摩訶止觀 大意·歸大處

The most dangerous moment in reading a profound treatise is not always failure to understand. It may be understanding one sentence and sealing that single sentence into the whole. Glue on the hand sticks to whatever it touches. A person talks in a dream and becomes harder to awaken the more they speak. People compete to seize rubble, each declaring that they have found a beryl jewel. Returning to the Great Abode first asks not how much you remember, but whether the words have brought you to where they truly tend.

Water flows toward the ocean; flame rises toward space. A teaching text also has a direction. Reaching meaning through the text does not mean abandoning words to chase a mysterious answer. It means seeing within each sentence how the teaching brings oneself and sentient beings together toward Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation. Enter the three virtues oneself, and cause others to enter them as well. Self-benefit alone or words alone have not yet completed the road.

Nor are the three virtues three entities external to one another. Wisdom and freedom are present within body; Dharma body and liberation are not absent from wisdom; and liberation does not leave body or wisdom behind. To speak of three prevents their functions from being erased. To speak of not-three prevents any virtue from becoming isolated. To speak of one means that they enter the secret treasury together. To speak of not-one means that all three functions remain clearly present.

Even ignorance, grasping marks, and non-knowing cannot be pushed outside the three virtues. Obstruction must be treated and virtue disclosed, so there is a path from arousing the mind to the ultimate. Yet obstruction does not depart from virtue, and virtue does not depart from obstruction, so the three virtues are not new objects brought in from afar. Luminosity is not brought in from beyond ignorance. The road truly must be walked, yet the virtue it discloses is not sought somewhere outside obstruction.

At the end, the Middle, true mark, Dharma body, omniscience of all aspects, and great nirvāṇa are all only names provisionally established. Zhiyi therefore leaves three questions: What is purport and return? Where does purport and return go? Who is the one who purports and returns? Seize an immediate answer, and the glue remains on the hand. When the path of words ceases, thought no longer pursues, and all is forever quiescent like space, the place of return is no longer distant.

Why Explain the Place of Return?

Fifth is Returning to the Great Abode. Because all dharmas are ultimately empty, this passage of calming-and-contemplation is taught.

A person’s mind resembles a hand smeared with glue: as soon as it touches something, it easily sticks. It also resembles talking in a dream: delusive grasping is deep, and waking is difficult. Some people seal themselves within wording, take the one part they have grasped as the whole meaning, and believe that they alone are right. People compete to seize rubble, yet each takes it for a beryl jewel. If even matters close at hand and words plainly disclosed cannot be recognized, how could one avoid confusion about distant principle and the hidden meaning of the teaching? For this very reason, the destination toward which the text’s purport finally tends must be explained.

Two Directions of Purport and Return

“Purport and return” means the place toward which the purport of the teaching text tends. It is like water flowing toward the ocean or flame rising toward space. If one can recognize the hidden meaning of the teaching and penetrate distant principle, one will not be detained and obstructed by nearby wording and explicit statements.

It is also like a wise minister who can understand the king’s secret speech on different occasions. Whenever the minister hears the king give an order, he knows what is truly intended. Penetrating the teaching’s meaning in this way enables one to reach the ground of omniscience.

One who obtains this purport can understand purport and return. The first division is this: “purport” means that one personally tends toward the three virtues, while “return” means guiding others to enter the three virtues together; they are therefore jointly called purport and return. The second division reverses the terms and speaks from the action: personally entering the three virtues is called “return,” while causing others to enter the three virtues is called “purport”; this too is called purport and return. Both explanations preserve one’s own practice and transforming others. Only when read together are both directions complete.

General Aspect: Buddhas and Sentient Beings Return Together to the Three Virtues

Purport and return will now be explained through their general and distinct aspects.

The buddhas appear in the world for the causes and conditions of one great work. They manifest many forms so that sentient beings may see the Dharma body together. After sentient beings see the Dharma body, buddhas and sentient beings all return to the Dharma body.

The buddhas also teach many Dharmas so that sentient beings may ultimately accomplish the Tathāgata’s omniscience of all aspects. Once omniscience of all aspects is complete, buddhas and sentient beings all return to prajñā.

The buddhas further manifest many skillful means, supernormal powers, and transformations, releasing sentient beings from every bond. They do not allow anyone alone to attain extinction but cause sentient beings all to attain extinction through the Tathāgata’s extinction. After extinction, buddhas and sentient beings all return to liberation. The Great Scripture says that the Buddha will place his children within the secret treasury and that before long he too will dwell within it. This is the general aspect of purport and return.

Distinct Aspect: Body, Wisdom, and Liberation Each Open into Three

The distinct aspect of purport and return first presents three kinds of body: first, form body; second, Dharma-gate body; and third, true-mark body. When their place of return is discussed after the conditions of transformation are complete, form body returns to liberation, Dharma-gate body returns to prajñā, and true-mark body returns to Dharma body.

Prajñā is likewise presented in three kinds: first, wisdom of the varieties of the path; second, omniscience; and third, omniscience of all aspects. When their place of return is discussed after transformation is complete, wisdom of the varieties of the path returns to liberation, omniscience returns to prajñā, and omniscience of all aspects returns to Dharma body.

Liberation also has three kinds: first, release from the bond of non-knowing; second, release from the bond of grasping marks; and third, release from the bond of ignorance. When transformation has ceased and return to the real is discussed, release from the bond of non-knowing returns to liberation, release from the bond of grasping marks returns to prajñā, and release from the bond of ignorance returns to Dharma body.

Thus, although the distinct aspect of purport and return opens body, prajñā, and liberation into three items each, all finally return together to the secret treasury of the three virtues—Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation.

The Three Virtues Are Not Three Things, Yet Cannot Be Erased into One

Going a step further, the three virtues cannot be fixedly grasped as three things, nor can they be erased into an undifferentiated one. Their meaning is inconceivable.

If one considers Dharma body to be only a fixed, unchanging Dharma body, then it is not the true Dharma body. One should know that Dharma body can be called body, can also be called non-body, and can further be called neither body nor non-body.

Dharma body abides in the Śūraṅgama samādhi and can manifest in many ways, making many colored bodily images; it is therefore called body. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to liberation. Wisdom illuminates and comprehends the many forms and non-forms; it is therefore called non-body. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to prajñā. True-mark body is neither a body of colored images nor a Dharma-gate body; it is therefore called neither body nor non-body. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to Dharma body.

Penetrating that these three bodies have no fixed mark of sameness or difference is called return. Teaching others that these three bodies have no fixed mark of sameness or difference is called purport. One’s own practice and transforming others both enter the secret treasury; this is why it is called purport and return.

If one considers prajñā to be only a fixed prajñā, then it is not true prajñā. One should know that prajñā can be called knowing, can also be called non-knowing, and can further be called neither knowing nor non-knowing.

The prajñā of wisdom of the varieties of the path knows conventional dharmas throughout and is therefore called knowing. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to liberation. The prajñā of omniscience knows the ultimate truth throughout and is therefore called non-knowing; here non-knowing does not mean ignorance. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to prajñā. The prajñā of omniscience of all aspects knows the Middle throughout and is therefore called neither knowing nor non-knowing. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to Dharma body.

Penetrating that the three kinds of prajñā have no fixed mark of sameness or difference is called return. Teaching others that the three kinds of prajñā have no fixed mark of sameness or difference is called purport. One’s own practice and transforming others both enter the secret treasury; this is why it is called purport and return.

If one considers liberation to be only a fixed liberation, then it is not true liberation. One should know that liberation can be called release, can also be called non-release, and can further be called neither release nor non-release.

Liberation through purity of skillful means can discipline sentient beings without being stained by their objects and is therefore called release. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to liberation. Liberation through perfect purity does not see a fixed sentient being and does not grasp the mark of liberation; it is therefore called non-release. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to prajñā. Liberation through purity of nature is neither a release that can be grasped nor an absence of liberation; it is therefore called neither release nor non-release. When the work of transformation is complete, it returns to Dharma body.

Whether one penetrates them in one’s own practice or teaches them to others, these three kinds of liberation have no fixed mark of sameness or difference. All enter the secret treasury together; this is why it is called purport and return.

Why the Three Virtues Are Neither New nor Old, Yet Can Be Called New and Old

From another perspective, the three virtues are not newly acquired and are not something old that existed beforehand, yet according to the conditions of practice they can be called new and old.

Ignorance obstructs Dharma body, grasping marks obstructs prajñā, and non-knowing obstructs liberation. These are called the three obstructions obstructing the three virtues. The three obstructions are already present before practitioners disclose the three virtues and are therefore called old. The three virtues remove the three obstructions and only now begin to become manifest; they are therefore called new.

Yet the three obstructions do not depart from the three virtues, and the three virtues do not depart from the three obstructions. Because the three obstructions do not depart from the three virtues, the obstructions cannot fixedly be called old. Because the three virtues do not depart from the three obstructions, the virtues cannot fixedly be called new.

Precisely because they are not new yet can be called new according to their disclosure, there are three virtues attained at the first arousal of the mind and three virtues attained all the way through the ultimate. Precisely because they are not old yet can be called old according to what is treated, there are three obstructions treated at the first arousal of the mind and three obstructions treated all the way through the ultimate. New yet not fixedly new, old yet not fixedly old—this discloses the three virtues intrinsically possessed in principle.

If one generally penetrates for oneself that the three virtues are neither new nor old yet can be called new and old according to phenomena, and knows that the three have no fixed mark of sameness or difference, and if one can explain this to others as well, this is purporting and returning to the secret treasury.

To distinguish them further: ignorance comes first and is called old; Dharma body is luminosity, which can remove ignorance, and is called new. Ignorance does not depart from luminosity, and luminosity does not depart from ignorance. Therefore ignorance cannot fixedly be called old, and luminosity cannot fixedly be called new.

Grasping marks comes first and is called old; signlessness removes grasping marks, and signlessness is called new. Yet marks do not depart from signlessness, and signlessness does not depart from marks. Where could there be anything fixedly new or old?

Non-knowing comes first and is called old; knowing can remove non-knowing, and knowing is called new. Yet non-knowing does not depart from knowing, and knowing does not depart from non-knowing. Where could there be anything fixedly new or old?

If one can penetrate that the new and old in their general and distinct aspects have no fixed mark of sameness or difference, and can teach this to others, this is called purport and return and is entry into the secret treasury. The same can be understood when explained through vertical sequence, horizontal mutual inclusion, opening, gathering, beginning, and ultimate.

Where Do All Names Finally Return?

The same applies when the two graphs “purport” and “return” themselves are used to explain the teaching. One may speak of purport, non-purport, and neither purport nor non-purport; one may also speak of return, non-return, and neither return nor non-return. Every level must enter the secret treasury and can be understood according to the examples above.

“Purport” is spoken from one’s own practice, “non-purport” from transforming others, and “neither purport nor non-purport” from the absence of any fixed self or other. Purport and return to the three virtues are quiescent in this way—what fixed name could still be declared or indicated? There is truly no knowing what name to use; names can only be provisionally established in accord with transformation.

From the perspective of Dharma body, one may provisionally speak of the Middle, true mark, Dharma body, neither calming nor contemplation, and so forth. From the perspective of prajñā, one may provisionally speak of omniscience of all aspects, great wisdom of equality, the contemplation of prajñāpāramitā, and so forth. From the perspective of liberation, one may provisionally speak of the Śūraṅgama samādhi, great nirvāṇa, the calming of inconceivable liberation, and so forth.

One should know that every kind of form, every kind of teaching, and every kind of supernormal power enters the secret treasury. Ultimately, what is purport and return? Where does purport and return go? Who is the one who purports and returns? At this point, the path traveled by words is severed, the place traveled by thought ceases, and all is forever quiescent like space. Only this is called purport and return. It will be explained extensively in the tenth Broad Chapter.

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Two [Part Two].

When a work of calming-and-contemplation speaks of a place of return, two misunderstandings arise easily. Some think the destination is merely one more summary of what came before. Others rush to seize upon a single supreme statement and take that statement for the whole. Zhiyi, however, does not first answer where the teaching returns. He first portrays the mind that grasps in the wrong direction: glue on the hand sticks to whatever it touches; a person talking in a dream becomes harder to awaken the more they speak; people compete to seize rubble, each declaring that they have obtained a jewel.

The problem is not that there are too many words, but that mind seals one passage into the whole. If even nearby matters and explicit speech can be mistaken, distant principle and hidden teaching are still more readily replaced by one’s own preconceptions. Returning to the Great Abode therefore begins by recognizing attachment. Unless one knows that what one has seized is only rubble, one cannot truly ask toward what the purport of the teaching text tends.

The Place of Return Is Not Another Place Outside Words

What is purport and return? Water flows toward the ocean; flame rises toward space. Water and fire do not remain where they were, yet neither leaves itself behind to fabricate a separate tendency. Their movement itself discloses where they tend. A teaching text is the same: each sentence points toward a purport. If one sees only its surface wording without penetrating where it tends, the text detains one. If one reaches meaning through the text, nearby words of teaching can open into distant principle.

The simile of a wise minister understanding the king’s secret speech carries this point further. The same word can indicate different things on different occasions. Wisdom is not arbitrary guessing; it lies in hearing the words while also understanding the setting in which they are spoken and the work that must actually be done. Reading calming-and-contemplation is the same. One does not leap over words in pursuit of a mysterious answer, but recognizes within the words where they are leading.

This direction simultaneously includes one’s own practice and transforming others. From the perspective of personally tending toward the three virtues, it can be called purport; from that of guiding others to enter the three virtues together, it can be called return. From another angle, personally entering the three virtues is called return, while causing others to enter them is called purport. The two sets of terms are established reciprocally because practice and transformation are not two unrelated roads. If only oneself arrives and no sentient beings do, purport and return lack one direction. If there is only teaching directed outward while oneself has not entered, the other direction remains incomplete.

Why Do Buddha and Sentient Beings Return Together to the Three Virtues?

The general aspect of purport and return begins with the buddhas’ appearance in the world. The buddhas manifest many forms so that sentient beings may see the Dharma body together; teach many Dharmas so that sentient beings may ultimately attain omniscience of all aspects; and manifest many skillful means, supernormal powers, and transformations to release sentient beings from their bonds, not allowing one person alone to attain extinction. Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation are therefore not three virtues possessed by the Buddha alone. From the beginning, what the Buddha manifests, teaches, and does is directed toward sentient beings entering together. Only the joint return of buddhas and sentient beings is called the general aspect.

The distinct aspect unfolds this direction level by level. Body comprises form body, Dharma-gate body, and true-mark body; once their work is complete, they return respectively to liberation, prajñā, and Dharma body. Prajñā comprises wisdom of the varieties of the path, omniscience, and omniscience of all aspects, which likewise return respectively to liberation, prajñā, and Dharma body. Liberation comprises release from the bond of non-knowing, release from the bond of grasping marks, and release from the bond of ignorance, which again return respectively to liberation, prajñā, and Dharma body.

These three groups do not divide nine items into mutually isolated categories. Wisdom and freedom are already present in the manifestation of body; Dharma body and liberation are already present in wisdom’s illumination; and the function of liberation does not leave body or wisdom. The more finely the distinct aspect divides, the more it discloses that no virtue stands alone. All three paths finally enter the same secret treasury.

Neither Three nor One: How Does This Appear as Body, Knowing, and Liberation?

If Dharma body is fixed as something that can only be called Dharma body, it is not the Dharma body spoken of here. Dharma body can manifest every form and is therefore called body. Wisdom illuminates forms and non-forms and is therefore called non-body. True-mark body is neither a body of colored images nor a Dharma-gate body and is therefore called neither body nor non-body. Once their work is complete, the three return respectively to liberation, prajñā, and Dharma body. Penetrating that these three bodies have no fixed mark of sameness or difference is return; explaining this to others is purport.

Prajñā likewise cannot be fixed as a single kind of knowing. Wisdom of the varieties of the path knows the conventional throughout and is called knowing; omniscience knows the ultimate throughout and is called non-knowing; omniscience of all aspects knows the Middle throughout and is called neither knowing nor non-knowing. Here non-knowing is not ignorance. Rather, it prevents knowing from being sealed within one kind of object or one mode. The three kinds of prajñā each have what they illuminate and where they return, yet possess no fixed mark of sameness or difference.

Liberation is likewise not only a release that can be grasped. Liberation through purity of skillful means disciplines sentient beings without being stained by them and is called release. Liberation through perfect purity sees neither a fixed sentient being nor a fixed mark of liberation and is called non-release. Liberation through purity of nature goes beyond the opposition of release and non-release and is called neither release nor non-release. The three liberations each return to the three virtues, while both penetrating and teaching them enter the secret treasury together.

Thus “not three” does not delete the three virtues, and “not one” does not pull them apart. If only three are asserted, Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation become unrelated. If only one is asserted, the distinct functions of body, knowing, and release are erased. The inconceivability of the three virtues lies precisely in the three remaining clearly present while none can exist in isolation.

If Obstruction Is Virtue, Why Must the Path Still Run from Arousing the Mind to the Ultimate?

New and old next bring the question into the time of practice. Ignorance obstructs Dharma body, grasping marks obstructs prajñā, and non-knowing obstructs liberation. Because the three obstructions are prior, they are called old. Because the three virtues remove obstruction and only now become manifest, they are called new. If one stops with this side alone, practice appears to use later, new virtues to destroy earlier, old obstructions.

The treatise immediately overturns this fixed sequence: the three obstructions do not depart from the three virtues, and the three virtues do not depart from the three obstructions. If obstruction lay entirely outside virtue, Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation could not be disclosed from the present moment. If virtue lay entirely outside obstruction, removing obstruction would amount merely to seeking another object in the distance. The three obstructions therefore cannot fixedly be called old, and the three virtues cannot fixedly be called new.

Yet not fixing new and old does not mean that there is no arousing the mind, no counteraction, and no ultimate. Not new yet new: therefore there are three virtues attained at arousing the mind and three virtues attained at the ultimate. Not old yet old: therefore there are three obstructions treated at arousing the mind and three obstructions treated at the ultimate. The three virtues in principle have no new or old, while the course of practice still has disclosure and what is treated. Identity preserves nonduality; beginning and end preserve actual practice. Both stand at once.

The three distinct explanations—ignorance and luminosity, grasping marks and signlessness, and non-knowing and knowing—make this relation concrete one by one. Luminosity removes ignorance without standing outside ignorance. Signlessness removes marks without establishing itself elsewhere beyond marks. Knowing removes non-knowing without being brought in from outside it. The treatise states generally that vertical and horizontal, opening and gathering, beginning and end, and the other modes can all be understood according to the preceding examples.

When Names Reach Their End, What Can Still Be Said?

Finally, the treatise places the two graphs “purport” and “return” themselves within a threefold opening and gathering. Purport, non-purport, and neither purport nor non-purport, as well as return, non-return, and neither return nor non-return, must all enter the secret treasury. Purport is spoken from one’s own practice, non-purport from transforming others, and the double negation from the absence of any fixed self and other. Even the name that points to the place of return cannot stand outside that place.

The three virtues are quiescent, and no name can express or indicate them completely; names can only be provisionally established. From the side of Dharma body there are the Middle, true mark, Dharma body, and neither calming nor contemplation. From the side of prajñā there are omniscience of all aspects, great wisdom of equality, and the contemplation of prajñāpāramitā. From the side of liberation there are the Śūraṅgama samādhi, great nirvāṇa, and the calming of inconceivable liberation. These names are not competing jewels. According to different functions, they point toward the same secret treasury.

The entire passage therefore closes with three questions: What is purport and return? Where does purport and return go? Who is the one who purports and returns? If some Dharma, place, or person is seized as the answer, the glue has not yet released the hand. Only when the path of words is severed, the place of mental activity ceases, and all is forever quiescent like space has the passage brought a person to its destination. The fifth summary marks the direction here and leaves extensive explanation to the tenth Broad Chapter. Its final sentence is only a remote pointer to that chapter; the body of the tenth Broad Chapter is not unfolded here.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

Zhanran’s Zhiguan Fuxing Chuanhong Jue first illuminates the hinges in the opening similes. The glue-covered hand is mind giving rise to attachment as it follows words. Talking in a dream is partial grasping arising again within ignorance. Sealing wording and equating meaning is grasping one side within the teachings, gates, and truths. Distant principle is identified as the Middle, and hidden teaching as the perfect and constant. “Hidden” here therefore concerns the profundity of the teaching’s meaning, not the name of a later sectarian school.

When explaining the name, Zhanran analyzes text, purport, and return as teaching, meaning, and tendency, then assigns water and fire, their movement, and space and ocean to the teaching, the text’s meaning, and the destination. He explicitly judges the two reciprocal pairings of purport and return to be explanations made by dividing the two graphs according to one’s own practice and transforming others. The two names are therefore not contradictory: through the two sides of entering and causing others to enter, they jointly disclose what self and other realize.

The framework for properly explaining the three virtues begins with the general and distinct explanations, then enters the inconceivable. The distinct aspect opens the three virtues within each single virtue; the inconceivable means one virtue possesses all three. Ceasing transformation means that conditions for transformation are complete and entry into nirvāṇa is manifested. The passage on new and old is further judged an explanation through phenomena and principle, beginning and end: in principle, virtue and obstruction are nondual and there is neither new nor old; phenomenally, original possession and attainment through cultivation, obstructer and obstructed, remain. It is therefore nondual yet two.

Zhanran also defines vertical, horizontal, opening, and gathering. Vertical lists Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation successively. Horizontal and opening let each virtue open into three. Gathering means that the three are simply one. Beginning and end include both the axis from arousing the mind to the ultimate and the axis from Deer Park to the twin śāla trees. When explaining through the two graphs, he further divides the purporting and returning agents as the teaching of the three virtues and what they purport toward and return to as the principle of the three virtues. When integrating different names, he uses marks, teaching, and power to illuminate Dharma body, prajñā, and liberation. Their many kinds mutually include one another and still do not leave the one secret treasury.

Finally, Zhanran does not fabricate a substantive answer for each of the three questions, but gathers his explanation into an exhortation on the difficulty of encountering the true Dharma. The Zhiguan Yili gathers purport and return through the wondrous Dharma and secret treasury of the three tracks, while the Zhiguan Dayi restates the fifth summary as returning to the three virtues. Both confirm that this is the return of the Five Summaries within Great Purport. The final sentence only points remotely to the tenth Broad Chapter; the body of that chapter is not already present at the end of this fascicle.