妙法蓮華經玄義 明難

Does sorting everything into neat categories necessarily mean that one has understood the scriptures? Not necessarily. If a timeline says that before the twelfth year there were only teachings with characteristics, while the scriptures had already clarified emptiness, or says that after the twelfth year there was only signlessness, while Prajñā still interconnects with buddha-nature, the Dharma-body, and permanence, its lines do not hold. If rebuke is reserved for a later period, Prajñā had already used fireflies and the sun, a great household and its laborers, images and footprints, to praise and censure different kinds of wisdom and the teachings people seek. The neater the names, the more scriptural meaning they may leave out.

Clarifying the Difficulties therefore does not rush to establish another set of names. It makes every old classification answer to its own criteria. If lifespan is used to judge permanence and impermanence, the birth-body and Dharma-body must be distinguished. If convergence and buddha-nature are used to order earlier and later teachings, one must face the Lotus teaching of the three bodies, three causes, and distant past. If scriptures are placed in sequence, one must explain why the Aṅgulimālīya and Vimalakīrti both rebuke and clarify permanence, yet are put inside and outside that sequence.

The five flavors themselves proceed in the generative order of milk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence. The problem begins when, to accommodate the five periods, a classification instead assigns the scripture’s Prajñā to the Lotus and changes emergence from Prajñā into Nirvāṇa to emergence from the Lotus into Nirvāṇa. The simile was never reversed; those who force the correspondence reverse its sequence.

The four, five, and six schools reveal the same difficulty. Illusion does not appear only in the Great Prajñā; the Dharma realm does not appear only in the Avataṃsaka; perfect interfusion does not appear only in the Mahāsaṃnipāta. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra, moreover, does not clarify permanence alone: it can employ both permanence and impermanence and fully possesses the paired operation. To take only one side as a school is like having one wheel or one wing: nothing can roll or fly. Adding another school-name does not restore the side that has been cut away.

The final single-voice teaching poses the sharpest problem. If the Buddha always teaches only the One Vehicle while the three vehicles are seen entirely by sentient beings themselves, sentient beings become those who transform, and the Buddha becomes the one transformed. Such an account has real wisdom but no provisional wisdom. It is like having one great cart without servants or skillful attendants: there is a direction toward the real, but no road by which different beings can be received and led.

The value of classifying the teaching therefore does not lie in arranging scriptures along a seamless line. It lies in seeing the real and skillful means at once: skillful means must not obscure the real, and the real must not erase skillful means. Only when the scriptural text is preserved whole can classification truly guide the way.

The third part is Clarifying the Difficulties. It first challenges the five periods established by the masters of the South. If this position cannot stand, the four-period and three-period accounts can be refuted by analogy.

1. Can the Teaching with Characteristics before the Twelfth Year Stand?

If everything taught during the first twelve years after the Buddha’s awakening is called a teaching with characteristics, masters who uphold the Satyasiddhi Treatise misrepresent the very treatise on which their classification relies. The Satyasiddhi Treatise says, “I now intend precisely to clarify the real meaning within the Tripiṭaka.” This real meaning is emptiness. Is emptiness not signless? Was the Tripiṭaka not taught before the twelfth year?

The Āgamas further say that the two questions “This is aging-and-death” and “Who undergoes aging-and-death?” are both wrong views. That there is no real “aging-and-death” is the emptiness of dharmas; that there is no real “who” undergoing aging-and-death is the emptiness of persons. The Tripiṭaka scriptures themselves already teach the emptiness of persons and dharmas. Are these two emptinesses not signless? The Dazhidu Lun further says that the emptiness of dharmas is called great emptiness in the Tripiṭaka, while the emptiness of the ten directions is called great emptiness in the Great Vehicle. Since the emptiness of dharmas is called great emptiness, that great emptiness is great signlessness.

Moreover, the Buddha taught the Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra six years after attaining awakening, and its explanation of emptiness is especially incisive. If this is not signlessness, what is? The Dazhidu Lun further says that the Buddha constantly taught prajñā from the night he attained the path to the night he entered nirvāṇa. Prajñā is wisdom that illuminates emptiness.

One can ask further: when the years before the twelfth are classified as a teaching with characteristics, do those who hear this teaching attain the path or not? If they attain it, this contradicts the Satyasiddhi Treatise. Its masters say that the Four Truths with characteristics are only a skillful means for training the mind and do not actually enable one to attain the path. One must see the equality of emptiness before one can attain the path. If characteristics are still affirmed, how could attainment suddenly occur? If the path cannot be attained, what use is there in teaching this Dharma?

Kauṇḍinya and the other four men were first within the Buddha-Dharma to become quiescent, leave sounds and written words behind, and gain real knowing-and-seeing. Since they are called the “first,” did they not already attain the path before the twelfth year? If one acknowledges their attainment, their teaching is the same as signlessness. If one says that they did not attain the path, it is the same as a wrong teaching.

If one still says that they attained the path, one must ask which path they attained. If they attained it by seeing emptiness, this is again the same as signlessness. If they attained it without seeing emptiness, it is the same as the ninety-five non-Buddhist paths and is not attainment of the Buddha path. Thus, whether one says that the teaching with characteristics enables attainment or that it does not, the classification has a fault.

2. Can the Signless Teaching after the Twelfth Year Stand?

Second comes the challenge to calling the teachings after the twelfth year signless. Earlier masters held that emptiness swept away characteristics during this period but that permanently abiding buddha-nature had not yet been clarified, so the period was still impermanent. Its Buddha, with a lifespan of eighty years, did not gather the three vehicles into the one, and there was neither rebuke nor praise and censure. This position is exceedingly difficult to understand.

If the teaching was truly signless, why did it not sweep away the characteristic of impermanence as well? Since impermanence is still retained, how can it be called signless? If one says that this period did not clarify buddha-nature, the Dharma-body, and permanence, one might perhaps claim that shared prajñā is not buddha-nature, the Dharma-body, and permanence. But how could unshared prajñā not be buddha-nature? The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says that buddha-nature has five names and is also called Śūraṃgama and prajñā. Since prajñā is another name for buddha-nature, how can one say it is not buddha-nature?

The other side answers that when the scripture calls buddha-nature prajñā, it means the prajñā among the three virtues of Dharma-body, prajñā, and liberation. What does that have to do with signless prajñā? If so, why does fascicle eight of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra say, “As I previously taught in the Mahāprajñāpāramitā, the natures of self and nonself are not two”? This nondual nature is real nature, and real nature is buddha-nature. The scripture points back to Prajñā in such explicit words. Why continue to say that it is not buddha-nature?

The buddha-nature taught in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra is simply Dharma-nature that permanently abides and cannot change. The Prajñāpāramitā teaches the true mark and the real limit as neither coming nor going; this is the Buddha’s Dharma of non-arising, and the Dharma of non-arising is the Buddha. How do these two meanings differ? Thus, the true mark of Dharma-nature is buddha-nature as direct cause; prajñā’s contemplative illumination is buddha-nature as understanding-cause; and the merits of the first five perfections, which support and arouse prajñā, are buddha-nature as conditioning cause. What difference is there between these three prajñās—the true mark of Dharma-nature, contemplative illumination, and the merits that support and arouse prajñā—and the three buddha-natures of direct, understanding, and conditioning causes taught in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra?

The Treatise on Diamond Prajñā says, “Merit does not advance toward bodhi; the two can advance toward bodhi.” In other terminology, one is called a productive cause; in terms of reality, it is called an understanding-cause. The true mark and the understanding-cause can advance toward bodhi. Are they not buddha-nature? The names alone differ while the meaning is the same, as distinguished above. How can one hear the alternate name “Śatamanyu” and conclude that it is not Śakra? Classifying prajñā and buddha-nature as two things is an error of exactly this kind.

3. The Buddha of Eighty Years, Gathering the Three, and Rebuke

If one says that the Buddha in the Prajñā teachings has an eighty-year lifespan, suffers back pain and illness, and finally enters extinction between the twin śāla trees, and therefore is not permanently abiding buddha-nature, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra likewise speaks of the eighty-year-old Buddha suffering back pain and illness and entering extinction between the śāla trees. Why can it nevertheless discuss permanence and distinguish buddha-nature?

The Dazhidu Lun says that the Buddha has a birth-body and a Dharma-body. Like an ordinary human body, the birth-body experiences cold, heat, and illness, as well as the hardships of horse fodder and begging for milk. The Dharma-nature body of the Buddha has boundless radiance and boundless forms. This exalted body is like empty space and teaches Dharma to bodhisattvas with Dharma-nature bodies. Even the assembly hearing the Dharma does not possess bodies of birth-and-death, much less the Buddha teaching it. The Dazhidu Lun further says that the lifespan of a buddha with a birth-body is limited while that of a buddha with a Dharma-body is immeasurable. How can the impermanence of the birth-body’s eighty years be imposed upon the Dharma-body?

Even Lesser Vehicle teachings say that the Dharma-body does not cease. When the novice Junti became distressed, the Buddha asked him, “Has your preceptor’s discipline-body ceased?” He answered, “No.” The Buddha continued to ask whether his liberation and knowing-and-seeing had ceased, and he again answered that they had not. If even the Lesser Vehicle says this, how could the Dharma-body of prajñā be called impermanent?

If one says that Prajñā does not gather the three vehicles, why does the “Questions on Abiding” chapter say, “Those devas who have not yet aroused the aspiration for complete awakening should arouse it. If someone has entered the fixed position of a śrāvaka, that person cannot arouse the aspiration for complete awakening, because it forms an obstruction separating him from birth-and-death. If that person can arouse the aspiration for complete awakening, I rejoice as well. Why? A superior person should seek a superior Dharma, and I will never cut off that person’s merit.” If a śrāvaka does not seek the superior Dharma, in what is the scripture rejoicing? Since it rejoices in his seeking the superior Dharma, it contains the meaning of gathering the three vehicles.

If one says that Prajñā contains no rebuke, the Great Prajñā says that the wisdom of the two vehicles is like a firefly, while the wisdom a bodhisattva learns in only one day is like the sun illuminating the four continents. Fascicle thirteen further says that it is like a dog that does not seek food from the great household but instead begs from a laborer. In the future, good men and women who abandon profound prajñā, clutch at its branches and leaves, and take up scriptures practiced by śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas are the same. It also says that those who see only the image and examine only the tracks are unintelligent. Could any rebuke be harsher than these? How can one say that Prajñā contains no praise and censure?

If one calls Prajñā the teaching of the second period on the basis of devas telling the Buddha, “We see the second Dharma-wheel turn,” then in what scripture can one not see a second turning set against a first? Why fix only Prajñā as the second? The Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra speaks of the Buddha first sitting beneath the tree of awakening, subduing Māra’s armies, attaining the ambrosia of extinction, and accomplishing the path, and then of teaching Dharma as neither existent nor nonexistent. These two teachings set against one another should likewise be called a second turning of the Dharma-wheel. The Lotus Sutra says that in the past the Buddha turned the Dharma-wheel of the Four Truths at Vārāṇasī and now turns the supreme Dharma-wheel again. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra also says that at the first turning in Vārāṇasī, eighty thousand devas and humans attained stream-entry, while at the present turning in Kuśinagara, eighty trillion people attained nonretrogression. Every scripture contains this sense of a later teaching set against an earlier one. By this criterion, they should all be second. Why is Prajñā alone second?

If signlessness was taught only after the twelfth year, how can one explain that the Buddha constantly taught prajñā from the night of attaining the path to the night of entering nirvāṇa? Thus, classifying this period as signless has many faults.

4. The Third-Period Teaching of Praise and Censure

Next comes the challenge to classifying the teaching of praise and censure as the third period. Although the other side says that the Buddha’s lifespan in this scripture is seven hundred asaṃkhyeya kalpas, it still classifies the Buddha as impermanent and the scripture as not clarifying permanence, saying that it contains nothing more than rebuke and praise.

First ask: while Prajñā was being taught, all the great disciples relayed the teaching on the Buddha’s behalf and taught Dharma to bodhisattvas. Though they did not wish to obtain the bodhisattva Dharma for themselves, they already fully knew the bodhisattva Dharma-gates. How could they later be rebuked into blankly failing to understand what was said and not knowing how to answer? The teaching of praise and censure therefore should not be placed after Prajñā or classified as the third period. Maitreya and other bodhisattvas were also subdued. How could one say that only śrāvakas were rebuked?

Nor is it reasonable to classify the scripture as impermanent because of the seven hundred asaṃkhyeya kalpas. Its own text says that the Buddha-body is unconditioned and falls within no number. With a body like vajra, what illness or distress could it have? Such things are manifested only in order to liberate sentient beings. The text expressly teaches the adamantine body, yet people classify it as impermanent because of the seven hundred asaṃkhyeyas. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra likewise teaches an adamantine body; why is it suddenly classified as permanent?

The scripture further says that contemplating the true mark of one’s own body is the same as contemplating the Buddha. Inconceivable liberation also has three kinds: true nature, real wisdom, and skillful means, precisely expressing the meaning of the three buddha-natures. That the company of sensory troubles is the Tathāgata-seed—is this not buddha-nature as direct cause? Illumination and liberation arise without severing delusion and craving: illumination is buddha-nature as understanding-cause, and liberation is buddha-nature as conditioning cause. When the three meanings are so distinct, how can the scripture be classified as impermanent? On what basis, then, are the three buddha-natures in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra classified as permanent?

5. The Fourth-Period Teaching of Convergence Already Clarifies Permanence

Next comes the challenge to classifying the fourth period as the teaching of convergence. The other side says that this period merely gathers the myriad wholesome Dharmas into the One Vehicle and does not clarify buddha-nature. The Buddha only uses supernormal power to prolong his lifespan, with the first number exceeding the sands of the Ganges and the latter twice the preceding, and permanence still is not taught. This position should not stand.

The Lotus Sutra teaches one kind of nature and mark, produced from the same ground, and that all the Dharma taught reaches the ground of omniscience. At the opening of the chapter, it sets out enabling sentient beings to open, to reveal, to awaken to, and to enter the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing. When the Avataṃsaka teaches buddha-wisdom, it still teaches bodhisattva-wisdom along with it: bodhisattva-wisdom is like soil on a fingernail, while tathāgata-wisdom is like the earth in the ten directions. The Lotus purely teaches buddha-wisdom like the earth in the ten directions. If this does not count as permanence, how can the bodhisattva-wisdom in the Avataṃsaka, which is like soil on a fingernail, prove permanence?

The Avataṃsaka says that the Buddha had just sat at the place of awakening and newly attained perfect awakening, making his buddhahood very recent. The Lotus says that the Buddha attained buddhahood in the distant past and that everything in between, including the present, is only Trace. If what is taught within the Trace can be called permanent, how could the teaching of the distant Origin not clarify permanence?

The Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings says that the Buddha previously taught the Avataṃsaka’s ocean and emptiness and practices cultivated through kalpas, but had never taught such a profound Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings. The profound Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings is already profound, yet still serves only as a skillful introduction to the Lotus. How could the Lotus fail to teach permanence? If one says that statements of permanence are too few, does a single command from the Son of Heaven cease to be an edict? The text expressly says, “The marks of the world constantly abide,” and that after immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas the Buddha’s lifespan is immeasurable, permanently abiding and never extinguished.

The lifespan of attaining awakening at Gayā and the lifespan of repeated manifestations are the lifespan of the response-buddha. The immeasurable lifespan of asaṃkhyeya kalpas is the lifespan of the reward-buddha. Permanently abiding and never extinguished is the lifespan of the Dharma-buddha. The three buddha-bodies are distinctly complete, and the meaning of permanence is fully present.

The Treatise on the Lotus Sutra teaches three kinds of bodhi. First is the bodhi of the responsive transformation-buddha, manifested according to what sentient beings should see: leaving the Śākya palace, going not far from the city of Gayā, sitting at the place of awakening, and attaining complete awakening. Second is the bodhi of the reward-buddha: fulfilling the ten grounds and attaining permanent nirvāṇa. The scripture says that since the Buddha actually attained buddhahood, immeasurable and boundless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of nayuta kalpas have passed. Third is the bodhi of the Dharma-buddha: the intrinsically pure nirvāṇa of tathāgata-garbha, permanently pure and unchanging. The scripture says that the Tathāgata knows and sees the marks of the three realms just as they are, and that he sees the three realms not as the three realms see the three realms. This means that the realm of sentient beings is itself the realm of nirvāṇa, and that not departing from the realm of sentient beings is itself tathāgata-garbha.

6. The Fourth-Period Teaching of Convergence Already Clarifies Buddha-Nature

The scripture further says, “I do not dare disparage you. All of you will become buddhas.” This is buddha-nature as direct cause. Its teaching that sentient beings are enabled to open the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing is buddha-nature as understanding-cause. Its teaching that the buddha-seed arises from conditions is buddha-nature as conditioning cause. The Treatise on the Lotus Sutra likewise clarifies three kinds of buddha-nature. It says that only a Buddha Tathāgata realizes great bodhi and ultimately fulfills all wisdom and that it is therefore called great. It further uses “I do not dare disparage you; all of you will become buddhas” to reveal that all sentient beings possess buddha-nature. With scriptural and treatise evidence this clear, how can one say that the Lotus contains no buddha-nature?

The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “This scripture appears in the world like a fruit. It brings great benefit, gives peace and joy to all, and enables sentient beings to see the Tathāgata-nature, just as the eight thousand śrāvakas in the Lotus received predictions and accomplished the great fruit, like autumn harvest and winter storage, with nothing further to be done.” If the eight thousand śrāvakas did not see buddha-nature in the Lotus, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra should not point back to this event. The explicit wording is credible and verifiable; why cling to the old classification?

Fascicle twenty-five of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra further says, “What is ultimate and final is the One Vehicle attained by all sentient beings. The One Vehicle is called buddha-nature. For this reason I say that all sentient beings possess buddha-nature and all sentient beings possess the One Vehicle.” The present scripture is therefore the teaching of the One Vehicle and profoundly converges with the Nirvāṇa Sūtra.

Moreover, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra still carries with it attainment of the path through the three vehicles, while the present scripture purely teaches the One Vehicle without admixture. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra does not further elucidate the distant Origin and Trace, while the present scripture clearly reveals the meaning of the Origin. The Buddha manifests birth everywhere and extinction everywhere, yet permanently abides in the future and benefits sentient beings in the past, present, and future. Sentient beings see the great fire burn everything, while the Buddha-land remains undestroyed. How could this be merely the supernormal prolongation of a lifespan that will ultimately end? This refutes the explanation of prolonging lifespan through supernormal power.

7. The Fifth Period and the Sudden Teaching

Next comes the challenge to the fifth period. The other side classifies the permanence taught by the nirvāṇa beneath the twin trees, the buddha-nature of sentient beings, and icchantikas becoming buddhas as the fifth period. One may now ask the Satyasiddhi masters: you explain meanings through the Two Truths. Is the teaching of the fifth period encompassed by the Two Truths? If it is, it is the same as the other teachings. Earlier teachings likewise use the Two Truths, yet are classified as impermanent. Why do the Two Truths beneath the twin trees suddenly become permanent?

If one says that the teaching beneath the twin trees does not go beyond the Two Truths but can illuminate a distinct principle and break distinct delusions and therefore is permanent, the Two Truths taught earlier likewise illuminate their corresponding principles and break their corresponding delusions. Why are they suddenly counted as only impermanent? The buddha-nature of sentient beings and icchantikas becoming buddhas can be challenged in the same way. Thus, the principle clarified in the fifth period does not differ from the earlier periods. On what basis is it alone classified as permanent?

The challenge to the sudden teaching can be understood in the same way. If the reality revealed is the same, on what basis is only a particular scripture classified as sudden? Although provisional establishments differ, one should not judge the magnitude of real meaning solely from differences among phenomena. To do so is a great reversal.

8. The Indeterminate Teaching for a Particular Quarter

Next comes the challenge to the so-called indeterminate teaching for a particular quarter. The other side says that certain scriptures do not belong to the sequence and were taught only for one special set of conditions, such as the Golden Light Sutra, Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, and Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra.

Now ask: the Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra was taught six years after the Buddha’s awakening. Its audience is listed in detail no less fully than in other scriptures. It rebukes partial attachments, clarifies permanence, and distinctly differentiates other teachings. Śakra, Brahmā, the four heavenly kings, ten disciples, and even Mañjuśrī are all rebuked, and the audience is clearly present. It should be included in the sequence. Why is it classified as a teaching for a particular quarter? The Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra likewise centers on rebuke. Why can it be included in the sequence?

Moreover, the rebukes recorded in the Vimalakīrti occurred in the past. The scripture later recounts what was said at the time to show why the disciples were unable to visit him in illness. They therefore must already have been rebuked before the twelfth year, just as in the Aṅgulimālīya. If the Aṅgulimālīya is only a teaching for a particular quarter on account of its date, the Vimalakīrti should not be included in the sequence either.

If one says that the Aṅgulimālīya teaches permanence only for a single set of conditions and therefore belongs to a particular quarter, the Vimalakīrti likewise says that the company of sensory troubles is the Tathāgata-seed. Why is it instead classified as a sequential teaching?

9. Reversing the Five Periods by Matching Them to the Five Flavors

Next comes the challenge to classifying the five periods by means of the five flavors in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra. The other side takes milk coming from a cow as a simile for the Tripiṭaka teaching with characteristics before the twelfth year; curds coming from milk for the signless Prajñā teaching after the twelfth year; raw ghee coming from curds for the Vaipulya teaching of praise and censure; refined ghee coming from raw ghee for the Lotus teaching that gathers the myriad wholesome Dharmas into one; and clarified essence coming from refined ghee for the permanently abiding Nirvāṇa teaching. This correspondence plainly violates the scriptural text and its meaning and completely reverses the generative sequence.

First, the scripture says that milk coming from a cow symbolizes the twelve divisions of scripture first emerging from the Buddha. How can the twelve divisions be matched with a teaching with characteristics that possesses only nine? On the one hand, the teaching with characteristics does not possess all twelve divisions. On the other, it was not the Buddha’s first teaching. Milk therefore should not be matched with it.

The other side answers that the Lesser Vehicle also has twelve divisions and cites the Snow Mountains herb of patience as evidence: when a cow eats the herb of patience, it produces clarified essence, while if it eats another herb, it does not. This proves that Great and Lesser Vehicles each possess twelve divisions and differ only in having or not having buddha-nature.

Now ask again: even if Great and Lesser Vehicles each possess twelve divisions, why not take the twelve divisions that clarify buddha-nature as the milk teaching? Fascicle seven of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “If someone says that the nine divisions do not clarify buddha-nature, that person has no fault, just as one who says that the great ocean has only seven treasures and no eighth treasure has no fault.” By analogy, one who says that the twelve divisions do not clarify buddha-nature is at fault. Since one acknowledges the full twelve divisions, why say they do not clarify buddha-nature and thereby fall under the statement concerning fault? How can this converge with the scripture’s faultless statement about the nine divisions?

Second, if sūtra emerges from the twelve divisions and is matched with signless Prajñā, this too is unreasonable. Sūtra extends through all teachings with and without characteristics; all five periods can be called sūtra. Why match it only with signless Prajñā?

The other side explains that Prajñā contains direct teaching and is also the second period, so it is matched with sūtra. If anything taught directly is sūtra, Prajñā also contains teaching by simile, by causes and conditions, by prediction, and by discursive exposition. How can it be said to contain only direct teaching? Prajñā includes many kinds of teaching yet is named only sūtra, while other scriptures also teach directly. Why are they not matched with sūtra? If Prajñā is so matched because it is second, other scriptures likewise possess a second meaning set against an earlier teaching, as challenged above.

Third, if Vaipulya emerges from sūtra and Vaipulya is matched with teachings of praise and censure such as the Vimalakīrti, the Vimalakīrti should not be placed after the Great Prajñā, as already refuted above.

Fourth, if Prajñā emerges from Vaipulya but this Prajñā is matched with the Lotus, the scripture plainly says Prajñā while the classification twists it into the Lotus. Bending the scriptural wording to accommodate a predetermined meaning is most unreasonable. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra says that eight thousand śrāvakas received predictions in the Lotus, not in Prajñā. How can the Lotus be called Prajñā? This violates the text and loses its purport, so the sequence cannot stand.

Fifth, if great nirvāṇa emerges from prajñā, the other side again explains it as great nirvāṇa emerging from the Lotus. This likewise fails to accord with the scripture. It is like a refractory child insisting against instruction or a refractory sheep refusing to follow.

These are the faults of the Southern five periods. The four- and three-period schemes need not be challenged item by item, for the Southern characteristics of the teaching can no longer be relied upon. One further challenge is made to those who use the three-period account: if everything from after the twelfth year through the Lotus is called a signless teaching, then since the Lotus gathers the three vehicles, Prajñā should likewise return to the one. If it does not, why are both called signless? The four-period account can be questioned by analogy.

10. The Northern Five Periods and the Tiwei as a Teaching for Humans and Devas

Next comes the challenge to the Northern five-period account. If the Tiwei is said to teach the five precepts and ten wholesome acts, the scripture in fact clarifies only the five precepts and not the ten wholesome acts. At most, it would therefore be a teaching for humans, not devas. Even if it is provisionally classified as a teaching for humans and devas, all other scriptures also teach precepts and wholesome conduct. Should they all be called teachings for humans and devas?

Moreover, the scripture says, “The five precepts are the mother of all buddhas. Those who seek the Buddha path should read this scripture; those who seek arhatship should read this scripture.” It further says, “Those who wish to attain the ground of deathlessness should wear the talisman of long life, take the medicine of deathlessness, and hold the seal of lasting bliss.” The talisman of long life is the Dharma of the three vehicles, and the seal of lasting bliss is the path of nirvāṇa. How can this be called only a teaching for humans and devas?

The scripture further says that the five precepts are the root of heaven and earth and the source of all spirits. When heaven upholds them, yin and yang are harmonized; when earth upholds them, the myriad beings grow. They are the mother of the myriad beings, the father of myriad spirits, the source of the great path, and the root of nirvāṇa. It also speaks of the root of the four things, the five aggregates, and the six decays. The four things are the four great elements. The four things are originally pure, the five aggregates are originally pure, and the six decays are originally pure. Meanings such as these exhaust the source and reach the wondrous. How can they be classified only as a teaching for humans and devas?

Consider also those who attained the path. The Elder Tiwei attained patience regarding the non-arising of dharmas. Three hundred people attained the patience of faith, two hundred attained stream-entry, the four heavenly kings attained compliant patience regarding the Dharma, the dragon king attained the faculty of faith, and the entire asura assembly aroused the aspiration for unsurpassed true and correct awakening. Could their fruits of the path be only wholesome fruits among humans and devas?

The Dazhidu Lun says that when the Dharma treasury was compiled, all Lesser Vehicle Dharmas taught from the first turning at Vārāṇasī to the night of nirvāṇa were gathered as the three Dharma treasuries, while all Great Vehicle Dharmas taught from the Buddha’s birth to his extinction beneath the twin trees were gathered as the Mahāyāna treasury. Teachings given before the Deer Park do not belong to the Lesser Vehicle treasury because there was not yet a Jewel of the Sangha. The Tiwei therefore should not be used as the first revealed teaching in a sequence.

If the Tiwei is instead called a secret teaching in which the Buddha speaks with one voice and sentient beings understand differently, it should not be listed first among revealed teachings. The remaining four periods in the Northern scheme are the same as in the Southern scheme and have already been refuted.

11. The Half and Full Teachings

Next comes the challenge to Bodhiruci’s account of half and full. He says that from the beginning at the Deer Park, the Tripiṭaka clarifies only a half-meaning, while every teaching from Prajñā through Nirvāṇa clarifies the full meaning. This too is unreasonable.

The Buddha constantly taught prajñā from the night of attaining the path. When, after the Deer Park, was the meaning ever only half? At the time of Tiwei, immeasurable devas and humans already attained patience regarding non-arising. Six years after his awakening, the Buddha had already taught the Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra further says, “When I first attained awakening, bodhisattvas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges came and asked me this meaning, no differently from you.” Thus, the Deer Park period should not be classified as purely half.

If all scriptures after Prajñā are full, the Dazhidu Lun nevertheless says that Prajñā is not a secret teaching and was therefore entrusted to Ānanda, while the Lotus is a secret teaching and was entrusted to bodhisattvas. If both are full teachings, why is one secret and the other not? If they are all full, they should likewise all gather the three vehicles. And if they are all full, raw ghee and refined ghee should both be clarified essence, while clarified essence should likewise be raw and refined ghee. Since the flavors that serve as similes are clearly different, how can all the Dharmas they symbolize be treated uniformly as the full teaching?

12. Causes and Conditions and Provisional Names among the Four Schools

Next comes the challenge to the four schools. The first is the school of causes and conditions, referring to the Abhidharma’s six causes and four conditions. Yet the Satyasiddhi Treatise likewise teaches three causes and four conditions and says that all dharmas are formed through causes and conditions. “Causes and conditions” is a general expression. Why should it belong only to the Abhidharma?

The school of causes and conditions is further said to differ from the school of provisional names, yet the Satyasiddhi Treatise says, “Seeing Four Truths with characteristics is a way of training the mind and cannot bring true attainment of the path.” Since the school of causes and conditions is separately established, what path does it enable one to attain? If a Lesser Vehicle path, it is the same as the school of provisional names, so why establish it separately? If a Great Vehicle path, it is the same as the perfect and permanence schools, so why establish it separately? Since it is made a distinct school, a distinct path of attainment should be identified.

The second is the school of provisional names, referring to the floating unreality of the three provisionalities established through causes, continuity, and relation in the Satyasiddhi Treatise. Yet the three provisionalities are merely phenomenal dharmas of the conventional truth and are not the treatise’s defining tenet. The treatise attains the path by seeing emptiness and should therefore take emptiness as its defining tenet. The Dazhidu Lun says that the Tripiṭaka has a gateway of emptiness but does not separately establish a gateway of provisional names. If one wishes to rely on the Satyasiddhi, one should adopt the seeing of emptiness that it actually upholds. To establish the separate name of provisionality does not accord with attaining the path through seeing emptiness.

13. The Schools of Unreality and Permanence

Third is the school of unreality, which takes the ten similes taught in the Great Prajñāpāramitā and classifies them as deceptive, unreal characteristics. But what Nāgārjuna rebukes in the Fangguang position is this: “Taking the Buddha’s ten similes, they say that everything is like an illusion and a transformation, neither arising nor ceasing. This loses the intent of Prajñā and becomes the same as non-Buddhist teachings.” Since this interpretation is what was rebuked, how can one pick up a meaning already refuted in others and establish it as the school of unreality?

If one says that the Great Prajñā teaches illusion but does not distinguish permanently abiding buddha-nature and therefore is called unreal, this too is wrong. That the Great Prajñā clarifies permanently abiding buddha-nature has already been explained. Moreover, is it the only scripture to speak of illusion? The Avataṃsaka likewise teaches “patience like a transformation” and “patience like a dream,” says “the mind is like a skillful illusionist,” and uses many other similes. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra also says that “dharmas are like illusions and transformations, while the Buddha is not attached among them.” All these scriptures teach illusion. By this criterion, they too should belong to the school of unreality. If other scriptures can teach illusion without belonging to that school, why insist on classifying the Great Prajñā alone as deceptive characteristics?

Fourth is the school of permanence, which takes permanence as the defining tenet of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra. But does that scripture clarify only permanence? It also clarifies neither permanence nor impermanence, can employ permanence and impermanence, uses both sides, and fully possesses eight operations. Why take only the operation of permanence to establish a school and not take the operation of impermanence? One wheel or one wing cannot roll or fly.

14. Repeatedly Testing School against Teaching, and True against Unreal

The other side further says that the deceptive school of unreality is the Shared Teaching, while the school of permanence is simply the true school, which is the shared school. Now compare these names against one another. The name “school” should extend through the true and unreal. Why, on reaching the unreal, is “school” suppressed and “teaching” used instead, while on reaching the true, “teaching” is omitted and “school” alone established? If a school has no teaching, how can people know the truth it upholds?

If the true school likewise suppresses “school” and leaves only “teaching,” both become the Shared Teaching. If both true and unreal suppress “teaching” and leave “school,” both become the shared school. If both sides establish “teaching” as well, both become shared school-and-teaching. If unreal and true remain distinguished, the name should be “shared school of unreality.” If teaching extends through both the true and unreal schools, and the unreal side can be cultivated in common by the three vehicles, the shared true school should likewise be cultivated in common by the three vehicles.

If one says that “shared” means interconnecting, the Shared Teaching likewise shares in the “reality” of real truth. The two names then merge and possess no difference in meaning.

The other side further cites the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra: “The sharedness of verbal teaching instructs the uninitiated; the sharedness of purport instructs bodhisattvas.” On this basis it calls the true school the shared school. If so, the schools of causes and conditions, provisional names, and unreality all become studies for the uninitiated and should not each be established as a school. When true and unreal, school and teaching, are repeatedly reversed and then combined in decision, the meanings of the four schools are exceedingly ill-formed.

15. The Dharma-Realm School Added by the Five-School Scheme

Next comes the challenge to the five schools. The problems with the first four are as explained above; the present question concerns only the added Dharma-realm school. If one says that the Avataṃsaka belongs to the Dharma-realm school and differs from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, while the Nirvāṇa Sūtra is not the Dharma realm and can only be called the school of permanence, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra itself says, “Great nirvāṇa is the Dharma realm of all buddhas.” How could it be inferior to the Avataṃsaka?

If permanence is not the Dharma realm and the Dharma realm is not permanent, then because the Dharma realm is not permanent, it should arise and cease. Because permanence is not the Dharma realm, the dharmas encompassed by “permanence” are incomplete. None of these positions can stand.

The Great Prajñāpāramitā further says, “No dharma is seen outside Dharma-nature.” Dharma-nature is the Dharma realm. It also says, “All dharmas proceed toward form, and this destination is unsurpassed.” Is this not a teaching of the Dharma realm? Why say that the Avataṃsaka alone belongs to the Dharma-realm school and forcibly separate it from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Great Prajñā?

16. The True, Permanent, and Perfect Schools Added by the Six-School Scheme

Next comes the challenge to the six schools. The four schools are challenged as above; now first consider the true and permanence schools. If the true and permanent are the same, why divide them into two schools? If they differ, neither is a wondrous Dharma. If the true is not permanent, it arises and ceases. If the permanent is not true, it is false. If the true is not permanent, how does it differ from the preceding three schools? If the permanent is not true, it becomes a destructible Dharma.

Next comes the challenge to the perfect school. If the Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra teaches the perfect interfusion of defilement and purity and therefore differs from the Nirvāṇa and Avataṃsaka, this too is wrong. The Great Prajñā says, “Form itself is emptiness; it is not that form becomes empty only when extinguished.” The Dazhidu Lun explains, “Form is birth-and-death, and emptiness is nirvāṇa. The limit of birth-and-death and the limit of nirvāṇa are one and nondual.” Is this not the shared interfusion of defilement and purity?

The Great Prajñā further says, “Everything proceeds toward form and desire, toward anger, delusion, and the various views.” Is this not the mark of shared interfusion? The Vimalakīrti likewise says, “All sensory troubles are the Tathāgata-seed. Without severing delusion and craving, one gives rise to illumination and liberation; traveling a non-path, one penetrates the Buddha path.” How does this interfusion differ from that in the Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra?

The six and five schools both rely upon the four and open further from them, but the four schools themselves lack a scriptural basis. Some say that the four schools come from the Sūtra of the Crowned King, which says, “First he taught that dharmas produced through causes and conditions are empty; next he taught his children the permanently abiding Dharma of the One Vehicle.” But “dharmas are empty” should not equal the school of provisional names, and “the permanently abiding One Vehicle” should not equal the deceptive characteristics of the Shared Teaching. Others say that the scripture was never transmitted here. Since the four schools are so, and the five and six are established by opening further from the four, none is easy to trust.

17. Two Great Vehicle Teachings, with and without Characteristics

Next comes the challenge to dividing the Great Vehicle into teachings with and without characteristics. Characteristics and signlessness should not each be taken alone as everything taught in one scripture. Why? One originally discusses the conventional on the basis of the true and returns to discuss the true on the basis of the conventional. Every wise person makes distinctions by means of unconditioned dharmas.

Though the Avataṃsaka discusses the ten grounds, when does it ever cease to do so in relation to the Dharma-body? Though the Laṅkāvatāra and Questions of Brahmā Viśeṣacintin discuss emptiness, when do they ever fail to teach patience regarding non-arising? If one uses characteristics alone, characteristics themselves lack substance. What does the teaching then express? It also cannot bring attainment of the path. If one uses signlessness alone, the real quiescence of signlessness is beyond words and apart from characteristics; the path traveled by language is severed, and the activities of mind cease. It is then no longer a teaching. How could it be taught? If one says it is still a teaching, teaching itself is a characteristic. How could it be called signless?

In the Great Prajñā, Subhūti asks, “If all dharmas are ultimately nonexistent, why is it still taught that there is a first ground through a tenth ground?” The Buddha answers, “Precisely because all dharmas are ultimately nonexistent, there is a bodhisattva’s first through tenth grounds. If all dharmas possessed a determinate, unchanging intrinsic nature, there would instead be no first through tenth grounds.” Thus, to divide the Great Vehicle into two separate teachings with and without characteristics violates the scriptural meaning.

18. The Single-Voice Teaching Sees Only Real Wisdom

Finally comes the challenge to the single-voice teaching. If one speaks only of one Great Vehicle without a difference of three vehicles, one sees only real wisdom and not provisional wisdom. If the Buddha teaches only the Great Vehicle, why does the Lotus say, “If I praise the Buddha Vehicle, sentient beings will sink into suffering. Because they destroy the Dharma and do not believe, they will fall into the three evil destinies. The Buddha immediately reflected upon skillful means, and all the buddhas rejoiced”? The Buddha’s teaching therefore is not only one Great Vehicle teaching.

If there were purely only the One Vehicle, the simile should likewise contain only the body of the elder. But since the appearance of a body clothed in filth is also present, the teaching likewise contains the great and the small. How can these be conflated as one voice, thereby losing skillful means?

If one says that the Buddha always teaches only the One Vehicle while the three vehicles are merely what sentient beings themselves see, sentient beings instead become those who transform, and the Buddha becomes the one transformed. Since the Buddha is the one who transforms, he should be able to teach the three vehicles to sentient beings. How can he be limited to using only the One Vehicle?

It is acceptable to say that the Lotus purely teaches the One Vehicle. But the Avataṃsaka’s passages back and forth through five heavens also open separate skillful means for bodhisattvas of dull faculties, much less the other scriptures. The account of the single-voice teaching is therefore like having one great cart without servants or skillful attendants, or the perfection of wisdom without the perfection of skillful means.

If a chart classifying the teachings cannot withstand its own scriptural evidence, whom can it still guide? In this series of difficulties recorded by Guanding from Master Zhiyi, Zhiyi does not first superimpose another set of names upon the old explanations. Instead, he asks each in turn: if a classification uses dates as boundaries, do the scriptures on the two sides of the boundary truly possess the difference it claims? If it defines a school through characteristics, signlessness, permanence, or perfect interfusion, can that name contain the scripture it designates in full? If the same criterion is valid in one place, does it remain valid in another?

The question is therefore not merely how many periods or schools one master establishes. What is truly being tested is whether a classificatory name and what the scriptures teach can bear one another. If a name can stand only by omitting part of a scripture’s meaning, tidiness is not accuracy. If a sequence can stand only by reversing the generative order stated in the scripture, its before and after lose their basis.

Before the Twelfth Year, Was the Meaning of Emptiness Truly Absent?

The Southern five-period scheme first classifies the first twelve years as the teaching with characteristics. Zhiyi begins by asking about the Satyasiddhi Treatise, on which this claim relies. Its masters say that it seeks to clarify the real meaning within the Tripiṭaka, and that real meaning is precisely emptiness. If the Tripiṭaka belongs before the twelfth year, how could emptiness appear only afterward?

This is not simply a challenge based on the name of one treatise. The Āgamas use “this is aging-and-death” and “who undergoes aging-and-death” to reveal, respectively, the emptiness of dharmas and the emptiness of persons. The Dazhidu Lun calls the emptiness of dharmas taught in the Tripiṭaka “great emptiness” and also says that the Buddha constantly taught prajñā from the night of attaining the path to the night of entering extinction. The Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra, taught six years after the Buddha’s awakening, explains emptiness with particular force. The timeline has not yet reached the twelfth year, yet the wisdom of emptiness has already appeared in many places.

Zhiyi next presses the question toward attainment of the path. If a teaching with characteristics can enable people to attain the path, this contradicts the treatise master’s claim that only seeing emptiness enables attainment. If it cannot enable attainment, what use does the Buddha have for establishing it? Kauṇḍinya and the other four men first became quiescent within the Buddha-Dharma, left sound and written words behind, and gained real knowing-and-seeing. If they saw emptiness and attained the path, what they received cannot have been merely a teaching with characteristics. If one can attain the Buddha path without seeing emptiness, it collapses into a path outside the Buddha-Dharma. The name “with characteristics” is thus pressed from both the chronology and attainment.

After the Twelfth Year, Can Signlessness Exclude Buddha-Nature and Permanence?

The second period is called signless: emptiness can sweep away characteristics, but it is said not yet to clarify buddha-nature and permanence. Zhiyi first asks directly: if it is truly signless, why does it not sweep away the characteristic of impermanence? So long as “impermanence” remains fixed in place, signlessness has not been carried through.

At a deeper level, do prajñā and buddha-nature differ only in name? The Nirvāṇa Sūtra says that buddha-nature is also called prajñā and points back to the Mahāprajñāpāramitā teaching that the natures of self and nonself are nondual. This nondual real nature interconnects precisely with buddha-nature. The Prajñāpāramitā teaches the true mark and the real limit as neither coming nor going; the Nirvāṇa Sūtra teaches Dharma-nature as permanently abiding and incapable of change. In meaning, the true mark of Dharma-nature is buddha-nature as direct cause, prajñā’s contemplative illumination is buddha-nature as understanding-cause, and the merits of the first five perfections that support and arouse prajñā are buddha-nature as conditioning cause. These three prajñās do not stand apart from the three buddha-natures.

A difference in names cannot sever a shared meaning. Zhiyi says that this would be like hearing the name “Śatamanyu” and concluding that it is not Śakra: the appellation has changed, but the referent has not therefore become two people.

Nor can a lifespan of eighty years alone determine that the Dharma-body is impermanent. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra likewise says that the Buddha had back pain and illness and entered extinction between the śāla trees, yet no one therefore denies the permanence it teaches. The Dazhidu Lun distinguishes the birth-body from the Dharma-body. The birth-body experiences cold, heat, and sickness, as well as the hardships of horse fodder and begging for milk. The Dharma-nature body has boundless radiance and boundless forms and teaches Dharma to bodhisattvas with Dharma-nature bodies. The birth-body’s lifespan is limited; the Dharma-body’s lifespan is immeasurable. To impose the former’s eighty years upon the latter is precisely to confuse two bodies as one.

Can Gathering the Three, Rebuke, and the Second Dharma-Wheel Belong to Only One Period?

The old classification further says that Prajñā neither gathers the three vehicles nor contains rebuke, praise, and censure. Zhiyi therefore asks from what Prajñā itself teaches: devas who have not yet aroused the aspiration for awakening should arouse it; if someone who has entered the fixed position of a śrāvaka can arouse that aspiration, Prajñā rejoices as well, because a superior person should seek a superior Dharma. If the Dharmas of the three vehicles were completely sealed off from one another, this rejoicing could not occur.

Its rebukes are even more vivid. The wisdom of the two vehicles is like a firefly, while the wisdom a bodhisattva learns in a single day is like the sun illuminating the four continents. Abandoning profound prajñā to take up scriptures practiced by śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas is like a dog seeking food not from the great household but from its laborers. Seeing an image and examining its tracks alone are both called unintelligent. Firefly and sun, great household and laborers, image and tracks all press the same question: if this force of language does not count as praise and censure, how much stronger would it have to be?

Calling Prajñā alone the second Dharma-wheel likewise cannot rest on the single phrase “seeing the second Dharma-wheel turn.” The Vimalakīrti sets the Buddha’s first sitting beneath the tree of awakening, subduing Māra, and accomplishing the path against his subsequent teaching of Dharma. The Lotus sets the first turning of the Four Truths at Vārāṇasī against the present turning of the supreme Dharma-wheel. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra likewise sets the eighty thousand devas and humans who gained the fruit at the first turning against the eighty trillion people who gained nonretrogression at Kuśinagara. The scriptures can all set a later teaching against an earlier one. “Second” therefore cannot by itself become Prajñā’s exclusive period-name. Still more, Prajñā was constantly taught from the night of awakening onward; the twelve-year boundary cannot contain it.

Can Rebuke, Convergence, and Permanence Each Remain within One Scripture?

The third period is marked by rebuke and praise, yet it is placed after Prajñā. During the teaching of Prajñā, however, the great disciples already relayed the teaching and taught Dharma to bodhisattvas, fully knowing the bodhisattva Dharma-gates. If they later encountered rebuke without recognizing what was said or knowing how to answer, the before and after would not connect. Maitreya, moreover, was also subdued; it was not only śrāvakas.

If a lifespan of seven hundred asaṃkhyeyas is used to classify the Buddha as impermanent, the scripture itself says that the Buddha-body is unconditioned and falls within no number, that the adamantine body has no illness, and that such things are manifested only to liberate sentient beings. It also says that contemplating the true mark of one’s body is the same as contemplating the Buddha and teaches three kinds of inconceivable liberation: true nature, real wisdom, and skillful means. The company of sensory troubles is the Tathāgata-seed, revealing the direct cause; illumination and liberation arise without severing delusion and craving, illumination revealing the understanding-cause and liberation the conditioning cause. When these three meanings are distinctly present, to classify the scripture as impermanent solely because of a number of years hides its other side.

The fourth period is marked by gathering the myriad wholesome Dharmas into the One Vehicle, yet is said not to teach permanently abiding buddha-nature and merely to prolong lifespan through supernormal power. The Lotus teaches one kind of nature and mark, produced from one ground, and that all the Dharmas taught reach the ground of omniscience. At the beginning of the chapter, opening, revealing, awakening to, and entering the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing are already expressly announced.

When the Avataṃsaka teaches buddha-wisdom, it still carries bodhisattva-wisdom with it: bodhisattva-wisdom is like soil on a fingernail, while tathāgata-wisdom is like the earth in the ten directions. The Lotus purely teaches buddha-wisdom like the earth in the ten directions, yet is classified as impermanent; the relative weights have been reversed. Just one word from the Son of Heaven can still constitute an edict. Statements of permanence do not lose their force because they are few. “The marks of the world constantly abide” and “lifespan is immeasurable, permanently abiding and never extinguished” answer the question of permanence directly.

The three buddha-bodies further open up the meaning of lifespan. Leaving the Śākya palace and realizing buddhahood at the place of awakening near Gayā is a responsive transformation manifested according to what beings should see. Fulfilling the ten grounds and having realized buddhahood immeasurable, boundless kalpas ago is the reward body. The pure nirvāṇa of tathāgata-garbha, permanently pure and unchanging, is the Dharma-body. The near attainment manifested in response and the distant Origin do not cancel one another. The Buddha manifests birth everywhere and extinction everywhere, yet abides permanently in the future and benefits beings in the three times. Though the multitude sees the great fire consume everything, the Buddha-land remains undestroyed. This is not a finite lifespan forcibly prolonged.

Buddha-nature also does not stand outside the Lotus. The Bodhisattva Never Disparaging says that everyone will become a buddha, revealing the direct cause. Opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing reveals the understanding-cause. The buddha-seed arising from conditions reveals the conditioning cause. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra further points back to the prediction bestowed upon eight thousand śrāvakas in the Lotus, comparing it to autumn harvest and winter storage: once the great fruit is accomplished, nothing further remains to be done. It also calls the One Vehicle buddha-nature. If a later scripture itself points back to the fruit accomplished in the Lotus, one cannot say that the Lotus did not clarify buddha-nature.

The Fifth Period, the Sudden, and the Indeterminate Must Answer the Same Questions

The fifth period is linked to permanence beneath the twin trees, the buddha-nature of sentient beings, and icchantikas becoming buddhas. Zhiyi again begins from the Two Truths employed by the other side. If the fifth period is encompassed by the Two Truths, it is the same as the earlier teachings. If the Two Truths beneath the twin trees can illuminate their principle, break their delusions, and so be called permanent, the Two Truths of the earlier teachings likewise illuminate principle and break delusion. Why are they alone called impermanent? The buddha-nature of sentient beings and icchantikas becoming buddhas are questioned in the same way. Permanence cannot be established merely by being placed fifth.

The name “sudden teaching” has the same difficulty. If the reality revealed is the same, on what basis is only one scripture classified as sudden? Provisional phenomena may differ, but one cannot judge the magnitude of real meaning solely through differences among phenomena.

The so-called indeterminate teaching for a particular quarter places the Golden Light, Śrīmālā, Laṅkāvatāra, Aṅgulimālīya, and similar scriptures outside the sequence as teachings given for just one set of conditions. Yet the Aṅgulimālīya was taught six years after the Buddha’s awakening, lists its audience in detail, rebukes partial attachments, and clarifies permanence; Śakra, Brahmā, the four heavenly kings, the ten disciples, and even Mañjuśrī are all rebuked. If the Vimalakīrti, which likewise centers on rebuke, can be placed within the sequence, the Aṅgulimālīya cannot be moved to a particular quarter merely because it was taught early. The rebukes recounted by the Vimalakīrti also occurred before the twelfth year, and it too says that the company of sensory troubles is the Tathāgata-seed. Like the Aṅgulimālīya teaching of permanence, it cannot be isolated by a single timeline.

If the Five Flavors Are Misassigned, What Remains of the Sequence?

Assigning milk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence respectively to the teaching with characteristics, the signless teaching, the teaching of rebuke and praise, the teaching of convergence, and the teaching of permanence appears to provide the clearest sequence. Zhiyi, however, examines whether each correspondence accords with the scriptural text.

First, the scripture uses milk coming from a cow to symbolize the twelve divisions of scripture first emerging from the Buddha. Milk cannot be assigned only to a teaching with characteristics that neither has all twelve divisions nor was the Buddha’s first teaching. Even if one concedes that Great and Lesser Vehicles each have twelve divisions, one must still answer why the twelve divisions that clarify buddha-nature are not chosen as milk. To say that something possesses all twelve divisions yet does not clarify buddha-nature instead falls under the scripture’s censure.

Second, sūtra emerging from the twelve divisions cannot be assigned exclusively to signless Prajñā. Sūtra extends through teachings with and without characteristics. Prajñā does not contain direct discourse alone, but also simile, causes and conditions, prediction, and discursive exposition. If it is called sūtra because it speaks directly, other scriptures also speak directly. If it is so called because it ranks second, other scriptures can likewise become second by being set against what was taught before.

Third, if Vaipulya emerges from sūtra and is assigned to teachings of rebuke such as the Vimalakīrti, the Vimalakīrti must first be placed after the Great Prajñā. The preceding scriptural evidence has already prevented that sequence from standing.

Fourth, in “Prajñā emerges from Vaipulya,” the scripture expressly says Prajñā, yet the scheme reassigns it to the Lotus. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra expressly says that eight thousand śrāvakas received predictions in the Lotus, not that they did so in Prajñā. Bending the scripture’s name to accommodate the correspondence loses both wording and purport.

Fifth, “great nirvāṇa emerges from prajñā” is rephrased as great nirvāṇa emerging from the Lotus. Such refusal to follow the scriptural wording is like a refractory child or a refractory sheep. The generative order of the five flavors is not wrong. The error lies in moving each teaching to a different position in order to fix the five periods. Once the five periods have been subjected to this refutation, schemes of four or three periods derived from it cannot escape the same problem merely by reducing the number of names.

The Tiwei and Half and Full: What the Scripture Attains Exceeds Its Label

The Northern five-period scheme makes the Tiwei the initial teaching for humans and devas. Yet the scripture teaches only the five precepts, not the ten wholesome acts. If that makes it only a teaching for humans, it cannot at the same time be called a teaching for devas. If teaching precepts and wholesome conduct is sufficient to call it a teaching for humans and devas, every other scripture that teaches them should bear the same name.

More important are the scripture’s own substance and the attainments it records. The five precepts are called the mother of all buddhas; those seeking the Buddha path and those seeking arhatship alike are told to read the scripture. The talisman of long life points to the Dharmas of the three vehicles, while the seal of lasting bliss points to the path of nirvāṇa. The Elder Tiwei attained patience regarding the non-arising of dharmas; three hundred people attained the patience of faith; two hundred attained stream-entry; the four heavenly kings attained compliant patience regarding the Dharma; the dragon king attained the faculty of faith; and the asura assembly all aroused the aspiration for unsurpassed true and correct awakening. These six kinds of attainment cannot be flattened by the two words “human and deva.”

At the compilation of the Dharma treasury, the Lesser Vehicle teachings from Vārāṇasī to the night of extinction were gathered as the three Dharma treasuries, while the Great Vehicle teachings from the Buddha’s birth to his extinction beneath the twin trees were gathered as the Mahāyāna treasury. Before the Deer Park there was not yet a Jewel of the Sangha, and the teachings did not belong to the Lesser Vehicle treasury. If the Tiwei is instead called a secret teaching heard differently from one voice, it cannot simultaneously be placed first among the revealed teachings.

The distinction between half and full is the same. To call everything from the Deer Park onward half hides the constant teaching of prajñā from the night of awakening, devas and humans attaining patience regarding non-arising at the time of Tiwei, the Aṅgulimālīya being taught six years after awakening, and bodhisattvas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges already asking about the meaning of nirvāṇa when the Buddha first awakened. If all scriptures from Prajñā through Nirvāṇa are called full, one must still explain why Prajñā was entrusted to Ānanda while the Lotus was entrusted to bodhisattvas—one not secret, the other secret—and why they do not all gather the three. Since raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence possess distinct flavors, the Dharmas they symbolize cannot all be flattened by the single word “full.”

The Difficulty with the Four Schools Is Whether School and Teaching Sustain One Another

The four schools first establish a school of causes and conditions from the Abhidharma’s six causes and four conditions. Yet the Satyasiddhi Treatise also teaches three causes and four conditions and says that all dharmas are produced through causes and conditions. Since “causes and conditions” is a shared expression, it cannot belong to only one treatise. If this school leads to a distinct attainment, it must also explain what path is attained. If it is still a Lesser Vehicle path, it does not differ from the school of provisional names. If it is a Great Vehicle path, it does not differ from the later schools.

The school of provisional names takes the floating unreality of the three provisionalities—established through causes, continuity, and relation—as its defining principle. Yet these three provisionalities are only phenomenal dharmas of the conventional truth; the Satyasiddhi Treatise attains the path by seeing emptiness, so its school should be defined by emptiness. If the name is severed from the meaning that actually enables attainment in the treatise, only a label imposed by the classifier remains.

The school of unreality takes the ten similes of the Great Prajñā as deceptive characteristics, but Nāgārjuna rebukes the Fangguang school for taking the ten similes to mean simply that all things are like illusions and transformations, neither arising nor ceasing, and thereby losing the intent of Prajñā. What is refuted is not the ten similes themselves. The Avataṃsaka also teaches patience like an illusion and patience like a dream, and that the mind is like a skillful illusionist. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra also says that dharmas are like illusions and transformations while the Buddha is not attached among them. Since illusion extends across the scriptures, it cannot make the Great Prajñā alone unreal.

The school of permanence is also incomplete when it takes only the permanence of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra. That scripture further clarifies neither permanence nor impermanence, can employ both permanence and impermanence, and fully possesses eight operations. To take only one side is like having one wheel or one wing: it can neither roll nor fly.

Finally, the four names must be tested against one another’s own meanings. If the unreal side is called the Shared Teaching while the true side is called the shared school, why does the former suppress “school” while the latter suppresses “teaching”? Without teaching, how is the truth of the school to be known? Without a school, toward what does the teaching point? When the true and unreal, school and teaching, are reversed and combined in every possible way, the names repeatedly overlap. The Laṅkāvatāra passage says that the sharedness of verbal teaching instructs the uninitiated, while the sharedness of purport instructs bodhisattvas. If this makes all the first three schools instruction for the uninitiated, it can no longer explain why they are each called a school.

With Five and Six Schools, Does Another Name Add Another Measure of Reality?

The five-school scheme adds a Dharma-realm school belonging exclusively to the Avataṃsaka. Yet the Nirvāṇa Sūtra also says that great nirvāṇa is the Dharma realm of all buddhas, while the Great Prajñā says that no dharma is seen outside Dharma-nature and that all dharmas proceed toward form without passing beyond that destination. If Dharma-nature is the Dharma realm, the Dharma realm cannot belong to a single scripture. If permanence is not the Dharma realm and the Dharma realm is not permanent, the Dharma realm falls into arising and ceasing, while permanence fails to encompass all dharmas.

The six-school scheme further separates the true and permanence schools and adds the perfect school. If the true and permanent are the same, they need not be divided. If they differ, truth without permanence arises and ceases, while permanence without truth is false. Nor can making the Mahāsaṃnipāta alone the school of perfect interfusion of defilement and purity block the same meaning in other scriptures. The Great Prajñā teaches that form itself is emptiness, not that form becomes empty only after being destroyed. The Dazhidu Lun teaches that the limit of birth-and-death and the limit of nirvāṇa are one and nondual. The Vimalakīrti says that sensory troubles are the Tathāgata-seed, that illumination and liberation arise without severing delusion and craving, and that one travels a non-path while penetrating the Buddha path. Perfect interfusion does not belong exclusively to one scripture.

The five and six schools are both opened from the four, yet the transmitted basis for the four cannot establish itself. A tradition says that the Sūtra of the Crowned King first teaches the emptiness of dharmas produced through causes and conditions and later teaches the children the permanently abiding Dharma of the One Vehicle. Yet the first clause does not prove the school of provisional names, and the second does not prove the school of unreality. If the scripture is also no longer transmitted, the additional schools established on this basis become still harder to trust.

Why Do the Teachings with Characteristics, Signlessness, and One Voice Each Lack One Side?

Dividing the Great Vehicle into one teaching purely with characteristics and another purely signless overlooks the mutual dependence of true and conventional. One originally discusses the conventional on the basis of the true and the true on the basis of the conventional; those possessed of wisdom make distinctions on the basis of unconditioned dharmas. Though the Avataṃsaka teaches the ten grounds, it still does so in relation to the Dharma-body. Though the Laṅkāvatāra and Questions of Brahmā Viśeṣacintin teach emptiness, they still teach patience regarding non-arising.

If one uses characteristics alone, characteristics lack intrinsic substance, so there is nothing for the teaching to express and no path that can be attained. If one uses signlessness alone, the real quiescence of signlessness is beyond words and apart from characteristics: the path of language is severed and the activities of mind cease, so no teaching can be formed. So long as one still teaches through language, teaching already possesses an expressible characteristic. The Great Prajñā places both sides in a single answer: precisely because all dharmas are ultimately nonexistent, there are a bodhisattva’s first through tenth grounds; if dharmas each possessed a determinate intrinsic nature, there would instead be no first through tenth grounds. Nonexistence and stages are not alternatives.

The single-voice teaching sees only the real wisdom of the One Great Vehicle and not the provisional wisdom of the three vehicles. The Lotus says that if the Buddha praised only the Buddha Vehicle, sentient beings would sink into suffering and fall into the three evil destinies through disbelief, and that he therefore reflected upon skillful means. The elder possesses both the elder’s body and the appearance of one clothed in filth; teaching likewise contains both great and small. To say that the Buddha always teaches only the One Vehicle while sentient beings themselves see the three vehicles turns sentient beings into those who transform and the Buddha into the one transformed, completely reversing agent and object.

To acknowledge that the Lotus is purely one does not establish that every scripture teaches only the One Vehicle. The Avataṃsaka’s passages through the heavens also open separate skillful means for bodhisattvas of dull faculties. A single-voice teaching without skillful means is like one great cart without servants or skillful attendants, or the perfection of wisdom without the perfection of skillful means.

Clarifying the Difficulties thus leaves behind not a string of defeated ancient names, but a responsibility in reading scripture: chronology, names of schools and teachings, similes, and scriptural evidence must correspond to one another. The real must not be concealed by skillful means, nor skillful means deleted for the sake of the real. Only by seeing both can classifying the teaching become more than arranging scriptures along a line.

Through the Eye of the Shiqian

Zhanran first illuminates the entire chapter as “the three Southern and seven Northern.” The Southern positions are not a loose list of old explanations: first comes the difficulty with the five periods, next the difficulty with the sudden and indeterminate teachings shared with them, and finally the difficulty with matching the Nirvāṇa Sūtra’s five flavors to the five periods. The three-period theory is then questioned anew, with the four-period theory refuted by analogy. The Northern positions are, in order, the five periods, half and full, four schools, five schools, six schools, the Great Vehicle divided into teachings with and without characteristics, and the seven passages on one voice. The long series of citations thus acquires clear sectional boundaries.

The first two Southern periods have their own exact layers. The teaching with characteristics has four levels: a general difficulty with “before the twelfth year” and “with characteristics”; using emptiness to challenge characteristics; using the Aṅgulimālīya to challenge the claim that only the Lesser Vehicle was taught before the twelfth year; and using the Satyasiddhi account of attaining the path to turn the claim back upon itself. The signless teaching has six levels: the failure of signlessness, not clarifying buddha-nature, not gathering the three, no rebuke, being exclusively the second period, and Prajñā not extending before the twelfth year. The Mirror distinguishes in particular that Prajñā had not yet gathered the people; here the root treatise merely adopts, as a difficulty, the gathering of Dharmas under the other side’s own criterion. This reveals the force of the question without conflating what Prajñā and the Lotus each accomplish.

The firefly, dog seeking food, and image and tracks in Prajñā respectively rebuke a kind of wisdom, a teaching sought, and loss of the teaching’s purport. The third period has four further difficulties: Vaipulya should not come after Prajñā; Maitreya too was subdued; seven hundred units of lifespan cannot decide the classification; and the three buddha-natures equally imply permanence. The fourth period begins with a general rejection and then proceeds through three routes: clarifying permanence, buddha-nature, and the fault of prolonging lifespan through supernormal power. The permanence route has five levels—the parallel difficulty from the Avataṃsaka, confirmation from the prefatory scripture, how many words are needed for an edict, explicit wording in the present scripture, and the three bodies. The buddha-nature route likewise has five—the Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, the treatise’s explanation, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra pointing back, the shared name of the One Vehicle, and comparison of the two scriptures.

The fingernail-earth simile is used in the root treatise to challenge the Avataṃsaka, but Zhanran traces the simile itself back to the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. This eye keeps the borrowed use in the argument distinct from the original scriptural source of the simile. The refractory child and sheep are likewise explained by the Mirror as contentious and disobedient, directly addressing the error of twisting the scriptural wording to fit the five flavors.

The fifth period is first challenged by whether it still falls within the Two Truths, after which the same question extends to the buddha-nature of sentient beings and icchantikas becoming buddhas. The sudden teaching divides into two levels: reality is the same, though provisional phenomena differ. The indeterminate teaching moves from a general list of scriptures to the Aṅgulimālīya’s audience and teaching of permanence and then to the parallel question from the Vimalakīrti. The five-flavor section first rejects reversal as a whole and then forms five refutations in the order milk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence. The Mirror’s outline returns every question to its proper object instead of allowing it to disappear amid the dense scriptural evidence.

The Northern Tiwei passage contains six difficulties: precepts and wholesome acts, the substance of the scripture, the five precepts as the basis of practices, the assembly’s attainments, the sequence of compilation, and secret versus revealed teaching. Half and full is divided first into refuting “half” and then refuting “full.” Among the four schools, the ten similes belong to the text of the Great Prajñā; what Nāgārjuna refuted was the Fangguang school’s failure to understand emptiness as neither empty nor nonempty. “The sharedness of verbal teaching instructs the uninitiated; the sharedness of purport instructs bodhisattvas” must be read in terms of verbal teaching as that which expresses and purport as that which is expressed. The word “teaching” cannot be cut away to form another name for a school.

The five-school section treats only the Dharma-realm school added to the preceding four. The six-school section first questions the true and permanence schools, then the perfect school, and only at the end gathers the lack of textual basis. Zhanran personally checked and did not find the passage traditionally attributed to the Sūtra of the Crowned King and therefore records only that its meaning remains unexamined. The teachings with and without characteristics are analyzed in three levels: the mutual identity of the Two Truths, the overall intent of the scriptural divisions, and the concluding difficulty from the Great Prajñā. One voice is analyzed in six: bestowing the small, the two bodies of robe and jewels, the transformed reversing into the transformer, provisionally allowing that the Lotus is purely one, the Avataṃsaka still opening skillful means, and the final difficulty.

Where the root treatise writes that the Avataṃsaka “went back and forth through five heavens,” the Mirror says this is a general reference to the preceding five, while the actual places of teaching are four heavens: the ten abodes in Trāyastriṃśa, the ten practices in Yāma, the ten dedications in Tuṣita, and the ten grounds in Paranirmitavaśavartin. This textual explanation preserves the wording recorded by Guanding while making the separate skillful means required by the argument more precise.

The citations in the Mirror also do not all bear the same textual relationship. Some quote clause by clause, some combine wording from several places, some summarize the purport of a passage, and some borrow a simile from another scripture. The scenes and graph-meanings supplied by Zhanran belong to the later eye of explanation. Once these layers are distinguished, what Zhiyi taught, what Guanding recorded, and what the ancient commentary clarified each bears a different function, yet all point toward the same field of difficulties.

Looking back through this Mirror, the core of Clarifying the Difficulties can be gathered into “turning them over, reversing them, pairing them, and deciding them”: repeatedly setting true against unreal, school against teaching, sameness against difference, and provisional against real, to see whether each name can still stand. It does not devise another sectarian chart. It returns classification to scripture, attainment, and the function of teaching, where it must undergo examination.