摩訶止觀 大意·發大心

Seeking fame, heavenly merit, power, intelligence, meditative pleasure, or even only one’s own escape from birth and death can all look like movement “upward.” Zhiyi questions each in turn: Does this mind possess great compassion? Does it seek the liberation of sentient beings, or only a more refined and dignified self?

Arousing the great mind does not mean making a vow sound grand. The Four Truths first give it a real object: see how suffering arises, origination gathers, the path opens, and cessation becomes possible; then see these four deepen through arising-and-ceasing, non-arising, the immeasurable, and the unconstructed. Without an object, a vow is merely ardor. Without suffering present before it, great compassion easily remains imaginary.

The Four Vast Vows press understanding into a vow that cannot retreat. Seeing impermanence, one no longer loses oneself in the burning house. Knowing all dharmas as empty, one liberates without manufacturing a graspable rescuer and rescued. Seeing that sentient beings’ illnesses are immeasurable, one vows to open immeasurable Dharma gates. Knowing one thought as emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle, one understands that ignorance turns into luminosity as ice melts into water; no separate awakening is carried in from afar.

Last, the Six Identities are still required. To say “I have nothing to do with the Buddha” produces retreat and timidity; to say “I am already the Buddha” produces overweening pride. Identity in principle prevents denial of what is originally present; identity in name, contemplative practice, resemblance, partial realization, and the ultimate prevent skipping actual cultivation. A treasure already beneath one’s house is not yet being used. After someone points it out, weeds must be cleared, earth dug, the treasury opened, and finally all its riches taken out.

The genuine great mind therefore contains three things at once: the Four Truths are its object, the Four Vast Vows the vows it can arouse, and the Six Identities the stages it traverses step by step. Today’s single thought is neither dismissed nor passed off as the endpoint. It is asked one clear question: are you willing to begin from this step and no longer walk only for yourself?

The Five Summaries Gather the Ten Broad Chapters

The explanation of the ten chapters listed above now begins. Great Purport is explained first. Great Purport is like a bag that encloses the entire work from beginning to end, and like a crown or cap worn above the ten chapters. Yet its reach is broad and unhurried and cannot easily be taken in at a glance. It is therefore distilled into five parts: Arousing the Great Mind, Cultivating the Great Practice, Bringing Forth the Great Fruit, Tearing Open the Great Net, and Returning to the Great Abode.

What is Arousing the Great Mind? Sentient beings are confused and inverted without knowing it. They are therefore urged to awaken, seek the Buddha path above, and transform sentient beings below.

What is Cultivating the Great Practice? Even after arousing the mind, someone who merely looks at the road and does not advance will never arrive. Practitioners are therefore urged to be firm, courageous, energetic, and irreversible, and actually to cultivate the four kinds of samādhi.

What is Bringing Forth the Great Fruit? It is like the loving mother who did not seek birth in the Brahmā heaven, yet received the Brahmā result naturally. Although practitioners do not cultivate for the sake of reward, the wondrous fruit is still brought forth in accordance with its cause. This excellent result is therefore praised so that practitioners’ minds may receive comfort and joy.

What is Tearing Open the Great Net? Scriptures and treatises were meant to open people’s eyes, yet sentient beings cling to one text and doubt another, judging one teaching correct and all others wrong. They are like the blind person who, hearing milk compared to snow, clings to the idea that milk must be cold, then, hearing milk compared to a white crane, thinks milk must move. The scriptures and treatises must now be brought into communication, knots of doubt untied, and people released from cage and net.

What is Returning to the Great Abode? Dharma originally has no fixed beginning or end and no fixed passage or obstruction. Those who truly know the Dharma realm know it to be without beginning and end, passage and obstruction. The ground of mind opens into lucidity, freedom, and ease. The Five Summaries arise in sequence precisely to clarify the Ten Broad Chapters〔and so forth〕.

Regional Terms for Arousing the Mind

Arousing the mind has three parts: first, explaining regional terminology; second, excluding erroneous arousals of mind; and third, disclosing genuine arousal of mind.

The Indian expression transcribed 菩提 is rendered here as “path.” The expression transcribed 質多 is rendered as “mind,” meaning the mind that can deliberate and know. The text also distinguishes 污栗馱, used here for the heartwood of plants, from 矣栗馱, used here for the center in which essential things are gathered. The distinction intended in this passage excludes the “heart” of plants and the “core” of an accumulation and refers specifically to the mind capable of deliberation and awareness; it does not reconstruct Sanskrit forms beyond the transmitted Chinese wording.

“Path” can be a general name, but there are also distinct roads. Not every direction in which the mind inclines is the mind of awakening. Various roads must therefore be distinguished; ten classes are given in brief.

Ten Roads That Are Not the Mind of Awakening

First, if every thought concentrates on greed, anger, and delusion, cannot be gathered back however one tries, and cannot be extracted however one pulls, while evil thoughts increase by the day and month until one commits the most severe ten evils, as did Wushantilu, this is arousing the mind of hell and taking the path of fire.

Second, if every thought seeks an ever larger following, like the ocean swallowing all streams or a blazing fire consuming firewood, and one commits the middling ten evils, as Devadatta did when enticing followers, this is arousing the animal mind and taking the path of blood.

Third, if every thought seeks only fame, wanting praise in every direction, while one possesses no genuine virtue within and falsely compares oneself to worthies and noble ones, committing the lesser ten evils as Māgaṇḍika did, this is arousing the hungry-ghost mind and taking the path of blades.

Fourth, if every thought wishes to surpass others, cannot bear to be placed below anyone, disdains others and cherishes oneself, like an owl flying high and looking down upon every creature, yet outwardly proclaims benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness and gives rise to lesser wholesome thoughts, this is arousing the asura mind and taking the asura path.

Fifth, if every thought delights in and seeks worldly happiness, wishing only to settle this impure body and please this foolish mind, one gives rise to middling wholesome thoughts and takes the human path.

Sixth, if every thought knows that the three evil paths contain much suffering, human life mixes suffering with pleasure, and heaven offers pleasure alone, and if one therefore seeks heavenly pleasure by closing the six faculties so that they do not race outward and preventing the six objects from entering and disturbing the mind, one gives rise to superior wholesome thoughts and takes the heavenly path.

Seventh, if every thought seeks immense power and wishes that as soon as one’s body, speech, or mind acts, all sentient beings will obey, this is arousing the mind of a ruler of the desire realm and taking the path of Māra.

Eighth, if every thought seeks sharp wisdom, eloquence, intelligence, outstanding talent, and heroic understanding, wishing to comprehend heaven, earth, and the four directions and make people throughout the ten directions look up to oneself, this is arousing a mind of worldly wisdom and taking the road of the Nirgrantha outsiders.

Ninth, if every thought regards the external pleasures of the five objects and six desires as slight and the inner pleasure of the third dhyāna as a spring welling from stone—profound, weighty, excellent, and wondrous—this is arousing the Brahmā mind and taking the road of the form and formless realms.

Tenth, if every thought knows that ordinary beings are submerged in the cycle of wholesome and unwholesome conduct and reproached by worthies and noble ones; knows that pure wisdom must break evil, that pure wisdom arises in dependence on pure meditative concentration, and that pure concentration is accomplished in dependence on pure discipline; and consequently esteems discipline, concentration, and wisdom as the hungry seek food and the thirsty water, this is arousing the uncontaminated mind and taking the road of the Two Vehicles.

There are in fact many minds and roads that are not the mind of awakening; only ten are given in brief. In counting them, sometimes an upper category is opened while a lower category is combined, and sometimes a lower category is opened while an upper category is combined, solely to bring the doctrinal count to ten. One is placed first because the stronger mind draws its corresponding retribution before the others. The treatise’s statement that a mind breaking precepts draws one toward hell, a stingy and greedy mind toward hungry ghosts, and a mind without shame toward animals expresses this principle.

The erroneous mind may arise first, the genuine mind may arise first, or true and false may arise together. It is like an elephant, fish, and wind all muddying a pond. The elephant steps in from outside, representing false tendencies aroused by external conditions. The fish swims within the water, representing weak inward contemplative power disturbed by the two extremes of being and nonbeing. The wind blows across the water from outside and sets the interior in motion, representing inward and outward factors mixed together until the pond becomes turbid.

The first nine classes remain within birth and death, like silkworms spinning threads that bind themselves. Although the final class of the Two Vehicles seeks nirvāṇa, it resembles a muntjac that alone leaps from a net, seeking personal liberation without yet possessing the complete Buddha-Dharma. The first nine are bondage; the last is personal release. Neither is the Great Vehicle mind of awakening, and both are excluded. The first nine abide in the world, unable either to move or emerge. The last has emerged but lacks great compassion and must still be excluded. Conditioned and unconditioned, contaminated and uncontaminated, wholesome and unwholesome, defiled and pure, bound and liberated, true and conventional, and every other pair should be contemplated according to the same principle.

In terms of the Four Truths, the first nine classes belong to the worldly truth of suffering, while the last does not; yet the last class’s wisdom remains crooked, awkward, gray and quiescent, near and small, so neither side is adopted. The conditioned and contaminated qualities of the first nine belong to the truth of origination. Although the last does not belong to origination, it remains crooked, near, gray, and awkward and is likewise excluded. In speaking of the truth of the path through wholesome and unwholesome, defiled and pure, the last is a path but must still be distinguished according to the foregoing meaning. In speaking of cessation through bondage and liberation, true and conventional, the last is cessation, yet cannot for that reason be treated as the complete mind of awakening.

Once this is understood, all six faculties and six objects, the three activities of body, speech, and mind, the four comportments of walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, and every single stirring of thought should be contemplated in this way. Do not let the turbid mind arise; if it does, extinguish it quickly. A sighted person avoids a dangerous road, and an intelligent person in the world keeps far from many evils. A beginning practitioner who understands this much can already become a refuge for people in the world.

Arousing the Mind through the Conjunction of Stimulus and Response

Question: Does a practitioner arouse the mind independently, or only when instructed by another?

Answer: Arousing the mind cannot be fixed as arising from self, other, both, or no cause. It can only be explained through the conjunction of stimulus and response. It is like parents who, when their child falls into water or fire, are immediately startled and run to the rescue. A scripture says that when a child becomes ill, the parents become ill as well; another says that parents’ concern is especially deep for a sick child. Through great compassion the Buddha shakes the mountain of Dharma-nature, enters sentient beings’ ocean of birth and death, and manifests the practices of illness and infancy. This is called arousing the mind through stimulus and response.

The Dhyāna Scripture says that the Buddha teaches through four accommodations: according with delight, suitability, counteraction, and meaning. According with delight protects sentient beings’ present inclinations and teaches what they enjoy hearing, making their minds rejoice. Suitability follows habits from their past lives so they can accept practice easily. Counteraction observes the illness’s severity and chooses the dose of medicine accordingly. Meaning waits until the capacity for the path has matured so that one hearing brings awakening. Are these four not precisely responses to capacities that bring benefit?

The Dazhidu Lun teaches the four siddhāntas. Sentient beings are divided according to worldly dharmas: this is the worldly siddhānta. Teaching according to what each person can receive is the person-oriented siddhānta. These also correspond to the four accommodations and contain the meaning of a capacity’s stimulus and the Buddha’s response.

The treatise further lists five reasons for teaching prajñā. First, the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra is taught to clarify the many practices of bodhisattvas. Second, it is taught to increase bodhisattvas’ recollection-of-the-Buddha samādhi. Third, it is taught to explain the characteristics of non-retrogressing bodhisattvas. Fourth, it removes wrong views arising when disciples are deluded by bad teachers. Fifth, prajñā is taught to explain the ultimate meaning. These five do not fundamentally differ from the four accommodations or four siddhāntas and also correspond to the five causes and conditions below.

If one disregards sentient beings’ capacities and speaks only to trouble them, one brings them no benefit. Great compassionate thunder and rain, by contrast, can make slight benefit grow gradually into manifest benefit. The treatise says that true Dharma, a person able to teach true Dharma, and a person who listens in accord with reality are all difficult to encounter. The true mark falls into neither the bounded nor unbounded sides of birth and death and is not fixed as difficult or easy, being or nonbeing. This is true Dharma. Only teaching and hearing in this way are genuine teaching and hearing. Benefits obtained through the worldly, person-oriented, and counteractive siddhāntas belong to the distinguishable, bounded side. Benefit from the ultimate-meaning siddhānta falls into neither bounded nor unbounded.

Thus, the causes and conditions of teaching Dharma can accomplish the great work, directly disclosing stimulus and response. Although the four accommodations, four siddhāntas, and five causes and conditions have different names, their meaning is the same. The four accommodations emphasize the Buddha’s great compassionate response to capacities and the benefit it gives. The siddhāntas emphasize compassion for sentient beings and the universal bestowal of Dharma benefit. The names differ like left and right. As for cause and condition, the noble one may be cause and the ordinary being condition, or the ordinary being’s capacity may be cause and the noble one’s response condition. When capacity and response meet, stimulus and response join. When the verbal teachings and flavors of meaning in the three sets of terms agree, one knows that their referents communicate.

According with present desires emphasizes the causes of practice that practitioners presently esteem, while the worldly siddhānta emphasizes distinctions among the retributions received by sentient beings; the distinction is between cause and fruit. Suitability chooses a corresponding Dharma gate to meet the person, while the person-oriented siddhānta observes the person and then bestows the corresponding Dharma gate; the distinction lies only in whether Dharma goes toward the person or the person receives Dharma.

The five causes and conditions may now be stated. First, sentient beings’ faithful delight serves as a cause and stimulates the Buddha to teach that one Dharma is all dharmas—that is, the great mind of awakening. In scripture this corresponds to following delight; in the treatise, to the worldly siddhānta. Second, sentient beings’ great energy and courage serve as a cause and stimulate the Buddha to teach that one practice is all practices—that is, the four kinds of samādhi. In scripture this corresponds to suitability; in the treatise, to the person-oriented siddhānta. Third, sentient beings’ great impartial wisdom serves as a cause and stimulates the Buddha to teach that one breaking is every breaking, allowing practitioners to obtain excellent, wondrous results and penetrate scriptures and treatises. In both scripture and treatise this corresponds to the counteractive siddhānta. Fourth, sentient beings’ possession of the Buddha’s wisdom eye serves as a cause and stimulates the Buddha to teach that one ultimate is every ultimate, enabling people to teach the quiescent and extinguished Returning to the Purport. In scripture and treatise this corresponds to the ultimate-meaning siddhānta. These four correspond to the Five Summaries, while the final place of return gathers the ultimate as a whole.

The five causes and conditions can also be correlated one by one with the five “furthermore” passages. The mind of awakening is the root of all practices, while the treatise extensively enumerates the many practices of bodhisattvas; the distinction is only root and branch. The four kinds of samādhi are general cultivation, while the recollection-of-the-Buddha samādhi is specific cultivation; the distinction is general and specific. Excellent, wondrous fruition extensively includes dependent and primary retributions, practice-fruit, and retribution-fruit, while the characteristics of non-retrogression single out only the practice-fruit of entering a stage; the distinction is listing both versus one alone. Bringing scriptures and treatises into communication removes doubts and obstructions that arise in relation to texts, while rescuing disciples from evil error speaks of the person in whom the fault arises; the distinction is place and person. “The characteristics from root to branch are ultimately equal” closely resembles “ultimate meaning,” and their shared meaning is easier to see.

Noble ones teach Dharma in many ways. They may teach sequentially or not; completely or incompletely; in a mixed or unmixed way. The benefits sentient beings obtain likewise differ: sequential or nonsequential, complete or incomplete, mixed or distinct. The four siddhāntas can open into five causes and conditions, and the five can be gathered into four. The four siddhāntas can be gathered into one cause and condition, and one cause and condition can open into one siddhānta. Each cause and condition can contain all four siddhāntas, and each siddhānta can contain all five causes and conditions. The many Dharma gates establish and disclose one another. They can be gathered under gradual, indeterminate, and perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation, or under one calming-and-contemplation: arousing the mind of awakening is contemplation, and the cessation of perverse thought is calming.

The Five Summaries are in fact the Ten Broad Chapters. The first five Broad Chapters share the single meaning of arousing the mind of awakening. Preparatory Means and Proper Contemplation are the four kinds of samādhi. Fruition and Retribution explains opposition and accord: opposing the Middle Way brings the retributions of the two extremes, while according with it brings excellent, wondrous fruition. Giving Rise to the Teaching turns what one has personally obtained toward benefiting others, either manifesting a buddha body and giving provisional and real teachings or manifesting bodies in the nine Dharma realms and, according to capacities, proclaiming, introducing, and transmitting the gradual and perfect-and-sudden. Returning to the Purport makes all return together to the great abode, the secret treasury. Thus the Five Summaries and Ten Broad Chapters have the same meaning and differ only as concise and extensive exposition.

Disclosing Genuine Arousal of Mind through the Four Kinds of Four Truths

Disclosure of the true has three parts: first according to the Four Truths, second according to the Four Vast Vows, and third according to the Six Identities. The names and meanings of the four kinds of Four Truths are drawn from the “Noble Practice” chapter of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra: arising-and-ceasing, non-arising, immeasurable, and unconstructed.

The Four Truths of arising-and-ceasing are these: suffering and origination are worldly cause and fruit; path and cessation are world-transcending cause and fruit. Within suffering, the three characteristics of arising, abiding, and cessation move and change. Within origination, thoughts flow from one moment to the next. The path uses counteraction to remove afflictions, while counteraction itself also changes. Cessation extinguishes presently existing afflictions and returns them to absence. Although divided into worldly and world-transcending, all four change; hence they are called the Four Truths of arising-and-ceasing.

The Four Truths of non-arising are these: all dharmas are empty, so suffering has no fixed characteristic of oppression. Since all is empty, what emptiness could remove another emptiness? Form is empty in its very identity, and feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are likewise; there is no substantial oppression. Origination has no characteristic of combination. Cause and fruit are both empty, so one cannot say that one empty cause combines with one empty fruit. Greed, anger, delusion, and all other dharmas of origination are the same. The path has no duality of counteragent and object counteracted. Even emptiness has no fixed oneness, so how could it contain two? Dharmas originally do not arise, and now there is no arisen Dharma to extinguish. Neither arising nor a separate non-cessation is established. These are the Four Truths of non-arising.

The Immeasurable Four Truths are these: distinguished in detail, suffering has immeasurable characteristics. The suffering of even one Dharma realm contains many kinds; how much more the ten? In the hells alone, flaying, cutting, burning, boiling, and slicing are beyond counting. The form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness of the other Dharma realms are likewise as numerous as motes of dust or drops in the sea. The wisdom and eyes of the Two Vehicles cannot know them exhaustively; only the bodhisattva’s wisdom eye can understand them.

Origination also has immeasurable characteristics. Desire, anger, and delusion have many mental activities and issue in many bodily and verbal karmas; the karmas accumulated have immeasurable differences. When the body bends, its shadow is crooked; when a voice is loud and turbid, its echo is turbid. Bodhisattvas illuminate these causes and fruits without error.

The path also has immeasurable characteristics: analyzing dharmas to enter emptiness and penetrating them as empty in their very identity; awkward and skillful; expedient and ultimate; crooked and straight; long and short; provisional and real. Bodhisattvas distinguish them with precision and do not confuse them.

Cessation also has immeasurable characteristics. One skillful means extinguishes the delusions of views, another the delusions of thought, and each has immeasurable primary and auxiliary practices. Bodhisattvas observe them lucidly without the slightest error. Although primary and auxiliary means whose identity is emptiness cannot be obtained, differences can still be distinguished within nondifference without error or confusion. Analytical-emptiness means can extinguish the delusions of the four abodes; identity-emptiness means can also extinguish them; other means extinguish dust-and-sand delusions; still others extinguish the delusion of ignorance. These many means do not intermingle. Distinguished through the worldly, person-oriented, and counteractive siddhāntas, they are immeasurable. From the ultimate-meaning siddhānta, no immeasurable exists. Although originally there is no immeasurable, the name is established from the many differences; hence the Immeasurable Four Truths.

The Unconstructed Four Truths are these: suffering, origination, path, and cessation are all the true mark and are inconceivable. Not only is the ultimate truth without fixed, immeasurable distinctions; the three siddhāntas and all dharmas also do not depart from the true mark. No Dharma constructs anything separately outside the true mark; hence “unconstructed.”

If the four kinds of Four Truths are correlated vertically with the four lands, Dharma gates increase and decrease: the Land Where Ordinary and Noble Dwell Together has all four; the Land of Expedient Means with Residue has three; the Land of Unobstructed Real Reward has two; and the Land of Constant Quiescent Light discloses only the unconstructed. Correlated horizontally, the Land Where Ordinary and Noble Dwell Together corresponds to arising-and-ceasing; the Land of Expedient Means with Residue to non-arising; the Land of Unobstructed Real Reward to the immeasurable; and the Land of Constant Quiescent Light to the unconstructed〔and so forth〕.

In general they are called the Four Truths; specifically they can be unfolded as the twelve links of dependent origination. The truth of suffering includes the seven links of consciousness, name-and-form, six sense fields, contact, feeling, birth, and aging-and-death. The truth of origination includes the five links of ignorance, formations, craving, grasping, and existence. The truth of the path is the skillful means counteracting dependent origination. The truth of cessation is the cessation of ignorance through to the cessation of aging-and-death.

Thus the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra opens both four kinds of Four Truths and four contemplations of the twelve links. Contemplation by inferior wisdom attains śrāvaka awakening; by middling wisdom, pratyekabuddha awakening; by superior wisdom, bodhisattva awakening; and by most superior wisdom, a buddha’s awakening.

The verse in the Madhyamaka Treatise can also be correlated with the four kinds of Four Truths. “Dharmas born of causes and conditions” corresponds to arising-and-ceasing; “I declare them to be empty in their very identity” to non-arising; “they are also called provisional names” to the immeasurable; and “they are also the meaning of the Middle Way” to the unconstructed. Another explanation takes causes and conditions as origination, the dharmas born as suffering, the means that extinguish suffering as path, and the exhaustion of suffering and origination as cessation. In terms of the twelve links, causes and conditions are ignorance, while the dharmas born are formations, name-and-form, the six sense fields, and so forth. Thus, for sharp disciples the treatise explains the non-arising and non-ceasing character of the twelve links in the first twenty-five chapters; for dull disciples it explains their arising-and-ceasing character in the final two. The verse in general therefore includes four kinds of Four Truths and specifically four kinds of twelvefold dependent origination. The differentiation of the four kinds of Four Truths is now complete.

Arousing the Mind from Ten Kinds of Objects and Events

Scriptures give many objects and conditions for arousing the mind of awakening. Some investigate many principles and arouse the mind; some see the Buddha’s many marks and excellences; some see many supernormal transformations; some hear many teachings; some travel through many lands; some see many assemblies; some see many practices; some see many Dharmas approaching extinction; some see many faults; and some see others undergoing many sufferings. Ten classes are listed in brief as a beginning and are explained extensively according to the four kinds of Four Truths〔and so forth〕.

Begin with arousing the mind by investigating principle. Viewed through the Four Truths of arising-and-ceasing, Dharma-nature is originally so of itself: origination cannot truly defile it, suffering cannot truly afflict it, the path cannot make it separately penetrate, and cessation cannot separately cleanse it. Afflictions are merely like clouds surrounding the moon. Although they do not damage it, the clouds must disperse before the moonlight is seen. A scripture says that cessation is not itself true reality, but through extinguishing afflictions one converges with the true. If even cessation is not true, how could the other three truths be? Here awakening is not within affliction, nor affliction within awakening. Seeking the Buddha path above and transforming sentient beings below according to this understanding is called arousing the mind of awakening through reasoning from the Four Truths of arising-and-ceasing.

Viewed through the Four Truths of non-arising, Dharma-nature does not differ from suffering and origination. One fails to see it only because one is confused about suffering and origination, as frozen water remains nothing other than water. When one penetrates suffering and origination as originally without suffering and origination, one immediately converges with Dharma-nature. If suffering and origination do not depart from Dharma-nature, how much less path and cessation? Scripture therefore discloses afflictions and awakening through their mutual identity. Seeking above and transforming below according to this understanding is arousing the mind through reasoning from the Four Truths of non-arising.

Viewed through the Immeasurable Four Truths, Dharma-nature is named the true mark and lies beyond even the sphere of the Two Vehicles, much less ordinary beings. It passes beyond the two extremes of emptiness and being and separately discloses the pure Dharma, as in the ten similes of the text this treatise calls the Fozang Jing〔and so forth〕. Seeking above and transforming below according to this understanding is arousing the mind through reasoning from the Immeasurable Four Truths.

Viewed through the Unconstructed Four Truths, Dharma-nature and all dharmas have neither two essences nor any difference. If even ordinary beings’ dharmas do not depart from Dharma-nature, how much less those of the Two Vehicles? Seeking the true mark apart from ordinary dharmas is like fleeing the open space here to find some different open space elsewhere. Ordinary dharmas in their very identity are real dharmas; there is no need to abandon the ordinary and seek in a noble place. Birth and death do not depart from nirvāṇa, and not a single color or fragrance is other than the Middle Way. Seeking above and transforming below according to this understanding is arousing the mind through reasoning from the Unconstructed Four Truths.

Investigating any one Dharma can be called arousing the mind of awakening only when it penetrates the entire Dharma realm horizontally and vertically to the end, contains both phenomena and principle, and includes seeking above and transforming below. “Bodhi” is rendered as “path,” and a path lets people reach the ultimate further shore horizontally and vertically; hence it is also called the perfection of arousing the mind. Since the gate of reasoning has been explained in shallow and profound levels, the remaining kinds of arousing the mind should be understood by analogy according to the same fourfold sequence.

Arousing the Mind by Seeing the Buddha’s Marks and Transformations

The first way of seeing the Buddha’s marks is seeing the Tathāgata’s responsive body born of parents, manifestly adorned with thirty-two marks and eighty excellences. Its brilliance is so beautiful that even the divine artisan Viśvakarman could not make it. It surpasses a wheel-turning king’s marks, is rare in the world, unequaled in heaven or below, and has no second throughout the ten directions. Practitioners vow: may I become a buddha equal to the noble Dharma King and liberate measureless, boundless sentient beings. This is seeking above and transforming below by seeing the marks of an inferior responsive buddha.

The second is seeing the Tathāgata while knowing that the Tathāgata cannot be grasped as a fixed Tathāgata, and seeing marks and excellences while knowing they cannot be grasped as fixed marks and excellences. Tathāgata and marks are like open space. If even a fixed buddha cannot be obtained in open space, how could fixed marks be? Precisely seeing the Tathāgata as no fixed Tathāgata is truly seeing the Tathāgata; seeing marks as no fixed marks is truly seeing all marks. Practitioners still vow to become buddhas and liberate countless beings. This is arousing the mind by seeing the marks of a superior responsive buddha.

The third is seeing that the Tathāgata’s bodily marks fail to appear nowhere, like many colors reflected in a bright, pure mirror. Neither ordinary nor noble beings can reach the limit of any single mark or excellence; Brahmā cannot see the crown of the Buddha’s head, and Maudgalyāyana cannot reach the end of his voice. A treatise praises this as the formless foremost essence, adornment that is no worldly adornment. Practitioners vow to become buddhas equal to the Dharma King. This is arousing the mind through seeing the reward-buddha’s marks.

The fourth is seeing the Tathāgata and knowing the Tathāgata’s wisdom, which profoundly penetrates the true mark of offense and merit and illuminates the ten directions. The subtle, pure Dharma body has thirty-two marks, each mark and excellence is the true mark, and the true-mark Dharma realm is complete and undiminished. Practitioners vow to become buddhas equal to the Dharma King. This is arousing the mind through seeing the marks of the Dharma-body Buddha〔and so forth〕.

Now consider arousing the mind through seeing the Buddha’s supernormal transformations. First, one sees the Tathāgata relying on a root dhyāna and performing a single transformation alone, unable to manifest many at once. If he emits one beam of light, it shines upward from the Avīci hell to the summit of existence. The firelight flashes, heaven and earth become wholly luminous, the sun and moon withdraw their brilliance, and even the gods’ radiance disappears. Seeing this, practitioners vow likewise to become buddhas equal to the Dharma King〔and so forth〕.

Second, one sees the Tathāgata relying on the principle of non-arising and responding to sentient beings without the dual marks of this and that, yet enabling every being to see the Buddha alone before them. Practitioners thereby vow to become buddhas〔and so forth〕.

Third, one sees the Tathāgata abiding in the tathāgatagarbha samādhi, manifesting the four comportments of walking, standing, sitting, and lying down throughout lands as numerous as motes of dust in the ten directions, without ever moving from Dharma-nature. Practitioners thereby vow to become buddhas〔and so forth〕.

Fourth, one sees that the Tathāgata and all supernormal transformations have neither two essences nor any difference. The Tathāgata performs transformations, and the transformations fully disclose the Tathāgata. A neutral transformation-body can transform again, and its product again performs transformations, in a sequence that cannot be exhausted. All this is inconceivable and entirely consists of buddha-works performed by the true mark. Practitioners thereby vow to become buddhas equal to the Dharma King〔and so forth〕.

Hearing One Dharma and Giving Rise to Four Understandings and Four Vows

Hearing various teachings can also arouse the mind of awakening. From a buddha, a good spiritual friend, or a scripture, a practitioner may hear the single phrase “arising-and-ceasing” and form four understandings.

First, one understands that worldly and world-transcending dharmas newly arise and cease without interruption, changing thought by thought, and that only discipline, wisdom, and liberation are quiescent and real. One therefore vows to become a buddha able to teach the pure path to sentient beings〔and so forth〕.

Second, from that one phrase one understands all Four Truths as neither arising nor ceasing. Open space originally has no thorn—what is there to pull out? Who undergoes suffering, who accumulates, who cultivates the path, and who realizes cessation? Everything is ultimately pure, and contemplator and contemplated are both quiescent. One therefore vows to become a buddha and teach the pure path〔and so forth〕.

Third, one understands arising-and-ceasing and non-arising-and-ceasing as a pair, and the Middle as leaving both extremes. The Middle Way is pure and alone transcends both birth-and-death and nirvāṇa, like a lotus emerging from water or the bright moon in open space. One vows to become a buddha and teach sentient beings the highest path〔and so forth〕.

Fourth, one understands arising-and-ceasing, non-arising-and-ceasing, and neither arising-and-ceasing nor non-arising-and-ceasing, while simultaneously illuminating both. One is three and three are one, forming the Dharma realm’s secret treasury complete in permanence and bliss. One vows to become a buddha and teach sentient beings the secret treasury, like a person of merit who can turn a stone into a jewel or poison into medicine〔and so forth〕.

Hearing the single phrase “non-arising” likewise produces four levels of understanding. First, the Two Vehicles have no sectioned birth in the three realms, while bodhisattvas have not yet exhausted non-arising. Second, all three vehicles—śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva—have no birth in the three realms. Third, non-arising is not a sphere of the Two Vehicles but belongs only to bodhisattvas, who first leave sectioned birth and later transformational birth. Fourth, when one Dharma has no arising, all dharmas are entirely without arising.

Hearing the single phrase “immeasurable” produces five levels in the same way. First, the expedient paths, Four Truths, sixteen truths, and so forth of the Two Vehicles are immeasurable. Second, the Two Vehicles can only use immeasurable dharmas to subdue their own delusions, while bodhisattvas use them both to remove their own delusions and transform others. Third, the immeasurable is not within the Two Vehicles’ portion but belongs only to bodhisattvas, who eliminate dust-and-sand delusions inside the realms and subdue those outside. Fourth, the immeasurable belongs only to bodhisattvas, who eliminate dust-and-sand delusions both inside and outside the realms and subdue ignorance. Fifth, the immeasurable belongs only to bodhisattvas, who use immeasurable dharmas to subdue and eliminate ignorance.

Hearing the phrase “unconstructed” also produces four levels. First, the unconstructed is made by neither buddhas, gods, humans, nor asuras, and the Two Vehicles can realize it〔and so forth〕. Second, all three vehicles can realize it. Third, the unconstructed is not the sphere of the Two Vehicles, much less ordinary beings; bodhisattvas break the unconstructed taught provisionally and realize the real unconstructed. Fourth, they realize the real unconstructed within the provisional unconstructed itself. Grasping this meaning lets one penetrate all other sentences from a single sentence and remain unobstructed with respect to every sentence and Dharma〔and so forth〕.

Because one teaching can cause sentient beings to form many understandings, and this principle is not easy to comprehend, the verse from the Madhyamaka Treatise is used to explain four readings.

The first explanation holds that because dharmas are said to arise from causes and conditions, they cannot be empty in their very identity; only after causes and conditions are analyzed and completely broken does one enter emptiness. The emptiness after breaking is therefore called identity-emptiness. “Provisional name” merely says that conditioned dharmas are weak, cannot stand independently, and temporarily form through many conditions; it is not the bodhisattva’s provisional skillful means. The Middle Way merely leaves the two views of annihilation and permanence; it is not the Middle Way of buddha-nature. Although all three phrases are thereby returned to emptiness, emptiness in the very identity has not truly been established, much less provisionality and the Middle in the very identity. This is the understanding of the Four Truths of arising-and-ceasing.

The second understands that dharmas born of causes and conditions need not first be destroyed but are empty in their very identity, although provisionality and the Middle cannot yet be established simultaneously. Even when provisionality and the Middle are mentioned, both follow and return into emptiness. Dharmas have no master, so they are empty. Provisionality is designation, so it too is empty. The Middle leaves the extremes of annihilation and permanence, so it too is empty. The three expressions differ but all enter emptiness. This falls back from the Two Vehicles’ analytical approach but has not advanced to the Distinct or Perfect Teaching. It is only the sense in which three animals cross one river and jointly realize emptiness.

The third understands emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle in their identity as unfolding successively with distinct differences. All three may be called empty: empty because without master, empty because a vacuous designation, and empty because leaving the two extremes. All three may be called provisional because each has a name. All three may be called the Middle, respectively as the Middle of ultimate truth, the Middle adapted to capacities, and the Middle of the true mark. This obtains the meaning of the Distinct Teaching but still loses perfect interfusion〔and so forth〕.

The fourth understands emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle in their identity as three that are one and one that is three, without obstruction among them. All three are empty because the roads of language and thought are cut off; all are provisional because only names exist; all are the Middle because their very identity is the true mark. If emptiness alone is named, it already contains provisionality and the Middle; awakening to emptiness is simultaneously awakening to both. The same is true when provisionality or the Middle is named. Thus, hearing one Dharma can give rise to many understandings; establishing many vows according to those understandings produces many arousals of the mind of awakening.

As for arousing the mind upon seeing various pure lands, communities, practices, Dharmas becoming extinct, sentient beings suffering, or many faults, each can be understood according to the four preceding approaches and need not be recorded in detail one by one.

Gathering the Four Understandings under the Three Forms of Calming-and-Contemplation

Much has been said; it is now gathered under the three forms of calming-and-contemplation. If Dharma-nature cannot even be fixed as one Dharma, why reason about it through three and four? Because Dharma-nature is the principle about which sentient beings are confused, while suffering and origination are the delusions that confuse them. The delusion may be light or heavy, and may be separate from or identical to the principle obscured. Distinguished inside and outside the three realms, there are four kinds of suffering and origination; according to capacities that receive true principle, there are also one, two, three, and four〔and so forth〕.

Dull persons within the realms are heavily confused about the true, so their suffering and origination are heavy. Sharp persons within the realms are lightly confused, so their suffering and origination are light. Sharpness and dullness, lightness and heaviness outside the realms can be distinguished in the same way. Dharma-nature is the principle understood, while path and cessation are the dharmas that understand and arrive. The object understood may be identical or separate, and the understanding may be skillful or awkward. Dull persons within the realms regard phenomena and principle as separate, so their method is awkward. Sharp persons know them as identical, so their method is skillful. Identity and separation, skill and awkwardness as seen by sharp and dull capacities outside the realms can likewise be distinguished.

It is like a father and son who fail to recognize each other and each take the other for a stranger: their anger and blows will be severe. Anger represents origination; blows represent suffering. If one knows that afflictions do not depart from Dharma-nature and that phenomena and principle are identical, suffering and origination are light. Conversely, people who are not kin but mistakenly recognize each other as father and son will be less severe even if they become angry and strike each other. These examples show how the same Dharma can be discussed through coarse and subtle, branch and root, general and specific, pervasive and nonpervasive, and difficult or easy to eliminate.

Some say suffering and origination inside the realms are sunken and stagnant and therefore heavy, while those outside have risen and emerged and are therefore light. Some call the delusions inside the realms superficial like skin and therefore shallow, and those outside deep like flesh and therefore profound. Some say the inside follows another’s intent and is therefore awkward, while the outside follows one’s own intent and is skillful. Others reverse this: teaching inside the realms accords with capacities and is therefore skillful, while teaching outside fails to accord and is awkward.

Some say the inside contains an opposition of agent and object and is therefore coarse, while the outside has neither and is subtle. Others say the endpoint of the small path inside is only the conjured city and is therefore small and subtle, while the endpoint of the great path outside is the place of treasure and is therefore vast and may be called coarse. Some say afflictions inside are like adventitious dust and therefore branches, while the same-essence ignorance outside is the root. Others speak from sequence, calling the inside the root because it comes first and the outside the branches because it follows.

Some say the inside is shared by Lesser and Great Vehicles and is therefore general, while the outside belongs only to the Great Vehicle and is specific. Others say the inside is biased, small, shallow, and near and therefore specific, while the outside is perfect, great, and unobstructed and therefore general. Some say the inside has a short range and is therefore nonpervasive, while the outside pervades the Dharma realm. Others say the inside is traversed by all worthies and noble ones and is therefore pervasive, while the outside belongs only to Great Vehicle capacities and conditions and is nonpervasive. Some say the inside requires the skillful means of the Two Vehicles and is therefore difficult to eliminate, while the outside relies only on unobstructed wisdom and is easy to eliminate.

All these are reciprocal explanations from different angles. Arranging Dharma gates in a sequence of shallow and profound, light and heavy, gives the meaning of gradual calming-and-contemplation. Taking the one real Four Truths without fixed differentiation gives the meaning of perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation. Letting light and heavy, shallow and profound exchange earlier and later gives the meaning of indeterminate calming-and-contemplation. All three are Great Vehicle Dharma characteristics and must be discerned. Understanding this shows that disclosure of the true can itself be gradual, indeterminate, or perfect-and-sudden〔and so forth〕.

Question: If origination has four kinds, why are the fruits of suffering limited to the two kinds of sectioned and transformational birth and death? Answer: Classification of afflictions follows differing understandings and becomes four originations. Understanding of retribution, when following afflictions, produces only two kinds of birth and death. For example, the Lesser Vehicle distinguishes delusions by what understands them as delusions of views and delusions of thought; viewed through the fruits produced by those delusions, there is still only one sectioned birth and death.

Question: Suffering and origination as dharmas born of causes and conditions can be understood, but why are path and cessation also so born? Answer: Suffering and origination are what is broken; path and cessation are what break them. What breaks receives its name in dependence on what is broken, so all four are established through causes and conditions. Scripture says that only through the cause of extinguishing ignorance does one obtain the blazing lamp of awakening; that too is dependent origination.

Question: Since Dharma-nature is what is obscured, why are there two kinds and also four? Answer: Dharma-nature becomes two when spoken according to provisional and real and four when spoken according to sentient beings’ capacities, causes, and conditions. Understanding this lets one extensively explain four kinds of arousing the mind upon seeing the Buddha’s marks, hearing the Dharma, seeing faults, and so on by analogy〔and so forth〕.

Disclosing Genuine Arousal of Mind through the Four Vast Vows

The preceding inquiry through Dharma-nature, hearing Dharma, and other approaches has made the meaning clear. For those who do not yet understand, it is explained again through the Four Vast Vows. The Four Truths primarily express seeking the Buddha path above and transforming sentient beings below in terms of understanding; the Four Vast Vows primarily express them in terms of vows. The Four Truths can be discussed in relation to buddhas of past, present, and future; the Four Vast Vows primarily concern future buddhahood. The Four Truths can describe arousing the mind from any faculty; the Four Vast Vows establish vows specifically through the mind faculty. These distinctions make understanding easier; those who grasp the meaning need not wait for them.

Four Vast Vows of Arising-and-Ceasing

Mind never arises in isolation but necessarily relies on causes and conditions. The mind faculty is the cause, the Dharma object is the condition, and the mind arisen is the produced Dharma. Faculty, object, and arisen mind continuously move, secretly arise and secretly pass away; earlier and later thoughts succeed one another in ceaseless arising and cessation, flashing like lightning and rushing like a torrent. Form resembles a bubble, feeling foam, perception a mirage, formations a city, and consciousness an illusion. The external land, fields, house, spouse, children, and property on which one depends can likewise be lost in a single thought, suddenly appearing and suddenly disappearing.

The three realms are impermanent, and this body and mind are a chest filled with suffering. The four mountains of birth, aging, illness, and death close in from four sides, leaving nowhere to escape. One can only devote oneself to discipline, concentration, and wisdom, vertically breaking inversion, horizontally cutting off the current of the sea of birth and death, and transcending the three modes of existence.

Scripture means that the Buddha and sentient beings formerly wandered for a long time through the ocean of suffering because they did not see the Four True Realities. With the burning house this dangerous, how can one still sink into heedlessness, games, and pleasure? Compassion therefore gives rise to the Four Vast Vows to remove sentient beings’ suffering and give them happiness. Prince Śākyamuni became disenchanted on seeing a plow turn the soil and birds eat the exposed worms; Maitreya saw a jeweled platform collapse in an instant and understood impermanence. Both exemplify compassionate vows arising upon seeing arising-and-ceasing.

Understanding the Four Truths keeps one from the first nine worldly bondages. Arousing the Four Vast Vows keeps one from the Two Vehicles’ pursuit of personal release. This is arousing the genuine mind of awakening that is neither worldly bondage nor the Two Vehicles’ personal liberation.

Four Vast Vows of Non-Arising

Contemplate only one thought arising when faculty and object meet. The faculty and object that can produce it and the mind produced are all empty in their very identity. The deluded mind appears to arise but possesses neither self-nature, other-nature, shared nature, nor causeless existence. On arising, it comes from neither itself, another, both, nor absence of cause; on ceasing, it goes in no direction. This mind is neither inside, outside, nor between; it has not always existed of itself and is only provisionally designated “mind.” The name itself does not abide, yet cannot be fixed as nonabiding, for ultimately it cannot be obtained.

Thus arising in its very identity has no substantial arising and no graspable non-arising. Being and nonbeing are quiescent and extinguished together. Fools take it as real, like people who see the moon in water and rejoice when they obtain it or grieve when they lose it. Those who understand feel neither delight nor misery over grasping and relinquishing. The same applies to a mirror image and an illusion.

Suffering has no substantial arising; origination no real combination; path no dual characteristics of counteragent and counteracted; cessation no substantial arising or ceasing. Since origination is empty in its very identity, one should not chase it like a thirsty deer pursuing a mirage. Since suffering is empty in its very identity, one should not grasp it like a foolish monkey scooping up the moon in water. Since path is empty in its very identity, one should not cling to one’s own practice as empty and another’s nonpractice as not empty. Even the true Dharma, a raft, should be relinquished upon reaching the other shore; how much more what is not Dharma. Since cessation is empty in its very identity, one should not ask which substantial being dies here and realizes a nirvāṇa elsewhere. Birth and death are empty in their very identity, with no real Dharma to relinquish. Nirvāṇa is empty in its very identity, with no real Dharma to obtain.

The intent of the prajñāpāramitā scriptures does not establish substantial cultivation of the path within non-arising dharmas: from the four applications of mindfulness through the noble eightfold path, nothing can be obtained. Nor does it establish substantial attainment of fruits within non-arising dharmas: from the first fruit through arhatship, nothing can be obtained. Likewise know that within non-arising dharmas there are no substantial five aggregates and no substantial greed, anger, or delusion. Bodhisattvas nevertheless pity sentient beings and make vows to remove the two sufferings of sectioned and transformational birth and give the two happinesses of partial truth and the Middle Way. Penetrating the emptiness of suffering and origination keeps them from the nine bondages; penetrating the emptiness of path and cessation keeps them from the single liberation. This is arousing the genuine mind of awakening that is neither bondage nor liberation according to non-arising.

Immeasurable Four Vast Vows

Contemplate only one thought arising when faculty and object meet: mind in its very identity is a provisional name. This provisionally named mind is the root of all delusion and understanding; the Four Truths therefore have immeasurable characteristics. The three realms have no separate Dharma and are made by the one mind alone; mind is like a master painter creating various colors. Mind forms the six paths and discriminatively measures immeasurable differences. Various views and cravings are light and heavy characteristics of origination inside the realms, while origination outside also has light and heavy forms. Various births and deaths are light and heavy forms of sectioned suffering, while transformational suffering also exists outside the realms.

Turn this mind around and it can give rise to many understandings, like a painter washing away old colors and applying pure ones. Contemplating the body as impure, feeling as suffering, mind as impermanent, and dharmas as no-self are path factors taking a circuitous route to the conjured city. Contemplating body as empty in its very identity through mind as empty in its very identity, where emptiness has neither fixed impermanence nor fixed impurity, are path factors going directly to the conjured city.

Contemplate the body as impermanent and know impermanence as empty in its very identity; then contemplate the body’s Dharma-nature as neither permanent nor impermanent, neither empty nor nonempty, and contemplate mind and the rest likewise. These path factors take a circuitous route to the place of treasure. Contemplate the body’s Dharma-nature as neither pure nor impure while illuminating pure and impure together; through contemplating mind’s Dharma-nature as neither fixed permanence nor impermanence while illuminating both, these path factors go directly to the place of treasure.

Different path gates eliminate delusions and realize fruits. The cessation of view-delusion may be called stream-entry; thought-delusions cease portion by portion to form the remaining three fruits. On another route, cessation of view-delusion is called the ground of seeing; gradual cessation of thought-delusion forms the grounds of attenuation, freedom from desire, and completion, until habits are eroded and the stage is called pratyekabuddha. One may also say that the cessation of view and thought delusions enters the ten abodes; cessation of dust-and-sand delusions enters the ten practices and ten dedications; and partial cessation of ignorance enters the ten grounds, equal awakening, and wondrous awakening. According to another teaching gate, subduing and eliminating view, thought, and dust-and-sand delusions is called the ten faiths, while partial elimination of ignorance traverses the ten abodes, practices, dedications, grounds, equal awakening, and wondrous awakening.

Within the sixteen gates, path and cessation each differ, and Buddha-Dharmas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges can be distinguished endlessly. Although they are inexpressibly numerous, a bodhisattva observes them as clearly as a fruit in the palm, without deviation or error. These dharmas arise from mind, not elsewhere. Contemplating this mind penetrates the inexpressible mind; the inexpressible mind penetrates inexpressible dharmas; inexpressible dharmas penetrate the inexpressible that is neither mind nor Dharma. Contemplating every mind is likewise.

Ordinary beings subject to the nine bondages neither awaken nor know. They resemble a blind child of a very wealthy house who sits in a treasury, sees nothing, and is injured by the jewels whenever he moves. The Two Vehicles resemble fever patients who mistake precious jewels for ghosts, tigers, dragons, and snakes, hurriedly cast them aside, and flee, wandering alone in misery for more than fifty years. Ordinary beings’ bondage and the Two Vehicles’ personal release differ, but both lack the Tathāgata’s unsurpassed treasure. Bodhisattvas therefore give rise to great compassion, vow to remove suffering and give happiness, and accomplish within the Immeasurable Four Vast Vows the genuine mind of awakening that is neither bondage nor liberation.

Unconstructed Four Vast Vows

Again contemplate one thought arising when faculty and object meet: in its very identity it is emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle. Faculty and object alike are the Dharma realm, ultimate emptiness, tathāgatagarbha, and the Middle Way. Why emptiness? Everything arises from conditions; what arises from conditions has no master, and without a master it is empty. Why provisionality? Without a master it still manifests according to conditions; this is provisionality. Why the Middle? Nothing departs from Dharma-nature, and in its very identity everything is the Middle Way.

Thus one thought is emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle and in its very identity is ultimate emptiness, tathāgatagarbha, and the true mark. It cannot be fixed as three, yet three may be present. The three stand vividly, yet are not three isolated things. It cannot be fixed as joined or dispersed, yet joining and dispersal may function vividly; nor are both annihilated. It cannot be fixed as one or different, yet one and difference may be spoken according to function.

It is like a bright mirror: the mirror’s brightness and purity represent emptiness, the reflected images provisionality, and the mirror’s substance the Middle. The three are neither substantially combined nor separated, while the functions of joining and dispersal remain vivid. They are not fixed as one, two, or three, yet two and three may appear together. This single thought is neither a vertical sequence nor horizontal juxtaposition and is inconceivable. One’s own mind is so; the Buddha’s mind and sentient beings’ minds are likewise.

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra says mind, Buddha, and sentient beings are without difference; therefore know that one’s own mind completely possesses every Buddha-Dharma. The Siyi Jing says that seeking awakening apart from the five aggregates, eighteen elements, and twelve sense fields through delusion about them fails to know that aggregates, elements, and sense fields do not depart from awakening in their very identity. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa says the Tathāgata’s liberation should be sought in sentient beings’ mental activities and also that sentient beings do not depart from awakening or nirvāṇa. As with one mind, so with every mind and Dharma. The Guan Puxian Jing says Vairocana pervades every place, directly disclosing that all dharmas do not depart from Buddha-Dharma and are entirely the Tathāgata’s Dharma realm.

If so, why does scripture also say to let mind roam through the Dharma realm like open space, and that ignorance and luminosity are both ultimately empty? This merely raises emptiness as the point from which speech begins. Emptiness in its very identity is not only biased emptiness and is not fixed as nonempty or neither empty nor nonempty. Another saying places a great-trichiliocosm scripture scroll in a mote of dust and says mind completely possesses every Buddha-Dharma like one earth containing many seeds or one incense pellet many fragrances. This raises being as the point from which speech begins. Being is not fixed as substantial being and falls into neither annihilating nonbeing nor neither-being-nor-nonbeing. Another saying states that not a single color or fragrance departs from the Middle Way. This raises the Middle as the point from which speech begins. The Middle is not isolated from extremes and is not fixed as an extreme or neither-extreme-nor-non-extreme. Every Dharma is complete and undiminished. Clinging lifelessly to one sentence injures the perfect meaning and falsely accuses the noble intent.

With this understanding, faculty, object, and the one thought arising are each eighty-four thousand Dharma treasuries. The Buddha Dharma realm that knows, the Dharma realm encountered, and the Dharma realm arising now contain no Dharma that is not Buddha-Dharma. Birth and death do not depart from nirvāṇa: this is the unconstructed truth of suffering. One object contains the three objects of emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle, and one mind contains the three minds; every object and mind has eighty-four thousand gates of defilement. Greed, anger, delusion, and afflictions do not depart from awakening: this is the unconstructed truth of origination.

Turning each gate of defilement around makes it eighty-four thousand samādhi gates, eighty-four thousand dhāraṇī gates, eighty-four thousand counteractive gates, and eighty-four thousand perfections. Ignorance turns into luminosity as ice melts into water. No other object is transported from afar; all is originally complete in one thought. It is also like a wish-fulfilling jewel: one cannot say that fixed jewels substantially exist within it or that no jewels exist at all. To say there are none is false speech; to cling to their substantial existence is a wrong view. This Dharma cannot be exhaustively known by the discriminating mind or exhaustively spoken in words.

Within this inconceivable Dharma, originally without bondage, sentient beings imagine and discriminate until they bind themselves; where originally not one Dharma can be liberated, they pursue liberation outside. Bodhisattvas therefore give rise to great compassion, arouse the Four Vast Vows, remove the two sufferings, and give the two happinesses. This is arousing the genuine mind of awakening that is neither bondage nor liberation according to the unconstructed. The first three kinds mostly speak through the Four Truths; the unconstructed discloses its meaning through Dharma treasuries, defilements, samādhis, and perfections, yet its purport remains clear.

Why Are All Four Called True?

Question: When excluding the false, all ten classes above were called untrue together. When disclosing the true, why are all four arousals of mind called true together?

Answer: First, all four avoid the nine bondages and single liberation and all extend to seeking the Buddha path above, so all may be called true. Second, the first three enter gradually in sequence and finally arrive at the true mark, so all four may be called true from the place they reach. Third, because the true mark is difficult to know, the real must be disclosed through provisional means; the three provisional teachings can therefore also be called true. These three reasons call all four true according to the worldly siddhānta.

Fourth, the provisional cannot gather the real, while the real can gather the provisional. To make the real’s capacity to gather the provisional easy to see, all four are called true. This follows the person-oriented siddhānta. Fifth, one mind of awakening contains every mind of awakening. If they are not distinguished, sentient beings will not know the whole; therefore all are called true. This follows the counteractive siddhānta. In ultimate judgment, the first three rely on the provisional and the fourth on the real.

It is like an excellent physician whose single secret formula gathers every other prescription, or agada medicine whose efficacy includes all medicines. After eating milk porridge with complete nourishment, one need not seek other food; a single wish-fulfilling jewel contains every treasure. These similes show that all four, provisional and real, may be called true from the side that gathers them into the true mark.

Now consider the causes and conditions of the one great work. Why “one”? Because the one reality is not false, the one path is pure, and every unobstructed person leaves birth and death by this one path. Why “great”? Because its essential nature is broad, contains much, possesses great wisdom and great elimination, is the vehicle of great persons, can make the great lion’s roar, and greatly benefits ordinary and noble beings. What is “work”? Buddhas throughout the ten directions and three times accomplish the Buddha path themselves according to this pattern and transform sentient beings through it. What are “causes and conditions”? Sentient beings stimulate the Buddha through the cause that is the mind of awakening, and the Buddha responds through the condition that is great compassion.

“True” cannot be fixed as three, one, or neither-three-nor-one, yet does not prevent speaking of three and one. It is therefore called the inconceivable true. It is not a constructed Dharma and is made by neither buddhas, gods, humans, nor asuras. The ever-abiding object has no graspable characteristic; ever-abiding wisdom has no object of appropriation. Wisdom without appropriation illuminates the object without characteristics, while the object without characteristics corresponds to wisdom without appropriation. Wisdom and object darkly converge as one and are distinguished only as a skillful means. This is the unconstructed true.

The meaning of the Questions of Mañjuśrī is that breaking every arousal involving acquisition is called arousing the mind of awakening; arousing it constantly in accord with the true mark of awakening is called arousing the mind; arousing without arousal and following without following; and passing beyond every breaking and following while illuminating both together is called arousing the mind. Breaking, following, and dual illumination are neither one nor different. They may be called according with principle and phenomena, or neither fixed principle nor fixed phenomena; hence they are true.

Thus the unconstructed, inconceivable, one great work of causes and conditions and related Dharma gates may all be spoken as breaking, following, neither breaking nor following, and illuminating breaking and following together. The first three are contemplated by superior, middling, and inferior wisdom; the last by most superior wisdom. The first three are shared, the last unshared; the first three shallow, near, and crooked, the last profound, far, and direct〔and so forth〕. Although the first three may in sequence be called small, middling, and great, the last is the great within the great, highest within the high, perfect within the perfect, full within the full, real within the real, true within the true, definitive within the definitive, mysterious within the mysterious, wondrous within the wondrous, and inconceivable within the inconceivable.

The Power of the Mind of Awakening

Those who exclude false minds and disclose the true one in this way, comprehend the provisional teaching, recognize the real, and arouse the mind are seeds of the buddhas. Adamant grows from adamantine nature, while a buddha’s mind of awakening grows from great compassion and leads all practices. The medicine transcribed 阿娑羅 first uses clear water; likewise the mind of awakening comes first among practices. The life faculty is foremost among the faculties; likewise the mind of awakening is foremost within a buddha’s true Dharma and true practice. It is like a prince born already bearing royal deportment, naturally revered by ministers and known far and wide, or like the kalaviṅka bird whose voice within the shell already surpasses every other bird.

The mind of awakening has immense power, like a bowstring made from a lion’s sinew, lion’s milk, an adamantine hammer, or Nārāyaṇa’s arrow; it is also like a wish-fulfilling jewel containing every treasure and able to remove sentient beings’ poverty. Even if people who arouse the great mind are slightly lax and somewhat lose their deportment, the merit of their arousal still surpasses that of the Two Vehicles. In brief, this one mind completely possesses all bodhisattva merit and can accomplish the unsurpassed perfect awakening of the three times.

Understanding this one mind naturally penetrates calming-and-contemplation. Arousal without arousal, unobstructed with respect to every Dharma, is contemplation; the mind’s nature, originally quiescent and extinguished, is calming. Calming-and-contemplation does not depart from awakening, nor awakening from calming-and-contemplation.

Two Scriptural Attestations

The Baoliang Jing says that a bhikṣu who does not cultivate a bhikṣu’s Dharma has nowhere in a great trichiliocosm even to spit, much less a right to receive offerings. Sixty bhikṣus heard this, wept, and told the Buddha they would rather die than receive offerings without virtue. The Buddha praised their capacity for shame.

A bhikṣu asked what kind of bhikṣu may receive offerings. The Buddha answered: one who is counted within the bhikṣu saṅgha, cultivates what the saṅgha cultivates, and obtains what the saṅgha obtains may receive them. The four fruits and four approaches belong to the saṅgha’s count, the thirty-seven factors of the path to its work, and the four fruits to its benefit.

The bhikṣu then asked about someone who arouses the Great Vehicle mind. The Buddha said that a person who arouses the Great Vehicle mind and seeks all-knowledge is not counted among the Two Vehicles, does not cultivate only their work, and does not seek only their benefit, yet may receive offerings. The bhikṣu asked in astonishment how this could be. The Buddha said that if such a person receives robes, the robes could cover the earth; if food, the lump could be as large as Mount Sumeru; still the person could ultimately repay the donor’s kindness. Thus, even the ultimate fruit of the Lesser Vehicle does not equal the first arousal of the Great Vehicle mind.

The Rulai Mizang Jing gives ten profoundly grave evils: killing one’s father when he is a pratyekabuddha; stealing the Three Jewels’ property; violating one’s mother when she is an arhat; slandering the Buddha with falsehood; dividing worthies and noble ones with double-tongued speech; abusing a noble one with harsh speech; disturbing seekers of Dharma; committing the initial karma of the five heinous acts through anger; taking a precept holder’s property through greed; and producing an extreme view through delusion. These are called ten profound evils.

Yet if one can understand the Tathāgata’s teaching of dependent origination; know that no fixed self, person, sentient being, living being, or life exists; that there is no real arising or ceasing, defilement or attachment, and that original nature is pure; and if one can understand, deeply know, and enter in faith the original purity of all dharmas, the Buddha does not say this person will certainly proceed toward hell and the fruits of evil paths.

The reason is that dharmas contain no real accumulation and no real gathering of affliction. No Dharma arises by itself or permanently abides. Dharmas arise only from the convergence of causes and conditions and cease after arising. Once a mind has arisen, it ceases; every affliction likewise ceases as soon as it has arisen. Understood in this way, no fixed place of offense can be found. It is impossible for a fixed Dharma of offense to remain forever.

It is like a room that has remained dark for a hundred years. Once a lamp is lit, darkness cannot claim to be the room’s master because it has lived there so long and refuse to leave. As soon as lamplight arises, darkness is extinguished. The relation between offense and wisdom is the same.

The meaning of this scripture can be distinguished according to the first four minds of awakening. Knowing the Tathāgata’s teaching of dependent origination indicates the first, arising-and-ceasing mind. Knowing neither arising nor ceasing indicates the second, non-arising mind. Knowing original nature as pure indicates the third, immeasurable mind. Knowing every Dharma as originally pure indicates the fourth, unconstructed mind. If even the first arousal can extinguish the ten grave evils, how much more the second, third, and fourth? Practitioners who hear this excellent, wondrous merit should rejoice, like someone who suddenly finds light and exquisite sandalwood fragrance within a dark, foul-smelling eraṇḍa grove.

Question: The term “dependent origination” can apply to all four contemplations. Why is only the first called by that name? Answer: Because the first occupies the initial position, the general name is used to mark the beginning; moreover, the phenomenal characteristics of dependent origination fit the first, arising-and-ceasing contemplation more closely. If it is simply named arising-and-ceasing, it can be distinguished from the later three. Dharma gates often have general and specific names; here the name is received from the specific meaning.

Disclosing Genuine Arousal of Mind through the Six Identities

Question: Does the first thought that arouses the mind count as true, or only the later ultimate mind?

Answer: Like a burning lamp wick, it cannot be said to occur only at the beginning or apart from the beginning, only at the end or apart from the end. With wisdom and faith complete, hearing that the single thought does not depart from the true mark can be understood correctly. Faith prevents denigrating the principle one originally possesses; wisdom prevents mistaking an ordinary stage for buddhahood and also prevents fearful retreat. In this way both beginning and end may be called true.

Without faith, one pushes the noble sphere far above and judges it outside one’s share of wisdom, so the initial mind is not true. Without wisdom, one gives rise to overweening pride and believes oneself already equal to the Buddha, so beginning and end are both wrong. To prevent these failures, one must know the Six Identities: identity in principle, name, contemplative practice, resemblance, partial realization, and ultimate identity. They begin with ordinary beings and end at the ultimate noble stage. Because ordinary beings originally possess the principle, doubt, confusion, and timidity are removed. Because the ultimate remains only the buddha stage, overweening pride and inflation are removed〔and so forth〕.

Identity in Principle

One thought in its very identity is the principle of tathāgatagarbha. In terms of suchness, it is emptiness; in terms of treasury, provisionality; in terms of principle, the Middle. The three wisdoms of emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle are inconceivably complete in one mind. The preceding text says that the three truths are one truth, yet are neither fixed as three nor fixed as one. A single color and fragrance, every Dharma, and every mind are likewise. This is the mind of awakening as identity in principle and calming-and-contemplation as identity in principle. Quiescence in its very identity is calming; illumination in its very identity is contemplation.

Identity in Name

Although the essence of principle has always been so, sentient beings use it every day without knowing it. Having never heard the three truths, they do not recognize Buddha-Dharma at all, like cattle and sheep that have eyes but no understanding of direction. Later, from a good spiritual friend or a scripture scroll, they hear the one real awakening described above, penetrate and understand it through names and verbal teaching, and know that every Dharma does not depart from Buddha-Dharma. This is awakening as identity in name and calming-and-contemplation as identity in name.

Before hearing it, mind races in search everywhere. After hearing it, the mind that grasps and seeks outwardly ceases: this is calming. Trusting only the reality of Dharma-nature and no longer believing that each Dharma possesses its own intrinsic nature is contemplation.

Identity in Contemplative Practice

Merely hearing names and being able to speak resembles a worm boring through wood and accidentally leaving a trace shaped like writing; the worm itself does not know whether it is a character. Without penetration, how can this count as awakening? One must therefore illuminate clearly within, correspond to principle through wisdom, practice as one speaks, and speak as one practices.

The intent of scripture is that people in the world often speak but do not practice, while bodhisattvas do not rely on empty words and instead practice awakening in the mind. Only correspondence between mind and mouth is awakening in contemplative practice. The Dazhidu Lun uses four propositions to evaluate learning and wisdom: possessing both is like eyes obtaining sunlight, seeing clearly without deviation. Contemplative practice is likewise. Although one has not personally realized true principle, contemplation of mind remains uninterrupted, like an archer training from a large target toward an extremely fine one. This is awakening as identity in contemplative practice and calming-and-contemplation as identity in contemplative practice. Constantly performing right contemplation is contemplation; the cessation of other deluded thoughts is calming〔and so forth〕.

Identity in Resemblance

As illumination is cultivated, it becomes ever brighter; as the mind of calming is cultivated, ever more quiescent. It resembles an archer who practices diligently and whose arrow has drawn near the bull’s-eye. This is resembling contemplative wisdom. Every worldly livelihood and productive activity accords with the true mark; every thought and calculation can correspond to the meanings of former buddhas’ scriptures, as described in the merit of purification of the six faculties. Perfectly subduing ignorance is calming; wisdom that resembles the Middle Way is contemplation〔and so forth〕. This is awakening as identity in resemblance.

Identity in Partial Realization

Through the power of resembling contemplation, one enters the bronze-wheel stage, the first abode, begins to break one portion of ignorance, sees one portion of buddha-nature, opens the treasury, and discloses suchness. It is called the abode of arousing the mind. From the first abode through equal awakening, ignorance grows ever thinner and wisdom ever more manifest, like the moon from the first through the fourteenth day: its light approaches fullness and darkness approaches exhaustion.

If sentient beings should be liberated through a buddha body, the bodhisattva manifests the eight phases of accomplishing the path; if through bodies in the nine Dharma realms, the bodhisattva follows the Universal Gate in manifesting many bodies, as scriptures explain extensively. This is awakening as identity in partial realization, calming-and-contemplation as identity in partial realization, and wisdom and elimination as identity in partial realization.

Ultimate Identity

Equal awakening turns through one further stage and enters wondrous awakening. The light of wisdom is perfect and full, with nothing more to add: this is called the fruit of awakening. Everything to be eliminated in great nirvāṇa is exhausted, with nothing left to eliminate: this is called the fruit beyond the fruit. Equal awakening has not yet penetrated completely; only a buddha penetrates ultimately. Beyond the final syllable “tea,” no higher path can be spoken. This is ultimate awakening and ultimate calming-and-contemplation.

The Six Identities can be gathered through the treasure simile. A poor person’s house originally contains a treasury unknown to its owner: identity in principle. A good spiritual friend points it out and makes the owner know: identity in name. The owner begins clearing weeds and digging: identity in contemplative practice. Digging progressively closer: identity in resemblance. The nearby treasury opens: identity in partial realization. Finally every treasure is taken out and used: ultimate identity〔and so forth〕.

The Five Kinds of Awakening and the Six Identities

Question: What is the meaning of the five kinds of awakening in the Dazhidu Lun? Answer: That treatise distinguishes stages vertically, while the present text vertically distinguishes stages of the Perfect Teaching. Correlated together, awakening through arousing the mind corresponds to identity in name; awakening through subduing the mind to identity in contemplative practice; luminous-mind awakening to identity in resemblance; awakening through emerging and arriving to identity in partial realization; and unsurpassed awakening to ultimate identity. Identity in principle pervades the very beginning and is not separately correlated with one of the five names.

If the five names are used to judge stages of the Perfect Teaching, arousing the mind can correspond to the ten abodes and subduing the mind to the ten practices. Question: If the ten abodes have already cut one portion of ignorance, why are the ten practices instead called subduing? Answer: Here the true path is used to subdue further delusions, as in the Lesser Vehicle where breaking view-delusion is called cutting while counteraction against thought-delusion is still called subduing. Luminous mind corresponds to the ten dedications, emerging and arriving to the ten grounds, and unsurpassed to wondrous awakening.

One may also say that, beginning with the ten abodes, every stage possesses all five kinds of awakening and that only wondrous awakening possesses them ultimately and completely. The Treatise on the Grounds says that the first ground already possesses the merits of all grounds, directly disclosing this meaning; yet this does not cancel the sequence among grounds.

Question: Why are the Six Identities explained specifically through the Perfect Teaching? Answer: Perfect contemplation regards all dharmas, and the Six Identities can judge both sameness in principle and sequence in stage for all of them. Therefore, when all dharmas are contemplated according to the perfect meaning, the Six Identities are used throughout. Other teachings do not take perfect interfusion as their principal intent and ordinarily do not use them. Borrowing the Six Identities within another teaching’s own scope is not absolutely impossible, but that shallower use is not the doctrinal intent of this passage.

To summarize: excluding the false first relies on the truth of suffering and excludes nine minds that rise and sink in the world. Next, the four kinds of Four Truths exclude wisdom that is crooked, awkward, shallow, and near. The Four Vast Vows then distinguish practice and vow, and the Six Identities finally distinguish stage. Only by proceeding more deeply and minutely in this way is the true genuinely disclosed.

The genuine mind of awakening is therefore like a luminous moon-jewel hidden in a ninefold abyss beneath the jaw of a black dragon. Only those with resolve and virtue can obtain it. How could one be coarse, shallow, and insubstantial like people in the world who scramble for tiles, stones, grass, and wood and falsely call them jewels? Late students who receive only a little surface knowledge remain very far from genuine arousal of mind.

Is any mind pointed upward a mind of awakening? Seeking heavenly merit, power, intelligence, meditative pleasure, or even one’s own nirvāṇa gives the mind a clear direction and may demand great effort, yet the Mohe Zhiguan (Great Calming-and-Contemplation) excludes each in turn. Genuine arousal does not merely make the wish larger. It asks whether this mind simultaneously seeks the Buddha path above and transforms sentient beings below, abiding neither in the bondage of birth and death nor in the pursuit of personal release alone.

The chapter on Arousing the Great Mind therefore does not begin with an elegant definition of the mind of awakening. It first asks which minds look as if they face the path while still being drawn by attachment. Does mind arise by itself, through another’s instruction, or through stimulus and response? How do one’s understanding of the Four Truths, the vows established through that understanding, and the stages traversed connect? The treatise advances from ten false minds to four kinds of Four Truths and four kinds of Four Vast Vows, then concludes with the Six Identities. The arc of this instruction makes “I wish to become a buddha” cease to be a phrase. It becomes a direction for one’s life: understanding suffering, having suffering to remove, possessing a practice to advance, and distinguishing the stages.

Why Do the Five Summaries Begin with Arousing the Mind?

Great Purport distills the Ten Broad Chapters into Five Summaries: Arousing the Great Mind, Cultivating the Great Practice, Bringing Forth the Great Fruit, Tearing Open the Great Net, and Returning to the Great Abode. These are not five unrelated things. Arousing the mind gives the whole journey its direction; cultivation makes direction into steps underfoot; fruition discloses the results brought forth by accord and opposition; tearing the net keeps practitioners from being bound by one-sided views of scriptures and treatises; and returning to the abode brings benefit of self and others together into the Dharma realm.

If arousing the mind does not come first, later practice may be diligent without knowing for whom it is done. Fruition may be excellent yet become a new attachment. Scriptures and treatises may be abundant yet weave nets around one another. Conversely, merely arousing the mind and staring down the road without moving never reaches the destination. The Five Summaries therefore place arousing the mind first and immediately send it toward great practice; they place return to the abode last, yet from the beginning let the Dharma realm be without beginning or end, passage or obstruction.

Arousing the mind itself divides into regional terminology, exclusion of the false, and disclosure of the true. The text first determines that “mind” here means what deliberates and knows, not plant heartwood or the center of a physical accumulation; it then distinguishes the roads mind travels; only then does it disclose the genuine mind of awakening. The sequence seems to begin with names, but actually clears away, step by step, what can easily be mistaken for arousal of the mind.

Ten False Minds: Evil Is Not the Only Problem

The first six classes begin with hells, animals, hungry ghosts, asuras, humans, and gods. Unremitting absorption in greed, anger, and delusion is the path of fire; swallowing followers as the sea swallows streams is the path of blood; possessing no real virtue while craving fame in every direction is the path of blades; refusing any lower place while disdaining others and esteeming oneself is the asura mind; seeking only comfort for this body is the human mind; gathering the six faculties solely to seek heavenly pleasure is the heavenly mind. They rise from obvious evil into worldly good, but all remain centered on what the self will obtain.

The seventh through ninth are subtler. Wishing for power that makes everyone obey is the mind of a ruler of the desire realm. Wishing for intelligence and eloquence unsurpassed in the world is the mind of an outsider endowed with worldly wisdom. Disdaining external sensual pleasure while clinging to profound inner meditative pleasure is the Brahmā mind. They need not look violent; they may appear dignified, intelligent, and pure. Yet they remain drawn by “I must become the highest” and “I must obtain the deepest pleasure.”

The tenth deserves a pause. A practitioner sees the wearying cycle of the world, honors discipline, concentration, and wisdom, and seeks uncontaminated liberation; the treatise still includes this among what must be excluded. It does not reject discipline, concentration, wisdom, or liberation. It says that leaping alone from the net and stopping there, without great compassion, still does not complete Buddha-Dharma. The first nine resemble silkworms binding themselves; the tenth a muntjac leaping out alone. One side remains trapped in birth and death, the other seeks only its own escape. Neither is the great mind that seeks above and transforms below.

Excluding the false is therefore more than dividing good from evil. It simultaneously excludes attachment to the two sides of conditioned and unconditioned, contaminated and uncontaminated, defiled and pure, bondage and liberation. The problem in the first nine is easier to see; the tenth may be mistaken for the destination. The genuine mind of awakening is not complete when evil turns to good or the world turns toward personal nirvāṇa. Wisdom and great compassion must both be present.

The simile of elephant, fish, and wind muddying a pond returns observation to each thought. An external object can step into the water like an elephant and directly arouse false tendencies. Weak inward contemplation can stir from below like a fish. Inward and outward can mix as wind moves both surface and depth. An erroneous mind does not come only from outside or only from within. Practitioners must continually see it amid faculties and objects, the three karmic activities, and four comportments: guard against what has not arisen and quickly extinguish what has. The list of ten false minds thereby becomes a present method for contemplating mind.

Arousal Is Not Self-Creation but the Conjunction of Stimulus and Response

If the mind of awakening is not merely an enlarged wish, where does it arise? The treatise refuses to fix it as produced by oneself alone, poured in by another alone, jointly manufactured by both, or wholly without conditions. It uses the simile of a child falling into water or fire and parents starting up to rescue it. The child’s suffering is stimulus, the parents’ compassion response. When the two meet, the act of rescue arises.

There is no isolated practitioner who first completes the self and then decides whether to care about others. Seeing sentient beings ill, buddhas and bodhisattvas become ill with them as parents do. Sentient beings’ suffering causes the mountain of Dharma-nature to shake through great compassion, and the practitioner enters the ocean of birth and death. The practices of illness and infancy are not distractions that drag one away from cultivation; they are the form assumed by compassionate arousal.

The four accommodations unfold this stimulus and response as methods of teaching. Follow what sentient beings presently enjoy and make them happy; follow what suits their former habits and make practice easy; follow counteraction by giving different doses according to the severity of afflictive illness; when the time for the path matures, teach the ultimate meaning and let them enter awakening immediately. Dharma does not depart from reality, yet the teaching does not have only one tone of voice.

The four siddhāntas and five reasons for teaching prajñā describe the same matter from another side. Some must first obtain worldly joy, some develop wholesome roots, some counteract evil error, and some enter ultimate meaning directly. The many bodhisattva practices, recollection-of-the-Buddha samādhi, signs of non-retrogression, rescue from error, and ultimate meaning are all provisions according to capacity. Their names can open into and gather one another. The core remains this: teaching is not emptying what one knows outward, but Buddha-Dharma meeting sentient beings where causes and conditions have matured.

Thus arousing the mind of awakening is contemplation, and the cessation of perverse mind is calming. Stimulus and response are not only external affairs involved in transforming others. Every moment in which mind can give rise to great compassion because of sentient beings without being drawn away by perversity is already the simultaneous functioning of calming-and-contemplation.

The Four Kinds of Four Truths First Clarify Suffering · Origination · Path · Cessation

Before establishing vows, the treatise lets practitioners see that suffering, origination, path, and cessation can be read at four levels.

The Four Truths of arising-and-ceasing see all things changing. The body and mind of suffering move through arising, abiding, and cessation; the thoughts of origination flow without interruption; path removes delusion through counteraction; cessation returns what exists to nonbeing. This level first awakens practitioners from the burning house of impermanence. The three realms are like a chest filled with suffering; the four mountains of birth, aging, illness, and death close in. Seeing a plow turn the soil and birds eat worms, or a jeweled platform collapse in an instant, suffices to arouse compassionate vows.

The Four Truths of non-arising ask: if all conditioned dharmas lack intrinsic nature, where is a real suffering that oppresses or a real origination that combines? Counteragent and object counteracted cannot be obtained; neither can arising and ceasing. This does not say that sentient beings do not suffer. It ceases to turn suffering and sufferer into substances. Precisely because suffering cannot be fixed, bodhisattvas are not turned by it; precisely because sentient beings cannot be fixed, bodhisattvas do not abandon their liberation.

The Immeasurable Four Truths see immeasurable differences already within one suffering, much more the ten Dharma realms. Greed, anger, and delusion issue in immeasurable bodily, verbal, and mental karma. Path includes analytical and identity-emptiness, skillful and awkward, crooked and straight, provisional and real. Cessation likewise differs according to the delusions eliminated and primary and auxiliary means used. Bodhisattvas do not use one medicine for every illness, nor does nondifference in ultimate meaning make them blind to different capacities.

The Unconstructed Four Truths say that suffering, origination, path, and cessation all remain inside the true mark. Ordinary dharmas need not be thrown far away before a separate noble Dharma is gained. Birth and death do not depart from nirvāṇa, afflictions do not depart from awakening, and not a single color or fragrance is other than the Middle Way. This does not defend affliction. It cuts the duality that first preserves a substantial affliction and then attempts to manufacture a substantial awakening.

The four levels can be vertically or horizontally correlated with the four lands; stated generally as Four Truths or opened specifically into twelvefold dependent origination; and read in the dependent-origination verse as arising-and-ceasing, non-arising, immeasurable provisional names, and the unconstructed Middle Way. These openings and gatherings do not accumulate classifications for their own sake. They provide the same arousal of mind with a fitting contemplative object for different capacities.

Why Can Hearing the Same Sentence Produce Four Minds?

The treatise brings the Four Truths into ten kinds of arousal: investigating principle, seeing marks, seeing transformations, hearing Dharma, traveling through lands, seeing assemblies, seeing practices, seeing the Dharma become extinct, seeing faults, and seeing others suffer. It unfolds the first classes in detail so readers can see how one object becomes four vows through different understandings.

When Dharma-nature is investigated, the arising-and-ceasing contemplation resembles clouds dispersing to reveal the moon: afflictions must first be removed before the true is seen. The non-arising contemplation resembles ice and water as one essence: suffering and origination cannot be obtained in their very identity. The immeasurable contemplation sees the true mark pass beyond the two extremes and pure virtue concealed within coverings. The unconstructed contemplation resembles someone trying to flee the open space here and find open space elsewhere, finally knowing that ordinary dharmas in their very identity do not depart from the true mark. Dharma-nature has not suddenly become four; delusion differs as light and heavy, identity and separation, while understanding differs as skillful and awkward, provisional and real.

Seeing the Buddha’s marks can mean seeing the excellence of the responsive body born of parents; the superior response whose marks cannot be obtained; the reward body whose one body manifests everywhere; or the Dharma body whose every mark and excellence is wholly the true mark. Seeing transformations can mean one beam illuminating everywhere; a buddha responding without duality so that each being sees the Buddha before them; comportments throughout the ten directions without movement from Dharma-nature; or Tathāgata and transformation as nondual, transformation producing transformation without end. Each level must do more than increase amazement. It becomes “May I become a buddha and liberate countless beings.”

Hearing the single phrase “arising-and-ceasing” may lead one to seek quiescence through seeing change; awaken to non-arising in the Four Truths; see the Middle by leaving the extremes of arising-and-ceasing and non-arising-and-ceasing; or see the secret treasury in which one is three and three are one. Hearing non-arising, the immeasurable, or the unconstructed also turns progressively deeper, but the number of levels follows each teaching and is not mechanically uniform.

The crucial point is not a table of four vehicles but “one teaching, many understandings.” A sentence does not carry one fixed depth of practice by itself. Entering different capacities, it can become analysis of dharmas, penetration of identity-emptiness, sequential three truths, or perfectly interfused three truths. Hearing Dharma therefore asks not only which sentence one remembers, but what understanding it has produced in the mind and what vow arose from that understanding.

The Four Vast Vows Press Understanding into an Irrevocable Vow

The treatise says the Four Truths primarily concern understanding and the Four Vast Vows primarily concern vows. Understanding that does not become a vow can see birth and death clearly and still remain on the bank. A vow not arising from understanding may possess ardor without direction.

The Four Vast Vows of arising-and-ceasing begin from momentary impermanence. The five aggregates resemble bubble, foam, mirage, city, and illusion; land, home, family, and property suddenly exist and vanish. Vowing upon seeing the burning house turns discipline, concentration, and wisdom from personal insurance into a path that vertically breaks inversion, horizontally cuts the sea of death, removes sentient beings’ suffering, and gives them happiness. Understanding the Four Truths keeps one from the nine bondages; arousing the great vows keeps one from the one liberation.

The Four Vast Vows of non-arising contemplate one thought as coming from neither self, other, both, nor no cause and going nowhere. Mind is only a provisional name; the moon in water, mirror image, and illusion cannot be obtained. Suffering, origination, path, and cessation are all empty; even true Dharma as a raft must be relinquished, much more what is not Dharma. Yet bodhisattvas do not abandon compassionate vows because of emptiness. Precisely because they do not substantialize suffering and nirvāṇa, they can remove the two sufferings and give the two happinesses without constructing a burden of rescuer and rescued.

The Immeasurable Four Vast Vows contemplate mind as a master painter that paints the six paths and immeasurable delusion and understanding. The same mind can wash away old colors and paint many factors of the path. Some go circuitously to the conjured city and some directly; some circuitously to the place of treasure and some directly. The sixteen gates and Buddha-Dharmas as numerous as the Ganges sands all open from mind. Ordinary beings resemble a blind child sitting in a treasury, the Two Vehicles a sick person mistaking jewels for ghosts and beasts. Bodhisattvas abandon neither and vow to provide immeasurable treatments for immeasurable illness.

The Unconstructed Four Vast Vows contemplate one thought as emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle. A bright mirror’s purity, image, and substance are neither three successive levels nor three horizontally arranged objects; emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle stand simultaneously without obstruction. Mind, Buddha, and sentient beings are not separated. One mote of dust can contain a trichiliocosm scripture scroll, and one thought contains Dharma treasuries, defilements, samādhis, and perfections. Ignorance turns into luminosity as ice melts into water; nothing is imported from far away. Sentient beings bind themselves within the Dharma that has no bondage and seek liberation outside the Dharma that has nothing to release. Seeing this, great compassion and the Four Vast Vows arise together.

All four can be called true because they all leave the nine bondages and single liberation and reach toward seeking above. The first three can also enter the real in sequence, and the real can gather provisional dharmas. Ultimately, however, the first three rely on the provisional to disclose the real, while the unconstructed directly discloses it. One secret prescription of an excellent physician gathers all prescriptions; one wish-fulfilling jewel contains all treasures. “Gathering” does not erase skillful means but lets them know where they return.

How Do the Causes and Conditions of the One Great Work Land in One Arousal of Mind?

The mind of awakening is called one because one unfalse reality and one pure path lead out of birth and death; great because it is vast and inclusive, possesses great wisdom and elimination, and greatly benefits ordinary and noble beings; work because the buddhas of the three times use it both to accomplish the Buddha path and liberate sentient beings; causes and conditions because sentient beings stimulate the Buddha through capacity and the Buddha responds through compassion.

This mind cannot be fixed as three or one, nor annihilated as neither-three-nor-one. Wisdom grasps no object; the object has no graspable characteristic. Wisdom and object darkly unite as one while still being distinguished as a skillful means. Arousing the mind can also be viewed through breaking, following, and illuminating both: break every arousal involving acquisition, arouse in accord with the true mark of awakening, and pass beyond breaking and following while illuminating both without adhesion. Arousal then does not manufacture a grand object within the mind. It lets every practice begin simultaneously from great compassion and non-acquisition.

The treatise praises it through forceful similes. The mind of awakening is like adamant born from adamantine nature, clear water used before medicine, the life faculty among all faculties, a prince born with royal marks, and a kalaviṅka whose voice within the shell already surpasses other birds. It is also like a lion-sinew bowstring, lion’s milk, an adamantine hammer, Nārāyaṇa’s arrow, and a wish-fulfilling jewel. All point to one thing: although the initially aroused mind is small, once its direction is genuine it already contains all later bodhisattva merit.

Thus, the first arousal of the Great Vehicle mind surpasses the ultimate fruit of the Two Vehicles not because the beginner already possesses buddhahood’s merit as grounds for pride, but because from the first step this mind does not take personal liberation as its endpoint. Even if one received clothing as vast as the earth and food as large as Sumeru, the direction of seeking all-knowledge and universally liberating beings could repay the donor’s kindness. Grave offense is likewise not a substance abiding forever. As one lamp instantly illuminates a room dark for a hundred years, knowing dependent origination, no-self, and original purity makes transformation possible. The power of arousal does not beautify faults; it prevents any fault from being sentenced as incapable of transformation.

Six Identities: Neither Self-Abasement nor Pretense

The final question is the sharpest: Does the initial mind count as the mind of awakening? If it does, is an ordinary being already a buddha? If it does not, how can arousal lead to buddhahood? The Six Identities answer both sides together.

The final flame cannot occur apart from the first ignition of the lamp wick, yet the first flame cannot be called the complete consumption of the wick. Faith prevents denying the Dharma-nature originally present in one thought; wisdom prevents passing off possession in principle as realization in phenomena. Without faith, one pushes the noble sphere so high that it can never be reached. Without wisdom, overweening pride claims equality with the Buddha. The treatise therefore lists identity in principle, name, contemplative practice, resemblance, partial realization, and ultimate identity, beginning at the ordinary stage and ending at the noble. One does not become timid because of the beginning, nor elevate the beginning into the ultimate.

Identity in principle is one thought’s original possession of emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle. The principle of tathāgatagarbha is not diminished through being unknown. Quiescence in its very identity is calming; illumination in its very identity is contemplation. Original possession, however, is not realization.

Identity in name is hearing of the one real awakening from a good spiritual friend or scripture and knowing that every Dharma does not depart from Buddha-Dharma. Hearing stops the mind that races outward and begins right view of Dharma-nature. Understanding the name is not yet correspondence in contemplative practice.

Identity in contemplative practice is clear contemplation within, practice corresponding to speech and speech to practice. Merely speaking resembles a worm boring wood and accidentally leaving the shape of a character while not recognizing writing. Wisdom from hearing, reflection, and cultivation must be like eyes receiving sunlight, and contemplation of mind must continue without interruption before contemplative practice begins.

Identity in resemblance is contemplation growing brighter and calming more quiescent, like a diligent archer whose arrow draws near the target. Worldly livelihood does not contradict the true mark, and thought begins to correspond to true Dharma. Ignorance is perfectly subdued and wisdom resembling the Middle Way appears, but ignorance has not yet been partially broken.

Identity in partial realization is entering the first abode through the power of resembling contemplation, breaking one portion of ignorance and seeing one portion of buddha-nature. From the first abode to equal awakening, it resembles the moon moving from the first through the fourteenth day, light approaching fullness and darkness exhaustion. The capacity to manifest a buddha body or bodies in the nine Dharma realms according to sentient beings’ needs is altruistic function after Dharma-nature is partially disclosed.

Ultimate identity is equal awakening turning once into wondrous awakening. Wisdom’s light is perfectly full and cannot increase; everything to be eliminated is exhausted and cannot be further eliminated. Only this is ultimate awakening and ultimate calming-and-contemplation.

The house-treasure simile joins the six stages in one line. The house already has a treasure: identity in principle. A good spiritual friend points it out: identity in name. Clearing weeds and digging: identity in contemplative practice. Gradually drawing near: identity in resemblance. Opening the treasury and partially seeing the jewels: identity in partial realization. Taking out and using everything: ultimate identity. No step departs from the original treasury, and no step can bypass the actual digging.

The five kinds of awakening can be correlated with this path: arousing the mind with name, subduing the mind with contemplative practice, luminous mind with resemblance, emerging and arriving with partial realization, and unsurpassed with the ultimate. The five may also mutually include one another at successive perfect stages. Mutual inclusion does not cancel stages, nor do stages divide the one Dharma-nature.

Looking back over the whole chapter, the truth of suffering first excludes nine minds rising and falling in the world; the four kinds of Four Truths then exclude crooked, awkward, shallow, and near wisdom; the Four Vast Vows establish practice and vow; and the Six Identities distinguish principle and stage. The genuine mind of awakening resembles a luminous moon-jewel hidden beneath the jaw of a black dragon in a ninefold abyss. Tiles, stones, grass, and wood cannot be passed off as treasure. Yet for those with resolve and virtue, the way is not closed forever.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

The reading above follows the treatise’s own sequence from excluding the false to disclosing the true, and from object through vow to stage. Zhanran’s Zhiguan Fuxing Chuanhong Jue (hereafter Fuxing) further separates several joints whose layers are easily confused.

First, the Five Summaries are not five chapters outside the Ten Broad Chapters. They gather the following nine Broad Chapters into the causes and fruits of one’s own practice and the agent and object of transforming others. Regional terminology says only that Chinese and Sanskrit sounds and meanings differ. Exclusion is necessary because “path” is too general a name and ten classes of non-path must be distinguished. The asura category can be opened or combined, and the Two Vehicles can be combined in the count; ten is therefore a pedagogical arrangement, not grounds for inventing a fixed new taxonomy of destinations.

The Fuxing also connects each summary back to the Ten Broad Chapters. Arousing the mind gathers the resolve and understanding of the first five; cultivation gathers Preparatory Means and Proper Contemplation; fruition forms its own chapter; tearing the net uses Giving Rise to the Teaching to bring scriptures and treatises into communication; and return is gathered in Returning to the Purport. Through this correspondence, Great Purport is not an abstract general essay preceding the work, but a miniature of its following nine Broad Chapters. Every later chapter continues to fulfill one of the initial five questions.

Second, the stimulus-and-response passage first uses the Four Truths to determine true and false, then the four accommodations to explain stimulus and response. The four siddhāntas, five “furthermore” passages, and five causes and conditions may open into and gather one another, but the Dazhidu Lun has more than five “furthermore” passages. The present treatise selects five to correlate with arousal, cultivation, fruition, tearing the net, and return. The verse on “true Dharma and its speaker” simultaneously points to the difficulty of stimulating a wondrous response and arousing a wondrous capacity; it does not blame only the rarity of a good listener.

Third, the “Noble Practice” chapter of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra opens the meaning of the four kinds of Four Truths, while the four names and complete classification as arising-and-ceasing, non-arising, immeasurable, and unconstructed become explicit within Zhiyi’s organization. The treatise names the ten similes of the Fozang Jing; Zhanran later identifies their text as the Da Fangdeng Rulaizang Jing and says its ten meanings appear as nine similes. Title and referent must coexist; neither layer may be silently changed.

Fourth, the Four Vast Vows require preserving the order of object, understanding, and vow. Zhanran explains “vast” as broad and “vow” as binding, explicitly calls the Four Truths the object, and says the Four Vast Vows arise as vows on the basis of understanding. The prajñāpāramitā passage in the Four Vast Vows of non-arising directly says only that path factors and fruit attainment cannot be obtained. Zhiyi supplies the sentences about suffering and origination by extending the pattern. Attributing all four sentences to scripture erases the doctrinal work of the treatise’s author.

The Four Vast Vows themselves must be read separately according to the four kinds of Four Truths. Arising-and-ceasing raises compassion within the impermanent burning house; non-arising does not abandon sentient beings within non-acquisition; the immeasurable opens medicines as numerous as the Ganges sands for illnesses equally numerous; and the unconstructed lets Dharma treasuries, defilements, samādhis, and perfections turn within the same thought. Zhanran establishes the boundaries of arising-and-ceasing, non-arising, immeasurable, and unconstructed section by section, preventing the four passages from being flattened beneath the single label “Four Vast Vows.”

Fifth, textual differences in the unconstructed arousal can only be recorded side by side. “Break every arousal” differs from “pass beyond every arousal” in the extant scripture. The Fuxing explicitly says the treatise follows the scripture’s meaning and also provides an interpretive gloss. The number of bhikṣus differs as sixty and two hundred; Zhanran himself records only that this may result from earlier and later translation and that other divisions of the collection were not examined. The mirror demonstrates here not how to choose the superior ancient reading, but when to stop before a difference.

Sixth, the Six Identities both extend through ordinary and noble and divide into six phenomenal stages. Zhanran says this meaning arose within the Tiantai tradition precisely to prevent the two errors caused by failing to understand both “six” and “identity.” Identity in principle possesses the three truths but is not phenomenal realization. Identity in name hears the name; contemplative practice makes word and conduct correspond; resemblance purifies the six faculties; partial realization partially breaks ignorance; and ultimate identity perfects wisdom and elimination. The six treasure similes preserve the same principle and different stages simultaneously.

The lamp-wick simile of initial and later mind establishes continuity, not the erasure of stages. Moonlight from the first day to fullness instead distinguishes the progressive disclosure of partial realization from ultimate completion. Although the names of the five kinds of awakening can be correlated with five identities, their assignment remains Zhiyi’s renewed placement within the stages of the Perfect Teaching, not the original stage table of the cited treatise. By explicitly attributing these relations one by one, the Fuxing prevents a later correlation from being written backward as an earlier text’s own sentence.

The Zhiguan Dayi compresses the whole chapter into one clear relation: the Four Truths are the objects relied upon, the Four Vast Vows the vows that can be aroused, and the Six Identities the stages traversed. A vow without an object becomes a mad vow; an object without distinctions of stage confuses ordinary and noble. Through the eye of the Fuxing, arousing the great mind is neither shouting the largest vow nor stating the loftiest emptiness. It is producing understanding from the object, vow from understanding, and practice according to stage—never abandoning sentient beings and never pretending to have reached the endpoint.