妙法蓮華經玄義 明宗

If the perfect principle has already been seen, why must one still proceed step by step? Because seeing the direction is not the same as completing the whole path: the principle seen can be perfect from the outset, while practice’s illuminating function must still be brought to completion gradually.

Clarifying the purport first compares the purport to the throat and collar, beams and columns, and a net’s governing cord. The throat and collar are the vital points of a body and a garment; beams and columns enable a house to stand; when the governing cord is lifted, all the meshes move. The purport does not establish another answer outside the true mark. It gathers up every cause and fruit of practice so that not one step departs from the substance upon which it relies.

The purport and the substance therefore cannot be declared identical, but neither can they be severed from one another. The substance is the true mark, which is neither cause nor fruit; the purport is the beginning and end of practice spoken of in reliance upon the true mark. It is like one piece of copper: the copper’s substance has no beginning or end, yet when one prepares to cast an image there is the image’s beginning, and when the finishing and polishing are complete there is the image’s completion. The beginning and end can truly be spoken of, without the copper’s substance thereby becoming something else.

The earlier part of the present sutra principally accomplishes the disciples’ real cause, while the latter part principally reveals the Buddha’s distant real fruit; the earlier part also has fruit, and the latter part also has cause. Only by viewing Origin and Trace together does cause retain its direction and fruit cease to be an eminence that has arisen without a cause.

More importantly, opening the coarse does not discard every road formerly traveled. Bowing the head, raising a hand, and the minute causes of scattered goodness can all be opened and resolved so that they together become wondrous causes. Skillful means once led people forward; after they mature, those means reveal the destination toward which they had always pointed. The wondrous is not outside the coarse: it appears when no cause or fruit remains cut off from the Buddha-path.

The moon simile illuminates this most clearly. The new moon’s outline is already round, while its light is not yet complete; from the second through the fourteenth day, its light gradually increases; on the fifteenth, outline and illuminating function are both complete. The moon itself undergoes no real waning or waxing, yet people distinguish waning and waxing according to its appearance. There are not two perfect principles within the true mark, yet practice still has what is not yet complete and what is ultimately complete.

Thus, “having seen the perfect principle” is not a reason to stop; it means that no further step loses its direction. The fruit of one stage can become the cause of the next. On the uninterrupted path one suppresses one part of ignorance; on the path of liberation one severs that one part. Cause and fruit continue without interruption while their basis remains unchanged: this is the heart-essence of the purport as the throat and collar of practice.

The Purport as the Governing Outline of Practice

The third great chapter clarifies the purport. The purport is the throat and collar of practice and the essential path for revealing the substance. It is like beams and columns supporting a house and like the governing cords that gather the meshes of a net: when the governing cord is lifted, every mesh moves with it; when the beams are secure, the rafters remain in place.

The explanation of the purport has five parts: first, distinguishing purport from substance; second, directly clarifying the purport; third, comparing the sameness and difference among the causes and fruits taught in the various scriptures; fourth, clarifying coarse and wondrous; fifth, concluding on cause and fruit.

First: Distinguishing Purport from Substance

Some say that the purport is precisely the substance and the substance precisely the purport. This interpretation is not adopted here. Why? The aim of the purport is cause and fruit, and cause and fruit are two; the substance is neither cause nor fruit and is therefore nondual. If the substance were two, it would not be the substance; if the substance is nondual, it cannot simply be called the purport. If the purport were nondual, it would not be the purport; if the purport is two, it cannot simply be called the substance. How, then, could one say that the substance is precisely the purport and the purport precisely the substance?

Beams and columns, moreover, are the governing supports of a house, while the empty space within the house is the space that the beams and columns support and accomplish. One should not call the beams and columns the house’s empty space or call the house’s empty space the beams and columns. To say that purport and substance are completely one entails this fault.

Conversely, if purport and substance are said to be wholly different, the two Dharmas become isolated from one another: the purport is no longer the purport that reveals the substance, and the substance is no longer the substance upon which the purport relies. If the purport is not a purport that reveals the substance, it becomes crooked and inverted, lacking the seal of the true mark. If the substance is not that upon which the purport relies, it becomes narrow and fails to pervade, as though causes and fruits existed somewhere apart from Dharma-nature. To say that purport and substance are definitively different entails this fault.

What is said here is that they are not separate or different, yet are distinct in meaning: causes and fruits are discussed in relation to the true mark, which is neither cause nor fruit, and for this reason the different names “purport” and “substance” are established. The meaning of the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom is that everything apart from the true mark of all dharmas is called the work of Māra. The meaning of the Sutra on the Practice of Contemplating Bodhisattva Samantabhadra is: “The cause of the Great Vehicle is the true mark of all dharmas; the fruit of the Great Vehicle is likewise the true mark of all dharmas.” This is precisely the principle at issue.

One should know that the substance of the true mark pervades everything, yet is not itself cause or fruit. Cause is distinguished at the beginning of practice, and fruit is discussed at the completion of practice. Causes and fruits are further divided into partial and perfect. Consider the substance of copper. In itself it is called neither beginning nor completion. When one prepares to cast it as an image, that is called the image’s beginning; when the finishing and polishing are entirely complete, that is called the image’s completion. This represents perfect cause and fruit. If one prepares to make a vessel and then completes it, the vessel likewise has a beginning and an end; this represents partial cause and fruit.

Arousing the mind of the seven kinds of skillful means is called partial cause; realizing nirvāṇa with remainder and nirvāṇa without remainder is called partial fruit. Opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing is called perfect cause; ultimate wondrous awakening is called perfect fruit. If one understands how the one copper substance relates to these two kinds of finished object, and knows that purport and substance are neither identical nor separate, the meaning of the purport becomes clear.

Take direct-cause buddha-nature as another example. Direct-cause buddha-nature is itself neither cause nor fruit, yet when it is spoken of as cause and not fruit it is called buddha-nature, and when it is spoken of as fruit and not cause it is called great nirvāṇa. Buddha-nature itself is not fixed as either future or original, yet it is also said to have been originally possessed: all sentient beings are the mark of nirvāṇa and cannot again be extinguished.

It is also said that all sentient beings possess buddha-nature, while in fact they do not yet possess the thirty-two marks and will obtain a vajra body only in the future. Because buddha-nature does not belong only to the future, it is said to be originally possessed; because it is not merely something already actual from the beginning, it is said to be attained in the future. The relation between purport and substance is the same: both rely upon the true mark, yet can be distinguished according to the beginning and end of cause and fruit.

Guanding’s Private Broad Survey of Earlier Interpretations

The following is the recorder Guanding’s separate broad survey of earlier masters’ explanations, which he analyzes one by one.

Master Yuan takes the One Vehicle—that is, the Wondrous Dharma—as the purport, citing the statement, “This vehicle is subtle and wondrous; none is above it.” Guanding says privately that if the one is established only to refute the three vehicles, and the wondrous is called wondrous only in relation to the coarse, it reaches only one end of cause and does not encompass beginning and completion.

Master Long says that fruit alone should serve as the purport. In his view, the Wondrous Dharma is the substance of the Tathāgata’s numinous wisdom: all coarse Dharmas have been exhausted, so it is called wondrous; in both activity and stillness it can serve as a standard for beings, so it is called Dharma; because this Dharma is real and wondrous, the lotus blossom is borrowed as its simile. Thus he takes the wisdom of buddhahood as the purport. Guanding says privately that fruit cannot stand by itself. How could its cause be abandoned? This interpretation also contradicts the text.

Huiguan’s preface says that gathering the three vehicles into the One Vehicle is the vehicle’s beginning; the full accomplishment of wisdom and awakening is the vehicle’s flourishing; and extinguishing appearances and clarifying spirit is the vehicle’s completion. Master Kumārajīva is recorded as praising it: “How could anyone who had not entered deeply into the scriptural treasury have offered an explanation such as this?”

Master Yin says that the true mark of all dharmas is the wondrous object of the One Vehicle and takes object and wisdom as the purport. Because the object is free from the three kinds of falsity, it is called the true mark. Guanding says that this merely adds an object while still omitting fruit, like swelling that does not add healthy flesh.

Guangzhai takes the causes and fruits of the One Vehicle as the purport, judging the earlier section of the sutra to be cause and the latter section fruit. Guanding says privately that each of the two sections has both cause and fruit. If one preserves cause and conceals fruit in one section, then preserves fruit and conceals cause in the other, one harms the scriptural text.

Some take the two wisdoms of the provisional and the real as the purport. Guanding says privately that if provisional wisdom is included in the purport, the three vehicles should also be said to be the sutra’s purport. Yet the three are precisely what the present sutra relinquishes as expedient. How could what is relinquished be taken as the purport?

Another master says that this scripture is titled Wondrous Dharma Lotus and therefore takes its name itself as the purport. Wondrous Dharma is the fundamental real Dharma-nature attained by the Buddha. This nature is not different from afflictive defilement, yet is not the same as afflictive defilement, and is therefore called wondrous; in this sense the purport is simply the name. This is the view adopted by the masters of the Daśabhūmika. They take the eighth consciousness as the ultimate fruit, whereas the Mahāyānasaṃgraha now refutes it and calls it the root of birth-and-death.

Another master says that permanence serves as the purport, but that the scripture has not yet reached the utmost highest point and therefore clarifies permanence through a concealed appearance. Guanding says privately that this is wholly contrary to the scripture’s intent. If permanence is concealed, how can the purport be revealed? If permanence is not concealed, permanence itself cannot constitute the purport.

Another master says that the present scripture clarifies permanence explicitly and that it differs from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra only as a brief account differs from an extensive one. Guanding says privately that if permanence is the purport, permanence has no cause or fruit; without cause and fruit, permanence likewise has none of the purport meant here. Further statements are omitted in the root text.

Some say that the myriad wholesome practices serve as the purport, for so long as something is wholesome it can enable one to become a buddha. Guanding says privately that if becoming a buddha is fruit, why not take fruit directly as the purport?

Others select uncontaminated good from among the myriad wholesome practices as the purport. Guanding says privately that this is far too narrow and also becomes confused with the lesser nirvāṇa of the Two Vehicles.

Still another says that if people receive these different teachings and each obtains benefit, none of the many interpretations need be wrong; if people hear them but do not awaken, none of the masters need be right. This master therefore values awakening alone and proposes awakening as the sutra’s purport. He cites the meaning of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra: “Whatever has a fixed characteristic is a Dharma of birth-and-death and a characteristic of Māra; buddhadharma has no fixed characteristic.” The Tathāgata therefore sometimes calls what is not the path the path, and sometimes calls the path not the path. One should know that awakening alone is what is to be followed.

Guanding says privately that if awakening is the purport, awakening belongs to realization of the fruit and does not explain the cause of practice. This is like being asked for the south and pointing north, throwing all directions into confusion. Moreover, if awakening is definitively established as the purport, this makes what is unfixed rigidly fixed. How, then, can it still be called unfixed? Those who offer explanations are extremely numerous and cannot all be listed.

Second: Directly Clarifying the Sutra’s Purport

From “Introduction” through “Peaceful Practices,” this sutra breaks down and abolishes skillful means and opens and reveals the real: the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing. It also clarifies the disciples’ real cause and real fruit, and the teacher’s provisional cause and provisional fruit. Although the text and meaning are extensive, their essential point is the accomplishment of the disciples’ real cause. Cause is principal and fruit collateral. Thus the earlier part clarifies the cause and fruit within the Trace.

From “Emerging from the Earth” through “The Encouragement of the Bodhisattva Universally Worthy” (Samantabhadra), it reveals the Origin by disclosing the Trace, abolishes the expedient display of a recent lifespan, and clarifies the distant real fruit. It also clarifies the disciples’ real cause and real fruit, and the teacher’s provisional cause and provisional fruit; but what it seeks to reveal is the teacher’s real fruit. Fruit is principal and cause collateral. Thus the latter part clarifies the cause and fruit within the Origin.

The causes and fruits of the two parts are joined and together constitute the purport of this sutra. This is the point of the explanation. The sutra is therefore divided into an earlier and a latter part and discusses both Origin and Trace; its title raises both Dharma and simile, both lotus and blossom. Teacher and disciples, provisional and real, are all contained within these causes and fruits of Origin and Trace.

Third: Sameness and Difference among the Causes and Fruits of the Various Scriptures

The sameness and difference among the causes and fruits of the various scriptures means that causes and fruits within the Trace are sometimes the same as and sometimes different from those of the various scriptures, while causes and fruits within the Origin are fundamentally different from those within the Trace. The true mark universally seals and determines the substances of the various scriptures. What scripture does not discuss cause and fruit in relation to it? The scriptures establish different governing purports only because they address different capacities.

The Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra takes the true mark, which is neither cause nor fruit, as its substance, but principally takes cause as its purport. Prajñā clears away attachments, which is precisely the intent of cultivating cause. It is therefore said that in the mind of a bodhisattva it is called prajñā, while in the mind of a buddha it is called sarvajñā. The text also speaks of the bodhisattva’s unborn and unextinguished cause and of attaining the sarvajñā-fruit that is neither annihilated nor permanent. Sengrui’s preface says that the profound chapter begins with nonabiding and returns through the three wisdoms to nonattainment as its completion; beginning and completion are cause and fruit. The scripture also speaks of the Buddha-fruit of the knowledge of all modes, but does so to accomplish the cause of prajñā. Cause is principal and fruit collateral. The Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings speaks of Mahāprajñā and of cultivation over many kalpas. It is therefore known that the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra takes cause as its purport.

The Vimalakīrti Sūtra takes both cause and fruit of the buddha-land as its purport. Ratnākara asks fully about cause and fruit, and the Buddha fully answers concerning cause and fruit. It is therefore known that this sutra takes both cause and fruit as its purport.

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra is a perfect and sudden teaching, and its purport has been interpreted in different ways. The first interpretation takes cause as the purport: “flower-adornment” in the title means adorning through the myriad practices and so belongs to the cultivation of cause; the text also frequently teaches the characteristics of the forty stages, and therefore takes cause as its purport. The second interpretation takes fruit as the purport: “Buddha” in the title Great, Vast Buddha Avataṃsaka names the ultimate fruit, while “flower-adornment” means that concentration, wisdom, and the myriad wholesome practices adorn the Buddha’s body, not that they adorn cause; the text also often teaches the Dharma-body of Vairocana, and therefore takes fruit as its purport. The third interpretation combines cause and fruit as the purport: Buddha is fruit, while flower-adornment is cause; because the text fully teaches both Dharma-body and the various stages, it takes cause and fruit together as its purport.

Because the various scriptures address different capacities, their governing purports differ. The Prajñāpāramitā broadly addresses three kinds of people and collaterally reveals real cause and fruit; in this respect it differs from the purport of the present sutra’s Trace Gate. When it addresses bodhisattvas in particular, it further distinguishes sharp and dull faculties: clarifying cause for those of dull faculties is likewise different, while the cause clarified for those of sharp faculties is the same. The buddha-land doctrine of the Vimalakīrti Sūtra is inclusive: the causes and fruits of three kinds of buddha-land differ from those of the present sutra, while the causes and fruits of one kind are the same. The Avataṃsaka likewise addresses two capacities; what those of dull faculties receive differs, while what those of sharp faculties receive is the same, as distinguished above. Applying the same meaning throughout the causes and fruits of the five flavors makes the rest clear by analogy. These are the ways in which the causes and fruits of the various scriptures are the same as or different from the causes and fruits within the Trace of the present sutra.

Next, causes and fruits within the Origin are wholly different from those of the various scriptures. A bodhisattva of the Tripiṭaka Teaching begins only now to cultivate real cause and fruit and has no provisional cause and fruit. Even when the Buddha is said to have first accomplished the path beneath the bodhi tree, this is not the distant Origin and Trace. A bodhisattva of the Shared Teaching likewise begins with an initial cultivation of cause and discusses Origin and Trace only through supernormal transformations; this too is not the distant Origin and Trace.

The Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that bodhisattvas have Origin and Trace while members of the Two Vehicles do not; it speaks of the Buddha’s initially attaining the Origin and Trace of embodied life and Dharma-body, but does not speak of the distant past. The Vimalakīrti Sūtra does not say that śrāvakas have Origin and Trace, but only that bodhisattvas abide in the inconceivable Origin and Trace; it also says that the Buddha has a pure land, but the land seen by Brahmā Śikhī is not distant. The Avataṃsaka speaks of Vairocana and Śākyamuni as Origin and Trace, and bodhisattvas likewise have Origin and Trace; yet śrāvakas cannot even hear or understand it, so how could they themselves have an Origin and Trace?

The present sutra, by contrast, reveals that śrāvakas originally have an Origin, with causes and fruits in the Origin, while displaying these as the causes and fruits of the Two Vehicles within the Trace. It also reveals the Buddha’s Trace: the birth of the embodied life in the royal palace, the birth of the Dharma-body beneath the bodhi tree, and every manifestation of embodied life and Dharma-body in between all belong to the Trace. Only the very first attainment of the true and response bodies is called the Origin. Thus the original causes and fruits of teacher and disciples differ entirely from those of the other scriptures. The causes and fruits of teacher and disciples within the Trace of the present sutra are in some respects the same as and in some respects different from those of the various scriptures; their causes and fruits within the Origin are absent from the various scriptures. Precisely these causes and fruits constitute the wondrous purport of the present sutra.

Fourth: Distinguishing Coarse and Wondrous

If the cause belongs to the half-word teaching and its fruit is the pervasive fruit beneath the bodhi tree, this purport is coarse. The causes and fruits shared by the three vehicles in the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra are likewise coarse. Even its unshared cause, though it says that a bodhisattva who practices prajñā for one day is like sunlight illuminating darkness and that upon arousing the mind the bodhisattva can sport in supernormal powers, still carries a coarse cause, so the perfect cause cannot appear by itself. Though it says that the Dharma-body neither comes nor goes, it still carries a coarse fruit, so the perfect fruit cannot appear by itself. It is therefore called coarse.

Although the Vaipulya teachings rebuke partial causes and fruits through the simile that lotus blossoms do not grow on high dry ground, they do not distinguish how the partial can enter the perfect. The perfect meaning is not clearly revealed, and these teachings too are coarse. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra is like sunlight first illuminating the high mountains: it teaches one perfect cause and, in the ultimate final body, one perfect fruit. Yet it also carries Distinct causes and fruits, and what it carries is coarse.

The present sutra gives predictions to śrāvakas and removes bodhisattvas’ doubts, opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing for all and bringing them together into one perfect cause. It also reveals the Origin by disclosing the Trace, bringing all to awaken to the real fruit. Its cause is perfect and its fruit real; it carries no expedient admixture and differs forever from the other scriptures. It is therefore called wondrous.

As for opening the coarse: because sentient beings’ faculties were dull in the past and they were not yet able to hear the praise of the causes and fruits of the Buddha Vehicle, the Buddha used expedient causes and fruits to meet and guide their immediate dispositions. After the five flavors had tempered and matured them, their minds gradually became open and at ease. Coarse causes were then resolved so that they together became wondrous causes, and all coarse fruits were resolved so that they together became wondrous fruits.

Thus those in the assembly who bowed their heads, raised their hands, or “adhered to the Dharma” all accomplished the Buddha-path; there was no longer any cause that was not a cause of the Buddha-path. Once the Buddha-path is accomplished, how could any fruit remain that is not buddhahood? Even the minute causes of scattered goodness are now all opened and resolved as perfect causes—how much more the practices of the Two Vehicles, and how much more the practices of bodhisattvas. None fail to become wondrous causes and fruits.

Fifth: Concluding on Cause and Fruit

The conclusion has two parts: first, concluding on cause and fruit; second, distinguishing through fourfold analyses in question and answer.

The sutra teaches cause and fruit precisely to benefit practitioners in embodied life and Dharma-body alike. When it teaches opening the provisional to reveal the real, it principally enables those in embodied life among the seven kinds of skillful means who have not yet entered to enter, while collaterally enabling those in embodied life and Dharma-body who have already entered to advance. When it teaches the distant lifespan, it collaterally enables those in embodied life who have not yet entered to enter, while principally enabling those in embodied life and Dharma-body who have already entered to advance.

When “The Supernormal Powers of the Tathāgata” speaks of “all the Tathāgata’s deeply profound matters,” that which is neither cause nor fruit is the deeply profound principle, while causes and fruits are the deeply profound matters. The first entry into the Perfect from the seven kinds of skillful means, ascending to the stage of the copper wheel, is called cause. When only one life remains and turning that one life brings wondrous awakening, it is called fruit. From the second abode through equal awakening, each intermediate stage is both cause and cause of the cause, and both fruit and fruit of the fruit.

Suppressing one part of ignorance through the uninterrupted path is called cause; severing one part of ignorance through the path of liberation is called fruit. On the basis of this liberation one again cultivates the next uninterrupted path, and it is therefore called cause of the cause. From this next uninterrupted path one again obtains liberation, and it is therefore called fruit of the fruit.

Viewed through the relation of earlier and later stages, the ten abodes are cause and the ten practices fruit; the ten practices are cause and the ten dedications fruit; the ten dedications are cause and the ten grounds fruit; the ten grounds are cause and equal awakening fruit; equal awakening is cause and wondrous awakening fruit.

Wondrous awakening is only fruit and only liberation; it is no longer called cause or uninterrupted path. The first abode is only cause and only uninterrupted path; it is not called fruit or liberation. Why? At the first abode one sees the true and takes that true opening as cause; the resemblance prior to the first abode is not a true cause.

If the initial cause is spoken of in terms of intrinsic virtue, snapping the fingers and scattering flowers is the seed of the conditioning cause, hearing even a single phrase is the seed of the revealing cause, and every being with mind is the seed of the direct cause. This speaks only distantly of the seeds of the three causes as intrinsic virtue. It is not yet their real opening and development, and therefore is not taken here as cause in the principal judgment.

First Question and Answer: Why Is There Still the Gradual within the Perfect?

Someone asks: If entering the principle at the first abode is called perfect cause and perfect fruit, why does the scripture also say, “Gradually studying and practicing, they attain the Buddha-path”?

The answer is that two kinds of fourfold analysis should be made. The first consists of gradual-perfect, perfect-gradual, gradual-gradual, and perfect-perfect: entering the Perfect gradually, cultivating gradually after entering the Perfect, advancing gradually within the Perfect, and the perfect becoming fully perfect.

Gradual-perfect is said in relation to the seven kinds of skillful means outside the principle, all of which are opened to the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing and begin to see the perfect principle. They see the perfect principle because they gradually enter perfect cause from the seven kinds of skillful means outside the principle, and it is therefore called gradual-perfect. The remaining three statements in this set are omitted at this point in the root text.

Perfect-gradual means that upon first entering this Perfect one contemplates the Three Truths together and sees the principle of the true mark. The principle seen is no different at the beginning and the end, but phenomenal practice is not yet fully complete and must still be cultivated and refined. From the perspective of initially entering the Perfect it is called perfect; from the perspective of advancing through the practices of the higher stages it is again called gradual.

Gradual-gradual extends from the second abode through equal awakening. This is the gradual-gradual within the Perfect, not a gradual-gradual outside the perfect principle. Perfect-perfect is wondrous awakening. It can also be called gradual-perfect, as well as perfect-perfect: the perfect principle was already perfect, and now phenomenal practice is also perfect, so it is called perfect-perfect.

Another set is then established entirely within the stages of the Perfect: the first abode is perfect-gradual; the second abode onward through the thirty minds is gradual-gradual; the first ground onward is gradual-perfect; and wondrous awakening is perfect-perfect.

The second fourfold analysis uses the mutual naming of worthy and noble. Although the thirty minds possess both the meanings of worthy and noble, they are called worthy by convention because they involve more suppression and less severance. The ten grounds onward are called noble because they involve less suppression and more severance. More specifically, the ten abodes are called worthy-noble, the next twenty minds noble-worthy, the ten grounds and equal awakening noble, and wondrous awakening noble-noble.

Now consider the simile of the new moon. Its outline is already round, while the function of its light is not yet complete; this represents perfect-gradual. From the second through the fourteenth day, its brightness gradually increases; this represents gradual-gradual. The fifteenth day represents gradual-perfect and also perfect-perfect. The moon itself undergoes no real waning or waxing, yet people distinguish waning and waxing according to the moon’s appearance. The principle itself has no perfect or gradual, yet people distinguish perfect and gradual according to the phenomenal work of practice in relation to the principle.

The purport of this sutra confers vast benefit, beginning with perfect-gradual and ending ultimately in perfect-perfect. The causes and fruits of the Great Vehicle thereby increase and become completely fulfilled. Further statements are omitted in the root text.

Second Question and Answer: Can the Names Mutually Occur?

Someone asks further: Since what is perfect can also be called gradual and can also be called distinct, can it likewise carry the names Shared and Tripiṭaka?

The answer says that this meaning comes from the Chapter on the Four Teachings. Its purport is as follows.

Within the Tripiṭaka Teaching, calling the teaching itself Tripiṭaka is readily understood. Its truths, conditions, and perfections are distinct and can carry the name Distinct; its realization of true truth can carry the name Shared; and its completion beyond learning can carry the name Perfect.

Within the Shared Teaching, Shared within Shared is the common realization of nonarising. The morality, concentration, and wisdom taught within path truth can carry the name Tripiṭaka. Whether primary afflictions and latent tendencies are entirely exhausted, whether one teaches and transforms others, and whether one emerges into the provisional are all matters of distinction and can carry the name Distinct. The common realization of true truth can carry the name Perfect.

Within the Distinct Teaching, Distinct within Distinct is the distinction between higher and lower stages. Cultivating morality, concentration, and wisdom within immeasurable path truth can carry the name Tripiṭaka. All four gateways entering the Middle can carry the name Shared. Exhausting the five abodes of affliction can carry the name Perfect.

Within the Perfect Teaching, Perfect within Perfect is interpenetration. The four gateways being different can carry the name Distinct; the four gateways mutually encompassing one another can carry the name Shared; and perfect path truth together with perfect morality, concentration, and wisdom can carry the name Tripiṭaka.

Since this principle applies throughout, gradual-perfect should likewise be established, and all four statements concerning gradual and perfect can be established. The conclusion on cause and fruit can therefore be established in full; thereafter judging coarse and wondrous and opening coarse and wondrous can likewise all be established.

The preceding chapter discerned the true mark as the substance. Since every cause and fruit is inseparable from the true mark, why establish a separate “purport”? If the purport is simply the substance, the five chapters repeat themselves; if the purport is another Dharma outside the substance, practice departs from the true mark. The chapter on clarifying the purport begins with precisely this dilemma.

It does not begin by giving the purport an isolated definition. Instead, it draws four pictures: throat and collar, a road, beams and columns, and the cords of a net. The throat and collar are vital points of a body and a garment, while a road provides a course to follow; beams and columns enable a house to stand, and when the governing cord is lifted, every mesh moves. The purport is therefore not merely one proposition that is believed. It is the governing outline that gathers up the causes and fruits of practice and keeps the many practices from falling apart.

1. Purport and Substance: Neither Identical nor Separate

Why can the purport not simply be called the substance? Because the purport concerns cause and fruit, which have a beginning and a completion, whereas the substance is neither cause nor fruit and does not fall into a duality. To identify the two would be like calling the beams and columns the empty space within the house, and then calling that empty space the beams and columns. They are related, but they do not refer to the same thing.

Why can the purport and substance not be completely different? If the purport left the substance, the causes and fruits of practice would lose the seal of the true mark and become a crooked and inverted course. If the substance left the purport, it would become narrow and fail to pervade, as though causes and fruits existed somewhere outside Dharma-nature. The two Dharmas would stand isolated from one another: the purport would no longer be a purport that reveals the substance, and the substance would no longer be that upon which the purport relies.

The positive answer is therefore “not different, yet distinct.” They are not different because every cause and fruit depends entirely upon the true mark; there is no path of practice outside Dharma-nature. Yet they are distinct because the true mark is spoken of as neither cause nor fruit, while the purport is spoken of as the beginning of practice being cause and the completion of practice being fruit. The substance indicates the principle upon which practice relies; the purport indicates practice’s beginning and end in reliance upon that principle. The two names are distinguished, while what they describe remains one path that never leaves the true mark.

2. How Can One Copper Substance Have Two Kinds of Beginning and End?

The copper simile makes this relation visible. The substance of copper is not called a beginning or a completion. When one prepares to cast it as an image, there is the image’s beginning; when the finishing and polishing are complete, there is the image’s completion. If one prepares to make a vessel, the vessel likewise has its own beginning and completion. The one copper substance does not become two copper substances because two things can be made from it, nor are the causes and fruits of the image and vessel thereby erased.

Perfect cause and fruit and partial cause and fruit are like the image and vessel, each with its own beginning and completion. Arousing the mind of the seven kinds of skillful means is partial cause; realizing nirvāṇa with remainder and without remainder is partial fruit. Opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing is perfect cause; ultimate wondrous awakening is perfect fruit. Distinguishing these two kinds of cause and fruit does not divide the substance of the true mark into two kinds. Knowing that both rely upon one substance does not make their causes and fruits indistinguishable.

The example of buddha-nature makes the same point again in terms of time. Buddha-nature is not fixed as belonging to the future, nor is it fixed as something already possessed from the beginning; yet in relation to sentient beings now and their future fruit-virtues, one can speak of its being “originally possessed” and “to be attained in the future.” Sentient beings all possess buddha-nature, while the thirty-two marks and vajra body still await accomplishment. Both “original” and “future” are said in reliance upon buddha-nature, yet neither can confine buddha-nature to a fixed point in time. The distinction between purport and substance likewise speaks of the beginning and end of practice in reliance upon the same true mark.

3. Why Do the Old Interpretations Keep Losing the Balance between Cause and Fruit?

At this point Guanding separately sets out the purports established by earlier masters. This passage is no longer only Master Zhiyi’s positive discernment of purport and substance. The recorder spreads out the preceding views one by one and examines whether they can encompass cause and fruit, beginning and end, and both earlier and later passages of the sutra.

One view takes the One Vehicle but attends only to the one established by refuting the three; one takes only the wisdom of buddhahood and abandons the cause of practice; one adds object and wisdom but still leaves out fruit; one makes the whole earlier section cause and the whole latter section fruit, thereby erasing the other side from each section. Others take the two wisdoms of the provisional and the real, the sutra’s title, permanence, the myriad wholesome practices, uncontaminated good, or awakening as the purport. Each view elevates a single item as the sutra’s purport. The question is whether that item can bear the beginning and end of the entire sutra.

If only cause is taken, the purport cannot reach fruit; if only fruit is taken, the fruit has nothing from which to arise. If the purport is reduced to the name permanence, the practice of cause and fruit disappears. If awakening is fixed as the sole purport, one invokes a Dharma without fixed characteristics while fixing awakening rigidly in place. Adding an object while still lacking fruit is like swelling that does not increase healthy flesh. Being asked about the cause of practice but answering only with the fruit of awakening is like being asked for the south and pointing north. Guanding’s analysis does not merely ask whether a term sounds elevated; it asks whether the term can gather up the sutra’s causes and fruits without harming its text.

4. Why Must the Sutra’s Governing Purport Embrace Both Its Earlier and Latter Parts?

The earlier part of the present sutra, from “Introduction” through “Peaceful Practices,” abolishes skillful means and reveals the real: the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing. It speaks both of the disciples’ real cause and fruit and of the teacher’s provisional cause and fruit, but the essential point of this entire part is to accomplish the disciples’ real cause. Cause is therefore principal and fruit collateral, and this is called the cause and fruit within the Trace Gate.

The latter part, from “Emerging from the Earth” through “The Encouragement of the Bodhisattva Universally Worthy” (Samantabhadra), reveals the Origin by disclosing the Trace, abolishes the expedient display of a recent lifespan, and reveals the distant real fruit. This part likewise possesses the causes and fruits of both disciples and teacher, both real and provisional; but its essential point is to reveal the Buddha’s distant real fruit. Fruit is therefore principal and cause collateral, and this is called the cause and fruit within the Origin Gate.

“Cause principal, fruit collateral” does not mean that the earlier part has no fruit, and “fruit principal, cause collateral” does not mean that the latter part has no cause. Principal and collateral indicate only where a passage places its emphasis. When the two parts are joined, disciples and Buddha, cause and fruit, provisional and real are all complete at once. This is why the sutra’s title raises both Dharma and simile and places lotus and blossom together, and why the sutra’s purport cannot take only one side.

5. If All Scriptures Have Cause and Fruit, How Does the Present Sutra Still Have Its Own Purport?

The true mark can seal and determine the substance of the various scriptures, and the various scriptures can all discuss cause and fruit in reliance upon the true mark. Their difference lies in the capacities they address and the point upon which each places its emphasis.

The Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra takes the true mark, neither cause nor fruit, as its substance. Although it possesses both cause and fruit, prajñā’s clearing-away makes the cultivation of cause principal. In the Vimalakīrti Sūtra’s questions and answers about the buddha-land, Ratnākara asks fully about cause and fruit and the Buddha answers fully about cause and fruit, so both meanings serve as its purport. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra can be read as taking cause for its purport through the myriad practices that adorn; as taking fruit for its purport through Buddha and Dharma-body; or as combining the Buddha-fruit in the title with the cause of “flower-adornment” and so taking cause and fruit together as its purport.

These comparisons do not arrange the scriptures along one linear scale. Whether a scripture addresses three kinds of people or bodhisattvas in particular, whether it addresses sharp or dull faculties, and whether the meaning of buddha-land is taken in one way or three, its causes and fruits can be the same in one respect and different in another. Cause and fruit within the Trace can be compared within these distinctions of capacities.

The causes and fruits within the distant Origin, however, open another level. The Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings speak of cause and fruit from an initial practice and initial attainment. Although the Great Prajñāpāramitā, Vimalakīrti, and Avataṃsaka speak in various ways of the embodied life, Dharma-body, transformations, or Origin and Trace of buddhas and bodhisattvas, they do not directly reveal the true and response bodies first attained in the distant past, together with the distant original causes and fruits of the Buddha and his disciples. The present sutra reveals that the śrāvakas originally have an Origin and that their causes and fruits as members of the Two Vehicles within the Trace are manifested from that Origin. It gathers the birth of the embodied life in the royal palace, the birth of the Dharma-body beneath the bodhi tree, and every manifestation in between into the Trace, then points back to the very first attainment as the Origin. In this respect the original causes and fruits of teacher and disciples are absent from the other scriptures.

6. How Are Coarse Causes and Fruits Opened into Wondrous Causes and Fruits?

After discerning the sutra’s purport, another question remains: when scriptures alike speak of perfect cause and fruit, why are some coarse and others wondrous? The criterion is not merely whether the perfect is mentioned, but whether perfect cause and fruit remain mixed with and encumbered by expedient causes and fruits.

The Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that practicing prajñā for a single day is like sunlight breaking darkness, and that upon arousing the mind a bodhisattva can sport in supernormal powers; yet perfect cause remains together with coarse cause. It says that the Dharma-body neither comes nor goes; yet perfect fruit remains together with coarse fruit. The Vaipulya teachings use the image that lotus blossoms do not grow on high dry ground to rebuke partial causes and fruits, but do not reveal how the partial enters the perfect. The Avataṃsaka is like the sun first illuminating the high mountains and speaks of a perfect cause and the perfect fruit of one in the ultimate final body, but still carries Distinct causes and fruits. Wherever what is carried has not been resolved, the perfect meaning cannot appear by itself.

The present sutra gives predictions to śrāvakas and removes the doubts of bodhisattvas, opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing for all and bringing them into one perfect cause. It also reveals the Origin by disclosing the Trace, bringing all to awaken to the real fruit. Its cause is perfect and its fruit real, without the continued admixture of skillful means, and it is therefore called wondrous.

Opening the coarse, however, does not discard the past expedient causes and fruits. When sentient beings’ faculties were dull, expedient causes and fruits first met and guided their immediate dispositions. After they had been tempered and matured, coarse causes were resolved so that they together became wondrous causes, and coarse fruits were resolved so that they together became wondrous fruits. The minute causes of scattered goodness—bowing the head, raising a hand, and “adhering to the Dharma”—are all opened and resolved as perfect causes; no practice of the Two Vehicles or of bodhisattvas is excluded. The wondrous is not another cause and fruit outside the coarse. It reveals the shared destination of every former cause and fruit.

7. From the First Abode to Wondrous Awakening, How Is Each Step Both Cause and Fruit?

The sutra teaches cause and fruit for the benefit of practitioners in embodied life and Dharma-body alike. When it teaches opening the provisional to reveal the real, it principally enables those in embodied life among the seven kinds of skillful means who have not yet entered to enter, while also advancing those in embodied life and Dharma-body who have already entered. When it teaches the distant lifespan, it principally advances those who have already entered, while also enabling those in embodied life who have not yet entered to enter. Principal and collateral are reversed, yet the benefit in both cases concerns entering and advancing.

From the first entry into the Perfect through the seven kinds of skillful means, at the stage of the copper wheel, it is called cause; when only one life remains and that life is turned so that wondrous awakening is attained, it is called fruit. This describes cause and fruit from the general path’s first and last endpoints.

Viewed within each intervening stage, there are causes and fruits in each successive part. Suppressing one part of ignorance through the uninterrupted path is cause; severing that part of ignorance through the path of liberation is fruit. The liberation already attained becomes the basis for the next uninterrupted path and is therefore called cause of the cause; the next uninterrupted path again obtains liberation, which is therefore called fruit of the fruit. Cause of the cause and fruit of the fruit are not two additional kinds of stage. They name the same part-by-part advance when viewed from its preceding and following sides.

Viewed through adjacent stages, the ten abodes are cause and the ten practices fruit; the ten practices become cause and the ten dedications fruit; the ten dedications become cause and the ten grounds fruit; the ten grounds become cause and equal awakening fruit; equal awakening becomes cause and wondrous awakening fruit. The fruit in one relation can become cause in the next. Cause and fruit are not two permanently fixed labels, but relational names within the course of practice.

The two endpoints must nevertheless remain clear. The first abode sees the true and is only cause and only uninterrupted path, never fruit or path of liberation. Wondrous awakening is ultimate and is only fruit and only path of liberation, never again cause or uninterrupted path. Snapping the fingers and scattering flowers, hearing a single phrase, and merely being a being with mind can be spoken of distantly as the seeds of the three causes; yet these remain seeds of intrinsic virtue and have not reached the real opening and development taken here as cause. The purport’s cause asks not only whether a possibility exists, but whether practice has actually opened and developed it.

8. Having Entered the Perfect Principle, Why Does One Still Speak of Gradual Study?

If “perfect” refers to the principle seen, the first entry and the ultimate completion do not behold two different true marks. If “gradual” refers to the phenomenal work of practice, however, practice remains incomplete after the first seeing. Perfect and gradual can therefore both apply from different perspectives.

Gradual-perfect means gradually entering perfect cause from the seven kinds of skillful means. Perfect-gradual means that one has initially entered and already seen the perfect principle, while the practices of the higher stages still require cultivation. Gradual-gradual is the gradual advance within the Perfect from the second abode through equal awakening. Perfect-perfect is wondrous awakening, where the principle was perfect beforehand and phenomenal practice is now also perfect.

The same four names are then assigned again from within the stages of the Perfect: the first abode is perfect-gradual; the second abode through the thirty minds is gradual-gradual; the first ground onward is gradual-perfect; and wondrous awakening is perfect-perfect. The two explanations employ different scales, but together answer one question: seeing the perfect principle does not mean that every function of practice is complete at that very moment.

The moon simile illuminates the distinction between principle and practice. The new moon’s outline is already round, while its light is incomplete: this represents perfect-gradual. From the second through the fourteenth day its light increases: this represents gradual-gradual. On the fifteenth it is full: this represents gradual-perfect as well as perfect-perfect. The moon itself undergoes no real waning or waxing, yet people speak of waning and waxing according to its appearance. There are not two principles, one gradual and one perfect, yet gradual and perfect can still be distinguished through the phenomenal work of practice.

The final mutual inclusion of teaching names follows the same method. Within one teaching, a particular meaning can carry the name of another: morality, concentration, and wisdom can carry the Tripiṭaka name; nonarising and true truth can carry the Shared name; distinctions of stages and gateways can carry the Distinct name; completion and interpenetration can carry the Perfect name. The names can meet one another while the meanings proper to their positions remain distinct. This does not erase distinctions. It shows how one Dharma gate can be named from several angles.

Clarifying the purport has now moved from purport and substance as neither identical nor different, through the causes and fruits of Origin and Trace, the sameness and difference among scriptures, judging and opening coarse and wondrous, the causes and fruits of each successive part and stage, and the fourfold analysis of perfect and gradual. The purport is the throat and collar and the governing cord precisely because it can gather up all these paths while always enabling the many practices to rely upon the substance and return to the substance.

Through the Eye of the Shiqian

The preceding exposition follows the sequence of Master Zhiyi’s teaching and Guanding’s private broad survey. Zhanran’s Fahua Xuanyi Shiqian first divides the six opening phrases into two groups: the first two say that the purport is essential to practice, and the latter four say that the purport has the function of revealing the substance. “Gathering the many practices through cause and fruit, the many practices rely upon the substance and return to take the substance” is the first eye of the whole chapter. If the purport gathered practices without returning them to the substance, it would lose the seal of the true mark; if the substance could not be revealed through practice, it would become a principle outside phenomena.

The second eye concerns authorial layers. Zhanran explicitly judges that the discernment of purport and substance first refutes what is wrong and reveals what is correct, after which Guanding “privately sets out the old views broadly and discerns their errors.” The views from Master Yuan onward, together with “I privately say” and “I now say,” therefore belong to the recorder’s ordering of earlier interpretations. Master Zhiyi’s positive teaching comprises the refutation of identity, the refutation of difference, the positive revelation, the two examples concerning buddha-nature, and the ensuing direct clarification of the purport. This boundary prevents the earlier interpretations from passing as the treatise master’s own continuous teaching, while also keeping Guanding’s work visible.

The third eye is the completeness of both Origin and Trace. Zhanran divides each of the two parts into citing the scriptural passage, direct explanation, determining principal and collateral, and conclusion. Cause is principal and fruit collateral in the earlier part; fruit is principal and cause collateral in the latter. This indicates only the different emphasis of each part, for both still contain cause and fruit. When the various scriptures are compared, sameness and difference can be distinguished within the Trace; the distant Origin, by contrast, is consistently different. These two comparisons cannot be collapsed into one level.

The fourth eye is that coarse and wondrous must first be judged and then opened. Zhanran places the Dharma-body’s neither coming nor going back within the scene in which Sadāprarudita sees a buddha and Dharmodgata then teaches the Dharma. The judgment that perfect fruit still carries something coarse is thereby not turned into an aphorism without a speaker or context. Judging the coarse points out that skillful means remain; opening the coarse then carries the preceding causes and fruits together into the wondrous. Joined together, these two steps neither treat former expedients as ultimate nor allow their former benefit to be lost.

The fifth eye concerns the scale of cause and fruit. Zhanran first describes the general beginning and end from the first entry into the Perfect through wondrous awakening. He then explains that every stage has uninterrupted cause and liberation-fruit, and finally uses the relation between preceding and following to explain cause of the cause and fruit of the fruit. Although the three causes as intrinsic virtue can be posited distantly, they are still excluded from the principal judgment here. The cause taken as the purport is actual opening and development; it does not place a resemblance-stage and an intrinsic-virtue seed on the same level.

The sixth eye concerns the two fourfold analyses. Zhanran first distinguishes the four terms gradual-perfect, perfect-gradual, gradual-gradual, and perfect-perfect, and then the four terms involving worthy and noble. Within the former, he further distinguishes the scale of entering the Perfect from the partial and the scale internal to the stages of the Perfect, warning that configurations in other treatises differ slightly and cannot simply be imposed here. In the later question he gives the governing rule: “names may mutually occur, but meanings necessarily do not interpenetrate.” The names can include one another, while their doctrinal positions still return to their proper places.

At the end the mirror also preserves one textual doubt. The root text says gradual-perfect twice; according to the sequence, Zhanran thinks one occurrence should name perfect-gradual, but he records the suspicion only in the commentary and does not erase the base text. This moment fittingly echoes the whole chapter: distinctions may be clearly raised, while the text upon which they rely is not silently replaced by a later editor’s ordering.