妙法蓮華經玄義 白話全本 · 冊4

This is the first half of fascicle ten of the Fahua Xuanyi, whose title line attributes the teaching to Master Zhiyi of Tiantai.

Why One Must Understand the Characteristics of the Teaching to Propagate the Lotus

The fifth great chapter of the entire work explains the characteristics of the teaching. If one propagates other scriptures without explaining the characteristics of the teaching, their meaning suffers no harm. But if one propagates the Lotus Sutra without understanding the characteristics of the teaching, the scripture’s text and meaning will be incomplete.

Yet the sages’ original intent is profound and subtle, and the teachings are exceedingly difficult to classify. Earlier masters either inherited the explanations of renowned teachers or proposed interpretations through their own deep reflection. Although their accounts crisscross like paths between fields, it is unclear which truly accords with the truth. Two mutually contrary claims cannot both be established as meaningful, nor can truth allow conflicting judgments to stand together. If an interpretation has deep grounds and accords with the scriptures, it is recorded and adopted. If it has neither scriptural warrant nor doctrinal basis, it cannot be trusted or accepted.

Master Nanyue realized inwardly and also checked his realization against scriptures and treatises, following the Buddha’s words in every respect. Master Zhiyi of Tiantai restated and adopted his teaching. Classifying the teaching is now divided in brief into five parts: first, the general purport; second, setting forth divergent interpretations; third, clarifying difficulties; fourth, discerning what to accept and reject; and fifth, formally classifying the teaching.

The Other Scriptures Each Go Forth to Their Respective Conditions

The “general purport” means that, within what originally admits of no name or form, the Buddha provisionally employs names and forms to teach the Dharma. He taught the other scriptures, each in accord with the appropriate conditions, so that sentient beings might gain benefit.

For example, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra first receives faculties suited to the Perfect and Distinct, as high mountains are first illuminated by the sun. It directly explains the virtues of the stages from the abodes upward and the grounds upward within sequential and nonsequential practice, but it does not discern the Tathāgata’s intent in suddenly teaching this way.

When the four Āgamas were taught, the Ekottarika Āgama explained causes and fruits among humans and devas, the Madhyama Āgama explained the profound meaning of true quiescence, the Saṃyukta Āgama explained the various meditative concentrations, and the Dīrgha Āgama refuted non-Buddhist teachings. The four collections also taught impermanence in common, instructing people to know suffering, sever accumulation, realize cessation, and cultivate the path, but they did not explicitly reveal why the Tathāgata skillfully and circuitously established lesser Dharmas.

When the various Vaipulya scriptures were taught, they subdued attachment to the small, rebuked partial views, praised the great Dharma, and extolled the perfect meaning, revealing compassion, practice, and vows; both their phenomenal forms and doctrinal principles were exceedingly excellent. But they did not explicitly reveal why great and small faculties were brought together in the same assembly, or why rebuke and praise were employed at the same time.

From the shared meaning of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, three kinds of practitioners enter together; from its distinct meaning, bodhisattvas advance alone. The scripture extensively surveys the five aggregates and twelve sense fields so that all become pure, open through emptiness, and dissolved, but it does not explicitly reveal the intent behind what is shared and what is not shared.

The Nirvāṇa Sūtra, taught at the end, briefly rejects the three kinds of practice and roughly indicates the sequence of the five flavors, yet it still does not fully explain the Tathāgata’s intent in arranging the several teachings, tracing their beginning, and gathering their end. These scriptures all accord with the inclinations of sentient beings and enable them to gain benefit; they do not specifically discuss the Buddha’s intent in arranging the teachings of his whole lifetime. To ask where that intent ultimately leads, one must still turn to the present scripture for its disclosure.

The Present Scripture Discusses Only the Great Outline of Establishing the Teaching

The present scripture has a different focus. The categories of the various Dharma gates, Great and Lesser Vehicle contemplations, the ten powers, fearlessnesses, and the many regulations are no longer discussed in detail here, because earlier scriptures have already taught them. The present scripture exclusively discusses the Tathāgata’s original starting point in arranging the teaching, how he observed and selected faculties midway and bestowed teachings upon them, how gradual and sudden teachings were each made timely, and how the causes and conditions of the great matter reached their ultimate conclusion. It teaches the overall framework of the teaching, the comprehensive instrument by which the great work of transformation gathers sentient beings.

Those who had planted deeply in past lives and possessed mature faculties were suddenly given the great Dharma from the outset. Their bodhisattva stages, practices, and virtues were directly explained, without words concerning lesser Dharmas. The scripture says: “When they first saw my body and heard my teaching, they all believed, accepted, and entered the Tathāgata’s wisdom.”

For those unable to bear the great Dharma, the Tathāgata concealed his immeasurable wondrous virtues and, by skillful means, drew gradually near through a Dharma pleasing to the impoverished son, telling him to work diligently. The scripture says: “If I were to praise the Buddha Vehicle, sentient beings would sink into suffering.” Such people should enter the Buddha’s wisdom gradually by this method.

Once they had attained the path, they should be rebuked, just as the Vaipulya teaching uses the great Dharma to break attachment to lesser Dharmas. The scripture says: “After sternly rebuking him, he showed him the jewel tied to his robe.” If their faculties were suited to the concurrent treatment of the great and the small, the half and full teachings would cleanse their attachments; as in the Large Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, grasping at all characteristics was dispelled so that different paths could converge on one purport. The scripture says: “He was about to lead the assembly across a perilous road.”

After they had passed beyond this difficulty, the relation of child and father was established, and the family estate was entrusted to them. The provisional Trace manifested nearby was brushed aside, and the real Origin in the distant past was revealed.

First Setting Down the Calculation, Then Eliminating It

One should know that this scripture discusses only the great outline of the Tathāgata’s establishment of the teaching; it does not explain the fine subdivisions in detail. It is like a person making a calculation, who first sets each number down and later eliminates the separate figures by gathering them into the total. Only the total is fixed and recorded; minute quantities such as pecks and bushels are no longer retained.

Thus the Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings says: “Immeasurable meanings arise from one Dharma.” Distinguishingly teaching the three vehicles from the One Buddha-Vehicle is like first setting down the figures. Drawing immeasurable meanings back into one Dharma and gathering the three vehicles into the Great Vehicle is like eliminating the fractions and recording only the total.

All these intentions of the teaching issue from wisdom on the Dharma-body ground, quiescent yet constantly illuminating. It is not that only upon arriving beneath the bodhi tree did the Buddha begin to observe which sentient beings should receive the great Dharma and which should receive lesser Dharmas. Buddha-wisdom had illuminated their faculties since the distant past.

The scripture says: “They appear in the world solely because of the causes and conditions of one great matter.” This shows that the great faculties had long been seen. It also says: “Earnestly praising skillful means.” This shows that the lesser faculties had long been seen. It further says: “After the Dharma of the buddhas has remained for a long time, the real must be taught.” This shows that the means of gathering the small into the great had also long been seen.

The “Faith and Understanding” chapter says: “Seated on the lion throne, he saw his son and recognized him at once.” This shows that the great faculties had been discerned from the beginning and for a long time. It also says: “From within a window, he saw his son in the distance.” This shows that the lesser faculties had long been discerned. It further says: “He secretly dispatched two men, who drew gradually near by skillful means and told him to work diligently.” This shows that the time for opening out the three vehicles had long been discerned. It also says: “Their minds came to trust one another, and he entered and left without difficulty.” This shows that the time for discipline and rebuke had long been discerned. It further says: “He took charge of and understood all the goods.” This shows that the time for cleansing attachments had long been discerned. It also says: “Later he entrusted the family estate to him.” This shows that the time for bringing teaching and practice to completion had long been discerned.

Why It Is Most Difficult to Believe and Understand

The Buddha’s original intent is so profound that even the Bodhisattva Maitreya could not know the causes and conditions of what the Buddha did, much less bodhisattvas of lower stages, practitioners of the two vehicles, or ordinary people. The scripture says: “Only I know this characteristic; the buddhas of the ten directions do likewise.”

It further says that, among what has already been taught, what is being taught now, and what will be taught, the present scripture is the most difficult to believe and understand. Earlier scriptures belong to what has already been taught and were taught in accord with the inclinations of sentient beings. They did not clearly disclose this intent of the Buddha and were therefore easier to believe and understand. The Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings belongs to what is being taught now and still accords with sentient beings’ inclinations, so it too is easier to believe and understand. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra belongs to what will be taught. Because sentient beings will already have heard the intent of the teaching disclosed by the present scripture, it too is easier to believe and understand.

When the Buddha was about to teach the present teaching, the assembly’s doubts and requests arose repeatedly, as the passages in both the Trace Gate and the Origin Gate show in detail. When the Buddha accepted their request and taught, what he taught was precisely the intent of the teaching. The intent of the teaching is the Buddha’s intent, and the Buddha’s intent is Buddha-wisdom. Because Buddha-wisdom is exceedingly profound, the Buddha stopped three times and the assembly requested four times. Compared with this difficulty, the other scriptures appear easy.

Compared with the Stops and Requests in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra

When the Buddha first sat at the place of awakening, Brahmā’s first request for the Dharma simply asked the Buddha directly to teach and was not interwoven with a net of doubts. The earnest exchanges that later attended the teaching of the various Vaipulya scriptures can be seen in their texts. When the Large Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra was taught, it was still in response to Brahmā’s original request. Only the scene in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra in which the assembly requests the Bodhisattva Vajragarbha to teach the Dharma of the ten grounds can be compared with the repeated stops and requests in the present scripture.

Some treatise masters emphasize this point and judge the Avataṃsaka Sūtra superior to the Lotus Sutra, saying that a request made by a Lesser Vehicle practitioner cannot equal one made by a bodhisattva. This sees only one side. When Śāriputra expressed the assembly’s intent, he said: “Children born from the Buddha’s mouth join their palms and gaze upward in expectation. The bodhisattvas seeking the Buddha path number fully eighty thousand; all wish to hear the complete path.” How could the request have been made by only one Lesser Vehicle practitioner? The Bodhisattva Maitreya likewise gathered the assembly’s intent and asked the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī to resolve their doubts. How does this differ fundamentally from the Bodhisattva Liberation Moon asking the Bodhisattva Vajragarbha to resolve doubts?

From the Origin Gate, moreover, bodhisattvas request the Buddha to teach the Buddha-Dharma. How could this be compared only with bodhisattvas requesting another bodhisattva to teach bodhisattva-Dharma? If one looks specifically at the Dharma requested, the present scripture does indeed surpass the other in one respect.

From the perspective of the assembly, the bodhisattvas of the ten directions gathered like clouds in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra and were all Vairocana Buddha’s acquaintances from past lives. In the present scripture, all the bodhisattvas emerging from the earth aroused the aspiration under Śākyamuni Buddha and were taught and transformed by him. At first glance the two sides may appear equal, but their relationships still differ in distance and intimacy.

From the perspective of the teaching lord, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra says that buddhas of the ten directions teach the Avataṃsaka, and that the bodhisattvas empowered by them all bear the same names, such as Dharma Wisdom and Vajragarbha, but it does not say that those buddhas are all emanations of Vairocana Buddha. The present scripture, by contrast, explicitly describes three transformations of the lands, with four hundred trillion nayutas of lands in each direction, all filled with buddhas who are emanations of Śākyamuni Buddha. In this respect it too differs from the other scripture.

Those treatise masters regarded the Avataṃsaka Sūtra as superior and cited one or two statements in support. They did not deliberately elevate one scripture and denigrate another. Yet if one insists on comparing which scripture is superior, one may instead lose the original intent of the Buddha’s teaching.

The present Lotus Sutra opens the provisional to reveal the distant Origin. Doubts are more numerous and requests are doubled across the earlier Trace and later Origin sections precisely because it deeply discusses the Buddha’s outline for establishing the teaching and subtly reveals the sage’s innermost intent. Proximately it gathers the perfect cause; remotely it extends the original fruit. The assembly’s doubts and requests therefore do not cease. If one can precisely understand the characteristics of the teaching, one can recognize the Tathāgata’s provisional and real wisdoms. The intent of the teaching is exceedingly profound; this is only a brief account.

The second part of Classifying the Teaching sets out the divergent interpretations. There are ten views in all: the three classifications of the South and seven of the North.

The Three Characteristics of the Teaching Common to North and South

The South and North shared three characteristics of the teaching: first sudden, second gradual, and third indeterminate.

The Avataṃsaka teaches bodhisattvas, like the sun shining upon the high mountains, and is therefore called the sudden teaching.

The Tripiṭaka teaches the Lesser Vehicle. Because it first teaches the half-word, it is called the teaching of marks. After the twelfth year, the Great Vehicle was taught for Great Vehicle persons: the five-period Prajñā teaching and, onward from there, permanence. This is called the teaching without marks. All of these belong to the gradual teaching.

There is also another kind of scriptural teaching that is not included within the sudden or gradual yet expressly clarifies the permanence of buddha-nature. The Śrīmālā and Golden Light, among others, belong to this class. This is called the off-to-one-side indeterminate teaching. The foregoing three ideas—sudden, gradual, and indeterminate—were current and commonly adopted in both South and North.

The Three Southern Classifications

First, Master Shanji of Huqiu Mountain set forth sudden and indeterminate teachings no different from the older explanations of previous generations, while further dividing the gradual teaching into three periods. Before the twelfth year, the Tripiṭaka was clarified, enabling people to see existence and attain the path; this was called the teaching of marks. From after the twelfth year through the Lotus, seeing emptiness and attaining the path was clarified; this was called the teaching without marks. Finally, at the Twin Trees, it was clarified that all sentient beings possess buddha-nature and that icchantikas can also become buddhas; this was called the teaching of permanence.

Second, Master Zong’ai likewise explained the sudden and indeterminate teachings as before, but classified the gradual teaching into four periods. This was the classification adopted by Master Sengmin of Zhuangyan Monastery. The first three periods did not differ from the preceding account. After the teaching without marks and before the teaching of permanence, he further identified the Lotus as gathering the three vehicles into the One Vehicle, with all wholesome practices wholly tending toward bodhi; this was called the common-return teaching.

Third, Master Sengrou of Dinglin Monastery, Master Huici of Xie Monastery, and Master Huiguan of Daochang Monastery likewise explained the sudden and indeterminate teachings as before, but classified the gradual teaching into five periods. This was the classification adopted by Kaishan and Guangzhai. The first four periods did not differ from the preceding account. After the teaching without marks and before the common-return teaching, they further identified the various Vaipulya scriptures, including the Vimalakīrti and Questions of Brahmā Viśeṣacintin, and established the teaching of praise and reproach, suppression and promotion.

The Seven Northern Classifications

Fourth, masters of the North also established a teaching of five periods, but took Tiwei and Boli as the human-and-deva teaching and combined the Vimalakīrti and the Prajñāpāramitā as the teaching without marks. The other three periods did not differ from the Southern explanation.

Fifth, Bodhiruci clarified the half-and-full teaching: everything before the twelfth year was the half-word teaching, and everything after the twelfth year was the full-word teaching.

Sixth, Tripiṭaka Master Fotuo and the scholar Guangtong distinguished four schools in classifying the teaching. The first was the school of causes and conditions, referring to the six causes and four conditions taught in the Abhidharma. The second was the school of provisional names, referring to the three provisionalities of the Satyasiddhi Treatise. The third was the school of deceptive marks, referring to the Large Prajñāpāramitā and the Three Treatises. The fourth was the school of permanence, referring to the Nirvāṇa, Avataṃsaka, and other scriptures, which teach that permanently abiding buddha-nature is originally possessed, limpid, and unmoving.

Seventh, some opened a teaching of five schools. The meanings of the first four schools did not differ from the preceding account, and the Avataṃsaka was further identified as the Dharma-realm school. This was the classification adopted by Master Zigui of Hushen Monastery, who was honorifically called “Mahāyāna.”

Eighth, some related Guangtong’s explanation in this way: the four schools still left some teachings uncontained, so they were further opened into six schools. The Lotus teaches that all wholesome practices share one return and that, after the Dharma of the buddhas has remained for a long time, the real must be taught; this was called the true school. The Great Collection teaches that defilement and purity interpenetrate together and that the Dharma realm is perfect and universally pervasive; this was called the perfect school. The other four schools remained as before. This was the classification adopted by Master Qishe Lin.

Ninth, meditation masters of the North clarified two kinds of Great Vehicle teaching: first, the Great Vehicle with marks; second, the Great Vehicle without marks. The Great Vehicle with marks includes the Avataṃsaka, Yingluo, and Large Prajñāpāramitā, which teach graded levels, the ten grounds, the qualities of each ground, and the characteristics of practice. The Great Vehicle without marks includes the Laṅkāvatāra and Questions of Brahmā Viśeṣacintin, which say that the real Dharma has no sequence arranged through verbal expression and that all sentient beings are immediately the mark of nirvāṇa.

Tenth, meditation masters of the North did not accept the classifications of four schools, five schools, six schools, two-marks teaching, or half-and-full teaching. They established only the One Buddha-Vehicle, without a second vehicle and without a third. The Buddha teaches the Dharma with one sound, while sentient beings form different understandings according to their respective kinds. The buddhas constantly practice the One Vehicle, yet sentient beings see three vehicles; in truth, there is only this one-sound teaching.

At this point, all ten divergent classifications have been set out.

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.

Why Is It Called Examining in Detail What to Accept and Reject?

Fourth comes examining in detail what to accept and reject. Verifying the side of reality is called “investigating.” Verifying the side of provisional skillful means is called “examining in detail.” Measuring whether an account accords with the characteristics of the Dharma and then deciding what to discard or retain is called “rejecting and accepting.”

If the teaching is explained through five periods, one may obtain the scriptural wording on the expedient sequence of the five flavors yet lose the intent of the one path of reality. Although the passage has been obtained, its purport is lost through this correspondence. The scriptural wording itself can be generally applied, but that fixed correspondence should cease.

Verifying in Each Case What Was Obtained and What Was Lost

Suppose one says that during the first twelve years after the Buddha’s awakening he taught only a teaching of marks. This obtains only one of the four gateways of the Lesser Vehicle and loses the other three. Why? The Tripiṭaka Teaching has four gateways of entry into the path. Some see existence and attain the path, as in the Abhidharma. Some see emptiness and attain the path, as in the Satyasiddhi Treatise. Some see both existence and emptiness and attain the path, as in the Kunle Treatise. Some see neither emptiness nor existence and attain the path, as with Channa. One therefore knows that nirvāṇa is the true Dharma treasure and that sentient beings enter through various gateways.

If one wishes to use a single comprehensive name to designate all four gateways, one should call them the Tripiṭaka Teaching. If one wishes to explain them extensively, all four gateways should be established in full. Why preserve only the gateway of marks and conceal the other three? Doing so causes later students to become doubtful and mistaken and turns the two sides of emptiness and existence into a dispute.

Bodhisattvas within the Tripiṭaka Teaching must study all four gateways broadly and master the various skillful means; only after becoming buddhas are they called those of right and universal knowledge. If only the teaching of marks is designated, then for śrāvakas one obtains only the single gateway of seeing existence and attaining the path, while entirely losing the other three roads into nirvāṇa. The meaning of the Lesser Vehicle is therefore incomplete. For bodhisattvas, if there are only marks, they know one gateway one-sidedly and do not understand the other three. They cannot be called those of right and universal knowledge, and the bodhisattva meaning is likewise incomplete. Such an account has many omissions and therefore must be rejected; what it obtains is scant, preserving only one gateway.

Suppose one says that a teaching without marks was taught after the twelfth year. This obtains shared prajñā but loses unshared prajñā. Shared prajñā also has four gateways. Illusory and transformational phenomena are immediately existent: this is the gateway of existence. Illusion and transformation are immediately nonexistent: this is the gateway of emptiness. Illusory and transformational phenomena exist yet are not truly existent: this is the gateway both empty and existent. Both the existent and nonexistent sides of illusion and transformation are negated: this is the gateway neither empty nor existent. If one says only that prajñā has no marks, one obtains merely the single gateway of emptiness among the four gateways of shared prajñā, entirely loses the other three, and also loses seven gateways in all. Such an account is not yet right and universal knowledge even while cultivating the cause, much less right and universal knowledge upon the fruit. What it loses should be rejected; what it obtains can be accepted.

Suppose one says that the teaching of the third period does no more than suppress śrāvakas and praise bodhisattvas. This obtains only the reproach of one kind of śrāvaka within the Lesser Vehicle and entirely loses seven other kinds of śrāvaka. It obtains one meaning of revealing the Great Vehicle, but entirely fails to subdue bodhisattvas of the partial teaching and praise bodhisattvas of the Perfect Teaching, and likewise fails to subdue provisional bodhisattvas and praise real bodhisattvas. It also does not recognize the four gateways of partial, perfect, provisional, and real. Little is obtained and much remains unobtained.

Suppose one says that the fourth period is a teaching of common return. This obtains only the name “the myriad wholesome practices returning together to the One Vehicle,” without obtaining the destination to which those practices return. The destination means buddha-nature, which is also the permanently abiding to which they return together. This account obtains only the gathering of the three vehicles into the one; it does not gather five into the one and does not gather seven into the one. It obtains only return to the one, not return to permanently abiding buddha-nature, and therefore has all these deficiencies.

As for the fifth period, if permanence is discussed in reliance upon the Two Truths, what is stated is still not true permanence. Only if it does not rely upon the Two Truths is there nothing to criticize. Although that school teaches permanence, it entirely loses both neither permanence nor impermanence and the simultaneous employment of permanence and impermanence. It obtains only one of the four operations, forever loses the other seven operations, and also fails to obtain their proper substance.

As for teachings of four periods and three periods, they have no scriptural passage upon which to rely and no real meaning to use as a basis. Whether advancing or withdrawing, there is nothing in them that can be accepted.

The Northern teaching of five periods likewise lacks scriptural warrant and also loses the real intent. What should be rejected and accepted within it can be inferred from the preceding items. The half-and-full teaching obtains the side of reality but loses the side of skillful means. The teaching of four schools loses the expedient intent of the five flavors and also loses the real intent; teachings of five and six schools can be understood by analogy.

The teaching of two kinds of Great Vehicle separates the provisional and real. This resembles parents separating: how could a guide be born? If the provisional is separated from the real, it lacks the seal of the true mark and is what Māra teaches. If the real is separated from the provisional, it cannot be taught and revealed to sentient beings. The one-sound teaching obtains the real and loses the provisional. It is like a widower and widow who cannot share a household and will never have descendants.

The various masters explain the characteristics of the teaching in many different ways. All were teachers of their respective times, and each regarded his own understanding as possessing profound intent. As those accounts circulated, their meanings were continually augmented and mixed. Later worthies then followed their own affective attachments and contended carelessly, producing endless confusion. The preceding discussion therefore investigated and challenged these views, and the present discussion next considers what to reject and accept, so that their general intent may be known in outline.

Remove the Illness, Yet Continue to Use Those Dharmas

How to remove the illness of the old explanations has already been stated. If the Dharma itself is not removed, however, its manner of use differs from theirs. How does it differ?

When using the name “teaching of marks,” employ all four gateways in full. When using “teaching without marks,” employ the eight gateways of shared and unshared prajñā. When speaking of praise and reproach, employ all three pairs: reproaching the small and praising the great, reproaching the partial and praising the perfect, reproaching the provisional and praising the real. When speaking of common return, speak of the myriad wholesome practices returning together to the One Vehicle, and also of permanently abiding buddha-nature and the ultimately perfect destination. When speaking of permanence, employ neither permanence nor impermanence and also employ permanence and impermanence together, so that the two birds range together and all eight operations are complete.

When using the five flavors, follow the sequence stated in scripture; the details will be explained below. When using Tiwei and Boli, do not confine them to the human-and-deva vehicle.

When using half and full, there are five formulations: first, full; second, opening the full to establish the half; third, breaking the half to clarify the full; fourth, carrying the half while clarifying the full; fifth, abolishing the half to clarify the full.

When using causes and conditions and provisional names, take them only as two gateways of the Tripiṭaka Teaching. When using deceptive marks, take them only as one gateway of the Shared Teaching. When using the real, the real is precisely the permanent; when using the permanent, the permanent is precisely the real. The Dharma realm does not belong only to the Avataṃsaka, and the perfect school does not refer exclusively to the Great Collection.

When using marks and no marks, clarify no marks in terms of marks and clarify marks in terms of no marks; the two cannot be separated. When using the one sound, there is liberation through skillful means endowed with wisdom and liberation through wisdom endowed with skillful means. Even if the old names are adopted, their actual meaning in use is wholly different.

The Characteristics of the Teaching First List Six Topics

The fifth chapter, Classifying the Teaching, addresses the characteristics of the teaching in six topics: first, raising the general outline; second, citing three passages as evidence; third, explaining how the five flavors and half and full mutually establish one another; fourth, clarifying correspondence and non-correspondence; fifth, resolving general and specific questions; and sixth, explaining the teaching through increasing numbers. This unit first explains the first topic, Raising the General Outline.

The general outline has three kinds: first sudden, second gradual, and third indeterminate. These three names are the same as those used in older accounts, but the meanings taken here differ; what is not fully explained is abbreviated. Each of these three kinds will now be explained from two aspects: according to the teaching gate and according to the contemplation gate.

The teaching gate is taught for people who practice through faith and also accomplishes the aspect of hearing. The contemplation gate is taught for people who practice through Dharma and also accomplishes the aspect of wisdom. When hearing and wisdom are both complete, it is like a person having eyes together with sunlight brightly illuminating things, so that various colors can be seen. The detailed simile can be understood from the verse in the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom and is abbreviated here.

Sudden, Gradual, and Indeterminate According to the Teaching Gate

First they are explained according to the teaching gate.

The first is the characteristic of sudden teaching. The teaching at the seven locations and eight assemblies of the Avataṃsaka is like the sun rising and first illuminating the high mountains. The Vimalakīrti uses smelling only the fragrance of campaka as a simile. The Large Prajñā teaches prajñā not shared with the Two Vehicles. The Lotus says that only the unsurpassed path is taught. It also says that when sentient beings first see the Buddha’s body and hear what he teaches, they all immediately believe and accept it and enter the Tathāgata’s wisdom, and that whenever the Buddha encounters sentient beings, he teaches them all the Buddha-path. Fascicle Twenty-Seven of the Nirvāṇa says that on Snow Mountain there is an herb named Forbearance, and if a cow eats it, it immediately obtains clarified essence. It also says that when the Buddha first attained buddhahood, bodhisattvas numerous as the sands of the Ganges came to ask this meaning, no differently from what Kāśyapa asks now.

Whenever this kind of meaning occurs in the various Great Vehicle scriptures, it is called a characteristic of sudden teaching. This does not therefore fix the entire scripture as a sudden-teaching division.

The second is the characteristic of gradual teaching. Fascicle Thirteen of the Nirvāṇa says that from the Buddha issue the twelve divisions of scripture; from the twelve divisions of scripture issues sūtra; from sūtra issue the Vaipulya scriptures; from the Vaipulya scriptures issues prajñā; and from prajñā issues nirvāṇa. Meaning such as this, in which one arises successively from another, is the characteristic of gradual teaching.

Beginning with the vehicles of humans and devas and proceeding in order through the Two Vehicles, bodhisattvas, and the Buddha-path is also called gradual. Beginning at some point midway and entering successively is likewise called gradual. The remaining cases are abbreviated.

The third is indeterminate teaching. The indeterminate does not establish another set of dharmas apart from sudden and gradual teaching; its meaning becomes clear on the basis of sudden and gradual. The present explanation follows Fascicle Twenty-Seven of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra: when poison is placed in milk, the milk can kill a person, and curds, ghee, and clarified essence can also kill.

This simile says that sentient beings once heard the Great Vehicle teaching of the true mark in the presence of buddhas in the past, and this hearing was like poison already placed in milk. In the present life they encounter Śākyamuni Buddha’s voiced teaching, the past seed is activated, and the person constituted by the bonds of affliction dies. What is called death means that the bonds of delusion are severed.

Tiwei and Boli, for example, merely heard the five precepts and gained the forbearance in which dharmas do not arise; three hundred people gained faith-forbearance, and the Four Heavenly Kings gained pliant forbearance. They all consumed the medicine of enduring bliss, wore the talisman of long life, abided in discipline, and saw the mother of the buddhas. This is poison in milk immediately being able to kill.

Poison killing within curds is as explained in the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom: teaching is of two kinds, first manifest teaching and second secret teaching. Viewed from the manifest aspect, when the Buddha first turned the Dharma wheel, the five bhikṣus and eighty thousand devas gained purity of the Dharma-eye. Viewed from the secret aspect, measureless bodhisattvas gained the forbearance of non-arising. This is poison reaching the curds and being able to kill.

Poison killing within raw ghee means that certain bodhisattvas see buddha-nature and abide in great nirvāṇa within the Vaipulya Great Vehicle teaching. Poison killing within refined ghee means that certain bodhisattvas see buddha-nature within the Mahāprajñā teaching. Poison killing within clarified essence means that, in the Nirvāṇa teaching, śrāvakas of dull faculties open the wisdom-eye and see buddha-nature; down through pratyekabuddhas of dull faculties and the bodhisattvas’ seven kinds of skillful means, all enter ultimate nirvāṇa.

This is called the characteristic of indeterminate teaching. It does not therefore establish a separate fixed indeterminate division.

Sudden, Gradual, and Indeterminate According to the Contemplation Gate

The second aspect explains them according to the contemplation gate.

The first is perfect-and-sudden contemplation. From the initial arousal of mind, one immediately contemplates the true mark, cultivates the four kinds of samādhi, and practices the noble eightfold path. Immediately at the place of awakening, one opens the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing and gains the forbearance of non-arising. This is like a cow eating the Forbearance herb and immediately obtaining clarified essence. The detailed meaning is found in the Mohe Zhiguan (Great Calming-and-Contemplation).

The second is gradual-and-successive contemplation. From the initial arousal of mind, practitioners take the perfect ultimate as their direction. They therefore first cultivate the twelve-gate dhyāna of ānāpāna as the fundamental practice. At this stage, like ordinary beings, they remain milk mixed with blood.

They next cultivate the Six Wondrous Gates, the sixteen excellent practices, contemplating, refining, perfuming, and cultivating, and then the factors of the path and contemplation of the Four Truths. These are śrāvaka dharmas, like the practice of pure milk. Next they cultivate contemplation of the twelve links of dependent origination, which is the practice of a pratyekabuddha and is like curds. Next they cultivate the four universal vows, the six pāramitās, and the phenomenal and principial dharmas practiced by bodhisattvas of the Shared and Tripiṭaka Teachings; all are like the practice of raw ghee. Next they cultivate the practices of bodhisattvas of the Distinct Teaching; all are like refined ghee, and so it is said that a bodhisattva resembles refined ghee. Next they cultivate intrinsic-nature dhyāna, entering-all dhyāna, and so forth through pure-purification dhyāna. These Dharma gates enable one to see buddha-nature, abide in great nirvāṇa, and possess both the true and responsive bodies; they are therefore called the practice of clarified essence.

If the meaning of the five flavors is discerned specifically according to bodhisattva stages, it is as explained earlier in the Subtlety of Practice and also as taught in the Sequential Gate of Dhyāna. This is called gradual-and-successive contemplation.

The third is indeterminate contemplation. Because wholesome roots were deeply planted in the presence of buddhas in the past, one now cultivates and realizes the twelve gates of dhyāna and suddenly awakens, gaining the forbearance of non-arising. This is poison within milk immediately being able to kill.

If, during seated meditation, one realizes contemplation of impurity and further cultivates the nine perceptions, ten perceptions, liberations, superior bases, and contemplation of the constructed Four Noble Truths, one may suddenly open in mind and understanding through these concentrations and gain the forbearance of non-arising. This is poison reaching the curds and killing.

If someone arouses the four private vows, cultivates the six perfections, embodies provisionality and enters emptiness, and contemplates the non-arising Four Truths, then suddenly awakens and gains the forbearance of non-arising, this is poison reaching raw ghee and killing.

If someone cultivates the six perfections, emerges from emptiness into provisionality, and contemplates the immeasurable Four Truths, then suddenly awakens in mind and gains the forbearance of non-arising, this is poison reaching refined ghee and killing.

If someone practices seated meditation, cultivates correct contemplation through Middle-Way intrinsic-nature dhyāna and the other dhyānas, studies the unconstructed Four Noble Truths, and practices the Lotus and pratyutpanna samādhis and the other forms among the four kinds of samādhi, then suddenly awakens in mind and gains the forbearance of non-arising, this is killing within the practice of clarified essence.

How the General Outline Encompasses Teaching and Contemplation

The Buddha-Dharma is now discerned through two paths, practice through faith and practice through Dharma, each of which forms three meanings through sudden, gradual, and indeterminate teaching. People who practice through faith traverse the preceding teachings in hearing Dharma, and not one topic is wholly the same as those of the other Dharma masters. People who practice through Dharma and wish to cultivate dhyāna and study the path traverse the preceding contemplations and are taught methods for settling the mind; not one topic is wholly the same as those of worldly meditation masters.

The foregoing only briefly indicates the great purport of the teaching and contemplation gates, yet it already broadly encompasses the Buddha-Dharma. It is therefore called Raising the General Outline.

How Do Three Scriptural Passages Serve as Evidence?

The second topic cites three scriptural passages as evidence: the “Skillful Means” chapter, the Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings, and the “Faith and Understanding” chapter.

The “Skillful Means” chapter says that when the Buddha first sat at the place of the path, he contemplated the bodhi tree and also walked back and forth in meditation. During three periods of seven days, he considered this matter: the wisdom he had attained was subtle, wondrous, and foremost, but sentient beings’ faculties were dull—how could he bring them across? He would rather not teach the Dharma and quickly enter nirvāṇa. He then recalled the power of skillful means practiced by past buddhas and thought that, concerning the path he had now attained, he too should distinctly teach the Three Vehicles.

“First sat at the place of the path” clarifies the sudden teaching. Why? When the Buddha descended from Tuṣita Heaven, his Dharma-body retinue accompanied him like dark clouds enveloping the moon and descended together into his mother’s womb. The womb was like empty space, and within it the Buddha constantly taught the wondrous Dharma. He continued until he first accomplished complete awakening at the quiescent place of the path and taught the Great Vehicle purely for the bodhisattvas, like the newly risen sun first illuminating the high mountains. This clarifies Śākyamuni Buddha’s initial sudden teaching.

The “Introduction” chapter further says that the Buddha emitted light from between his brows and universally illuminated eighteen thousand lands in the east. The assembly saw the lions among sacred lords expounding the scriptural Dharma, subtle, wondrous, and foremost, and teaching the bodhisattvas. The following passage then says that if people encounter suffering, nirvāṇa is taught for them so that the limits of all suffering are exhausted. This shows present buddhas teaching the sudden first and the gradual afterward.

When Mañjuśrī explained the assembly’s doubts, he cited past buddhas as doing the same. The scripture says that they further saw the tathāgatas naturally accomplishing the Buddha-path and the World-Honored Ones, amid the great assembly, extensively expounding profound and wondrous meanings of the Dharma; immediately afterward, every buddha land contained innumerable assemblies of śrāvakas. This shows past buddhas teaching the sudden first and the gradual afterward.

When the bodhisattvas emerging from the earth offered their greetings, the Buddha answered that it was so, it was so: sentient beings were easy to bring across; when they first saw the Buddha’s body and heard what he taught, they all accepted it in faith and entered the Tathāgata’s wisdom. Excepted were those who had previously cultivated the Lesser Vehicle; the Buddha now also enabled these people to hear this scripture and enter the Buddha’s wisdom. This shows Śākyamuni Buddha teaching the initial sudden and the later gradual.

Why Is the Initial Sudden Teaching Both Milk and Clarified Essence?

Initial sudden teachings such as these do not necessarily teach only Dharma-body bodhisattvas; ordinary beings of great faculties are also included. There are two meanings here. Those who awaken upon directly hearing the perfect and sudden teaching are like clarified essence. Beginners, though they hear the great teaching, have only just entered the ten faiths and still belong to the initial flavor. Since what is first can produce what follows, it is also like milk.

Although this is called sudden, the faculties involved include those for whom both vehicle and discipline are urgent and those for whom discipline is relaxed while the vehicle is urgent. Such karma-born beings cannot arrive by themselves. They must accompany the Buddha as response-born beings and be led into the seven places and eight assemblies. Great faculties stimulating the Buddha are like the forbearance grass; the Buddha’s perfect response and sudden teaching are like clarified essence issuing from that grass.

Because the sudden teaching comes first and one has only just entered the inner ordinary stages, it can still be called milk. Calling it milk does not mean its flavor is thin; it means that it is initial and fundamental. When a cow has newly given birth, blood changes into milk and remains pure within her body; once the calf makes the sound 『𡂡』, the mother cow lets down milk. The Buddha is likewise. When he first sat at the place of the path and newly accomplished complete awakening, the blood of ignorance and the other delusions had transformed into illumination, while the eighty thousand Dharma treasuries and twelve divisions of scripture were all fully present in the Dharma-body. The great faculties were like the calf and received the milk first. Milk is the first of all flavors and represents the sudden teaching standing at the beginning of all teachings; this is why the Avataṃsaka is called milk.

When distinguished through the three teachings of sudden, gradual, and indeterminate, it is called the sudden teaching and is itself clarified essence. When distinguished through the sequence of the five flavors, it is called the milk teaching.

Consider practitioners as well. Those of great faculties who receive the sudden teaching immediately break ignorance and attain the forbearance of non-arising; their practice is like clarified essence. Others receive this sudden teaching but cannot yet awaken and enter; they have only just established practice, so their practice is like milk. Viewed in relation to people of lesser faculties, their practice too is like milk. The great teaching was intended for them, but they were like the deaf and mute. It was not within the share of their wisdom, and their practice remained at the stage of ordinary beings, entirely unprocessed like milk.

For these reasons, although the sudden teaching comes first, it may be called clarified essence and may also be called milk. The angles upon which the two names depend can be understood from the preceding discussion.

Opening the Gradual from the Sudden Takes Only Successive Arising

Next comes opening the gradual. The Buddha originally intended to bring sentient beings across through the Great Vehicle. When they could not bear it, he considered skillful means and traveled to Vārāṇasī, distinctly teaching the Three Vehicles within the path of the One Vehicle. This is the opening of the Tripiṭaka Teaching.

It was not only Śākyamuni Buddha who concealed his immeasurable spiritual virtues and undertook such gradual transformation. Buddhas of past and present likewise did so. From the passages cited above, one knows that the initial sudden teaching was followed by the opening of the gradual.

The Nirvāṇa Sūtra therefore says that from the Buddha are born the twelve divisions of scripture and from the twelve divisions of scripture is born sūtra. This directly accords with the present meaning. It is like milk coming from a cow and curds coming from milk; the simile is not inconsistent. Those of gradual faculties had not yet changed within the sudden teaching and remained wholly raw like milk. Only within the Tripiṭaka Teaching did they change, shedding the ordinary and accomplishing the noble, like milk becoming curds. This is successive arising and is called the teaching of the second period. The simile does not take thickness or thinness of flavor, nor superiority or inferiority among teachings. The evidentiary passage from “Skillful Means” ends here.

At this point Part One of Fascicle Ten of the Fahua Xuanyi ends. Part Two of Fascicle Ten follows and continues to bear the attribution “taught by Tiantai Master Zhiyi.”

The Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings First Lists the Teaching Sequence as a Whole

The Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings is next cited as evidence. Its meaning is that the Buddha, with the Buddha-eye, contemplates all dharmas, which cannot be expressed in words. Why? Because sentient beings differ in their dispositions and desires.

Because dispositions and desires differ, the Buddha teaches Dharma in various ways. The wording employed is one, but the meanings expressed differ; because the meanings differ, sentient beings understand differently; because their understanding differs, the Dharma, fruit, and path they attain also differ.

At first the Buddha taught the Four Truths for those seeking to become śrāvakas, while eight hundred million gods descended to hear the Dharma and aroused the mind of awakening. In the middle, he taught the profound twelve links of dependent origination in various places for those seeking pratyekabuddhahood. Next, he taught the twelve divisions of Vaipulya scripture, Mahāprajñā, and the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka, explaining the bodhisattvas’ practice over successive kalpas. Hundreds of thousands of bhikṣus and immeasurable sentient beings aroused the mind of awakening, some remained as śrāvakas, myriads of koṭis of humans and gods attained stream-entry through arhatship, and some remained as pratyekabuddhas.

“The Buddha-eye contemplates all dharmas” indicates that the sudden Dharma came first; the Four Truths and twelve links of dependent origination are the gradual teaching that opened next.

According to this passage, after the Tripiṭaka Teaching had been completed, the twelve divisions of Vaipulya scripture were taught next. The Buddha taught the great after the small because he had originally intended to bestow the great, but sentient beings could not bear it. He therefore provisionally drew the small out of the great, enabling them to sever their bonds and accomplish the noble. Although this was a genuine benefit, it was still not the Buddha’s original intent.

Next he taught the Vaipulya, Vimalakīrti, Questions of Brahmā Viśeṣacintin, and Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra, reproaching the Lesser Vehicle’s partiality in protecting the fruit it had attained and criticizing the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s error of annihilationism. Śāriputra and Subhūti had practiced the small exclusively according to the preceding teaching and initially had never heard of the Great Vehicle’s majestic virtues. Some bewilderedly abandoned their bowls; some fearfully tried to reject the heavenly flowers. They did not know what the other person was saying and did not know how to answer.

Vaipulya reproach came after the Tripiṭaka Teaching, while the events in which they were reproached should have occurred before the twelfth year. How can this be known? The scriptures all recount former reproaches retrospectively, proving that these were earlier events. They had already received the teaching and attained the path, realized the stage beyond training, deeply borne the Buddha’s kindness, and come to trust and understand one another, so they no longer became angry when reproached. From that earlier time to the present, they freely submitted to Aṅgulimāla’s ridicule and Vimalakīrti’s rebukes, finally gaining the benefit of being ashamed of the small and aspiring to the great. This is like cooking curds to produce raw ghee.

According to the Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings, one can know that Vaipulya follows the Tripiṭaka Teaching and is the teaching of the third period.

Why Does Prajñā Follow Vaipulya?

According to the Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings, Mahāprajñā, the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka, and practice over successive kalpas were taught next; this means that the Large Prajñāpāramitā was taught after Vaipulya.

The Large Prajñāpāramitā sometimes teaches impermanence and no-self, sometimes emptiness, and sometimes non-arising and non-extinction. It proceeds from form and mind all the way to the knowledge of all modes, turning every sentence repeatedly to clarify the Dharma of practice. This is the meaning of practice over successive kalpas.

The scripture further says that hundreds of thousands of bhikṣus and myriads of koṭis of humans and gods attained stream-entry through arhatship or remained as pratyekabuddhas. This confirms that it is prajñā shared by the Three Vehicles.

As for “the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka,” if it were interpreted as the Avataṃsaka initially taught at the quiescent place of the path, it would not fit the sequence here. The Treatise on Dharma-nature is therefore followed in saying that bodhisattvas of dull faculties enter the Dharma realm in three places: first in Prajñā, second in the Lotus, and third in Nirvāṇa. Entering the Dharma realm through Prajñā is precisely the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka.

There is another meaning. The duration of the Avataṃsaka teaching was long; those of lesser faculties had not entered it in the past and were like the deaf and mute, but on hearing Prajñā now they could enter. This too is precisely the present meaning. The Large Prajñāpāramitā extends to people of the Three Vehicles and can therefore speak of the four fruits. The Avataṃsaka excludes those of lesser faculties, and hence does not have this meaning.

Prajñā was therefore taught after Vaipulya and is the teaching of the fourth period.

How Does the Perfect and Sudden Reappear after Refined Ghee?

It is further called the flavor of refined ghee because the śrāvakas were commanded to relay the Prajñā teaching for bodhisattvas and came to take charge of and know the various Dharma gates. Their minds gradually became open and at ease. They knew that their own firefly light could not equal sunlight, while their feeling of reverence and submission matured still further. This is like raw ghee becoming refined ghee.

“The oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka is clarified after Prajñā” can further be explained as referring to the perfect and sudden Lotus teaching. Why? When the Buddha first accomplished the path, he purely taught the perfect and sudden. Those who did not understand had not yet developed sufficiently great faculties. After being tempered through the Tripiṭaka, Vaipulya, and Prajñā teachings, their faculties matured, their obstructions were removed, and they became able to hear the perfect and sudden. The Buddha then taught the Lotus, opening the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing and enabling them to enter the Dharma realm, on a level with the Avataṃsaka. These are the people described by the Treatise on Dharma-nature as entering through the Lotus in the middle.

The following passage therefore means that those who first saw the Buddha’s body and heard the Buddha’s teaching immediately entered the Tathāgata’s wisdom, while those who now heard this scripture entered the Buddha’s wisdom. The Buddha-wisdom attained at first and later is alike in its perfect and sudden meaning. Therefore, the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka taught after Prajñā is on a level with the Lotus and is also the teaching of the fifth period.

Why Are the Lotus and Nirvāṇa Both Clarified Essence?

Clarified essence is further mentioned because it is the final flavor after all the other flavors. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra calls it clarified essence, while the present scripture calls it the great king’s feast. One therefore knows that both scriptures are clarified essence.

After the Buddha Sun-Moon-Lamp Radiance finished teaching the Lotus Sutra, he announced at midnight that he would enter nirvāṇa. In that buddha’s full course of transformation, he first taught the Avataṃsaka and last taught the Lotus. The same was true at the time of Kāśyapa Buddha: the Nirvāṇa Sūtra was not separately elucidated, and the Lotus was treated as the final teaching and final flavor.

During Śākyamuni Buddha’s course of transformation, he first matured an earlier batch of people and made the Lotus their clarified essence. To mature a later batch, he tempered them again through Prajñā before enabling them to enter Nirvāṇa, and made the Nirvāṇa their final teaching and final flavor.

This is like a farming family: what is sown first ripens and is harvested first, while what is sown later ripens and is harvested later. The eight thousand śrāvakas and immeasurable bodhisattvas who diminished birth in the Lotus assembly were fruits that had matured earlier. They were harvested in the Lotus and had nothing further to do. The five thousand who rose and left on their own and the humans and gods who were moved elsewhere matured later and were harvested in the Nirvāṇa.

It is therefore said that great nirvāṇa emerges from Mahāprajñā; this is the sequence for the later batch. The Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings says that the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka follows Mahāprajñā; this is the sequence for the earlier batch that matured in the Lotus.

Someone asks: How do we know that those of dull faculties did not enter through the Lotus and had to be tempered through Prajñā again?

The answer is that the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom asks why Subhūti again inquired whether bodhisattvas were certain or not certain. It answers that Subhūti had heard in the Lotus that bodhisattvas received predictions of buddhahood, but now, in Prajñā, again asked whether they were certain or not certain. One should therefore know that Prajñā was taught again after the Lotus.

The First Stage of “Faith and Understanding”: The Urgent Pursuit of the Poor Son, Like Milk

The third passage cited is the “Faith and Understanding” chapter. The four great śrāvakas received and understood the teaching, using it to establish this sequence.

The scripture first says that the poor son’s father had arrived here long before and stopped in a city after failing to find his son. His family was extremely wealthy, with many servants, ministers, assistants, officials, and people. The poor son happened upon his father’s residence but ran away as soon as he saw it. The father immediately sent someone to pursue him urgently and bring him back. The poor son was startled and shouted in grievance, thinking that he was being imprisoned though innocent and would certainly die. The father therefore told the messenger that he did not need this man and should not force him to come.

What meaning does this receive and understand? It receives and understands that when the Buddha first accomplished the path, at the quiescent place of the path he was surrounded by a retinue of Dharma-body great beings of the forty-one stages and taught the perfect and sudden teaching gate. At that time the Buddha intended the great Dharma for the poor son, but the son’s faculties caused him to faint. One therefore knows that when the Buddha-sun first rose, the sudden teaching opened first, just as milk necessarily comes first from a cow.

The Second Stage: Secretly Sending Men to Clear Away Dung, Like Curds

Next, the elder wished to entice and guide his son. Through skillful means, he secretly sent two men whose appearance was haggard and who possessed no imposing virtue, telling them to go and slowly tell the poor son that he could be hired to clear away dung. The elder also removed his jeweled necklace and changed into filthy, greasy clothes. Through this skillful means, he was able to approach his son.

What meaning does this receive and understand? It receives and understands that after the sudden teaching, the Buddha concealed Vairocana’s majestic virtues and excellent marks, manifested the appearance of an old bhikṣu, and taught the Tripiṭaka Teaching. For twenty years he constantly had the poor son clear away dung and receive one day’s wage. This is sūtra emerging after the twelve divisions of scripture. At that time the delusions of views and thought were severed and the uncontaminated mind purified, like curds emerging from milk.

The Third Stage: Going Out and Entering without Difficulty, Like Raw Ghee

After more time had passed, the father and son came to trust and understand one another, and there was no difficulty in going out or entering; nevertheless, the son’s dwelling remained in its original location.

What meaning does this receive and understand? It clarifies that Vaipulya was taught next after the Tripiṭaka Teaching. People of the Two Vehicles had already attained the fruit of the path, and father and son trusted and understood one another. Hearing the great Dharma is called entering, while remaining in the small Dharma is called going out. Enduring severe verbal reproach is called being without difficulty.

The household simile gives another explanation. Advancing inward into the residence is called entering. There one sees ministers and powerful clans and great meritorious powers, hears the Jewel-Torch Dhāraṇī, and sees the supernormal transformations of inconceivable liberation, and hence it is called entering. Going out and continuing to stay in the grass hut, remaining within the sphere of the Two Vehicles, is called going out.

Their trusting and understanding one another means that after attaining arhatship they did not become angry even when reviled. Inwardly ashamed, they did not dare to transform others through the Dharma of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. Their minds gradually matured, like curds becoming raw ghee. This is called the Vaipulya scriptures emerging from sūtra and is the teaching of the third period.

The Fourth Stage: Taking Charge of and Knowing the Goods, Like Refined Ghee

At that time the elder became ill and knew that he would soon die. He told the poor son that he possessed much gold, silver, and precious treasure and that the storehouses were full; the son was to manage how much there was and what should be taken or given. The poor son accepted the command and took charge of and came to know all the goods, yet had no thought of desiring to take even one meal. His dwelling still remained in its original location.

What meaning does this receive and understand? It clarifies that Prajñā was taught after Vaipulya. Prajñā’s contemplative wisdom is the family estate; proceeding from name-and-form all the way to knowledge of modes is the collection of goods. Subhūti and the others being commanded to relay the teaching is their taking charge of and knowing it. They taught it only for the bodhisattvas and did not themselves practice and realize it, and hence had no intention of taking it for themselves. This is Mahāprajñā emerging from the Vaipulya scriptures.

Through this they came to know the Dharma gates of the great beings and removed their lack of knowledge. This is like raw ghee becoming refined ghee and is the teaching of the fourth period.

The Fifth Stage: Assembling the Relatives and Entrusting the Estate, Like Clarified Essence

After a little more time, the father knew that his son’s mind had gradually become open and at ease. As he approached death, he summoned his son, assembled the relatives, and personally announced that this truly was his son and he truly the father; everything he now possessed belonged to the son. The father entrusted the family estate to him, and the poor son rejoiced greatly, attaining what he had never had before.

What meaning does this receive and understand? It clarifies that the Lotus was taught after Prajñā. The son had previously been made to take charge of and know every item in the treasury. Nothing further needed to be explained; the estate only had to be directly entrusted to him.

This is like the preceding relaying of the teaching: the śrāvakas already knew the various Dharma gates, so now there was no need to present the contemplations again. The grass hut only had to be demolished, the one great cart bestowed, and predictions of future buddhahood given. Is this not clearly seeing buddha-nature and abiding in great nirvāṇa? It is therefore said that great nirvāṇa emerges from Mahāprajñā. At this time ignorance is broken, the principle of the Middle Way is revealed, and their minds become lucid and pure like clarified essence. This is clarified essence emerging from refined ghee and is the teaching of the fifth period.

Gathering Two Batches and the Shared Flavor of the Two Scriptures

This set of teachings through the five flavors first matures one group of sentient beings of gradual faculties, such as Śāriputra and the other great śrāvakas, enabling them to receive predictions of buddhahood in the Lotus, see the Tathāgata-nature, and accomplish the great fruit. Like the autumn harvest and winter storage, they have nothing further to do. This is what the root treatise calls “non-arising that does not arise,” named great nirvāṇa. This is the earlier batch, in which the Wondrous Dharma Lotus emerges from Mahāprajñā.

Those who have not matured enter Nirvāṇa through Prajñā and see buddha-nature. This is the later batch, in which great nirvāṇa again emerges from Prajñā.

Nevertheless, the teaching intents of the Lotus and Nirvāṇa have the same structure in the beginning and end of their main teaching. The three cycles of teaching in the Lotus settle the śrāvakas decisively and bring them all back to the one real. Later the scripture opens the nearby to reveal the distant and clarifies the affairs of bodhisattvas.

The Nirvāṇa is likewise so. It first teaches the superior three cultivations, settles the śrāvakas decisively, and brings them into the secret treasury. Afterward, the thirty-six questions clarify the affairs of bodhisattvas.

As the Buddha approached extinction, the Nirvāṇa further supported the Tripiṭaka Teaching and admonished and restrained the future, causing those of dull faculties in the latter age not to give rise to annihilationist views within buddhadharma. It broadly opened the purport of permanence, broke these inversions, and caused buddhadharma to abide for a long time. These functions make the teaching intents of the two scriptures different; but as the fifth flavor, clarified essence, their flavor of buddha-nature is the same.

Third, the explanation proceeds through the five flavors and half and full mutually accomplishing one another. If one discusses only the five flavors, one remains the same as the Southern masters and obtains only the side of skillful means. If one discusses only half-words and full words, one remains the same as the Northern masters and obtains only the side of reality.

What is now clarified is that the five flavors are not separate from half and full, and half and full are not separate from the five flavors. When the five flavors contain half and full, wisdom obtains skillful means and is liberated; when half and full contain the five flavors, skillful means obtains wisdom and is liberated. The provisional and real can then range together like a bird’s two wings. Although they range together, advance and withdrawal each find their proper place.

As for the Avataṃsaka, it is the sudden and full Mahāyāna family estate. It clarifies only the one real and does not require skillful means. It is only full and not half, and within the gradual sequence of the five flavors it becomes milk.

The Tripiṭaka Teaching occupies the position of hired labor and is only skillful means. It is only half and not full, and within the gradual sequence of the five flavors it becomes curds.

With the Vaipulya teaching, rebuke sets half and full against one another and uses the full to rebuke the half. Within the gradual sequence of the five flavors, it becomes raw ghee.

The Great Prajñā is receiving instruction: it carries the half while discussing the full. The half is shared by the three vehicles, while the full belongs exclusively to bodhisattvas. Within the gradual sequence of the five flavors, it becomes refined ghee.

The Lotus is entrusting the family wealth: it abolishes the half and clarifies the full. If the skillful means of half-words had not first trained and matured those of dull faculties, there would likewise be no opening of the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing through full words. Within the gradual sequence of the five flavors, it becomes clarified essence.

The Tathāgata earnestly praises skillful means because half-words possess the function of accomplishing full words. The intent lies precisely here.

The four great śrāvakas gained understanding: the unsurpassed cluster of jewels came of itself without their seeking it. Those who abide in real wisdom likewise all arrive there through half and full mutually accomplishing one another. The intent again lies precisely here.

Fourth, clarifying correspondence and non-correspondence. Since half and full and the five flavors can be applied generally across the various scriptures, while the circumstances of the scriptures differ, one must now distinguish how they open and how they converge.

Correspondence and Non-Correspondence within the Five Flavors

The Avataṃsaka directly separates those of small-vehicle faculties and clarifies the Great Vehicle. Its opening section has no śrāvakas at all. Although śrāvakas are present in the later section, they are as though unable to hear or speak and cannot enter that realm. At that time there is not yet any half teaching to stand in relation to the full, so what correspondence could be discussed?

Next, the three vehicles are opened to receive and guide those of small faculties and enable them to sever the delusions of views and thought. At this point the small teaching separates them from the great, and the full teaching is not yet discussed, so what is there that could correspond? The Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings therefore says that the three Dharmas, four fruits, and two paths are not one. Not being one means non-correspondence.

With the Vaipulya teaching, half and full may be taught together, set against one another, or related through the full rebuking the half. Although those who receive the half hear the full and recognize the shame of remaining with the small, they still have not entered the Great Vehicle. They are therefore said still to be “temporarily lodging in a grass hut.” Their inferior state of mind remains unchanged, and so half and full do not correspond.

Prajñā uses the full to 『洮練』—“wash and refine”—the half and commands those receiving the teaching to take charge of the family estate. It explains that the half is skillful means capable of passing into non-arising; all the half-word Dharma-gates are Mahāyāna. This is correspondence of the Dharma. Yet those commanded to take charge of the estate still “do not desire to take even one meal’s worth.” The person has therefore not corresponded, and so half and full remain in non-correspondence.

Upon reaching the Lotus, people awaken to the fact that the conjured city is not ultimate reality. The Buddha tells them that what they practice is the bodhisattva path: this is correspondence of the Dharma. He also says that they are truly his children: this is correspondence of the person. Person and Dharma correspond together.

From the opening of the provisional at the Deer Park, the course passes through the various scriptural teachings and reaches the Lotus, where it first converges into reality. The Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings therefore says that reality had not been revealed for more than forty years. Those who have not corresponded in the Lotus may correspond only in Nirvāṇa. The Faxing Lun’s statement that those of middle and lower faculties enter the Dharma realm refers to bodhisattvas who later attain correspondence.

Where Do Śrāvakas Attain Correspondence?

Considered specifically in relation to śrāvakas, there are two kinds: first, secret correspondence; second, manifest correspondence.

In secret correspondence, when the Buddha first taught the five-precept Dharma to Tiwei, there were already people who secretly awakened to the forbearance in which dharmas do not arise. How, then, could there be no one who secretly awakened later amid sūtra, Vaipulya, and Prajñā? This point is not developed further here.

In manifest correspondence, śrāvakas who have not yet entered a stage may attain correspondence wherever they are, as with the three hundred bhikṣus who received predictions in Prajñā. Śrāvakas already abiding in the fruit must reach the Lotus, where they are pressed to believe and brought into correspondence. Those who claim to abide in the fruit yet do not correspond are in fact people of overweening pride who have not entered a stage. The five thousand at the Lotus assembly were separated from the assembly and rose to leave; only in Nirvāṇa did they again attain correspondence.

The Four Statements and the Final Question and Answer

Gathering the teachings as a whole, four statements can be made. The Avataṃsaka and Tripiṭaka are neither correspondence nor non-correspondence. Vaipulya and Prajñā are uniformly non-correspondence. The Lotus is uniformly correspondence. Nirvāṇa is both correspondence and non-correspondence. Why does Nirvāṇa still possess the side of non-correspondence? Because it again opens the various provisional teachings for later ages and guides those of dull faculties in future generations.

Someone asks: one can see bodhisattvas entering the Dharma realm through the Lotus and thereby corresponding with the Avataṃsaka, but one does not see anyone entering the One Vehicle through the Avataṃsaka and thereby corresponding with the Lotus.

The answer is that entering the Dharma realm as taught in the Avataṃsaka is itself entering the One Vehicle. The remaining implications can be known accordingly.

The fifth topic is Resolving Questions. It has three meanings: first, distinguishing from the perspectives of the shared and the specific; second, distinguishing according to benefit and nonbenefit; third, distinguishing within each of the various teachings.

Distinguishing from the Perspectives of the Shared and the Specific

First come the shared and the specific. If the five flavors and half and full are discussed specifically, each has fixed limits. If they are discussed as shared, they extend through beginning and end.

The Avataṃsaka, for example, is the sudden teaching as the milk flavor. Specifically, it occurs only at the beginning. As shared, it extends all the way to the later teachings. The Sūtra of Immeasurable Meanings therefore says, “Next he taught prajñā and cultivation over successive kalpas, the oceanic emptiness of the Avataṃsaka.” The Lotus integrates all into the Buddha’s wisdom. This is the Avataṃsaka extending through these two scriptures.

The Sutra on Resolving Doubts concerning the Semblance Dharma also says: “In today’s seated assembly, innumerable beings each see differently. Some see the Tathāgata enter nirvāṇa. Some see the Tathāgata abide in the world for one eon, one eon minus a portion, or immeasurable eons. Some see the Tathāgata’s body as sixteen feet tall, some see a small body, and some see a great body. Some see the recompense-body in the ocean of worlds of the Lotus Treasury teaching the mind-ground Dharma-gate to hundreds of thousands of millions of Śākyamuni Buddhas. Some see the Dharma-body as equal to empty space, without discrimination, without marks, and unobstructed, pervading and equal to the Dharma realm. Some see this place as only mountains, forests, earth, and sand; some see the seven treasures; some see this place as where the buddhas of the past, present, and future practice the path; and some see this place as precisely the inconceivable realm of the buddhas and real Dharma.”

When the sun first rises, it illuminates the high mountains first. When the sun is about to set, its afterglow should likewise illuminate the lofty ridges. Thus the ocean of worlds of the Lotus Treasury extends even beyond nirvāṇa; how much more must it extend through the preceding teachings?

Next is the half-word sūtra teaching of the curds flavor. Specifically, it occurs in the second period. As shared, it also extends into the later teachings. Why? Kālodāyin directly received a prediction in the Lotus assembly. Later he entered a settlement and was killed, becoming the originating condition for establishing a precept. Śāriputra likewise served as the principal petitioner for the teaching in the Lotus assembly. After he entered extinction, Junti carried the three robes to the Buddha and asked a question; the remainder is abbreviated. Does this not show the Tripiṭaka extending into the later teachings?

The Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom says: “From the initial teaching at the Deer Park through the night of nirvāṇa, the discipline, concentration, and wisdom taught were collected into the treasuries of sūtra and the others.” One should therefore know that the Tripiṭaka extends into the later teachings.

The Vaipulya teaching sets half and full against one another and is the raw-ghee teaching. Specifically, it occurs in the third period. As shared, it also extends into the later teachings. Why? The “Dhāraṇī” says that predictions were formerly given to the śrāvakas at Rājagṛha, that predictions are now again given to them in Jeta Grove in Śrāvastī, and that predictions had previously been given to them at Vārāṇasī. Śāriputra says that the World-Honored One is not false and what he says is true, and therefore can give them predictions a second and a third time. Thus it is known that Vaipulya extends beyond the Lotus.

Prajñā carries the half while discussing the full and is the refined-ghee teaching. Specifically, it occurs in the fourth period. As shared, it extends through both beginning and end. Why? From the night of attaining the path through the night of nirvāṇa, the Buddha constantly taught prajñā. The Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom also says, “Subhūti asks whether they are certain or not certain.” One should therefore know that prajñā also extends into the later teachings.

Nirvāṇa is the full teaching of the clarified-essence flavor. Specifically, it occurs in the fifth period. As shared, it also extends to the beginning. Why? The Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom says, “From the initial arousal of mind, one constantly contemplates nirvāṇa and practices the path.” Could the preceding teachings have contained no bodhisattva who had aroused the mind and contemplated nirvāṇa?

The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says: “I sat at the place of awakening beneath the bodhi tree and first attained right awakening. At that time, bodhisattvas from worlds measureless as asaṃkhyeyas and Ganges sands also asked me this profound meaning. The meaning and merit of the phrases they asked were likewise all just so, equal and without difference. Asking in this way can benefit immeasurable sentient beings.” This shows the meaning of nirvāṇa extending into the earlier teachings.

If the manifest side of the Lotus is discussed, it is not seen in the earlier teachings. If the secret side is discussed, principle is originally without obstruction. Śāriputra therefore says, “Formerly I heard such Dharma from the Buddha and saw the bodhisattvas receive predictions of buddhahood.” Does this not establish that texts of shared predictions already existed in the past?

A person asks: The Nirvāṇa retraces and teaches four; Vaipulya directly opens four; the Distinct Teaching again has four. How should they be distinguished?

The answer says: The Nirvāṇa “takes up the four and universally enters buddha-nature.” The Distinct Teaching proceeds in sequence and sees buddha-nature only later. This branch of Vaipulya still says, “preserving realization, two do not see the nature.” The remainder is abbreviated.

Distinguishing According to Benefit and Nonbenefit

Second is resolving questions according to whether benefit is obtained. If the Avataṃsaka is milk and the Tripiṭaka is curds, it appears that the flavor of skillful means is rich while the Great Vehicle flavor is thin. This must be explained from three perspectives.

First, consider whether there is benefit in actual use. A valuable medicine that cannot treat the present illness does not suit the patient. An inexpensive medicine that fits the illness is what the patient needs. If a valuable medicine is unsuitable, taking it in vain brings no benefit.

When the Avataṃsaka was first taught, it could not yet bring profound benefit to beginners, and gradual faculties had not yet changed. For those two conditions, it was like milk. If gradual faculties receive the Tripiṭaka, they can sever the delusions of views and thought and gradually reduce the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion. They thereby turn from ordinary beings into noble ones, like milk turning into curds. One cannot say that an inexpensive medicine surpasses a valuable one merely because it brings practical benefit, nor that a valuable medicine is inferior merely because it brings no benefit in that situation.

The Avataṃsaka is likewise. For lesser faculties it is like milk, while for great faculties it is like clarified essence. A simile takes only a partial resemblance and cannot be required to correspond in every respect.

Second, consider a good physician who possesses one secret prescription with twelve medicines, three of which are especially valuable. The physician is skilled at examining the signs of illness and knows whether the medicines should be increased or reduced. The physician never misses the condition or mistakenly applies a treatment.

The Buddha is likewise. His perfect prescription and wondrous treatment possess the twelve divisions of scripture; among them, teaching without being asked, vaipulya, and prediction are the most profound. Bodhisattvas have sharp wisdom and can take all twelve in full. The Two Vehicles have grave illnesses and use nine as their dose. If the prescription were not contracted for them, it would bring their illness no benefit. The uncontracted twelve are likened to milk, while the contracted nine are likened to curds. This simile takes only sequence through successive arising; it does not take richness or thinness, shallowness or depth.

Third, consider the practitioner’s mind. When the Avataṃsaka is taught, ordinary beings’ delusions of views and thought have not changed, and so they are said to be like milk. When the Tripiṭaka is taught, the delusions of views and thought are severed, and so they are said to be like curds. By the time of Vaipulya, practitioners have been rebuked, made ashamed, and subdued; they no longer claim that their realization is true and ultimate, and so they are like raw ghee. By the time of Prajñā, they receive the teaching’s instructions and recognize the dharmas, and so they are like refined ghee. By the time of the Lotus, they break ignorance, open the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing, receive predictions of buddhahood, and have purified minds, and so they are said to be like clarified essence.

When practitioners’ minds remain immature, the teaching itself has not changed. When practitioners’ minds mature, the teaching is named according to their maturation.

A person asks: Does one person receive all five flavors, or do five people each receive one flavor?

The answer says that there are people who receive only one flavor. Those whose disposition is purely of one kind in the Avataṃsaka assembly immediately obtain clarified essence without traversing all five flavors. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “On Snow Mountain there is an herb; if a cow eats it, it immediately obtains clarified essence.”

There are also people who traverse all five flavors in sequence. Those of Lesser Vehicle disposition are like milk in relation to the sudden teaching and like curds in relation to the Tripiṭaka; they continue through clarified essence and only then reach the ultimate. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “From a cow comes milk, and through successive arising clarified essence comes from ghee.”

There are also sharp-faculty bodhisattvas and śrāvakas who have not yet entered a stage. Some see the nature within the Tripiṭaka, which is traversing two flavors. Some see the nature within Vaipulya, which is traversing three flavors. Some see the nature within Prajñā, which is traversing four flavors, as with the three hundred bhikṣus. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “Place poison in milk; the poison pervades the five flavors, and in each flavor it can kill a person.” This is the meaning here.

Distinguishing within the Various Teachings

Third is resolving questions by traversing the various teachings. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “Ordinary beings are like milk, śrāvakas like curds, bodhisattvas like raw and refined ghee, and buddhas like clarified essence.” The present explanation first uses this simile to encompass the five periods of half and full. Ordinary beings possess no path for treating delusion and are entirely immature, like milk. Śrāvakas give rise to true wisdom and are all generally like curds. Bodhisattvas of the Shared Teaching and the Two Vehicles are like raw ghee. The Distinct Teaching is like refined ghee, and the Perfect Teaching like clarified essence.

The five flavors are now judged separately within each teaching.

First is the Tripiṭaka Teaching. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “An ordinary being is like milk; a stream-enterer like curds; a once-returner like raw ghee; a non-returner like refined ghee; and an arhat, pratyekabuddha, and buddha like clarified essence.” Some leap over intermediate fruits and immediately obtain clarified essence. Others enter flavor by flavor in sequence. These are the three meanings within the Tripiṭaka Teaching.

Next are the five flavors within the Shared Teaching. Fascicle Thirty-Two of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says: “The buddha-nature of ordinary beings is like milk mixed with blood. Blood is all afflictions such as ignorance and formations, while milk is the five wholesome aggregates. Therefore I say that complete awakening is attained from the various afflictions and five wholesome aggregates. Just as sentient beings’ bodies are all formed from semen and blood, so too is buddha-nature. Stream-enterers and once-returners have severed a small portion of the afflictions and are like true milk. A non-returner is like curds, an arhat like raw ghee, pratyekabuddhas through bodhisattvas of the tenth ground like refined ghee, and a buddha like clarified essence.” Cases of leaping over fruits are indeterminate; the remainder is abbreviated.

Next are the five flavors clarified within the Distinct Teaching itself. Fascicle Nine of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “Sentient beings are like a newly calved cow whose blood and milk have not yet separated.” Śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas are like curds, bodhisattvas like raw and refined ghee, and the buddhas, World-Honored Ones, like clarified essence. Cases of leaping over fruits and indeterminate sequence are likewise present; the remainder is abbreviated.

Finally comes the Perfect Teaching. The Perfect Teaching has only one flavor. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says, “On Snow Mountain there is an herb named Forbearance; if a cow eats it, it immediately obtains clarified essence.” Because the teaching is upright and solely one, the five flavors are not discussed as a sequence.

If distinctions are established within nondifference, however, the five flavors may be judged as arising in sequence according to identity in name through ultimate identity. The twelve divisions of scripture emerging from the Buddha are milk emerging from the Buddha, and the new physician uses milk as medicine. The five flavors may also be judged according to the four wholesome roots and the particular point at which they develop in each person.

Sixth, explaining how increasing numbers reveal the teaching. First it is discussed in terms of the Trace Gate, then in terms of the Origin Gate.

The teaching was originally established to accord with sentient beings’ faculties. Since faculties are not only of one kind, the forms of teaching-gates left in response to them are also many. How could there be only such accounts as half and full or the Five Periods? One should know that the kinds of teaching are originally immeasurable. Here the explanation provisionally begins with one Dharma and increases step by step through eight Dharmas.

First, the Opening and Combining of One Dharma in the Trace Gate

First, opening and combining are explained through one Dharma. The meaning of the Lotus Sutra is that within the buddha-lands of the ten directions there is only the Dharma of the One Vehicle. If sentient beings cannot understand this one Dharma, they remain entirely like untransformed milk. To unfold it, the Distinct One Vehicle is opened from the Perfect One Vehicle. If they still cannot understand the Distinct, they again remain entirely like milk; the Shared One Vehicle is then opened. If they cannot understand the Shared, they again remain entirely like milk; the Tripiṭaka One Vehicle is then opened.

Although it has been opened into four, all four are still called one Great Vehicle Dharma because all take attaining the fruit of buddhahood as their aim. If sentient beings gain understanding within the Tripiṭaka One Vehicle, it is like milk turning into curds, and they proceed through to entering the original Perfect One Vehicle, and so forth.

If sentient beings cannot understand any of the four One Vehicles, the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha teachings are opened further from the Tripiṭaka Teaching. If someone thereby severs the bonds and realizes the fruit, and the mind gradually becomes open and at ease, that person puts aside the skillful means of the Two Vehicles and hears only of seeking buddhahood through the Great Vehicle. Prajñā then gradually washes and refines the mind, tempering and maturing it. Finally, the skillful One Vehicle is abolished, leaving only the Perfect and real One Vehicle.

The root treatise therefore cites the Buddha’s vow: “As in my original vow, now it has been fulfilled: transforming all sentient beings, I cause them all to enter the Buddha path. If I transformed them with the Lesser Vehicle, I would fall into avarice; this cannot be.” Thus it begins by opening one from one and ends by returning from one to one.

From Two Dharmas through Eight Dharmas

If opening and combining are explained through two Dharmas, they are discussed through the two teachings of half and full. First the full of the Avataṃsaka is revealed. If sentient beings lack the corresponding faculties, the half is opened from the full. Later Vaipulya reveals the full in contrast with the half, Prajñā carries the half while revealing the full, and the Lotus relinquishes the half and reveals the full. At the beginning the half is opened from the full; in the end the half is abolished and returns to the full, and so forth.

Next, explaining opening and combining through three Dharmas means skillfully teaching three vehicles within the One Buddha-Vehicle. Once practitioners have rested, the conjured city is removed. It may also be discussed through three kinds of goodness: the root treatise states only that śrāvakas are the lower goodness and abbreviates the rest with “and so forth.”

Next, explaining opening and combining through four Dharmas means the Four Teachings. The Distinct is opened from the Perfect, the Shared from the Distinct, and then the Tripiṭaka. After unfolding in this sequence, they converge and combine into the Perfect, and so forth.

There is also another opening and combining through four Dharmas, discussed through the four gateways. Originally there are the four gateways of the Perfect Teaching. Because sentient beings cannot understand them, the four gateways of the Distinct Teaching are opened, through to the four gateways of the Shared and Tripiṭaka teachings. Those of sharp faculties can enter progressively from one level to the next; those of dull faculties must enter through tempering and maturation by the five flavors.

Next, explaining opening and combining through five Dharmas means the five flavors. From the initial scriptures in twelve divisions, the sūtras are opened, proceeding through Nirvāṇa; the five flavors can be discussed in each teaching. From the initial five flavors, various five flavors are further opened, then finely and gradually combined until they return to the full and Perfect five flavors.

Next, in explaining opening and combining through six Dharmas, the root treatise lists the Four Teachings, the Great Vehicle’s six perfections, the seven factors of awakening, and the Noble Eightfold Path. At first, the Distinct is opened from the Perfect, proceeding through the Tripiṭaka. They are then contracted and combined in this way, returning to the one Perfect path, and so forth.

Next, explaining opening and combining through seven Dharmas means the Four Teachings, the Two Vehicles, and the human and deva vehicles. If combining upward, the Perfect and Distinct are combined. If not, the human and deva vehicles are combined downward, causing the number seven to complete opening and combining, and so forth. Opening and combining through eight Dharmas is then explained in accordance with the preceding eight Dharmas, and so forth.

If one truly grasps the meaning of opening and combining, one can teach freely in response to faculties.

Next, Opening and Combining in the Origin Gate

Second, the opening and combining of the teaching are clarified in terms of the Origin Gate. By using the Trace Gate, one can know the Origin Gate; the Origin is likewise.

Within the Origin Gate, the Buddha sometimes displays his own body and sometimes another body; sometimes he teaches his own Dharma and sometimes another Dharma. His own body is an image of the Buddha Dharma-realm, while another body is an image of the nine Dharma-realms. His own Dharma is the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing in the Perfect and sudden teaching; everything below that level is another Dharma. Although the Buddha displays various forms, his purpose is to liberate sentient beings. Although he teaches various paths, in reality they are for the One Vehicle. This is the meaning of opening and combining.

When opening and combining are understood in this way, half and full and the five flavors remain clearly in place without loss. The meaning of sequential teaching becomes still clearer, the meaning of nonsequential teaching can naturally be understood, and indeterminate teaching becomes still easier to see.

From One Dharma through Eight Dharmas in the Origin Gate

First, one is opened from one. Within the buddha-lands of the ten directions there is only the Dharma of the One Vehicle. Sentient beings cannot understand it and remain entirely like milk. The Distinct One Vehicle is therefore opened from the Perfect One Vehicle. Again they cannot understand and remain entirely like milk. The One Vehicle that embodies Dharmas is then opened. Again they cannot understand and remain entirely like milk. The One Vehicle that analyzes dharmas is then opened, and sentient beings understand; at that point milk turns into curds.

Afterward, they enter the One Vehicle that embodies Dharmas from the One Vehicle that analyzes dharmas, as curds turn into raw ghee. From embodying Dharmas they enter the Distinct One Vehicle, as raw ghee turns into refined ghee. They then turn and enter the Perfect One Vehicle, as refined ghee turns into clarified essence. Sudden, gradual, and indeterminate are all fully present within this process, and so forth. This is opening one from one and returning from one to one.

Next, two are opened from two. Originally there is tathāgatagarbha, within which are fully present the inconceivable two aspects of half and full. Sentient beings cannot understand and remain entirely like milk. The full carrying the half is opened, but they still cannot understand and remain like milk. The full breaking the half is opened, but they still cannot understand and remain like milk. The half alone is then taught; sentient beings understand, and milk turns into curds.

Next, the full breaking the half is taught, and curds turn into raw ghee. Then the full carrying the half is taught, and sentient beings reach the stage called “one refined ghee.” Finally, the inconceivable full alone is taught, and sentient beings become like clarified essence. Sudden, gradual, and indeterminate are likewise fully present within this process. This is opening two from two and returning from two to two.

Next, three return to three. Originally there are the three that are immediately empty, immediately provisional, and immediately the Middle. Sentient beings cannot understand, so the sequential three are opened. Again they cannot understand, so the three that embody truth are opened. Again they cannot understand, so the three that analyze dharmas are opened.

Those of sharp faculties enter the three that embody emptiness from the three that analyze emptiness, then enter the sequential three from the embodying three, and finally enter the three that are immediately empty, immediately provisional, and immediately the Middle from the sequential three. Those of dull faculties remain in the three that analyze dharmas. The three of immediate emptiness are therefore first used to temper them, bringing them to raw ghee; the sequential three are then used to temper them, bringing them to refined ghee. Only at this point can they enter what is immediately empty, immediately provisional, and immediately the Middle. This is opening and combining as explained through three Dharmas.

Next comes the opening and combining of four Dharmas. The original text says, “It is not yet the four gateways of the Perfect Teaching.” Because sentient beings cannot understand, the four gateways of the Distinct Teaching are opened, proceeding through the four gateways of the Tripiṭaka Teaching, and they are caused to enter progressively, as in the preceding Trace Gate passage.

As for opening and combining through five Dharmas, it follows the preceding discussion through the five flavors, and so forth. The discussions of six, seven, and eight Dharmas are likewise understood in the same way as in the Trace Gate.

How Can Three Statements about Prajñā and the Lotus Be Reconciled?

What follows is a private compilation by the recorder Guanding of divergent explanations he had heard.

Someone cites the “Convergence of Schools” chapter of the Da Zhidu Lun. The treatise enumerates ten great scriptures, including the Cloud Sūtra, the Great Cloud Sūtra, and the Lotus Sūtra, and says that Prajñā is the greatest. Its “Great Illumination” chapter also says that all other wholesome Dharmas are included within Prajñā, meaning that the Lotus Sūtra too is a wholesome Dharma. Fascicle One Hundred says that the Lotus is a secret teaching while Prajñā is not secret, because Prajñā does not expressly state that those of the Two Vehicles will become buddhas. The treatise also says that Prajñā and the Lotus are merely different names. These three statements appear inconsistent with one another. How should they be understood together?

One person explains them as follows. All sages enter the absence of marks with an undiscriminating mind, like many streams flowing into the sea. When they guide sentient beings, they take the absence of marks as the foundation, like empty space embracing everything. Prajñā sets forth these two aspects with exceptional fullness and is therefore greatest among the ten great scriptures. Prajñā also clarifies the siddhānta of ultimate truth and is therefore greatest. The entire scripture has ninety chapters: the first sixty explain real wisdom, while the chapters from “Inexhaustible” onward explain skillful wisdom. These two kinds of wisdom are the parents of the Dharma-bodies of the buddhas of past, present, and future, and are therefore the greatest good. The two kinds of wisdom taught in the other scriptures are all included within Prajñā.

Someone asks: If other scriptures also clarify these two kinds of wisdom, then Prajñā should likewise be included within the other scriptures.

The answer is that the Larger Prajñā specializes in clarifying both from its very beginning, whereas other scriptures do not. Since ancient times Prajñā has been called the scripture through which people attain the Way, and this shows its greatness.

Guanding comments that this merely repeats the treatise’s special exaltation of Prajñā. How does that amount to reconciliation? True reconciliation distinguishes common Prajñā from uncommon Prajñā. Uncommon Prajñā is greatest; whenever another scripture also clarifies uncommon Prajñā, its meaning is entirely equal. The rest may be understood accordingly, and so forth.

Another person offers this reconciliation. The Lotus teaches that those of the Two Vehicles can attain buddhahood and is therefore secret. Prajñā does not teach their buddhahood and is therefore not secret. The secret teaching is profound, while Prajñā is shallow. Why? Prajñā teaches that the bodhisattva is the cause of buddhahood. This is easy to understand and therefore is not called secret. The buddhahood of those of the Two Vehicles contradicts what earlier teachings told them and is difficult to understand; it is therefore called secret. The treatise says that using ordinary medicine as medicine is easy, while using poison as medicine is difficult, and so forth.

Yet secrecy and manifestation both extend through the Great and Lesser Vehicles. Fascicle Four of the Da Zhidu Lun says that the manifest teaching presents arhats as having severed afflictions and become pure, while bodhisattvas have not severed afflictions and are not yet pure, so the bodhisattvas are placed later in the assembly. According to the secret teaching, bodhisattvas have attained the six superknowledges, severed every affliction, and surpassed those of the Two Vehicles. One should therefore know that the manifest is shallower and the secret more profound. Both Prajñā and the Lotus now teach that bodhisattvas attain the forbearance of non-arising and possess the six superknowledges. Both are therefore secret, both profound, and both great. If one further distinguishes secret from non-secret within the secret teaching, Prajñā lacks the single item of teaching the buddhahood of those of the Two Vehicles; it is called non-secret only in this respect.

Someone asks: Prajñā has not yet disclosed the provisional teachings as skillful means, so it should be secret. The Lotus discloses those provisional teachings, so it should be manifest.

The answer is that if disclosure of the provisional is the criterion, the question is correct. Here, however, “manifest” is being used only for a meaning that is shallow and readily understood.

Another question follows: If Prajñā still leaves something unexplained, how can it be called great?

The answer is that in terms of real and skillful wisdom, it is profound and great. In not clarifying that those of the Two Vehicles attain buddhahood, it remains incomplete.

The questioner presses further: If it is profound and great, why does it not say that the Two Vehicles are skillful means and enable those people to attain buddhahood? If this meaning remains unexplained, how can Prajñā be great?

The answer says that this is not merely a personal explanation. Master Sengrui too says that Prajñā is like illumination and the Lotus like reality. When it comes to carrying an investigation of principle to its limit and to its nature illuminating the myriad practices, reality does not equal illumination. When it comes to fully revealing true transformation and explaining that originally there are not three vehicles, illumination does not equal reality. Thus, when profound meaning is praised, Prajñā’s achievement is weighty; when reality is extolled, the Lotus’s function is lofty.

Someone objects: Even with an appeal to Master Sengrui, this is like grasping a dead tree for support and failing to realize that the person and the stump will fall together. The explanation is still incomplete. Guanding holds that uncommon Prajñā has never failed to clarify the buddhahood of those of the Two Vehicles. How, then, does it differ from the great and equal wisdom taught in the Lotus?

Two, Three, Four, and Eight Repositories

The scriptures and treatises classify the teachings in more than one way. The mātṛkā has two repositories, the Śrāvaka Repository and the Bodhisattva Repository. Other scriptures speak of three repositories, adding a Miscellaneous Repository to those two. They assign eleven divisions of scripture to the Śrāvaka Repository, the Vaipulya division to the Bodhisattva Repository, and all twelve divisions together to the Miscellaneous Repository. Another classification has four repositories, further opening a Buddha Repository. The Sūtra of the Bodhisattva’s Descent into the Womb teaches eight: the Repository of Embryonic Transformation, the Intermediate-Existence Repository, the Mahāyāna-Vaipulya Repository, the Precepts and Discipline Repository, the Ten Abodes Repository, the Miscellaneous Repository, the Vajra Repository, and the Buddha Repository. How should these different numbers be reconciled?

In reconciling the two repositories, the first corresponds to śrāvakas and the second to the Bodhisattva Repository. In reconciling the three, the first corresponds to the Śrāvaka Repository, the second to the Miscellaneous Repository, and the third to the Bodhisattva Repository. In reconciling the four, each repository corresponds to one teaching. In reconciling the eight, the period covered by the eight repositories begins with the bodhisattva’s descent into the womb, while that covered by the Four Teachings begins with the Buddha’s turning of the Dharma-wheel. Their temporal divisions therefore differ. Here they are correlated only through the eight teachings that operate after the turning of the Dharma-wheel.

Before the repositories of Embryonic Transformation and Intermediate Existence are explained to Ānanda, they are the secret teaching; when they are explained to him, they are the indeterminate teaching. The Mahāyāna-Vaipulya Repository is the sudden teaching. The five repositories beginning with Precepts and Discipline form the sequence within the gradual teaching: the Precepts and Discipline Repository is the Tripiṭaka Teaching; the Ten Abodes Repository is the Vaipulya Teaching; the Miscellaneous Repository is the Shared Teaching; the Vajra Repository is the Distinct Teaching; and the Buddha Repository is the Perfect Teaching. The Buddha’s intent is difficult to fathom, however. This is only a provisional reconciliation made by viewing the systems in relation to one another, and so forth.

The Basis for the Names and Meanings of the Four Teachings

Someone asks: From which scripture do the names and meanings of the Four Teachings come?

The answer says that the “Practice” chapter of the Chang Ahan records the Buddha in Śiśapā Village north of Yuanmi City teaching the four great teaching-principles: first, something heard directly from the Buddha; second, something heard from the harmonious community; third, something heard from many bhikṣus; and fourth, something heard from one bhikṣu. These are called the four great teaching-principles. Fascicle Six of the Moon-Lamp Samādhi Sūtra also explains four kinds of sūtra: conditioned activities, censure, afflictions, and purity.

Guanding privately offers the following correlation. Conditioned activities are dharmas arising from causes and conditions, which is the meaning of the Tripiṭaka Teaching. Censure means directly comprehending fault and wrongdoing, which is the meaning of the Shared Teaching. “Afflictions” means that without entering the great ocean one cannot obtain the jewel; without afflictions there would be no wisdom. This is the meaning of the Distinct Teaching. “Purity” means that once the single term “pure” is raised as its name, self, permanence, bliss, and the other meanings are naturally present. This is the meaning of the Perfect Teaching.

The four kinds of sūtra do not merely correspond separately to the Four Teachings. Each of the Four Teachings also possesses all four.

Within the Tripiṭaka Teaching, conditioned activities are the truth of accumulation; the fruit of conditioned activities is the truth of suffering; counteracting afflictions by means of an antidote belonging to conditioned activities is the truth of the path; and the purification of conditioned activities is the truth of cessation. In this way the Tripiṭaka Teaching possesses the four kinds of sūtra.

Within the Shared Teaching, censuring conditioned activities is the truth of accumulation; censuring all forms of existence is the truth of suffering; censuring the antidote to afflictions is the truth of the path; and censuring purity is the truth of cessation. In this way the Shared Teaching possesses the four kinds of sūtra.

Within the Distinct Teaching, conditioned activities produced by afflictions are the truth of accumulation; forms of existence produced by afflictions are the truth of suffering; the censuring of afflicted activities is the truth of the path; and purification of afflictions is the truth of cessation. In this way the Distinct Teaching possesses the four kinds of sūtra.

Within the Perfect Teaching, nirvāṇa is precisely birth-and-death, the purification of the truth of suffering; awakening is precisely affliction, the purification of the truth of accumulation; affliction is precisely awakening, the purification of the truth of the path; and birth-and-death is precisely nirvāṇa, the purification of the truth of cessation. These are the four kinds of sūtra within the Perfect Teaching.

The Moon-Lamp Samādhi Sūtra further explains four discourses, four Dharmas, four objects, four gateways, four knowledges that sever afflictions, four sufferings, four accumulations, and four paths. All correspond to the Four Teachings; their details should be understood from that scripture.

The seventh-bhūmi section of the Treatise on the Ten Stages says that one moment of mind possesses the ten perfections, the four means of gathering, the thirty-seven factors, and the Four Houses. It explains the Four Houses as the House of Prajñā, the House of Truth, the House of Relinquishing Afflictions, and the House of Purifying Suffering.

Guanding privately explains them as follows. Taking the truth of suffering as the first gateway and practicing the factors of the path so that suffering is purified expresses the Tripiṭaka Teaching. The House of Relinquishing Afflictions means relinquishing them through direct comprehension of the markless substance of dharmas: form, for example, is emptiness, and through emptiness one relinquishes without retaining a separate mark. Practicing the factors of the path in this way expresses the Shared Teaching. In the House of Prajñā, the illumination of wisdom makes every Dharma clear, one comprehends Dharma-gates numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and on that basis practices the factors of the path. This expresses the Distinct Teaching. In the House of Truth, “truth” means the principle of the true mark, which is the Perfect Teaching; one practices the factors of the path in terms of the true mark. The details are as the treatise explains, and so forth.

Sudden and Gradual Cannot Be Fixed to Chronological Periods

Dharmottara’s Meaning of the Traces of the Teaching says that “teaching” means the words by which the Buddha instructs those of lower faculties, while “traces” means tracks and may also be understood as traces of responsive manifestation and traces of transformation. The sages’ establishment of teachings leaves lines of approach, yet different masters have not classified the teachings in a single way.

The first theory holds that the teaching of Śākyamuni’s lifetime does not go beyond sudden and gradual, and that the gradual teaching contains seven stages and five periods. The world transmits this theory in common, and everyone says it is correct.

The second theory asks how the five periods could be fixed. Nevertheless, it holds that the teachings given before the passing between the twin śāla trees still left a remainder and were incomplete, while the proclamation of nirvāṇa was complete.

The third theory holds that the Buddha responds to myriad kinds of beings with one voice, with those of great and lesser faculties receiving it together. How, then, could one impose sudden and gradual upon it? This theory therefore says there are no sudden and gradual teachings.

When tested against the scriptures and treatises, these explanations prove to be strained constructions. Why? People say that the Buddha’s teachings do not go beyond sudden and gradual, but those categories do not actually encompass all teachings. The four Āgamas and the five Vinayas, for example, do not exhaust profound meaning and so cannot be called sudden. Their teaching also extends from the beginning to the end of the Buddha’s lifetime and does not progress in the sequence assigned to the Great Vehicle, so it cannot be called that kind of gradual teaching either. Since there are teachings not contained by sudden and gradual, how can one say that the Buddha’s teaching does not go beyond them?

Nevertheless, there is such a thing as sudden teaching, so it too cannot be rejected wholesale. Sudden and gradual are generally discussed according to the persons addressed by the teaching. From the Tathāgata’s side, He actually presents the Great and Lesser Vehicles together, without temporal priority. The persons addressed understand differently: some receive the teaching suddenly, while others enter gradually, and the teachings are compiled according to what each group heard. How could one say that there is no sudden teaching? What cannot be done is to fix sudden and gradual to chronological periods and use temporal order to compare their depth.

Successively Refuting the So-Called Five Periods

People say that the gradual teaching has seven stages and five periods and that, immediately after attaining the Way, the Buddha first taught the human-and-heaven gateway of the Five Precepts and Ten Wholesome Actions to the two elders Trapuṣa and Bhallika. Yet the Buddha teaches according to what sentient beings should hear: whenever something is appropriate, He teaches it. How could the first period be restricted to teaching the Five Precepts to only two people? The Five Precepts Sūtra also says that the two elders attained the forbearance in which dharmas do not arise, three hundred people attained the forbearance of faith, and two hundred attained the fruit of stream-entry. The Puyao Jing says that the Buddha predicted buddhahood for the two elders under the name Tathāgata Mìchéng. If so, what supports the claim that the first teaching to the two was merely a human-and-heaven gateway? Moreover, the two elders saw the Buddha, heard the Dharma, bowed, and departed; they never went to the Deer Park. When the Five Precepts were first taught, Kauṇḍinya had not yet been transformed. What did that teaching follow in sequence, and how could it be called gradual?

People say that the second period comprised twelve years of separate teaching for the Three Vehicles. If so, after twelve years there would still have been people suited to hearing the Four Truths, dependent arising, and the six perfections. Could the Buddha have refused to teach them? If He continued to teach, then the separate teachings of the Three Vehicles were not confined to twelve years. If He did not, could the Buddha have abandoned this later group of beings ready to hear? That is impossible. A scripture says that the Buddha taught the Four Truths for śrāvakas, and so on through His teaching of the six perfections. This did not stop after twelve years; throughout the Buddha’s lifetime, He taught whenever someone was ready to hear. The four Āgamas and five Vinayas were taught for śrāvakas and continued until the Sage’s passing. The Zengyi Ahan Jing therefore says that Śākyamuni taught the precepts only in brief for twelve years, then established them extensively once blemishes arose. The “Traveling Sūtra” of the Chang Ahan continues through nirvāṇa. How can one say that every Lesser Vehicle teaching was confined to twelve years?

People say that in the third period, lasting thirty years, the Buddha taught the emptiness school of Prajñā, the Vimalakīrti, and the Sūtra of Brahmā’s Questions. What scriptural passage establishes that it lasted thirty years?

Others say that the Buddha taught the One Vehicle of the Lotus only after forty years. In the Lotus Sūtra, Maitreya says that only a little more than forty years have passed since the Buddha attained the Way. Yet this does not establish that the Lotus necessarily followed the Larger Prajñā. Why? The Da Zhidu Lun says that Subhūti had heard in the Lotus that those who merely raised a hand or bowed their head would all become buddhas, and on that basis now asked whether one might fall back. If this account is followed, how could the order of the Larger Prajñā and the Lotus be fixed?

It is difficult to make a hasty judgment about the relative depth of the Larger Prajñā, the Lotus, and the Nirvāṇa. Why? The buddha-nature taught in the Nirvāṇa is also called Prajñā and also called the One Vehicle. The One Vehicle is the purport of the Lotus, and Prajñā is what the Larger Prajñā teaches. This already clarifies nature; what remains incomplete? The Larger Prajñā teaches the emptiness of ultimate truth, which does not differ from the emptiness taught in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra: both teach the emptiness of form and even the emptiness of great nirvāṇa. The Larger Prajñā also says that “nirvāṇa is not a conjured phenomenon,” while the Vimalakīrti says that the Buddha’s body is free from the five forms of impermanence. How do these differ from the Nirvāṇa’s teaching of permanence and of nirvāṇa as not empty? Why create a distinction and claim that the Vimalakīrti predominantly teaches permanence while the Larger Prajñā exclusively teaches emptiness?

Because Ānanda and other śrāvakas attended the Larger Prajñā assembly, then the Lotus assembly, and finally the Nirvāṇa assembly, some conclude that those three teachings must have a fixed order of depth. This does not necessarily follow. Ānanda and Kāśyapa attended the Lotus assembly. If they had not yet heard the teaching of permanence there, and neither was present at the Nirvāṇa assembly, how could they understand permanence and transmit the Nirvāṇa? Further, Śāriputra entered extinction seven days before the Buddha’s nirvāṇa, while Maudgalyāyana, beaten by staff-bearing non-Buddhist practitioners, also entered nirvāṇa before the Buddha. Neither was present at the assembly between the twin śāla trees. Does that mean they could not understand permanence? One should therefore know that they had already awakened to permanence within the Lotus and did not need to hear it again.

Moreover, Śāriputra and the other śrāvakas are responsive participants who assist the Tathāgata’s teaching. The Lotus Sūtra says that, knowing beings delight in lesser Dharmas and fear great wisdom, bodhisattvas therefore appear as śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. The Nirvāṇa likewise says that the eldest son in the Buddha’s Dharma is Mahākāśyapa, while Ānanda, the learned one, can sever every doubt and naturally understand what is permanent and what is impermanent. Responsive participants manifest as great within a Great Vehicle teaching and as lesser within a lesser teaching. How could their attendance at an assembly be used to fix a sequence of stages?

Further, if one proceeds from the Lotus into the Nirvāṇa, the Lotus Sūtra has already clarified that birth in the royal palace was not the beginning of buddhahood and that He attained the Way in the remote past. Why would the Nirvāṇa only then cite the initial attainment beneath the bodhi tree, take it as literal fact, and raise a doubt? The Nirvāṇa Sūtra is therefore for one group of beings who were finally ready to hear permanence. Those who heard the Lotus did not need to hear the Nirvāṇa in order to understand it.

The Nirvāṇa Sūtra also brings great benefit, like the eight thousand śrāvakas in the Lotus who received predictions and brought a great fruit to maturity. If the predictions in the Lotus are used to demonstrate the benefit of the Nirvāṇa, then the two share the same principle and have no fixed hierarchy of depth.

The Lotus Upadeśa also says that the principle of the Lotus Sūtra is Perfect and its teaching ultimate, lacking nothing. In the Da Zhidu Lun, Nāgārjuna praises the Lotus as the most profound. Why are the other scriptures entrusted to Ānanda, while only the Lotus is entrusted solely to bodhisattvas? One can therefore know that the Lotus is ultimately complete and requires no further doubt.

One should further know that the various Great Vehicle scriptures do not differ in their destination; their names differ only according to what is appropriate for sentient beings. Avataṃsaka, Immeasurable Meanings, and Lotus are names of samādhis. Prajñā means great wisdom. The Vimalakīrti’s “inconceivable liberation” is liberation; great nirvāṇa is ultimate cessation; and the awakening about which Mañjuśrī asks is the fulfilled path. All are Buddha-Dharma. The Dharma itself has no superiority or inferiority: whenever they clarify the fruit, it is the fruit of buddhahood; whenever they clarify the cause, it is practice on the bodhisattva stages; whenever they clarify principle, it is Dharma-nature; and those they address are bodhisattvas. Their destination should not differ, so why do people forcibly manufacture superiority and inferiority? If this is so, when Master Dan says that every teaching before the twin trees, including the Lotus Sūtra, was incomplete, is that not a false accusation? Human judgments have proceeded in this way; what do the scriptures and treatises themselves say?

Establishing the Śrāvaka and Bodhisattva Repositories from the Scriptures and Treatises

The mātṛkā says that of the twelve divisions of scripture, only Vaipulya is the Bodhisattva Repository, while the eleven divisions are the Śrāvaka Repository. The Buddha separately taught the path out of suffering for śrāvakas and bodhisattvas. The compilers of the scriptures gathered what was taught for bodhisattvas as the Bodhisattva Repository and what was taught for śrāvakas as the Śrāvaka Repository. In the Da Zhidu Lun, Nāgārjuna likewise says that Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda compiled the Tripiṭaka on Fragrant Mountain as the Śrāvaka Repository, while Mañjuśrī and Ānanda compiled the Great Vehicle scriptures as the Bodhisattva Repository. The Nirvāṇa also says that the scriptures in eleven divisions are upheld by those of the Two Vehicles and that the Vaipulya division is upheld by bodhisattvas. On examining the scriptures and treatises, then, there are in brief only two: the Śrāvaka Repository and the Bodhisattva Repository.

Yet teaching necessarily corresponds to the persons addressed, and each repository addresses two kinds.

Within the Śrāvaka Repository are determinate śrāvakas and śrāvakas who have lost the aspiration for awakening. Determinate śrāvakas have long cultivated distinct kinds of wholesome roots. Their minds are small and narrow, their Lesser Vehicle nature is fully formed, and they delight exclusively in the lesser teaching. The Buddha teaches the lesser Dharma for them; ultimately they realize its fruit and cannot proceed to the Great Vehicle. Śrāvakas who have lost the aspiration for awakening once aroused bodhicitta in the presence of past buddhas and bodhisattvas. Passing through birth and death, however, they forgot their original resolve, developed a Lesser Vehicle mind, and aspired to the lesser teaching. The Buddha first teaches the lesser Dharma for them and ultimately causes them to proceed to the Great Vehicle. Thus, determinate śrāvakas remain in the lesser teaching, while śrāvakas who have lost bodhicitta can later proceed to the Great Vehicle. One group remains and the other departs, but they are alike when receiving the lesser Dharma. The teaching for both is therefore called the Śrāvaka Repository.

Within the Bodhisattva Repository are those capable of sudden awakening and bodhisattvas who enter gradually. Those capable of sudden awakening are like the beings addressed by the Avataṃsaka and other scriptures: they do not come through the Lesser Vehicle but enter the Great Vehicle straightaway, and are therefore called sudden. Those who enter gradually are precisely the śrāvakas who earlier lost the aspiration for awakening and can later enter the Great Vehicle. Their Great Vehicle practice comes through the lesser teaching and is therefore called gradual. Although one group is sudden and the other gradual, they are alike when receiving the great Dharma. The teaching for both is therefore called the Bodhisattva Repository.

The names of these two repositories are fixed according to the principal persons addressed and the principal Dharma taught. Bodhisattvas may be present within the Śrāvaka Repository as responsive participants, but they are not its principal audience. The presence of bodhisattvas in an assembly does not make the scripture a Great Vehicle scripture. Śrāvakas may likewise be present within the Bodhisattva Repository, but they are not its principal audience and śrāvaka Dharma is not its purport, so it cannot be called a Lesser Vehicle teaching. The Dharma is determined according to the principal persons addressed, and each has its own designation. The scriptures are therefore summarized under only these two repositories.

Someone asks: The Buddha taught three kinds of teaching for people seeking the Three Vehicles. Why, then, are the compiled repositories limited to two?

The answer is that the Buddha indeed taught the Dharmas of the Three Vehicles to people seeking those three vehicles. Those who hear dependent arising, however, are included with the śrāvakas. Pratyekabuddhas appear in ages without a buddha, merely display supernormal powers, and remain silent without teaching. The compilers therefore gathered the spoken scriptures into two repositories. This is the purport of classifying the teachings on the basis of the scriptures.

Opening the Two Repositories into the Four Teachings

How should the Four Teachings now presented be reconciled with Dharmottara’s two repositories? Dharmottara himself says that, when one gathers the essentials, there are in brief only two. They can now be opened and classified as four: the Śrāvaka Repository is the Tripiṭaka Teaching; the Bodhisattva Repository opens into the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings. The Tripiṭaka Teaching is taught for determinate śrāvakas; the Shared Teaching for śrāvakas who have lost the Great Vehicle resolve; the Distinct Teaching for gradually awakening bodhisattvas; and the Perfect Teaching for suddenly awakening bodhisattvas. Not only are the names and numbers of the two repositories and Four Teachings easily reconciled; their meanings and intentions coincide at a profound level. The present Four Teachings and the ancient two repositories correspond perfectly, without divergence.

The earlier wording is brief but its meaning is broad; the single formulation encompasses many implications. To explain what is hidden and make it manifest, one must therefore argue at length. It is like fishing and hunting through rivers and marshes: when there is much to catch, many nets and traps must be tied. Do fishers and hunters love prolixity? They speak at length because they have no alternative.

The Master’s Words Concluding the Preceding and Giving Rise to the Following

At this point Guanding turns to recording the words of Master Zhiyi: “With the Five Chapters, I have discussed the Profound Meaning only in brief. I cannot express the wondrous meaning beyond the words and have merely given a rough account of what I hold in mind. I have always regretted that speech cannot fully convey intent; how much less could a record fully preserve speech? Nevertheless, if one can first seek the seven meanings, next use them to comprehend the ten subtleties, and then examine the seven within the separate explanation, the remaining Five Chapters will link and follow one another with a pattern as clear as embroidery. The scriptures cited will confirm them one by one, and every sentence will circle back into agreement. They will not merely encompass the various named teachings and include the half and full.

“One can further bring contemplation to fulfillment within present phenomena, like breaking through the dry earth of ordinary beings and seeing the wet clay of the sages’ Dharma. The path of perfect penetration becomes open here, and the illumination of universal illumination becomes clear here. All this has been supplied above. From this point onward, the scripture itself will be interpreted passage by passage.”