妙法蓮華經文句 安樂行品 · 口・意・誓願安樂行

We readily take blunt speech for courage. When we see someone’s shortcoming, we say that we are only stating the facts; when we see that another’s learning is not ultimate, we say that we are defending the Dharma.

Yet Zhiyi’s first question is not: Are you right? It is: What will happen after these words enter the other person’s heart?

Praise Zhao’s strength in Zhang’s presence, and Zhang may hear it as using Zhao to mock Zhang. Speak of Zhao’s weakness before Zhang, and Zhang may think that you will speak of him elsewhere too. One-sided praise of the Two Vehicles may cause someone to retreat from the Great and adopt the Lesser; one-sided condemnation may leave him with neither Great nor Lesser. Words have their literal meaning, but they also leave wounds within relationships.

The peaceful practice of speech, then, is not the mastery of a smooth manner. Resentment means feeling that another person obstructs my path; aversion means deciding that another is base. Before any sound has emerged, the mind has already chosen whom to wound. If one merely closes one’s mouth while resentment and aversion continue to surge within, the source of fault-finding has not been stopped.

Yet not opposing another’s intent does not mean constant accommodation. Zhiyi holds two things together: do not oppose the person, and do not violate the Dharma. The real difficulty is neither to use Dharma to crush a person nor to lose Dharma in order to please one; it is to discern capacities without presuming that one has already seen them through.

The peaceful practice of mind goes one step further inward. Jealousy harms compassion; flattery and crookedness harm wisdom. Scolding others with the perfect Dharma one understands may even dismantle the wholesome roots they already possess. One imagines oneself pushing them higher, while first removing the ground on which they can stand.

Vow therefore changes the speaker’s position. One no longer waits for sentient beings first to ask, believe, and understand before deciding whether to help. One vows beforehand that, wherever one may be, one will find a way to draw in those who have not yet heard or known. Compassion is not a reward given after the other person performs well; it is the direction one first undertakes oneself.

Nor is the wheel-turning king’s bright jewel withheld forever. Fields, houses, towns, clothing, and vehicles are awarded according to merit; only when great merit has been established does the king unbind his topknot and give the jewel. If it is given too soon, people instead become doubtful and astonished. This is not stinginess with the real, but a refusal to let what is most precious become a new obstruction when it cannot yet be borne.

The next time you are eager to point out someone’s fault, pause first:

Are these words protecting the Dharma, or protecting my own superior position?

Will they help the other person take one more step, or remove the only footing now available?

Am I waiting until this person deserves help, or have I already vowed not to abandon them?

Peaceful ease does not hide the truth. It enables the real at last to be borne, without compassion first piercing the person before it arrives.

I. The Peaceful Practice of Speech: First Restraining Four Verbal Faults

Second is the peaceful practice of speech, which is also divided into prose and verse. The prose has two parts: first it marks the heading, and then it explains the practice. The practice is further divided into restraint and contemplation.

There are four restraints. First, one does not speak of faults in people or scriptures. Listeners may incur faults on account of a teaching, but how could the Dharma spoken by the Buddha itself be said to have faults? The seven expedient teachings were spoken by the Buddha in accord with sentient beings’ inclinations. Although called teachings of incomplete meaning, they remain the Buddha’s expedient teachings. Attacking these teachings will distress the people who receive them, which is not the character of a peaceful practice.

Second, one does not disparage. One may not rely on one’s own perfect practice to scorn partial approaches, nor honor only the real while belittling the provisional.

Third, one does not speak of others’ strengths and weaknesses. The sutra first refers generally to all people and then specifically names śrāvakas. People dislike hearing their faults discussed, so one must not speak of their weaknesses. Praising someone to their face may also make another person present feel condemned, so one must not speak of strengths. For example, one may not praise Zhao’s strengths before Zhang, causing Zhang to think that Zhao’s strengths are being used to mock Zhang’s weaknesses. Nor may one speak of Zhao’s weaknesses before Zhang, because Zhang will think: if this person can condemn Zhao behind his back before me, he can also condemn me behind my back before Zhao. For this reason, one stops speaking of both good and bad.

On not speaking of strengths and weaknesses, the treatise also cites the first chapter of the Rizang: reduce sleep during the first, middle, and last watches of night; diligently sit in meditation, recite scriptures, and cultivate the Way; turn away from birth and death and toward the road to nirvāṇa; do not speak of others’ shortcomings or proclaim one’s own strengths; remain humble and deferential without exalting oneself; be content with clothing and food, diligently cultivate ascetic practices, and avoid negligence; bind the mind to reflection and do not let it race outward; arouse loving-kindness and compassion for all sentient beings. It also cites the practice of emptiness taught in a sutra: recite it oneself and teach others to recite it; do not slander others, speak their faults, or proclaim one’s own strengths.

The capacities of śrāvakas are not yet fixed. Praising the Two Vehicles may cause some to retreat from the Great Vehicle and adopt the Lesser. Condemning the Two Vehicles may cause them to lose faith in both Great and Lesser, leaving them with neither. Not praising or condemning does not mean failing to distinguish the meaning of Dharma, but refusing to sever or wound another’s capacity to receive Dharma through praise and blame.

Fourth, one does not produce resentment or aversion. Thinking that a person or teaching obstructs one’s path is resentment; thinking that another is base and inferior is aversion. As soon as the mechanism of mind moves, speech follows from the mouth. To cut off the source of fault-finding, one must prevent even resentment and aversion from arising.

II. The Peaceful Practice of Speech: Contemplating Emptiness Without Opposing People or Violating Dharma

From “skillfully cultivating such a peaceful mind” onward comes the gate of contemplation. One should contemplate all dharmas as empty, appropriate nothing, and not rigidly cling. Because one neither opposes people’s intentions nor violates the true character of Dharma, one does not answer difficult questions with Lesser-Vehicle teachings but explains only through the Great Vehicle.

Here it is still necessary to distinguish whether the other person’s capacity has been seen. If one knows that the person lacks a Great-Vehicle capacity, teaching the Lesser Vehicle can bring expedient benefit. If one has not seen that the person lacks such a capacity but nevertheless teaches the Lesser, one may obstruct that person’s Great-Vehicle connection. When the capacity is equally indiscernible, teaching only the Great Vehicle entails no fault.

The verse of the peaceful practice of speech has sixteen and a half lines in three sections: the first two lines repeat the heading, the next nine and a half repeat the practice, and the last five teach the accomplishment of practice.

The first two lines expand the prose’s general statement of peaceful practice into three forms of practice. Wishing the listener before one to obtain the secure path and fruit is the meaning of entering the Tathāgata’s chamber. Preparing a seat in a pure place is the meaning of sitting on the Tathāgata’s seat. Anointing the body with oil and washing away dust is the meaning of donning the Tathāgata’s robe. These three dharmas together guide verbal karma and are therefore called the peaceful practice of speech.

The nine and a half lines beginning with taking one’s place on the Dharma seat have two sections: five and a half lines first repeat restraint, and four lines then repeat contemplation. All four earlier restraints are repeated here.

First, explaining in response to another’s question is half a line repeating not disparaging others. A mind that disparages does not genuinely teach in response to a question.

Second, the two and a half lines from a bhikṣu coming to ask through answering according to meaning repeat not speaking of strengths and weaknesses: one answers only according to meaning and does not discuss whether people are good or bad. Answering according to meaning further divides into what can and cannot be answered. When two parties challenge one another through questions and answers, compare relative strength, and each can recognize victory and defeat, this is the speech of the wise and can be answered. To exercise power wantonly and say that anyone who dares dissent will be executed is the speech of a king and should not be met with a contest for victory. To know neither strengths and weaknesses nor right and wrong and seek only to win is the speech of a fool; one likewise should not enter that contention.

Third, the line and a half from teaching through causes, conditions, and similes through causing people to enter the Buddha Way further repeats not delighting in speaking of faults in people or teachings. Speaking another’s faults arouses poisonous thoughts in them. By not speaking faults, one allows them to become joyful, arouse resolve, and enter the Buddha Way, for the Buddha Way arises from joy.

Fourth, the line on removing indolent thoughts repeats freedom from resentment and aversion. When resentment and aversion arise, indolence, sorrow, and affliction follow. Teaching Dharma with loving-kindness and without resentment or aversion enables diligence without sorrow. The prose speaks of the four as stopping evil, while the verse speaks of them as actively practicing good.

The following four lines repeat the gate of contemplation. The prose says to answer only through the Great Vehicle, while the verse says constantly to teach the unsurpassed Way day and night. The prose says to enable others to attain knowledge of all modes, while the verse says to vow that they accomplish the Buddha Way.

The last five lines teach accomplishment of the peaceful practice of speech. The first line marks that accomplishment. The next two say that when jealousy and other faults are absent within, external difficulties do not arise, just as flies do not gather where there is no foul-smelling object. The next line says that a wise person who practices accordingly possesses wholesome dharmas within, and the practice is therefore accomplished. “As I explained above” means the prose when speaking of freedom from faults within, and the verse when speaking of wholesome qualities present within. The last line measures that person’s merit.

III. The Peaceful Practice of Mind: Four Restraints and Four Contemplations That Reverse Them

Third is the peaceful practice of mind, which also has prose and verse. The prose has three sections: heading, explanation of the practice, and conclusion. The practice again treats restraint first and contemplation afterward.

There are four restraints: no jealousy or crooked flattery, no disparaging abuse, no disturbing others, and no contentious attachment. Two-Vehicle practitioners seek to leave birth and death quickly and first remove desire; bodhisattvas first remove anger and wrong views. Jealousy is a stain of anger, while flattery and crookedness are stains of wrong views. Jealousy violates loving-kindness and compassion and is not a method for teaching others; deception and flattery violate wisdom and are not a method of self-cultivation. If wisdom is obstructed, how can one seek the Buddha Way above? If compassion is hindered, how can one transform sentient beings below? Bodhisattvas practicing peaceful ease must therefore abandon jealousy and flattery above all.

Second, one must not disparage or abuse. One may not use the perfect practice to rebuke someone cultivating the Distinct teaching. If one knows the person’s capacity, admonition may be possible; if one does not know it, one must not scold, because the person may retreat from wholesome roots.

Third, one must not disturb others. One likewise may not use the perfect practice to rebuke someone cultivating the Shared teaching. If the other person originally lacks a Great-Vehicle capacity, forcing the perfect practice upon them opposes their mind and causes disturbance. The Shared practice already cultivated has been condemned, while the Perfect has not yet been understood; first doubt and then regret arise, and both Great and Lesser are lost. “Far from the Way” means that the course is circuitous and disturbs a practitioner of the Distinct teaching. “Cannot attain” means sinking into emptiness and grasping realization, which disturbs a practitioner of the Shared teaching. “Indolent” means rejecting birth and death; the Lotus of Compassion calls Lesser-Vehicle practitioners indolent.

Fourth, one must not contend through partial attachment. This appears by reversal in the contemplation of teaching equally: when one clings to one side and argues with others, one cannot teach equally in accord with sentient beings’ capacities.

Contemplation also has four items, each reversing one of the four evils above. First, arouse great compassion for all sentient beings, reversing jealousy and flattery. Second, regard the Tathāgata as a loving father, reversing disparagement and abuse. Everyone seeking the Buddha Way is a person engaged in learning; one should respect students as one respects the Buddha and must not disparage them. The sutra speaks of the tathāgatas in the plural, extending through past, present, and future; a student presently seeking the Buddha Way is a future tathāgata.

Third, regard bodhisattvas as great teachers, reversing disturbance. In principle, practitioners of all three vehicles are bodhisattvas. They possess the virtue of teaching and guiding sentient beings and are their teachers. One should therefore regard them as great teachers and not speak their shortcomings.

Fourth, teach Dharma equally, reversing contention. Equality breaks partial attachment and contention, but it does not mean speaking equally much or equally little to everyone. It means measuring whether listeners’ capacities are sharp or dull and teaching neither too much nor too little.

The conclusion of the peaceful practice of mind has two points. Because the four evils have been restrained, evil cannot be inflicted upon the practitioner, and no one can disturb them. Because the four contemplations have been cultivated, excellent people gather and the practitioner obtains good fellow students.

The verse on the peaceful practice of mind has six lines. The first five repeat restraint and contemplation, each of which has four meanings; the last repeats accomplishment of practice. The counts correspond before and after and may not be collapsed into a vague goodwill.

IV. The Peaceful Practice of Vows: First Distinguishing the Fields, Then the Reasons for Arousing Vow

Fourth is the peaceful practice of vows, with prose followed by verse. The prose first teaches the practice and then praises how difficult the sutra is to hear. The practice has three levels: heading, principal teaching of the practice, and conclusion.

The principal teaching has three parts. First, it marks the fields toward which vows are directed. Second, it explains the reasons for arousing vows. Third, it formally establishes the vows.

The fields of vow first divide into loving-kindness and compassion. The field of the vow of loving-kindness includes all who have previously aroused an expedient resolve. Those not yet beyond the three realms are called householders, while those who have exhausted the shared delusions are called renunciants; together these include two kinds of Two-Vehicle practitioners and three kinds of bodhisattvas. They still possess ignorance and could also be objects of great compassion. Yet because they have all already aroused resolve and accord with the vow of loving-kindness, one should give them the joy of the perfect path and perfect fruit. Thus the sutra says to arouse great loving-kindness toward them.

The field of the vow of compassion is persons who are not bodhisattvas and includes all who have never aroused an expedient resolve. They do not turn toward expedients at all, much less the real. This field includes all beings within the three realms. They too need joy, but because they wander without limit, they now correspond most immediately to the compassionate vow of rescue; the causes and fruits of their offenses should be removed. Thus the sutra says to arouse great compassion.

Next come the reasons for arousing vows. The first is the reason for loving-kindness: some cherish the Lesser Vehicle, take the Buddha’s expedient teaching as ultimate reality, and cannot enter the perfect path, thereby suffering a great loss. This great loss is the reason for arousing the vow of loving-kindness.

The second is the reason for compassion. Those who have not aroused a partial or perfect resolve have neither heard, known, nor awakened to either the partial or perfect paths. Regarding the partial path, not hearing means lacking the wisdom of hearing; not knowing means lacking the wisdom of thinking; not awakening means lacking the wisdom of cultivation. The same three wisdoms are also absent regarding the perfect path. Why are all three absent? Because they have not asked, they have not heard; because they do not believe, they do not know; because they do not understand, they do not cultivate. They possess none of the three wisdoms on either the partial or perfect side and neither the provisional nor the real. They are profoundly worthy of compassion, and this is the reason for arousing the vow of compassion.

V. Formally Making the Vow and the Threefold Accomplishment of Practice

Next the vow is formally made. Although these beings do not ask or believe in this sutra, the bodhisattva does not make a vow in terms of a partial path, but seeks only to give them the three wisdoms of the perfect path. The bodhisattva therefore vows: when I attain unsurpassed complete awakening, wherever they may be, I shall guide them through the powers of supernormal ability and wisdom and cause them to abide in this Dharma.

Vow, awakening, wisdom, and supernormal power are all obtained through cultivating the peaceful practices. Deep contemplation of the Tathāgata’s seat brings the power of wisdom, adorned with four kinds of eloquence, and enables one to rescue beings through wisdom. Deep contemplation of the Tathāgata’s chamber and robe brings a vast, excellent, quiescent power by which one manifests many forms of deportment without entering the concentration of cessation. Supernormal powers are adorned by merit and first move beings through concentration; wisdom then rescues them.

From the Buddha’s next address to Mañjuśrī onward comes the conclusion on accomplishment of practice, in three levels.

First, the general conclusion says that there are no faults, which is accomplishment of practice. How is the practice accomplished? Establishing the great vow accomplishes the practice of entering the Tathāgata’s chamber. Knowing that the fourfold assembly has lost the perfect path accomplishes the practice of sitting on the Tathāgata’s seat. Binding one’s mind through vow so that it does not become indolent accomplishes the practice of donning the Tathāgata’s robe. Only when all three practices are established can practice be called accomplished. Having no faults means that because loving-kindness and compassion are accomplished, there is no fault of the stain of anger; because the Tathāgata’s robe is accomplished, there is no indolence; because the Tathāgata’s seat is accomplished, there is no crooked flattery.

Second, the accomplishment of loving-kindness and compassion is concluded separately. Because loving-kindness is accomplished, bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, male and female lay disciples, people, and devas are gathered to make offerings and hear Dharma. Because vow is accomplished, the Buddha’s supernormal protection is elicited and the devas also guard the practitioner. Because the Tathāgata’s seat is accomplished, listeners become joyful.

Third, the treatise explains why the practice of vow can be accomplished. Even the buddhas of past, present, and future protect this sutra; how much more should the devas protect its practitioner?

VI. Why the Sutra Is Difficult to Hear: Six Levels of the Simile of Not Giving the Jewel

The following passage praises how difficult the sutra is to hear, first through direct teaching and then through simile. The direct teaching has two points: it was not explicitly taught in the past and therefore could not formerly be obtained; only today can it be heard. The simile also has two points: not giving the jewel represents its not having been explicitly taught in the past; giving the jewel represents its finally being heard today. Each simile has both an opening of the simile and an application of its meaning.

The simile of not giving the jewel has six levels. First, a powerful wheel-turning king subdues countries through might. Second, lesser kings refuse his command. Third, the wheel-turning king sends various armies to punish them. Fourth, the king sees that his soldiers have earned merit in battle and rejoices. Fifth, he awards various things according to their merit. Sixth, he alone does not give away the bright jewel in his topknot.

The wheel-turning king represents the Tathāgata transforming the world, while subduing the countries represents confronting the objects of the aggregates, elements, and sense fields. The lesser kings represent afflictions and the like that have not yet been subdued by the uncontaminated Dharma and are therefore called disobedient to the king’s command.

The armies also follow a sequence. Methods among the seven worthy stages represent the vanguard; methods among stream-enterers and once-returners represent the next army; methods among nonreturners and arhats represent the rear army. The bandits to be defeated are the eighty-four thousand combinations of greed, anger, delusion, and equal shares of all three. The officers and troops that defeat them are the eighty-four thousand Dharma gates. The king’s delight upon seeing the army’s merit constitutes the fourth level.

In the fifth level, each award according to merit has its sequence. A field represents samādhi and a house represents wisdom. Villages represent the first and second fruits, a town the third fruit, and a city nirvāṇa. Clothing represents wholesome dharmas such as shame and forbearance; bodily ornaments represent aids to the Way; the various seven treasures represent the factors of awakening and related dharmas; elephants, horses, and vehicles represent the Two Vehicles’ knowledges of exhaustion and nonarising; servants represent supernormal powers; and people represent the contaminated wholesome dharmas attained. These awards and their corresponding meanings must retain the order given by the treatise.

At the sixth level, the jewel is still not given. A capacity for escaping segmented birth and death counts only as lesser merit; a capacity for escaping transformational birth and death counts as great merit. If the jewel in the topknot were suddenly given without great merit, the ministers would be astonished. This represents suddenly teaching this sutra before sentient beings’ Great-Vehicle capacities have moved: Two-Vehicle practitioners would doubt and bodhisattvas would be astonished. Each of the six levels has a corresponding application and must be applied in sequence without skipping an item.

VII. Giving the Jewel, the Fourteen-and-a-Half-Line Verse, and the Chapter’s Twenty-Three-Line Conclusion

The simile of giving the jewel has two points: great merit is first established, and then the jewel is given. The jewel’s brightness represents middle-way wisdom and its roundness represents permanence. Its position on the crown represents what the ultimate fruit honors; its concealment in the topknot represents the real covered by expedients. Unbinding the topknot represents opening the provisional, and giving the jewel represents revealing the real.

The application also has two levels. Causing someone to reach all wisdom uses wisdom as the name of the fruit and is called the one practice. “The foremost teaching” is the one teaching. “The secret treasury” is the one principle and also includes the one person. These four ones retain the treatise’s original sequence.

The verse of the peaceful practice of vows has fourteen and a half lines in two sections: the first four repeat the practice, and the next ten and a half repeat the praise of the sutra.

Within the first four, the first line first repeats accomplishment of practice out of sequence. Constantly practicing forbearance repeats accomplishment in donning the Tathāgata’s robe; pitying all beings repeats accomplishment in entering the Tathāgata’s chamber; only then being able to expound the sutra repeats accomplishment in sitting on the Tathāgata’s seat. The following three lines on transmitting the sutra in the final age then repeat the cultivation of the practice in order. The fields, reasons, and vows found in the prose are all repeated in the verse.

The next ten and a half lines repeat the difficulty of hearing the Dharma. The prose contains direct teaching, simile, and application; the verse repeats only simile and application. The simile first uses three lines to repeat not giving the jewel, then one line to repeat giving it. The application first uses three and a half lines to apply not giving the jewel, then three lines to apply giving it.

The twenty-three-line verse beginning with the Buddha’s statement concerning the time after his extinction is the third major section of the chapter. It concludes with the signs elicited by accomplishment of practice and exhorts cultivation. It has three sections: the first one and a half lines conclude and exhort the four practices; the next twenty and a half use three retributions to exhort, also called the purification of three obstructions; the last line concludes. Purification of the three obstructions exhausts evil karma of the present, next, and later lives, bringing excellent retributions in the present, next, and later lives.

First, the one line on freedom from sorrow is the transformation of the retributive obstruction and transforms present retribution. Reciting this sutra removes present sorrow and affliction, thereby eliminating the mental retribution of painful feeling; freedom from illness and the like transforms bodily retribution.

Second, the half line on not being born poor is the transformation of karmic obstruction and transforms next-life retribution. The cause of evil karma should produce an evil fruit, but the sutra’s power transforms the evil cause and brings a good fruit. Not being born poor means that one who upholds the sutra does not create the karma of poverty now and will not be born in a lowly station in the next life.

Third, the nineteen lines beginning with sentient beings delighting to see the practitioner are the transformation of the afflictive obstruction and transform later retribution. The nineteen lines have two sections: the first three teach separately the transformation of the obstructions of greed, anger, and delusion, while the following sixteen teach generally the transformation of all obstructions.

Of the three afflictive obstructions, first, one line on sentient beings delighting to see the practitioner teaches the transformation of the obstruction of greed. A person with many desires is slighted by others and is obstructed by desire from rebirth in the Brahmā heaven. When the obstruction of desire is transformed, people delight to see that person and heavenly youths serve them. Second, the line and a half on weapons being unable to harm teaches the transformation of the obstruction of anger. Abandoning anger removes inner blades and arrows, while outer weapons cannot injure one even when one enters battle. Third, the half line on the light of wisdom teaches the transformation of the obstruction of delusion.

VIII. Six Stages in Dreams: Later Retribution Disclosed in a Single Dream-Thought

The sixteen lines beginning with seeing wondrous events in dreams teach generally the transformation of all afflictive obstructions and also belong to the transformation of later retribution. When one who upholds the sutra experiences these dream signs now, one should know that they were accomplished long ago and are now disclosed upon encountering conditions. Signs of the causes and fruits of buddhahood also belong to future later retribution, so the person sees signs of future retribution in dreams. Events of hundreds of thousands of myriads of kalpas appear in one dream-thought, showing the inconceivability of the Wondrous Dharma: the immeasurable appears within one and the one remains within the immeasurable. The sign appears first, and the fruit will be accomplished later.

The dream signs further divide into six stages, from initial faith through wondrous awakening and the manifestation of the eight marks of buddhahood. All are ways in which the Tathāgata adorns the practitioner and are the retribution of forbearance.

First, the initial three lines show entry in dreams into the ten faiths. The first two and a half are the retribution of compassion, and the last half is the retribution of right view free of delusion.

Second, the six and a half lines beginning with again seeing buddhas show entry in dreams into the ten abodes. The statement that one realizes irreversible wisdom and receives prediction shows entry into the first abode, realization of nonarising, and the stage of receiving prediction.

Third, the three phrases beginning with again seeing oneself in a mountain forest show cultivation in dreams of the ten practices, because cultivating wholesome dharmas in a mountain forest represents the ten practices.

Fourth, the one phrase on realizing the true mark of all dharmas shows awakening in dreams to the ten dedications, whose meaning at this stage is right contemplation of the middle way.

Fifth, the half line on entering deeply into concentration shows entry in dreams into the ten grounds: on the tenth ground one enters the stainless samādhi and diamond concentration, the buddhas appear, touch one’s crown, and confer office.

Sixth, the five lines beginning with the golden bodies of the buddhas show entry in dreams into wondrous awakening and the manifestation of the eight marks of buddhahood. Another reading is also preserved: this may show that the first abode can already manifest the eight marks of buddhahood, while the preceding sequence provisionally speaks of ultimate awakening. The treatise preserves both readings, and neither may be erased.

The final line beginning with the evil age to come concludes accomplishment of practice.

IX. Two Explanations of the Five Faculties, the Eightfold Right Path and Four Fruits, and Five and Seven Causes

The treatise next explains the five faculties, first according to ordinary practices. The faculty of faith is unshakable faith in the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha. The faculty of diligence is attainment of the four right efforts. The faculty of mindfulness is contemplation of the four applications of mindfulness, with diligent skill used to subdue greed and sorrow. The faculty of concentration is attainment of the four dhyānas. The faculty of wisdom is understanding the four truths and knowing them as they are.

A separate explanation treats all five faculties in terms of arousing resolve toward the Tathāgata. The faculty of faith is the pure faith obtained by arousing the aspiration to awakening toward the Tathāgata. The faculty of diligence is the diligence that arises from the resolve directed toward the Tathāgata. The faculty of mindfulness is the mindfulness that arises from that resolve. The faculty of concentration is the samādhi that arises toward the Tathāgata. The faculty of wisdom is the wisdom that arises toward the Tathāgata. The two explanations are each complete and may not be blended into one.

The eightfold right path is the path practiced by renunciants and is also the Dharma of renunciants. Exhausting greed, anger, and all afflictions is the meaning of a renunciant, while the four stages are the fruits of renunciation.

Regarding dreams, everyone from a stream-enterer through a pratyekabuddha dreams. Only a buddha does not, because a buddha has neither doubt nor habitual residues.

Dreams may arise from five things: doubt, discrimination, habitual learning, present events, and a nonhuman being coming to speak. A separate account teaches seven things, including what has been experienced, heard, and seen and various illnesses. Five and seven are two inherited accounts and may not be added to invent twelve causes.

X. Four Questions and Answers on Dreaming and Sleeping

First question: present consciousness cannot directly see visible forms, so how can the mental faculty see them in a dream? Answer: everything that appears in a dream has previously been seen or heard and thus appears through imagination; it may also be an auspicious or inauspicious sign.

Second question: a dream contains neither supernormal knowledge nor knowledge of past lives, so how can it show events in a future life? Answer: this is not an object of knowledge born of resolve, but something known through inference from similar cases. Other people have had such dreams and later experienced such results; one can infer by comparing the same kinds of dreams and results.

Third question: who sleeps? Answer: beings in the five paths and in the intermediate state sleep; fetuses whose faculties are complete also sleep; even the Buddha sleeps.

Fourth question: sleep ordinarily belongs to delusion and is a covering that obstructs consciousness, so how can it be said that the Buddha sleeps? Answer: the Buddha manifests sleep only to regulate the body; it is neither sleep under a covering nor the sleep of delusion.

The wheel-turning king has already awarded fields, houses, towns, clothing, jewels, vehicles, servants, and people one by one to those who have earned merit, yet he still will not surrender the bright jewel in his topknot. This is not stinginess, but discernment of what a person can bear at that moment. Refraining from speaking faults, abandoning jealousy and flattery in the mind, and establishing vows of loving-kindness and compassion all do the same thing: they do not use one’s own sharpness to cut another’s capacities, yet neither do they lose the Buddha Way into which one means to lead others merely to accommodate them.

I. How Can Speaking One True Sentence Still Fail to Be a Peaceful Practice?

The question is not only whether what is said is true or false, but how the words enter another person’s life.

The treatise first establishes four restraints of speech. One does not speak of the faults of people or scriptures because expedient teachings, though not ultimate, were still spoken by the Buddha in accord with sentient beings’ inclinations; attacking what someone studies often harms the person who receives it at the same time. Not disparaging means not relying on the perfect and real that one understands to scorn the partial and provisional on which another depends. Not speaking of strengths and weaknesses is more than a ban on discussing people behind their backs: preferentially praising one person to their face may make another present feel condemned. Praise Zhao’s strength before Zhang, and Zhang may hear it as using Zhao to mock him; speak of Zhao’s weakness before Zhang, and Zhang may infer that he too will be condemned behind his back. Once words enter relationships, they no longer possess only their literal meaning.

Stopping both good and bad talk therefore does not abolish discernment; it stops turning people’s strengths and weaknesses into instruments of speech. The faculties of śrāvakas are not fixed. One-sidedly praising the Two Vehicles may cause someone to retreat from the Great and adopt the Lesser; one-sidedly condemning them may cause the person to lose both Great and Lesser. The speaker may merely wish to declare what they honor, yet the listener may thereby lose the path they could previously walk.

The fourth restraint returns speech to its source in mind. To feel that a person or Dharma obstructs one’s path is resentment; to regard another as base is aversion. Before a sound emerges, the mechanism of mind has already moved. If one controls only the mouth while permitting resentment and aversion to grow within, the source of speech has not been sealed. The peaceful practice of speech is therefore not a system of polished rhetoric, but a protection of both Dharma and persons from the moment before the mind moves.

II. Can One Avoid Opposing a Person’s Intent Without Violating the Character of Dharma?

If one seeks only not to oppose another’s intent, teaching easily becomes accommodation; if one speaks only the Dharma as one has defined it, one may entirely disregard whether the other person can receive it. The treatise places both sides within contemplating all dharmas as empty: only because one neither appropriates nor rigidly clings can one avoid opposing the person while also not violating Dharma.

The key is whether one has truly discerned the person’s capacity. If one knows that the person lacks a Great-Vehicle capacity, teaching the Lesser Vehicle can still give expedient benefit. If one has not actually seen the absence of that capacity but directly answers with a lesser teaching, one may obstruct the person’s Great-Vehicle connection. When the capacity is equally uncertain, speaking only the Great Vehicle avoids the fault of lowering it.

The verse turns this contemplation into a scene of teaching. A pure place and Dharma seat are prepared; oil is applied, the body is bathed, and dust removed; then Dharma is taught in security. Chamber, seat, and robe are not furnishings. Wishing the listener to obtain the secure path and fruit is entering the chamber; taking one’s seat in a pure place is sitting on the seat; cleansing the body and putting on the robe is donning the robe. Together the three guide verbal karma, giving the act of teaching a bodily and mental position able to bear content that is correct.

Answering as one is asked does not mean accepting every dispute. The treatise distinguishes three kinds of speech. When two people question and challenge one another so that relative strength can be discerned and each can recognize victory or defeat, this is the speech of the wise. When someone relies on power and declares that any dissenter will be executed, this is the speech of a king. When someone cannot distinguish strength, weakness, right, or wrong and only wants to defeat the other, this is the speech of a fool. Only the first still seeks meaning; the latter two have dragged the answer into power and contest. Answering according to meaning means recognizing which question can still open into Dharma.

Why can refraining from speaking faults bring someone into the Buddha Way? Speaking faults arouses poisonous thoughts in the other person; not speaking them preserves joy, and the Buddha Way arises from joy. When resentment and aversion are absent, indolence, sorrow, and affliction do not follow. What the prose calls stopping evil the verse turns into the active practice of good.

III. Is It an Inner Odor That Draws External Difficulty?

When the peaceful practice of speech is accomplished, the treatise uses an exceedingly direct simile: if there is no foul-smelling object, flies do not gather. External attacks do not all originate in oneself, but a practitioner first examines the side one can address—whether jealousy, resentment, aversion, competitiveness, and the odor of fault-finding remain within.

This simile must not be reversed into the claim that anyone who suffers difficulty must be at fault. Its direction is a practitioner’s self-examination: when there are no inner faults, fewer conditions invite outer difficulty; when wholesome qualities are present within, the practice can be accomplished. The former is what the prose says one does not do; the latter is what the verse says one actively does. Peaceful ease does not mean that the outer world now contains no adversity, but that one no longer produces avoidable adverse conditions through verbal karma.

The measurement of merit is also placed last. If one begins by calculating how much merit one will gain, refraining from speaking strengths and weaknesses may become another form of self-adornment. The treatise completes restraint, contemplation, inner freedom from faults, and inner possession of good before it says that the merit cannot be measured. The sequence itself is an admonition: accomplishment of practice comes first; measurement comes afterward.

IV. Why Does the Peaceful Practice of Mind Name Jealousy, Flattery, Abuse, Disturbance, and Contention Instead of Merely Speaking of a Good Heart?

Because a good heart that does not confront its concrete distortions can easily remain only a picture one has formed of oneself.

The four mental restraints first name four failures: jealousy and flattery, disparagement and abuse, disturbing others, and contentious attachment. Jealousy is a stain of anger and damages the compassion that teaches sentient beings below; flattery and crookedness are stains of wrong views and obscure the wisdom that seeks the Way above. Seeking above and transforming below are not two paths walked separately: when wisdom is obstructed, one has no means to seek above; when compassion is harmed, one has no means to transform below. If either side fails, the peaceful practice cannot stand.

Disparagement, abuse, and disturbance especially test whether the speaker genuinely knows another’s capacity. To abuse someone practicing the Distinct teaching with the perfect practice may cause a retreat from wholesome roots. To use the perfect practice to coerce one who has no Great-Vehicle capacity and is practicing the Shared teaching first repudiates what that person already practices; because they still cannot understand the Perfect, they then fall into doubt and regret and lose both Great and Lesser. The speaker believes that they are pushing someone forward, but instead removes the footing already present.

After evil is stopped, the four contemplations do not introduce a second collection of pleasing names; each reverses a preceding distortion. Great compassion for all sentient beings reverses jealousy and flattery. Regard for the Tathāgata as a loving father reverses disparagement and abuse, because every student seeking the Buddha Way is a future tathāgata. Regard for bodhisattvas as great teachers recognizes that all three vehicles possess the virtue of teaching sentient beings and therefore does not speak their shortcomings. Teaching Dharma equally removes partial attachment and contention.

Equality does not erase distinctions. Precisely because capacities may be sharp or dull, what is said must be neither too much nor too little. To cast exactly the same amount of speech upon everyone is merely formal sameness. Genuine equality does not strive for victory through one’s own attachments and enables each person to receive Dharma corresponding to their capacity.

The accomplishment of practice also has an inner and an outer sign. When restraint of evil is accomplished, evil has no opening through which to inflict harm, and no one can disturb the practitioner. When contemplation is accomplished, good people naturally gather, and one obtains worthy friends and fellow students. The former does not expel enemies by force, and the latter does not deliberately assemble companions; both appear through transformation at the level of mind.

V. If Loving-Kindness and Compassion Both Take Sentient Beings as Their Objects, Why Distinguish Two Fields?

Distinguishing the fields does not divide beings into those worthy and unworthy of love. It discerns which mode of giving is most fitting now.

Those who have previously aroused an expedient resolve but have not reached culmination include two kinds of Two-Vehicle practitioners and three kinds of bodhisattvas. They still possess ignorance and therefore also need release from suffering, but because they have already aroused resolve they correspond to the vow of loving-kindness; its immediate emphasis is giving them the joy of the perfect path and fruit. Those who have never aroused an expedient resolve do not yet turn toward expedients, much less the real. Because they wander without end through the three realms, the immediately corresponding vow is compassion, which removes the causes and fruits of their offenses. Loving-kindness and compassion are named from the aspect most immediate in each case; the other aspect is not absent.

The grounds for arousing the vows also differ. To cherish the Lesser Vehicle, cling to expedients as real, and fail to enter the perfect path is the great loss seen by the vow of loving-kindness. Those who have never aroused a partial or perfect resolve lack the wisdoms of hearing, thinking, and cultivation on both sides: because they do not ask, they do not hear; because they do not believe, they do not know; because they do not understand, they do not cultivate. This threefold lack gives rise to the vow of compassion.

When formally making the vow, the bodhisattva does not wait for others first to ask and believe. The bodhisattva vows that, after attaining unsurpassed awakening, wherever those beings may be, they will be guided through the powers of supernormal ability and wisdom and caused to enter this Dharma. Supernormal power first moves them through concentration; wisdom then rescues them through eloquence. One side makes them willing to draw near, while the other enables them genuinely to understand.

Vow also brings chamber, seat, and robe into view again. Because the great vow is established, the practice of entering the Tathāgata’s chamber is accomplished. Because the loss of the perfect path by the fourfold assembly is seen, the practice of sitting on the Tathāgata’s seat is accomplished. Because one binds one’s own mind through vow and does not become indolent, the practice of donning the Tathāgata’s robe is accomplished. When loving-kindness and compassion are accomplished there is no stain of anger; when the robe is accomplished there is no indolence; when the seat is accomplished there is no crooked flattery. Here robe, chamber, and seat have become powers within vow rather than merely forms assumed before teaching.

VI. Why Does the Wheel-Turning King Award Everything Except the Jewel?

Because the awards are not a random heap, but a map on which merit corresponds to what is received.

The wheel-turning king transforms the world. The lesser kings remain disobedient, just as afflictions have not yet been subdued by the uncontaminated Dharma. Methods within the seven worthy stages are like the vanguard; methods within stream-entry and once-returning are like the next army; methods within nonreturning and arhatship are like the rear army. The eighty-four thousand bandits are greed, anger, delusion, and their equal combinations; the eighty-four thousand Dharma gates are the officers and troops. Only after the army has defeated the enemy does the king award according to merit.

Fields correspond to samādhi and houses to wisdom; villages are the first and second fruits, a town is the third fruit, and a city is nirvāṇa. Clothing is wholesome dharmas such as shame and forbearance; bodily ornaments are aids to the Way; the seven treasures are the factors of awakening and related dharmas; elephants, horses, and vehicles are the knowledges of exhaustion and nonarising; servants are supernormal powers; people are contaminated wholesome dharmas. Every object in the simile has its place and cannot be reduced to an undifferentiated multitude of rewards.

Yet a capacity for escaping segmented birth and death constitutes only lesser merit; a capacity for escaping transformational birth and death constitutes great merit. If the bright jewel were suddenly surrendered before the great capacity had moved, Two-Vehicle practitioners would doubt and bodhisattvas would be astonished. Not giving it does not mean never giving it, but not giving prematurely while the conditions for bearing it remain immature.

Once great merit has been established, the king unbinds his topknot and gives the jewel. Its brightness represents middle-way wisdom; its roundness represents permanence; its position on the crown represents what the ultimate fruit honors; its concealment in the topknot represents the real covered by expedients. Unbinding the topknot is opening the provisional; giving the jewel is revealing the real. Concealment never abolished the real, but waited for the time when it could be received correctly.

Giving the jewel therefore does not negate all the preceding rewards. Fields, houses, towns, clothing, and vehicles each answer to their own merit; the jewel answers to great merit. To say that every prior reward lacks value because the jewel is most honored would repeat the very privileging of the real and scorn for the provisional forbidden by the peaceful practice of speech.

VII. Once the Jewel Has Been Given, Why Does the Sutra Turn to Three Retributions and Dreams?

Because hearing the most profound Dharma does not occur only in understanding; signs that the practice has been accomplished must also appear in the retributions of a life.

The concluding verse of the chapter first uses one and a half lines to exhort practice, then twenty and a half lines to teach the purification of three obstructions, and finally one line to conclude. Freedom from sorrow is the transformation of the retributive obstruction within present-life retribution: painful mental feeling is removed, while bodily illness and the like are also transformed. Not being born poor is the transformation of karmic obstruction within next-life retribution: one ceases in the present to create the karma of poverty and is not born in a lowly station in the next life. From sentient beings delighting to see the practitioner onward comes the transformation of the afflictive obstruction within later retribution.

Later retribution first treats greed, anger, and delusion separately. When the obstruction of desire is transformed, people delight to see the practitioner and divine youths may serve them. When the obstruction of anger is transformed, the inner blades and arrows are first removed, and outer weapons cannot harm them even upon entering battle. When the obstruction of delusion is transformed, wisdom shines. The following sixteen lines no longer distinguish them item by item, but use dream signs to show generally the transformation of all afflictive obstructions.

A dream compresses extremely long causality into a single thought: events of hundreds of thousands of myriads of kalpas appear within one dream-thought; within one is the immeasurable, and the immeasurable remains within one. This does not mean that every stage has actually been completed in the dream. Rather, a sign of later retribution appears in advance. The sign appears first and the fruit is accomplished later; they are connected but cannot be conflated.

Six dream sections extend from the ten faiths, ten abodes, ten practices, ten dedications, and ten grounds to wondrous awakening. Within the ten faiths, the dream first shows the retribution of compassion and then right view free of delusion. Seeing buddhas, hearing Dharma, and receiving prediction disclose the ten abodes. Cultivating wholesome dharmas in a mountain forest discloses the ten practices. Realizing the true mark of all dharmas discloses the ten dedications. Entering deeply into concentration discloses the ten grounds. Seeing the golden bodies of buddhas through the eight marks of buddhahood discloses wondrous awakening. The treatise also preserves another reading: the eight marks in the dream may show that the first abode can already manifest buddhahood, while the preceding progression provisionally speaks of ultimate awakening. Keeping both readings prevents dream signs from becoming a rigid résumé.

VIII. If the Buddha Does Not Dream, Why Does the Buddha Still Sleep?

The treatise first says that everyone from a stream-enterer through a pratyekabuddha dreams; only a buddha does not dream, because a buddha has neither doubt nor habitual residues. This answers what gives rise to dreams; it does not say that a buddha’s body never rests.

Dreams arise from five causes: doubt, discrimination, habitual learning, a present event, and a nonhuman being who comes to speak. A separate account gives seven causes, including what has been experienced, heard, seen, and various illnesses. The two accounts remain independent; five and seven are not added to invent twelve.

Visual forms seen by the mental faculty in dreams arise as images of what has previously been seen and heard, and may also be auspicious or inauspicious signs. Although dreams contain neither supernormal knowledge nor knowledge of past lives, they seem to show the future through inference from earlier cases in which similar dreams had similar results, not through the direct vision of the future by knowledge born of resolve.

As for who sleeps, beings in the five paths, beings in the intermediate state, fetuses whose faculties are complete, and even the Buddha all sleep. Sleep ordinarily may arise when delusion covers the mind, but the Buddha sleeps only to regulate the body and is neither covered nor deluded. Dreaming and sleeping therefore must be distinguished: because there is no doubt or habitual residue, there is no dream; because rest is manifested to regulate the body, there is still sleep. The two apparently opposed statements were never answering the same question.

From one spoken sentence, to one movement of mind, to a vow established without waiting to be asked, the treatise continues to ask how a transmitter of the sutra can keep personal attachment from outrunning sentient beings’ capacities. Giving the jewel awaits great merit; teaching discerns capacities; loving-kindness and compassion distinguish their fields; dream signs remain only indications of later fruits. Peaceful ease does not flatten every distinction. Within every distinction it neither harms the person nor loses the Dharma.

Through the Eye of the Wenjuji

In the Fahua Wenjuji, Zhanran first draws the boundary of the restraints on speech still more tightly. He warns that one must especially not scorn the partial and lesser while one’s own cultivation of the real remains shallow. A beginner teaching in the final age should follow this passage directly and not answer with a lesser teaching; only one at a deep stage who can discern capacities may teach gradually and then suddenly. Zhanran also distinguishes praising wholesome conduct from a preference for praise to someone’s face: the sutra’s praise of goodness is not the use of one person’s strength to stab another. The example of Zhang and Zhao therefore forbids not only condemnation behind someone’s back but also using one person to mock another. He further cites the four forms of praise and condemnation and the story of a rākṣasa king who despised an ascetic monk, tracing resentment and aversion from subtle thoughts to grave results. These warnings and external citations are Zhanran’s supplemental explanation, not citations originally made by the root treatise.

Concerning the contemplation within the practice of speech, Zhanran says that mind is discussed here to control the verbal karma that is about to emerge. Ultimate emptiness prevents attachment to the Great and contempt for the Lesser, so that one accords with both Dharma and capacities. Of the three kinds of speech, the speech of the wise that seeks meaning can be answered; the speech of a king that relies on force and the speech of a fool that seeks only victory cannot. In the peaceful practice of mind, he specifically fixes the verse’s actual sequence: its four restraints are jealousy and flattery, disparagement and abuse, contention, and disturbance; its four contemplations are great compassion, the great teacher, the loving father, and equal teaching. This explains the arrangement of the verse and cannot be used backward to reorder the prose outline of the root treatise.

Zhanran also clarifies cross-relations in the passage on vows. Both the partial and perfect sides should possess stages such as asking, hearing, believing, and knowing, while the formal vow repeats only the latter three as referring to this sutra; he therefore distinguishes the first three from the latter three. He gathers supernormal and wisdom powers under the two adornments of merit and wisdom, and uses robe and chamber to explain manifesting deportment without entering the concentration of cessation. These general judgments belong only to the Mirror. The root treatise’s item-by-item reward map remains the foundation; Zhanran adds that each stage from the seven worthy stages through arhatship has a share of concentration and wisdom, that the city is the fourth fruit, that contaminated wholesome dharmas belong to the worthy stages, and that the six similes and their six applications are locked in sequence line by line.

At the giving of the jewel and the conclusion of the chapter, Zhanran further cites the breaking of the four māras through suffering, origination, cessation, and the path. He limits the first three afflictions to the coarser greed, anger, and delusion of the desire realm; only “all obstructions” later includes the broader range. He explains that praise of the teaching appears here because the passage has reached the end of transmission and the wheel-turning king’s rewards according to greater and lesser merit disclose the Dharma being transmitted. These limits cannot be silently moved downward and made into statements of the root treatise.

For Zhanran, the dream signs show that accomplishment in transmitting the sutra enables a momentary dream to cross billions of lifetimes. He finely distinguishes within the dream of the ten abodes such meanings as seeing buddhas, standing among the assembly, joy, retention, and prediction. He also says why cultivation is called practice and allows realization of the true marks to disclose more than one stage; he further adjusts the stage of the stainless state and diamond concentration according to different scriptures. Finally, when treating the five faculties through the eightfold right path, he calls them an explanation of the Buddha Way and marks both the general classes of factors of the Way and what this passage briefly selects as needed. The Mirror does not separately explain the five causes, seven causes, or four questions on dreaming and sleeping; those contents are still read from the root treatise itself, and the Mirror’s silence is not filled out as if it had spoken.

The same boundary applies where the Mirror supplies no separate section: the four opening restraints of speech and the two passages from ancient sutras, the verse imagery of the seat and anointed body, the primary meanings of jealousy and flattery within the mental restraints, the three divisions in the accomplishment of vows, and the full mapping from fields and houses through people may not be replaced by another summary merely because Zhanran comments only on selected nodes. The Mirror illuminates difficult points; where it does not comment separately, the root treatise continues to speak in its own voice.