摩訶止觀 偏圓

The moon is already bright, but it is not yet full. Zhiyi uses this simplest of similes to dismantle one of practice’s least visible misrecognitions: advancing toward completeness is not the same as already being complete. Nor does relying on a Mahāyāna Dharma gate mean that one’s present understanding, practice, and realization are all perfect.

Partial and perfect are therefore more than labels of higher and lower. Great and small ask whether one still has to dismantle real Dharmas to see emptiness, or sees that they exist through conditions and are empty in their very essence. Analyzing Dharmas resembles seeing empty space only after dismantling a pillar; embodying Dharmas resembles the pillar-image in a mirror, never an actual pillar and empty without waiting for extinction. Yet even if one understands essential emptiness, grasping one’s own gate and disparaging others only replaces the old chain with a new golden one.

Gradual and sudden are not simply slow and fast. Some know the Middle Way from the beginning but must still travel through skillful means; others directly condition perfect principle from teaching and contemplation through practice and realization. More importantly, an earlier gradual practice can become the gradual within the sudden after opening and convergence, but one cannot reverse the sequence and say: because it could enter later, it was already ultimate before. Being able to arrive is not having arrived.

Poison placed in milk opens another side. The direct cause is like a constituent never lost from milk; the Dharma heard is like poison that follows milk as it becomes curds, cream, and ghee and acts at different times. Some awaken through principle, some by hearing teaching, some through reflection and cultivation, and some at a station of realization. Entry into the perfect has no single moment shared by everyone; arousal does not mean that the entire later road has already been traveled.

Provisional Dharma is therefore not a detour to despise. The Buddha establishes three provisionals because sentient beings differ in faculties, desires, wholesome roots, and illnesses. Opening the provisional does not carry reality in from outside skillful means; it opens the direction in which skillful means was already pointing. Abolishing the provisional does not deny what was formerly attained; it stops treating a temporary signboard as the ultimate dwelling. A swift horse sees the shadow of the whip and enters the right road. Once a gate opens, skillful means can lead to the real.

Finally, even “permanent abiding” cannot be judged by wording alone. The unconditioned permanence known by the Two Vehicles and the permanence of buddha-nature clarified in the Perfect Teaching share a name while the realization differs. Knowing the phrase “permanent abiding” does not guarantee arrival at what it indicates.

What partial and perfect truly ask is about this very thought now: am I advancing according to Dharma, or becoming self-satisfied according to a name? The fourteenth night need not deny its own light and need not pretend to be the fifteenth. Clearly seeing what remains, preserving the light already gained, and continuing toward fullness—this is where the judgment of partial and perfect lands in mind.

1. Why Partial and Perfect Must Be Distinguished

Fifth is the clarification of partial and perfect. Practitioners already know that there is no Dharma that calming-and-contemplation does not embrace. Yet because the Dharmas embraced are many, the meanings of great and small, shared and unshared, provisional and real, conceivable and inconceivable must each be recognized. Partial and perfect will therefore be distinguished further.

The discussion has five parts: first, great and small; second, half and full; third, partial and perfect; fourth, gradual and sudden; fifth, provisional and real. Ultimate principle cannot originally be called great or small, provisional or real. Great, small, provisional, and real are all inexpressible. Yet when causes and conditions are complete, meanings such as great and small can still be provisionally established in speech. Through Hīnayāna skillful means, the Buddha taught the small Dharma to the five monks; through Mahāyāna skillful means, he taught the great Dharma to bodhisattvas. Although great and small are both skillful means, the principle that makes each what it is must still be known. These five contrasting pairs are therefore examined so they will not be conflated or disordered.

2. Great and Small

Small: Calming-and-Contemplation That Analyzes Dharmas

“Small” means Hīnayāna. Because practitioners’ wisdom is weaker, they can only cultivate calming-and-contemplation that analyzes Dharmas, analyzing material and mental Dharmas. When the Explanatory Treatise explains the perfection of giving, for example, it refutes non-Buddhist “neighboring-void” particles by asking: “Does this particle ultimately exist or not? If ultimate-particle form exists, it has parts in the ten directions; if ultimate-particle form does not exist, it has no parts in the ten directions.” If ultimate-particle form can be analyzed without ever being exhausted, one falls into views of permanence and existence. If it is analyzed until completely exhausted, one falls into views of annihilation and nonexistence. This is how non-Buddhist paths analyze material Dharma. They analyze mental Dharma in the same way: attachment to either an existing or a nonexistent mind falls into annihilation or permanence. These are the non-Buddhist modes of analyzing form and mind.

The treatise then explains the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s correct analytical contemplation: “Whether form is coarse or subtle, contemplated altogether, it is impermanent and non-self.” Why? Coarse and subtle form and the other Dharmas all arise from ignorance. Ignorance is not real, so coarse and subtle form are provisionally existent. Precisely because they are provisional, they are impermanent and have no intrinsic nature; one can thereby enter emptiness. Again, the arising of even one extremely subtle thought of mind necessarily depends on faculty and object. Not one Dharma fails to arise from causes and conditions, and everything arising from causes and conditions is impermanent. One account says that “one thought of mind has sixty moments,” another that it “has thirty billion moments.” No moment abides, and therefore thought after thought is impermanent.

Because there is impermanence, there is also no controller; afflictions cannot be established at their root. Without karma there is no suffering, and birth and death are quiescent; this is called nirvāṇa. This is the “purport of contemplation analyzing form and mind.” The name analytical Dharma originally also occurred among non-Buddhist paths; here correct analysis is disclosed in contrast to erroneous analysis. It is not only non-Buddhist wrong views that require treatment by correct analysis. Buddhist disciples who produce attached views by grasping the Dharma gates taught by the Buddha likewise require it. Four kinds of attachment may arise from each of the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s four gates, and likewise from each of the Perfect Teaching’s four gates. Whenever one falls into conceptual play and contention, holding oneself right and others wrong, one resembles someone who drinks ambrosia but instead damages life and dies early, or binds oneself with a golden chain and continues revolving in birth and death. All such attachments should therefore be broken through correct analysis.

The Great Treatise therefore says: “What is called breaking nirvāṇa does not break the nirvāṇa attained by noble ones. It is only because students who have not yet realized nirvāṇa grasp it and form conceptual play that one speaks of breaking nirvāṇa.” On this account, every such attachment should be broken through analytical skillful means. Analytical Dharma has four gates, and every gate possesses the ten Dharmas, beginning with recognition of right causes and conditions and ending with not producing attachment to Dharma. Through these, first meaning can be seen within every gate. One can therefore know that the analytical calming-and-contemplation practiced in the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s four gates definitely belongs to Hīnayāna.

Great: Calming-and-Contemplation That Embodies Dharmas

Next, “great” is clarified, meaning Mahāyāna. Practitioners’ wisdom is deep and sharp, and they cultivate nonarising and nonceasing calming-and-contemplation that embodies Dharmas. Because it is practiced by great persons, it is called “Mahāyāna.” The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā explains the Mahāyāna through immediate emptiness, and Mahāyāna means the Great Vehicle. A Mahāyāna scripture says, “If one wishes to attain the śrāvaka fruit, one should study prajñā.” Prajñā was originally a bodhisattva Dharma, but the great Dharma can contain the small and therefore includes śrāvakas incidentally. It is like the Vermilion Bird Gate, built by the Son of Heaven and originally opening directly into royal affairs, yet ordinary people may also enter and leave through it. Though it permits their passage, it remains the imperial palace gate. Mahāyāna is the same. It originally teaches bodhisattvas that Dharmas are empty in their very essence. Although it also includes Hīnayāna, it remains great. Conversely, even though the Tripiṭaka’s analysis of Dharmas contains buddhas and bodhisattvas, it remains Hīnayāna.

Mahāyāna contemplation embodying Dharmas differs from the Tripiṭaka. The Tripiṭaka holds that names are provisional but Dharma-entities really exist, and therefore analyzes real Dharmas until they return to emptiness. It is like dismantling a pillar so that the place where the pillar stood becomes empty. Mahāyāna contemplation embodying Dharmas says that both names and the real Dharmas they designate are provisional. Their own marks are immediately empty and originally void and quiescent. The image of a pillar in a mirror was never a real pillar and need not await the pillar’s destruction to become empty. 〔天〕 The image is immediately empty, neither arising nor ceasing, unlike the actual pillar.

The Great Treatise further explains the contemplation embodying Dharmas cultivated by Mahāyāna practitioners. It recounts the Buddha standing upon one squared timber and telling the monks: “It is like a monk who, when entering meditative concentration, can transform earth into gold and gold into earth. In reality it is neither actual gold nor actual earth but is produced by transformation.” Form and mind are the same: they neither truly arise nor truly cease but are only transformations of ignorance. Since they were never born originally, how could they now undergo real extinction? The treatise also gives the example of contemplating one bolt of cotton cloth: it immediately possesses the eighteen emptinesses. This is called “contemplation embodying Dharmas.”

To go further, the analysis performed in the Tripiṭaka Teaching is called “contemplating form and mind according to dispositions.” It analyzes the Dharmas believed to be real and is therefore contemplation on the level of phenomena. The true truth entered through it is not buddha-nature and cannot converge with real principle; it is established as true only in accord with sentient beings’ attachments. Mahāyāna embodiment of Dharmas is called “contemplating form and mind according to principle.” It resembles tracing an illusion to the illusionist and the illusionist to the method that makes the illusion, or tracing a dream to sleep and sleep to mind. Tracing illusory form and mind leads to ignorance, and tracing ignorance leads to buddha-nature. Because embodiment of Dharmas can penetrate truth, it is called “contemplation according to principle.”

Calming-and-contemplation embodying Dharmas also has four gates, each possessing the ten Dharmas that accomplish contemplative practice. This contemplation does not merely embody as illusion the form and mind in the retributions of non-Buddhist paths. It likewise embodies every attachment involved—from grasping the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s four gates through grasping a gate as a view before entering the Perfect Teaching’s four gates—as illusion. Only this is definitely called “Mahāyāna calming-and-contemplation.” If the purport of contemplative method here is understood, even attachments to Mahāyāna gates must still be broken through contemplation of emptiness.

This is ultimately unlike certain worldly Dharma masters and meditation masters who claim that Laozi’s “Way and Virtue” or Zhuangzi’s “Free and Easy Wandering” equals the Buddha-Dharma. Such claims cannot stand. Attachment even to a Perfect-Teaching Dharma gate can be broken by the first gate of the Tripiṭaka and cannot enter even Hīnayāna; how much less could a common and crude mind of views do so? The two are as far apart as a firefly and the sun, or a high mountain and the tip of a hair. Some claim that their own way alone is true and thereby disparage Gautama. Should such attachment not be broken?

3. Half and Full · Partial and Perfect

Half and Full

Second is the clarification of half and full. “Half” means the nine divisions of Dharma; “full” means the twelve divisions. One judgment in circulation holds that only when the teaching of nirvāṇa’s permanent abiding appeared did the teaching become full, while everything earlier was half. Bodhiruci also said, “The Tripiṭaka is half; everything from the Prajñā onward is full.” The pair half and full is introduced here only to support the clarification of great and small. Great and small were already judged through analyzing and embodying Dharmas; half and full are likewise judged through embodiment and analysis, as above and so forth.

Partial and Perfect

Third is the clarification of partial and perfect. “Partial” means one-sided; “perfect” means full and complete. In a general statement, what prevents calling Hīnayāna partial? Yet to distinguish the particular meanings of each name, one cannot be so sweeping. The names half and small have fixed and narrow boundaries that cannot extend into a longer range. The meaning of partial, however, reaches widely from the small into the great.

For example, a half moon reaches only the upper- or lower-half boundary. A waxing moon is different: from the first bow-shaped, eyebrow-like crescent through the fourteenth night, all are called gradual; only on the fifteenth night is it called the full moon. Small and half are the same. They reach only analytical Dharma, the half-word teaching, and Hīnayāna and cannot be called great. The meaning of partial extends much farther: from the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s analytical calming-and-contemplation through the Separate Teaching’s calming-and-contemplation that leaves the two extremes but is still within the process of entering the Middle, all is called partial. The Great Scripture therefore says, “Before this, we were all called people of wrong views.” Only the Perfect Teaching’s calming-and-contemplation—with three truths in one mind and words spoken according to the Buddha’s own intent—can alone bear the name perfect.

4. Gradual and Sudden

Gradual and Sudden within the Four Teachings

Fourth is the clarification of gradual and sudden. Gradual means having a sequence, using shallow Dharmas to enter deep ones. Sudden means immediately complete and immediately ultimate. This has no other purport; it still supports the clarification of partial and perfect. The first three teachings’ calming-and-contemplation is entirely gradual, while that of the Perfect Teaching is called sudden. Explained according to the names, the meaning is already clear, but it will now be examined broadly so no doubt or obstruction remains.

The first two teachings’ calming-and-contemplation is gradual and not sudden, because its power cannot reach far and enters only partial truth. Perfect-Teaching calming-and-contemplation is sudden and not gradual, because it proceeds on the great straight road and is immediately middle at the very extremes. The Separate Teaching’s calming-and-contemplation is both gradual and sudden. Why? At the first arousal of mind, it knows the Middle Way and may therefore be called sudden; but it must pass through skillful means to enter and is therefore also gradual.

Distinguished further, the contemplation, teaching, practice, and realization of the first two kinds of calming-and-contemplation are all called gradual. The Separate Teaching’s teaching, contemplation, and practice are gradual, while its path of realization is sudden. The Perfect Teaching’s teaching, contemplation, practice, and realization are all sudden. Why? The first two contemplations are taught as skillful means, like a thatched hut and a winding narrow path; their teaching, contemplation, practice, and realization are therefore all gradual. Separate contemplation is taught together with skillful means. Cultivation according to those means first breaks shared delusions within the three realms, so teaching, contemplation, and practice are gradual. Later one breaks ignorance and sees buddha-nature, so the path of realization is sudden.

Perfect contemplation says: “Uprightly cast aside skillful means and teach only the unsurpassed path”; “Only this one matter is real; the other Two Vehicles are not true”; and “Teach the most real matter.” This is called real teaching. It also says: “Practice the Tathāgata’s practice”; “Enter the Tathāgata’s room, robe, and seat”; and “There is another one practice that is the Tathāgata’s practice.” This is called real practice. The Middle Way seen is the one ultimate, the same as the Dharma body attained by the Tathāgata, without differentiation. This is called real realization.

At causal stations, the first two contemplations have teaching, practice, realization, and practitioners. At their resultant stations, however, they have only teaching and no practice, realization, or persons. Why? Practitioners at causal stations reduce the body to ashes, enter quiescence, sink into emptiness, and return to extinction. They cannot become the buddhas posited at the summit of the resultant stations. Those buddhas are only provisionally established in teaching, so the result has a teaching-name but no actual practice, realization, or person.

At causal stations, the Separate Teaching likewise has teaching, practice, realization, and persons. As for its resultant station, it too has only teaching and no practice, realization, or person. Why? If someone breaks ignorance and ascends the first ground, that person is then at the Perfect Teaching’s first abode and no longer at the Separate Teaching’s first ground. If even the first ground is like this, how much more later grounds and the result? One can therefore know that practitioners in the Separate Teaching’s causal stations cannot reach the resultant summit it establishes. Thus it is said, “At the resultant summit there is no person.”

The Perfect Teaching is different. Its teaching, practice, realization, and persons at causal stations all reach continuously from cause to result and are real from beginning to end. It is therefore said, “There really are persons.”

Opening the Gradual to Reveal the Sudden · Indeterminate Entry into the Perfect

Before the teaching, practice, realization, and persons of the first three contemplations are converged into the Perfect Teaching, they do not even know the perfect, much less enter it. But if the Buddha converges their purport and opens the gradual to reveal the sudden, all can pass into it. They were not originally sudden in their immediate form, but are opened from the gradual into the sudden. The Lotus therefore says: “What you practice is the bodhisattva path”; “Each mounts the jeweled cart, fitting the children’s original wish”; and “This scripture resolves the śrāvaka Dharma; this scripture is king of the scriptures.” This opens and connects gradual Dharmas so all can enter, receiving them through distinct principle. The paths and fruits of the Two Vehicles attained in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra are therefore not separated from the Perfect Teaching’s permanent abiding. Continuing to cultivate according to this, all will become buddhas. This is entering the perfect from the gradual, also called opening the gradual to reveal the sudden.

Further, the four kinds of calming-and-contemplation need not all wait until their own cultivation is complete to enter the Perfect Teaching, nor all wait for the opening of the gradual and revelation of the sudden. The timing of entry is indeterminate. Why? The direct cause within the mind-nature of every sentient being is like milk. Hearing the Dharma of the revealing cause that can disclose the direct cause is called placing poison in milk. The direct cause is unbroken, like the four subtle constituents continuously present in milk. Although the five flavors keep changing, the four subtle constituents remain throughout; the poison follows them into every flavor, each of which can kill. Sentient beings’ mind-nature is the same. The direct cause is not destroyed, and the poison of the revealing cause can be aroused anywhere according to how quickly or slowly the direct cause matures: through principle, teaching, practice, or as realization.

For example, pratyekabuddhas possess sharp wisdom and mature wholesome roots, so even when born in an age without a buddha they can awaken spontaneously. Arousal through principle is the same: wholesome roots planted in the distant past allow the poison of the revealing cause to arise naturally in this life even without hearing the Perfect Teaching. Hearing the Avataṃsaka and awakening as sunlight illuminates high mountains is arousal through teaching. Reflecting after hearing and awakening during that reflection is arousal through contemplative practice. If one at the station of purification of the six faculties advances to break ignorance, it is arousal as realization through resemblance; if one further increases the path and diminishes birth and death, it too is arousal as realization. This explains indeterminate timing of entry from the perspective of Perfect-Teaching practitioners.

If practitioners of the first three teachings arouse it while still ordinary beings, it is arousal through principle; if through hearing teaching, arousal through teaching; if through cultivating skillful means, arousal through contemplative practice; if at worthy or noble stations, arousal as realization. This explains indeterminate timing from the perspective of practitioners of the first three teachings.

There is another kind of indeterminacy that does not resemble taking poison and killing a person. For example, when cultivating non-outflow Dharma, outflow Dharma may arise without being sought, while neither segmentary nor transformational birth and death is severed. If non-outflow arises while cultivating the Middle Way, one thereafter leaves forever the ocean of suffering and cyclic turning in the three realms. This severs only one kind of birth and death rather than both and is also called indeterminate.

Gradual and Perfect within Each Teaching

Further, each of the four kinds of calming-and-contemplation has perfect and gradual within its own scope. In the Tripiṭaka Teaching, cultivating skillful means from the first arousal of mind and entering the station of truth is called gradual. Severing bonds with thirty-four thoughts and accomplishing its result—can this not be called perfect? In the Shared and Separate Teachings, from the initial through the final mind, how could gradual and perfect be absent? The Perfect Teaching is called perfect because its principle is ultimate in essence, yet it too has a sequence from the initial mind through forty-one grounds. Is this not gradual? Wondrous awakening reaches the ultimate—is this not perfect? Thus perfect-perfect is not gradual-perfect, and perfect-gradual is not gradual-gradual. The Perfect Teaching’s perfect result is not the perfect result gradually attained in the first three teachings, and its gradual cause is not their gradual cause. Every teaching therefore has both gradual and perfect within its own scope. The Commentary on the Lotus should explain this broadly.

Yet gradual-gradual is not perfect-gradual, though after opening and convergence it can become perfect-gradual. Gradual-perfect is not perfect-perfect and cannot later become perfect-perfect. That is, the gradual causes of the first three teachings are not the Perfect Teaching’s gradual cause, but can become its gradual cause through opening and convergence. The perfect results established by the first three teachings are not the Perfect Teaching’s perfect result and cannot later become it. Why? The Lotus says, “What you practice is the bodhisattva path.” The first three teachings’ gradual causes can therefore be opened into the Perfect Teaching’s gradual cause. Their perfect results are only provisional establishments; the resultant stations themselves cannot be transformed into the buddha-fruit of wondrous awakening.

The same pattern applies in other pairs. Small-small is not great-small but can become great-small; small-great is not great-great and cannot become great-great. In other words, the small within a small Dharma is not the small contained within a great Dharma, but can be opened into that small. The great result taught by the small teaching is not the great teaching’s great result and cannot become it. Provisional-provisional is not real-provisional but can become real-provisional; provisional-real is not real-real and cannot become real-real. That is, the provisional within a provisional teaching is not the provisional contained within a real teaching, but can be opened into it. The real result taught by a provisional teaching is not the real teaching’s real result and cannot become the genuine real result. Why? The resultant summits of the first three teachings have only teaching-names and no actual persons, so provisional-real cannot become real-real. Half and full, gradual and sudden, should be distinguished in the same way without writing out the complex wording again.

When one seeks inwardly through contemplation of mind, Dharma-characteristics should originally be like this, but many people do not believe it. Five similes from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra are therefore now used to establish the meaning.

Five Similes

The text called “the sixth” says: “Ordinary beings are like milk; stream-enterers like curds; once-returners like raw cream; non-returners like clarified cream; arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and buddhas like ghee.” The Great Treatise also says, “In śrāvaka scriptures, arhatship is called the buddha-ground.” Arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and buddhas therefore all belong to ghee in this simile. Does this simile not explain the five flavors within the Tripiṭaka Teaching? The gradual and perfect within its own scope can be established through this example.

The text called “the thirty-second” says: “Sentient beings are like milk mixed with blood; stream-enterers and once-returners like pure milk; non-returners like curds; arhats like raw cream; pratyekabuddhas and bodhisattvas like clarified cream; buddhas like ghee.” Does this not explain the five flavors within the Shared Teaching? Pratyekabuddhas have encroached upon habituations and are slightly superior to śrāvakas, so they are placed with bodhisattvas at clarified cream. A buddha has exhausted both primary dispositions and habituations and is called ghee. This comparison reveals gradual and perfect within the Shared Teaching’s own scope.

The text called “the ninth” says: “Sentient beings are like a newly calved cow, with blood and milk not yet separated; śrāvakas like milk; pratyekabuddhas like curds; bodhisattvas like raw and clarified cream; buddhas like ghee.” Does this not convey the five flavors of the Separate Teaching? At the beginning and middle of the ten abodes, one can wholly sever the delusions of views and thoughts severed by the Shared Teaching; these stations are called milk and generally correspond to śrāvakas. The final mind of the ten abodes is slightly deeper and corresponds to pratyekabuddhas as curds. The ten practices and ten dedications are like raw and clarified cream. At the very beginning of the ten grounds one is already called a buddha and is therefore like ghee. This simile reveals gradual and perfect within Separate-Teaching calming-and-contemplation.

The text called “the twenty-seventh” says: “On Snow Mountain is a grass called forbearance; if a cow eats it, it becomes ghee.” The grass represents the right path; one who can cultivate the right path sees buddha-nature. Does this simile not convey the Perfect Teaching? Without passing through the first four flavors, one becomes ghee directly. This comparison can reveal stations such as gradual and perfect.

The text called “the eighth” says: “Place poison in milk; permeating the five flavors, it can kill a person in every one.” Does this simile not represent the indeterminate? From it arise the four kinds—arousal through principle, teaching, practice, and realization—and entry into the perfect becomes possible.

The foregoing is the examination made through gradual and sudden. The preceding sections on great and small, half and full, and partial and perfect, and the following section on provisional and real, should also be examined in this way. Only the boundary between small and great and half and full is fixed and separated at this point and cannot be entirely identical to the remaining sections.

5. Provisional and Real

Establishing, Opening, and Abolishing the Provisional

Fifth is the clarification of provisional and real. “Provisional” is expedient strategic assessment: temporarily employed, then abolished after use. “Real” is a record according with reality, the ultimate purport and return.

Establishing provisional Dharmas has approximately three meanings. First, the provisional is established for the real. Second, the provisional is opened and explained to disclose the real. Third, the provisional is abolished to disclose the real, like the three lotus similes in the Lotus teaching. The buddhas appear in the world for one great work, originally for the one real, perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation, yet establish three kinds of provisional calming-and-contemplation for sentient beings. The provisional is not the Buddha’s original intent, but that intent is not outside provisional Dharmas. Once the three provisional contemplations are opened and explained, the one real perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation is disclosed.

When the provisional is established for the real, the one real has now been established. When the provisional is opened to reveal the real, the provisional Dharma itself opens into reality and no separate provisional remains to discuss. One therefore next speaks of abolishing the provisional to reveal the real: the provisional Dharma is abolished while the real remains. The three names are provisionally borrowed to explain provisional and real, and their meanings are fitting.

Question: Why employ this pair provisional and real?

Answer: The Buddha knows that sentient beings have many kinds of faculties, desires, and inclinations and therefore uses the four siddhāntas to mature them.

For one who wishes to hear right causes and conditions, the Tripiṭaka Teaching is taught. For one who wishes to hear that causes and conditions are immediately empty, Shared-Teaching calming-and-contemplation is taught. For one who wishes to hear of practice over many eons, Separate-Teaching calming-and-contemplation is taught. For one who wishes to hear that the immediate is middle, Perfect-Teaching calming-and-contemplation is taught. This is accordance with the worldly siddhānta, also called accordance with desire. Three provisional kinds and one real kind of calming-and-contemplation are taught by establishing the provisional for the one real.

To cause sentient beings to give rise to phenomenal goodness supporting the true truth, Tripiṭaka contemplation is taught. To cause them to give rise to principial goodness supporting the true truth, Shared contemplation is taught. To cause them to give rise to phenomenal goodness supporting the Middle Way, Separate contemplation is taught. To cause them to give rise to principial goodness supporting the Middle Way, Perfect contemplation is taught. This is accordance with the individual siddhānta, also called accordance with what is fitting, in teaching provisional and real calming-and-contemplation.

To break erroneous views of causes and conditions and of no causes and conditions, Tripiṭaka contemplation is taught. To break a clumsy mode of crossing, Shared contemplation is taught. To break Dharma shared with the Two Vehicles, Separate contemplation is taught. To break Dharma gates that still carry skillful means, Perfect contemplation is taught. This teaches provisional and real calming-and-contemplation according to the counteractive siddhānta.

For conceivable dull faculties, the clumsy method brings entry into the true truth, and Tripiṭaka contemplation is taught. For conceivable sharp faculties, a skillful method brings entry into the true truth, and Shared contemplation is taught. For inconceivable dull faculties, a clumsy method brings vision of the Middle Way, and Separate contemplation is taught. For inconceivable sharp faculties, a skillful method brings vision of the Middle Way, and Perfect contemplation is taught. This is establishing the three provisionals for the one real.

Arising and Abolition According to the Siddhāntas

When provisional and real are set in relation, four kinds of calming-and-contemplation result. The meaning of establishing the provisional for the real has now been explained. Provisional and real arise precisely because of the siddhāntas, and they can later be abolished for the same reason. Why? Sentient beings’ afflictive bonds are thick, while sharp wisdom and wholesome roots are thin. The first contemplation is therefore made to arise so phenomenal goodness will arise. Once phenomenal goodness has arisen, afflictions have been disciplined and thinned, and Tripiṭaka contemplation can be abolished. Shared contemplation then arises so principial goodness will arise; once it has arisen, Shared contemplation is abolished. Separate contemplation then arises so phenomenal goodness beyond the three realms will arise; once it has arisen, Separate contemplation is abolished. Perfect contemplation then arises so principial goodness beyond the three realms will arise. Thus arising and abolition both accord with causes and conditions, and the teaching is called provisional and real calming-and-contemplation. Arising and abolition within the other three siddhāntas can be understood in the same way.

In terms of arising and abolition through the teachings of the five flavors: at the Avataṃsaka period, two provisionals are abolished for Mahāyāna practitioners and one provisional and one real made to arise. At the Tripiṭaka period, two provisionals and one real are abolished and only one provisional arises. In the Vaipulya period all four kinds of calming-and-contemplation arise. In the Prajñā period one provisional is abolished and two provisionals and one real arise. In the Lotus period the three provisionals are abolished and only the one real arises. In the Mahāparinirvāṇa period all four arise again and all enter buddha-nature without obstruction.

The Tathāgata therefore skillfully employs the siddhāntas, making Dharma gates arise or abolishing them at the proper time and acting according to sentient beings’ faculties, always for their benefit. The Tathāgata does not teach empty and profitless Dharma. Precisely to liberate people, a gate arises when it should arise and is abolished when it should be abolished. The one real is taught in contrast to the three provisionals; the real remains while the provisional is abolished, as already explained.

All Four Real · All Four Provisional · The Double Negation

Now a further examination is made. All four kinds of calming-and-contemplation are real and not false. Why? Without opening and resolving them, there would be no means to bring practitioners into truth. This scripture now resolves the śrāvaka Dharma; it is king of the scriptures and opens the gate of skillful means to show the real mark. Every kind of calming-and-contemplation can enter the perfect. Like a swift horse that sees the shadow of a whip and immediately gallops onto the right road, all four kinds are therefore real.

Again, all four kinds of calming-and-contemplation are provisional. Why? All four principles are inexpressible. The provisional is inexpressible and therefore was originally not provisional; the real is also inexpressible and therefore was originally not real. What is not provisional is forcibly called provisional; what is not real is forcibly called real. Since both are forcibly established in speech, why not call the provisional real? Because once it falls into speech, it is entirely provisional.

Again, all these provisionals and reals are neither provisional nor real. Why? Because all are inexpressible. This neither-provisional-nor-real cannot be made into another thing apart from the real discussed above. Earlier, seeing principle was called real. That real is precisely neither provisional nor real; their meanings do not differ. If they differed, another wisdom would have to illuminate another truth. But because the principle faced and delusion treated are the same, they cannot be made into two. Relative to the provisional it is called real; when expressive teaching is abolished, it is called principle, and hence neither provisional nor real.

Teaching is immediately principle, and provisional and real are immediately neither provisional nor real. They are nondual and undifferentiated, neither combined nor scattered. The nature of principle that is neither provisional nor real is constantly quiescent and is called “calming.” Though quiescent, it constantly illuminates and may be spoken of as provisional or real; this is called “contemplation.” Because of contemplation, it is called “wisdom” and “prajñā.” Because of calming, it is called “eye” and “Śūraṃgama.” What these names indicate is nondual and undifferentiated, neither combined nor scattered: inconceivable calming-and-contemplation.

It is not only when real Dharma is disclosed that the real is neither provisional nor real. When provisional Dharma is opened and explained, it too is neither provisional nor real. This still belongs to the meaning of opening the provisional to reveal the real.

Receiving the Shared Teaching into the Separate

Question: Establishing three provisionals for one real gives only four kinds of calming-and-contemplation in all. If one separately speaks of calming-and-contemplation in which the Separate Teaching receives the Shared, is it provisional or real? Why is it not counted among the four? Why speak only of receiving the Shared? At what station is a person received, and into what station?

Answer: If the person received enters only the Separate Teaching’s doctrine, this is provisional. If through receiving the person enters a station of realization, it is real. Each of the Four Teachings is discussed from its beginning through its end. Receiving concerns only an endpoint and has no beginning of its own, so it is not counted among the four. Speaking generally, every teaching might have receiving, but that meaning is not used here. The Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings describe principle within the three realms, while the Separate and Perfect Teachings describe principle beyond them. A receiving must be established at the junction between these two classes, so only the Separate receiving the Shared is discussed.

If one speaks wholly according to the Shared Teaching’s stations without discussing the breaking of ignorance, its eighth ground is called the pratyekabuddha ground. Only upon being received from there does one know that a Middle Way exists. At the ninth ground one subdues ignorance; at the tenth one breaks ignorance and is then called a buddha. But after breaking only one portion of ignorance, how could one already be ultimate? One therefore knows this is entry into the Separate Teaching through receiving. Viewed in terms of Separate-Teaching stations, it is entry into the practice-station of the first ground.

If receiving is explained from the true truth, the Shared Teaching’s true truth combines emptiness and the Middle in one statement. From the beginning, practitioners contemplate only the empty aspect within true truth. Only when all delusions of views and thoughts have been broken and they reach the eighth ground are they shown that a Middle Way also exists within true truth. Thus it is said: “The wise see both emptiness and nonemptiness.” Only then do those received hear the Middle Way; hearing it, they see its principle. This is entry into a Separate-Teaching station.

Stations established for Tripiṭaka bodhisattvas are not like this, so receiving is not discussed for them. The Separate and Perfect Teachings already know the Middle Way at the arousal of mind—what could be used to receive them? Receiving therefore occurs only in the Shared Teaching.

Do the Three Provisional Teachings Know the One Real?

Question: Can all three provisional teachings know the one real?

Answer: The Separate Teaching knows it from the beginning; the Shared Teaching knows it only later; the Tripiṭaka Teaching never knows it from beginning to end.

Question: If they know it, why are they still called provisional? If they do not know it, do they not contradict two scriptures?

Answer: Although the Separate Teaching knows the Middle Way from the beginning, the teaching heard still carries skillful means and is therefore provisional. Although the Shared Teaching knows it later, only those capable of being received know it; the Shared Teaching itself remains provisional. This meaning can be understood. As for the claim that the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s not knowing contradicts two scriptures, the Great Scripture says: “If arhats do not know the Three Jewels as permanently abiding and unchanging, all their prohibitive precepts are incomplete and they cannot attain the śrāvaka path.” This difficulty must now be resolved.

Through their own power alone, arhats should originally be unable to know or see permanent abiding. Just as an unopened divine eye cannot see beyond an obstruction, one cannot know without hearing another person explain. Arhats have not opened the Buddha eye and have not heard the Buddha’s explanation; how could they know permanent abiding by themselves? The Lotus therefore says: “Regarding the merit they have attained, they produce the perception of having attained extinction; if they encounter another buddha, they can attain resolution.” It also says: “Śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and non-retrogressing bodhisattvas also cannot know.” One should therefore know that without hearing, they cannot know. Their knowledge mentioned in scripture extends only to the principle they themselves have realized.

The unconditioned true truth may also be called permanent because it has one mark and does not move. If someone distinguishes two changing and flowing marks within true truth, genuine wisdom cannot arise. One must contemplate emptiness to enter non-outflow. Subhūti, for example, contemplated emptiness, while Kauṇḍinya realized the wisdom of nonarising. As for prohibitive discipline being incomplete, if one contemplates emptiness and attains precepts shared with the path, this is completeness of precepts.

The Avataṃsaka therefore says: “The real nature and characteristics of all Dharmas permanently abide without change; the Two Vehicles both attain this, yet are not thereby called buddhas.” One can thus know that the name permanent abiding extends across great and small and admits the explanation above. Without this explanation, the Tripiṭaka Teaching does not teach Mahāyāna permanent abiding, so how could śrāvakas fulfill the śrāvaka path and prohibitive precepts? With this explanation, precepts shared with the path are faultless and their wholesome meaning becomes still clearer.

For another example, the Great Perfection of Wisdom says: “Sexual desire obstructs birth in the Brahmā heaven; how much more awakening?” Birth in the Brahmā heaven requires severing desire; attaining awakening requires severing desire for the two extremes. The same name desire is used in both places, but the meanings differ. The phrase permanent abiding is the same.

To enter true truth, one must know the unconditioned as permanent and unchanging. To enter true mark, one must likewise know permanent abiding as one unchanging mark. The expression knowing permanent abiding is the same, but what is known in the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna differs. Saying that Tripiṭaka calming-and-contemplation does not know the Perfect Teaching or the one real therefore does not contradict scripture.

Two Kinds of Initial Practice

The Śrīmālādevī Sūtra says: “If one does not know permanent abiding, none of one’s Three Refuges is accomplished.” How should this be resolved? If one traces the root far back, practitioners of the Three Vehicles were not wholly ignorant of Dharma when they first practiced. If wisdom born of hearing obtained while cultivating the four establishments of mindfulness is treated as initial practice, they already knew from that beginning that true truth permanently abides and did not produce the sixty-two views. Because mind had no dependence, they could accomplish the path of worthies and sages. This interpretation is the same as the preceding one.

If practice in the distant past is treated as initial practice, these people first aroused the mind of awakening and already knew permanent abiding. Later, fearing birth and death, they retreated from the Mahāyāna and took up Hīnayāna. Prince Facai and the retrogressing bodhisattva in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra had from the beginning taken refuge in the Three Jewels as one essence and perfumed their precepts and goodness through cultivation. They received Dharma but did not abandon it. Because mind was inexhaustible, their precepts were inexhaustible, and every precept and wholesome Dharma was perfumed by the initial great mind.

This resembles earth invisibly enriching trees and enabling all their sprouts to grow. Hīnayāna refuge and precept-Dharma do not depart from bodhisattva precepts; the power of bodhisattva precepts enables Hīnayāna refuge and precepts to be accomplished. This is the meaning intended. If one refuses to acknowledge that permanent abiding was known during initial practice, refuge, reception of precepts, and karmavācanā in the Tripiṭaka Teaching could not be established at all. Explained in this way, the meanings of the two scriptures, great and small, do not contradict one another.

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Three〔Lower〕

Once practitioners know that calming-and-contemplation embraces all Dharmas, a new difficulty appears: with so many Dharmas, how does one know which road one is actually practicing? Zhiyi presents five pairs—great and small, half and full, partial and perfect, gradual and sudden, provisional and real—not to rank people in five grades but to distinguish wisdom, contemplative method, progress, and ultimate reference. When the names are conflated, practitioners may mistake skillful means for the ultimate. Or they may speak loftily of the ultimate while their feet remain within skillful means.

The chapter’s direction can first be grasped in one sentence: ultimate principle originally belongs to neither great nor small, provisional nor real, yet may be taught as great or small, provisional or real, for sentient beings. Inexpressibility does not cancel teaching within causes and conditions. Expressibility does not turn provisionally established names into substantial entities. Between these two aspects, the five pairs discern the road for practitioners.

Why Use Five Pairs to Distinguish One Partial and Perfect?

First ask: if the chapter is titled only Partial and Perfect, why does its body unfold five pairs?

Because “partial and perfect” is not an isolated verdict. The body examines five sets of meanings in sequence. Great and small first distinguish the wisdom capable of bearing a teaching and the contemplative method cultivated. Half and full then reveal comprehensive and restricted reach through the teachings expressed. Partial and perfect expand the range from the fixed small and half into the whole expanse of partial Dharma extending from the small through the Separate. Gradual and sudden enter into the process of teaching, contemplation, practice, and realization. Provisional and real finally ask why these Dharmas arise, when they are opened, and when they are abolished. The five pairs prevent “perfect” from being only a supreme name and make it a measure for examining method, course, and destination.

Ultimate principle itself cannot be enclosed by the five pairs. Without causes and conditions, great, small, provisional, and real are all inexpressible. With causes and conditions, the Buddha may teach the small to the five monks and the great to bodhisattvas. Great and small are both skillful means, yet their shared name “skillful means” does not make them wholly undifferentiated. The real issue is not whether speech occurs, but for whom each teaching is spoken and where it can take them.

In What Sense Is the Small Small?

First ask: does “small” in Hīnayāna belittle practitioners, or identify what its contemplative method can bear?

The treatise locates small in the strength of wisdom and in calming-and-contemplation that analyzes Dharmas. Non-Buddhist paths also analyze form and mind but fall into views of permanence or annihilation between existence and nonexistence of particles and mind. Correct Buddhist analysis does not choose either existence or nonexistence. It contemplates coarse and subtle form as arising wholly from ignorance and conditions. Because conditionally arisen, they are provisional, impermanent, and without intrinsic nature. Thoughts likewise arise in dependence upon faculties and objects. Whether one says one thought contains sixty moments or thirty billion, the point is that no moment stops and every thought is impermanent.

Because impermanent, there is no controller; affliction, karma, and suffering have no immovable entity. Through extinction of birth and death it is called nirvāṇa. This analysis also turns back to break Buddhist disciples’ attachment to Dharma gates. Each of the Four Teachings has four gates. If any gate becomes a view that takes itself as right and others as wrong, ambrosia turns into something that harms life, and a golden chain remains a chain. Analyzing Dharmas therefore breaks not only external error but also internal conceptual play that says, “The gate I rely on must be true.”

Every gate must further possess the ten Dharmas, from recognizing right causes and conditions through not producing attachment to Dharma, before first meaning can be seen within it. Small does not mean an absence of contemplative practice or a capacity only to negate. It has its own gates, complete cultivation, and attained nirvāṇa. It is called small because it analyzes real Dharmas to enter emptiness and accords only with partial truth.

Does the Great Merely Include the Hīnayāna?

First ask: since scripture says that anyone wishing to attain śrāvakahood should study prajñā, is Mahāyāna merely a larger collection?

Zhiyi answers with the Vermilion Bird Gate. A great gate established by the royal house may let ordinary people enter and leave, yet does not lose its character as the imperial gate because people borrow its road. Prajñā is originally a bodhisattva Dharma. The great can include the small and therefore brings śrāvakas along incidentally, but its proper intent remains the bodhisattva’s direct embodiment of Dharmas into emptiness. Conversely, although the Tripiṭaka Teaching discusses buddhas and bodhisattvas, it takes analytical Dharma as its core and remains small. Great and small are not decided by which classes of people occur in a list, but by how the contemplative method faces form and mind.

Analytical Dharma takes Dharmas as really existent and then analyzes them until empty, like seeing empty space only after dismantling a pillar. Embodying Dharmas sees that names and realities are both provisionally established through conditions and immediately empty in their own marks, like the image of a pillar in a mirror: it was never an actual pillar and need not first be destroyed to become empty. The simile of transforming earth and gold in meditative concentration likewise does not establish another substance for the transformed earth or gold. It reveals form and mind as transformation, originally unborn and now without real extinction. One bolt of cloth immediately possessing the eighteen emptinesses similarly returns emptiness to the Dharma contemplated itself rather than placing it after the Dharma has been dismantled.

The treatise therefore calls the two modes of seeing following dispositions and following principle. Following dispositions analyzes what is held to exist and enters a posited truth through phenomenal contemplation. Following principle traces an illusion to the illusionist and then to the method of illusion, like tracing a dream to sleep and sleep to mind. It sees ignorance from illusory form and mind and buddha-nature from ignorance. Contemplation does not seek another truth outside phenomena but penetrates what those phenomena arise from in their immediacy.

Yet embodiment of Dharmas cannot become a new attachment. The four Mahāyāna gates likewise each possess the ten Dharmas. From the form and mind of non-Buddhist retribution through all the gates of the Four Teachings, any gate grasped into a view must be penetrated as illusion. One who grasps the Perfect gate and disparages others has still not genuinely entered the great Dharma being named. A firefly does not become equal to sunlight by calling itself the sun; a high mountain and the tip of a hair do not lose their difference because their names seem close.

Why Can Half, Small, and Partial Not Be Interchanged?

First ask: half, small, and partial all seem less than complete, so why distinguish three names?

Half uses the nine and twelve divisions to speak and still aims to support great and small. Small and half have fixed, short ranges: analytical Dharma, half-word teaching, and Hīnayāna. They cannot extend outward into the great. Partial is a name that can extend. It begins with Tripiṭaka analysis, passes through Shared and Separate, and reaches everything before the Separate Teaching has left the extremes and entered the Middle. If partial is explained only as small, one cannot see the still-imperfect Dharmas within Mahāyāna.

The moon simile illuminates this distinction clearly. Half moon names only the upper or lower half. The waxing moon extends from the bow-like, eyebrow-like crescent through the fourteenth night and throughout may be called gradual; only the fifteenth is full moon. Partial resembles the whole lunar course before the fifteenth night and is not identical to one half moon. The Perfect Teaching’s three truths in one mind alone bear the name perfect. This does not say that the first fourteen nights have no moonlight; it says that what is not yet full cannot call itself the full moon merely because light is already present.

Gradual and Sudden: Is the Measure Teaching, Practice, or Result?

First ask: does knowing the Middle Way make something sudden, or must it be completed in one step to count as sudden?

Zhiyi first gives a general judgment. The first two teachings are gradual and not sudden because they accord only with partial truth. The Perfect Teaching is sudden and not gradual because it travels the great straight road and is immediately middle at the extremes. The Separate Teaching is both gradual and sudden: from the initial mind it already knows the Middle Way and therefore has sudden meaning, yet it must still pass through skillful means and therefore also has gradual meaning. This already shows that knowing one’s destination cannot be conflated with the actual course traveled.

When teaching, contemplation, practice, and realization are separated, the distinction becomes clearer. All four in the first two teachings are gradual. The Separate Teaching’s teaching, contemplation, and practice are gradual, while its path of realization is sudden. All four in the Perfect Teaching are sudden. The first two are like a thatched hut and winding path; what is taught, contemplated, practiced, and attained all remain within skillful means. The Separate first uses skillful means to break shared delusions, then breaks ignorance and sees buddha-nature; the course remains gradual while realization turns sudden. From real teaching and real practice through real realization, the Perfect Teaching is threaded throughout by the unsurpassed path, one real matter, Tathāgata-practice, and ultimate Middle Way.

One must next ask whether a person actually reaches the resultant station. The first two teachings have teaching, practice, realization, and persons at the causal stage, but retain only a teaching-name at the result. Their practitioners reduce the body to ashes and enter quiescence and cannot actually reach the buddhahood described. The Separate Teaching likewise has all four at cause, but when someone breaks ignorance and ascends the first ground, that person has become the Perfect Teaching’s first abode and is no longer at a Separate first ground. Thus the Separate resultant summit also has no person. Only in the Perfect Teaching do teaching, practice, realization, and persons continue genuinely from cause through result, and so it is said that persons really exist at the result. A result with teaching but no person marks the boundary that prevents a provisional result from posing as a perfect one.

When Does an Earlier Gradual Practice Become the Gradual within the Sudden?

First ask: if the first three teachings do not know the perfect, how can they possibly enter it?

The answer lies in opening the gradual to reveal the sudden. When the Buddha converges the purport, former gradual Dharmas are opened and all enter the perfect. “What you practice is the bodhisattva path” does not erase earlier skillful means but lets practitioners see where the course they have followed can lead. The jeweled cart fitting the children’s original wish, and the scripture that resolves the śrāvaka Dharma and is king of scriptures, likewise reveal the destination after opening. The paths and fruits of the Two Vehicles are therefore not separated from perfect permanence; advancing according to what they have learned, all will become buddhas.

Entry into the perfect, however, does not occur only after practice is complete or only at the public convergence. The treatise uses poison placed in milk to explain indeterminacy. The direct cause in sentient beings’ mind-nature is like the four subtle constituents always present in milk. Although the five flavors change, those constituents are not lost. The Dharma of the revealing cause one hears is like poison that follows them into every flavor and acts when conditions mature. There are therefore arousal through principle, teaching, contemplative practice, and realization. Spontaneous awakening after planting wholesome roots for a long time is arousal through principle; awakening on hearing teaching is arousal through teaching; awakening while reflecting after hearing is arousal through contemplative practice; awakening at purification of the six faculties or while advancing to break ignorance is arousal as realization.

Practitioners of the first three teachings likewise have four kinds of arousal: spontaneous arousal at the ordinary station, arousal through hearing, arousal while cultivating skillful means, and arousal at worthy or noble stations. Another arousal may leave both deaths unsevered or sever only the death within the three realms rather than both, and is likewise called indeterminate. “Arousal” therefore does not mean that the ultimate has been reached. It only marks the perfect cause maturing at different positions and cannot erase what still must be severed afterward.

Does Every Teaching Have Its Own Gradual and Perfect?

First ask: if the first three teachings have already been judged gradual and the Perfect sudden, why say that each teaching has gradual and perfect?

Because one can observe the initial and later minds within the scope of each teaching. In the Tripiṭaka, entering truth from skillful means is gradual, while severing bonds with thirty-four thoughts and accomplishing the result is completion within that teaching. Shared and Separate likewise have gradual advance from beginning to end and an accomplished result. The Perfect Teaching is called perfect because its essential principle is ultimate, yet still has gradual sequence from the initial mind through forty-one grounds; wondrous awakening is again perfect. This is called gradual and perfect within each teaching.

Completion within each teaching does not mean that the teachings can substitute directly for one another. Gradual-gradual can become perfect-gradual through opening and convergence; gradual-perfect cannot become perfect-perfect. Likewise small-small can become great-small, while small-great cannot become great-great; provisional-provisional can become real-provisional, while provisional-real cannot become real-real. A provisionally established resultant station cannot itself later become wondrous awakening.

The five milk-flavor similes unfold from this point. Ordinary beings through the Three Vehicles all converging in ghee reveals gradual and perfect within the Tripiṭaka’s own scope. Sentient beings as milk mixed with blood and the sequence through buddhas as ghee reveals the Shared Teaching’s stages. A newly calved cow with blood and milk unseparated, followed by śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas, reveals Separate-Teaching stations. Forbearance grass making a cow’s milk become ghee without passing through four flavors reveals the Perfect. Poison permeating all five flavors and killing in each reveals the indeterminate. The five similes are not five mutually exclusive roads; they preserve together the three aspects “each has a sequence,” “the time need not be fixed,” and “only the Perfect is ultimate.”

If Provisional Dharma Is Not the Original Intent, Why Teach It?

First ask: if the Buddha appears for the one real, perfect-and-sudden calming-and-contemplation, are the three provisionals merely a detour?

The treatise answers through three steps: establishing, opening, and abolishing. Establishing the provisional for the real means that sentient beings cannot immediately bear the one real, so three provisionals are established. Opening the provisional to reveal the real does not bring a real Dharma from somewhere outside skillful means; it opens the three provisionals so their direction becomes visible. Abolishing the provisional to reveal the real means that the provisional function is complete and its temporary name is no longer grasped as ultimate. The provisional is not the Buddha’s original intent, yet that intent is not outside it. Precisely because the provisional can be opened, skillful means is not futile.

The four siddhāntas explain how provisional Dharma responds to faculties. Those wishing to hear right causes and conditions, causes and conditions as empty, practice over eons, or the immediate as Middle each receive one of four contemplations according to the worldly siddhānta. Those needing phenomenal goodness of true truth, principial goodness of true truth, phenomenal goodness of the Middle Way, or principial goodness of the Middle receive them according to the individual siddhānta. Those needing to break erroneous causes and conditions, clumsy crossing, shared Dharma, or Dharma still carrying skillful means receive them according to the counteractive siddhānta. Conceivable or inconceivable faculties, dull or sharp, are led by clumsy or skillful methods to see the true or the Middle. The differences among the four contemplations are not arbitrarily arranged; sentient beings differ in disposition, desire, wholesome roots, illness, and timing of entry into principle.

Provisional and real therefore arise according to the siddhāntas and are abolished according to them. Where afflictions are thick and sharp wisdom thin, Tripiṭaka contemplation arises first. Once phenomenal goodness arises and afflictions thin, it is abolished and Shared contemplation arises. When principial goodness arises, Separate contemplation arises. When phenomenal goodness beyond the realms arises, Perfect contemplation arises so principial goodness beyond them will arise. Arising and abolition in the teachings of the five flavors likewise unfold over time: Avataṃsaka, Tripiṭaka, Vaipulya, Prajñā, Lotus, and Mahāparinirvāṇa each see four contemplations arise or be abolished. Benefit to sentient beings and entry into buddha-nature remain the standard.

Is It Contradictory That All Four Are Real, All Four Provisional, and Finally Neither?

First ask: how can the same four kinds of calming-and-contemplation first be called all real, then all provisional, and finally neither provisional nor real?

All four are real because after opening and resolution all can enter the perfect. As a swift horse sees the shadow of a whip and immediately enters the right road, every skillful means correctly opened can become a gate to reality. All four are provisional from the perspective of spoken teachings relative to inexpressible principle. The four principles are originally inexpressible; as soon as names are forcibly established and enter teaching, they have a provisional aspect.

Neither provisional nor real returns the issue to the principle illuminated. “Real” is spoken relative to provisional teaching; “principle” when the teaching-name is abolished. What is called real was originally neither provisional nor real, and no other wisdom illuminates another principle. Teaching immediately opens to principle; provisional and real are immediately the double negation, nondual and undifferentiated, neither combined nor scattered. The nature of principle constantly quiescent is called calming; quiescent yet constantly illuminating is called contemplation. Calming-and-contemplation, wisdom, prajñā, eye, and Śūraṃgama are many names, but what they reveal is inconceivable, nondual calming-and-contemplation.

Opening the real reveals neither provisional nor real, and opening the provisional reveals the same. This is precisely why opening the provisional does not destroy skillful means: opened skillful means is no longer enclosed within its provisional name but reveals a destination nondual with real principle.

Why Does Receiving the Shared into the Separate Not Become a Fifth Contemplation?

First ask: since the Separate Teaching receives the Shared, is this receiving provisional or real, why is it not listed among the Four Teachings, and why does it receive only the Shared?

The treatise asks five questions together: whether it is provisional or real; why it is not included in the count of four; why only the Shared is received; which station is received; and into which station. The answer first divides teaching and realization. Receiving only into teaching is provisional; receiving into realization is real. Each of the Four Teachings has its own beginning and end, while receiving is only a segment redirected at the Shared Teaching’s endpoint and has no independent starting point. It is therefore not a fifth teaching or contemplation.

Tripiṭaka and Shared clarify principle within the realms; Separate and Perfect clarify principle beyond them. Only at the junction between the two is receiving needed. When a practitioner at the Shared Teaching’s eighth ground has exhausted delusions of views and thoughts, the Middle Way within true truth is first heard. At the ninth ground ignorance is subdued; at the tenth one portion of ignorance is broken and the practitioner is called a buddha. Yet breaking one portion cannot be ultimate, so the station entered already belongs to the Separate. Tripiṭaka bodhisattva stations differ, while Separate and Perfect practitioners know the Middle Way from the arousal of mind and have nothing by which to be received. Receiving therefore exists only at the Shared-Separate junction.

If One Knows Permanent Abiding, Why Might the Teaching Still Be Provisional?

First ask: do the three provisional teachings ultimately know reality?

The treatise answers: the Separate knows it at the beginning, the Shared only later, and the Tripiṭaka never from beginning to end. Although the Separate knows at the beginning, the teaching heard still carries skillful means. Although the Shared knows later, only those received know it. Both therefore remain provisional. The Tripiṭaka does not know perfect permanence, but can know “permanence” regarding the unconditioned true truth it realizes. The same name permanent abiding means the one unchanging mark of the unconditioned in Hīnayāna and the permanence of true mark and buddha-nature in Mahāyāna. The name is shared, while what is known is great or small.

An arhat who has neither opened the Buddha eye nor heard the Buddha’s teaching cannot know perfect permanence through personal power alone. On encountering another buddha and receiving resolution, the arhat is opened through another’s power. Scripture says that the Two Vehicles attain the permanently abiding real nature of all Dharmas without thereby being called buddhas; this distinguishes the permanence they know. It is like “desire”: birth in the Brahmā heaven requires severing desire, while awakening requires severing desire for the two extremes. The same graph is used, but what is severed differs. One cannot infer identical realization merely from the identical phrase permanent abiding.

The chapter ends by using two kinds of initial practice to explain the Three Refuges, precepts, and goodness. Proximately, wisdom born of hearing during the four establishments of mindfulness in the present life is the beginning; from that beginning one knows the permanence of true truth, and with mind free of dependence becomes a worthy or sage. Remotely, one first aroused the mind of awakening in the ancient past and knew permanent abiding, then feared birth and death and retreated from great to small. The great Dharma received earlier was not wholly lost. Like earth invisibly nourishing trees, it enables later Hīnayāna refuge and precepts to sprout and mature. Proximate initial practice does not exceed what the small knows; remote initial practice preserves the earlier great mind. Together the two interpretations keep the meanings of the great and small scriptures from contradiction.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

The reading above unfolds only according to Zhiyi’s questions, sequence, and similes in the base treatise. In the Zhiguan Fuxing Chuanhong Jue, T1912, Zhanran further labels the places most easily conflated.

First, the text has five chapters but their meanings gather into three classes: half and full return to great and small, gradual and sudden to partial and perfect, while provisional and real judge the preceding four sections and point toward opening and disclosure〔0245c06〕. These three meanings are Zhanran’s comprehensive outline, not a list that Zhiyi places under his own title.

Second, great and small cannot be distinguished only by gate-names. Zhanran says that what is broken is the attachment of the one who reckons, not the teaching-gate relied upon as such〔0246a27〕. He further describes the Tripiṭaka’s following phenomena as emptiness attained through extinguishing phenomena and the Mahāyāna’s following principle as emptiness attained within the very phenomena〔0246c19–20〕, then explains the treatise’s tracing of illusion and dream through illusory form and mind, ignorance, and buddha-nature. These word-by-word assignments belong to the mirror’s judgment. Zhiyi’s base text itself says only analyzing real Dharmas to make them empty, names and realities as both provisional, and following dispositions and principle.

Third, between half and full and partial and perfect, Zhanran explicitly judges that half belongs only to the small and is forever separated from the great, while partial expands the comprehensive and restricted reach of the preceding two chapters〔0247c04–08〕. In gradual and sudden, he describes the Separate Teaching as having “sudden understanding and gradual practice”〔0248a11〕 and explains the three teachings’ provisional results through the presence only of a teaching-name of buddhahood at the result and no actual practitioner. When the Separate first ground breaks ignorance, it immediately enters the Perfect first abode〔0248a26–0248b15〕. In the section on gradual and perfect within each teaching, he further says that persons at the causal stages of the first three teachings can be opened into the perfect, while their buddha-persons cannot〔0249a26–27〕. These are Zhanran’s conditional judgments concerning gradual and sudden and completion within each teaching.

Fourth, opening and convergence must preserve chronology. Zhanran says that only after the Lotus has completed its opening are all called sudden. What was practiced formerly can now become the gradual within the sudden; one cannot reverse this and say that it was already sudden in the former time〔0248b18–20〕. The indeterminate five flavors likewise cannot be equated directly with the Lotus as fifth flavor, because the Lotus is determinate while poison placed in milk concerns indeterminate timing of awakening〔0248c14〕.

Fifth, Zhanran himself leaves the textual doubts in the five similes. The first is called the sixth, but he records that the text was not found. The treatise calls the second the thirty-second while he calls it the twenty-second. The newly calved cow sentence is moved forward for convenience in taking the meaning. The poison simile is called the eighth, but he suspects it should be in the twenty-seventh〔0249b16–0249c03〕. The present treatise still reads sixth, thirty-second, ninth, and eighth; Zhanran separately records the doubtful text and order he saw.

Sixth, the provisional is not strategy outside the Buddha’s essence. Zhanran explicitly calls it skillful means within the wondrous essence and makes establishing, opening, and abolishing depend entirely on the four siddhāntas〔0249c17–25〕. He further limits “all four are real” to their all entering the perfect upon opening and resolution, places “all four are provisional” in the perspective of spoken teaching relative to inexpressible principle, and judges that outside the one real the double negation is no separate principle〔0250a01–18〕. The base treatise’s threefold examination thus has distinct perspectives that do not overturn one another.

Seventh, Zhanran completely outlines the five questions concerning receiving the Shared into the Separate. Receiving only at the eighth ground applies to lower faculties, while the station entered should include both the Separate first ground and Perfect first abode〔0250b21–0250c08〕. Receiving also differs from the Lotus’s opening and convergence: receiving occurs at the junction of earlier teachings, whereas convergence opens all three preceding teachings into the perfect. This is Zhanran’s distinction between receiving and convergence.

Eighth, the final precision in the difficulty over permanent abiding is Zhanran’s small permanence and wondrous permanence: formerly one had to know small permanence, today one must know wondrous permanence〔0251b22〕. The two initial practices are one proximate and one remote. The proximate is wisdom born of hearing during the four establishments of mindfulness in the present life; the remote is first arousing the great mind in the distant past. The chapter closes by saying that the proximate account does not contradict the small, while the remote account did not penetrate the great〔0251b25–0252a10〕. Sharing a name does not equate what is realized, and possessing a great mind does not equate having reached the great result; neither boundary can be omitted.

Reading the five pairs therefore requires preserving three lines at once: what names and meanings indicate, what practitioners pass through, and before and after opening and convergence. The same name need not mean the same principle. Establishing a name for a result need not mean a person has actually reached it. The capacity to enter after opening cannot be reversed into perfection before opening. Zhanran adds all three as conditions for reading this chapter.

This mirror makes the function of the five pairs still clearer. Zhiyi first uses the base treatise’s own pillar-image, illusion and dream, phases of the moon, milk flavors, lotus, and earth to let practitioners see how skillful means can open toward reality. Zhanran then labels boundaries of sections, conditions, and chronology. When the two layers illuminate one another without rewriting each other, partial and perfect no longer deteriorate into labels of higher and lower. They become an eye for checking whether one’s own understanding, practice, and realization correspond.