肇論 白話全本

General Preface 1: Why this preface was written

I, Huida, am shallow in learning and discernment. I now write a general preface to the Fundamental Thesis and the four treatises beginning with On the Immutability of Things, composed by Dharma Master Sengzhao of Chang'an.

As the Buddha-Dharma passes into its latter age, the responsibility for transmitting the sūtras and teachings truly falls to bodhisattvas who rely on the teaching and protect the Dharma. The Dharma's transmission to China follows the same principle. Dao'an, honored as the Great Worthy Whose Virtue Filled the Heavens, and Kumārajīva, whose name was rendered Youthful Longevity, both opened traditions of teaching and established their guiding principles. They sought to discern the measure and ultimate reach of both principle and phenomena. What they widely transmitted, proclaimed, and clarified was the profound principle of empty stillness, the one principle comparable to that with which the sages silently accord.

From their time onward, through successive generations down to the present, there were both those recorded in monastic biographies and those left unrecorded: more than three thousand monks, including Sengrui, and some eight hundred lay followers, including Xie Lingyun. Among them were those able to distinguish and correct the languages of different regions, articulate the structure of a text, carefully examine its established terminology, and investigate its meaning with precision. Gathered together, these worthies produced teachings that were comprehensive in scope.

Among all these people, one man worthy of praise was Sengzhao. He went beyond ordinary speech while also possessing the silent accord beyond speech. When he marked out the root, sentence after sentence penetrated the Buddha's mind; when he clarified the branches, sentence after sentence reached throughout the teachings. This is truly an elegant Mahāyāna classic and an expansive work of the vaipulya teaching.

General Preface 2: Praising the Zhaolun and recording earlier schools

From antiquity to the present, many eminent worthies composed writings and established teachings. From the treatises written by Zhi Faxiang, Zhu Fatai, and others, through what came to be called the Six Houses and Seven Schools, and onward to twelve schools, each distinguished the good from the faulty and deviation from what was fitting. Yet only Sengzhao's writings, sufficient to serve as a standard, were free of those defects and errors.

This is because Sengzhao's breadth of mind makes it impossible to say that he clung to any one school. His mind was like a deep sea: it surpassed the numbered streams of the nine schools, stood lofty and clear, and rose quietly beyond ordinary things. Few truly understood Master Zhao. To turn toward him was also to receive Kumārajīva's guiding intent. If people of the world could not understand him, that only made his worth more evident.

General Preface 3: Huida's joy at encountering these treatises

I, Huida, was fortunate to be born into the world and encounter this right sound. My delight and exhilaration could not be contained; whether eating or resting, I felt no weariness. Whenever I opened the scroll and followed its words, I could not keep from moving my hands and feet with joy. I vowed, life after life, to spend this life entirely in transmitting and expounding it. If Sengzhao's surviving words could move me so deeply, how much more should my joy increase before the contemplative methods of the Middle Treatise, the Hundred Treatise, and the Twelve-Gate Treatise, and before the profound Mahāyāna sūtras?

General Preface 4: Rejecting the jeers of the marketplace

A saying circulated in the world that Sengzhao's writings were merely the ultimate-truth teaching of the Chengshi Lun, the comprehensive doctrine of the Treatise on the Ten Stages, and language borrowed from the Zhuangzi and Laozi, combined into wild assertions without foundation. This is a deeply harmful claim. It slanders one who has died and is no more than the coarse noise of streets and lanes; it is not worth adopting.

Subtle principle has no shape, and even a keen mind is difficult to portray. Words are constrained by the forms of language, while the meaning they seek to convey reaches very deep. For that reason, diverse explanations bend the text from different directions. Could Sengzhao have chosen this way of expression for no reason at all? There is indeed a principle within it. If some still follow and draw near to those jeers, I vow not to meet them, life after life. Only when I myself gain the patient strength to bear them will I return to guide those still in a lower place.

General Preface 5: Declaring the intent behind the preface

I spent more than twenty years in halls of teaching and encountered many distinguished seats of instruction, yet only later did I see these treatises. I now entrust my understanding to this preface. Worthies who share my mind, and later students who surpass me, should await the examination of sages yet to come.

Particular Preface 1: The sequence from fundamental non-being and the two truths to prajñā and nirvāṇa

In its broad doctrinal division, the profound meaning is called fundamental non-being. The Fundamental Thesis therefore comes first, marking out the guiding intent of true reality. Nothing is more essential to opening the way of empty dharmas than ultimate and conventional truth; the next two treatises therefore explain the two truths and disclose the teaching-gate of the Buddha-Dharma.

No cause of complete and perfect realization stands above prajñā, and the ultimate fruit is only nirvāṇa. The last two treatises therefore open a double profundity and reveal where all sages abide. This is the reading sequence Huida sets before the reader: enter first through the fundamental thesis and ultimate and conventional truth, then read from prajñā as cause to nirvāṇa as fruit.

Particular Preface 2: Once names have been established, release the names established

Although being empty of intrinsic nature is used to point toward the root, there is in fact no root that can be named. Even when the root is spoken of, it is originally beyond speech and is not a place the activities of thought can reach.

Thus On the Immutability of Things corresponds to conventional truth, yet conventional dharmas are originally unborn. On the Emptiness of the Unreal speaks of ultimate truth, yet even the ultimate is spoken only by following names. If one opens and clears the heart, honors this path, purifies the ear, and empties the breast, no longer grasping the two truths through words, the function of pure illumination appears; hence prajñā is without knowing. The virtue and activity that do not fall within names then arise; hence nirvāṇa is nameless.

Particular Preface 3: A general praise of the four treatises

As I see it, the teaching of these four treatises is comprehensive and complete, exhausting the Buddha-Dharma's oceanic depths. Vast and without boundary, it penetrates the substance and characteristics of all dharmas. Though the words are concise, their meaning is abundant; the language is beautiful, and the principle reaches its mark. The movement of the prose links like interlocking rings, while its purport rises alone and lofty. Every excellence of fine writing seems to find full expression in this great work.

Kumārajīva therefore praised it: “In explaining the meaning of emptiness, Master Zhao is foremost.” This statement has a basis; it is clearly recorded in the text.

Particular Preface 4: Why the Fundamental Thesis is called a thesis and the four pieces are called treatises

The guiding intent of the Fundamental Thesis is open and spacious, with no boundary against which a challenge can press. The four pieces beginning with On the Immutability of Things, by contrast, use concrete principles and phenomena to disclose the teaching and guide the reader; through question and answer they analyze what is subtle. They are therefore called treatises. This preface has now completed its work. It is not a fifth treatise written by Sengzhao, but an introductory preface in which Huida guides later readers into the Fundamental Thesis and the four treatises.

The Zhaolun, composed by Sengzhao of Chang'an under the Later Qin.

1. Five Names, One Meaning

Fundamental non-being, true reality, dharma-nature, being empty of intrinsic nature, and the coming-together of conditions: these five names express one and the same meaning. Why? All things and phenomena arise only when various conditions come together. Since they arise through the coming-together of conditions, they did not exist before they arose; once those conditions disperse, they cease accordingly. If they truly possessed a fixed and real existence, then, being truly existent, they should not cease.

From this we can know that although all things presently appear to exist, their nature has always been empty. Because their nature has always been empty, this is called being empty of intrinsic nature. Because they are empty of intrinsic nature, this is called dharma-nature. Because dharma-nature is just so, this is called true reality. True reality is fundamentally non-being; it is not made into non-being only after someone investigates and eliminates it. Because it is fundamentally so, it is called fundamental non-being.

2. Neither Fixing Being as Real Being nor Fixing Non-being as Annihilation

When the sūtras and treatises speak of neither being nor non-being, they mean that this "being" is not the real being grasped by views of existence and permanence, while this "non-being" is not the annihilating non-being grasped by wrong views and annihilationism. If being is fixed as an unchanging being, non-being will correspondingly be fixed as an unchanging non-being.

When contemplating all dharmas, one does not retain in the mind a non-being of annihilation; only then can one be said to know the true reality of all dharmas. Although one contemplates the being that presently appears, one does not grasp within it any fixed characteristic. Thus the characteristic of dharmas is a characteristic without any fixed characteristic, while the sage's mind abides without any fixed place in which to abide.

3. The Three Vehicles Alike Contemplate Intrinsic-nature-emptiness; Their Difference Lies in the Measure of Mind

The three vehicles—the śrāvaka, the pratyekabuddha, and the bodhisattva—all contemplate intrinsic-nature-emptiness and thereby accomplish their respective paths. What is called intrinsic-nature-emptiness is the true reality of all dharmas. Seeing the true reality of all dharmas is called right contemplation; if what one sees differs from this principle, it is wrong contemplation. If the two vehicles did not see this principle, their view would have to be inverted. We therefore know that the three vehicles do not differ in what they contemplate in all dharmas. They differ only because their measures of mind are greater or smaller.

4. Prajñā Contemplates Emptiness; Skillful Means Engages with Being

Skillful means and prajñā are names for great wisdom. Illuminating the true reality of all dharmas is called prajñā. Contemplating emptiness without immediately manifesting the realization of its fruit is the function accomplished by skillful means. Going forth to teach and transform beings is called skillful means. Remaining amid sensory objects without being stained by their defilements is the power of prajñā.

Thus the gate of prajñā contemplates emptiness, while the gate of skillful means enters the affairs of being. Although one enters the affairs of being, one never loses sight of emptiness; therefore one constantly dwells amid being without being stained. Although one does not grow weary of the affairs of being, one still contemplates emptiness; therefore one contemplates emptiness without taking realization as an immediately possessed fruit. This is the simultaneous presence, within a single thought, of wisdom as skillful application and wisdom as the illumination of true reality. The text repeats the point: within a single thought, these two aspects of wisdom are present together. Consider it well, and its successive levels become clearly intelligible.

5. Nirvāṇa Is Simply the Exhaustion of the Afflictive Bonds, Not a Separate Place of Exhaustion

What is called the truth of the exhaustion that is nirvāṇa is simply the exhaustion of the afflictive bonds. Once those bonds are exhausted, birth-and-death ceases forever, and so this is called "exhaustion." It does not mean that somewhere apart from birth-and-death there is another place called "exhaustion."

Preface: People see flux; the treatise seeks stillness within motion

Birth and death alternate in increase and decline. Cold and heat take turns. Formed things move and flow. This is how people ordinarily experience the world. I maintain, however, that this is not the whole of the matter. Why? The Fangguang Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that dharmas neither go from one place to another nor undergo movement or migration. If we look closely at what the scripture means by “unmoving,” is it telling us to abandon the appearances of motion and look elsewhere for something still? No. Stillness must be sought within the very things that are moving. Precisely because stillness is sought within all motion, things may appear to move and yet are always still. Precisely because we do not abandon motion to seek stillness elsewhere, the stillness being spoken of never departs from the motion taking place.

Seen in this way, motion and stillness have never been two separate things. Deluded people take them to be different, and so competing theories obstruct the true teaching while views that delight in novelty bend the road to its purport. It is therefore no easy matter to explain the ultimate point of stillness and motion. Why? Words that speak of the real often run against the conventional view; words that follow the conventional view run against the real. To violate the real is to lose one’s way in dharma-nature and not know how to return. To run against convention leaves one’s words bland, as though without flavor. Those of middling capacity hear them and remain half-believing and half-doubting, unable to decide. Those of lower capacity hear them, clap their hands in ridicule, and refuse even to look back. The true nature of things is this near at hand and yet this difficult to know. This must be what is meant. Yet I cannot stop here. I can only lodge my mind for a time at the junction of motion and stillness and attempt an account. How could I dare claim that what I say is the final word? Let me now try to speak.

1. Citing scripture and treatise: Understanding neither coming nor going within going and coming

The Daoxing Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that dharmas originally have no point of departure and, when they go, reach no destination. The Madhyamaka Treatise says that by observing a direction one knows that someone is going, yet the one going does not reach any fixed direction. Both passages seek stillness in what appears to move, and so disclose the immutability of things.

Ordinary people speak of “motion” because a past thing has not come into the present; therefore they say that it moved and did not remain still. I speak of “stillness” for the very same reason: because a past thing has not come into the present, I say that it is still and does not move. Ordinary people say that it moves and is not still because they attend to the fact that a past thing has not come into the present. I say that it is still and does not move because I attend to the fact that the past thing has not left its own past. The fact before us is not different in the two cases, yet what is seen in it has never been the same. Look against this principle and everything seems blocked; follow it and everything becomes open. Once its principle is truly grasped, where could obstruction remain?

2. Pointing to things: The past is in the past; the present is in the present

Alas, people have been confused about this for far too long. They stand face to face with the real and still do not see it. They know that a past thing does not come into the present, yet imagine that a present thing can go into the past. If the past thing does not come, where could the present thing go? Why say so? Seek the past thing in the past, and it was never absent there. Ask for that past thing in the present, and it has never existed here. Its absence in the present shows that it has not come into the present. Its presence in the past shows that it has not left the past. Examine the present in reverse, and the present thing likewise does not go into the past.

This means that a past thing is of itself in the past; it did not retreat from the present into the past. A present thing is of itself in the present; it did not migrate from the past into the present. Confucius therefore said to Yan Hui: “Hui, what you see has already become new. In the brief instant in which our arms cross, the person before you is no longer the one of a moment ago.” It is therefore clear that things do not go from one time into another or return from another time into this one. If there is not even the faintest trace of going or returning, what thing could truly move from here to there? Thus the whirlwind that fells high mountains may be said to be ever still; rivers racing in torrents may be said not to flow; a mirage drifting and surging may be said not to move; the sun and moon coursing through the heavens may be said not to complete their circuit. Once one understands that no identical thing passes from an earlier moment to a later one, what is there to find astonishing in these four lines?

3. Dispelling confusion: To teach impermanence is not to say that a thing can be sent away

Ah! The sages have said that human life passes with extreme speed, faster than the current of a river. Śrāvakas awaken to impermanence and thereby realize the path; pratyekabuddhas awaken to the dispersal of conditions and thereby enter the real. If none of the myriad changes of things were transformation and passage, how could one follow the principle of impermanent transformation, stage by stage, into the noble path? Yet when we turn back and examine the sages’ teaching closely, we see that its purport is subtle, hidden, and not easily measured: a thing seems to move and is precisely still; it seems to be departing and yet abides in its own time. This can be apprehended only in the mind and is difficult to seek through surface appearances alone.

When the teaching therefore speaks of “going,” it does not necessarily mean that there is a thing that can actually be sent away. It aims to stop the ordinary assumption that everything permanently abides. When the teaching speaks of “abiding,” it does not necessarily mean that there is a thing that can actually be retained. It aims to release people from their conviction that everything has departed. How could this mean that there is a real going to be expelled or a real abiding to be preserved? The Chengju scripture therefore says that when bodhisattvas are among beings who reckon things permanent, they expound the teaching of the non-permanent and impermanent. The Mahāyāna Treatise likewise says that all dharmas are originally unmoving and have no fixed place from which they come or to which they go. These teachings guide beings in every direction, bringing two different formulations home to one purport. How could their intentions be called opposed merely because their words differ?

Thus to speak of “permanence” is not to speak of fixed abiding, and to speak of “going” is not to speak of migration from here to there. Because there is no migration, what appears to go is ever still. Because there is no fixed abiding, what is ever still is also ever going. Precisely because it is still and ever going, its going is not migration. Precisely because it goes and is ever still, its stillness is not something retained in one place.

Zhuangzi says that even a mountain hidden in a marsh may, without anyone knowing, be carried away on the back of a mighty person. Confucius, standing by a river, lamented that what passes is like flowing water. Both lamented that what has passed cannot be retained. How could they mean that a fixed present thing can be pushed into the past? The mind of the sages therefore cannot be understood solely by following what ordinary eyes see.

Why? Ordinary people suppose that youth and maturity are one body and that a person who lives a hundred years remains one and the same form throughout. They know only that the years have passed; they do not see that the form too passes with every stretch of years. Long ago, a brahmin left home and did not return until his hair had turned white. When his neighbors saw him, they asked, “Is the person from long ago still here?” The brahmin replied, “I still resemble that former person, yet I am not that former person.” His neighbors were all astonished and could not accept his words. Is this not what is meant when one says that a mighty force carries all things swiftly onward while those in darkness remain wholly unaware?

4. Reconciling the teachings: Motion and stillness are two gates taught according to confusion

The Tathāgata therefore follows the places in which beings are stuck and uses different formulations to clarify their confusion. With the nondual true mind as his vehicle, he speaks teachings that take more than one distinct form. Their words appear contrary, yet their purport cannot be divided in two. This must be true above all of the sages’ teaching. Thus, when speaking of the real, there is the designation “immutable”; when guiding the conventional, there is the teaching of “flow.” Though a thousand roads sing in different voices, all return at last to one purport.

Those who inquire only by following words, however, hear “immutable” and say merely that a past thing does not reach the present. When they hear “flow,” they imagine that a present thing can go into the past. Once the ancient and the present have already been named separately, why migrate one into the temporal position of the other? To say “going” does not necessarily mean that a thing truly goes. The ancient is in the ancient and the present is in the present, each always remaining in its own temporal position; this is precisely what shows that they do not move. To say “departing” does not necessarily mean that a thing truly departs. It means that a present thing does not go from the present into the ancient, for it does not travel into the ancient. Precisely because the ancient does not come into the present and the present does not go into the ancient, things do not race between ancient and present. Precisely because nothing migrates from one time to another, each thing abides according to its nature within its own time.

The many scriptures may therefore use different words and the hundred schools may advance different formulations. But if their point of convergence is grasped, how could their surface differences cause confusion? What ordinary people call “abiding,” I call “going” from the side of moment-by-moment alteration. What ordinary people call “going,” I call “abiding” from the side of each remaining in its own time. Though the names “going” and “abiding” differ, the purport to which they point is one. A scripture therefore says: right words sound like contrary words—who can believe them? The saying is not without reason.

Why? Ordinary people search in the present for a thing of ancient times. When they fail to find it, they say that it did not abide. I instead search in ancient times for a present thing and know that the present thing has not left the present to go into the ancient. If the present could reach the ancient, the ancient should contain the present. If the ancient could come into the present, the present should contain the ancient. Since the present does not contain the thing of the ancient, we know that the ancient thing does not come. Since the ancient does not contain the thing of the present, we know that the present thing does not go. The ancient does not reach the present, and the present does not reach the ancient. Things each abide by their nature within their own time; what thing could still come or go? Thus the scenes of spring, summer, autumn, and winter race like the wind, and the pivot of the Northern Dipper wheels like lightning. Yet if one can apprehend their finest principle, one knows that, however swift they may be, no fixed thing turns from an earlier position into a later one.

5. Reversing the ordinary view: One event is called going from the side of alteration and abiding from the side of each remaining in its time

Ordinary people suppose that the person from youth to old age remains the same and call this “abiding.” I, attending to the fact that the earlier person is not the later person, call it “going.” Ordinary people suppose that the former person has departed and call this “going.” I, attending to the fact that the former person is only in the former time, call it “abiding.” Though the formulations of going and abiding are opposed, they still point to one event: from the side of moment-by-moment alteration, it is called going; from the side of each remaining in one time, it is called abiding. Abiding is just such a going; going is just such an abiding. Grasp either side as a fixed thing, and the reconciliation taught in this treatise is lost.

6. Concluding the reconciliation: The cause remains in the past without perishing; the fruit comes to be through the cause

The Tathāgata’s merit therefore endures through ten thousand generations, and his path grows firmer through a hundred eons. Building a high mountain depends on beginning with the first basket of earth. Completing a long road depends on taking the first step and proceeding until the end. This is possible precisely because the work done before does not decay and vanish. Because that work does not decay and vanish, although it is in the past, it does not perish there. Because it does not perish in the past, it is called immutable. Because it is immutable, its efficacy remains lucid and clear. A scripture therefore says that even when the three calamities fill the world, the activity of deeds remains lucid and undiminished. This saying is indeed trustworthy.

Why? The fruit does not exist together with the cause at the same time and in the same place, yet it becomes fruit in dependence on the cause. Because the fruit becomes fruit in dependence on the cause, the cause has not perished in the past. Because the fruit is not simultaneous with the cause, the past cause has not migrated into the present. Since the cause neither perishes in the past nor comes from the past into the present, the meaning of immutability is perfectly clear. Why remain confused about going and remaining, hesitating between motion and stillness? Seen in this way, even if heaven and earth overturn and collapse, do not say that they are not still. Even if floodwaters reach the sky, do not insist that some fixed thing truly moves. If the mind can accord with this principle in the very things before it, the meaning of immutability is not far away. It can be understood here and now.

Preface I: What prajñā illumines lies on neither side of being and non-being

Utter quiescence and non-arising must be where the subtle illumination of prajñā comes to rest and the final ground of the myriad things. Unless one were a sage whose understanding penetrated completely, how could one bring the spirit into accord between being and non-being? The spirit of the consummate person therefore reaches without limit, and no principle, however hidden, can impede him. His ears may hear to their fullest and his eyes may look to their utmost, yet sound and form cannot command him. Is this not because he sees, in the very midst of the myriad things, that they are originally unreal, so that they cannot burden his illumination?

The sage therefore relies upon a true mind and follows the patterns of affairs, so there is no obstruction he cannot pass through. He examines the myriad things as sharing one vital current and watches their many transformations, so whatever he meets he can respond to appropriately. Because there is no obstruction he cannot pass through, he can bring all confusion back to unity. Because whatever he meets he can respond to appropriately, the moment he touches a thing he sees it return to one principle. The forms of the myriad appearances differ, yet they cannot fix themselves as differences cut off from one another. Since they cannot fix themselves as separate, one knows that the forms before one are not fixed, real forms. Because a form is not a fixed, real form, although it appears as form, it is not a form that can be held fast.

Things and self thus issue from one root, while right and wrong share one vital current. This meaning is hidden, subtle, deep, and obscure; it is probably not something ordinary feeling can exhaust. In recent times, therefore, those who discuss the teaching whose thesis is quiescence have offered divergent accounts. But if differing understandings are used to seek one principle, what can genuinely remain the same? The arguments of the schools have consequently arisen in competition, while the principle they understand has not been one.

Preface II: Each of the three schools sees one aspect

Why say this? Those who maintain No-mind hold that emptiness means only that the mind does not become attached to the myriad things, while the things themselves have never been absent. The strength of this teaching lies in its ability to quiet the spirit. Its shortcoming lies in not seeing that things themselves are unreal.

Those who maintain Matter-as-such say that form cannot make itself into fixed form; therefore, although form appears, it is not fixed form. Yet when speaking of form, one should understand it in the very form before one. Must one wait for some other form to turn it into form before it becomes form? This teaching shows only that form cannot make itself form. It has not yet understood that form itself is not real, fixed form.

Those who maintain Fundamental-Non-being incline their minds toward non-being. Whenever they meet a scriptural sentence, they tend to draw it toward non-being. On seeing “not being,” they understand it to mean that this being must be wholly eliminated; on seeing “not non-being,” they understand it to mean that that non-being must also be wholly eliminated. Yet when one seeks the scripture’s intent, “not being” says only that being is not fixed and real, while “not non-being” says only that non-being is not fixed and real. Why understand “not being” as annihilating this being, and “not non-being” as annihilating that non-being? This is merely a discourse partial to non-being. How can it be called following facts to comprehend them and meeting things themselves in their true condition?

Preface III: A name cannot replace a thing; speech can only approach the true

If the name “thing” is used to speak of what appears as a fixed, real thing, then what is called a thing will be grasped as something that can be fixed. If one understands that what is called a thing is not a fixed, real thing, then although it appears as a thing, it is not something that can be held fast. A thing therefore cannot arrive at its true condition merely through a name, and a name cannot enter reality merely through a thing. True truth thus remains solitary and quiescent beyond names, appearances, and verbal teaching. How could written words and speech discriminate it completely? Yet I cannot close my mouth and remain silent, so I will provisionally arrange a few words to approach it. Let the discussion now begin.

I. Seeing neither being nor non-being in the very midst of the myriad things

The Mahāyāna Treatise says that dharmas possess neither a fixed characteristic of being nor a fixed characteristic of non-being. The Madhyamaka Treatise says that dharmas are neither fixed being nor fixed non-being, and that this is ultimate truth. When we inquire into “neither being nor non-being,” can it mean that the myriad things must be washed away, sight and hearing shut off, and a vacant desolation left before us before ultimate truth can be reached? No. Precisely because one can follow the true condition of things and comprehend it in the things themselves, nothing conflicts with this principle. Precisely because one sees the true in unreal appearances, the nature of things need not be exchanged for something else.

Because the nature of things need not be exchanged, even when one calls a thing non-being, it still appears as being. Because nothing conflicts with this principle, even when a thing appears as being, it can still be called non-being. Appearing as being and yet being non-being is what is meant by “not being.” Being non-being and yet appearing as being is what is meant by “not non-being.” This does not say that no thing appears at all. It says that a thing is not a fixed, real thing. Since a thing is not a fixed, real thing, where could it be grasped as a real entity?

The scripture therefore says that the nature of form is empty; it does not become empty only after form has been destroyed. This shows that the sage sees things by seeing, in the very midst of the myriad things, that they are originally unreal. Why would he need to cut them apart and destroy them before finding comprehension? Zhi Qian’s Vimalakīrti accordingly speaks of the unreal in its dialogue concerning illness, while the Sūtra of the Samādhi of Radiance Surpassing the Sun calls the four great elements originally empty. Though the writings of scripture, discipline, and treatise differ, their purport converges as one.

The Fangguang Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtra says that, from the standpoint of ultimate truth, there is no accomplishment and no attainment; only in accordance with conventional truth are there accomplishment and attainment. What is called “attainment” is the provisional name for non-attainment; what is called “non-attainment” is the true name toward which attainment points. Because it is a true name, although it is true, it is not a truly existent entity. Because it is a provisional name, although it is provisional, it is not sheer absence. To say “true,” therefore, does not indicate that there has ever been a real thing; to say “provisional” does not indicate that everything is wholly absent. “True” and “provisional” have never been the same name, yet the principle to which they point has never been divided into two things.

The scripture therefore asks again whether ultimate truth and conventional truth differ. The answer is that they do not differ. This passage uses ultimate truth to show that things are not truly existent and conventional truth to show that they are not wholly absent. Why should the two names of truth split one thing into two?

II. There is a reason things are not truly existent, and a reason they are not wholly absent

It follows that the myriad things truly have a reason for not being truly existent and a reason for not being wholly absent. Because they have a reason for not being truly existent, although they appear as being, they are not truly existent. Because they have a reason for not being wholly absent, although they are empty, they are not annihilative non-being. Because they are empty without being annihilative non-being, their “non-being” does not cut everything off into nothingness. Because they appear as being without being truly existent, their “being” is not fixed, real being. If being is not fixed, real being, and non-being need not erase every trace left by appearance, then although the names being and non-being differ, the purport they reach is one.

The young man in Kumārajīva’s Vimalakīrti therefore praises the teaching of dharmas as neither fixed being nor fixed non-being, because dharmas arise through conditions. The Bodhisattva Garland Sūtra likewise says that turning the Dharma-wheel is neither a fixedly existent turning nor the total absence of turning; this is called turning without anything turned. These are subtle words found throughout the scriptures.

Why? If things were wholly absent, the false view of annihilation should not count as confusion. If things were fixedly and truly existent, the view that they endure permanently should be correct. Precisely because things are not wholly absent, the false view remains confused. Precisely because things are not truly existent, the view of permanence cannot stand. One may therefore know that “neither being nor non-being” is indeed the language of ultimate truth.

III. Dependent on conditions, things are not truly existent; able to arise, they are not wholly absent

The Daoxing Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtra says that mind is neither fixed being nor fixed non-being. The Madhyamaka Treatise says that things come together through conditions and are therefore not truly existent, while because they arise through conditions they are not wholly absent. When the reasoning is pursued, it is indeed so.

Why? If being were fixed, real being, it should exist forever on its own from the outset. Why would it need to wait for conditions before it existed? In the same way, if genuine non-being were permanently fixed non-being, why would it wait for conditions before becoming absent? A thing cannot exist by itself and must wait for conditions to arise. From this one knows that its being is not true being. Since it is not true being, even though it appears as being, it cannot be called fixed, real being.

Consider next “not non-being.” If something were wholly absent, it should remain still forever and never arise at all; only then could it be called non-being. If the myriad things were wholly absent, they should not arise. Yet they do arise, so they are not wholly absent. This shows precisely that, because things arise in dependence on conditions, they are not annihilative non-being.

The Mahāyāna Treatise says that all dharmas, because of all conditions, should be; all dharmas, because of all conditions, should not be held as truly existent; all dharmas that were originally absent, because of all conditions, should arise; and all dharmas that appear, because of all conditions, should not be held as truly existent. Are these statements of being and non-being merely contrary assertions made for effect? If “should be” meant truly existent, the text should not say non-being. If “should be absent” meant wholly absent, it should not say being. Here “being” uses provisional being to show that there is not total absence; “non-being” distinguishes what is not truly existent. One thing receives two designations, and the words appear different. Once their common destination is understood, one knows that they do not conflict.

IV. The illusory person: not a real person, yet not without appearance

Dharmas therefore have a reason for not being truly existent, so they cannot be grasped as truly existent. They also have a reason for not being wholly absent, so they cannot be erased into annihilative non-being. Why? If one tries to call them truly existent, they have not genuinely arisen by themselves. If one tries to call them wholly absent, their many things and forms have already appeared. Since forms have appeared, one cannot say that they are wholly absent. Since they have not truly arisen by themselves, they are not fixed, real being. The meaning of unreal, therefore empty has now become clear.

The Fangguang Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtra therefore offers the simile of an illusory person. Dharmas are only names provisionally established and are not real, just like a person conjured by illusion. One cannot say that no illusory person appears at all, yet the illusory person is not a real person. The illusory person truly appears before one, blocking the interpretation of emptiness as total absence. The illusory person is not a real person, blocking the grasping of appearance as true existence.

V. Names and real things cannot replace one another

Search for a thing by means of its name, and within the thing there is no fixed entity wholly corresponding to that name. Search for a name by means of the thing, and the name has not acquired the function of the thing itself. Because the thing has no fixed entity corresponding to the name, it is not a real object that a name can lock in place. Because the name has not acquired the function of the thing itself, the name is not the thing. A name therefore cannot correspond completely to a real thing, nor can a real thing correspond completely to a name. Since names and realities cannot fully correspond, where could the myriad things be fixedly established?

The Madhyamaka Treatise therefore says that things possess no fixed “that” or “this.” A person on this side calls where he stands “this” and the opposite side “that.” The person opposite likewise calls this side “that” and where he stands “this.” “That” and “this” cannot be fixed under a single name, yet confused people take their own designations to be necessarily so. Fixed “that” and “this” were never established, while the confused mind certainly exists. Once one awakens to the fact that “that” and “this” are not fixedly real, what thing remains that could be grasped as truly existent? One may therefore know that the myriad things are not fixedly real but only borrow their names, and that this has long been the case.

The Sūtra of the Samādhi of Fully Accomplished Radiance therefore says that dharmas originally possess nothing and that names are only forcibly established for them. Zhuangzi’s finger and horse in the lacquer garden likewise show that “this” and “that,” right and wrong, change with the position from which one points. Seen in this way, where are profound words not present?

VI. Conclusion: There is no need to leave the things before us in order to seek the true

The sage therefore passes through a thousand transformations without being changed by them and walks among ten thousand confusions while remaining comprehending throughout. The reason is that he directly sees the myriad things as originally unreal. He does not construct a separate emptiness and then use it to make things empty. The scripture therefore marvels that the reality-limit does not move and yet can be the place where all dharmas are established. It is not that one leaves the reality-limit and finds another place in which to establish the myriad dharmas. The very place in which dharmas are established is the reality-limit.

If this is so, is the Way far away? In touching any affair before one, one can see the true within it. Is the sage far away? If one personally realizes this principle, one immediately accords with the spirit’s illumination.

Preface I: Prajñā is hidden and profound, yet it is the ultimate end shared by the three vehicles

The principle of prajñā is empty, still, hidden, and profound. It is the root and ultimate end honored in common by the three vehicles of śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas. It is indeed a true, pure, undivided Dharma; yet arguments that lean toward one extreme or another have long proliferated.

There was a monk who came from India named Kumārajīva. In his youth he entered the vast gate of the Great Vehicle and deeply investigated its subtle purport. Alone he passed beyond what words and images can express and skillfully entered the silent, formless, hidden realm. In the West he subdued divergent teachings, then spread the pure teaching eastward. He had been about to illumine distant lands, yet for a time concealed his radiance and was detained in Liangzhou. From this one may know that the right way does not respond without conditions, and that when a response comes it necessarily has its cause.

In the third year of Hongshi, when the year-star stood at Xingji, Later Qin sent out its army and brought Lü Long into submission. Its intention was precisely to welcome Kumārajīva. The time for the Dharma to pass eastward from the north must already have been so ordained. Yao Xing, heavenly king of Later Qin, followed a way surpassing former rulers, while his beneficence extended to generations a thousand years after him. He handled the press of affairs with ease and devoted each day to spreading the Buddha's way. He was truly one whom the people of the latter age looked up to, and one on whom the teaching left by Śākyamuni Buddha depended.

At that time Yao Xing summoned more than five hundred monks learned in doctrine to the Xiaoyao Monastery. Holding the Chinese scripture-texts himself, he joined Kumārajīva in examining and settling the Great Vehicle Vaipulya scriptures. Could the Dharma-gate they opened have benefited only those then alive? It became a bridge by which beings through future kalpas might cross birth and death. Though my learning was shallow, I too was fortunate enough to be present at that great assembly. I believe that it was then that I first heard the supreme Dharma I had never heard before.

Preface II: Words can only be entrusted with an attempt to trace a wisdom beyond words

Yet the wisdom of the sage is hidden and subtle, difficult to fathom. It has no mark that can be grasped and no fixed name; from the first it cannot be reached by words or images. I can only try, without setting my mind on acquisition, to approach what its meaning contains, then entrust what I have understood to words almost recklessly spoken. How could this mean that I can truly discriminate the sage's mind? For now, let me attempt the following account.

The Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that prajñā has no mark that can be established as existing and no mark of arising or ceasing. The Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that prajñā has no object that can be grasped as what is known or seen. Both passages plainly concern the functioning of wisdom's illumination, yet call it markless and without knowing. What can this mean? There must indeed be a knowing that does not grasp marks, and an illumination that does not establish what it sees as a view.

Why? Once certain objects are fixed as “what I know,” there must be other things that remain unknown. The sage's mind has no such knowing that grasps marks; therefore there is nothing it does not know. A knowing that establishes no knower and yet leaves nothing unillumined may be called all-knowing. Thus the scriptures say: the sage's mind is without knowing, therefore there is nothing it does not know; a knowing that is not knowing—this is called all-knowing. These words are indeed trustworthy.

I. An empty mind and real illumination: knowing all day without establishing knowing as grasping

The sage therefore empties his mind of every grasped mark while making his illumination real and all-pervading. All day he knows, yet he never establishes what he illuminates as a knowing that can be appropriated. For this reason he can shine in silence without displaying his radiance, and in empty clarity illumine what is hidden. He seems to close discriminative wisdom and stop up the cleverness of eye and ear, yet alone awakens to the deep and still principle.

Seen in this way, sacred wisdom has an illumination that exhausts what is subtle, yet it has no knowing that grasps marks. The sage's numinous functioning can respond to every condition, yet it has no prearranged thought. Because this numinous functioning has no deliberation, it moves freely beyond the world. Because wisdom has no knowing that grasps marks, it illumines subtly beyond phenomena. Though wisdom transcends phenomena, it has never left any affair. Though numinous functioning transcends the world, it spends the whole day within the world. Thus the sage bends and rises in response to the teaching, receiving and guiding beings without end. No subtle place escapes his discernment, yet he does not claim illumination as his own achievement. This is what the knowing that is not knowing illumines, what the sage's numinous wisdom encounters.

II. Real yet not existent, empty yet not nonexistent: illumination and emptiness never lose one another

As for sacred wisdom itself, it is real yet not an existent thing, empty and still yet not the non-being of annihilation. It truly is, yet cannot be fixed as either being or non-being. Perhaps sacred wisdom alone is like this. Why? If one wishes to say it exists, it has no fixed form or name. If one wishes to say it does not exist, it is precisely through it that the sage has numinous illumination. Because the sage is numinously bright through it, emptiness does not lose illumination. Because it has no form or name, illumination does not lose emptiness.

Because illumination does not lose emptiness, even when mingled among the myriad dharmas it does not change its nature of non-grasping. Because emptiness does not lose illumination, it can function and respond to coarse and manifest things. Thus the functioning of sacred wisdom is never suspended even for a moment; yet if one seeks it among forms, there has never been a moment in which it could be obtained. In the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, Ratnākara praises the Buddha for manifesting manifold activities without discriminating through mind or thought. The Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra likewise says that he does not move from complete and equal awakening, yet establishes a place for every dharma. The sage's deeds may therefore take ten thousand different forms, but the purport at which they arrive is one.

From this one may know that prajñā can be empty and still yet illumine; ultimate truth can be known by wisdom without retaining any form; every movement can disclose stillness in the very movement; and the sage's responsive transformations can accomplish everything without intentional contrivance. This is naturally knowing without establishing knowing as knowing, and naturally accomplishing without establishing action as action. If so, what fixed knowing could remain? What fixed action could remain?

III. First objection: if knowing and response omit nothing, how can they be without knowing or encounter?

Someone asks: the sage's true mind shines alone and illumines every single thing. His responses have no fixed pattern, and both movement and stillness accord with the occasion. Because every thing is illumined, he knows all without omission. Because movement and stillness accord with the matter, his responsive encounter never misses its time. If it never misses its time, there must be a corresponding functioning that encounters what can be encountered. If nothing known is omitted, there must be a knowing wisdom that knows what can be known. Because a knower knows the known, the sage does not know in vain. Because one that encounters meets what is encountered, the sage does not respond in vain. Since there truly are knowing and encounter, why speak of no knowing and no encounter?

If “forgetting knowing and leaving encounter behind” merely means that the sage does not appropriate knowing and encounter as his own, then by not privately possessing them he only succeeds in making his knowing and encounter his own. This would mean merely that he does not regard knowing as his personal possession. How could it mean that he is without knowing at all?

The reply: the sage's achievements rise above heaven and earth, yet he does not appropriate benevolence as his own. His illumination surpasses the sun and moon, yet appears still more hidden and dark. Could this mean that the sage's mind is blocked and blind like wood or stone, and that only this should be called without knowing? It is precisely because the sage's numinous brightness differs from that of ordinary people that he cannot be sought through ordinary phenomena.

You say that although the sage does not take knowing as his own, he has never been without knowing. This, I fear, both contradicts the sage's original mind and loses the purport of the scriptures. Why? The scriptures say that true prajñā is pure like empty space, with no graspable knowing or seeing, no contrivance, and no object to be climbed upon. This shows that its knowing is originally the without-knowing of non-grasping. Why would it first need a knowing that grasps marks and only afterward turn back to watch itself and forget that knowing before it could be called without knowing?

If it were called pure merely because the nature of knowing is empty, prajñā could not be distinguished from deluded wisdom. The three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion and the four inversions of permanence, pleasure, self, and purity are also empty in nature. Why, then, would prajñā alone be honored as pure? If prajñā were praised only because its object, ultimate truth, is pure, then the object known would not itself be prajñā. The object may originally be pure, but prajñā's own purity would remain unexplained, and there would be no reason to transfer the purity of the object into praise of prajñā.

The scriptures must call prajñā pure because prajñā's own nature is truly pure and originally has no deluded, grasping knowing. Since it originally has no deluded grasping knowing, it cannot be named by the ordinary knowing that takes marks. It is not only total absence of awareness that can be called without knowing; the knowing of prajñā is itself without knowing.

Therefore the sage, with the prajñā that has no knowing which grasps marks, illumines ultimate truth in which no form can be grasped. Ultimate truth is not like a river whose depths remain beyond the rabbit and the horse, and prajñā has nowhere its illumination cannot reach. The sage thus meets things and principles without error, responds appropriately yet fixes nothing as “this alone,” and remains still, serene, and without grasping knowing, while there is nothing he does not know.

IV. Second objection: if “knowing” and “without knowing” are two names, how can they belong to one sage's mind?

Someone asks again: things cannot communicate themselves, so names are established to reach them. Although a thing is not identical with its name, there must finally be some nameable thing to which the name corresponds. Follow the name in search of the thing, and the thing cannot remain concealed. Yet the treatise says on one side that the sage's mind is without knowing, and on the other that there is nothing it does not know. Taken according to the words, without knowing has never been knowing, nor has knowing ever been without knowing. This is the very point by which the teaching of names reaches things and discourse is established. The author nevertheless wishes to unite both in the same sage's mind, contrary to the apparent purport of the words. Following the words in search of the real meaning, I still cannot see how this union is fitting.

Why? If “knowing” accords with the sage's mind, “without knowing” has nowhere to stand. If “without knowing” accords with the sage's mind, “knowing” has nowhere to stand. If neither accords with the sage's mind, nothing remains to be discussed.

The reply: the scriptures say that the principle of prajñā has no fixed name and cannot be exhausted by speech. It cannot be fixed as being or non-being, as real or empty. Emptiness does not lose illumination, and illumination does not lose emptiness. This is a Dharma without a fixed name, so words cannot exhaust it. Yet although words cannot exhaust it, without words it could not be conveyed to others. Thus the sage teaches all day without ever taking the names spoken to be reality itself. Let me now again use unrestrained words to distinguish the matter for you.

The sage's mind is subtle and formless, so it cannot be said to exist. Its functioning becomes more diligent the more it is used, so it cannot be said not to exist. Because it cannot be called nonexistent, sacred wisdom truly is. Because it cannot be called existent, fixed names cannot bind it. Thus to say “knowing” is not to fix it as a knowing that grasps marks, but to show that it truly illuminates. To say “without knowing” is not to say it is utterly insentient like wood or stone, but to distinguish its formless nature. Because this makes formlessness clear, it is not annihilating non-being. Because it communicates illumination, it is not fixed being. Precisely because it is not fixed being, knowing is without knowing. Precisely because it is not annihilating non-being, without knowing is knowing. Do not divide the sage's mind into two different entities merely because “knowing” and “without knowing” are two different expressions.

V. Third objection, part one: if ultimate truth is an object, does prajñā not become a knowing subject?

Someone asks again: ultimate truth is profound and hidden. Without wisdom it cannot be fathomed, and the power of sacred wisdom is manifest precisely here. The scriptures therefore say that without attaining prajñā one cannot see ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is the object illumined by prajñā. If the illuminating wisdom can be sought by following its object, then this wisdom must possess knowing.

The reply: seeking wisdom by following its object does not therefore make true wisdom a knowing that grasps marks. Why? The Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that only when consciousness does not arise by climbing upon form is the mark of form not seen. It also says that because the five aggregates are pure, prajñā is pure. Prajñā is the wisdom that knows; the five aggregates are the objects known. What is known is the object.

Only through mutual dependence do knowing and known, subject and object, become established. Precisely because they depend on each other, neither has an independently existing entity in truth. To say that they exist through mutual dependence is to speak of the ordinary person's object and wisdom, both of which grasp marks. To say that through mutual dependence they are absent is to speak of ultimate truth without marks and true wisdom without grasping. The ordinary person's object and wisdom arise dependently and cannot simply be declared nonexistent. Ultimate truth and true wisdom cannot be appropriated and cannot simply be declared existent. Because the object cannot give rise to true wisdom, true wisdom may illumine it without becoming a knowing that grasps marks. Because ordinary knowing arises from its object, ordinary knowing and its object arise in mutual dependence. What are called knowing and without knowing thus receive their names according to whether the known object has marks or is without marks.

More plainly: ordinary wisdom makes what is known into an object that can be grasped, and so is called knowing. Ultimate truth is originally without marks; from where could true wisdom obtain a mark and become that kind of knowing? What is called the “known” is not the known by itself, but receives that name in relation to a knower. The knower likewise receives its name in relation to the known. The known is established by the knower, and the knower by the known. Since both arise in mutual dependence, they are conditioned dharmas. Because they are conditioned dharmas, they do not truly stand on their own. Because they are not real, they are not ultimate truth.

Thus the Madhyamaka says that things which exist through causes and conditions are therefore unreal, while what does not exist through causes and conditions is real. Ultimate truth is here called real precisely because it is not a dependently arisen object that can be appropriated. The scriptures also say that there is no truly existent dharma that does not arise through causes and conditions. Therefore, when true wisdom illumines ultimate truth, it never takes the mark of a known object. Since wisdom does not appropriate a known, how could this wisdom be called ordinary knowing that grasps marks? Yet it is not utterly without awareness. Only because ultimate truth is not a marked known is true wisdom not a knowing that grasps marks. You wish to seek the knowing subject from the object and so judge true wisdom to have knowing; but this object itself is not a graspable object. Where, then, could a grasping knowing be sought?

VI. Third objection, part two: is one first without knowing and therefore unable to grasp, or does one know first and then refrain from grasping?

Someone asks again: when the treatise speaks of “not grasping,” does it mean that, because there is no awareness at all, an object cannot be grasped? Or does one first know the object and only then refrain from grasping it? If there is no grasping because there is no knowing, the sage is like someone walking at night, unable even to distinguish black from white. If one first knows and then does not grasp, knowing and non-grasping become two successive functions: at the moment of knowing there is still grasping, and only afterward is it released.

The reply: it is not because there is no awareness that there is no grasping; nor is there first a knowing that grasps marks, followed by non-grasping. Knowing itself is non-grasping, and therefore it can know without grasping.

VII. Third objection, part three: if there is no grasping, no fixed “is,” and no fixed correspondence, how can there be nothing unknown?

Someone asks again: the non-grasping spoken of in the treatise surely means that the sage's mind does not fix things as real entities and therefore has no deluded attachment. Yet if there is no attachment, nothing can be judged as fixedly “so.” If nothing can be fixed as so, nothing corresponds to the sage's mind. Since no thing can correspond to it, why say that there is nothing the sage's mind does not know?

The reply: there truly is no fixed “so” and no fixed “correspondence.” Precisely because there is no fixed correspondence, there is no thing to which it cannot respond appropriately. Precisely because there is no fixed “so,” there is no thing that cannot manifest as itself. Nothing among the myriad things is not so; therefore the sage faces every “so” without fixing one “so.” Nothing among the myriad things fails to correspond; therefore he meets every correspondence without fixing one correspondence. The scriptures therefore say that he sees all dharmas everywhere, yet there is no seen object that can be grasped.

VIII. Third objection, part four: if the signless is recognized as the true mark, what harm could there be?

Someone asks again: the sage's mind is not incapable of judging things. It establishes no fixed “so” only because there is no real entity that can be judged so. If no real entity can be judged so, at least “there is no fixed so” should be judged the true answer. Thus the scriptures say that ultimate truth is without marks and prajñā is without knowing. This merely means that prajñā has no knowing that grasps marked things. If the signless is known exactly as signless, what obstruction could this cause to ultimate truth?

The reply: the sage does not cling even to “the signless.” Why? If the signless is fixedly known as a certain signlessness, signlessness itself becomes another mark. To abandon being and run toward non-being is like fleeing a mountain peak only to plunge into a deep valley; neither side escapes calamity.

Therefore the consummate person dwells amid being without grasping being, and abides in non-being without grasping non-being. Though he appropriates neither being nor non-being, he does not abandon either. He can therefore gather in his radiance and mingle with the dust, moving among beings of the five paths. He goes in stillness and comes in serene calm, tranquil and without contrivance, yet there is nothing he cannot accomplish.

IX. Fourth objection, part one: the sage's responses sometimes arise and sometimes cease; does the sage's mind also arise and cease?

Someone asks again: although the sage's mind is without knowing, its functioning in response to conditions never errs. What can be answered, it answers; what cannot, it keeps in reserve. Would this not mean that the sage's mind sometimes arises and sometimes ceases? Can this be said?

The reply: arising and ceasing belong to a mind that grasps. The sage has no such grasping mind; from where could arising and ceasing arise? Yet this is not total mindlessness like wood or stone; it is the mind of no grasping mind. Nor is it complete absence of response; it is a response that does not grasp response. Thus the sage's way of responsive encounter is truly like the substance of the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter: when conditions arrive, it certainly responds. Yet because empty, formless stillness is its substance, it cannot be said truly to arise, nor can it be said truly to cease.

X. Fourth objection, part two: how does sacred wisdom's absence differ from the empty nature of deluded wisdom?

Someone asks again: the absence spoken of in sacred wisdom and the absence spoken of in deluded wisdom both have no fixed arising or ceasing. How are they distinguished?

The reply: sacred wisdom's absence is the absence of knowing that grasps marks. Deluded wisdom's absence is the emptiness in nature of that very knowing which grasps marks. Although both are called absence, the reasons for that name differ. Why? The sage's mind is empty and still. Originally there is no grasping knowing that must later be removed, so it may be called without knowing; it cannot be called first having a knowing and then knowing that it is empty. Deluded wisdom has a grasping knowing, so there is a knowing whose nature may be called empty. This is knowing that knowing is empty; it cannot be called without knowing.

Thus without knowing means that prajñā's wisdom has no grasping of marks, while knowing emptiness means the emptiness and stillness disclosed by ultimate truth. In terms of functioning, prajñā and ultimate truth remain respectively illuminator and illuminated within one activity of illumination. In terms of their still nature, they differ yet are equally without marks. Because both are without marks, the sage does not raise a discriminating mind between them. Because their functions differ, prajñā's illumination does not disappear. Seen from their sameness, they are the same within difference. Seen from their difference, they differ within the same emptiness and stillness. They can therefore be fixed neither as different nor as the same.

Within there is the bright wisdom that illumines alone; without there is the true meaning of the myriad dharmas. Though the true meaning of the myriad dharmas is present, it cannot become manifest without prajñā's illumination. Inner and outer together accomplish illumination's functioning, and not even the sage can collapse them into a function without any distinction. Yet inward prajñā illumines without grasping marks, and outward true meaning is real without form. Inner and outer return together to stillness and can neither be grasped, and not even the sage can make them two different substances of stillness.

Therefore the scriptures say that all dharmas are not different. This does not mean lengthening a wild duck's short legs, cutting short a crane's long legs, leveling high mountains, or filling deep valleys before calling things without difference. It means that just where the myriad dharmas differ, their formless nature is not different; thus they differ without becoming fixedly different. The scriptures also say: how rare, World-Honored One, that differences among dharmas are distinguished within dharmas that have no fixed difference. They also say that prajñā and the dharmas are neither fixedly one in characteristic nor fixedly different in characteristic. These words are indeed trustworthy.

XI. Fourth objection, part three: are there a separate functioning and stillness inside prajñā?

Someone asks at last: the treatise says that from the perspective of functioning there is difference, while from that of stillness there is sameness. Does this mean that within prajñā there are two different things, functioning and stillness?

The reply: functioning itself is stillness, and stillness itself is functioning. Functioning and stillness are one in substance, receiving two names only from different standpoints. There is no stillness wholly devoid of functioning, detached from functioning and hidden behind it as the subject that controls it. Therefore the less wisdom displays itself, the brighter its illumination; the stiller numinous functioning is, the more alive its response. How could brightness and obscurity, movement and stillness, be divided into two mutually isolated things? Thus the Samādhi of Perfected Radiance Sūtra says that by not establishing action as action one surpasses every intentional contrivance. The purport of Ratnākara's words in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra likewise shows that although there is no grasping consciousness, there is nothing that cannot be known. These statements exhaust the numinous and the wise and carry meaning to the limit beyond words and images. In light of these clear scriptural statements, the meaning of the sage's mind being without knowing can be understood.

I. Greetings: Though Mountains and Rivers Divide Us, Shared Understanding Brings Us Near

Liu Yimin bows in greeting. Lately I have heard of your fine renown and have long waited in distant expectation. The year is drawing to a close, but the cold has not yet grown severe; how is your health? The obstruction of messages only deepens the feelings stored within me. Your disciple has long been detained by illness among the mountain marshes and is often afflicted by weakness. Because the practitioner Huiming is journeying north, I have written this brief letter to convey what is in my heart.

The ancients did not let physical distance make their affection remote; when understanding met and passed between them, they could draw near. Thus, though distant rivers and mountains separate us and we cannot meet face to face this year, I look up to your manner and spirit and use your treatise, as an image and a trace, to reflect upon my own mind. I wait earnestly for the joy of meeting you; this longing has indeed grown deep. Yet the distance is great and there is no occasion to meet, so I can only gaze toward the clouds and mists and sigh for a long while. Please follow the season and take good care of yourself. I hope that through travelers going back and forth I may often receive word from you.

I respectfully wish peace and harmony to the whole community there, and ease and well-being to the foreign Dharma master. With your capacity to bring understanding to light, you have encountered such profound questions and answers. I imagine that your work of unfolding and pursuing their meaning has already carried reflection on prajñā more than halfway through. Whenever I think of how far apart we are, my frustration and shame run very deep.

The monastic community here in the mountains remains as pure as ever and grows still more diligent in the path and the precepts. In the intervals of meditation and secluded dwelling, they devote themselves to study and exposition. They are careful, respectful, harmonious, and quiet—truly a joy to behold. Your disciple has not only fulfilled his earlier wish to withdraw and seek the path, but has also seen such an elevated model before him. My gratitude for Master Huiyuan and the sincerity with which I entrust my heart to the Dharma are engraved more clearly within me day after day, like the sun and moon.

Master Huiyuan has lately continued in fitting health. His contemplation and practice grow ever more refined and profound, and he labors without rest from morning to evening. If the path did not work secretly within his mind and its meaning did not guide his spirit, who, after passing the age of sixty, could preserve such clarity of heart and vigor and practice with such diligence? The consolation I draw from him is therefore very deep. When I try to express my thanks, words only fail me all the more.

II. Reading the Treatise: Joy, Yet One or Two Questions Remain

Only at the end of last summer did I see the Treatise on Prajñā Without Knowing, which Master Sheng showed me. Its movement of thought is lucid and graceful, its purport profound and sound; it explores the words of the sages and unfolds them subtly toward a definite point. I read it earnestly and savored it again and again, unable to put it down. It may truly be said to bathe the mind in the depths of the Mahāyāna vaipulya teachings and awaken a far-reaching heart where all darkness has been cut off. If this argument is allowed to circulate, the many streams of prajñā may almost converge without further words. How could one not rejoice? How could one not rejoice?

Yet the subtler the principle, the steeper the words; the more singular the voice, the fewer those who can answer it. Unless one has gone beyond words and images, will one not cling to their forms and thereby fall into divergence? As I read it, the section answering the inquiry that seeks wisdom through its object circles through the issue and pursues it to its limit. It is extraordinarily fine and exact, leaving no opening for criticism. Still, one who is dim cannot understand it at once. I retain one or two questions, which I now set down item by item below. I hope that when you have leisure, you will offer me a rough explanation.

III. The General Inquiry: How Can the Stillness and Knowing of the Sage's Mind Stand Together?

The preface to the treatise says that the substance of prajñā is neither being nor non-being: it is empty and still without losing illumination, and illuminating without losing empty stillness. It therefore says that without moving from equal awakening, it can establish all dharmas. A later section says that what distinguishes the sage from ordinary people is numinous awareness, so it cannot be sought through the characteristics of ordinary things. It also says that functioning itself is stillness and stillness itself is functioning: the more tranquil the spirit, the more active its response.

The sage's mind is profound and still; reaching the limit of principle, it accords with non-being. Without haste it can be swift, and without delay it can be measured. Knowing therefore does not abolish stillness, nor does stillness abolish knowing. It is never not still and never not knowing. In this way the sage moves and guides beings, accomplishing the work of teaching in the world. Although he dwells among everything that can be named, he remains far in accord with the nameless. This principle is extremely subtle and has long been the point at which my understanding grows most obscure.

IV. First Question: Does the Sage's Mind Know, or Is It Without Knowing?

What now perplexes me is the central purport of your lofty treatise. I wish to understand how the sage's mind differs from ordinary feeling. Does it exhaust numinous capacity, press every mental function to its limit, and by a subtle exhaustion darkly accord with principle? Or is the mind's substance naturally numinous, quiet, and still, responding on its own?

If it exhausts numinous capacity and presses every mental function to its limit, subtly exhausting them and darkly according with principle, then what are called stillness and illumination remain the substance of meditative concentration and wisdom. If instead the mind's substance is naturally numinous and still and responds alone, then its engagement with the many things would seem almost to cease.

Once the mind's many functions have become hidden and subtle, how can illumination still operate on its own? Once the spirit has become pure and harmonious, passing beyond worldly teaching and transformation, how can lucid wisdom alone remain? There must be some deeper demonstration here. I hope you will distinguish it for me.

V. Second Question: Does It Illuminate Only the Signless, or Does It Also See Change?

The questioner holds that the sage can tend and accord with beings, respond to their conditions, and also see the changes of things. Such knowing cannot be said to be wholly absent. Yet the treatise says only that the sage's mind is originally without a knowing that deludedly grasps; it has not yet explained why it is able not to grasp.

I think we must first determine how the sage's mind responds to and accords with beings. Does it illuminate only the signless, or does it also see every change? If it sees changes, that differs from the signless. If it illuminates only the signless, there is no one with whom it can accord and no one it can tend. Yet although there is no fixed object of tending and accord, the work of tending and according with beings still occurs. I have not understood this point and hope that you will instruct me further.

VI. Third Question: If There Is No Fixed Rightness or Fitting, Why Speak of True Rightness and Perfect Fitting?

The treatise says: if there is no fixed fitting, there is nothing it does not fit; if there is no fixed rightness, there is nothing that is not right. Because there is nothing that is not right, it meets every right without any fixed rightness; because there is nothing it does not fit, it fits everything without any fixed fitting.

But to have no fixed fitting and yet nothing that it does not fit is precisely perfect fitting. To have no fixed rightness and yet nothing that is not right is precisely true rightness. How could true rightness not be right, or perfect fitting fail to fit, so that one instead speaks of fitting without fixed fitting and rightness without fixed rightness?

If you mean that perfect fitting is not what people ordinarily call fitting, and true rightness is not what they ordinarily call rightness, then this says only that the awakened and the confused use different language. That is exactly the point the treatise has not yet made clear. I hope that you will explain it again through a simile and remove this doubt.

VII. Closing the Letter: We Read Together, Yet the Positions We Mark May Each Have Their Ground

On the very day this treatise arrived, I examined it closely with Master Huiyuan. He too was well able to meet its meaning and grasp its intent. Yet the doctrinal positions each of us marked seem to have their own grounds; perhaps every principle need not be made entirely the same. Recently I have also sent the treatise to several people who have some understanding in their hearts. Again and again they have struck its crucial points and raised challenges; all regret that they were not born in the same age as the author of the treatise.

1. Opening the letter: though our garb differs, what we seek is not two

We had never met before. The long wait and longing have truly been hard. When the practitioner Huiming arrived here, I at last received the letter and questions you sent last twelfth month. I read them over and over, delighted as though we had briefly come face to face. The autumn wind has now reached this season. Has all been well with you of late? I have worn myself out in the pursuit of the Way and fallen ill; my health is often unsettled. The messenger is returning south, so there is no time for a fully detailed reply. On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the monk Sengzhao writes in response.

One of us is ordained and the other a householder. Though our dress and outward appearance differ, there is no difference in the subtle principle our hearts seek. Rivers and mountain ranges may separate us over a great distance, yet when we accord with principle, we are as close as neighbours. For that very reason, I have often turned my thoughts toward the far end of the road, and my empty breast has found something in which to repose. You have fulfilled your noble wish for the reclusive life, manifesting a virtue that rises above the ordinary world. Dwelling alone beyond the affairs of men, you rest content and rejoice within yourself. Whenever people gather in conversation, are your words not always deep in purport, like the elegant songs of lofty recluses beneath the trees, their feeling distant and unhurried?

There is no set term to your quiet, unencumbered days; please take great care of yourself. Whenever travellers have passed between us, I have repeatedly received news of you. I hope the community of monks in the mountains is free from illness and that ordained and lay practitioners alike are at peace. I hear that Master Huiyuan's body and mind are better than usual, which gives me deep comfort. Although I have never personally heard his instruction, I have long revered his lofty conduct and wished to receive his teaching directly. The Master is past sixty, yet his spirit grows ever clearer and more vigorous. In the secluded cliffs he nurtures his disciples; in the open valleys he holds to the single Way. People near and far look up to him in admiration. What finer thing could compare with this? I too often lift my gaze toward the southeast and from afar receive the shelter of a virtue rising like the edge of the clouds. With no way to express my respect in person, the feeling in my heart is profound indeed. You are able to meet him in lucid conversation every day; surely you often know the joy of an understanding that accords within the heart.

2. The Dharma assembly at Chang'an: rare scriptures and eminent monks arriving from afar

Everyone here continues as usual, and Master Kumārajīva is also well. Yao Xing, ruler of Qin, accords with the Way by nature and has a mind that rises above the ordinary world. He takes the protection of the Three Jewels as his walls and moat, and the propagation of the Buddha's Way as his foremost charge. Thus scriptures from different regions and eminent monks are now arriving here from great distances, while the spirit of the Buddha's teaching assembly long ago at Vulture Peak is gathering in this land.

Master Faling has returned from his long journey through the Western Regions. He truly is a bridge for the Dharma across a thousand years. He brought back more than two hundred new Vaipulya scriptures and invited one Mahāyāna meditation master, one master learned in the Tripiṭaka, and two masters learned in the Vibhāṣā. Master Kumārajīva is translating the newly arrived scriptures at the Great Stone Monastery. The Dharma treasury is deep and vast; every day brings meanings never heard before. The meditation master teaches meditation at Waguansi, where several hundred disciples remain diligent morning and evening. Their harmonious discipline is a great delight. At the Central Monastery, the Tripiṭaka master is translating the Vinaya treasury. He knows it thoroughly from beginning to end, as though he had personally witnessed the Buddha first establish the precepts. At Shiyangsi, the Vibhāṣā master is putting in order a Western-Regions manuscript of the Śāriputra Abhidharma. Although there has not yet been time to translate it, people ask him about it from time to time, and each answer reveals a fresh and remarkable meaning.

In this life I have unexpectedly taken part in so fortunate a time and encountered so great a work of teaching. My only regret is that I did not personally see Śākyamuni Buddha's assembly at Jetavana. Apart from that, what is left to regret? Yet that I cannot share this Dharma assembly with so refined and eminent a gentleman as you remains a deep sorrow.

3. News between north and south: Dharma friends, hymns on buddha-recollection, and notes on the Vimalakīrti

The venerable Zhu Daosheng stayed here with us for several years not long ago. Whenever we spoke, he often praised and celebrated your virtue. He later returned south midway through his travels, so by now you should have been able to meet him. Since then I have received no recent news, and the desolate heaviness in my heart is hard to put into words.

When the practitioner Wei arrived, I received your Hymn on the Samādhi of Buddha-Recollection, together with Master Huiyuan's hymn on samādhi and its preface. These works bear a lofty intent, and their language is elegant and gentle. Those skilled in composition generally praise them as finely written. They may be called songs that wander through the gate of the noble ones and knock upon the hidden pass. You and the Master must often gather writings together. Why, then, were so few sent by this messenger?

In the year of the Horse, Master Kumārajīva translated the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. At the time, I too attended the lectures in sequence. As I received his instruction, I set down trustworthy portions of what I heard, arranging them as notes. The language may lack ornament, but its meaning rests on a transmitted teaching. I am now entrusting one copy to the traveller going south. Please examine it carefully when you have the leisure.

4. Beginning the reply: the highest principle cannot be exhausted in words

Your questions are tactful and exact, and it is truly difficult to give a fitting answer. My thought has not penetrated the hidden depths, nor am I skilled in expression. Moreover, the highest purport is originally without words; once it falls into speech, it can scarcely avoid departing from its intent. Even if one went on speaking without end, what would finally have been made clear? For the moment, with words bordering on presumption, I shall try to respond to the meaning of your letter.

You write that the sage's mind is darkly still, that the ultimate principle with which it accords is the same as non-being; although the sage dwells in the world of names, he accords from afar with the realm that cannot be named. This principle is obscure and deep, and ordinary people indeed find it still harder to understand. If one experiences it within the heart, one may naturally forget words and inwardly receive it, confirming it within the square inch of one's own mind. Why insist on taking the distinctions found in ordinary feelings and views, and then ask whether the sage's mind must contain those same distinctions?

5. The first reply: how can there be no knowing, yet nothing not known?

You report the view of those discussing the matter: if the sage has exhausted numinous clarity and every operation of mind, bringing subtle function to its utmost and darkly according with truth, then stillness and illumination should separately constitute the essences of concentration and wisdom. But if the sage's mind is inherently numinous, still, and tranquil, shining in solitary responsiveness, then its responses to the multitude of things would seem almost to cease.

My meaning is this: when subtle function is brought to its utmost and darkly accords with truth, the two names concentration and wisdom cannot be divided within it. When numinous clarity is still and tranquil, shining in solitary responsiveness, one cannot therefore say that the sage's responses to the multitude of things have stopped. Although the two formulations differ, the subtle function they describe is always one. Seen through the traces of activity available to us, there appears to be a difference between motion and stillness. In the sage himself, the two do not differ.

Why? The sage's profound wisdom silently illuminates and accords with the most ultimate non-being. Once they are said to be the same, there is nowhere that their accord does not reach its limit. Once the accord with non-being has reached its limit, how could the two fixed names concentration and wisdom still be divided within this one wisdom? If the two names arise within the accord, the presence of two discriminated names means the accord is no longer complete. If the names arise outside the accord, they do not belong to the sage's mind itself.

Moreover, the sage's mind is empty, still, hidden, and subtle, marvellously beyond the ordinary realm. Whatever touches it, it invariably responds; whatever meets it, it invariably penetrates. The hidden pivot works in silence, and its functioning is not laborious. How, then, could its responses to the multitude of things cease?

The ordinary mind is called existent because it fixes the existence before it as truly existent. Yet existence does not establish itself as a fixed existence. Therefore, the sage's mind does not determine existence as existent. Not determining existence as existent, it sees that existence is not fixed existence. Since existence is not fixed existence, the mind does not fall back into a fixed non-being. Thus the sage grasps neither existence nor non-being. Only by grasping neither does the mind become truly empty and open.

Existence and non-being are shadows and echoes that arise in the mind in response to objects. Words and images then climb upon these shadows and echoes. When the fixed distinction between existence and non-being has ceased, the mind contains no shadow or echo to be grasped. Once shadows and echoes have sunk away, words and images cannot take the measure of the sage's mind. Where words and images cannot measure it, the Way surpasses every category. Precisely because it surpasses categories, it can exhaust numinous clarity and every operation of mind. This is what is meant by subtle function brought to its utmost.

The root of bringing subtle function to its utmost lies in the mind's having nowhere to lodge. Because it has nowhere to lodge, it is darkly still, empty, and open. Yet subtle function brought to its utmost also consists in exhausting every operation of mind, and so it can respond to the multitude of things. Responding to things, it meets them within motion. Empty and unlodged, it surpasses every name. Because it surpasses names, we provisionally call it non-being. Because it meets things as they arise, we provisionally call it existent. This existence is only a temporary name established in accord with those who take it as existent. How could the sage's mind itself be fixed by that name?

Therefore, the scriptures say that noble wisdom has no object-grasping, discriminative knowing, yet there is nothing it does not illumine and know; it does nothing contrived, yet there is nothing it does not accomplish. This is the wordless, signless, quiescent Way. How could one say that calling it existent fixes it as existent, or calling it non-being fixes it as non-being; that calling it moving makes it violate stillness, or calling it still makes it abandon function?

6. Leaving both extremes of existence and non-being: neither grasping nor rejecting

Yet many who discuss the matter today fasten the purport to the words. They search for a corner along the great square that has no corners, parade a prior understanding as though it disclosed the profound, and assume that the view retained in their own minds must be correct. Thus, on hearing that the sage knows, they say he has a discriminating mind; on hearing that the sage is without knowing, they equate his mind with vast empty space. Existence and non-being are both distinctions preserved by extreme views. How could either be the Way that abides in the middle and does not split into two extremes?

Although the myriad things differ from one another, their nature always returns to one. One cannot fix a thing as a self-standing thing, yet neither does one negate the thing. If one fixes things as things, names and forms line up separately. If one does not fix things as things, those very things accord with truth. Thus the sage neither grasps things as fixed things nor negates them into nothing at all. Because he does not grasp a thing as fixed, it is not fixed existence. Because he does not negate the thing, it is not the non-being of annihilation. Since it is not fixed existence, he does not grasp it. Since it is not annihilating non-being, he does not reject it. By not rejecting, he lets the thing before him wondrously remain and accord with truth. By not grasping, he leaves no ground on which fixed names and forms can be established. That names and forms cannot be established does not mean there is discriminative knowing; that the thing before him wondrously remains and accords with truth does not mean there is no knowing at all. Thus prajñā neither grasps nor rejects any dharma. It has no object-clinging knowing, yet there is nothing it does not illumine and know. This lies beyond object-grasping, in a realm discrimination cannot reach. If one still tries to challenge it through existence and non-being, has one not gone far astray?

Now let us ask those who maintain that the sage's mind is either existent or non-existent: when ordinary cognition arises, it can reach only as far as things with form. Dharmas originally have no fixed form. What, then, could noble wisdom grasp and know? What the world calls absence of knowing usually means the insentience of wood, stone, or empty space. Yet noble wisdom numinously illumines what is hidden and subtle. It sees a matter before it becomes manifest, and principle conceals not the slightest pivot. How could such absence of knowing be equated with wood or stone?

It is called without knowing because there is no object that could be grasped and known. Noble wisdom has neither the world's benighted absence of knowing nor the ordinary person's object-grasping knowledge. Because it has no object-grasping knowledge, it is said not to be existent. Because it has no benighted absence of knowing, it is said not to be non-existent. Thus emptiness and stillness do not lose illumination, and illumination does not lose emptiness and stillness. Tranquil and ever still, it has neither grasping nor constraint. Who could make it become fixed existence as soon as it moves, or fixed non-being as soon as it is still?

The scriptures therefore say that true prajñā is neither existent nor non-existent, neither arising nor ceasing, and cannot be shown to anyone through speech. To say it is not existent only negates fixed existence; it does not determine prajñā as a fixed not-existent. To say it is not non-existent only negates fixed non-being; it does not determine prajñā as a fixed not-non-existent. Thus neither not-existent nor not-non-existent is something to be grasped. Subhūti spoke of prajñā all day, yet said that he had said nothing. How could this Way, which cuts off speech, be transmitted by conceptual understanding alone? May those who accord with the profound meet it beyond words.

7. The second reply: does seeing the signless mean failing to see the myriad changes?

You ask again that we first determine how the sage's mind responds to things: does it see only the signless, or does it also see every change in full? Those discussing the matter seem to treat the signless and the myriad changes as two different principles. If the mind sees the myriad changes, it differs from the signless. If it sees only the signless, it loses the function of comforting beings and meeting things as they arise. If this is how the matter is understood, there may still be an obstruction to the meaning of directly according with truth.

The scripture says that form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form; form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form. On the account given by those discussing the matter, observing form and emptiness would require one mind first to see form and another mind afterward to see emptiness. If one mind sees only form, there would be form without emptiness. If one mind sees only emptiness, there would be emptiness without form. Emptiness and form would then stand apart, and one could not know which was fundamental.

Thus, when the scripture says not-form, its true meaning is to understand, right within form, that form is not fixed form. It does not mean leaving form to seek a separate not-form. If not-form were spoken only where there is no form, vast empty space is already not form; what would that show? If one understands not-form within form itself, one knows that not-form does not differ from form, and that form itself is not-form. Therefore, the myriad changes are the signless, and the signless is the myriad changes. Beings differ in their feelings and views, and so the verbal traces left by the teaching differ. But if one examines the profound scriptures and exhausts the sage's intent, how could true and conventional require two different minds, or emptiness and existence two different modes of illumination?

For precisely this reason, seeing the signless does not lose the function of comforting beings and meeting things as they arise. Seeing the myriad things change does not violate the principle of the signless. Reaching existence does not differ from non-being; reaching non-being does not differ from existence. It is never that existence is not seen; rather, in seeing existence, it is not fixed as existent. It is never that non-being is not seen; rather, in seeing non-being, it is not fixed as non-being. The scripture therefore says that without moving from equal awakening, all dharmas are established. From this it follows: how could stillness and function obstruct one another? How could the knowing that sees the myriad changes differ from the wisdom that illumines the signless?

My only concern is that those discussing the matter may divide emptiness and existence into two minds, and stillness and active functioning into two operations. This is why they say that the knowing which sees the myriad changes cannot be said to be wholly absent. But if one can relinquish the opinions enclosed within one's own limits, seek the subtle pivot beyond phenomenal marks, contemplate the myriad existents together within a single empty openness, and understand that utmost openness is not annihilating non-being, then one should say this: all day long, the consummate person responds to conditions, moves along with the myriad things, and takes up each occasion to comfort and teach, yet never once grasps these functions as fixed existence. If the sage's mind is such, what could there be to grasp? Why continue asking why the principle of non-grasping was not explained?

8. The third reply: can true rightness and ultimate fittingness become new attachments?

You say again that only what has no fixed rightness is truly right, and only what has no fixed fittingness is ultimately fitting. This may stand as your letter states it. Yet it must genuinely be the case that the mind does not fix anything as right, and within non-grasping rightness responds to things as right; that the mind does not fix anything as fitting, and within non-grasping fittingness responds to things as fitting. Then even if it judges things right all day long, it does not violate non-grasping rightness; even if it deems things fitting all day long, it does not violate non-grasping fittingness.

My concern is only that someone may plant a right within non-grasping rightness, and a fitting within non-grasping fittingness. That would be the fault. Why? If the truly right can be fixed as right and the ultimately fitting can be fixed as fitting, names and forms appear, distinctions between beautiful and ugly arise, and ceaseless discrimination sets beings chasing and contending with one another. Who could bring it to an end?

Therefore, the sage makes his breast empty, lucid, and utterly open, without attached understanding or object-grasping knowing. Although he dwells in the domain of every activity and function, his mind rests in the realm of the unconditioned. Although he lives within the world of names, he makes his home where speech is cut off. There it is solitary, empty, still, and open, beyond capture by form or name. That is all. If one again says that the truly right can be fixed as right and the ultimately fitting fixed as fitting, I still cannot understand this refined thesis. I fear that what is called right and fitting is merely what people take to be so, while the sage's mind itself does not take it so. Why insist on saying that his mind does?

9. Conclusion: meeting beyond the written word

Once words and traces arise, divergent paths emerge from them. Yet words always contain what they cannot say, and traces always have a place where no trace can be left. Therefore, one skilled in words seeks through words the intent that words cannot express; one skilled in following traces seeks through traces that source which traces cannot leave behind.

The ultimate principle is empty, still, hidden, and profound. As soon as the mind prepares an analogy, it has already gone astray. How much more so when it uses words: what they point to may only lie farther away. May those whose minds can penetrate meet me beyond the written word.

Memorial presented to Yao Xing, ruler of Qin

Sengzhao submits this memorial. I have heard that heaven attained the fundamental One and thereby became clear; earth attained it and thereby became settled; rulers attained it and thereby governed all under heaven. Reverently considering Your Majesty: your wisdom is penetrating and luminous, and the Way you practice accords with subtle principle. You meet the center around which the myriad things turn and leave no affair or principle ungathered. With composure you manage the ten thousand tasks and spend each day spreading the great Way. Your commanding virtue extends throughout the people, while your writings remain as a standard. Thus there are four great things under heaven, and the ruler occupies one among them.

The Way of nirvāṇa is the common destination of the three vehicles and the deepest treasury of the Great Vehicle's Vaipulya teaching. Distant and hidden, it exceeds the range of seeing and hearing. Its inward purport is empty, still, and subtle, and surely lies beyond the measure of ordinary cognition. Though my station is slight, I have received the state's favor and was able to dwell at ease in the academy, studying under Master Kumārajīva for more than ten years. The scriptures differ in purport, and their excellent destinations are more than one, yet I always gave priority to hearing and studying the single meaning of nirvāṇa. My talent and insight, however, are dim and shallow. Though I repeatedly received instruction and clarification, a broad uncertainty remained in my mind. I continually exhausted my simple sincerity and seemed to gain a little understanding, but because no one of penetrating wisdom had first opened the way, I dared not decide the matter for myself. Regrettably, Master Kumārajīva passed away. From then on there was nowhere to inquire and investigate, a loss I have long felt deeply.

Your Majesty's noble virtue does not stand alone. You alone were able to accord with Master Kumārajīva in spirit. Without waiting for many words, the Way present in each of you could already reflect the other, freely exhausting its profound purport. Thus Your Majesty has stirred the subtle wind of the teaching and awakened the customs of later generations. One day I was honored to read Your Majesty's letter replying to the Marquis of Ancheng, Yao Song, who had asked about the ultimate principle of the unconditioned. It said: “Beings have long revolved through birth and death entirely because they cling greedily to desire. If desire comes to rest in the mind, birth and death cease. With birth and death no more, the spirit withdraws into subtle silence and virtue accords with empty space. This is called nirvāṇa. Once it is called nirvāṇa, how could a name still be contained within it?” This truly exhausts the beauty of subtle speech and carries the principle beyond images to its utmost. Unless one's practice of the Way allowed one to study beside Mañjuśrī and one's compassionate virtue rivaled Maitreya's, who could spread the mysterious Way, form the moat of the city of Dharma, unfold again the great teaching whose scroll had been closed, and disclose again the hidden purport that had sunk from view?

I searched and savored the letter repeatedly, my feeling so earnest that I could not put it down even for a moment. Joy and understanding filled my mind together, and I could not even stop my hands from dancing. How could this be merely an excellent model for our own time? In ages to come it will be a bridge by which beings cross through kalpa after kalpa. Yet Your Majesty's noble purport is deep and subtle, its principle hidden and its words concise. It can shape those already advanced and lift up those of superior capacity, but I fear that students who cling to the literal headings will still not fully understand Your Majesty's intent. I wished to imitate the intent with which Confucius composed the Ten Wings to the Book of Changes. I did not covet an abundance of words; I wished only to spread and make clear the profound purport. I have therefore ventured to compose On Nirvāṇa Being Nameless. The treatise contains nine rebuttals and ten expositions. It gathers broadly from the scriptures and entrusts the completion of its argument to scriptural proofs and similes, thereby reverently unfolding the purport of namelessness shown by Your Majesty. How would I dare say that I have touched Your Majesty's subtle mind or exhausted its profound and fitting meaning? I have merely tried to deliberate at the gate of mystery and distribute the result among students so that they might understand.

The final chapter of the treatise says: “The various schools that penetrate ultimate truth all say that it is open and still, with no sage there. I have always thought this far too remote and far from human feeling. If there is no sage, who is it that knows non-being?” It is truly as Your Majesty's luminous decree says! Truly as Your Majesty's luminous decree says! The great Way is dim and indistinct, yet within it there is a subtle reality. If there were no sage, who could wander together with the Way? Students in recent times have all hovered before its gate, troubled and uneasy over this purport. They have doubted throughout the day, with no one able to set them straight. Now, fortunately, they have encountered Your Majesty's penetrating judgment. The students of this teaching have suddenly become clear, and those who knocked at the gate seeking the Way have splendidly entered the mysterious chamber. One may truly say that the Dharma wheel has turned again in Jambudvīpa and the light of the Way shines once more across a thousand years.

This treatise now distinguishes through its many turns the nameless substance of nirvāṇa. It brings to rest the view that sees only vacant stillness and removes the discourse that places the sage outside the myriad things. Its several arguments are set out below and respectfully presented. If they accord even slightly with Your Majesty's noble purport, I ask that you order them preserved. If they contain errors, I await your instruction. Sengzhao submits this memorial.

The three names niyue, nihuan, and nirvāṇa arose from differences between earlier and later translations, just as speech differs from region to region; nirvāṇa is the more correct sound. The nine rebuttals and ten expositions are the following nineteen chapters.

1. Opening the Thesis: Why is nirvāṇa nameless?

Nameless says: The scriptures speak of nirvāṇa with remainder and nirvāṇa without remainder. In the language of Qin it is rendered “the unconditioned” and also called “cessation and crossing-over.” It is called unconditioned because it is empty, tranquil, and still, subtly surpassing all fabrication. It is called cessation and crossing-over because it brings the great affliction permanently to rest and crosses beyond the floods of sensuality, becoming, views, and ignorance. It is the destination of the myriad dharmas, which are like images in a mirror, and the hidden dwelling where names come to an end. As for with-remainder and without-remainder, they are only different names for the sage's manifestation and concealment, provisional designations established in accord with beings.

Let me try to speak of it. Nirvāṇa is solitary and open; it cannot be obtained through shape and name. Subtle and signless, it cannot be known by a mind that grasps. It rises darkly beyond all existence and shares the duration of vast space. Follow it, and no trace can be seen; meet it, and no beginning is visible. The six destinies cannot contain its arising, and the strongest power cannot alter its substance. Vast and indistinct, it seems to be present yet seems to depart. The physical eye, divine eye, wisdom eye, Dharma eye, and Buddha eye cannot see its form, and the ears cannot hear its sound. Hidden and remote, who can see it or understand it? It pervades everything and is absent nowhere, yet stands beyond the surfaces of existence and non-being. Open the mouth to speak of it, and its truth is lost. Know it with a knowing mind, and one's folly is disclosed. Call it existent, and one violates its nature. Call it non-existent, and one also wounds its true substance.

Therefore Śākyamuni shut himself in a room in Magadha, Vimalakīrti closed his mouth in Vaiśālī, Subhūti proclaimed non-speaking to disclose the Way, and Śakra and Brahmā ceased listening while celestial flowers rained down by themselves. In each case principle governed the spirit, and the mouth accordingly fell silent. How could this be a lack of eloquence? What had to be distinguished was precisely what speech cannot express. Scripture says that true liberation is apart from speech and enumeration, stilled and permanently secure, without beginning or end, neither dark nor bright, neither cold nor hot, clear and pure like space, without name and without speech. A treatise also says that nirvāṇa is neither existent nor non-existent; the road of speech is cut off and the range of mental activity ceases. Could such scriptural and treatise statements be fabrications?

It truly has that by reason of which it cannot be called existent, and so it cannot be taken as existent. It also has that by reason of which it cannot be called non-existent, and so it cannot be taken as non-existent. Why? When the realm of existence is investigated, the five aggregates have ceased forever. When the place of non-being is sought, hidden numinous awareness is not exhausted. Because hidden illumination is inexhaustible, it abides in the One and remains clear. Because the five aggregates cease forever, every entanglement is relinquished. With every entanglement relinquished, it penetrates the Way without obstruction. Abiding in the One and remaining clear, its subtle functioning does not claim achievement. Because it is subtle without claiming achievement, consummate function is constantly present. Because it penetrates the Way, it is empty and unchanging. Empty and unchanging, it cannot be called existent. Consummate function constantly present, it cannot be called non-existent.

Seen in this way, existence and non-being cease within, while names sink away without. Seeing and hearing cannot reach it, nor can the four formless absorptions illumine it. Tranquil and level, peaceful and at ease, it is where the nine streams meet and return and where the sages darkly coincide. This is the subtly level realm, the deeply mysterious and vast domain. If one still wishes to name it by existence or non-being, mark out its territory, and describe its subtle Way, would one not be far from it?

2. Examining the Substance: Are with-remainder and without-remainder not real names?

Named asks: A name does not arise from nothing, and a designation does not originate by itself. Since scripture speaks of nirvāṇa with remainder and nirvāṇa without remainder, these must be true names for returning to the root and subtle designations for the wondrous Way. Allow me to explain.

Nirvāṇa with remainder means that the Tathāgata's great awakening has first arisen and the Dharma body first been accomplished. He bathes in the pure stream of the eight liberations and rests in the flourishing grove of the seven awakening-factors. Through distant kalpas he has accumulated the myriad virtues and swept away the dust left since beginningless time. The three knowledges are bright within like a mirror, and numinous light shines outward. From his first aspiration he donned the armor of vows, and to the very end great compassion drives him toward beings in suffering. He climbs upward to the subtle root and reaches downward to support the lost and weak. He crosses beyond the desire, form, and formless realms and alone treads the great Way. He opens the level road of the noble eightfold path so that the multitude may travel an easy course. He drives the fine horses of the six supernormal powers and rides the secure carriages of the five vehicles. He can enter birth and death and move in accord with beings. There is nowhere his Way does not reach and nowhere his virtue is not given. He exhausts the origin by which creation brings things forth, carries the subtle pivot to its utmost operation, opens boundless space, and shines omniscience into darkness. He is about to end every trace upon the ninth ground and sink forever into vast space, yet the remaining conditions for teaching are not exhausted, the remaining traces of manifestation have not ceased, the body of karmic recompense is still present, and noble wisdom also remains. This is called nirvāṇa with remainder. Scripture says that, like smelting away dross and refining true gold, every entanglement is exhausted while only numinous awareness and illumination remain.

Nirvāṇa without remainder means that the consummate person's conditions for teaching are wholly ended and numinous illumination has ceased forever. Open and without traces, it is therefore called without remainder. Why? No calamity is greater than having a body, and so body is extinguished and returns to non-being. No toil is heavier than possessing wisdom, and so wisdom is cut off and sinks into emptiness. Wisdom is wearied by form, and form is wearied by wisdom. Revolving along the long road, they are exhausted without rest. Scripture says that wisdom is like mixed poison and form like fetters: hidden stillness is thereby estranged and affliction thereby arises. Thus the consummate person reduces body and wisdom to ashes, casts off physical form, and cuts off thought. Within there is no labor of attending to affairs; without, the root of the great calamity is brought to rest. He stands apart forever from every existent and merges with vast space as one body. Silent and without sound, peaceful and without sign, he journeys darkly away, no one knowing where he arrives. It is like lamp-oil spent and flame extinguished, fuel and light exhausted together. This is called nirvāṇa without remainder. Scripture likewise says that the five aggregates cease forever, like a lamp going out.

Therefore with-remainder can be named, while without-remainder can be called nameless. Once the nameless is established, those who prize empty stillness admire tranquility. Once the named is established, those who revere virtue honor the sage's function all the more. These are the words left by scriptural instruction and the tracks traveled by former sages. Yet you now say that existence and non-being cease within and names sink away without, that seeing and hearing cannot reach it and the four formless absorptions cannot illumine it. This would make those who admire virtue cut off their own road of advance, and those who prize empty stillness have nowhere to lodge. It is like blocking the ears and eyes within the fetal shell and obscuring the celestial signs beyond the clouds, yet demanding that one distinguish the tones of the scale and discern black from white. You know only to push the consummate person far beyond existence and non-being and place the highest subtle sound beyond shape and name. Yet the destination of the thesis remains wholly unclear and the hidden road concealed. When the mind grows still and reflects deeply, the breast finds nowhere to lodge. How could this be called illuminating great brightness in a dark room or sounding the mysterious resonance where there is no sound?

3. Placing the Substance: With-remainder and without-remainder are provisional names used in responding to things

Nameless replies: With-remainder and without-remainder are names outside nirvāṇa's substance, provisional designations established in accord with beings. Those who preserve designations are enclosed within names; those who pursue vessels and images cling to shapes. A name reaches its limit at its heading, and a shape reaches its limit at square and round. Yet there are things square and round cannot describe and principles headings cannot transmit. How could a name name the nameless or a shape describe the shapeless?

The foregoing challenge has already said that with-remainder and without-remainder truly express the Tathāgata's intent in teaching according with cessation and are genuine traces of manifestation and concealment. Yet they are not the hidden purport of mysterious stillness beyond speech, nor the subtle functioning by which the consummate person dwells at the center and responds in every direction. Have you not heard the teaching on correct contemplation? Vimalakīrti says that when one contemplates the Tathāgata, one sees him as without beginning or end, beyond the six sense-fields and outside the three realms; abiding in no direction yet not apart from any direction; neither conditioned nor unconditioned; not cognized by consciousness or known by ordinary knowledge; beyond speech, with the range of mental activity ceased. Contemplating in this way is called correct contemplation; contemplating otherwise is not truly seeing the Buddha. The Fangguang likewise says that the Buddha is like space, without coming or going, manifesting according to conditions without a fixed location.

Therefore the sage, while in the world, is silent, empty, without grasping, and does not contend with things. He guides but does not rush ahead, responding only after he is moved, like an echo in an empty valley or an image in a bright mirror. Face him, and one does not know whence he came; follow him, and only then does one see where he goes. Indistinctly he seems present, then suddenly disappears. The more he moves, the stiller he is; the more concealed, the more manifest. He comes from the hidden and enters the dark, changing without a fixed constant state. Designations also arise according to response: when traces manifest, this is called birth; when traces cease, this is called death. Birth is called with-remainder, and death without-remainder. Thus the names existence and non-being originally emerge from the nameless. Where could the nameless Way not receive a name in accord with conditions?

The consummate person therefore appears square when placed in a square and round when placed in a circle. In heaven he appears according to heaven; among humans he appears according to humans. If we investigate the capacity by which he manifests as celestial or human, could it be accomplished by any fixed celestial or human mark? Precisely because he is not fixed as celestial or human, he can accord with celestial and human beings. In his teaching he responds without regarding himself as an agent and acts according to conditions without regarding himself as the giver. Because he gives according to conditions without self-giving, no giving is broader. Because he responds without self-doing, no activity is greater. Activity with nothing greater returns to the most subtle achievement; giving with nothing broader returns to namelessness. Scripture says that the Way of awakening cannot be measured: it is high without anything above it, broad without boundary, deep without bottom, great enough to contain heaven and earth, fine enough to enter the smallest interval. Therefore it is called the Way. From this one knows that the Way of nirvāṇa cannot be obtained by existence or non-being.

The deluded see supernormal transformation and say that nirvāṇa exists; they see cessation and say that nirvāṇa is non-being. Existence and non-being are merely the realms of deluded thought. How could they mark the mysterious Way or discuss the sage's mind? I hold that the consummate person is still and without sign, his concealment and manifestation emerging from one source. Presence does not become existence; disappearance does not become non-being. The Buddha says that he has no fixed mark of birth yet can be born, and though born does not fall within birth; he has no fixed form yet can manifest form, and though manifesting does not fall within form. From this we know that presence does not become existence. Scripture also says that bodhisattvas enter the inexhaustible samādhi and see completely all buddhas who have already passed into cessation; it also says that they enter nirvāṇa without abiding in parinirvāṇa. From this we know that disappearance does not become non-being.

Because disappearance does not become non-being, though absent it is present. Because presence does not become existence, though present it is absent. Though present yet absent, it is called not existent. Though absent yet present, it is called not non-existent. It is therefore settled that nirvāṇa transcends the domains of existence and non-being and cuts off the paths of words and images. Yet you say that the sage treats body as affliction and therefore extinguishes it to return to non-being, and treats wisdom as toil and therefore cuts it off to sink into emptiness. I fear this violates the subtle extreme and injures the mysterious purport.

Scripture says that the Dharma body has no fixed image yet takes form in response to beings; prajñā has no object-grasping knowing yet illumines as conditions arise. Ten thousand affairs may arrive together without disturbing his spirit; a thousand different challenges cannot disrupt his thought. He moves like drifting clouds and stops like the spirit of an empty valley. Where would his mind incline toward one side or another, and what attachment would bind him to motion or stillness? Having no mind fixed on motion or stillness, he likewise has no fixed shape in coming and going. Because coming and going do not constrain shape, there is no vessel whose form he cannot follow. Because motion and stillness do not bind the mind, there is no stimulus to which he cannot respond.

Thought arises only when the mind deliberately produces thought, and form appears only when a fixed form is grasped. Form is not deliberately produced by me, so even if metal and stone melt, I am not scorched. Mind is not deliberately generated by me, so though used throughout the day it does not move within. The many transformations belong entirely to external things; how could they obstruct me? Thus wisdom pervades the myriad things without fatigue, and form fills the eight directions without affliction. Increase cannot make him full, and decrease cannot make him deficient. How could he then fall ill midway, bring his life to an end between the twin trees, exhaust numinous awareness within the celestial coffin, or lose his body in the cremation fire? The deluded remain within seeing and hearing, pursue the traces of responsive manifestation, and take compasses and squares to measure the great Way. They wish to burden the consummate person with wisdom and afflict the great sage with form. They say that he relinquishes existence and enters non-being and on this basis name nirvāṇa. How could this count as gathering subtle words from beyond hearing or drawing the mysterious root from the ground of empty stillness?

4. Pressing the Claim of Transcendence: If existence and non-being include everything, how can nirvāṇa transcend them?

Named asks: When the primal confusion divided, the myriad things formed in their many differences. Since existence is existence, it cannot but return to non-being. Non-being does not become non-being by itself; it must be named in relation to existence. High and low therefore lean upon each other, and existence and non-being give rise to one another. This is the natural rule, the limit of principle. Seen in this way, among all things nurtured by the source of transformation—hidden or manifest, vast, strange, changing, or marvelous—not one is outside existence. Among all that changes into non-being, not one is outside non-being. The two realms of existence and non-being already include every principle. Scripture says that the two dharmas existence and non-being include all dharmas. It also says that the three unconditioned dharmas are space, cessation through discernment, and cessation not through discernment, and that cessation through discernment is nirvāṇa.

Your treatise, however, says that beyond existence and non-being there is another subtle Way that surpasses them and is therefore called nirvāṇa. Let us now examine the root of this subtle Way. If it is existent, then however subtle it may be, it is not non-being; being not non-being, it enters the realm of existence. If it is non-being, then non-being does not differ from non-being; being without difference, it enters the realm of non-being. Gather and exhaust the possibilities: there can be nothing different from existence that is not non-being, nor anything different from non-being that is not existence. This is already clear. Yet you now say that beyond existence and non-being there is another subtle Way, called nirvāṇa because it is neither existent nor non-existent. I have heard the statement, but my mind still cannot accept it.

5. Beyond the Realm: What attachment does “transcending” remove?

Nameless replies: The rule of existence and non-being truly leaves no dharma unincluded and no principle ungathered, but what it includes is only conventional truth. Scripture asks: what is ultimate truth? It is the Way of nirvāṇa. What is conventional truth? It is the dharmas of existence and non-being. Why? Existence is called existent in contrast with non-being, while non-being is called non-being in contrast with existence. Existence is named through non-being, and non-being through existence. Existence thus arises from non-being and non-being from existence. Apart from existence there is no non-being; apart from non-being there is no existence. They arise from each other just as high and low lean upon each other. Where there is high there must be low, and where there is low there must be high. Though their names differ, existence and non-being have not escaped being established through mutual dependence. Words and images form from this, and right and wrong arise from it. How could they include the hidden extreme or measure the subtle Way?

The treatise says that nirvāṇa transcends existence and non-being because the rule of existence and non-being reaches only as far as the six sense-realms. Nothing within those six is nirvāṇa's dwelling. The word “transcend” is therefore borrowed to remove attachment to existence and non-being. One hopes that a seeker of the Way may glimpse the hidden path, lodge the mind where words and images end, forget speech once its meaning is obtained, and realize that it is neither existent nor non-existent. How could this mean that beyond existence and non-being there is another real existent called nirvāṇa?

Scripture speaks of three unconditioned dharmas because beings are confused and disturbed and give rise to grave affliction. Within that grave affliction, grasping existence comes first. To sever the name “existence,” nothing is more direct than non-being. Non-being is therefore borrowed to show that it is not existence; it does not mean that it is itself non-being.

6. Seeking the Mystery: If it neither transcends nor abides within, where can it be sought?

Named asks: The treatise itself says that nirvāṇa neither transcends existence and non-being nor abides within them. If it does not abide within them, it cannot be found in them. If it does not transcend them, it cannot be sought apart from them. If there is nowhere to seek it, it should be entirely absent; yet one cannot say that the Way does not exist. Since the Way is not non-being, the hidden path must be discoverable. The thousand sages followed the same track and never returned empty-handed. Since the Way exists, yet is said neither to transcend nor abide within, there must be a different purport here. Can it be explained to me?

7. Subtle Presence: Immediately existence and non-being, yet abiding in neither

Nameless replies: Speech arises through names, names through marks. A mark is a mark because it can be depicted; without marks there are no names. Without names there is no speech, and without speech there is nothing to hear. Scripture says that nirvāṇa is neither a dharma nor a non-dharma, that there is nothing to hear and nothing to say, and that it cannot be known by the mind. How would I dare discuss it? Yet you wish to hear. Even so, Subhūti once said that if the assembly could receive with no mind and listen through no hearing, he would speak through no words. I wish to relay this intent and may perhaps speak provisionally.

Vimalakīrti says that nirvāṇa is attained without leaving the afflictions. The goddess says that one enters the Buddha-realm without leaving Māra's realm. From this one knows that the mysterious Way lies in subtle awakening, and subtle awakening lies in according with truth immediately within events. To accord with truth within events is to contemplate existence and non-being equally. Equal contemplation no longer divides self from other. Heaven and earth therefore share one root with me, and the myriad things form one body with me. Being the same as me, they cannot again be separated by existence and non-being. If they were other than me, communion would be violated. Thus the Way does not transcend existence and non-being or abide within them; it is present precisely here.

The consummate person empties the mind and illumines the hidden, leaving no principle ungathered. He contains heaven and the four directions within his breast, yet numinous reflection still has strength to spare. He mirrors the myriad existents within the square inch of mind, yet his spirit remains constantly empty. He draws the mysterious root from what has not yet arisen and maintains stillness amid the ten thousand movements. Tranquil, deeply still, and silent, he subtly accords with what is naturally so. Therefore he dwells in existence without falling into existence and dwells in non-being without falling into non-being. Dwelling in non-being without falling into non-being, he does not become annihilating non-being there. Dwelling in existence without falling into existence, he does not become fixed existence there. He can therefore neither transcend existence and non-being nor abide within them.

Dharma has no fixed mark of existence or non-being, and the sage has no fixed knowing of existence or non-being. Because the sage has no knowing of existence or non-being, inwardly the mind grasps nothing. Because dharma has no mark of existence or non-being, outwardly objects cannot be enumerated as fixed. With no fixed number outside and no grasping mind within, both are stilled; things and self darkly become one, tranquil and without traces. Only this is called nirvāṇa. If nirvāṇa is like this, every road of measurement is already cut off. How could one demand it within existence and non-being or pursue it beyond them?

8. Challenging Difference: If the ultimate has no difference, why do the three vehicles differ?

Named asks: Nirvāṇa cuts off measurement, surpasses the six sense-realms, neither transcends nor abides within while the mysterious Way alone remains. It therefore exhausts principle and nature and reaches the ultimate subtle One, which should have no difference. Yet the Fangguang says that the paths of the three vehicles differ on account of the unconditioned. The Buddha also says that when he was formerly the Youthful Ascetic bodhisattva, he had already entered nirvāṇa before Dīpaṃkara Buddha. After the Youthful Ascetic first gained the patience of non-arising as a bodhisattva, he still had to cultivate three further stages. If nirvāṇa is one, there should not be three; if there are truly three, it is not ultimate. How can the ultimate Way have higher and lower? The scriptures speak differently; which central meaning should be taken?

9. Distinguishing Difference: The shore is not three, but those who cross enter to different depths

Nameless replies: The ultimate Way truly has no difference. The Lotus Sūtra says that the foremost great Way has no two right paths. The Tathāgata establishes skillful means for the indolent and speaks of three distinctions within the one-vehicle Way. The three carts leading the three children out of the burning house express this meaning. All three vehicles leave birth and death and so are alike called unconditioned. Their methods differ, and so three names arise. Gather their final convergence, and there is only one.

The statement that the paths of the three vehicles differ on account of the unconditioned means that three kinds of person give the unconditioned three names, not that the unconditioned itself is three. Thus the Fangguang asks whether nirvāṇa has differences and answers that it has none; only the Tathāgata has exhausted even residual habits, while the śrāvakas have not exhausted them. A nearby simile can show the distant meaning. When someone cuts timber, removing a foot leaves the timber one foot shorter, while removing an inch leaves it one inch shorter. The difference in length belongs to the measure of the wood, not to the non-being outside it. Beings are of ten thousand kinds, with different consciousnesses and capacities. Their wisdom sees deeply or shallowly, and their virtue is thick or thin. Though all reach the farther shore, their heights and depths are not the same. How could the shore differ? Difference belongs to those who cross. Though the scriptures speak differently, their purport does not conflict.

10. Pressing Otherness: Are the person and the unconditioned one or different?

Named asks: Since all leave the burning house, their freedom from danger is the same. Since all leave birth and death, the unconditioned should likewise be the same. Yet you say that the farther shore does not differ and difference belongs to me. The farther shore is the shore of the unconditioned, while I am the one who realizes it. Are the unconditioned and I one or different? If I am the unconditioned and the unconditioned is me, you cannot say that the unconditioned does not differ while difference belongs to me. If I differ from the unconditioned, I am not unconditioned. The unconditioned remains itself, while I remain forever conditioned, and the principle of dark coincidence is obstructed. Thus if the unconditioned and I are one, there cannot be three; if different, there also cannot be three. Whence do the names of the three vehicles arise?

11. Reconciling Otherness: Three birds leave the same net; freedom from danger is the same while the birds differ

Nameless replies: Abide here, and one becomes the same as here; go there, and one becomes the same as there. One who is the same as attainment accords with attainment; one who is the same as loss accords with loss. I go to the unconditioned and thereby accord with it. Although the unconditioned is one, how could that prevent those who go to it from differing?

It is like three birds flying from a net and together reaching the realm free from danger. Freedom from danger is the same, yet each bird remains different. One cannot say that the realm free from danger differs because the birds differ. Nor can one compress the birds into a single bird because freedom from danger is one. The birds are within the realm free from danger, and that realm appears in relation to the birds. How could freedom from danger differ? The difference belongs to the birds.

Beings of the three vehicles are the same. All cross the enclosure of deluded thought and reach the unconditioned. Although the unconditioned is the same, each vehicle differs. One cannot say the unconditioned differs because the vehicles differ, or merge the persons of the three vehicles into one because the unconditioned is one. I enter the unconditioned, and the unconditioned appears in relation to me. How could the unconditioned differ? Difference lies in me. Thus although freedom from danger is the same, the birds fly different distances into the open sky. Although the unconditioned is one, hidden illumination has different depths. It is not that I and the unconditioned remain apart, but that I have not yet exhausted the unconditioned. Therefore there are three vehicles.

12. Pressing Graduality: If deluded thought is exhausted, why speak of anything not exhausted?

Named asks: The many entanglements grow more manifest day by day, and their root is deluded thought. Once deluded thought is removed, every entanglement comes wholly to rest. The two vehicles gain the knowledge of exhaustion, while bodhisattvas gain the knowledge of non-arising. At that time deluded thought is exhausted and bonds are permanently removed. With bonds removed, the mind accords with the unconditioned. With the mind unconditioned, principle has no remaining obscuration. Scripture says that these noble knowledges do not conflict with one another, neither transcend nor abide within, and in truth are all empty. It also says that the great unconditioned Way is equal and non-dual. If it is non-dual, the mind cannot admit differences. If it has not realized, let that be; but once it realizes, it should exhaust the subtle. Yet you say that it realizes without exhausting. This I cannot understand.

13. Clarifying Graduality: The same striking and crossing do not mean the same power

Nameless replies: That the unconditioned is not two is indeed so. Yet afflictive bonds are deep delusion. I still cannot understand how they could be exhausted all at once. Scripture uses three arrows striking a target and three animals crossing a river as similes. The arrows alike hit, and the animals alike cross. Striking and crossing do not differ, yet the arrows enter the target and the animals enter the water to different depths because their strength differs.

Beings of the three vehicles all cross the ford of dependent arising, behold the target of the four truths, sever falsity and accord with truth, and rise together into the unconditioned. Yet the paths they ride are not the same, again because wisdom's power differs. Though the myriad existents are many, their number still has a boundary. Even one with wisdom like Śāriputra and eloquence like Pūrṇa could exhaust his talent and thought without seeing the boundary of all existents. How much less could the enumeration of emptiness and the domain of doubled mystery, which have no boundary, be exhausted at once?

Does not the old book say that in pursuing learning one increases daily, while in pursuing the Way one decreases daily? Pursuing the Way means cultivating the unconditioned. If one cultivates the unconditioned by daily decrease, how could everything be gained at once? One must decrease and decrease again until nothing remains to decrease. Scripture also compares wisdom's functioning with a firefly and the sun; from this its differences can be known.

14. Deriding Motion: Once mind and wisdom are stilled, how can cultivation continue?

Named asks: Scripture says that those at and above the level of the Dharma body enter the realm of the unconditioned. Their minds cannot be known by ordinary wisdom and their forms cannot be measured by ordinary shape; their substance surpasses the five aggregates and six sense-fields, while mind and wisdom are stilled. Yet it also says that they continue cultivating through three higher stages and accumulate ever broader merit. Cultivation arises from preference and admiration, and accumulating virtue from seeking. Where preference exists, feelings of choosing and rejecting appear; where seeking exists, gain and loss alternate. Taking choice and rejection as mind and gain and loss as substance, one nevertheless says that substance surpasses the aggregates and sense-fields and mind and wisdom are stilled. The two passages plainly do not accord, yet one forcibly joins them in a single person. This is no different from pointing south and calling it north while wishing to guide the lost.

15. Motion and Stillness: Why does conduct grow broader as the mind grows emptier?

Nameless replies: Scripture says that the sage does nothing contrived, yet leaves nothing undone. Being unconditioned, though moving he is constantly still. Leaving nothing undone, though still he is constantly moving. Though still yet constantly moving, things cannot fix him as a single stillness. Though moving yet constantly still, things cannot split him into a separate movement. Because he cannot be divided into two, the more he moves the stiller he is. Because he cannot be fixed as one, the stiller he is the more he moves. Thus doing is itself non-doing, and non-doing itself doing. Though motion and stillness have different names, they cannot be cut into two things.

The Daoxing says that mind is neither existent nor non-existent. “Not existent” differs from the ordinary person's existent mind of grasping. “Not non-existent” differs from an empty absence that has no illumination. The ordinary person's existent mind stops in deluded thought; vast space without mind cuts off numinous illumination. How could either the existence that stops in deluded thought or the non-being that cuts off illumination mark the subtle Way or describe the sage's mind? The sage's mind is therefore not existent, but it cannot on that account be called non-being. It is not non-existent, but it cannot on that account be called existent. Because it is not existent, deluded thoughts cease entirely within. Because it is not non-existent, there is no principle with which it does not accord. According with every principle, the myriad virtues become vast. With every deluded thought extinguished, achievement is not appropriated as self. Responsive transformation therefore has no fixed direction and never intentionally acts, while stillness unmoving never ceases to do what should be done. Scripture says that mind goes nowhere yet leaves nowhere untraveled. This is surely credible.

The Youthful Ascetic says that through countless kalpas he had given away his state's wealth, body, and life immeasurable times. Because he gave with a mind of deluded thought, it could not yet be called true giving. Only now, when he offered five flowers to the Buddha with the mind of non-arising, was it first called giving. The bodhisattva practicing emptiness entered the liberation-gate of emptiness and likewise said that this was the time for practice, not the time for realization. From this one knows that the emptier the mind, the broader the conduct. Acting all day does not violate non-action.

Thus the Sūtra of the Worthy Kalpa praises giving that relinquishes nothing, the Samādhi of Perfected Radiance Sūtra praises doing that does not regard itself as doing, a meditation scripture teaches compassion without an object, and the Sūtra of Brahmā's Questions clarifies a wisdom that does not know by grasping the known. The noble purport is empty, still, and subtle; different scriptures together distinguish a single meaning. How could the conditioned be fixed as conditioned and the unconditioned fixed as unconditioned? Bodhisattvas dwell in the equal Dharma-gate of exhausting and not exhausting the conditioned: they do not exhaust the conditioned and do not abide in the unconditioned. This is precisely the matter at hand. The simile of calling south north truly does not understand the purport.

16. Exhausting the Source: If nirvāṇa is gained afterward, does it not have a beginning?

Named asks: Without beings there would be no one to drive the three vehicles; without the three vehicles nirvāṇa could not be accomplished. Beings must therefore exist first and nirvāṇa afterward. Nirvāṇa would then have a beginning, and what has a beginning must have an end. Yet scripture says that nirvāṇa has neither beginning nor end and is clear like space. On this account, nirvāṇa must have existed beforehand and not be something accomplished through study.

17. Comprehending Antiquity: How are antiquity and the present, beginning and end, one body?

Nameless replies: The consummate person is empty, luminous, penetrating, and without fixed form, yet takes the myriad things as his own body. Perhaps only the sage can gather the myriad things and thereby accomplish himself. Why? Without according with principle one cannot become a sage; without being a sage one cannot accord with principle completely. Becoming a sage through according with principle, the sage is not different from principle.

Thus Śakra asks where prajñā should be sought. Subhūti says that prajñā cannot be sought within form or apart from form. Scripture also says that seeing dependent arising is seeing Dharma and seeing Dharma is seeing the Buddha. This directly demonstrates that things and self are not different. The consummate person gathers the mysterious pivot before things have sprouted and conceals hidden functioning after things have transformed. He gathers heaven and the four directions as the mirror of mind and joins coming and going into one body. Antiquity and the present penetrate each other, beginning and end are the same, and root and branch are exhausted without a single thing becoming two with it. Vast and equal, only this is called nirvāṇa.

Scripture says that nirvāṇa is attained without leaving dharmas. It also says that dharmas have no boundary and therefore awakening has no boundary. From this one knows that the Way of nirvāṇa is present in subtle accord, and subtle accord is accomplished through hidden unity. Things are not different from me, nor am I different from things. Things and self meet mysteriously and return without limit. Push nirvāṇa forward, and it is not before the earliest beginning. Push it backward, and it is not after the final end. How could beginning and end be contained within it? The goddess asked Śāriputra, “Elder, how long has your liberation lasted?” Since liberation has no measurable length, nirvāṇa also cannot be confined by beginning and end.

18. Examining Attainment: When the five aggregates are exhausted, who attains nirvāṇa?

Named asks: Scripture says that the nature of beings extends only through the five aggregates. It also says that when nirvāṇa is attained, the five aggregates are wholly extinguished, like a lamp going out. The nature of beings is thus suddenly exhausted within the five aggregates, while the Way of nirvāṇa stands alone beyond the three realms. They clearly occupy different domains, so one cannot still say that beings attain nirvāṇa. If a being truly attains it, the being's nature cannot extend only through the five aggregates. If beings truly exist only within the five aggregates, those aggregates cannot be wholly extinguished. If the aggregates are indeed entirely extinguished, who remains to attain nirvāṇa?

19. Mysterious Attainment: Attainment as non-attainment

Nameless replies: Truth arises through freedom from attachment, while falsity arises through attachment. Because there is attachment, one determines that something is attained. Because attachment is left behind, there is no graspable name. One who practices according to truth becomes the same as truth; one who practices according to falsity becomes the same as falsity. You take attainment through something attained as attainment and therefore seek only within something attained. I take non-attainment as attainment, and therefore attainment is present precisely in non-attainment.

Any treatise must first settle its foundation. Since we are discussing nirvāṇa, nirvāṇa cannot be discussed apart from nirvāṇa. If one speaks from nirvāṇa itself, who is not nirvāṇa and must acquire it elsewhere? The Way of nirvāṇa subtly exhausts ordinary enumeration, penetrates heaven and earth, washes through the myriad existents, makes celestial and human equal, and brings one and other into sameness. Looking inward, one cannot see a self; turning hearing back, one cannot hear an “I.” It has never been something attained, nor has it ever been a total absence of attainment.

Scripture says that nirvāṇa is not a being yet is not different from beings. Vimalakīrti further says that if Maitreya attains cessation, all beings should likewise attain cessation, because all beings are constantly stilled in their own nature and do not undergo another cessation. Such cessation is present precisely where there is no additional cessation. Beings are therefore not fixed beings—who would be the one attaining? Nirvāṇa is not a fixed nirvāṇa—what would be the object attained?

The Fangguang asks: Does awakening come from attainment? The answer is no. Does it come from non-attainment? Again no. Does it come from both attainment and non-attainment? No. Does it come apart from attainment and non-attainment? Again no. Then is there absolutely no attainment? The answer is still no. What does this mean? Because there is non-attainment, it is called attainment; what is attained thereby is precisely non-attainment. If non-attainment is called attainment, who is not thus?

The mysterious Way therefore lies in the realm where every distinction is cut off and cannot be attained by grasping. Subtle wisdom is present beyond the traces of things and cannot be known through object-grasping knowing. The great image is hidden within the shapeless and therefore cannot be seen by ordinary seeing. The great sound is concealed within the faintest resonance and therefore cannot be heard by ordinary hearing. Precisely because of this, it can contain the distant past and present, open and guide the four directions, give life to beings, and remain so spacious that nothing falls through. Vast indeed, boundless indeed—what is not accomplished through it? Thus a brahmin said: “I have heard the Buddha's Way. Its meaning is vast and profound, oceanic and without boundary. There is nothing it cannot accomplish and nothing it cannot deliver.” The roads of the three vehicles are thereby opened, the paths of truth and falsity distinguished, the Way of the worthy and noble preserved, and the purport of namelessness made clear.