摩訶止觀 破法遍·見假入空

Mind attaches to “existence” and, after existence is broken, hides in “nonexistence.” Once nonexistence too is illuminated and broken, it says “both existence and nonexistence.” Taking one step further, it calls “neither existence nor nonexistence” the Middle Way. When all four alternatives have been overtaken, it can still finally declare: truth lies beyond words; I have become inexpressible.

Zhiyi allows mind to stop at none of these stations.

The three provisionalities—formation by causes, continuity, and relation—resemble three nested hiding places. One thought appears to arise from itself, yet when pursued, no self that could produce it can be found. Say it arises from an external object, and one still cannot find how an outer thing sends mind inward. Say faculty and object conjoin: if mirror and face each contain no image, their conjunction cannot manufacture a real one. Say the preceding thought connects to the next or this mind awaits no-mind: none escapes self, another, both, or no cause.

That all four alternatives are unobtainable does not mean nothing exists. Names still function through causes and conditions, and beings, faculties, and voiced teaching are likewise established through causes and conditions. Breaking does not destroy the world. It only prevents conditioned provisional establishments from usurping the status of intrinsic nature. One spit extinguishing fire and one breath forming a world therefore do not occupy two thoughts: at the very moment attachment is broken, every Dharma is revealed as capable of establishment through causes and conditions.

The most dangerous place is often not a coarse view of existence but an emptiness that closely resembles purity. Body and mind become indistinct and inner and outer do not appear; if one immediately claims “I have attained nonarising,” the empty object becomes a Dharma-object and the contemplator becomes self-view once again. Abandoning existence and attaching to nonexistence still resembles a measuring-worm stretching between two ends, or a monkey that has just left one branch and instantly grasps the next.

Calming-and-contemplation therefore resembles a vajra blade: wherever a view flees, it pursues. A single alternative escapes into the compound, the compound into the fully endowed, and the fully endowed into wordlessness. Even if no word is spoken, as long as silence is still taken as real principle, the net of views remains. True inexpressibility does not guard a position called “inexpressible.” It sees that speaker, spoken, and the very mind seeking refuge in wordlessness all lack intrinsic nature.

The final test is plain. Have views truly ceased? That is calming. Are nature-emptiness and mark-emptiness truly clear? That is contemplation. If one has merely obtained a higher, quieter, and harder-to-refute position, the blade cannot stop. If views cease and the two emptinesses are clear, the birthless gate is no longer merely a doctrine; it becomes the path that, in this very moment, is no longer led away by any view.

If Dharma-Nature Is Pure, Why Speak of Breaking?

Fourth is pervasively breaking through Dharmas. Dharma-nature is originally pure, neither gathered nor dispersed. Language finds no road here and mental activity nowhere to proceed, so it can be called neither breakable nor unbreakable. Why, then, speak of breaking? Beings are mostly inverted and rarely free from inversion. Removing inversion so people are no longer inverted is called “pervasively breaking through Dharmas.” If the preceding chapter’s skillful settling has already developed concentration and wisdom, further breaking is unnecessary. If it still does not correspond, one should use wisdom possessing concentration to cleanse inversion completely; hence “breaking.”

Breaking Dharmas must rely on a gate. Scriptures teach different gates. Some take writing as gate, such as the forty-two letter gates in Great Perfection of Wisdom. Some take contemplative practice, such as the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom saying bodhisattvas cultivate three samādhis while engaging the true mark of all dharmas. Some take wisdom, such as the wisdom gate in the Lotus Sutra. Some take principle, as Great Perfection of Wisdom says the unborn Dharma neither comes nor goes and is precisely the Buddha. The gate of teaching communicates with contemplation, contemplation with wisdom, and wisdom with principle. If one asks where the gate of principle communicates, every gate of teaching, contemplation, and wisdom is established in dependence on principle. If what depends is called a gate, how could the principle depended upon not be one? Although principle has no other destination to reach, it ultimately communicates everywhere and is therefore the wondrous gate. For the moment, the gates of practice, wisdom, and principle are set aside and only the gate of teaching explained.

The four gates of the Tripiṭaka Teaching first break afflictions of views and then afflictions of thought, though the two can also be broken together〔and so forth〕. The four gates of the Shared Teaching likewise break views first and thought afterward or together, but they break only the four-abode delusions and cannot be called pervasive. The four gates of the Distinct Teaching sequentially sever the five-abode delusions and are pervasive vertically but not horizontally; they too are not used here. In the present inconceivable contemplation, one object is all objects and one mind all minds. All Dharmas horizontally and vertically proceed toward mind; when attachment in mind is broken, all are broken, hence pervasive. Gates unable to break pervasively need not be discussed here. All four Perfect gates can do so: existence, nonexistence, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence. For now, the other three are set aside and practice begins through the empty and birthless gate.

The birthless gate enables calming-and-contemplation to reach the causal and resultant stages, while calming-and-contemplation reveals and develops birthlessness so the gate becomes bright and widely propagated. Calming-and-contemplation is practice; the birthless gate is teaching. Cultivating in reliance on teaching and communicating with forbearance concerning the nonarising of Dharmas completes the causal stage. In the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra, thirty-two bodhisattvas each explain a gate for entering nonduality. All are bodhisattvas entering a stage through a gate, with nonarising foremost. The Great Perfection of Wisdom teaching of the a-letter gate—that all Dharmas are originally unborn—demonstrates that the birthless gate can bring calming-and-contemplation to the causal stage.

How does calming-and-contemplation in turn make the birthless gate shine? A Dharma does not reveal itself and must be propagated by people. If people can truly practice in reliance upon it, the Dharma gate develops and the birthless teaching becomes unobstructed horizontally and vertically, communicating wherever it touches; only then is its meaning as gate established. A worldly dwelling, for example, has a gate through which people enter and leave and places they can reach, so the doorway appears honored and useful. When the simile is understood, what it symbolizes becomes clear.

The birthless gate also communicates with the result. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra explains great nirvāṇa as nonarising and says the two Dharmas of concentration and wisdom can bring great benefit through awakening. Great Perfection of Wisdom says the unborn Dharma neither comes nor goes and is precisely the Buddha. The Lotus Sutra says the Buddha abides in the Great Vehicle, adorned by the attained Dharma and the powers of concentration and wisdom, thereby delivering beings. These three scriptures make the meaning of the resultant stage clear. Calming-and-contemplation reveals the result because the result cannot reveal itself and must be fulfilled through practice. When the result is complete, everything is complete. It stands majestic and vast like the bright moon among stars, illuminating ten jeweled mountains and reflecting in the four seas. Buddhahood is likewise: unsurpassed, its merits exceed the ten grounds and it can draw in four kinds of faculties. The Buddha’s bowing to a stūpa of bodily bones in the Suvarṇaprabhāsottama Sūtra expresses this meaning.

One Breath and One Spit: How the Birthless Gate Embraces Horizontally and Vertically

The birthless gate’s vertical embrace of cause and result has been made clear; its horizontal embrace comes next. Great Perfection of Wisdom says that hearing the birthless gate enables understanding of every meaning. The initial letter a embraces the other forty-one letters, the forty-one embrace a, and the letters between mutually embrace one another. This is complete horizontal and vertical embrace. Because the meaning is difficult to see, the Buddha Treasury Sūtra is next cited to show the image, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra to explain the principle, and only then is it explained how the birthless gate breaks Dharmas pervasively.

The Buddha Treasury Sūtra says that when the eon-ending fire arises, a bodhisattva extinguishes it with one spit and forms the world with one breath. This is not extinguishing first and forming afterward; within one spitting, it is immediately extinguished and formed. The scripture speaks of great outward function, which inwardly corresponds to the birthless gate: one breaking breaks all, one establishing establishes all, and breaking and establishing need not be divided into thoughts before and after. Without this inner virtue, there would be no such great outward function; outward function is used to reveal inner virtue. In contemplating mind, the nearing end of one lifetime resembles an eon’s end. The three poisons are like three disasters, with fire first. Calming stops it, like one spit extinguishing fire; illuminating contemplation observes it, like one breath forming the world〔and so forth〕.

From the phrase “hearing what is not heard,” the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra opens many meanings and first lists four alternatives: not-arising-arising, not-arising-not-arising, arising-not-arising, and arising-arising. Through the birthless gate these four embrace cause and result in self-practice and the agent and object of teaching others, omitting nothing.

First is not-arising-arising. The scripture says abiding in the conventional truth and first emerging from the womb is called not-arising-arising. Here the conventional truth means ignorance and Dharma-nature jointly producing all Dharmas, separately differentiated, and thus receiving the name. Settling calming-and-contemplation in the conventional truth means taking it as the inconceivable object; because contemplative practice has been accomplished, this is called abiding. Abiding allows one to be carried in the noble embryo. First opening the Buddha’s knowledge and vision and gaining forbearance concerning nonarising is called emerging from the noble embryo. No longer seeing the conventional truth of ignorance is called not-arising; gaining the Buddha’s knowledge and vision is called arising. Great Perfection of Wisdom says Dharmas do not arise yet prajñā arises; this is the same meaning. It is self-practice reaching forbearance concerning nonarising and completing the causal meaning.

Second is not-arising-not-arising. The scripture says not-arising-not-arising is called great nirvāṇa because the mark of arising has been exhausted and it is attained through cultivation of the path. The result is realized through causal practice, hence attained through cultivating the path. When the virtue of severance is complete, ignorance no longer arises; when the virtue of wisdom is complete, the arising of prajñā no longer arises separately. Hence not-arising-not-arising. This is self-practice’s forbearance of quiescent cessation, completing the resultant meaning. Cause and result in self-practice are complete, like simultaneous extinguishing and establishing in one breath and one spit.

Third is arising-not-arising. The scripture first says that when the conventional truth dies it is called arising-not-arising. Ignorance is the root of the conventional truth. Because ignorance is broken, the conventional dies, hence arising-not-arising. The preceding alternative engages principle above, accomplishing the virtue of wisdom, and is called not-arising-arising. This alternative breaks delusion below, accomplishing the virtue of severance, and is called arising-not-arising. Their uses of “not-arising” share a name but point to very different matters and principles. In the preceding alternative, development of wisdom is called arising; here activation of binding karma is called arising. The same character “arising” can mean bondage or liberation. One must not lose the purport through confusion over identical names but distinguish them repeatedly. The preceding alternative is like a breath within a spit; this one like a spit within a breath. Breath and spit are simultaneous, not before and after.

The scripture further explains the same alternative, saying bodhisattvas in the fourth abode are called arising-not-arising because they can receive birth freely. The first explanation of arising-not-arising described the extinction of delusion in self-practice; the repeated explanation describes the arising of transformative function. When bodhisattvas sever the four-abode delusions, they break birth produced by binding karma and can therefore receive birth freely; how much more those who sever the five-abode delusions. The inferior is used to reveal the superior and make the path of transformation still clearer. After severing delusion, people of the Two Vehicles sink into emptiness and cannot do this, so bodhisattvas are specifically named. Extinguishing delusion reveals the spit; arising to transform others reveals the breath.

Fourth is arising-arising. The scripture says all contaminated Dharmas arise thought after thought. This describes the object faced by transformative function. Why does a bodhisattva manifest birth despite nonarising? Because contaminated beings continue without interruption. The bodhisattva thereby gives rise to great compassion, manifests free receipt of birth, and delivers them. At this point the birthless gate fully embraces cause and result in self-practice and agent and object in teaching others.

For the bodhisattvas of the fourth abode, the treatise follows the Bodhisattvabhūmi Sūtra in gathering the abode of first arousal through the tenth ground into six abodes: lineage; understanding-and-practice; pure mind; traces of path-practice; certainty; and ultimate. In the lineage abode, once those with lineage accomplish it, they do not retreat but repeatedly advance and enter the count of six abodes. Those without lineage may be born in good destinations but repeatedly advance and retreat and are not included. Understanding-and-practice is the preparatory stage before the first ground. Pure mind is entry into the first ground, gaining a world-transcending mind and leaving the ordinary obstruction of the mark of self. Traces of path-practice is the second through seventh grounds, abiding in cultivation of the path. Certainty is the eighth and ninth grounds, when recompense-practice has been gained and no retreat occurs. Ultimate is the tenth ground, when practices of learning are exhausted and complete.

The scripture’s fourth abode called arising-not-arising points precisely to the abode of traces of path-practice. From the second ground onward is the stage of entering provisionality to transform others, manifesting birth everywhere without truly receiving birth through karma. The treatise borrows stages of the Distinct Teaching to reveal the Perfect meaning. A person of the Perfect Teaching can benefit others and freely manifest birth upon first emerging from the noble embryo; understood this way, the explanation does not violate the Perfect meaning.

Six Inexpressibles and Expressibility through Ten Causes and Conditions

The scripture further lists six statements: not-arising-arising is inexpressible; arising-arising is inexpressible; arising-not-arising is inexpressible; not-arising-not-arising is inexpressible; arising is inexpressible; and not-arising is inexpressible. These reveal how the birthless gate breaks Dharmas pervasively. The first four break conceivable delusion; the last two break inconceivable delusion.

Although conceivable delusions are many, they do not exceed those within and beyond the realms. Delusions beyond the realms arise in dependence on substance and are called not-arising-arising. Delusions within the realms are branches and tips and are called arising-arising. These confused delusions and karmas are the objects transformed; because these objects exist, bodhisattvas manifest free birth. When the transformed object is unobtainable, where could a transforming agent remain? Agent and object disappear together, so not-arising-arising and arising-arising are both inexpressible.

Although conceivable understandings are many, they likewise do not exceed those within and beyond the realms. Understanding within the realms dispels only birth and death in sections and is called arising-not-arising. Understanding beyond the realms also dispels transformational birth and death and is called not-arising-not-arising. Varied causes and results in self-practice are taught only because understandings differ in shallowness and depth. Yet if principle is not even a fixed one, how could the varieties truly exist? They are now uniformly broken with a spit, so both kinds of understanding are inexpressible.

Breaking inconceivable delusion points only to ignorance. Because of ignorance there is arising, and through arising ignorance is revealed. Ignorance is unobtainable and arising unobtainable; both are broken, so arising is unobtainable. Breaking inconceivable understanding points to perfect understanding. Although perfect understanding distinguishes cause and result from beginning to end, principle is neither partial nor perfect and has no fixed beginning or end. Where could cause and result truly exist? Both are broken, so not-arising is unobtainable. The six statements make the birthless gate’s pervasive breaking very clear.

The Buddha explains them one by one. First, why is not-arising-arising inexpressible? Because not-arising is named arising. Not-arising means Dharma-nature; arising means ignorance. Although people of the Two Vehicles realize nonarising, they still receive Dharma-nature’s arising, so not-arising is again named arising. This is precisely delusion beyond the realms attached to substance. Naming not-arising “arising” is inversion, yet inversion in its intrinsic substance never departs from noninversion. The place of mental activity ceases and the road of language is cut off; it is therefore inexpressible.

Second, why is arising-arising inexpressible? Because arising-arising produces arising and arising-arising produces nonarising. The first arising-arising is a great arising producing a small arising and refers to all contaminated Dharmas moved by the eight marks within the realms. The latter arising-arising producing nonarising means that Dharmas arisen from causes and conditions are empty and Middle in their intrinsic substance. The place of mental activity therefore ceases and the road of language is cut off.

Third, why is arising-not-arising inexpressible? Arising is named arising, yet arising does not arise from itself; therefore it is inexpressible. This arising is prajñā arising though Dharmas do not arise. “Arising does not arise from itself” states only the first alternative. In full, arising comes neither from another, from both, nor without a cause. When prajñā arises, the conventional truth has died and karmic birth no longer occurs. A bodhisattva still enters the three realms, but birth is for conditions, not through karma. Whether the arising of prajñā or freely received birth, both are beyond language and therefore inexpressible.

Fourth, why is not-arising-not-arising inexpressible? Because it is realized through cultivating the path. What cultivation attains is the ultimate result, which even the ten grounds below cannot know; how could language exhaust it? This reveals it as understanding beyond the realms.

Fifth, arising is inexpressible because arising originally does not exist. Arising-arising within the realms and not-arising-arising beyond them are both called arising and ultimately are the arising of ignorance. Arising must depend on conditions. Conditioned arising is empty and Middle; the place of mental activity ceases and the road of language is cut off.

Sixth, not-arising is inexpressible because it has something realized. Inconceivable understanding, understanding within the realms, and understanding beyond them are all gained through cultivating the path. What is attained reaches principle, and principle transcends mind and mouth; it is therefore inexpressible. The six statements pervasively break every delusion and understanding, further revealing the birthless gate’s pervasive breaking.

According to the Buddha Treasury Sūtra’s simile, the first four alternatives both blow and spit, while the latter two conclude the preceding blowing and spitting. Within the six statements themselves, the emphasis is pervasive breaking. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says that from the night of attaining the path through the night of nirvāṇa, the Buddha did not speak one character. He speaks in this way because of two Dharmas: self-Dharma and originally abiding Dharma. Self-Dharma is what the Buddha realized and what I likewise realize, without increase or decrease, free from language, delusive thought, writing, and the two destinations. Freedom from language and delusive thought is inconceivability; freedom from writing is freedom from provisional names; freedom from the two destinations is freedom from speaker and spoken, thinker and thought, name and named.

Originally abiding Dharma is the ancient noble path and the constant abiding of the Dharma realm. A road leading into a city, for example, is provided for people to travel and was not made by the traveler. A person follows the road into the city, yet the city was not made by the person arriving. A man sees a level great road, follows it into the city, and enjoys happiness as wished. The constant-abiding Dharma realm realized by this Buddha and past buddhas is likewise, and therefore not one character was spoken between the two nights.

Self-Dharma and originally abiding Dharma are decisive Dharmas and do not change through speech or discrimination. Originally abiding Dharma is according with principle; self-Dharma is realizing the real. This shares the meaning of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra’s four inexpressibles. Arising-arising being inexpressible concludes originally abiding Dharma as inexpressible: arising accords with causes and conditions and arises, while the original Dharma remains inexpressible. Arising-not-arising being inexpressible concludes one’s own Dharma of severance as inexpressible. Not-arising-arising being inexpressible concludes one’s own Dharma of wisdom as inexpressible. Not-arising-not-arising being inexpressible concludes ultimate self-realization as inexpressible. Finally, arising being inexpressible summarizes originally abiding Dharma; not-arising being inexpressible summarizes self-realized Dharma.

After the inexpressible, the scripture says ten Dharmas of causes and conditions serve as causes for arising and can therefore be expressed. This is pervasive establishment through the birthless gate, like one breath forming everything. The ten causes and conditions run from the link of ignorance through the link of existence and are used to establish Dharmas. Establishment has three meanings: establishing beings, establishing faculties and conditions, and establishing voiced teaching.

To establish beings: the two past causes of ignorance and formations bring about the five present results of consciousness, name-and-form, six sense fields, contact, and feeling. Their conjunction through causes and conditions establishes the five aggregates and provisionally names a being. To establish faculties and conditions: in the past, beings may have practiced analysis of Dharmas, embodiment of Dharmas, gradual practice, or sudden practice. The practice becomes karma and is moistened by ignorance, bringing about the five results in this life. On the recompense of these five aggregates, original habituation then arises, separately giving rise to four forms of craving, grasping, and existence—analytical, embodied, gradual, and perfect-and-sudden. Their arising forms four kinds of faculties and conditions.

To establish voiced teaching: analytical craving, grasping, and existence bring about the Tripiṭaka Teaching. This is arising-arising being inexpressible, and because ten causes and conditions serve as causes for arising-arising, arising-arising can be taught. Embodied-Dharma craving, grasping, and existence bring about the Shared Teaching. This is arising-not-arising being inexpressible and therefore expressible as arising-not-arising. Gradual craving, grasping, and existence bring about the Distinct Teaching. This is not-arising-arising being inexpressible and therefore expressible as not-arising-arising. Perfect-and-sudden craving, grasping, and existence bring about the Perfect Teaching. This is not-arising-not-arising being inexpressible and therefore expressible as not-arising-not-arising.

Once beings are established, every cause and result of delusion and every object transformed are established. Once faculties and teaching are established, every cause and result of understanding and practice and every transforming agent are established. This is the birthless gate’s one establishment establishing all, hearing the a-letter gate and understanding every meaning, and one breath forming everything. The Bodhisattvabhūmi Sūtra’s four maturations are then used: śrāvaka lineage, pratyekabuddha lineage, buddha lineage, and bodhisattva lineage correspond to four faculties; those without these four lineages are matured in good destinations. Buddha lineage corresponds to Perfect faculties and bodhisattva lineage to Distinct faculties. Whether or not a buddha is present, the bodhisattva seed can successively sever the obstruction of afflictions and obstruction of knowledge, hence it is classified as a Distinct faculty. Śrāvaka lineage has two kinds: separate wholesome roots correspond to Tripiṭaka faculties; retreating from the Great and taking the Small corresponds to Shared faculties. The four maturations are thereby integrated into four faculties and conditions.

Someone asks: if the six statements are one breaking breaking all and the ten conditions one establishment establishing all, while the first four alternatives both break and establish, should there also be a fourth mode that neither breaks nor establishes? Answer: at the beginning of fascicle nineteen, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says ten meritorious matters are inconceivable and make hearers startled, then speaks of neither difficult nor easy, internal nor external, mark nor nonmark, square nor round, pointed nor slanted. This is the textual meaning of neither breaking nor establishing.

Another asks: if the birthless gate embraces all Dharmas, are there then no other gates? Answer: the birthless gate embraces the other gates, and the other gates embrace the birthless gate. According to the virtue of wisdom, there are gates of arising, nonarising, both arising and nonarising, and neither arising nor nonarising. Each again has four gates, making sixteen. According to the virtue of severance, there are gates of ceasing, nonceasing, both ceasing and nonceasing, and neither ceasing nor nonceasing. Each again has four, making sixteen; together the two groups make thirty-two gates.

The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra uses moonlight increasing on the fifteenth day as a simile for the virtue of wisdom and decreasing after the sixteenth as a simile for the virtue of severance. The moon’s substance originally neither increases nor decreases; increase is spoken according to the bright fortnight and decrease according to the dark. The true mark has no actual wisdom or severance. Wisdom is spoken according to illumination and severance according to quiescence. The birthless gate’s embracing all Dharmas and reaching the highest is vertical embrace; embracing all Dharmas broadly and universally is horizontal embrace.

Someone further asks: since it is called the birthless gate, object, delusion, wisdom, and severance should all be called birthless. Why suddenly speak of not-arising-arising, arising-arising, and freedom in birth? Answer: these terms still help reveal the birthless gate. The arising of forbearance concerning nonarising is called not-arising-arising. The beings transformed are called arising-arising. Bodhisattva application is called freedom in birth. It remains the birthless gate: according to the spit it is nonarising, while according to the breath it is not-arising-arising and the others, more fully revealing how one gate embraces Dharmas universally. This completes the explanation of “gate” through the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra〔and so forth〕.

Three Modes of Pervasive Breaking and the Three Contemplations in One Mind

The proper explanation of pervasive breaking follows and has three kinds. First, following the birthless gate from beginning to end and exhausting source and bottom is vertically pervasively breaking through Dharmas. Second, passing through every Dharma gate and exhausting source and bottom in each from beginning to end is horizontally pervasively breaking through Dharmas. Third, horizontal and vertical being nondual while likewise exhausting source and bottom from beginning to end is neither-horizontal-nor-vertical pervasive breaking. Vertical describes height and horizontal breadth. Bring the vertical into the horizontal and no horizontal place lacks height; bring the horizontal into the vertical and no vertical place lacks breadth. The great cart is both high and broad. Horizontal and vertical being nondual, it is neither horizontal nor vertical; Dharma is originally equal, without high or low.

Pervasive breaking through the birthless gate further divides into three: entering emptiness through provisionality; entering provisionality through emptiness; and taking the first two contemplations as preparatory means to enter the ultimate truth of the Middle Way. The three contemplations are actually in one mind. Only because the wondrous Dharma is difficult to understand are three names used to reveal one. The Great Treatise says: “The three wisdoms are actually in one mind; in order to explain them to people and make understanding easy, they are separately assigned to three people.” The Buddhāvataṃsaka sometimes teaches dull faculties to cultivate through kalpas and sharp faculties to accomplish correct awakening upon first arousing the mind. The Lotus Sutra directly says to abandon preparatory means and teach only the unsurpassed path. Here the Distinct Teaching’s sequence is borrowed to reveal the Perfect Teaching’s total mark, using sequence to explain the nonsequential.

Entering emptiness through provisionality further divides into the provisionality of views, provisionality of thought, and analysis of four gates. Entering emptiness through provisional views first clarifies provisional views and afterward the contemplation of emptiness.

How the Affliction of Views Becomes a Fourfold Net

The affliction of views arises in dependence on true substance and can obscure it, like a shimmering mirage arising in dependence on space and disturbing one’s sight of space, or like a dream arising through sleep and making the sleeper confused. Until dream ceases, the sleeper cannot wake; until the affliction of views is removed, true substance cannot appear. In fact, true seeing is seeing principle, and seeing reality itself is not delusion. This delusion is called the affliction of views because it can be severed when principle is seen; its name is derived from understanding. It has four classes: four single views, four compound views, fully endowed four views, and a wordless view.

The four single views are attachment to existence, nonexistence, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence. Take only the view of existence. Attachment to an existent self, believing that self and existence coexist, constantly gives rise to a self-mind corresponding with self; this is the view of self. Taking a self produces extreme views. When self-view and extreme views destroy worldly and world-transcending cause and result, they form deviant view. Taking this as a road expected to lead to nirvāṇa is grasping precepts. Deciding this view alone is real, all others are false speech, and refusing them is grasping views. Agreement with one’s own Dharma produces craving; disagreement produces anger. Thinking “I understand and others do not” produces conceit. Failure to know the suffering and accumulation within the view of existence is delusion; indecision is doubt.

These ten agents extend through the four truths of the desire realm. Under the truth of suffering are all ten. Under accumulation are seven, excluding self-view, extreme views, and grasping precepts. Under the path are eight, excluding self-view and extreme views. Under cessation are seven, excluding self-view, extreme views, and grasping precepts. Together they make thirty-two. The form realm has twenty-eight under its four truths, and the formless realm likewise twenty-eight, each excluding anger. The three realms total eighty-eight agents.

The view of nonexistence, view of both existence and nonexistence, and view of neither existence nor nonexistence each likewise possesses eighty-eight agents. Passing through the sixty-two views, every view again possesses eighty-eight agents. Waves of inversion surge without number; the net of deviant views grows ever denser and obscures true principle. The treatise further considers the six faculties facing agreeable, disagreeable, and neutral objects and passes each through categories of defilement and purity. One faculty has three; each of the three has six; six faculties make thirty-six, and three times make 108. These are then passed through the sixty-two views and eighty-eight agents, every item possessing 108. Thus one raising of mind or movement of thought is vast without boundary, dark and blind without the slightest awareness〔and so forth〕.

Some teachers of the time held that existence and both-existence-and-nonexistence alone are views, while nonexistence and neither-existence-nor-nonexistence are not. This violates both scripture and their own position. Scripture says that relying on the views produces the complete sixty-two; under their account, the number could never be reached. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā breaks self-nature and other-nature. If existence is self-nature, the nonexistence stated in relation to existence is other-nature. Both existence and nonexistence are natures; how could nonexistence not be a view? This nonexistence is also not the nonexistence that realizes principle and therefore certainly remains a view.

Through past-eon past-views and future-eon future-views, non-Buddhists need only give rise to one slight thought of calculation to decide that their speech is real and all others false. They thereby increase assertions and negations, intensify the poison of self, and construct birth and death like someone seizing a head and pulling out hair. Although Dīghanakha said he accepted no Dharma, he still accepted nonacceptance. Not knowing suffering and accumulation, he fell into two defeats when the Buddha asked one question. If someone as brilliant as Dīghanakha did not escape views, how could a coarser attachment be mistakenly judged correct? These all belong to the four single views.

The four compound views are: existence-existence and existence-nonexistence; nonexistence-existence and nonexistence-nonexistence; both-existence-and-nonexistence-existence and both-existence-and-nonexistence-nonexistence; neither-existence-nor-nonexistence-existence and neither-existence-nor-nonexistence-nonexistence. Every view possesses eighty-eight agents. Passing through the sixty-two views, each again possesses eighty-eight agents and 108 afflictions as above.

The fully endowed four views place four alternatives within every sentence. The view of existence contains existence-existence, existence-nonexistence, existence-both-existence-and-nonexistence, and existence-neither-existence-nor-nonexistence. The view of nonexistence contains nonexistence-existence, nonexistence-nonexistence, nonexistence-both-existence-and-nonexistence, and nonexistence-neither-existence-nor-nonexistence. The view of both existence and nonexistence contains both-existence-and-nonexistence-existence, both-existence-and-nonexistence-nonexistence, both-existence-and-nonexistence-both-existence-and-nonexistence, and both-existence-and-nonexistence-neither-existence-nor-nonexistence. The view of neither existence nor nonexistence contains neither-existence-nor-nonexistence-existence, neither-existence-nor-nonexistence-nonexistence, neither-existence-nor-nonexistence-both-existence-and-nonexistence, and neither-existence-nor-nonexistence-neither-existence-nor-nonexistence. Every alternative possesses eighty-eight agents; every one of the sixty-two views again possesses eighty-eight agents and 108 afflictions.

A wordless view establishes a separate wordlessness outside the four single alternatives, another outside the four compound alternatives, and another outside the fully endowed alternatives. Every wordless view likewise produces eighty-eight agents, sixty-two views, 108 afflictions, and the rest. These have first been explained according to non-Buddhists. Views can also arise in relation to the Buddha-Dharma. Each of the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings has four gates, and every gate can produce one view. Outside each set of four gates a wordless view can arise, and every view likewise produces the eighty-eight agents, sixty-two views, 108 afflictions, and the rest.

Why Views Are Also Called the Three Provisionalities

The affliction of views is not only named from the liberating understanding capable of seeing principle; in its own substance it can directly be called provisional. Provisional means false and inverted. The preceding classes can therefore also be called four single provisionalities, four compound provisionalities, and fully endowed four provisionalities, each with its wordless provisionality. The sixteen gates of the Buddha-Dharma also produce sixteen provisionalities. Every provisionality further contains three: formed by causes, continuity, and relation.

Speaking of mind, a Dharma-object facing the mental faculty and producing one thought is provisionality formed by causes. Preceding and following thoughts continuing in uninterrupted sequence are provisionality of continuity. Knowing this mind to exist in relation to other states without mind is provisionality of relation. Formation by causes simultaneously concerns external object and internal faculty. Continuity concerns only the internal faculty’s thoughts before and after. Relation, vertically, is relation to the nonexistence of cessation and, horizontally, to the absence of mind in the three unconditioned Dharmas.

Kaishan says, “The third provisionality arises because of the first two and may further exceed them.” The treatise explains: when the third arises, it arises because of the first two and therefore includes them; before the earlier provisionalities have been removed, the third also arises and therefore exceeds them. This explains the three provisionalities in relation to mind.

In relation to the body of form, past formative karma relying on parents to obtain this body is provisionality formed by causes. The body continuing before and after from the womb to white hair is continuity. This body established in relation to what is not body is relation. Dependent recompense also has three provisionalities. Four subtle elements conjoining to form a pillar is formation by causes. The pillar changing with the seasons yet continuing uninterrupted is continuity. The pillar established in relation to what is not a pillar, as well as long, short, large, and small, is relation. These are the three provisionalities of the Tripiṭaka scriptures as taught according to phenomena; detailed explanations follow the various treatise masters.

The names of the three provisionalities are not limited to the Small Vehicle; the Great Vehicle also uses them. Dharmas arise attached to ignorance, like illusions and transformations, with names alone and no obtainable reality. If even the four subtle elements that form a pillar in a mirror are unobtainable, how much more the illusory pillar they form? If the pillar is unobtainable, where could continuity through the seasons or relational illusory length and shortness remain? Extending from what is easy to see to what is difficult opens ten similes. Form is empty in its intrinsic substance, not empty only after form has ceased; this is the meaning. These are the Great Vehicle’s three provisionalities according to principle.

The Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom further explains three kinds of existence. First, relational existence: long is established through short and short through long; this and that are likewise. One thing lies east, but viewed from another side is west. The object itself has not changed yet east and west differ, so the name exists without a reality. Second, nominal existence: curds are provisionally named from the conjunction of the four conditions form, scent, taste, and touch. Though curds exist, their existence differs from that of the causal and conditional components. Though absent, they differ from the absence of rabbit horns and turtle hair. Curds exist as a provisional name only through the conjunction of conditions. Again, subtle form, scent, taste, and touch produce hair-parts; hair-parts produce felted fiber; fiber produces cloth; cloth produces clothing. All are nominal existences. Third, Dharma-existence: the conjunction of the four subtle elements form, scent, taste, and touch is called Dharma-existence.

Another passage in the treatise explains three provisional designations—Dharma, reception, and name. How do these correspond with the three provisionalities? Setting distinct meanings aside for the moment, they can be integrated generally: Dharma-provisional designation is like formation by causes, reception-provisional designation like continuity, and name-provisional designation like relation. Dharmas such as the five aggregates are Dharma-provisional designation. The conjunction of five aggregates named a being, like the conjunction of roots, trunk, branches, and leaves producing the name tree, is reception-provisional designation. Using a name to take the marks of two Dharmas and speak of them is name-provisional designation. The Sūtra of the Original Acts that Adorn the Bodhisattva also has a passage on three provisionalities. Great Perfection of Wisdom says thought arises with conditions and does not arise without them, revealing formation by causes. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says moments of recitation cease yet one proceeds from one Āgama to another, and moments of eating cease yet one proceeds from initial hunger to later fullness, revealing continuity. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra says Dharmas do not stand in relation and one thought does not abide, revealing relation.

The three provisionalities are used in both Small and Great Vehicles. Each of the four views produced by the four Tripiṭaka gates has three provisionalities, sixty-two views, 108 afflictions, and the rest〔and so forth〕. The Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings likewise each have four views produced by four gates, and every view similarly possesses three provisionalities, sixty-two views, 108 afflictions, and the rest. The Tathāgata’s teaching gates originally reveal the uncontested Dharma. Those able to digest them gain ambrosia; for those unable, they become poison. Even true speech can become false through the arising of a view concerning speech. Views and provisionalities can therefore arise within four gates and sixteen gates〔and so forth〕.

Abbreviated Contemplation: Mirage and Space, Dream and Sleep

The contemplation that breaks provisionality follows and has three parts: contemplation breaking provisionality, distinguishing gains and losses, and clarifying stages. Contemplation breaking provisionality further divides into breaking the single, compound, fully endowed, and wordless. Breaking the single is first explained briefly and then extensively.

In the brief explanation, whenever one thought arises, it falls into one of the four single views. Every view possesses the three provisionalities, is false and unreal, and carries the eighty-eight agents and various evils. The practitioner should embody this penetration: shimmering movement depends on a mirage, and the mirage on empty space. Empty space itself has no dependence, and not even a real space can be obtained; where then are movement or mirage? Or consider a dream in sleep containing hundreds and thousands of sorrows and joys. On waking, beginning and end are quiescent and ultimately pure. Settling in this way is called calming.

Next contemplate ignorance as itself Dharma-nature, the two neither dual nor different. Dharma-nature is originally pure, neither arising nor ceasing; the deluded mind of ignorance is likewise pure in its intrinsic substance. Who then arises and who ceases? To say this mind arises and ceases horizontally imposes arising and ceasing upon Dharma-nature. Dharma-nature does not arise; who gives rise to sorrow? Dharma-nature does not cease; who gives rise to joy? Without sorrow and joy, who distinguishes this as Dharma-nature and that as ignorance? Contemplator and contemplated are both like empty space. Contemplating in this way, ultimately pure, is called entering emptiness through provisionality. A person of sharp faith-practice awakens upon hearing; a person of sharp Dharma-practice gains understanding after reflection.

People of dull faculties not only fail to awaken through hearing and reflection but increase various faults. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā says: “In the future age, people’s faculties will grow dull. They will commit evils and fail to know the causes and conditions within them. Ultimate emptiness is therefore taught, and for this reason contemplative methods are broadly established and explained in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.” The treatise says the present is also so. For dull faculties, single and compound views must be broken extensively through wordlessness, uniformly using the four alternatives of arising from self, another, both, or no cause to cleanse attachment completely.

Extensively Breaking Provisionality Formed by Causes: Where Does One Thought Arise From?

The arising of one thought possesses the three provisionalities. First examine formation by causes. Does this thought arise from mind itself, from an external object, from faculty and object together, or apart from faculty and object?

If mind produces itself, take the preceding thought as faculty and following thought as consciousness and ask whether faculty produces mind or consciousness produces mind. If faculty can produce consciousness, ask again whether faculty already has consciousness and produces consciousness, or lacks consciousness and produces it. If faculty already has consciousness, faculty and consciousness stand together without producer or produced. If a faculty without consciousness can produce it, everything lacking consciousness should produce consciousness, which is not so. If one says the faculty lacks consciousness but possesses consciousness-nature, is this nature existent or nonexistent? If it exists already, consciousness is already in the faculty; why call it a nature? If the faculty lacks consciousness-nature, it cannot produce consciousness.

One must also ask whether consciousness-nature and consciousness are one or different. If one, the nature is consciousness and there is still no producer or produced. If different, it becomes arising from another rather than mind producing itself. Sought in this way, mind ultimately does not arise from itself. If one turns to saying an external object stimulates inner mind and mind therefore arises from another, the external object must be examined separately.

Does an external object produce mind while itself being mind, or while not being mind? If the object is itself mind, it cannot be called object or stand outside the mental faculty; this remains self-arising. Two minds would also stand together without agent or object. If the object is not mind, how can it produce mind? If one says the object has a producing-nature and can therefore produce mind, ask whether this nature exists or not. If it exists, nature and object stand together without agent or object. If absent, absence cannot produce. Mind therefore ultimately does not arise from an object.

If faculty and object conjoin to produce mind, ask whether each possesses mind separately and produces it through conjunction, or each lacks mind and produces it through conjunction. If each possesses mind, conjunction produces two minds and falls into self-nature and other-nature. If each lacks mind, conjunction still has no mind. Consider mirror and face. If each has an image, conjunction should produce two; if each lacks an image, conjunction cannot produce one. If one says mirror and face become one and only then produce the image, they never actually unite; if they did, no image would remain. If one says the image arises while they are separate, each should have an image on its own side, which is not so. Examine the conjunction and separation of faculty and object likewise. If one separately says that faculty and object each have mind-nature and their conjunction produces mind, mind-nature must still be examined as existent or nonexistent and broken point by point as above〔and so forth〕.

If faculty and object each remain separate and produce mind, this is arising without causes and conditions. Ask whether this separation truly exists or not. If separation exists, arising still depends on one condition and cannot be called separate. If separation is absent, how can absence produce? If one says separation has a producing-nature, an existent nature still means arising from a condition, while a nonexistent nature cannot produce. Sought in this way, mind ultimately does not arise from separation.

When arising is unobtainable through all four alternatives, Dharmas arise neither from themselves, from another, from both, nor without a cause. The real nature of provisionality formed by causes has been thinned and broken, leaving only the name “mind arises.” The name is neither internal, external, nor in between and does not constantly abide by itself. Once the name does not abide, a nonabiding cannot be grasped separately. Although mind has a name, the name is empty in its intrinsic substance. Seeking real nature through four alternatives and not seeing it is the conventional truth breaking nature and is called nature-emptiness. Seeking the name through four alternatives and not seeing it is the true truth breaking provisionality and is called mark-emptiness. Nature and mark both empty form the total contemplation of entering emptiness through provisionality.

This can be unfolded through the eighteen emptinesses. Failing to find mind in the faculty is internal emptiness. Failing to find it in the object is external emptiness. Failing to find it in their conjunction is internal-and-external emptiness. Failing to find it apart from faculty and object is emptiness of emptiness. Failing to find four natures of arising is nature-emptiness. Failing to find provisional names through four alternatives is mark-emptiness. Failing to find divisions in the ten directions within the object is great emptiness. Failing to find the reason for highest and last is emptiness of ultimate meaning. Failing to obtain causes and conditions through four alternatives is conditioned emptiness. Because the unconditioned is explained in dependence on the conditioned, when conditioned is unobtainable, unconditioned is likewise unobtainable; this is unconditioned emptiness. Failing to find the mind’s initial arising through four alternatives is beginningless emptiness. Failing to find its cessation is dispersal-emptiness. Failing to find arising and ceasing, and even failing to find a mind of nonarising and nonceasing, is ultimate emptiness. The three realms have no separate Dharma and are constructed only by one mind; now failing to find mind is all-emptiness. Contemplating mind as no mind and emptiness as no emptiness is nonattainment-emptiness. Failing to find the three provisionalities of the view of existence is emptiness of existent Dharmas. Failing to find those of the view of nonexistence is emptiness of nonexistent Dharmas. Failing to find those of both-existence-and-nonexistence is emptiness of neither Dharma nor non-Dharma. Together these make eighteen contemplations entering emptiness through provisionality.

Provisionality of Continuity: How Does a Preceding Thought Connect to the Next?

If breaking formation by causes still does not produce awakening, turn to examine continuity. Someone may say: even if mind’s arising cannot be obtained by seeking formation by causes through four alternatives, thoughts visibly arise and cease before one’s eyes and continue without interruption; how can they be called unborn? Ask again: does the following thought arise after the preceding thought ceases, while it does not cease, while it both ceases and does not cease, or while it neither ceases nor does not cease?

First, if the preceding thought does not cease and the following thought arises, a thought produces another thought by itself. Two arisings stand simultaneously, leaving no producer or produced. If one says the preceding thought has an arising-nature that can produce the following, ask whether this nature exists or not. If it exists already, it is a ready-made Dharma and no longer merely nature. If absent, it cannot produce.

Second, if the preceding thought ceases and the following arises, noncessation-arising has already been judged self-nature; now arising through cessation, with noncessation in relation to cessation, becomes other-nature. Ask whether arising is present in cessation and arises, or absent and arises. If present, it is merely arising producing arising; arising and cessation contradict each other, so it cannot be called arising through cessation. If no arising is present in cessation, how can absence arise? If an arising-nature is separately established within cessation, break it as above.

Third, if the preceding thought both ceases and does not cease and the following arises, cessation already belongs to the cessation alternative and nonceasing to the nonceasing alternative. Joining opposites to produce is joint arising. Yet how can contradictory Dharmas jointly produce? If each has arising, there is the error of two arisings. If neither has arising, their conjunction does not arise. If one says cessation and nonceasing contain a separate arising-nature, a definitely existent nature means one should no longer say both cessation and nonceasing, while a definitely nonexistent nature cannot establish them. This alternative cannot escape the two errors of annihilation and permanence and remains joint arising.

Fourth, if the preceding thought neither ceases nor does not cease and the following arises, ask whether this neither-ceasing-nor-nonceasing exists. If it does, there is a cause and it cannot be called causeless. If absent, causelessness cannot produce. If an arising-nature is said to exist within no cause, that nature is itself a cause; how can it be called causeless? Without arising-nature, absence still cannot produce.

Seeking continuity through four alternatives, mind remains unobtainable. With no four real natures, attachment to continuous mind becomes thin and only the name mind remains. This name abides neither internally, externally, nor between and does not constantly exist by itself. Continuity lacking real nature is the conventional truth breaking nature and is called nature-emptiness. Even the provisional name of continuity being unobtainable is the true truth breaking provisionality and is called mark-emptiness. Nature and mark both empty can again be unfolded into eighteen emptinesses as above. This is contemplation entering emptiness through provisionality of continuity.

Provisionality of Relation: Can Mind Truly Be Established by Awaiting No-Mind?

If one still cannot enter after continuity is broken, one may think that mind exists precisely in relation to no-mind; relational delusion then arises. It differs from the first two provisionalities. Formation by causes takes the conjunction of faculty and object. Continuity vertically takes only thoughts before and after in the mental faculty, and the cessation opposed to arising is a particular cessation, so its range is narrow. Relation stands against general cessation and has a wider range. Although the three unconditioned Dharmas are not all cessation, each can be called nonarising. Someone therefore establishes the arising of mind in relation to the nonarising of empty space, forming provisionality of relation.

This delusion arises because of the first two and therefore includes them; while the first two remain, it also exceeds them in arising and therefore surpasses them. Structurally, a nonarising Dharma-object facing the mental faculty and producing mind also includes formation by causes. The preceding provisional mind continuing into the present also includes continuity. The first two provisionalities never produced delusion in relation to general cessation; the present one does and therefore further exceeds them. This borrows inherited names to reveal provisionality of relation; the explanation itself does not wholly agree with the old account.

Now examine this mind: does it arise in relation to nonarising, arising, both arising and nonarising, or neither arising nor nonarising?

First, if mind arises in relation to nonarising, ask whether this nonarising exists or not. If an available nonarising truly exists, it has become a kind of existence and this is really relation to existence. Existence standing against existence falls into self-arising. If nonarising does not exist at all, absence provides nothing to stand against. If one says mind arises precisely by standing against this absence, mind should arise wherever anything is absent. With absence standing against existence, absence becomes other and falls into arising from another. If one says that though nonarising is absent it possesses an arising-nature, ask whether this nature has arisen or not. If arisen, it is a ready-made arising rather than a nature; if unarisen, it cannot produce.

Second, if mind arises in relation to arising, this is arising standing against arising, like long standing against long; no relation can be established. If the account changes to say mind’s arising appears through arising standing against nonarising, as long appears through short, two errors arise at once: if each side exists, two arisings stand together; if neither exists, both are wholly unobtainable.

Third, if mind arises in relation to both arising and nonarising, this joins the first two alternatives and retains the shared errors: if each exists, two arisings result; if neither exists, no arising can occur. Arising and nonarising contradict each other and cannot jointly produce one mind. If an arising-nature exists separately within them, it must still be examined through existence, nonexistence, identity, and difference and cannot stand.

Fourth, if mind arises in relation to neither arising nor nonarising, even arising through causes and conditions is unobtainable, much less without causes and conditions. Ask whether this causelessness exists or not. If it exists, it remains relation to existence. If absent, it remains relation to absence and cannot be called causeless. If a separate nature is established, and the nature exists, ask again whether it is arising or nonarising. If already arising, it is no longer nature; if not arising, it cannot produce.

Seeking provisionality of relation through four alternatives, mind’s arising is likewise unobtainable. Real nature unobtainable, attachment thins and only a name remains; yet arising of the name is not real arising in its intrinsic substance. The name is neither internal, external, nor between and does not constantly exist by itself; ultimately it has no possession. Seeking nature and not finding it is the conventional truth breaking nature and is called nature-emptiness. Seeking the name and not finding it is the true truth breaking provisionality and is called mark-emptiness. Seeking the five aggregates, twelve sense fields, and eighteen elements within nature and mark and not finding them is emptiness of Dharmas. Seeking person, self, knower, and seer and not finding them is emptiness of beings. This can again be unfolded into eighteen emptinesses. Entering emptiness through provisionality of relation develops the wisdom-eye and sees the ultimate meaning.

Not only are the three provisionalities of one view of existence removed; every affliction of views is thereby purified and correct wisdom appears. This is called the birthless gate communicating with calming-and-contemplation and calming-and-contemplation accomplishing the birthless gate. If awakening still does not occur, calming-and-contemplation must be skillfully used to break provisional views, making faith-practice and Dharma-practice shift into a path of preparatory means that suppresses the view of existence and immeasurable afflictions. Once delusion is suppressed, this is called wholesome contaminated five aggregates. When the view of existence no longer arises, one may turn into a view of nonexistence, which must be broken at the next level.

Three Kinds of Faculties and the Illness of the View of Nonexistence

Whether hearing or reflection succeeds in breaking views varies with faculties. A person of superior faculties hears contemplation of arising, immediately knows arising as nonarising, breaks attachment, and awakens. A person of middling faculties has lighter attachment and, though the real has not arisen, can suppress views and form the wholesome contaminated five aggregates of preparatory means. A person of inferior faculties is deeply attached; on hearing that arising cannot be found, this person instead treats nonarising as truly existent and produces a new view of nonarising. The view of nonexistence must therefore be broken both generally and particularly.

In general breaking, Great Perfection of Wisdom says: “Even consciousness knowing nonarising is unobtainable, much less consciousness knowing arising.” It also says: “Even consciousness knowing arising is unobtainable, much less consciousness knowing nonarising.” Arising and nonarising are both unobtainable; the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra also broadly breaks the view of nonarising. The principle of nonarising cannot be known by discriminating consciousness, so how could a calculation of emotional consciousness be taken for it? Abandoning existence and attaching to nonexistence is like a measuring-worm bending between two ends or a monkey leaping from one branch to another, still moving back and forth within delusive views. It should not be grasped as true.

In particular breaking, the practitioner uses calming-and-contemplation to break the provisionalities of formation by causes, continuity, and relation in the view of existence. Nature and mark are temporarily unseen, and the practitioner enters concentration indistinctly. Inner and outer do not appear, before and after do not appear, and there is no relational contrast. The person may abide quiescently in concentration or suddenly feel that body and mind have wholly vanished and everything is pure. A mind-object of nonexistence then appears. Believing that birthless calming-and-contemplation has been attained and concentration and wisdom accomplished, the person becomes attached. Once attached to this empty thought, even the buddhas cannot transform the person.

Why can they not transform this person? Through contemplation of mind, only one part subtle concentration and one part empty understanding have arisen. This remains an empty Dharma-object corresponding with mind and has nothing to do with true nonarising. Non-Buddhists and Buddhist disciples can both contemplate emptiness. The difference is that non-Buddhists become attached to the wisdom contemplating emptiness and take the newly arisen empty object for nirvāṇa. Once there is a contemplator, self-view forms. From self-view arise the ten sharp and dull agents through all eighty-eight, while birth and death remain vast. All these faults arise through attachment to the empty object, obstruct the true, lose the path, and prevent entry into nirvāṇa.

When a Buddhist disciple contemplates nonarising and an empty mind arises, the disciple immediately knows it to be craving. Whatever Dharma arises and is craved is ignorance; ignorance in turn produces self-view and the other eighty-eight agents, each possessing three provisionalities. Such a disciple never mistakes it for true nonarising. The three provisionalities of this empty mind are as follows. Once the three provisionalities of the existence-view are suppressed, a nonarising Dharma-object facing the mental faculty produces one thought of empty mind: formation by causes. After the mind of arising ceases, the mind of nonarising arises in succession: continuity. The suddenly manifest nonarising stands in relation to the preceding arising: relation.

The nonarising mind is then examined through four alternatives: does it arise from the mental faculty itself, from a Dharma-object as other, through faculty and object together, or apart from them? In examining the mental faculty, ask again whether faculty or consciousness produces it. If faculty has consciousness, there is no agent and object; if it lacks consciousness, absence cannot produce. If a consciousness-nature is separately posited, existence/nonexistence and identity/difference must still be asked, and none can stand. In examining the Dharma-object, if the object has mind there is no agent and object, while if it lacks mind it cannot produce. If object and mind are one, there is again no agent or object; if different, a different Dharma cannot produce. Joint arising has both errors at once, while arising apart fails because even conditioned arising is unobtainable, much less arising without a cause〔and so forth〕.

The nonarising mind therefore arises neither from self, another, both, nor separation. It has no four natures and is called nature-empty. Although there is no real mind, the character “mind” remains as a provisional name; because the name is neither inside nor outside, it is mark-empty. The eighteen emptinesses can then be opened as above. This still enters the ultimate meaning from provisionality into emptiness. Once the provisionality of the nonexistence-view is broken, earlier and later obstructions can be removed and correct wisdom arise. If they are not yet removed, cultivate calming-and-contemplation diligently, shifting faith-practice and Dharma-practice into a path of preparatory means that suppresses suffering and accumulation and the eighty-eight agents within aggregates, sense fields, and elements. Through diligent cultivation, the three provisionalities of the nonexistence-view cease to arise, yet one may turn into the view of both existence and nonexistence, which must also be examined and broken〔and so forth〕.

Both Existence and Nonexistence, and Neither Existence nor Nonexistence, Remain Views

Having skillfully used calming-and-contemplation to suppress the nonexistence-view so its provisionalities do not arise, the practitioner advances one part in concentration and wisdom and may suddenly give rise to a mind of both existence and nonexistence. The thought is: if mind were wholly nonexistent, who would know nonarising? Nonarising is nonexistence, while the knower is existence. When this mind arises, the person receives and attaches to the view of both, believing it real and refusing to release it, yet not knowing its faults. Dīghanakha likewise believed himself to possess the path while actually remaining within suffering and accumulation; once the Buddha pointed it out, he awakened. If the indication is heard, the attached mind can quickly loosen.

How is it indicated? The five kinds of reception in prajñā are all nonreception. The practitioner presently receives a Dharma-object of both existence and nonexistence and therefore still has the aggregate of feeling. Mind engaging its configuration is perception; applying this Dharma is formations; discriminating it is consciousness. Four aggregates are clearly present. Feeling, perception, and the others become defiled and exist in dependence on the aggregate of form. The mental faculty receiving the Dharma-object of both produces the eighteen elements; interaction between faculty and object produces the twelve sense fields. This is suffering.

Again, believing “I can practice, receive, and know this Dharma” gives rise to the provisionally named self and therefore self-view. Self-view produces extreme views. Denying cause and result is deviant view. Taking this as the path is grasping precepts. Taking it as nirvāṇa is grasping views. Opposition produces anger and compliance pleasure. Thinking “I understand” and looking down on others produces conceit. Not knowing suffering and accumulation is delusion. Great doubt then arises. The ten agents pass through the three realms and fully possess eighty-eight, opposing the real path and following birth and death, all produced from the mind of the both-view. This view-mind also possesses formation by causes, continuity, and relation.

It is broken by examining self, other, both, and separation one by one. The three provisionalities, four alternatives, aggregates, and sense fields have no real nature and are called nature-empty. They possess names alone and the names are also empty, called mark-empty. After nature and mark are empty, the eighteen emptinesses are opened and one enters the ultimate meaning, with correct wisdom appearing. If entry still does not occur, skillfully use the four siddhāntas so faith-practice and Dharma-practice shift, skillfully cultivate calming-and-contemplation, suppress the view, and form wholesome contaminated Dharmas of preparatory means. Once the both-view is suppressed, one may turn to neither existence nor nonexistence.

The view of neither arises after the practitioner suppresses the both-view and suddenly produces a mind detached from existence and nonexistence. The thought is: if mind were fixedly existent, it could not become nonexistent; if fixedly nonexistent, it could not become existent. How could it be both? Because it is not fixedly existent, it is nonexistence-of-existence; because not fixedly nonexistent, nonexistence-of-nonexistence. The first is described as nonarising and the second as nonceasing. Believing this to transcend existence and nonexistence, the person calls it the Middle Way and says it agrees with the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: the preceding existence-view corresponds to conditionally arisen Dharmas, the nonexistence-view to emptiness, the both-view to provisionality, and the present neither-view to the Middle.

Yet firmly grasping this mind as real produces immeasurable faults. Taking false speech as true has already produced a view concerning speech and is not reality. If reality is permanence, bliss, self, and purity, this mind nevertheless arises and ceases and is therefore not permanent. Because it is received and attached to, it is not bliss. Because it lacks mastery, it is not self. Because stained by views, it is not pure.

The self-mind produces self-view. Self-view moves between existence and nonexistence like a measuring-worm and becomes extreme view. Taking the neither-view as the Middle Way and believing it communicates with birth and death calls the nonpath the path and becomes grasping precepts. Taking it as nirvāṇa while possessing aggregates, sense fields, and elements together with sharp and dull agents becomes grasping views. One also takes it as correct Dharma, destroys worldly cause and result by calling them nonexistence-of-existence, and destroys world-transcending cause and result by calling them nonexistence-of-nonexistence. If it accords not even with worldly correct view and deportment, how could it accord with the world-transcending path? Taking the incorrect as correct is deviant view. Others’ agreement and praise produce craving; opposition and criticism produce anger. Failure to know which part of this mind is poisonous herb and which king of medicines is delusion. Elevating oneself over others is conceit. Great doubt later arises. Even briefly there are ten faults; extensively they cannot be exhausted, and each possesses the three provisionalities〔and so forth〕.

Breaking this view still uses the preceding four-alternative calming-and-contemplation to pursue and examine it〔and so forth〕. Pointing out the five aggregates possessed by views reveals suffering. Pointing out the ten agents reveals accumulation. Breaking through calming-and-contemplation reveals the path. Suppression or severance of the views reveals cessation. Though deviant non-Buddhist understanding and partial attachments within the Buddha-Dharma contain immeasurable faults, the four truths can break them all and turn ordinary into noble. Even the four truths first taught by the Tathāgata in the Āgamas have this power; how much more the remaining three Great Vehicle versions of the four truths? When the neither-view breaks, all delusions break with it, correct wisdom arises, and one enters emptiness through provisionality and sees the ultimate meaning.

If entry still does not occur, the practitioner uses calming-and-contemplation, shifts between faith and Dharma, and the four adaptive preparatory means to suppress afflictions of views, making the attached mind gradually thin, abiding on the path of preparatory means, and forming wholesome contaminated Dharmas. When the neither-view no longer arises, one may turn into a wordless view, which must still be broken〔and so forth〕.

The treatise repeatedly explains faults of views section after section in order earnestly to remind practitioners to recognize poisonous herb and king of medicines within contemplation of mind. If this is truly understood, the poison of views will not be mistaken for Dharma-medicine. Though the sections are numerous, each round has its own object and does not confuse them. Only those who understand can discuss the path together; one who remains blankly blind cannot even distinguish the color of milk.

Wordlessness Does Not Mean One Has Left the Net

When preceding views have been broken slightly, the practitioner may advance in concentration and wisdom and mind and object suddenly become bright and still. Another understanding then arises: existence brings birth and death; all four alternatives are provisional and unreal; true principle lies beyond language, and only transcendence of the four alternatives is nonarising. Believing oneself outside the four alternatives, the person has not actually left them.

Outside the four alternatives are broadly three classes: outside the single, compound, and fully endowed alternatives. If one says only that principle lies beyond language, at most the single four have been left. The second alternative of compound views remains, as does the first alternative of fully endowed views. The net of views is this tight and exceedingly hard to escape. Like demons and goblins being everywhere, each compound and fully endowed view possesses three provisionalities and suffering and accumulation. Contemplation breaking provisionality must be cultivated section by section as above. If the factors of the path can be cultivated within the views, one can awaken section by section, enter emptiness from provisionality, and see the ultimate meaning. If not awakened, first suppress every single, compound, and fully endowed view, form wholesome contaminated five aggregates, and temporarily stop the views; meditative concentration and understanding may then develop.

Another person says the single, compound, and fully endowed alternatives have all been left; the road of speech is cut off, the place of mental activity ceases, and indistinct purity is the birthless and wordless path. Yet this remains an inexpressible wordless view unrelated to the correct path. Although the mouth calls it wordless, speech has not ended, because “absolute” is stated in dependence on “nonabsolute.” The absolute is still established by relation; arising through relation, it cannot be called absolute. It is like trying to flee empty space: wherever one travels, space cannot be escaped.

Every preceding section actually contains horizontal and vertical breaking. Unfolding within one view of existence is horizontal. The four views accumulating layer after layer is vertical. Formation by causes is predominantly horizontal; continuity predominantly vertical; relation both horizontal and vertical; general breaking neither horizontal nor vertical. The preceding discussion has primarily followed horizontal breaking; proper vertical breaking begins below.

Examining the Four Views Vertically through All Teachings and Stages

If the attached mind is existent, existence is arising. Ask what kind of arising it is. Is it the arising of the five methods for calming mind, general establishment of mindfulness, distinct establishments, warmth, summit, forbearance, or highest worldly Dharma? The arising of true illumination in forbearance concerning suffering-Dharma? The arising of renewed consideration and reflection? Of the semblance-path on the ground of dry wisdom? Of seeing the truths on the ground of eight persons or seeing? Of playful spiritual powers and vows supporting residual habit? Of semblance-understanding on the suppressive path of the three worthies? Of true understanding among the ten sages? Of the semblance-path of the iron wheel? Of the true path of the bronze wheel? Or of mastery throughout the Dharma realm? Test the attached mind against these actual arisings of teachings and stages: it accords with none even in the smallest part. If it is still not called a view, what would be?

If mind is attached to as unborn, ask what kind of nonarising it is: nonarising of afflictions of views, of thought, of residual habits, of dust-and-sand delusion, of ignorance, of karma, of recompense, of practice, or of principle? People hear only “unborn” and call it Buddha, often understanding only the Dharma Buddha. Yet the three buddhas can be correlated with Dharma in multiple ways. Nonarising of principle is the Dharma Buddha; nonarising of ignorance, the Recompense Buddha; nonarising of dust-and-sand, views, and thought, the Response Buddha. Or nonarising of ignorance is the Dharma Buddha, nonarising of views and thought the Recompense Buddha, and nonarising of dust-and-sand the Response Buddha. Or nonarising in the stage of karmic practice is the Response Buddha, nonarising of knowledge-karma the Recompense Buddha, and nonarising of principle the Dharma Buddha. Speaking from cause, the Response Buddha arises through the conditioning cause, the Recompense Buddha through the revealing cause, and the Dharma Buddha through the correct cause. The arising of the three buddhas is unborn in its intrinsic substance, and nonarising does not depart from the arising of the three buddhas.

Hearing the a-letter gate should produce understanding of every meaning. How could it be limited to one? Like using a sharp mattock to dig through earth to the vajra layer, hearing one “unborn” should produce universal understanding of every nonarising throughout the Dharma realm. Testing the attached mind against these modes of nonarising, it again accords with none in the smallest part and is therefore a view.

Some criticize the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā for saying only nonarising and nonceasing without realizing profound principle. Afflictions are arising and their movement through the three marks is ceasing; negating only this arising and ceasing, they say, enters emptiness at most and lacks the meaning of the Middle Way. Others explain nonarising and nonceasing as not-not-arising and not-not-ceasing to reveal the Middle Way. Although they intend to support the Middle, they damage the wording and lose its meaning.

Nāgārjuna’s wording both communicates with the Shared and contains the Distinct. “Nonarising” means not arising in the twenty-five existences. “Nonceasing” means not being moved to extinction through the three marks. This breaks twenty kinds of self-view and accomplishes stream-entry through no-more-learning, containing meanings of both Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings. If arising and ceasing are gathered on the side of birth and death and nirvāṇa’s quiescence on the other, simultaneously negating both sides also contains the Distinct meaning. If arising and ceasing are both Dharmas arisen from causes and conditions, they are precisely empty, provisional, and Middle. Precisely empty, they do not arise; precisely provisional, they do not cease; nonarising and nonceasing are the Middle Way, revealing the Perfect meaning. One sentence according to its wording therefore embraces Tripiṭaka and Shared, contains Distinct, and reveals Perfect; all four meanings are clear. Arbitrarily changing the sound is like a stutterer forcing one syllable of “phoenix” into repetition. Adding characters in writing is like placing extra strokes on the original graph and imagining one has helped; in fact one meaning is taken and three gates lost. It is like growing a hanging wart or superfluous appendage on the body: an attempted completion becomes a deficiency.

The treatise next briefly opens ten kinds of nonarising and not-not-arising.

First, all Dharmas can be destroyed and all words transformed; one falls into neither existence nor nonexistence, leaves alternatives and ends speech, and allows no Dharma into mind. This is one kind of nonarising. Even nonarising does not arise and is called not-not-arising. Yet although ordinary discriminating consciousness calls itself unborn, it actually still arises, like the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Nonperception calling itself thoughtless while accomplishing exceedingly subtle perception. This is the not-not-arising of non-Buddhists with deviant views.

Second, the Vātsīputrīyas calculate that self lies in the fifth inexpressible treasury. This is one kind of nonarising; even this nonarising does not arise and is called not-not-arising.

Third, people of the Two Vehicles in the Tripiṭaka Teaching sever views and thought in the three realms: one not-not-view and one not-not-thought, called not-not-arising. Residual habit still arises.

Fourth, a Tripiṭaka buddha exhausts both the direct agents and residual habits: one not-not-direct and one not-not-habit. This is analytical-Dharma not-not-arising.

Fifth, people of the Two Vehicles in the Shared Teaching embody that afflictions of views are originally unborn and those of thought originally unborn; this is called not-not-arising. The treatise also cites the Questions of Brahmā Viśeṣacintin Sūtra saying realization is gained within nonarising and nonactivity. Yet although the Two Vehicles embody views and thought, residual habit still arises.

Sixth, when a Shared-Teaching buddha sits at the seat of awakening, direct agents and residual habits are both exhausted; this too is not-not-arising, though only through not-not-arising of birth and death in sections.

Seventh, a person in the causal stages of the Distinct Teaching severs shared and distinct delusions: one not-not-shared and one not-not-distinct. One grade and one part, two grades and two parts become not-not-arising while higher parts still arise.

Eighth, a buddha of the Distinct Teaching exhausts the higher parts of the agents and is called not-not-arising; this remains the not-not-arising of expedient provisional teaching.

Ninth, a person in the causal stages of the Perfect Teaching is one not-not-shared and one not-not-distinct. Although named not-not-arising, the person remains on causal ground and higher-ground practice, wisdom, recompense, and other arisings remain.

Tenth, at wondrous awakening wisdom is full and no longer arises; ignorance is ultimately exhausted and delusion no longer arises; practice, wisdom, and recompense are ultimately not-not-arising. One can also say true principle reaching the ultimate is one not-not-arising, and perfect principle reaching the ultimate another. Principle has originally never arisen from the beginning, and now no separate nonarising arises.

Speaking of nonarising alone can encompass all Dharmas, and speaking of not-not-arising can likewise encompass them. The key is how far the attached nonarising reaches and how far its not-not-arising reaches. If one cannot even recognize the non-Buddhist’s not-not-arising, how could one recognize the final one? One must not abide in a self-satisfied view of nonarising but examine and break it urgently.

In vertically breaking the view of both existence and nonexistence, likewise ask item by item what kind of both-arising-and-nonarising it is. Is it afflictions of views not arising while true wisdom arises? Afflictions of thought not arising while true wisdom arises? Residual habits not arising while true wisdom arises? Dust-and-sand delusion not arising while universal function arises? Ignorance not arising while the Middle Way arises? Inner karma not arising while outward karma arises? Inner recompense not arising while outward recompense arises? Small practice not arising while great practice arises? Partial principle not arising while perfect principle arises? If it is none of these, how could the attachment fail to be a view?

In vertically breaking the view of neither existence nor nonexistence, likewise ask what kind of neither-arising-nor-nonarising it is. Is it gained through the analytical severance of permanence and annihilation? Through embodied-Dharma severance? Through the dual flow of path and contemplation on the eighth ground? Through the first ground’s breaking birth and death and gaining nirvāṇa? Through the result after the tenth ground? Through the first abode’s double negation of the two extremes? Through the ten practices’ advancement in the Middle Way? Through the ten dedications? The ten grounds? Or the ultimate ground of wondrous awakening? If it accords with none, the attached neither-arising-nor-nonarising remains only a view.

How Many Kinds of Wordlessness, and How Many Levels of the Four Alternatives?

Wordlessness too has many kinds. Being outside the single four alternatives, outside the compound four alternatives, and outside the fully endowed four alternatives are all called wordlessness. A brahmin’s observance of silence is wordlessness. Dīghanakha’s refusal to accept any Dharma is wordlessness. The Vātsīputrīyas say that self exists as conventional truth yet lies within the inexpressible treasury; this too is wordlessness. Realization of the true in the Tripiṭaka Teaching is inexpressible, and each of its four gates has one kind of inexpressibility. The three vehicles in the Shared Teaching all sever afflictions through a path without speech, and its four gates likewise have inexpressibility. The Distinct Teaching contemplates the permanent principle as without words or speech, and its four gates likewise have inexpressibility. The Perfect Teaching cannot be disclosed; Vimalakīrti’s silence and Mañjuśrī’s affirmation likewise belong to four gates of inexpressibility.

With so many kinds of inexpressibility, which one does the practitioner’s calculation actually claim? If it does not even equal the Vātsīputrīya position that assigns the inexpressible only to conventional truth and does not reckon it as nirvāṇa, it can still less compare with the four Tripiṭaka gates’ inexpressibility. The Vātsīputrīya position itself remains a view, so the practitioner’s attachment is of course also a view; on account of it, immeasurable afflictions arise extensively.

The treatise then breaks wordlessness again through ten kinds of four alternatives: the direct four alternatives, the endless four alternatives, the stage-concluding four alternatives, the collecting-and-restating four alternatives, the awakening-gaining four alternatives, the classifying four alternatives, the provisional-and-real four alternatives, the opening-and-revealing four alternatives, the intent-losing four alternatives, and the intent-gaining four alternatives.

The direct four alternatives are the ordinary and noble common course of directly stating existence, nonexistence, both, and neither. In the endless four alternatives, each of the four opens again into four and unfolds without end, as the preceding forty-eight iterations show〔and so forth〕. The stage-concluding four alternatives judge right and wrong according to their scope and level: if attachment to the single, compound, fully endowed, and other alternatives remains without perishing, these are an ordinary person’s four alternatives; when there is no meaning of alternatives yet their meaning can be used as skillful means, these are a noble one’s four alternatives. The collecting-and-restating four gather the ordinary person’s four alternatives and restate them as the alternative of existence, the Two Vehicles as nonexistence, bodhisattvas as both existence and nonexistence, and the Buddha as neither existence nor nonexistence.

In the awakening-gaining four alternatives, whichever alternative one follows into awakening becomes an entrance, so each of the four can become a gate. The classifying four assign the Dharma awakened to through each gate among the various Dharma gates. In the provisional-and-real four, three sets of four alternatives among the Dharmas are provisional and one set is real. The opening-and-revealing four open every provisional set of four into the one real set; once they enter the real, all four alternatives are inexpressible, and the Buddha’s teaching of the four alternatives reaches its limit here. The intent-losing four arise when one grasps the Buddha’s four alternatives and disputes over them, with faults identical to those of ordinary people. In the intent-gaining four, bodhisattvas see the faults of losing the intent and compose various Small- and Great-Vehicle treatises to elucidate the Buddha’s provisional and real four alternatives, break attachments, and dispel delusion. Once deluded attachment has been broken, the work of composing treatises also ceases.

If one still refuses to relinquish the view of wordlessness, one must answer which level of these four alternatives one has actually left. The preceding passage broke the four alternatives horizontally; here the attachment outside the four alternatives is broken vertically.

Buddhist Inexpressibility Cannot Be Conflated with Daoist Language and Names

The treatise next rebukes the many “demonic monks” of its time. They abandoned their precepts and returned to lay life, then, fearing conscription for labor, crossed over to become Daoist priests and boasted of Zhuangzi and Laozi for fame and profit. They placed Buddhist meanings upon non-Buddhist classics, pressed the high down to the low, pushed the honored into the base, and broadly called them equal. They equated “A way that can be spoken is not the constant Way; a name that can be named is not the constant name” with the Buddhist inexpressible, like insects eating wood and accidentally leaving the shape of written characters. Tested against the various kinds of arising, nonarising, four alternatives, and inexpressibility listed above, this account does not reach even the inexpressibility outside the single four alternatives, much less that outside the compound or fully endowed alternatives, the Vātsīputrīyas’ inexpressibility, or the inexpressibility of the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings. Principle and teaching already fail to align; when suffering and accumulation and the factors of the path are applied as tests, the faults and differences become still clearer.

The treatise then compares, item by item and according to Buddhist and Daoist narratives current in its time, their origins and traces, bodily marks, teaching, deportment, and relinquishment of status for homelessness. Regarding origins: the Buddha appeared life after life in India’s legitimate royal houses and in the lineage of wheel-turning kings, whereas Zhuangzi and Laozi were merely officials of small frontier states in China, one an archivist beneath the pillar and the other an attendant in the lacquer garden of Song. How could the two sides be equal? Regarding bodily marks: the Buddha’s body was adorned and surrounded by thirty-two marks and eighty excellences. In this comparison, the treatise says that Zhuangzi and Laozi remained like ordinary people, whose short and unattractive forms incur contempt. It also cites scriptures generally describing the people of Jambudvīpa as shaped like ghosts, asking how an ordinary body could equal the Buddha’s body.

Next comes teaching and transformation. When the Buddha taught Dharma, he emitted light and shook the earth; gods and humans all assembled, joined their palms, and listened. He taught according to capacities, with fluent Brahmā voice and inexhaustible eloquence; no sentence was uttered in vain, and all who listened could gain the path. Laozi lived in the Zhou dynasty, yet neither the ruler above nor the ministers below knew his way, and he never transformed even one person with a single admonition. Riding a worn plank cart westward toward the pass, he taught Yin Xi only in private and offered no public teaching. Zhuangzi wrote in ink on bamboo slips, arranging and revising every sentence with laborious difficulty; he composed the Inner Chapters and Outer Chapters to gain recognition, yet no assembly listened together and no hearer gained the path. The treatise therefore says their inequalities are many and a deviant teaching must not encroach upon the correct Dharma.

Next come deportment and relinquishment of status. When the Buddha walked, Śakra stood to his right, Brahmā to his left, vajra-bearers led ahead, and the fourfold assembly followed behind as he traveled through the air. Laozi himself drove a thin-plank cart drawn by a blue ox and went west of the pass to farm; Zhuangzi served another by guarding lacquer trees. The Buddha was certain to become a wheel-turning noble king, awaited by all within the four seas with only the arrival of the divine treasures remaining, yet suddenly relinquished royal status, left home, and became a buddha. Laozi remained attached to his minor office east of the pass, then farmed west of it and begrudged a few acres of land; preoccupied with public and private matters, he could not relinquish them. Through these itemized questions, the treatise asks how the two could be equal.

If one believes without discrimination that all wordlessness is the same, the view of wordlessness will come to possess the three provisionalities, suffering and accumulation will be established, and birth and death will stand plainly present, like embracing a torch and burning oneself. This view is still broken by examining each of the preceding four alternatives〔and so forth〕.

An opponent might also use Daoist wordlessness to refute the Middle Treatise’s nonarising and nonceasing, saying that nonarising and nonceasing form the fourth alternative while wordlessness transcends all four. At first hearing this may seem so, but it is not. When the Middle Treatise speaks of nonarising, it means that the mind of views does not arise; because it does not arise, it does not cease, and the two are therefore stated together as nonarising and nonceasing. Yet the mind holding the view of wordlessness gives rise to craving, views, doubt, and conceit. How could a view still within arising and ceasing break nonarising and nonceasing?

If another view of nonarising and nonceasing then arises, it should be tested through six alternatives: wordlessness breaks nonarising and nonceasing; nonarising and nonceasing break wordlessness; wordlessness cultivates nonarising and nonceasing; nonarising and nonceasing cultivate wordlessness; wordlessness is itself nonarising and nonceasing; nonarising and nonceasing are themselves wordlessness〔and so forth〕. Before ordinary people enter the noble path, the slightest calculation is a view. As soon as a view arises, the three provisionalities, suffering and accumulation, and afflictions follow; Fish-King and Shellfish-Mother and the host of agents are fully present. Binding karma spreads rampant and birth and death become vast. Even what one person passes through has no boundary; how much more what many people pass through? Afflictions of views are therefore exceedingly fearsome and must be diligently subdued with calming-and-contemplation.

Calming-and-Contemplation Pursues Views until Awakening Is Gained

As soon as one single view arises, pursue its substance with four-alternative calming-and-contemplation and break it. If it evades the single and enters the compound, evades the compound and enters the fully endowed, or evades the fully endowed and enters wordlessness, then however far it flees, calming-and-contemplation pursues without release, constantly quiescent and constantly illuminating, treating it without pause. Like a vajra blade, it cuts through wherever it turns and takes awakening as its limit.

Through such contemplation, even before the true has arisen, the various views are subdued and form the five aggregates of preparatory means; once one enters emptiness, every view is exhausted. The afflictions of views broken at the first fruit are like draining a great body of water forty li across, an immense labor. To keep listeners from doubting, the teaching briefly says that only the three fetters of self-view, grasping precepts, and doubt are severed, as if a few drops remained. In fact, although the afflictions of thought are not yet exhausted, no affliction of views remains. Speaking from the extensive side of afflictions of views, this too can be called breaking through Dharmas pervasively.

Someone asks: entry into emptiness through provisionality has already broken immeasurable views; what do the latter two contemplations still break? Answer: contemplation entering emptiness breaks views and thought, which in summary means only breaking existence. Entering provisionality from emptiness breaks only attachment to nonexistence. Contemplation of the Middle doubly negates the extremes of existence and nonexistence and directly reveals the Middle Way. The Great Treatise therefore says, “The two views of existence and nonexistence are entirely extinguished without remainder; I bow to the Dharma honored by the Buddha.” Immeasurable vertical and horizontal views do not even qualify as objects broken by the second contemplation; how could they be mistaken for true Dharma?

Another asks: if birth and death are gathered under existence and the Two Vehicles under nonexistence, then because views of existence are immeasurably extensive, views of nonexistence should be equally immeasurable. Answer: ordinary people calculate falsely and become attached to every object they meet, so views of existence are particularly numerous. People of the Two Vehicles have already severed views and thought and no longer produce all kinds of calculations horizontally; they realize emptiness alone. The Great Vehicle breaks their stagnation in emptiness and collectively calls it the view of emptiness.

Four Patterns of Gain and Loss: Medicine May Cure an Old Illness Yet Become a New One

The second topic distinguishes gain and loss. Someone asks: when calming-and-contemplation pursues views in this way, what gains and losses result? Answer: four alternatives can be distinguished. First, old delusion is not removed and new delusion arises. Second, old delusion is removed and new delusion arises. Third, old delusion is not removed and new delusion does not arise. Fourth, old delusion is removed and new delusion also does not arise.

The first resembles taking medicine without curing the old illness while the medicine itself produces a new one. Calming-and-contemplation was originally used to treat delusion concerning birth and death, yet craving does not cease at all, and all kinds of views further arise from calming-and-contemplation, denying cause and result and stopping at no act. This is old delusion remaining while new delusion arises.

The second resembles curing the original illness only for the medicine itself to become an illness. While cultivating calming-and-contemplation, one may cease dull afflictions such as craving food and clothing, bear cold hardship, cutting blades, and fragrant anointing without aversion or craving, and remain even-minded through gaining or losing possessions. Yet the mind attached to views is extremely fierce, charging and destroying like a thirsty horse fighting to protect water, even denying cause and result. This is old delusion removed while new delusion arises. The first two kinds resemble non-Buddhists, who produce craving where there is craving and anger where there is anger. If the study of calming-and-contemplation falls into this, it too is no different from the non-Buddhists.

The third resembles the old illness remaining uncured while the medicine causes no further harm. A Buddhist disciple uses calming-and-contemplation as a path of preparatory means and deeply knows the causes and conditions of views, craving, and ignorance. As soon as mind stirs slightly, the disciple immediately recognizes the three provisionalities within it; following the thought, calming-and-contemplation breaks nature and mark. Although craving and anger remain, attachment to views has been emptied, and the sixty-two views and the rest are subdued and do not arise. This is called old delusion not yet removed while new delusion does not arise, the condition of a person on the path of preparatory means.

The fourth resembles the old illness being cured and the medicine stopping with it. If the three provisionalities and four contemplations can examine and challenge each thought, one embodies and penetrates every falsity, with nature and mark both empty; the true may suddenly arise and principle be seen. Then not only is the old illness removed forever and the new illness prevented from arising, but through the path of seeing the truths one enters a noble station〔and so forth〕.

At Which Stages Are Views Subdued and Broken?

The third topic clarifies the stages at which views are broken. When this method is cultivated according to the Tripiṭaka Teaching, clearly recognizing the four truths and skillfully using contemplative wisdom subdues the views. This occurs at general establishment of mindfulness and the distinct establishments, where the four inversions of permanence, pleasure, self, and purity are directly subdued. When the four inversions no longer arise, warmth develops, followed by the preparatory stages of summit, forbearance, and highest worldly Dharma. Breaking the views, giving rise to the true, and becoming noble is the first fruit.

In the Shared Teaching, subduing views occurs on the ground of dry wisdom; when the water of principle slightly moistens the mind, this becomes the ground of nature; breaking views then occurs on the grounds of eight persons and seeing. In the Distinct Teaching, subduing views is the iron-wheel station of the ten faiths, and breaking them is the bronze-wheel station of the ten abodes. In the Perfect Teaching, subduing views is the station of disciples in the five grades, and breaking them is the station of purification of the six faculties.

All four teachings possess the names subduing and severing, yet the contemplative wisdom they use is entirely different. The Tripiṭaka Teaching contemplates the conceivable true truth and subdues and severs with analytical-Dharma contemplative wisdom. The Shared Teaching also contemplates the conceivable true truth but subdues and severs with embodied-Dharma contemplative wisdom. Although the Distinct Teaching knows the Middle Way, it still subdues and severs with sequential contemplative wisdom. The Perfect Teaching takes the Middle Way itself and subdues and severs with the contemplative wisdom of one mind. Their meanings must not be conflated merely because their names are the same.

Someone asks: once provisional views have been subdued and one has entered a worthy station, although old delusion is not wholly cured, new delusion should not arise. Why then do objects of various views still appear during the cultivation of calming-and-contemplation? Answer: these are habits from former lives being triggered. Views from former habituation still belong to old delusion, just as a medicine’s power agitates an old illness after it is taken. Once the old illness has been stirred, it will soon be cured; the medicine has not produced a separate new illness.

Another asks: why not directly state only the Distinct- and Perfect-Teaching stages of entering emptiness and breaking provisionality? Why also state the stages of the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings? Answer: the preceding discussion spoke of arousal through practice, arousal without practice, and the interweaving of the ten objects. The various stages are therefore listed so practitioners can recognize whether the Dharmas that arise are shallow or deep, and also so they can distinguish the stages of the half-word and full-word teachings. Half-word Dharmas such as the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings’ entry into emptiness are all supporting-path skillful means for the Distinct and Perfect Teachings, like a great carriage accompanied by many servants and guards. Outside skillful means there is no separate, isolated reality; the full-word teaching can employ the half-word itself. The Two Vehicles’ wisdom and severance can therefore also become skillful means for a bodhisattva’s forbearance concerning nonarising.

Finally, calming-and-contemplation gathers and concludes entry into emptiness through the provisionality of views. When the turning wheel of views ceases, once one receives and enters principle one never retreats and remains forever quiescent: this is called calming. Penetrating that views have no real nature, that nature is empty and mark is empty: this is called contemplation. Seeing the principle of the true truth is called nonarising. Since principle does not arise, neither does it cease; this nonarising and nonceasing is called forbearance concerning nonarising. One may also say that afflictions of views no longer arising is nonarising of cause, while no longer receiving recompense in the three evil paths is nonarising of result. Since cause and result neither arise nor cease, this too is called forbearance concerning nonarising. Thus the birthless gate communicates with calming-and-contemplation, and calming-and-contemplation accomplishes the birthless gate. Entry into emptiness through provisionality has now pervasively completed the breaking of afflictions of views.

〔Section §01〕 If Dharma-Nature Cannot Be Broken, Why Speak of Breaking?

Question: Dharma-nature is pure, neither joined nor dispersed, beyond the reach of speech and thought. Since it is neither breakable nor unbreakable, what does “pervasively breaking through Dharmas” actually break?

Answer: What is broken is not Dharma-nature but the attachments beings produce through inversion. If skillfully settling the mind has already brought forth concentration and wisdom so that mind accords with contemplation, no separate breaking is needed. If they do not yet accord, concentration-endowed wisdom must examine every inversion and purify it completely. The direction of breaking is therefore clear. It does not find something outside Dharma-nature and destroy it, nor does it judge all language indiscriminately to be wrong. Rather, whenever mind grasps a provisionally established conditioned Dharma as real existence, it pursues that attachment to the point where it cannot stand.

“Pervasively” does not merely indicate that many things are broken. If mind is loosened in only one place, it can flee to another. If coarse views alone are broken, subtle views can take a new stand in nonexistence, both, neither, or even wordlessness. Pervasive breaking through Dharmas requires that horizontally no Dharma remain where attachment can hide, and vertically that examination extend from a view’s first arising to the subtlest view beyond words. When inversion is exhausted in this way, pure Dharma-nature is not newly produced through breaking; it appears because obstruction has been removed.

〔Section §02〕 If All Four Gates Communicate, Why Begin with the Birthless Gate?

Question: Words, contemplative practice, wisdom, and principle can all serve as gates, and the Perfect Teaching further has four gates—existence, nonexistence, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence. Why does this passage take only the empty and birthless gate?

Answer: A gate’s function is communication. Verbal teaching gives rise to contemplation; contemplative practice develops wisdom; wisdom communicates with principle. Every gate is in turn established through principle. Principle has nowhere else to go, yet it can bring every gate to ultimate, pervasive communication. Thus there is nothing communicated with and nothing with which it does not communicate.

The Tripiṭaka Teaching’s four gates and the Shared Teaching’s four gates can break views and thought, but they sever only the four abodes. The Distinct Teaching’s four gates sequentially sever the five abodes; they are vertically pervasive but not horizontally pervasive. In the Perfect Teaching, one object is all objects and one mind is all minds; every Dharma, horizontally and vertically, converges upon mind. Break attachment within mind and all attachments are broken together, so each of the four gates can break pervasively. This passage provisionally sets the other three gates aside and enters through the birthless gate alone. It walks one gate through completely; it does not judge the other three to be impassable.

The birthless gate also works in two directions. Practicing in reliance on the teaching can communicate with forbearance concerning nonarising and reach the causal stage; when concentration and wisdom are complete, it can also communicate with the result. A Dharma gate does not disclose itself but must be practiced by a person. Just as the function of a dwelling’s gate appears only when travelers enter and leave through it and reach places beyond it, when people practice calming-and-contemplation along the birthless gate, teaching communicates with contemplation, wisdom, and principle. When calming-and-contemplation is accomplished, it in turn makes the birthless gate communicate wherever it touches.

〔Section §03〕 How Can One Gate Vertically Embrace Cause and Result in Self-Practice and Agent and Object in Teaching Others?

Question: How can the birthless gate reach from cause to result and also gather both bodhisattva self-realization and teaching others into a single gate?

Answer: The treatise unfolds this through four alternatives: not-arising-arising, not-arising-not-arising, arising-not-arising, and arising-arising. The first states the cause in self-practice. Calming-and-contemplation is settled in the conventional truth, turning the object originally separated and differentiated by ignorance into the inconceivable object. When contemplative practice is accomplished, it is like being carried in and emerging from the noble embryo: one first opens the Buddha’s knowledge and vision and gains forbearance concerning nonarising. No longer seeing the conventional truth of ignorance is called not-arising; the development of prajñā wisdom is called arising.

The second states the result in self-practice. The mark of arising is exhausted, and through cultivating the path one realizes great nirvāṇa. When the virtue of severance is complete, ignorance no longer arises; when the virtue of wisdom is complete, prajñā no longer arises separately. Hence not-arising-not-arising. In the preceding alternative wisdom arose from not-arising; here the two virtues of wisdom and severance are both complete. Cause and result are thereby complete.

The third first states the extinction of delusion in self-practice and then restates the agent in teaching others. The death of ignorance at the root of the conventional truth is called arising-not-arising. Yet after a bodhisattva breaks birth driven by binding karma, the bodhisattva can instead receive birth freely and enter the realm of beings to transform them. “Arising” has the same name in both contexts, but first it means the activation of binding karma and later manifested birth in teaching others. “Not-arising” likewise has the same name, but one place emphasizes the virtue of wisdom and another the virtue of severance. Identical wording must not be allowed to conflate them.

The fourth states the object of teaching others. The contaminated Dharmas of beings continue thought after thought. Precisely because bodhisattvas see this uninterrupted mass of arising, they give rise to great compassion and manifest freely received birth. Cause and result in self-practice and agent and object in teaching others are therefore not four scattered matters. Together they form the birthless gate’s entire vertical path from self-realization to benefiting others.

〔Section §04〕 One Spit Extinguishes Fire and One Breath Forms a World: Do Breaking and Establishing Come in Sequence?

Question: Breaking delusion and establishing Dharmas appear opposed. Why does the treatise use a breath and a spit to say they are not divided between two thoughts?

Answer: When the fire at an eon’s end blazes, one spit extinguishes it; after the world has perished, one breath forms it. The simile does not first use one thought to break and then raise a second to establish. The treatise master explicitly says that within one spit there is both extinguishing and forming. The inner meaning revealed through this outward simile is that the birthless gate breaks all through one breaking and establishes all through one establishment. If mind inwardly lacked the virtue in which breaking and establishing are nondual, the great function could not appear outwardly.

Placed back within contemplation of mind, the approaching end of a being’s lifetime resembles the end of an eon, and the three poisons resemble the three disasters, beginning with fire. Calming makes the three poisons cease, like a spit extinguishing fire. Contemplation illuminates causes and conditions and reveals the establishment of every Dharma, like a breath forming a world. Calming and contemplation are not split into two unrelated roads, just as breath and spit cannot be ordered as before and after.

The four alternatives contain the same structure. Not-arising-arising is like a breath within a spit: delusion does not arise while wisdom opens. Arising-not-arising is like a spit within a breath: a bodhisattva manifests birth while birth driven by binding karma has already ceased. With cause and result complete, breaking inversion and establishing transformative function are accomplished together. If breaking remains mere negation, it cannot establish beings, faculties and conditions, or voiced teaching. If establishing preserves real attachment, it is not truly establishment from nonarising.

〔Section §05〕 How Do the Four Alternatives Gather Self-Practice and Teaching Others Together?

Question: The four alternatives have already distinguished cause and result in self-practice and agent and object in teaching others. Why does the treatise further explain the bodhisattvas of the fourth abode through six abodes?

Answer: Because arising-not-arising cannot be understood merely as sinking into quiescence after delusion has been extinguished. The scripture reinterprets it through the freedom in birth of bodhisattvas in the fourth abode, thereby directly extending the severance of delusion in self-practice into the arising of the path of transformation. When bodhisattvas sever the four-abode delusions, birth compelled by binding karma is broken and they can manifest birth freely rather than through karma. Even comparatively shallow severance can thus benefit others, revealing by contrast the transformative function of deeper stages.

The treatise uses six abodes to state this path. The lineage abode makes wholesome roots advance without retreat. Understanding-and-practice is the preparatory stage before the first ground. The pure-mind abode enters the first ground and leaves the ordinary obstruction of the mark of self. The traces-of-path-practice abode extends from the second through the seventh ground, directly abiding in cultivation of the path. The certainty abode is the eighth and ninth grounds, where one neither returns nor retreats. The ultimate abode is the tenth ground, where the practices of learning are exhausted and complete. The scripture’s fourth abode is correlated with the traces-of-path-practice abode precisely to explain freely manifested birth in entering provisionality and teaching others.

This correlation of stages continues to serve the four alternatives. Not-arising-arising opens wisdom in self-practice; not-arising-not-arising completes the virtues of its result; arising-not-arising makes the agent of transformation free; arising-arising reveals the beings transformed. Keeping only the first two would make nonarising easy to read as self-realization alone. Speaking only of the latter two would obscure that birth for teaching others is no longer driven by delusion and karma. Only when the four alternatives are viewed together does self-practice become complete and teaching others arise from it.

〔Section §06〕 If All Six Alternatives Are Inexpressible, Must Even Correct Understanding Be Discarded?

Question: The six alternatives call conceivable delusion, conceivable understanding, inconceivable delusion, and inconceivable understanding all inexpressible. Does this mean there is no difference between understanding and delusion and that even correct understanding must be broken?

Answer: The six alternatives examine the mind’s fixation upon the names and marks of understanding and delusion. Delusion beyond the realms arises attached to substance and is called not-arising-arising. Delusion within the realms circulates as branches and tips and is called arising-arising. Since the object transformed is unobtainable, the transforming agent has nowhere to stand, so both alternatives are inexpressible. Understanding within the realms dispels only birth and death in sections and is called arising-not-arising. Understanding beyond the realms dispels both birth and death in sections and transformational birth and death and is called not-arising-not-arising. Although understanding has shallow and deep forms, principle cannot be fixed by a name for either shallow or deep, so these two alternatives too are inexpressible.

The final two alternatives directly examine ignorance and perfect understanding. Because of ignorance there is arising, and arising in turn discloses ignorance. Ignorance is unobtainable and arising is likewise unobtainable, so arising is inexpressible. Perfect understanding is divided into beginning and end, cause and result, but principle is neither a partial name nor another perfect name that can be grasped, and it has no fixed beginning or end. Thus not-arising is inexpressible.

The Buddha’s explanation of each alternative further shows that inexpressibility does not mean refusing to speak. Dharma-nature is named arising; Dharmas arisen from causes and conditions are immediately empty and immediately Middle; prajñā arises from neither self, another, both, nor no cause; the ultimate result is attained through cultivating the path; conditioned arising originally has no intrinsic nature; the principle attained transcends mind and speech. Each is a precise discrimination that drives attachment to the place where it can no longer stand. Language is used here to remove the real attachment produced through language, not to reject every distinction.

〔Section §07〕 After the Inexpressible, Why Can Ten Causes and Conditions Be Expressed?

Question: If all six alternatives are inexpressible, why does the treatise immediately say that the ten causes and conditions can be expressed? Do the two passages contradict each other?

Answer: Inexpressibility reveals that self-realization cannot be fixed by names and marks; expressibility reveals that after self-realization one must still teach others. One’s own Dharma is what the Tathāgata realizes, without increase or decrease. Originally abiding Dharma is like the road to an ancient city and abides constantly from the beginning. A person sees a level road, follows it into the city, and receives happiness. The road was not made by the traveler, nor was the city made by the one who arrived. Because self-realization and originally abiding Dharma cannot be altered by verbal discrimination, the Buddha says that between the two nights he did not speak a single word.

Yet after realization one cannot stop in silence. The ten causes and conditions from ignorance through existence establish three things. First they establish beings: the two past causes and five present results act as causes and conditions for one another, conjoin the five aggregates, and provisionally receive the name being. Second they establish faculties and conditions: the four kinds of analytical, embodied, gradual, and sudden practice and karma from the past are moistened by ignorance and bring about the five present results; each then produces craving, grasping, and existence and forms four kinds of faculties. Third they establish voiced teaching: the four kinds of craving, grasping, and existence separately bring about the Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings, allowing arising-arising, arising-not-arising, not-arising-arising, and not-arising-not-arising all to be taught according to capacities.

Once beings are established, every delusion, karma, cause and result, and object transformed is established. Once faculties and teaching are established, every understanding, practice, cause and result, and transforming agent is established. The birthless gate does not first negate the world and then move the same broken world back into place. Where every Dharma lacks intrinsic nature, it establishes beings, faculties and conditions, and voiced teaching through causes and conditions. Thus one breaking breaks all, and one establishment establishes all.

〔Section §08〕 Why Do Vertical, Horizontal, Nondual, Empty, Provisional, and Middle All Return to One Mind?

Question: Pervasive breaking through Dharmas has three modes—vertical, horizontal, and neither horizontal nor vertical—and also the three contemplations of empty, provisional, and Middle. Does this create six separate sets of contemplation?

Answer: Vertical breaking follows the single birthless gate from beginning to end and exhausts its source and depths, emphasizing height. Horizontal breaking passes through all the gates and exhausts the source and depths of each, emphasizing breadth. When vertical enters horizontal, nowhere broad is not also deep. When horizontal enters vertical, no level deep is not also broad. Height and breadth mutually enter, revealing what is neither horizontal nor vertical and a Dharma without high or low.

The three contemplations are not three minds. Entering emptiness from provisionality breaks views and thought; entering provisionality from emptiness treats stagnation in emptiness; contemplation of the Middle doubly negates the two extremes. Because the wondrous Dharma is difficult to understand, three sequential names are provisionally used to reveal one mind. They are explained in textual sequence so what is broken and where one enters remain clear. In actual contemplation of mind, if one thought can illuminate provisional establishment as lacking intrinsic nature, it does not leave emptiness, does not thereby destroy conditioned provisional names, and does not fall into either extreme of emptiness or existence.

This unit first follows entry into emptiness through the provisionality of views and is only the first of the three contemplations. Yet within itself it must still break pervasively existence, nonexistence, both, neither, and wordlessness. If this first phase is not completed, the latter two contemplations inherit a view of existence that has not been purified. If it is mistaken for the whole, stagnation in emptiness may itself become a new view of nonexistence.

〔Section §09〕 If “View” Originally Means Seeing Principle, Why Is It Called the Delusion of Views?

Question: A view should mean seeing principle, and seeing the real is not delusion. Why then is the delusion obstructing the path called an affliction of views and also a provisional view?

Answer: The affliction of views arises in dependence upon the true substance and then turns back to obscure it, like shimmering heat arising in dependence upon empty space and making space appear to move, or like a dream depending upon sleep and sinking the sleeper within the dream. Until the dream stops, the sleeper cannot wake. Until delusion is removed, the true substance cannot appear.

It is called “view” not because it has itself already seen principle, but because this delusion can be severed when principle is seen; it takes its name from the understanding that can treat it. It is called “provisional” on account of its own false and inverted nature. The two names therefore point to different places. If an affliction of views is understood to mean that true seeing itself is delusion, agent of severance and object severed are inverted. If one merely calls it provisional without actually examining and breaking it, the provisional name becomes an empty phrase.

The affliction of views first opens into the single four views: existence, nonexistence, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence. It then opens into the compound four views, making each alternative carry existence and nonexistence. It next opens into the fully endowed four views, making each principal alternative possess all four alternatives. Outside each set of four, a separate wordless view can again be established. The net of views does not disappear naturally as one moves from coarse to subtle. Whenever mind releases one place, it may again grasp the next understanding as a real Dharma.

〔Section §10〕 How Do the Three Provisionalities Extend Together through Mind, the Body of Form, and Dependent Recompense?

Question: Are provisionality formed by causes, provisionality of continuity, and provisionality of relation merely an analysis of one thought of mind?

Answer: In terms of mind, a Dharma-object facing the mental faculty gives rise to one thought: formation by causes. Thoughts continuing without interruption before and after are continuity. Mind established in relation to no-mind is relation. Yet the three provisionalities do not belong only to psychology. Formative karma from a past life relying on parents to obtain the body is the body of form’s formation by causes. Its uninterrupted course from embryo to old age is the body’s continuity. Body established in relation to what is not body is the body’s relation. A pillar formed through the conjunction of four subtle elements is dependent recompense’s formation by causes. Its uninterrupted change through the seasons is dependent recompense’s continuity. Pillar in relation to what is not pillar, long in relation to short, and large in relation to small are dependent recompense’s relation.

The Small Vehicle can explain the three provisionalities according to phenomena, and the Great Vehicle can also explain them according to principle. Dharmas produced through ignorance are like illusions and transformations, possessing names alone while their reality is unobtainable. If even the four subtle elements forming an illusory pillar are unobtainable, the pillar formed, its continuity through time, and its relational length and shortness have still less real nature. Form is empty in its intrinsic substance; one need not wait until form has ceased for it to become empty.

Relational existence, nominal existence, and Dharma-existence reveal the same problem from another side. Long and short, east and west exist through relation and have names but no reality. Curds formed from the conjunction of color, fragrance, flavor, and touch exist only nominally: they neither truly exist nor are wholly nonexistent like a hare’s horns or turtle’s hair. The conjunction of the four subtle elements of color, fragrance, flavor, and touch is called Dharma-existence. The three provisional designations of Dharma, reception, and name can likewise be correlated respectively with formation by causes, continuity, and relation. Names can communicate with one another, but examination must still return to causes and conditions, before and after, and relational contrast. The three names must not themselves be grasped as three real Dharmas.

〔Section §11〕 If the Brief Contemplation Already Speaks of Ultimate Purity, Why Is Extended Breaking Still Needed?

Question: When one thought arises, contemplating shimmering heat as depending upon space and dream as depending upon sleep already allows one to say that beginning and end are both quiescent and ultimately pure. Why then unfold a long examination through the four alternatives?

Answer: A person of sharp faculties can awaken as soon as this is heard, so the brief contemplation is sufficient. When mind arises, it necessarily falls within one of the single four views, and each view possesses the three provisionalities and eighty-eight agents. If the practitioner can embody and penetrate that shimmering movement depends upon the mirage and the mirage in turn upon space, while space itself cannot be grasped, hundreds and thousands of sorrows and joys become like a dream upon waking, with beginning and end both quiescent. This is called calming. One then contemplates ignorance as itself Dharma-nature: Dharma-nature neither arises nor ceases, and the deluded mind of ignorance has no separate arising or ceasing. Contemplating and contemplated are both like empty space and ultimately pure. This is called contemplation entering emptiness through provisionality.

Yet when a person of dull faculties hears of ultimate emptiness, instead of awakening the person may add another fault. “Everything is pure” may be grasped as a pure object. “Agent and object are like space” may be grasped as an empty contemplator. “Nonarising” may be grasped as real nonexistence. Extended breaking therefore does not add another principle to brief contemplation. It opens every possible hiding place within the brief contemplation and asks, alternative by alternative, whether arising comes from self, another, both, or no cause, until the single, compound, fully endowed, and wordless views have nowhere left to abide.

〔Section §12〕 If One Thought Arises from Neither Self, Another, Both, nor No Cause, What Remains?

Question: From where does the one thought within provisionality formed by causes actually arise? Once all four alternatives have been broken, does only an annihilating nonexistence remain?

Answer: If mind produces itself, then if consciousness already exists within the faculty, faculty and consciousness stand side by side and there is neither producer nor produced; if the faculty contains no consciousness, what lacks consciousness cannot produce it. Establishing a separate nature of consciousness must still undergo examination through existence and nonexistence, identity and difference. If an external object produces mind, then if the object is mind this returns to self-production, while if it is not mind it lacks the power to produce mind. Establishing a nature of production within the object likewise cannot escape existence and nonexistence.

If faculty and object produce together, then if mirror and face each possess an image, their conjunction should produce two images; if neither possesses one, conjunction cannot produce one. If the image arises only when they become one, mirror and face never actually become one. If it arises while they remain separate, each should possess an image while standing in its own place. If mind arises apart from faculty and object, then if there is a real separation, that separation is still a cause; if there is no separation, nonexistence cannot produce. Sought in the four places of self, another, both, and separation, mind is unobtainable.

Unobtainability does not erase conditioned phenomena. Once real nature is broken, “mind arises” is seen to be only a name. The name is neither inside, outside, nor between and does not exist constantly by itself. Seeking nature through the four alternatives and not seeing it is called nature-emptiness. Seeking the name through the four alternatives and not seeing it is called mark-emptiness. According to the different things emptied—faculty, object, conjunction, separation, and the four alternatives—this can further open into internal emptiness, external emptiness, internal-and-external emptiness, emptiness of emptiness, and the remaining eighteen emptinesses. All eighteen names are established according to the matter examined; eighteen emptinesses do not separately exist outside one thought.

Provisionality of continuity then asks whether the preceding thought ceases, does not cease, both ceases and does not cease, or neither ceases nor does not cease before the later thought arises. Every alternative either falls into self, another, both, or no cause; makes arising and ceasing contradict each other; or incurs both the faults of annihilation and permanence. Provisionality of relation next asks whether mind arises in relation to nonarising, arising, both, or neither. Relation to nonarising still takes nonarising as another. Relation to arising is like long standing in relation to long. Both incurs the fault of joint production. Neither still cannot escape existence and nonexistence. When the three provisionalities are pursued to the end, what is broken is real nature and a real name, not thought-by-thought continuity and conditioned relation reduced to sheer nonexistence.

〔Section §13〕 After the View of Existence Is Broken, Why Does the View of Nonexistence Resemble Realization Even More?

Question: Once the three provisionalities of the view of existence have been broken, mind indistinctly enters concentration and body and mind seem wholly empty. Why say this may still be only a view of nonexistence?

Answer: Three kinds of faculties respond differently. A person of superior faculties hears of arising, knows arising as nonarising, breaks attachment, and awakens. A person of middling faculties has lighter attachment, first subdues views, and forms the path of preparatory means. A person of inferior faculties hears that arising is unobtainable and grasps nonarising itself as truly existent. Abandoning existence and attaching to nonexistence resembles a measuring-worm stretching and contracting between two ends, or a monkey leaving one branch only to grasp another. The position changes, but grasping has not ceased.

When separately breaking the view of nonexistence, the treatise lays out the signs most easily mistaken for realization. Inner and outer are no longer seen, before and after are no longer seen, one abides quiescently in concentration, and one may even suddenly feel that body and mind have completely vanished and everything is pure. If this is taken to mean that concentration and wisdom have been accomplished, an empty Dharma-object has already been established in correspondence with a contemplating mind. Once a contemplator is established, self-view is established. From self-view, extreme view, deviant view, grasping precepts, grasping views, craving, anger, delusion, conceit, and doubt can all arise again.

The true hinge is not whether an empty object appears but whether, as soon as empty mind arises, one immediately knows that “arising is itself craving.” A Dharma-object of nonarising facing the mental faculty gives rise to formation by causes. The mind of arising ceases and the mind of nonarising continues: continuity. Sudden nonarising stands in relation to preceding arising: relation. Examining the mind of nonarising through self, another, both, and separation likewise finds neither nature nor mark. If emptiness is grasped, it becomes a new illness. Only by knowing that it too consists of the three provisionalities can calming-and-contemplation continue to follow and pursue it.

〔Section §14〕 Both and Neither Claim to Be the Middle Way: How Do the Four Truths Expose Their Faults?

Question: The one who knows is existence and the known nonarising is nonexistence, hence both existence and nonexistence. One then leaves existence and nonexistence and speaks of neither existence nor nonexistence. This seems to draw step by step closer to the Middle Way, so why does it remain a view?

Answer: As soon as the mind of both existence and nonexistence is accepted, the aggregate of feeling is present. Perceiving its appearance is perception; applying this Dharma is formations; discerning it is consciousness. The four aggregates stand plainly present and depend in turn upon the aggregate of form. When mental faculty and Dharma-object interact, elements and sense fields are also established. This is suffering. Thinking “I can practice, receive, and know” produces self-view. Self-view then unfolds into extreme view, deviant view, grasping precepts, grasping views, and the five dull agents; passing through the three realms, they become eighty-eight agents. This is accumulation. Using four-alternative calming-and-contemplation to break them is the path. Their being subdued or severed is cessation.

The view of neither existence nor nonexistence must undergo the same test of the four truths. It assigns the view of existence to conditioned arising, the view of nonexistence to emptiness, both to provisionality, and itself to the Middle. Yet as long as this correlation is firmly grasped as real, a verbal view has arisen. Because this mind arises and ceases, it is not permanent. Because it is appropriated and grasped, it is not pleasurable. Because it lacks mastery, it is not self. Because it bears the defilement of views, it is not pure. Calling what is not the path the path is grasping precepts. Taking it as nirvāṇa is grasping views. Destroying worldly and world-transcending cause and result becomes deviant view.

Poisonous herb and king of medicines are not determined by their names. If the same expression “Middle Way” produces ten agents, the three provisionalities, suffering, and accumulation, it is poisonous herb. Only when calming-and-contemplation breaks nature and mark and subdues and extinguishes the view does the medicine of path and cessation appear. Here the four truths are not doctrinal categories imposed from outside. They point out suffering, accumulation, path, and cessation within each view so practitioners are not blinded to their actual mental conduct by a lofty name.

〔Section §15〕 If Principle Lies beyond Words, Why Has One Still Not Left Speech?

Question: All four alternatives are provisional and principle lies beyond words. If the place of mental activity ceases and the road of language is cut off, why can this not be judged directly as the wordless path of nonarising?

Answer: Because outside the four alternatives there are further levels. One may leave the single four alternatives yet remain within the second of the compound four, or fall within the first of the fully endowed four. Outside the alternatives at every level, another wordlessness can be established. The net of views resembles demons and goblins present everywhere; surface silence does not make it disappear by itself.

More fundamentally, “wordlessness” is still established in relation to “not wordless.” Without not-wordless standing opposite, the judgment of wordlessness could not arise. Because it exists through relational contrast, it remains provisionality of relation. It resembles trying to escape empty space: wherever one goes, one remains within space. Silence itself is not the fault. The error is grasping silence or an indistinct state as real principle.

The preceding sections in fact each contain both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Unfolding the three provisionalities and four alternatives within one view of existence is horizontal. The layered accumulation of the four views is vertical. Formation by causes is predominantly horizontal, continuity predominantly vertical, relation both horizontal and vertical, and the general breaking neither horizontal nor vertical. Overall, however, the preceding work still examined one view from within in a horizontal manner. The text now turns to vertical breaking, using the actual arisings, nonarisings, both, and neither taught at the stages of the various teachings to examine level by level the mind that claims to have gone beyond words.

〔Section §16〕 Why Test One Statement of Nonarising through Ten Levels of Not-Not-Arising?

Question: A practitioner says only that mind exists or that mind does not arise. Why ask from the five methods for calming mind all the way through wondrous awakening and further open ten kinds of nonarising and not-not-arising?

Answer: If mind is grasped as existent, ask which kind of arising it is: the arising of the five methods for calming mind and establishments of mindfulness; the arising of warmth, summit, forbearance, and highest worldly Dharma; the arising of the path of seeing and renewed reflection; the arising of dry wisdom and the grounds of eight persons and seeing; the arising of a bodhisattva’s true understanding on the suppressive path; the arising of the iron wheel or bronze wheel; or mastery of arising throughout the Dharma realm. If the attachment accords with none of these levels, it cannot claim merely through the word “existent” not to be a view.

If mind is grasped as unborn, one must likewise ask which nonarising it is among views, thought, residual habit, dust-and-sand delusion, ignorance, karma, recompense, practice, and principle. The three buddha-bodies can further open multiple correlations through principle, delusion, karmic practice, and the three causes—direct, revealing, and conditioning. Hearing the gate of the letter a should allow one to understand every meaning pervasively. As a sharp mattock digs into earth until reaching vajra, hearing one statement of nonarising should penetrate and see nonarising throughout every level of the Dharma realm.

The ten kinds of not-not-arising specifically prevent one phrase from flattening all stages. A non-Buddhist’s wordlessness still contains subtle perception, and the Vātsīputrīyas’ inexpressible treasury still calculates a self. Two-Vehicle practitioners in the Tripiṭaka Teaching sever the direct agents while residual habit arises; a Tripiṭaka buddha exhausts both. Two-Vehicle practitioners in the Shared Teaching embody views and thought while residual habit remains; a Shared-Teaching buddha exhausts direct agents and residual habit but knows only birth and death in sections. In causal stages of the Distinct Teaching, higher portions of delusion still arise; a Distinct-Teaching buddha exhausts those higher portions but remains within skillful provisionality. Practitioners in causal stages of the Perfect Teaching still possess higher-ground practice, wisdom, and recompense. Only at wondrous awakening is wisdom full, delusion exhausted, and practice, wisdom, and recompense ultimately unborn.

Double negation is therefore not wordplay. Practitioners must state clearly how far their nonarising reaches and how far their not-not-arising reaches. If it accords with no stage at all, a grand claim of nonarising is merely an unexamined view.

〔Section §17〕 How Are Silence, Realizing Principle, and the Ten Kinds of Four Alternatives Distinguished?

Question: A brahmin’s observance of silence, Dīghanakha’s refusal to accept anything, the Vātsīputrīyas’ inexpressible, and realization of principle in all four teachings can each be called wordless. How can one avoid judging only by outward silence?

Answer: The same “inexpressible” can occupy entirely different positions. One person observes silence and does not speak. Another grasps refusal to accept any Dharma. Another places self within an inexpressible treasury. The Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings each further possess inexpressibility because their four gates communicate with principle. If a calculation does not even equal the Vātsīputrīyas’ inexpressible assigned only to conventional truth yet elevates itself as nirvāṇa, identical names have plainly concealed different meanings.

The ten kinds of four alternatives further separate the functions of these formulations. The direct four establish the alternatives directly. The endless four unfold them layer upon layer. The stage-concluding four assign them according to the scope of ordinary and noble. The collecting-and-restating four gather ordinary people, the Two Vehicles, bodhisattvas, and buddhas into four alternatives. The awakening-gaining four make any alternative a possible gate. The classifying four assign what is awakened to among the Dharma gates. The provisional-and-real four distinguish skillful means from reality. The opening-and-revealing four bring provisional alternatives into the one real. The intent-losing four grasp the Buddha’s words and dispute. The intent-gaining four use treatises to break attachment, after which delusion is dispelled and the work of treatise ceases.

The ten names are not intended to make the net of views more elaborate. They prevent “I stand outside the four alternatives” from becoming a claim without coordinates. The four alternatives can be the abiding attachment of ordinary people or the skillful means of noble ones. Whether their intent is gained depends not on whether the four are spoken but on whether one enters principle through them and, after entering principle, no longer abides in them.

〔Section §18〕 What Is Wrong with Forcing Different Kinds of Inexpressibility into Equality?

Question: Daoism also says that the Way cannot be spoken and the name cannot be named, while Buddhism too speaks of the inexpressible. Why does the treatise so sternly oppose declaring them broadly equal?

Answer: The treatise’s criterion is not that both expressions contain surface negations. It returns them to the character of the teachings on which they rely, the suffering and accumulation they sever, and the factors of the path they cultivate. The preceding text has already listed inexpressibility outside the single, compound, and fully endowed alternatives, the Vātsīputrīyas’ inexpressibility, and the inexpressibility of the four teachings. If an account has not passed even the first levels of examination, it cannot be equated with the wordlessness of realizing principle merely because the words look similar. Insects eating wood may accidentally leave the shape of characters; resemblance of shape does not mean the insects know their meaning.

The treatise further rebukes this conflation item by item through origins and traces, bodily marks, teaching, deportment, and relinquishment of status for homelessness. These sharp comparisons serve one argument: the inexpressible must be judged according to the principle realized, the path practiced, and the result produced. A lofty Buddhist name cannot be stolen and placed upon another view whose suffering and accumulation remain unbroken. The distinction between deviant and correct returns here to the three provisionalities, suffering and accumulation, and factors of the path; it does not stop in a contest over terminology.

If an opponent again uses wordlessness to break nonarising and nonceasing, the treatise opens six alternatives: wordlessness breaks nonarising and nonceasing, and conversely; wordlessness cultivates nonarising and nonceasing, and conversely; wordlessness is itself nonarising and nonceasing, and conversely. The six make the two names mutually break, mutually cultivate, and mutually identify, so neither side can place itself outside alternatives. Before an ordinary person enters the noble path, the slightest thought of calculation brings forth the three provisionalities and all the agents. Calming-and-contemplation must therefore keep pursuing and refuse to let wordlessness become the final hiding place.

〔Section §19〕 What Does Each of the Three Contemplations Break, and What If Calming-and-Contemplation Becomes a New View?

Question: Contemplation entering emptiness has already broken immeasurable vertical and horizontal views. What remains for the latter two contemplations to break? Calming-and-contemplation is cultivated as medicine, so how can the contemplative Dharma itself become an illness?

Answer: In summary, contemplation entering emptiness breaks views and thought and is collectively called breaking existence. Entering provisionality breaks stagnation in emptiness and is collectively called breaking nonexistence. Contemplation of the Middle doubly negates existence and nonexistence and directly reveals the Middle Way. Ordinary people generate attachments wherever they make contact, so views of existence extend immeasurably in every direction. After people of the Two Vehicles sever views and thought, they no longer calculate horizontally but realize emptiness alone; the Great Vehicle collectively calls the emptiness in which they stagnate a view of nonexistence. However broadly the provisionality of views is broken in entering emptiness, this remains only the work of the first contemplation.

Gain and loss must be considered along the two axes of old and new delusion. Old delusion unremoved while new delusion arises is like taking medicine without curing the old illness and then becoming ill from the medicine. Old delusion removed while new delusion arises is like curing the original illness only for the medicine to become an illness. Someone may cultivate contemplation and slightly still dull delusions such as craving food and clothing, yet guard a new view like a thirsty horse guarding water, even denying cause and result. This is precisely contemplative medicine becoming an illness of views.

Old delusion unremoved while new delusion does not arise is the path of preparatory means. Although craving and anger remain, as soon as one thought arises the practitioner recognizes the three provisionalities, and calming-and-contemplation follows it to break nature and mark, subduing the sixty-two views. Old delusion removed while new delusion does not arise means that nature and mark are both empty, the true arises, and principle is seen. Medicine’s function is not to be preserved forever; when the illness is cured, the medicine ceases with it. Whether one recognizes what arises within contemplation as also provisional is precisely the boundary between Dharma-medicine and the illness of views.

〔Section §20〕 How Do Subduing Views, Breaking Views, and Forbearance concerning Nonarising Converge as Calming-and-Contemplation?

Question: All four teachings speak of subduing and breaking views. Since the names are the same, are their attainments the same? How does this unit finally return to calming and contemplation?

Answer: The Tripiṭaka Teaching subdues and severs with analytical-Dharma contemplative wisdom. Subduing occurs at the establishments of mindfulness and other preparatory stages, and breaking views enters the first fruit. The Shared Teaching subdues and severs with embodied-Dharma contemplative wisdom, advancing from the grounds of dry wisdom and nature to those of eight persons and seeing. The Distinct Teaching subdues and severs with sequential contemplative wisdom, subduing at the ten faiths and breaking at the ten abodes. The Perfect Teaching subdues and severs with the contemplative wisdom of one mind, subduing at the five grades and breaking at purification of the six faculties. The names subduing and severing are shared, but the contemplative wisdom differs greatly; stages must not be conflated on the basis of names alone.

When an old view arises during contemplation, the contemplative Dharma has not necessarily produced a new delusion. It may resemble medicine stirring an old illness with its power; once the old illness moves, it is soon cured. The two axes of old and new must decide the case. Listing the Tripiṭaka, Shared, and other stages also lets practitioners know whether what arises is shallow or deep and recognize that half-word skillful means can become supports for the Distinct and Perfect paths, like servants and guards surrounding a great carriage. Skillful means do not stand outside reality, yet their inclusion must not be used to claim they are ultimate.

Finally, when the revolving of views ceases, entry into principle never retreats and remains forever quiescent: this is called calming. Penetrating that views lack intrinsic nature, that nature is empty and mark is empty: this is called contemplation. Seeing the principle of the true truth is called nonarising. Since principle neither arises nor ceases, it is called forbearance concerning nonarising. Afflictions of views not arising is nonarising of cause; no longer receiving evil-destination recompense is nonarising of result. Cause and result neither arising nor ceasing is likewise called forbearance concerning nonarising. Thus the birthless gate communicates with calming-and-contemplation, and calming-and-contemplation accomplishes the birthless gate. This conclusion gathers only entry into emptiness through the provisionality of views. The vajra blade pursues views without pause until views cease and the two emptinesses become clear; only then is this first phase truly complete.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

The reading above has followed the treatise’s own sequence from the rationale for pervasive breaking through the cessation of views, the two emptinesses, and forbearance concerning nonarising. Zhanran’s Fuxing Chuanhong Jue on the Mohe Zhiguan supplies several crucial hinges along this long road where levels are especially easy to conflate.

First, settling the mind and pervasive breaking do not divide concentration from wisdom. Settling the mind emphasizes wisdom-endowed concentration; pervasive breaking emphasizes concentration-endowed wisdom. Both possess concentration and wisdom and are named differently only according to the function emphasized in each passage. “Mind has not yet accorded” means that although object, arousing the mind, and settling the mind have already been understood, mind has not truly settled. It does not turn pervasive breaking into a separate method containing analysis alone and no stability.

Second, all four Perfect-Teaching gates can break pervasively, but the birthless gate alone is selected here because beginners enter through what is easy and appropriate. Choosing one gate means using it to embrace horizontally and exhaust vertically before entering the other gates again. It does not declare the gates of existence, both, or neither ineffective. T1913, the Principles of the Meaning of Calming-and-Contemplation, later places beginning reliance upon teaching, reliance upon nonarising, and the perfect interfusion of the three truths side by side, thereby preserving both an expedient point of entry and ultimate pervasive breaking.

Third, the sequence of the four alternatives cannot be arranged by wording alone. The Fuxing expressly assigns not-arising-arising to the cause in self-practice, not-arising-not-arising to the result in self-practice, arising-not-arising to the agent in teaching others, and arising-arising to the object of teaching others. It further assigns the first explanation of arising-not-arising to extinguishing delusion in self-practice and its restatement to freedom in the path of transformation. Breath and spit as nondual thus become more than a strange image: development of the virtue of wisdom, accomplishment of the virtue of severance, and manifested birth for benefiting others mutually contain one another.

Fourth, the six inexpressibles break attachment to the names of understanding and delusion. Conceivable and inconceivable, arising and nonarising, partial and perfect must all be examined and broken, but the principle realized is not thereby broken. The Fuxing particularly points out that the nirvāṇa attained in a noble one’s mind is not broken. Principle cannot be fixed by a partial name, nor can it again be fixed by a perfect name. The expressible must be clarified after the inexpressible because self-realization must be followed by teaching others. The ten causes and conditions establish beings, faculties, and teaching, returning self-realization directly to transformation.

Fifth, the three modes of pervasive breaking and the three contemplations are discriminations provisionally established to reveal one mind. The horizontal must be all-pervasive and the vertical must exhaust the depths, after which their nonduality is recognized. Empty, provisional, and Middle are divided in the text but return in practice to one nondual mind. Later, T1937, the Record of the Teachings and Practices of the Venerable Siming, answers this difficulty by saying that the text appears sequential while its intent is perfectly interfused, and that in practice raising one is immediately all three, neither before nor after. This reception can clarify the intent of practice, but it does not remove the need to distinguish what each section of the treatise breaks.

Sixth, “provisional views” has two layers of naming. “View” is first taken from the understanding that sees principle, while “provisional” is then taken from the false substance of delusion. The three provisionalities too are used only to break delusion and should not instead make practitioners produce three new delusions. Although nature-emptiness and mark-emptiness appear sequentially in explanation, the Fuxing judges the two truths simultaneous. Breaking nature first and name afterward is the order of analysis, not mind first dwelling in one nature-emptiness and reaching mark-emptiness only after an interval.

Seventh, the Fuxing organizes faith-practice, Dharma-practice, and the transitions of the three faculties into sixty-four iterations; it further expands the six alternatives of wordlessness and nonarising and nonceasing into fourteen sets of six. These numbers belong to the commentator’s gathering of the treatise’s scattered lines of examination into a net; they are not lists that Zhiyi itemized in the main text. The commentary shows that examination reaches everywhere, but reading the treatise still requires preserving its actual sequence: the three provisionalities of the view of existence, the view of nonexistence, both, neither, and wordlessness, followed by the turn from horizontal to vertical.

The Fuxing also analyzes the numbers within the net of views more clearly. The eighty-eight agents of the three realms divide into fifty-two dull and thirty-six sharp agents. The 108 arise from one faculty engaging three kinds of object, with six defiled and pure divisions for each, making thirty-six, then passing through the three times to become 108. These calculations do not use large numbers to overwhelm the reader. They show how one apparently simple view of existence rapidly spreads into a dense net when extended through faculties, objects, the three times, and all the agents. Dīghanakha’s claim to accept nothing still accepts and attaches to nonacceptance, likewise showing how the briefest negation can bring back the entire net of views.

For the three provisionalities, the Fuxing first explains formation by causes through the conjunction of inner faculty and outer object. It then preserves the treatise’s unfolding from mind to form and from form to pillar by saying that once direct recompense is provisional, dependent recompense follows like a shadow. The Great Vehicle’s principial account of the three provisionalities says that ignorance produces illusions and transformations and that when formation by causes is absent, continuity and relation are also absent. It does not erase phenomena into nothingness; it prevents provisional establishment at any level from turning back into intrinsic nature. The correlations among the three existences and the three provisional designations are likewise partly alike and partly different. Recognizing where they communicate does not erase each group’s own distinctions of meaning.

The passage on the view of nonexistence especially requires this mirror. When practitioners no longer see the three provisionalities, what they have gained may be only a semblance of nature-emptiness and mark-emptiness. Non-Buddhists too can contemplate emptiness; the difference lies in taking its mark and becoming attached. As soon as empty mind arises, know the fault; knowing the fault, leave it; leaving is itself the continuation of contemplation. This keeps the measuring-worm simile from becoming a rejection of emptiness. What is broken is not the principle of nonarising but the guarding of a nonexistence after leaving existence, still establishing its own position through relational contrast.

At the turn from horizontal to vertical, the Fuxing says vertical breaking uses vertical Dharmas as tests. From the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s five methods for calming mind through the Perfect Teaching’s wondrous awakening, every teaching and stage becomes a touchstone. With which level does the attached arising, nonarising, both, or neither actually accord? Within the ten kinds of not-not-arising, two kinds of delusion still arise and must be broken at every intermediate level; only at wondrous awakening are wisdom and severance said to remain eternally full. Read this way, the long sequence of stage names is not a digression. It prevents one phrase, “nonarising,” from leaping over and swallowing every shallow and deep level.

The Fuxing also divides the four alternatives of gain and loss into two groups. The first two show how contemplative medicine, when turned by attachment, produces gains and losses like those of non-Buddhists. The latter two distinguish the gains and losses of Buddhist disciples within preparatory means and the arising of the true. The point of this grouping is not to attach identity labels first but to examine whether old and new delusions are actually removed or produced. Although the stages for breaking views in the four teachings all list subduing and severing, their sequence must still be preserved to reveal the nonsequential. Identical names with different wisdom directly illuminate the tension running through the entire text between “textual sequence” and “practice in one mind.”

The Fuxing likewise locates the criterion for the repeatedly appearing similes of poisonous herb, king of medicines, and taking medicine in their effects. What produces suffering and accumulation is poison; what accomplishes path and cessation is medicine. An old illness being stirred and ultimately removed does not mean the medicine has produced a new illness. If an attainment from cultivation is guarded like water by a thirsty horse, it must again undergo examination through the four alternatives. Calming-and-contemplation is not a possession that, once acquired, remains correct forever. It continues to be applied to every thought of attachment.

Eighth, each of the three contemplations has its object of breaking. The first breaks views and thought, summarized as breaking existence. The next breaks the nonexistence to which one is attached. Contemplation of the Middle doubly negates the two extremes. The Fuxing therefore judges the closing sentence of this unit to disclose the wondrous purport of the first section, not to mean that the whole of pervasive breaking through Dharmas is complete. At the end, “views cease and one enters emptiness” belongs to calming; “one penetrates views and the two emptinesses” belongs to contemplation. The long examination through the four alternatives thereby returns to the simplest test: have views truly ceased, and have nature-emptiness and mark-emptiness become truly clear? If one has merely gained another view of the inexpressible, the vajra blade must continue forward.