摩訶止觀 破法遍·思假入空

Breaking the afflictions of views does not mean craving, anger, delusion, and conceit have been exhausted. Direction can become clear in an instant, yet old momentum continues to moisten karma and draw one into birth. Zhiyi calls these the afflictions of thought: not because thought itself is blameworthy, but because after seeing the true, one must repeatedly consider the principle seen so the mind’s momentum loosens part by part.

Contemplative practice therefore begins not from a grand emptiness but from one thought of desire. It arises through the conjunction of faculty and object, strengthens through continuity before and after, and appears as desire only in relation to no desire. Yet when truly pursued, does it arise from faculty, object, both together, or no cause? It can be found in none of the four places. Emptiness is not a clean room left after desire has been driven away. At the very moment desire appears, it originally neither comes nor goes.

As with the first grade, so with the remaining eight; as in the desire realm, so in the form and formless realms. The deeper the bliss of dhyāna, the subtler the mind that may attach to it. The highest concentration lacks coarse delusion yet retains subtle Dharmas. The eighty-one grades are not a table to memorize. They warn that nowhere can “I understand” substitute for actual seeing.

Some travel swiftly and can leap over fruits. Others could move swiftly yet choose not to because they must turn the Dharma wheel, serve as attendant, or bear beings. Speed can differ, but distance cannot vanish. What is leapt over is the way a sequence is traversed, not the severance of one fewer grade of delusion. Sharp faculties and weighty vows need not oppose each other.

Existence, emptiness, both existence and nonexistence, and neither resemble a city’s four gates. If a gate is grasped as the only truth, it blocks itself. If it truly communicates, any gate can enter the city. At the Perfect gates, one gate immediately is the remaining three: one emptiness is every emptiness, one provisionality every provisionality, and one Middle every Middle.

This is the sharpest point of pervasive breaking through Dharmas. It distinguishes every item among the three realms, nine grounds, eighty-one grades, stages, and sixteen gates, yet allows none to harden into a graspable Dharma. You need not pretend that mind was never drawn away. At the very moment it is drawn, ask clearly where it actually comes from.

Fascicle six〔first part〕 of the Mohe Zhiguan was taught by the Tiantai master Zhiyi in the Sui dynasty and recorded by his disciple Guanding.

1. What Is the Provisionality of Thought?

Second, the treatise explains how embodied-Dharma contemplation illuminates the provisionality of the afflictions of thought and enters emptiness, thereby making the breaking through Dharmas pervasive. This part has three topics: first, explaining the provisionality of thought; second, explaining embodied contemplation; and third, explaining the stages reached through severing thought.

The provisionality of thought means craving, anger, delusion, and conceit. These delusions are called dull agents and also the correct three poisons. Distinguished across the three realms, they can be counted as ten; explained through the nine grounds of the three realms, each ground has nine grades, making eighty-one. All eighty-one grades of the afflictions of thought can moisten karmic causes and make beings receive birth in the three realms. A person who realizes the first fruit must still return among humans and gods as many as seven times because the afflictions of thought have not been exhausted, just as a lamp’s flame flares more strongly when about to go out. Although a stream-enterer still has desire, the person does not commit sexual misconduct with someone who is not their spouse. Although anger remains, the person does not deliberately harm living beings while tilling earth. Although delusion remains, the person no longer grasps person or Dharma as possessing a real and unchanging intrinsic nature. The power of the path-accompanying precepts protects spontaneously, so these are called correct afflictions. They differ from the afflictions of views, which lack any standard and attach themselves to an object as soon as contact occurs.

Why are they called afflictions of thought? The name is established from the understanding that can sever them. When true truth is first seen, contemplative understanding remains shallow and phenomenal obstructions persist. Only through repeatedly examining and considering true principle are these afflictions removed; hence they are called afflictions of thought.

The Abhidharma numerical exegetes say that delusion in the desire realm is called craving and that in the two higher realms attachment. Followers of the Satyasiddhi Treatise object that the higher realms contain craving for the savor of dhyāna while the lower realm contains attachment pursuing objects of desire; both names, attachment and craving, can extend throughout lower and higher realms, so why assign them partially? If craving is heavy below and light above, does lighter craving cease to be craving? Yet this objection too makes one generalization cover everything. The Buddha sometimes teaches distinctions according to different causes and conditions. Provisionally established names have no fixed, unchanging boundary; how can they be generalized in one way? Once a name enables one to recognize an affliction, it should be broken quickly. Why struggle over whether it should ultimately be called craving or attachment? It resembles removing excrement and filth: the first concern is simply removing the impurity, not urgently distinguishing its names. The key to entering the path is skillful means; names and marks only assist from the side. Anyone wishing to know the two schools’ full arguments can consult the Abhidharma and Satyasiddhi treatises. What is explained here is contemplation of emptiness and contemplation of provisionality.

2. Embodied Contemplation and the First Grade of Desire-Realm Delusion

Second, the treatise explains embodied contemplation. In the gate of arising and ceasing, one first severs the afflictions of views through wisdom that analyzes Dharmas, then repeatedly considers true principle through the same analytical wisdom to sever the afflictions of thought. In the gate of nonarising and nonceasing, one initially breaks the afflictions of views and enters emptiness through wisdom that embodies and penetrates Dharmas, then repeatedly considers through that same embodied-Dharma contemplation to sever the afflictions of thought. There is no separate road.

First consider how to embody and penetrate the provisionality of craving and enter emptiness. Desire-realm delusion has nine grades. When each grade arises, it possesses the three provisionalities of formation by causes, continuity, and relation. For example, a woman can elicit six kinds of desire: desire for color; desire for appearance; desire for deportment and posture; desire for verbal sound; desire for smooth touch; and desire for the mark of a person. Each can be distinguished further〔and so forth〕. When these six objects of desire contact a practitioner, they can defile the eye, ear, and other faculties, disturb the blood and pulses within, and make the mark of craving appear outwardly. Stream-enterers have not yet completely severed this kind of delusion; how much less ordinary people? Even after Nanda had cultivated the path, residual habits remained. When he saw a woman among a crowd and first spoke with her, the residual habit was stirred; how much more for someone in whom the direct agents remain? The Lotus Sūtra says that when teaching Dharma to a woman, one does not take from her body a mark capable of producing perceptions of desire.

Once such a mark is taken, an external object moves the mental faculty and produces a mind of desire; this is provisionality formed by causes. After desire arises, thought continues after thought without interruption and eventually culminates in sexual action; this is provisionality of continuity. Because the state of having a mind of desire differs from the state of lacking one, desire is revealed through relation to no desire; this is provisionality of relation. All three provisionalities are false and unreal and must never be calculated as true principle.

One should contemplate: does this mind of desire arise from the faculty, from an external object, jointly from faculty and object, or apart from faculty and object without a cause? If it arises from the faculty, the mind of desire should arise by itself before any external object is encountered. If it arises from the external object, how could another thing be involved with my mind of desire? If faculty and object produce it together, faculty and object should each produce a mind, making two minds of desire. If it arises without a cause, causeless arising is itself untenable. Pursued through these four alternatives, the mind of desire has no obtainable place from which it comes. Since it has no source, it has no obtainable place to which it goes. Desire itself is unobtainable, the four alternatives are likewise unobtainable, and there is neither coming nor going—ultimately empty and quiescent.

When a person of sharp faculties contemplates in this way, the first grade of provisional thought is removed and one part of true principle becomes clear. If contemplative practice has not yet accorded, use the four siddhāntas so the gates of faith-practice and Dharma-practice repeatedly shift into one another; skillfully harmonize calming and contemplation, and they can accord. One grade of the afflictions of thought is severed and one part of true principle disclosed〔and so forth〕.

If a person of dull faculties examines the first grade of desire-delusion within provisionality formed by causes without yet removing it, turn to examining provisionality of continuity. Does the later thought arise after the preceding thought has ceased, has not ceased, both has and has not ceased, or neither has nor has not ceased? If it arises from cessation, a Dharma already ceased cannot arise again. If it arises from nonceasing, since it has not ceased there is no further arising to speak of. If it arises from both cessation and nonceasing, their natures contradict each other. If it arises apart from these conditions, that too cannot stand. Examined through the four alternatives, desire is unobtainable and the alternatives themselves are unobtainable. Contemplating in this way, one should enter the contemplative gate and accomplish emptiness of beings and emptiness of Dharmas. If entry still does not occur, cultivate skillfully through the four siddhāntas. If cultivation again does not bring entry, turn to provisionality of relation and contemplate through the preceding four alternatives; the principle follows the earlier example.

As with the first grade of desire-delusion, so too with the remaining eight. As with breaking the nine grades of craving, so too with the respective nine grades of anger, delusion, and conceit; they can all be understood by analogy and are not restated alternative by alternative. Appearance of nine grades of true principle is nonarising of principle. Exhaustion of nine grades of delusive cause is nonarising of cause. Desire-realm recompense no longer arising is nonarising of result. Because it does not arise, it does not cease; this is forbearance concerning nonarising〔and so forth〕.

3. Why Are There More Than Nine Grades in the Desire Realm?

Someone asks: are desire-realm afflictions definitely limited to nine grades?

Answer: according to the Satyasiddhi Treatise, the unobstructed path suppresses delusion and the path of liberation severs it, so only nine grades are discussed. According to Abhidharma, the two preparatory and progressive paths suppress delusion, the unobstructed path severs it, and the path of liberation realizes the place where delusion no longer exists. Many scriptures use the latter system, which is provisionally followed here.

When contemplation is entered through the provisionality of views, the uncontaminated mind is swift and severs the afflictions of views in one contemplative practice, so no grade-by-grade sequence need be explained. The path of cultivation that severs thought proceeds more deliberately, allowing preparatory work first and skillful cultivation that repeatedly shifts faith-practice and Dharma-practice into progressive grades. If advancement occurs again and again, the actual grades must be numerous; how could there be only nine? “Nine” is only a broad division.

4. Thirty-Six Grades in the Four Grounds of the Form Realm

Next, the nine grades of thought-delusion in each form-realm ground can be broken through worldly wisdom or uncontaminated wisdom. An arhat liberated through wisdom alone lacks worldly meditative concentration and can become one beyond training using uncontaminated wisdom alone. A stream-enterer without meditative concentration who continues cultivating and repeatedly considers true principle likewise uses uncontaminated wisdom. An arhat liberated in both ways can use either uncontaminated or worldly wisdom. For convenience of explanation, the present passage provisionally follows the worldly wisdom used by someone who has attained dhyāna.

When first learning dhyāna, breaking phenomenal obstruction develops desire-realm concentration; breaking nature obstruction develops form-realm concentration. Hence when phenomenal obstruction is broken, the not-yet-arrived concentration develops; when nature obstruction is broken, the root dhyāna develops. Once nature obstruction is removed, the Dharma of the first dhyāna arises: the eight contacts touch the body and the merits of the five factors appear. This is the mark of the first dhyāna. Attachment to its savor is called craving. Considering one’s attainment superior to those who have not attained it is called conceit. Failing to know that meditative concentration itself still belongs to suffering and accumulation is called delusion. Craving, conceit, and delusion each have nine grades, and every grade possesses the three provisionalities.

The eight contacts, which are Dharmas of form, touching the desire-realm mental faculty and the rest are provisionality formed by causes. Discriminating what is contacted as contemplation and the uninterrupted continuity of mental thought are provisionality of continuity. This mind in which dhyāna has developed standing in relation to a mind in which it has not is provisionality of relation. Without contemplative breaking, one receives birth according to dhyāna karma; how could this be called nonarising? Now use the four alternatives of faculty, object, conjunction, and separation to cultivate calming-and-contemplation skillfully and accomplish the preparatory and progressive paths. Severing one grade of delusion is called the unobstructed path; realizing the place where that grade no longer exists is called the path of liberation. Removing one part of delusion makes cause, result, and the rest all reveal nonarising; this is called entering emptiness through provisionality. Provisionalities of continuity and relation are likewise contemplated through four alternatives and enter emptiness. As with breaking the first grade, so with the remaining eight. As with craving, so with the respective nine grades of conceit and delusion.

Within the first dhyāna, breaking phenomenal obstruction alone develops the intermediate dhyāna. If death occurs then, one still cannot be born in the second dhyāna, just as the first dhyāna cannot be reached while desire-realm nature obstruction remains. Now break the first dhyāna’s nature obstruction, and the second dhyāna arises together with joy, possessing the four factors of pliancy, joy, bliss, and the rest. Here there are likewise savor-attached craving, conceit that compares oneself with others, and delusion that does not recognize suffering and accumulation, each with nine grades and each grade again possessing three provisionalities. The Dharma-object of inner purity conjoining with the mental faculty is formation by causes. The successive arising of the mind of inner purity is continuity. Inner purity existing in relation to its absence is relation. Without contemplative pursuit, one receives birth according to dhyāna. Now cultivate calming-and-contemplation, form the preparatory and progressive paths, sever delusion through the unobstructed path, realize the true through liberation, and enter phenomenal and principial nonarising. If entry has not yet occurred, further contemplate continuity and relation; the remaining eight grades and delusion, conceit, and the others are likewise.

Taking the second dhyāna as basis, there are again phenomenal and nature obstructions. Removal of phenomenal obstruction develops the intermediate dhyāna; removal of nature obstruction develops the third dhyāna together with bliss. Its dhyāna-bliss is deep and wondrous: noble ones relinquish it easily, but ordinary people with difficulty. Here attachment, conceit, and delusion each have nine grades, and every grade possesses the three provisionalities. Blissful contact facing the mental faculty is formation by causes; continuity of the mind of bliss is continuity; bliss existing in relation to no bliss is relation. Without contemplation, one receives birth according to dhyāna. Now use the contemplative wisdom of the four alternatives to break it, pass through preparation, progression, unobstructedness, and liberation, and accomplish phenomenal and principial nonarising. If it has not yet been removed, further cultivate continuity and relation; the remaining eight grades and the respective nine grades of delusion and conceit are likewise.

Taking the third dhyāna as basis, there are likewise phenomenal and nature obstructions. If nature obstruction is broken, the equanimous feeling of the fourth dhyāna arises with it. Attachment, conceit, and delusion still remain, each with nine grades, and the three provisionalities are unchanged. The Dharma of this dhyāna facing the mental faculty is formation by causes, with continuity and relation as the other two provisionalities. Without contemplation, one still receives birth according to dhyāna. Now apply calming-and-contemplation, pass through preparation, progression, unobstructedness, and liberation, and accomplish phenomenal and principial nonarising. If it has not yet been removed, further contemplate continuity and relation; the remaining eight grades and delusion, conceit, and the others are likewise.

As for the Heaven without Perception, a practitioner preserves the body of form while extinguishing mental perception and is therefore called without perception. Ordinary emotion supposes that perception is truly absent there, but the mental perception that appropriates nonperception remains fully present. This resembles merely severing phenomenal obstruction while nature obstruction remains and ultimately does not transcend the form realm; it is therefore called a non-Buddhist heaven. Since the mind of views was already removed during the preceding breaking of the afflictions of views, one should in principle not receive birth there. Yet a particular cause and condition may make this concentration arise in mind. It then still possesses the three provisionalities and the rest and must be broken through contemplation of the four alternatives; continuity and relation are contemplated according to the earlier examples.

As for the five heavens of nonreturners, noble ones temper the fourth dhyāna again, using an uncontaminated mind to perfuse the contaminated concentration so that form-realm concentration becomes increasingly bright and pure and its recompense increasingly excellent. When the superior concentration arises, it too possesses nine grades each of craving, conceit, and delusion, every grade containing the three provisionalities. It must still be embodied and penetrated through contemplation of the four alternatives and pass through the unobstructed path and liberation to accomplish phenomenal and principial nonarising. If it has not yet been removed, further cultivate continuity and relation; the remaining eight grades and delusion and conceit are likewise. At this point all thirty-six grades—nine in each of the four form-realm grounds—have been contemplated as unborn.

5. Thirty-Six Grades in the Four Grounds of the Formless Realm

Next break the nine grades of thought-delusion in each formless-realm ground. To extinguish the three kinds of form—visible and resistant, invisible and resistant, and invisible and nonresistant—first break phenomenal obstruction and develop the not-yet-arrived concentration, then break nature obstruction and enter the station of boundless space. The concentration of space likewise possesses attachment, conceit, and delusion. Contemplate it through the four alternatives, pass through preparation and progression, and accomplish phenomenal and principial nonarising. If delusion has not yet been removed, further cultivate continuity and relation; the remaining eight grades and delusion, conceit, and the others are contemplated by analogy.

When cultivating the station of space, one initially takes empty space as the object. If space is conditioned on excessively, the concentrated mind disperses. Relinquishing the object of space and instead conditioning the mind that knows it brings attainment of the concentration of boundless consciousness, corresponding with mind. This concentration too possesses the delusions of attachment, conceit, and the rest. It is still contemplated through the four alternatives, passes through preparation, progression, and the rest, and accomplishes phenomenal and principial nonarising; all remaining cases follow the preceding example.

When cultivating the station of consciousness, one first conditions abundant and extensive consciousness. If the object of consciousness becomes excessive, the concentrated mind likewise disperses. One therefore relinquishes abundant consciousness and turns to condition nothingness. If this meant conditioning only a slight amount of consciousness, how could it be called the station of nothingness? One would still be using slight consciousness; how could it be called the station of nonuse? Here one enters concentration by conditioning nothingness. This Dharma corresponding with mind likewise possesses the three provisionalities and is likewise contemplated through the four alternatives. The remaining cases can be understood by analogy.

The preceding station of consciousness resembles a swelling, and the station of nothingness a sore. Above both is a still more excellent concentration called the station of neither perception nor nonperception. The Abhidharma Vibhāṣā Treatise explains that it is not the nonperception of the Heaven without Perception and not the perception of the preceding three formless concentrations; hence neither perception nor nonperception. One teacher says that the Heaven without Perception belongs to the form realm and is a different realm, so it should not still be used to explain the name of a formless concentration. The name should be explained within the same formless realm: the preceding concentration of nothingness already removed existent perception, and this concentration now also removes nonperception. Because both extremes of perception and nonperception are relinquished, it is called neither perception nor nonperception. The treatise records both explanations side by side.

The Great Treatise says that among the four formless states, one is always contaminated and the remaining three require distinction. The first three may be either contaminated or uncontaminated because they can develop world-transcending wisdom and so may also be called uncontaminated. The station of neither perception nor nonperception cannot itself develop uncontaminated wisdom and belongs exclusively to the contaminated. Teaching gates accord with faculties, sometimes concealing one side and sometimes revealing one, and therefore explain it this way. Yet how should one understand a person who actually develops uncontaminated wisdom within this concentration? The present passage provisionally follows what the teaching gate states〔and so forth〕.

Although this concentration lacks coarse afflictions, it still accomplishes ten subtle Dharmas—feeling, perception, formations, contact, intention, desire, understanding, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom—as taught in the Sequential Dharma Gate of Dhyāna Pāramitā. One should therefore know that this concentration too possesses the three provisionalities. Here it is broken exclusively through uncontaminated wisdom, passing through preparation, progression, unobstructedness, and liberation and accomplishing phenomenal and principial nonarising. All nine grades are so, according to the preceding example.

When worldly wisdom severs the afflictions of thought, this is called exhaustion-knowledge; when uncontaminated wisdom severs them, nonarising-knowledge. This is called embodied contemplation of thought: completely breaking the eighty-one grades of the afflictions of thought—nine grades in each of the nine grounds throughout the three realms—is called pervasive breaking through Dharmas.

6. Tripiṭaka-Teaching Stages for Severing the Afflictions of Thought

Third, the treatise explains the stages of entering emptiness through breaking the provisionality of thought. It has four topics: Tripiṭaka-Teaching stages for severing thought; Shared-Teaching stages for severing thought; naming the stages shared by the three vehicles in the Shared Teaching through borrowed Distinct-Teaching names; and naming Shared-Teaching bodhisattva stages through borrowed Distinct-Teaching names.

First, the Tripiṭaka Teaching. The Satyasiddhi Treatise says that the sixteen minds belong directly to the station of the first fruit; other schools say that the sixteenth mind already belongs to the path of cultivation. The latter account is provisionally followed here. Beginning with severance of the first desire-realm grade and proceeding through the fifth, all are called the path to once-returning. If one leaps over the usual sequence and severs through the fifth grade at once, this is called family-to-family. Severing through and exhausting the sixth grade is the fruit of once-returning; leaping directly to exhaustion of the sixth is called one-going-and-returning. Severing the seventh and eighth grades is the path to nonreturning; leaping directly through the eighth is called one-seed. Exhausting the ninth is the fruit of nonreturning, after which one never again receives birth in the desire realm.

Next, beginning with severance of the first grade of the first dhyāna and continuing through the eighth grade at the station of neither perception nor nonperception—a total of seventy-one grades—all are called the path to arhatship; the stages of the six kinds of nonreturner are included within this passage. At the ninth unobstructed path, the ninth grade of delusion at neither perception nor nonperception is exhausted. The ninth path of liberation realizes absence of delusion and is called the fruit of arhatship.

With the afflictions of thought in the three realms exhausted, gaining exhaustion-knowledge and nonarising-knowledge is called nonarising of afflictions. Realizing eighty-one parts of true emptiness is called nonarising of principle. Full possession of true wisdom is called nonarising of wisdom. No longer receiving the recompense of birth and death is called nonarising of recompense. A pratyekabuddha further encroaches upon and removes a small portion of residual habit beyond a śrāvaka; this is their difference. This is an abbreviated judgment of stages according to analyzing provisional Dharmas and severing the afflictions of thought.

7. The Ten Grounds Shared by the Three Vehicles in the Shared Teaching

Second, the treatise explains the stages jointly passed through by the three vehicles when embodied-Dharma contemplation severs thought in the Shared Teaching. The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says that the grounds of dry wisdom and nature through the sixth ground are shared with śrāvakas; the seventh with pratyekabuddhas; the eighth and ninth with bodhisattvas; and that the bodhisattva ground then turns into the tenth, called the buddha ground. Although called shared grounds, they still contain higher and lower. The Great Treatise says that the three kinds of person jointly sever the direct agents and jointly enter nirvāṇa with and without remainder, hence “shared.” Yet just as burning wood leaves charcoal or ash, degrees still differ.

The ground of dry wisdom is precisely the station of the three worthies: first, the five methods for calming mind; second, the distinct establishments of mindfulness; and third, general establishment of mindfulness. All three belong to the outer ordinary and are therefore called the ground of dry wisdom.

The ground of nature is the station of the four wholesome roots. Through the power of the preceding general establishment of mindfulness, the practitioner produces wholesome contaminated five aggregates called warmth. The beginning, middle, and later minds are then made to advance, entering in sequence summit, forbearance, and highest worldly Dharma. All four belong to the inner ordinary and are therefore called the ground of nature. The grounds of dry wisdom and nature jointly suppress the afflictions of views.

The eight persons of the ground of eight persons are the eight forbearances. Because the practitioner turns from highest worldly Dharma into the uninterrupted samādhi, it is called eight persons. On the ground of seeing, one personally sees true truth and exhausts the eighty-eight agents of views in the three realms; hence the ground of seeing. The ground of thinning removes six grades of desire-realm thought-delusion; hence thinning. The ground of freedom from desire completely removes all nine desire-realm grades; hence freedom from desire. The ground of completed work exhausts the seventy-two grades of thought-delusion in the form and formless realms, like fire burning wood into charcoal; hence completed work.

A pratyekabuddha’s merit and wisdom are deeper and sharper and can encroach upon residual habit, like burning wood further into ash. A bodhisattva’s merit and wisdom are deep and sharp; path-contemplation and teaching others proceed together. Such a bodhisattva can sever residual habit and ignorance concerning Dharmas of form and mind, gain the Dharma-eye and knowledge of kinds of paths, sport in spiritual powers, purify buddha lands, and learn a buddha’s ten powers, fearlessnesses, and other Dharmas. Residual habit approaches exhaustion, like only a little ash remaining. At the buddha ground, great merit supports wisdom; one gains wisdom corresponding in one thought, and residual habit is forever exhausted, like the fire at an eon’s end leaving neither charcoal nor ash. These are the stages that sever the afflictions of thought within the ten grounds shared by the three vehicles.

8. Marking Shared-Teaching Common Stages through Borrowed Distinct-Teaching Names

Third, Distinct-Teaching names are borrowed to name the stages shared by the three vehicles in the Shared Teaching. Earlier accounts include the view that the third ground severs views and another that the fourth does; one that the sixth ground exhausts thought and another that the seventh does. Test these accounts. Saying that both third and fourth grounds sever the afflictions of views fails to understand Shared-Teaching meaning. Within shared stages, the three vehicles jointly enter uninterrupted samādhi and sever views within one contemplation, neither emerging from nor reentering concentration. How could third and fourth grounds separately sever views? If the third ground alone severs views, the fourth should begin severing thought. If the fourth alone severs views, the third should not yet have severed them. If two grounds sever views, does contemplation emerge and reenter, or not? Without emerging and reentering there would be no two grounds; with emergence and reentry it would not be the stage of severing views. One teacher cites scripture in reply but does not understand the scripture’s intent.

The correct account is that the scripture borrows the longer names and meanings of Distinct-Teaching stages to reveal the Shared Teaching’s brief entry into contemplation. The process of severing views is longer in the Distinct Teaching, so third and fourth grounds can be stated. In the Shared Teaching, it is brief and does not leave a single contemplation. Names may be borrowed from the Distinct Teaching, but principle must follow the Shared. Explained without emerging from and reentering contemplation, “third ground” refers to the beginning of severing views and “fourth ground” to its completion; neither leaves contemplation. It resembles the sixteenth mind, sometimes judged part of the path of seeing and sometimes the path of cultivation.

The specific borrowed names are as follows. The three worthies among the outer ordinary are originally the ground of dry wisdom and are borrowedly named the ten faiths. The four wholesome roots among the inner ordinary are originally the ground of nature and are borrowedly named the ten abodes, ten practices, and ten dedications. The grounds of eight persons and seeing correspond to a stream-enterer and are borrowedly named the first, Joy, ground. The ground of thinning corresponds to a once-returner. Since once-returning has both path and fruit, the path is established as the Stainless ground and the fruit as the Luminous ground. The ground of freedom from desire corresponds to a nonreturner. Since nonreturning likewise has path and fruit, the path is established as the Blazing-Wisdom ground and the fruit as the Difficult-to-Conquer ground. The ground of completed work corresponds to an arhat. Since arhatship likewise has path and fruit, the path is established as the Manifest ground and the fruit as the Far-Reaching ground. The pratyekabuddha station is established as the Immovable ground, and the bodhisattva ground as the Good-Wisdom ground. Either the final thought of the bodhisattva ground or the buddha ground may be established as the Dharma-Cloud ground. The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says that a bodhisattva of the tenth ground is like a buddha, allowing this explanation.

When these Distinct-Teaching ground names judge the three vehicles’ Shared stages, the first ground severs the afflictions of views. The second severs one or two grades of desire-realm thought-delusion. The third severs six grades. The fourth severs the seventh and eighth. The fifth exhausts the ninth. The sixth severs through the seventy-first grade in the two higher realms. The seventh exhausts the seventy-second. Above the eighth, encroachment upon residual habit, severance of ignorance, and the rest can all be understood by analogy with the preceding grounds shared by the three vehicles〔and so forth〕.

9. Establishing Separate Shared-Teaching Bodhisattva Stages through Borrowed Distinct-Teaching Names

Fourth, Distinct-Teaching names are borrowed to name the Shared-Teaching bodhisattva’s own stages. The ground of dry wisdom is outer ordinary; the ground of nature is inner ordinary. In the three-ground account, the ground of eight persons is the first ground, the first fifteen minds are the second, and the sixteenth mind is the third; all three sever the afflictions of views without leaving contemplation. In the four-ground account, the four forbearances are the first ground, four wisdoms the second, four comparative forbearances the third, and four comparative wisdoms the fourth; all four likewise sever the afflictions of views without leaving contemplation. How could this be the same as earlier teachers’ account of emerging and reentering while severing views across two grounds〔and so forth〕?

Next, the ground of thinning becomes the fifth ground and severs six grades of desire-realm thought. The ground of freedom from desire becomes the sixth and severs all nine desire-realm grades. The ground of completed work becomes the seventh and exhausts the afflictions of thought in the form and formless realms. The pratyekabuddha ground becomes the eighth, extending through the buddha ground, with residual habit and ignorance severed according to the preceding example〔and so forth〕.

One earlier account says the sixth ground exhausts thought and equals an arhat; another follows the Benevolent Kings Sūtra in saying the seventh ground equals an arhat. Yet because the sixth is named freedom from desire, it merely leaves the nine grades of desire-realm thought and can equal only a nonreturner. Even if the fruit of nonreturning is included within the path to arhatship, the ninth grade at the station of neither perception nor nonperception remains unsevered; it still cannot be said to equal an arhat. If the seventh ground is the ground of completed work, from the fruit it can equal arhatship. If the path is included within the fruit, then beginning with the first grade of the first dhyāna one already belongs to the seventh ground and can at that time be called completed work.

For ease of explanation, one may establish the meaning through the ten perfections. The sixth, prajñā pāramitā, exhausts delusion through wisdom entering emptiness and equals arhatship. The seventh, skillful-means pāramitā, emerges from emptiness into provisionality through prajñā to teach others; names are more conveniently established this way. If the seventh ground is taken to equal arhatship, then among the grounds correlated with the four paths and four fruits, the seventh directly equals the fourth fruit. These are all only initial correlations. Scriptures and treatises differ, so they must be weighed and cannot be fixed carelessly〔and so forth〕.

Someone asks: the principle of the three vehicles jointly severing delusion is already clear; on what basis are separate bodhisattva grounds opened?

Answer: the Great Treatise judges three points at which the wick is scorched, and three kinds of bodhisattva severance can therefore be distinguished. The ground of dry wisdom merely suppresses delusion yet can still be called the first flame. Why could the ground of eight persons, where delusion is truly severed, not be taken as the first flame〔and so forth〕? The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra further says that a tenth-ground bodhisattva is like a buddha. Since it speaks of the final ground neighboring the ultimate buddha station, how could there be no intermediate grounds and no initial one? Inferred this way, what fault is there in separately opening ten bodhisattva grounds? Without ten grounds, the scripture should not say that a bodhisattva from the first through the tenth ground cultivates the appropriate Dharma for treating each ground〔and so forth〕.

The Great Treatise also names the ground of dry wisdom suppressive forbearance in bodhisattva Dharma; the ground of nature pliant forbearance; the ground of eight persons forbearance concerning nonarising; the ground of seeing the result of forbearance concerning nonarising; the ground of thinning purity free of desire; the ground of freedom from desire sporting in spiritual powers. The ground of completed work is called buddha ground in śrāvaka Dharma but still called forbearance concerning nonarising in bodhisattva Dharma. The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra likewise says that a stream-enterer’s wisdom and severance are a bodhisattva’s forbearance concerning nonarising and that even a pratyekabuddha’s wisdom and severance are a bodhisattva’s forbearance concerning nonarising. Since the treatise separately speaks in terms of bodhisattvas, what fault is there in establishing bodhisattva stages according to it?

Someone further asks: since the desire realm likewise severs only nine grades, why are more fruit-stages established within it?

Answer: it resembles a perilous place with many dangers, where many city walls must be built so travelers can rest. Desire-realm delusions bring many dangers, so many fruit-stages are established to give practitioners rest.

It is asked again: if so, since dispersion in the desire realm is abundant, why are more meditative concentrations not established?

Answer: the desire realm is not a ground of concentration, so dhyāna cannot be established there. Uncontaminated wisdom takes all realms as its objects, so fruits can be established.

It is asked again: since the three vehicles’ wisdom and what they sever are equal, why do the Two Vehicles speak of wisdom and severance while bodhisattvas speak of Dharma-forbearance?

Answer: first, forbearance is cause and wisdom result, so the first fifteen minds are called forbearances and the sixteenth wisdom. Second, the Two Vehicles take realization as their task and are appropriately named according to wisdom and severance. Relative to a buddha, bodhisattvas remain on causal ground and receive only the name forbearance. Third, whenever bodhisattvas sever one grade of thought-delusion, they gain one part of freedom in receiving birth; hence with each grade they die and with each grade are born. Because bodhisattvas can endure the toil of birth and death without entering nirvāṇa, this is called forbearance.

10. Distinct- and Perfect-Teaching Stages for Breaking Thought, and Similarities and Differences in Wisdom and Severance

According to the Distinct Teaching, one first breaks the afflictions of views and directly enters the first abode. From the second through seventh abodes one breaks the provisionality of thought. If the grades are to be correlated in detail with the abodes, follow the preceding account. The eighth, ninth, and tenth abodes directly encroach upon residual habit. The ten practices properly belong to emerging into provisionality and no longer to the preceding breaking of thought and entry into emptiness〔and so forth〕.

According to the Perfect Teaching, one first breaks the provisionality of views and directly enters the first faith. From the second through seventh faiths one breaks the provisionality of thought. If the grades are to be correlated in detail with the faiths, follow the preceding account. From the eighth through tenth faiths residual habits are exhausted. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra says that at the first arousal of mind the direct agents and residual habits are both exhausted at once without remainder. What is exhausted here are the direct agents and residual habits within the three realms; those beyond the three realms are not yet exhausted. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra also says that after first arousing the mind one surpasses the Sage; this is precisely the level of meaning intended.

Why can one surpass? Direct agents and residual habits within the three realms are exhausted simultaneously, and one can manifest the eight marks of buddhahood, so in resultant function one already equals a buddha. At the same time one perfectly cultivates the three contemplations of emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle, so in contemplative wisdom there is also a meaning of surpassing.

If so, should a śrāvaka likewise be able to surpass a bodhisattva? A śrāvaka within the Buddha-path can indeed surpass a bodhisattva at a lower stage.

Compare the four teachings further. All the preceding stages are called breaking provisionality, but the principle taken as object and the wisdom used differ. After Two-Vehicle practitioners in the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings break provisionality, the function of conventional truth ceases; they cannot emerge from emptiness into provisionality or receive birth freely. After Shared-Teaching bodhisattvas break provisionality, the function of conventional truth ceases yet they can still emerge into provisionality and receive birth freely; only after the causes and conditions for teaching beings have ended do they reduce the body to ash and realize emptiness. After Distinct-Teaching practitioners break provisionality, they too can emerge into provisionality and receive birth freely; to reveal the Middle Way, they ultimately do not abide in emptiness. When Perfect-Teaching practitioners break provisionality, seeing the true is simultaneously entry into provisionality and the Middle, and ignorance is perfectly subdued.

To say that the Two Vehicles and bodhisattvas have the same wisdom and sever the same things but differ only in teaching others is an internal comparison within the Shared Teaching. To say they have different wisdom but sever the same things compares Distinct- and Perfect-Teaching bodhisattvas with Two-Vehicle practitioners in the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings.

11. Leaping over Fruits Does Not Mean Leaving Even One Grade of Delusion Unsevered

Someone asks: entry into emptiness through breaking the provisionality of thought requires breaking nine grades in each of nine grounds across the three realms, eighty-one in all. Why is there also a meaning of leaping over fruits?

Answer: according to sequential distinctions within teaching gates, the preceding number of grades indeed exists. Actual practitioners, however, do not necessarily enter in the same grade-by-grade order. In the Tripiṭaka Teaching, after the sixteen minds some can leap in one thought to the fruit of nonreturning and some even to arhatship. How could they still pass repeatedly through the preceding sequence grade by grade? Although the grades are not traversed sequentially, their delusions are nevertheless exhausted and their concentrations all develop〔and so forth〕. Likewise, when a Tripiṭaka buddha’s one thought corresponds, afflictions of views and thought are suddenly exhausted and the Buddha’s virtues appear together. Because the faculties are sharp, no gradual progression through the grades is required. Sharp faculties can leap over their sequence, but the number of grades itself cannot be abolished, for the rule of the buddhas’ teaching gates is naturally so.

It is further asked: if sharp faculties can leap, Śāriputra possessed the sharpest wisdom; why did he not leap?

Answer: the Small-Vehicle teaching must guide people of dull faculties, who require rest according to the sequence of grades, so it does not speak of leaping. Although Śāriputra had great wisdom, he had to serve as general in turning the Dharma wheel and distinguish the grades for the assembly; he therefore passed through seven days—another account says fifteen—and did not leap. Ānanda had to become the Buddha’s attendant and therefore did not leap, not because he lacked the power of wisdom. Shared-Teaching bodhisattvas have sharp wisdom, so in principle some Two-Vehicle practitioners in that teaching should also be able to leap. Yet bodhisattvas must bear beings and lead the assembly; they must make broad distinctions and are therefore not discussed in terms of leaping. The Distinct and Perfect Teachings likewise include cases of not leaping for the sake of teaching others. Whether one leaps or not, the provisionality of thought is ultimately broken pervasively.

There are four kinds of leaping over fruits: leaping through prior severance, small leaping, great leaping, and very great leaping.

Leaping through prior severance has three forms. Someone who gained the concentration of neither perception nor nonperception while still an ordinary person now develops uncontaminated wisdom and, when the sixteenth mind is complete, realizes nonreturning. Someone who as an ordinary person gained the first, second, third, or fourth dhyāna now likewise realizes nonreturning when the sixteenth mind is complete. Someone who as an ordinary person used worldly wisdom to sever a number of the desire realm’s nine grades now, when the sixteenth mind is complete, leaps according to the earlier severance and realizes the corresponding fruit. All are called leaping through prior severance.

An ordinary person who has not yet attained dhyāna may, when the sixteenth mind is complete, remove along with it a number of desire-realm grades—perhaps three or perhaps two—and become family-to-family, one-seed, or the like. This is small leaping. An ordinary person may hear Dharma and, upon hearing the Buddha say “Welcome,” become an arhat; this is great leaping. As with a buddha’s one corresponding thought, when direct agents and residual habits are exhausted together, this is very great leaping.

People of the Perfect Teaching have the sharpest faculties, rely upon real meaning, and originally possess no fixed grade sequence, so they are most capable of leaping. The Sūtra of the Original Acts that Adorn the Bodhisattva speaks of suddenly awakening as Tathāgata, and the Lotus Sūtra of accomplishing correct awakening in one instant; from this standpoint there is leaping. If vows of loving-kindness and compassion are weighty and one does not swiftly take the ultimate fruit because beings must be delivered, this is not leaping. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra says that even after accomplishing buddhahood and delivering beings, one still practices the bodhisattva path; this is both leaping and not leaping. In terms of the principle of the true mark, there is neither leaping nor not leaping. Transformative function arises pervasively according to beings’ faculties, while spontaneous correspondence with principle remains constantly quiescent and unmoving〔and so forth〕.

12. Why Analyze the Four Gates Once More?

Third comes analysis of the four gates. The afflictions of views and thought obstruct the principles revealed in the Shared and Distinct Teachings. Breaking obstruction and disclosing true principle require gates capable of communication. The Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings each possess a gate of existence, emptiness, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence; they are distinguished in order below.

13. The Tripiṭaka Teaching’s Gate of Existence

Abhidharma says that self, person, and being resemble turtle’s hair and hare’s horns and are unobtainable when pursued, but that real Dharmas of form and mind exist. Beings deluded concerning these real Dharmas produce the afflictions of views and thought without basis. Views and thought are originally impermanent and never stop from thought to thought; real Dharmas likewise shift at every moment and arise and cease part by part. Contemplating in this way can break the single, compound, fully endowed, and other kinds of views, and can also break all eighty-one grades of the afflictions of thought in the three realms, revealing cause, result, delusion, wisdom, and the rest as unborn. This is the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s meaning of breaking Dharmas through the gate of existence.

When teaching first opened at Deer Park, the five persons beginning with Kauṇḍinya first gained purity. Aśvajit taught the truths of suffering, accumulation, and cessation; Śāriputra thereby broke views and realized arhatship seven days later. Most of the twelve hundred persons and others likewise saw the ultimate meaning through the gate of existence. The Great Treatise says that if one enters Abhidharma with the skillful means of prajñā, one does not fall into attachment to existence. The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra says that a person holding a view of permanence asserts that fetters are severed through different thoughts; this is the meaning of severing fetters at the first fruit of stream-entry. Given this, how can followers of the Satyasiddhi Treatise reject it as merely a means of regulating mind that cannot gain the path at all?

14. The Tripiṭaka Teaching’s Gate of Emptiness

According to the Satyasiddhi Treatise, self and person are originally nonexistent. Even if real Dharmas are said to exist, they are floating and empty, not truly existent. Deluded grasping of these floating, empty Dharmas produces views and thought without basis and makes one circulate through birth and death. Contemplate views and thought as floating and empty because all depend upon the three provisionalities of formation by causes, continuity, and relation. Provisional names and so-called real Dharmas are uniformly nonexistent; this is called equality-emptiness. Cultivating this contemplation can break single, compound, fully endowed, and immeasurable views, and can also break the eighty-one grades of the afflictions of thought, revealing delusion and wisdom, cause and result, and the rest as unborn. This is the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s meaning of breaking Dharmas through the gate of emptiness.

The Satyasiddhi Treatise therefore says that it intends precisely to elucidate the real meaning within the Tripiṭaka; “real meaning” here is emptiness. The Āgama breaks attachment through two questions, “This is aging-and-death” and “Whose aging-and-death?” The first breaks real attachment to a Dharma and reveals emptiness of Dharmas; the second breaks real attachment to a being and reveals emptiness of beings. Another teaching states that the Buddha’s Dharma-body is precisely emptiness. Subhūti’s wisdom of emptiness was exceptionally bright and sharp, allowing him to see the Buddha’s Dharma-body from within a stone chamber. The Buddha therefore empowered him in the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra to teach emptiness, while Śāriputra was empowered to teach prajñā. The Buddha intended to use Great-Vehicle emptiness to reveal Small-Vehicle emptiness together and great wisdom to reveal small wisdom together, so the two were made to relay the teaching.

The Great Treatise says that entering the gate of emptiness without the skillful means of prajñā causes one to fall into nonexistence. The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra further says that a person holding annihilation asserts that fetters are severed in one thought. Is this not the meaning of the gate of equality-emptiness? Thus the Tripiṭaka Teaching too speaks of the gate of emptiness. How can Abhidharma followers reject it as an emptiness belonging only to the Great Vehicle?

15. The Tripiṭaka Teaching’s Gates of Both Existence and Nonexistence and of Neither

Kātyāyana expounded the gate through which he entered and composed the Kunle Treatise, which was transmitted to southern India. Within this gate, provisional Dharmas are nonexistent as in the preceding gate, while real Dharmas may be called existent and also nonexistent. A fixed view of existence and nonexistence produces the afflictions of views and thought without basis. Contemplating the existence and nonexistence of real Dharmas as proceeding together at ease can break single, compound, and other views and all eighty-one grades of the afflictions of thought, revealing delusion and wisdom, cause and result, and the rest as unborn. This is the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s meaning of breaking Dharmas through the gate of both emptiness and existence. The Great Treatise says that entering the Kunle gate with the skillful means of prajñā prevents one from falling into the two extremes of existence and nonexistence.

The gate of neither emptiness nor existence is illustrated by the Great Treatise: once Chanda’s mind became soft and subdued, he should be taught the Nadī Kātyāyana Sūtra so that he would leave existence and nonexistence and only then gain the path. This contemplation can likewise break single, compound, and other views and the eighty-one grades of the afflictions of thought, enter emptiness through provisionality, and make delusion, wisdom, cause, and result unborn. This is the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s meaning of breaking provisionality through the gate of neither existence nor nonexistence. One should know that Chanda attained a Small-Vehicle path; this double negation must not be conflated with the Great Vehicle’s gate of the Middle Way.

16. Why Do the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s Four Gates Differ while Their Principle Is the Same?

All four gates can be called stream-entry attainment, because “canal and harbor” is an old designation for the first fruit. Those who advance receive the names of other fruits, producing distinctions among the latter three, but from initial entry all four gates can be called stream-entry. The gate of existence is stream-entry through impermanence; the gate of nonexistence, stream-entry through equality-emptiness; the gate of both, stream-entry through ease; and the gate of neither, stream-entry through double negation. All four indicate the first fruit realized through the respective gate.

The four gates’ contemplative methods differ, but the true truth seen is the same, like a city with four gates whose convergence after entry does not differ. The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra says a person holding permanence asserts severance through different thoughts and one holding annihilation severance in one thought. Although their accounts differ, there is no difference in their gaining the path. In the Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra, five hundred monks each explain the cause of the body, and the Buddha says that every one has spoken correctly. Guṇavarman’s verse says that although the treatises establish different positions, the principle toward which cultivation proceeds is nondual; only partial attachment produces right and wrong, while those who penetrate do not dispute against one another. The Satyasiddhi Treatise flourished during the Song dynasty and competing attachments arose, so he composed this verse as admonition.

Yet the true truth is quiescent and is actually fixed as neither one gate nor four. Śāriputra says that within the liberation he heard there is no speech; how could the four gates be promoted as truly existent? If fixed attachment to a gate arises, none of the four can gain the path; why reproach the gate of existence alone? If views and thought can be removed, all four gates can gain the path; why allow only emptiness? One should not say that the Satyasiddhi meaning succeeds and the Abhidharma numerical meaning fails. If the four siddhāntas are penetrated, both schools can stand; if not, both fail. The gates of both and neither are likewise.

Suppose the Dharma-marks clarified through the gate of existence are called coarser and those clarified through emptiness subtler, and success or failure is judged only through relative skill and clumsiness. The other three gates would then likewise be inferior to the gate of emptiness, so existence should not be rejected alone. Why do the four gates attack one another? People of the Two Vehicles seek only their own deliverance, enter directly along one path, and remain based on one partial position without interfusion. Later students then multiply faults from this partial basis.

Tripiṭaka-Teaching bodhisattvas do not yet know the preceding meaning of interfusion. They suppress delusion through analytical emptiness and partially study the four gates so they can guide others and broadly know the marks of Dharmas; only upon buddhahood are they called Correct and Universal Knowers. The Great Treatise cites the bodhisattva account of Kātyāyanīputra. Śākyamuni Bodhisattva first encountered a buddha also named Śākyamuni and aroused the mind; through Buddha Ratnaśikhin was the first incalculable eon, during which he still neither knew mentally that he would become a buddha nor said so verbally. Through Dīpaṃkara Buddha was the second incalculable eon, and through Vipaśyin Buddha the third. He completed the six pāramitās of giving, precepts, patience, effort, meditative concentration, and prajñā, each at its own time. King Śibi giving himself in place of a dove completed giving, and Govinda dividing Jambudvīpa completed prajñā. For another hundred eons he planted the thirty-two marks. In terms of cause this indicates Śākyamuni Bodhisattva; in terms of result, Maitreya. The bodhisattva practiced the paths and Dharmas of all four gates but only subdued and thinned afflictions.

Nāgārjuna objects that “thin” means some severance has already occurred, as the ground of thinning is so named only after a once-returner encroaches upon and removes six grades of the afflictions of thought. If one says the bodhisattva does not sever them, how can they be called thin? One should therefore know that afflictions are said to thin only on the suppressive path and are not truly severed until the thirty-four minds. Although Tripiṭaka bodhisattvas can study so broadly, this remains the initial teaching’s account of skillful means. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra calls it half-word; the Lotus Sūtra says one is constantly made to remove dung for twenty years; the Great Treatise calls it an unskillful physician; the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra, a Dharma enjoyed by the poor; and Vasubandhu, the inferior vehicle. All indicate the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s four gates, not the Perfect gates ultimately used in this passage.

17. The Shared Teaching’s Four Gates

The Shared Teaching’s four gates differ from those of the Tripiṭaka. First, the gate of existence. All provisional and real Dharmas arise from ignorance. Ignorance is like an illusion, and every Dharma arising from it is likewise illusory. Although illusory Dharmas resemble empty space, there remains an equally illusory contemplation that breaks provisionality. Although like space, they nevertheless arise from causes and conditions likewise like space; hence Dharmas do not arise, yet prajñā arises. This contemplative wisdom can break all views and thoughts and reveal delusion, wisdom, cause, result, and the rest as unborn. This is the contemplative intent of the Shared Teaching’s gate of existence.

The Shared Teaching’s gate of emptiness says that the intrinsic substance of provisional and real Dharmas is like illusion and transformation, and even nirvāṇa is like illusion and transformation. Illusion and transformation are an easily understood emptiness, nirvāṇa a difficult one. The easy-to-understand illusion is used as a comparison for difficult-to-understand nirvāṇa, and both difficult and easy are empty. It also resembles an illusory person fighting empty space: the intrinsic substances of contemplating mind and contemplated object are both quiescent. Embodying and penetrating views and thought as immediately illusory and true through this wisdom of emptiness accomplishes the nonarising of delusion, wisdom, cause, and result. This is the gate of emptiness’s meaning of breaking provisionality.

The Shared Teaching’s gate of both emptiness and existence says that every Dharma resembles an image in a mirror, visible yet not truly obtainable. Visibility is existence; nonattainment is nonexistence. Though nonexistent it appears existent; though existent it is actually nonexistent. Contemplating in this way can break views and thought concerning Dharmas and make delusion, wisdom, cause, and result unborn. This is the contemplative intent of breaking provisionality through the gate of both emptiness and existence.

The Shared Teaching’s gate of neither existence nor nonexistence says that since everything is like illusion and transformation, how could it be fixed as existent or nonexistent? It should not exist, so it does not exist from existence. It should not be nonexistent, so neither is it nonexistent from nonexistence. This contemplative wisdom can break views and thought concerning Dharmas and make delusion, wisdom, cause, result, and the rest unborn. This is the contemplative intent of breaking provisionality through the gate of neither existence nor nonexistence.

The Tripiṭaka Teaching produces views on the basis of real form and uses the analytical contemplation of stream-entry to doubly negate views of existence and nonexistence, like analytically breaking apart a real pillar. The Shared Teaching produces views on the basis of illusory form and uses embodied contemplation of immediate emptiness to doubly negate the two views, like a pillar’s image in a mirror whose intrinsic substance is empty even while it is spoken of as broken. Thus although the Shared Teaching is not yet the Middle Way taught by the Distinct and Perfect Teachings, it can already embody Dharmas as empty and interfused and purify attachment to views.

The Great Treatise says prajñāpāramitā resembles a great flame ungraspable from any of four sides. This verse fully contains the meaning of the four gates, as close reading makes clear. The treatise also says that prajñā has four kinds of mark and that a cool pond has four gates through which one can enter; all confirm the four gates. If not grasped, all four communicate and enter. If grasped, one is instead burned by the flame of prajñā. The Buddha showed beings the Dharma without dispute and therefore taught these four contemplative gates.

Someone asks: where did the Buddha ever show a Dharma of dispute?

Answer: the Buddha never shows a Dharma of dispute. Dispute arises only because beings fail to understand and grasp teaching gates. The Tripiṭaka Teaching speaks in a shallow and accessible way; its four gates seem to obstruct one another and readily produce dispute through attachment. Followers of the Satyasiddhi Treatise reject Abhidharma as merely a means of regulating mind that cannot gain the path at all. Abhidharma followers say that only seeing existence gains the path and emptiness belongs to the Great Vehicle. The masters of both schools lose the intent of the four gates: one side rejects falsely and the other blocks falsely. Because views and attachments are rigid and dispute readily arises, the Tripiṭaka Teaching’s four gates are called easy to show people as Dharmas of dispute only by reference to beings’ misunderstanding.

The Shared Teaching embodies Dharmas as illusory, no longer grasps real form, and retains only provisionally established names. Names are easily seen as false, accord with the meaning of emptiness, and do not readily conflict, so dispute arises less often. The Great Treatise therefore contrasts this with the Tripiṭaka by saying that other scriptures often make those who do not understand dispute over Dharmas, whereas the Prajñāpāramitā reveals the Dharma without dispute, also called skillful crossing in accord with reality. The Middle Treatise says three kinds of person can all attain the true mark of all Dharmas. The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says persons of the three vehicles jointly sever afflictions through the path without speech and see the ultimate meaning, also called shared prajñā. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra uses the three animals crossing a river to illustrate the depths at which the three vehicles realize principle. All are contemplative meanings of the Shared Teaching’s four gates and are still not the Perfect gates ultimately used here.

18. The Distinct Teaching’s Four Gates

The Distinct Teaching’s four gates contemplate Distinct-Teaching principle and sever Distinct-Teaching delusion, unlike the preceding Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings. Its cultivation and realization are sequential, unlike the following Perfect Teaching. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra says that on hearing great nirvāṇa possesses an unsurpassed path and an assembly’s correct practice, one arouses the mind, leaves home, keeps precepts, cultivates concentration, contemplates wisdom of the four truths, and gains twenty-five samādhis. The phenomenal sequence of precepts, concentration, and wisdom does not differ from the Tripiṭaka, but these Dharmas are guided by the mind of great nirvāṇa, unlike the earlier teaching. The gradual cultivation of the five practices also differs from the Perfect Teaching that follows; hence “Distinct.”

The Distinct Teaching’s gate of existence contemplates that after illusory views and thought and delusive form are exhausted, a separate true, wholesome, wondrous form remains, called buddha-nature. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra says that attachment to emptiness of emptiness belongs to non-Buddhists and that liberation is not annihilating emptiness but true, wholesome, wondrous form; the Tathāgata’s secret treasury cannot be definitively called existent or nonexistent. It also says self is tathāgatagarbha and tathāgatagarbha buddha-nature. The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra reveals the meaning through ten similes, including gold wrapped in worn cloth and an image hidden within an earthen mold. This is the Distinct Teaching’s gate of existence.

The Distinct Teaching’s gate of emptiness follows the Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra in revealing emptiness through meanings such as Kapilavastu being empty, tathāgatagarbha empty, and great nirvāṇa empty, and in causing all beings to attain formless great parinirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is not truly existent but is provisionally named existent according to convention. Nirvāṇa is also neither form nor sound; how could it truly be seen or heard? This is the gate of emptiness.

Within the Distinct Teaching’s gate of both emptiness and existence, the wise simultaneously illuminate emptiness and nonemptiness. If only emptiness is taught, permanence, bliss, self, and purity are all absent. If only nonemptiness is taught, who receives permanence, bliss, self, and purity? Like water, wine, and curds and the jars holding them, they cannot be fixed as empty alone or as nonempty alone. This is the gate of both emptiness and existence.

The Distinct Teaching’s gate of neither existence nor nonexistence transcends the four alternatives of existence, nonexistence, both, and neither, leaves the hundred doctrinal attachments, cuts off the road of language, and cannot be disclosed through fixed marks. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra says that neither permanence nor annihilation is called the Middle Way; this is its gate.

If their intent is gained, all four gates can communicate and enter the true mark. If their intent is not gained, they can only suppress delusion and form sequential preparatory stages before the grounds. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra calls this a bodhisattva’s noble practice; the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra calls it prajñā unshared with the Two Vehicles. These are meanings of the Distinct Teaching’s four gates and are not the Perfect gates ultimately used here.

19. The Perfect Teaching’s Four Gates

The Perfect Teaching suddenly teaches the wondrous principle, unlike the partial true and the sequential that precede it. It is perfectly interfused and unobstructed, unlike differentiated progression. How does it establish four gates?

The gate of existence contemplates that the provisionality of views and thought is itself the Dharma realm and fully possesses every Buddha-Dharma. Dharmas themselves are causes and conditions of Dharma-nature; even ultimate meaning is causes and conditions. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra says that because ignorance is extinguished, the lamp of awakening blazes. This is the Perfect Teaching’s gate of existence.

The gate of emptiness contemplates that illusory views and thought and every Dharma are fixed neither in causes nor in conditions. Self and nirvāṇa are both empty. If one again grasps an emptiness, only the illness of emptiness remains, and the illness of emptiness itself is empty. Thus all three truths—emptiness, provisionality, and the Middle—are empty.

The gate of both emptiness and existence contemplates that although illusory views and thought lack real intrinsic nature, provisional names distinguished through causes and conditions are inexhaustible. It resembles a scripture scroll of the great trichiliocosm hidden within one mote of dust; abiding unmoving in ultimate meaning, one can skillfully distinguish the marks of Dharmas; it resembles one earth producing many kinds of sprout; amid the absence of fixed names and marks, names and marks are spoken provisionally according to conditions, and even Buddha possesses only a name. This is the gate of both existence and nonexistence.

The gate of neither existence nor nonexistence contemplates that illusory views and thought are themselves Dharma-nature. Dharma-nature is inconceivable and does not belong to the world, hence neither existent; yet there is no world-transcending apart from the world, hence neither nonexistent. Not a single color or fragrance is other than the Middle Way, and one Middle contains every Middle. Vairocana pervades every place; how could views and thought anywhere not be the true Dharma realm? This is the gate of neither existence nor nonexistence.

20. One Gate Is All Gates

Why is one gate the other three? One gate fully possesses every Dharma; how could it possess only three gates? Contemplating Dharmas arisen from causes and conditions is the first, gate of existence, and every Dharma is this conditioned gate. The first gate is empty in its intrinsic substance; one emptiness is every emptiness, making the second, gate of emptiness. The first gate is provisional in its intrinsic substance; one provisionality is every provisionality, making the third, gate of both emptiness and existence. The first gate is Middle in its intrinsic substance; one Middle is every Middle, making the fourth, gate of neither existence nor nonexistence. The first gate is the other three, and the other three are the first; only one gate is honored as the name. Although there are four names, principle contains no separation.

The preceding use of the birthless gate to break views and thought is the gate of emptiness. Yet one gate is all gates and is not limited to the birthless alone. One breaking is every breaking and does not break only views and thought. When entering emptiness through provisionality, one emptiness is every emptiness and does not empty only the side of birth and death. Only this understanding is the Perfect Teaching’s four gates directly used in this passage.

If so, why did the preceding text still make all kinds of distinctions? Because ordinary people’s cognition and consciousness are dark and dull and cannot know without explanation. They are therefore first guided patiently, shown many gates, and then brought into the correct path. The Lotus Sūtra says that although various paths are taught, in reality all are the One Vehicle. Once this meaning is understood, even distinguishing all day long leaves no discrimination to grasp. The Great Nirvāṇa Sūtra calls it another single practice that is the Tathāgata’s practice. The Lotus Sūtra calls it uprightly abandoning skillful means and teaching only the unsurpassed path. The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra calls it knowing every Dharma through knowledge of all modes. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra compares it to entering a campaka grove and smelling no other fragrance. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra calls it the Dharma realm. All are meanings of the Perfect Teaching’s four gates.

Thus if the preceding use of the birthless gate to break provisionality truly gains its intent, it is a gate of the Perfect Teaching rather than a gate of skillful-means teachings. Precisely because one gate pervasively embraces every gate and one breaking extends through every breaking is it called pervasive breaking through Dharmas〔and so forth〕.

1. Once the Afflictions of Views Are Broken, Why Does Mind Still Move?

The first fruit has seen the true truth. Why, then, do craving, anger, and delusion still arise, and even conceit amid comparisons of self and others? Zhiyi first separates two easily conflated matters. The root of the afflictions of views is calculating persons and Dharmas as real. The power of the afflictions of thought is the momentum that continues to moisten karma and draw one into birth even after principle has been seen. The first resembles facing the wrong direction. The second resembles old momentum underfoot continuing even after one turns the right way. A flame may flare even more strongly just before a lamp goes out. The stream-enterer’s attachment to views has broken while desire, anger, and delusion remain incompletely exhausted; this is precisely the scene.

Why, then, call them the correct three poisons or correct afflictions? “Correct” does not mean afflictions are proper. It means a stream-enterer’s conduct is no longer governed by deviant views: desire remains, but does not lead to sexual misconduct with one who is not a spouse; anger remains, but does not lead to deliberate harm of life while tilling earth; delusion remains, but no longer calculates intrinsic nature as real. The path-accompanying precepts spontaneously prevent wrongdoing. Affliction remains, yet crooked conduct has been cut off. The difference between views and thought is therefore not the difference between having and lacking delusion, but whether delusion has joined erroneous understanding into a single force.

Why are they also called afflictions of thought? Not because every thought is delusion, but because this kind of delusion can be severed only by repeatedly examining the principle seen after seeing the true. At the first seeing of the true, contemplative understanding remains shallow and phenomenal obstruction persists. Through repeated consideration of true principle, delusion is removed part by part. The name comes from the contemplative understanding that can sever, not from the surface of ordinary mental thought.

As for the dispute over calling the desire realm craving and the higher realms attachment, Zhiyi concludes it with the simile of removing excrement. When clearing filth, the first task is to remove the impurity, not to dispute which name must be used. If a name can identify the site of illness, it has fulfilled its expedient role. Turning the distinction of names into victory and defeat only delays the cure.

2. From Where Does One Thought of Desire Actually Come?

The afflictions of thought extend through nine grounds in the three realms, so why begin with the mind of desire? Because when desire appears, the relations among faculty, object, blood and pulses, mental continuity, and action can be seen most readily. Six objects of desire—color, appearance, deportment and posture, verbal sound, smooth touch, and the mark of a person—move the faculties, and mind and body change with them as the mark of desire appears. The point is neither to condemn the object nor compress desire into an abstraction, but to see how it is established through conditions.

An external object moving the mental faculty and producing a mind of desire is provisionality formed by causes. Desire continuing thought after thought until it moves action is provisionality of continuity. The mind with desire requiring relation to the mind without desire for its name to appear is provisionality of relation. “Provisional” here is not settled merely by saying “illusory.” It means that apart from conditioned conjunction, before-and-after continuity, and relational contrast, no independent and unchanging desire can be found.

Does desire arise from the faculty? If so, it should arise by itself before the faculty faces an object. Does it arise from the object? Since the object remains outside, how could it independently produce my mind of desire? Do faculty and object produce it together? If each possesses productive power, they should produce two minds. Does it arise apart from faculty and object and without a cause? Without a cause there is no basis for speaking of arising. Pursued in all four places, desire has no obtainable source. If its source is unobtainable, its destination is also unobtainable. This does not move an already arisen desire somewhere called emptiness. At the very moment it appears, one sees neither coming nor going, ultimately empty and quiescent.

If a person of sharp faculties accords in one contemplation, one grade of thought-delusion departs and one part of true principle becomes clear. What if one does not accord immediately? One does not declare failure. One harmonizes calming-and-contemplation and uses the four siddhāntas to make faith-practice and Dharma-practice shift and advance repeatedly. If entry still does not occur through provisionality formed by causes, move to continuity and ask whether the later thought arises from the preceding thought’s cessation, nonceasing, both, or neither. When none of the four is obtainable, turn again to relation. The contemplative gate can be traversed repeatedly, but not one of the three provisionalities contemplated is omitted.

As with the first grade, so with the remaining eight; as with craving, so with anger, delusion, and conceit. Principle appearing is nonarising of principle. Exhaustion of delusive cause is nonarising of cause. Desire-realm result no longer arising is nonarising of result. Since there is no arising, there is no ceasing. Entry into emptiness through provisionality occurs within this thought-by-thought examination, not by leaving present mind and seeking an empty principle elsewhere.

3. Why Speak of Nine Grades and Then Say There Are Far More Than Nine?

The three realms have nine grounds, each with nine grades, making eighty-one. Does this mean affliction acts only eighty-one times, or that each ground contains exactly nine psychological events? Zhiyi himself prevents this reading. The uncontaminated mind on the path of seeing is swift and can sever views without emerging from contemplation, so no grade sequence is discussed. The path of cultivation proceeds more deliberately and repeatedly uses preparation and progression. If advancement occurs again and again, how could there be only nine grades? Nine is a broad division.

The different arrangements of suppression, severance, and realization in the Satyasiddhi Treatise and Abhidharma further show that the grades are not one rigid psychological scale. One account says unobstructedness suppresses and liberation severs; the other says preparation and progression suppress, unobstructedness severs, and liberation realizes. Whichever account is followed, a path is not completed through naming alone. Every grade must still undergo contemplation, severance of delusion, and realization of the place without delusion.

The eighty-one grades therefore have two sides. On one side they cannot be discarded, because they prevent a momentary understanding from being mistaken for exhaustion of the afflictions of thought throughout the three realms. On the other they cannot be reified, because they are not eighty-one fixed boxes waiting to be checked in order. The number provides road markers for the path of cultivation; contemplative practice moves slowly or swiftly according to the sharpness of faculties.

4. As Meditative Concentration Deepens, Why Does It Remain an Object of Contemplation?

Does leaving the desire realm mean leaving craving? Zhiyi’s answer is direct: meditative concentration itself can become an object of attachment. In the first dhyāna, the eight contacts touch the body and the merits of the five factors arise. Their savor produces craving. Feeling superior to those who have not attained them produces conceit. Failing to know that dhyāna still possesses suffering and accumulation produces delusion. The development of dhyāna is not the endpoint of contemplative practice; it presents subtler delusions directly to view.

Every dhyāna ground therefore still possesses the three provisionalities. The conjunction of the eight contacts or inner purity and other Dharma-objects with the mental faculty is formation by causes. The thought-by-thought continuity of dhyāna mind is continuity. Developed and undeveloped dhyāna, bliss and absence of bliss, standing in contrast is relation. Without contemplative breaking, one receives birth according to concentration. Only through breaking does one pass from preparation and progression into unobstructed severance and realization in liberation. As with the first grade, so with the remaining eight; as with craving, so with conceit and delusion.

Phenomenal and nature obstructions offer another warning: development of an intermediate state of concentration does not mean the delusive obstruction to root dhyāna has been removed. When phenomenal obstruction in desire-realm concentration departs, the not-yet-arrived concentration can develop; when nature obstruction departs, the first dhyāna develops. When phenomenal obstruction in the first dhyāna departs, the intermediate can develop; when nature obstruction departs, the second dhyāna develops. The second and third dhyānas are likewise. The subtlety of practice lies in not mistaking the appearance of a state for exhaustion of delusion’s nature.

The Heaven without Perception is called without perception, but is mental perception truly absent? Ordinary emotion sees the body of form preserved and mind extinguished and therefore calls it no perception, yet the perception that appropriates no-perception remains. It must still be broken through the three provisionalities and four alternatives. In the five Pure Abodes, uncontaminated mind intermixedly perfuses contaminated concentration, making concentration on form brighter and recompense more excellent. Yet when superior concentration appears, craving, conceit, and delusion still each possess nine grades and three provisionalities. The more excellent the state, the less it automatically removes the mind that can attach.

Continuing into the formless realm, the station of space relinquishes three kinds of form; the station of consciousness relinquishes space and conditions consciousness; the station of nothingness relinquishes abundant consciousness and conditions nothingness. If nothingness is read as only a small amount of consciousness remaining, consciousness is still being used; how could it be the station of nonuse? At neither perception nor nonperception, the preceding station of consciousness resembles a swelling and nothingness a sore, and the practitioner seeks an even subtler quiescent concentration. Yet this concentration still contains ten subtle Dharmas and still possesses the three provisionalities. Absence of coarse affliction is not absence of affliction. From the most visible six desires of the desire realm through the subtlest mental Dharmas at neither-perception, embodied contemplation never changes its work.

5. Why Draw the Stages in Such Dense Detail?

If the contemplative method always embodies provisionality and enters emptiness, why list in detail the stages of the Tripiṭaka, Shared, borrowed-Distinct-for-Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings? Because although the same views and thought are severed, the principle taken as object, the wisdom used, and whether one can emerge into provisionality and teach others after severance differ. Stages do not add names to contemplative practice. They prevent identically named severances from being judged identical realization.

According to the desire realm’s nine grades, the Tripiṭaka Teaching establishes the path to once-returning, family-to-family, the fruit of once-returning, one-going-and-returning, the path to nonreturning, one-seed, and the fruit of nonreturning. Then from the first grade of the first dhyāna through the eighth at neither-perception, all are collectively called the path to arhatship. Finally the unobstructed path severs the ninth grade at neither-perception and liberation realizes arhatship. Nonarising of afflictions, principle, wisdom, and recompense separately distinguish severance of delusion, realization of principle, fullness of wisdom, and no further existence, preventing one name for gaining a fruit from conflating them.

The Shared Teaching presents ten grounds: dry wisdom, nature, eight persons, seeing, thinning, freedom from desire, completed work, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, and buddha. The three vehicles pass through them together, yet higher and lower differ. After wood is burned, some becomes charcoal, some ash, while an eon-fire leaves neither. The śrāvaka’s severance of direct agents resembles charcoal; the pratyekabuddha’s encroachment upon residual habit, ash; the bodhisattva’s additional severance of ignorance concerning form and mind and cultivation of transformation, further burning; and the buddha ground’s one corresponding thought forever exhausting residual habit, the eon-fire. What is shared is the stages traversed and the direct agents severed; what is not shared is merit and wisdom, residual habit, and transformative function.

6. When Names Are Borrowed, Can They Carry Away the Original Meaning?

Why borrow the Distinct Teaching’s names of ten grounds for the Shared Teaching? Because the Distinct Teaching’s stage-meaning of severing views is longer and can mark beginning and end through a third and fourth ground. In the Shared Teaching, entry into uninterrupted samādhi severs views without leaving a single contemplation, and its stage-meaning is shorter. Names can be borrowed, but the mode of severance cannot change with them. If borrowing names such as Joy, Stainless, and Luminous grounds turns the Shared Teaching’s severance without emerging from contemplation into the Distinct Teaching’s eon-by-eon sequence, the names have obscured the meaning they were meant to express.

By the same principle, separately opening ten Shared-Teaching bodhisattva grounds does not overturn the stages shared by the three vehicles. It reveals the bodhisattva side that does not take nirvāṇa and freely receives birth grade by grade. Because realization suits the Two Vehicles, they are judged through wisdom and severance. Relative to a buddha, bodhisattvas remain on causal ground and can endure the toil of birth and death without entering nirvāṇa; hence forbearance concerning nonarising. Forbearance is cause and wisdom result; the first fifteen minds are named forbearance and the sixteenth wisdom. When the same severance of delusion is placed within different vows and practices, its names reveal different functions.

Why does the desire realm have the same nine grades yet more fruit-stages? Zhiyi answers with a dangerous road and city walls. A perilous region has many dangers, so many walls must be built for travelers to rest. Desire-realm delusion brings many dangers, so many fruits are established. Why not establish more dhyānas? Because the desire realm is not a ground of concentration and cannot establish meditative concentration. Uncontaminated conditioning of principle extends throughout, so noble fruits can be established. Numbers of names arise according to the function needed on the path and cannot be inferred arithmetically from the number of grades alone.

7. What Is Passed over When One Leaps over Fruits?

With eighty-one grades, how can someone leap in one thought to nonreturning or even arhatship? If leaping means attaining a higher fruit while severing fewer grades, the whole sequence loses meaning. The treatise says that practitioners need not enter according to the sequence of grades, yet the delusions of the grades are still exhausted and their concentrations developed. Sharp faculties may leap over the grades, but their sequence cannot be discarded.

Leaping through prior severance occurs when an ordinary person used worldly wisdom to sever a number of desires or already attained the first dhyāna through neither-perception and, after developing uncontaminated wisdom, leaps directly according to that prior severance. Small leaping occurs when someone without dhyāna removes several desire-realm grades as the sixteen minds are completed and becomes family-to-family, one-seed, or the like. Great leaping occurs when one hears the Buddha teach and becomes an arhat on hearing “Welcome.” Very great leaping resembles a buddha’s one corresponding thought, in which direct agents and residual habits are exhausted together. None of the four erases what must be severed; sharp faculties simply do not pass through it sequentially.

Why, then, did Śāriputra, the sharpest, not leap? Because he had to be a general turning the Dharma wheel and distinguish the grades for others. Ānanda had to serve as attendant. Bodhisattvas must bear beings and lead the assembly. Their vows and practice make them refrain from leaping; it is not inability. Perfect-Teaching practitioners have sharp faculties and rely on the real, so they are most able to leap. Their weighty compassionate vows also make them most able not to leap. In terms of the true mark, the names leaping and not leaping are both quiescent. In terms of adaptive transformation, slow and swift responses occur everywhere without obstruction.

8. If the Same True Principle Is Attained, Why Are There Sixteen Gates?

Views and thought obstruct principle; breaking obstruction and revealing principle require a gate of communication. The Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings each have four gates—existence, emptiness, both existence and nonexistence, and neither—making sixteen. “Gate” already indicates that it is not the endpoint. A city may have four gates, but entering from east, west, south, or north does not split it into four cities.

The Tripiṭaka gate of existence accepts that person and self are unobtainable while real Dharmas exist, breaking views and thought through the part-by-part arising and ceasing of Dharmas. The gate of emptiness contemplates self and person as originally nonexistent and real Dharmas as floating and empty, with provisional and real alike empty. The gate of both lets the existence and nonexistence of real Dharmas proceed together at ease. The gate of neither leaves existence and nonexistence. Chanda’s attaining a Small-Vehicle path through double negation shows precisely why the words “neither” cannot by themselves be equated with the Great Vehicle’s Middle Way. If the four gates remove views and thought, all can gain the path; if they are grasped as views, all become obstructions.

Zhiyi therefore uses the city gates, five hundred monks, and Guṇavarman’s verse to break dispute among gates. Although treatises establish different positions, the principle toward which practice proceeds is nondual; only partial grasping produces right and wrong, while penetration leaves no contrary dispute. The true truth is originally without speech. How could a gate’s name be raised as an immovable banner? The gate of existence need not fail, nor does emptiness alone succeed. Gain the intent of the four siddhāntas and the treatise and numerical schools both stand; lose it and both fail.

The Shared Teaching’s four gates further loosen dispute over real Dharmas: everything is like illusion. The gate of existence says that although illusory Dharmas are empty, illusory arising remains. The gate of emptiness says illusion, transformation, and even nirvāṇa are empty; like an illusory person fighting empty space, agent and object are both quiescent. The gate of both resembles an image in a mirror, visible yet not truly obtainable. The gate of neither does not fix illusory Dharmas as existent or nonexistent. The Tripiṭaka resembles analyzing a real pillar; the Shared resembles viewing the pillar’s image in a mirror, which lacks real substance even while appearing. A great flame cannot be grasped from four sides, while a cool pond can be entered through all four gates. Entry and nongrasping are two sides of the same gate.

Three animals cross one river. Although all are called crossings, this cannot be expanded into a claim that what the three vehicles see and practice has no higher or lower. It answers the earlier similes of charcoal, ash, and eon-fire: sharing principle does not flatten wisdom and practice, and different gates need not make realized principle conflict.

9. Do the Distinct and Perfect Teachings Differ because Each Has Another Principle?

The Distinct Teaching contemplates distinct principle, severs distinct delusion, and sequentially cultivates precepts, concentration, wisdom, and other practices. It guides all Dharmas through the mind of great nirvāṇa. After illusory delusive form is exhausted, a separate true, wholesome, wondrous form remains; gold wrapped in torn cloth and an image hidden in an earthen mold reveal buddha-nature. It also teaches Kapilavastu, tathāgatagarbha, and great nirvāṇa as empty; uses jars of water, wine, and curds to reveal that emptiness and nonemptiness cannot be fixed partially; and finally transcends the four and leaves the hundred, taking double negation as a gate. When the intent of the four gates is gained, they communicate with the true mark; without it, they become only preparatory means that suppress delusion before the grounds. Sequential cultivation and realization are the form of the Distinct Teaching’s gates.

The Perfect Teaching does not add a fifth gate outside the Distinct Teaching’s four. It makes every gate immediately and fully possess the remaining three. Contemplating the provisionality of views and thought as the Dharma realm, fully possessing the Buddha-Dharma, is the gate of existence. Contemplating illusory views and thought, all Dharmas, self, and nirvāṇa as empty, with even the illness of emptiness empty, is the gate of emptiness. Seeing that although views and thought lack reality, distinctions of provisional names are inexhaustible, is the gate of both. Contemplating views and thought as Dharma-nature and that not a single color or fragrance is other than the Middle Way is the gate of neither.

A great-thousand scripture scroll within a mote of dust and one earth producing many kinds of sprout express precisely the nonobstruction between absence of intrinsic nature and inexhaustible difference. If provisional names are deleted because of emptiness, the scripture scroll cannot unfold and the various sprouts cannot appear. If abundant distinctions are grasped as real existence, the one Dharma realm cannot be seen. Interfusion within the Perfect gates does not bleach away distinctions; it prevents them from becoming barriers.

10. Why Distinguish First and Finally Say There Is Nothing Distinguished?

How does one gate become four? Contemplating Dharmas arisen from causes and conditions is the first gate. The first is immediately empty; one emptiness is every emptiness, making the second gate. The first is immediately provisional; one provisionality is every provisionality, making the third. The first is immediately Middle; one Middle is every Middle, making the fourth. The first gate is the other three and the three the first; one name is selected only according to conditions. Gate names are four, but the three truths illuminated contain no separation.

The preceding use of the birthless gate to break views and thought is precisely the gate of emptiness. Because one gate is all gates, one breaking is every breaking and one emptiness every emptiness. Entry into emptiness through provisionality therefore does not merely empty birth and death, nor does it close the gate after breaking views and thought alone. When its intent is gained, the birthless gate is a gate of the Perfect Teaching.

If so, why spend a long passage distinguishing grade by grade, stage by stage, and gate by gate? Ordinary emotion is dark and dull and cannot know without being told, so many roads are first opened and one is later brought into the One Vehicle. Truly understanding the One Vehicle allows one to distinguish all day long without any discrimination to grasp. If the detailed distinctions are skipped and only the words “no discrimination” remain, darkness and dullness have not thereby been illuminated and broken. Sequential unfolding and convergence upon the One Vehicle do not cancel one another; they are the sequence of opening and entering a gate.

Only here does “pervasive” in pervasive breaking through Dharmas appear. It extends from the four alternatives of one thought of desire through eighty-one grades in the three realms, from the stages at which the three vehicles sever thought through the sixteen gates of the four teachings. Every item is distinguished without omission, yet none is allowed to congeal as a fixed Dharma. Agent and object of pervasive breaking finally lose their barriers within one gate as all gates.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

Reading this long passage, Zhanran first places boundary markers at its most unstable hinges. Nine grades are a broad abbreviation for establishing teachings and judging fruits: wisdom becomes clear part by part and delusion gradually ends; in reality there are far more than nine. Thus the nine cannot be compressed into one generic phrase, nor reified as nine psychological events. “Correct” in the correct three poisons contrasts with the crooked agents of views and residual habit. They can still moisten birth but no longer bring about the four evil destinations.

Within desire-realm contemplation, the Fuxing Chuanhong Jue on the Mohe Zhiguan especially distinguishes the six desires and provisionality of continuity. The six derive from the Great Treatise’s seven attachments by setting aside the general and retaining the particular. Saying continuity eventually culminates in action means restraining desire’s continuity before it reaches action, not judging every continuous mind already to have acted. Each of the three provisionalities can separately turn through the four alternatives and conclude in nonarising, emptiness of beings, and emptiness of Dharmas. Sharp faculties according in one contemplation and dull faculties repeatedly shifting contemplations move slowly or swiftly, but the objects contemplated are not merged.

Regarding the form and formless realms, Zhanran explains phenomenal obstruction through beds, seats, and the like and nature obstruction through desire-delusion remaining unremoved. He also divides the form extinguished on entering the station of space into visible and resistant, invisible and resistant, and invisible and nonresistant. The Vibhāṣā citation on neither perception nor nonperception is expressly judged abbreviated, while the teacher’s explanation is not wholly wrong; the tradition preserves both without refutation. The highest concentration still contains ten subtle Dharmas—feeling, perception, formations, contact, intention, desire, understanding, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom—so absence of coarse delusion cannot be rewritten as absence of delusion.

Concerning stages, shared grounds do not mean identical wisdom and practice. Naming the Shared through borrowed Distinct terms borrows names of long stages to express Shared-Teaching meaning; the borrowed names cannot silently replace the teaching on which the meaning depends. Leaping over fruits is illustrated by a person with spiritual powers and an ordinary traveler: their speed differs, but the distance does not disappear. Only within this boundary can the four leaps be read without mistaking leaping over fruits for realization before severance.

In the passage on gates, Zhanran expressly marks four gates in each of four teachings, making sixteen, all able to contemplate views and thought. Chanda’s double negation distinguishes Small-Vehicle attainment from the Great Vehicle’s Middle Way and cannot be conflated merely because both use “neither.” The Shared Teaching’s embodied breaking is breaking without breaking. The flame, four marks, and cool pond all confirm that the four gates cannot be grasped. Whether the Distinct Teaching’s four gates enter reality depends on gaining the intent and leaving attachment, not on their names guaranteeing entry by themselves.

The mirror further illuminates the two treatises’ different grade-paths. The Satyasiddhi Treatise and Abhidharma judge grades differently because they use different paths. Preparation, progression, unobstructedness, and liberation respectively suppress, sever, and realize and cannot be kneaded into one generic gradual stage. At exhaustion-knowledge and nonarising-knowledge, the commentary further distinguishes phenomenal and principial nonarising: because afflictions are exhausted, phenomena no longer arise; because the principle of true truth is penetrated, principle no longer arises. Exhaustion of eighty-one grades and disclosure of true principle thereby retain separate referents and meet again where embodied contemplation concludes.

The commentary also supplies the intermixed perfuming of the five Pure Abodes and noble relinquishment of the third dhyāna’s bliss. Noble ones possess contemplation of the noble lineage within every ground and can therefore relinquish deep bliss. Only the successive arising of many uncontaminated thoughts makes contaminated concentration on form increasingly bright. These additions show that superior concentration is not naturally pure but must still be perfumed and cultivated through uncontaminated contemplative practice.

In adding Distinct- and Perfect-Teaching stages for breaking thought, Zhanran explains that although the direct unfolding of entry into emptiness emphasizes the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings, the Distinct and Perfect must still reveal differences among scriptural accounts of wisdom and severance and the perfectly interfused purport of the text. Shared-Teaching bodhisattvas and the Two Vehicles can be compared as having identical wisdom and severance yet differing in teaching others. Distinct- and Perfect-Teaching bodhisattvas can be compared with Two-Vehicle practitioners in the Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings as having different wisdom while severing the same views and thought. If these two axes are compressed into one phrase, “same severance, different wisdom,” the differences among bodhisattvas’ free receipt of birth, the Two Vehicles’ taking realization, and the Perfect Teaching’s immediate emptiness, provisionality, and Middle all disappear together.

The final judgment is first to distinguish and then integrate. One gate is three gates; nonarising is foremost without rejecting the other three. The text remains sequential all day long, yet its purport and return do not fall into sequence. This does not use perfect interfusion to cancel the eighty-one grades, stages, and sixteen gates. It explains precisely how detailed distinction can omit nothing while what is distinguished creates no barriers. Later, the Principles of the Meaning of Calming-and-Contemplation gathers this through practice necessarily following the person and vertical breaking revealing nonduality; Siming further says that the text appears sequential while its intent is truly perfectly interfused. Both inherit Zhanran’s conclusion concerning the text’s purport and return.