摩訶止觀 體相

A blind person asks what color milk is. One person says it resembles a shell; others say rice flour, snow, or a white crane. All four answers point toward white, but none is the color of milk itself. If blind people each seize one simile and argue until their faces redden, what they contend over remains only a simile.

Zhiyi uses this story to ask us: when we hear existence, emptiness, both existence and emptiness, or neither existence nor emptiness, do we likewise take one gate for the whole true mark? Teaching can differ according to sentient understanding, understanding and wisdom, or wisdom. The same teaching can also give delight, give rise to goodness, break evil, or lead into the ultimate truth. Many voices do not mean truth has shattered into many pieces. Precisely because sentient beings’ eye diseases differ, medicine cannot have only one flavor.

Where, then, is the essence of calming-and-contemplation? The treatise does not let one memorize a single definition. Through teaching characteristics it asks which road one travels; through eye and wisdom whether one can truly see and know; through objects what one illuminates; and finally through gain and loss whether, the moment one speaks, one has already grasped self, other, both, or no cause.

Nor does the perfect and sudden erase three into one. It resembles one face with three eyes: the eyes do not split the face, and the face does not deprive the eyes of their functions. It also resembles eye, sunlight, and form: without any one of them, seeing cannot occur. Calming, contemplation, and object do not stand in line at three moments. One contains three, and three do not depart from one.

Real loss is not failing to learn one more name or characteristic. It is seizing an explanation, then immediately producing dependence, right and wrong, love and anger, and contention, until body, speech, and mind push oneself back into the ocean of suffering. Nor is real gain henceforth closing one’s mouth. It first breaks the four kinds of grasping at nature, then teaches four through skillful means according to sentient beings’ conditions. The inexpressible and skillful expression need not cancel one another.

The final test left by Essence and Characteristics is therefore direct: Can one remain unmoved in the ultimate truth and still skillfully distinguish every Dharma? Can one remain personally unbound by views and still use different Dharma gates to help different people? If one remains busy proving that the shell, snow, or white crane held in one’s hand alone is the color of milk, the eyes have not yet opened.

Four Roads Disclose the Essence of Calming-and-Contemplation

The third chapter explains the essence and characteristics of calming-and-contemplation. The work’s Great Purport is already known, and the name calming-and-contemplation has been explained broadly and deeply. Now its profound essential principle must be recognized more fully. The treatise first discloses this essence in summary through four directions: teaching characteristics, eye and wisdom, objects, and gain and loss.

Why are these four divisions needed? Principle must be made clear through teaching, and teachings have many differences, so it is disclosed through teaching characteristics. Entrances into principle differ, so it is disclosed through eye and wisdom. The truths taught can be provisional or real, so it is disclosed through objects. People may accord with or depart from this principle, so it is disclosed through gain and loss. The Commentary on the Lotus uses four unities to disclose the real, while this treatise uses four divisions to disclose the essence; the two may be broadly compared.

First are teaching characteristics. Ordinary beings and sages alike may use calming and contemplation as names for teachings. One cannot follow this common name alone and believe that the distinct essence taught here has been found. Its characteristics must therefore be used to distinguish it.

First Distinguishing Ordinary Beings and the Two Vehicles

The calming of ordinary beings includes using wholesome dharmas to subdue the evils treated, as well as the four dhyānas and four immeasurable minds. Their contemplation includes observation born from wholesome conduct and the six practices of delighting in higher states and rejecting lower ones. These kinds of calming-and-contemplation have not escaped birth and death and bear the characteristic of outflow; they are not the calming-and-contemplation taught here. The treatise therefore cites the simile that apart from Mount Mali, nowhere produces superior sandalwood, and apart from the wisdom of the Three Vehicles, the rest is not true wisdom.

The nine perceptions, ten perceptions, eight liberations, and nine successive concentrations cultivated by the Two Vehicles mostly belong to phenomenal meditative concentration and, in a general statement, have the characteristic of calming. Wisdom that contemplates the active Four Truths has the characteristic of contemplation. Although this calming-and-contemplation can leave birth and death, it is a clumsy method of crossing that extinguishes form and enters emptiness. This emptiness may be called calming and may be called neither calming nor non-calming, but cannot be called contemplation. Why? Because it returns to reducing body to ashes and extinguishing wisdom, it cannot be called contemplation. It merely analyzes dharmas to enter emptiness, bears the characteristic of non-outflow, and is likewise not the calming-and-contemplation taught here.

The Three Successive Calmings

There are three calmings used for skillful crossing: calming that embodies truth, expedient calming that follows conditions, and calming that ceases discrimination of the two extremes.

First is calming that embodies truth. Dharmas arise from causes and conditions, while causes and conditions are originally empty and lack any autonomous entity. Mind ceases and penetrates the source; hence one is called a śramaṇa. Knowing that causes and conditions are only temporary combinations, empty and quiescent in nature like illusions and transformations, is called “embodying.” When climbing delusive thought realizes emptiness, it ceases. Emptiness is true, and this is therefore called calming that embodies truth.

Second is expedient calming that follows conditions. The Three Vehicles together rely upon the path beyond speech, sever afflictions, and enter the true. In terms of the true entered, there is no difference; only afflictions and habituations may be exhausted or unexhausted. After embodying the true, the Two Vehicles need not practice expedient calming further. Bodhisattvas, however, must enter the provisional from emptiness and therefore need to employ skillful means. Knowing that emptiness is not an emptiness in which one becomes stuck is called expedient. Being able to distinguish sentient beings’ illnesses and corresponding medicines is called following conditions. Mind abiding in conventional truth without scattering or movement is called calming. The scriptural statement “in movement and stillness, mind is constantly one” can also verify this meaning.

Third is calming that ceases discrimination of the two extremes. Birth and death move and flow, while nirvāṇa is grasped as a guarantee. Both extremes are one-sided practices and functions that cannot enter the Middle Way. Now one knows that the conventional is not a fixed conventional, and the conventional extreme is therefore quiescent. At the same time, one cannot grasp a non-conventional, and the empty extreme is therefore quiescent. When discrimination of both extremes ceases, this is called calming that ceases the two extremes.

Although these three names for calming do not directly occur as one list in the scriptures and treatises, they are established according to meaning in correspondence with the three contemplations. The Explanatory Treatise says that a bodhisattva follows scriptural teaching and establishes names, and this is called the gift of Dharma. There is therefore no fault in establishing names according to meaning. If the same names are later found in a scripture, this means only that those names accorded with this meaning from afar. Closely examined, the three calmings here seem to have the same names as those in the preceding Explaining the Name, but their characteristics actually differ.

The resemblance is this: the preceding calming of cessation resembles the present calming that embodies truth; the calming of staying resembles expedient calming that follows conditions; and calming as non-calming resembles calming that ceases the two extremes. The difference is that each present calming takes one truth as its characteristic. The preceding three meanings together accomplish each later calming, and every later calming fully possesses the preceding three meanings.

When cultivating calming that embodies truth, penetrating provisional names arising from conditions as empty and without autonomy ceases the moving evil; this is the meaning of cessation. Mind staying in principle is precisely penetrating causes and conditions; this is the meaning of staying. This principle is the true, the true is the source, and the source falls into neither calming nor non-calming; this is the meaning of calming as non-calming. The three meanings together accomplish the characteristic of calming that embodies truth.

When cultivating expedient calming, illuminating provisional dharmas with mastery ceases scattering and non-knowing; this is the meaning of cessation. Mind stays in provisional principle, just as Vimalakīrti entered samādhi, contemplated the faculties and nature of the monks, and distinguished illness from medicine; this is the meaning of staying. Provisional principle itself does not move; this is the meaning of calming as non-calming. The three meanings together accomplish the characteristic of expedient calming that follows conditions.

When cultivating calming that ceases the two extremes, both the marks of birth and death and nirvāṇa cease; this is the meaning of cessation. Prajñā that enters principle is called abiding, and mind conditions the Middle Way; this is the meaning of staying. The principle of true mark is neither calming nor non-calming; this is the meaning of calming as non-calming. The three meanings together accomplish the characteristic of calming that ceases the two extremes. Thus the three calmings here forever differ from those in the preceding chapter and are still not the perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation ultimately adopted by this treatise.

The Three Successive Contemplations

Next are the characteristics of contemplation. There are three contemplations: entering emptiness from the provisional is called the contemplation of the two truths; entering the provisional from emptiness is called the contemplation of equality; and the preceding two contemplations serve as an expedient path that permits entry into the Middle Way, illuminates the ultimate and conventional truths together, becomes quiescently extinguished thought by thought, and naturally flows into the ocean of omniscience—this is called contemplation of the Middle and ultimate truth. The names of these three contemplations come from the Yingluo Jing.

Why is the first called contemplation of the two truths? Contemplating the provisional is that which expresses entry into emptiness, while emptiness is realized through what expresses it. Because contemplator and object contemplated are spoken of together, it is called contemplation of the two truths. Further, when emptiness is realized, one not only sees emptiness but still recognizes the provisional. It resembles clouds being removed: when the obstruction opens, the sky above and earth below become clear together. The true and provisional both appear, so it can be called contemplation of the two truths. Since it meets the true through the provisional, how could it not be called contemplation of the two truths?

Explained further through breaking and use, the conventional is what is broken and the true is what is used. Named only from what is broken, it should be called contemplation of conventional truth. Named only from what is used, it should be called contemplation of ultimate truth. Because breaking and use are spoken of together, it is called contemplation of the two truths. This contemplation can again be divided into three: according to teaching it is contemplation of the two truths following sentient understanding; according to practice it is contemplation of the two truths following sentient understanding and wisdom; and according to realization it is contemplation of the two truths following wisdom. Although the work of the initial contemplation has not yet accorded with the true, it can still be discussed as contemplation of the two truths according to teaching and practice.

Someone asks: The first contemplation receives the name two truths because breaking and use are spoken of together. The second contemplation likewise has breaking and use; should it not also be called contemplation of the two truths? The answer is that the preceding contemplation has already received the name two truths. Although the later contemplation likewise has breaking and use, it is called the contemplation of equality from its more excellent meaning.

Another asks: The third contemplation also has breaking and use. Why is another name not established from its more excellent meaning? The answer is that each of the first two contemplations has an obstruction and therefore still requires further breaking and use. The third has no obstruction and is named only from the Middle Way it employs. They cannot be treated identically.

Another asks: The first two contemplations both contemplate the two truths; do they also both enter the two truths? The answer is that the initial contemplation contemplates the provisional in order to break the illness of the provisional and contemplates the true in order to use the true. It therefore contemplates both, but it uses the true and does not use the provisional and thus does not enter both.

Another asks: The true and the Middle can both be called truths. Since the conventional inside and outside the realms is not principle, how can it also be called truth? The answer is that the Bodhisattva Stages teaches two Dharma-natures: phenomenal Dharma-nature because phenomena are differentiated, and real Dharma-nature because its nature is true. These are precisely different names for the two truths. If both phenomenal and real can be called Dharma-nature, conventional and true can of course both be called truths.

Another asks: If so, can both also be called nirvāṇa? The answer is that scriptures speak of a poor person obtaining treasure and of a macaque obtaining wine; the concentration of neither-perception-nor-non-perception can also be called worldly nirvāṇa. This is the intent.

Another asks: If so, can both be called non-outflow? The answer is that treatises speak both of right view of the world and world-transcending right view.

Another asks: If so, can both be called non-arising? The answer is that the scriptural statement that different marks are mutually absent also has precisely this meaning.

Another asks: When entering emptiness from the provisional, must one first break the provisional and only afterward enter emptiness? The answer is that generally there should be four propositions: entering without breaking, entering by breaking, breaking without entering, and neither breaking nor entering. These can be expanded through thirty-six propositions, to be explained later.

Second, entering the provisional from emptiness is called contemplation of equality. If one has entered emptiness and not even an emptiness remains to be grasped, what provisionality could be entered? One should know that this contemplation is for transforming sentient beings. Knowing that the true realized is not a true in which one may abide, one expediently leaves emptiness and enters provisional dharmas. It can distinguish illness and medicine without error and is therefore called entering the provisional. Equality is spoken in relation to the preceding contemplation. The preceding contemplation breaks the illness of the provisional, does not use provisional dharmas, and uses only true Dharma. It breaks one side without breaking the other and is not yet equal. The later contemplation breaks the illness of emptiness and once again uses provisional dharmas. The breaking and use of the two contemplations are equal when compared across their different times and stations, so it is called equal.

The treatise uses opening the eyes as a simile. When a blind person’s eyes first open, they can see empty space and forms. Although seeing forms, they cannot distinguish the roots, stems, branches, and leaves of different flowers, grasses, and trees or know which are medicine and which poison. Entering emptiness from the provisional and seeing according to wisdom is the same: one sees the two truths but cannot employ provisional dharmas. If, after the eyes open, one can see space and form, distinguish types, understand causes and conditions, and recognize and use coarse and subtle, medicine and food, one can benefit others. This directly compares entering the provisional from emptiness. It likewise sees the true and conventional, but chiefly employs provisional dharmas to transform sentient beings. It is therefore called entering the provisional and, in relation to the preceding contemplation, equal.

Third is contemplation of the Middle and ultimate truth. The preceding contemplation empties the provisional—emptiness removes birth and death. The later contemplation empties emptiness—emptiness removes nirvāṇa. Obstructing both extremes is called the contemplation of two emptinesses. Using this as an expedient path, one can enter the Middle Way; hence it is said that thought after thought is quiescently extinguished and flows into the ocean of omniscience. From another side, the initial contemplation uses emptiness and the later contemplation uses the provisional, preserving two skillful means together. Upon entering the Middle Way, both truths can then be illuminated. The scripture says that if mind is in concentration, it can know the marks of worldly dharmas arising and ceasing. The intent of the first two contemplations as two skillful means lies precisely in illuminating both truths upon entry into the Middle Way.

Someone asks: The Great Scripture says that both an excess of concentration and an excess of wisdom prevent one from seeing buddha-nature. What does this mean? The answer is that within the three successive contemplations, the Two Vehicles and bodhisattvas of the Shared Teaching possess one part of the first contemplation, having more concentration and less wisdom, and cannot see buddha-nature. Bodhisattvas of the Distinct Teaching possess one part of the second contemplation, having more wisdom and less concentration, and likewise cannot see buddha-nature. Only when the first two serve as skillful means and one enters the third contemplation is buddha-nature seen.

Another asks: The scripture says that because bodhisattvas of the ten abodes possess the wisdom eye, they see without clarity; it does not say they wholly fail to see. The first contemplation is the station of the wisdom eye and the second that of the Dharma eye. Why say neither eye sees at all? The answer is that eyes in successive stations incline toward concentration or toward wisdom; this is precisely the one-sided error rebuked by the Buddha. The name alone cannot establish that they have seen. When the scripture says the wisdom eye can see, although the name is the same, it actually refers to the ten abodes of the Perfect Teaching. When the three contemplations appear, one enters the principle of the three truths and is then called abiding; the seeing of this station of abiding is called wisdom eye. Hence the Lotus vows to attain the foremost pure wisdom eye like the World-Honored One. This wisdom eye has seen one portion of buddha-nature but not yet clearly, like seeing forms at night or looking at geese in the sky. It is not a name that can belong to the wisdom eye of the Two Vehicles’ one-sided emptiness.

The Lotus further uses digging a well on a high plateau as a simile: first only dry earth appears; continued effort reveals damp earth, then mud, and finally water. The treatise compares dry earth to the first contemplation, damp earth to the second, mud to the third, and water to perfect-and-sudden contemplation. Applied to teachings, the Tripiṭaka Teaching does not express the Middle Way and resembles dry earth; the Shared Teaching resembles damp earth; the Distinct Teaching resembles mud; and the Perfect Teaching expresses the Middle Way and resembles water. How could the wisdom eye of one-sided emptiness see the nature that the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings do not express and the first two practices do not reach? There is no principle by which it could already have seen.

The three contemplations here appear to resemble those in Explaining the Name, but their meanings and characteristics differ. The resemblance is that the preceding contemplation of penetrating can contemplate and break the false, like entering emptiness from the provisional; the preceding contemplative comprehension can penetrate principle so principle is harmonized and penetrate phenomena so phenomena are harmonized, like the equal contemplation entering the provisional; and the preceding contemplation as non-contemplation resembles contemplation of the Middle Way.

The difference is that the preceding three meanings together form the characteristic of one truth, while the present three contemplations each form the characteristic of one truth. The preceding three contemplations together accomplish each later contemplation, and every later contemplation possesses all three preceding meanings. When entering emptiness from the provisional, the ability to break the bedrock of the four abiding afflictions has the meaning of penetrating. The emptiness entered is principle, and wisdom can disclose principle; this has the meaning of contemplative comprehension. Empty principle itself is neither contemplation nor non-contemplation; this has the meaning of contemplation as non-contemplation. The three meanings together accomplish the contemplation of entering emptiness.

Entering the provisional from emptiness likewise possesses the three meanings. Recognizing the dharmas of provisional names and breaking the obstruction of non-knowing is penetrating. Illuminating the principle of provisional names and discerning without error is contemplative comprehension. Provisional principle is constantly so and is contemplation as non-contemplation. The three meanings together accomplish provisional contemplation.

Contemplation of the Middle Way also possesses the three meanings. Emptying the two extremes is penetrating. Properly entering the Middle Way is contemplative comprehension. Dharma-nature of the Middle Way itself is contemplation as non-contemplation. The three meanings together accomplish contemplation of the Middle Way.

The preceding explanation presents the characteristics of the three calmings and three contemplations according to Mahāyāna. Meanings divide according to characteristics, clearly ordered and individually distinct. In speaking of the three contemplations there are provisional and real, shallow and deep. In speaking of the three wisdoms there are superior and inferior, before and after. In speaking of the three kinds of persons there are great and small stations. This remains successive division and is not what the treatise ultimately employs.

Perfect and Sudden: One Contains Three, Three Do Not Depart from One

The characteristic of perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation is this: when calming conditions truth, one truth is itself three truths; when truth holds calming, one calming is itself three calmings. It resembles one thought possessing three kinds of marks. Although it is one thought, this does not prevent it from having three marks. Calming and truth are the same: the Dharma calmed is one and three, while the mind that calms is three and one.

When contemplation contemplates the object, one object is itself three objects; when the object gives rise to contemplation, one contemplation is itself three contemplations. It resembles Maheśvara having three eyes on one face. Although there are three eyes, there is still only one face. Contemplation and object are the same: contemplating three is itself one, while arising from one object becomes three contemplations—inconceivable. It is not fixed as provisional or real, does not divide superior and inferior, establishes neither before nor after, falls into neither parallel arrangement nor separation, and judges neither great nor small.

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā therefore says that dharmas arising through causes and conditions are emptiness itself, provisionality itself, and the Middle itself. The Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra further says that a person must have eyes and be illuminated by bright sunlight to see the many forms. If the eye could see by itself, sunlight would not be needed. If there were no forms, even with sun and eyes there would be nothing to see. Eye, sun, and form are neither separated in time nor apart from one another. The treatise compares eye to calming, sun to contemplation, and form to object. The three have no before or after, can be spoken of as three simultaneously, and within the three can again be spoken of as one. Understanding this makes the characteristics of the Perfect Teaching’s calming-and-contemplation intelligible.

The mutual possession of three and one is not all; every preceding name and meaning is present in one mind. Penetrating ignorance and inversion in their very essence as the true of true mark is called calming that embodies truth. True mark pervading everywhere, mind abiding unmoved while following conditions through objects, is called expedient calming that follows conditions. Both extremes—birth and death and nirvāṇa, stillness and scattering—ceasing is called calming that ceases the two extremes. Penetrating every provisional dharma as entirely empty, with emptiness itself true mark, is called contemplation entering emptiness. When this emptiness is penetrated, contemplation interpenetrates with the Middle Way and can also know and see the worldly marks of dharmas arising and ceasing as they really are; this is called contemplation entering the provisional. This empty wisdom itself is the Middle Way without dual difference; this is called contemplation of the Middle Way.

At the moment of embodying truth, the five abiding afflictions resemble bedrock, sand, and gravel and cease in one thought; this is the meaning of cessation. Mind conditions the Middle Way and enters the wisdom of true mark; this is the meaning of staying. The nature of true mark is the meaning of neither calming nor non-calming. In the same thought one can penetrate the five abidings and reach true mark; true mark is neither contemplation nor non-contemplation. All these meanings are within one thought-moment, unmoved from the limit of the true while possessing many differences. The scripture says to skillfully distinguish the marks of dharmas while remaining unmoved in the ultimate truth. Though names are many, it is only the same prajñā taught by the Buddha under many names. Every name is perfect and every meaning perfect. Relative and absolute together disclose that this essence is inconceivable. Because it is inconceivable, it is unobstructed; because unobstructed, it is complete without diminution. This is disclosing the essence of calming-and-contemplation through perfect-and-sudden teaching characteristics.

Eye and Wisdom: Disclosing the Essence through Cause and Result

The second division is eye and wisdom. This essence is originally neither knowing nor seeing, neither cause nor result. Explaining it is already difficult; how much more so indicating it to others. Although it cannot be acquired through fixed knowing and seeing, eye and wisdom can be provisionally used to let people know and see it. Although it is not fixed cause and result, cause and result can be used provisionally to disclose it. Calming-and-contemplation is cause; wisdom and eye are result. Cause is the distant occasion for disclosing the essence, result the near occasion. Because the essence is deep, subtle, and beyond discrimination, eye and wisdom are borrowed to make it intelligible.

First is successive eye and wisdom: the three calmings and three contemplations are causes, while the resulting three eyes and three wisdoms are results. Calming that embodies truth prevents false delusion from arising. Calming gives rise to concentration; concentration gives rise to non-outflow. The wisdom eye opens and sees the ultimate truth, accomplishing the samādhi of ultimate truth. Thus calming accomplishes eye, eye sees the essence, and what is attained is the true essence. Through expedient calming that follows conditions, one interpenetrates with the true and emerges into the provisional, with mind settled in conventional truth. One therefore attains dhāraṇī, distinguishes illness and medicine, opens the Dharma eye brightly, breaks obstruction and penetrates non-knowing, remains constantly in samādhi, and sees the buddhas’ lands without dual marks, accomplishing the samādhi of conventional truth. Calming gives rise to eye, eye attains essence, and what is attained is the conventional essence. Calming that ceases the two extremes makes birth and death, nirvāṇa, emptiness, and existence quiescent together. From this arises concentration on the Middle Way; the Buddha eye opens brightly and illuminates everywhere without remainder, accomplishing the samādhi of the Middle Way. Calming attains eye, eye attains essence, and what is attained is the essence of the Middle Way.

The three contemplations likewise each accomplish one of the three wisdoms. Entering emptiness from the provisional corresponds with empty wisdom, breaks the delusions of views and thought, accomplishes omniscience, and attains the true essence. Entering the provisional from emptiness distinguishes illness, medicine, and many Dharma gates, breaks non-knowing, accomplishes wisdom of the varieties of the path, and attains the conventional essence. Obstructing both extremes serves as the expedient for entering the Middle, breaks ignorance, accomplishes omniscience of all aspects, and attains the essence of the Middle Way. The three calmings and three contemplations therefore together accomplish the three eyes and three wisdoms and each attain three essences. This is the intent of disclosing the essence through eye and wisdom.

Someone asks: Eye is seeing and wisdom is knowing. Do knowing and seeing differ? The answer must distinguish four propositions: knowing but not seeing, seeing but not knowing, both knowing and seeing, neither knowing nor seeing. Ordinary beings have not entered realization and therefore do not see; they have not heard and therefore do not know. People of the Two Vehicles have realized and therefore see; they have also heard and therefore know. Pratyekabuddhas see through self-realization but have not heard from another and therefore do not know. People on the expedient path know through hearing but have not yet entered realization and therefore do not see.

Consider further practitioners who follow faith. Hearing gives rise to wisdom; wisdom gives rise to non-outflow and attains omniscience. Because this wisdom comes from hearing, it is called wisdom knowing. Practitioners who follow Dharma gain concentration through reflection; concentration gives rise to non-outflow and accomplishes the wisdom eye. Because this eye comes from meditation, it is called eye seeing. Knowing and seeing both realize ultimate truth, but because each has a different source, they retain the names knowing and seeing according to their original causes. This distinction is made through the wisdom eye and omniscience; the other two eyes and two wisdoms can be understood in the same way. With eye and wisdom in one mind, no such distinction is made.

Non-Successive: One Eye with Five Functions, Three Wisdoms in One Mind

In the eye and wisdom of non-successive calming-and-contemplation, as taught above, calming is contemplation and contemplation is calming, without dual difference. The near occasions for disclosing the essence are likewise so: eye is wisdom and wisdom is eye. From the function of eye it is called seeing; from the function of wisdom, knowing. Knowing is seeing and seeing is knowing. The Buddha eye possesses the functions of the five eyes, and Buddha wisdom possesses the three wisdoms. The king samādhi embraces all samādhis, and the Śūraṅgama concentration embraces all concentrations. The Great Perfection of Wisdom says that if one wishes to attain path wisdom, wisdom of the varieties of the path, omniscience, and omniscience of all aspects, one should study prajñā.

Someone asks: Since the Explanatory Treatise says the three wisdoms are within one mind, why does it separately say that to attain path wisdom and the others one should study prajñā? The answer is that the three wisdoms truly are within one mind, but in explaining them to people, a successive presentation is given to make them easier to understand.

The Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra asks one by one whether the Tathāgata has the flesh eye, through to whether he has the Buddha eye. Although five eyes are listed, they are not actually divided and arrayed; one eye possesses five functions and illuminates five kinds of object. The Buddha eye can illuminate coarse forms, like yet surpassing human vision, and is called the flesh eye. It can illuminate subtle forms, like yet surpassing deva vision, and is called the deva eye. It penetrates coarse and subtle form and emptiness, like the vision of the Two Vehicles, and is called the wisdom eye. It penetrates provisional names without error, like bodhisattva vision, and is called the Dharma eye. It sees true mark in every Dharma and is called the Buddha eye. The Buddha eye perfectly illuminates without remainder, and the scripture therefore says that with the five eyes complete one accomplishes awakening and forever becomes father and mother to the three realms. Calling it simply Buddha eye resembles streams losing their former river names after entering the ocean; it does not mean the other four functions are absent.

Buddha wisdom illuminating emptiness, like the seeing of the Two Vehicles, is called omniscience. Buddha wisdom illuminating the provisional, like bodhisattva seeing, is called wisdom of the varieties of the path. Buddha wisdom illuminating emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle and seeing true mark in all is called omniscience of all aspects. Thus the three wisdoms are attained within one mind. The three eyes accomplished by the three calmings in one mind see the inconceivable three truths. Because this seeing is attained through calming, it receives the name eye. The three wisdoms accomplished by the three contemplations in one mind know the inconceivable three objects. Because this knowing is attained through contemplation, it receives the name wisdom.

Object and truth are only different names given to the same thing from left and right. Seeing and knowing are only different names for eye and wisdom and should not be divided into two affairs. Here object is borrowed to disclose wisdom and make the three contemplations easy to understand; truth is borrowed to explain eye and make the three calmings easy to understand. Although divided into three modes of explanation, it is actually only one inconceivable Dharma. Through eye and wisdom as this one Dharma, one attains the essence of perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation. This explanation is grounded in contemplating mind, not in first reading scriptures and then arranging their sentences into a sequence. Scriptures are cited only to remove suspicion, increase faith, and show that what is taught fortunately accords with the sūtras.

Why Must Objects Still Be Explained?

The third division explains objects. If one already understands how eye and wisdom disclose the essence, there would be no need to wait for a separate explanation of the truth-object disclosed. For those who do not yet understand, however, another division must be opened. Practitioners who follow faith depend mainly upon hearing and enter the perfect and wondrous through discrimination. Practitioners who follow Dharma emphasize deep contemplation and, by reflecting upon this, see the proper object. This division has two parts: why objects are taught and how the objects are separated and combined.

The scripture speaks of opening the Buddha’s knowledge and vision for sentient beings. Without the object of the Middle Way, wisdom would have nothing to know and eye nothing to see; there must therefore be an object seen by the Buddha eye. The scripture further asks who in the world has the true deva eye and can see the buddhas’ lands without dual marks. Without conventional objects, the deva eye should not see buddha lands. The scripture also says that the deva eye opens and the wisdom eye sees the true; there should therefore be an object seen by the wisdom eye.

The principle of the three truths is inconceivable and has no fixed self-nature; in reality it cannot be expressed. When taught through causes and conditions, it does not go beyond three intents: first, teaching according to sentient understanding, or speech according to another’s intent; second, teaching according to sentient understanding and wisdom, or speech according to the intent of self and other; and third, teaching according to wisdom, or speech according to one’s own intent.

According to Sentient Understanding, Understanding and Wisdom, and Wisdom

What is teaching the three truths according to sentient understanding? It resembles a blind person who does not recognize the color of milk and asks another what milk’s color is like. The answer is that it is white like a shell, rice flour, snow, or a crane. Hearing this, the blind person still does not understand the true color of milk but interprets it according to one simile, grasps shell or flour, and gives rise to four kinds of dispute.

Ordinary feeling obscured by delusion is the same. People do not recognize the three truths, so great compassion provisionally distinguishes them: the three truths may be taught through the gate of existence, like the blind person hearing “shell”; through the gate of emptiness, like hearing “rice flour”; through the gate of emptiness and existence, like hearing “snow”; or through the gate of neither emptiness nor existence, like hearing “crane.” Although people hear these teachings, they have not personally realized the principle of truth and cannot see the real marks of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. Yet each grasps emptiness or existence and judges the others right or wrong.

The twenty-three ordinary explanations of the two truths differ in every tradition, each presenting a different view while all cite scriptures and treatises, leaving people unable to know which is correct. If all are said to be correct, principle becomes immeasurable; if all are said to be wrong, each does have scriptural and treatise support. Each therefore grasps itself and rejects others. Though drinking ambrosia, people instead injure life and die young. A scripture even says that before Mañjuśrī and Maitreya awakened, they disputed the two truths and both fell into hell. If ordinary feeling today partially grasps one passage, becomes rigidly attached, and believes itself superior, it may instead oppose the Buddha’s intent. Such people still do not recognize the three truths taught according to sentient understanding.

If one recognizes the intent of following sentient understanding, upon hearing many teachings one knows that the Tathāgata lowers himself and follows sentient beings’ faculties and feelings. Because faculties and feelings are many, the teachings are not limited to one. This is teaching the three truths according to another’s intent.

Teaching the three truths according to sentient understanding and wisdom means speaking of two from the side of understanding and one from the side of wisdom. Looking at only one side, one cannot obtain three within the same subject. Everything seen by ordinary understanding belongs to skillful means. Although the one is itself three, it is gathered as two truths. Everything realized by sage wisdom is real. Although the one is itself three, it is gathered as one Middle and ultimate truth. Setting understanding and wisdom in relation gives the name three truths.

For example, people at the stage resembling realization who reach purity of the six faculties have not yet given rise to true seeing of the Middle Way. Although they contemplate the three truths, in terms of station they have only broken the four abiding and dust-and-sand delusions and realized the expedient path, so what they see is gathered as two truths. Upon entering the first abode, breaking ignorance, seeing buddha-nature, and illuminating the two truths together, one is called wise. This wisdom also possesses the three truths but gathers them into the Middle and ultimate truth. Understanding and wisdom considered together are speech according to the intent of self and other.

Teaching the three truths according to wisdom is spoken from the first abode upward. Not only is the Middle Way beyond ordinary seeing and hearing; the true and conventional are likewise so. The three truths are subtle and are illuminated only by wisdom. They cannot be displayed or conceived, and listeners easily become startled. They are neither within nor without, neither difficult nor easy, neither marks nor non-marks, and not worldly dharmas; they have no fixed appearance. A hundred negations are dismissed and all four propositions disappear. Only buddhas together with buddhas can exhaust them. The path of speech is severed and the place of mental activity extinguished. Ordinary feeling cannot imagine them as one or three. Even the Two Vehicles cannot fathom them, how much less ordinary beings. The true color of milk must be seen when the eyes open; however much is said, a blind person ultimately cannot recognize it. This is teaching the three truths according to wisdom, or speech according to one’s own intent.

The treatise further uses three scriptural presentations of the two truths to establish the three truths. To say that ordinary people can embody and penetrate causes and conditions and give rise to contemplative understanding teaches the conventional according to ordinary feeling; to say that embodying causes and conditions is itself emptiness teaches the true according to ordinary feeling. This is the two truths according to sentient understanding. To say that what an ordinary person’s mind sees is called conventional truth and what a sage’s mind sees is called ultimate truth is the two truths according to sentient understanding and wisdom. To say that ordinary beings move through the world without knowing the marks of the world means they do not know even the conventional, much less the true; neither truth is known by ordinary feeling. This is the two truths according to wisdom. Since the two truths have three presentations, the three truths can be understood in the same way.

If someone doubts this, thinking that the Buddha always relies on the two truths to teach Dharma and that this alone explains three presentations of the two truths, the treatise gives the Middle Way as a parallel. The Buddha constantly delights in the Middle Way. The five events—entering the womb, birth, leaving home, awakening, and nirvāṇa—all occurred at midnight; not a single color or fragrance is other than the Middle Way. Since the Middle Way too is taught through conditions, how could it not have three modes of teaching according to conditions?

Each of the Three Modes Possesses the Four Siddhāntas

Each of the three modes of teaching the truths further possesses the four siddhāntas. First are the four intents within teaching according to sentient understanding.

First, the worldly siddhānta. The principle of truth cannot be spoken. Once spoken, it must be entrusted to language, and language must accord with sentient beings’ understanding; accord gives rise to delight. Some rejoice upon hearing ultimate truth, some conventional truth, and some the Middle Way. This is employing the worldly siddhānta within teaching according to sentient understanding.

Second, the individually adapted siddhānta. Sentient beings’ needs differ: some hear absence and their morality and wisdom grow; some hear existence and their morality and wisdom grow; some hear the Middle and their morality and wisdom grow. Causing goodness to grow according to each person’s needs is the individually adapted siddhānta within teaching according to sentient understanding.

Third, the counteractive siddhānta. The evils practitioners need to break differ. Some hear a Dharma of existence and can break sleepiness, examination, and the like. Some hear a Dharma of absence and can break sleepiness, scattering, and the like. Some hear the Middle Way and can likewise break sleepiness, scattering, and the like. Applying treatment according to illness is the counteractive siddhānta within teaching according to sentient understanding.

Fourth, the siddhānta of the ultimate truth. Sentient beings enter awakening differently: some hear absence and understanding opens; some hear existence and suddenly awaken; some hear the Middle and penetrate. Contemplating mind is likewise so. Some contemplate existence and mind and object appear like cloud-shadows; some contemplate absence and body and mind disappear; some contemplate the Middle and mind-wisdom becomes clear. Circumstances differ. At times the response lies in one and not two, at other times in two and not one. The Buddha therefore sometimes teaches arising dharmas while sentient beings are liberated through non-arising dharmas, and sometimes teaches non-arising dharmas while sentient beings are liberated through arising dharmas. This is the siddhānta of the ultimate truth.

The Lotus says the Buddha knows sentient beings’ many desires, practices, natures, recollections, and thoughts. These correspond to the four intents: many desires to following the world, many natures to giving rise to goodness, many practices to counteraction, and many recollections and thoughts to the ultimate truth.

Why are nature and giving rise to goodness paired, and practice with counteraction that breaks evil? Generally speaking, wholesome nature can be concealed or manifest, and evil practice likewise concealed or manifest. To make the meaning convenient here, goodness is said usually to lie hidden and evil usually to appear. Before a buddha appears in the world, the wholesome roots of the Three Vehicles lie concealed and do not manifest; hence wholesome nature is subtle and hidden. As soon as the three truths are heard, wholesome roots arise. Many natures therefore belong to giving rise to goodness and correspond to the individually adapted siddhānta. Before a buddha appears, sentient beings’ evil practices are openly manifest; the faults of deviance, wrongness, partiality, and inversion appear. The Buddha teaches the three truths to break these evils. Many practices therefore belong to breaking evil and correspond to the counteractive siddhānta.

Many recollections and thoughts correspond to the ultimate truth because perception belongs to the mental factor of wisdom. When perception is partial and deviant, it becomes inversions of mind and view. If a good spiritual friend directs this perceptive wisdom correctly, it becomes three kinds of non-inversion. The Buddha teaches the three truths to direct its wisdom correctly, and it therefore belongs to the ultimate truth.

Since teaching the three truths according to sentient understanding possesses four intents, teaching according to understanding and wisdom and teaching according to wisdom each likewise possess four. Three modes of teaching multiplied by four siddhāntas make twelve functions for teaching the three truths. How could ordinary feeling restrict a sage’s teaching, insist there is only one, and destroy itself through contentious grasping? Knowing that sage teaching has no limit, one no longer clings to this and rejects that, gives rise to overweening pride, or raises sharp corners. Like a wise blind person, one should not dispute the color of milk but diligently cultivate skillful means with shame and conscience.

Through the three calmings one realizes the three eyes and sees the three Dharmas; through the three contemplations one obtains the three wisdoms and knows the three truths. Only after seeing the Middle Way distinctly and clearly illuminating both truths—like clouds scattering and obstruction being removed, so what is above appears and what is below also brightens—can one judge right and wrong and utter the decisive lion’s roar.

The recorder gives a separate private explanation here. Teaching according to sentient understanding is full granting; according to understanding and wisdom is half granting and half withholding; according to wisdom is full withholding. Full granting means that a sage says to an ordinary person: what you now conceive in mind is the conventional, and embodying and penetrating the falsity of conventional dharmas is the true. Both conventional and true are granted to ordinary beings. Half granting and half withholding means that all the hundred thousand searches, inferences, and depictions known by ordinary beings belong to the conventional, while only what sages know is true: the conventional is granted and the true withheld. Full withholding means that ordinary beings know neither truth at all and only superior sages can know; ordinary feeling is permitted to claim neither true nor conventional. The recorder believed this explanation easy to understand and therefore recorded it.

How Are the Truths Separated and Combined?

The second part explains the separation and combination of object and wisdom, first objects and then wisdom. Scriptures sometimes teach four truths, sometimes three, sometimes two, and sometimes one. Their opening and separation, integration and combination differ; the treatise now explains them together.

The Tripiṭaka Teaching is expedient and clarifies only the two truths. At the beginning, a bodhisattva’s mind conditions ultimate truth and subdues the four abiding afflictions so that the fat of affliction thins. Across three asaṃkhyeya kalpas the bodhisattva cultivates the six perfections so that the body of virtue grows. For a hundred kalpas the bodhisattva plants the marks and excellences, attains the five superknowledges and Dharma eye, illuminates conventional truth, distinguishes faculties and natures, matures sentient beings, and performs buddha-work. Finally seated at the site of awakening, the bodhisattva exhausts the delusions of views and thought in thirty-four moments of mind: eight endurances, eight wisdoms, nine unobstructed paths, and nine paths of liberation.

A scripture says there are six hundred arisings and ceasings in one thought, while masters of the Satyasiddhi say there are sixty moments in one thought. Still within a single thought, the bodhisattva enters emptiness from the provisional, attains the wisdom eye, illuminates ultimate truth, and becomes a buddha. Having illuminated the conventional before and the true afterward, the bodhisattva understands both truths and therefore differs from the disciples. In the causal stage the bodhisattva illuminates only the conventional and not the true; the Two Vehicles illuminate only the true and not the conventional; the Buddha illuminates both in succession. The treatise further adds the Middle and ultimate truth above the two truths.

The Tripiṭaka’s two truths are already skillful means, and adding the Middle Way above them adds skillful means upon skillful means. Illuminating this truth adds the Buddha eye; knowing it adds omniscience of all aspects. Separated there are only two truths; combined they become three. This is the form of separating and combining the two and three truths in the Tripiṭaka Teaching.

Within the Shared Teaching, the Three Vehicles together rely on the path beyond speech to sever affliction. In separating and combining truths, conventional truth is the same, but ultimate truth differs. The Great Treatise says emptiness has two kinds: only emptiness and not-only emptiness. The Great Scripture says people of the Two Vehicles see only emptiness and not non-emptiness, while the wise see not only emptiness but non-emptiness; non-emptiness is great nirvāṇa. The Two Vehicles’ wisdom of only emptiness resembles a firefly; bodhisattva wisdom resembles sunlight. Since the emptinesses differ, the wisdoms also differ. There should be two ultimate truths, yet they can now be combined as one ultimate truth.

The Two Vehicles embody the provisional and enter the true, but enter only-emptiness. They cannot proceed from only-emptiness to enter the provisional and have no function of transforming others. Bodhisattvas also embody the provisional and enter only-truth, yet can enter the provisional from only-emptiness, transform sentient beings, and purify buddha lands. Bodhisattvas of sharp faculties first enter only-emptiness and later enter not-only emptiness, break ignorance, and see buddha-nature. This forever differs from the preceding true. How could they be treated as only one ultimate truth?

The earlier Zhuangyan tradition said that the Buddha’s fruit goes beyond the two truths. It obtained one side of the present intent but did not establish the meaning completely, because it failed to explain what different object Buddha wisdom illuminates and what different delusion it severs. With the present intent of this treatise, the meaning of going beyond can stand. The Kaishan tradition said that the Buddha’s fruit does not go beyond the two truths and therefore could not distinguish Buddha wisdom from that of the Two Vehicles; its meaning was likewise incomplete. With the present intent, the meaning of not going beyond can also stand. Historically this problem was called the elegant two truths; this is its intent.

When only-emptiness and not-only emptiness are combined, there is only one ultimate truth; separated, they become two ultimate truths and differ from the Tripiṭaka. The third truth added in the Tripiṭaka has only the name Middle Way without a distinct essence; eye has no distinct seeing and wisdom no distinct knowing. Here in the Shared Teaching, the third truth is called both ultimate truth and the Middle and ultimate truth. It has a distinct essence, distinct seeing, and distinct knowing. This is the form of separating and combining the two and three truths in the Shared Teaching.

The Distinct Teaching’s two truths differ again from the preceding. The true and conventional truths of the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings combine into the Distinct Teaching’s conventional truth. Conventional signifies worlds separated from one another: existence is conventional, and absence is also gathered into the conventional. Ordinary beings are included in the conventional truth of existence, while the Two Vehicles are included in the ultimate truth of absence. Because existence and absence differ in marks, the two together are called the conventional of the Distinct Teaching. The Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra calls people of the Two Vehicles sentient beings whose minds are confused about emptiness. The Great Scripture says that the Buddha and Maitreya discussed conventional truth together, while five hundred śrāvakas thought they were speaking of ultimate truth.

If only the Distinct Teaching’s two truths are discussed, conventional truth is not separated further. If three truths are taught, existence is opened as conventional, absence as true, and not-only emptiness as the ultimate truth. This is the form of separation and combination in the Distinct Teaching.

At this point the original fascicle moves from Part One to Part Two of the third fascicle of the Mohe Zhiguan. Part Two still bears the bylines “taught by the Great Master Zhizhe of Tiantai in the Sui” and “recorded by his disciple Guanding.” This is a fascicle boundary; the same discussion of separation and combination continues below.

The Perfect Teaching clarifies only the one real truth. The Great Scripture says that in reality there is one truth and through skillful means three are taught; the treatise says the same—one truth in reality, three through skillful means. The Lotus says to use different skillful means further to help disclose the ultimate truth. This is the form of separating and combining two, three, and one truth in the Perfect Teaching.

Next are the separation and combination of the Four Truths. The preceding three, two, and one truths were discussed vertically according to depth and shallowness; the Four Truths are discussed horizontally through suffering, arising, cessation, and the path. The four kinds of Four Truths are active, non-arising, immeasurable, and actionless. The active Four Truths horizontally open the Tripiṭaka’s two truths; the non-arising Four Truths open the Shared Teaching’s two truths; the immeasurable Four Truths open the Distinct Teaching’s two truths; and the actionless Four Truths open the Perfect Teaching’s one real truth.

The treatise then uses the four clauses of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā to integrate the four kinds of Four Truths. “Dharmas arising from causes and conditions” corresponds to the active Four Truths. “I say they are emptiness itself” corresponds to the non-arising Four Truths. “They are also provisional names” corresponds to the immeasurable Four Truths. “They are also called the meaning of the Middle Way” corresponds to the actionless Four Truths.

How Is Wisdom Separated and Combined, and How Is It Taught Together with Truth?

Next is the separation and combination of wisdom. Scriptures sometimes teach one wisdom, two, three, four, through to eleven. Three wisdoms can directly contemplate the three truths. If the number of wisdoms increases or decreases, how are they assigned in contemplation?

When one wisdom is taught, the scripture says that all Tathāgatas share one Dharma body, one mind, one wisdom, and likewise powers and fearlessnesses. The single Buddha wisdom is omniscience of all aspects. Its characteristic is the quiescent extinction of one mark, yet it can know the categories and appearances of many practices. Quiescent extinction of one mark contemplates the Middle Way; knowing the many categories and appearances illuminates the true and conventional truths together. One wisdom can therefore still contemplate the three truths.

When two wisdoms are taught, they are provisional and real wisdom. Provisional wisdom includes omniscience and wisdom of the varieties of the path and contemplates the two truths existence and absence. Real wisdom is omniscience of all aspects and contemplates the truth of the Middle Way. The relation of three wisdoms to three truths is clear and need not be explained further.

When four wisdoms are taught, they are path wisdom, wisdom of the varieties of the path, omniscience, and omniscience of all aspects as listed in the Great Perfection of Wisdom. The Explanatory Treatise gives several explanations. First, in the causal stage only the essential principle is present and is called path wisdom and wisdom of the varieties of the path; at the fruit, phenomena and principle are both complete and are called omniscience and omniscience of all aspects. Second, the causal stage is already divided into provisional and real: path wisdom is real wisdom entering emptiness, and wisdom of the varieties of the path is provisional wisdom entering the provisional. Third, the fruit is divided into provisional and real and is therefore called omniscience and omniscience of all aspects: directly conditioning the Middle Way is omniscience, and illuminating the two truths together is omniscience of all aspects. Fourth, the causal stage has general and distinct and the fruit also has general and distinct. Fifth, path wisdom and wisdom of the varieties of the path simply state provisional and real once, while omniscience and omniscience of all aspects state provisional and real in compound form. Although the four wisdoms receive these different explanations, they still illuminate only the three truths.

If scriptures teach five, six, seven, eight, nine, or immeasurable truths, the same intent should be grasped so that they are embraced within the three truths. Among the eleven wisdoms, worldly wisdom and knowledge of others’ minds illuminate conventional truth; the other eight contemplate ultimate truth; and wisdom of things as they really are contemplates the Middle Way. Although the names and numbers of wisdoms are separated and combined, the three truths do not move.

Wisdom and truth can next be opened together, with corresponding numbers mutually embracing one another: three truths have three wisdoms, and two truths two wisdoms; this is easy to understand. Wisdom and truth may also both remain unopened, based only on one truth and one wisdom without increase or decrease. Although names for wisdom open and combine, ultimately it is the real wisdom that can disclose the real essence.

When truth and wisdom are discerned together, in the Tripiṭaka Teaching ultimate truth gives rise to one eye and one wisdom, conventional truth to one eye and one wisdom, and the two truths true and conventional together to another eye and wisdom. The wisdom eye and omniscience condition ultimate truth; the Dharma eye and wisdom of the varieties of the path condition conventional truth; the Buddha eye and omniscience of all aspects jointly condition the true and conventional truths. But a Tripiṭaka buddha cannot illuminate both at the same moment and can only illuminate them successively in combination.

In the Shared Teaching, ultimate truth gives rise to two eyes and two wisdoms, while conventional truth gives rise to one eye and one wisdom. Omniscience and omniscience of all aspects jointly condition ultimate truth, while wisdom of the varieties of the path conditions conventional truth. When the Distinct Teaching receives the Shared, conventional truth gives rise to one eye and one wisdom, ultimate truth to one eye and one wisdom, and the Middle Way is further opened from ultimate truth to give rise to one eye and one wisdom. The relation of wisdom conditioning truth is the same.

In the Distinct Teaching, each of the three truths gives rise to one eye and one wisdom, and each wisdom conditions one truth. When the Distinct Teaching is presented as two truths, emptiness within the conventional gives rise to one eye and wisdom, existence within the conventional gives rise to one eye and wisdom, and ultimate truth gives rise to one eye and wisdom. Wisdom conditions truth in the same way. In the Perfect Teaching, the one real truth gives rise to three eyes and three wisdoms, and all three wisdoms condition the one real truth.

Someone asks: What is the Distinct Teaching receiving the Shared? The answer is that practitioners of the Shared Teaching first use the contemplations of emptiness and provisionality to exhaust delusions concerning the true and conventional, and only then hear the Middle Way. After hearing, they must still cultivate contemplation and break ignorance before they can manifest becoming a buddha through the eight marks. This Buddha fruit still takes the preceding contemplations of emptiness and provisionality as causes and is therefore called the Distinct Teaching receiving the Shared.

This Buddha fruit is not used to receive the Tripiṭaka causes of practice for three asaṃkhyeya kalpas and planting marks for a hundred kalpas, so it does not receive the Tripiṭaka. It is not used to receive the causal ten grounds, so it does not receive the Distinct. It is not used to receive the ten abodes’ severing of ignorance, so it does not receive the Perfect. Only the Distinct receives the Shared; this is precisely the meaning.

Gain and Loss: Once Grasping Arises, the Ocean of Suffering Continues

The fourth division is gain and loss. Loss is the conceivable; gain is the inconceivable.

The first view says that wisdom arises by itself from mind and naturally illuminates the object, like a torch illuminating things. Whether already illuminated or not, things originally exist; whether contemplated or not, objects likewise naturally exist. Truth and wisdom do not depend on each other. This is object and wisdom through self-nature.

The second view says that wisdom cannot make itself wisdom but becomes wisdom through the object; the object cannot make itself object but becomes object through wisdom, like long and short established in dependence. This is object and wisdom through other-nature, each arising through the other.

The third view says that the object is not made an object by itself and not made so by wisdom alone, but becomes object through the union of object and wisdom as causes and conditions; wisdom is explained in the same way. This is object and wisdom through shared nature, named through joint combination.

The fourth view says none of the preceding three applies and object and wisdom are simply naturally so. This is object and wisdom without cause.

All four explanations have faults. Once there are the four kinds of grasping, there is dependence. With dependence, one judges oneself right and others wrong. Right and wrong give rise to love and anger; love and anger give rise to every affliction; when affliction arises, conceptual play and contentious struggle arise; when contention arises, bodily, verbal, and mental karma begins; when karma arises, beings cycle through the ocean of suffering with no time of liberation. The four graspings are therefore precisely the root of birth and death, which Nāgārjuna breaks.

Dharmas do not arise from themselves; how could there be self-arisen object and wisdom? They do not arise from another; how could there be object and wisdom arising through one another? They do not arise jointly; how could there be object and wisdom grasped as a combination of causes and conditions? They do not arise without cause; how could there be natural object and wisdom? When the four views are grasped, foolishness and confusion proliferate. How could this be called wisdom? Here the four natures are broken by non-arising from self, other, both, or no cause. Once grasping at nature is broken, dependence is absent, through to karma and suffering being absent. When the pure mind is constantly one, one can see prajñā.

Thus suffering and arising produced by self-nature object and wisdom do not arise; this is arising-arising inexpressible, and Śāriputra is silent. Through to suffering and arising produced by causeless object and wisdom not arising; this is non-arising-non-arising inexpressible, and Vimalakīrti closes his mouth. The path of speech is severed and the place of mental activity extinguished.

Although inexpressible, it can still be taught through the causes and conditions of the four siddhāntas. Object and wisdom arising from self can be taught, as can those arising from other, both, and no cause. Although four modes of teaching exist, grasping at nature has already been broken. As stated before, there are only provisional names. Names have no self-nature; a word without nature neither abides nor fails to abide, and this is inconceivable. The Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra therefore speaks of the inconceivable object of wisdom and inconceivable illumination by wisdom. This is the intent.

Breaking object and wisdom through the four natures is called real wisdom. Teaching four kinds of object and wisdom in accord with sentient beings’ conditions through the four siddhāntas is called provisional wisdom. Measured through one’s own practice and transforming others, ordinary beings lose both, the Two Vehicles gain one and lose one, and bodhisattvas gain both.

Ordinary beings grasp the four natures and lose in their own practice; lacking the skillful means of the four siddhāntas, they also lose in transforming others. The Two Vehicles break the four natures and enter the ultimate truth, gaining in their own practice; unable to liberate sentient beings, they lose in transforming others. Bodhisattvas break nature and can accord with conditions, gaining both in their own practice and transforming others.

Explained further through conceivable and inconceivable, ordinary beings’ two losses are conceivable losses. The Two Vehicles’ one gain and one loss—the gain and loss alike—remain within the conceivable. Bodhisattvas’ two gains are both inconceivable. This discerns gain and loss according to the Shared Teaching.

Viewed from the Distinct Teaching, both gains called gains in the Shared Teaching are conceivable, while only the Distinct Teaching’s two gains are inconceivable. Viewed from the Perfect Teaching, both gains in one’s own practice and transforming others within the teaching path of the Distinct Teaching remain conceivable. Why? The Distinct Teaching’s gate of teaching remains skillful means: at times ignorance is said to give rise to all dharmas; at times Dharma-nature is said to give rise to all dharmas; at times cultivation through conditions is said to disclose true cultivation; at times true cultivation is said to disclose itself. Grasping these teachings still creates the errors of self-nature, other-nature, and the rest and falls within the conceivable. Only upon reaching the path of realization is it inconceivable.

In the Perfect Teaching, teaching and realization are both inconceivable. Ultimate principle is originally beyond speech, yet four modes of teaching arise through causes and conditions. They are only provisional names, and provisional names are themselves non-arising; both teaching and realization are therefore inconceivable. When mind is without thought or conceptualization, there is no dependence, conceptual play, or formation of karma. Without karma there is no birth and death; this is gain in one’s own practice. Having oneself attained the real essence, one can also use skillful means to teach the inexpressible, transform and guide sentient beings, bring them out of birth and death, and cause them to attain the real essence. This is self and other together gaining the essence.

“Essence and characteristics” is easily read as a static table of definitions: first find one sentence stating what essence is, then list several properties explaining characteristics. The treatise takes another road. The essence is too deep to hold up for display, so one must see how teaching points toward it, how practitioners’ eye and wisdom disclose it, how objects are explained, and what manner of grasping causes gain or loss.

The treatise provisionally discloses its essence through teaching characteristics, eye and wisdom, objects, and gain and loss: teaching makes principle clear; eye and wisdom distinguish entrances into principle; objects distinguish provisional and real truth; gain and loss distinguish people’s accordance and departure. If the moment one speaks one grasps self, other, both, or no cause, even the most precise preceding names and marks become contention. Only when such grasping is broken while one can still teach according to conditions is the essence disclosed in one’s own practice and transforming others together.

1. Why Do Things with the Same Name “Calming-and-Contemplation” Not Have the Same Essence?

Because “calming-and-contemplation” is too general a name. Ordinary beings’ subduing evil and cultivating goodness can be called calming-and-contemplation; the four dhyānas, four immeasurables, and six practices can be called calming-and-contemplation. The Two Vehicles’ use of phenomenal meditation to calm mind and Four-Truths wisdom to contemplate can also be called calming-and-contemplation. If the shared name alone blends outflow, analytical non-outflow, successive Mahāyāna, and the perfect and sudden into one, what is called disclosing the essence instead conceals it.

The treatise begins with the most easily confused boundary. Ordinary beings’ goodness of calming can temporarily treat evil and their wholesome practice give rise to contemplation, yet they still have not escaped birth and death. The Two Vehicles’ calming-and-contemplation can leave birth and death but is limited by extinguishing form to enter emptiness and reducing body to ashes and wisdom to extinction. They are not entirely without calming-and-contemplation; rather, their characteristics cannot disclose the essence this chapter seeks to disclose. This boundary matters: “not what is presently discussed” does not erase earlier Dharmas, but prevents a general name from replacing a distinct essence.

Are the Mahāyāna three successive calmings the answer, then? Not yet. Calming that embodies truth penetrates the provisional combination of causes and conditions so that climbing delusive thought ceases in emptiness. Expedient calming that follows conditions does not guard emptiness, distinguishes medicine and illness, and abides in conventional truth. Calming that ceases the two extremes makes both the movement of birth and death and nirvāṇa grasped as security quiescent. The three calmings advance level by level and far surpass ordinary and Hīnayāna practices, but still possess three distinguishable characteristics. The treatise must therefore keep questioning.

2. Why Do the Three Calmings Have Similar Names but Different Meanings and Characteristics?

Because the preceding chapter’s three calmings are three meanings, while this chapter’s are three kinds of calming, each forming its own characteristic. Cessation, staying, and neither calming nor non-calming previously resembled three lines that together explained calming. In Essence and Characteristics, all three lines are present together within every kind of calming.

Calming that embodies truth does more than cease moving evil. It also lets mind stay in the principle of causes and conditions, while the true source of causes and conditions falls into neither calming nor non-calming. Expedient calming that follows conditions does more than busily distinguish sentient beings’ medicines and illnesses. It ceases scattering and non-knowing, makes mind stay in provisional principle, while provisional principle itself does not move. Calming that ceases the two extremes likewise possesses the three meanings: birth and death and nirvāṇa both cease, mind abides while conditioning the Middle Way, and true mark falls into neither calming nor non-calming.

This style of writing shows that repeated names do not mean the teaching is standing still. The same “cessation” treats different things when it enters embodying truth, following conditions, and ceasing the two extremes. The same “staying” does not nail the mind down but settles it in the principle reached. The same “non-calming” is not scattering but refusal to shrink true mark into one extreme opposed to non-calming.

The treatise therefore first asks whether the later three are only another wording for the earlier three because their names resemble one another. The answer is that names may be similar while their organization has changed. The earlier three together accomplish the later three, and every later calming possesses the earlier three. Here one can already anticipate the perfect-and-sudden relation of one and three, but at this moment succession must still be preserved; difference cannot be erased in advance.

3. If Entering Emptiness Already Sees the True, Why Enter the Provisional from Emptiness?

Because seeing emptiness does not equal benefiting sentient beings without error amid provisional dharmas. Entering emptiness from the provisional takes the provisional as what is broken and the true as what is used. It contemplates both provisional and true and is therefore called contemplation of the two truths, but it uses the true and not the provisional. Entering the provisional from emptiness turns back to break stagnation in emptiness and again uses provisional dharmas, distinguishing sentient beings’ faculties, illnesses, and medicines. It is therefore called equal in relation to the preceding contemplation.

The treatise answers with a pair of newly opened eyes. When a blind person’s eyes first open, they can see both space and form. Yet although flowers, grasses, and trees stand before them, they cannot distinguish root, stem, branch, and leaf or know which are edible, medicinal, or poisonous. This is no longer total blindness, but what is seen cannot yet be used to benefit others. Only as vision becomes clearer can one not merely see space and form but understand causes and conditions and distinguish coarse and subtle, medicines and foods. Entering the provisional from emptiness is this transition from “seeing existence” to “using existence without error.”

Why are the first two contemplations still not the Middle Way? The initial contemplation empties birth and death; the later contemplation further empties nirvāṇa. Although both acts of breaking serve as skillful means, they still have before and after. On one side the two contemplations obstruct birth and death and nirvāṇa together; on the other they retain the functions of emptiness and provisionality. Only by entering the Middle Way through them do they illuminate both truths. The Middle is not a third territory added outside emptiness and provisionality, but their double obstruction and double illumination once the two skillful means no longer become stuck.

The exchange concerning excess concentration and excess wisdom sharpens this limit. The initial contemplation leaning toward concentration and the second leaning toward wisdom cannot thereby claim already to have seen buddha-nature. They must serve as skillful means for entry into the third contemplation. Even the same name wisdom eye requires discrimination by station: the eye of one-sided emptiness and the wisdom eye of the Perfect Teaching’s ten abodes that partially sees buddha-nature share a name but do not see the same thing.

4. What Is the Difference among Dry Earth, Damp Earth, Mud, and Water?

The difference is whether the practice and teaching reach the Middle Way. The treatise unfolds four stages of digging a well on a high plateau: seeing dry earth means water is still far; seeing damp earth means it is approaching; seeing mud means it is closer; obtaining water finally relieves thirst. As a simile for contemplation, dry earth, damp earth, and mud are the first, second, and third contemplations, while water is perfect-and-sudden contemplation. As a simile for teaching, the Tripiṭaka does not express the Middle Way, the Shared Teaching draws closer, the Distinct Teaching clarifies the Middle while retaining succession, and only the Perfect Teaching resembles obtaining water.

The simile affirms earlier practice without letting “near” masquerade as “arrived.” Damp earth is not water, nor is mud; yet without continued digging, water does not appear. The provisional and real, shallow and deep, before and after of the three successive contemplations must therefore all be preserved. Each possesses penetrating, contemplative comprehension, and contemplation as non-contemplation, yet remains clearly distinct. As long as this division remains, it is not the perfect-and-sudden characteristic finally employed by the treatise.

Entering emptiness from the provisional can pierce the bedrock of the four abidings and is penetrating; wisdom discloses empty principle and is contemplative comprehension; empty principle falls into neither contemplation nor non-contemplation and is contemplation as non-contemplation. Entering the provisional from emptiness can break the obstruction of non-knowing and is penetrating; it illuminates the provisional and distinguishes without error and is contemplative comprehension; provisional principle is constantly so and is contemplation as non-contemplation. Contemplation of the Middle empties the two extremes and is penetrating; properly enters the Middle and is contemplative comprehension; while Dharma-nature of the Middle falls outside an active contemplator and is contemplation as non-contemplation. All three contemplations possess the three meanings without canceling their succession.

5. If the Perfect and Sudden Has No Before or After, How Can It Still Be Called Three?

Because absence of before and after does not leave only a blank one. Perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation teaches one truth as three truths, one calming as three calmings, one object as three objects, and one contemplation as three contemplations. Three are not outside one, nor does one swallow the functions of three. The treatise does not support this with an abstract formula alone but gives three images.

The first is one thought possessing three marks. Mind is only one thought; its three marks need not be arranged as three moments. The Dharma calmed is one and three, while the mind that calms is three and one. The second is three eyes on one face. Maheśvara has only one face, but three eyes are on it. One cannot deny the eyes because there is one face, nor tear the face into three because there are three eyes. Contemplating three is itself one, while one object can give rise to three contemplations—like one face and three eyes.

The third is eye, sun, and form. If the eye could see alone, sunlight would not be needed. If there were no forms, even with eye and sun there would be nothing to see. Eye represents calming, sun contemplation, and form object. None completes its work first and waits for the others, and none independently accomplishes seeing. The perfect and sudden’s absence of before and after is precisely this absence of different times and separation.

Every preceding successive name and meaning can therefore enter one mind without losing its function. Embodying ignorance and inversion and seeing true mark can still be called calming that embodies truth. Moving through all objects while mind abides unmoved can still be called expedient calming that follows conditions. Birth and death and nirvāṇa both coming to rest can still be called calming that ceases the two extremes. Entering emptiness, entering the provisional, and entering the Middle all stand within one thought. The many names are not deleted, yet no longer obstruct one another. One thought does not move from the limit of the true and still skillfully distinguishes the marks of all dharmas.

6. If the Essence Is Neither Knowing nor Seeing, Why Speak of Eye and Wisdom?

Because an essence that cannot be directly indicated can still be made intelligible through two degrees of relation, distant and near. Calming-and-contemplation is cause; eye and wisdom are result. Cause discloses essence from farther away, result from nearer. In the successive explanation, the three calmings separately give rise to the wisdom, Dharma, and Buddha eyes, while the three contemplations separately accomplish omniscience, wisdom of the varieties of the path, and omniscience of all aspects. Eye can see and wisdom can know, so the true, conventional, and Middle essences are disclosed from the results attained.

Do knowing and seeing differ? The treatise first answers through four propositions: some know without seeing, some see without knowing, some both know and see, and some neither know nor see. Ordinary beings have neither realized nor heard and therefore neither see nor know. The Two Vehicles have both heard and realized and therefore know and see. Pratyekabuddhas realize by themselves without hearing from another and therefore see without knowing. People on the expedient path know through hearing but have not realized and therefore know without seeing. Practitioners who follow faith give rise to wisdom from hearing and are called wisdom knowing; practitioners who follow Dharma attain concentration through reflection and give rise from concentration to the wisdom eye and are called eye seeing. Both realize the true, but retain different names according to their causes.

Upon entering the non-successive, the answer turns another level: calming is contemplation and contemplation calming; eye is wisdom and wisdom eye. Eye is named from the function of seeing, wisdom from the function of knowing. The Buddha eye does not discard flesh, deva, wisdom, and Dharma eyes but is one eye possessing five illuminating functions. It resembles streams entering the ocean and losing their river names while the function of water does not disappear. Buddha wisdom is likewise not three masses of wisdom arranged side by side. One wisdom illuminating emptiness is called omniscience, illuminating the provisional wisdom of the varieties of the path, and illuminating emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle and seeing true mark omniscience of all aspects.

Object and truth are therefore like left and right names for one thing; seeing and knowing like one function named through eye and wisdom. Although scriptural explanations are presented successively for ease of understanding, the Dharma itself remains in one mind. This resolves a common doubt: teaching in a sequence does not mean the Dharma taught must be cut into before and after; increasing or decreasing names does not mean the essence disclosed increases or decreases with them.

7. If the Three Truths Cannot Be Spoken, Why Are There Three Modes of Teaching Them?

Because “cannot be spoken” means the principle of truth has no fixed self-nature, while the three modes explain how one speaks when facing conditions. According to sentient understanding follows another’s intent; according to understanding and wisdom follows the intent of self and other; according to wisdom follows one’s own intent. These are not three mutually exclusive verdicts on one proposition, but disclose the distance between teaching and realization according to the person addressed and the station reached.

The blind person asking about milk writes this distance most vividly. One person says milk is white like a shell; others say rice flour, snow, or a crane. All four similes can point toward white, yet none is the true color of milk. If the blind person seizes one simile to refute another, the harder the dispute, the farther from direct seeing. Teaching the three truths through the four gates is the same: existence, emptiness, both existence and emptiness, and neither existence nor emptiness can all be established according to faculties and understanding. When those who have not seen grasp one passage and reject the others, ambrosia becomes a drink that harms life.

Teaching according to sentient understanding therefore does not mean that everything sentient beings think is truth. It means the Tathāgata lowers himself and follows their faculties and understanding, using different gates to give them an entrance. Teaching according to understanding and wisdom gathers what ordinary understanding reaches into two and what sage wisdom realizes into one. Although those at the stage resembling realization contemplate the three truths, they remain in skillful means; only at the first abode, after breaking ignorance and seeing buddha-nature, is the Middle spoken from wisdom. Teaching according to wisdom directly says the three truths are illuminated only by wisdom, with a hundred negations dismissed and all four propositions gone. The color of milk can be directly seen only when the eyes open; words cannot see on a blind person’s behalf.

The treatise then asks in return: if the two truths can be taught in three rounds according to sentient understanding, understanding and wisdom, and wisdom, why could the Middle Way not likewise respond to conditions? The Buddha’s entering the womb, birth, leaving home, awakening, and nirvāṇa all use midnight to represent the Middle, and not a single color or fragrance is other than the Middle Way. The Middle Way is not a silent object refusing conditions, so it can likewise be taught according to three intents.

8. Why Does Three Times Four Not Make Twelve Kinds of Truth?

Because the four siddhāntas describe functions of teaching, not four more essences realized. Every way of teaching the truths can delight sentient beings, cause wholesome roots to grow, counteract evil illness, and lead into the ultimate truth. Some rejoice upon hearing the true, others the conventional, and others the Middle: this is worldly. Some hear absence, existence, or the Middle and morality and wisdom grow: this is individually adapted. Some use different Dharmas to break sleepiness, scattering, and partial deviation: this is counteractive. Some hear existence, absence, or the Middle and awaken at the corresponding place: this is the ultimate truth.

Each of the three modes of teaching possesses the four intents and therefore totals twelve. This multiplication does not require the sentences in twelve boxes to be identical; it instead recognizes that sentient beings’ needs, illnesses, obstructions, and entrances into awakening differ. At times arising dharmas are taught and sentient beings are liberated through non-arising; at times non-arising dharmas are taught and they are liberated through arising. The key is not whether the sentence matches an expectation, but which benefit this act of teaching actually accomplishes.

Desire, nature, practice, and recollection and thought further disclose the four intents. What is desired differs, so the worldly first gives delight. Wholesome nature lies concealed, arises upon hearing Dharma, and belongs to the individually adapted. Evil practice appears openly and must be broken by a corresponding Dharma, so it belongs to counteraction. Partial and deviant perception is itself a mental factor of wisdom; properly directed, it becomes non-inversion, and therefore belongs to the ultimate truth. Three times four analyzes “teaching through conditions” into twelve distinguishable functions. Its purpose is not to proliferate names but to stop ordinary understanding from restricting a sage’s intent to one teaching.

At “my private view,” the voice changes. The recorder summarizes the three rounds as full granting, half granting and half withholding, and full withholding. Teaching according to sentient understanding grants both conventional and true through ordinary understanding. Teaching according to understanding and wisdom permits what ordinary understanding knows to be conventional but assigns the true to sage wisdom. Teaching according to wisdom says ordinary understanding recognizes neither of the two truths. This passage marks itself as a private explanation. It helps gather the preceding dense relations into an accessible pattern of granting and withholding, but must not be used to obscure the full unfolding of the three modes and twelve siddhāntas.

9. As the Numbers of Truths and Wisdoms Keep Changing, Does the Essence Change Too?

No. Separation and combination change the teaching gate’s mode of speech; they do not cut the essence disclosed into more pieces or compress it into fewer. The expedient Tripiṭaka first teaches two truths and can add the Middle Way above them to speak of three. The Shared Teaching distinguishes only-emptiness and not-only emptiness within ultimate truth, combining them as one true and separating them as two. The Distinct Teaching combines the existence and absence of the preceding two teachings as its conventional, then opens existence as conventional and absence as true, with not-only emptiness as the ultimate. The Perfect Teaching clarifies only the one real truth and teaches three through skillful means.

The earlier dispute over going beyond or not going beyond also receives a place within separation and combination. To say only that the Buddha’s fruit goes beyond the two truths requires an answer about what different object Buddha wisdom illuminates and what different delusion it severs. To say only that it does not go beyond makes it difficult to distinguish Buddha wisdom from that of the Two Vehicles. The treatise does not select one slogan, but through opening and combining only-emptiness and not-only emptiness lets going beyond and not going beyond each stand in its appropriate meaning.

The Four Truths open the same relation horizontally: active corresponds to the Tripiṭaka, non-arising to the Shared, immeasurable to the Distinct, and actionless to the Perfect. The four clauses dharmas arising through conditions, emptiness itself, provisional names, and the Middle Way can in turn be assigned to the four kinds of Four Truths. Wisdom can likewise open from one, two, three, and four through eleven. One Buddha wisdom is quiescent in one mark and still knows many marks. Two wisdoms use the provisional to illuminate existence and absence and the real to illuminate the Middle. Four wisdoms have multiple explanations through cause and result, provisional and real, general and distinct, and simple and compound. Eleven wisdoms illuminate conventional, true, and Middle distinctly. Names increase and decrease without moving what is illuminated.

When truth and wisdom are taught together, the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings each have arrangements in which eye and wisdom arise from truth and return to condition truth. The Distinct Teaching’s reception of the Shared further shows that after contemplations of emptiness and provisionality break delusion, practitioners must still hear the Middle Way, cultivate contemplation, and break ignorance. What is received is the hinge through which practitioners of the Shared Teaching enter the Middle, not an arbitrary joining of any cause and result from one teaching to another.

10. From Which Thought Does Real Loss Begin?

It begins with deciding that object and wisdom must arise through one fixed nature. If wisdom arises by itself and illuminates a naturally present object, this is self-arising. If wisdom exists entirely through the object and the object entirely through wisdom, this is arising from another. If object and wisdom jointly arise in combination, this is shared arising. If none of the first three applies and they are naturally so, this is causeless. The four statements appear to explain object and wisdom, but once grasped as natures they all become dependencies.

The treatise follows the fault link by link. With dependence, one judges oneself right and others wrong. Right and wrong produce love and anger; love and anger produce affliction; affliction produces conceptual play and contention; contention generates bodily, verbal, and mental karma; karma draws beings through the ocean of cyclic suffering. Loss does not suddenly appear only when suffering is finally experienced. It has already begun when one first grasps an explanation as self-nature.

How is this chain stopped? Break the four natures through non-arising from self, other, both, or no cause. When nature is broken, dependence breaks; right and wrong, love and anger, affliction, karma, and suffering lose their root. At this point inexpressibility does not mean nothing exists, but that there is no arising Dharma to be fixed through language. Śāriputra’s silence and Vimalakīrti’s wordlessness separately disclose this severing of the path of words.

The treatise immediately asks again: if it cannot be spoken, can it still be taught? The answer is yes. Through the causes and conditions of the four siddhāntas, arising from self, other, both, and no cause can be taught. Grasping at nature has already been broken; everything remaining is provisional name. Breaking the four natures is real wisdom. Afterward still teaching four in accord with conditions is provisional wisdom. If “inexpressible” becomes a refusal to transform others, provisional wisdom is lost; if expedient teachings are grasped anew as self-natures, real wisdom is lost.

Ordinary beings lose twice because they grasp the four natures in their own practice and lack the four siddhāntas in transforming others. The Two Vehicles break the four natures and gain in their own practice, but do not liberate sentient beings and lose in transforming others. Bodhisattvas both break nature and respond to conditions and gain in self and other. This judgment of gain and loss is then successively judged again through the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings. A later teaching looking back at an earlier one may find that a gain previously called inconceivable still bears traces of conceivable skillful means. Only in the Perfect Teaching, where ultimate principle is beyond speech yet can be taught in four ways through conditions and provisional names are themselves non-arising, does the chapter conclude with both self and other gaining.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

The preceding reading followed the treatise’s sequence from teaching characteristics through eye and wisdom and objects to gain and loss. Zhanran’s Zhiguan Fuxing Chuanhong Jue adds several crucial guideposts to this long road.

First, the four divisions are not parallel. Teaching can express principle and therefore comes first. Reaching principle requires practice, and practice depends on eye and wisdom, so these come next. Object is the principle reached and therefore follows. Gain and loss then discern the person who grasps principle and the self and other of practice. Read backward through this structure, the treatise does not move from names and marks to another batch of names and marks, but step by step from what expresses and what practices toward what is reached, then returns whether principle is grasped to the person.

Second, the mirror supplies the concise distinction between essence and characteristics: the principle of truth expressed is called essence; differentiating provisional and real, great and small, is called characteristics. This judgment gathers the whole chapter but belongs to the interpretive layer. The base treatise discloses essence through four divisions and does not first state the same definition. Reading both layers together leaves chapter structure and base teaching each clear.

Third, the mirror states the relation between the earlier and later three calmings most clearly: the three calmings in Explaining the Name together form one truth, while the three in Essence and Characteristics each form one truth; every calming here again possesses the preceding three meanings. The successive three contemplations likewise remain clearly distinct. Only at the turn to perfect and sudden does the name absolute disclose one truth as three truths and clarify agent and object as simultaneously pervasive, one itself and three. Reading succession as perfect integration too early and remaining in succession without entering perfect and sudden equally lose the text’s turn.

Fourth, the blind-person-and-milk simile is deliberately repurposed. In its original scripture it addresses another non-Buddhist setting, while the treatise borrows its meaning to teach the four gates and three truths. The mirror explicitly notes that its use differs slightly. This reminds cross-readers that when one simile enters another argument, its image can remain while its referent changes. Recognizing this repurposing follows ancient scriptural usage more closely than assuming all similar wording can bear only one fixed meaning.

Fifth, “my private view” is not something Zhiyi taught publicly. Zhanran explicitly marks it as Zhang’an’s private explanation because it was neither spoken by the Great Master before the assembly nor stated directly to him for confirmation. Full granting, half granting and half withholding, and full withholding can therefore help explain the three rounds of the two truths, but cannot be reattributed as Zhiyi’s own statement, still less mistaken for something Zhanran independently established. This small authorial marker protects the credibility of the teaching, recording, and commentary layers throughout the work.

Sixth, the numbers in separation and combination must not be reified. The mirror’s statement that “the essence of the truths remains constantly three” explains how wisdom-numbers can increase and decrease, while preserving the Dazhidu Lun’s many explanations of the four wisdoms without deciding on Nāgārjuna’s behalf. Zhuangyan says beyond and Kaishan not beyond, and each grasps one side. Once the whole intent is obtained, beyond and not beyond can both stand. This is not vagueness but recognition that partial sentences each have a scope when teaching gates open and gather according to faculties.

Seventh, the four natures in the gain-and-loss chapter are not an abstract logical game. Zhanran ties self, other, both, and no cause one by one back to object and wisdom and illuminates the chain from dependence through right and wrong, love and anger, conceptual play, karma, and suffering. Breaking the four natures is itself contemplative practice. All teachings leave grasping at nature, though what they break differs in depth. Only when four teachings remain after breaking do real and provisional wisdom, one’s own practice and transforming others, form both sides.

Eighth, the treatise cites the Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra as saying “the inconceivable object of wisdom and inconceivable illumination by wisdom,” while the mirror lists the scripture’s light of wisdom, torch of wisdom, practice of wisdom, accumulation of wisdom, and object of wisdom and expressly records that the treatise reads “illumination.” This is not a place to smooth the wording through similar meanings, but an actual difference between the treatise’s usage and the extant scriptural sentence. Zhanran preserves both while still explaining the chapter’s purport through the identity of wisdom and object. The four inexpressibles are the same: the treatise explicitly cites Śāriputra and Vimalakīrti at the beginning and end, while the mirror supplies the two middle levels by assignment according to teaching. Interpretation can complete the structure, but cannot pretend that the assigned parallels were already quoted in the base text.

The Zhiguan Yili uses “opening and disclosing the essence brings forth eye and wisdom” to show that the chapter count can open, while the Zhiguan Dayi compresses the entire chapter through three and one having nowhere to lodge and truth and contemplation differing in name but sharing an essence. Both outlines point in the same direction: Essence and Characteristics neither turns three into one nor spreads one into three. Amid separation and combination of names and marks, it continuously sees that what is disclosed does not move; amid the inexpressible, it preserves speech responding to conditions. Returning in this way to the chapter’s end, self and other gaining together is no longer merely the final cell in a classification table, but the most practical verification of the essence and characteristics of calming-and-contemplation.