妙法蓮華經玄義 · 名相Glossary

OriginsThe impetus for what was recorded and the source of the teaching〔0815b11〕. In this piece, that source lies precisely in three layers: the teacher's virtue, reception of the teaching, and its transmission.

Provisional and realIn the first three of the six similes, they have the three meanings of establishment, opening, and relinquishment; the lotus illustrates the real and the flower the provisional〔T33n1717 0816b20〕. The provisional is not falsehood, nor does the real erase everything previously taught. What the similes reveal is a relation of establishment, disclosure, and relinquishment of attachment.

Origin and TraceIn the latter three similes, the lotus is the Origin and the flower the Trace. Manifesting the Trace downward from the Origin first says that the manifestation has a root; opening the Trace to reveal the Origin makes the original ground in the remote past visible; relinquishing the Trace to establish the Origin means no longer taking the Trace of recent attainment as ultimate.

Increasing the path and diminishing birthThe later treatise explains with planting and weeding: the myriad practices provide support like planting, and wisdom breaks delusion like weeding〔T33n1716 0695a27–a28〕. “Diminishing birth” means the gradual diminution of divided birth rooted in ignorance, not harming life.

Later summary expressionsThe Five Periods and Eight Teachings, modes of transformation, methods of transformation, Tripiṭaka/shared/distinct/perfect, the ten subtleties of the Trace Gate, the ten subtleties of the Origin Gate, and “three thousand in one thought-moment” are summary expressions commonly used in later guidance and synthesis. They are not verbatim terms in this unit at 0681a25–b24. If used for navigation, these names must remain layered apart from the six similes, Five Chapters, and Origin and Trace actually found in the text.

Perfect jewelThis means the priceless jewel inside the clothing in “The Five Hundred Disciples Receive Their Predictions” chapter. The root sutra says “priceless”; the private preface uses “perfect jewel” to discuss principle. “Perfect” is an interpretation here, not an original graph qualifying the root sutra's jewel.

Treasure placeThis means the treasure destination toward which travelers proceed in “The Parable of the Conjured City” chapter. The conjured city is for temporary rest, while the treasure place is the destination. Nearness and distance concern delusion and awakening, not cartographic measurement.

Principle transcends the partial and the perfectThis sentence first says that principle is not confined by the terms partial and perfect, then immediately uses the perfect jewel to discuss it. It does not cancel the meaning of perfection; it uses a simile to rely on language without making language the basis of principle itself.

Wondrous, Dharma, lotus, and flowerThis passage calls opening the secret and profound treasury wondrous, showing the correct tracks of the provisional and the real Dharma, the original fruit in the remote past lotus, and the nondual perfect path flower〔T33n1716 0681c02–c05〕. This is the verbatim assignment within this private preface and coexists with 00b's assignment of the lotus fruit to the real and the flower to the provisional.

Original ground and original fruitThe original ground is the root of original realization from which teaching becomes possible; the original fruit is the fruition of buddhahood in the remote past. Both contrast with the Trace of recent attainment and mean neither a geographical homeland nor an original physical copy of a book.

Later summary expressionsThe Five Periods and Eight Teachings, modes of transformation, methods of transformation, Tripiṭaka/shared/distinct/perfect, the ten subtleties of the Trace Gate, the ten subtleties of the Origin Gate, and “three thousand in one thought-moment” are expressions commonly used in later arrangements of Tiantai doctrine. They are not verbatim terms at 0681b25–c23. This unit should unfold according to its extant perfect jewel, treasure place, four flowers and six quakings, Five Chapters, and Origin and Trace.

Five chaptersExplaining the name, discerning the substance, clarifying the purport, discussing the function, and classifying the teaching are five approaches to reading a scripture. “Chapter” means an outline heading, not five passages of scripture. Although the latter portion of this pass sets out each chapter extensively in turn, it has not yet entered the separate explanation that follows.

Seven passesSetting out the chapters, citing evidence, showing how the chapters arise in sequence, opening and combining, resolving questions, contemplating the mind, and integrating differences are seven methods of shared explanation. “Pass” preserves their sequence and repeated illumination; they cannot be turned into seven parallel topics outside the five chapters.

Shared and separateThe treatise itself says that shared means the same or held in common, while separate means different or individual. The shared treatment lets the seven passes illuminate all five chapters together; the separate treatment lets the five chapters be extensively explained in their own right without confusion.

Substance, purport, and functionSubstance directly indicates the true mark; purport is the essential cause and fruit of one’s own practice; function is the effective power that cuts off doubt, gives rise to faith, and benefits sentient beings. The three depend upon one another but have different functions. Their meanings are not replaced by the modern senses of physical matter, religious school, or instrument.

Characteristics of the teachingTeaching is the verbal teaching that a sage applies to sentient beings below; characteristics distinguish sameness and difference. The opening chapter is called classifying the teaching, while the body later speaks of setting out the characteristics of the teaching. Each form is kept in its place in the treatise rather than forcibly made uniform.

Zhang’an’s private explanation“Private” marks the recorder’s own supplementary explanation; it does not mean a secret teaching. Within the present pass, only the layer at 0682c13–0683a08 before Clarifying the Purport is explicitly marked in this way. The whole pass cannot be attributed to the recorder, nor can this passage be erased into Zhiyi’s direct teaching.

Citing evidenceThis proves the five chapters through passages from the root scripture; it does not replace the root scripture with the five chapters. The treatise assigns the relationships of proof. The scripture itself does not list the names of the five chapters.

Shared evidence and separate evidencePassages from the “Introduction” chapter, Supernormal Powers, and related sections provide evidence in common for the meanings of the five chapters. The six Medicine King similes separately take the characteristics of the teaching as what they directly prove. “Shared” means that the evidence is not confined to the characteristics of the teaching; “separate” means specifically addressing one item. The other meanings are established alongside the teaching at the end of the six similes, but this does not change their direct focus.

Name, substance, purport, function, and characteristics of the teachingThe auspicious sign and scripture title prove the name; passages on the true mark prove discerning the substance; seekers and the cause and fruit they seek prove the purport; cutting off doubt and the real taught after a long time prove function; and the six similes directly prove the characteristics of the teaching. The five must be read according to the treatise’s assignment rather than exchanged because of variants in the extant scripture.

Vast, high, full, illuminating, sovereign, ultimateThe treatise draws one meaning from each of the similes ocean, mountain, moon, sun, Brahmā King, and buddha. These are explanations of the similes, not six separate headings listed by the root scripture.

Introduction and disseminationMañjuśrī’s answer is in the introductory division; the entrustment through supernormal powers is in the dissemination division. The two ends gather the essentials, while the main teaching lies between them. Citing the two ends does not pass over the main teaching but embraces the whole scripture through its beginning and end.

Arising and coming forthWhat can produce is called arising; what is produced is called coming forth. The emphasis lies on the successive unfolding of before and after, not on a preceding chapter temporally manufacturing a later chapter.

Coarse and fineThe name that expresses is easier to recognize and comes first. Substance, purport, and function become progressively more profound. The characteristics of the teaching distinguish the preceding four and therefore come last. Coarse and fine describe a sequence of knowing and discerning; they do not demean name in order to exalt substance.

Name, Dharma, and substanceA name indicates a Dharma, and by following the name one recognizes the substance. A name does not itself carry a physical thing, and the substance does not newly arise because of the name. Revealing Dharma through conventional truth and the absence of marks in the ultimate truth must both be preserved.

Sequence of teaching and sequence of practiceThe first proceeds from Dharma, supernormal power, secret treasury, and profound matters to distinguishing the characteristics of the teaching. The second proceeds from hearing the name, investigating the principle, giving rise to the cause and fruit of practice, removing delusion and benefiting others, to distinguishing sameness and difference. The two routes return to the same five chapters from different starting points.

Opening and combiningCombined, the five chapters explain one scripture in common; opened, each chapter can unfold through many sets of relationships. Opening does not scatter them, and combining does not erase their differences.

Five modesThese are the five pairs phenomena and principle, teaching and practice, cause and fruit, self and other, and speech and silence. Each pair horizontally embraces explaining the name, discerning the substance, clarifying the purport, discussing the function, and the characteristics of the teaching; the five pairs are not correlated one-to-one with the five chapters.

Three tracksEach of the ten Dharmas can be discussed generally through the three tracks, separately correlated with substance, purport, and function, and finally distinguished through the characteristics of the teaching. The three tracks are the method for opening each item, not a fourth route coordinated with the ten modes.

Consciousness, life, and warmthIn the human-body simile, consciousness represents substance, life represents purport, and warmth represents function. The general name human body represents explaining the name, while differences in social identity represent the characteristics of the teaching.

Resolving questionsThrough questions and answers, this distinguishes similar meanings and the boundaries of their assignment. It does not add a new chapter but tests whether the preceding five chapters and their opening and combining are coherent.

General simile and particular similesThe lotus is the general simile for the relationship between provisional and real. The seven similes from the burning house through the physician and his children each reveal one aspect and are particular similes. The general can embrace the particular without implying that the lotus appears verbatim in every one of the seven.

The provisional of one’s own practice and the provisional for transforming othersThe second group uses this distinction to separate the provisional Lesser Vehicle for transforming others, represented by the grass hut and requiring the breaking of attachment, from the provisional within the practitioner’s own substance, which the flower can reveal. Both are called provisional but belong to different levels.

Purport and functionThe purport takes the cause and fruit of one’s own practice as what is honored and essential. Function takes benefiting others as effective power. Both can involve wisdom and severance, self and other, and provisional and real. They must be judged through assignment and operation, not through the surface recurrence of the same terms.

Obtaining what is shared without losing what is separateThe five meanings can be asked in common of all scriptures and thereby obtain what is shared; each scripture answers differently and thereby does not lose what is separate. “Shared explanation” does not mean declaring the contents of all scriptures identical.

Contemplating the mindThis is not the addition of another chapter outside the explanation of concrete matters. It makes each passage from Setting Out the Chapters through Resolving Questions enter contemplation. The contemplated, the contemplator, accordance with the object, gaining liberation, and the teaching and transformation of mental factors all unfold within the one mind.

Mind-king and mental factorsThe mind-king and corresponding mental factors can arise together or predominantly. The present pass lets every factor gain liberation when the one mind gains liberation, and assigns the distinction between arising together and predominantly to the characteristics of the teaching.

Learning and wisdom and contemplative practiceLearning without contemplation is like counting another’s treasures while having no share oneself; contemplation without learning readily treats what has not been attained as attained. The two need each other; neither side is taken as the sole correct practice.

Six identitiesIdentity in principle, identity in name, identity in contemplative practice, approximate identity, partial identity in realization, and ultimate identity. The base text here reads verbatim “partial identity in realization.” The six names reveal one and the same principle while also distinguishing the depths of cultivation and realization.

Dharma-wealth and overweening prideWhat is gained through inward contemplation is likened to Dharma-wealth; correct faith and outward learning prevent overweening pride. The final sentence names clear-sighted wisdom and illuminating learning together, precisely gathering both sides into completeness.

Four siddhāntasThe worldly siddhānta accords with desire and establishes a correct view of the world. The individually adapted siddhānta contemplates faculties and produces goodness. The counteractive siddhānta uses Dharma-medicine to treat evil. The ultimate-meaning siddhānta enables entry into the real. “Individually” cannot be omitted, because its point is precisely that people’s minds differ.

WorldlyA describable world exists through the separation of names and characteristics such as aggregates, sense fields, and elements; persons, carts, and other provisional names are also established through the combination of causes and conditions. “Worldly” is not a synonym for “false”; it is the differentiated level upon which teaching can rely.

Speech and silenceSage speech benefits through language, while sage silence can also accord with the faculties of those weary of words and enable awakening. Silence is not without function, and speech is not appropriate on every occasion.

Attainment and useAttainment means personal realization; use means benefiting others. Four alternatives are possible: neither attaining nor using, attaining but not using, not attaining but using, and both attaining and using. The distinction concerns not only how much one knows but whether one can teach in a way that fits the faculty.

Provisional and real; opening and revealingProvisional and real first distinguish skillful means and reality in different modes of teaching. Opening and revealing then resolves all provisional siddhāntas into the wondrous four siddhāntas of the Lotus. Opening does not erase earlier benefit; it makes what that benefit points toward no longer separate from the wondrous.

Penetrating the scriptureThe four siddhāntas read the “Skillful Means” chapter’s desire, nature, power of diligence, and sharp or dull faculties, and the “Lifespan” chapter’s nature, desire, practice, and recollective thought and distinction. The treatise master reveals four intents of establishing teaching from the scriptural passages; the root scripture does not separately list the four siddhānta names.

Shared and specificTeaching is specific according to capacities and conditions and shared according to the Buddha’s speech. Practice is specific according to what enters into accord and shared according to that with which it accords. Principle is specific according to its names and shared according to the principle those names indicate. The three pairs complete one another; the issue is not only a shared or specific title for the scripture.

Treatment within each division and treatment across divisionsThe former explains shared and specific within the bounds of each teaching’s body, speech, practice, and principle. The latter opens skillful means and reveals reality so that the original body, Dharma, practice, and principle are all revealed as real. “Division” refers to the bounds of a teaching gate, not merely temporal sequence.

Convenience of naming and convenience of meaningThe title praises its Dharma and, according to naming, calls it wondrous first. Explanation must first establish the Dharma under discussion and then distinguish its wondrousness. The two sequences each have their convenience; wondrous and Dharma do not arise one after another.

Four unitiesUnity of teaching, practice, person, and principle. The four difficulties under each of the six groups test past and present substance, stage, and function through these four; “four times six makes twenty-four” does not establish twenty-four separate meanings.

Three dharmasThe dharmas of sentient beings, the dharmas of buddhas, and the dharmas of mind. Their substance in principle is without difference, while their expository orientations differ: the dharmas of sentient beings are broad, the dharmas of buddhas are approached through fruit, and the dharmas of mind through cause. Because the dharmas of mind are near to beginners, they become the entrance to contemplation.

The ten suchnesses and three transformed readingsThe ten suchnesses are appearance, nature, substance, capacity, activity, cause, condition, fruit, recompense, and the ultimate equality of beginning and end. The three transformations read the phrases as “this appearance is such,” “such is this appearance,” and “appearance such—is,” separately revealing emptiness, provisional establishment, and the middle, and immediately integrate them. They are not three mutually exclusive versions.

Mutual inclusion of the ten realms and the hundred realms and thousand suchnessesOne realm has ten suchnesses, and the ten realms therefore have a hundred. Each realm further includes the other nine, producing a hundred realms; because each of the hundred has ten suchnesses, there are a thousand suchnesses. The express wording of this passage stops at “the hundred realms and thousand suchnesses.” “Three thousand in one thought-moment” is explicitly identified as the later summary expression and is not substituted for the passage’s own wording.

Provisional and realIn rough judgment, the first four differentiated groups are provisional and the Buddha realm is real. In fine analysis, every realm possesses both provisional and real. The rough judgment serves explanation and cannot be used to cancel mutual inclusion.

Nine and tenThe ten suchnesses of the Two Vehicles, bodhisattvas, and the Buddha realm each raise the question whether recompense-fruit is present. The treatise analyzes the question according to segmented and transformational birth, stage-by-stage attainment, wondrous awakening, and present or later existence. Nine and ten therefore retain their respective conditions.

Relational wondrousness and absolute wondrousnessThe relational is established through the mutual definition of half and full, permanent and impermanent, great and small, and carrying or not carrying skillful means. The absolute reaches the point where there is no Dharma outside the Dharma realm and nothing to await, while also refusing to establish “absolute” as another graspable entity. The two gates of relational and absolute already reveal the principle of the middle; no third gate is invented.

Four horizontal and three verticalEach of the four teaching gates explains its own absolute and forms a horizontal classification. Trace, Origin, and contemplation of mind advance within the Perfect Teaching and form a vertical classification. Horizontal and vertical are two organizational axes, not simple judgments of higher and lower.

Later summary expressionsThe Five Periods and Eight Teachings, modes of transformation, Dharmas of transformation, the fourfold string Tripiṭaka-shared-distinct-perfect, the ten subtleties of the Trace Gate, and the ten subtleties of the Origin Gate do not occur as verbatim expressions in this unit. When mentioned in the apparatus, they are identified only as later summaries and do not replace the five flavors, four teachings, Trace and Origin, or syntax of the ten subtleties actually used by the treatise.

Subtlety of objectsThe objects include the ten suchnesses, dependent origination, the Four Truths, the Two Truths, the Three Truths, the One Truth, and so forth. Because they are what the buddhas rely upon and illuminate, they are called wondrous. An “object” is neither an external thing nor a personified teacher.

The ten subtletiesThe treatise lists objects, wisdom, practice, stages, the Three Dharmas, stimulus and response, supernormal powers, teaching the Dharma, retinues, and benefits. Later tradition often designates this list as “the ten subtleties of the Trace Gate,” but that is an abbreviated later term; the treatise’s actual wording is “the ten subtleties within the Trace.” Corresponding expressions such as “the ten subtleties of the Origin Gate,” “the five periods and eight teachings,” “modes of transformation,” “Dharmas of transformation,” “Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect,” and “three thousand in one thought-moment” are also later summary terms. They may serve as traditional guide-markers but must not be passed off as phrases in the treatise’s own wording.

Wisdom as eyes, practice as feetWisdom is like the eyes and practice like the two feet. Objects, wisdom, and practice arise in sequence so that what is known is not separated from what is practiced.

The four kinds of twelvefold dependent originationConceivable arising-and-ceasing, conceivable non-arising and non-ceasing, inconceivable arising-and-ceasing, and inconceivable non-arising and non-ceasing. The first two concern dull and sharp faculties within the realms; the latter two concern dull and sharp faculties beyond the realms. They are not four unrelated causal chains.

Originating condition and conditionally arisenThe treatise first calls the cause originating condition and the fruit conditionally arisen, then lists the four alternatives: originating condition but not conditionally arisen, conditionally arisen but not originating condition, both, and neither. The distinction therefore cannot be flattened into one later formula.

Twelve times and a single instantThe twelve times correlate the twelve links with the temporal sequence of a life. A single instant correlates the ignorance, volition, mind, activity, and other factors present in one thought of greedy killing with the links. These are different scales of observation.

The three tracks are precisely the three virtuesIn perfect twelvefold dependent origination, the three tracks of affliction, karma, and suffering are precisely bodhi, liberation, and the Dharma-body. The point is to reveal principle right within phenomena, not first to sever the three tracks elsewhere and then separately attain the three virtues.

The four kinds of Four TruthsArising-and-ceasing, non-arising, immeasurable, and unconstructed are four levels of the Four Truths. They are not the four individual items suffering, accumulation, cessation, and path.

According to dispositions, dispositions and wisdom, and wisdomThese are three standpoints of teaching and understanding: sentient beings’ affective views, entering noble wisdom from affective views, and noble wisdom illuminating true and conventional. They should not be reduced to a binary of subjective and objective.

The seven kinds of Two TruthsThey unfold through levels of real existence, illusory existence as immediately empty, entry into nonemptiness, the Distinct, and the Perfect. The same illusory conventional can become three levels of Two Truths according to three understandings of the true. Receiving means that a higher teaching receives a faculty; integration means the Lotus integration. The two meanings differ.

The five kinds of Three TruthsThe Middle Way is indicated on the basis of the latter five kinds of Two Truths, making five levels of Three Truths. They are not only one fixed formula of true, conventional, and Middle.

One Truth and no truthThe One Truth discloses the one real. No truth destroys attachment to an expressible reality. No truth is not annihilation or denial of principle; it refuses even conceptual proliferation concerning the one real.

Each later object integrates upwardAccording to the sequence of the main text, each object listed later integrates level by level with those listed earlier. This explains how, despite the proliferation of names among the six objects, their meanings can still mutually encompass one another.

Subtlety of wisdomUltimate principle is mysterious and subtle and must be revealed through wisdom. Wisdom capable of knowing the knowable must also accord with an interfused object. “Wondrous” does not designate only the single highest wisdom; it also means that after the wisdoms are judged and opened, they are no longer separated from the wondrous object.

Number, class, characteristicNumber is the complete list of twenty names. Class combines similar items according to stage of practice and object. Characteristic explains the actual mode of each class of wisdom. Identical counts do not entail equal lengths of explanation for their characteristics.

Five calming contemplations and four establishments of mindfulnessThe five calming contemplations treat distraction through counting the breath, desire through impurity, anger through loving-kindness, delusion through dependent origination, and obstruction to the path through recollection of the Buddha. The four establishments use contemplations of body, feeling, mind, and dharmas to counteract the four inversions of permanence, pleasure, self, and purity. Both possess concentration and wisdom and remain at the outer ordinary stage.

Twenty wisdomsWorldly wisdom; wisdom of the five calming contemplations and four establishments of mindfulness; wisdom of the four wholesome roots; wisdom of the four fruits; pratyekabuddha wisdom; wisdom of the six perfections; Shared-Teaching śrāvaka wisdom embodying Dharmas; Shared-Teaching pratyekabuddha wisdom embodying Dharmas; Shared-Teaching bodhisattva skillful wisdom embodying Dharmas and entering the true; Shared-Teaching bodhisattva wisdom embodying Dharmas and emerging into the provisional; wisdom of the Distinct Teaching’s ten faiths; wisdom of its thirty minds; wisdom of its ten grounds; Buddha wisdom of the Tripiṭaka Teaching; Buddha wisdom of the Shared Teaching; Buddha wisdom of the Distinct Teaching; wisdom of disciples at the Perfect Teaching’s five grades; wisdom of purification of the six faculties; wisdom from the first abode through equal awakening; and wisdom of wondrous awakening. Not one item may be omitted.

IlluminationWisdom does not alone seize an object in one direction. When named according to causes and conditions, wisdom and object are only provisional names; from the inconceivable perspective, object and wisdom can mutually illuminate, like mirrors reflecting one another and like earth producing a sprout while the sprout produces earth in return.

Judging coarse and wondrousFirst the initial twelve wisdoms are judged coarse and the latter eight wondrous. Within the Distinct Teaching’s four wisdoms, three are then judged coarse and one wondrous, while all four wisdoms of the Perfect Teaching are wondrous. Judgment continues through the four alternatives of neither knowing nor seeing, knowing but not seeing, seeing but not knowing, and both knowing and seeing, and through the five eyes. Coarse and wondrous are always established according to what is heard, realized, and illuminated and whether it interfuses perfectly.

Opening the coarse to reveal the wondrousOpening does not delete or deny preceding wisdoms. It resolves their skillful function, enabling the first sixteen wisdoms to enter the latter four and the four eyes to enter the Buddha eye. Once the coarse has been opened and revealed, no coarse remains with which the wondrous stands in relation; the relational thereby enters the absolute.

Transforming others, one’s own practice together with transforming others, one’s own practiceEach set of provisional and real wisdom is divided into three levels: teaching provisional and real to others according to faculties; comparing inner realization with teaching others; and distinguishing provisional and real within one’s own realization. Seven sets with three each make twenty-one kinds of provisional and real wisdom.

Five kinds of three wisdomsFirst, Middle wisdom enters empty wisdom. Second, tathāgatagarbha wisdom enters empty wisdom. Third, Middle wisdom and the wisdoms of emptiness and provisionality separately face one another. Fourth, tathāgatagarbha wisdom enters Middle wisdom. Fifth, the three wisdoms perfectly interfuse. Although the names omniscience, wisdom of the varieties of the path, and the knowledge of all modes are the same, their referents are not identical across these five modes of mutual entry.

Relational and absoluteWhen the object does not turn, wisdom remains coarse and subtlety stands in relation to the coarse. When the object turns into the wondrous and coarse wisdom immediately becomes wondrous, opening and revealing is absolute. The absolute does not create another highest wisdom apart from all wisdoms.

Later summary expressionsThe Five Periods and Eight Teachings, modes of transformation, methods of transformation, the Tripiṭaka-Shared-Distinct-Perfect formula, ten subtleties of the Trace Gate, ten subtleties of the Origin Gate, and three thousand in one thought-moment do not occur verbatim in this unit. They are identified here only as later summary expressions and do not replace the treatise’s actual wording concerning the Four Teachings, Five Flavors, ten subtleties, and the grammar of object and wisdom.

Subtlety of practicePractice means advancing toward a destination and must be guided by wisdom to enter the right object. Yet mere mutual dependence among the three is not wondrous. Wondrousness is marked by the treatise’s own one practice as all practices, the mutual discussion of three and one, and the absence of deficiency or diminution.

In general; according to the teachings“In general” has not yet assigned the practices to any one teaching. “According to the teachings” distinguishes increasing numbers through different teaching gates. These are not the modern opposition between generic practice and sectarian practice.

One practice as all practicesOne practice does not exclude the others; this practice perfectly possesses all practices. The treatise itself explains the three words “complete,” “deep,” and “exhaustive” as broad, high, and ultimate. They must not be turned into newly invented stages.

One mark; no-markThe Shared Teaching first uses the mutual interrogation of the four elements to break various marks and then uses no-mark to break the one mark. Like a fire that consumes fuel and then itself burns out, the one mark that performs the refutation cannot remain as a new entity.

Sequential five practices; perfect five practicesThe first unfold in sequence through discipline, concentration, wisdom, and compassionate response to capacities. The latter make the five practices complete in one mind. One and five neither produce one another nor become separate or conflated.

Five branches of disciplineFundamental; preceding and following retinues; absence of evil awareness; guarding right mindfulness; and dedication to the unsurpassed path: these five actually extend across discipline, concentration, and wisdom. Concentration-born discipline stops evil through a concentrated mind; path-born discipline gives rise to the real through right mindfulness. “Unanalyzed discipline” carries both the meanings of entering emptiness by embodying dharmas and of a firm discipline aggregate.

Flavored fundamental concentration; purified fundamental concentrationFlavored concentration is concealed, defiled, and indeterminate; purified concentration is precisely the opposite and opens into the six wondrous gates, sixteen superior practices, and universal illumination. “Flavor” is not sensory taste but a judgment of obscure realization and attachment.

Contemplating, refining, perfuming, cultivatingContemplating encompasses the nine corpse contemplations, liberations, superior bases, and universal bases. Refining is the nine sequential concentrations; perfuming is the lion’s-sport samādhi; cultivating is transcending samādhi. Each has its own operational distinction of entering, emerging, and abiding.

Wisdom of the four kinds of four truthsArising-and-ceasing, non-arising, immeasurable, and non-constructed are both a vertical sequence and a horizontal illumination of self-practice and transformation of others. The non-constructed is revealed through the simile of the jewel within the body and the difference between delusion and awakening. “Suffering and arising are path and cessation” must not be read as eliminating every difference on the level of experience.

The twenty-five samādhisIn sequence from hell through neither perception nor nonperception, the twenty-five modes of existence correspond to stainless, nonretrogression, mind-joy, gladness, sunlight, moonlight, blazing heat, illusion-like, immovable, difficult-to-subdue, pleasing, blue, yellow, red, white, manifold, paired, thunder-sound, pouring-rain, space-like, mirror-illumination, unobstructed, permanence, happiness, and self samādhis. Every passage includes both breaking one’s own mode of existence and compassionately responding to others; this is not merely a chart of names.

Brahmā, heavenly, infant, and illness practicesThe purity of brahmā practice lies in leaving craving and views at both extremes and using objectless compassion to remove suffering and give happiness. The “heaven” of heavenly practice is ultimate-meaning heaven. Infant practice compassionately shares small goods; illness practice compassionately shares the illnesses of sentient beings. These are skillful responsive transformations, not a bodhisattva’s loss of realization or actual commission of evil karma.

The one-five practiceThe five practices are complete in one mind. One does not produce five and five do not produce one; they are neither merged nor separate. This neither ranks the five as permanently disconnected passages nor flattens their five names into one undifferentiated concept.

Supporting discipline, concentration, and wisdomThe final question and answer teaches support for discipline, concentration, and wisdom for latter-age practitioners who grasp the real and revile skillful means. Its intent is to prevent concrete practice and principle from injuring one another, not to say that an earlier scripture abolished the three trainings and a later scripture established them anew. Later summary names in common use—including the Five Periods and Eight Teachings, modes of transformation, Dharmas of transformation, the fourfold formula Tripiṭaka-Shared-Distinct-Perfect, the ten subtleties of the Trace Gate, the ten subtleties of the Origin Gate, and three thousand in one thought-moment—do not occur verbatim in this unit. If used in later guidance, they must be expressly identified as summary terms and must not enter verbatim citation in place of the treatise’s own Four Teachings, ten subtleties within the Trace, ten subtleties of the Origin, and contemplation-of-mind syntax.

Subtlety of stagesA stage is a level traversed by practice. Its wondrousness lies in provisional and real stages being opened and integrated according to the present scripture without mutual obstruction. It is not social status and not merely an arrangement of numbers in a table.

Provisional stages and real stagesProvisional does not mean false; it means stages skillfully established according to capacities and still awaiting opening and integration. Real stages disclose their true destination. One ground and one rain do not erase differences among grasses and trees but show that their differentiated moistening depends on the same ground and rain.

Three grasses, two trees, and six stages including the one realThe three grasses and two trees are five classes of simile, and the most-real matter is the sixth. The sixth is not another kind of plant. Later traditions use several short phrases for classifying the teaching as a whole, but these are later summary expressions; this unit continues to explain stages according to Zhiyi’s sequential meanings.

Seven worthy and seven noble stagesThe seven worthy stages suppress views through resembling understanding and produce the real on the basis of that resemblance; they precede the path of seeing. The seven noble stages begin when true illumination through receptivity to suffering arises and noble nature is entered. Worthy and noble here are distinguished by contemplative practice and the path of seeing, not used as general moral praise.

Separate and comprehensive applications of mindfulnessThe treatise includes comprehensive object and contemplation, separate object with comprehensive contemplation, comprehensive object with separate contemplation, and comprehensive contemplation of two through five aggregates. The term cannot be reduced to applying one contemplation uniformly to four objects.

Practice in accordance with faith and practice in accordance with DharmaThe former describes dull faculties that depend on another to produce understanding; the latter, sharp faculties that see principle through personal wisdom. “Practice” means advancing through fifteen instants toward seeing the real.

Faith-based understanding, attainment through seeing, and bodily witnessThe first two are respectively the new names for practitioners in accordance with faith and Dharma after entering the path of cultivation. Bodily witness is named from entering the attainment of cessation and the cessation of perception and feeling; it does not mean a bodily marvel.

Timely and untimely liberationThe former waits for the proper time and completion of supporting conditions; the latter can cultivate and advance as desired without waiting for numerous requisites. Timely and untimely concern more than simple chronological earliness or lateness.

Solitary awakened and awakened through conditionsNatural awakening in an age without a buddha is called solitary awakening. Attaining the path by hearing the twelve links in a buddha’s age is awakening through conditions. The treatise further divides solitary awakened ones into lesser and greater.

Dry wisdom, ground of nature, and ground of eight personsWisdom is clear before attaining resembling water of principle, hence “dry wisdom.” Attaining resembling uncontaminated water of nature is the “ground of nature.” On the “ground of eight persons,” eight receptivities are complete and one portion of wisdom is lacking; “eight persons” is not an ordinary numerical description.

Names distinct, meaning SharedSeparate bodhisattva names of receptivity may be established, and Distinct-Teaching stage names may be borrowed as comparative measures, but the meaning—contemplating non-arising and common realization by the three vehicles—remains within the Shared Teaching. Borrowing a name does not change doctrinal affiliation.

The Distinct connecting with the SharedIf someone midway through Shared-Teaching practice turns to contemplate permanence and break fundamental ignorance, this fits neither the Shared Teaching’s beginning-to-end framework nor the Distinct Teaching’s initial aspiration and is called the Distinct connecting with the Shared. It does not simply mean that one later teaching replaces an earlier one.

First flame and non-fixing of stagesThe first flame uses the lamp flame scorching a wick as a simile for wisdom first severing delusion. Stages are not fixed for the sharp-facultied because they may sever early without being confined by graded stopping, not because the ten grounds are deleted.

Great tree and four kinds of immeasurable four truthsIn the great-tree stage, name, meaning, principle, delusion, wisdom, and severance are all distinct. The four kinds of immeasurable truth differ according to whether they suppress or break delusions like dust and sand and fundamental ignorance; the comparison crosses doctrinal levels, and the Distinct Teaching does not encompass all four kinds internally.

Three scriptures completing one anotherCount of stages, suppression and severance, and gates of practice each have their principal authority. They supplement one another rather than being spliced into a nonexistent composite scripture.

Seven stages and six dispositionsThe ten faiths plus six dispositions make seven stages. The six dispositions exclude the ten faiths before the abodes, so the different numbers remain compatible.

Fruit of the fruitThe ground of wondrous awakening is both the ultimate fruit of a buddha’s awakening and the fruit of the fruit of great nirvāṇa. The repetition is a technical term of the treatise and is not reduced to an ordinary “final result.”

The most real stagesA name for the perfect stages. “Real” does not reify stages; it means that object, wisdom, practice, and stage all rest upon the true mark, and that what is subdued and severed and what is realized are not provisionally fabricated ranks.

Stages within no fixed stagesThe Dharma realm is equal and has no fixed shallowness or depth, yet among those who see the true mark some have just entered, some have reached the middle, and some have arrived at the far shore. Difference does not leave equality, and equality does not obscure difference.

The five gradesRejoicing, reading and recitation, teaching the Dharma, additionally practicing the six perfections, and directly practicing the six perfections. The five grades are expedient means before the ten faiths. Contemplation of the mind remains primary, while receiving and retaining, transmitting the teaching, and phenomenal practice support one another in sequence.

Expedient means of the Perfect lineageZhang’an’s term in his private explanation of the five grades. It refers to an entry gate established within the perfect stages themselves for ease of understanding and is not the same as the expedient teachings of the preceding three.

The ten faiths and purification of the six facultiesThe ten minds of the five grades become more luminous and enter the ten faiths, which belong to similar understanding and the path of subdual. Only after completing the ten faiths does one enter the first abode’s true wisdom of the middle. Purification of the six faculties cannot be brought forward and described as the true severance of ignorance.

The first abodeThe three causes develop together; one abides in the three virtues, breaks one portion of ignorance, and reveals one portion of buddha-nature, extending horizontal function from vertical depth. The treatise explains this comprehensively through ten virtues.

Severance and subdualThe five grades perfectly subdue; the ten faiths possess a stronger path of subdual and break views and thoughts within the three realms, as well as dust-and-sand ignorance; the first abode first truly breaks ignorance. In distinct classification, one can speak of the forbearances of subdual, pliancy, non-arising, and quiescent extinction; in their shared senses, each can extend upward or downward.

Establishment and retirement of stagesStages are established in response to sentient beings’ delights, production of good, treatment of evil, and entry into principle. Once the corresponding benefit has been achieved, provisional stages can be retired. Retirement breaks attachment to their separation; it does not discard scriptures and teachings or deny that they brought benefit.

According to the stage and through entry“According to the stage” determines within an existing provisional stage that the coarse is immediately wondrous. “Through entry” advances into a higher stage by increasing the path and diminishing birth-and-death. Both belong to opening the coarse and revealing the wondrous and cannot replace each other.

Clarified essence in the four teachingsEach of the four similes calls buddha-wisdom clarified essence, but the depth of the referent differs. The first two take the fruit-stage wisdom of the two truths; the Distinct Teaching takes the wisdom of the middle-way principle upon ascent to the grounds; the Perfect Teaching takes the wisdom of the middle way at the first abode.

The vehicles of teaching, practice, and realizationThe five grades rely on the teaching to give rise to practice; the ten faiths cultivate with similar wisdom; the first abode and above increase the path and diminish transformational birth-and-death through partial realization. These three vehicles are the beginning, middle, and end of a single route through the perfect stages, not three vehicles for different kinds of beings.

True nature, contemplative illumination, supporting accomplishmentTrue nature is the nature that is neither false nor changing. Contemplative illumination is quiescent yet constantly illuminating. Supporting accomplishment is the Dharma realm containing immeasurable practices and equipment. The different teaching gates assign vehicle-substance and vehicle-equipment to the three in different ways; only the Perfect Teaching takes true nature as substance and contemplative illumination and supporting accomplishment as the equipment that transports.

Nature-virtue and cultivated virtueThe three tracks of nature-virtue are the beginning, and the three tracks of cultivated virtue the end. From nature-virtue arise designation, contemplative practice, resemblance, and partial realization through the ultimate. The account of beginning and end does not move from prior absence to later existence; both concealment and manifestation remain neither vertical nor horizontal.

Vehicle-substance and vehicle-equipmentThe substance ridden cannot be temporarily discarded, while contemplative illumination and supporting accomplishment, which transport, are like the jeweled adornments and white ox of a cart. The Four Teachings select different vehicle-substances and must be understood passage by passage.

Three obstructions and three virtuesDust-and-sand delusions obstruct supporting accomplishment, delusions of views and thought obstruct contemplative illumination, and fundamental ignorance obstructs true nature. When the three tracks are revealed, they are respectively called liberation, prajñā, and Dharma-body. The Dharma-body is what is adorned, while concentration and wisdom are what adorn it; together they form the Great Vehicle.

Teaching-vehicle, practice-vehicle, realization-vehicleThese names indicate the teaching heard, practice cultivated, and realization attained. They do not mean the three vehicles of śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas.

Opening the coarse to reveal the wondrousThrough the three statements on buddha-nature, the various skillful means are decisively understood and the originally present treasury of awakening is revealed after former concealment. Opening does not delete earlier Dharma gates; it ceases to isolate skillful means outside the wondrous.

Vertical and horizontal integrationThe three tracks from nature-virtue through the ultimate are vertically integrated. Using the three tracks to connect the ten sets of three dharmas is horizontal integration. Here vertical and horizontal describe directions of inclusion and are not equivalent to the vertical sequence and horizontal division of the three dharmas refuted earlier.

Ten sets of three dharmasThe three paths, three consciousnesses, three buddha-natures, three prajñās, three bodhis, three Great Vehicles, three bodies, three nirvāṇas, Three Jewels in one substance, and three virtues. The ten form one beginning-to-end course from deepest delusion to entry into extinction.

Stimulating (感) and responding (應)Stimulating is spoken from the sentient-being side as the stimulus striking; responding is spoken from the noble-one side as going forth to the stimulus. Together the two words mark a relation, not ordinary emotional feeling and passive reaction. Fruitional wisdom is quiescent yet constantly illuminates, and therefore every stimulus must become manifest in response.

Stimulus (機): subtle incipience (微), junction (關), suitability (宜)Subtle incipience is the point at which good capable of arising is about to move. Junction means that the good and evil of sentient beings stand in relation to the kindness and compassion of the noble one. Suitability means that suffering is precisely suited to removal by compassion and good is precisely suited to the gift of happiness by kindness. Each meaning has its own center of gravity and the three cannot be collapsed into “an opportune moment.”

Dharma-response (法應) and response-response (應應)Hidden benefit produced by the Dharma-body can be called Dharma-response, while manifest benefit produced by the response-body can be called response-response. In ultimate principle there is neither response nor nonresponse; phenomenally, both hidden and manifest can be named response.

Good and evil carried together (善惡相帶)Accounts of good alone and evil alone speak partially according to what is strongest. From the icchantika’s first mind of reform and remorse through equal awakening, where work remains unfinished, actual principle takes good and evil carried together as the stimulus.

Kindness (慈) and compassion (悲)Compassion removes suffering, and kindness gives happiness. Kindness perfumes concentration and compassion perfumes wisdom; united with the Dharma-body, the two can go forth to stimuli everywhere. This passage does not exchange their functions.

Hidden (冥) and manifest (顯)Hidden stimulus can mean that the force of past good has matured latently while body and speech are not now employed; manifest stimulus means that body and speech are now applied diligently. Hidden response is secret benefit obtained without seeing or hearing; manifest response is encountering the Buddha, seeing an auspicious sign, or hearing the Dharma in one’s presence. Hidden does not mean deviant darkness, and manifest does not guarantee that a stimulus is mature.

Thirty-six statements (三十六句)The four stimuli—hidden, manifest, both hidden and manifest, and neither hidden nor manifest—are the roots. Each stimulus is correlated with four responses to make sixteen stimulus statements; response in turn goes forth to four stimuli to make sixteen response statements. These thirty-two are joined with the preceding four root statements and are therefore called thirty-six.

Twenty-five existences (二十五有) and twenty-five samādhis (二十五三昧)All stimuli of sentient beings are included within the twenty-five existences, and all responses of noble ones within the twenty-five samādhis. The root treatise explains only the hell existence and the Stainless Samādhi in detail and correlates the other twenty-four existences by analogy; it does not list their complete names here.

Relational (相待) and absolute (絕待)Relational judgment determines coarse and wondrous through such pairs as the nine realms and buddha realm or intentional and spontaneous activity. Absolute wondrousness opens earlier skillful means so that coarse supernormal powers no longer stand apart from wondrous activity. Relational does not mean mutually waiting, and absolute does not eliminate already existing beneficial functions.

Three wheels (三輪)The wheel of body manifests bodies, the wheel of speech teaches Dharma, and the wheel of knowing others’ minds knows the stimulus. The answer in the “Universal Gateway” chapter chiefly displays body and speech. Because body and speech manifest in dependence upon knowing the stimulus, the wheel of mind is already included.

Medicine Tree, wish-fulfilling jewel, poison drum, and heavenly drum (藥樹、如意珠、毒鼓、天鼓)The body of the King of Medicine Trees and the poison drum principally represent breaking evil; the body of the king of wish-fulfilling jewels and the heavenly drum principally represent engendering good. The two bodies belong to the wheel of body, while proclamation by the two drums belongs to the wheel of speech.

Six powers (六通)The root treatise lists the divine eye, divine ear, knowing others’ minds, knowing past lives, magical-body power, and extinction of the contaminants. “Uncontaminated” here means the power of extinction of the contaminants. Magical-body power means the capacity to transform bodily activity, not simply fulfillment of ordinary wishes.

Dhyāna of morally indeterminate transformation upon transformation (無記化化禪)Because no separate intention is formed, it is called morally indeterminate; because a transformation can again transform, it is called transformation upon transformation. Here “morally indeterminate” points to spontaneity, not failure to remember or record. “Transformation upon transformation” means that true power of the Middle Way can continue to produce transformative activity without forming another intention.

True and resemblance; inward and outward (真似、內外)Resemblance-vision and partial-true vision distinguish stages of realization. Inwardly manifest bodily power and outwardly manifest physical bodies distinguish two activities. Although the activities are distinguished, their actual substance is not two.

Principal recompense (正報) and dependent recompense (依報)Principal recompense means bodily forms of the ten realms that are manifested; dependent recompense means the lands upon which the ten realms depend. Differences among lands are further divided between what sentient beings bring about through vehicle and precepts and what the Buddha produces in order to discipline and embrace.

Subtlety of teaching the DharmaDharmas transcend speech and cannot be shown, yet sentient beings possess conditions and can therefore be guided through verbal teaching. Its wondrousness lies in neither occupying reality with words nor abandoning teaching that goes forth to faculties because reality transcends words.

Instituting and determining namesInstituting asks whether a name is established from wording, an event, or what is signified. Determining distinguishes four modes: thread scripture, name from the form itself, a combined name from form and event, and name from event. The questions answered by the two divisions differ.

Responding to conditionsConditions are sentient beings constituted by ten causes and conditions whose dispositions and maturity differ. Whether Dharma-gates are taught generally or specifically depends on the faculties addressed.

What is signifiedThe twelve divisions are what can signify; the four truths, twelve links of dependent arising, six pāramitās, true and conventional truths, and other meanings are what is signified. The argument first distinguishes forms of teaching and then the principles they reveal.

Coarse and wondrousThe root judges them at the five levels of principle, words, what is signified, the various scriptures, and the present scripture. Principle never departs from the Middle Way; coarse and wondrous appear as sentient beings’ affective understanding conflicts or accords. The Buddha’s skillful ability to teach in one sound is wondrous, while the different understandings gained by different classes include coarse and wondrous. What is signified and the judgments of scriptures follow their own criteria.

Retinues by natureThe suchness of sentient beings and the Buddha’s suchness are one and nondual. Before any phenomenal connection is considered, their natures are therefore related and beings are spontaneously children. This means sameness in principle, not that sentient beings have already accomplished buddhahood in phenomena.

Karma-, vow-, supernormal-power-, and response-born retinuesKarma-born retinues heard Dharma and formed connections in former lives and are drawn by them in the present. Vow-born retinues come to birth through vows. Supernormal-power-born retinues divide their forms through powers already attained. Response-born retinues have attained the Dharma-body and raise responses for maturing others, self-maturation, and original connections. All four concern gathering in phenomena, but with different causes of arrival.

Dharma-gate retinuesSkillful means, wisdom, Dharma-joy, kindness, compassion, the wholesome mind, the dwelling of empty quiescence, and factors of the path are taken as parents, spouse, children, dwelling, and good friends, then distinguished in depth according to the teachings.

Contemplation-of-mind retinuesFirst come false retinues produced by the minds of craving love and views; then dependently arisen mind is contemplated as immediately empty, provisional, and middle. In the total chapter, contemplation of mind is the seventh class. The six within this one division are love, views, and contemplation according to the four teachings—not six additional classes of retinue at the chapter level.

Merit and benefit (功德、利益)The root treatise says they are one and the same. When distinguished, benefit to oneself is called merit and benefit to others is called benefit. The two names do not designate mutually exclusive kinds of goodness but distinguish the direction in which benefit is received.

Hidden and manifest benefit (冥益、顯益)Manifest benefit is a response, teaching, release from suffering, or attainment of good that recipients can clearly perceive. Hidden benefit is protective mindfulness and empowerment not limited to a presently visible form. The pair recurs throughout the benefits of fruit, cause, śrāvakas, and pratyekabuddhas.

Junction and suitability (關宜)When former good, revulsion toward suffering, the wish to leave, or the wish to accomplish good has ripened, a capacity can be activated. The noble one goes forth to correspond to that capacity so that evil is broken and good accomplished. Junction and suitability are neither one-sided imposition by an external power nor something produced only within sentient beings’ minds.

Poison drum and heavenly drum (毒鼓、天鼓)The poison drum concerns the death of delusion, while the heavenly drum concerns the birth of good. Slow and swift death refers to differences of speed and depth in what is broken, from unwholesomeness and dust-and-sand to ignorance. Shallow and deep birth refers to the good of humans and gods through the most real affair. Sounding both drums together is increasing the path while diminishing birth.

The seven benefits (七益)These are benefit to the fruit of the twenty-five modes of existence, benefit to their causes, the analytical-dharma benefit of the true-truth samādhi, the five-powers benefit of the conventional-truth samādhi, the integral-dharma benefit of the true-truth samādhi, the six-powers benefit of the conventional-truth samādhi, and benefit of the king samādhi of the Middle Way. Their simile-names are respectively coolness on the ground, small grass, middle grass, upper grass, small tree, great tree, and the most real affair. Guanding’s private explanation can produce six, seven, or eight benefits according to how beginning and end are opened and combined.

The ten benefits (十益)Fruit, cause, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, the six perfections, the Shared Teaching, the Distinct Teaching, the Perfect Teaching, transformational birth-and-death, and real recompense. The ten unfold capacities, cultivated causes, things broken, things attained, and lands only compressed within the seven. They do not mechanically rearrange seven names into ten fixed one-to-one correspondences.

The twenty-five modes of existence and twenty-five samādhis (二十五有、二十五三昧)The twenty-five modes of existence encompass fruits of recompense and cultivated causes throughout the three realms. The twenty-five samādhis break modes of existence according to capacity, remove suffering, and give happiness. The ten accounts repeatedly employ the twenty-five because delusion has shallow and deep layers and neither what is broken nor what is revealed is exhausted at once.

Karma-born, vow-born, supernormal-power-born, and response-born retinues (業生、願生、神通生、應生眷屬)The two benefits of fruit and cause can form karma-born retinues. The analytical and integral benefits of the true truth can form vow-born retinues. The five- and six-power benefits of the conventional truth can form supernormal-power-born retinues. Benefit of the king samādhi of the Middle Way can form response-born retinues. Thus the kind of retinue is determined in reverse from benefit received.

Coolness, grasses, trees, and the most real affair (清涼、草、樹、最實事)Coolness concerns the stilling of suffering as fruit. The grasses and trees unfold in sequence according to capacities, cultivation and realization, and depth of moistening. The most real affair concerns the consummation of the Middle Way. Grasses and trees receive the same rain and grow differently; difference and lack of difference are therefore established at once.

Advancing and entering; remaining in one’s stage (進入、按位)Advancing and entering means that an originally coarse benefit advances into the Great Vehicle, resemblance, or partial realization. Remaining in one’s stage means opening the coarse as wondrous at that very stage without a separate movement. Together they explain how the present scripture gathers all preceding benefits.

Increasing the path and diminishing birth (增道、損生)When one circulates the scripture and brings benefit to others, the merit of transformation returns to sustain the person who circulates it: wisdom and merit increase, while karmic birth-and-death diminish. Dharma-body bodhisattvas, embodied bodhisattvas, and ordinary teachers each have a different sphere of reach.

Inward and outward benefit (內益、外益)Contemplation within the mind and the buddhas’ protective mindfulness accomplish one another. Recognizing only inward contemplation or only external empowerment cannot exhaust the meaning of benefit. The root treatise concludes that benefit is neither inward nor outward, yet inward and outward.

Provisional and real (權、實)The root treatise first calls the ten coarse objects illuminated provisional and the ten wondrous objects illuminated real. Through opening the provisional to reveal the real, it then makes everything coarse wondrous. Upon awakening to principle, one does not abide in either designation. The ensuing six meanings of Origin and Trace similarly bring what was already taught and what is revealed today into mutual illumination through their relational pairing.

Six meanings of Origin and Trace (本迹六義)Principle and phenomena, principle and teaching, teaching and practice, substance and function, real and provisional, and present and already-taught. In each, Origin is basis or what is revealed, while Trace is what descends or what enables revelation. They differ in relation yet are one in principle.

The ten subtleties of the OriginThe ten items actually listed by the root treatise are the cause, fruit, dependent land, response to capacities, transformative activity, teaching of the Dharma, transformed retinues, manifested extinction, lifespan, and benefit of the Buddha’s first true attainment. Later writers often use “ten subtleties of the Origin Gate” as a summary. That summary does not replace the form of the heading in the root treatise.

Origin, Trace, intermediate period, and todayOrigin primarily means the first true attainment. Expedient causal practice, attainment of fruit, proclamation of birth, and proclamation of extinction after the first and before today are the intermediate period. Today’s attainment of the path at the place of quiescent extinction also belongs to the Trace. Later passages additionally discuss Origin and Trace through substance and function, teaching and practice, principle and teaching, and phenomena and principle. Temporal remoteness and proximity must therefore be read together with relations of phenomena and principle.

Original cause and original fruitOriginal cause combines the three subtleties of wisdom, practice, and stages into the first perfect cause. Original fruit explains the attainment of buddhahood in the remote past through the three tracks of true nature, contemplative illumination, and supporting accomplishment. The potter, brahmin youth, and Treasure-Ocean are causes of the Trace; the grass seat, heavenly robe, flower seat, and empty-space seat are fruits of the Trace. All serve the movement of brushing aside the Trace and pointing to the Origin.

Brushing aside the Trace through three meaningsBecause it is near, because the depths differ, and because it is brushed aside are the three criteria repeatedly used in the broad explanation. The judgment is not based only on chronological remoteness, nor on whether a particular term occurs in the root scripture.

Four landsCommon residence, expedient remainder, true recompense, and eternally quiescent light are the four lands configured by the root treatise. The scriptural sentence that speaks of this Sahā world and other places does not list the names of the four lands verbatim; the four lands are the treatise author’s development according to meaning.

Stimulus and responseSentient beings’ striking the Dharma-body is stimulus; kindness and compassion going forth is response. The twenty-five samādhis, vows of kindness and compassion, and the stimulus of capacities are mutually related. Coarse and wondrous, broad and narrow, may each form four statements; the judgment of Origin and Trace still follows the remoteness and proximity of the first, intermediate, and today.

Supernormal powerCompassion in the original cause joins the dhyāna of morally indeterminate transformation upon transformation to apply teaching and transformation. “Morally indeterminate” is a technical term of meditative discipline, not an assertion that something went unrecorded. One’s own body and affairs and another’s body and affairs retain the order of the root treatise.

Five flavorsMilk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence issue from the cow according to the grasses it eats and represent the Buddha’s mind as complete in partial and perfect and teaching the Dharma according to capacities. The present passage includes gradual, sudden, and indeterminate as well as various combinations of capacities striking; it cannot be read merely as five chronological periods.

RetinuesThose addressed by the teaching at the time of the Origin are original retinues. Abiding in empty space below is both a scriptural scene and something the treatise author represents as quiescent light. The four classes karma-born, vow-born, supernormal-power-born, and response-born explain relations in the extension of the Trace; they cannot be understood only in terms of spatial distance.

Nirvāṇa and lifespanProclaiming extinction while it is not actual extinction preserves both original quiescence in permanence and the disciplining of sentient beings. Wisdom-life, neither long nor short, can also manifest long and short lifespans. Manifested extinction is not denied, and wisdom-life is not reduced to biological years.

Coarse and wondrous; provisional and realThe present judgment of coarse and wondrous centers on prior attainment, new attainment, and six approaches to Origin and Trace; coarse does not mean doctrinally inferior. The provisional and real of the intermediate period are both called provisional in comparison with the first Origin, but this does not mean that everything taught in the intermediate period is false. Practice for oneself, transformation of others, and practice for oneself together with transformation of others each again have provisional and real.

Contemplating the subtlety of the Origin in the mindAlthough the subtlety of the Origin in the remote past is not identical with the mind, it is not apart from the mind. The suchness of the Buddha and the suchness of sentient beings are one suchness, and a great vow can therefore be aroused through contemplation of mind. This does not directly equate the Buddha’s attainment in the remote past with a single present thought.

The Wondrous Dharma is pure and its causes and fruits wondrous, so it receives the name from the Dharma-gate itself and does not depend on the plant-lotus for its existence.

The name as simile that reveals the difficult through the easy for those of middling and lesser faculties; it is harmonized with, not opposed to, the Dharma-name.

First determines that the lotus can be a Dharma-name and a simile-name, then harmonizes the two through question and answer.

Selects one portion of resemblance and does not require simile and Dharma to agree in every detail.

Broadly represents a Dharma-gate through the lotus’s stages from seed to maturation while retaining the limit that principle is complete but affairs remain lacking.

A lotus seed with black skin outside and white flesh within, containing all parts in potential and serving as the general simile for the ordered ten suchnesses.

Appearance, nature, substance, power, activity, cause, condition, fruit, recompense, and ultimate equality from beginning to end; this unit correlates each in order with the seed’s growth.

The lotus in mud and the lotus in air are constituted by the same four subtle constituents; this expresses the nonduality of inherent and cultivated virtue.

Sutra as the basis of teaching, practice, and meaning: the Buddha’s word produces immeasurable teachings, directs practice to the other shore, and lets expressions converge on meaning.

Understanding of teaching, cultivation of practice, and realization of meaning each grow in sequence from the minute to the manifest.

Teaching, practices, and meanings flow without end, like a spring released from blockage.

Teaching cuts distorted doctrine, practice leaves what is not the path, and meaning crosses craving and affective views without abiding at either extreme.

Threads teaching, practice, and principle so they are not lost and forms retention of hearing, practice, and complete retention.

All teaching, practice, and meaning proceed from the minds and mouths of sages and thereby lead toward their destination.

Sutra as vertical warp and exposition as horizontal weft; in practice, wisdom-practice and practice-practice; in principle, expression of true and conventional.

Accord with conditions, affairs, and meaning: teaching corresponds to capacities, the work of cultivation and counteraction, and the ultimate truth.

Traverses sound, visible form, mental objects, and all six sense-objects to reveal that their substance is the Dharma realm.

Turns the four approaches of nontranslation, translation, harmonization, and traversing dharmas toward mind without abandoning writing to construct a separate contemplation.

Substance (體)The root treatise itself explains this as the destination of an entire sutra and the place where its many meanings converge. Substance is not established here as an object isolated from myriad dharmas. The question is to what principle the sutra’s name and meanings, cause and fruit, and effective function return and upon what they rely.

Discerning the substance (辨體) and revealing the substance (顯體)“Discerning the substance” is the heading in the work’s opening list, while “revealing the substance” is the self-designation at the entrance to this chapter. The former emphasizes distinguishing and determining the substance, the latter directly disclosing it. Both forms belong to the extant text.

The track of true nature (真性軌)This is the track singled out among the three under the present name “substance.” Singling it out does not cancel contemplative illumination or supporting accomplishment. The root treatise expressly says that true nature is not without the other two tracks and that purport and function are not without the first track.

The one seal of the true mark (一實相印)This is the direct name for the sutra’s substance as revealed here. The seal is not a warrant added outside the substance. Only what possesses the seal of the true mark can distinguish Great Vehicle definitive meaning from Māra’s teaching, so the seal’s truth-distinguishing function stands precisely through the substance.

The three Dharma seals and one Dharma seal (三法印、一法印)The three seals speak of impermanence, no-self, and quiescent cessation according to the distinction between birth-and-death and nirvāṇa. The one seal speaks of the true mark of all dharmas according to the nonduality of birth-and-death and nirvāṇa. Three and one here serve different modes of doctrinal inclusion and cannot be turned into a numerical contest over the value of teachings.

Half-word and full-word scriptures (半滿經)The root treatise uses the Great and Lesser Vehicle Dharma seals to confirm half-word and full-word scriptures, emphasizing a truth-distinguishing function through which non-Buddhist teachings cannot be mixed in and Māra cannot destroy them. This is not terminology for a modern bibliographic classification.

Direct revelation and selection of substance (正顯、簡體)Direct revelation first identifies the one true mark within the various systems. Selection then takes from the three tracks, Dharma realms, ten suchnesses, dependent origination, Four Truths, Two Truths, Three Truths, and other frameworks the item that directly reveals the true mark of the Middle Way. Selecting what is intended does not eliminate the remaining Dharma gates.

True substance (正體)The sutra’s true substance sought in this unit is the true mark. That the true substance is profound and transcendent does not mean that it cannot be discerned, but that an identical name, extraordinary art, partial realization, or concept derived from hearsay cannot replace it.

A real name and real meaning (實名、實義)Worldly classics, non-Buddhists, and the Lesser Vehicle can all call something real, yet each establishes the name because of protecting the state and governing the household, deviant knowledge and distorted understanding, or revulsion from suffering and respite. Broad distinction asks not only whether a name is true or false, but whether what lies beneath the name possesses the sutra’s true substance.

Ordinary, non-Buddhist, Lesser Vehicle, and partial (凡、外、小、偏)The ordinary gate distinguishes the deviant and harmful from the pure and upright in the world. The non-Buddhist gate distinguishes views and theses. The Lesser Vehicle gate distinguishes the partial truth of the two vehicles. The partial gate distinguishes within the Great Vehicle what shares the name “real” but is not yet perfect. The four gates proceed from coarse to fine; they are not a static roster of four classes of persons.

Immediately empty, immediately provisional, immediately the Middle (即空、即假、即中)In this unit, immediately empty breaks craving and views; immediately provisional includes the true mark together with the skillful means, causes, and fruits; immediately the Middle reveals the ocean of the Dharma realm. Only when the three are undifferentiated yet complete is it called the one real. The root text further reveals their inseparability from all dharmas through the two aspects of breaking and opening.

Granting, depriving, breaking, and converging (與、奪、破、會)Granting speaks from the inherent presence of the principle-substance and says that ordinary beings and what is revealed are alike the true mark. Depriving speaks from the fruit, where power and function have not yet been accomplished, and says that they have not attained it. Breaking distinguishes stone, gold, vessels, and elixir by discarding the provisional and establishing the real. Converging returns the provisional to the real and sees that their substance-nature does not differ. Each term takes a different point of view and cannot be collapsed into one meaning.

Dharma-body, liberation, and prajñā (法身、解脫、般若)The three virtues can be separately revealed through the elephant, jewel, and immortal, and they can also be mutually contained within each simile. In revealing the substance, Dharma-body is selected precisely. This does not delete the other two virtues; it distinguishes the principal intent of this unit.

Awakening (悟)Hearing the name of milk, making one’s mind lucid and pure, or believing and understanding in empty openness does not yet count as seeing the substance. Through patient endurance, the nonarising of Dharma-attachment, the breaking of ignorance, and the correspondence of sphere and wisdom, this unit progressively clarifies the boundary from hearing to seeing.

True mark (實相)This unit takes the true mark as the substance of the one Dharma while also allowing all dharmas and the true mark mutually to serve as name and substance. It is not an isolated thirteenth name standing outside the twelve, but the substance to which their names and meanings return and the one reality never lost when designations are established according to function.

Name, meaning, and substance (名、義、體)Name is the designation established; meaning is the principle and function revealed by that designation; substance is the Dharma-substance to which they return. The fourth statement, that name and meaning differ but substance is the same, does not mean that all names are complete synonyms. Names and principles differ, while the Dharma-substance entered through awakening is not two.

The four statements (四句)Name, meaning, and substance being the same means that all three point in the same direction within one gateway. Name, meaning, and substance differing means that all three differ across the gateways. Name and meaning being the same but substance differing means that designation and principle are the same but the Dharma-substance to which they return differs. Name and meaning differing but substance being the same means that designation and principle differ while the Dharma-substance is the same. The first three reveal contention born of noninterpenetration; the fourth reveals one substance receiving different names in accord with conditions.

Twelve names and four gateways (十二名、四門)Wondrous existence, true, wholesome, wondrous form, and the limit of reality form the first group; ultimate emptiness, suchness-suchness, and nirvāṇa form the second; empty-space buddha-nature, the tathāgata-garbha, and the mind of the middle-real principle form the third; the Middle Way neither existent nor nonexistent, ultimate truth, and subtle and wondrous quiescent extinction form the fourth. The three names of each group are arranged as name, meaning, and substance. The root treatise’s later explanation proceeds from wondrous existence through ultimate truth but does not separately explain subtle and wondrous quiescent extinction.

Mutually serving as name and substance (互為名體)All dharmas can serve as different names of the true mark while taking the true mark as their substance. The true mark can likewise serve as a different name of all dharmas while all dharmas themselves serve as the substance. This is a bidirectional relation, not merely the replacement of every Dharma’s name with the single name true mark.

The four accommodations (四隨)Accommodating desire accords with delight; accommodating what is fitting follows what can bring wholesomeness to arise; accommodating counteraction treats partial attachments and afflictions; accommodating awakening enables entry into realization. The four kinds of faculty call forth different teachings through the four gateways, so names differ with the teachings and meanings differ with their functions, while the substance awakened to remains one.

GatewayThat which gives access. Teaching can arouse true understanding, and contemplative practice can realize the principle accessed; both teaching and practice may therefore serve as gateways, mutually supporting without being conflated.

Sixteen gateways and thirty-two gatewaysEach of the four teachings uses the four propositions of existence, emptiness, both existence and emptiness, and neither existence nor nonexistence to express principle, producing sixteen gateways of teaching. When teaching and contemplation are considered together, the large count is thirty-two. Examining faculties, spiritual advisers, teachings, and contemplative practices in detail, the gateways are actually immeasurable.

Point of entering and contemplation for enteringThe point of entering refers to the principle accessed through the gateways: the first eight gateways all access partial truth, and the latter eight all access perfect truth. The contemplation for entering refers to the practice that enables entry: the ten items of object, arousing true resolve, settling the mind in concentration and wisdom, pervasively breaking through dharmas, discerning passage and obstruction, cultivating the factors of the path, applying counteractives, knowing stages, enduring, and not producing Dharma attachment.

Clumsy crossing and skillful crossingThe Tripiṭaka gateways analyze dharmas to enter emptiness, following a winding and narrow route. The Shared gateways embody dharmas as immediately empty and are broad, direct, and skillful. Skillful and clumsy judge the gateway that gives access; they do not split the partial truth accessed into two truths.

Severing without severingA Perfect gateway teaches severance within the nonduality of understanding and delusion, without constructing the image of the Distinct Teaching’s gradual cutting apart. The meaning still unfolds through pervasive breaking, passage and obstruction, counteractives, and freedom from attachment; it does not indulge affliction or discard cultivation.

Four Truths of the one realityThe suffering of birth-and-death and the accumulation of afflictions are each empty, provisional, and middle; suffering is precisely unconstructed cessation, and accumulation is precisely unconstructed path. The Four Truths mutually interpenetrate while remaining distinguishable in aspect. “One reality” does not reduce the Four Truths to one item.

Ten contemplationsRecognizing the object, genuinely arousing resolve, settling the mind through concentration and wisdom, pervasively breaking through all dharmas, discerning passage and obstruction, cultivating the factors of the path, applying counteractives, knowing stages, enduring, and not producing Dharma attachment. The meanings differ from gateway to gateway, while the tenfold function of examining the whole course remains continuous.

Coarse and wondrousFirst distinguish the gateway that gives access from the principle accessed; then judge through the gateway-Dharma’s skillfulness or clumsiness, correspondence with faculties, the gain or loss of the four siddhāntas, and the success or failure of the ten contemplations. The same gateway obstructs when grasped and gives access when properly used; its name alone does not fix its rank.

Opening the coarse to reveal the wondrousOpening craving and views, birth-and-death, ordinary beings, and discourse, together with the two vehicles’ Dharma, teaching, practice, and principle and bodhisattvas not yet perfect, so that what is not yet wondrous enters the wondrous. What is already wondrous has nothing further to be opened.

Zhentoujia and JialuojiaThe root treatise preserves transcriptions for two fruits, using the sweet fruit and poisonous fruit to judge correct and mistaken forms of the ten contemplations of a Distinct gateway. No secure translated names have been found, and no Sanskrit is reconstructed from their sound.

True mark (實相)The treatise itself explains this as reality at the ultimate of principle, taking the real as its mark. The many names within one work each have a distinct meaning and function, while the substance they commonly express is the true mark. Many names with one substance does not mean many synonyms.

Substance (體)In this unit, this principally means that upon which everything relies and what the many names express. The seventh topic further correlates the underlying substance with the dependent dharmas. The substance is not divided into two coarse and wondrous substances merely because the dependent Dharma gates are coarse or wondrous.

Collateral and principal (傍、正)The principal is the true mark, while the collateral is partial truth; partial truth can contain the true mark, and the true mark can carry partial truth. “Containing” and “carrying” mark different relations among the gateways of teaching and cannot be rendered only as generic “secondary” and “main.”

Name, meaning, and substance (名、義、體)Name is the designation; meaning is what the name represents; substance is what it expresses. The treatise combines the three into four statements of sameness and difference. They cannot be compressed into two items.

Coarse, wondrous, and opening the coarse (麁、妙與開麁)Coarse and wondrous are first judged; opening the coarse then opens the collateral teaching, collateral practice, collateral person, and collateral substance. That all becomes wondrous after opening does not mean the preceding judgment was never provisionally established.

Practice through faith and practice through Dharma (信行、法行)Gaining understanding through hearing and establishing practice from that understanding is called practice through faith; investigating for oneself, gaining understanding, and establishing practice from that understanding is called practice through Dharma. “Dull” and “sharp” are the root treatise’s judgments concerning modes of gaining understanding, not praise or blame of character.

Horizontal and vertical (橫、竪)Horizontal means that at the initial mind one comprehensively cultivates the various practices; vertical means proceeding from shallow to deep. Both must rely upon the substance expressed by their respective teaching. Horizontal practice possessing substance is likened to a cart’s breadth; vertical practice possessing substance is likened to its height.

Mutual reliance of practice and substance (行、體相藉)When practice has substance, the root is established and the path arises; when substance has practice, it relies upon practice to become manifest. Methods established according to scripture possess phenomenal forms yet still take correct contemplation of the true mark as their substance. Principle and practice must accomplish one another bidirectionally.

Underlying and dependent (所依、能依)The true mark is the underlying, while worldly and world-transcending causes and fruits are dependent upon it. The underlying substance is wondrous and without difference, while the dependent dharmas are coarse or wondrous. The Four Truths’ encompassing of cause and fruit does not negate cause and fruit.

PurportThe root treatise takes cause and fruit as its governing aim. Purport gathers the beginning and end of practice into one outline, and through practice reveals the true mark upon which it relies. It is therefore called the throat and collar of practice and the essential path for revealing the substance.

SubstanceThe true mark is neither cause nor fruit, is nondual, and pervades. The substance is not another entity outside cause and fruit, nor do the practices’ reliance upon the substance make “substance” and “cause and fruit” identical names.

Cause principal and fruit collateral; fruit principal and cause collateralThe earlier part emphasizes the accomplishment of the disciples’ real cause: cause is the principal teaching and fruit is clarified along with it. The latter part emphasizes the Buddha’s distant real fruit: fruit is principal and cause is clarified along with it. Principal and collateral indicate only the narrative emphasis.

Coarse, wondrous, and opening the coarseWhen causes and fruits in the various scriptures still carry expedients so that perfect cause and fruit cannot appear alone, this chapter judges them coarse. Because the present sutra gives predictions to śrāvakas and removes bodhisattvas’ doubts, enabling them together to enter perfect cause and awaken to real fruit, it is called wondrous. Opening the coarse resolves former expedient causes and fruits so that they together become wondrous causes and fruits; it does not fabricate a second set of causes and fruits.

Embodied life and Dharma-bodyThis chapter distinguishes the beneficiaries through embodied life and Dharma-body, and according to the two teachings of opening the provisional to reveal the real and of the distant lifespan, it determines whether enabling those not yet entered to enter or advancing those already entered is principal or collateral. The two terms must follow the root text’s usage and cannot be generalized into ordinary beings and noble beings.

Uninterrupted path and path of liberationIn part-by-part advance, suppressing one part of ignorance is the uninterrupted path and is called cause; severing one part of ignorance is the path of liberation and is called fruit. Viewed through what precedes and follows, the preceding liberation becomes the cause of the cause upon which the next cultivation relies, while the later liberation can be called fruit of the fruit in relation to the preceding cause.

The seeds of the three causes as intrinsic virtueSnapping the fingers and scattering flowers, hearing even a single phrase, and every being with mind are respectively called the seed of the conditioning cause, the seed of the revealing cause, and the seed of the direct cause. The chapter speaks of them only as distant intrinsic-virtue seeds and immediately distinguishes them from causes that have genuinely opened and developed.

Gradual-perfect, perfect-gradual, gradual-gradual, and perfect-perfectGradual-perfect can mean gradually entering perfect cause from the seven kinds of skillful means; perfect-gradual means that after initially entering the perfect principle one must still advance in practice; gradual-gradual is the gradual advance within the Perfect from the second abode through equal awakening; perfect-perfect means that the principle was already perfect and phenomenal practice has now become ultimately perfect as well. The root text then assigns the same four names again within the stages of the Perfect; the two sets must not swallow one another.

The mutual naming of worthy and nobleThe thirty minds can be called worthy in comparison with the ten grounds, while also possessing the meaning of noble in terms of suppression and severance. The ten grounds and equal awakening are called noble, and wondrous awakening noble-noble. The names can mutually occur according to the scale of comparison, but the meaning and order of the stages are not reversed.

The Tathāgata’s wondrous capacity and this sutra’s supreme function.

Merit comes from fulfillment of cause, attainment from realization and awakening, and power is supreme capacity.

Distinguish the purport of cause and fruit from the function of severing doubt and giving rise to faith.

The present sutra can break, abolish, open, and gather, severing near doubt and producing distant faith.

The Tathāgata’s wondrous capacity and the power by which the twenty functions operate according to faculties.

The general axis of the entire chapter.

Breaking, abolishing, opening, and gathering the three; abiding in the one; abiding in the three; abiding in the double negation; covering the three; abiding in the three and using the one; abiding in the one and using the three.

Breaking, abolishing, opening, and gathering the Trace; abiding in the Origin; abiding in the Trace; abiding in the double negation; covering the Trace; abiding in the Trace and using the Origin; abiding in the Origin and using the Trace.

When covering the three, only the illness of grasping the provisional as real is removed; the provisional Dharma is not destroyed.

The worldly siddhānta, the individually adapted siddhānta, the counteractive siddhānta, and the siddhānta of ultimate meaning.

Other scriptures and the present sutra may share the names three and one and the language of breaking and abolishing.

Characteristics of the teachingThis unit clarifies the characteristics of the teaching through the sequence of the Buddha’s lifelong dispensation, its responsiveness to faculties, its opening and gathering, and the Buddha’s intent. It ends by saying that understanding the characteristics of the teaching enables one to recognize the Tathāgata’s provisional and real wisdoms. The term does not indicate only the teachings’ external appearance, but their classification through how the Tathāgata establishes them according to faculties and finally reveals their great outline.

General purportThe first of the five parts. Here it is not a generic word for a summary. It first explains generally how the other scriptures each go forth to conditions and confer benefit and how the present scripture gathers the beginning and end of establishing the teaching; it then reveals the Buddha’s intent through dispositions, discernment of faculties, and comparison through doubts and requests.

Fine mesh and frameworkEarlier scriptures have already taught the fine mesh of Great and Lesser Vehicle contemplations and other matters; the present scripture focuses on the great outline of the Tathāgata’s establishment of the teaching. The root treatise uses “framework” and “the comprehensive snare and trap of the great work of transformation” to express its gathering function. Zhanran explains “frame” as “correct” and separately discusses the graph forms for snare and trap.

Original beginningThe starting point of the Tathāgata’s arrangement of the teaching. Zhanran divides it into three layers—the original cause, the time of Great Penetrating Wisdom Excellence, and the initial attainment today—showing that the original beginning is not only a recent point of awakening.

Selecting and bestowingZhanran explains observing faculties as selecting and addressing beings by bestowing Dharma as bestowing. Making the gradual and sudden timely means that the Dharma bestowed corresponds to the faculties selected.

The Dharma-body ground, quiescent yet constantly illuminatingThe Buddha has discerned the conditions of great and lesser faculties since the distant past; he did not begin illuminating them only upon reaching the tree of awakening. The later commentary further explains this duration through the first abode of the true cause in the original ground; the language of stages remains at the later exegetical layer.

Intent of the teaching, Buddha’s intent, and Buddha-wisdomIn the passage on doubts and requests, the root treatise explicitly links these three. What is taught upon acceptance of the request is the intent of the teaching; the intent of the teaching is the Buddha’s intent; and the Buddha’s intent is Buddha-wisdom. This chain explains that the difficulty of the doubts and requests lies in their object being not one ordinary Dharma gate but the Buddha’s profound intent in establishing the teachings.

Setting out divergent interpretationsExisting divergent interpretations are first laid out. The root text concludes with setting out divergent interpretations complete, and only the next section enters Clarifying the Difficulties. Listing the classifications in this unit is not itself an adjudication of each system.

The three classifications of the South and seven of the NorthThree classifications of the Southern dynasties and seven of the Northern dynasties, making ten ideas in all. This is a historical layering by region and scholarly lineage, not merely two groups of abstract claims.

Off-to-one-side indeterminate teachingThe name used by earlier masters for scriptural teachings that are neither sudden nor gradual but separately clarify permanence elsewhere. A later commentary explains “off to one side” as a remote place; that is a later terminological explanation.

Half-and-full teachingHalf-word and full-word are divided at the twelfth year. This stands alongside the three-period classification into the teaching with marks, the teaching without marks, and permanence as a different classification and is not merged with it into a single table.

Great Vehicle with marks and without marksWith marks is named from graded levels, the ten grounds, qualities, and characteristics of practice. Without marks is named from the real Dharma being apart from a sequence of verbal expression and sentient beings being immediately the mark of nirvāṇa. The “two marks” of the tenth classification refers back to these two kinds.

The One Buddha-Vehicle and one-sound teachingThe tenth classification says that the buddhas constantly practice the One Vehicle and teach the Dharma with one sound, while sentient beings understand differently according to kind and therefore see three vehicles. What the Buddha practices and what sentient beings see are two distinct layers of the sentence.

Later summary expressionsThe Five Periods and Eight Teachings, modes of transformation, Dharmas of transformation, Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect, the ten subtleties of the Trace Gate, the ten subtleties of the Origin Gate, and three thousand in one thought-moment are all later summary expressions in common use, not the verbatim terms of this unit. The actual wording here includes five-period teaching and Tripiṭaka only in their respective locations; later formulas are not substituted for it.

Clarifying the difficultiesThis does not mean discussing the comparative merits of schools in general. It raises questions item by item so that a classification is tested against its own scriptural evidence and criteria. The following unit, Examining in Detail What to Accept and Reject, separately determines provisional and real; the present unit first reveals where the various explanations cannot cohere.

The four, five, and six schoolsThe four are causes and conditions, provisional names, unreality, and permanence. The five add the Dharma realm. The six further distinguish the true and permanent and establish a perfect school. The root treatise first challenges the four one by one and then questions only the added names. “Perfect school” here is a school-name being challenged and is not equivalent to the Perfect Teaching elsewhere in the root treatise.

The single-voice teachingWhat is challenged here sees only the real wisdom of the One Great Vehicle and flattens the skillful means of the three vehicles. It is not a discussion of the Buddha’s voice having only one pitch or tone.

Investigation, detailed examination, rejection and acceptanceThe root treatise explains its own terms: investigation verifies the real, detailed examination verifies the provisional, and rejection and acceptance depend upon whether an account accords with the characteristics of the Dharma. Investigation and detailed examination do not mean research in a generic sense, and rejection and acceptance are not determined by personal preference.

Scriptural wording on the skillful means of the five flavors; intent of the one path of realityAn old classification may obtain the wording of an expedient sequence while missing the real intent. “The wording is generally usable; the correspondence should cease” means precisely that the wording remains usable while the fixed correspondence stops.

The four gateways of the Tripiṭaka TeachingThe gateways of existence, emptiness, both existence and emptiness, and neither emptiness nor existence can all give access to the path. If the one gateway of marks is used to encompass the whole, both śrāvakas and bodhisattvas are left with omissions.

The eight gateways of shared and unshared prajñāShared prajñā has four gateways and unshared prajñā another four. If no marks is fixed as only the gateway of emptiness within shared prajñā, one gateway is obtained and seven are lost.

Provisional and realIf the provisional is separated from the real, it loses the seal of the true mark; if the real is separated from the provisional, it cannot be taught and revealed. The separation of the parents and the guide’s failure to be born show precisely that neither side can be independently complete.

Removing the illness; not removing the DharmaWhat is removed is the illness of one-sided attachment and false correspondence, not every old designation. A Dharma-name may be adopted while its manner of use is established anew.

Adopting the name; using the meaning“Even if their names are adopted” acknowledges that old names need not all be abolished. “Their meaning in use is forever different” says that the new use is not a minor repair, but a reconstruction grounded in the complete number of gateways and the mutual implication of provisional and real.

General outlineThe three meanings sudden, gradual, and indeterminate can each be explained according to teaching and contemplation. They can encompass the Buddha’s whole lifetime of transformation without yet discussing the gates and meshes in detail. “General” marks the breadth embraced, while “outline” marks the guiding lines raised first; it does not mean that every detail has already been exhausted.

Characteristics of sudden teaching and sudden-teaching divisionsCharacteristics of sudden teaching means that a particular teaching at a particular place possesses sudden meaning. A sudden-teaching division means fixing an entire work as sudden. This unit explicitly determines that the former does not equal the latter.

GradualThis unit has three aspects: the beginning and end of the whole lifetime as seen through scriptural teachings arising from one another; the sequence of persons within the teaching, from humans and devas through the Buddha-path; and gradual entry beginning midway. The three are not compressed into one.

IndeterminateIt does not establish a separate set of dharmas apart from sudden and gradual teaching. It focuses on how seeds of the true mark heard in the past develop at different levels when one hears teaching or cultivates contemplation in the present life and thereby enters the real.

Five flavorsMilk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence indicate, in the teaching gate, where a benefit to capacities occurs and, in the contemplation gate, the level of practice being traversed. The locations have a sequence, but awakening need not wait for the whole sequence to be completed.

Poison and killingPoison represents the Great Vehicle teaching of the true mark heard in the past; activation of the poison represents present hearing touching a past seed; and killing represents severing the bonds of delusion. It does not mean an evil dharma entering the body or the death of the physical body.

Practice through faith and practice through DharmaThe teaching gate corresponds to practice through faith and the aspect of hearing, while the contemplation gate corresponds to practice through Dharma and the aspect of wisdom. The simile of eyes and sunlight further requires hearing and wisdom both to be complete, so the two practices are not isolated from one another.

Perfect-and-sudden contemplationFrom the initial arousal of mind it immediately contemplates the true mark, while cultivating the four kinds of samādhi and practicing the noble eightfold path to enter the forbearance of non-arising. “Sudden” does not cancel concrete gates of practice.

Gradual-and-successive contemplationFrom the initial arousal of mind it takes the perfect ultimate as its direction, then sequentially cultivates fundamental dhyāna, śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha practices, and the various bodhisattva practices. The sequence of practices and their initial direction stand together.

Indeterminate contemplationDeeply planting wholesome roots in the past, one now suddenly awakens within a particular level of what one cultivates. This is not arbitrary mixing of practices, but the development of past seeds in connection with present practice. Later summary expressions commonly used for classifying the teaching do not replace the original terminological layer of this unit. The present unit speaks according to its own sudden, gradual, and indeterminate and its two gates of teaching and contemplation.

Initial sudden teaching and opening the gradualThe initial sudden teaching means that, when first seated at the place of the path, the Buddha first taught the Great Vehicle for those of great faculties. Opening the gradual means that those unable to bear it had to be guided through skillful means as the Three Vehicles were distinctly taught within the path of the One Vehicle. The two are connected through sentient beings’ faculties and the sequence in which they received the Dharma.

Milk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essenceThis unit takes the sequence of successive arising—milk from a cow, curds from milk, and so forth. The initial sudden teaching can be called clarified essence according to the ultimate principle realized, and milk according to the teaching’s beginning, practice’s beginning, and the fact that lesser faculties had not yet changed. The two names for one teaching are established according to different criteria.

Two batchesThose who matured earlier entered and were gathered in through the Lotus after Prajñā; those who matured later did not enter through the Lotus and passed through Prajñā again before entering Nirvāṇa. The two batches are distinguished according to when those transformed matured; they do not mean that everyone must pass through Prajñā twice.

Going out and entering without difficultyThe root treatise first takes hearing the great as entering, remaining in the small as going out, and undergoing severe verbal reproach as being without difficulty. It then takes advancing into the residence to see ministers and powerful clans as entering, and staying in the grass hut as going out. Both readings unfold from the poor-son parable.

Beginning and end“Beginning” is the first part of the main teaching, and “end” the final part. Saying that the two scriptures have the same beginning and end means that the structures of their main teachings correspond in bringing śrāvakas back to the real and then taking up bodhisattva matters; it does not mean that all the contents of the two scriptures are identical.

Half and fullThe half is connected with skillful means and the gateways of the three vehicles, while the full is connected with the one real and the gateway of bodhisattvas. According to the flavor, the two can be used singly, set in opposition, carried together, or abolished and converged. They cannot be flattened into “wrong” and “correct.”

Mutual accomplishmentThe five flavors keep the configuration of half and full within a before-and-after sequence, while half and full make the opening and combining of provisional and real within the five flavors visible. Mutual accomplishment means mutual benefit, not that the two sets of names are synonyms.

Wisdom liberated through skillful means; skillful means liberated through wisdomIn the first, wisdom obtains skillful means and is liberated; in the second, skillful means obtains wisdom and is liberated. The word order identifies what is liberated by means of what.

The provisional and real range together; advance and withdrawal find their proper placesThe provisional and real are like a bird’s two wings: they move together while each retains its function. The root treatise does not define advance and withdrawal word by word. Zhiquan’s reading of ranging together as mutual accomplishment and advance and withdrawal as use and relinquishment is one later explanation.

The power to accomplish the fullThe skillful means of half-words can train and mature those of dull faculties, making possible the opening of the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing through full words. Abolishing the half and clarifying the full does not erase the prior work of maturation performed by skillful means.

Half and fullHalf and full may be separated, taught together, set against one another, or related through the full rebuking the half. Their relationship differs among the teachings; they do not refer invariably to two individual scriptures.

Secret correspondence; manifest correspondenceThese are hidden and manifest modes by which śrāvakas attain correspondence. Secret correspondence is not individually revealed period by period, while manifest correspondence diverges according to those who have not yet entered a stage, those abiding in the fruit, and those of overweening pride.

Resolving questionsThe root treatise explicitly lists three meanings: shared and specific, benefit and nonbenefit, and traversing the various teachings〔T33 0809c01–02〕. It does not ask merely one question about sameness and difference. Through questions and answers and multiple sets of similes, it tests how far the preceding classification extends, who benefits from it, and how it is differentiated again within each teaching.

Shared and specificThe specific concerns the fixed limits of one segment of teaching, while the shared asks whether the same type of meaning can extend through beginning and end〔T33 0809c02–03〕. The shared does not add another period, and the specific does not claim that no same meaning can occur in any other period.

Half and full and the five flavorsThis passage uses milk, curds, raw ghee, refined ghee, and clarified essence for sequence and half and full for what is expressed. Both measures recur in the general judgment, shared and specific, practical benefit, and traversal of the teachings. They cannot be frozen into a timeline that permits only one direction of reading.

Practical benefitWhether a medicine corresponds to the illness and whether a faculty is matured are questions of practical benefit. The value, depth, or shallowness of the medicine itself belongs to another layer. By setting valuable medicine inappropriate for an illness against inexpensive medicine appropriate for it, the root treatise breaks the reverse inference that what benefits must be valuable and what does not benefit must be inferior〔T33 0810a18–24〕.

Expansion and contractionThe good physician’s twelve medicines form the perfect prescription, used in full or contracted to nine according to the illness. Following the list elsewhere in this work that retains nine while omitting three, the three items “unasked, broad, prediction” can be unfolded as teaching without being asked, vaipulya, and prediction〔T33 0753c21–25〕. The present unit visibly preserves its original punctuation.

Sequence through successive arisingThis passage takes the before-and-after relation of milk producing curds and curds producing ghee to explain the sequence of taking medicine and receiving benefit. It does not use the thickness of dairy products to establish the depth of teachings. Complete and contracted use adapt a prescription to a capacity; they do not make the Buddha’s teaching thinner in substance.

The practitioner’s mind immature and matureThe five flavors concern whether the practitioner’s views and thoughts have turned, whether the practitioner has been rebuked, whether the practitioner has received Dharma, and whether ignorance has been broken and the Buddha’s knowing-and-seeing opened. The root treatise expressly says that when the practitioner’s mind is immature, the teaching has not changed, and when the practitioner’s mind matures, the teaching is named according to that maturation〔T33 0810b08–09〕. The subjects of the two clauses remain distinct.

One flavor, five flavors, and two, three, or four flavorsOne person can immediately obtain clarified essence upon first hearing, can traverse all five flavors in sequence, or can see the nature upon reaching the second, third, or fourth flavor. Two, three, and four are each counted by the flavor in which the nature is seen.

Distinction within nondifferenceBecause the Perfect Teaching is upright and solely one, it is first called only one flavor; yet the five flavors may still arise in sequence from identity in name through ultimate identity. Distinctions are established according to the practitioner’s development, entry, and sequence. They do not divide the principle realized into five pieces.

Explaining the teaching through increasing numbersTeaching-gates multiply in response to faculties. They are provisionally increased from one Dharma through eight Dharmas, with a few examples standing for the many; this does not mean that teaching-gates are limited to eight kinds.

Opening and combiningOpening establishes the provisional from the real; combining gathers the provisional back into the real. The two have direction and do not mean only formal division and recombination.

Four One Vehicles and the original One VehicleThe four One Vehicles take the Great Vehicle aspect within the Perfect, Distinct, Shared, and Tripiṭaka teachings, each of which seeks the fruit of buddhahood. In the Trace one-Dharma discussion, the original One Vehicle is the Perfect One Vehicle. The śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha teachings are the small one opened only after the four One Vehicles.

Half and fullThe Trace two-Dharma discussion opens the half from the full and abolishes the half to return to the full. The Origin two-Dharma discussion takes provisional and real of a single substance within tathāgatagarbha as the inconceivable two and then opens the full carrying the half, the full breaking the half, and the half alone. The name half is established in relation to full; it is not the title used by the earlier scriptural divisions for themselves.

Three kinds of goodnessThe root treatise explicitly lists only the śrāvakas as lower goodness and abbreviates the rest with “and so forth.” Pratyekabuddhas as middle goodness and bodhisattvas as higher goodness appear in Youyan’s later explanation; the authorial layers must remain distinct.

Four gatewaysEach of the Four Teachings has four gateways. Those of sharp faculties may enter progressively from level to level, while those of dull faculties require tempering and maturation through the five flavors. This passage does not list the names of the four gateways.

Seven and eight DharmasSeven Dharmas list the Four Teachings, the Two Vehicles, and the human and deva vehicles; opening makes eight and combining makes seven. The number reveals the opening and combining of Dharma-characteristics and does not establish another hierarchy of practice.

Tathāgatagarbha and the inconceivable twoThe Origin two-Dharma discussion begins from tathāgatagarbha and says that half and full, provisional and real of a single substance, are originally complete within it. The inconceivable two still means half and full; it does not refer generally to other pairs.

Concealed secrecy and wondrous profundityThe same graph for “secret” can refer either to something concealed from those not yet ready to know it or to a wondrous and profound meaning. The setting determines which sense applies.

From two through eight repositoriesDifferent numbers of repositories occur in different scriptures and treatises. Zhang’an provisionally correlates them through the Buddha’s teaching of one lifetime and expressly limits the correlation by saying that the Buddha’s intent is difficult to fathom. The provisional mapping is not asserted as the only fixed table.

Sudden and gradualThe passage does not deny that some beings receive the teaching suddenly and others enter gradually. It refutes fixing sudden and gradual to closed chronological periods and then ranking depth according to temporal sequence.

Responsive participantsThese are sages who assist the Buddha’s transformation like a shadow following a form and an echo answering a sound. They manifest as great within a Great Vehicle teaching and as lesser within a lesser teaching; their attendance at a particular assembly cannot by itself establish what they have understood.

Four kinds of persons within the two repositoriesThe Śrāvaka Repository includes determinate śrāvakas and śrāvakas who have lost the aspiration for awakening; the Bodhisattva Repository includes great beings of sudden awakening and bodhisattvas who enter gradually. These are two kinds of persons addressed within each repository, not four independent repositories.

Determining the Dharma according to the persons addressedA scripture is assigned to a repository according to the persons it principally addresses. Although another kind of participant may be present responsively in the assembly, that presence does not change the name of the principal teaching.