妙法蓮華經玄義 釋名·蓮華釋結經

How can a single lotus seed contain an entire sutra? Because what it contains is not a collection of sentences, but a course from beginning to end.

The lotus blossom is first a Dharma-name. Because the Wondrous Dharma is pure and its cause and fruit are wondrous, it can in itself be called the lotus blossom. When sentient beings cannot immediately understand this, the familiar plant becomes a simile. The Dharma-name tells us that the subject is not merely a flower, while the name as simile gives profound Dharma a form that can be seen.

When the blossom is born, the lotus fruit is already present; when the blossom opens, the fruit appears; when the blossom falls, the fruit matures. These three movements show both how expedients lead people to see the real and how what appears before them enables them to recognize the remote Origin. The blossom is not simply discarded: it is precisely through the blossom’s nurture that the fruit matures. Nor does the fruit exist outside the blossom; it has been contained there from the first moment the blossom arose.

Look again at a stone-hard lotus seed buried in mud: black skin outside, white flesh within, the four subtle constituents forming its substance, a curled leaf about to emerge, and root, stalk, blossom, leaf, stamens, and receptacle all present in potential. It has not yet flowered, yet its power of growth, activity, cause, conditions, fruit, recompense, and identity from beginning to end are already complete. Practice begins here as well: purity does not first appear only after one has left the mud. Amid layer upon layer of enclosure, one first recognizes the power that can pierce the skin and grow upward.

After one seed ripens, it falls back into mud and water and grows into another plant. As a pond of lotuses ripens and grows again in this way, the passage of years eventually fills the whole pond. Buddha-work likewise does not end with a single attainment. Having realized the fruit, the Buddha still manifests arousing the mind, practicing, and reaching consummation for sentient beings; each ripened fruit in turn becomes the seed of a further work of benefit.

The ensuing explanation of “sutra” therefore does not suddenly leave the lotus behind. As the basis of Dharma, sutra gives teaching, practice, and principle a root. As subtle emergence, it lets the smallest beginning grow into a tree one can embrace. As a gushing spring, it lets one utterance flow into immeasurable meanings. As a carpenter’s line, it keeps the path from going astray. As a garland-thread, it prevents what is heard, practiced, and understood from falling apart. What the word “sutra” does resembles the lotus stalk, stamens, and receptacle: it supports, connects, and nourishes, making beginning and end into one whole.

In the end, even a single dot of black ink can be sutra. The difference of one stroke makes a different graph; from dots come graphs, from graphs sentences, from sentences fascicles, and from fascicles sections and collections. A single dot can occasion greed and anger or kindness and equanimity; it can disclose the dependent arising of cyclic existence and its cessation. Ink does not teach by itself. Rather, when eye, graph, and mind meet, the entire path of teaching, practice, and principle opens.

Contemplating the mind therefore does not put the scripture away. It reveals where reading a sutra actually occurs. Mind allows language to emerge, practice to be established, and principle to grow from faint to clear. Like a spring buried under earth and stones, mind can flow again when contemplation removes the blockage. The lotus contains fruit in the mud, written graphs contain meaning in ink, and a single thought amid affliction contains a path that can be followed.

The heart-essence of this passage lies in four words: “containing, and able to emerge.” When seeing a lotus seed, do not look only at how small it is now; see the full course of root, stalk, blossom, and fruit. When reading a graph, do not ask only what it means on the surface; let it become the starting point of hearing, reflection, and cultivation. If one can remain with this seed before one’s eyes and this dot of black ink, an entire sutra begins growing here.

I. Why Use the Lotus to Explain the Title?

The lotus blossom is explained next through four approaches: first, determining whether it is a Dharma-name or a simile; second, citing earlier explanations; third, presenting the accounts in scriptures and treatises; and fourth, giving the proper explanation.

First comes the determination of Dharma-name and simile. The provisional and the real are difficult to reveal directly, so the lotus is borrowed as a simile for the Wondrous Dharma. The sutra also contains many passages of seven similes, so a simile is placed in its title. Another explanation says that the lotus is not a simile, but a name taken from the Dharma-gate itself. When heaven and earth first formed and the myriad things had no names, sages observed their principles and established names by following those patterns. Seeing a spider emit silk, they imitated it to knot a net; seeing tumbleweed turn by itself in the wind, they followed it to make a cart; seeing floating timber borne along a current, they devised boats; and seeing bird and animal tracks form patterns, they derived written graphs. In every case, people fashioned an object by following a principle found in things.

The lotus spoken of here likewise does not first become meaningful through a borrowed simile: it is precisely the Lotus Dharma-gate. Because this Dharma-gate is pure and its causes and fruits are wondrous, it is called the lotus blossom. This is the Lotus Samādhi’s name taken from itself, not a simile. Other scriptures often explain their own titles; this sutra does not, perhaps because the relevant passage was not transmitted. Both explanations have reason, and they will now be harmonized.

Someone asks: Must this lotus be the lotus of the Lotus Samādhi, or must it be a lotus among plants and flowers?

The answer is that it is certainly the Dharma-lotus. Because the Dharma-lotus is difficult to understand, the plant-lotus is used as a simile. Those of sharp faculties understand principle as soon as they hear the name and need no simile; they simply understand “lotus” as the Lotus Dharma. Those of middling and lesser faculties have not yet awakened and must know through a simile, so an easily understood lotus is used for a difficult one. The three rounds of teaching accord with those of sharp, middling, and lesser faculties. For the sharp, lotus is a Dharma-name; for the middling and lesser, it is a name as simile. Considering all three faculties together, both Dharma and simile are marked in the title. With this explanation, who is there to dispute? The present discussion will therefore explain lotus through both Dharma and simile.

II. Earlier Explanations of the Lotus

Second, earlier explanations are cited. Master Rui’s preface says that the flower before opening is called kumala, when about to fall it is called kamala, and at the height of its bloom between these two it is called puṇḍarīka. Master Huiyuan says that puṇḍarīka is a simile for the lotus in bloom. The flower’s body changes over time and its name changes with its color, giving it three names. The Great Sutra also speaks of “a lotus among humans, a puṇḍarīka blossom.” Since two names appear together in the title, they should differ as shared and specific names. Here “lotus blossom” is taken as the shared name and puṇḍarīka as the specific name. Master Daolang says that it is a vivid white; others translate it as red or as most fragrant. All describe the appearance of full bloom, and naming puṇḍarīka encompasses them.

Someone asks: Why does the Sanskrit text use the specific name while China uses the shared name?

The answer is that other lands distinguish names for the flower’s three times, while China has no such convention. It therefore uses only the shared name, which itself encompasses the specific.

Another explanation gives the lotus sixteen meanings. The lotus arises from conditions, representing buddha-nature arising through conditions. The lotus can give birth to Brahmā, representing buddhahood produced through conditions. It necessarily grows in mud, representing understanding arising from cyclic existence. It is an auspicious sign that gladdens those who see it, representing their future buddhahood. It grows from the minute to the manifest, representing how a single bow or a single thought can lead to buddhahood. Blossom and fruit necessarily coexist, representing the coexistence of cause and fruit. The blossom necessarily contains lotus fruit, representing how a cause necessarily culminates in buddhahood. Lotus represents leading people into the lotus world. It is what the Buddha’s feet tread, representing the support on which sages take birth. Though this group is counted as ten similes, all are only partial meanings within this tradition’s subtlety of practice.

It is further said that the lotus grows in mud without being stained by it, representing the one existing amid the three without the three staining the one. Its three times differ, representing how opening the three reveals that they are only one. Its opening and closing represent concealment and revelation in response to conditions. Its supremacy among flowers represents being foremost among teachings. Blossom opening and fruit appearing represent skillful discourse revealing principle. Its differences over three times represent provisional and real each suiting its time. These six similes are likewise only partial meanings within this tradition’s subtlety of teaching the Dharma.

Master Guangzhai says that the blossoms and fruits of other flowers do not coexist, representing how other scriptures explain cause or fruit one-sidedly; the lotus blossom and fruit necessarily coexist, representing how this sutra clarifies both. The disciples’ side explains cause and the teacher’s side fruit, and so the lotus is borrowed as the simile.

In the present judgment, this explanation is too brief in expression and one-sided in meaning. In the Trace Gate, both teacher and disciples have cause and fruit. The sutra says that the Buddha practiced all the path-dharmas possessed by buddhas and attained the fruit at the place of practice: these are the teacher’s cause and fruit. Gathering the three into the one is the disciples’ cause, and receiving predictions of future buddhahood is their fruit. In the Origin Gate, the Buddha’s original practice of the bodhisattva path is the teacher’s cause, and the immense remoteness since he attained buddhahood is the teacher’s fruit. His former teaching that led them first to arouse the mind is the disciples’ cause, and their present dwelling in nonretrogression and certain future buddhahood is their fruit. Guangzhai’s meaning is therefore partial and abbreviated and is not adopted.

It can, however, be helped toward completion. The four subtle constituents that compose visible form are in themselves neither blossom nor lotus fruit, yet blossom and fruit can be discussed on their basis. The principle of the true mark is in itself neither the causes and fruits of Origin and Trace, yet those causes and fruits can be explained on the basis of the true mark. The four constituents are likewise neither opening nor closing, yet opening and closing can be discussed on their basis. The true mark is neither provisional nor real, yet on its basis one can speak of opening the provisional to reveal the real and disclosing the Trace to reveal the Origin.

III. The Lotus as Explained in Scriptures and Treatises

Third, scriptures and treatises are cited. The Lotus Treatise lists seventeen names: first, Immeasurable Meanings; second, Supreme; third, Great Vaipulya; fourth, Dharma That Teaches Bodhisattvas; fifth, Kept in Mind by Buddhas; sixth, Secret Treasury of Buddhas; seventh, Treasury of All Buddhas; eighth, Secret Syllables of All Buddhas; ninth, Giving Birth to All Buddhas; tenth, Place of Practice of All Buddhas; eleventh, Dharma-Wheel Turned by All Buddhas; twelfth, Firm Relic of All Buddhas; thirteenth, Great Skillful Expedient of Buddhas; fourteenth, Teaching the One Vehicle; fifteenth, Abiding in the Ultimate Truth; sixteenth, Lotus Blossom of the Wondrous Dharma; and seventeenth, Dharma-Gate That Encompasses Immeasurable Name-, Graph-, and Phrase-Bodies, such as bimbara and akṣobhya. The treatise only lists the seventeen names and does not explain the others.

The treatise next explains the lotus in two senses. The first is emerging from water, indicating an inability to emerge completely from the turbid mud-water of the lesser vehicle. It also means that the lotus emerging from mud and water represents śrāvakas entering and sitting within the Tathāgata’s assembly, like bodhisattvas seated on lotuses, hearing the pure object of unsurpassed wisdom, and realizing the Tathāgata’s secret treasury. The second is the blossom opening: because sentient beings are fainthearted toward the Mahāyāna and unable to give rise to faith, the Tathāgata’s pure and wondrous Dharma-body is disclosed so that faith may arise.

Here is the present explanation of the treatise. Causing sentient beings to see the pure and wondrous Dharma-body takes the unfolding of wondrous causal practice as lotus. Śrāvakas entering the Tathāgata’s assembly and sitting on lotuses takes the land of wondrous recompense as lotus. Why? Vairocana Buddha dwells in the ocean of the Lotus-Treasury together with great bodhisattvas, none of whom are persons within cyclic existence. If śrāvakas enter this realm, the land of wondrous recompense is the lotus. From the standpoint of the present passage, the treatise’s two meanings therefore concern only the subtlety of practice and the subtlety of stages.

The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra says that compassion is the stalk, wisdom the leaf, samādhi the stamens, and liberation the flower’s opening; the bodhisattva king of bees consumes nectar, and “I now bow to the Buddha-lotus.” It also takes discipline, concentration, wisdom, and dhāraṇī as necklaces adorning the bodhisattva. The present explanation is that a bodhisattva gathers these four dharmas to form a conventionally designated person, like a bee within a flower, and in turn nourishes himself with the four dharmas, like a bee feeding on the flower’s nectar.

IV. From Partial Simile to the Six Similes of Origin and Trace

Fourth comes the proper explanation. According to the Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra, the causes and fruits of practices are lotus. The bodhisattva located on the flower is the flower of the causal stage; bowing to the Buddha-lotus is the flower of the fruit stage. According to the Lotus Treatise, the land of dependent recompense is lotus; moreover, bodhisattvas cultivate lotus practices and thereby receive the recompense of a lotus land. Thus dependent and direct recompense, cause and fruit, are all lotus dharmas. Why should a simile be needed to reveal them? Yet people of dull faculties do not understand the lotus of Dharma-nature, so there is no harm in using a worldly flower as a simile.

The sutra nevertheless speaks in two places of the udumbara flower’s appearing only at rare intervals. When this flower appears, a wheel-turning king should appear; when this sutra is taught, sentient beings receive predictions of buddhahood and the Dharma King appears in the world. This numinous and auspicious flower resembles the lotus and is therefore used as a simile. From this standpoint, a worldly flower is borrowed to represent the Wondrous Dharma.

Some similes select only a small part and others range broadly. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra provides examples. To use only a small part, the moon can represent a person’s face, but one must not seek eyebrows and eyes in the moon; snow can represent a white elephant, but one must not look for its tail and tusks in snow. Nothing can fully represent the Lotus Samādhi, so this lotus alone is used. There are many flowers, as explained above, but only the lotus has many blossoms and fruits and can represent a cause containing myriad practices and a fruit perfect in myriad virtues. Other flowers are coarse and represent the causes and fruits of the ten suchnesses in the nine Dharma realms; this flower is wondrous and represents the causes and fruits of the ten suchnesses in the buddha realm.

The same flower next represents the Trace and Origin Gates of the buddha realm, with three similes for each.

First are three similes for the Trace Gate. First, as soon as the blossom arises it necessarily contains lotus fruit. The blossom arises for the fruit, but the fruit cannot yet be seen. This represents establishing the provisional in relation to the real, with the intent directed toward the real though no one can know it. The sutra therefore says that the Buddha’s intent is difficult to fathom and no one can ask; it also says that what he teaches according to what is fitting has an intent difficult to understand.

Second, because the blossom opens, the lotus fruit appears; yet the blossom is still needed to nourish the fruit. This represents the real already being present within the provisional although sentient beings cannot know it. Now opening the provisional to reveal the real still requires the provisional. Broad knowledge of buddha-dharmas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges is precisely for the sake of accomplishing the real and deeply knowing the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing.

Third, blossom falling and lotus fruit maturing represent abolishing the three to reveal the one, so that only the One Buddha-Vehicle goes directly to the place of practice. Bodhisattvas still have practices to carry out and therefore do not see with complete clarity, like a blossom that has opened but not fallen. Buddhas, having no practice still to carry out, see with complete clarity, like blossom fallen and fruit mature. These three similes encompass the Trace Gate from the initial expedient entrance into the Mahāyāna through final perfect completion.

Next are three similes for the Origin Gate. First, the blossom necessarily contains lotus fruit, representing that the manifest Trace necessarily has an Origin and contains it. Although the Buddha’s intent lies in the Origin, it is difficult to know; even Maitreya does not recognize it.

Second, blossom opening and fruit appearing represent opening the Trace to reveal the Origin. The intent still rests in the Trace, because this enables bodhisattvas to recognize the Buddha’s expedients. Once they recognize the Trace, they can in turn recognize the Origin, increasing the path and diminishing cyclic existence.

Third, blossom falling and fruit maturing represent abolishing the Trace to reveal the Origin. Having recognized the Origin, one is no longer confused by the Trace, but cultivates the path upon the Dharma-body and perfectly enters the higher stages. These three similes encompass the Origin Gate from its initial opening through the original ground.

The six similes of the two Gates each have a precise referent. First, the ten suchnesses of the nine realms are extended on the basis of the ten suchnesses of the buddha realm. Second, the ten suchnesses of the nine realms are opened to reveal the ten suchnesses of the buddha realm. Third, the ten suchnesses of the nine realms are abolished to accomplish those of the buddha realm. These three encompass the Trace Gate from beginning to end. If this intent is understood, the twelve links of dependent arising, four truths, three truths, wisdom, practice, stages, and even meritorious benefit can all be represented through them. Fourth, the ten suchnesses of the buddha realm in the Trace are extended on the basis of those in the Origin. Fifth, the ten suchnesses of the buddha realm in the Trace are opened to reveal those in the Origin. Sixth, the former are abolished to accomplish the ten suchnesses of the buddha realm in the Origin. Beginning and end are thereby perfect, and opening and combining complete. This is still only a partial use of the lotus as simile.

V. From the Stone-Hard Seed to the Mature Lotus

Next comes the extensive simile. In explaining the lion’s roar, the Treatise of the Great Perfection of Wisdom proceeds from the lion’s stock and growth in deep mountains and valleys through bodily strength, paws, claws and fangs, head and tail, and the shaking roar, using a whole sequence of comparisons for the Dharma-gate of the lion’s roar. The Great Sutra similarly describes the pārijāta tree from yellowing leaf and protruding bud through blister and fruit, broadly representing the practitioner. Here too the Wondrous Dharma is represented from the initial seed all the way to mature lotus fruit.

Consider a stone-hard lotus seed: black skin outside, white flesh inside, with the four subtle constituents as its substance; a curled lotus leaf about to emerge and all minute parts already complete; then blossom opening, stamens spreading, lotus fruit growing, and the seed chamber maturing. From beginning to end it never departs from the lotus, and the ten meanings are complete throughout. This represents sentient beings of the buddha realm from their first ignorance through the final fruit of buddhahood, lacking none of the ten suchnesses. This is the general statement of the simile.

First, appearance. The stone-hard lotus’s skin is black and therefore not easily stained; it is hard and therefore not easily destroyed. It is neither square nor round, neither born nor extinguished. At the beginning of the eon there was no separate seed, and so it is unborn; the present seed does not differ from the first, and so it is unextinguished. This is the lotus seed’s appearance. The inherently pure minds of all sentient beings are likewise unstained by adventitious dust. Although cyclic existence accumulates layer upon layer, mind-nature does not abide or move and is neither born nor extinguished. This is suchness as appearance in the buddha realm. The Vimalakīrti Sutra says that all sentient beings are immediately the appearance of awakening; this is its meaning.

Second, nature. Though the lotus seed has black skin and lies buried in mud, its white flesh does not change. The wisdom in all sentient beings that can illuminate principle is the same. Although surrounded by the mud of the five abodes and the recompense of cyclic existence, the aspiration for all-wisdom remains and is not lost. This is suchness as nature in the buddha realm. Hence afflictions are themselves awakening, and when dharmas are not born, prajñā is born; these have the same meaning.

Third, substance. Although the seed lies in mud, its four subtle constituents do not decay. This is the seed’s substance. The direct-cause buddha-nature of all sentient beings is likewise unmoving and indestructible as permanence, bliss, self, and purity. This is suchness as substance in the buddha realm. The Great Sutra says that this true flavor remains in the mountain and cannot be covered and destroyed by grasses, trees, thickets, and woods; this is its meaning.

Fourth, power. Though the seed is enclosed by skin and husk and submerged in mud, the curled leaf already lies at its core with the energy to grow upward. The minds of all sentient beings are the same. Though bound by the fruit of suffering and submerged in the accumulation of delusion, they can arouse the mind of awakening from within it, with enormous and heroic strength like lion’s milk or a bowstring made from lion sinew. This is suchness as power in the buddha realm. A scripture says that arousing the mind of awakening shakes boundless cyclic existence and breaks the beginningless wheel of existence. People of Jambudvīpa can arouse the mind with such courage before seeing the fruit.

Fifth, activity. Although the lotus seed is minute, root, stalk, blossom, leaf, stamens, and receptacle are already present within its black skin, all its parts complete at once. This is the seed’s suchness as activity. The first arousal of the mind of awakening in sentient beings is the same: understanding is clear and decisive, compassionate vows are made to seek the Buddha path above and transform sentient beings below, attainment is pledged, and resolve neither tires nor retreats. This is suchness as activity in the buddha realm. The Huashou Sutra says that all merit is contained in the initial mind; this is its meaning.

Sixth, cause. The lotus root rests in mud while the blossom occupies open air. Wind and sunlight move it, and it grows day and night until all its splendor is suddenly complete. Sentient beings likewise arouse the mind of awakening from the boundary of ignorance, cultivate bodhisattva practice, leave cyclic existence, and enter Dharma-nature. Their causal practice ripens; they meet the Buddha-sun and are touched by the wind of supernormal power; thought after thought, they enter the ocean of sarvajñā. This is suchness as cause in the buddha realm. A scripture says that merit made through immeasurable eons does not equal the merit of offering five stalks of lotus to Dīpaṃkara Buddha. This is the accomplishment of the true cause.

Seventh, condition. The lotus’s stamens and anthers circle within the blossom but outside the lotus fruit. This is suchness as condition. A bodhisattva likewise possesses myriad practices and the six perfections within the true cause, every practice containing all practices and assisting the cause, as stamens remain inside the flower. When the fruit is attained, practices come to rest, as the stamens remain outside the fruit. This is suchness as condition in the buddha realm. The sutra says that all path-dharmas of the buddhas have been fully practiced; this is its meaning.

Eighth, fruit. When the blossom is complete, lotus fruit forms; the petals and leaves fall, and the receptacle and seeds ripen. This is the seed’s suchness as fruit. A bodhisattva is likewise moved by the true cause to the great fruit of unsurpassed awakening, perfectly and ultimately matured. This is suchness as fruit in the buddha realm. The sutra therefore says that after Buddha-children practice the path, they will become buddhas in a future life.

Ninth, recompense. The lotus fruit is enclosed by seed chamber and receptacle. This is the seed’s suchness as recompense. A bodhisattva is likewise perfect in the great fruit and complete in unsurpassed recompense. Dependent recompense, the fruit of the habitual fruit, rests upon direct recompense as lotus fruit rests on the receptacle. The sutra says that such great recompense is obtained through long-cultivated karma; this is its meaning.

Tenth, ultimate equality from beginning to end. The lotus in mud and the lotus in open air are both constituted by the four subtle constituents and do not differ from beginning to end. This is the seed’s equality from beginning to end. All sentient beings likewise inherently possess permanence, bliss, self, and purity. When concealed they are called the tathāgata-garbha; when made manifest through cultivation they are called the Dharma-body. The four virtues as inherent virtue and cultivated virtue are one and nondual. This is ultimate equality from beginning to end among the ten suchnesses of the buddha realm. A scripture says that the suchness of sentient beings and the suchness of a buddha are one suchness, not two. The representation of the object of the ten suchnesses through the lotus is now complete.

VI. From the Twelve Links to the Other Nine Subtleties

Next, the lotus represents the twelve links of dependent arising. The black skin, mud, and layers of covering water-grass have the general meaning explained above and are the seed of ignorance. The power able to generate is formations. The curled leaf and all the potential stamens within are consciousness, name-and-form, six entrances, contact, and feeling. The moisture held within is craving, grasping, and existence. The seed’s round, coiled inability to emerge is aging-and-death. If the shoot begins to stir and pierces the black skin, that is the cessation of ignorance. No longer growing within the skin is the cessation of formations. Emerging from the outer husk is the cessation of aging-and-death. This briefly represents the four kinds of twelvefold dependent arising.

Next, the lotus represents the four truths. The black skin represents suffering within the realm; the white flesh, accumulation within the realm; mud, accumulation beyond the realm; and water, suffering beyond the realm. Path and cessation can be understood accordingly. This broadly represents the four kinds of four truths.

Next, the lotus represents the two truths. The visible forms of lotus fruit, root, stalk, and leaves represent the conventional; the hollow openings within fruit, root, and stalk represent the true. This broadly represents the seven kinds of two truths.

Next, the lotus represents the three truths. The true and conventional are as above; the four subtle constituents representing permanence, bliss, self, and purity represent the Middle, the ultimate truth. This broadly represents the five kinds of three truths. The constituents’ nonarising and nonceasing represent the one real truth. No arising at the beginning of the eon and no extinction now represent no truth and no discourse. This completes the lotus representation of the subtlety of objects.

The other nine subtleties are then represented. The seed has an inner nature of growth, representing the subtlety of wisdom. The curled leaf’s nature of growth represents the wisdom of emptiness; the stamens’ and leaves’ nature of growth, the wisdom of provisional existence; and the receptacle’s four constituents, the wisdom of the Middle. These three natures of growth together in one seed represent the subtlety of the three wisdoms in one mind.

Though small, the seed completely contains root, stalk, blossom, and leaf, representing the subtlety of practice. The stalk represents compassion, the leaf wisdom, the stamens samādhi, and the opening blossom liberation. Three kinds of leaves further represent three kinds of kindness: a green leaf covering the water represents kindness conditioned by sentient beings; a yellow leaf covering the water, kindness conditioned by dharmas; and an upright leaf, unconditioned kindness. Once an upright leaf emerges, lotus fruit will soon grow; once unconditioned kindness is accomplished, a prediction of buddhahood is near.

The ways in which root, blossom, seed, and leaf benefit people and bees also represent practice. Availability for taking and use is giving; fragrance is discipline; growing in mud without humiliation is patience; continual growth is vigor; softness and moisture are concentration; freedom from staining by mud and water is wisdom. This completes the representation of the subtlety of practice.

The lotus next represents stages. Inherent presence in principle is the stage of identity in principle. The shoot piercing the coarse skin is the stage of coarse abiding; emerging through the fine skin, fine abiding; drilling into mud and approaching stability, desired concentration; growing level with the mud but not yet reaching water, access concentration; leaving mud and dwelling in water, the four dhyānas. Concentration is like water that washes away the dust of desire; growth in the water represents the formless attainments. Up to this point is the lotus stage of contemplative practice. Emerging from water represents breaking views and thought and is the ten faiths, the lotus of resemblance. Poised in open air and about to open represents the ten abodes. Stamens and receptacle becoming distinguishable represent the ten practices. Turning with the sun and opening represent the ten dedications. Full opening and bearing bees and butterflies represent the ten grounds. When stamens and petals fall and only receptacle and seeds remain, all practices rest, wondrous awakening is complete, there is nothing more to do upon the fruit, and true permanence is still and clear. All these represent the subtlety of stages.

The lotus’s four subtle constituents represent the track of true nature. The hollowness of the seed chamber and the centers of stalk and root represents the track of contemplative illumination. The receptacle and chamber enclosing the seed represent the track of supporting accomplishment. This uses the three dharmas to represent the subtlety of the vehicle.

When a mature lotus occupies open air and its shadow falls on clear water, it represents manifest stimulus and manifest response. Its shadow on turbid water represents hidden stimulus and hidden response. Its shadow on wind-tossed water represents stimulus and response that are both hidden and manifest. The Great Sutra speaks of a tree’s shadow in darkness and a nighttime shadow falling on water, representing stimulus and response that are neither hidden nor manifest. These represent the subtlety of stimulus and response.

When wind shakes a lotus so that the east side rises and the west falls, its southern movement casts a shadow north, lower wind closes it, and upper wind opens it, this represents portents such as rising in the east and disappearing in the west, or rising in the center and disappearing at the edges: the portent of earth-movement. The blossom closing at sunset represents entry into concentration; opening at sunrise, teaching the Dharma; appearing red from afar and white nearby, with red blossom and green leaves shining against each other, the portent of emitting light; fragrance spreading over the fields, fragrant sandalwood wind; fine pollen drifting, heavenly flowers raining down; and wind and rain scattering droplets so that they roll and strike one another, heavenly drums sounding of themselves. All represent the subtlety of supernormal power.

The flower closed and unopened represents concealing the One Vehicle and separately teaching three. Petals opening represents gathering the three into the one and teaching only the One Vehicle. Blossom falling while fruit remains represents verbal teaching ending and merging with principle. Only one who knows that the Tathāgata constantly teaches no Dharma is called learned. These represent the subtlety of teaching the Dharma.

A new flower growing beside one lotus root and producing immeasurable lotuses in succession represents karma-born retinues. A seed falling from one chamber into mud and producing immeasurable lotuses in succession represents supernormal-power-born retinues. Digging up roots and gathering seeds from another pond and planting them here so that this pond flourishes represents vow-born retinues. Something flying from another pond like gossamer or thin mist, entering this pond and making lotuses flourish, represents response-born retinues.

Fish and turtles opening their mouths beneath the lotus and bees and butterflies gathering above represent the wondrous benefit of coolness received in the recompense of sentient beings. Delight on seeing the lotus represents causal benefit. Using the leaves represents the benefit of the three grasses; using the blossom, the benefit of the wondrous small tree; using the fruit, the benefit of the wondrous great tree; and using the root, the benefit of the wondrous real affair. These represent meritorious benefit. Similes such as these and immeasurable others represent the ten subtleties within the Trace.

VII. How Does a Pond of Lotuses Represent Responsive Manifestation from the Original Ground?

Next comes a simile for the Origin. A pond of lotuses first ripens; after ripening, the fruit falls into mud and water, grows again, and matures once more. As growth and maturation continue repeatedly and years accumulate, lotuses spread throughout the great pond until it is filled with a field of flowers.

The Buddha is the same. Having completed cultivating the cause and realizing the fruit at the original ground, he again arouses expedients for sentient beings and manifests both first arousing the mind and ultimate attainment within cyclic existence. He manifests birth and death in this way hundreds of thousands of times without number. From the original ground he lowers responsive traces, bends down to join ordinary beings, and again cultivates five practices.

A black lotus again producing stalk and leaves represents cultivating noble practice again. The seed’s four subtle constituents gradually growing represent cultivating heavenly practice again. The first emergence of the leaf represents cultivating brahma practice again. The seed falling into mud represents joining every kind of evil and cultivating the practice of illness again. The first sprouting of the shoot represents joining lesser goodness and cultivating the practice of an infant again. Thus the Buddha benefits beings through past, present, and future beyond all count, pervading the Dharma realm. Everywhere are the benefits of division-bodies, lowering traces, opening traces, abolishing the Trace, and more. Without the lotus, how could all the preceding dharmas be represented so broadly? Dharma and simile are both clarified, and therefore it is called the Lotus Blossom of the Wondrous Dharma.

This closes the second half of fascicle seven of the Fahua Xuanyi. The first half of fascicle eight follows, headed “spoken by Tiantai Master Zhiyi.”

VIII. The Shared Name “Sutra” and Its Five Explanatory Approaches

Second comes the explanation of the shared name, the single graph 經, “sutra.” If the foreign sound were preserved in full, the phrase would be saddharma puṇḍarīka sūtra. Saddharma is translated as Wondrous Dharma and puṇḍarīka as lotus blossom, both already explained above. Sūtra also has such transliterations as xiudalan and xiudulu. Just as Chu and the central states had different pronunciations, regional pronunciations differed there and Chinese translators also disagreed. Some therefore say the word is untranslatable, while others say it can be translated.

The issue is explained through five approaches: first, clarifying nontranslation; second, clarifying translation; third, harmonizing translation and nontranslation; fourth, traversing dharmas to clarify sutra; and fifth, contemplating mind to clarify sutra.

IX. Nontranslation: Each of Five Meanings Opens into Teaching, Practice, and Principle

First, nontranslation. A single word in a foreign language contains multiple meanings, while Chinese meanings are relatively simple and shallow. A single meaning cannot translate a compound of meanings, so the original sound should be retained. Why, then, is it still called 經, “sutra”? Master Kaishan says this is not a correct translation, but only a local expression used in place of the foreign one. In China, the works of sages are called classics and those of worthies the masters and histories; abroad, what sages teach is called sutra and what bodhisattvas teach is called treatise. Since the term cannot be translated directly, the local word is appropriately used in its place.

Because one graph cannot exhaust sūtra, it contains five meanings: first, basis of Dharma, also called production; second, subtle emergence, also called disclosure; third, gushing spring; fourth, carpenter’s line; and fifth, garland-thread. These are not treated as five correct translations, but as five senses explaining why the word cannot be translated. Each is further opened into three, making three times five, or fifteen meanings: basis of teaching, basis of practice, and basis of meaning. They will now be explained broadly.

Basis of Dharma

All dharmas are originally inexpressible, but discourse arises through the conditions of the four siddhāntas. Teaching through the worldly siddhānta is the basis of teaching. Teaching for persons and as counteraction is the basis of practice. Teaching through the ultimate-truth siddhānta is the basis of meaning.

The basis of teaching means that one word from the Buddha’s golden mouth is the basis from which immeasurable verbal teachings flow. Whether shared or specific, they accorded with beings at the time and allowed hearers to attain the path. A scripture therefore says that every sūtra has immeasurable sūtras as its retinue. If later people do not understand, bodhisattvas take the Buddha’s teaching as their basis and compose shared and specific treatises that explain shared and specific sutras, so that the Buddha’s intent is not obstructed and those who investigate can attain the path. Treatises can do this because they have a basis. Though non-Buddhists also have things to say, their words do not accord with sūtra. Their speculative discourse has no basis and cannot lead to the path.

Sutra as the basis of practice means that it shows people a Dharma free from contention, indicates passable and blocked routes, opens and illumines the eyes, and cures their illnesses. When people practice according to the teaching, shared and specific practices arise; they pass from this shore to the other, enter the cool pool, and reach the nectar ground and the true Dharma-jewel of nirvāṇa. Sentient beings enter through various gates, and thus sutra is the basis of practice.

Sutra as the basis of meaning means that investigating one sentence can disclose one meaning and investigating immeasurable sentences immeasurable meanings. One sentence can also disclose immeasurable meanings, and immeasurable sentences can converge on one meaning. Whether shared or specific, one follows what expresses and enters what is expressed; hence sutra is the basis of meaning.

Gathering these three into one Dharma-gate, the basis of teaching is wisdom from hearing, the basis of practice wisdom from reflection, and the basis of meaning wisdom from cultivation. The single meaning “basis of Dharma” already contains so much that no one Chinese expression can exhaust it. If the first meaning is instead called production, it can be extended through the same three levels.

Subtle Emergence

Second, sūtra contains the meaning of subtle emergence. The Buddha teaches through the four siddhāntas in skillful, orderly, and measured language, good at the beginning, middle, and end, perfect and complete like ocean water gradually deepening.

In terms of teaching, a person first hears the worldly siddhānta, receives it in sequence, distinguishes the marks of dharmas, and gives rise to a faint understanding that gradually grows until it becomes clear, practiced, and unobstructed. The person also reads differing treatises widely, knows the intent of wise people broadly, and becomes learned with powerful memory, all the way to buddhahood. This is subtle emergence in terms of teaching.

In terms of practice, first hearing the siddhāntas for persons and counteraction enables practice to arise. One begins with lesser human and heavenly practices, then cultivates discipline, concentration, and wisdom and enters uncontaminated practice; passes through seeing the path and cultivating the path; and finally realizes no-more-learning. From the lesser vehicle one then enters the Mahāyāna and ultimately reaches wondrous awakening. This is subtle emergence in terms of practice.

In terms of meaning, first hearing the ultimate-truth siddhānta produces an understanding that expands in succession. One enters hearing and reflection, then warmth, summit, and highest worldly dharma; next enters seeing the truths and obtains the genuine ultimate truth; then enters cultivation and reaches no-more-learning. From the lesser vehicle one enters the Mahāyāna and sees the Middle in resemblance and in truth. The development begins as a minute shoot and ends as a tree one can embrace. This is subtle emergence in terms of meaning.

Gathering these three emergences into one Dharma-gate, in the lesser vehicle they are the emergence of three liberations. In the Mahāyāna’s first abode, the emergence of teaching is prajñā, the emergence of practice is tathāgata-garbha, and the emergence of principle is the true mark. Subtle emergence itself contains many meanings and therefore cannot be translated by one expression.

Gushing Spring

Third, sūtra contains the meaning of a gushing spring, a name taken from a simile. The Buddha teaches through the four siddhāntas, with text and meaning inexhaustible and the Dharma-current unbroken.

Someone who hears the worldly siddhānta can understand immeasurable sentences from one. Over a month, four months, or a year, the person teaches as freely and unobstructedly as wind in open space. An initial mind’s understanding already gushes like a spring; how much more a later mind, and how much more the Tathāgata. It is also like a spring among rocks whose flow moistens and benefits everywhere. This is the gushing spring of teaching.

Someone who hears the siddhāntas for persons and counteraction gives rise to immeasurable practices, buddha-dharmas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and diverse Dharma-gates. One practice contains immeasurable practices, enters wholesome objects, and mounts the straight path of the eight right practices. This is the gushing spring of practice.

Someone who hears the ultimate-truth siddhānta sees principle like open space, immeasurable and pervasive everywhere. This is the gushing spring of meaning.

Gathering the three into a Dharma-gate, the spring of teaching is unobstructed eloquence in Dharma, the spring of practice unobstructed eloquence in phrasing, and the spring of meaning unobstructed eloquence in meaning. Unobstructed delight in teaching pervades all three. The gushing spring already contains so many meanings that it cannot be translated by one expression.

Carpenter’s Line

Fourth, sūtra contains the meaning of a carpenter’s line. The Buddha teaches through the four siddhāntas. First hearing the worldly siddhānta cuts straight distorted doctrines born of craving and affective views, prevents one from being toppled and confused by deviant winds, and brings one onto the correct track: this is the carpenter’s line of teaching. Hearing the siddhāntas for persons and counteraction enables one to leave what is not the path and enter the fine, upright course of the factors of the path that carries one across: this is the carpenter’s line of practice. Hearing the ultimate-truth siddhānta cuts through the near shore of craving and affective views and reaches the further shore, neither guarding cyclic existence nor abiding in the unconditioned: this is the carpenter’s line of meaning.

Gathering the three into a Dharma-gate, teaching cuts through distortion as right speech; practice cuts through distortion as right action, right vigor, right mindfulness, right concentration, and the rest; meaning cuts through distortion as right view, right intention, and the rest. The carpenter’s line itself contains many layers and therefore cannot be translated by one expression.

Garland-Thread

Fifth, sūtra contains the meaning of a garland-thread. It connects teaching, practice, and principle as a string connects flowers into a garland and prevents them from falling apart. The worldly siddhānta binds the Buddha’s verbal teaching so that it is not lost. The siddhāntas for persons and counteraction bind the many practices so that they are not lost. The ultimate-truth siddhānta binds principle so that it is not lost.

Gathering the three into a Dharma-gate, binding teaching produces faultlessness of speech, binding practice faultlessness of body, and binding meaning faultlessness of mind. These are also three activities shared with wisdom and three dhāraṇīs. Teaching not falling apart is the dhāraṇī that retains what is heard; practice not falling apart is the dhāraṇī of practice; meaning not falling apart is the dhāraṇī of complete retention.

Explained as adornment of the person, teaching is the adornment of wisdom, practice the adornment of merit, and meaning the Dharma-body that is adorned by concentration and wisdom. All sentient beings have the Dharma-body, but in its unadorned state it is slighted by gods and dragons. When concentration and wisdom are cultivated to adorn it, all who see it respond with reverence.

Earlier teachers said that sutra contains five meanings. Here each is opened into three, and so sutra contains fifteen. A single simple Chinese word cannot exhaust a foreign word; this is how the plurality of meanings in the name is explained.

Sutra is also glossed as constant. Teaching that demons and non-Buddhists cannot alter or destroy is constant teaching. Practice that is true, upright, and unmixed and cannot be surpassed is constant practice. Principle that is still, unmoving, and certainly has no other destination is constant principle. Sutra is also glossed as norm: Dharma can be a norm, practice can be a norm, and principle can be a norm. Merely opening each of these two glosses, constant and norm, into three gives six meanings. How, then, could a many-layered foreign word be rendered by only one?

X. Translation: Sutra, Accord, Basis of Dharma, Thread, and Teaching of Good Speech

Second, those who maintain that the term can be translated also establish five meanings.

First, it is translated as “sutra.” One begins with the sense of a course, because every teaching proceeds from the minds and mouths of sages. This is opened as course of teaching, course of practice, and course of meaning. Every sūtra, every shared and specific treatise, and every commentary and record proceeds from the minds and mouths of sages and is therefore a course of teaching. Every practice that accords with principle, practice of resemblance, practice of faith, and practice of Dharma does the same and is therefore a course of practice. Every worldly, world-transcending, expedient, and ultimate meaning does the same and is therefore a course of meaning. Teaching follows the worldly siddhānta; practice follows the siddhāntas for persons and counteraction; meaning follows the ultimate-truth siddhānta.

Sutra also has the sense of warp and weft. In weaving silk, the vertical warp is crossed by horizontal weft, producing patterns of dragons and phoenixes. The Buddha teaches the warp through the worldly siddhānta, and bodhisattvas use the same siddhānta as weft to explain it. With warp and weft joined, the patterned discourse of sages and worthies is formed. In terms of practice, wisdom-practice is warp and practice-practice weft; joined, they form the pattern of the eightfold path. In terms of principle, expression of the true is warp and expression of the conventional weft; joined, they form the pattern of the two truths.

Second, it is translated as “accord”: according with conditions, affairs, and meaning. Teaching through the worldly siddhānta accords with faculties and conditions. Teaching according to what is fitting in order to make goodness arise, and teaching as counteraction in order to break evil, both accord with affairs. Teaching according to the ultimate truth accords with meaning.

Third, it is translated as “basis of Dharma,” meaning the basis of teaching, practice, and principle, as explained above.

Fourth, it is translated as “thread.” A thread holds teaching, practice, and principle together so that they do not fall apart; its senses of adorning the person and the rest are as above. A thread also sews. It sews teaching so that chapters and sentences form an ordered whole fit to be taught. A pratyekabuddha who does not encounter the thread of the twelve divisions cannot teach the Dharma; worldly intelligence and eloquence likewise lack the sutra-thread and cannot form right speech. Thread also sews practice: following sutra makes practice right, while departing from it makes practice distorted. It also sews principle: what principle does not seal falls into the sixty-two wrong views; what principle seals converges on the one ultimate path.

Fifth, it is translated as “teaching of good speech,” which is also teaching of good practice and teaching of good principle. What is taught through the worldly siddhānta is the teaching of good speech. What is taught through the siddhāntas for persons and counteraction is the teaching of good practice. What is taught through the ultimate truth is the teaching of good principle. These are the five translations of sūtra.

XI. Harmonizing Translation and Nontranslation

Third comes harmonizing translation and nontranslation. When Buddhism first reached China, the meanings of foreign and Chinese words were not yet clear. The doctrine of nontranslation was transmitted by scholars of Hexi. Later people adopted it and added that the Chinese 經 merely substitutes for the foreign name. Now that translation is splendidly developed and the two languages are better understood, why cling to nontranslation and explain it only through multiple meanings? If plurality is the reason, why limit it to five?

If the word can be translated, which translation is correct? Meanings may be diverse, but how could there be many correct translations? If sūtra is translated as “sutra,” there are nine kinds of sūtra, including shared and specific sūtra and the sūtra-piṭaka. Why, then, is there no clearly designated sutra division among the twelve divisions and sutra collection among the three collections? If it is translated as accord, basis of Dharma, and the rest, the twelve divisions should be renamed accord division, basis-of-Dharma division, thread division, good-speech division, and teaching division; the three collections should likewise include a thread collection and the rest. Yet those places do not follow these translations. Why should only sūtra as a shared category do so?

The Treatise of the Great Perfection of Wisdom says that prajñā is weighty while “wisdom” is light: how could the light translate the weighty? This can serve as evidence for nontranslation. Yet the true mark is weighty and inexpressible, and still it can be spoken in a foreign language. Why could it not be translated and spoken in Chinese? If it cannot be translated at all, it should also be unspeakable. This serves as evidence for translation.

Earlier teachers said that nirvāṇa contains three virtues and cannot be translated as extinction. Emperor Wu of Liang further said that extinction is a lesser-vehicle Dharma and cannot translate great nirvāṇa. This is not necessarily so. Since scriptures speak of nirvāṇa and great nirvāṇa, there can likewise be extinction and great extinction. This sutra says “the Tathāgata’s extinction”; is that not great extinction? If lesser extinction can translate lesser nirvāṇa, why could great extinction not translate great nirvāṇa?

If “extinction” is said to be too one-sided to contain the three virtues, it can now be explained as containing many meanings. Extinction is liberation. Liberation necessarily has a person who is liberated, and that person is the Dharma-body. The Dharma-body is not merely a body but necessarily has numinous wisdom, which is prajñā. Alternatively, “great” is the Dharma-body, “extinction” liberation, and “crossing” prajñā. The mere expression “extinction and crossing” thus plainly contains all three virtues. How could it be wholly untranslatable? Fixation on one expression only makes the two parties judge one another right and wrong without penetrating the Buddha’s intent, as explained above.

Now translation and nontranslation are harmonized so that the meaning opens broadly. Under nontranslation, one name contains five meanings and each contains three, making its beauty still clearer. Under translation, each translated term likewise possesses the three meanings of teaching, practice, and principle, deepening the intent. Whether translation or nontranslation is followed, where is the conflict? The Great Sutra says that the Buddha never contends with the world. When worldly wisdom says something exists, he too says it exists; when worldly wisdom says it does not exist, he too says it does not exist. This harmonization leaves neither party at fault, while principle remains.

Moreover, the meaning of the Perfect has no fixed direction and can be entered everywhere, allowing all the explanations above. Yet when the correct translation is fixed, conventional naming must not be confused. One name is provisionally adopted as the correct translation without causing resentment in either party. Why? From ancient times to the present, works translated from foreign languages into Chinese have all been titled 經. If another translation were correct, why were the titles not changed to Accord or Thread? Since transmission and translation unanimously use the term, “sutra” is clearly correct. If all were merely substitutes for an untranslatable word, why was the title not made Subtle Emergence or Gushing Spring?

The graph 經 is now adopted as correct precisely because it is strongest in containing many meanings. It contains the three bases of Dharma, three subtle emergences, three gushing springs, the several carpenter’s lines and garland-threads, as well as accord, thread, teaching of good speech, the gloss as norm, and the gloss as constant. Not one of these lies outside the single graph. Other phrases can be understood in the same way. Because all Mahāyāna and lesser-vehicle teachings use “sutra” as their shared name, the other terms are not adopted.

XII. Traversing Dharmas: Sound, Visible Form, Mental Objects, and All Six Sense-Objects Are Sutra

Fourth comes traversing dharmas to clarify sutra. If “sutra” is the correct translation, what dharma is actually sutra? Earlier explanations used three.

First, sound is sutra. While the Buddha was in the world, he expounded with his golden mouth. There was only sound to express and distinguish, and hearers attained the path; sound was therefore sutra. The Large Prajñā says that one hears from a good spiritual friend.

Second, visible form is sutra. While the Buddha was in the world, sound could be sutra. After his extinction, transmission depends on paper and ink, so visible form should be sutra. The Large Prajñā says that one hears from written scripture.

Third, mental objects are sutra. A person reflects inwardly and the mind accords with Dharma, relying neither on another’s teaching nor on paper and ink, but understanding and awakening in the mind. Mental objects are therefore sutra. Hence the statement that one who cultivates my Dharma knows it personally upon realization.

The three objects sound, visible form, and mental objects are used as sutra in this land. A person of sharp auditory consciousness can distinguish and awaken in sound, so sound is that person’s sutra and the other objects are not. A person of sharp mental consciousness can investigate inwardly, reflect, and decide, so mental objects are that person’s sutra and the others are not. A person of sharp visual consciousness understands principle through the expressive measure of writing, so visible form is that person’s sutra and the others are not. This land uses only these three. The other three consciousnesses are dull: smelling paper and ink teaches the nose nothing; touching a scripture teaches the body nothing; and how could the tongue distinguish right and wrong by eating written graphs?

Other lands may use all six sense-objects or emphasize only one. The Vimalakīrti Sutra speaks of giving a single meal to all; one equal toward food is equal toward dharmas, and one equal toward dharmas is equal toward food. This uses taste, the tongue’s object, as sutra. Some lands attain the path when heavenly cloth touches the body and use touch as sutra. Some awaken on seeing the Buddha’s light and use visible form. Some contemplate mind in wordless quiescence and attain the path, using mental objects. The land of accumulated fragrances performs Buddha-work through fragrance and uses scent. The six faculty-consciousnesses in other lands are sharp, so all six objects can become sutra. Three faculties here are dull; the human sense of smell is inferior even to that of donkeys, dogs, and deer. How could people penetrate through smell, taste, and touch?

Someone asks: If an object is sutra because the corresponding faculty-consciousness is sharp, does that object cease to be sutra for a dull faculty?

The answer is that the six objects are in themselves sutra; they do not first become sutra only when someone of sharp faculties awakens through them.

XIII. How Can One Dot of Black Ink Express All Dharmas?

Why are the six sense-objects originally sutra? The Large Prajñā says that all dharmas tend toward visible form and that this tendency does not go beyond it. Visible form can express all dharmas. Take black ink: one stroke expresses one, two strokes two, and three strokes three. A vertical stroke can be made into the graph 王; an added lower-right stroke makes 丑, a lower-left stroke 田, an upper extension 由, and a lower extension 申. By turning the stroke in these ways, what it can express is inexhaustible.

Sometimes one graph expresses immeasurable dharmas; sometimes immeasurable graphs together express one; sometimes immeasurable graphs express immeasurable dharmas; and sometimes one graph expresses one. Tiny turns in a small amount of black ink produce vast differences in expression. A left turn can express evil and a right turn good; a dot above can express the uncontaminated and a dot below the contaminated. Killing and giving life, giving and taking, censure and praise, pain and pleasure are all in the ink, with no dharma outside it.

In brief, black ink expresses immeasurable teachings, practices, and principles and is therefore the basis of teaching, practice, and principle. Black ink develops from an initial dot into immeasurable dots, from dots to graphs, graphs to sentences, sentences to verses, verses to fascicles, and fascicles to sections. In one dot, graph, or sentence, a lesser practice can first be established and later a great practice. In dots and graphs, one can first see shallow principle and later reach profound principle. This is the subtle emergence of teaching, practice, and meaning in black visible form.

Black visible form also gushes forth as dots, and from dots as graphs, sentences, and verses without end; it gushes forth as practices and meanings without end. This is its three gushing springs of teaching, practice, and meaning. Black visible form can also cut straight distortions in teaching, practice, and meaning, making three carpenter’s lines. It can bind the three so that they do not scatter, making three garland-threads. It can also adorn the person.

Visible form further has the sense of a course. Because form binds, there is birth-and-death in the six destinies; because form liberates, there are four kinds of sages. Form can be glossed as a norm: because form can serve as a standard, it can form teaching, practice, and principle. It can be glossed as constant: teaching formed through visible form cannot be destroyed, practice formed through it cannot be altered, and principle revealed through it cannot be moved. Form can also be called untranslatable because it contains many meanings, and translatable because visible form itself can be called sutra.

Thus, when seeing sutra as visible form, one should know craving and affective views regarding form, know form as a dharma arising from conditions, and know that form is emptiness, provisional existence, and the Middle. Form is the Dharma realm and encompasses all dharmas. The Dharma realm is writing, and writing is empty: within it there is no dot, graph, sentence, or verse. Sentences, verses, and writing are ultimately unobtainable. This is knowing that graph is nongraph and nongraph is still graph.

XIV. Black Ink as the Basis of Every Vehicle and Every Subtlety

Since ink as visible form is sutra, it can be explained as the basis of Dharma. If a person gives rise to hatred over written graphs and even takes another’s life, gives rise to craving over them and steals or commits sexual misconduct, or gives rise to delusion over them and develops wrong views, written graphs are the basis of the four evil destinies. If a person gives rise through them to kindness, equanimity, and even right view, they are the basis of human and heavenly destinies.

If one knows that a written graph is a morally indeterminate dharma of recompense, its indeterminate recompense is the truth of suffering. Defilement toward visible recompense is the truth of accumulation. Knowing the graph as formed through conditions, painful, empty, and without self is the truth of the path. Knowing graph to be nongraph, no longer generating inverted views of it, and thereby extinguishing afflictions is the truth of cessation. One thus knows the four truths through a graph. Knowing the graph’s four truths gives rise to the stages of warmth and summit and proceeds to approach and fruit, accomplishing the liberation of worthies and sages. Written graphs are therefore the basis of śrāvakas.

Failure to understand a graph is ignorance. Craving and hatred toward it are formations. Distinguishing whether it is fine or ugly is consciousness. Consciousness taking up the graph’s name is name-and-form. The graph entering the eye is the six entrances. The graph-object facing the faculty is contact. Receiving and becoming defiled is feeling. Clinging and refusing to release is craving. Pursuing it with all one’s strength is grasping. Grasping produces karma and is existence. Existence draws forth the later fruit of birth, aging, illness, and death, and the wheel of suffering does not stop. Thus the written graph is the basis of the twelve links.

If one can know graph to be nongraph, ignorance ceases and does not proceed to formations, all the way through not proceeding to aging-and-death. When ignorance ceases, aging-and-death ceases. The graph is therefore also the basis of pratyekabuddhas.

If one knows the graph as empty—not becoming empty only after being destroyed, but empty in nature—there is neither craving nor hatred within emptiness, and not even distorted or right. Since the graph is unobtainable, who is the person who knows it? Why do sentient beings mistakenly generate acceptance and rejection? One then arouses compassionate vows, practices the six perfections, aids sentient beings, and enters the limit of suchness, while no sentient being is actually delivered into extinction. Thus the written graph is the basis of bodhisattvas.

If one knows graph as nongraph and also knows that nongraph is not annihilative nonexistence, there is no inversion into either extreme. This is purity. With purity there is no karma, called self; with self there is no suffering, called bliss; with no suffering there is no cyclic existence, called permanence. Why? Graph is the conventional truth, nongraph the true truth, and nongraph that is not annihilative nongraph the one real truth. One truth is three truths and three truths one. This is the basis of objects.

If one knows a written graph as formed through the conjunction of paper, brush, mind, and hand, investigating each condition yields no independently existing graph, while investigating every dot likewise yields no complete graph. Precisely because there is no fixed attainment, there is nothing not attained. Mind and hand cannot be obtained as agents; with neither agent nor object, who is knower and what is known? This is the basis of all-wisdom.

Though a graph is not a fixed and truly existent graph, it still becomes graph from nongraph. From mind comes a dot, from the dot a graph, from graphs sentences, from sentences verses, from verses lines, from lines fascicles, from fascicles cases, from cases sections, from sections collections, and from collections diverse distinctions. This is the basis of wisdom of ways. Though neither truly existent graph nor annihilative nongraph, it simultaneously illuminates graph and nongraph. This is the basis of the knowledge of all modes.

The ascetic in the Snow Mountains relinquished the cherished body for eight graphs: this is the basis of practice. Understanding one sentence or half a sentence, seeing buddha-nature, and entering great nirvāṇa is the basis of stages. The Buddha attained complete awakening through hearing a sutra and exclaiming “Excellent!”; graphs are the basis of the vehicle. If someone forgets punctuation and phrasing, a bodhisattva restores fluency and gives samādhi and dhāraṇī; graphs are the basis of stimulus and response. Learning supernormal powers through text is the basis of supernormal power. Obtaining speech through graphs is the basis of teaching the Dharma. Teaching graphs to others is the basis of retinues. Diligently studying this graph—emolument lies within it—is the basis of benefit.

One who understands graphs in this way constantly reads the sutra without holding a fascicle, recites all scriptures without making a sound, constantly hears the Brahmā voice though the Buddha does not speak, and universally illuminates the Dharma realm without mental discrimination. Is such learning not vast? One should therefore know that black graphs are the basis of all dharmas. Blue, yellow, red, and white are likewise.

Nongraph is not annihilative nonexistence, but simultaneously illuminates graph and nongraph. The unspeakable does not cut off all speech, and the invisible does not cut off all seeing. What, then, is to be distinguished and what is not? What is included and what is not? What is relinquished and what is not? If one says “is,” all can be said to be; if one says “is not,” all can be said not to be. One can penetrate everything through black visible form and know that everything is not; not falling merely into penetration of everything, one is precisely able to penetrate everything. Transcending both “not” and “is,” one can see all dharmas as distorted and all dharmas as right.

If black visible form is not understood in this way, neither graph nor nongraph can be known. Yellow, white, red, and blue, and visible forms with and without resistance, cannot be known either. Penetrating black makes it possible to know the other colors in the same way. This is the intent of the Lotus Sutra in taking visible form as sutra.

Sound is the same. One sound can express one dharma, and the remaining cases follow the example of visible form. A person of sharp auditory faculties can understand craving, affective views, and dependent arising in sound and know sound as emptiness, provisional existence, and the Middle. The person knows lips, tongue, and teeth as unobtainable. Sound is nonsound, nonsound is sound, and both extremes of sound and nonsound are transcended. Sound can be the basis of teaching, practice, and meaning, and the various other meanings are as explained above. This is penetrating sutra as sound. Smell, taste, touch, and the rest are likewise.

The sutra says that all worldly livelihoods and productive activities do not contradict the true mark; this is the meaning. The six external entrances can all be sutra and pervade the Dharma realm; the six internal entrances and the entrances formed by inner and outer together are the same. A scripture says that liberation is not obtained only through inward contemplation, yet does not depart from inward contemplation. The rest can be understood accordingly. Penetrating one object penetrates all objects; though one sees neither a fixed single object nor fixed totality of objects, one still penetrates one and all. Within one consciousness one distinguishes all consciousnesses; though one sees neither one fixed consciousness nor all fixed consciousnesses, one penetrates one and all. With unobstructed freedom and great impartial wisdom, what is sutra and what is not? In a detailed account, every object and consciousness could be explained by the same model, woven first with translation, nontranslation, and the three meanings of teaching, practice, and principle, then concluded through the three contemplations.

XV. Distinguishing According to the Teachings without Leaving Writing

What is sutra can next be distinguished according to the teachings. If principle is said to transcend writing while writing is only conventional and merely entrusted with expressing principle, then principle can be sutra and writing is not. The six sense-objects and the rest express sutra but are not properly sutra. This is sutra in the Tripiṭaka Teaching.

If liberation cannot be explained apart from writing because writing’s nature is itself free, and if the six sense-objects are the true mark without duality or difference, as explained above, this is sutra in the Perfect Teaching. Teaching this while carrying three expedients is sutra in the Vaipulya; carrying two expedients is sutra in the Prajñā; and carrying one expedient is sutra in the Avataṃsaka.

XVI. Clarifying Sutra through Contemplating Mind: Gathering the First Four Approaches into One Mind

Fifth comes explaining sutra through contemplating mind, entirely following the model of the four approaches above.

First Model: Following Nontranslation

First it follows nontranslation. Mind contains wholesome minds, unwholesome minds, and all mental factors, so this single thought should be known as the confluence of dharmas and cannot be fixed as only one of them. If only evil were taken as mind, mind would not contain good or the other mental factors. If only good were taken as mind, it would not contain evil or the others. Since no one member can be identified as mind alone, the brief name “mind” stands for the whole. Even a brief reference to mind contains myriad dharmas; how could it fail to contain the five preceding meanings?

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra says that within one mote of dust is a scripture-scroll as vast as a three-thousand-great-thousand world. This illustrates the meaning.

Mind is the basis of Dharma. The Treatise of the Great Perfection of Wisdom says that nothing in any world is not made from mind. Without mind there is no thought or awareness, and without these no language. Mind is therefore the basis of language.

Mind is the basis of practice. The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra speaks of mind-activity, great activity, and pervasive activity. Volition is a mental factor and belongs to the aggregate of formations. All practices are established through the volitional mind, so mind is the basis of practice.

Mind is the basis of principle. Without mind, by whom would principle be contained? The initially aroused mind investigates principle. At first it is dim, as though on the verge of understanding; it then gradually enters resemblance and finally realizes the real. Mind is therefore the basis of principle.

Mind contains subtle emergence. The first momentary thought is extremely minute. The next seems to exist and then disappear. It gradually grows, finally becomes determinate, fills the mind, and emerges as speech. This is the subtle emergence of language. At first the mind trains in practice and the strength of practice is still weak; next it becomes slightly established; finally it becomes great practice. This is the subtle emergence of practice. At first, contemplation of mind does not see the principle within mind; continued cultivation gradually seems to accord, reaching resemblance and the real. This is the subtle emergence of principle.

Mind contains a gushing spring. Mind inherently possesses all dharmas but cannot let them flow because of obstructions, like a spring pressed under earth and stones. Remove the blockage and it gushes forth. Without contemplation, mind is dark and unclear and speech cannot be deep or sustained. When contemplation makes mind clear, expression and eloquence have no fixed boundary and flow beyond exhaustion: this is the gushing spring of language. Without contemplation, practice has interruptions; through contemplating mind, thought continues after thought, the six obscurations turn into the six perfections, and the six perfections encompass all practices: this is the gushing spring of practice. Contemplating mind is like digging with a sharp mattock through boulders, sand, and saline earth until the clear water of principle gushes without exhaustion: this is the gushing spring of meaning.

Mind contains a garland-thread. When contemplation is not mistaken from thought to thought, one obtains retention of what is heard and can thread written language without losing it. Contemplating mind obtains strength shared with concentration and threads practice without loss. It obtains strength shared with the path and threads meaning without loss. It also obtains concentration and wisdom and can adorn and reveal the Dharma-body. These can all be understood from the previous meanings.

Mind is also a carpenter’s line. Contemplating mind accomplishes right speech and leaves inverted and distorted discourse. When contemplation rectifies mind, it exhorts one to leave distorted action. When mind no longer clings to views, it enters right principle. Practical action is like the line and principled action like marking ink; together they snap straight the timber of craving and affective views and make a person a vessel of right Dharma.

This has taken mind as sutra and explained its plurality of meanings, briefly disclosing the fifteen.

Second Model: Following Translation

Next contemplation follows translation. Mind is the course: the three meanings of teaching, practice, and principle all proceed from mind. All language proceeds from a mind of awareness and observation; every practice from a volitional mind; and every principle from a mind of wisdom.

Mind is also warp and weft. Awareness is warp and observation weft, weaving language. The mind of wisdom-practice is warp and the mind of practice-practice weft, weaving the various practices. Mind engaging principle vertically is warp and engaging it horizontally weft, weaving principles. Alternatively, the object contemplated is warp and contemplative wisdom weft; observation turns and returns, weaving every pattern.

Mind is also accord. Contemplative wisdom accords with its object, thus according with conditions and also with sentient beings’ inclinations. Mind accords with teaching, with expedients and counteraction; it accords with practice and the ultimate truth; it accords with principle.

Mind is the basis of Dharma and mind is thread, as above. Mind is also the teaching of good speech. Dharma and speech can both be wholesome or unwholesome, and are here fixed as good Dharma and good speech. Mind and contemplation can likewise be wholesome or unwholesome and are here fixed as good mind and good contemplation. Mind therefore possesses the three meanings of the teaching of good speech, good practice, and good principle.

Mind is also a norm that can be followed. Without contemplation there are no rules or compass. Contemplation rectifies the mind-king; once the king is right, the mental factors are right. The same is true of practice and principle. When the mind-king accords with principle, the mental factors accord as well, and mind is called a norm.

Mind is also constant. Mind-nature is constantly settled like open space; who could destroy it? Unwholesome awareness cannot destroy wholesome awareness, distorted practice cannot interfere with right practice, and distorted principle cannot destroy right principle. Mind is therefore called constant.

In explaining each concrete affair, that very affair is turned toward mind and made contemplation. Contemplative wisdom matures like fire strengthened by fuel without contradicting the affair. Neither affair nor principle is lost. This is writing without fixed writing; it makes a separate contemplation without abandoning writing.

Third and Fourth Models: Harmonizing and Traversing All Dharmas of Mind

Third, contemplation follows the harmonization of translation and nontranslation. Its meaning can be understood from the preceding discussion.

Fourth, contemplation follows the traversal of dharmas. A lesser-vehicle account says there is no good in evil and no evil in good and likewise separates affair from principle. Evil mind would then not be sutra and could not contain multiple meanings, like a narrow road that cannot admit two people abreast.

Mahāyāna contemplation sees that an evil mind is not a fixed evil mind: it is evil and can itself be good, and it transcends fixed evil and good. It sees that a good mind is not fixed as good: it is good and can also disclose evil, and it transcends fixed good and evil. Contemplating one mind is three minds, and these three are then applied through all minds and all dharmas. What mind and what dharma is not one and three? All dharmas tend toward this mind, and all minds tend toward this Dharma.

Contemplated in this way, mind is the basis of all language, practice, and principle. Each of the five translated meanings and five untranslated meanings can be explained on mind without obstruction. Traversing all minds, none is not sutra. The general meaning can be grasped without further extensive record.

The title Sutra of the Lotus Blossom of the Wondrous Dharma already contains the Wondrous Dharma. Why, then, does it also need the lotus blossom? And once it has the lotus blossom, why does the treatise devote such length at the end to explaining the single graph 經, “sutra”?

The answer lies not in a dictionary, but in how a reader enters Dharma through a name. The Wondrous Dharma is too profound to see directly, so the lotus makes it visible. The lotus remains before the eyes, and “sutra” then threads what is seen into teaching, practice, and principle before returning at last to the single thought that contemplates. Explaining the name is therefore not a matter of assigning a separate gloss to each of three graphs. It opens a path from Dharma to simile, from simile to writing, and from writing to the activity of mind.

How Can a Dharma-Name and a Name as Simile Both Be Valid?

The explanation of the lotus first establishes four approaches: determining Dharma and simile, citing earlier explanations, presenting scriptures and treatises, and giving the proper explanation. The first does not hasten to choose between a Dharma-name and a name as simile. It asks first how names come into being.

A spider emits silk, and people imitate its principle to knot nets. Tumbleweed turns in the wind, and people follow its motion to make carts. Floating timber bears weight, and people fashion boats from that observation. Bird tracks form patterns, and people derive written graphs from them. Names and implements are not fabricated from nothing; they arise from principles that have been observed. So too with the lotus: because the Wondrous Dharma is pure and its causes and fruits are wondrous, it is in itself called the lotus blossom. This is the Dharma-lotus.

Yet although the name taken from the thing itself is true, sentient beings do not necessarily enter principle as soon as they hear it. Those of sharp faculties hear “lotus blossom” and understand the Wondrous Dharma without relying on a plant. Those of middling and lesser faculties must begin from a familiar flower and gradually understand the difficult Dharma. This is the plant-lotus used as a simile. Dharma-name and simile-name are not mutually exclusive answers, but two entrances opened by a single name for different faculties. For those who enter principle through the name, it is the Dharma itself; for those who must move from near to far, the flower before them becomes a bridge.

This also explains why the Lotus Samādhi is not confined within a one-sentence definition. If it were only a Dharma-name, middling and lesser faculties would lose their entrance. If it were only a floral simile, the Wondrous Dharma would seem to depend on an external object for its existence. Dharma comes first and the simile reveals it; the simile can reveal Dharma precisely because the flower’s own structure and growth follow a discernible principle.

Earlier Explanations See Separate Petals; the Lotus Requires a Beginning and an End

Earlier accounts first attend to the flower’s names, colors, and three times of opening and decline. Kumala, kamala, and puṇḍarīka show that the same flower can receive different names at different times. “Lotus blossom” is the shared name, while puṇḍarīka is the specific name for the time of full bloom. Accounts of white, red, and most fragrant likewise select the appearance of the flower at its height. This first level safeguards the title’s semantics and the flower’s seasonal life.

The ensuing sixteen meanings expand the lotus into many symbols: arising from conditions, emerging from mud, growing from the minute to the manifest, blossom and fruit present together, gladdening those who see it, leading people into a lotus world, and further meanings of opening and closing, concealment and revelation, supremacy, and timeliness. Each meaning illuminates one facet of Dharma, but a petal is not the whole flower. Selecting only the blossom’s emergence from mud can reduce the lotus to an emblem of escape; selecting only the simultaneity of blossom and fruit can reduce the whole intent of the sutra to one causal relation.

Guangzhai contrasts other flowers, whose blossom and fruit do not coexist, with the lotus, whose blossom and fruit necessarily coexist, and then assigns cause to the disciples and fruit to the teacher. Zhiyi reopens this scheme through the scriptural passages: the teacher has both practice and attainment, and the disciples have both gathering into the one and receiving predictions. Both the manifest Trace and the remote Origin have their own causes and fruits. The lotus does not give cause to one party and fruit to another; it allows every relation of teaching and transformation to disclose its own inception and completion.

The simile of the four subtle constituents, blossom, and lotus fruit drives the point deeper. The minute material constituents of the blossom are in themselves called neither blossom nor fruit; only through their conjunction can one speak of blossom opening and lotus fruit maturing. In the same way, the principle of the true mark does not fall within the opposing names Origin and Trace or provisional and real, yet on the basis of the true mark one can speak of extending the provisional, revealing the real, disclosing the Trace, and revealing the Origin. Names and marks are therefore not additions outside the true mark, but distinctions established through principle that lead people to see principle.

The Lotus in Scriptures and Treatises First Reveals Practice and Stage

The treatise lists seventeen names, with the Wondrous Dharma Lotus appearing only as the sixteenth. In explaining the lotus it then presents two meanings: emerging from water and the blossom opening. Emerging from water brings śrāvakas out of turbid mud and into the Tathāgata’s assembly, like bodhisattvas seated on lotus blossoms. The blossom’s opening discloses the pure and wondrous Dharma-body to fainthearted sentient beings and enables them to give rise to faith.

One meaning concerns how a person enters; the other concerns how Dharma is disclosed. The manifestation of the pure and wondrous Dharma-body is the unfolding of causal practice, while the lotus land is the recompense it produces. The lotus can therefore designate both what is cultivated and what is reached. It opens in a person and is accomplished as a land.

Another sutra makes compassion the stalk, wisdom the leaf, samādhi the stamens, and liberation the full opening of the flower; the bodhisattva is like a king of bees who enters the flower and feeds on nectar. Here the lotus is not a static diagram, but a person accomplished through four dharmas. The stalk supports, the leaf unfolds, the stamens gather inwardly, and the opening completes the flower. The bodhisattva gathers the four dharmas into a practitioner and is in turn nourished by them. Cause and fruit, what cultivates and what provides nourishment, complete each other within the same flower.

How Can Three Openings and Closings Express Two Complete Courses?

The root treatise next distinguishes the simile of the udumbara flower from that of the lotus. The udumbara’s appearance only at rare intervals is enough to represent how difficult it is to encounter a prediction of buddhahood. The lotus, however, has many blossoms and fruits and can speak from a cause that contains myriad practices all the way to a fruit perfect in myriad virtues. One selects a single point of rarity; the other can follow growth from beginning to end.

The power of a simile is bounded by precisely this distinction. To compare the face to the moon is to select roundness and luminosity, not to seek eyebrows and eyes in the moon. To compare a white elephant to snow is to select whiteness, not to seek tail and tusks in snow. Lotus and Wondrous Dharma are not identical, but the relations among blossom and fruit, opening and closing, falling and ripening give invisible Dharma a visible sequence.

First consider the manifest course. In the first simile, whenever the blossom is born, the lotus fruit is necessarily present; the blossom arises for the sake of the fruit, though the fruit cannot yet be seen. The real is the aim, while the provisional appears first. In the second, the blossom opens and the fruit becomes visible, yet the fruit still needs the blossom to nourish it. Opening the provisional to reveal the real does not efface what expedients have accomplished. In the third, the blossom falls and the fruit matures. The work of expedients is complete, and the One Buddha-Vehicle goes directly to the place of practice. Taken together, the three movements proceed from entry through expedients, to seeing through opening and revelation, to consummation through maturation.

Now consider the remote course. First, the blossom necessarily contains fruit, just as the manifest Trace necessarily has an Origin. The intent of the Origin is deeply concealed, and even great bodhisattvas do not know it in advance. Second, the blossom opens and the fruit appears, like opening the Trace to reveal the Origin. By recognizing the Buddha’s expedients, sentient beings come to recognize the remoteness from which they issue. Third, the blossom falls and the fruit matures, like no longer being confused by the Trace before one’s eyes once the Origin has been revealed, but cultivating the path in the Dharma-body and reaching fulfillment.

The same flower bears two readings because the teaching and transformation before one’s eyes and the remote original ground each have their own concealment, revelation, and completion. The first course moves from the extension of various dharmas toward their opening and revelation; the second moves from lowering responsive traces toward revelation of the original ground. The six similes are not six scattered symbols, but two complete paths, each in three movements.

The Stone-Hard Lotus Is Still, Yet the Ten Suchnesses Are Already Complete

The partial simile speaks through three movements of the flower, while the extensive simile goes from one stone-hard lotus seed to the complete lotus. A lion simile can proceed from birth in a mountain valley and bodily strength, claws, and fangs all the way to the roar. A pārijāta-tree simile can proceed from changes in root and leaf to the maturation of blossom and fruit. The stone-hard lotus likewise unfolds ten meanings in its own order: black skin outside, white flesh within, the four subtle constituents as substance, a curled leaf about to emerge, all the parts present in potential, root and flower gradually growing, stamens spreading, lotus fruit forming, the receptacle enclosing it, and the same substance from beginning to end.

The outer black skin is hard, neither square nor round, and unchanged by adventitious dust: this discloses suchness as appearance. The white flesh is not lost in the mud, and the aspiration to all-wisdom remains: this discloses suchness as nature. The four subtle constituents do not decay, and permanence, bliss, self, and purity remain unmoved: this discloses suchness as substance. These first three state what the seed still is amid layer upon layer of enclosure.

The curled leaf hidden at the core has the energy to pierce the skin and rise: this discloses suchness as power. Root, stalk, blossom, leaf, stamens, and receptacle are all immediately present in the minute seed: this discloses suchness as activity. Power is the ability to move; activity is what can be carried out. Arousing the mind has both the courage to break cyclic existence and the resolve to seek above, transform below, and never retreat however long the course.

The root rests in mud and the blossom faces open space, growing day and night under wind and sun: this discloses suchness as cause. Stamens and anthers circle within the flower but outside the fruit to support it: this discloses suchness as condition. Cause is the lotus’s own growth toward fruit; conditions are the myriad practices surrounding the true cause and bringing it to completion. When petals and leaves fall and the receptacle matures, this is suchness as fruit. When the seed chamber encloses the lotus fruit and gives the fruit a support, this is suchness as recompense.

Finally, the lotus in mud and the lotus in open air are both constituted by the same four subtle constituents, with no difference between beginning and end: this reveals equality from beginning to end. When hidden, it is called the tathāgata-garbha; when made manifest through cultivation, it is called the Dharma-body. What is inherent in nature and what cultivation reveals are one and nondual. The ten meanings from the outer skin to identity from beginning to end are at once an anatomy of a seed and a timeline from sentient beings’ ignorance to the perfect fruit of buddhahood.

How One Lotus Body Unfolds Objects, Wisdom, Practice, and Stages

The stone lotus’s ten meanings first explain objects broadly. In the twelve links of dependent arising, the black skin, mud, and covering water-grasses are ignorance; the power to generate is formations; the curled leaf and stamens present in potential are consciousness through feeling; the moisture held within and not released is craving, grasping, and existence; the coiled roundness unable to emerge is aging-and-death. When the shoot begins to move, pierces the skin, and leaves the husk, the cessation of ignorance is disclosed all the way through the cessation of aging-and-death. Arising and cessation both remain within the inner and outer transformations of the same seed.

The four truths likewise unfold along the flower’s material features. Black skin and white flesh, mud and water, respectively reveal suffering and accumulation within and beyond the realm; path and cessation are known through emergence. The two truths take the visible forms of lotus, root, stalk, and leaf as conventional and their hollow openings as true. The three truths continue the true and conventional, then use the four subtle constituents that represent permanence, bliss, self, and purity to disclose the Middle, the ultimate truth. The nonarising and nonceasing of the constituents also reveal the one real truth, while no arising at the beginning of the eon and no ceasing now reveal no truth and no discourse. An object is not an abstract object here; it is the different depths of arising and ceasing, emptiness and provisional existence, and the Middle seen on one lotus body.

The other nine subtleties also unfold naturally from particular parts of the lotus. The curled leaf, stamens and leaves, and receptacle each possess a nature of growth and disclose the three wisdoms of emptiness, provisional existence, and the Middle in one mind. The stalk is compassion, the leaf wisdom, the stamens samādhi, and the opening liberation. Green leaves over the water, yellow leaves over the water, and upright leaves in the air disclose the three kinds of kindness. Root, blossom, seed, and leaf are used by people and bees; fragrance, freedom from disgrace in mud, continual growth, softness and moisture, and freedom from staining respectively disclose giving, discipline, patience, vigor, concentration, and wisdom.

The stages follow the upward route of the lotus shoot: inherently present in principle, piercing the coarse skin, emerging from the fine skin, becoming settled in the mud, reaching the surface of the mud, entering water, leaving water, poised to open in the air, showing distinguishable stamens and receptacle, turning and opening with the sun, spreading fully to bear bees and butterflies, and finally shedding stamens and leaves so that only the receptacle and seed remain. Each position is named from where the lotus is and what form it has at that moment. The deepening of practice thus resembles the growth of a plant from the floor of the mud into open air.

The lotus’s four subtle constituents, the hollowness of its receptacle, and the enclosing receptacle and seed chamber disclose the three tracks of true nature, contemplative illumination, and supporting accomplishment. Lotus shadows cast on clear water, turbid water, and wind-tossed water disclose different forms of stimulus and response; a tree’s shadow cast on water in a dark night discloses a response that falls into neither manifest nor hidden. Wind lifts the flower in the east and lowers it in the west, opens and closes it above and below; sunset closes it and sunrise opens it; from afar it is red and nearby white; its fragrance fills the fields, pollen drifts, and raindrops strike one another. In sequence these disclose the portents of earth-movement, entry into concentration, teaching the Dharma, emitting light, fragrant wind, flowers raining from heaven, and heavenly drums.

The flower closed, opening, and fallen also disclose concealing the One Vehicle while teaching three, gathering the three into the one, and ending verbal teaching in order to merge with principle. A flower from the side of a lotus root, a seed falling into mud, transplanted roots and seeds, and something like gossamer or thin mist flying from one pond into another disclose, according to their own modes of arising, karma-born, supernormal-power-born, vow-born, and response-born retinues. Fish and turtles below, bees and butterflies above, delight in those who see, and the use of leaves, blossoms, fruit, and roots disclose benefits from causal benefit through benefit in the real. The other nine subtleties can be explained broadly through one flower because each meaning follows from its parts, movements, and uses.

A Pond Repeatedly Ripens and Regrows, Giving Remote Buddha-Work a Form

One lotus seed expresses an individual course from beginning to end; a pond of lotus blossoms expresses teaching and transformation across a long time. A blossom ripens and falls, the seed enters mud, grows again, and ripens again. As years accumulate, the whole pond fills. Each cycle has sprouting, leafing, flowering, and fruiting, and its fruit becomes the seed of the next cycle.

The Buddha completed cultivating the cause and realizing the fruit at the first Origin, then once more aroused expedients for sentient beings and manifested both first arousing the mind and ultimate attainment within cyclic existence. A black lotus again growing stalk and leaves discloses cultivating noble practice again. The four subtle constituents gradually growing disclose cultivating heavenly practice again. The first emergence of the lotus leaf discloses cultivating brahma practice again. The seed entering mud discloses joining those engaged in evil and cultivating the practice of illness again. The first sprouting of the shoot discloses joining those of lesser goodness and cultivating the practice of an infant again. These five practices appear in the same order of renewed growth.

A single maturation is not the end of teaching and transformation, but the beginning of the next responsive manifestation. Benefiting sentient beings throughout the three times—through division-bodies, lowering traces, opening traces, and abolishing the Trace—is like lotus seeds filling a great pond: everywhere is a ripened fruit and everywhere a new beginning. Dharma and simile are completed together here. The Wondrous Dharma ensures that the lotus is not merely a flower, while the lotus makes remote and immeasurable Buddha-work visible.

Guanding records the closing title of the second half of fascicle seven here and then gives the heading of the first half of fascicle eight and the attribution to Master Zhiyi. Although the fascicle changes on the page, the question continues from the specific name into the shared name: the lotus has shown how Dharma borrows form to reveal meaning; the next question is how the shared name “sutra” threads together every teaching, practice, and principle.

Why Can One Transliteration Not Simply Be Matched with One Chinese Graph?

The Indic term corresponding to 經 has several transliterations because regional pronunciations differ and Chinese translators did not agree. The discussion therefore begins with two claims: that it is untranslatable and that it is translatable. “Untranslatable” does not mean that nothing in Chinese can explain it, but that one original name has many meanings and one thin Chinese graph cannot bear them all at once.

The five interpretive senses are basis of Dharma, subtle emergence, gushing spring, carpenter’s line, and garland-thread. Each in turn opens into the three aspects of teaching, practice, and principle, making fifteen meanings.

As basis of Dharma, it is a source. One word of the Buddha flows into immeasurable teachings, and later treatises and commentaries draw on the Buddha’s words to extend and transmit them: this is the basis of teaching. The sutra points out a right path free from contention, cures many illnesses, and leads people from here to there: this is the basis of practice. One sentence can converge on one meaning, many sentences on many meanings, one sentence on many meanings, or many sentences on one meaning: this is the basis of principle. Teaching enables hearing, practice enables reflection, and principle enables cultivation; all three issue from a single sutra.

Subtle emergence is growth from the minute to the manifest. Hearing a teaching begins with a little understanding and expands through study into mastery. Practice begins with lesser human and heavenly good, enters discipline, concentration, and wisdom, and reaches consummation. Understanding principle moves from hearing and reflection, through semblance, toward the real. Like a minute shoot becoming a tree one can embrace, it does not leap over the intervening growth.

A gushing spring is an inexhaustible flow once a blockage has been removed. Teaching can explain immeasurable sentences from one sentence, practice can contain immeasurable practices in one practice, and principle can pervade every place like open space. The eloquences of Dharma, phrasing, and meaning each have their spring, while delight in teaching flows through all three.

A carpenter’s line turns timber into a vessel. Teaching cuts through distorted doctrine, practice departs from what is not the path, and principle crosses the near shore of craving and affective views without abiding in the unconditioned. Right speech, right action, right mindfulness, right concentration, right view, and right intention each take their place along this straight line.

A garland-thread strings flowers together so that teaching, practice, and principle do not fall apart. Teaching produces faultlessness of speech, the various practices faultlessness of body, and principle faultlessness of mind. Retention of what is heard, retention of practice, and complete retention are established in the same way. Wisdom and merit then adorn the Dharma-body, making the originally unadorned Dharma-body manifest as worthy of reverence.

The three aspects of each of the five senses already show the name’s plurality. “Sutra” is further glossed as constant: teaching cannot be destroyed, practice cannot be surpassed, and principle remains quiescent and unmoved. It is also glossed as a norm: teaching, practice, and principle can all serve as standards. If 經 were only a replacement label, it would be too narrow; treated as a shared entrance, it opens all these layers one by one.

How Do the Five Translated Meanings Complement the Untranslated?

The account of translation also establishes five meanings. To translate the term as “sutra” first takes the sense of a course: teaching, practice, and principle all proceed from the minds and mouths of sages. It also takes the sense of warp and weft: the Buddha’s discourse is warp and the bodhisattvas’ exposition weft; wisdom-practice is warp and practice-practice weft; expression of the true is warp and expression of the conventional weft. Only when vertical and horizontal are woven together do the patterns of teaching, the eightfold path of practice, and the two truths of principle appear.

To translate it as “accord” means according with capacities, affairs, and meaning. Teaching meets sentient beings, causes goodness to arise and evil to be broken, and accords with the ultimate truth. To translate it as “basis of Dharma” again makes it the basis of teaching, practice, and principle. To translate it as “thread” means not only holding those three together, but sewing words into a teachable discourse, practice into the right path, and principle into the one ultimate path. To translate it as “teaching of good speech” makes what is taught through the worldly siddhānta good speech, what is taught for persons and as counteraction good practice, and what is taught through the ultimate truth good principle.

The dispute between translation and nontranslation appears to ask whether one term can be translated, but at a deeper level asks whether language can bear Dharma. If the advocate of multiple meanings holds only to five, richness can harden into a fixed list. If the advocate of translation lists many correct translations, it becomes difficult to say which is actually current. The weight of prajñā and the lightness of “wisdom,” and the capacity of “nirvāṇa” and “extinction” to bear meanings, show both that a translated name may be inadequate and that interpretation can unfold what it contains.

Harmonization therefore does not cancel the two accounts. Opening each of the five untranslated meanings into three aspects brings out its beauty; opening each of the five translations into three brings out its depth. When worldly wisdom says “existent,” one can communicate through existence; when it says “nonexistent,” one can communicate through nonexistence. In the end, the name 經, which translators past and present use in common, is still taken as correct: it has become the shared title for both Mahāyāna and lesser-vehicle teaching and can encompass basis of Dharma, subtle emergence, gushing spring, carpenter’s line, garland-thread, accord, thread, good speech, norm, and constancy.

If Sutra Were Only the Buddha’s Voice, Would Sutra Remain after His Extinction?

Once the correct name has been established, the next question is what kind of dharma actually becomes sutra. While the Buddha is present, he teaches with the sound of his golden mouth, the ear hears, and people attain the path; sound can therefore be sutra. After the Buddha’s extinction, paper and ink transmit it, the eye sees written graphs, and people penetrate principle; visible form can be sutra. When inward reflection accords with Dharma and one realizes directly without another’s teaching or paper and ink, mental objects can also be sutra. This land thus commonly uses the three sense-objects of sound, visible form, and mental objects.

In other lands, where faculties and consciousnesses are sharp, all six sense-objects can become Buddha-work. Taste can lead one to awaken to the equality of dharmas; the touch of heavenly cloth can lead to the path; the sight of the Buddha’s light can awaken through visible form; quiescence without words can enter the path through contemplation; and a land of accumulated fragrances can use scent as Buddha-work. The difference concerns the entrance through which sentient beings enter, not whether one of the six objects is naturally sutra while another can never be.

Thus, in answering the question about sharp and dull faculties, the argument suddenly turns: the six sense-objects are in themselves the Dharma realm and in themselves sutra. Sharpness of faculty determines only whether one awakens at that moment; it does not create sutra-nature in an object. With this sentence, “sutra” moves from a choice among media to the pervasion of the Dharma realm.

Why Can One Additional Stroke of Black Ink Open into the Entire Dharma Realm?

A dot of black ink looks almost meaningless, yet a turn of the stroke can make it a graph. One, two, or three strokes express one, two, or three. Add strokes to a vertical and it can become 王, 丑, 田, 由, or 申. Small differences—turning left or right, adding a dot above or below—can bear good and evil, contaminated and uncontaminated, killing and giving life, giving and taking, censure and praise, pain and pleasure. Meaning does not exist somewhere apart from ink, yet ink does not become a fixed substance merely because it can express many meanings.

Dots become graphs, graphs become sentences, sentences become verses, verses become fascicles, and fascicles become sections: this reveals the subtle emergence of teaching. Lesser practice advances to great practice: this reveals the subtle emergence of practice. Shallow principle advances to profound principle: this reveals the subtle emergence of meaning. Dots, graphs, sentences, and verses gush forth without end, and practices and meanings gush forth without end. Ink also cuts through distortion in teaching, practice, and principle and binds their garlands, becoming three carpenter’s lines and three forms of retention.

Written graphs can arouse anger, craving, and delusion and become a basis of evil destinations; they can also arouse kindness, equanimity, and right view and become a basis of human and heavenly existence. Seeing suffering, accumulation, cessation, and path through a graph makes it a basis of śrāvakas. Seeing ignorance, formations, consciousness, and the remaining links through aging-and-death—and seeing that when ignorance ceases, aging-and-death ceases—makes it a basis of pratyekabuddhas. Knowing the nature of the graph as empty while arousing compassion and practicing the six perfections, yet seeing no truly existent sentient being who is delivered, makes it a basis of bodhisattvas.

Looking more deeply, graph is conventional, nongraph is true, and nongraph that does not fall into annihilation is the one real. One is three and three are one, making the basis of objects. Tracing the graph to the conjunction of paper, brush, mind, and hand, with neither agent nor object obtainable, makes the basis of all-wisdom. From mind comes a dot, from the dot a graph, from graphs sentences, then fascicles, cases, sections, and collections in ordered differentiation: this makes the basis of wisdom of ways. Simultaneously illuminating graph and nongraph makes the basis of the knowledge of all modes.

A single graph can also lead a person to relinquish the body for Dharma, see buddha-nature through half a sentence, attain awakening by hearing a sutra and exclaiming “Excellent!,” and recover fluency, samādhi, and retention after forgetting. One learns supernormal powers through text, obtains speech through graphs, teaches graphs and thereby forms retinues, and gains benefit through diligent study. Practice, stages, vehicle, stimulus and response, supernormal power, teaching the Dharma, retinues, and benefit therefore never leave the ink before one’s eyes.

One who penetrates written graphs reads constantly without holding a fascicle, recites all scriptures without making a sound, constantly hears the Brahmā voice though the Buddha does not speak, and illuminates the Dharma realm without mental discrimination. Blue, yellow, red, and white, as well as sound, smell, taste, and touch, can all be unfolded in the same way. This does not erase all distinctions in the phrase “everything is sutra.” It investigates craving and affective views, dependent arising, emptiness, provisional existence, the Middle, and the Dharma realm in each object, illuminating graph and nongraph together.

Different teachings present deeper or shallower relations between writing and principle. One account relies on writing to express principle and takes principle as sutra and writing as what expresses it. Another sees the nature of writing itself as already free, so that the six sense-objects are the true mark. The number of expedients carried along corresponds to the characteristics of each teaching. Yet the question of “sutra” always concerns how writing leads people to see principle, not how to leave writing and seek a wordless sutra elsewhere.

Finally Returning to Mind: Sutra Is Neither Outside the Page nor Outside Mind

The contemplation-of-mind approach gathers the preceding four approaches back into one mind. It first follows the model of nontranslation: one thought contains good, evil, and various mental factors at once, so no single member can be fixed as the whole meaning of mind. A brief name stands for the whole, establishing the sense of multiple inclusion.

Mind is the basis of Dharma. Without thought and awareness there is no speech, so mind is the basis of language. Activities are established through volition, so mind is the basis of practice. The initial mind investigates principle, moving from a dim approach to semblance and from semblance to the real, so mind is the basis of principle.

Mind has subtle emergence. A momentary thought is at first barely present or absent, then gradually becomes determinate and issues through the mouth. Initial practice is weak, then becomes established and grows into great practice. Initial contemplation does not see the principle of mind; repeated cultivation reaches semblance and the real. Language, practice, and principle all grow from the minute to the manifest within mind.

Mind has a gushing spring. Obstructions are like earth and stones pressing down a spring, and contemplating mind is like removing the blockage. When mind becomes clear, words flow without end. When thought follows thought, the six obscurations turn into the six perfections. When the ground of mind is dug deeply, the water of principle runs clear and inexhaustible. Mind has a garland-thread that passes through words, practice, and meaning. Mind has a carpenter’s line that rectifies speech, action, and principle, turning the timber of craving and affective views into a vessel of right Dharma.

It next follows the model of translation. Language, activities, and principles all proceed from mind. Awareness and observation, wisdom-practice and practice-practice, and vertical and horizontal engagement with principle weave warp and weft. Contemplative wisdom accords with object, capacity, teaching, practice, and principle. Good mind and good contemplation become good speech, good practice, and good principle. Contemplation also makes mind a norm: when it rectifies the mind-king, the mental factors are rectified. Mind’s nature is indestructible like open space and can therefore be called constant.

Contemplation of mind finally lands in concrete affairs. Whenever an affair is encountered, it is used to turn contemplation toward mind, like fire receiving fuel: contemplative wisdom becomes brighter while neither affair nor principle is lost. A lesser-vehicle account separates good and evil like a narrow road that cannot admit two people abreast. Mahāyāna, however, sees within an evil mind that it is not fixed as evil, that evil can itself be good, and that both evil and good are transcended; it applies the same threefold contemplation within a good mind. One mind is three minds, and these three are then applied throughout all minds and all dharmas.

Thus every utterance, practice, and principle unfolds upon mind. The five untranslated and five translated meanings operate without obstruction in every mind. The lotus gives the Wondrous Dharma a form, the graph 經 makes sound, visible form, and mental objects into a path, and contemplation of mind enables the reader to enter that path personally. What explaining the name completes here is not only the meaning of three graphs, but the end of any separation among name, simile, Dharma, and practitioner.

Through the Eye of the Shiqian

Zhanran’s first contribution is to illuminate the transitions in a root text that is tightly woven but does not always establish minor subdivisions. Determining Dharma and simile first treats the simile, then clarifies the Dharma-principle, and finally harmonizes the two explanations. Zhiyi’s question and answer therefore do not establish a third theory beyond Dharma-name and simile-name, but join how those of sharp faculties understand principle through the name with how those of middling and lesser faculties enter through a simile. The section on earlier explanations first relates three masters, then surveys other views, and finally cites Guangzhai separately. The first three masters are presented without refutation; the ten meanings, six meanings, and Guangzhai are each evaluated in their own place.

When scriptures and treatises are cited, the Mirror strictly distinguishes three layers: first the list of seventeen names, next the treatise’s explanations through emerging from water and the blossom opening, and only then Zhiyi’s interpretation of the treatise in terms of practice and stage. This layering makes “entry is through practice; dwelling is called stage” the hinge and uses the stalk, leaf, stamens, and opening in the Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra only from the standpoint of cause and fruit. Scriptures and treatises supply materials; Zhiyi’s present explanation determines how they become the lotus Dharma-gate in this passage.

The udumbara passage does not explicitly state a question in the root text, but Zhanran judges it a latent doubt: since there is already an auspicious flower that appears only at rare intervals, why still use the lotus? The Mirror answers that the udumbara can disclose rarity, while the lotus has an entire course that can be unfolded. “Entire” must still be read together with “principle is complete but affairs are lacking, and therefore it is called extensive.” In the ten meanings from seed to mature lotus, the beginning and end can be complete; as a simile for the substance, purport, function, and limitless affairs of all dharmas, however, something remains lacking. This allows the simile its full force without turning it into a substance.

The six Origin-and-Trace similes each have an explanation and a conclusion, and each explanation first states the simile and then joins it to Dharma. Zhanran gathers the two paths into the statement: “In the Trace Gate, extension is the beginning and opening the end; in the Origin Gate, lowering is the beginning and brushing aside the end.” The first three movements proceed from extending the provisional to opening and revealing; the latter three proceed from lowering the Trace to brushing the Trace aside. “Perfect and complete” describes the beginning and end formed by the six similes together; it does not repeat the same floral image arbitrarily six times.

For the stone lotus and the ten suchnesses, the Mirror first supplies a general diagram: outside corresponds to appearance; inside to nature; the constituent to substance; the wish to emerge to power; all the parts to activity; opening the blossom to cause; spreading the stamens to condition; lotus fruit to fruit; the completed chamber to recompense; and identity from beginning to end to ultimate equality. Each item then proceeds from simile, to conjunction with Dharma, to cited evidence. This sequence lets scriptural evidence support an already established correspondence rather than renaming the lotus’s parts. Objects are explained broadly and the other nine subtleties more briefly, yet the Mirror still judges their general meaning complete. The meditative stages borrowed for the stages use positions at which delusions are subdued to disclose the upward advance of the shoot, returning the simile to the root text’s own line of growth.

At the beginning of the shared name, Zhanran first corrects what the root text’s era called the “Hu sound” to “Sanskrit sound” and points out that the five interpretive senses draw on the Abhidharma and the Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya. The section on basis of Dharma then distinguishes three layers: the Buddha’s word as the basis of teaching, the Buddha’s sutras as the basis of treatises, and non-Buddhist speculative discourse as baseless. These subdivisions do not alter the root text’s wording, but clarify the textual status of the five senses and the order of teaching, practice, and principle within each.

In the harmonization approach, the Mirror first rejects the two fixations and then performs the proper harmonization. Zhanran says “both explanations are right”: translation and nontranslation do not both become invalid; rather, the three meanings of teaching, practice, and principle enhance the beauty of each. In the end, the term is still commonly translated as “sutra” in accord with established usage. Opening the range of meaning and fixing the title occur together, which is precisely where the root text neither contends with the world nor confuses conventional naming.

The approach of traversing dharmas first traverses the six sense-objects and then distinguishes them according to the teachings. Among the six, visible form receives the broadest treatment, sound is abbreviated, and the remaining four wholly follow the example. The discussion of black graphs first traverses translation, nontranslation, and harmonization, then takes one black graph as the Dharma realm and uses it to expound all dharmas. The correlations for the first nine subtleties are visible from the root text itself; benefit is further divided into the general benefit obtained through diligent learning and the specific benefit that manifests the Buddha-Vehicle. Difference in length is thus a method of exemplification: once one object is penetrated, the other objects and consciousnesses can be unfolded by the same reading.

The Shiqian further points out that both sound and visible form must communicate through mental objects. Even when the eye sees or the ear hears, the thinking consciousness must bring teaching and mind into accord. Thus the root text’s sutra as sound, sutra as visible form, and sutra as mental object are not three sealed media, but three entrances that arise when faculty, object, and consciousness meet. In another land, all six objects may be sharp; or one object may be used exclusively; or two, three, or four objects may be used. Each reveals the same structure.

The broad explanation of black ink concludes in the three truths. Sound first expresses all dharmas and then briefly discloses the three truths; the remaining four sense-objects follow the example. Zhanran’s marking of this broad and abbreviated treatment lets the reader understand that omitted words still have a point of connection. The subsequent sequence of teachings is not arranged in a single chronological order, yet the relations of writing and principle, expedients and the true mark, are complete within each. The central question is therefore how each teaching locates writing, not how to reorder their names. All six sense-objects thereby return to the Dharma realm.

Finally, Zhanran explicitly judges that contemplating mind “clarifies sutra by fully following the preceding four sections.” It first follows nontranslation, then translation, then harmonization, and finally traverses all dharmas of mind; it does not open a new system unrelated to what preceded it. This perspective also explains how mind, though not a foreign word, can follow the model of nontranslation: what is selected is its plurality of meanings. When the four approaches are each turned toward mind, sound, visible form, and writing are not abandoned, but integrated in the mind that contemplates.

The Mirror closes the boundary with “the explanation of the shared and specific names above is now complete.” Looking back, Zhanran does not see two long explanations accidentally spanning a fascicle division, but a single completed arc: Dharma-name and simile-name are first harmonized; the lotus moves from partial to extensive simile; “sutra” moves from a linguistic name into the six sense-objects; and the six objects are finally gathered through contemplation of mind. Because each step preserves the form and order of the step before it, the one mind at the end can contain myriad dharmas without becoming an empty generality.