妙法蓮華經文句 方便品釋·略廣與權實

We readily divide life into two parts: the present is merely provisional and only the future will be real; what lies before us is merely a transition, and everything may be discarded once we arrive.

The Fahua Wenju, however, reopens “skillful means” from three perspectives. First, it is a method: when facing different people, one must know which approach to use and when. It is also a gateway: a method cannot merely offer temporary comfort, but must truly open onto the place to which it leads. Finally, it is secretly wondrous: the jewel sewn inside the robe was not placed there only later, and the hired laborer did not later become the elder's son. What was obscured was the recognition, not the jewel or the identity itself.

This forces us to ask again: Does the method I am using merely keep me where I am, or is it opening a gate? Do I treasure a particular experience because it can carry me forward, or because I have mistaken the threshold for the destination?

The ten pairs of provisional and real make the question more exact. Principle must be disclosed through events; teaching must be realized through practice; fruition must be accomplished through cause; and substance must be seen through function. A person seeks liberation from bondage as one might cross the sea by relying upon a corpse. A person enters the sudden through the gradual as one first rests in a conjured city and then advances toward the treasure place. The other side is not necessarily an enemy. Sometimes it is precisely the condition through which this side becomes manifest.

This does not mean that every detour automatically becomes a skillful means. The same name may stand outside the substance, serve as a gateway of entry, or disclose itself as what is entered; the name is the same, but its place in the meaning differs radically. Whether a method is skillful depends upon whether it can gather in the person before it. Whether a gateway is truly a gateway depends upon whether someone can enter through it. Even the “secretly wondrous” becomes more than consoling language only when the real is genuinely seen within skillful means.

The treatise repeatedly loosens grasping through four propositions. All dharmas are provisional, so one does not seal one's own explanation as absolute. All dharmas are real, so one does not divide reality into many mutually isolated enclosures. All dharmas are both provisional and real, so one sees both establishment and what is disclosed within a single dharma. All dharmas are neither provisional nor real, so even the newly established boundary cannot be grasped.

Opening the provisional to reveal the real therefore does not declare that everything earlier was without distinction, nor does it use a new reality to humiliate the road one formerly traveled. It tests every step: Does this step disclose principle, realize the teaching, accomplish the cause, and lead a person onward? If so, the former skillful means was not traveled in vain. If it merely makes one stop, even the most beautiful name for a gateway has not fulfilled the function of passage.

The next time you tell yourself, “This is only temporary,” ask one more question: What is this temporary thing opening for? The next time you want to reject an old road in its entirety, ask again: Without that step, would I truly have reached this moment?

The deepest secret of skillful means is not calling a crooked road straight. It is that, when the gateway really opens, you finally see that the skill which led you all the way here was never apart from the reality it was meant to reveal.

I. Brief Explanation of Three Meanings of Skillful Means

The explanation of the Skillful Means chapter has a brief and an extensive part. The brief explanation is itself divided into two: first an abbreviated explanation, and then an analysis.

In the first explanation, “method” is Dharma and “skillful” is use. Dharmas may be square or round, and their use may differ or converge. Three provisional Dharmas resemble a carpenter's square and are square; one real Dharma resembles a compass and is round. When wisdom penetrates the square, it can skillfully employ partial Dharmas to meet living beings. When wisdom penetrates the circle, it can skillfully employ the perfect Dharma to meet them.

To raise one finger partially and point toward a partial place, for example, is to raise a partial Dharma to indicate the wisdom corresponding to it: “method” should be explained through Dharma and “skillful” through use. To raise the whole hand and point toward the perfect place, however, means that “method” should be explained as secret and “skillful” as wondrous. Explaining skillful means through partial Dharmas chiefly accords with the desires of living beings and is not the Buddha's original intent. The scripture, for example, enables beings to leave every kind of attachment and escape the suffering of the three realms; the Tathāgata therefore earnestly praises skillful means. This meaning can explain other scriptures, but it is not the direct purport of this chapter.

The second explanation takes skillful means as a gateway. A gateway enables someone to pass through and leads toward the place to be reached. Provisional and abbreviated skillful means serve as inducements and form a gateway to the real. The meaning of the real can become clear through the work of skillful means, and skillful means receive their name from their ability to disclose the real. Explaining them as a gateway is therefore like the scripture's statement: “Open the gateway of skillful means and display the mark of reality.” This meaning can likewise explain other scriptures, but it is still not the direct purport of the present chapter.

In the third explanation, “method” is secret and “skillful” wondrous. Wondrous penetration of the method is the genuine secret. Someone points out the priceless jewel originally sewn inside another person's robe; that jewel is no different from the one bright jewel on a king's crown. Someone points out that the hired laborer is actually the elder's son; the laborer and the son are not two different people. Such an explanation is both secret and wondrous. The scripture says: “I alone know this true mark, and the buddhas of the ten directions do likewise.” It also says: “Stop, stop; it need not be said again. My Dharma is subtle, wondrous, and difficult to conceive.” Explaining “method” as secret and “skillful” as wondrous is therefore precisely the purport of the present chapter, which is accordingly titled “Skillful Means.”

II. Analysis of the Three Explanations and Four Propositions concerning Skillful Means and the Provisional

The three preceding explanations will now be analyzed. The first explanation, as method, separately establishes skillful means outside the substance. These are the expedients used when transforming living beings and are teachings in accord with others' intentions. The second explanation, as gateway, likewise separately establishes skillful means outside the substance. It includes provisionality in both one's own practice and the transformation of others and is taught in accord with the intentions of oneself and others. The third explanation, as secret and wondrous, concerns skillful means identical in substance with the real. It is the provisional belonging to one's own practice and is taught in accord with one's own intention.

The first kind of skillful means is neither a gateway that enables entry nor the principle entered. The second is a gateway that enables entry but is not the principle entered. The third is the principle entered but not a gateway enabling entry. Although the name is the same, the meanings therefore differ greatly. Most people fail to see this and interpret the Skillful Means chapter however they please. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Someone asks: “What is the relation between skillful means and the provisional?”

The answer can be distinguished through four propositions. First, skillful means break the provisional. Second, the provisional breaks skillful means. Third, skillful means cultivate the provisional and the provisional also cultivates skillful means. Fourth, skillful means are the provisional and the provisional is skillful means.

“Skillful means break the provisional” means that the four kinds of teaching are all secretly wondrous skillful means, and these skillful means can break the provisional taught in accord with others' intentions. “The provisional breaks skillful means” means that the provisional here is identical with the substance and can break skillful means separately established outside it. Mutual cultivation and mutual identity can be understood in the same way. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕 The first three propositions can explain other scriptures, while only the fourth expresses the purport of this chapter. The Correct Dharma Lotus therefore titles it the chapter “Skillful Provisionality”: provisional and skillful means are no different, and even bowing one's head or raising a hand can accomplish the Buddha path. Both skillful means and skillful provisionality are real.

III. The Extensive Explanation First Refutes Earlier Interpretations

The extensive explanation begins by listing earlier interpretations of provisional and real through the five periods.

First, before the twelfth year, seeing impermanent events was called provisional and seeing the principle of impermanence real, referring to the Abhidharma. Master Zhiyi says that the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom already classifies contemplation of impermanence as a counteractive Dharma belonging to the first three siddhāntas. How could it be classified directly as real? It is therefore not the meaning used in this chapter.

Second, in the Prajñā teaching after the twelfth year, seeing provisional existence was called provisional and seeing provisional existence as immediately empty real. Yet the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom also refutes this understanding: contemplative ideation has already been removed and verbal dharmas are all quiescent. If one is still observing provisional existence as immediately empty, this remains conceptual contemplation. It is therefore not the meaning used in this chapter.

Third, the Vimalakīrti Sutra and Questions of Brahmā Sutra call inward illumination of the two objects, emptiness and existence, real wisdom and outward transformation and responsive activity provisional wisdom. Master Zhiyi says that inward illumination and outward function are still divided into two sides and have not entered the gateway of nonduality. This is therefore not the meaning used in this chapter.

Fourth, one interpretation of the Lotus Sutra calls the three threes provisional and the four ones real. Master Zhiyi says that if the three provisional Dharmas never meet the real, while the one real Dharma has no relation at all to the three provisional Dharmas, this is still not the meaning used in the chapter.

Fifth, an interpretation of the Nirvāṇa Sutra calls impermanence before the vajra-like path provisional and permanence after it real. Master Zhiyi says that suchness before the path is also permanent, while cognition measuring in accord with things after the path still has provisional function. None of these five period-based distinctions of provisional and real is therefore used in this chapter. The two wisdoms of provisional and real described through the half-word, full-word, and four tenets likewise are not used here.

Another interpretation explains skillful means as temporary establishment and the real as truthful determination. Another explains skillful means as provisional skill and the real as wisdom. Another explains skillful means as provisional borrowing, like temporarily setting up three carts outside a gate. Another explains them as adaptation to what is appropriate, because three vehicles are taught in accord with what is fitting. Still another uses a balance weight as a metaphor for the provisional: moved toward the front of the beam it becomes heavy, toward the back it becomes light, and placed in the middle it balances, corresponding to buddha-wisdom's examination and measurement.

Each of these interpretations takes only one line of meaning. Temporary establishment and provisional borrowing concern only location; adaptation to what is appropriate concerns only a Dharma gate; and provisional skill and the balance weight concern only cognitive capacity. None can include the other levels, and their meanings neither interpenetrate nor become wondrous. They therefore cannot explain this chapter.

Another interpretation establishes four kinds of paired wisdom. The first pair takes one wisdom as provisional and one as real. The second pair consists of cognitions of emptiness and existence: observing emptiness without realizing it as a final attainment enables one to leave the two vehicles, while engaging existence without being defiled enables one to transcend ordinary beings. The third pair takes inward quiescent illumination of emptiness and existence as real and outward activation of function as provisional. The fourth distinguishes provisional and real through permanence and impermanence before and after the vajra-like path.

The first pair of wisdoms gives rise to faith, the second to understanding, the third is used to transform others, and the last belongs to fruition. These paired wisdoms also undergo three turnings. The first takes existence as conventional and emptiness as true. The second takes emptiness and existence together as conventional and neither-empty-nor-existent as true. The third takes emptiness and existence as dual and neither-empty-nor-existent as nondual, then classifies both dual and nondual as conventional and neither-dual-nor-nondual as true. Teaching and cognition are likewise divided.

Why are there these differences? They accord with people's capacities. Some do not understand the earlier statement but understand a later one, so the two truths are spoken differently. The Tathāgata constantly teaches through the two truths, and the two truths therefore have three gateways. Although the Buddha's teachings are numerous, they do not fall outside these three gateways. The differences also guide living beings gradually. Ordinary beings grasp mind and form as real, though they are not; the emptiness of Dharma-nature alone is true. Ordinary beings therefore abandon existence and choose emptiness. It is next said that emptiness and existence are both conventional and neither-empty-nor-existent is true. Some, after leaving the two extremes, become stuck in the middle path, so the third turning requires them to leave both extremes without attaching even to the middle. Only this is true.

This system draws in people of the five vehicles. It first leads ordinary beings to generate faith and leave existence, next leads those of the two vehicles into the middle path, and then leads bodhisattvas to relinquish the middle together with the partial. Those studying the middle path are also told that the three provisional designations belong to the world and the emptiness of the three designations is true; this obtains only the first level of meaning. At the second level, where the three provisional designations are not, emptiness and existence are both conventional and neither-empty-nor-existent is true. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

IV. General Refutation of Gradual Progression and the Direct Establishment of Four Propositions for All Dharmas

Master Zhiyi examines the preceding explanations in detail and judges that they rely incidentally upon the five periods to display their own purport and seek to avoid the fault of gradual steps. They may explain other scriptures, but they do not express the purport of this chapter.

The scripture says: “Enable all living beings alike to see.” How, then, can awakening be divided into different earlier and later times? It also says: “Directly relinquish skillful means.” How could one still use gradual steps to enter the perfect and wondrous? To classify the first as giving rise to faith, the second as giving rise to understanding, the third as transforming others, and the last as fruition—what does this have to do with the present scripture's enabling living beings to awaken and enter?

Vasubandhu lists seventeen names for the present scripture, the thirteenth being Greatly Skillful Means. The Mahāyāna Skillful Means Sutra further says that skillful means are tenfold, the ninth being skillful ingenuity, which can turn those of the two vehicles and enable them to enter the pāramitā of great-vehicle skillful means. From this we know that the present chapter speaks of the Tathāgata's skillful means embracing all dharmas, like open space containing the myriad forms or the ocean receiving every stream. How could one explain the great capital of the whole Dharma realm through only one branch or school belonging to various masters?

The direct explanation of provisional and real now begins with four propositions: all dharmas are provisional; all dharmas are real; all dharmas are both provisional and real; and all dharmas are neither provisional nor real.

First, all dharmas are provisional. The scripture says: “Dharmas possess such nature, mark, substance, power, beginning, end, and so forth.” Once even the slightest verbal establishment occurs, it belongs to the provisional.

Second, all dharmas are real. The scripture says: “The Tathāgata skillfully teaches the dharmas and delights the minds of living beings.” Living beings delight in entering the real. It also says: “Dharmas have always been quiescent and extinct.” It says again: “Everything the Tathāgata teaches reaches the ground of all-wisdom,” and “All is real and not false.” The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sutra also says that none of the four propositions can be expressed.

Third, all dharmas are both provisional and real. The scriptural expression “the real-as-it-is mark of all dharmas” simultaneously says that all dharmas are both provisional and real. Even the contemplation of impurity, for example, has one side that is real and one that is provisionally established. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Fourth, all dharmas are neither provisional nor real. The scripture says: “Neither as such nor different.” It also says: “Nor does one practice higher, middle, or lower dharmas, conditioned or unconditioned dharmas, real or unreal dharmas. Neither false nor real is the real-as-it-is mark.”

If all dharmas are provisional, what could not be broken? Even if there were hundreds of thousands of teachers and each presented hundreds of thousands of explanations, not one would fail to be provisional. If even the Tathāgata's verbal expression belongs to the provisional, how could the speech of human teachers necessarily be otherwise? Every preceding interpretation can be broken in this way.

If all dharmas are real, what could not be broken? The scripture says: “This one matter alone is real; the other two are not true.” There is only one ultimate path. How could there be many separate ultimate paths? All the preceding masters should break their attachments and enter the real. How could they continue to defend their own enclosures?

If all dharmas are both provisional and real, what could not be broken? Every dharma has both provisional and real aspects. How could one affirm only one's own path while denying all other interpretations? Each dharma contains provisional and real; it cannot be classified exclusively as either.

If all dharmas are neither provisional nor real, what could not be broken? Why continue the clamor and forcibly establish distinctions? Merely listing the names of the four propositions already has such power to break attachment. Even viewed from afar, their profound purport is this open and lofty; how much more so when their intent is examined further?

V. From the Derivation of Ten Dharmas to the Explanation of Each Pair

From the proposition that dharmas are both provisional and real, ten dharmas are now opened and explained in eight rounds. First their ten names are listed. Second their order of derivation is explained. Third each is explained separately. Fourth scriptures are cited as evidence. Fifth the ten are concluded as three kinds of provisional and real. Sixth the three kinds of provisional and real are distinguished as illuminating three kinds of two truths. Seventh provisional and real are judged according to the various scriptures. Eighth they are judged according to Origin and Trace.

First, the names. The ten are event and principle, principle and teaching, teaching and practice, bondage and liberation, cause and effect, substance and function, gradual and sudden, opening and gathering, shared and distinct, and siddhānta.

Second, their derivation. All dharmas are established from the foundation of nonabiding. Nonabiding is principle; all dharmas are events. Because there are principle and events, there is teaching. Because there is teaching, there is practice. Because there is practice, there are bondage and liberation. Because there is liberation, cause and effect are formed. Because there is effect, substance becomes manifest and can activate function. There are therefore gradual and sudden forms of transformation. Because gradual and sudden are opened, there are opening and gathering. Because there are opening and gathering, there are the two benefits, shared and distinct. Because the two benefits are distinguished, there are the four siddhāntas. This is the sequence of the ten divisions. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Third, each is explained separately.

Event and principle. Principle is suchness. Suchness is originally pure and always remains unchanged whether a buddha appears in the world or not; principle is therefore called real. Events are mind, mentation, consciousness, and the like, which can produce pure and impure karma and which change without fixity; events are therefore called provisional. Without principle, events could not be established; without events, principle could not become manifest. Events possess the work of disclosing principle, and the Tathāgata therefore earnestly praises skillful means.

Principle and teaching. The preceding principle and events are combined and, relative to what follows, both are called principle, just as ultimate and conventional truths are both called truths. Buddhas embody and realize this principle and become sages, and sages are precisely real. When the Buddha wishes to bestow downward upon beings the Dharma he has realized, he establishes verbal teaching in reliance upon principle; teaching is therefore provisional. Without teaching, principle could not be displayed. Principle becomes manifest through reliance upon the teaching, and the Tathāgata therefore praises skillful means. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Teaching and practice. Seeking principle in reliance upon teaching gives rise to correct practice. Practice has differences in the depth of its advance and is therefore called provisional; teaching itself does not advance more or less deeply and is therefore called real. Without teaching, practice could not be established; without practice, one could not realize the purport of the teaching. Realization of teaching depends upon practice, and the Tathāgata therefore praises skillful means. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Bondage and liberation. When practice opposes principle, it produces bondage. Bondage is deluded and therefore called provisional. When practice accords with principle, liberation arises. This liberation darkly accords with principle and is therefore called real. Without bondage, the mind seeking liberation would never arise; the attainment of liberation takes bondage itself as a condition. It is like relying upon a corpse to cross the sea: the corpse too has the power to help one reach the other shore, and skillful means are therefore praised.

Cause and effect. Cause has the function of advancing forward and being temporarily employed and is therefore called provisional. Effect brings cultivation to its endpoint and is permanently realized and is therefore called real. Without effect, cause would have no destination toward which to aspire; without cause, effect could not manifest itself. The two contemplations are therefore taken as the path of skillful means, severing delusion and forming the cause that enters the liberating effect of the middle path. Without the two contemplations, how could one accord with the middle? Effect is reached through cause, and skillful means are therefore praised.

Substance and function. The preceding skillful means are cause, while correct contemplation and entry into an abode are effect. Abiding and emerging are again distinguished as substance and function. Substance is the true mark and has no discrimination. Function establishes every differentiated dharma, like the earth giving rise to many kinds of sprout. Without earth, sprouts could not arise; without sprouts, the earth's generative power could not become manifest. Following the current one can reach the source, and inferring from function one can recognize substance. Function has the work of disclosing substance, and skillful means are therefore praised.

Gradual and sudden. After cultivating cause and realizing effect, function arises from substance. When function arises, it has both gradual and sudden modes; the present discussion concerns only this activation of function. Gradual function is provisional and sudden function real. Without gradual guidance, there is no way to enter the sudden Dharma. The real is attained through the gradual, and skillful means are therefore praised.

Opening and gathering. The gradual Dharma is opened from the sudden. The gradual cannot gather itself back by itself and cannot by itself unite with the sudden, so it is called provisional. When the gradual reaches its ultimate point, it returns and gathers into the sudden and is called real. Gathering can occur only after opening. Because opening has the power to accomplish gathering, it receives the name skillful means and is therefore praised.

Shared and distinct benefit. Shared benefit is that of the impermanent half-word; distinct benefit is that of the permanently abiding full-word. Yet the road to the benefit of permanence is distant and living beings can readily retreat along the way. A conjured city is therefore first used to guide them and give them a sense of peace. The conjured city is then dissolved, and they are led toward the treasure place. Without the benefit of the half-word, there would be no way to enter permanent abiding. The half-word has the function of displaying the full-word, and skillful means are therefore praised.

The four siddhāntas. The first three belong to the world and are therefore provisional; the siddhānta of ultimate meaning transcends the world and is therefore real. Without passing through the world one cannot transcend it. Only through the first three siddhāntas can ultimate meaning be attained, and the Tathāgata therefore praises skillful means. The preceding four propositions should be used to explain these ten rounds of provisional and real. Of them, the first three propositions express the meanings of other scriptures, while only the fourth is the purport of the present chapter. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

VI. The Fourth Round: First Citing the Whole Scripture Generally, Then the Present Chapter Particularly

Fourth, scriptures are cited as evidence. These ten meanings traverse both great and lesser teachings and extend throughout all dharmas. The Lotus Sutra is now taken first as evidence.

The scripture says: “He sees the three realms, yet his vision is unlike that of the three realms.” The three realms are events; vision unlike that of the three realms is principle. It also says: “Dharmas are quiescent and extinct and cannot be expressed in words.” This is principle. It says that the Buddha “taught the five bhikṣus through the power of skillful means.” This is teaching.

The scripture says: “Those able to hear this scripture have practiced the bodhisattva path well.” This witnesses teaching and practice. It also says: “What you practice is the bodhisattva path. When children of the Buddha complete their practice of the path, they will become buddhas in a future age.”

The scripture says that beings “seek the Buddha path through manifold causes and conditions” and also that “merely leaving the false is called liberation.” These witness bondage and liberation. It further says that beings “have not actually attained complete liberation,” that they must “fully practice all the Dharmas belonging to the path of the buddhas,” and finally “accomplish buddha-fruition at the place of awakening.” These witness bondage and liberation and cause and effect. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

The scripture says: “With the buddha eye I see living beings in the six paths. When these beings first see my body and hear the Dharma I teach, they all trust, accept, and enter tathāgata-wisdom, except those who previously cultivated and studied the lesser vehicle.” The first part witnesses substance and function, and the latter part gradual and sudden. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

The poor son first runs away, is later employed to remove filth, and finally obtains the family wealth, displaying opening and gathering. Travelers are first given rest in the conjured city and later led to the treasure place, displaying shared and distinct benefit. Manifold desires, natures and marks, recollections, and so forth display the four siddhāntas. This completes the general citation of the whole scripture.

The Skillful Means chapter will now be cited particularly. Although its quotations do not follow the order of the ten pairs, all ten kinds of scriptural wording are present.

“The wisdom of the buddhas is extremely profound and immeasurable; the gateway of their wisdom is difficult to understand and difficult to enter.” All events and principles, objects known and wisdom able to observe, and related matters are called real. The verbal teachings established to explain and distinguish them form the gateway of wisdom and are called provisional. This witnesses the provisional and real of principle and teaching. The scripture further says that this gateway is difficult to understand and enter and cannot be known by any śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha. This witnesses the provisional and real of bondage and liberation.

Why is this so? The passage from “The Buddha formerly drew near to innumerable buddhas” through “his name was universally heard” witnesses the provisional and real of teaching and practice. The passage from “he accomplished extremely profound and unprecedented Dharmas” through “what he teaches according to what is appropriate is difficult to understand in intent” witnesses the provisional and real of substance and function. “Since I became a buddha”—becoming a buddha is effect, and effect necessarily has a cause—witnesses the provisional and real of cause and effect.

The passage from “through manifold causes, conditions, and analogies” through “enable living beings to leave every attachment” witnesses the provisional and real of gradual and sudden. Why? Because “the Tathāgata's skillful means and knowledge and vision are all complete” further witnesses the provisional and real of opening and gathering.

“The buddhas appear in the world through the cause and condition of the one great matter in order to enable living beings to open, reveal, awaken to, and enter the Buddha's knowledge and vision” concerns provisional and real benefit. “To state the essential, the Buddha has accomplished all” displays accomplishment in the first three siddhāntas. “Stop, stop; it need not be said again” displays the siddhānta of ultimate meaning. Together these are the provisional and real of the four siddhāntas.

Why is this so? The passage from “The Buddha accomplished the foremost rare Dharma” through “the true mark of all dharmas” is principle. “That is, dharmas have such a mark” is event. This witnesses the provisional and real of principle and event.

This prose passage explains provisional and real for the five buddhas; the same is true for each. The Treatise on the Lotus Sutra interprets the profound wisdom of the buddhas as profound realization. Profound realization has five kinds: profound meaning, profound real substance, profound inward realization, profound basis, and unsurpassed profundity. Unsurpassed profundity is the realization of great awakening. The treatise further interprets the gateway of wisdom as the profound meaning of the teaching spoken. This corresponds to provisional and real in principle and teaching.

The Treatise on the Lotus Sutra interprets the Buddha's drawing near to hundreds of thousands of buddhas as profundity of cultivation, and courageous advance and a universally heard name as profundity in increasing qualities. These correspond to provisional and real in teaching and practice. It interprets accomplishment of profound and unprecedented Dharmas as profundity in wondrous events, and difficult intent and related statements as unsurpassed profundity and profundity of entry. These correspond to provisional and real in substance and function.

The treatise interprets “Since I became a buddha” as proclaiming the Dharma that accomplishes the Tathāgata's qualities. This corresponds to provisional and real in cause and effect. It interprets innumerable skillful means as accomplishment of teaching and transformation and accomplishment of teaching the Dharma. These correspond to provisional and real in gradual and sudden. It interprets the Tathāgata's completeness in skillful means and knowledge and vision through his profound and boundless entry as the accomplishment of an inconceivable object in his own person, surpassing all other bodhisattvas. This concerns benefit received.

The treatise further interprets being able to distinguish in many ways, delighting the minds of beings, and related statements as accomplishment in language. This concerns the giving of benefit and corresponds to provisional and real in benefit. It interprets stating the essential, stopping without teaching, and related statements as accomplishment concerning living beings capable of transformation. This corresponds to the four siddhāntas' distinction between those who can and cannot be transformed.

The treatise interprets “Only a buddha together with a buddha can exhaustively know” as accomplishment in immeasurable qualities, which only buddhas can know. The substance of the Tathāgata's Dharma body is unchanging, and therefore he can awaken and accomplish self-realization and can also teach the marks of all dharmas in accord with living beings. This corresponds to provisional and real in principle and events. This treatise explains the Buddha's scripture, and the present commentary's establishment darkly agrees with the intent of the two sages represented by scripture and treatise. It may be said to correspond both to sūtra and upadeśa.

VII. The Fifth Round: Concluding as Three Kinds of Provisional and Real and Three Explanations of the Chapter

Fifth, provisional and real are concluded. The ten dharmas traverse the four teachings and therefore form forty kinds of provisional and real. Take the Tripiṭaka Teaching as an example. The ten dharmas realized in one's own person are called provisional and real in one's own practice. Teaching the ten dharmas one has realized to living beings so that they receive benefit is called provisional and real in transforming others. The ten used to transform others are collectively called provisional, while the ten of one's own practice are collectively called real; this is also called provisional and real concerning oneself and others. The ten dharmas of each of the other three teachings are likewise gathered into three kinds of provisional and real.

Within each teaching, they are further distinguished as follows. The four pairs of event and principle, teaching and practice, bondage and liberation, and cause and effect belong to provisional and real in one's own practice. The two pairs of principle and teaching and opening and gathering belong to provisional and real in transforming others. The four pairs of substance and function, gradual and sudden, shared and distinct, and siddhānta belong to provisional and real concerning oneself and others. Although the names are the same, their meanings differ within each teaching.

To summarize further, whether spoken generally or particularly, the first three teachings belong within their own divisions to provisional and real in transforming others because they are taught in accord with others' intentions. Whether spoken generally or particularly, the Perfect Teaching belongs within its own division to provisional and real in one's own practice because it is taught in accord with one's own intention. Transformation of others in the first three teachings is wholly called provisional; one's own practice in the Perfect Teaching is wholly called real.

The four propositions are then concluded. Teaching in accord with others' intentions means that all dharmas are provisional. Teaching in accord with one's own intention means that all dharmas are real. Taking both self and others means that all dharmas are both provisional and real. Negating both self and others means that all dharmas are neither provisional nor real.

The chapter title is next explained in three rounds.

The first round concerns method. What is taught in accord with one's own practice and intention is the Dharma realized by the Buddha at the place of awakening. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sutra calls this attained through cultivation of the path, while the Summary of the Great Vehicle calls it cognition in accord with principle and cognition in accord with measure. These are the provisional and real of the Perfect Teaching in one's own practice, taught in accord with the Buddha's own intention. Although the Buddha can use skillful means to teach this inexpressible Dharma, living beings cannot receive it. If he initially used this Dharma alone to gather beings in, he could not benefit them. It is therefore said to be inexpressible, inexpressible.

Set this aside for the moment. If provisional and real in the Buddha's own practice are combined with those of the Distinct Teaching to gather in living beings, sharp greater-vehicle capacities can attain directly and dull ones indirectly; neither sharp nor dull lesser-vehicle capacities can attain. This broadly expresses the meaning of the Avataṃsaka.

Set this aside for the moment. If only the provisional and real of the Tripiṭaka Teaching are used to gather in living beings, both sharp and dull greater-vehicle capacities attain covertly but cannot attain in a clear and manifest way. Sharp and dull lesser-vehicle capacities only defend what they have realized and cannot obtain the great Dharma. This broadly expresses the meaning of the Tripiṭaka Teaching.

Set this aside for the moment. If the four kinds of provisional and real are used together to gather in living beings, sharp and dull greater-vehicle capacities can attain by crooked or direct routes; sharp and dull lesser-vehicle capacities still defend what they have realized and cannot attain. This broadly expresses the meaning of the Vaipulya teaching.

Set this aside for the moment. If the provisional and real of the Tripiṭaka are set aside and the remaining three kinds are used together to gather in living beings, sharp and dull greater-vehicle capacities can all attain; sharp and dull lesser-vehicle capacities still defend what they have realized and cannot attain. This broadly expresses the meaning of the Prajñā.

Set this aside for the moment. If the first three forms of provisional and real are set aside and only those of the Perfect Teaching in one's own practice are used to gather beings in, greater and lesser capacities, whether sharp or dull, can all attain. This broadly expresses the meaning of the Lotus.

There is nowhere the Tathāgata's wisdom does not penetrate. It clearly illumines the occasion and knows which methods can and cannot be used. The chapter title is therefore explained by taking “method” as the many methods and “skillful” as their apt employment. He aptly employs many methods to gather living beings in and benefit them and therefore earnestly praises skillful means.

The second round concerns gateway. All the provisional and real Dharmas realized by the Tathāgata himself are inexpressible. Out of compassion for living beings, the Buddha first teaches the provisional he himself realized as a gateway into the real. Yet it does not accord with the time for living beings, and they cannot enter through it. The personally realized Dharma therefore remains inexpressible.

If the provisional and real of the Distinct Teaching are taught as a gateway, sharp faculties can enter while dull cannot. It still does not fully accord with living beings and therefore cannot be taught. If the provisional and real of the Tripiṭaka Teaching are taught as a gateway, sharp faculties can enter covertly while dull still cannot. It remains inappropriate for living beings and therefore cannot be taught.

If three kinds of provisional and real used in transforming others are taught as gateways, sharp faculties can enter while dull cannot. The time is still not appropriate, so they cannot be taught. If two kinds used in transforming others are taught as gateways, sharp faculties can enter while dull still cannot. They too remain inappropriate and cannot be taught.

Finally, the three kinds of provisional and real used in transforming others are relinquished and only the provisional of the Buddha's own practice is taught. Both sharp and dull faculties can enter. From beginning to end, skillful means serve as a gateway into the real, and the Tathāgata therefore praises them. The chapter title means that skillful means are a gateway into reality, precisely in this sense. The first round says that the Tathāgata can know and employ skillful means; this round says that practitioners can follow them. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

The third round concerns secret wonder. Within what the Tathāgata himself realizes through cultivation of the path, every skillful means is itself real, but the real itself is inexpressible. Even if the Buddha can teach it, living beings cannot immediately accord with it.

The Buddha therefore uses the power of skillful means and, while teaching one identity, carries nonidentity with it: sharp faculties realize identity, while dull ones do not. He then teaches the one without teaching identity: sharp faculties can covertly become identical, while dull ones still cannot. He then teaches one identity while carrying three kinds of nonidentity: sharp faculties can realize identity, while dull ones cannot. He next teaches one identity while carrying two kinds of nonidentity: sharp faculties can realize identity, while dull ones cannot. Finally, he abolishes the three kinds of nonidentity and purely teaches that everything is identical. Sharp and dull faculties can then all realize identity and see the real within skillful means.

The first two rounds concern employing and following skillful means. This round says that skillful means are themselves the real. The real is the perfect cause, and the perfect cause is skillful means in one's own practice. Only now are these skillful means of one's own practice truly entered and realized. The preceding explanation of the chapter title said that skillful means are themselves the real. Because the name derives from skillful means in one's own practice, the chapter is called “Skillful Means.”

VIII. The Sixth Round: Distinguishing How Three Kinds of Provisional and Real Illuminate Three Kinds of Two Truths

Sixth, the truths illuminated are distinguished. The preceding discussion has concluded provisional and real generally, particularly, and within each teaching. The relation becomes easier to see when it is now explained in terms of what these wisdoms illuminate.

If the ten dharmas are used generally to explain the two wisdoms of one's own practice, they illuminate the two truths in accord with wisdom. If the ten are used generally to meet living beings' capacities, they illuminate the two truths in accord with beings' dispositions. If the four groups of provisional and real are gathered into two categories, they illuminate the two truths in accord with both dispositions and wisdom.

Within the individual divisions of each teaching, the four pairs of event and principle, teaching and practice, bondage and liberation, and cause and effect all concern personal realization and illuminate the two truths in accord with wisdom. The pairs of principle and teaching and opening and gathering belong to transforming others and illuminate the two truths in accord with beings' dispositions. The pairs of substance and function, gradual and sudden, shared and distinct, and siddhānta apply to both one's own practice and transforming others and illuminate the two truths in accord with both dispositions and wisdom. Illumination of the truths by the first three teachings is understood in the same way.

The thirty forms of twofold wisdom in the Tripiṭaka Teaching belong to the two wisdoms used to transform others and all illuminate the two truths in accord with beings' dispositions. The Shared and Distinct Teachings together have sixty kinds; these are the two wisdoms concerning oneself and others and illuminate the two truths in accord with both dispositions and wisdom. The Shared Teaching is also sometimes combined with the Tripiṭaka Teaching described above to illuminate the two truths in accord with dispositions. The thirty forms of provisional and real in the Perfect Teaching are the two wisdoms of one's own practice and illuminate the two truths in accord with wisdom.

To summarize again, whether explained generally or particularly, the first three teachings are conditions for attracting living beings and belong entirely to the two wisdoms used to transform others, illuminating the two truths in accord with dispositions. Whether explained generally or particularly, the Perfect Teaching belongs entirely to the two wisdoms of one's own practice, illuminating the two truths in accord with wisdom. If the real of the first three teachings is gathered as provisional and the provisional of the Perfect Teaching gathered as real, these are the two wisdoms concerning oneself and others illuminating the two truths in accord with both dispositions and wisdom.

IX. The Seventh Round: Judging Provisional and Real according to the Various Scriptures

Seventh, the various scriptures are considered.

In terms of teaching, the Avataṃsaka Sutra has only the full-word; in terms of time, only milk; in terms of Dharma, one kind belonging to one's own practice and one to transforming others; in terms of persons, it addresses only bodhisattvas. Those of the two vehicles are as though deaf and mute, and bodhisattvas with physical bodies are still unable to activate the provisional of one's own practice and the real in accord with wisdom. According to the present scripture, the Buddha had never before taught this matter to anyone.

In terms of teaching, the Tripiṭaka has only the half-word; in terms of Dharma, only one kind for transforming others; in terms of time, curds. According to the present scripture, people of the two vehicles stand outside the gate, dressed in filthy and tattered clothing and holding implements for removing excrement.

In terms of teaching, the Vaipulya speaks the full-word in contrast with the half-word; in terms of time, it includes curds while disclosing raw ghee; in terms of Dharma, it has three kinds for transforming others and one for one's own practice. According to the present scripture, the people of the two vehicles can already trust one another in their minds and enter and leave the Dharma wealth of the great vehicle without obstruction.

In terms of teaching, the Prajñā speaks the full-word while carrying the half-word; in terms of time, it includes raw ghee and becomes refined ghee; in terms of Dharma, it has two kinds for transforming others and one for one's own practice. According to the present scripture, those of the two vehicles are informed of everything taken in or paid out.

In terms of teaching, the Lotus abolishes the half-word and speaks only the full-word; in terms of time, it is pure clarified essence; in terms of Dharma, it has only one's own practice. According to the present scripture, it opens the provisional and reveals the real: “This truly is my son, born from me; I truly am the father.” He then entrusts the family estate to him and bestows a prediction of buddhahood. Everything left unspoken in the former teachings is now disclosed. Skillful means are directly relinquished and only the unsurpassed Buddha path taught. This is therefore the provisional of one's own practice, and the chapter is called “Skillful Means.” Other scriptures have either the two wisdoms concerning oneself and others or the two wisdoms used to transform others.

The matter may also be explained from another perspective on the capacities addressed. The Avataṃsaka addresses two kinds of bodhisattva and teaches one kind belonging to one's own practice and one used to transform others; it does not intend those of the two vehicles to hear or understand. The Tripiṭaka addresses the two vehicles and teaches one kind used to transform others. It does not principally address bodhisattvas and therefore does not have one's own practice. The Vaipulya addresses greater and lesser capacities together: for those of the two vehicles it teaches two kinds used to transform others, and for bodhisattvas one kind belonging to one's own practice and one used to transform others. The Prajñā likewise addresses three kinds of capacity and teaches one kind belonging to one's own practice and two used to transform others. It teaches one kind used to transform others for the two vehicles, and one kind belonging to one's own practice and one used to transform others for bodhisattvas.

The Lotus universally addresses those whose capacities have matured and clarifies only one kind belonging to one's own practice, no longer discussing transformation of others. The scripture says: “When bodhisattvas hear this Dharma, their net of doubt is entirely removed; the twelve hundred arhats will likewise all become buddhas.” All living beings enter skillful means in the Buddha's own practice, and the chapter is therefore called “Skillful Means.” 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

X. The Eighth Round: Judging Provisional and Real according to Origin and Trace

Eighth, Origin and Trace are considered.

In his original ground, the Tathāgata realized all provisional and real Dharmas long ago; this is called his own practice. In the intermediate period he extended manifestations and taught transformations that combined or carried different teachings. Extending a trace today, at the place of quiescent extinction he first teaches his own practice while carrying the Distinct Teaching used to transform others. He next teaches one kind for transforming others, then three kinds, then two, and finally the abolition of the three and related teachings. All these are called provisional and real in transforming others.

If the provisional in the Origin is gathered together and called real, while the real in the Trace is gathered together and called provisional, provisional and real concerning oneself and others are formed. The four propositions can then be concluded: all is real; all is provisional; all is both provisional and real; all is neither provisional nor real. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Śāriputra realized every provisional and real Dharma in his original ground; this is his own practice. When extending a trace at Deer Park, he received only what was used to transform others. At the Vaipulya assembly he received one Dharma and was humbled by three. At the Prajñā assembly he carried two kinds used to transform others and turned into one belonging to his own practice. At the Lotus assembly he abolishes the three and awakens to the one. All these are provisional and real in transforming others.

If the provisional in Śāriputra's original ground is gathered and called real, while the real in his trace is gathered and called provisional, provisional and real concerning oneself and others are formed, complete with the four propositions. 〔The remainder is abbreviated.〕

Explained through the Buddha's extension of traces, the title is “Skillful Means” because these are provisional and real in transforming others. Explained through guiding living beings into the perfect cause of their own practice, it is likewise “Skillful Means.” Explained through the provisional in Śāriputra's trace, it is “Skillful Means.” Explained through Śāriputra's entry from the provisional in his trace into reality, it is also “Skillful Means.” Because it possesses all these meanings, the chapter is called “Skillful Means.”

When people hear “skillful means,” two ideas readily arise. One is temporarily adopting a different method to accommodate present circumstances. The other is first traveling a shallower road and finally discarding it. Yet the skillful means disclosed by this chapter are not merely expedients awaiting elimination. Without skillful means, living beings cannot see the real; when their profound meaning fully opens, skillful means and the real are no longer two mutually isolated extremes.

The treatise therefore begins by explaining the title of one chapter. It progressively unfolds three meanings—method, gateway, and secret wonder—and then enlarges the same question through analysis, refutation of earlier interpretations, four propositions, ten pairs, three kinds of provisional and real, three kinds of two truths, the various scriptures, and Origin and Trace: the Dharma realized by a buddha cannot be expressed, while living beings possess sharp and dull faculties, so how can the real become a road that beings can enter and finally realize?

I. Method, Gateway, and Secret Wonder Are Not Three Synonyms

The first level concerns Dharma and its use. “Method” is an approach, and “skillful” is apt employment. Dharmas may be partial or perfect, while their use may differ in the capacities they meet. A compass describes the circle and a carpenter's square makes the square. When wisdom penetrates different methods, it can meet beings' capacities with a Dharma corresponding to what they seek. At this level, skillful means principally concerns the Buddha's ability to distinguish methods and know how to employ them well. Because they free beings from attachment and suffering, they deserve earnest praise. Yet they are still established in accord with beings' desires and are not the whole of what the Buddha originally wished to reveal directly.

The second level concerns a gateway. The meaning of a gateway lies not only in the gateway itself, but in its passage to what lies beyond it. A provisional and abbreviated teaching first serves as an enticement, enabling people to enter the real through it. The real becomes manifest through reliance upon this traversable gate. Skillful means here is no longer merely a method adopted at the appropriate moment; it has a definite direction and must lead a person toward the real. If one wanders before the gate or mistakes it for the destination, its function of passage remains unfulfilled.

The third level concerns secrecy and wonder. The priceless jewel within a robe and the single bright jewel on a king's crown were never two different things. The laborer hired outside and the elder's own son were always the same person. The first two levels still seem to ask, “What method should be used?” and “Through which gate should one enter?” The third instead reveals that the reality one has continually sought is not a separate object hidden beyond skillful means. When the secret treasury of what was mistaken for mere expedience is pointed out, it displays an indivisibly wondrous meaning.

The root treatise itself marks the boundary among these levels. The first two meanings can explain other scriptures; only the third directly expresses the purport of the present chapter. This does not make method and gateway useless. It means that this chapter cannot stop at “the provisional first and the real afterward.” It must take readers more deeply into how skillful means reveal the real and why, after disclosure, they are no longer separated from it.

II. The Name May Be the Same While the Position of Its Meaning Is Entirely Different

The analysis first distinguishes three explanations according to the relation between skillful means and realized reality. The first stands outside the substance: it is the provisional that transforms beings in accord with others' intentions. The second likewise stands outside the substance, but includes both one's own practice and the transformation of others and is taught in accord with the intentions of oneself and others. The third is skillful means identical in substance, the provisional belonging to one's own practice and taught in accord with one's own intention. Thus, although all three are called skillful means, the first is neither what enables entry nor what is entered; the second enables entry but is not what is entered; and the third is what is entered but not that which enables entry.

The central force of this distinction is that it refuses to let one name erase differences in position. At the level of words, all three forms of skillful means might resemble “a helpful method.” In their distance from the real, however, they differ as what stands outside the substance, what provides passage, and what is identical with the substance. One cannot leave unclear whether skillful means is an instrument that draws beings near the real or is the skill disclosed by the very reality entered.

The treatise next uses four propositions to distinguish skillful means and the provisional. It begins with mutual breaking: secretly wondrous skillful means can break the provisional taught in accord with others' intentions, while the provisional identical in substance can break skillful means standing outside the substance. It then speaks of mutual cultivation, in which skillful means and the provisional accomplish one another, and finally of mutual identity: skillful means is the provisional, and the provisional is skillful means. The first three levels can still explain other scriptures; only the final mutual identity is directed to the present chapter. Bowing one's head or raising a hand alike becoming the Buddha path shows precisely that skillful provisionality is no longer left outside the real.

Mutual breaking does not deny all earlier transformation, and mutual cultivation does not merely join two techniques. Step by step, they loosen a fixed image of the names. If one grasps the provisional as sheer falsity, one cannot see its ability to break attachment and bring accomplishment. If one grasps skillful means as forever remaining outside the gate, one cannot see their nondifference from the real in this chapter. The question and answer truly seek to break the habit of sealing the provisional and real into separate fixed entities.

III. Why List Earlier Interpretations at Length Only to Set Each Aside?

The extensive explanation first lists several groups of earlier interpretations. Some distribute the provisional and real through the five periods: they draw boundaries between impermanent events and principle, provisional existence and emptiness, inward illumination and outward function, the three threes and four ones, or permanence and impermanence before and after the vajra-like stage. Some use metaphors of temporary establishment, provisional skill, provisional borrowing, adaptation to circumstance, or a balance weight. Another group arranges four kinds of twofold wisdom according to giving rise to faith, giving rise to understanding, transforming others, and the stage of fruition. It then uses three turnings to guide people progressively from abandoning existence and choosing emptiness, through abandoning the two extremes and choosing the middle, to not attaching even to the middle.

The treatise does not reject these earlier interpretations because they contain nothing useful. It points out, one by one, that some take only a location, some only a Dharma gate, and some only cognitive capacity; some divide the provisional and real into two roads that never meet; and some establish a progression but still cannot explain the present scripture's purpose of enabling beings to see together and directly relinquish skillful means in order to awaken and enter. Each account resembles one branch or school, but none includes the great capital of the Dharma realm.

Refuting the old interpretations therefore does not add one stronger partial answer. It changes the scale of the question. If one asks only “Which period is provisional and which is real?” or “Which wisdom is still inwardly and which functions outwardly?” the answer will always remain in a tributary. This chapter instead asks how all dharmas are provisional, how all are real, how all are both provisional and real, and how all are neither provisional nor real. Only by returning every proposition to these fourfold perspectives can one avoid defending a single enclosure as the only ultimate answer.

IV. The Four Propositions Are Not Four New Enclosures

The first proposition says that all dharmas are provisional. Every word and statement has already become an establishment; even when the Tathāgata speaks, his discourse has a provisional aspect. This proposition breaks the fixation that any master's or teaching's account is an immovable entity. The second says that all dharmas are real. Living beings' true delight lies in entering the real; dharmas are originally quiescent and extinct, and what the Tathāgata teaches ultimately reaches the ground of all-wisdom. This proposition breaks the multiplication of coexisting ultimates and stops people from defending separate enclosures.

The third proposition says that all dharmas are both provisional and real. Establishment and what is disclosed can be seen simultaneously within one dharma. One cannot call one's own road entirely real and another's entirely provisional. The fourth says that all dharmas are neither provisional nor real. If one then grasps the first three propositions and establishes fixed boundaries between provisional and real, the fourth loosens those constructions as well.

The power of the four propositions therefore does not lie in supplying four labels from which to choose, but in preventing any label from sealing itself. Each asks what it does not break. If one grasps the provisional, the proposition of the real can break it; if one grasps the real, the proposition of the provisional can break it; if one arranges the two as fixed extremes, simultaneous illumination and the double negation can still break that. Opening the provisional to reveal the real does not cut the world into two new halves. It enables the provisional no longer to obstruct the real and prevents the real from being established as another object of grasping.

For this reason, the treatise does not stop with the elevated four propositions. It immediately opens ten dharmas from the proposition of being both provisional and real. If the four propositions served only abstract discussion, they could not explain how a scripture teaches, how a practitioner advances, or how a course of transformation leads a person from bondage to liberation. The ten pairs bring the broad perspective down into concrete relations.

V. The Ten Pairs Are Not a Classification Table, but a Path of Derivation

The ten names in order are event and principle, principle and teaching, teaching and practice, bondage and liberation, cause and effect, substance and function, gradual and sudden, opening and gathering, shared and distinct, and siddhānta. They are not ten parallel drawers. All dharmas are established from the foundation of nonabiding: where there is principle, there are events; teaching is established in reliance upon principle, and practice arises in reliance upon teaching. Practice contrary to principle brings bondage, while practice accordant with it brings liberation. Liberation forms cause and effect; when effect is accomplished, substance becomes manifest and function arises. Function has gradual and sudden modes; gradual and sudden have opening and gathering; opening and gathering bring shared and distinct benefits; and differing benefits are further distinguished through the four siddhāntas.

This line of derivation shows that provisional and real are not two labels pasted onto the surface of things. Principle remains constant while events change with mind and karma; events are provisional and principle real, yet without events principle has no way to become manifest. A teaching established in reliance upon principle is provisional, and the principle it discloses is real. But in the pair of teaching and practice, teaching does not change according to depth of advance and is therefore called real, while practice has shallower and deeper degrees and is therefore called provisional. The same “teaching” changes position in different relations. This shows that provisional and real must be understood through the function being completed.

Bondage is deluded and therefore provisional; liberation accords darkly with principle and therefore real. Yet a person may also rely upon a corpse to cross the sea, seeking liberation through bondage. Cause is provisionally employed during advance and is therefore provisional; effect is the ultimate realization and therefore real. Yet without cause, effect does not manifest by itself. Substance is nondiscriminating and therefore real; function establishes the many dharmas and is therefore provisional. Yet if the earth did not produce the hundred grasses, its power could not be known. The provisional is not refuse deserving contempt. It is praised precisely because it ferries to the shore, accomplishes the effect, and discloses substance.

The gradual is provisional and the sudden real, yet without gradual guidance there is no entrance into the sudden. The gradual is opened from the sudden; opening before gathering is provisional, while enabling the gradual ultimately to return and gather into the sudden is real. Shared benefit temporarily provides peace, while distinct benefit guides toward the distant goal. Although a conjured city is not the treasure place, people exhausted by the journey may never continue without an intermediate guide. The first three siddhāntas belong to the world and are provisional, while ultimate meaning is supramundane and real. Yet without the first three forms of adaptation and guidance, ultimate meaning cannot become a gateway that the beings presently before the Buddha can enter.

Together, the ten pairs reveal a relational grammar: neither side can independently complete its work apart from the other. Principle must be disclosed through events, teaching realized through practice, liberation sought from bondage, effect accomplished through cause, substance known through function, the sudden entered through the gradual, gathering accomplished through opening, distinct benefit approached through shared benefit, and ultimate meaning opened as a gateway through speech adapted to capacity. Skillful means are not a detour away from the real precisely because, within every pair, they perform the function through which the real can be disclosed, realized, and entered.

VI. How Do Citations Return the Ten Pairs to the Scripture?

If the ten pairs arose only through conceptual deduction, they might still become another self-contained theory. The treatise therefore first cites the whole scripture generally, then the present chapter particularly, and finally brings the Treatise on the Lotus Sutra into correspondence. In its general citation of the whole scripture, what is seen in the three realms and vision unlike that of the three realms disclose event and principle; quiescence beyond verbal expression and teaching the five bhikṣus disclose principle and teaching; hearing the scripture and wholesome conduct disclose teaching and practice; separation from falsity and not yet attaining total liberation disclose bondage and liberation; completing every Dharma of the buddhas' path and attaining buddhahood at the place of awakening disclose cause and effect. The poor son, the conjured city, and other parables keep opening and gathering, and shared and distinct benefit, joined to the actual journeys of persons in the scripture.

When the present chapter is cited particularly, the ten pairs do not appear in the preceding order, but every one can be located in the prose. Profound buddha-wisdom and its gateway disclose principle and teaching. Difficulty of understanding and entry and the inability of the two vehicles to know disclose bondage and liberation. Drawing near to buddhas and advancing with courage disclose teaching and practice. Accomplishing the profound and teaching according to what is appropriate disclose substance and function. Becoming a buddha and that through which buddhahood is accomplished disclose cause and effect. Manifold causes and conditions that free beings from attachment are gradual and sudden. Completeness in knowledge and vision of skillful means is opening and gathering. The one great cause and condition enabling beings to open, reveal, awaken to, and enter is benefit. “To take the essential” and “Stop, stop” disclose the four siddhāntas. The true mark of all dharmas and “such a mark” return to principle and event.

These correspondences do not mean that the root scripture wrote ten labels in advance for a commentator to fill in one by one. They show that, if the ten pairs genuinely explain this chapter, they must be calibrated through the movement of the scripture's language. A theory of provisional and real that works only in abstract classification but cannot return to buddha-wisdom, the gateway of wisdom, the one great matter, and the true mark of all dharmas remains a tributary and cannot explain the chapter's great capital.

The treatise further brings into correspondence such meanings from the Treatise on the Lotus Sutra as profound, cultivation, qualities, teaching and transformation, benefit, living beings capable of transformation, and Dharma body. Scripture, root commentary, and treatise do not stand here so that a later text can cover over an earlier one. They verify one another: the relations of provisional and real opened by the commentary can both traverse the whole scripture and find corresponding passages in the prose of this chapter and in the treatise's explanation.

VII. Three Kinds of Provisional and Real Make the Three Explanations One Arc of Transformation

The ten pairs next conclude as three kinds of provisional and real: one's own practice, transformation of others, and both oneself and others. One's own practice is the Dharma personally realized by a buddha; transformation of others is teaching established for living beings; and oneself-and-others joins what is realized to what is taught. When the three return to the three explanations at the opening, they disclose three connecting arcs: the Buddha knows and employs methods; skillful means serve as a gateway into the real; and when skillful means are opened to their ultimate point, they are nondual with the real.

Seen as method, the question is how the Buddha clearly knows what the time requires. Living beings may be unable to receive the direct expression of what he realized; establishing teachings according to their different capacities does not mean leaving them permanently within different attainments. Throughout one course of transformation, the Buddha employs differing forms of provisional and real according to the sharpness and dullness of greater and lesser capacities. Sharp and dull lesser capacities transformed by the Tripiṭaka Teaching merely defend what they have realized and still cannot be gathered in. In the present chapter, sharp and dull capacities, both greater and lesser, can all be gathered in. The value of the many methods is finally disclosed by whether living beings are truly gathered in.

Seen as gateway, the question becomes whether practitioners can follow skillful means. The provisional of the Buddha's own realization can be called a gateway, yet living beings may still fail to enter it. Other forms of provisional and real can each enable some to enter, while others remain unable. Only when the provisional of the Buddha's own practice alone is taught and both sharp and dull enter does skillful means fulfill from beginning to end the meaning of a gateway. A gateway does not automatically become effective when it is described. Its completion depends upon whether those being guided reach what it opens onto.

Seen as secret and wondrous, the question is no longer only how one arrives, but what one sees upon arrival. The reality realized by the Tathāgata is originally inexpressible. Through the power of skillful means, he takes what is not directly identity and speaks it as identity, allowing the sharp to realize identity first and the dull afterward. After they have been matured level by level, he finally teaches purely that all is identity, enabling both sharp and dull to see the real within skillful means. At that point, skillful means are not a shell enclosing the real, nor is the real a solitary thing remaining only after every skillful means has been dismantled. Skillful means are themselves the real; the real becomes the perfect cause; and only here are the skillful means of one's own practice truly entered and realized.

This chapter is the pivot for opening the provisional to reveal the real because all three levels are completed at once. The methods were not employed in vain, because they finally gather living beings in. The gateway does not stop outside itself, because it finally lets sharp and dull alike enter. The secret treasury is not separately located in a distant place, because people see the real within skillful means themselves. If one says only, “What came before was false, and only now is true,” the deepest turn among the three levels remains unseen.

VIII. Why Does the Scale Continue to Expand from Three Kinds of Two Truths to Origin and Trace?

The sixth round illuminates the three kinds of two truths through the three kinds of provisional and real formed by the ten pairs. The two wisdoms of one's own practice illuminate the two truths in accord with wisdom; the two wisdoms used to transform others illuminate the two truths in accord with beings' dispositions; and the two wisdoms concerning oneself and others illuminate the two truths in accord with both dispositions and wisdom. This does not open a new and unrelated terminology. It turns what preceded—“the Buddha's own realization,” “establishment for others,” and “the meeting of self and other”—toward the wisdom that illuminates and the truths illuminated: how a teaching accords with the dispositions of living beings, how realization becomes clear in accord with buddha-wisdom, and how the two meet in transformation.

The seventh round further distinguishes the teaching, time, Dharma, and persons addressed in the various scriptures. Different stages may address bodhisattvas alone, principally concern the two vehicles, or address great and lesser vehicles together; the provisional and real used in one's own practice and transforming others differ accordingly. By the time of the Lotus, those whose conditions have matured are universally present in one assembly, the net of doubt surrounding bodhisattvas is removed, and arhats too will become buddhas. This larger lens shows that sharp and dull, crooked and straight, able and unable to enter are not abstract capacities, but the actual positions occupied by beings throughout an entire course of transformation.

The eighth round finally considers Origin and Trace. The Buddha realized every provisional and real teaching in the distant past; the many teachings of the intermediate period and present are traces extended to transform others. Śāriputra originally realized every provisional and real teaching, yet within his trace received different transformations in succession and awakens and enters in this chapter. Gathering the provisional in the Origin as real and gathering the real in the Trace as provisional again yields provisional and real concerning oneself and others and the four propositions. The name “Skillful Means” can therefore be explained through how the Buddha extends traces, how he guides beings to enter the perfect cause, and how Śāriputra receives provisional teachings in the Trace and enters the real there.

The passage begins with the title of one chapter and ends at the distant Origin and Trace of the Buddha and his disciple. It has not drifted farther and farther from its subject. It is testing whether skillful means, if they truly form the great capital of the Dharma realm, can explain more than one time, person, or form of discourse. They must simultaneously explain how the Buddha activates function from his own realization, how living beings enter through the gateway, how what was received in the past is disclosed today, and why provisional and real no longer obstruct one another after disclosure. At this point the chapter title is no longer only a heading. It becomes a miniature of the entire movement of transformation.

Through the Eye of the Wenjuji

Zhanran first marks the boundary in time and scriptural meaning among the three opening explanations: “The first two follow the former teachings; the latter belongs to the present scripture”〔T34n1719 0209c01〕. The root treatise twice says that the preceding meanings can explain other scriptures while the third is precisely the purport of the present chapter. The distinction therefore becomes not merely a choice among three definitions, but a path for reading how what was formerly employed is disclosed today. The first two are not erased because they belong to earlier teachings. When the three explanations are later unfolded through the sequence of teachings, Zhanran explicitly says “The first two together become the third meaning”〔T34n1719 0217b13〕, showing that both method and gateway are opened into secret wonder in the present chapter.

The question and answer concerning skillful means and the provisional appear to list three groups: mutual breaking, mutual cultivation, and mutual identity, yet the root treatise calls them four propositions. Zhanran explains: “In the explanation, the pair of mutual breaking divides into two propositions, while mutual cultivation and mutual identity each form one, together making four”〔T34n1719 0210c22〕. This count preserves both directions of mutual breaking without dividing mutual cultivation and mutual identity into competing extremes. When the present four propositions are explained, he further says “These very four propositions still mutually include and break one another”〔T34n1719 0213c09〕, warning that the four cannot be read as newly enclosed compartments.

Concerning the eight rounds of the ten dharmas, Zhanran judges “Among these eight, the first seven belong to the Trace Gate and the eighth to the Origin Gate”〔T34n1719 0214b26〕. He also gathers the levels of citation as “Within the scripture, the whole work is cited first and one chapter next”〔T34n1719 0215c09〕. Evidence from the whole scripture first tests whether the ten pairs can traverse the entire work; evidence from the present chapter then tests whether they adhere to the prose immediately before the reader. The sequence does not heap up quotations, but progressively narrows the evidentiary domain. Concerning the treatise, Zhanran establishes a particular limit: “Next the treatise is cited. It differs slightly from the Treatise, which has only eight pairs and lacks opening-and-gathering and bondage-and-liberation”〔T34n1719 0216b02〕. Agreement between commentary and treatise therefore does not mean that all ten pairs were simply copied from the latter; the correspondences and small differences must both remain visible.

The fifth round is called “concluding the enumerated heads” in the mirror〔T34n1719 0216c25〕. Its function is to gather the ten pairs into three categories—one's own practice, transforming others, and both oneself and others—and then let each of the three opening explanations traverse the sequence of transformation. The sixth round turns from illuminating wisdom toward the three kinds of two truths it illuminates. The seventh enlarges the view to the various scriptures, and only the eighth reaches Origin and Trace. This sequence shows that the final four rounds are not additional information after the ten pairs have ended. They successively complete gathering, redirected illumination, the sequence of teachings, and the lengthened scale of Origin and Trace.

In the extensive refutation of old explanations, Zhanran assigns one anonymous group in the root treatise as “In the tendency of its meaning, much of this was formerly established by Jiaxiang”〔T34n1719 0211c27〕. This personal attribution comes from the later mirror and cannot be retroactively inserted as though Zhiyi had explicitly named him. At the root treatise's citation of the Mahāyāna Skillful Means Sūtra, Zhanran directly notes “The ten skillful means in the Mahāyāna Skillful Means Sūtra have not been checked”〔T34n1719 0213b18〕. Since the mirror expressly leaves the matter unchecked, a later reader cannot declare a present passage the unique original proof merely because its title resembles the citation. The first example preserves authorship layers; the second preserves the boundary of evidence. Both show that the mirror not only supplements meaning but also marks what the text does not allow one to determine.

Zhanran nevertheless explicitly says “Next, the Origin-and-Trace interpretation is not yet the purport of the chapter”〔T34n1719 0218b18〕. Although Origin and Trace can be brought into correspondence with the name “Skillful Means,” it is not the first locus of the present chapter's meaning. If the final round is allowed to obscure the secretly wondrous explanation at the opening, the main line loses focus. At the end of the aligned passage, Zhanran further supplies a question absent from the root treatise: “Someone asks: What does the present Skillful Means chapter take as its substance?”〔T34n1719 0218c19〕. He answers “If one takes what it relies upon, its substance is the provisional that is real; if one takes its own substance, its substance is the real that is provisional”〔T34n1719 0218c23〕. Reliance and own-substance are mutually identical, so the chapter's substance cannot be split into two unrelated entities.

The mirror's strongest conclusion remains the opening of the first two meanings into the third. Method enables the Buddha to gather beings in according to what is appropriate; gateway enables living beings to enter the real through the provisional; secret wonder discloses the nondifference of skillful means and the real. These are not three parallel columns, but a road from being able to employ, through being able to enter, to the disclosure of what is entered itself. Zhanran's mirror supplies counts, divisions, and limits without manufacturing a separate answer to replace the root treatise. It clarifies the pivot of opening the provisional to reveal the real while keeping every later judgment under its own attribution.