不成就眾生，不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "if he does not purify buddha-lands and does not bring beings to accomplishment, he cannot obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi"—one going out and one coming back, which together close exactly into one ring. What it opens likewise lies in its last sentence. This chapter ends with 「無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道」 tr. "with a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path"; what it judges is the path of the bodhisattva, and it does not yet reach how the Buddha differs; the first question at the opening of the next chapter, "The Four Truths," presses straight up to it: 「世尊！若是諸法是菩薩法，何等是佛法？」 tr. "World-Honored One! If these dharmas are the bodhisattva's dharmas, what are the dharmas of the Buddha?" The Buddha answers 「菩薩法亦是佛法」 tr. "the bodhisattva's dharmas are also the dharmas of the Buddha," and then sets up the boundary between them—the bodhisattva practises within the path without obstruction, while the Buddha, within the path of liberation, is without any darkness or obscuration—「是為菩薩、佛之差別」 tr. "this is the difference between the bodhisattva and the Buddha," and he gives a simile for it: 「譬如向道、得果異，是二人俱為聖人」 tr. "just as heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit differ, yet these two people are both sages." This chapter says that the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured; the next chapter then says where the difference lies between the one who is assured and the one already accomplished. This chapter says that all wholesome dharmas are causes and conditions of awakening; the next chapter then asks: since these dharmas are the bodhisattva's dharmas, which then are the dharmas of the Buddha? Only here does the meaning of assurance obtain its boundary: to be assured is not to have arrived; it is surely to arrive.

What the later transmitted editions preserve of this chapter's name is most worth recording. The base text of this treatise has the title 「大智度論釋畢定品第八十三」 tr. "The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa's explanation of the Chapter on Certainty, the eighty-third", while in place of the character meaning ‘final’ the Yuan and Ming editions have the one meaning ‘surely’, and the same variant appears again at the continuing title of fascicle ninety-four; the Ming edition further adds two Chinese characters after the chapter number, making it ‘the eighty-third, the upper part’. For the continuing title of fascicle ninety-four the base text has 「之餘」 tr. "the remainder", the Song, Yuan, and Palace editions have ‘lower’, and the Ming edition has ‘the lower part’. Beyond the single line of the chapter title, the fascicle numbers and chapter numbers of the editions also each form a system of their own: the Shōgozō manuscript's end-title of fascicle ninety-three reads 「大智度經論卷第九十三釋第八十一品下訖第八十二品上」 tr. "Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra-Treatise, fascicle ninety-three: explanation of the eighty-first chapter, lower part, through to the eighty-second chapter, upper part", and its head-title of fascicle ninety-four reads 「大智度經論卷第九十四釋第八十二品下訖第八十三品」 tr. "Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra-Treatise, fascicle ninety-four: explanation of the eighty-second chapter, lower part, through to the eighty-third chapter"; set against what the base text's two fascicles span (fascicle ninety-three spans the remainder of the preceding chapter and the First Part of this chapter, fascicle ninety-four spans the Last Part of this chapter and the next chapter), the chapter numbers recorded in the Shōgozō manuscript are all one less than the base text's. The Ishiyama-dera manuscript, for its part, marks the head of fascicle ninety-four directly at the chapter title of this chapter, reading 「大智度經品第八十二畢定品卷九十四」 tr. "Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra, chapter eighty-two, the Certainty chapter, fascicle ninety-four", and at the chapter's end it again has 「道釋八十二品竟大智度經卷第九十四」 tr. "‘… path.’ The explanation of the eighty-second chapter ends. Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra, fascicle ninety-four", one step off from the base text; moreover the Ishiyama-dera manuscript carries no author's designation and no translator's designation. The Shōgozō manuscript, at the end of this chapter, has 「道釋八十三品」 tr. "‘… path.’ Explanation of the eighty-third chapter"; by its reckoning of one less, this is the opening mark of the next chapter and not the closing record of this chapter, and it belongs to the same system as what the fascicle titles above record. The three editions each record it differently, while the chapter numbers recorded by the Shōgozō and Ishiyama-dera manuscripts are alike one less; this is recorded as it is, without forcing it into uniformity. The Larger Sūtra that is explained gives this chapter the proper title 「畢定品第八十三」 tr. "The Chapter on Certainty, the eighty-third", the same name and the same number as this treatise; only, for its two Chinese characters for ‘assured’, the Shōgozō manuscript has ‘ultimate’, and this variant appears again and again within the range of this chapter. The number attached to it in its general table of contents is one more than in the proper title, and the same holds for several neighbouring chapters; this is a shift within the table-of-contents marking layer itself, not something peculiar to this chapter. What is especially worth viewing side by side is that, for the chapters before and after, the treatise's titles and the sūtra's titles differ from each other, and the editions each follow one or the other: for the preceding chapter this treatise's title is "Purifying the Buddha-land" and the base text of the Larger Sūtra titles it "Pure Land", while the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace editions read precisely ‘Purifying the Buddha-land’; for the next chapter this treatise's title is "The Four Truths" and the base text of the Larger Sūtra titles it "Difference", while the Yuan and Ming editions and the Shōgozō manuscript read precisely "The Four Truths", and the base text moreover itself preserves, below the chapter title, an interlinear note from the Khitan edition. So the chapter names of treatise and sūtra are not two, but two transmissions of one name, and what the treatise title follows is exactly what the editions bring out as a variant.

Among the commentaries of the ancient masters, the only one now extant that substantively corresponds to this chapter is Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra. His judgement of this chapter's position says 「此下第二大段，明自他行成位階不退」 tr. "from here on is the second great section, making clear that, the practice for self and others being accomplished, the stages do not retreat", and on the treatise-author's threefold setting-up of meaning, his explanation runs almost parallel with this treatise: 「論生起三義：一者上不退品已明不退，今更以異門明菩薩相，故云畢定也。二者佛三達洞照已知其畢定，但於餘人智身未及，故云不畢定耳。三者須菩提聞法華經所作功德皆作佛，又聞上不退品有退不退，是故生疑為畢竟為不畢竟空也。」 tr. "The treatise gives three meanings for how this arises: first, the Non-retreat chapter above has already made non-retreat clear; now, through a different gate of approach, the marks of the bodhisattva are made clear again, and therefore it speaks of being assured. Second, the Buddha, with the three penetrations illuminating thoroughly, already knows that they are assured; it is only that the wisdom-body of other people does not reach it, and therefore it is said they are unassured. Third, Subhūti heard in the Lotus Sūtra that whatever merit is done all become buddhas, and also heard that in the Non-retreat chapter above there is retreat and non-retreat; therefore doubt arose as to whether it is ultimately empty or not ultimately empty." These three meanings correspond item by item with the treatise-author's answers: the different gate of approach, all being assured in the Buddha's mind, and doubt arising from hearing the Lotus Sūtra. His division of the three questions also agrees with the sūtra text: 「佛答皆是畢定者，明一切不退無有退也」 tr. "the Buddha's answer that all are assured makes clear that all are non-retreating and there is no retreat", 「第三問大乘中初心中後心故問何心人畢定？佛答上中下三人皆畢定也」 tr. "the third question: within the Great Vehicle there are the first mind, the middle mind, and the last mind, and so he asks the person of which mind is assured. The Buddha answers that the upper, the middle, and the lower, all three persons, are assured". And on why all bodhisattvas do not retreat, Jizang brings out a separate explanation, tying it directly to nature—「此即證一切眾生皆有佛性，無有二乘性」 tr. "this proves that all beings have the Buddha-nature, that there is no nature of the two vehicles"; as for what the preceding chapter says, that those who obtain non-retreat are one or two, he judges it to be a difference of slow and quick and not a difference of retreat and non-retreat: 「以遲得故名退也，終無有退」 tr. "it is because of obtaining late that it is named retreat; in the end there is no retreat". On where the two vehicles, having relinquished the body, are born so as to be able to practise transformation, his answer runs along the same lines as what this treatise says of the pure Buddha-land: 「生於三界淨土，此中無煩惱之名，於中發心修行作佛也」 tr. "he is born in a pure land of the three realms; in it there is no name of the afflictions, and within it he arouses the mind, cultivates practice, and becomes a Buddha"; and on the matter of arhats whose outflows are exhausted becoming buddhas after all, he too, like the treatise-author, halts and does not discuss it—「論云二乘作此，唯佛能知，不敢釋也」 tr. "the treatise says that the two vehicles' becoming this only a Buddha can know; I do not dare to explain it". On why the view of no-doing alone is heavy, his words are the most simple and clear: 「無作見亦是耶見，但無作見最重，不作一切善以求涅槃名無作，是故別說也。」 tr. "The view of no-doing is also a wrong view, but the view of no-doing is the heaviest; not doing any good in order to seek nirvāṇa is named no-doing, and therefore it is spoken of separately." As for the Last Part of this chapter, Jizang's sectional division fits exactly the structure of this chapter's two sūtra segments and two treatise segments; he divides it into three, and of the second and third he says 「二、以般若方便力起神通；三、以神通力化眾生淨佛土滿菩提」 tr. "second, by the power of the skilful means of prajñā he gives rise to the supernormal powers; third, by the power of the supernormal powers he transforms beings, purifies buddha-lands, and fulfils awakening"; on the three dharmas being unfindable he likewise cites this treatise directly—「論云：一者、菩薩身，二者、所作鹿馬，三者、所用法，此三皆性空」 tr. "the treatise says: first, the bodhisattva's body; second, the deer and horse he makes himself into; third, the dharma he uses—these three are all empty of nature". On the difficulty of how the supernormal powers can arise within emptiness, he speaks out Subhūti's mind on his behalf: 「須菩提問意：神通是有，有般若是空，云何住般若中起神通？」 tr. "The intent of Subhūti's question: the supernormal powers are existent—existent, while prajñā is empty; how does one, abiding in prajñā, give rise to the supernormal powers?" And the essentials of the Buddha's answer he judges with only eight Chinese characters—「佛答以空無礙故得起通」 tr. "the Buddha answers that because emptiness is without obstruction one is able to give rise to the supernormal powers", adding 「此是空有不二觀故能爾也」 tr. "this is possible because of the contemplation in which emptiness and existence are not two". That the section on the supernormal powers is brief before and broad after he also points out: 「上但用天眼故略，今具用六通利物為廣」 tr. "above, only the divine eye is used, and so it is brief; now all six supernormal powers are used to benefit beings, and that is the broad"; the meaning of not being stained by suffering and pleasure he explains as 「不因苦生瞋、受樂生貪也」 tr. "not giving rise to anger because of suffering, nor to greed on receiving pleasure". The fault of giving with a clinging mind, at the very end, he brings home to one sentence that runs in the same track as this treatise: 「是故菩薩忘三事行施，具足菩薩行故得佛，餘事亦爾也。」 tr. "Therefore the bodhisattva forgets the three matters in practising giving, and because he makes the bodhisattva's practice complete he obtains Buddhahood; the other matters are likewise."

The other masters, some lacking and some not directly tied to this chapter, are all recorded as they are. Huiying's Commentary is a book that comments on this treatise chapter by chapter, but its extant text stops at the explanation of chapter sixty-nine, "The Great Skilful Means," and is incomplete, falling far short of fascicles ninety-three and ninety-four where this chapter lies; for this chapter a lack of explanation is recorded. Only, within the earlier chapters, his book has already mentioned in advance the sectional division this chapter would have: 「故畢定品中乃大作三分明畢定位：一者謂初發心菩薩；二者無生忍菩薩；三者最後身菩薩也。」 tr. "Therefore in the Certainty chapter three parts are greatly made, to clarify the stages of assurance: first, the bodhisattva of the first arousing of the mind; second, the bodhisattva of the acceptance of non-arising; third, the bodhisattva in his last body." This is a forward-looking mention, not commentary text on this chapter; and the three stages it names correspond to this chapter's sūtra text 「初發意菩薩亦畢定，阿鞞跋致菩薩亦畢定，最後身菩薩亦畢定」 tr. "the bodhisattva who has first aroused intent is also assured, the avaivartika bodhisattva is also assured, the bodhisattva in his last body is also assured", except that the middle stage is in the one avaivartika and in the other the acceptance of non-arising; the two names gloss each other, and this too shows what the ancient masters weighed in reading these three kinds of bodhisattva. Junzheng's Profound Meaning of the Four Mahāyāna Treatises, searched through for the heading of assurance, cites only in one place the "Adornment" chapter of the Larger Sūtra, saying 「畢定眾中干慧地」 tr. "within the assembly of the assured, the ground of dry wisdom"; this borrows the word ‘assured’ to discuss, within the context of another chapter, whether the order of stages is fixed or not, and does not explain this chapter; for this chapter, 〔not found〕; his book is in the form of an outline of essentials and not a commentary following the text, and this is not a defect. The Tiantai line is recorded as it is, under two aspects. Zhiyi's two books, Great Calming and Contemplation and Explanation of the Graded Dharma-Gates of Dhyānapāramitā, searched through, both have no heading of assurance; while Zhiyi's Profound Meaning of the Lotus explicitly cites this chapter to fix the order in time in which the two sūtras were taught: 「《釋論》云：須菩提何故更問菩薩畢定不畢定？答云：須菩提於《法華》中，聞諸菩薩受記作佛，今於《般若》中，更問畢定不畢定。當知《法華》之後，更明般若也。」 tr. "The Expository Treatise says: Why does Subhūti ask again whether the bodhisattva is assured or unassured? The answer says: in the Lotus, Subhūti heard that the bodhisattvas receive the prediction of becoming buddhas; now, in the Prajñā, he asks again whether they are assured or unassured. It should be known that after the Lotus, prajñā is made clear again." Elsewhere the same book again brings up the phrase 「須菩提問畢定不畢定」 tr. "Subhūti asks whether they are assured or unassured", and concludes 「當知般若亦至後」 tr. "it should be known that the Prajñā too reaches to the later period". Zhanran's Annotations on the Profound Meaning of the Lotus, explaining this entry of the Profound Meaning, goes further and cites this chapter's sūtra text word for word, first marking the fascicle number, saying 「《大論》九十三先舉經云」 tr. "fascicle ninety-three of the Great Treatise first cites the sūtra, saying", and below this citing 「須菩提白佛言：世尊！菩薩摩訶薩為畢定，為不畢定？佛告須菩提：畢定，非不畢定。」 tr. "Subhūti addressed the Buddha: World-Honored One! Is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva assured, or is he unassured? The Buddha told Subhūti: He is assured, not unassured." on to 「佛言：初心及跋致，皆悉畢定。」 tr. "The Buddha said: The first mind and the avaivartika are all without exception assured.", and he follows it with words of his own: 「須菩提於《法華》中，已聞諸菩薩得記，故已畢定。今復更問，故知須菩提更為未入者問，故知《法華》之後更說般若明矣。」 tr. "In the Lotus, Subhūti had already heard that the bodhisattvas obtain the prediction, and so they are already assured. Now he asks again; hence it is known that Subhūti asks again for the sake of those who have not yet entered; hence it is clear that after the Lotus the Prajñā is taught again." Of what the two masters cite, the former is precisely the question of Treatise ①, 「何以更問」 tr. "why ask again", and the latter is precisely the four questions at the opening of Sūtra ①; both belong to the First Part unit of this chapter. Their taking it as evidence for the classification of the teachings is the judgement of ancient masters, recorded without judgement. Zhanran's Supporting Practice and Broad Resolution of Calming and Contemplation, at the place where it explains sporting in the supernormal powers, directly marks the fascicle number of the Great Treatise and cites this chapter's treatise text: 「大論九十三問云。神通所作何名遊戲。答。猶如幻師種種變現。菩薩亦爾。故名為戲。復次三三昧中空名為上。諸餘行法皆名為下。下如兒戲。故名為戲。」 tr. "Fascicle ninety-three of the Great Treatise asks: what the supernormal powers do—why is it named sport? The answer: just as a conjurer manifests all kinds of transformations, so is the bodhisattva; therefore it is named sport. Further, among the three samādhi, emptiness is named the upper; the other practices are all named lower—lower like a child's play; therefore it is named sport." What is cited here is precisely the passage of this chapter's Treatise ② with 「戲名如幻師種種現變」 tr. "what is called sport is like a conjurer's manifesting all kinds of transformations" and 「空名為上行」 tr. "emptiness is named the upper practice"; but his text is an abridged citation and not word for word, and the fascicle number he marks also differs from the base text, which places this passage in fascicle ninety-four; both are kept and recorded side by side without judgement.

Bringing this whole line of further resonances back to this chapter, what the various houses contend over and preserve exactly illumines the two faces of the two Chinese characters for ‘assured’. Writing it as ‘assured’ speaks from the side of the fruit—one will surely become a Buddha, all are non-retreating and there is no retreat, and so the one of first-aroused intent is also among them; writing it as ‘ultimate’ speaks from the side of emptiness—because of ultimate emptiness there is no fixed mark from which to retreat, and so the commentator judges Subhūti's doubt as 「為畢竟為不畢竟空」 tr. "whether it is ultimately empty or not ultimately empty". One name, two readings; and this treatise's answer in fact holds both meanings together: the Buddha answers ‘assured’—assured within the Buddha path, not assured within nirvāṇa—and this is from the side of the fruit; while the treatise-author's explanation of why one can be assured lies wholly in the unfindability of the causes—the three dharmas empty of nature, emptiness not clinging to emptiness, discriminating nothing—and this is from the side of emptiness. If one reads it only as the sure arrival of the fruit, slackness easily arises; if one reads it only as the unfixedness of emptiness, relinquishing easily arises. The divergences of the editions and the houses over this name happen to leave both faces on paper: the Yuan and Ming have ‘surely’, the Shōgozō manuscript has ‘ultimate’, the treatise titles and the sūtra titles are each other's variants, and there is no single edition by which this chapter can be read through on its own. The preceding chapter speaks of the effect of the pure land, the next chapter of how the Buddha differs; this chapter, set between them, speaks of only one matter—the one already assured must still take a body, must still give rise to the supernormal powers, must still practise giving, and yet what is taken, what is given rise to, and what is practised are all unfindable.

So what "Certainty" leaves in the end is a boundary line that can be carried into daily use. When I read that I too am among the number of the assured and my mind grows slack, I remember the treatise-author saying plainly that this word is set up for those whose 「大悲心薄、自愛身重」 tr. "mind of great compassion is thin and love of their own body heavy" and who wish to take nirvāṇa early: it is a medicine to stop retreat, not a licence permitting slackness. When I read that all dharmas are empty of nature and wish to relinquish the good I am practising, I remember that this chapter speaks of this sickness most heavily: a person who practises good with a clinging mind, hearing of ultimate emptiness, relinquishes his former practice and turns to clinging to the mark of emptiness, and this is 「失二種法：失先善法，而墮邪見」 tr. "losing two kinds of dharma: he loses his former wholesome dharmas and falls into wrong view"; and its simile is only four Chinese characters—「藥復作病」 tr. "the medicine in turn becomes the disease". When I see that others' conduct seems not in accord with the Dharma and wish to judge them by their marks, I remember that the reason this chapter sets up assurance is precisely that the body manifested has never been what one is—the Buddha can conjure himself into an animal's body and do a Buddha's work, a conjurer can conjure up elephants, horses, men, and women; and so the question 「是象、馬、牛、羊、男、女等有實不」 tr. "are these elephants, horses, oxen, sheep, men, women, and so on real or not?" asks about more than elephants and horses. When I measure myself as having no supernormal powers and suspect that this chapter has nothing to do with me, I remember that the treatise-author's answer to why the supernormal powers can arise is only four Chinese characters, 「空故能行」 tr. "because of emptiness he can practise"; and the essential use of the supernormal powers, too, lies not in manifesting marvels but only in 「隨眾生意善說法」 tr. "teaching the Dharma well in accord with the minds of beings". The final sentence is the one most worth carrying away: the whole chapter has said all there is to say of assured and unassured, of taking a body and undergoing suffering, of the supernormal powers and sport, and yet the true bodhisattva path judged at its closing stroke does not lie in how high the dharma practised is—「無所分別心，能行布施等，是名真菩薩道。」 tr. "With a mind that discriminates nothing he can practise giving and the rest: this is named the true bodhisattva path."

The Four Truths: Why, If the Bodhisattva's Dharmas Are the Dharmas of the Buddha, a Difference between the Bodhisattva and the Buddha Is Still Spoken Of; Why, Though Heading toward the Path and Obtaining the Fruit Are Alike Sages, the Path without Obstruction and the Path of Liberation Are Still Divided; Why within the Emptiness of Specific Marks the Distinctions from the Six Destinies up to the Buddhas Are Still Set Up; Why, Since the Buddha Obtains Neither the Five Destinies nor Black and White Deeds, He Still Speaks of the Hells up to the Buddhas; Why the Buddha Teaches the Four Noble Truths for Beings Only after Speaking of Emptiness; Why One Cannot Be Delivered by the Four Noble Truths and yet the Equality of the Four Truths Is Instead Nirvāṇa; What the Equality of the Four Truths Is, and Why It Is Also Said That the Marks of Dharmas Abide Constantly; Why Penetrating the Real Truth Keeps One from Falling into the Two Vehicles and Leads Directly into the Bodhisattva's Position; What the Summit Means in Abiding in the Ground of the Stage of Nature and Not Falling from the Summit; Why Contemplating the Mark of Dharmas as It Truly Is Is Answered with the Single Word Emptiness; Why the Simile of the Moon of the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Day Divides the All-Pervading from the Not All-Pervading; Why among the Four Deeds—Black, White, Black-and-White, and without Outflows—Those without Outflows Alone Are Called Neither White nor Black; Why the Objection That If Beings Knew for Themselves That Dharmas Are Empty of Nature the Bodhisattva Would Have No One to Deliver Is Not Idle Discourse; Why the Buddha Sets Aside the Eighteen Unshared Dharmas and Speaks Only of Suffering, Origin, Cessation, and Path; Why the Coarse Question Is Not Coarse but Hangs on the Coming Together of Truth and Knowledge; Why, Since the Four Truths Are Born from Conditions and Are False, It Is Further Said That They Cannot Be Said to Bring Cessation; Why the Truth of the Path and the Truth of Cessation Too Enter the False and Deceptive without Destroying Their Being Path and Cessation; Why among the Eighteen Emptinesses the Emptiness of Specific Marks Alone Is Singled Out as the Emptiness of the Middle Way; Why the Power of Skilful Means Is the Reason the Bodhisattva Does Not State the Dharma of Emptiness Directly

What Is Being Asked

What this chapter asks about is the most perilous point of an old question: since all dharmas are empty of specific marks, then the various distinctions of the worldly and the world-transcending—the high and low of the six destinies, the grades of ordinary people and sages, and even the dividing line between the Buddha and the bodhisattva—on what basis can they still stand? The chapters before this mostly set up their words from the side of ‘dharmas are empty’; when it comes to this chapter, Subhūti turns the question round and presses step by step from the side of ‘how is there difference within emptiness’, and the point at which the sūtra text gathers it in is precisely the four noble truths named in the chapter's title.

Subhūti's way of asking peels inward layer by layer. First he asks how the dharmas of the Buddha differ from the dharmas of the bodhisattva; the Buddha answers that the bodhisattva's dharmas are the dharmas of the Buddha, and that the difference lies only in whether the omniscience of all kinds is all-pervading or not, and he concludes it with the simile of 「向道、得果」 tr. "heading toward the path, obtaining the fruit"—both alike sages, and yet different. This answer places 「差別」 tr. "difference" on the stage of practice and not on the substance of dharmas. Subhūti therefore pushes the question onto the substance of dharmas: if all dharmas are empty of specific marks, how within the emptiness of specific marks can there be the distinctions from the hells up to the samyaksaṃbuddha? The Buddha's reply does not withdraw the meaning of emptiness; on the contrary, he first concedes 「自相空法中，無眾生、無業因緣、無果報」 tr. "within dharmas empty of specific marks there are no beings, no causes and conditions of deeds, no retribution", and then places the source of difference wholly on the four Chinese characters 「眾生不知」 tr. "beings do not know". Subhūti presses one step further: since the Buddha himself obtains neither the birth and death of the five destinies nor black, white, and the other deeds, then what are the hells up to the buddhas in the Buddha's mouth? The Buddha's answer turns out the pivot of the whole chapter—precisely because beings truly do not know the emptiness of self-nature, the bodhisattva arouses the mind, the Buddha teaches the four noble truths, all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter the four truths, and the Three Jewels are thereby distinguished and set up.

Once the pivot is set up, the sūtra text at once pushes the four truths themselves into emptiness as well. Subhūti asks whether it is by the noble truth of suffering that one is delivered, or by the knowledge of suffering; the Buddha denies all of it, and says 「是四聖諦平等故，我說即是涅槃」 tr. "because these four noble truths are equal, I say that this is precisely nirvāṇa". The four truths are the dharmas that can deliver, while the equality of the four truths is the realm that is realised; each and every dharma that can deliver may not be grasped, and the place of their equality is precisely nirvāṇa. Next he asks what the equality of the four truths is, and the Buddha answers it with 「無苦、無苦智」 tr. "no suffering, no knowledge of suffering" and so on up to 「無道、無道智」 tr. "no path, no knowledge of the path", and immediately says further that the four truths are suchness, are the nature of dharmas, are the limit of reality, and that the marks of dharmas abide constantly. On one side it speaks of absence, on the other side of abiding constantly: this is the place in this chapter most easily read upside down. At the end it returns to the gate of practice: one who penetrates the real truth does not fall into the two vehicles and enters directly into the bodhisattva's position; and as for what is called contemplating the mark of dharmas as it truly is, the Buddha gives only one word—emptiness; asked again what emptiness, he answers the emptiness of self-nature.

The treatise-author's explanation follows the sūtra downward, yet at three hard points it opens separate questions and answers. First, at ‘does not obtain the five destinies’ it asks: since it was said that because of the great benefit he does not fall into the five destinies, why is it further said that he does not obtain them? Second, at ‘speaks only of suffering, origin, cessation, and path’ it asks: the Buddha has trained in subtle and wonderful dharmas for immeasurable kalpas, so why does he speak of these four alone? Third, at ‘the four dharmas are all false and deceptive’ it asks: suffering and origin can be called false and deceptive, but the truth of the path is without outflows and the truth of cessation is unconditioned, so why are these too false and deceptive? The three questions go deeper one after another, and what is answered never departs from the one line ‘because they are born from conditions they are false; because they are false one cannot speak of cessation by them’. The joints of the whole chapter lie on this one line.

Passage by Passage

1. Subhūti asks what the dharmas of the Buddha are; the Buddha answers with the obtaining of the omniscience of all kinds and with the simile of heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit. The question at the head of the chapter is extremely short: since these dharmas are all the bodhisattva's dharmas, what are the dharmas of the Buddha? This question is not meant to tell two dharmas apart; it is meant to press out the principle of ‘one and the same dharma having two names’. The Buddha's answer has three parts: first he says directly 「菩薩法亦是佛法」 tr. "the bodhisattva's dharmas are also the dharmas of the Buddha"—there are not two sets of dharmas; next he says that the difference lies in 「佛以一念相應慧知一切法已」 tr. "the Buddha, having known all dharmas by the wisdom associated with a single thought" and so obtaining awakening, while the bodhisattva is one who 「當得是法」 tr. "is to obtain this dharma"—the one lies in what is yet to be obtained, the other in what has already been obtained; finally he takes heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit as a simile, 「是二人俱為聖人」 tr. "these two people are both sages", and yet heading toward and obtaining are not the same. In reading this passage, first remember one thing: every difference spoken of in this chapter is placed, from the first sentence on, on the ‘stage of practice’ and not on the ‘substance of dharmas’; when Subhūti pursues it three times in what follows, what he pursues is whether this point can be held.

2. Subhūti objects that within the emptiness of specific marks there should be no difference. The second question is a head-on collision: if all dharmas are empty of specific marks, how within dharmas empty of specific marks can there be so many distinctions—the hells, the hungry ghosts, and so on up to the tathāgata, the arhat, the samyaksaṃbuddha? And he pushes the difficulty to the very bottom—「如諸人不可得，業因緣亦不可得，果報亦不可得」 tr. "since these persons are unfindable, the causes and conditions of deeds are also unfindable, and retribution is also unfindable". Since the person is unfindable, the maker of deeds is unfindable; since the maker of deeds is unfindable, deeds and retribution are unfindable too. The reason this objection has force is that it does not oppose emptiness; rather it follows the meaning of emptiness all the way to the conclusion ‘cause and effect too do not exist’. The Buddha's way of answering deserves a close look: he does not deny this inference, but on the contrary first concedes the whole of it, 「自相空法中，無眾生、無業因緣、無果報」 tr. "within dharmas empty of specific marks there are no beings, no causes and conditions of deeds, no retribution"; only after conceding does he turn—「眾生不知是諸法自相空」 tr. "beings do not know that these dharmas are empty of specific marks", and therefore they make the three deeds, wholesome, evil, and unmoving, and therefore there are the divided roads of the three evil destinies, of humans and gods, and of the form and formless realms. The difference is not in the dharmas; it is in the not knowing. This one turn is the first joint of this chapter's meaning.

3. Since the Buddha obtains neither the five destinies nor black and white deeds, why does he still speak of the hells up to the buddhas? Subhūti, having got an answer, does not let go, and asks three sentences in a row: after the Buddha has obtained awakening, does he obtain the birth and death of the five destinies? Does he obtain deeds black, white, and neither black nor white? If he obtains none of them, how does he speak of the hells up to the buddhas? These three sentences put the Buddha himself into the difficulty—earlier it was said that because beings do not know there is difference, so why are there still words of difference in the mouth of the Buddha, who already knows? Here the reader should note the layers of Subhūti's questions: the first question asks about the destinies of retribution, the second asks about the deeds that can bring them about, the third asks about the teaching in words. Destiny, deed, teaching—the three tighten all the way, pressing down at the end to only one question: ‘why does the Buddha still speak in this way’.

4. The Buddha answers that because beings truly do not know the emptiness of self-nature, he then teaches the four noble truths, and the Three Jewels are distinguished. The Buddha's answer is the pivot of the whole chapter, and also the reason the four truths appear in this chapter. The answer falls into three parts. First, it makes a counter-supposition—「若眾生知諸法自相空，菩薩摩訶薩不求阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，亦不拔眾生於三惡趣」 tr. "if beings knew that dharmas are empty of specific marks, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva would not seek anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, nor would he pull beings out from the three evil courses"; if beings already knew for themselves, then arousing the mind and delivering beings would both have nowhere to be applied. Second, it states the actual case—beings 「於無所有法中，顛倒妄想分別得法」 tr. "within dharmas without anything existent obtain dharmas by inverted false thinking and discrimination": where there are no beings they raise up the mark of beings, where there is no form they raise up the mark of form, and so on up to making bodily, verbal, and mental deeds with an inverted and falsely thinking mind, going and coming in the five destinies without obtaining liberation. Third, it states whence the teaching comes—the bodhisattva practises prajñā and obtains awakening; 「得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提已，為眾生說四聖諦」 tr. "having obtained anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, he teaches the four noble truths for beings", and 「一切助道善法皆入四聖諦中」 tr. "all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter into the four noble truths"; through the wholesome dharmas that aid the path the Buddha Jewel, the Dharma Jewel, and the Saṅgha Jewel are distinguished, and because they do not believe in the Three Jewels and reject them, they do not obtain release from the birth and death of the five destinies. Reading to this point, the chapter's title can at last be said to have landed: the four noble truths are not another set of teachings placed alongside the meaning of emptiness; they are an entry-way set up, beneath the meaning of emptiness, for those who do not know; the Three Jewels too are like this.

5. One is delivered neither by the four truths nor by the four knowledges, and the equality of the four truths is precisely nirvāṇa. Subhūti at once takes up the four truths as well and asks: is it by the noble truth of suffering that one is delivered? Is it by the knowledge of suffering that one is delivered? Origin, cessation, and path with their knowledges likewise. Eight questions go out together. The Buddha's reply denies all of them, yet gives one positive sentence: 「是四聖諦平等故，我說即是涅槃」 tr. "because these four noble truths are equal, I say that this is precisely nirvāṇa". The misreading most easily born here is to think that the Buddha denies the four truths; in fact what is denied is the grasping that takes ‘some one truth or some one knowledge as the instrument that can deliver’, and what is set up is the equality of the four truths. Truth and knowledge are both what can deliver, and what can deliver may not be grasped; in the place of equality there is neither subject nor object, and therefore it is precisely nirvāṇa. Whenever, reading the sūtras, one sees the Buddha deny a whole string of dharma-items, first look at what he sets up after denying—the place where he sets something up is his real intent.

6. What the equality of the four truths is—first it speaks of the absence of the eight dharmas, next of the marks of dharmas abiding constantly. Subhūti pursues what equality is, and the Buddha's answer has two halves whose tones are exactly opposite. The first half: 「若無苦、無苦智，無集、無集智，無滅、無滅智，無道、無道智，是名四聖諦平等」 tr. "if there is no suffering and no knowledge of suffering, no origin and no knowledge of origin, no cessation and no knowledge of cessation, no path and no knowledge of the path, this is named the equality of the four noble truths"—taking the absence of the eight dharmas as equality. The latter half: the four noble truths are 「如、不異、法相、法性、法住、法位、實際，有佛、無佛，法相常住，為不誑不失故」 tr. "suchness, not-different, the mark of dharmas, the nature of dharmas, the abiding of dharmas, the position of dharmas, the limit of reality; whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, the marks of dharmas abide constantly, because they do not deceive and are not lost"—taking constant abiding as equality. One absence and one constancy seem to contradict each other, but in fact the first half negates their graspable marks, and the latter half discloses that they do not arise and cease with the Buddha's appearing in the world. In reading this passage hold to the four Chinese characters 「不誑不失」 tr. "do not deceive and are not lost": the reason constant abiding is spoken of is not to set up separately a substance that is not empty; it is to keep the teaching of the four truths from becoming deceiving words.

7. Because he penetrates the real truth he does not fall into the two vehicles, enters directly into the bodhisattva's position, and abides in the ground of the stage of nature without falling from the summit. Subhūti asks how the bodhisattva penetrates the real truth so as not to fall into the ground of the śrāvaka or of the pratyekabuddha, and to enter directly into the bodhisattva's position. The Buddha's answer has four parts, each part following from the one before: first, he 「如實見諸法」 tr. "sees dharmas as they truly are" and 「得無所有法」 tr. "obtains the dharma without anything existent"; second, from obtaining what is without anything existent he 「見一切法空——四聖諦所攝、四聖諦所不攝法皆空」 tr. "sees that all dharmas are empty—the dharmas contained by the four noble truths and the dharmas not contained by the four noble truths are all empty"; third, when contemplating like this 「便入菩薩位中」 tr. "he then enters into the bodhisattva's position", and this is abiding in the ground of the stage of nature, 「不從頂墮」 tr. "not falling from the summit"; if one falls from the summit, one falls into the ground of the two vehicles; fourth, one who abides in the ground of the stage of nature can give rise to the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions, and on the first ground of concentration 「通達四聖諦：知苦，不生緣苦心；乃至知道，不生緣道心」 tr. "penetrates the four noble truths: he knows suffering, yet does not give rise to a mind that takes suffering as its object; and so on up to: he knows the path, yet does not give rise to a mind that takes the path as its object". The key of this passage lies in the fourth part: penetrating the four truths and not taking the four truths as object are two faces of one and the same matter—knowing it to be medicine and yet not taking the medicine for food: only this is the bodhisattva's penetration. What is called the summit-fall is the place where, having gone as far as being about to enter, one retreats and turns back; the sūtra text only names it and does not explain it at length, and only later does the treatise-author compare it with the śrāvaka's warmth, summit, acceptance, and highest worldly dharma.

8. Contemplating the mark of dharmas as it truly is, is contemplating emptiness; and which emptiness is the emptiness of self-nature. At the end of the sūtra section there are two questions and two answers, so short as to be almost wordless: asked how one contemplates the mark of dharmas as it truly is, he answers 「觀諸法空」 tr. "contemplate that dharmas are empty"; asked what emptiness, he answers 「自性空」 tr. "the emptiness of self-nature". Though the answers are short, the Buddha at once supplies the reason: the bodhisattva with such wisdom contemplates all dharmas as empty, 「無法性可見住是性中」 tr. "there is no nature of dharmas to be seen, and yet he abides within this nature", and obtains awakening; why—because 「無性相是阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "the mark of being without nature is anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi", and this mark of being without nature is 「非諸佛所作，非辟支佛所作」 tr. "not made by the buddhas, not made by the pratyekabuddhas", and so on up to not made by the bodhisattvas. This section gathers the whole chapter into a dharma that is not made: difference is set up through not knowing, while the nature of emptiness is made by no one at all. The last sentence turns back to compassion—「但眾生不知不見諸法如實相」 tr. "it is only that beings do not know and do not see the mark of dharmas as it truly is", and therefore the bodhisattva, by the power of skilful means, teaches the Dharma for them. The sūtra section begins with asking about difference and ends with the reason for teaching the Dharma; head and tail exactly answer each other.

9. The treatise-author first asks why Subhūti had this question, and answers that the Buddha teaches the bodhisattva to practise as the Buddha practises. At the very start of the treatise section an objection is set up: the dharmas of the Buddha and the dharmas of the bodhisattva differ greatly—the Buddha is omniscience, the bodhisattva is not yet omniscience—so why did Subhūti still give rise to doubt and ask? This question first exposes a carelessness the reader may have—the question at the head of the sūtra is not a question asked about what is already known. The treatise-author's answer: herein the Buddha teaches the bodhisattva to practise the six perfections and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds 「如佛所行」 tr. "as the Buddha practises"; since he has him practise as the Buddha does, naturally one must ask 「若如佛行，與佛何異」 tr. "if he practises as the Buddha does, how does he differ from the Buddha"; and the Buddha 「可其意，應如是問」 tr. "assents to his intent: he ought to ask in this way". The answer finished, the treatise-author gives his own verdict: 「色等諸法行處是同，但智慧利鈍有異。」 tr. "The places where form and the other dharmas are practised are the same; only the sharpness or dullness of wisdom differs." And he cites the causes and conditions the Buddha himself states—although the bodhisattva practises the six perfections as they truly are, he has not yet been able to be all-pervading, not yet able to enter every gate, and therefore he is not named Buddha; when he enters the gate of the omniscience of all kinds, obtains awakening by the wisdom associated with a single thought, severs all the afflictions and their habitual residues, and obtains the power of mastery within all dharmas, only then is he named Buddha. In reading this passage remember the two Chinese characters 「周遍」 tr. "all-pervading": the difference between the Buddha and the bodhisattva spoken of in this chapter is not that the dharmas practised differ; it is whether one and the same dharma is practised all-pervadingly or not.

10. The simile of the moon of the fourteenth and the fifteenth day. The treatise-author gives a simile for 「周遍」 tr. "all-pervading": the moon of the fourteenth day and that of the fifteenth day, 「雖同為月」 tr. "though both are equally the moon", yet the fourteenth cannot make the waters of the great ocean rise in tide; though the bodhisattva has true and pure wisdom, because he has not yet made complete the dharmas of the buddhas he cannot shake all the beings of the ten directions. On the fifteenth the brightness is full, and it can make the waters of the ocean rise in tide; the bodhisattva who becomes a Buddha is also like this: he emits great light and can shake the beings of the lands of the ten directions. The wonder of this simile is that what is compared is not two things but two times of one thing—the moon was never some other moon; what differs is only whether it is full or not yet full. Here the reader can avoid two losses: neither belittling what the bodhisattva practises because he is not yet full, nor taking the not yet full for the already full.

11. The simile of heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit, with the vajra samādhi as the boundary. The treatise-author goes on to cite the simile the Buddha himself states: 「如向道、得果，雖同為聖人而有差別。」 tr. "As heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit, though both are equally sages, still differ." And he himself supplies the words that bring it to ground: the one who is practising is named a bodhisattva, 「從初發心乃至金剛三昧」 tr. "from the first arousing of the mind up to the vajra samādhi"; the Buddha has already obtained the fruit, 「斷一切法中疑，無所不了」 tr. "has severed the doubts within all dharmas, there being nothing he has not thoroughly understood", and therefore he is named Buddha. This passage takes up the simile of the first passage of the sūtra text, and moreover gives a clear boundary-mark—everything before the vajra samādhi is named bodhisattva. Whenever, reading this treatise, one sees the two Chinese characters 「菩薩」 tr. "bodhisattva" and doubts how wide or narrow their reference is, one may hold to this one boundary as the standard.

12. The treatise-author cites the sūtra and raises the objection again, and explains the three deeds and unmoving deeds. The treatise-author cites Subhūti's second question and sets it up again, its intent more naked than in the sūtra text: 「作業者不可得；業不可得故，果報亦不可得。佛云何說佛與菩薩有差別？」 tr. "The one who makes deeds is unfindable; because deeds are unfindable, retribution too is unfindable. Why does the Buddha say that there is a difference between the Buddha and the bodhisattva?" Next he cites the Buddha's answer—「眾生不知自性空法故，能起善惡業」 tr. "because beings do not know the dharma of the emptiness of self-nature, they can raise up wholesome and evil deeds", and with the one phrase 「如經中廣說」 tr. "as spoken at length in the sūtra" he points back to the sūtra text without repeating it. Thereupon the treatise-author sets up his own glosses: what are called beings are ordinary people, those who have not yet entered the right position, whose mind of self is inverted and who raise up deeds through the causes and conditions of the afflictions; deeds are of three kinds, of body, speech, and mind, and the three kinds of deeds are again divided in two—wholesome and evil, with outflows and without outflows; evil deeds fall into the three evil courses, wholesome deeds are born among gods and humans; wholesome deeds are further divided into those bound to the desire realm and those bound to the form and formless realms, and the deeds of birth bound to the form and formless realms are 「名不動」 tr. "named unmoving"; through unmoving deeds one is born in the form and formless realms. This passage is one of the rare passages of pure doctrinal classification in the whole chapter; in reading it, simply mark each item clearly: three deeds, two divisions, two bindings, unmoving—four levels, one level set inside the next; only here is what the sūtra text calls 「若善、若惡、若無動」 tr. "whether wholesome, whether evil, whether unmoving" fully explained.

13. If they knew for themselves that dharmas are empty of nature they would not raise up deeds, and because they do not know they receive birth; the bodhisattva therefore practises the path and greatly enriches them. The treatise-author, continuing from the above, gives a sentence that discloses by contrast: 「若眾生自知諸法性空，即時不生著心，著心不生故不起業，乃至不生色、無色界。以實不知故生。」 tr. "If beings themselves knew that dharmas are empty of nature, then and there they would not give rise to a clinging mind; because the clinging mind does not arise they would not raise up deeds, and so on up to: they would not be born in the form realm or the formless realm. It is because they truly do not know that they are born." Within one sentence the whole pivot of cause and effect in this chapter is said to the end—that from which deeds arise lies only in one not knowing; that by which emptiness does not discard cause and effect also lies only in this not knowing. Next it joins the bodhisattva's side: because of this matter, the bodhisattva receives and practises in full giving and the other dharmas up to the eighteen unshared dharmas, 「無所失、無所少」 tr. "with nothing omitted and nothing lacking", and so on up to obtaining awakening by the like-vajra samādhi and greatly enriching beings; because beings obtain this benefit they 「不復往來五道生死」 tr. "no longer go and come within the birth and death of the five destinies". In reading this passage, watch its echo of the fourth passage of the sūtra text: the sūtra, from the Buddha's mouth, says that beings do not know; the treatise, from the gate of practice, says that not knowing can be turned; and the place where it is turned lies precisely in the bodhisattva's practice.

14. The objection that the Buddha does not obtain the five destinies—like an illusion, like a dream. After citing the sūtra's 「實得是五道不」 tr. "does he really obtain these five destinies?" and 「不得」 tr. "he does not obtain them", the treatise-author sets up a separate question: the Buddha said earlier 「大利益故，不墮五道」 tr. "because of the great benefit he does not fall into the five destinies"; why does he now say 「不得」 tr. "does not obtain them"? This question is asked very finely—not falling means that they exist but he does not enter them; not obtaining means that fundamentally there is nothing; the two phrases differ. The treatise-author's answer is also only two sentences: 「決定取相邪見、墮邪見」 tr. "to grasp at marks as fixed is a wrong view, and one falls into wrong views"; the birth and death of the five destinies are unfindable, but ordinary people raise up deeds through the causes and conditions of inversion, and 「假名有生死五道，其實如幻、如夢」 tr. "by provisional names there are birth and death and the five destinies; in reality they are like an illusion, like a dream". Within the answer there are two layers of discernment: first, what is refuted is 「決定取相」 tr. "grasping at marks as fixed", not the teaching of the five destinies; second, the five destinies are provisional names, and a provisional name is not without anything existent, so it says like an illusion, like a dream, and does not say that they are wholly non-existent. If the reader reads this passage as sweeping away cause and effect, he runs straight into the wrong view the treatise-author refutes.

15. The explanation of black deeds, white deeds, black-and-white deeds, and deeds without outflows. After citing the sūtra's 「得黑、白等四種業不」 tr. "does he obtain the four kinds of deeds, black, white, and the rest?" and 「不」 tr. "no", the treatise-author glosses the names of the four deeds one by one, and his glossing takes the place of retribution as its ground throughout: black deeds are unwholesome deeds, whose retribution is the hells and the other places where suffering and vexation are undergone, and beings, 「以大苦惱悶極，故名為黑」 tr. "because of great suffering and vexation swoon away to the utmost; therefore it is named black"; the place where the retribution of wholesome deeds is received is what are called the gods, 「以其受樂隨意自在明了」 tr. "because they receive pleasure at will, being sovereign and clear", and therefore it is named white deeds, and these deeds are the gods of the three realms; the place where the retribution of wholesome and unwholesome deeds is received is what are called humans, asuras, and the rest of the eight classes, 「此處亦受樂、亦受苦」 tr. "this place undergoes both pleasure and suffering", and therefore it is named black-and-white deeds; deeds without outflows 「能破不善有漏業，能拔眾生令離善惡果報中」 tr. "can break unwholesome deeds with outflows, and can pull beings out so that they are free from the retribution of wholesome and evil". Of the four items, the first three all take their names from the marks of the retribution received, while the fourth takes its name from what it breaks—the sources of the names are already not of one kind, and this is exactly why the objection of the next passage arises.

16. Why deeds without outflows are neither white nor black—two answers. The treatise-author sets a question: deeds without outflows ought to be white; why are they said to be neither white nor black? The question is reasonably asked, because what is without outflows is pure, and by the pattern of the first three items it should take its name from its mark. The answer has two parts. First, although dharmas without outflows are pure and without stain, 「以空、無相、無作故無所分別，不得言白」 tr. "because they are emptiness, the signless, and non-action, there is nothing in them that discriminates, and one may not say that they are white"; moreover 「黑、白是相待法，此中無相待故不得言白」 tr. "black and white are dharmas that stand over against each other; because herein there is no standing over against each other, one may not say that they are white". Second, 「復次，無漏業能滅一切，諸觀中分別故有黑、白，此中無觀故無白。」 tr. "Again, deeds without outflows can extinguish everything; it is because there is discrimination within the contemplations that there is black and white; because herein there is no contemplation, there is no white." The first answer speaks from the non-discrimination of the dharma's substance and from the failure of standing over against each other; the second answer speaks from whether there is contemplation or not. Taking the two answers together, one can see that 「非白非黑」 tr. "neither white nor black" is not a third colour; it lies outside standing over against each other. Whenever one meets a sūtra or treatise setting up a name by double negation, first ask whether the two sides it negates are set up by standing over against each other—once that standing over against each other is broken, the double negation is clear of itself.

17. The reason the six destinies are still distinguished though the four deeds are not obtained—without disease there is no need of medicine; atoms heaped into a mountain. The treatise-author cites Subhūti's objection and broadens it on his behalf: if there are no black deeds, how does one speak of the hells, the animals, the hungry ghosts? If there are no white deeds, how does one speak of gods and humans? If there are no black-and-white deeds, how does one speak of the destiny of the asuras? If there are no deeds neither white nor black, how does one speak of the srota-āpanna up to the arhat? The four questions go out together, and then he cites the Buddha's answer. The Buddha's answer again uses a counter-supposition: 「若一切眾生自知諸法自性空者，菩薩不發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提意，亦不於六道中拔出眾生」 tr. "if all beings themselves knew that dharmas are empty of self-nature, the bodhisattva would not arouse the intent of anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi, nor would he pull beings out from within the six destinies"—「譬如無病則不須藥，無闇則不須燈明」 tr. "just as without disease there is no need of medicine, and without darkness no need of the light of a lamp". Next he states the actual case, and here the treatise-author gives the most detailed sequence of defilement in the whole chapter: because they do not know the emptiness of specific marks, following the mind they grasp at marks and give rise to clinging; because of clinging they are tainted; because they are tainted they follow the five desires; because they follow the five desires they are covered by craving; through the causes and conditions of craving there are stinginess, falsehood, jealousy, anger, and quarrelling; because of anger they raise up all kinds of sinful deeds 「無所識知」 tr. "with no awareness or knowledge whatever", and so at the end of life they receive birth according to their deeds, 「常往來六道中，無復窮已」 tr. "constantly going and coming within the six destinies, with no end ever again". Next he speaks of the bodhisattva who hears the Dharma and pities them with kindness, vowing to 「破眾生顛倒，令解諸法空相」 tr. "break the inversions of beings and cause them to understand the mark of the emptiness of dharmas". Finally he gives the judgement on the lightness and heaviness of the fetters: 「若但生眾生法想，結縛猶輕，易可得度」 tr. "if they give rise only to the notion of beings and dharmas, the fetters are still light, and they are easily delivered"; if within this they raise up craving and anger and make heavy deeds, it is heavy bondage and hard to deliver, 「譬如積微塵成山，難可得移動」 tr. "just as atoms heaped up make a mountain, hard to move". This passage is the one in this chapter with the fullest pattern of the disease, and in reading it one may not compress it: grasping at marks, clinging, taint, the five desires, craving, stinginess, falsehood, jealousy, anger, quarrelling, sinful deeds—each link is the cause of the next, and to skip reading a single link is to lose the sequence. The simile of atoms heaped into a mountain especially must be watched: the mountain was not made at one time, and so it cannot be moved at one time either.

18. Why the Buddha speaks only of suffering, origin, cessation, and path—the simile of first removing the disease in grave illness. The treatise-author sets the second great question of this chapter: the subtle and wonderful dharmas the Buddha has trained in for immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas—the eighteen unshared dharmas and so on up to unobstructed liberation and all the other very deep deeds—why does he speak only of suffering, origin, cessation, and path? This question asks, on the reader's behalf, the doubt about the chapter's title—the four truths are a dharma shared with the two vehicles; why, in the prajñā assembly, do they become the teaching the Buddha gives after obtaining awakening? The answer is only two sentences: 「眾生所畏急者，無過於苦；為除苦已，然後示以佛道。」 tr. "What beings fear most urgently is nothing more than suffering; once suffering has been removed for them, only then are they shown the Buddha path." And he gives a simile: 「如人重病，先以除病為急；然後以寶物、衣服莊嚴其身。」 tr. "As when a person is gravely ill, removing the disease comes first as the urgent thing; only afterwards does one adorn his body with precious things and clothing." This answer fixes the place of the four truths very exactly: they are not the ultimate dharma, they are the urgent dharma; they do not run counter to the very deep dharmas, they are the earlier step by which the very deep dharmas can be bestowed. If the reader belittles the four truths because of this, he does not know the disease; if because of this he stops at the four truths, he does not know the precious things and clothing.

19. Explaining suffering, origin, cessation, and path one by one, and right view in the eightfold noble path—like wine spreading a medicine. Having fixed the place of the four truths, the treatise-author at once glosses them item by item. Suffering: 「受五受眾身是一切苦本，性即是苦」 tr. "receiving a body of the five aggregates of clinging is the root of all suffering, and its very nature is suffering"; briefly stated, it is birth, old age, sickness, and the rest. The origin of suffering: craving and the other afflictions; 「愛是心中舊法」 tr. "craving is an old dharma within the mind", and therefore the Buddha says 「愛能生後身，故是苦因」 tr. "craving can give birth to the later body, and so it is the cause of suffering"; the cause of suffering is precisely origin. Cessation: 「若人欲捨苦，先當斷愛，愛斷苦則滅，斷愛即是苦滅」 tr. "if a person wishes to relinquish suffering, he should first sever craving; when craving is severed, suffering ceases; severing craving is precisely the cessation of suffering". The path: contemplating all kinds of causes and conditions of the five aggregates, and contemplating the faults and wrongs of suffering and of the origin of suffering, namely 「無常、苦、空、無我」 tr. "impermanence, suffering, emptiness, non-self", and further contemplating them 「如病、如瘡、如怨、如賊」 tr. "like a disease, like a sore, like an enemy, like a thief" and so on; within the eightfold noble path right view is at its head, and 「餘七事助成發起」 tr. "the other seven matters help to accomplish it and set it going", and it can sever the craving within all dharmas—「如以酒發藥」 tr. "as wine is used to spread a medicine". The four items glossed, the last sentence gathers it back to the sūtra: this person no longer craves anything at all in all the world and obtains release from the fire of suffering, and 「然後示以妙法」 tr. "only then is he shown the wonderful Dharma". In this passage there are two places to watch: first, the four truths are strung on one thread—the substance of suffering, the cause of suffering, the severing of the cause which is cessation, the instrument for severing the cause which is the path—not four items set side by side; second, what the simile of wine spreading a medicine compares is the other seven factors helping to accomplish right view; it does not say that right view must rely on some outside thing—the simile takes the function of spreading, not the thing itself.

20. The question of ‘someone says’; the wholesome dharmas that aid the path are all gathered within the four truths, and the Three Jewels are set up from this. Since the sūtra text has said 「一切助道善法皆入四聖諦中」 tr. "all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter into the four noble truths", the treatise-author first, with 「復次，此中佛自說因緣」 tr. "Again, herein the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions", makes clear that this phrase comes from the Buddha's mouth, and next cites a question from someone else: someone says, 「佛何以但說苦等四法？」 tr. "Why does the Buddha speak only of the four dharmas, suffering and the rest?"—the same purport as the question the treatise-author himself set in passage 18, but from a different person. The treatise-author does not set up a new answer, but answers it directly with the Buddha's words: 「一切助道善法皆攝在四諦中。」 tr. "All the wholesome dharmas that aid the path are gathered together within the four truths." Then he follows the sūtra downward: 「助道善法因緣故，分別有三寶。眾生不信三寶故，不得離六道生死。」 tr. "Through the causes and conditions of the wholesome dharmas that aid the path, the Three Jewels are distinguished. Because beings do not believe in the Three Jewels, they do not obtain release from the birth and death of the six destinies." The key of this passage is that it links the four truths and the Three Jewels into one chain—wholesome dharmas enter the four truths, the four truths set up the Three Jewels, and the Three Jewels are what one relies on to leave the six destinies; and so the gate of teaching spoken all the way down in this chapter from 「自相空」 tr. "the emptiness of specific marks" here at last has a place to settle. If the reader asks why the meaning of emptiness does not destroy the Three Jewels, the answer lies in this section.

21. The coarse question is not coarse—it is born because truth and knowledge come together. The treatise-author sets the third great question of this chapter and first raises the objection himself: why did Subhūti ask such a coarse question, saying 「為以苦滅、以苦智滅？以集滅、集智滅？」 tr. "Is it by suffering that cessation comes, or by the knowledge of suffering that cessation comes? By origin that cessation comes, or by the knowledge of origin that cessation comes?" He answers: 「此非麁問！」 tr. "This is not a coarse question!" and then points out what is really asked—whether cessation comes by seeing the substance of the four truths, or by using knowledge. Next he gives two objections to show that it is not coarse: if one obtained the path by the truth of suffering, then 「一切眾生牛羊等亦應得道」 tr. "all beings, oxen, sheep, and the rest, should also obtain the path", since oxen and sheep too dwell in suffering; if one obtained the path by using the knowledge of suffering, then 「離苦則無智」 tr. "apart from suffering there is no knowledge", and apart from the knowledge of suffering it is not named the truth of suffering but is named only suffering. Finally he concludes: 「苦諦、苦智和合故生」 tr. "it is born because the truth of suffering and the knowledge of suffering come together", and one may not say that cessation comes only by suffering, or only by knowledge. What this passage teaches is the way to read a question: when a question that looks crude and shallow turns into a fault at each of its two ends once each is pushed to the bottom, that question is precisely the one meant to press out the meaning in between. The objection of the oxen and sheep especially rewards reflection—it tests the most splendid position with the most unseemly example, and the position at once fails to stand.

22. The Buddha answers that the four dharmas are born from conditions and are false, and therefore cannot be said to bring cessation. The treatise-author cites the Buddha's answer: 「不以苦諦滅，亦不以苦智滅，乃至道諦、道智亦如是」 tr. "it is not by the truth of suffering that cessation comes, nor by the knowledge of suffering that cessation comes; and so on up to the truth of the path and the knowledge of the path, it is likewise", while the positive word the Buddha sets up is 「是四諦平等即是滅」 tr. "the equality of these four truths is precisely cessation". The answer done, the treatise-author asks himself the reason: 「是苦等四法皆從緣生，虛妄不實，無有自性故不名為實，不實故云何能滅？」 tr. "These four dharmas, suffering and the rest, are all born from conditions and are false and unreal; because they are without self-nature they are not named real; since they are not real, how could they bring cessation?" This section gives the reason for the denial in the fifth passage of the sūtra text: the four truths cannot be the instrument that brings cessation, not because they are untrue, but because they are born from conditions and so have no self-nature; what has no self-nature is not named real, and an unreal dharma cannot be what brings cessation. The reader should tell two meanings apart: to say that the four truths are false is said with regard to their self-nature; to say that the equality of the four truths is precisely cessation is said with regard to their real mark. They are the same four truths, and the two statements do not obstruct each other.

23. Why the truth of the path and the truth of cessation too are false and deceptive—the simile of the raft; apart from the conditioned there is no unconditioned; the going out of a lamp. The treatise-author sets up an objection, and a very weighty one: the two truths of suffering and origin are with outflows and are dharmas practised by ordinary people, so to say that they are false and deceptive is still acceptable; the truth of the path is a dharma without outflows and without clinging, and though it is born from the coming together of causes and conditions it is not false and deceptive; the truth of cessation is an unconditioned dharma and does not exist from causes and conditions. How can it be said that the four dharmas are all false and deceptive? The answer too falls into three parts. First, with regard to the truth of the path: 「初得道，知二諦是虛誑」 tr. "at the time of first obtaining the path, one knows that the two truths are false and deceptive"; when one is about to enter nirvāṇa without remainder, 「亦知道諦虛誑，以空空三昧等捨離道諦，如說栰喻」 tr. "one also knows that the truth of the path is false and deceptive, and by the emptiness-of-emptiness samādhi and the rest one relinquishes the truth of the path, as the simile of the raft says"—the raft is not left unused; having crossed, one does not carry it on one's back. Second, with regard to the truth of cessation: 「滅諦亦無定法」 tr. "the truth of cessation too has no fixed dharma", and he cites a sūtra as proof: 「離有為，無無為，因有為故說無為」 tr. "apart from the conditioned there is no unconditioned; it is because of the conditioned that the unconditioned is spoken of"—the name of the unconditioned is set up in dependence on the conditioned, and what is set up in dependence has nothing fixed. Third, he gives a simile and warns against idle discourse: 「苦滅如燈滅，不應戲論求其處所。」 tr. "The cessation of suffering is like the going out of a lamp; one should not seek its whereabouts in idle discourse." Finally he gathers it in with the Buddha's words: 「不以用苦乃至用道得滅。」 tr. "It is not by using suffering, and so on up to using the path, that cessation is obtained." This passage is the deepest place of meaning in the whole chapter, and the measure the treatise-author keeps is very steady: he says that the truth of the path is false and deceptive without abolishing the cultivation of the path, and says that the truth of cessation has nothing fixed without sweeping away nirvāṇa; what is refuted lies only in the mind of idle discourse that seeks its whereabouts. Further, the 「二諦」 tr. "two truths" the treatise-author speaks of here are, as can be known from the truth of the path and the truth of cessation set against them, precisely the two above, suffering and the origin of suffering.

24. What the equality of the four truths is—where there is no place of the eight dharmas, and the marks of dharmas abiding constantly and not ceasing. The treatise-author cites Subhūti's question and the Buddha's answer: 「若無八法處——所謂四諦、四諦智，是則平等。」 tr. "If there is no place of the eight dharmas—namely the four truths and the knowledges of the four truths—this is equality." The eight dharmas are the four truths and the four knowledges; this is the treatise's gloss on the sixth passage of the sūtra text, counting the sūtra's 「無苦、無苦智」 tr. "no suffering, no knowledge of suffering" up to 「無道、無道智」 tr. "no path, no knowledge of the path" as eight items, which reads clearly at a glance. Next he cites the latter half of the sūtra and broadens it: the four truths are as they truly are, not deceiving, not different; they are suchness, the nature of dharmas, the mark of dharmas, the abiding of dharmas, the limit of reality; 「若有佛、無佛，法相常住」 tr. "whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha, the marks of dharmas abide constantly", and 「不用心、心數法及諸觀，但為不誑眾生故」 tr. "they do not use mind or mental-factor dharmas or the contemplations; it is only for the sake of not deceiving beings". The treatise-author further gives a passage of his own that discloses by contrast: whatever abides upon all the other dharmas is inversion, because it is born from the retribution of false clinging and inversion; though it can give humans and gods joy and pleasure, 「久久皆虛妄變異」 tr. "in time it is all false and changes"; 「但有一法，所謂諸法實相，以不誑故，常住不滅」 tr. "only one dharma, namely the real mark of all dharmas, because it does not deceive, abides constantly and does not cease". This passage resolves the doubt of contradiction left by the sixth passage: what is absent is the eight dharmas that can serve as objects of contemplation; what abides constantly is the real mark of all dharmas; the one lies within subject and object, the other outside subject and object; therefore absence and constant abiding are spoken of together without hindering each other.

25. Penetrating the real truth and entering the bodhisattva's position—whether within the four truths or not within the four truths, all is empty. The treatise-author cites Subhūti's question, 「云何菩薩通達得實諦，過聲聞、辟支佛地，入菩薩位」 tr. "how does the bodhisattva penetrate and obtain the real truth, pass beyond the ground of the śrāvaka and of the pratyekabuddha, and enter the bodhisattva's position", together with the Buddha's answer: if the bodhisattva reflects and measures in seeking dharmas, 「無有一法可得定相」 tr. "there is not a single dharma whose fixed mark can be found", and he sees that all dharmas are empty—「若在四諦、若不在四諦」 tr. "whether within the four truths or not within the four truths". Here the treatise-author supplies a definition the sūtra text does not have: 「非四諦者，虛空、非數緣盡；餘在四諦。」 tr. "As for what is not the four truths: space and the exhaustion not through the condition of reckoning; the rest is within the four truths." This supplement is extremely important: the sūtra text only speaks of what is contained by the four truths and what is not contained, and the reader does not know what the things not contained are; the treatise-author directly names the two dharmas, space and the exhaustion not through the condition of reckoning, to make it concrete, and thereupon the words 「皆空」 tr. "all empty" at last have a whole that can be counted. When reading the treatise one meets such supplementary notes, one should know that it is the treatise-author supplying what the sūtra text left out, not setting up a new meaning.

26. Why ‘emptiness too is empty’ need not be said separately—in the ground of the stage of nature one surely hopes to become a Buddha, and on the ground of dhyāna one penetrates the four truths without clinging. The treatise-author sets a question: why is it not said 「空亦空觀，入菩薩位」 tr. "contemplating that emptiness too is empty, one enters the bodhisattva's position"? He answers 「不須是說」 tr. "there is no need to say it this way", and the reason is only one sentence: 「若說諸法空，即是空，空亦空；若是空不空，不名為一切空。」 tr. "If one says that dharmas are empty, this is then empty: emptiness too is empty; if this emptiness were not empty, it would not be named the emptiness of all."—if the words that dharmas are empty are thoroughgoing, emptiness itself is already within what is emptied, and there is no need to set up a separate contemplation. Next he explains the sūtra's ‘abiding in the ground of the stage of nature, not falling from the summit’: the ground of the stage of nature is what is called the bodhisattva's Dharma-position, just as in the śrāvaka's dharma the dharma of warmth, the dharma of the summit, the dharma of acceptance, and the highest worldly dharma are named the ground of the stage of nature; 「是法隨順無漏道，故名為性，是中住必望得道；菩薩亦如是，安住是性地中，必望作佛」 tr. "these dharmas accord with the path without outflows, and therefore they are named nature; abiding within them, one surely hopes to obtain the path; the bodhisattva too is like this: abiding securely in this ground of the stage of nature, he surely hopes to become a Buddha". Comparing the śrāvaka's four wholesome roots with the bodhisattva's Dharma-position takes their sense of 「必望」 tr. "surely hoping"; it does not mean that the two are of one substance. Finally he explains the penetration on the ground of dhyāna: the bodhisattva, abiding on the ground of dhyāna, gathers the mind, discriminates, reflects on, and measures dharmas, and penetrates the four truths—knowing and seeing suffering, 「亦非緣苦生心」 tr. "yet not giving rise to a mind that takes suffering as its object"; he knows that suffering is ordinary people receiving a body and clinging to the causes and conditions of suffering, and therefore undergoing all kinds of sorrow and vexation, and that this person's body is 「皆如賊、如怨，無常、空等」 tr. "entirely like a thief, like an enemy, impermanent, empty, and so on"; having obtained this, he 「即時捨，不取苦相，亦不緣苦諦」 tr. "relinquishes it then and there, does not grasp at the mark of suffering, and does not take the truth of suffering as object either"; because of the power of the bodhisattva's Dharma-position, and so on up to the truth of the path likewise, 「但一心迴向阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "he only dedicates it with one mind to anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". The last sentence is especially vital: 「知是四諦藥病相對，亦不著是四諦，但觀諸法如實相，不作四種分別觀。」 tr. "He knows that these four truths stand as medicine over against disease, and he does not cling to these four truths either; he only contemplates the mark of dharmas as it truly is, and does not make the contemplation of the four kinds of discrimination." These four Chinese characters, medicine over against disease, are the overall verdict on this chapter's teaching of the four truths.

27. How one contemplates dharmas as they truly are—contemplate emptiness, by the emptiness of specific marks. The treatise-author cites the two questions and two answers at the end of the sūtra: asked how one contemplates dharmas as they truly are, the Buddha says 「觀空」 tr. "contemplate emptiness", and broadens it, saying 「若菩薩能觀一切法若大若小皆空，是名如實觀」 tr. "if the bodhisattva can contemplate all dharmas, whether great or small, as all empty, this is named contemplating as it truly is"; asked again by what emptiness, the Buddha answers 「用自相空」 tr. "by the emptiness of specific marks". This passage is extremely short in the treatise, almost nothing but a citation of the sūtra, yet its position is to carry on from above and open what follows—since the text above has said that one does not make the contemplation of the four kinds of discrimination, here it must state what contemplation takes its place; the answer falls on the emptiness of specific marks, and why the emptiness of specific marks alone is singled out is the business of the next passage. When reading the treatise one sees such a short passage that purely cites the sūtra, one may not skip it: it is the question-head the treatise-author sets up for what follows.

28. Why among the eighteen emptinesses only the emptiness of specific marks is spoken of—the emptiness of the middle way. The treatise-author sets the very last question of the chapter: among the eighteen emptinesses, why does the Buddha speak only of the emptiness of specific marks? He answers 「是中道空」 tr. "this is the emptiness of the middle way", and orders it in three layers: 「內、外空等是小空，畢竟空、無所得空等是甚深空，自相空是中空。」 tr. "Inner emptiness, outer emptiness, and the rest are the small emptinesses; ultimate emptiness, the emptiness of nothing to be attained, and the rest are the very deep emptinesses; the emptiness of specific marks is the middle emptiness." Next he states the use by which it stands in the middle: 「自相有理破故而心不沒，而能入甚深空中」 tr. "because specific marks have a principle that can be refuted, the mind does not sink, and it can enter into the very deep emptiness"—since specific marks have a principle that can be refuted, the practitioner has a place to set his hand to, and the mind does not sink; once specific marks have been refuted, he can turn into the very deep emptiness of the ultimate and of nothing to be attained. This is the pivot of the gate of practice in the whole chapter: emptiness has shallow and deep, and the place of entry lies in the middle. Next he joins the sūtra text and broadens its fruit: the bodhisattva who obtains such a dharma contemplates all dharmas as all empty, 「乃至不見一法有性可住得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」 tr. "and so on up to: he does not see that a single dharma has a nature in which to abide and so obtain anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi"; he contemplates dharmas as like awakening, and awakening 「亦自性空」 tr. "too is empty of self-nature", 「非佛所作，非大菩薩所作，非阿羅漢、辟支佛所作，常寂滅相，無戲論語言」 tr. "not made by the Buddha, not made by the great bodhisattvas, not made by the arhats or the pratyekabuddhas; it is constantly the mark of quiescence, without idle discourse or words". Here the reader can look back at the sūtra text of the eighth passage—there it says that the mark of being without nature is not made by the buddhas; here it says that awakening too is empty of self-nature; the sūtra and the treatise in these two places are precisely one meaning.

29. The power of skilful means—the deep thought of the mind of great compassion, and leading on by means of the thirty-two marks. The whole chapter ends on a ‘not stating directly’. The treatise-author cites the last words of the sūtra: beings cannot know and see the mark as it truly is, and therefore the bodhisattva practises prajñā and 「以方便力，為眾生說法」 tr. "by the power of skilful means teaches the Dharma for beings"; at once he glosses the three Chinese characters 「方便力」 tr. "the power of skilful means": the bodhisattva obtains the dharma of the acceptance of non-arising, enters the bodhisattva's position, penetrates the bodhisattva's truth of the highest meaning, and 「觀是道相甚深微妙，無得無捨；用妙智慧不可得，何況可得口說」 tr. "contemplates this mark of the path as very deep, subtle, and wonderful, with nothing obtained and nothing relinquished; even the wonderful wisdom used is unfindable, how much less can it be spoken by the mouth". Next he brings out the deep thought of the bodhisattva's mind of great compassion—if I state this dharma directly, beings 「則不信不受，則破壞法，墮於地獄」 tr. "would not believe it or accept it, and so would destroy the Dharma and fall into hell"; therefore I should first accomplish all wholesome dharmas and adorn my body with the thirty-two marks to lead beings on, raise up the power of the supernormal powers of the buddhas, accomplish the Buddha path, and obtain sovereignty over all dharmas; finally he discloses its urgency by contrast with one sentence: 「若讚惡法，眾生猶尚當受，何況實法！」 tr. "If even when evil dharmas are praised beings will still accept them, how much more a real dharma!" The concluding words are 「是菩薩如所願思惟行，為眾生說，使皆度脫」 tr. "this bodhisattva reflects and practises according to his vow, proclaims it for beings, and causes them all to obtain deliverance". This passage joins head to tail with the fourth passage of the sūtra text: there it says that because beings do not know, the Buddha teaches the four truths; here it says that because beings do not believe, the bodhisattva does not state emptiness directly—within one chapter the teaching is twice set up for the sake of 「不知」 tr. "not knowing": the former sets up the four truths, the latter sets up the marks and minor signs and skilful means. Only here does the meaning of emptiness of the whole chapter at last come to rest on the human person.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「自相空法中，無眾生、無業因緣、無果報」 tr. "within dharmas empty of specific marks there are no beings, no causes and conditions of deeds, no retribution" as sweeping away cause and effect. Right after saying this the Buddha adds 「眾生不知是諸法自相空」 tr. "beings do not know that these dharmas are empty of specific marks", and sets out at length the order of retribution of the three deeds and the three realms; the treatise-author further judges plainly that 「決定取相邪見、墮邪見」 tr. "to grasp at marks as fixed is a wrong view, and one falls into wrong views", and says that the five destinies 「假名有」 tr. "exist by provisional names" and are 「如幻、如夢」 tr. "like an illusion, like a dream". What is like an illusion, like a dream is not without anything existent; it exists but without reality. If, because of the meaning of emptiness, one says that deeds and retribution are wholly non-existent, that is precisely the wrong view of grasping at marks as fixed that the treatise-author rebukes here—what is grasped has merely been exchanged for another mark.

Do not read the Buddha's denial that one is delivered by the four truths or the four knowledges as the Buddha abolishing the four truths. What the sūtra text denies is ‘taking some one truth or some one knowledge as what can deliver’; what it sets up is 「是四聖諦平等故，我說即是涅槃」 tr. "because these four noble truths are equal, I say that this is precisely nirvāṇa"; the treatise-author explains the reason as the four dharmas being 「皆從緣生，虛妄不實，無有自性」 tr. "all born from conditions, false and unreal, without self-nature". And within the same sūtra text, it is precisely after obtaining awakening that the Buddha 「為眾生說四聖諦」 tr. "teaches the four noble truths for beings", and says 「一切助道善法皆入四聖諦中」 tr. "all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter into the four noble truths", and that from this the Three Jewels are distinguished. On one side it says the four truths are a teaching set up; on the other side it says the four truths may not be grasped as the instrument that can deliver; only with the two statements standing together is it the sūtra's intent; take one and discard the other, and of the setting up of the Three Jewels and the realisation of nirvāṇa, one is bound to be lost.

Do not read 「無苦、無苦智」 tr. "no suffering, no knowledge of suffering" and 「法相常住」 tr. "the marks of dharmas abide constantly" as contradicting each other. The treatise-author has already glossed the first half as 「無八法處——所謂四諦、四諦智」 tr. "no place of the eight dharmas—namely the four truths and the knowledges of the four truths", which speaks of absence with regard to the eight dharma-items that can serve as objects of contemplation; what abides constantly in the latter half is 「諸法實相」 tr. "the real mark of all dharmas", and the treatise-author further discloses it by contrast with 「住一切餘法皆顛倒」 tr. "whatever abides upon all the other dharmas is inversion" and 「久久皆虛妄變異」 tr. "in time it is all false and changes", saying 「但有一法，所謂諸法實相，以不誑故，常住不滅」 tr. "only one dharma, namely the real mark of all dharmas, because it does not deceive, abides constantly and does not cease". What is absent lies within subject and object; what abides constantly is not where mind, mental-factor dharmas, and the contemplations go—so absence and constant abiding are not on the same level and do not make a contradiction.

Do not read 「道諦虛誑」 tr. "the truth of the path is false and deceptive" as the cultivation of the path being useless. The occasions the treatise-author names are perfectly clear: 「初得道，知二諦是虛誑」 tr. "at the time of first obtaining the path, one knows that the two truths are false and deceptive", while knowing that the truth of the path is false and deceptive comes at the time when one is 「將入無餘涅槃」 tr. "about to enter nirvāṇa without remainder", and its method is 「以空空三昧等捨離道諦，如說栰喻」 tr. "by the emptiness-of-emptiness samādhi and the rest one relinquishes the truth of the path, as the simile of the raft says". As a thing, the raft is needed before the crossing and relinquished after the crossing; the relinquishing comes after the crossing, not before it. If, before crossing, one first debates the falseness of the raft, both shores are lost. The side of the truth of cessation is the same—what 「離有為，無無為，因有為故說無為」 tr. "apart from the conditioned there is no unconditioned; it is because of the conditioned that the unconditioned is spoken of" refutes is the idle discourse that seeks the whereabouts of the unconditioned, not a sweeping away of nirvāṇa; therefore the treatise-author follows it closely with 「苦滅如燈滅，不應戲論求其處所」 tr. "the cessation of suffering is like the going out of a lamp; one should not seek its whereabouts in idle discourse".

Do not read ‘deeds without outflows are neither white nor black’ as setting up a third kind of deed. What the treatise-author's two answers both rest on is the breaking of standing over against each other: 「黑、白是相待法，此中無相待故不得言白」 tr. "black and white are dharmas that stand over against each other; because herein there is no standing over against each other, one may not say that they are white", and again 「諸觀中分別故有黑、白，此中無觀故無白」 tr. "it is because there is discrimination within the contemplations that there is black and white; because herein there is no contemplation, there is no white". It can be seen that the double negation lies outside standing over against each other; it does not add another colour beyond black and white. The first three deeds take their names from the marks of the retribution received, while deeds without outflows take their name from 「能破不善有漏業」 tr. "can break unwholesome deeds with outflows"—since the grounds of naming are already not of one kind, one naturally may not demand, by the pattern of the first three items, that it should have the mark of a colour.

Do not read the emptiness of specific marks as the highest emptiness among the eighteen emptinesses. The treatise-author plainly lists its three layers: 「內、外空等是小空，畢竟空、無所得空等是甚深空，自相空是中空。」 tr. "Inner emptiness, outer emptiness, and the rest are the small emptinesses; ultimate emptiness, the emptiness of nothing to be attained, and the rest are the very deep emptinesses; the emptiness of specific marks is the middle emptiness." The reason it alone is singled out is that it stands in the middle and offers a place to set one's hand to—「自相有理破故而心不沒，而能入甚深空中」 tr. "because specific marks have a principle that can be refuted, the mind does not sink, and it can enter into the very deep emptiness". If one takes the middle emptiness for the ultimate standard and stops there, the gate of ultimate emptiness and the emptiness of nothing to be attained does not open; if one disdains it as not high enough and skips the steps to rush straight at the very deep, there is no principle to refute and the mind sinks. What the treatise-author points to is the middle stretch of one road, not a lofty peak.

Bearing on Practice

The first use is to take the four Chinese characters 「眾生不知」 tr. "beings do not know" as the place where one stands oneself. The whole chapter twice sets up the teaching by a counter-supposition: if beings knew for themselves that dharmas are empty of specific marks, the bodhisattva would not arouse the mind and would not pull beings out; if all beings knew for themselves that dharmas are empty of self-nature, then 「譬如無病則不須藥，無闇則不須燈明」 tr. "just as without disease there is no need of medicine, and without darkness no need of the light of a lamp". These two counter-suppositions are not rhetoric; they are a mirror for the practitioner's self-examination—today I am still among those to be delivered precisely because I still do not know for myself. Whoever, reading the meaning of emptiness, feels at ease may hold these two sentences up as a mirror: if one truly knew for oneself, why are craving and anger still actively present as before? While knowing has not yet arrived, the medicine may not be stopped.

The second use is that the sequence of defilement can serve for checking oneself link by link. The sequence the treatise-author lists is very fine: because one does not know the emptiness of specific marks, following the mind one grasps at marks; because of grasping at marks one gives rise to clinging; because of clinging one is tainted; because one is tainted one follows the five desires; because one follows the five desires one is covered by craving; from craving there are stinginess, falsehood, jealousy, anger, and quarrelling; from anger one raises up all kinds of sinful deeds. Looking back over one day, one can ask link by link: which link am I in now? If one is still at grasping at marks, it is still easy to undo; if one has already reached quarrelling, it is the heavy bondage the treatise-author speaks of. The simile of atoms heaped into a mountain is set up precisely for this—since the mountain was not made at one time, one cannot seek to move it quickly either; but if each day one adds no further atom, the mountain does not grow.

The third use is to make the four truths medicine over against disease and not something grasped. The treatise-author's verdict in the final passage, 「知是四諦藥病相對，亦不著是四諦」 tr. "he knows that these four truths stand as medicine over against disease, and he does not cling to these four truths either", the fourteen Chinese characters, is the right practice this chapter gives the practitioner. The first clause has one honestly take the medicine—suffering is to be known, origin to be severed, cessation to be realised, the path to be cultivated, and the sequence may not be skipped; the second clause has one take it without grasping—not taking the medicine taken for one's body, not exalting oneself with the knowledge that knows suffering. What the sūtra text calls 「知苦，不生緣苦心」 tr. "he knows suffering, yet does not give rise to a mind that takes suffering as its object", and what the treatise-author calls 「得是已，即時捨，不取苦相」 tr. "having obtained this, he relinquishes it then and there and does not grasp at the mark of suffering", speak of one and the same matter: it can be put to use and yet one does not stick to it.

The fourth use is that when one meets a very deep dharma and cannot accept it, one should look at the bodhisattva's skilful means. When the treatise-author explains the power of skilful means, he says that though the bodhisattva has penetrated the truth of the highest meaning he does not state it directly, because 「若我直說是法，則不信不受，則破壞法，墮於地獄」 tr. "if I were to state this dharma directly, they would not believe it or accept it, and so would destroy the Dharma and fall into hell"; therefore he first accomplishes wholesome dharmas and adorns his body with the marks to lead beings on. This section is of use to two kinds of people: one who feels his own faculties to be dull can know that the various preliminary skilful means the buddhas and bodhisattvas bestow do not look down on him, but fit the illness; one who wishes to teach the Dharma to others can know that a deep dharma is not to be taught without regard to the person, and that its harm lies not in the speaker's pride but in the hearer's destroying it—「若讚惡法，眾生猶尚當受，何況實法」 tr. "if even when evil dharmas are praised beings will still accept them, how much more a real dharma" is precisely a reminder to the speaker to look first at the hearer's capacity.

The fifth use is to take the middle emptiness as the place to set one's hand to. The reason the emptiness of specific marks is the middle emptiness lies in 「自相有理破故而心不沒」 tr. "because specific marks have a principle that can be refuted, the mind does not sink"—it gives a person a mark that can be refuted, so the practice can get going; and once it has been refuted one can enter the very deep emptiness, so one does not fall into the place of annihilation. For the practitioner, in daily use, to contemplate the specific mark of a single dharma and see that it has no self-nature is a task that can really and truly be done; since it can be done, the mind does not sink, and only then can one speak of ultimate emptiness and the emptiness of nothing to be attained. If at the very start one takes the deepest emptiness, one often ends up in the position of speaking it with the mouth while the body does not practise it—exactly the sinking of the mind the treatise-author speaks of.

Further Resonances

The backbone of this chapter is one section of sūtra text and one section of treatise explanation. Sūtra ① begins with Subhūti asking what the dharmas of the Buddha are, and the Buddha answers that the bodhisattva's dharmas are also the dharmas of the Buddha, the difference lying in the obtaining of the omniscience of all kinds, and brings out the simile of heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit and the judgement of practising within the path without obstruction and being without obscuration within the path of liberation; next comes the objection that within the emptiness of specific marks there should be no distinctions from the six destinies up to the samyaksaṃbuddha, and the Buddha accepts the objection and brings it back to beings, not knowing the emptiness of specific marks, making the three deeds, wholesome, evil, and unmoving; next he asks whether the Buddha, having obtained awakening, obtains the five destinies, whether he obtains black, white, and the other deeds, and if he does not obtain them how he still speaks of the hells up to the buddhas, and the Buddha answers that because beings truly do not know the emptiness of self-nature they do not obtain liberation, while the bodhisattva, having obtained awakening, teaches the four noble truths for beings, all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path enter the four truths, and from this the Three Jewels are distinguished; next he asks whether one is delivered by the four truths or the four knowledges, and the Buddha answers that one is delivered neither by truth nor by knowledge, and that the equality of the four truths is precisely nirvāṇa; next he asks what the equality of the four truths is, and the Buddha answers no suffering and no knowledge of suffering up to no path and no knowledge of the path, and further says that the four truths are suchness, not-different, the mark of dharmas, the nature of dharmas, the abiding of dharmas, the position of dharmas, the limit of reality, and that whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha the marks of dharmas abide constantly; next he asks how one penetrates the real truth without falling into the two vehicles and enters directly into the bodhisattva's position, and the Buddha answers: seeing dharmas as they truly are, obtaining the dharma without anything existent, seeing that the dharmas contained and not contained by the four truths are all empty, abiding in the ground of the stage of nature without falling from the summit, being able to give rise to the four dhyānas, the four immeasurable minds, and the four formless absorptions, and on the ground of concentration penetrating the four truths without giving rise to a mind that takes them as object and clings; finally he asks how one contemplates the mark of dharmas as it truly is, and the Buddha answers contemplate that dharmas are empty, and answers the emptiness of self-nature, and says that the mark of being without nature is awakening, not made by the buddhas and so on up to not made by the bodhisattvas, concluding that because beings do not know and do not see, the bodhisattva by the power of skilful means teaches the Dharma for them. Treatise ① explains following the sūtra, yet at three places it sets up separate questions and answers: first it asks why Subhūti had the doubt about the dharmas of the Buddha and the dharmas of the bodhisattva, and answers that the Buddha teaches the bodhisattva to practise as the Buddha practises, and gives the judgement of all-pervading, sharp, and dull, the simile of the moon of the fourteenth and fifteenth day, the simile of heading toward the path and obtaining the fruit, and the boundary of the vajra samādhi; next it cites the objection about the emptiness of specific marks and explains the three deeds, their two divisions, their two bindings, and unmoving deeds, making clear that if they knew for themselves that dharmas are empty of nature they would not raise up deeds; next it asks why, the Buddha having earlier said that he does not fall into the five destinies, he now says that he does not obtain them, and answers that grasping at marks as fixed is a wrong view and that the five destinies are provisional names, like an illusion, like a dream; next it glosses the four deeds, black, white, black-and-white, and without outflows, asks why those without outflows are neither white nor black, and answers with the two meanings of there being no standing over against each other and no contemplation; next it cites the objection that the four deeds are not obtained and yet the six destinies are still distinguished, and sets out at length the sequence from grasping at marks and giving rise to clinging up to quarrelling and sinful deeds, the lightness and heaviness of the fetters, and the simile of atoms heaped up into a mountain; next it asks why the Buddha speaks only of suffering, origin, cessation, and path, answers that what beings fear is nothing more than suffering, and gives the simile of first removing the disease in grave illness, and glosses item by item the four truths and right view of the eightfold noble path, like wine used to spread a medicine; next it cites the question of someone says and answers it with the Buddha's words, making clear that the wholesome dharmas that aid the path are gathered within the four truths and that the Three Jewels are set up from this; next it asks about Subhūti's coarse question, answers that this is not a coarse question, and gives the objection of oxen and sheep obtaining the path and the meaning of truth and knowledge coming together; next it explains that the four dharmas are born from conditions and are false and therefore cannot be said to bring cessation, and takes as deepest the objection that the truth of the path and the truth of cessation too are false and deceptive—answering with the simile of the raft, with apart from the conditioned there being no unconditioned, and with the cessation of suffering being like the going out of a lamp, whose whereabouts one should not seek in idle discourse; next it explains that where there is no place of the eight dharmas this is precisely equality, and that the real mark of all dharmas abides constantly and does not cease; next it explains that whether within the four truths or not within the four truths all is empty, and supplies space and the exhaustion not through the condition of reckoning as the dharmas that are not the four truths; next it asks why the contemplation that emptiness too is empty is not spoken of, answers that there is no need to say it this way, and compares the śrāvaka's warmth, summit, acceptance, and highest worldly dharma to the ground of the stage of nature in its surely hoping to obtain the path, explains penetrating the four truths on the ground of dhyāna without clinging to the four truths, and judges the four truths to be medicine over against disease; next it asks why among the eighteen emptinesses only the emptiness of specific marks is spoken of, answers that this is the emptiness of the middle way, and divides the three layers of the small emptinesses, the middle emptiness, and the very deep emptinesses; finally it glosses the power of skilful means, brings out the words of the bodhisattva's deep thought with the mind of great compassion and of adorning his body with the thirty-two marks to lead beings on, and concludes with reflecting and practising according to his vow, proclaiming it for beings, and causing them all to obtain deliverance.

As for the title of this chapter, the editions hold two names side by side, and both are recorded as they are. The base text has 「四諦品」 tr. "The Four Truths", while the Palace edition has 「差別品」 tr. "Difference", and the Ming edition, below the chapter number, further carries an interlinear note saying 「有本作差別品」 tr. "one edition has it as Difference". Going up to the mother sūtra being explained, the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra, its chapter heading is precisely 「差別品第八十四」 tr. "Chapter Eighty-four, Difference", and below the sūtra's title there is likewise attached an interlinear note saying 「丹本作四諦品」 tr. "the Khitan edition has it as The Four Truths"—that is, the mother sūtra's side takes Difference as the proper name and the Four Truths as the variant name, while this treatise's base text takes the Four Truths as the proper name and Difference as the variant name; the two names stand as outside and inside to each other, not one present and the other absent. Each name has what it takes up: the reading 「四諦品」 tr. "The Four Truths" takes up where the gate of teaching comes home, since this chapter's sūtra section precisely gathers all the wholesome dharmas that aid the path within the four noble truths; the reading 「差別品」 tr. "Difference" takes up where the question starts, since what this chapter asks from start to finish is how there is difference within the emptiness of specific marks. Both are recorded without judgement.

Of the explanations of the ancient masters, two houses are worth recording for this chapter, while one house lacks an explanation. Jizang's Commentary on the Larger Sūtra divides and explains this chapter; its chapter boundary begins from 「差別品第八十四」 tr. "Chapter Eighty-four, Difference" and ends at 「七譬品第八十五」 tr. "Chapter Eighty-five, The Seven Similes", the names used agreeing with the chapter headings of the mother sūtra, and not using 「四諦品」 tr. "The Four Truths". His overall judgement of the place of this chapter says: 「此下是第三明方便得果。四品為二：第一三品明得菩提果，如化一品明得涅槃果。」 tr. "From here on is the third: it clarifies obtaining the fruit by skilful means. The four chapters make two: the first, three chapters, clarifies obtaining the fruit of awakening; the one chapter Like a Conjuration clarifies obtaining the fruit of nirvāṇa." He further divides the inside of this chapter into four, saying: 「初中為四：第一明佛菩薩所行雖同而有漏不滿異之，第二明空雖不二迷悟不二，第三佛雖不得六道為眾生故證得菩提廣說四諦，第四明稟教得悟更能傳化也。」 tr. "The first is in four: the first clarifies that though what the Buddha and the bodhisattva practise is the same, they are distinguished by the outflows and the not-yet-full; the second clarifies that though emptiness is not two, delusion and awakening are not two; the third, that though the Buddha does not obtain the six destinies, for the sake of beings he realises awakening and expounds the four truths at length; the fourth clarifies that receiving the teaching and obtaining awakening, one can further pass on the transformation." —judging this chapter by four divisions, his third division precisely brings out the meaning stated above, ‘the teaching of the four truths is set up because beings do not know’. His explanation of difference within the emptiness of specific marks says: 「俗有差別，道門無差別也」 tr. "the worldly has difference; in the gate of the path there is no difference"; his explanation of the order of teaching the truths says: 「說諦之中初說四諦，次說一乘實諦，亦初說世諦，後說第一義諦」 tr. "within the teaching of the truths, first the four truths are taught, next the real truth of the One Vehicle; also, first worldly truth is taught, afterwards the truth of the highest meaning"—matching the order of the two truths to this chapter's four truths and real truth is Jizang's own judgement, and it takes a different angle from this treatise's judging the four truths by 「藥病相對」 tr. "medicine over against disease"; both are kept. His explanation of the Buddha's answer to the question of truth and knowledge says: 「佛答：泯其境智二見令悟不二，即緣觀俱寂方得道也」 tr. "The Buddha answers: he effaces their two views of object and knowledge, causing them to awaken to non-duality; that is, only when the condition and the contemplation are both quiescent is the path obtained"—explaining ‘not by the truth of suffering does cessation come, not by the knowledge of suffering does cessation come’ by the effacing of the two views of object and knowledge, it brings out this treatise's phrase 「苦諦、苦智和合故生」 tr. "it is born because the truth of suffering and the knowledge of suffering come together", though in different wording. His explanation of the emptiness of specific marks says: 「論中此是中道空，內外等三空為淺空，畢竟空為深空」 tr. "In the treatise this is the emptiness of the middle way; the three emptinesses, inner, outer, and the rest, are the shallow emptinesses; ultimate emptiness is the deep emptiness"—he himself says that his source is the treatise, yet with 「淺空」 tr. "shallow emptinesses" he replaces this treatise's 「小空」 tr. "small emptinesses", and with 「內外等三空」 tr. "the three emptinesses, inner, outer, and the rest" he replaces this treatise's 「內、外空等」 tr. "inner emptiness, outer emptiness, and the rest"; this is the commentator's summarising wording, not a word-for-word citation, and it is recorded together.

Junzheng's Profound Meaning of the Four Mahāyāna Treatises cites this chapter directly in three places, all under the name 「差別品」 tr. "Difference". The first says: 「差別品云：得無所有已，見一切法空，四諦所攝法皆空。若見觀是時，便入菩薩位中。」 tr. "The chapter Difference says: having obtained what is without anything existent, he sees that all dharmas are empty; the dharmas contained by the four truths are all empty. If he sees and contemplates, at this time he then enters into the bodhisattva's position."—this section cites the passage of this chapter's sūtra text 「得無所有法已，見一切法空——四聖諦所攝、四聖諦所不攝法皆空。若如是觀，是時，便入菩薩位中」 tr. "having obtained the dharma without anything existent, he sees that all dharmas are empty—the dharmas contained by the four noble truths and the dharmas not contained by the four noble truths are all empty. If he contemplates like this, at that time he then enters into the bodhisattva's position", yet omits its phrase 「四聖諦所不攝」 tr. "not contained by the four noble truths"; it is an abridged citation, not word for word. The second says: 「差別品云：菩薩斷無礙道行，佛於解脫道行。」 tr. "The chapter Difference says: the bodhisattva severs and practises in the path without obstruction; the Buddha practises in the path of liberation." The third says: 「差別品云：菩薩無礙道中行，諸佛解脫中行。」 tr. "The chapter Difference says: the bodhisattva practises within the path without obstruction; the buddhas practise within liberation."—the two places both cite the passage of this chapter 「菩薩摩訶薩無礙道中行，是名菩薩摩訶薩；解脫道中無一切闇蔽，是為佛」 tr. "the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises within the path without obstruction; this is named a bodhisattva-mahāsattva; within the path of liberation there is no obscuration of any kind; this is the Buddha", and the wording of the latter citation is closer to the original text of this treatise, while the former citation adds one character, 「斷」 tr. "severs"; this is Junzheng's own restatement. Junzheng cites these two sentences both to discuss the dividing line of severing the defilements between the vajra mind and the ground of the Buddha; the meaning he discusses belongs to that book's own subject, not to what this chapter itself has; his citations are recorded without following his judgements.

Huiying's Commentary lacks an explanation of this chapter. Its extant text stops at the explanation of Chapter 69, "The Great Skilful Means", and is incomplete, far before this chapter, so for this chapter there is no commentary to examine—this is an absence, not that he has nothing to say; it is marked as it really is, and not filled with text from elsewhere. Further, as for the name 「四諦品」 tr. "The Four Truths" that this treatise explains, other books also have the same name without being this chapter, such as "Contemplating the Four Truths" of the Middle Treatise and the passages on the four truths spoken in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, which both Jizang and Junzheng cite in their books; the people addressed and the principles discussed in them are different, and they are not to be confused.

The Seven Similes: Why, the Nature of Dharmas Being without Anything Existent, the Six Destinies and the Holy Fruits Are Still Distinguished; Why the Buddha's Answer That Dharmas without Nature Have No Deeds and No Retribution Does Not Fall into Annihilation; Why the Path and the Omniscience of All Kinds Being Also without Nature Does Not Destroy Cultivation and Realisation; Why a Dharma without Nature Being Unable to Obtain a Dharma without Nature Is Not the Abolition of the Dharma of Obtaining; Why, There Being Not a Hair's Breadth of Real Matter in What Ordinary People Cling To, Seven Similes Must Be Told in a Row; Why Each of the Seven Similes Is Asked, One by One, the Twofold Question of the Causes and Conditions of Deeds and of the Cultivation of the Path with Its Stain and Purity; Why There Being within the Mark of Emptiness No One Who Is Stained and No One Who Obtains Purity Does Not Do Away with Cultivating the Path; Why Subhūti, Having Already Heard This in Place after Place, Asks Again; Why the Buddha Assents to His Statement and Does Not Assent to His Difficulty; Why the Fruit of the Worthy and the Sages Being Precisely Severance Is Not the Absence of a Fruit; Why the Difficulty That the False and the Real Stand over against Each Other Does Not Hold; Why, Both Being Unreal, They Can Still Refute Each Other; Why the Difficulty That the Abhidharma and Other Scriptures Have Stain and Purity Is Answered by Belonging to Nothing; and Why That the One Who Truly Sees Is without Stain and without Purity Has a Fourfold Explanation

What Is Being Asked

What this chapter asks is the last pressing of an old question: since the nature of dharmas is without anything existent, how are the differences of the six destinies and the fruit-stations of the worthy and the sages divided out?

This question does not appear for the first time in this treatise. The treatise-author here sets up a question and answer of his own, explaining why it must be asked once more—though the meaning is one and the same, the matters that occasion it differ. The preceding chapters, in speaking of emptiness, mostly spoke of it with respect to the substance of dharmas; what is asked here is the seam between emptiness and difference: the hells are the hells, the heavens are the heavens, the srota-āpanna is the srota-āpanna, and so on up to the buddhas obtaining the omniscience of all kinds—if these differences are real, then the nature being without anything existent is not real; if the nature being without anything existent is real, these differences have nowhere to be established. Subhūti asks this seam through to the bottom, and brings up along with it even the three Chinese characters 「業因緣」 tr. "the causes and conditions of deeds"—it is precisely because the causes and conditions of deeds are admitted to have a function that the differences appear as if really existent.

The Buddha's way of answering falls into two sections, and the backbone of the whole chapter lies in these two sections. The first section is the direct answer: dharmas without nature have no deeds and no retribution; difference does not come from the nature of dharmas, but from the deeds raised up by ordinary people who do not enter the holy Dharma, out of inversion and delusion. When this section has been said, the Buddha at once turns round and asks Subhūti: is the path without nature? is the fruit without nature? The end that Subhūti had originally used to establish difference—cultivating the path and obtaining the fruit—is also taken into what is without nature. Then two short questions with short answers seal off the way of retreat entirely: a dharma without nature cannot obtain a dharma without nature; a dharma with nature cannot obtain a dharma with nature. Difference lies neither in the nature of dharmas nor between what obtains and what is obtained.

The latter section is similes. Subhūti's next question is extremely down-to-earth: in what ordinary people grasp and cling to, is there in the end even a little that is real and unchanging? The Buddha's reply is 「無如毛髮許實事」 tr. "there is not a hair's breadth of real matter", and he at once says 「智者以譬喻得解」 tr. "the wise understand by means of a simile", and tells seven similes in a row—the dream, the image in a mirror, the echo in a deep ravine, the mirage, the city of the gandharvas, the illusion, and the person conjured by the Buddha. The seven similes are not seven comparisons taking turns to say one thing; for each simile the Buddha asks two questions: the first asks whether this thing has causes and conditions of deeds that can make one fall into the six destinies; the second asks whether within this thing there is a cultivation of the path by which one is stained or obtains purity. Two questions make one set, and of the seven sets not one is missing. At the end the Buddha gathers it in with one question: within this mark of emptiness, is there one who is stained, is there one who obtains purity? Subhūti answers that there is nothing existent, and the Buddha then says that only beings who abide within I and mine have stain and have purity, while the one who sees as it truly is is neither stained nor pure.

The treatise section explains in succession to this, first resolving a doubt that a reader is sure to have—the Buddha has already answered this matter in place after place; why is it asked again? The answer speaks very finely of the four Chinese characters rendered here as ‘the meaning one, the matters different’: prajñā is very deep, and people of dull faculties cling to the words and names—hearing emptiness they cling to emptiness, hearing that emptiness too is empty they still cling—and therefore Subhūti, the sūtra being about to end, asks once more. Below this it explains in order why the Buddha ‘assents to his statement and does not assent to his difficulty’, explains why the fruit of the worthy and the sages is precisely severance, refutes the difficulty that the false and the real stand over against each other, refutes the difficulty that the highest meaning too ought to be real, establishes the meaning that within the unreal there is difference and that they can refute each other, then turns back to elaborate the simile of the dream, and finally, with a string of questions and answers, gathers it in on the four Chinese characters 「無垢無淨」 tr. "without stain and without purity". The whole chapter begins from 「性無所有」 tr. "the nature is without anything existent" and concludes at 「見諸法實相」 tr. "seeing the real mark of all dharmas".

Passage by Passage

1. Subhūti asks: the nature being without anything existent, why are there the differences of the six destinies and the holy fruits? At the head of the chapter Subhūti puts a question, and the question has two parts. The first part lists what it is not: the nature of dharmas is without anything existent; it is not made by the Buddha, not made by the pratyekabuddhas, the arhats, the anāgāmin, the sakṛdāgāmin, or the srota-āpanna, not made by those heading toward the path, by those who have obtained the fruit, or by the bodhisattvas—counting all the way from the Buddha down to the one heading toward the path, it means to make clear that not one of the sages is the maker of this nature of dharmas. The second part lists what is doubted: this being so, why are the hells, the animals, the hungry ghosts, humans, and gods, and so on up to the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-perception, still distinguished? Why is it still said that because of the causes and conditions of deeds one knows there are those born in the hells, those born among the animals and the hungry ghosts, those born among humans and in the heavens; that because of the causes and conditions of deeds one knows there are those who obtain the four fruits and pratyekabuddhahood; and so on up to knowing that these are bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, that this is the tathāgata, the arhat, the samyaksaṃbuddha? In reading this passage one must keep one's eye on one thing: the evidence Subhūti brings up is nothing other than precisely 「業因緣」 tr. "the causes and conditions of deeds". In his last sentence he himself lays bare the difficulty—within dharmas without nature there is no function of deeds. This question has its force because it takes the very end that a practitioner is least willing to let go of and with it challenges emptiness.

2. The general outline of the Buddha's answer: dharmas without nature have no deeds and no retribution; ordinary people raise up deeds out of inversion and obtain bodies according to their deeds. The Buddha first assents to what he has set up—「如是！如是！無性法無業無果報」 tr. "Just so! Just so! Dharmas without nature have no deeds and no retribution"—this is accepting Subhūti's premise, not evading it. Once it is accepted, difference must have another source, and the Buddha at once gives it: ordinary people do not enter the holy Dharma, do not know the mark of dharmas being without nature, and because of inversion and delusion raise up all kinds of causes and conditions of deeds; these beings obtain bodies according to their deeds, whether the body of a hell-being and so on up to a body in the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-perception. The one phrase 「隨業得身」 tr. "obtain bodies according to their deeds" places the differences of the six destinies upon deeds, while deeds are placed upon inversion, and inversion is placed upon not entering the holy Dharma and not knowing what is without nature. The last sentence, 「無性常是無性」 tr. "what is without nature is always simply without nature", says that this whole chain of cause and effect has never made the nature of dharmas either increase or decrease. This passage is the general answer of the whole chapter; the seven similes that follow only make it visible.

3. Subhūti states his assent: the path and the omniscience of all kinds too are without nature. Right after the general answer, the Buddha takes up Subhūti's earlier words—「若一切法無性，云何是須陀洹乃至諸佛得一切種智？」 tr. "If all dharmas are without nature, how is there the srota-āpanna and so on up to the buddhas obtaining the omniscience of all kinds?"—and asks in return: is the path without nature? Are the fruit of the srota-āpanna and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds of the buddhas without nature? Subhūti answers without the least hesitation: the path is without nature, the fruit of the srota-āpanna too is without nature, and so on up to the omniscience of all kinds of the buddhas too is without nature. This section is of the utmost importance: Subhūti had originally challenged emptiness with ‘there is a fruit to be obtained’; the Buddha does not argue with him over whether the fruit exists or not, but asks directly whether the fruit is without nature; as soon as Subhūti answers 「無性」 tr. "without nature", the difference he had earlier set up loses its ground to stand on. Reading the sūtra up to here, one can learn the Buddha's way of asking—not refuting the other's conclusion, but first asking whether the end he relies on is not also within the same law.

4. Can a dharma without nature obtain a dharma without nature? The Buddha goes on to pose a question: can a dharma without nature obtain a dharma without nature? Subhūti answers: No. This question follows on from the previous section—since the path is without nature and the fruit too is without nature, then in obtaining the fruit that is without nature by the path that is without nature, can this character 「得」 tr. "obtaining" still stand? The answer is only two Chinese characters, and yet it abolishes the last link in cultivation and realisation that could be clung to: if what is called obtaining lies between what is without nature and what is without nature, then there is no obtainer and obtained that can be told apart.

5. Can a dharma with nature obtain a dharma with nature? The Buddha poses another question: can a dharma with nature obtain a dharma with nature? Subhūti again answers: No. This question looks superfluous, but in fact it seals off the other side: the previous question refuted there being obtaining within what is without nature; this question refutes that one can speak of obtaining by retreating to 「有性」 tr. "having nature". The two questions stand side by side in order to show that 「得」 tr. "obtaining" is not something that can be established simply by exchanging the nature of dharmas for having nature; if dharmas had nature, each would abide in its own nature and they would have no traffic with each other, and there would be no such thing as obtaining at all. Each of the two questions receives a 「不也」 tr. "No", and this is the chapter's first paired negation.

6. All dharmas are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, the signless; the bodhisattva by the power of skilful means pulls beings out. After the two questions the Buddha speaks of the general mark: dharmas without nature and the path—all these dharmas are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, namely the signless. These six phrases are this chapter's most direct description of the nature of dharmas, and yet all its words are negating words—neither joined nor dispersed says that it neither gathers nor separates; without form, without shape, without resistance says that it is not a thing that can be touched or met with resistance; of one mark, the signless, does not keep even 「一」 tr. "one" as a mark. What is crucial is that this passage does not stop at negation: the Buddha goes on to say that when the bodhisattva-mahāsattva practises prajñāpāramitā, by the power of skilful means he sees that beings, because of inversion, cling to the five aggregates—within the impermanent making the mark of permanence, within suffering making the mark of happiness, within the impure making the mark of purity, within non-self making the mark of self—clinging in the place where there is nothing existent, and the bodhisattva by the power of skilful means pulls beings out from within what has nothing existent. Since what is clung to lies in the place where there is nothing existent, what is pulled out is likewise within what has nothing existent; this sentence is the pivot of the whole chapter's ‘empty, and yet not giving up the delivering of beings’, and is also the reason why the seven similes below need to be told.

7. Subhūti asks: in what ordinary people cling to, is there anything real and unchanging? Subhūti asks again, and asks more closely than the first question: in what ordinary people grasp and cling to, is there anything real and unchanging? Because of clinging they raise up deeds, and because of the causes and conditions of deeds they do not obtain liberation from within the birth and death of the five destinies. This question presses the earlier passage's 「著無所有處」 tr. "clinging in the place where there is nothing existent" on to a concrete judgement—whether, in the end, what is clung to has even one part of reality. Whoever reads the meaning of emptiness and is uneasy in mind is uneasy precisely over this question: if what is clung to has not one part of reality, why is the bondage so firm?

8. The Buddha answers that there is not a hair's breadth of real matter, and speaks by means of similes. The Buddha's reply is the most decisive sentence of the whole chapter: in the place where ordinary people grasp and cling and raise up deeds, there is not so much real matter as a hair's breadth; it is only by reason of inversion. Having answered, he at once states the reason for telling similes—「智者以譬喻得解」 tr. "the wise understand by means of a simile". Here one must see the Buddha's intent: the direct answer before is already complete; the seven similes do not add any principle, but serve to let the sentence 「無如毛髮許實事」 tr. "there is not a hair's breadth of real matter" be seen. Wherever one sees in the sūtra a judgement first and a simile after, one should know that the simile is there to prove the judgement before it, not to set up some new meaning.

9. The simile of the dream. The first of the seven similes is the dream. The Buddha asks: as with the people seen in a dream enjoying the pleasures of the five desires, is there a real place where they abide? Subhūti answers: the dream itself is false and unfindable, how much less abiding within a dream and enjoying the pleasures of the five desires! The Buddha at once extends it a step: of dharmas, whether with outflows or without outflows, whether conditioned or unconditioned, is there any that is not like a dream? The answer: there is none that is not like a dream. Next come the two direct questions—within a dream is there the going and coming of birth and death in the five destinies? The answer: there is not. Within a dream is there the cultivation of the path, so that one is stained or obtains purity? The answer: No; this dharma of the dream has no real matter, and one cannot speak of stain or purity. The simile of the dream stands first because it is the closest at hand: what appears comes wholly from one's own mind, with no outer thing as its substance, and yet within it suffering and happiness are vivid. To begin the seven similes with the dream amounts to speaking first of the kind of falseness that least needs any support to be sought outside.

10. The simile of the image in a mirror. Next is told the image in a mirror. The Buddha asks: does the image in a mirror have real matter that can raise up the causes and conditions of deeds, so that by these causes and conditions of deeds it falls into the hells, the hungry ghosts, the animals, or among humans, or among gods, and so on up to the place of the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-perception? Subhūti answers: No; this image has no real matter; it only deceives little children. Next comes the question of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; the answer: No; this image is empty and has no real matter; one cannot speak of stain or purity. The dream appears without substance, while the image has a substance and yet is not real—the mirror and the face are both there, and yet the image is neither within the mirror nor upon the face. The three Chinese characters 「誑小兒」 tr. "deceives little children" also have their measure: it is not that nothing is seen, but that what is seen can deceive only one who does not discern.

11. The simile of the echo. Third is told the echo in a deep ravine. The Buddha asks: does this echo have the causes and conditions of deeds that make one fall into the hells and so on up to be born in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception? The answer: No; this thing is empty and has no real sound. Next comes the question of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; the answer: No; this thing has no reality, and one cannot speak of its being stained or being pure. The two previous similes are both established on what the eye sees; this simile alone is established on what the ear hears. The reason a separate simile must be brought out lies in this, that people most easily give rise to the notion of reality toward sounds—the clinging to words and names is bound precisely here—and what the opening of the treatise section says of people of dull faculties, that they 「著於語言名字」 tr. "cling to the words and names", answers exactly to this simile.

12. The simile of the mirage. Fourth is told the mirage. The Buddha asks more finely than in the previous three similes: as a mirage is not water and yet has the mark of water, is not a river and yet has the mark of a river, does this mirage have the causes and conditions of deeds that make one fall into the hells and so on up to be born in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception? The answer: No; the water in the mirage is ultimately unfindable; it only deceives the eyes of those without wisdom. Next comes the question of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; the answer: No; this mirage has no real matter, and one cannot speak of stain or purity. This simile alone marks out 「非水水相，非河河相」 tr. "not water, yet the mark of water; not a river, yet the mark of a river"; what it distinguishes is not existence and non-existence, but mistaking—the mirage that is seen exists, the water that is taken it to be does not. Within one simile two layers are set apart, ‘what is seen’ and ‘what it is taken to be’.

13. The simile of the city of the gandharvas. Fifth is told the city of the gandharvas. The Buddha asks: as when, at the time of sunrise, one sees a city of the gandharvas, those without wisdom, where there is no city, give rise to the notion that there is a city; where there are no houses and towers, give rise to the notion that there are houses and towers; where there are no gardens, give rise to the notion that there are gardens—does this city of the gandharvas have the causes and conditions of deeds that make one fall into the hells and so on up to be born in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception? The answer: No; this city is ultimately unfindable; it only deceives the eyes of fools. Next comes the question of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; the answer: No; this city has no real matter, and one cannot speak of stain or purity. What the mirage deceives with is the mark of one thing; what this city deceives with is a whole scene in which there is a city, there are towers, and there are gardens—the sūtra itself lists the three layers of the city, the houses and towers, and the gardens, all of them notions arising where there is nothing. The four Chinese characters 「日出時見」 tr. "seen at the time of sunrise" must not be passed over either: when the causes and conditions of the season arrive, this scene appears of itself, without waiting for anyone to seek it.

14. The simile of the illusion. Sixth is told the illusion. The Buddha asks: a conjurer conjures up all kinds of things—an elephant, or a horse, or an ox, or a sheep, or a man, or a woman—does this illusion have the causes and conditions of deeds that make one fall into the hells and so on up to be born in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception? The answer: No; this dharma of illusion is empty and has no real matter. Next comes the question of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; the answer: No; this dharma has no real matter, and one cannot speak of stain or purity. What the five previous similes bring up are all scenes that appear of themselves; this simile alone brings up a scene that has a maker—the illusion is made by the conjurer, and yet the elephants, horses, men, and women he makes still have no real matter; the maker brought up in the next simile is the Buddha.

15. The simile of the conjured person. Seventh is told the person conjured by the Buddha. The Buddha asks: as with a person conjured by the Buddha, does this conjured person have the causes and conditions of deeds that make one fall into the hells and so on up to be born in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception? The answer: No; this conjured person has no real matter. Next comes the question of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; the answer: No; this thing has no reality, and one cannot speak of stain or purity. Here the seven similes reach their limit: the maker is the Buddha, the conjured person lacks nothing of form, bearing, and deportment, and yet it is still said 「無有實事」 tr. "has no real matter". Hence one knows that being without reality is not because the maker is inferior, nor because what appears is coarse; to put the person conjured by the Buddha last is to cut off even the last thread of hope of 「有實」 tr. "having reality". Each of the seven similes is asked twofold: one question asks whether it can bind a person into the five destinies and six courses—for the dream it takes the form 「夢中有五道生死往來不」 tr. "within a dream is there the going and coming of birth and death in the five destinies?", and for the other six similes the form 「有業因緣，用是業因緣墮地獄乃至生非有想非無想處不」 tr. "does it have the causes and conditions of deeds, so that by these causes and conditions of deeds it falls into the hells and so on up to is born in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception?"—and one question asks whether within it there is a cultivation of the path by which one is stained or obtains purity; not one of the seven similes lacks these two questions. Only the simile of the dream has two further questions added before the two—first asking whether enjoying the five desires in a dream has a real place where one abides, next asking whether among dharmas there is any not like a dream—because the dream is used to set up the general rule, and so it alone has more. The reason it must be so orderly is precisely that the doubt being answered is also twofold: there is doubt about the differences of the six destinies, and there is also doubt about the differences of cultivating the path.

16. The conclusion: within the mark of emptiness there is no one who is stained and no one who obtains purity. The Buddha gathers up the seven similes with one question: within this mark of emptiness, is there one who is stained, is there one who obtains purity? Subhūti answers: herein there is nothing existent; there is no one who is stained and no one who obtains purity. The Buddha then makes it plain: since there is no one who is stained and no one who obtains purity, by reason of these causes and conditions there is also no stain or purity; why? Beings who abide within I and mine have stain and have purity; the one who sees as it truly is is neither stained nor pure. This passage moves what the seven similes negate into another position: what was negated before is that the object clung to is without reality; what is negated here is that the one who clings is without reality. The reason stain and purity seem really existent is that a person who undergoes stain and undergoes purity has first been set in place; once the person is not established, stain and purity are of themselves non-existent.

17. The treatise-author poses a question: the Buddha has already answered this matter in place after place; why ask again? At the very opening of the treatise section a question is posed, and what it asks is the doubt in the reader's mind: the Buddha has already answered this matter in place after place; why now does Subhūti ask again? This question is not a rebuke of Subhūti for repeating himself; it is meant to press out the necessity of asking again. Whenever one sees the treatise-author first ask at the opening of a sūtra passage 「何以復問」 tr. "why ask again?", one knows that below it there will surely be a passage explaining this passage's position within the whole sūtra.

18. The answer: though the meaning is one, the matters that occasion it differ; because those of dull faculties cling to words and names, it must be asked again. The treatise-author's answer falls into three parts. The first part sets up the general rule: though the meaning and principle are one, the matters that occasion it differ; namely, of all dharmas, whether there is a Buddha or there is no Buddha, the nature of dharmas abides constantly, empty and without anything existent, not made by the worthy and the sages. The second part speaks of the difficulty: prajñā is very deep and subtle, hard to understand and hard to measure, and cannot be known by a mind that has measure; the buddhas and the worthy and the sages, out of pity for beings, teach it by all kinds of words, names, and similes; those of keen faculties understand the sages' intent, while those of dull faculties give rise to clinging everywhere, clinging to the words and names—hearing emptiness taught they cling to emptiness, hearing that emptiness too is empty they still cling, and hearing 「一切法寂滅相，語言道斷」 tr. "all dharmas have the mark of quiescence, and the way of words is cut off" they still cling. The third part brings out a simile and draws the conclusion: because their own minds are not pure, when they hear the Dharma of the sages they too take it to be impure, as a person with a film over his eyes looks at a pure jewel, sees the shadow in his own eye, and then says the jewel is impure; because such doubts and difficulties constantly arise, Subhūti, the sūtra being about to end, asks about this matter everywhere for the sake of beings, and therefore asks again. The last sentence, 「佛可須菩提意」 tr. "the Buddha assents to Subhūti's intent", lays the ground for what follows. The heart of this passage lies in the simile of ‘the film over the eyes and the seeing of the jewel’: the sickness is not in the Dharma; it is in the eye.

19. A posed question: he challenges emptiness with existence; why does the Buddha assent to his intent? The treatise-author poses another question, and asks it very sharply: Subhūti uses 「有」 tr. "existence" to challenge 「空」 tr. "emptiness"; why does the Buddha still assent to his intent? The reason this question must be set up is that if the four Chinese characters 「如是！如是！」 tr. "Just so! Just so!" in the sūtra text are not given a distinction, the reader will think the Buddha has granted even that difficulty along with the rest.

20. The answer: he assents to his statement and does not assent to his difficulty. The treatise-author's answer is clean: the Buddha assents to what he says, 「諸法空常住，有佛、無佛不異」 tr. "dharmas are empty and abide constantly, no different whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha", and does not assent to the difficulty he raises, 「云何分別有六道等」 tr. "how are the six destinies and the rest distinguished"; why? Because his difficulty wishes to refute emptiness. One sentence divides the sūtra's 「如是」 tr. "just so" into two halves—what is assented to is the premise he sets up; what is not assented to is the difficulty he draws out from the premise. Every word of assent in the sūtras should be divided in this way: assenting to what one relies on is not necessarily assenting to what one infers.

21. Explaining the difficulty raised: ordinary people are inverted because they do not enter the holy Dharma; the fruit of the worthy and the sages is precisely severance; how could there be difference within what has nothing existent? This passage is the treatise section's positive argument, and can be divided into four layers. The first layer explains ordinary people: ordinary people do not enter the holy Dharma, have not obtained the holy path, do not know the nature of being without anything existent, and are not skilled in cultivating the emptiness samādhi; what is called inversion is the four kinds of inversion, and what is called delusion is the ignorance bound to the three realms—the four kinds of inversion are what the earlier part of the sūtra text listed, the mark of permanence within the impermanent, the mark of happiness within suffering, the mark of purity within the impure, the mark of self within non-self; and the ignorance bound to the three realms is the not-understanding that runs through all three realms. The second layer establishes falseness and deception: these two dharmas are false, deceptive, and unreal; inversion is false speech, false and deceptive; as for the deeds and retribution born from inversion, because the root is unreal, though beings cling deeply these too have no fixed reality, and for this reason the five destinies are all empty, having only provisional names. The third layer answers the difficulty about the worthy and the sages: the worthy and the sages have different names because the inversions they sever differ, and because inversion is unreal, in reality nothing is severed; again, because of ceasing and being lost, and of being without anything existent, it is called 「斷」 tr. "severance"; if dharmas really existed they could be severed, yet there is not even a dharma that can be severed, how much less inversion—therefore the fruits of all the worthy and the sages are all without anything existent; severing inversion is precisely the fruit of the sages, and the fruit is precisely severance. The fourth layer gathers it in on the path and on difference: the path cultivated for the sake of the fruit is likewise without anything existent, so when cultivating the path one must use emptiness, the signless, and non-action; because there is a distinction between the path and the fruit, the worthy and the sages differ, yet in reality the dharma without anything existent cannot be obtained—how could what is without anything existent have difference? Therefore one should not raise this difficulty. The four layers run in one breath, answering Subhūti's difficulty from the end of ordinary people through to the end of the worthy and the sages.

22. The difficulty that the false and the real stand over against each other, and the Buddha's answer of no. The treatise-author brings out a layer of meaning hidden in Subhūti's question: if the world exists only because of inversion, then if there is inversion there should also be something real, because the false and the real stand over against each other; therefore he asks 「世尊！凡夫所著，頗有實生著起業；業因緣故，六道生死，不得解脫？」 tr. "World-Honored One! In what ordinary people cling to, is there anything real, from which clinging arises and deeds are raised up, so that because of the causes and conditions of deeds there is birth and death in the six destinies and liberation is not obtained?" The Buddha answers with one word: 「不！」 tr. "No!" Why? Herein the Buddha himself states the causes and conditions—「但顛倒故生著，若無顛倒，云何有相待實法？乃至無毫釐許實事，畢竟無故。」 tr. "It is only by reason of inversion that clinging arises; if there were no inversion, how could there be a real dharma standing over against it? And so on up to: there is not a hair's breadth of real matter, because it is ultimately non-existent." What this passage refutes is a very hidden clinging: thinking that the false must be established by depending on the real, so that to speak of the false is already tacitly to grant the real. The Buddha's answer says instead that inversion itself exists without depending on the real, because it is ultimately non-existent, and the principle of standing over against each other does not turn here.

23. The emptiness of the highest meaning too is spoken of because of inversion; both are unreal, and yet the pure refutes the impure. In this passage two rounds of question and answer are read together. The first round asks: the real meaning that the buddhas practise, namely ultimate emptiness—is this not real? The answer: this emptiness of the highest meaning too is spoken of on account of discriminating the inversions of ordinary people; if there were no inversion, there would be no highest meaning either; if the inversions of ordinary people had even a little reality, the highest meaning too should have reality. The second round asks more urgently: if both are unreal, how can one obtain liberation? As when a person's hands are dirty and he washes them with dirt, how can they become clean? The answer: the real mark of all dharmas is ultimate emptiness, and the highest meaning is in reality pure; because there are the impure dharmas of the inversions of ordinary people, there is this pure dharma—because it cannot be destroyed and does not change; because people give rise to clinging toward the real mark of all dharmas and are about to give rise to afflictions, it is said: 「是法性空無所有，無所有故無實」 tr. "this nature of dharmas is empty and without anything existent; because it is without anything existent, it is without reality". Only when the two rounds are seen together does the measure appear: the highest meaning is not set up as another real thing, and yet it does not share inversion's being destructible; the reason it is named pure is that it cannot be destroyed and does not change, not that it has a self-nature.

24. Within the unreal there is difference, and they can refute each other. The treatise-author goes on to establish a meaning: although both dharmas are unreal, within the unreal there is difference. The examples he brings up are four. First, the ten wholesome paths and the ten unwholesome paths are alike false, deceptive, and unreal because they are conditioned dharmas, and yet wholesome and unwholesome differ—because of the dharma of killing one falls into the evil destinies; because of not killing one is born in the heavens. Second, giving and stealing, though alike grasping at marks with a clinging mind and false, deceptive, and unreal, still differ. Third, beings, and so on up to the knower and the seer, are without anything existent, and yet vexing and harming beings is a great sin, and kindly thought for beings is great merit. Fourth, kindness can refute anger and giving can refute stinginess; though both things are unreal, they can refute each other. At the end it cites the Buddha's words as the conclusion: 「諸法無有根本定實如毫釐許所有。」 tr. "Dharmas have no root that is fixed and real, not so much as a hair's breadth of anything existent." This passage is the one in the whole treatise that most protects the gate of practice: once the teaching that emptiness is unreal is misused, the first thing to fall is wholesome and unwholesome cause and effect; here the treatise-author plainly establishes 「不實中有差別」 tr. "within the unreal there is difference", and takes being able to refute each other as the proof—if there were no difference at all, kindness could not refute anger and giving could not refute stinginess.

25. The elaboration of the simile of the dream: seeing and hearing are vivid, and yet all dharmas are empty. Here the treatise-author turns back to elaborate the simile of the dream in the sūtra. First he brings out its occasion: Subhūti's intent is this—if all dharmas are ultimately empty and without any existent nature, why now are there manifestly dharmas seen by the eye and heard by the ear? For this reason the Buddha tells the simile of the dream. Next he brings out the meaning of the simile: as a person, by the power of the dream, though there is no real matter, has all kinds of hearing and seeing, has places of anger and places of joy, while a waking person beside him sees nothing; just so, ordinary people, by the power of ignorance and inversion, falsely see something, while the sages are awake and see nothing; all dharmas, whether with outflows or without outflows, whether conditioned or unconditioned, are all unreal, and it is because of falseness that there is seeing and hearing. He then pushes it one layer further: again, as in a dream one sees the going and coming of birth and death in the six destinies and sees the srota-āpanna and so on up to the arhat, within the dream these dharmas do not exist and yet one sees them in the dream, and within the dream there is in reality no purity and no stain; the retribution of deeds and the six destinies are also like this—because of the causes and conditions of inversion one raises up deeds, and the retribution of deeds too should be empty; removing inversion is therefore named the path, and because inversion has no reality, the path too should not be real. Finally he gathers in the remaining similes with one sentence: the image in a mirror, the echo, the mirage, and so on up to being like a conjuration are also like this. What is most worth savouring in this passage is the eight Chinese characters 「覺人在傍，則無所見」 tr. "a waking person beside him sees nothing"—the falseness of the dream does not wait for the dreamer to know it himself; that there is a waking person beside him is enough to prove it; and so it is with the sages toward what ordinary people see.

26. The concluding gate: because there is no self there is no one who undergoes stain and purity; the one who truly sees is without stain and without purity. The last passage is a linked chain of questions and answers, and can be divided into five parts. The first part takes up the sūtra: the Buddha asks Subhūti in return, 「於是法中有垢者、有淨者不？」 tr. "Within this dharma, is there one who is stained, is there one who is pure?" Subhūti's intent is that within all dharmas there is no self, so how should one say there is one who is stained or one who is pure; therefore he says there is not; and the Buddha then says, 「若無受垢、受淨者，垢、淨亦無。」 tr. "If there is no one who undergoes stain or undergoes purity, then there is no stain or purity either." The second part refutes the statement of the Abhidharma and other scriptures: the questioner says that if one distinguishes dharmas, in the Abhidharma and other scriptures there is stain and there is purity, and it is only the one who undergoes stain and purity that does not exist; the three poisons and the other afflictions are stain, and the three gates of liberation, the dharmas that aid the path, and the like are purity. The answer: although there is such a statement, the matter is not so—if the dharmas of beings belong to nothing, there is no maker either; if there is no maker, there is also no dharma that is made, and it is without bondage and without release; as a person burnt by fire, in fear, relinquishes and leaves it—it is not the fire that leaves the fire—so too beings, because they dread the suffering of the five aggregates, relinquish and leave it—it is not the suffering that leaves the suffering; if there were no one who undergoes stain and undergoes purity, there would be no liberation. The third part cites the causes and conditions the Buddha himself states: 「我、我所法中住，眾生受垢、受淨。我畢竟無故，垢淨無住處；住處無故，無垢、無淨。」 tr. "Abiding within the dharmas of I and mine, beings undergo stain and undergo purity. Because the self is ultimately non-existent, stain and purity have no place of abiding; because there is no place of abiding, there is no stain and no purity." The fourth part refutes the view of self in three rounds of question and answer: the questioner says that although the self does not exist, the view of self really exists, and ordinary people, abiding in it, give rise to the afflictions; the answer is that if there is no self, the view of self has no object, and having no object, how could it arise? The questioner shifts his position, saying that within the five aggregates people practise wrongly and say there is a self, and so give rise to the view of self; the answer is that if within the five aggregates there were fixed causes and conditions for giving rise to the view of self, why does it not arise within the five aggregates of other people? and if it arose within the five aggregates of others too, that would be great confusion; therefore the view of self has no fixed object and arises only because of inversion. The questioner asks once more: if it arises from inversion, why does the view arise only toward one's own body? The answer is that inversion is madness and error and one should not seek its real matter, and moreover from beginningless birth and death onward one gives rise to clinging within one's own continuous five aggregates; therefore the Buddha says 「住我心眾生受垢、受淨。」 tr. "Beings who abide in the thought of self undergo stain and undergo purity." The fifth part is the fourfold explanation of being without stain and without purity: first, the one who sees as it truly is is without stain and without purity; if the self were fixed and existent, the one who truly sees ought to have stain and purity; since the one who truly sees is neither stained nor pure, by reason of these causes and conditions there is no stain and no purity. Second, the one without stain and without purity is precisely the one who sees the real mark of all dharmas. Third, toward the real mark of all dharmas he also does not cling, therefore there is no stain; the real mark of all dharmas has no mark that can be grasped, therefore there is no purity. Fourth, not clinging within the eightfold noble path—this is called being without purity; removing all the afflictions and not clinging to inversion—this is called being without stain. The whole chapter asks from 「諸法性無所有」 tr. "the nature of dharmas is without anything existent" and stops at 「見諸法實相」 tr. "seeing the real mark of all dharmas"—what is asked is how difference is established; what is answered is that difference is not established, and yet the path is not done away with.

Do Not Misread

Do not read 「無性法無業無果報」 tr. "dharmas without nature have no deeds and no retribution" as denying cause and effect. In the very same passage in which the Buddha says these words, he goes straight on to say that ordinary people do not enter the holy Dharma and raise up all kinds of causes and conditions of deeds because of inversion and delusion, and that these beings obtain bodies according to their deeds, counting all the way from the body of a hell-being to a body in the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-perception. From this one can see that what is negated is ‘deeds and retribution being bound to the nature of dharmas’, not ‘deeds and retribution not existing’. The treatise section further takes the ten wholesome and the ten unwholesome, giving and stealing, and kindness and anger as examples, stating plainly that though both things are unreal they differ and can refute each other. Whoever reads this chapter and makes light of cause and effect runs straight into the passage the treatise-author set up especially for this.

Do not read the seven similes as seven identical comparisons. The points of deception that the sūtra brings out simile by simile are each different: the image in a mirror 「但誑小兒」 tr. "only deceives little children", the echo is 「空無有實音聲」 tr. "empty, without real sound", the mirage 「但誑無智人眼」 tr. "only deceives the eyes of those without wisdom", the city of the gandharvas 「但誑愚夫眼」 tr. "only deceives the eyes of fools"; and the matters brought up also differ: the illusion comes from what the conjurer makes, and the conjured person comes from what the Buddha conjures. The seven similes share one form of question, yet the matters likened differ one from another, and at the end they are gathered in with 「如佛所化人」 tr. "like a person conjured by the Buddha"—even of what the Buddha conjures, the sūtra still says 「無有實事」 tr. "has no real matter". If one reads the seven similes as a repetition of the same meaning, one cannot see why the Buddha is unwilling to tell one simile fewer.

Do not read 「不可說垢、淨」 tr. "one cannot speak of stain or purity" as cultivating the path being useless. In the seven similes the second question of each simile always asks 「用是修道，若著垢、若得淨不」 tr. "by this cultivation of the path, is one either stained or does one obtain purity?"—what is asked about is the cultivation of the path within the dream, within the image, within the mirage, within the city, within the illusion, within the conjuration, not the cultivation of the path that the practitioner is doing now. At the end of the sūtra the Buddha himself states the dividing line: beings who abide within I and mine have stain and have purity; the one who sees as it truly is is neither stained nor pure. Hence 「不垢不淨」 tr. "neither stained nor pure" is what the one who truly sees has realised, not the present state of one who has not yet seen; to claim the words of the one who truly sees with the body of one who has not yet seen is precisely what the treatise section means by 「著於語言名字」 tr. "clinging to the words and names".

Do not read the Buddha's 「如是！如是！」 tr. "Just so! Just so!" as assenting to the difficulty as well. The treatise-author sets up a question and answer especially for this: what the Buddha assents to is 「諸法空常住，有佛、無佛不異」 tr. "dharmas are empty and abide constantly, no different whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha"; what he does not assent to is 「云何分別有六道等」 tr. "how are the six destinies and the rest distinguished"; and he points out why that difficulty cannot be assented to—because that difficulty wishes to refute emptiness. Words of assent in the sūtras are often spoken only of the premise the other sets up, and do not reach the conclusion he infers; here the treatise-author has already drawn the dividing line clearly, and in reading one must not step across it.

Do not read ‘the highest meaning too is spoken of because of inversion’ as the highest meaning too being false. The treatise-author's answer has two parts, and one must not take only one of them: the first part says that the emptiness of the highest meaning too is spoken of on account of discriminating the inversions of ordinary people, and if there were no inversion there would be no highest meaning either; the second part at once says that the real mark of all dharmas is ultimate emptiness and the highest meaning is in reality pure, and the reason it is called pure is taken from 「不可破壞，不變異故」 tr. "because it cannot be destroyed and does not change". What the first part refutes is setting up the highest meaning as another real thing standing over against inversion; what the second part establishes is that it is not destroyed together with inversion. Only when the two parts are seen together does one not fall into either extreme.

Do not read 「果即是斷」 tr. "the fruit is precisely severance" as the holy fruit being nothing whatever and practice coming to nothing. These words of the treatise-author have a clear definition: the worthy and the sages have different names because the inversions they sever differ, and because inversion is unreal, in reality nothing is severed, and again because of ceasing and being lost, and of being without anything existent, it is called 「斷」 tr. "severance"; and he at once says that the path cultivated for the sake of the fruit is likewise without anything existent, so that when cultivating the path one must use emptiness, the signless, and non-action. From this one can see that 「果即是斷」 tr. "the fruit is precisely severance" is said with respect to the essential nature of the fruit, and the cultivation of the three gates of liberation is still there; if one gives up cultivation because of these words, then the sentence the treatise-author places right after has nowhere to be set.

Bearing on Practice

The first use is to take the seven similes as seven checks on oneself, not as a collection of seven similes. Toward the objects one clings to in daily life, one can ask oneself simile by simile: is this matter like a dream—appearing wholly from one's own mind with no substance outside? Is it like the image in a mirror—having conditions it relies on, and yet its substance cannot be sought within the conditions? Is it like the echo in a deep ravine—only words and names, toward which I give rise to the notion of reality? Is it like a mirage—what is seen is not false, but what it is taken to be is already mistaken? Is it like the city of the gandharvas—not merely mistaking one mark, but already formed into a whole world in which there is a city, there are towers, and there are gardens? Is it like an illusion—though there is a person who can make it, what is made still has no real matter? Is it like a person conjured by the Buddha—even what the most excellent one makes does not become real because of the maker's excellence? The seven questions are not ranked by order or by depth; take any one of them and one can check oneself with it; what is checked is in every case the same 「無如毛髮許實事」 tr. "there is not a hair's breadth of real matter" spoken of in the sūtra.

The second use is, whenever one meets an object, to ask both of the two questions and not only one. In the seven similes of the sūtra, each simile is always asked the two questions of the causes and conditions of deeds and of the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity. The first question asks whether this object can bind me into the six destinies; the second asks whether my efforts within this object can bring about stain or purity. Practitioners easily ask only the first question and forget the second—knowing that evil objects are false, yet taking the marks of their own practice to be really existent. The sūtra raises the two questions together precisely so that one does not set up anything real even in the place where one cultivates.

The third use is to hold fast to the one sentence 「不實中有差別」 tr. "within the unreal there is difference" in order to guard oneself. One who has listened to the meaning of emptiness for a long time and has become lax and careless should hold up the four instances the treatise-author brings up and look at oneself by them: the ten wholesome and the ten unwholesome are alike conditioned, and yet the one who kills falls into the evil destinies and the one who does not kill is born in the heavens; giving and stealing alike grasp at marks, and yet their retribution differs; beings, and so on up to the knower and the seer, are without anything existent, and yet vexing and harming is a great sin and kindly thought is great merit; kindness can refute anger and giving can refute stinginess, and though both things are unreal they can refute each other. These four instances are not a defence of cause and effect; they give the practitioner a path that can be walked—precisely because both are unreal and yet can refute each other, the practice of refuting anger with kindness and refuting stinginess with giving need not wait until after seeing emptiness to be done.

The fourth use is to take 「覺人在傍，則無所見」 tr. "a waking person beside him sees nothing" as an indicator close at hand. When the treatise-author explains the simile of the dream, he says that the dreamer does not himself know he is dreaming, while a waking person beside him is enough to prove its falseness. When the practitioner cannot himself prove the falseness of what he sees, he should draw near to those who can see, and should rely on the measure of holy words; conversely, when he sees what others cling to and does not arise together with them, he should also know that this is precisely his own share of being awake, and need not look for further proof within the dream.

The fifth use is, in the place of stain and purity, first to ask whether there is one who undergoes them. The criterion the Buddha sets up at the end of the sūtra is extremely simple: beings who abide within I and mine have stain and have purity. Therefore, whenever the thought ‘I have been defiled’ or ‘I have become pure’ arises, one can first ask one question—who is the one who undergoes this stain or purity? The treatise section refutes the view of self in three rounds of question and answer, and what it comes back to is only one sentence: the view of self has no fixed object; it arises only because of inversion. This question does not do away with repentance and pure conduct; it only does not let stain and purity land on a provisionally set-up undergoer; once the undergoer is not established, the non-clinging within the eightfold noble path and the non-clinging to inversion in removing the afflictions are precisely the being without purity and the being without stain that the sūtra text itself speaks of.

Further Resonances

The backbone of this chapter is one passage of sūtra and one passage of treatise explanation. Sūtra ① begins from Subhūti asking the Buddha why, the nature of dharmas being without anything existent and not made by the Buddha, nor by the pratyekabuddhas, nor by the persons of the four fruits, nor by those heading toward the path or those who have obtained the fruit, nor by the bodhisattvas, the differences of the six destinies and the holy fruits are distinguished; the Buddha answers that dharmas without nature have no deeds and no retribution, and that ordinary people, not entering the holy Dharma, raise up deeds because of inversion and delusion and obtain bodies according to their deeds. Next, taking up Subhūti's earlier words, he asks in return whether the path and the omniscience of all kinds are without nature, and Subhūti answers that all are without nature; the Buddha goes on to ask whether a dharma without nature can obtain a dharma without nature, and whether a dharma with nature can obtain a dharma with nature, and both are answered No; next he says that dharmas without nature and the path, all these dharmas, are neither joined nor dispersed, without form, without shape, without resistance, of one mark, the signless, and that the bodhisattva by the power of skilful means pulls beings out from the place where they cling in inversion. Next it turns to Subhūti asking whether in what ordinary people cling to there is anything real and unchanging; the Buddha answers that there is not a hair's breadth of real matter and tells for him the seven similes—the dream, the image in a mirror, the echo, the mirage, the city of the gandharvas, the illusion, and the person conjured by the Buddha—asking of each one whether there are causes and conditions of deeds and whether there is the cultivation of the path, stain, and purity; at the end it gathers in with the one question whether within the mark of emptiness there is one who is stained or one who is pure; Subhūti answers that there is nothing existent, and the Buddha concludes that beings who abide in I and mine have stain and have purity, while the one who truly sees is neither stained nor pure. Treatise ① explains following the text in questions and answers: first it asks why, the Buddha having answered this matter in place after place, it is asked again, and answers that the meaning is one and the matters different, that prajñā is very deep and those of dull faculties cling to words and names, and brings out the simile of the film over the eyes and the seeing of the jewel; next it asks why, when he challenges emptiness with existence, the Buddha assents to his intent, and answers that he assents to his statement 「諸法空常住，有佛、無佛不異」 tr. "dharmas are empty and abide constantly, no different whether there is a Buddha or no Buddha" and does not assent to his difficulty; next it directly explains the difficulty raised, in four layers: ordinary people's inversion and delusion; inversion being false and deceptive, so that the five destinies are all empty and have only provisional names; the worthy and the sages having different names because the inversions they sever differ, and the fruit being precisely severance; and the path too being without anything existent, so that one should not raise the difficulty; next it refutes the difficulty that the false and the real stand over against each other, citing the causes and conditions the Buddha himself states; next, in two rounds of question and answer, it makes clear that the emptiness of the highest meaning too is spoken of because of inversion, and that the pure dharma refutes the impure dharma, cannot be destroyed, and does not change; next it establishes the meaning that within the unreal there is difference and they can refute each other, bringing up the three groups of the ten wholesome and the ten unwholesome, giving and stealing, and kindness and anger; next it turns back to elaborate the simile of the dream, taking the image in a mirror, the echo, the mirage, and so on up to being like a conjuration as the same; and finally, beginning from the Buddha asking in return where the one who is stained or pure is, it refutes in turn the statement that the Abhidharma and other scriptures have stain and purity, refutes the view of self in three rounds, and ends with the fourfold explanation of being without stain and without purity, returning to seeing the real mark of all dharmas.

Of the thread of meaning between this chapter and the chapters before and after it, two lines can be seen. First, carrying on from what precedes: the preceding chapter, "The Four Truths", having spoken with respect to the marks of the truths, this chapter carries on from its momentum and asks how, within the nature being without anything existent, the differences of the six destinies and the holy fruits are established; therefore the sūtra text at its very start takes ‘the nature of dharmas is without anything existent, not made by the Buddha, not made by the pratyekabuddhas, and so on up to not made by the bodhisattvas’ as the foregoing purport that it takes up, and does not start a new fire in a separate stove. Second, handing on to what follows: this chapter concludes in 「無垢無淨」 tr. "without stain and without purity" and 「見諸法實相」 tr. "seeing the real mark of all dharmas", and the next chapter, "Equality", speaks with respect to equality; the two chapters follow one another, and the reader can see them together to see how being without stain and purity and equality bring each other out.

Of the explanations of the ancient masters, one school is worth recording for this chapter. Jizang, in his line-by-line commentary on the sūtra's chapter "The Seven Similes" in his Commentary on the Larger Sūtra, divides this chapter into sections, saying: 「上明菩薩自他行成故得菩薩果，此譬明本性清淨，二明不二平等。初品為三：第一所諸法雖本性清淨而迷悟不同，故有六道差別三乘之異；二明虗實平等真偽不二；第三明雖有見聞而無垢淨也。」 tr. "Above, it made clear that because the bodhisattva's practice for himself and others is accomplished, he obtains the bodhisattva's fruit; this simile makes clear the purity of the original nature, and the second makes clear non-dual equality. The first chapter is in three: first, although all dharmas are pure in their original nature, delusion and awakening are not the same, and so there are the differences of the six destinies and the distinctions of the three vehicles; second, it makes clear that the false and the real are equal, the true and the spurious not two; third, it makes clear that although there is seeing and hearing, there is no stain or purity."—with the purity of the original nature and non-dual equality he divides the two chapters below, and further divides this chapter into three sections: first, making clear that the original nature is pure and yet delusion and awakening are not the same, so that there are the distinctions of the six destinies and the three vehicles; second, making clear that the false and the real are equal, the true and the spurious not two; third, making clear that although there is seeing and hearing there is no stain or purity. These three sections correspond in order to the three parts of this treatise's sūtra passage: the first section matches Subhūti's difficulty and the Buddha's general answer, the second matches the refutation of the false and the real standing over against each other, and the third matches the seven similes and the conclusion in 「無垢無淨」 tr. "without stain and without purity". In explaining the chapter's name he further says: 「從第三章舉七譬，明雖見聞而無垢淨，故云七譬品，亦言性空品，亦云法性非作品也。」 tr. "Taking its name from the third section, which raises the seven similes to make clear that although there is seeing and hearing there is no stain or purity, it is called the Chapter of the Seven Similes; it is also called the Chapter of the Emptiness of Nature, and also the Chapter of the Nature of Dharmas Not Being Made."—stating for himself that the chapter's name is taken from the third section, and listing two other names for this chapter. Below his sectional text he further says: 「初中先問次答。問中為二：初領前旨，次正設難。」 tr. "Within the first, first the question, then the answer. Within the question there are two: first, taking up the foregoing purport; next, properly setting up the difficulty."—dividing Subhūti's question into two, taking up the foregoing purport and properly setting up the difficulty; this is close to the line drawn by this treatise's first answer in the treatise section, 「義雖一，所因事異」 tr. "though the meaning is one, the matters that occasion it differ", while the words it relies on are different; they are recorded side by side without judgement. In the item for this chapter listed in Jizang's general table of contents at the head of his work, an interlinear note under the chapter title reads 「亦云性空品，亦云法性非作品」 tr. "also called the Chapter of the Emptiness of Nature, also called the Chapter of the Nature of Dharmas Not Being Made", the same as the two other names listed in his sectional division. The extant text of Huiying's Commentary stops before this chapter and lacks an explanation of this chapter; it is not that he made some separate division of this chapter; Junzheng's Profound Meaning of the Four Mahāyāna Treatises is in the form of thematic studies of doctrine, not a chapter-by-chapter sectional division, and this chapter is not seen cited in his book. The different names of this chapter's title in the various editions, the differences of wording in the sūtra text, and the related collation notes are detailed in the Apparatus layer.