妙法蓮華經玄義 說法妙眷屬妙

After the Dharma is taught, who becomes part of the Buddha’s family? Not the person standing nearest, but the person who truly lets the Dharma enter one’s life.

Dharmas originally cannot be confined within words, yet sentient beings must begin from what can be heard. The Buddha therefore neither reduces reality to a sentence nor keeps silent because reality transcends speech. Where conditions exist, he teaches; because faculties and conditions differ, the forms of teaching also differ. He may teach directly, repeat in verse, confer a prediction, or speak without being asked. He may begin from conditions, similes, former events, or former births; he may awaken people through marvels or untie their questions through discussion. The twelve divisions of scripture are not twelve drawers, but twelve movements through which compassion seeks an entrance.

One rain falling in different places may appear as water, fire, or weapons; the Buddha’s single sound, entering different minds, likewise yields different understandings. Its wondrousness does not lie in ornate speech, but in the sound’s capacity to reach each faculty while always leading beings toward the Buddha-path. Only when even those most difficult to turn can receive predictions does the finest physician truly transform poison into medicine.

Once teaching is received, the relationship changes. One who receives precepts activates the precepts because the teacher has spoken them; one who practices meditation attains concentration through instruction in settling the mind; one who studies wisdom opens understanding when a Dharma-gate enters the mind. Zhiyi compares this to a child receiving the body bequeathed by the parents and thereby forming one’s own body: Dharma is no longer speech heard from outside, but has become one’s own wisdom-life. Only through hearing, reflection, and cultivation does the name “buddha-child” acquire an inward body.

This also resolves a question: why do the Buddha’s assemblies include relatives and friends, but also enemies? Those who trusted and followed earnestly in former lives may now be close; those whose trust was slight may stand far away; those who rejected and slandered may meet the Dharma again as adversaries. Though the outward relationships differ, old connections can bring every one of them back before the Dharma. Some come through karma, some through vows, some by dividing their bodies through supernormal power, and Dharma-body bodhisattvas can come through responsive manifestation. Intimates, intermediates, and enemies can all become positions from which sentient beings are guided.

A child who has lost one’s senses after drinking poison remains the father’s child but refuses the medicine. The good physician does not deny their natural kinship; he continually changes his skillful means until the day the child takes the medicine. Retinues by nature means that all sentient beings are originally buddha-children. Retinues in phenomena explains how that natural relationship is disclosed through forming connections, maturation, and hearing the Dharma. The boundary between inner and outer retinues therefore lies not in a surname, but in whether Dharma has truly become one’s path.

Finally the whole family is gathered back into one mind: skillful means can be the father, wisdom the mother, Dharma-joy the wife, kindness the daughter, a wholesome mind the son, and the factors of the path good friends. If the mind is reared by ignorance, deluded love, and partial views, what grows is a retinue of afflictions. If one sees that love and views themselves are dependently arisen dharmas and contemplates them as immediately empty, provisional, and middle, that very mind can become the household of the Buddha-path.

The subtleties of teaching the Dharma and retinues stand together because Dharma never merely waits to be understood. It is to be heard, received, and lived as one’s own body—until the person who took oneself for hired labor recognizes oneself as the child. Only then does buddhavacana reach its home.

From the Ineffable to Teaching for the Sake of Conditions

The eighth topic is the subtlety of teaching the Dharma. Dharmas originally cannot be displayed through forms, and the marks of words are themselves quiescent. Yet because sentient beings possess conditions for deliverance, the Buddha can also proclaim and reveal them. In the preceding subtlety, the body of the King of Medicine Trees and the body of the king of wish-fulfilling jewels first moved beings through concentration. In the present subtlety, the poison drum and heavenly drum then remove their sufferings through wisdom. What the Buddha expounds is the One Vehicle, without a distinction among three vehicles, bringing everyone to the ground of omniscience; everything he says is true and not false. The subtlety of teaching the Dharma therefore follows the subtlety of supernormal power.

The subtlety of teaching the Dharma has six divisions: first, explaining the name “Dharma”; second, distinguishing Great and Lesser; third, clarifying sameness and difference when facing different faculties and conditions; fourth, judging the meanings signified by verbal teaching; fifth, clarifying coarse and wondrous; and sixth, clarifying contemplation of mind.

A Sevenfold Analysis of the Twelve Divisions of Scripture

First comes the explanation of the Dharma-name. Although the Dharmas of the buddhas of past, present, and future are immeasurable and boundless, the twelve divisions of scripture include them all without omission. Following Dharmottara, the text first distinguishes them in seven ways: substance, form, instituting names, determining names, differences, mutual inclusion, and analysis.

Substance, Form, and Instituting Names

“Substance” is one: scriptures all take names, words, clauses, and sentences as their substance. No scripture is otherwise, so the substance is one.

“Form” is two: direct teaching in prose and praise composed in verse. People’s preferences differ; some like direct speech and others ornate language, producing two different forms.

The instituting of names has three classes. Sūtra, geya, and gāthā are named from their words and clauses, not from the meanings they signify. Prediction and seven other divisions are named neither from what they signify nor from their wording, but from the events narrated. Vaipulya alone is named from its signified meaning.

Why are they divided in this way? Sūtra and the next two divisions directly teach the characteristics of dharmas, and their names can directly disclose their content. Suffering, accumulation, cessation, and path, for example, indicate their referents as soon as their names are seen, so the name is established from the expression itself. The Dharmas signified by prediction and the other divisions cannot be explained by a name alone; they must be disclosed through a concrete event. Prediction is named from the event of conferring a prediction, but clarifies the principle that cultivating a cause produces a fruit. Principle is manifested through the event, and the event is in turn explained through words. By giving predictions to śrāvakas, the Lotus shows that everyone will become a buddha. Because its meaning is disclosed through an event of prediction, it is called a scripture of prediction.

Unsolicited teaching is likewise named from an event. Noble ones ordinarily wait to be asked before teaching, yet they must also become uninvited teachers of sentient beings. Moreover, Buddhadharma is so profound that no one is able to ask about it. If the Buddha did not speak on his own, people would have no means to know. They know neither whether the Buddha will speak nor which Dharma he will teach. By speaking without a question, the Buddha reveals the profundity of what is taught, a realm known only through personal realization. The meaning is therefore disclosed through the event of unsolicited speech.

Scripture of causes and conditions is similar. To explain precepts, someone’s transgression must first disclose the fault; only when the character of the fault becomes apparent can the precept be instituted. The teaching is thus revealed through the occasion. The Dharma-characteristic taught in a scripture of similes is subtle and hidden, so a familiar event must be borrowed to compare with a distant principle. Words furnish a comparison, and principle is disclosed through that comparison.

Scripture of former events tells the former affairs of another, while scripture of former births tells one’s own lives in the past; both move from a present event to an earlier one. A former event used to disclose what is signified is called scripture of former events; a former birth used to disclose what was practiced is called scripture of former births. Scripture of marvels recounts extraordinary events never seen before in order to show that Buddhadharma possesses great power and can bring great benefit; the wondrous event discloses what is signified. Because the words and meanings in the other divisions can be hidden, scripture of discussion uses repeated questions, answers, and distinctions to clarify the meaning disclosed. This is how prediction and the other seven divisions take their names from events.

Vaipulya is named from what it signifies. Although the principle it signifies is spoken through names, it actually transcends names and words. Though events may also be used to reveal its meaning, it cannot be grasped according to their outward appearance. It is therefore named neither from wording nor event, but from the principle signified.

Four Ways of Determining Names

Determining names has four patterns. Sūtra is translated “thread scripture”: the substance of scripture is names, while its title comes from the simile of a thread. Geya and gāthā are named directly from their literary forms. Prediction, unsolicited teaching, and discussion combine literary form with the narrated event in their names. All remaining divisions are named from events.

Nine Differences of Sūtra

Sūtra has nine meanings. First, one scripture says that everything from the opening “Thus” to the closing “put it into practice” is called sūtra. Here the name sūtra applies generally to the entire scripture and its substance includes the whole: because everything is scripture, the name is general; because the twelve divisions are then distinguished within the scripture constituted by these words, its substance is comprehensive.

Second, within the general name sūtra, the other eleven divisions are separated according to the event taught. In contrast to those eleven, what remains as direct teaching of Dharma-characteristics is sūtra in the specific sense.

Third, scripture of discussion explains the other eleven divisions, which are therefore the scriptural bases on which discussion relies. All eleven divisions interpreted by discussion can consequently be called sūtra.

Fourth, the “Sūtra Chapter” of the Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya contrasts scripture with treatise and calls scripture sūtra. Fifth, Vasubandhu explains Āryadeva’s Śataśāstra; there the treatise being explained serves as the scriptural basis, and the treatise itself is called sūtra. Sixth, a scripture says that apart from sūtra, four-line verses are verse-scripture; in contrast to four-line verse, the remaining prose is sūtra. Seventh, another scripture calls geya a verse-recitation sūtra; in contrast to the recapitulating geya, the prose being recapitulated is sūtra. Eighth, when scripture, discipline, and treatise are distinguished as the three baskets, the part setting forth and arranging principle and teaching is called sūtra, in contrast to the separately established Vinaya and Abhidharma. Ninth, a scripture says that the twelve divisions of scripture issue from the Buddha and sūtra issues from the twelve divisions. This contrasts the twelve particular teachings with the sūtra that runs through them. Together with the first two meanings, these make nine.

Gāthā, Geya, and the Remaining Differences

Gāthā has four meanings. First, when the Lotus is said to contain asaṃkhya and other numbers of verses or the Nirvāṇa twenty-five thousand verses, “verse scripture” is a general and comprehensive name. If four lines constitute one verse, an individual graph or line may be called scripture by participation in the complete verse; this does not mean each graph or line is itself a verse. Because noble speech is skillful and its clauses and sentences form complete structures, several lines compose one verse and the whole can be called verse. Second, apart from sūtra, what is composed of four lines is verse. Third, verse that recapitulates preceding prose is geya, while verse that does not recapitulate is called verse scripture. Fourth, just as sūtra first serves as a general comprehensive name and is then divided according to events, leaving direct teaching specifically named sūtra, verses too may be divided into prediction, causes and conditions, and other classes according to events. Only verse that directly teaches without following a particular event is called verse scripture.

Geya means recapitulation, of which there are three kinds: recapitulating an intention, an event, or words. Recapitulating an intention means expressing in verse the Dharma-characteristic or event held in the noble one’s mind. If the verse recapitulates a Dharma-characteristic contemplated in mind, it is gāthā scripture; if it recapitulates an event such as prediction, it follows that event into the appropriate division. Recapitulating an event means recapitulating the concrete event of prediction or another division and likewise follows the event into its own class. When words spoken in connection with an event are recapitulated, they too follow that event into its division. Only when directly taught sūtra is recapitulated is the result called geya, the scripture of recapitulating verse.

Prediction takes a future fruit to be attained as the expectation held in mind and is therefore a “record”; the noble one uses words to bestow this matter on another and it is therefore “conferred.” Prediction has two kinds. Conferring on bodhisattvas a distinction predicting buddhahood is Great Vehicle prediction. Predicting causes and fruits to be obtained soon afterward is Lesser Vehicle prediction.

Unsolicited teaching occurs in two situations. First, the principle is too deep and the purport too distant for anyone to ask an appropriate question. Second, the matter is not impossible to ask about, but the listeners ought to hear the Dharma now, so the Buddha acts as an uninvited teacher and proclaims it without waiting for a question.

Vaipulya has two kinds of breadth: breadth of words and breadth of meaning.

Mutual Inclusion among the Twelve Divisions

Mutual inclusion means that eleven divisions are separated out from sūtra. If verse is contrasted with direct teaching, sūtra can include nine divisions and lacks only gāthā and geya. Gāthā can include ten and lacks only directly taught sūtra. Geya can include nine and lacks both directly taught sūtra and nonrecapitulating verse. The received text abbreviates the further analysis of presence and absence at this point.

A Second Explanation of the Twelve Names According to the Great Treatise

Dharma-names were already discussed in the earlier account of how teachings arise. They are listed again because different authorities give different names and translations vary widely. The present account follows the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom: first, sūtra, translated as Dharma-basis, concordant scripture, or thread scripture; second, geya, recapitulation, because verse recapitulates sūtra; third, vyākaraṇa, prediction; fourth, gāthā, nonrecapitulating verse, abbreviated simply as verse and composed in four lines like poetry in China; fifth, udāna, unsolicited teaching; sixth, nidāna, causes and conditions; seventh, avadāna, simile; eighth, itivṛttaka, “thus it was said” or former event; ninth, jātaka, former birth; tenth, vaipulya, expansive teaching; eleventh, adbhutadharma, marvels; and twelfth, upadeśa, discussion.

A “division” has its own class and associated instances. “Scripture” in the foreign language is sūtra, translated here as “thread scripture.” A thread passes through things, and warp threads intersect the weft to form cloth; words similarly gather and preserve the meaning of Dharma and are therefore like a thread and a scripture. The Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya gives five meanings of sūtra; these are a treatise master’s explanations, not five translations. Secular usage contrasts warp with weft and also glosses scripture as “constant”: although the beginning and end differ in time, what runs through an affair does not change. Because it does not change, it is called constant.

1. Sūtra

The parts of scriptures that teach directly are sūtra: for example, the four Āgamas and the two hundred and fifty precepts. Direct teaching in the various Mahāyāna scriptures outside the three baskets is likewise sūtra.

2. Geya

Verses in scriptures may contain four, five, seven, or nine graphs per line, with no fixed length. Whatever recapitulates preceding prose is geya.

3. Vyākaraṇa

Vyākaraṇa records the eons associated with the three vehicles, six destinies, and nine paths. It predicts that a particular person will become a buddha, attain the fruit of a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha after a certain number of years, or receive a particular recompense among the six destinies. All these are predictions.

When a prediction is conferred, the Buddha emits five-colored light from his face. Light from the two upper teeth illuminates the three evil destinies, while light from the two lower teeth illuminates humans and gods. In the light are taught impermanence, nonself, and secure nirvāṇa. Beings in the three painful destinies who encounter the light and hear the Dharma gain ease in body and mind. Disabled people in the human realm are healed. Beings in the six desire heavens become disenchanted with sensual pleasures, while beings in the form realm become disenchanted with meditative pleasure. The light fills the ten directions, universally performs buddha-work, circles the Buddha seven times, and then reenters. Reentry beneath the feet confers a prediction of the hell destiny; reentry at the lower leg, thigh, navel, chest, mouth, between the shoulders, and crown proceeds in stages up to prediction of the Buddha-path. The Treatise does not show a ray for prediction as an asura. Asuras should be separated from the ghost destiny and placed provisionally between thigh and navel.

4. Gāthā

Any verse of four, five, seven, nine, or another number of graphs that does not recapitulate preceding prose is gāthā.

5. Udāna

Some Dharmas must be spoken by the Buddha, but no one asks. The Buddha then opens the topic briefly. At Viśākhā’s Hall in Śrāvastī, for example, the Buddha walked in the shade and spontaneously taught an udāna that the absence of self and possessions is exceedingly good. In the prajñā assembly, the gods praised Subhūti’s teaching, exclaiming that the World-Honored One was rare and difficult to encounter. This too is called udāna. After the Buddha’s nirvāṇa, the disciples collected essential verses, assembling verses on impermanence as the “Chapter on Impermanence” and continuing through the “Chapter on Brahmins”; all may be called udāna.

6. Nidāna

Nidāna explains the causes and conditions through which a particular action of a buddha arose and answers why the Buddha taught that matter. In sūtra, the matter is taught because someone asked. In Vinaya, a precept is instituted because someone committed a particular act. All occasions giving rise to the Buddha’s words are nidāna.

7. Avadāna

Avadāna takes events similar to things in the world and uses gentle, accessible words to make comparisons: the long simile of the Madhyama Āgama, the great simile of the Dīrgha Āgama, and the similes of Koṭikarṇa and Śroṇakoṭikarṇa are examples. Immeasurable similes are all avadāna.

8. Itivṛttaka

Itivṛttaka has two kinds. The first is a concluding sentence meaning: what I previously promised to teach has now been completed. The second is a separate kind of scripture called itimuttaka, also called indakamuttaka by some, found in both the three baskets and Mahāyāna.

Its example is this. King Śuddhodana compelled a thousand Śākyans to renounce the household. The Buddha selected five hundred capable of attaining the path, took them to Śrāvastī, and separated them from their relatives. Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana instructed them. They practiced diligently through the first, middle, and last watches without sleeping and consequently felt that the night was long. After attaining the path and returning home, they came from a forest fifty li outside Kapilavastu to beg in the city and again felt that the road was long. A lion then came to bow at the Buddha’s feet, and because of these three conditions the Buddha spoke a verse. Recounting the former conditions behind these three events is called itivṛttaka.

9. Jātaka

Jātaka recounts a bodhisattva’s former births. Once, as a lion, the bodhisattva was entrusted by a monkey with the care of its young and tore flesh from his own flank to exchange for the monkey. In a world stricken by disease he became a red-eyed fish and made a gift to aid the sick. As a bird he rescued someone who had fallen into water. Immeasurable former births containing such acts of saving sentient beings are jātaka.

10. Vaipulya

Vaipulya includes the Mahāyāna Prajñā Sūtra, the Sūtra of the Six Pāramitās, Flower Crown, the Lotus, Origins of the Buddha, Cloud of Conditions, Dharma Cloud, Great Cloud, and immeasurable other scriptures. Scriptures taught to enable sentient beings to attain unsurpassed complete awakening are all vaipulya.

11. Adbhutadharma

The Buddha manifests various supernormal powers that cause sentient beings to marvel at what they have never seen. Emitting light, moving the earth, and all extraordinary signs are adbhutadharma.

12. Upadeśa

Upadeśa answers various questions, explains why things are so, and extensively unfolds different meanings. Whatever interprets meaning through this kind of question and answer is upadeśa. Discussion spoken by the Buddha himself, Kātyāyana’s explanations, and even Dharma-concordant teachings of ordinary people in the age of the semblance Dharma can all be called upadeśa scripture.

Great and Lesser Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions

The second division distinguishes the magnitude of Dharma. The Lotus calls nine divisions the basis for entering the Great Vehicle. In specific treatment, those nine belong to the Lesser Vehicle and the other three to the Great. Generally, however, the Lesser Vehicle also includes predictions of causes and fruits in the six destinies. The Āgamas predict Maitreya’s future buddhahood—how could prediction be absent? Lesser Vehicle scriptures also contain self-praise and speech offered without a question. Śrāvaka scripture calls the emptiness of dharmas “great emptiness,” and the Satyasiddhi Treatise says that it precisely wishes to reveal the real meaning in the three baskets: emptiness, which the Abhidharma did not fully unfold. Emptiness is expansive scripture. Thus the Lesser Vehicle generally possesses all twelve divisions.

The Nirvāṇa therefore says that although the twelve divisions had been heard before, only their names and not their meanings had been heard; only through the Nirvāṇa is their meaning now heard. It also says that even after hearing the twelve divisions, one still thought that none was like the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. The Large Prajñā describes Māra appearing as a monk and teaching a bodhisattva the śrāvaka twelve divisions. Another scripture says that the Great and Lesser Vehicles each possess twelve: those who accept that six divisions are shared accept their application to both, while those who do not accept that sharing regard them as mutually exclusive. These passages show that both Vehicles possess twelve, although the meanings taught in the Lesser are not those clarified in the Great. Specific treatment therefore yields three and retains nine.

Why yield three? The Lesser Vehicle takes reducing the body to ash and extinguishing cognition as its destination and lacks the body of a king of wish-fulfilling jewels; it is therefore said to lack vaipulya. Even if the wording concerning Dharma-emptiness is treated as expansive, those of dull faculties require occasions before Dharma is taught and do not possess the heavenly drum’s spontaneous sound, so unsolicited teaching is rare. Although they receive predictions, predictions of buddhahood are few. Fascicle seven of the Nirvāṇa also says that one who claims the nine divisions do not reveal buddha-nature commits no offense; by inference, one who says the twelve do not reveal buddha-nature does commit an offense.

Some say that the Great Vehicle has only nine divisions, excluding causes and conditions, simile, and discussion because people of sharp Great Vehicle faculties do not need them. This too is only specific treatment. Generally, how could the Great Vehicle lack these three? Another scripture says that the Lesser Vehicle yields only expansive scripture and thus possesses eleven divisions. It lacks vaipulya because the Great Vehicle teaches the Tathāgata’s permanence and the buddha-nature of all sentient beings: correct principle is “direction,” rich inclusion is “expansive,” and principle interfusing without duality is also “equal.” These meanings do not occur in śrāvaka Dharma, so eleven divisions are taught. If the Lesser Vehicle were definitively limited to nine, eleven could not also be accepted. Once eleven can be taken, all twelve can also be generally present. In short, specific teaching for different faculties yields three divisions or one and thereby distinguishes Great from Lesser.

How Dharma Is Taught to Different Faculties and Conditions

The third division explains differences in responding to conditions. “Conditions” means sentient beings constituted by ten causes and conditions, each with faculties and dispositions of the ten Dharma realms. Those already mature first evoke the Buddha’s transformation. The Buddha knows who is and is not mature and never misses the proper time in teaching. If conditions for liberation have not ripened, these beings still cannot be abandoned; for such faculties, only the human and heavenly vehicles are taught, without using the names sūtra and the other twelve divisions.

Non-Buddhist works in India consequently possess neither the names nor meanings of the twelve divisions; the Confucian and Daoist classics here possess neither. Even when the Dharma-body appears as a king and teaches the ten wholesome actions, it does not mix in the names of the twelve divisions. The Bodhisattvabhūmi therefore says that a bodhisattva with the lineage can mature oneself and others; those with the lineage of the two vehicles or buddhas mature through corresponding Dharma, while those without a lineage are first matured through fortunate destinies. That maturation through fortunate destinies is exactly the present meaning. Maturation of lineages is explained later. A practitioner of deep contemplation who skillfully understands this can use unobstructed eloquence to establish the meanings of the twelve divisions within deviant teachings and outside classics and turn deviant characteristics into correct ones; but these are not the twelve divisions formally taught by the Tathāgata to particular faculties.

For sentient beings constituted by the ten causes and conditions, one with Lesser Vehicle faculties is generally taught twelve divisions and specifically nine or eleven. One with bodhisattva faculties is not addressed through the specific yielding of divisions, but is taught all twelve.

The Tathāgata generally teaches the Dharma of the twelve divisions to four kinds of faculties and conditions, using two different arrangements called “four teachings.”

The first arrangement combines hidden and manifest modes into four. Hidden means the Secret Teaching. The manifest modes are sudden, gradual, and indeterminate. Because the Secret is hidden and unmanifest and does not circulate publicly in the world, it is set aside here. General teaching of the twelve divisions to beings in four Dharma realms, with nine or eleven in specific treatment, is gradual Dharma-teaching. General teaching of the twelve to beings in two Dharma realms is sudden Dharma-teaching. Teaching sometimes four Dharma realms and sometimes two, sometimes specifically and sometimes only generally, is indeterminate Dharma-teaching.

The second arrangement operates only within manifest gradual teaching and further distinguishes the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings. The Tripiṭaka Teaching directly addresses three Dharma realms and specifically teaches nine or eleven divisions. The Shared addresses four realms and generally teaches twelve. The Distinct addresses two realms and generally teaches twelve. The Perfect addresses one realm and generally teaches twelve.

In the earlier account of the body-wheel, various forms were manifested by joining the dhyāna of morally indeterminate transformation upon transformation with different kinds of kindness and compassion: a state preceptor, Daoist, Confucian master, parent, sibling, monkey, ape, deer, or horse could be displayed to work alongside sentient beings and benefit them in incalculable numbers. The present account of the speech-wheel likewise describes kindnesses and compassions perfuming the dhyāna of morally indeterminate transformation upon transformation so that hundreds of thousands of millions of Dharma-gates can be proclaimed without exhaustion. Their inexhaustibility is compared to what is stored in dragon palaces or carried by elephants, or to draining the sea for ink and grinding down mountains for inkstones without exhausting the eighty-four thousand Dharma stores. Boundless though the Dharma stores are, the twelve divisions include them without omission.

Depths of Meaning Signified by the Twelve Divisions

The fourth division judges what is signified. A detailed explanation belongs in the doctrine of the four teachings; only the general purport is given here.

When the human and heavenly vehicles are taught, they signify only conceivable conventional truth within the three realms and never true truth. In gradual teaching, whether nine or eleven divisions are taught specifically or all twelve generally, the initial stage primarily signifies conceivable conventional truth and secondarily conceivable true truth. The middle stage primarily signifies conceivable true truth and secondarily conceivable conventional truth. The later stage primarily signifies inconceivable true truth and secondarily inconceivable conventional truth, until true and conventional can be signified together. Sudden teaching through the twelve divisions primarily signifies inconceivable true truth and secondarily inconceivable conventional truth. In the Indeterminate Teaching, what is signified cannot be fixed.

Within the four forms of gradual teaching, the Tripiṭaka primarily signifies conceivable true truth and secondarily conceivable conventional truth; when taught for Tripiṭaka bodhisattvas, it primarily signifies conceivable conventional and secondarily conceivable true. For the two vehicles and beginning bodhisattvas in the Shared Teaching, it primarily signifies conceivable true and secondarily conventional. For later Shared-Teaching bodhisattvas, it primarily signifies conventional and secondarily true.

For the beginning mind of the Distinct Teaching, it primarily signifies true and conventional truths within the three realms and secondarily those beyond. For the middle mind, it primarily signifies the true and conventional beyond and secondarily those within. For the later mind, it signifies the truths within and beyond together. For the beginning, middle, and later minds of the Perfect Teaching, it always completely signifies the inconceivable true and conventional truths beyond the three realms.

Coarse and Wondrous in Teaching the Dharma

The fifth division clarifies coarse and wondrous in five ways: according to principle, words, what is signified, scriptures, and the present Lotus.

According to Principle

From the side of principle, all dharmas are the Middle Way. Liberation is not something else found only after leaving words behind. The nature of words is itself detached and is immediately liberation; all speech is therefore wondrous as principle. It is like rain from a dragon that becomes different things wherever it falls—water, fire, or weapons. Principle is the same: everything is inherently present within it, while sentient beings’ affective understanding either conflicts or accords. Conflict with principle is coarse; accord with it is wondrous.

According to Words

From the night of attaining the path until the evening of nirvāṇa, the Buddha constantly teaches prajñā and the Middle Way. The Buddha expounds Dharma through one sound, yet sentient beings gain different understandings according to their classes. The single sound’s ability to teach skillfully is wondrous; among the different understandings are naturally both coarse and wondrous.

According to What Is Signified

When the human and heavenly vehicles are taught to beings of the six destinies, conditioned dharmas are signified and both teaching and meaning are coarse. When the Tripiṭaka’s five gates are taught to dull faculties and signify the principle of the four truths as arising and ceasing, both are coarse. The Shared Teaching’s five gates use integral contemplation and are more skillful than the Tripiṭaka’s analytical approach, but because what they signify is still true truth, the signified remains coarse. In the Distinct Teaching’s five gates, what signifies is coarse while the signified Middle Way is wondrous. In the Perfect Teaching’s five gates, both signifier and signified are wondrous.

According to the Various Scriptures

Among scriptures, the Avataṃsaka signifies Distinct and Perfect, the three baskets signify partial principle, the Vaipulya period signifies four, the Prajñā three, and the Lotus only one. The wondrous signified in the other scriptures does not differ from the Lotus, but is mixed with coarse signification. Because the coarse cannot be merged with the wondrous, those scriptures are named coarse as wholes. The Lotus differs: the Buddha teaches equally like rain of one flavor, directly abandons skillful means, and teaches only the unsurpassed path. It has only one pure signification.

The scripture also says that śrāvakas were formerly rebuked and disparaged, yet the Buddha had in fact always taught them through the Great Vehicle. It further says, “What you practice is the bodhisattva path.” What had been judged coarse is thereby interfused as wondrous. Because both meanings differ from other scriptures, this is called wondrous. It is like a good physician transforming poison into medicine: the dispositions of the two vehicles were called ruined and unable to turn, and thus called poison; in the Lotus they now receive predictions of buddhahood, which is transforming poison into medicine. The Treatise therefore says that other scriptures are not secret but the Lotus is secret. The complete teaching of the Origin is also absent from other scriptures and will be explained extensively below.

The Twelve Divisions Specifically in the Lotus

First, sūtra is direct teaching. The direct teaching in the Lotus teaches only the Middle-Way wisdom of a buddha. It does not teach Dharmas of the six destinies, two vehicles, or bodhisattvas, but only Buddha-Dharma; hence direct teaching is wondrous.

Second, geya only recapitulates the Middle Way taught in prose and is therefore wondrous.

Third, gāthā includes the Dragon Girl’s offering of the jewel and verses of the bodhisattva Joyful Seen, which arise independently rather than following prose. The Dragon Girl’s verse clarifies her attainment of complete awakening in an instant and praises the matter of awakening. Joyful Seen’s independent verse praises the exceedingly wondrous appearance of the Buddha. Independent gāthā is therefore wondrous.

Fourth, former event recounts that twenty thousand buddhas taught only the unsurpassed path and no other affair; hence former event is wondrous.

Fifth, former birth recounts the sixteen princes. In embodied life they were born as princes; in Dharma-body they were born as buddha-children. Former birth is therefore wondrous.

Sixth, causes and conditions recounts how the sixteen princes repeated the Great Vehicle teaching for the assembly and formed connections, and how the jewel was tied within the garment. These are not conditions concerning Lesser Vehicle, human, or heavenly paths. Causes and conditions is therefore wondrous.

Seventh, marvels recounts heavenly flowers descending, the earth moving, the light between the brows, and the three transformations of the lands. These are inconceivable wondrous events never seen before, so marvels is wondrous.

Eighth, simile joins Dharma and simile in a scriptural title. What is compared is opening the provisional to reveal the real: opening the three vehicles as skillful means and revealing the One Vehicle as real. Nothing else is made the object of comparison, so simile is wondrous.

Ninth, in upadeśa, Śāriputra asks and the Buddha answers concerning the gateway of buddha-wisdom. The Dragon Girl and the bodhisattva Wisdom Accumulated likewise question and answer concerning matters in the Lotus. Wisdom Accumulated says he saw Śākyamuni Buddha attain awakening only after immeasurable eons and does not believe the girl can become a buddha in an instant; he clings to a Distinct meaning and doubts the Perfect. The Dragon Girl says that only the Buddha can know and offers the round jewel to answer the Distinct attachment with the Perfect meaning. Discussion is therefore wondrous.

Tenth, unsolicited teaching is exemplified when no one asks and the Buddha speaks on his own, praises the path he has practiced, rises serenely from samādhi, addresses Śāriputra, and teaches buddha-wisdom. He also says that he will now teach their former conditions. This makes unsolicited teaching wondrous.

Eleventh, prediction confers predictions of buddhahood on śrāvakas of upper, middle, and lower faculties, saying that they all abide in real wisdom and are honored by gods and humans. Prediction is therefore wondrous.

Twelfth, vaipulya speaks of the cart as lofty and broad and wisdom as profound and far-reaching. Vaipulya is therefore wondrous.

Thus the Lotus, from its opening direct teaching through upadeśa, completely possesses all twelve meanings, each wondrous. This is the subtlety of teaching the Dharma described relationally in contrast to the coarse.

The coarse is then opened to reveal the wondrous. The twelve, eleven, or nine divisions formerly did not proclaim the real. Now it is disclosed that no real exists apart from those former Dharmas; what differs is only their former state of not revealing it. Formerly only breadth of words was taught, not breadth of meaning. Now that breadth of words is opened and revealed as immediately breadth of meaning. Opening former difference and revealing present sameness describes the subtlety of teaching the Dharma beyond relational contrast.

The sixth division, contemplation of mind, is missing from the extant text.

Why Retinues Follow Teaching the Dharma

The ninth topic is the subtlety of retinues, divided into five: first, the reason for its introduction; second, an explanation of retinues; third, coarse and wondrous; fourth, Dharma-gates; and fifth, contemplation of mind.

First comes the sequence. If no Dharma were taught, there would be nothing more to say. Once Dharma is taught, however, it must be received by corresponding faculties and conditions; those conditions are the people who receive the path. Having received the path, they become retinues. It is like parents leaving a body to a child, who receives it and grows a body of one’s own and thereby becomes natural kin. Natural kin love one another and are therefore called intimates; they also belong to and defer to one another and are therefore called dependents.

Practitioners are the same. When precepts are received, the teacher speaks the precept-Dharma to the person present; upon hearing it, that person activates the substance of the precepts, and the teacher-disciple relation is born. It is likewise with meditation: the teacher transmits a Dharma for settling the mind, the student practices as taught and activates concentration, and the transmitter is my teacher while I am the disciple. It is likewise with wisdom: someone teaches various Dharma-gates, their meaning enters the listener’s mind, and kinship is formed through Dharma. Closeness leads to trust and trust to obedience. This is called a retinue.

In other buddha-lands other faculties may be keen, and the Buddha can initiate transformation through whatever sensory object is employed. In this land the ear faculty is keen, so sound is used especially. Twenty thousand buddhas taught the unsurpassed path, and the sixteen princes repeated the Lotus. From then on the listeners remained the Buddha’s retinues, sharing life after life with the teacher: sometimes as human or heavenly retinues, sometimes as retinues of the three vehicles, and sometimes of the One Vehicle.

Śāriputra therefore said that only now did he know he was truly a buddha-child. Formerly the Buddha transformed the first five disciples and led them to the real uncontaminated state, so they were called buddha-children, while bodhisattvas who had not yet activated the real were called outsiders. Only when Great Vehicle understanding arose in the Lotus did Śāriputra acknowledge that he had not formerly been a true buddha-child. Now the Buddha teaches the single real path, and sentient beings give rise to the Dharma-body through hearing, awakening, and understanding. Being born from the Buddha’s mouth is birth of the Dharma-body within wisdom from hearing; being transformed through Dharma, birth within wisdom from reflection; receiving a share of the Buddha’s Dharma, birth within wisdom from cultivation. When the three wisdoms are complete, one is a true buddha-child: the natural relation of father and child and the retinue are established. The subtlety of retinues therefore follows the subtlety of teaching the Dharma.

Five Kinds of Retinues in Phenomena

The second division explains retinues in five kinds: retinues by nature, karma-born, vow-born, supernormal-power-born, and response-born retinues.

Retinues by Nature

The suchness of sentient beings and the Buddha’s suchness are one suchness, not two. Their natures are naturally related, so beings are spontaneously buddha-children. The scripture says that the Buddha is the most honored among the noble ones and father of the world, and all sentient beings are his children. From the side of nature, all are buddha-children whether or not they have ever formed a phenomenal connection.

Karma-Born Retinues

By principle, all sentient beings are buddha-children; but they resemble children who have mistakenly drunk another person’s poison, some losing their senses and some retaining them. Those who have not lost their senses bow to the father, kneel, inquire after him, and ask to be rescued. When the father gives medicine, they take it immediately. Thus, at the time of Great Penetrating Wisdom Excellence Buddha, the sixteen princes repeated the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka and formed with them the Great Vehicle relation of father and child.

Children who have lost their senses refuse the good medicine even when it is given. They wander through birth-and-death like someone who has fled to another country. The Buddha then establishes skillful means: sometimes forming connections through the Tripiṭaka Teaching by explaining arising and ceasing; sometimes through the Shared Teaching by explaining nonarising; sometimes through the Distinct Teaching by explaining the immeasurable Buddhadharmas of nonarising yet arising; and sometimes through the Perfect Teaching by explaining the one true mark as neither arising nor nonarising. Whether they accept or slander the teaching, a cause of connection remains. Slanderers first fall through inversion, but that condition later arises again and they are ultimately delivered, as the treatise says concerning the later deliverance associated with Joyful Root.

After connections have been formed, the Buddha enters the twenty-five existences through the twenty-five samādhis and teaches the Dharma of the three truths to mature them. Some have been delivered in intermediate lives and others remain undelivered in the present; both delivered and undelivered are retinues.

When a Tripiṭaka buddha now renounces the household and attains the path in a land of segmented birth-and-death, some who formerly formed Tripiṭaka connections attain the path and others do not. Those delivered reduce the body to ash and extinguish cognition, so no further birth in response to conditions is discussed. Those not delivered are drawn by old connections to the segmented land. Those who formerly accepted earnestly and followed become close associates and receive the path; those who trusted and followed only slightly become distant outsiders and receive it; those who formerly rejected and slandered become enemies and receive it.

When the first dew of immortality descends, they taste it first, quickly sever segmented birth-and-death, and escape saṃsāra; like a great elephant protecting the herd, they attain liberation together. The first five buddha-children and the others have surnames different from the Buddha’s but are Dharma-kin and inner retinues. A biological relative who has not attained the path remains an outer retinue and receives no present benefit from the Buddha. If the Buddha enters nirvāṇa and no longer appears in that world, the person’s connection with this Buddha reaches an interval and is passed to a later buddha for further transformation.

Vow-Born Retinues

Vow-born retinues formed connections with the Buddha in a former life. Although their suffering has not yet been severed, they vow to be born among the Buddha’s inner retinues or as an enemy and to receive the path through that relation. If they attain the path, they become retinues within the Dharma; if not, retinues outside it. If the Buddha enters nirvāṇa before they benefit, they too are passed on to a later buddha.

Supernormal-Power-Born Retinues

Supernormal-power retinues formerly encountered the Buddha, activated the real, and saw truth, but have not completely ended birth-and-death. They may dwell in an upper realm or another land. When the Buddha now attains buddhahood in a segmented land, they use vows or supernormal power to be born below as intimates, intermediates, or enemies, assist the Buddha’s transforming work, and sever their remaining delusion and karma as they leave the three realms. If the Buddha enters nirvāṇa before the remaining delusions are exhausted, they can sever them independently or await a later buddha.

The Tripiṭaka does not teach birth beyond the three realms. Understood through the Great Vehicle, those formerly delivered by a buddha who have ended birth in the three realms receive a body in transformational birth-and-death and are drawn by former connections to a segmented land. This is not karma-birth, but only vow-birth or supernormal-power-birth.

How do vow-birth and supernormal-power-birth differ? It is called supernormal power according to the force of one’s own recompense and vow according to the teaching received. One born through supernormal power retains a recompense-body at the original place and divides a form through bodily power to come here. One born through a vow has no body at the original place of recompense and descends only through vow-power. The Tripiṭaka does not teach that someone who has severed afflictions again receives a body in birth-and-death by a vow, so this kind of vow-birth cannot be discussed according to Tripiṭaka meaning. The Shared Teaching says that a bodhisattva vows to use residual habits in support of birth in the segmented realm, making vow-birth more fitting in its terms. These people have not attained the Dharma-body and therefore possess no response-born retinues. This completes the Tripiṭaka retinues.

Among those who formerly formed connections with the Dharma of nonarising, some have attained the path and others have not; the Buddha now attains buddhahood in a segmented land. Those present here who have not attained the path include karma-born retinues. Those descending from upper realms include vow- and power-born retinues as before. Those coming horizontally from another land also include vow and power, as do those coming vertically from a land of skillful means. People of the Shared Teaching have not attained the Dharma-body and thus have no response-born retinues.

Those who formerly formed Distinct-Teaching connections worked alongside sentient beings in intermediate lives, teaching and admonishing through various teachings, maturing some and leaving others immature. When the Buddha now attains buddhahood in a segmented land, those present here who have not attained the path are karma-born. Those descending from upper realms include vow and power; those coming horizontally from another land, vow and power; those coming vertically from a land of skillful means, vow and power. Those coming vertically from the land of real recompense are response-born: they have already broken ignorance, attained the foundation of the Dharma-body, and can raise a response-body to enter birth-and-death, unlike the first two teachings.

Those who formerly formed Perfect-Teaching connections were disciplined and matured in intermediate lives, some attaining the path and others not. When the Buddha now attains buddhahood in a segmented land, they gather as drawn by former connections, but with different categories. Those present here who have not attained include one kind, karma-born. Those descending from upper realms include vow and power; those coming horizontally from another land, vow and power; those coming from a land of skillful means, vow and power; and those coming from the land of real recompense, one kind, response-born. These follow the preceding patterns.

Why a Response-Body Takes Birth

Someone asks: if the delusions of the Dharma-body have been removed and principle revealed, why does it still take birth?

The answer is that a response-body takes birth for three purposes: maturing others, maturing oneself, and being drawn by original connections.

Coming to Mature Others

The wholesome roots of karma-born beings are weak and cannot activate themselves. Bodhisattvas formerly delivered take pity on their darkness, raise responses through kindness, enter the twenty-five existences as teachers and guides, and lead practicing sentient beings to the Buddha. Those who attain the real path become inner retinues like the response-born guides. Those who attain only resemblance become like vow- and power-born retinues. Those who attain neither real nor resemblance are still advanced in their excellent karma. Every class benefits, and the bodhisattvas’ birth is not in vain.

The Avataṃsaka says that when the Buddha first entered the womb, Dharma-body bodhisattvas all descended in attendance like clouds enclosing the moon. Other bodhisattvas scattered into different wombs and became intimates, intermediates, and enemies who guided karma-born beings. These retinues were therefore not ordinary beings in birth-and-death. Māyā is mother of a thousand buddhas, Śuddhodana father of a thousand buddhas, and Rāhula son of a thousand buddhas. The śrāvakas inwardly conceal real virtues and outwardly display ordinary characteristics. Although they seem to possess greed, anger, and delusion, they are purifying buddha-lands. Relatives too are high-stage Dharma-body bodhisattvas appearing through great skillful means. How could an ordinary being bear a bodhisattva with the strength of Nārāyaṇa?

Even non-Buddhist enemies who resist and slander the Buddha are manifestations of the Dharma-body. A wheel-turning king with only minor worldly good has no enemies; how could the unsurpassed Dharma-king find enemies along every road? Anyone who commits evil against the Buddha should fall into an evil path. How then could they plainly return life after life to trouble him? Only something other than a donkey can withstand the trampling of a great dragon-elephant. Devadatta is the bodhisattva Great Piṅgala and was the Buddha’s great good friend in a former life. Ajātaśatru is the bodhisattva Immovable; Satyaka Nirgrantha the bodhisattva Great Skillful Means; and Māra Pāpīyas abides in inconceivable liberation. The Avataṃsaka assembly likewise says that gods, dragons, ghosts, and spirits all abide in inconceivable Dharma-gates.

Thus any intimate, intermediary, or enemy, whether good or evil, opposed or compliant, who has attained the Dharma-body was formerly an inner retinue and now appears as a response-born retinue. Those displaying the same relations without having attained the Dharma-body formed connections formerly but remain outside the Dharma and are collectively called vow-born, karma-born, and other retinues.

Other scriptures also teach these skillful manifestations for benefiting sentient beings, but people take them to be actual inner or outer, good or evil, opposed or compliant roles. A scripture therefore says that such a matter had never before been told to anyone. In the Lotus, the Buddha himself opens and reveals the recent lifetime as provisional and the distant past as real; he likewise opens the retinues’ Trace as provisional and reveals their Origin as real. The scripture says that he will now teach them the most real matter. This is the response-born retinue coming to mature others.

Coming for Self-Accomplishment

Second is coming for one’s own accomplishment. A Dharma-body bodhisattva’s mode of progress is not fixed: sometimes progress occurs through an embodied life and sometimes through the Dharma-body. The bodhisattvas who emerged from below therefore said that they too wished to attain this true, pure, great Dharma. The “Distinguishing Qualities” chapter’s increase in the path and diminution of birth-and-death has the same meaning.

Coming Because of Original Connections

Third is being drawn by original connections. Retinues first aroused the aspiration to the path from this Buddha and reached nonretrogression through this Buddha. The Buddha himself enters segmented birth-and-death to perform buddha-work; how could those connected with him fail to come? Just as all rivers flow toward the sea, they take responsive birth because drawn by connections.

Specifically, karma-birth occurs in segmented lands, vow- and power-birth in lands of skillful means, and response-birth in the land of quiescent light. Generally, all four may be present in one place. In the land of real recompense, for example, those who have attained the Dharma-body can raise response-bodies and also appear as all four kinds of retinue. Those who have formed Perfect-Teaching connections but have not severed delusion possess the three kinds of karma, vow, and power; those who have attained the path possess all four. Distinct-Teaching retinues likewise possess four. Shared and Tripiṭaka connections each possess three. Even without “response” through a Dharma-body, there remains response in the sense that sentient beings stimulate and buddhas and bodhisattvas answer. When named from the response attained, the four meanings remain distinctly complete.

The Distinction between Coming and Being Born

Someone asks: bodhisattvas from below emerge from the earth, the bodhisattva Wondrous Sound comes from the east, and the Great Scripture summons great bodhisattvas of the ten directions to gather in the śāla grove and make the great lion’s roar. To which of the four kinds of retinues do they belong?

The answer is that this is coming through supernormal power, not being born through it; coming responsively, not taking response-birth; a relation through great vows, not birth through vows; and mutual summons by conditions. The bodhisattvas below hear the sound and Wondrous Sound sees the light; both come for the great buddha-affair, not through karmic birth. Those born through karma cannot come by karma, and coming by karma does not equal karma-birth. Those born through vows or supernormal power cannot come through vows or supernormal power. Those who come through vows or power can also take birth through vows or power or come responsively; those able to come responsively can also take responsive birth.

Coarse and Wondrous Retinues

The third division clarifies coarse and wondrous. Tripiṭaka retinues have low faculties, shallow former connections, and little intermediate maturation. If they are born in a buddha-land as inner or outer retinues—whether karma-, vow-, or power-born, or even if they come responsively as the supporting assembly of a Tripiṭaka buddha—they are coarse retinues. Shared- and Distinct-Teaching retinues, including their respective inner and outer retinues, differ in relative skill but are likewise judged coarse.

The Lotus says that all sentient beings are buddha-children, not outsiders hired to labor. According to nature, no being is not a buddha-child, and retinues by nature are wondrous. Formerly the sixteen princes repeated the Lotus, formed connections, and tied the jewel inside the garment; twenty thousand koṭis of buddhas all taught the unsurpassed path. The scripture says that whenever the Buddha encounters sentient beings he teaches them all the Buddha-path. If beings lacked buddha-nature while the Buddha taught them the Buddha-path, the fault would lie with the Buddha. If all possess it but fail to accept because of delusion, the fault lies with the beings. All who possess mind will become buddhas. An icchantika has not entirely extinguished mind and can still turn; why should buddhahood be difficult?

The two vehicles reduce the body to ash and extinguish cognition: cognition exhausted, mind ends; body reduced, form ends. With form and mind both destroyed they can do nothing in relation to the five desires. Yet the Buddha can meet them life after life and always teach them the Buddha-path: this is wondrous intermediate maturation. Now in the Lotus they universally attain buddhahood, which is rare. The supreme king of physicians transforms poison into medicine, cures ruined seeds, and enables those considered mindless to become buddhas: this is the wondrousness of inner and outer retinues.

It is like contending for merit in battle: the vanguard gains merit first. The Buddha’s various teachings gather sentient beings, but śrāvakas whose minds had become ash failed everywhere to enter until they suddenly entered in the Lotus. The Nirvāṇa therefore points from afar to eight thousand śrāvakas having already received predictions in the Lotus, like autumn harvest followed by winter storage: the work is complete and no further task remains. If they had not awakened to buddha-nature in the Lotus, the Nirvāṇa should not point to their predictions. If beings originally lacked buddha-nature, they should not have been taught the Buddha-path when connections were first formed. Tracing the beginning and examining the end makes the meaning of buddha-nature clear.

Now ask those who claim the Avataṃsaka is the sudden and ultimate teaching: does it or does it not say all sentient beings possess buddha-nature? If so, why did people of the two vehicles neither hear the scripture nor receive predictions of buddhahood but instead resemble the deaf and mute? If they originally possessed buddha-nature but hastily adopted the Lesser, like castrated men whose roots are ruined, can they be cured? If so, why were they not cured? If not, how can all beings be said to possess buddha-nature? What the Avataṃsaka cannot cure is therefore taught as skillful means; the Lotus cures it and is the teaching as it really is. Its wondrousness appears in curing the most difficult to cure.

The wondrousness of forming connections, maturation, karma-birth, vow-birth, response-birth, inner retinues, and outer retinues all lies in receiving the wondrous path and reflecting wondrous affairs. Judged through the five flavors, the milk teaching has Distinct and Perfect retinues, one coarse and one wondrous; curds has one coarse; raw ghee has three coarse and one wondrous; refined ghee two coarse and one wondrous; and the Lotus no coarse and only wondrous. This is the relational meaning of wondrous retinues.

Next the coarse is opened to reveal the wondrous. The coarse retinues in other scriptures did not see buddha-nature. The Lotus now determines natural kinship and confirms father and child, no longer treating beings as hired laborers. The bodhisattva Never Disparaging profoundly understood this: knowing that the proper cause in every being is never extinguished, he dared not belittle anyone. If someone hears even one sentence from any past buddha, whether presently abiding or already in nirvāṇa, that person can attain the Buddha-path; this shows the discerning cause is never extinguished. Lowering the head or raising a hand can also lead to the Buddha-path; this shows the conditioning cause is never extinguished. All sentient beings possess the three virtues of proper, discerning, and conditioning causes. This is opening the coarse to reveal the wondrous and explaining wondrous retinues beyond relational contrast.

Dharma-Gates Are Also Retinues

The fourth division concerns Dharma-gate retinues. The bodhisattva Universal Appearance asks Vimalakīrti who his parents, wife, relatives, retinues, officials, people, and friends are, and where his slaves, attendants, elephants, horses, and vehicles may be found. Vimalakīrti answers that skillful means is father and wisdom’s perfection mother; all guides of sentient beings are born from them. Dharma-joy is wife, kindness and compassion daughters, the wholesome and honest mind son, ultimate empty quiescence the dwelling; various defilements are disciples, transformed freely as the mind wishes; factors of the path are good friends through whom complete awakening is accomplished. This takes Dharma-gates as retinues. Different gates possess different depths.

In Tripiṭaka Dharma-gates, contemplating true truth is real wisdom and contemplating provisional existence is provisional wisdom. When both are complete, this is named a buddha, and the buddha is the guide. Kindness and compassion toward beings in the six destinies are called the daughter; causing others to accord wholesomely with true truth, the son. Joy on attaining this Dharma is the wife. The various pāramitās and factors of the path cultivated in mind are good friends.

In Shared-Teaching Dharma-gates, contemplating all dharmas as like illusions and transformations and penetrating their immediate emptiness is real wisdom; distinguishing the sameness and difference of the four gates is provisional wisdom. Understanding born from these two wisdoms is called the guide. Loving sentient beings is the daughter; causing them to give rise to wholesome and upright minds, the son; cultivating the six pāramitās and factors of the path, good friends. These are Shared-Teaching Dharma-gate retinues.

The Distinct Teaching has Dharma-gate retinues as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. Combining true and conventional truths is provisional wisdom, and wisdom is father; the real principle of the Middle Way is mother. Immeasurable kindnesses, factors of the path, and pāramitās are all penetrated without obstruction. Knowledge of path varieties is clear, able to contemplate sentient beings’ faculties and identify corresponding Dharma-medicines. These are Distinct-Teaching retinues.

The Sūtra of Immeasurable Meanings therefore says that buddhas, Dharma-kings, are father, scriptural teaching the lady and mother, and their union gives birth to bodhisattva-children. The Treatise on the Ten Abodes says that the pratyutpanna samādhi is father and great compassion and nonarising mother; all tathāgatas are born from these two Dharmas. The Ratnagotravibhāga says that faith in the Great Vehicle is the child, prajñā the mother, dhyāna the womb, great compassion the nurse, and buddhas children of suchness.

Icchantikas have the obstruction of slandering the Great Vehicle, non-Buddhists that of falsely conceiving a self in the body, śrāvakas that of fearing birth-and-death, and pratyekabuddhas that of abandoning benefit to sentient beings. Bodhisattvas cultivate four Dharmas as remedies: faith, prajñā, space-like and heroic-march samādhis, and great compassion. They thereby attain the pure Dharma realm, reach the further shore, see the Tathāgata-nature, are born into the Tathāgata’s household, and become buddha-children. Since seeing the Tathāgata-nature and being born in the Tathāgata’s household are taught, the Tathāgata is clearly father. Immeasurable, boundless, and inexpressibly many Dharma-gates all give birth to buddha-children.

In the Perfect Teaching’s Dharma-gate retinues, three truths and one truth are real according to one’s own practice. For transforming others, one truth and three truths are provisional. According with sentient beings’ affective understanding, one truth and three are provisional; according with the Buddha’s wisdom, three truths and one are real. Understanding arises from this inconceivable object. The myriad wholesome practices in one mind are the son, objectless great kindness the daughter, joy born from opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing the wife, and the Middle Way beyond purity and defilement, the factors of the path, and the six pāramitās the good friends. Such retinues take the perfectly ultimate Dharma-gate of the true mark as their family. A bodhisattva at the first abode accomplishes awakening and transforms sentient beings through the eight marks, becoming the guide. Since former Dharma-gates were coarse, the guides they produced were coarse; the present Dharma-gate retinues are wondrous, and the guide they produce is wondrous.

Judged again through the five flavors, milk has one coarse and one wondrous; curds only one coarse; raw ghee three coarse and one wondrous; refined ghee two coarse and one wondrous; and the Lotus only one wondrous. This is wondrousness in relation to the coarse.

In other scriptures, wondrous self-practice remains wondrous and coarse self-practice coarse. The Lotus does not merely leave what was wondrous as wondrous, nor does it retain any coarse. Every coarse Dharma formerly taught is now fully resolved and becomes the one wondrous Dharma-gate of equal great wisdom. This transcends relational contrast.

Recognizing Retinues within the Mind

The fifth division concerns contemplation-of-mind retinues and has six kinds: first the mind of craving love, second the mind of views, and four more corresponding to contemplation in the four teachings.

In retinues of the mind of craving love, ignorance is father and deluded love mother, producing descendants of afflictions. Because a practitioner craves and imagines, wishing to obtain a particular Dharma-gate in the mind, Māra finds an opening and enters. It is like a person thinking of a seductive woman and being beguiled by a malign being. The practitioner likewise imagines what is partial and deviant and thereby permits something deviant to enter. Through a ghost’s power one may give rise to understanding of a provisional or real Dharma. Once false understanding arises, a demonic guide is born; demonic kindness follows, together with attachment to joy in false Dharma, false six pāramitās and factors of the path, false eloquence, a quick mind, and fluent speech proclaiming different Dharma-gates. These are retinues of the mind of craving love.

As the deviant characteristic becomes sharp, it issues in four kinds of views. The mind of views investigates and calculates, establishing various Dharma-gates. What one sees in one’s own mind is called real; what agrees with others, provisional. Attachment arising in the mind is called the daughter and mental discrimination the son; the six pāramitās cultivated within that mind are factors of the path. These are retinues of the mind of views.

Why are both deviant retinues? Views and love cannot recognize suffering and accumulation within their own mind but falsely call them path and cessation. They also do not understand what is a letter and what is not, like an insect that happens to gnaw a pattern in wood resembling a letter. They accidentally obtain the name of a Dharma-gate without its corresponding meaning. This is love and views.

When one contemplates the mind, one knows that minds of love and views are all dependently arisen dharmas. One first contemplates their impermanent arising and cessation; four further sets of contemplation-of-mind retinues then follow. As the verse from the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is summarized here, dependently arisen dharmas are immediately empty, provisional, and middle. Retinues are still explained within each of the four modes of contemplation, their meanings following the preceding patterns.

Among the six contemplations of mind, the first five are judged coarse and the last wondrous. The coarse is then opened to disclose the wondrous. If one does not even recognize one’s minds of love and views as dependently arisen, how can one recognize that dependently arisen mind as empty and provisional? If emptiness and provisionality are not recognized, how can one know that Māra’s realm is immediately the Buddha realm and cultivate the thirty-seven factors without moving away from views? Now contemplate love as Dharma-nature and views without being moved by them, cultivating the thirty-seven factors there. The realms of Māra and views are the Buddha realm; one recognizes a letter within what is not a letter and follows what is not the path through to the Buddha-path. No dharma is then anything but wondrous.

Teaching retinues in phenomena is enough to make those who study only words lower their heads and listen. Teaching Dharma-gate retinues is enough to make those who practice according to teaching yield. Teaching contemplation-of-mind retinues is enough to make contemplative meditators yield. These three Dharma-gates all surpass what such people had previously heard or seen.

Why Does the Buddha Still Teach If Dharmas Transcend Speech?

Zhiyi first establishes teaching at a joint that looks contradictory but is actually complementary: dharmas “cannot be shown,” and the marks of words are originally quiescent; yet sentient beings possess conditions, so dharmas “can also be taught and shown.” The first statement prevents Dharma from being confined by names and words. The second prevents the Buddha from abandoning beings who have the conditions to be taught. The wondrousness of teaching lies precisely in the simultaneous validity of a principle beyond speech and a teaching that goes forth to conditions.

This subtlety therefore follows supernormal power. The body of the King of Medicine Trees and the body of the king of wish-fulfilling jewels move faculties through concentration; the poison drum and heavenly drum then remove sufferings through wisdom. Manifestation through the wheel of body makes beings ready to hear, while teaching through the wheel of speech enables them to enter. Concentration and wisdom are not separate paths but two successive moments in one work of transformation: first the conditions and faculties are set in motion, then the teaching of the One Vehicle guides them toward the ground of omniscience.

That everything taught by the Buddha “is real and not false” does not freeze every skillful statement into the same literal wording. Its truth is that the direction of the Buddha’s work never deceives sentient beings: he teaches the One Vehicle, and ultimately there are not three mutually isolated fruitions. The six divisions then unfold in a natural order. First come the names of the twelve divisions of scripture; then their Great and Lesser Vehicle scope; the faculties and conditions to which they are addressed; what they signify; and the judgment of coarse and wondrous. Contemplation of mind is finally listed. From form to recipient, recipient to meaning, and meaning to opening and revelation, the subtlety of teaching the Dharma follows a complete line of advance.

How Can Twelve Divisions Include the Immeasurable Buddhadharma?

The twelve divisions do not use titles to isolate scriptures from one another; they are twelve ways buddhavacana appears. Precisely because the Dharma of the buddhas of the three times is immeasurable, one must first distinguish what scripture is, the forms in which speech appears, the bases on which names are established, and the ways the divisions include one another. Zhiyi first cites a sevenfold analysis and then separately explains each of the twelve names, giving both “division” and “scripture” clear positions.

The first analysis says that the substance is one. Every scripture is constituted by names, words, clauses, and sentences; prose and verse, predictions and similes, alike never leave this verbal organization. The second says that the forms are two. Some delight in direct speech, others in ornate language, and buddhavacana therefore appears both as prose that teaches directly and as verse that praises. One substance identifies the shared ground; two forms identify differences of presentation. Together they allow immeasurable teachings both to be gathered under one heading and clearly distinguished.

The third analysis, instituting names, displays three relations between a name and its meaning. Sūtra, geya, and gāthā are named from their wording and literary form. Prediction, unsolicited teaching, causes and conditions, simile, former events, former births, marvels, and discussion disclose meaning through the event narrated. Vaipulya is named directly from the profound and expansive principle it signifies. Prediction discloses fruit through an event; causes and conditions disclose a precept through an occasion of wrongdoing; simile uses the near to compare with the distant; former events and former births connect present events with the past; marvels disclose great power through the extraordinary; and discussion reveals a hidden purport through questions and answers. A name is not an added label: it already shows how Buddhadharma reaches the listener.

The fourth analysis, determining names, distinguishes four further ways a name is assigned. The “thread scripture” takes its name from the simile of threading; geya and gāthā from their own literary form; prediction, unsolicited teaching, and discussion from both form and narrated event; and the remaining divisions from events. This refinement keeps the principles on which even a single class of names is established from becoming diffuse.

The fifth analysis, differences, most clearly shows that the divisions are not rigid. Sūtra can be the general name for an entire scripture or the direct teaching left over after the other eleven divisions are separated. In contrast to a treatise it can be the scriptural basis explained by that treatise; in contrast to verse, prose; in contrast to geya, the prose that is recapitulated; in the contrast among the three baskets, the scripture that sets forth principle and teaching; or the thread running through all twelve particular teachings. It gathers generally, then narrows according to each relation, and thus has nine meanings.

Gāthā likewise has general and specific uses. It may generally name sacred words cast into verse, specifically a four-line stanza, an independent verse as opposed to recapitulation, or—among verses associated with predictions, causes and conditions, and other events—only a verse that teaches directly without following such a particular event. Geya centers on recapitulation and further divides into recapitulating an intention, an event, or words. If what is recapitulated already belongs to prediction or another event, it follows that event into the relevant division; only verse that recapitulates directly taught scripture is named geya. The analysis of mutual inclusion therefore shows that sūtra, gāthā, and geya each include different numbers of the other divisions. The twelve have boundaries and overlap: boundaries keep meanings distinguishable, while overlap prevents buddhavacana from being cut apart.

The second round of twelve names places every kind of voice within the scene of teaching. Sūtra threads the Dharma; geya recapitulates prose; vyākaraṇa predicts future recompenses in the three vehicles, six destinies, and nine paths; gāthā arises independently as verse; udāna speaks spontaneously when no one can ask or there is no reason to wait; nidāna discloses the occasion for teaching or instituting a precept through a question or transgression; avadāna uses gentle, familiar events as similes; itivṛttaka concludes what has been said and recounts past conditions; jātaka unfolds a bodhisattva’s former births; vaipulya reveals the expansive principle of awakening; adbhutadharma moves an assembly with extraordinary signs such as light and earthquakes; and upadeśa explains meanings through question and answer.

The sequence of light in conferring a prediction is especially vivid. Light issues from between the teeth, illuminates the three evil destinies and the human and heavenly realms, and proclaims impermanence, nonself, and secure nirvāṇa. Beings who hear the Dharma escape suffering and become disenchanted according to their condition. The light performs buddha-work throughout the ten directions, circles the Buddha seven times, then reenters at the feet, lower leg, thigh, navel, chest, mouth, between the shoulders, or crown according to the recompense predicted. Its course makes prediction a complete buddha-work: it first illuminates the faculty addressed, next proclaims the corresponding Dharma, and finally indicates the predicted destination by the place of reentry.

The images in accounts of former events and former births carry equal force. Five hundred Śākyans, practicing diligently without sleep, feel the night is long; returning home to beg for alms, they feel the road is long; and a lion comes to bow at the Buddha’s feet. The three events together elicit their former conditions. As a lion, the bodhisattva exchanges flesh from his own flank for a young monkey entrusted to him; as a red-eyed fish, he rescues the sick; as a bird, he saves a drowning person. Every object and act concretely shows how a past event becomes present transformation. The twelve divisions are therefore not merely a list of terms but a complete picture of how buddhavacana teaches directly, repeats, predicts, speaks spontaneously, speaks from occasions, uses similes, recalls the past, and resolves meanings through dialogue.

Do the Twelve Divisions Belong to the Great or Lesser Vehicle?

Zhiyi’s answer changes with general and specific treatment. In general treatment, the Lesser Vehicle also possesses twelve divisions: predictions of causes and effects in the six destinies, Maitreya’s prediction of buddhahood, unsolicited teaching, and expansive scripture in the sense of the emptiness of dharmas. In specific treatment, three divisions are yielded and nine retained according to the respective purports of the Great and Lesser Vehicles; or only vaipulya is yielded, leaving eleven. Nine, eleven, and twelve are not three conflicting lists but three judgments answering different questions.

If the question is whether a literary form exists, all twelve may be generally present. If the question is whether a division fully bears the Great Vehicle meanings of permanence, buddha-nature, profundity, and expansiveness, specific treatment yields divisions. Once this joint is clear, the examples of prediction, unsolicited teaching, and vaipulya each find their proper place. Predictions in the Lesser Vehicle do not mean that predictions of buddhahood are universally given. Its unsolicited teaching is not the spontaneous sounding of the heavenly drum. Its expansiveness as the emptiness of dharmas still differs from the vaipulya teaching of the Tathāgata’s permanence and the buddha-nature of all beings.

The same principle then turns to the recipients. Faculties and conditions not yet mature are first matured by wholesome Dharmas of the human and heavenly vehicles. For Lesser Vehicle faculties, the twelve are taught generally and nine or eleven specifically; for bodhisattva faculties, all twelve are taught. The Buddha knows maturity and immaturity and never misses the time. The twelve divisions are therefore both classes of buddhavacana and ways speech goes forth to faculties. Their general and specific scope must be understood through the questions “for whom is this taught?” and “to what stage of maturity does it lead?”

The Tathāgata arranges teaching for four kinds of faculties from two perspectives. One distinguishes its modes as hidden, sudden, gradual, and indeterminate. The other, within the manifest gradual teaching, distinguishes the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings according to the Dharma realms addressed and the depth taught. The first concerns how the Buddha teaches; the second, the kind of meaning toward which the teaching leads. Dharma stores carried by dragons or elephants, or described as exhausting the sea for ink and grinding down mountains for inkstones, have no limit; yet the twelve divisions include this boundless buddhavacana without remainder according to the structures of faculties and teaching.

Is the Wondrousness of Verbal Teaching Found in Sound or Meaning?

Words are what can signify; meanings are what is signified. Zhiyi first judges the signified layer by layer according to faculties. The human and heavenly vehicles signify only conceivable conventional truth within the three realms. Gradual teaching proceeds from conventional to true and then to inconceivable true and conventional truths. Sudden teaching primarily signifies inconceivable true principle and secondarily conventional truth; indeterminate teaching varies with the faculty. The initial, middle, and later minds of the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings then open what is signified from conceivable true and conventional truths to truths within and beyond the three realms, culminating in the Perfect Teaching’s complete signification of inconceivable true and conventional truths. The same teaching voice can be received at different depths, while the depth of the signified in turn reveals the skill or crudeness of what signifies.

From the side of principle, no dharma is other than the Middle Way. The nature of words is itself detached and is immediately liberation. One rain from a dragon may appear as water, fire, or weapons according to where it falls. Principle is originally complete, while the accordance or conflict of sentient beings’ affective understanding displays coarse and wondrous. From the side of words, the Buddha constantly teaches prajñā and the Middle Way from awakening to nirvāṇa; although one sound expounds the Dharma, different classes gain different understandings. The skill of the single sound is wondrous, while the differing understandings include coarse and wondrous. Principle and words together show that wondrousness lies not only in what is said, but in how a single sound enables each class to hear.

From the side of what is signified, the conditioned Dharmas of the human and heavenly vehicles are coarse in both signifier and signified. Analytical gates of arising-and-ceasing are likewise coarse in both. The Shared Teaching’s integral analysis is skillful, but its signified remains true truth and is therefore coarse. The Distinct Teaching has a coarse signifier but the wondrous signified of the Middle Way; in the Perfect Teaching both are wondrous. Among scriptures, other texts may also contain wondrous meanings but carry coarse signification alongside them. The Lotus, like rain of one flavor, directly abandons skillful means and teaches only the unsurpassed path; it also opens the conduct of śrāvakas once rebuked as precisely the bodhisattva path. The good physician transforming poison into medicine is exactly the conversion of a faculty once judged ruined into one capable of receiving a prediction.

Within the Lotus itself, the twelve divisions are each revealed as wondrous. Direct teaching discloses only buddha-wisdom; recapitulation still recapitulates the Middle Way. The Dragon Girl offering her jewel and Joyful Seen praising the Buddha in independent verse disclose buddhahood in an instant and the matter of awakening. Twenty thousand buddhas teaching only the unsurpassed path is wondrous former event. The sixteen princes are princes by birth in their embodied lives and buddha-children by birth in the Dharma-body, making wondrous former birth. Repeating the Great Vehicle teaching and tying a jewel in a garment form only conditions for the Buddha-path and make wondrous causes and conditions. Heavenly flowers, earthquakes, light from between the brows, and the three transformations of the lands are wondrous marvels. Dharma and simile serve solely opening the provisional to reveal the real—the three vehicles as skillful means are opened and the One Vehicle as real is revealed—and make wondrous simile. Śāriputra’s questions to the Buddha and the Dragon Girl’s replies to Wisdom Accumulated concern the perfect and wondrous and make wondrous discussion. Rising from samādhi, the Buddha spontaneously teaches wisdom and then former conditions, making wondrous unsolicited speech. Śrāvakas of all three faculties abide in real wisdom and receive predictions, making wondrous prediction. The lofty, broad cart and profound, far-reaching wisdom make wondrous vaipulya.

The twelve divisions first appear wondrous relative to former coarse teachings, then open the former coarse so that the former breadth of words is itself the present breadth of principle. Present and former no longer stand as two separate realities: the Dharma not revealed formerly is now resolved, and former differences are now disclosed as returning together. The subtlety of teaching the Dharma has thereby moved from relational to absolute wondrousness.

Why Does Someone Who Hears the Dharma Become Part of the Buddha’s Retinue?

If teaching occurs, it must be received by conditions; those conditions are people who receive the path. Once they receive it, they become retinues. Zhiyi’s governing simile is the body bequeathed by parents: a child receives the parents’ body and forms one’s own, loves them through natural kinship, and is therefore an intimate; because the parties belong to and defer to one another, the child is a dependent. Kinship in Dharma likewise does not arise from a name on a register, but from “receiving Dharma and forming a body.”

When precepts are received, the teacher speaks the precept-Dharma, the disciple hears it and activates the precepts, and the teacher-disciple relation is born. In meditation, the teacher transmits the Dharma for settling the mind and the disciple practices accordingly and activates concentration. In wisdom, a Dharma-gate enters the listener’s mind and kinship is formed through Dharma. Closeness gives rise to trust, and trust to obedience. The examples of precepts, concentration, and wisdom show that a retinue is defined not by the form of blood relationship but by Dharma entering life and becoming one’s own practice and realization.

The ear faculty is keen in this land, so connections are formed especially through sound. Twenty thousand buddhas taught the unsurpassed path, and the sixteen princes repeated the Lotus. From then on their listeners shared lives with the teacher, sometimes as human or heavenly retinues, sometimes as retinues of the three vehicles, and sometimes of the One Vehicle. Only upon giving rise to Great Vehicle understanding in the Lotus does one truly understand being “born from the Buddha’s mouth, transformed through Dharma, and receiving a share of the Buddha’s Dharma”: wisdom from hearing, reflection, and cultivation successively gives birth to the Dharma-body. With all three wisdoms accomplished, the natural relationship of father and child is established.

Retinues by nature first place all sentient beings on a shared ground: the suchness of sentient beings and the Buddha’s suchness are one suchness; their natures are related, and they are spontaneously children. Karma-born retinues then enter time: having heard Dharma and formed connections formerly, they are drawn by those connections in the present. Vow-born retinues descend through vows, supernormal-power-born retinues divide their forms through their own powers, and response-born retinues arise through responsive manifestation from a revealed Dharma-body. Principle discloses their sameness and phenomena their arrival. The one principle of father and child thus unfolds into different modes of encounter through former connections, vows, supernormal power, and Dharma-body.

How Do Retinues Move from Losing Their Senses through Connection and Maturation to Deliverance?

The simile of the poisoned child who has lost one’s senses shows that one remains a child by nature while delusion and awakening differ in phenomena. Those who retain their senses take the medicine on seeing it, hear the sixteen princes repeat the teaching at the time of Great Penetrating Wisdom Excellence Buddha, and form the Great Vehicle connection of father and child. Those who have lost their senses reject the good medicine, wander through birth-and-death, and flee to another country. The Buddha then sequentially forms connections through the Dharmas of arising and ceasing, nonarising, nonarising yet arising, and neither arising nor nonarising. Trust becomes an accordant connection. Although slanderers fall through inversion, the connection formed allows them later to arise again and be delivered. After connection, the Buddha enters the existences through samādhis and teaches the three truths to mature them.

Drawn by the same old connections, those who formerly trusted and followed deeply now become close associates, those whose trust was slight become distant outsiders, and those who rejected and slandered become enemies. Near, distant, and hostile are not fixed identities but present effects of one’s former attitude toward received Dharma. Those who attain the path become inner retinues and Dharma-kin despite a different surname; those who have not attained it remain outer retinues despite biological kinship. “Inner” and “outer” are divided by attainment of Dharma, carrying the father-child simile from natural principle into the reality of transformation.

Vow-born retinues turn former connection into a choice concerning a later birth: one may vow to become an inner retinue or even an enemy so as to receive the path through that relation. Supernormal-power-born retinues retain a body at their original place of recompense and divide a form to come here; vow-born retinues have no body remaining at that place and descend through the power of vows. One centers on the strength of one’s recompense and the other on a vow within a teaching, and their emphases remain distinct. Vow and power apply when descending from an upper realm, coming horizontally from another land, or coming vertically from the realm of skillful means. One coming from the land of real recompense has attained the Dharma-body and can raise a response-body to enter birth-and-death.

There are three purposes for taking birth after Dharma-body principle has been revealed. The first is maturing others. Because the wholesome roots of karma-born beings are weak, Dharma-body bodhisattvas raise responses through the power of kindness, enter the existences as teachers and guides, and enable those who have not attained to advance, those with resemblance to proceed, and those with the real path to become inner retinues. When the Buddha first entered the womb, Dharma-body bodhisattvas descended as an escort, like clouds enclosing the moon; others scattered into different wombs and appeared as intimates, intermediates, and enemies to guide karma-born beings. Parents, children, śrāvakas, relatives, and even enemies can all be positions through which the Dharma-body teaches by skillful manifestation.

The second is coming for one’s own accomplishment. A Dharma-body bodhisattva’s progress on the path is not fixed: one may advance through an embodied life or through the Dharma-body. Even those who emerged from below still sought the true, pure, great Dharma, showing that responsive activity both increases the path and diminishes birth-and-death. The third purpose is the pull of original connections: one first aroused the mind from this Buddha and reached nonretrogression through this Buddha. Since the Buddha himself enters segmented birth-and-death to perform buddha-work, those with connections naturally follow, as all rivers flow toward the sea.

Taking birth and coming to an assembly have a further distinction. The bodhisattvas below hear the sound and emerge; Wondrous Sound sees the light and comes from the east; bodhisattvas of the ten directions gather when summoned. These are coming by supernormal power, coming responsively, relations of vows, and mutual summons through conditions. “Coming” means moving an already existing body to the Dharma assembly; “birth” means acquiring a body in a particular place. Those able to come through vows or power may also take birth through vows or power, and those able to come responsively may also be response-born. The two movements are related but occupy different semantic positions.

Does the Wondrousness of Retinues Lie in Intimacy or in Attaining Dharma?

The crucial factors in coarse and wondrous are faculties, maturation, and the path attained. Low faculties, shallow connections, and little intermediate maturation remain coarse even when one comes as an inner or outer retinue. Wondrousness unfolds along the whole line of nature, connection, intermediate maturation, and present prediction: all sentient beings are originally buddha-children; they formerly heard repeated teaching, received the hidden jewel, and were taught the unsurpassed path; the Buddha meets them life after life and teaches them the Buddha-path; and now even those regarded as ruined seeds universally attain buddhahood. The finest king of physicians cures those most difficult to cure, revealing inner and outer retinues alike as wondrous.

The simile of autumn harvest and winter storage places this transformation within a long duration. Śrāvakas receive predictions in the Lotus; a later assembly only points back to the accomplished event, as winter storage follows autumn harvest without another task. The vanguard in battle reveals the difficulty of the breakthrough: although the various teachings gather sentient beings, the two vehicles fail to enter everywhere until they suddenly enter in the Lotus. The point most difficult to cure becomes the first to display achievement. Only when first connection and final prediction illuminate one another from beginning to end is the meaning of buddha-nature completely revealed.

Relationally, there is wondrousness of connection, maturation, karma-birth, vow-birth, response-birth, inner retinues, and outer retinues. Absolutely, the natural relationship of father and child is determined and hired laborers return as true children. Hearing one sentence and attaining the Buddha-path reveals that the discerning cause is never extinguished; lowering the head or raising a hand and attaining the Buddha-path reveals that the conditioning cause is never extinguished. The proper cause is inherently present, and together with discerning and conditioning causes constitutes the three virtues. The subtlety of retinues thus turns from “which people are near the Buddha?” to “how do all sentient beings reveal themselves as buddha-children through inherent nature, hearing Dharma, and wholesome action?”

Can Dharma-Gates and Movements of Mind Also Be Retinues?

Dharma-gate retinues turn father, mother, wife, children, dwelling, and good friends inward. Skillful means is father, wisdom’s perfection mother, Dharma-joy wife, kindness and compassion daughters, the wholesome and honest mind son, ultimate empty quiescence the dwelling, and factors of the path good friends. Dharma can give birth to the guide and also constitute the guide’s whole family. In the Tripiṭaka Teaching, contemplation of true and provisional produces real and provisional wisdoms. In the Shared Teaching, the illusory as immediately empty is real and differentiating the four gates is provisional. In the Distinct Teaching, the real principle of the Middle is mother and wisdom father, opening immeasurable kindnesses, factors of the path, and pāramitās. In the Perfect Teaching, one truth and three truths operate through one’s own practice, transforming others, according with sentient beings’ affective understanding, and according with the Buddha’s wisdom, so that the myriad practices in one mind, objectless great kindness, and joy in opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing all become retinues.

This family simile carries kinship through Dharma to its deepest point. Faith can be a child, prajñā a mother, dhyāna a womb, and great compassion a nurse. The four obstructions—slandering the Great Vehicle, conceiving a self, fearing birth-and-death, and abandoning benefit to others—are treated by faith, prajñā, samādhis, and great compassion. Seeing the Tathāgata-nature and being born in the Tathāgata’s household, a buddha-child is not made merely by hearing one sentence from a teacher but is reared to accomplishment by Dharma-gates.

Contemplation-of-mind retinues then asks what kind of family is produced when the mind is drawn by craving love, recollective imagination, and partial views. Ignorance is father, deluded love mother, and afflictions their descendants. Deviant forces enter through imagination, producing a demonic guide, demonic kindness, joy in false Dharma, false pāramitās, and false eloquence. The mind of views treats its own view as real and what it shares with others as provisional; love becomes the daughter and discrimination the son. The names may resemble Dharma-gates, but their meanings are still born from love and views.

The turn comes in recognizing that love and views are themselves dependently arisen dharmas. Contemplate their impermanent arising and cessation, then their immediate emptiness, provisionality, and middle; the mind that once generated false retinues becomes an entrance into Dharma-nature. Contemplate love as Dharma-nature and views without being moved by them, cultivating the factors of the path there. The realms of Māra and views are immediately the Buddha realm; one recognizes the letter within what is not a letter and reaches the Buddha-path through what is not the path. Retinues in phenomena, Dharma-gate retinues, and contemplation-of-mind retinues now illuminate one another: one becomes kin by receiving the Buddha’s Dharma, raises buddha-children through Dharma-gates, and discerns within the present thought how this household is born.

Through the Eye of the Shiqian

Zhanran first divides the subtlety of teaching the Dharma into a heading and explanation, and the explanation into the reason for introduction and the proper interpretation. Although the preceding subtlety generally mentioned the three wheels of body, speech, and mind, its principal intent lay in the body-wheel. Supernormal power was only a sign that Dharma was about to be taught; only here does the account fully turn to the speech-wheel. “Dharmas cannot be shown” and “because there are conditions, they can be taught” each find their place: the first concerns principle beyond speech, the second teaching that goes forth to conditions.

The mirror also separates the two rounds of explaining Dharma-names. In Dharmottara’s sevenfold analysis, the first five divisions successively list one, two, three, four, and five items; mutual inclusion retains only several received patterns, while analysis by questions is entirely missing. Only the following twelve names constitute Zhiyi’s proper interpretation, their Dharma-names relying wholly on fascicle thirty-seven of the Great Treatise. This view preserves the distinction between cited explanation and proper interpretation and explains why both rounds coexist.

The division of Great and Lesser first distinguishes general and specific treatment in relation to each other and then explains their purpose. The four kinds of faculties in the section on responding to conditions are identified by the mirror as recipients of the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings. The division on what is signified first separates the twelve divisions as what teaches from the faculties that receive them, then distinguishes depths of signification according to those faculties. Division, faculty, and signification each operate on their own level.

In the fivefold judgment of coarse and wondrous, principle is considered exclusively from what is signified and words exclusively from what signifies; these first two range across teachings. Only the third judges signifier and signified within each teaching. The section on scriptures first distinguishes the Trace and then points to the Origin. “The Lotus is secret” means secret because it was formerly unrevealed and close because after opening and revelation no Dharma lies outside it. The treatment of the twelve divisions in the present scripture further has four levels: heading, explanation, conclusion, and opening. The missing contemplation section preserves only a transmission notice that a separate short fascicle circulated; the extant line of meaning therefore rests on the five divisions that have full text.

For the sequence from teaching to retinues, the mirror uses the body bequeathed by parents: the Tathāgata is like the parents, the Dharma taught like their bequeathed body, and the recipient forms a body by taking up that Dharma and thus becomes kin. Among the five, retinues by nature first clarifies shared principle, then cites scripture and concludes. Karma-, vow-, supernormal-power-, and response-born retinues are stratified by former connections, vows, power, and responsive manifestation from the Dharma-body. In the poisoned child’s loss of sense, what has been forgotten is precisely the Dharma formerly received.

Zhanran distinguishes vow and supernormal power from three sides: one’s own power versus a teaching-gate, having or not having a body at the original place, and Great versus Lesser Vehicle doctrine. Response-birth has three further meanings—maturing others, self-maturation, and original connections. Maturing others concerns Dharma-body bodhisattvas appearing as intimates, intermediates, and enemies. Self-maturation concerns progress through embodied life and Dharma-body. Original connections explain why those connected with the Buddha follow. The root text reads “coming for self-accomplishment,” while the mirror gathers its meaning under self-maturation.

Coarse and wondrous retinues are first judged and then opened; the judgment proceeds according to teaching and flavor. In the challenge directed at the Avataṃsaka, the mirror makes clear that the criticism falls not on the Perfect Teaching itself but on the provisional content of the scripture as a whole and on exegetes who fail to understand it. Dharma-gate retinues proceed through differentiation, judgment, and opening; contemplation-of-mind retinues through listing, explanation, judgment, and opening. Both move from difference toward resolution.

Throughout the long treatment of response-birth, the mirror attaches intimate, intermediate, and hostile relations to “maturing others,” showing how Dharma-body bodhisattvas enter the relational network of karma-born beings. Progress through embodied life and Dharma-body belongs solely to “self-maturation,” and rivers flowing to the sea illuminates only “original connections.” Each purpose is borne by the root text’s own simile or event, and only all three together answer why one who has the Dharma-body takes birth. The mirror then classifies emerging from below, coming from the east, and gathering when summoned as coming by power, responsive coming, vow-related coming, and being summoned by conditions, allowing relocation and acquisition of a birth to retain separate meanings.

In judging the wondrousness of retinues, the mirror joins nature, former connection, intermediate maturation, and present deliverance into one long line. The most difficult to cure among the two vehicles receive predictions in the Lotus: this is at once the physician transforming poison into medicine and the vanguard in battle. Autumn harvest and winter storage says the present prediction is already accomplished and a later scripture need only point back to it. The three similes respectively illuminate curing, breakthrough, and harvest; they do not collapse into one generic picture of revelation.

In the final contemplation-of-mind passage, “the first five are coarse and the last one wondrous,” read in sequence, joins love and views with the earlier and later of the four contemplations. The mirror concludes by resolving the coarse into the wondrous: only by recognizing dependent arising can one proceed to emptiness and provisionality; once emptiness and provisionality are clear, one sees the realms of Māra and views as immediately the Buddha realm. Contemplation of mind is thus not an appended example, but the last step that returns external kinship through received Dharma to completion within one’s own mind.

The fathers, mothers, spouses, children, and good friends of Dharma-gate retinues are accordingly more than a collection of metaphorical names. The mirror places them after birth in phenomena and before contemplation of mind, so that kinship gained by receiving Dharma is first internalized as Dharmas capable of producing buddha-children and then brought into contemplation of the present mind.

Finally, Zhanran gathers the chapter into seven classes: the first from principle, the next four from phenomena, the next from Dharma, and the last from practice. This does not rewrite the five kinds listed at the start of the root text. It gathers retinues by nature, the four phenomenal births, Dharma-gate retinues, and contemplation-of-mind retinues into a complete whole. Looking back through this mirror, the subtlety of teaching the Dharma asks how buddhavacana goes forth to faculties; the subtlety of retinues asks how recipients become kin through principle, phenomena, Dharma, and practice. Once the speech-wheel opens, Dharma and persons continue together within the same sequence of transformation.