摩訶止觀 觀諸見境

There is something that traps people not by resembling darkness, but by suddenly lighting up. Layer upon layer of principle unfolds; every challenge can be answered; others cannot outargue you, and you grow increasingly certain. Zhizhe calls this moment “the arising of a view.” It is neither madness nor noble realization. It possesses the sharpness of wisdom, yet may still be wholly wrapped in craving, anger, pride, and doubt.

Deviance and correctness therefore cannot be distinguished merely by how much someone has read, how profoundly one can speak, whether one has attained concentration, or whether one can display superknowledges. Non-Buddhists can possess vast learning, while people within Buddha-Dharma can grasp a correct gate and turn it into a deviant view. A city has four gates, and each originally leads to the king. If one remains beneath a gate counting tiles and timbers, disputing north and south and judging fine and coarse, the gate turns from a passage into a prison. The gate is not at fault; the person has mistaken it for the destination.

Then, once something is known to be a view, should it be cut off immediately? The Mohe Zhiguan gives an unusual simile: when the abdomen contains worms, first nurture a tape-worm to devour them, and later use medicine to purge the tape-worm. Although arisen view-wisdom is an obstruction, it may first devour some stubborn dullness and enable a person to awaken as soon as the Dharma is heard. But the view must still be treated in the end. “Nurturing views and examining the mind” does not build a home for attachment; it borrows attachment to reach the place where correct contemplation can illuminate and break it.

The whole chapter therefore places the strongest view—the view of emptiness—within calming-and-contemplation. When emptiness is grasped, it can produce anger and love, create good and evil, and circulate through the ten realms. When emptiness becomes what is contemplated, one can discern suffering and origination within it, cultivate the path, realize cessation, contemplate the twelve links in forward and reverse order, produce the four vast vows, and practice the six perfections. The same word “emptiness” can on one side devour every Dharma and on the other be contemplated as a gate of escape. The boundary does not lie in speaking of emptiness, but in whether the mind still uses emptiness to establish self, superiority, and dispute.

Look more deeply: the ten realms are not merely produced one after another following the view of emptiness. One thought of the view of emptiness intrinsically possesses the ten Dharma realms and is precisely Dharma-nature; sentient beings, the five aggregates, and liberation need not be sought outside the mind. Yet “intrinsic possession” does not collect the destination in advance. Precisely because ignorance and Dharma-nature are both clearly present in one thought, one must produce kindness and compassion, skillfully settle the mind, break attachments universally, and clearly discern one's stage, until attachment no longer arises even toward Dharmas conforming to the path.

What contemplating the object of views finally leaves behind is not a view higher than every other view. It only brings the mind before an unavoidable question: when I am most certain that I see the truth, does this certainty lead me through the gate, or keep me standing at its entrance?

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Ten〔Upper〕.

Taught by Great Master Zhizhe of Tiantai in the Sui dynasty.

Recorded by his disciple Guanding.

What Is Meant by the Object of Views

Seventh is contemplating the object of views. Because their number is not limited to one, they are called “views” in the plural. An erroneous understanding is called a “view.” It may also be said that view means understanding and cognition. One investigates principle by an incorrect method yet sees a slanted aspect with exceptional clarity, forming an understanding held as certain and immovable: this is called a view.

Those who learn by listening memorize various names and Dharma characteristics but can explain them only according to the words. The inner eye has not opened, and they possess no contemplation grounded in principle. The text upon which they rely remains, but apart from verification it is as though dead. Those who cultivate meditative concentration, by contrast, value only contemplation grounded in principle. Whenever their minds meet an object, they believe themselves able to comprehend it; yet they are dark concerning names and Dharma characteristics and do not recognize even one written sentence. Those who recite words resemble people guarding a tree stump, while those whose minds feel unobstructed think they have attained wondrous awakening. Each side lacks one half, so when they judge one another, both lose the standard.

If someone has a fluent, unobstructed view and also knows the various names, the implications can be endless when he questions others from his own understanding. It is like sending an arrow along a curving course around a flying bird, leaving birds and beasts nowhere to escape. When he explains difficult points and answers challenges, he has ample strength remaining, like shooting an arrow into empty space, where it travels without obstruction. Know that this does not arise from study alone: a view has certainly arisen. Such a view may arise through dhyāna or through hearing. Likewise, when outflow-free wisdom arises, it depends upon the faculties of faith and Dharma and upon hearing and reflection. Someone whose view arises through hearing may originally have heard little yet extend his understanding broadly from one point to another. His view is lucid, his intelligence keen, and his argument eloquent; he can both ask and answer. Someone whose view arises through dhyāna is inwardly still at first and later becomes increasingly clear in contemplation, turning meanings over with great freedom as though he had attained wondrous penetration. In the south, few cultivate dhyāna and few views arise; in the north, events of this kind are numerous.

Those too dim to distinguish the matter think they have attained the true path or a dhāraṇī. Unable to discern others, they place themselves very high. Some entirely disbelieve it and decide that it is only madness and delusion. It should now be said that this is neither madness nor noble realization. A person possessed by a ghost can speak, but becomes foolish again when the ghost departs. This person is not like that, so one knows it is not madness. Yet examine his old delusions: craving and anger still remain. Examine his newly added delusions: the afflictions have instead increased. The bonds of the eighty-eight agents are vast and evident, so one knows he is not a noble one. This is merely the arising of the wisdom of views.

In summary, views arise along two routes, through hearing and through meditative concentration, with the latter more common. In some cases a view arises only after meditative concentration; in some, concentration and view arise together. Cases in which the view arises first and concentration afterward are fewer, while the first two cases are more common. In the same way, various meditative concentrations can all lead to the arising of outflow-free wisdom, but it arises less often at the access ground and more often at the six or nine grounds. For this reason, the object of views is explained after the object of meditative concentration.

If a view has arisen in someone whose sharp wisdom and faculties are mature, he may be able to assess and correct it himself. Or he may search the scriptures and treatises, check his view against them, and recognize his own fault. Such a person is rare. If he cannot correct himself but meets a good spiritual friend who clearly points out right and wrong and breaks his mind of views, that too is rare. Thus it is said: “The true Dharma, one who teaches it, and an assembly that listens to it are all difficult to encounter.” If he neither awakens by himself nor meets a teacher, erroneous carving increases day by day and the confinement of birth and death deepens month by month. It is like dragging a crooked piece of wood through a dense forest: when could there ever be a day of escape?

Contemplating the object of views is now divided into four parts: first, clarifying the persons who possess views and the Dharmas they grasp; second, clarifying the causes and conditions through which views arise; third, clarifying the faults of views; fourth, clarifying how to contemplate them through calming-and-contemplation.

I. The Persons Who Possess Views and the Dharmas They Grasp

First, clarifying the persons and Dharmas of views is divided into two parts: first, the different kinds of persons with deviant views; second, the different Dharmas grasped by those persons. The different persons with deviant views are further divided into three kinds: first, non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma; second, non-Buddhists attached to Buddha-Dharma; third, people who study Buddha-Dharma yet become non-Buddhists.

Non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma

The first kind is the non-Buddhists outside Buddhism. At the root are three houses. First is the non-Buddhist Kapila, whose name is translated “Yellow Head,” who maintains that the result already exists within the cause. Second is Ulūka-Sāṃkhya, whose name is translated “Rāhu,” who maintains that the result does not exist within the cause. Third is Ṛṣabha, whose name is translated “Ascetic Practice,” who maintains that the result both exists and does not exist within the cause.

The Treatise on Entering the Great Vehicle further says: Kapila's doctrine has the fault of reckoning oneness. It takes agent and action as one, characteristic and what possesses the characteristic as one, and part and the whole possessing its parts as one. Positions such as these are all called reckoning oneness. Ulūka-Sāṃkhya reckons mutual difference; Kakuda reckons both oneness and difference; Jñātiputra reckons neither oneness nor difference. The different doctrines of all non-Buddhists, including Maskarin and the rest, do not depart from these four.

Branches further divide from the non-Buddhists of these three houses and four schools. By the time the Buddha appeared in the world, there were six teachers. First was Pūraṇa Kāśyapa—Kāśyapa was his family name—who maintained neither arising nor ceasing. Second was Maskarin Gośālīputra, who maintained that the suffering and happiness of sentient beings have no causes or conditions but are naturally just so. Third was Sañjaya Vairāṭīputra, who maintained that sentient beings attain the path when the proper time matures; after eighty thousand kalpas, they reach the limit as when all the thread has been drawn from a ball. Fourth was Ajita Keśakambala—kambala means coarse clothing—who maintained that the suffering produced as retribution for offenses could be substituted through ascetic practices such as throwing oneself from a cliff and pulling out one's hair. Fifth was Kakuda Kātyāyana, who maintained both existence and nonexistence. Sixth was Nirgrantha Jñātiputra, who maintained that once karma has been performed, it is fixed and cannot be changed.

This material comes from Kumārajīva's commentary. The names of the six teachers agree with the Great Sūtra, while three of the doctrines agree and three differ. Perhaps this resulted from a translation error; perhaps there was another intent. It cannot now be known in detail. Broadly, however, they all inherit from Kapila and the rest. According to the roots, they can be divided into three houses or into four schools: the four views of existence, nonexistence, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence.

Non-Buddhists Attached to Buddha-Dharma

The second kind is non-Buddhists attached to Buddha-Dharma, beginning with the Vātsīputrīya and Vaipulya schools. Relying on their own cleverness, they read Buddhist scriptures and produced views of their own. Because those views arose by attaching themselves to Buddha-Dharma, they received this name.

A Vātsīputrīya read the Śāriputra Abhidharma and independently devised another doctrine, saying: “The self exists outside the four propositions, in the fifth repository of the inexpressible.” What are the four propositions? Non-Buddhists maintain that form is the self, that a self exists apart from form, that the self is within form, or that form is within the self. The same applies to each of the other four aggregates—feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness. Four propositions for each aggregate make twenty views of a body. The Dazhidu Lun says: “When the twenty views of a body are broken, one becomes a stream-enterer.” This is the meaning. The self now maintained by the Vātsīputrīya differs from that of the six teachers and is not Buddha-Dharma. The treatises of every school reject and refuse to accept it. It is therefore the deviant Dharma of a deviant person attached to Buddha-Dharma. Some also say that the four propositions are the three times and the unconditioned Dharma.

Vaipulya practitioners likewise relied on their own cleverness. Reading the ten similes taught by the Buddha, they fabricated a doctrine of their own: neither arising nor ceasing, like illusion and transformation, with empty illusion as its cardinal principle. Nāgārjuna rebuked this as not Buddha-Dharma. The doctrine made by the Vaipulya practitioners is likewise the Dharma of deviant persons.

Studying Buddha-Dharma yet Becoming Non-Buddhists

The third kind is people who study Buddha-Dharma yet become non-Buddhists. They attach themselves to the gates taught by the Buddha, give rise to afflictions, and cannot enter principle. The Dazhidu Lun says that without skillful means in prajñā, one who enters the Abhidharma falls into the extreme of existence; one who enters the gate of emptiness falls into the extreme of nonexistence; and one who enters the Piṭaka of Categories falls into the extreme of both existence and nonexistence. The Madhyamaka Treatise says that attachment to neither existence nor nonexistence is called a foolish discourse. Grasping the correct Dharma upside down instead turns it into the Dharma of deviant persons.

If someone studies the four gates of the Mahāyāna but loses the true intent of prajñā and is burned by the fire of deviant views, these too become the Dharmas of a deviant person. Thus the Śataśāstra directly refutes non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma. Some present-day Mahāyāna treatise masters fiercely refute the Abhidharma and Chengshi Lun, saying that they are simply non-Buddhists who reckon existence or nonexistence. Yet the Chengshi Lun itself says that the true meaning in the Tripiṭaka is emptiness, which appears close to nonexistence. It also accepts what the hundred schools hold right and rejects what they hold wrong, moving in and out when taking up meanings; this resembles both the claim that the result both exists and does not exist within the cause and the meaning of the Piṭaka of Categories. When these treatises arose in their own time, people who relied on them could all attain the path. People today who attach themselves to them have themselves lost the true intent—what does that have to do with the Dharma itself? This must be distinguished with composure; they should not all be equated with Kapila and the other non-Buddhists. When the Great Vehicle refutes the Small Vehicle, as in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, it takes only the aspect in which the Small Vehicle has not seen the principle of the Middle Way and calls that aspect the same as non-Buddhism. It does not deprive the Small Vehicle of its significance as a preparatory gate.

The Different Dharmas Attained by Deviant Persons

Second is clarifying the different Dharmas grasped by deviant persons. The Guanzhong Commentary says: “Each teacher possesses three kinds of Dharma: first, attaining the Dharma of knowledge of all; second, attaining the Dharma of superknowledges; third, attaining the Dharma of the Vedas.”

“Knowledge of all” means that each person gives rise to a view concerning what he maintains. His understanding is keen and acute, and he uses this view-wisdom to interpret all Dharmas; he is therefore called a non-Buddhist possessing knowledge of all. “The Dharma of superknowledges” means producing the five superknowledges: one can turn a city into a salt flat, turn Śakra into a sheep, stop a river inside one's ear, or touch the sun and moon with one's hand. This is called a non-Buddhist possessing superknowledges. “The Dharma of the Vedas” means comprehending all worldly writing, astronomy, medicine, military affairs, and commerce. This is called a non-Buddhist possessing the Vedas. Thus one teacher can possess three different attainments. The Vātsīputrīya and Vaipulya schools are also like this.

For those who become deviant by attaching themselves to Buddha-Dharma, the Tripiṭaka Teaching has four gates, and each gate possesses three kinds. First is directly producing an understanding of principle, with a view arising from the nature of wisdom. Second is attaining various superknowledges. Third is understanding the words of the four Āgamas. Three kinds in each of four gates make twelve different attainments.

If one genuinely attains the intent within a gate, each gate initially has three establishments of mindfulness: first, the establishment of mindfulness through intrinsic nature; second, the conjoined establishment of mindfulness; third, the establishment of mindfulness through conditions. The first directly conditions truth and principle. The second cultivates phenomena and principle together. The third universally conditions all objects and Dharmas, meaning the teachings of the Tripiṭaka. When the fruit is later realized, these become three liberations: liberation through wisdom, liberation in both respects, and liberation without doubt. Therefore, when the Dharma treasury was compiled, one thousand people were chosen, all of whom had liberation without doubt; they comprehensively understood inner and outer scriptures and were prepared to subdue challengers from outside.

The Abhidharma Vibhāṣā speaks of liberation from the obstruction of afflictions, liberation from the obstruction of meditative concentration, and liberation from obstruction regarding all Dharmas. Those liberated through wisdom attain the first liberation; those liberated in both respects attain the second; only a buddha attains the third. All are generally called liberation without doubt. If the true intent is lost through attachment to the four gates of the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings of the Mahāyāna, the same calculation yields thirty-six different attainments.

II. How Views Arise

Second, clarifying the arising of views is divided into two parts: first, clarifying the arising of views; second, clarifying how the Dharmas that arise differ.

Arising through Dhyāna or through Hearing

Views arise either through dhyāna or through hearing. Across long kalpas, sentient beings have done every kind of thing and have also perfumed themselves with various views. Yet after the separation of one lifetime they forget; karmic offenses cover their former understanding, so the mind cannot quickly become clear. If those obstructions are now thin, various dhyānas can arise. Sometimes dhyāna and view arise together; sometimes dhyāna comes first and view afterward; sometimes one hears another person teach the Dharma and suddenly becomes open, producing a view. This is like a spring stopped by earth and stones: after the blockage is dug away, the force of the water surges out and forms a river. Once the dim obstruction is removed, the discriminating mind races into the distance without stopping for one day or ten days. Again and again, it poses its own challenges and again and again answers them itself. Wherever it is attached, it feels the matter is real and comprehensible everywhere; wherever it is not attached, it considers the matter false and naturally refuted. Its eloquence is unobstructed; it skillfully proclaims its own Dharma and adorns its language. When others come with challenges, it can also defend and explain its position cleverly.

Where does such view-wisdom come from? Dhyāna contains the factor of examination. Examination is a mental factor belonging to wisdom. It ranges wantonly over all Dharmas and does not know how to stop itself, like a swift horse already sweating as it races and impossible to control. If a person who learns through hearing lacks meditative concentration to moisten his view, then as soon as he tries to discriminate he may feel as though his intestines were being pulled out, may even vomit blood, and may consequently lose his life without ever completing his view. If the power of concentration moistens the factor of examination, however, examination may run wild and be difficult to control, but it does not pull out the intestines, and in most cases a whole system of views can be formed.

Some people use the factor of examination to investigate principle and maintain that the result already exists in the cause of every Dharma. This understanding is lucid and acute, able to penetrate distant implications beyond everyone else. They use this doctrine to challenge others; when others cannot answer, they call them liars. When others cannot break the doctrine to which they cling, they take it as real—the true wisdom of nonarising and the wondrous mind that accords with principle. On closer investigation, however, it is merely the delusion of views, worldly wisdom, and clever argument. Within it are fully present the eighty-eight agents and the web of inverted delusion. How could it be genuine understanding? Know that this is the appearance of Kapila's view arising.

Others use the factor of examination to investigate and maintain that the result does not exist in the cause of any Dharma. Their view is exceptionally lucid and their understanding fierce and sharp. Meeting various challenges, they can interpret them in various ways and cite various evidence to establish that the result is absent from the cause. They use this doctrine to refute others; when others cannot withstand it, they are deemed liars. When others refute them, their own attachment only becomes firmer, so they take it as real. The arguments they establish and the principle to which they return all point solely toward the absence of the result from the cause. Know that this is the arising of Sāṃkhya's view.

If someone relies on the factor of examination to think that the result both exists and does not exist within the cause, the Dazhidu Lun says that existence disputes with nonexistence and nonexistence likewise disputes with existence. Dīrghanakha, who holds both existence and nonexistence, also disputes with those who hold existence and those who hold nonexistence. Once someone enters this view, challenges are inexhaustible. Is this not the arising of Ṛṣabha's view?

The doctrines maintained by the six teachers are all different. One must skillfully grasp the meaning held by each teacher and then check it against the view that has arisen in oneself. Although minor points may differ, a broad resemblance is enough for it to be the arising of that teacher's view.

If someone relies on the factor of examination to maintain that a self definitely exists, yet this self is neither within the four propositions of views of a body nor within the four propositions of the three times and the unconditioned, but within the fifth repository of the inexpressible, then when this view arises the mind's understanding is acute. The person can ask and answer, possesses an exceptional bearing, and responds so quickly that direct confrontation is difficult. He can refute others and establish himself, and he is resolutely immovable. Know that this is the arising of a Vātsīputrīya view.

If someone relies on the factor of examination to regard all Dharmas as like illusion and transformation and produces an understanding that everything is empty and all characteristics exhausted, that understanding falls into vacuity. It cannot distinguish the mind that understands from the Dharmas understood and regards them all as illusory transformations. Only its own doctrine is right; everything else is false speech. This is the arising of a Vaipulya view.

If someone relies on the factor of examination to investigate all Dharmas as impermanent, ceasing as soon as they arise and unable to remain, then person and self cannot be found, like the hair of a turtle or horns of a hare; only real Dharmas exist. He further analyzes those real Dharmas down to motes of dust and contemplates all of them, coarse and subtle, as impermanent and without self, deciding that this alone is real. The view that arises agrees entirely with the Abhidharma. Previously, those who learned only through hearing might have understood names and characteristics without opening the path of mind. When this view arises, the person may be dim concerning the words yet surpass his former understanding a hundredfold. Those who do not recognize this situation take him to be a worthy or noble one, but he is not. If he were truly worthy, the mind of the path would arise powerfully together with his understanding, suppressing the afflictions and accomplishing the preparatory stages. Although he now understands impermanence, contentiousness increases, the mind of the path sinks, and the afflictions grow stronger. One therefore knows this is a view of the gate of existence arising.

If someone relies on the factor of examination and suddenly produces an understanding of emptiness, regarding all things as impermanent, arising and ceasing, with the three provisional constructions floating and unreal, and then enters emptiness by analyzing motes of dust through various preparatory means, this view is lucid and acute. Its mental activity is swift; it excels at challenges, can refute others and establish itself, and takes itself as real and everything else as false. This is the arising of a view of the gate of emptiness. If one relies on the factor of examination to maintain that all Dharmas both exist and do not exist, then after entering this gate, challenges become endless. This is the meaning of the Piṭaka of Categories. Although the treatise itself was never transmitted here, the arising of past habituation is not fixed; this is the arising of a view of both existence and nonexistence. The view of neither existence nor nonexistence can be understood accordingly.

Know that if the four gates penetrate principle, they become correct views; if they lose their skillful means, they fall into the four views and are therefore called deviance within Buddha-Dharma. Would attachment turn only the four gates of the Tripiṭaka into deviant views? Over immeasurable kalpas, beings have also studied the gates of the Mahāyāna's Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings without entering principle. Maintaining them rigidly as correct and grasping the four extremes, they are burned by the fire of deviant views.

Some people now rely on the factor of examination and suddenly produce former understandings. Some regard the flowers seen in empty space within a dream as illusorily existent and form this understanding of existence with lucid acuity. Some hold that illusory appearances originally have no reality and are empty because unreal, producing an acute understanding of emptiness. Some form an understanding of both emptiness and existence, like an illusory thing that is seen yet cannot be found upon looking. Some form an understanding of neither emptiness nor existence, taking it neither as illusory existence nor as illusory nonexistence. The “Examination of Dharmas” chapter of the Madhyamaka Treatise says that to call Dharmas neither existent nor nonexistent is a foolish discourse. A person directed toward the path who hears and immediately comprehends this is said to attain the true mark; one whose deviant mind grasps it and produces conceptual proliferation is classified under foolish discourse. These are the four views of the four gates of the Shared Teaching.

If someone relies on the factor of examination to reflect on the understanding of the Shared Teaching's four gates and considers it only an illusory dream within the realm, the dream arose from sleep, and sleep is ignorance. He then contemplates ignorance and enters Dharma-nature, which also has four gates. Some say Dharma-nature resembles seven treasures inside a well; some say it resembles empty space; some say it resembles a bottle holding wine or curds; some directly say Dharma-nature is the Middle Way. If these four understandings become acute, this is the arising of views of the Distinct Teaching's four gates.

If someone relies on the factor of examination and suddenly understands that ignorance turns once and becomes illumination, and that illumination fully possesses all Dharmas; or thinks ignorance cannot be found, so how could ignorance become illumination and how could illumination itself be found, while this very unfindability fully possesses all Dharmas; or thinks the illumination of Dharma-nature is both findable and unfindable, neither findable nor unfindable—then one gate is the three gates and the three gates are one gate. This understanding is acute: there is nothing it cannot refute, nothing it cannot establish, and no one who can surpass it. The person himself thinks he has attained the tolerance of nonarising. This is the arising of views of the Perfect Teaching's four gates.

All four Mahāyāna gates can become views because true speech is grasped as false speech and views are produced from language; nirvāṇa is turned into birth and death, arising through craving and attachment. This is like taking so much ambrosia that it instead damages life and brings an early death. Losing the gate of skillful means, one falls into deviant attachment, which is therefore called an inner deviant view.

The four views are the roots of all views, while intrinsic nature and other-nature are also the roots of conature and causelessness. Therefore, after Nāgārjuna refuted intrinsic nature and other-nature, he pointed out that conature combines the faults of both, while causelessness is fundamentally impossible to establish. If the two roots of intrinsic and other are already unreal, how much more so is causelessness? When the roots are broken, the branches and twigs fall with them. This is the intent. If one wished to establish intrinsic nature and other-nature, conature and causelessness could also be established by analogy. Because biased attachment now turns the Great- and Small-Vehicle four gates into views, it is only necessary to explain intrinsic nature and other-nature; the remainder can then be understood.

The Tripiṭaka Teaching says that great arising produces small arising and that both arise from ignorance, not from principle. When ignorance ceases, formations cease, and this too does not concern the ceasing of principle. Attachment to this teaching becomes a deviant view of arising from intrinsic nature. The Shared Teaching says that principle originally does not arise; because it does not arise, it can produce all delusions, and when all delusions cease, that too occurs through nonarising. Attachment to this becomes a deviant view of arising from other-nature. Within the realm, delusion is taken as intrinsic and truth as other, so it is explained in this way. Beyond the realm, Dharma-nature is taken as intrinsic and ignorance as other. The Distinct Teaching maintains that the ālaya produces all delusions and that wisdom cultivated in dependence upon conditions extinguishes this ignorance; neither production nor extinction concerns Dharma-nature. Attachment to this teaching becomes a deviant view of arising from other-nature. The Perfect Teaching says that Dharma-nature produces all Dharmas and Dharma-nature extinguishes all Dharmas. Attachment to it is a deviant view of arising from intrinsic nature. The former resembles a weak ruler with strong ministers, and the latter a strong ruler with weak ministers. The remaining two, conature and causelessness, can be understood accordingly.

Hearing most often produces views of principle and less often superknowledges and the Vedas. Meditative concentration most often produces superknowledges and the Vedas and less often views of principle. Those who produce views of principle can subdue learned people; those who produce superknowledges can subdue ordinary people. Ordinary people value marvels rather than understanding; learned people value understanding rather than marvels. One who produces the Vedas can subdue both, while one who produces all three can most fully subdue both. Arising through dhyāna has already been explained; arising through hearing is now explained.

Although a practitioner has attained meditative concentration, if no view has yet arisen, another person must still stimulate his mind. His mind has already become still and acute; suddenly hearing that the result exists within the cause, it opens in realization and penetrates deviant wisdom. Hundreds and thousands of layers of meaning grow ever deeper and more distant, like a spring welling from among stones. This is Kapila's view arising from hearing. The other three schools are also like this. Hearing about the fifth repository of the inexpressible or hearing about illusion and transformation produces Vātsīputrīya or Vaipulya views. Or someone hears the four gates of the Tripiṭaka, produces understanding from one statement within them, and suddenly gives rise to the mind of views. He deeply understands impermanence, and his contemplative mind bounds forward beyond control. This is a view of the gate of existence arising through hearing; the remaining three gates are likewise. If one hears the twelve gates of the Mahāyāna and produces understanding in dependence on each gate, that understanding becomes acute and surpasses what was previously heard. Although this understanding has arisen, the person lacks the great skillful means, cannot enter even the worthy stages of the Small Vehicle, and differs from the deviant understandings of Kapila and the rest. One therefore knows this is the arising of views of the twelve gates.

The Different Dharmas That Arise

Second is clarifying the differences among the Dharmas that arise. If a Kapila non-Buddhist directly produces a view, his understanding is forceful, his deviant wisdom exceptional, and he is very difficult to subdue. This is attaining the Dharma of knowledge of all. If he directly produces superknowledges, he can walk upon water and fire and disappear or appear at will. Who would not regard him as a noble one? Tripiṭaka Master Paramārtha said: “The land of China has two kinds of merit〔and so forth〕.” This is attaining the Dharma of superknowledges. If he directly produces the Vedas, he comprehends worldly writings and understands all manner of books as soon as he sees them. Or he secretly reads the Tripiṭaka and Mahāyāna scriptures and can identify them as soon as his eyes touch the text; he then uses this knowledge to adorn his own Dharma. Buddha-Dharma and what lies outside it consequently become intermingled and nearly impossible to distinguish.

Today many people who have returned to lay life enter non-Buddhist paths because they fear conscription for the king's service. They steal meanings from Buddha-Dharma and also steal understandings of Laozi and Zhuangzi, creating a mixture that confuses beginners. Who is correct and who deviant? This is producing the Dharma of the Vedas. Each kind of non-Buddhist has three Dharmas. If counted according to how many each person attains, there are seven kinds of people: three who attain only one of the three, three who attain combinations of two, and one who possesses all three. The other two houses of non-Buddhists are likewise, making twenty-one different attainments. For the six teachers, each has three, making eighteen; counted according to how many each person attains, this makes forty-two different attainments. The different attainments of the Vātsīputrīya and Vaipulya schools likewise each comprise seven types of people: three with single attainments, three with combined attainments, and one who possesses them all.

The attainments of deviant views within Buddha-Dharma also differ. Precisely discriminating the principle maintained by each gate is attaining a view of the establishment of mindfulness through intrinsic nature—might it also be said to resemble liberation through wisdom? The remaining gates are all likewise. If one singly or jointly produces superknowledges and can fly freely, this is attaining a view of the conjoined establishment of mindfulness—might it also be said to resemble liberation in both respects? If one's superknowledges and wisdom are unhindered but one cannot teach the Dharma, one searches the scriptures and treatises or listens to another's teaching and immediately masters names and enumerations. Downward, one comprehends the Vedas; upward, one comprehends the Great Vehicle. One uses one's own view to dissolve all Dharma gates and uses all Dharma gates to adorn one's own view. Each of the four gates has three kinds, and counted by the attainments of persons, each also has seven types.

Within each of the four gates of the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings, some directly produce an understanding through wisdom, some produce only transformative superknowledges, and some comprehend scriptures both inner and outer. They themselves consider what has arisen to be the true path, and others also exalt them; these are now judged to be only deviant views. Each gate has seven types, making eighty-four in all〔and so forth〕.

Next, sameness and difference were previously explained in general; they should now be explained one by one. Although the three houses of non-Buddhists and the six teachers all produce knowledge of all, some produce a knowledge of all based on the view of existence, some produce one based on the view of nonexistence, and still others produce various different kinds of knowledge of all. Because what they maintain differs, their view-wisdoms also differ. Each house regards itself alone as right and everyone else as wrong.

The Lotus Sūtra says: “The jackals die first.” This indicates that when the acute agents arise, the dull agents become hidden and are therefore said to die first. It also says: “Various great evil beasts compete to come forward and devour them.” This means that the single view one holds can devour all other views. The Treatise on the Power of Argument says: “All teachers possess an ultimate path; among them Deer-Head is foremost.” Know that every house's knowledge of all differs from the others. Even the knowledge of all in the Tripiṭaka's four gates and the Great Vehicle's four gates grasps its own view and devours the others. Their mutual differences can be understood from this.

Next, the Dharmas of superknowledge also differ. Superknowledges are attained in dependence upon meditative concentration, and the dhyāna attained is not fixed. Non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma produce superknowledges only in dependence upon root dhyāna, sometimes the first dhyāna, sometimes the second, third, or fourth. Since their bases differ, their powers and functions also differ. Deviant views within Buddha-Dharma also rely on root dhyāna and may further rely on purifying dhyāna. The supporting dhyāna may be shallow or deep, and the function of superknowledge superior or inferior. The Dazhidu Lun says: “At the place that serves as its basis, the function of superknowledge is broad; at a place that does not serve as its basis, its function is weak.” Dhyāna is only a phenomenon and superknowledge only a function; both belong to the adornment of merit and are not points of doctrinal dispute. Although there is no dispute over principle here, when the bases are compared, the functions of the superknowledges still differ in every case.

Next, the Dharmas of the Vedas also differ. The books on household management and governing the world produced and read by non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma differ in their collections and in their expositions. When much is produced and read, knowledge is broad; when little is produced and read, knowledge is narrow. Human arrogance and self-importance arise entirely from differences in textual knowledge. If those with deviant views within Buddha-Dharma neither produce nor read the writings of non-Buddhists outside it, their knowledge is narrow; if they produce or read them, their knowledge is broad. If they neither produce nor read the writings of the Tripiṭaka, they do not know the names and characteristics within the realm, and their views are narrow; if they produce or read them, their views are broad. If they neither produce nor read the writings of the Great Vehicle, they do not know names and characteristics beyond the realm, and their views are narrow; if they produce or read them, their views are broad. It follows that every item of knowledge within the Vedas differs.

Next, the inner and outer views are judged together. All inner and outer deviant views can discuss wisdom of principle, superknowledges, and writings. They can also establish virtue and regulate the mind, esteem others and humble themselves, and move crowds by reputation. This resembles the difficulty of knowing from its appearance whether an āmra fruit is ripe. Even the cleverest person in the world would have trouble discerning deviance from correctness. Yet the judgment can now be made easily.

Consider the seven types of Kapila practitioners. Tracing their root, all arise from an erroneous nothingness. If someone maintains that the result exists within the cause, he uses this one statement to refute all Dharmas and leaves only this statement standing. He displays various superknowledges, shakes ordinary people, and causes them to believe that the result exists within the cause. He also cites the Vedas of different houses and uses their names and characteristics to adorn this doctrine. The various practices he establishes ultimately point in their cardinal principle and final destination toward the result's existence within the cause. For the sake of the Dharma he holds, he sets body, speech, and mind into motion and produces immeasurable karmic offenses, as explained in detail below. By this one verifies that he is a Kapila non-Buddhist. Sāṃkhya and Ṛṣabha can be inferred in the same way. Beginning from an erroneous nothingness, they finally return to what they themselves grasp. The Vātsīputrīya is likewise. The four gates of the Small and Great Vehicles can all be understood by this method.

When one examines the source and then looks at the doctrine to which each finally returns, the clear and muddy are as distinct as the waters of the Jing and Wei Rivers, and beans and wheat each fall into their own kind. Why, then, would one equate Zhuangzi and Laozi with Buddha-Dharma? Once deviance and correctness are mixed, how could one pull out great errors and clarify small differences? If one's own cultivation remains unclear, how could one teach others? Teacher and disciple will fall together.

III. The Faults of Views

Third, clarifying faults is divided into two parts: first, directly clarifying the faults; second, judging truth and falsity together.

Gains and Losses in China's Three Mysteries

First is directly clarifying the faults. If the doctrinal systems of India have three houses, China has analogous meanings. Explaining the Three Mysteries, Zhou Hongzheng said that the Book of Changes, which judges the eight trigrams, yin and yang, good and ill fortune, makes a mystery from existence; Laozi, with its empty openness, makes a mystery from nonexistence; and Zhuangzi, with its spontaneity, makes a mystery from both existence and nonexistence. The ancestral sources of the other branches all divide from these. Their gains and losses are now provisionally explained through these three.

As Zhuangzi says, noble and base, suffering and happiness, right and wrong, gain and loss are all naturally so. To say everything is natural does not destroy the result, but because it does not distinguish karma from past lives, it destroys the cause. Ritual, humaneness, and righteousness can protect oneself and stabilize the state; without practicing them, one's clan is destroyed and one's house lost. To speak only of establishing virtue in the present life, without saying it can bring results in a later life, destroys the result but not the cause. To say in addition that blessings and good fortune pass down to later generations, when combined with the former position, means that a result both exists and does not exist.

Three kinds of conduct can arise from the same doctrine: first, doing good while reckoning existence; second, doing evil while reckoning existence; third, doing what is indeterminate while reckoning existence. For example, it is said that one's allotted principle is originally just so: wealth and honor cannot be sought, poverty and low station cannot be resented or escaped, life is not worth delighting in, and why fear death? Through such an empty mind, those who live amid wealth and honor do not become arrogant, while those in hardship do not become distressed. Craving and anger cease, and all dwell within one breast. Teaching people through spontaneity and using it as a guide into principle—this is its benefit.

Its attainments have further varieties. If it says, “Constantly be without desire in order to observe its wonder,” precisely what desire is to be eliminated? Disdaining jade disks, casting away the office of minister, washing one's ears to refuse an ox, and guarding one's lofty purity abandon only desire in the desire realm while reaching toward the excellence of the upper realms and taking the first dhyāna and the rest as wondrous. How is this known? Duke Zhuang said that when the emperor inquired into the path, he contemplated the vital spirit and saw various things within his body. Taking this as the path resembles attaining the wonder of the first dhyāna within the contemplation of penetrating illumination.

If it is said that craving is the root cause of all suffering and that abandoning craving attains nirvāṇa, this abandons desire throughout the three realms and attains the wonder in cessation, stillness, wonder, and separation. There is also a Dharma called the stainless; if one becomes stained by that Dharma, it is attachment to nirvāṇa. Without this desire for staining, one attains a subtle path in which the various desires and wonders all return to nothingness. But which of these has actually been attained? If one does not even recognize desire in the desire realm and the wonder of the first dhyāna, how much less the later desires and wonders? If spoken as an expedient, this merely adapts to faculties and guides them gradually, concealing the truth while discussing desire and wonder. It cannot openly be proclaimed as definitive meaning. If it merely stills the desire to overreach and seek, contemplates the wonder of spontaneity, eliminates dangerous and perverse conduct, and leaves a disposition of humaneness and deference, all this is doing good while reckoning a naturally existent principle.

Others maintain spontaneity and freely indulge their temperaments. They neither direct their minds and control themselves to do good nor deliberately compel themselves to do evil, believing that any deliberate action harms spiritual harmony and does not accord with spontaneity. Although this involves neither taking nor rejecting, it remains indeterminate conduct. Its active karma is not yet exhausted—how could there be doubt about undergoing retribution?

Those who maintain spontaneity and do evil believe the myriad things to be naturally so, so they freely do evil, since everything returns to spontaneity in the end. This precisely abandons desirelessness and indulges desire, turns away from wonder, and goes toward the coarse. Zhuang Zhou rebuked humaneness and righteousness to guard against petty thieves, yet failed to foresee great robbers raising the banner of humaneness and righteousness to plot against the state. Spontaneity was originally borrowed to still desire, but is now raised as a banner for doing evil. The principle is clear.

Gains and Losses of the Indian View of Emptiness

Next, among the various Indian views, the view of emptiness has the greatest power, so its gains and losses are provisionally explained through it. Views of emptiness are divided into three kinds: first, destroying the cause but not the result, or destroying the result but not the cause; second, destroying both cause and result but not all Dharmas; third, destroying cause, result, and all Dharmas. “All Dharmas” here refers to the three kinds of unconditioned Dharma.

How does the third kind of non-Buddhist differ from Buddha-Dharma? The Dazhidu Lun says that the emptinesses of the Great and Small Vehicles differ as substantive emptiness and analytical emptiness. Yet non-Buddhists also have substantive and analytical emptiness; how, then, are they distinguished? Non-Buddhists depend upon deviant causes and conditions or no causes and conditions. Whether they analyze into emptiness, penetrate directly into emptiness, or reach ultimate emptiness, this remains true. Disciples of the Buddha know that everything arises from causes and conditions of craving. Whether they analyze, directly penetrate, or reach ultimate emptiness, they rely on correct causes and conditions.

Some say that merely using language of refutation is not direct penetration. Yet consider the Madhyamaka Treatise: from beginning to end, each chapter takes refutation as its subject. Could refutation differ from direct penetration? Therefore, substantive and analytical emptiness cannot distinguish deviant from correct or Great from Small. One can rely only on what the Dazhidu Lun says: analyzing correct causes and conditions differs from non-Buddhists, while directly penetrating correct causes and conditions differs from the Small Vehicle.

If a view of emptiness arises in dependence upon deviant causes and conditions, it too has the three conducts of good, evil, and indeterminate, but most often does evil. One who truly contemplates emptiness knows that everything arises from craving and does not produce even good, much less evil. For someone in whom a view of emptiness has arisen, retribution, wealth, and position are not what he contests; emptiness is the point of contention. If another approves his Dharma of emptiness, he loves that person. If another affirms existence and refutes emptiness, he resents and angrily torments that person. If another does not understand emptiness, he scorns that person like mud.

Relying on a mind of emptiness, he fears nothing, observes no rules, indulges his impulses and desires, and destroys correct views, deportment, and pure livelihood. After death, all such people fall into the three evil destinies. The six teachers even said that one who has shame and conscience falls into hell, while one without shame and conscience does not. In front of a crowd, they violate the prohibition on raw fish; behind a screen, they engage in misconduct. They urinate at thunder in the sky, foul wells, rebel against their fathers, and scorn their mothers more viciously than strangers, then call themselves unobstructed. To treat relatives one way and strangers another is not equality. They themselves practice depravity and teach it to others, universally agreeing to commit wrong together. Having lost ritual and Dharma like animals, how could the world tolerate them?

Although he calls himself unobstructed, he does not dare rebel against the ruler or scorn the queen and still cherishes his own body. He therefore remains obstructed by the body. If such a person directly produces this view, the view only grows more powerful and he can never attain dhyāna. If he attains dhyāna first and the view arises afterward, the Dharma of dhyāna is usually lost. If dhyāna is attained after the view arises, it is usually ghostly dhyāna and ghostly superknowledge, able to predict good and ill fortune and also know the minds of others. He searches widely through the Vedas and uses them to establish this view and cause people to believe and accept it.

He destroys the good of the world and beyond the world and is called a dog that devours people. If even one Dharma remains unbroken, he is not full; only when all Dharmas have been destroyed is the mind of views full, and “full” means that the view has grown more blazing. Inwardly he possesses no genuine cultivation and only conducts empty disputes, like a dog barking for food. Attachment to emptiness contests attachment to existence; emptiness and existence refute each other like dogs baring their teeth and biting. Praising himself resembles prolonged howling. Refuting others is called seizing; establishing himself is called dragging. Suspicion and indecision also resemble bared teeth, while intimidating and threatening others resemble howling, just as a watchdog barks to make others afraid. Such a person does evil entirely by himself.

He teaches others in four ways: first, doing evil himself while urging others to do good; second, proclaiming that he does good while urging others to do evil; third, both he and others doing evil; fourth, both he and others doing good. One who does evil while urging others to do good says, “I can penetrate principle, so doing evil does me no harm. Your cultivation is still shallow, so you must first learn good Dharmas; when teaching, too, you should first guide people through goodness.” One who does good but urges others to do evil says, “I am the leader who teaches and must harmonize my light and do good. You cultivate only for yourself, so you should do evil.” When both he and others do evil, he calls it practicing the true path together. When both he and others do good, he calls it exercising an expedient path together. Although the four differ, all take evil as their root and sink according to karma. What road could be followed there?

Others rely on the view of emptiness yet do good. They believe there is originally neither good nor evil in emptiness but that good must nevertheless be done; otherwise Viṣṇu becomes angry and sentient beings suffer torment. Suffering becomes karma because it was produced in the past and is now undergone as retribution. By observing precepts and ascetic practices in the present life to stop the current evil result, they can attain the exhaustion of the outflows. Believing that good must therefore be done, they observe precepts, restrain the body, possess few desires, know contentment, wear coarse clothes, and eat grass. Yet because their conduct is produced for emptiness, joy and anger still arise; emptiness remains the locus of anger, attachment, and dispute. If they first attain dhyāna and then produce the view, dhyāna is lost while the view grows more blazing. If they first produce the view and later attain dhyāna, it is still ghostly dhyāna and ghostly superknowledge. Their own conduct based on this view of emptiness has only one kind, but they still teach others in the preceding four ways. Their own conduct and their teaching of others merely follow karma, rising or sinking according to karma. What does this have to do with the true path?

There are also those who grasp a view of emptiness and do neither good nor evil. Loose and unrestrained, they call themselves established in equality. Although they speak of equality, they feel love upon being praised and distress upon being reviled, and elevate their own equality above others. Know that this very equality is a locus where afflictions arise. Attaining dhyāna and producing the view proceed as before. They may also comprehend the Vedas, steal meanings from Buddhism, and use them to adorn their indeterminate doctrine; they bare their teeth and howl, and immeasurable bonds and agents arise from the indeterminate. Their own conduct has one kind, and their teaching of others has four. If they do not produce dhyāna, karma draws them into evil destinies. If they produce dhyāna, they undergo birth according to the dhyāna. If that karma has not yet matured, the strongest among their various past karmas draws them first into retribution. It follows that the various views cannot even suppress delusion; how could anyone say delusion has been severed? The gains and losses of views of both existence and nonexistence and the rest can all be understood accordingly.

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Ten〔Upper〕.

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Ten〔Lower〕.

Taught by Great Master Zhizhe of Tiantai in the Sui dynasty.

Recorded by his disciple Guanding.

Gains and Losses of Deviant Views within Buddha-Dharma

Next are the gains and losses of deviant views within Buddha-Dharma. The four gates of the Tripiṭaka Teaching were all originally intended to enable people to enter principle. Yet some attach themselves to them and create conceptual proliferation, produce views, attain dhyāna, and comprehend the scriptures. If they grasp one gate as their own, in principle they should produce only good; but because it corresponds with a view, the three conducts of good, evil, and indeterminate still arise.

Those among them who do good act only to produce retribution within the various modes of existence in the three realms. Attaching themselves to the gate of existence, they produce love and anger. When they surpass others, they fall into the deep pit of pride; when others surpass them, they fall into the prison of sorrow. The gate of existence becomes a locus where afflictions arise; it closes instead and cannot enable them to attain liberation. Those who do evil cling to the gate of existence alone as right and everything else as wrong. To defend this gate, they stop at no evil. A deviant ghost enters their minds, and they know only how to multiply everyone's faults.

Among ninety-six kinds of non-Buddhists, three accord with Buddha-Dharma, so there is a path of Abhidharma and a path of sūtras. Yet the five hundred arhats departed precisely through this gate of existence. How could the gate itself be called deviant? People today grasp it one-sidedly, and only then does a ghost enter their minds; it is therefore called the ghost of Abhidharma. Some enter through views and some through dhyāna. Their own cultivation has one kind, while their teaching of others has four. One gate is like this, and so are the remaining three.

The Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings likewise each have four gates, and views may arise in every gate. Each view similarly possesses all three conducts: good, evil, and indeterminate. Conducting oneself well can be understood. Those who do evil grasp one-sidedly the Great Vehicle statements that craving itself is the path and that the three poisons fully possess all Buddha-Dharmas. These true statements were originally meant to extinguish afflictions, but through one-sided grasping and attachment the person instead produces bonds and karma. Praise and blame, sorrow and love, bullying, arrogance, and bared-teeth quarrels all compete over reputation and gain. His own conduct has one kind and his teaching of others four. Since this is not outflow-free, ignorance moistens karma, and karmic power draws him into birth. Where could he not go? It is impossible to explain every case; all can be understood from the preceding examples.

Views such as these all oppose the noble path and can produce and increase various wrongs. Those who do not recognize them attach themselves and take them to be the path. Even those who know they are views still follow the views in their conduct and bury themselves. How then could they cultivate the factors of the path amid movement or stillness within views? The various faults produced when views arise have now been explained in brief.

Judging Truth and Falsity Together

Second, judging truth and falsity together is divided into two parts: first, judging according to the Dharmas produced; second, judging according to the Dharmas upon which the views depend.

First, consider the Dharmas produced. From the four propositions of non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma through the Perfect Teaching's four gates, and from the non-Buddhists' view-wisdom and Vedas through the Perfect Teaching's three establishments of mindfulness and three liberations, the names may agree, but the offenses and bonds produced by the views do not differ. This resembles gold chains and iron chains: their materials differ, but both bind people. From the four propositions of non-Buddhists through the Perfect Teaching's four views, the names may be pure and beautiful, but the substance of the afflictions produced is filthy. This resembles a rough jade and a rat-stone: their appearances are alike but their contents differ. From the four propositions of non-Buddhists through the Perfect Teaching's four views, all may equally undergo refinement and training, but some can be completed and some cannot. This resembles cow's milk and donkey's milk. From the four views of non-Buddhists through the Perfect Teaching's four views, some harm people and others do not. This resembles the kālaka fruit and the zhentou fruit, similar in outward form.

The divine self they maintain is actually a Dharma of bondage, not an autonomous self. Each clings to his own position as right and calls everything else false speech. They judge one another right and wrong—what has this to do with suchness? Thinking they have found the true path, they instead open roads into the three modes of existence. Hoping to attain nirvāṇa, they are sinking into birth and death. They call their statements true and correct, but end in deviance. They love what is lovable and become angry at what provokes anger.

Although they produce kindness and compassion, it is only compassion arising from views of love. Although they can patiently endure both being anointed with fragrant paste and having their bodies cut, it is merely the forced endurance of an arising-and-ceasing mind. Although they possess knowledge of all, it is merely conjecture and measurement according to worldly sentiment. Although they possess superknowledges, they are only transformations of root dhyāna, transformations with outflows. The Vedas they read are taught through worldly wisdom, not through the power of dhāraṇī and not flowing from the Dharma realm. Although they temporarily sever the dull agents, this is still like the progress of a looper caterpillar or a worldly physician treating an illness that will recur after it has healed. The ocean of origination composed of the eighty-eight agents is vast, and the wheel of suffering in birth and death throughout the three realms has no end. Immersed in outflows, they have no day of escape. All this is the illusory falsity of views. How could it be taken as the real path?

Next, judge according to the Dharmas upon which views depend. Every view depends upon its own Dharma. The three houses of non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma are people with outflows who produce Dharmas with outflows; with minds possessing outflows, they attach themselves to Dharmas that are inherently attachable. Both the Dharma attached to and the mind that attaches are contentious in substance. Not only do they seize one another by the head and pull out hair while cultivating causes; once a view arises, they further take it to be nirvāṇa. Attachment forms fierce views, the poison deepens, and conflict becomes more intense. The Dharma depended upon is not true and the view produced is also false.

Although this is a deviant Dharma, someone who covertly attains its true intent may still borrow a deviant characteristic to enter the correct characteristic. The flight of a flower or movement of a leaf can, through the slightest cause and condition, enable someone to realize pratyekabuddhahood. How much more can an old Dharma already present in the world do so? Yet although what the pratyekabuddha attains is correct, flowers and leaves are ultimately not correct teachings. Non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma may awaken covertly, but their Dharma gates lead only to various views and are not correct Dharmas. Because an attached mind attaches to an attachable Dharma, both cause and result remain in conflict. They are therefore judged to be deviant Dharmas producing deviant views.

The four gates of the Tripiṭaka Teaching, by contrast, are world-transcending Dharmas realized by world-transcending noble ones. Their substance is pure, and they are loci where afflictions are extinguished. Not only the Buddha's scriptures are correct Dharma; the Dharma explained by the five hundred arhats can also enable people to attain the path. The Samādhi of Wondrous Excellence says that one hundred years after the Buddha's extinction, one hundred thousand people left home and ninety thousand attained the path; after two hundred years, one hundred thousand left home and ten thousand attained the path. From this one knows that if a person uses an unattached mind and does not attach himself to Dharma that is originally unattached, gives rise to a sincere and correct mind, awakens to the impermanence of everything and to arising and ceasing thought after thought, recognizes that morning cannot guarantee the evening, and single-mindedly seeks the essential road of escape, he will not seal himself inside one gate, produce defilement and attachment, or give rise to conceptual proliferation.

Suppose someone urgently wishes to see the king, receive a reward, and be appointed to office. He may enter through any of the city's four gates. How would he have time to remain at the gate arguing over whether it is good or bad? Knowing that a gate is a thoroughfare, he need not dispute it. Likewise, medicine exists to treat illness, so one should not merely discriminate the medicine's name and characteristics. One should swiftly leave the burning house and exhaust the farthest limit of suffering. When true illumination arises, one realizes the ultimate path and is ultimately free of contention. With no contention there is no karma; with no karma there is no birth and death, only path and cessation. The ground of mind is level and at ease; all dispute over cause and result is absent, all contention ceases, and only correct view remains, with no deviant view.

Although the four gates are correct Dharma, attaching to them with an attached mind still produces deviant views. One regards the four gates as mutually different and produces much conflict while cultivating causes. It is like someone who lives at the city gate for a long time, distinguishes its tiles and timbers, judges them thick or thin, fine or coarse, and says the south gate is good but the north bad, the east clever but the west clumsy. He remains there and refuses to proceed; this is not the gate's fault.

People attached to Dharma gates are likewise. They discriminate names and characteristics, know the afflictions extensively, memorize many factors of the path, pursue reputation, gather followers, and rely on intermediaries to display themselves and seek prominence. They beat the drum of self-importance and raise the banner of pride, boasting before others and struggling with one another even to the point of seizing heads and pulling hair. The vast anger and love among the eighty-eight agents all arise because an attached mind attaches to a correct Dharma gate and produces a deviant view. The afflictions that arise are entirely the same as those of non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma, although the Dharmas reckoned differ as greatly as heaven and earth.

The Vaipulya Sūtra tells of many questions about a bridge that a wise person rebuked. People are also like this. They originally cultivate the four gates to study the path, yet after more than thirty years they still merely discriminate one gate and have not understood it. Their effort has only just begun when they are already old. They do not attain the three flavors of Dharma, but are born empty and die empty, vainly throwing away this lifetime. Like the person who only asks about the bridge, what benefit is there? All this arises because an attached mind attaches to a Dharma originally without attachment and thereby produces a deviant view.

The substance of the Shared Teaching's four gates is also correct Dharma, leading in the near term to the conjured city. The Tripiṭaka gates are circuitous and the Shared Teaching's gates direct. Although skillful and clumsy differ, there is no difference in what they reach. It is like a celestial gate that is straight and splendid while other gates are circuitous and coarse: as long as one does not remain beneath either kind of gate, one can pass through and advance. If one only counts the tiles and timbers, both kinds of gate delay and obstruct. If one does not linger at the Dharma gate, one contends neither while cultivating the cause nor when realizing the result. This is called an unattached mind. By not attaching to an unattached Dharma, one does not produce a deviant view.

Conversely, attaching to this direct gate with an attached mind also produces a deviant view. Whether for reputation, followers, superiority over others, or gain, one discriminates the characteristics of the gate, and the bonds of anger, love, pride, and the rest arise from this. It resembles putting poison into good medicine—how could one not die? Putting the poison of attachment to views into the correct Dharma increases suffering and origination; this is not the Tathāgata's fault. A sharp-facultied non-Buddhist enters the correct characteristic through a deviant characteristic and turns attachment into nonattachment, becoming a disciple of the Buddha. A dull-facultied Buddhist, however, enters a deviant characteristic through the correct characteristic and turns nonattachment into attachment, becoming a deviant disciple. Is this not lamentable?

The four gates of the Distinct and Perfect Teachings, whether skillful or clumsy, sharp or dull, all lead to ultimate nirvāṇa. One does not abide in attachment while cultivating the cause and does not contend when realizing the result. If one seals oneself at the gate and produces a view, one gives rise to afflictions and becomes the same as Ulūka and the other non-Buddhists. Observed in this way, how could someone with clear eyes standing where the Jing and Wei Rivers meet be confused only by names and fail to distinguish clear from muddy?

Why Views Arise and How to Nurture Views while Examining the Mind

In brief, views arise in five rounds. Each round has four gates, making twenty gates; each gate further has seven types of people, making one hundred and forty different Dharmas of views. Explained extensively, they are immeasurable. All open through causes and conditions. Because calming is cultivated generally, various dhyānas can arise. Because contemplation is cultivated generally, various views can arise. Although the shared conditioning cause lies in calming-and-contemplation, the distinct root cause necessarily comes from a past life.

Some people studied among non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma in a past life. Some were disciples of the Buddha and studied within the Great or Small Vehicle. Some heard Dharma characteristics and produced various views; some produced views through seated dhyāna. With the separation of a lifetime, those studies were lost and forgotten, and the understanding could no longer appear. Now, by cultivating a still mind or hearing scriptures and treatises that stir past karma, the Dharmas of views arise again. What was maturely perfumed in the past arises easily in the present; what was unfamiliar then arises with difficulty now. What is separated by many lives is difficult to produce, while what is near arises easily. If views of non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma were recently and maturely perfumed, outer views arise first. If inner views of Buddha-Dharma were recently and maturely perfumed, inner views appear first.

Superknowledges and the Vedas concern phenomena and are easily forgotten between lives, so they are difficult to produce. Views belong to the nature of wisdom and are harder to forget, so they arise easily. It resembles someone who, after a long separation, remembers a name but has forgotten a face. Phenomena and principle differ in ease and difficulty in the same way. If one had a cause and condition involving a ghost outside oneself in a past life, the ghost empowers one and causes ghostly dhyāna and ghostly views to arise. If one had a cause and condition involving a noble one outside oneself, the noble one empowers one and correct dhyāna and correct views arise.

Next, if one did not previously know the faults of views, one would be terrified upon seeing a view arise and hastily try to cut it off. Now that its deviant characteristics are recognized, it must never be cut off abruptly. It may provisionally be allowed to reach completion and turned into a power that assists the path; this will certainly have great benefit. It resembles someone with abdominal worms who first nurtures a tape-worm and later uses dried-pearl medicine to purge it.

Why is this so? Foolish people in the world are as stubborn and dull as oxen and horses. Even if the sound of Dharma thunders and the language spreads out like brocade, what they see and hear brings no benefit. They are submerged in the five desires, like someone with abdominal worms. If various views arise, the views can devour dull afflictions like a tape-worm devouring abdominal worms. View-wisdom lies close to correct contemplation and makes the Dharma easy to understand upon hearing, like the final pearl decoction. One must therefore nurture views and examine the mind, allowing view-wisdom to go ahead as a guide.

If one enters the Two Vehicles, one shifts the view that arose and cultivates the factors of the path. If one enters the Great Vehicle, one does not shift the view that arose but cultivates the factors of the path within it. It resembles confronting enemies and destroying bands of thieves, then establishing merit only after the affair is finished. This is nurturing an outer view and making it an attendant. If views of the Tripiṭaka's circuitous and clumsy four gates or the Shared Teaching's skillful four gates arise, those views may be obstructions, but their power to assist the path is also profound. If there are only Dharmas of merit, ascending to heaven is easy but attaining the path difficult. Views belong to the nature of wisdom: sinking is easy, but awakening to the path is also swift.

The Dazhidu Lun says: “There are also those who attain the path in the three evil destinies. They are not mentioned only because they are few; a black mole on a white person's body does not make that person black.” Once one knows this to be a view, other delusions cannot seize an opening, and the view may be allowed to discriminate fully. Various non-Buddhists already possess minds of views. When they receive the Buddha's teaching, they are like swift horses that awaken as soon as they see the shadow of the whip. Those without views are like material that cannot be cut through even with many axes, or like oxen and horses being taught the Dharma, with neither side able to understand the other.

How could profound matters be discussed with peoples whose language is not even understood? For such people, the Buddha therefore cannot appear directly in a buddha-body. He must divide and transform his form, becoming a teacher or a friend who guides their Dharmas of views. When the sun of the Buddha first rose, expedient persons guided them toward the real Dharma, and they awakened upon hearing. The Lotus Sūtra's “secretly dispatching two people” refers, in terms of Dharma, to the two expedient teachings and, in terms of persons, to expedient manifestations resembling the Two Vehicles. Even the assembled noble ones bend through skillful means and first teach a person's views. Now that views have arisen, how could they be hastily removed?

If someone cultivated the eight gates of the Distinct and Perfect Teachings in a past life but had not yet severed the shared delusions, then if those views arise in this life, their faults are the same as those of the three non-Buddhist houses. If the shared delusions had already been broken but the distinct principle not yet awakened to, the person may resemble the Two Vehicles. Even the earlier views can be nurtured—how much more these? The Vimalakīrti Sūtra takes the aspect in which the Two Vehicles are at fault and rebukes them as the same as non-Buddhists; it also takes the aspect in which they can assist the path and makes them attendants. The matter must be understood from both advance and retreat and cannot be treated from only one direction. If the mind of views arises during cultivation of the path in this life, principle can be expected. If views have not yet arisen, the noble object is difficult to meet.

IV. Cultivating Calming-and-Contemplation in Relation to Views

Fourth is cultivating calming-and-contemplation in relation to views. As generally explained above, the views attained differ, making one hundred and forty kinds. If only deviant views within Buddha-Dharma are considered, there are one hundred and twelve. How many schools result if doctrines are established and meanings explained? Are the characteristics of views discriminated in the Treatise on the Ten Grounds, Madhyamaka Treatise, Summary Treatise, Sāṃkhya treatises, and the rest the same or different? How are the deviant and correct roads distinguished, and how many grades of superior and inferior are there? One who understands the meanings above knows that these questions are irrelevant. What can be done for one who does not understand?

Buddha-Dharma has two methods of teaching: first, gathering in; second, breaking and subduing. The “Peaceful Practices” chapter's refusal to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of others expresses gathering in. The Great Sūtra's teaching about taking up knives and staves and even beheading expresses breaking and subduing. Although giving and taking away are different roads, both aim to bring people benefit. If views cause circulation, they must be broken and removed without remainder. If they can assist the refinement of spiritual understanding and turn the mind back toward correctness, they may be gathered in.

The foregoing explained various views in relation to many kinds of people; it did not mean that one person produces all views simultaneously. Even if they all arose, they would devour one another until only the one thing the person considers real remained. If each view were individually opened into a Dharma gate and words skillfully presented, ninety days would not suffice to finish explaining it. If each view were gathered into one gate of contemplation, with all Dharmas fully present within it, that too could not be exhaustively explained. Both multiplicity and unity can be applied freely.

One view will now provisionally serve as an example; the many remaining views are the same. Among all views, the view of emptiness can destroy everything, while no other view can destroy emptiness. Its power to guide people is the most acute, so the view of emptiness is contemplated first and ten meanings are opened from it by analogy.

〔Section §14.4.1〕 The Conceivable Object: The View of Emptiness Produces the Ten Dharma Realms

The conceivable object means that the view of emptiness can produce the ten Dharma realms. A cucumber is not itself hot but can become a cause of hot illness. The view of emptiness is not itself the ten Dharma realms but can serve as their cause and condition. The Chengshi Lun says that when a mind of an extreme view arises for one moment, it is unwholesome. The Abhidharma says that when such a mind arises for one moment, it is neither wholesome nor unwholesome but indeterminate; nevertheless, all wholesome and unwholesome states arise in dependence on the mind that it activates. The present view of emptiness likewise has two meanings. When contemplated separately, it resembles a mind activated by a cause: all ten Dharma realms arise from it. Why? Before a view of emptiness arose, one had never acted in dependence upon such a view. As soon as it arises, the three conducts of good, evil, and indeterminate appear, as explained above.

Those who do evil in dependence upon the view of emptiness practice a Dharma of nonobstruction. Looking upward, they see neither scripture nor Buddha as a field of merit worthy of reverence; looking downward, they see no kindness owed to their parents. They imitate the naked conduct of animals and annihilate the various kinds of worldly and world-transcending good. Although an icchantika is evil, he still retains the good of affection; the view of emptiness lacks even that forever and produces only the three grades of evil, upper, middle, and lower. Rebellion, harm, injury, and destruction are the Dharma realm of hells. Having neither shame nor conscience is the Dharma realm of animals. Stinginess, greed, breaking a fast, and impure livelihood are the Dharma realm of hungry ghosts. Breaking a fast causes constant hunger, and impure livelihood causes one to consume filth.

Those who do good in dependence upon the view of emptiness observe precepts and practice austerities, adorn themselves with the ten good acts, and mature the three karmas of body, speech, and mind. This is the Dharma realm of the three good destinies. If they also produce root dhyāna, they are born in the form realm.

The Dharma Realm of Śrāvakas

The view of emptiness can further produce the Dharma of śrāvakas. Those who maintain emptiness do not actually recognize that the four truths are fully present within the view of emptiness. Why? Genuine realization of Dharma-nature alone is emptiness and purity. A false view of emptiness necessarily depends upon a body of retribution, and retribution is defiled form. The Large Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says that whether form is described as permanent or impermanent and so forth, all such statements depend upon form. The mind takes emptiness alone to be right and everything else wrong.

Grasping the appearance of emptiness makes it different from existent Dharmas. Conditioning emptiness produces the three conducts of good, evil, and indeterminate. The mind that discriminates emptiness prevails over other Dharmas. Together, these are called the five aggregates. The dust-object of emptiness facing the faculty of mind makes two sense fields; adding mind-consciousness makes three elements. The elements, sense fields, and aggregates are the truth of suffering.

The view of emptiness is also a locus upon which anger, attachment, and pride depend. When a weak view of existence is seized and broken by the view of emptiness and principle is forcibly dragged toward the extreme of emptiness, doubt cannot arise. If the existent Dharma cannot be broken and principle cannot be dragged over, the person bares his teeth and produces doubt. Even if doubt is absent now, great doubt will arise later. Why? If emptiness were truly principle, he himself should be equal to the noble ones. Since he is not equal to them, how could he avoid doubt?

Who maintains emptiness? It is the self that maintains emptiness. In fact, the self is not empty and emptiness is not the self; yet because a self arises from emptiness, the person says, “I cultivate, I understand; others praise me or revile me.” He attaches himself to the extreme of emptiness and cannot abandon it. He further thinks a path based on emptiness can penetrate to nirvāṇa, so he takes emptiness as a precept, though it is not a chicken precept, dog precept, or the like. Taking what is not a cause as a cause is the precept-and-vow attachment that steals a cause. Taking emptiness to be true emptiness, although it is not emptiness in principle, and taking what is not a result as a result is the view-attachment that steals a result. The slanted view of emptiness is a deviant view.

In this way, all ten agents arise from the view of emptiness. Beneath the truth of suffering in the desire realm, all ten agents are present. Beneath the truth of origination are seven, excluding the view of a body, the extreme view, and precept-and-vow attachment. Beneath the truth of the path are eight, excluding the view of a body and the extreme view. Beneath the truth of cessation are seven, excluding the view of a body, the extreme view, and precept-and-vow attachment. Together these make thirty-two agents. From each of the form and formless realms, the four agents of anger are removed, leaving twenty-eight. The total for the three realms is eighty-eight agents; this is called the truth of origination. Origination arises through delusion about suffering, and suffering in turn arises from origination. Suffering and origination continue and circulate, yet Dīrghanakha does not recognize them. There is also a ghost whose head blazes with fire. Below the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Nonperception, one still cannot escape—how could one face emptiness without recognizing suffering and origination?

If one recognizes the view of emptiness as suffering and origination, one knows that both depend upon the body of form. All form Dharmas are called body, and bodily form is defiled. Defilement is impure and is rejected by people of wisdom. Breaking the inversion of purity is called the establishment of mindfulness of body.

If one experiences the view of emptiness, this experience is “feeling without feeling,” the second proposition concerning feeling. Conforming to the view of emptiness is pleasant feeling; opposing it is painful feeling; neither opposing nor conforming is neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. The three feelings are the three sufferings. Taking suffering as happiness is an inversion. Knowing that no happiness exists within them breaks the inversion of happiness and is called the establishment of mindfulness of feelings.

When the dust-object of emptiness faces the mind, mind-consciousness arises. This mind arises and ceases from moment to moment, constantly renewing and flowing. When there is an object, thought arises; without an object, thought does not arise. It arises and ceases impermanently, yet is regarded as permanent—this is an inversion. Recognizing this consciousness as impermanent breaks the inversion of permanence and is called the establishment of mindfulness of mind.

One grasps the appearance of emptiness and performs good and evil, then reckons a self within those formations. If the formations were the self, then as formations improve or decline and flourish or decay, the self should improve or decline and flourish or decay with them. Formations are immeasurable. If the self pervaded them all, the self would become immeasurable. If it did not pervade them, then since one formation would lack a self, all formations would lack a self. Forcibly reckoning a self is an inversion. Knowing there is no self breaks the aggregates of perception and formation and is called the establishment of mindfulness of Dharmas.

In fact, each aggregate can be subject to all four inverted reckonings of permanence, happiness, self, and purity. It is only that reckoning self is strongest regarding perception and formation, purity strongest regarding form, permanence strongest regarding mind, and happiness strongest regarding feeling. These are called the distinct establishments of mindfulness. The general establishment of mindfulness does not discriminate in this way. This is the view of emptiness producing the contemplation of the establishments of mindfulness. Diligent contemplation that breaks the inversions reveals the four right efforts. Cultivating within a concentrated mind is called the four bases of spiritual power. The arising of five good roots is called the five faculties. Breaking five kinds of delusion is called the five powers. When the function of the path becomes stable, these are called the seven factors of awakening. Proceeding within the stable path is called the eightfold noble path. This is the view of emptiness producing the truth of the path.

Because the four inversions are removed, delusion ceases. Because delusion ceases, love ceases. Because love ceases, anger ceases. Once anger ceases, one knows that the view of emptiness is not the path; bowing one's head in shame and conscience, pride ceases. With attachment no longer present, doubt ceases. The view of emptiness fully contains suffering and origination, so suffering and origination are not ultimate emptiness. Once the mind attached to emptiness is broken, one seeks a self and cannot find it. Because the self cannot be found, the view of a body is broken. Because the view of a body is broken, the view of self is broken. Because the view of self is broken, the extreme view is broken. Because the view of emptiness is not the path, precept-and-vow attachment is broken. Because emptiness is not true nirvāṇa, view-attachment is broken. Because the view of emptiness does not accord with principle, deviant view is broken.

Because the ten agents are broken, the eighty-eight agents are broken. Because the eighty-eight agents are broken, the bondage of afflictive seeds is broken. Once the bondage of seeds is broken, one can produce the first fruit and proceed to arhatship. The bondage of the resultant retribution is also broken, and one enters nirvāṇa without remainder. This is the view of emptiness producing the truth of cessation, and it is the Dharma realm of śrāvakas.

If one clearly recognizes the four truths within the view of emptiness, one knows the true path that exhausts suffering. By suppressing and severing the afflictions through the true path, one can become a worthy or noble one. Even among the one hundred and forty kinds of views, whether simple, compound, fully endowed, wordless, or otherwise, if one can recognize the true path within a view, one can shift and leave the views. Otherwise, one cannot see the four true truths and circulates for a long time in the great ocean of suffering in birth and death. If one can see the four truths, one can sever birth and death; all further birth is exhausted and no mode of existence is undergone again. This is the meaning.

The Dharma Realm of Pratyekabuddhas

Next is the view of emptiness producing the Dharma of pratyekabuddhas. The view of emptiness is originally not empty, yet emptiness is falsely reckoned; this is inverted discrimination. Inversion is ignorance. Because of ignorance, one grasps the view of emptiness. If one has recognized ignorance, what is there still to grasp? If one recognizes ignorance, grasping and existence do not arise. Once past karma is exhausted, no new karma is produced. With no new karma produced and no grasping or existence arising, when past karma is exhausted, ignorance is no longer produced. In the absence of ignorance, the light of wisdom is present. Thus, when wisdom is present, afflictions are absent, and when afflictions are absent, ignorance ceases. When ignorance ceases, formations cease, and so on through the ceasing of aging and death.

The Madhyamaka Treatise asks how śrāvakas contemplate the meaning of the twelve links of dependent origination, yet the answer speaks of the sixty-two views of permanence, impermanence, and the rest; question and answer appear almost unrelated. It can now be known that this is precisely the answer. Views of permanence, impermanence, and the rest are all ignorance. Recognizing ignorance and no longer producing grasping and existence is contemplation of the twelve links within the Dharma of śrāvakas. The Lotus Sūtra speaks of delighting in solitary quietude and seeking natural wisdom. This wisdom is precisely the ability to still and extinguish the sixty-two views.

Further contemplate how one moment of the view of emptiness already fully possesses the four truths, then ask whether this mind of the view of emptiness exists or does not exist. As soon as the momentary mind arises, it fully possesses the five aggregates; how could it be called nonexistent? This is the link of existence. Existence already contains its result and therefore accords with the meaning that the result exists within the cause. If the link of existence were said to lack a result, it would still possess a cause. Once the meaning of cause is fully present, from where does existence arise? Without grasping, existence does not arise.

Grasping means the five views: attachment to the extreme of emptiness is the extreme view; reckoning a self in emptiness, taking emptiness as the path, taking emptiness as nirvāṇa, and taking emptiness as correct are all the link of grasping. Grasping arises from craving. Loving emptiness, becoming angry when it is opposed, growing proud toward others, and doubting this principle are all called the link of craving. Craving arises in dependence upon feeling, for craving is produced only because there is feeling. It resembles experiencing a Dharma and then craving its flavor and pursuing it. Know that feeling arises in dependence upon contact, because the faculty of mind faces the dust-object of emptiness and contact occurs. Scripture says that various feelings arise through the causes and conditions of contact. Contact, in turn, exists through the sense fields, for dust contacts the faculties and thereby becomes an entering.

The sense fields exist in dependence upon name-and-form. At the kalala stage there are three matters: form has five embryonic vesicles, vitality continuously sustains them, and consciousness possesses the name composed of the four aggregates of feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness. The three matters are therefore called name-and-form. Name-and-form exists through the consciousness that first enters the womb; consciousness exists through past karma; karma exists through ignorance. Ignorance is past inversion, all views that reckon existence, nonexistence, and the rest; it can therefore produce the body of form in this life.

Scripture says that consciousness is the seed, karma the field, craving the water, and ignorance the covering, and thus the sprout of name-and-form is produced. Now inversion occurs again: deluded about the view of emptiness, one produces wholesome and unwholesome formations and plants the sprout of future name-and-form. Inversion is added to inversion, ignorance to ignorance; they act as one another's causes and conditions without end.

If one recognizes ignorance as inversion, there is no need to continue drawing the lines of existence and nonexistence. One need only penetrate that its substance is originally unreal and exists solely through the conjunction of the causes and conditions of false thought. Once it is known as inversion, ignorance ceases. Because ignorance ceases, formations and all the links through aging and death cease. When the ignorance and aging-and-death of one view of emptiness cease, the ignorance and aging-and-death of all one hundred and forty kinds of views also cease. Through their ceasing, the twenty-five modes of existence are broken and residual habits gradually removed. This is called the view of emptiness producing the Dharma realm of pratyekabuddhas.

If one recognizes within the view of emptiness that it is ignorance, ignorance can cease. If one cannot recognize this, one cannot even leave the net of the view of emptiness. Producing karma for views resembles a silkworm spinning its cocoon; how could one become a pratyekabuddha? Dhyāna masters whose noses are blocked and who produce the view of emptiness mostly fall into the net and cannot extricate themselves. Dharma teachers with distracted minds may discriminate the various agents yet remain unaware of the faults in their own views of emptiness. Ordinary people who covertly claim realization resemble turtles; blind dogs bark at random. Both their own cultivation and their teaching of others entirely lack the air of the path.

The Dharma Realm of Bodhisattvas of the Six Perfections

The view of emptiness can also produce the Dharma of bodhisattvas of the six perfections. Once one recognizes the truths and dependent origination within the view of emptiness, one knows both illness and medicine. Knowing the medicine, one feels joy oneself; knowing the illness, one feels compassion for others and wishes to leave suffering and attain happiness together with sentient beings. The aggregates and elements of the view of emptiness are suffering; the ten agents and the rest are origination; the establishments of mindfulness and the rest are the path; the breaking of the four inversions is cessation. The four vast vows arise in dependence upon these four truths.

Within a single view of emptiness, how many hundreds of thousands of millions of sets of five aggregates arise during one day and night? Every set of five aggregates is a sentient being. If this is so even in one day and night, how much more throughout a lifetime? How much more throughout immeasurable lives? The view of emptiness is like this, and so are the remaining views. Since the views capable of producing are many, the five aggregates produced are beyond calculation. This is so even for one person, much more for many people. This is the vow to deliver boundlessly many sentient beings.

One view of emptiness produces the eighty-eight agents thought after thought. The other three views, the sixty-two views, and the rest all likewise produce the eighty-eight agents. This is so even for one person, much more for many people. This is the vow to sever immeasurably many afflictions.

One view of emptiness can cultivate the establishments of mindfulness and the factors of the path. All other views each have a correct path and an assisting path, immeasurable and boundless. This is so for one person and likewise for many people. This is the vow to know inexhaustibly many Dharma gates.

The afflictions of one view of emptiness can cease. Immeasurably many views and immeasurably many afflictions can likewise cease. This is so for one person and likewise for all people. This is the vow to accomplish unsurpassed buddhahood.

If the suffering and origination of sentient beings possessed a fixed, real intrinsic nature, they could not be delivered. Precisely because suffering and origination arise through causes and conditions and lack intrinsic nature, the ocean of suffering can be dried and the source of origination easily exhausted. This is why it is called deliverance. The vows arise in dependence upon the view of emptiness as above.

Next, the conduct of the six perfections arises in dependence upon the view of emptiness. Giving while attached to the view of emptiness is only demonic giving. If one knows that the view of emptiness contains truths and dependent origination and possesses faults such as impermanence and no-self, one abandons the view of emptiness, feels compassion for others, and urges them to abandon the view of emptiness and practice giving.

How does observing precepts while attached to the view of emptiness differ from observing chicken precepts, dog precepts, and the like? Knowing that the view of emptiness has faults such as impermanence, not being harmed by it, and compassionately enabling others to guard against it—this alone is moral discipline.

If the view of emptiness is made a locus of anger and attachment, forced endurance means merely that one's power is insufficient and one endures because one fears others. Now one knows that the view of emptiness has immeasurable faults, can suppress that view and the sixty-two views, and can urge others to endure the view of emptiness. This alone is patience.

If one does not remove the view of emptiness but practices effort, the admixture of a deviant view means it is not pure, and retreating into the three evil destinies means it does not advance. Now one recognizes the view of emptiness and prevents it from arising; this is called purity. One breaks the karma produced by the view of emptiness and can rise and depart; this is called advance. One further urges others to cultivate such effort.

If one attains dhyāna without breaking the view of emptiness, it is usually a ghostly Dharma. Now one recognizes the faults of emptiness, remains unmoved by the view of emptiness, and accomplishes correct dhyāna and correct superknowledges, without using superknowledges for flattery, arrogance, or the pursuit of gain. One further uses superknowledges to teach sentient beings, causing them to abandon the distraction of views and enter meditative concentration.

If one cultivates wisdom while attached to the view of emptiness, it is only foolish worldly wisdom. Now one recognizes the truths and dependent origination within the view of emptiness. Using the wolf of impermanence to frighten the sheep of the view of emptiness, one removes the fat of afflictions; then, extensively producing vows and practices, one fattens the body of merit. Out of compassion for sentient beings, one causes them to lose fat and grow flesh. If the faculties of those with affinity have matured, one sits at the place of the path, severs the bonds, and becomes a buddha. This is called the view of emptiness producing the Dharma realm of bodhisattvas of the six perfections.

The Dharma Realms of the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings

Contemplate the view of emptiness as precisely ignorance and ignorance in its very substance as empty. All suffering and origination produced from ignorance are entirely unfindable. Why? The four inversions are reckoned transversely; how could they possess a fixed and real intrinsic nature? Since the inversions to be treated do not truly exist, how could the establishments of mindfulness that treat them be found? Even the seven factors of awakening and eightfold path do not arise and therefore cannot be found. Thus the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra speaks of “accordingly cultivating suffering as empty” and so forth〔and so forth〕.

The Two Vehicles know that everything is immediately empty, so they sever suffering and enter cessation. Bodhisattvas know that everything is immediately empty yet produce compassionate vows and practices and vow to deliver sentient beings. Although they deliver sentient beings, it resembles delivering empty space. Although they extinguish afflictions, it resembles battling empty space. Although they produce Dharma gates, it resembles producing them from empty space. Although they extinguish sentient beings, in fact no sentient being attains extinction. This is wisdom, this is the virtue of severance, and this is the bodhisattva's tolerance of the nonarising of Dharmas. This is called the view of emptiness producing the bodhisattva Dharma realm of the Shared Teaching.

Next, contemplate the view of emptiness as possessing immeasurably many characteristics, which are the four truths within it. If each is discriminated and calculated, they cannot be exhausted. This inexhaustible Dharma arises from the view of emptiness, while the view of emptiness arises from ignorance. What is produced is immeasurable, and what produces it is also immeasurable. Since what produces bears only a provisional name, what is produced also bears a provisional name. Next, trace this ignorance as arising from Dharma-nature, like investigating a dream and learning that it came from sleep. Contemplating the view of emptiness, one recognizes the true mark, and the true mark is the tathāgata-garbha. Immeasurably many adventitious defilements cover the principle of the treasury. By cultivating Dharma gates as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, one reveals the pure nature. This is called the view of emptiness producing the Dharma of the Distinct Teaching.

The view of emptiness produces the Dharma of the Perfect Teaching as in the preceding text and as explained below.

View-delusion surges vast as water forty li across; the remaining force of thought-delusion is only like one drop of water. The preceding preparatory means jointly treated view-delusion. When view-delusion is exhausted, this is called entering the stream, after which one naturally does not retreat. Because view-delusion is difficult to remove, skillful means are required. The Chengshi Lun says that emptiness treats delusion. If emptiness alone could treat delusion and enable entry into the path, no other Dharmas would be needed. If it cannot enable entry into the path, what other treatment should be established? Yet if fire arises within water, the water instead cannot extinguish the fire. When the view of emptiness itself produces faults, how could emptiness treat emptiness? One must now first recognize the view of emptiness as the illness of suffering and origination and only then treat it with wisdom of the truths.

The Tripiṭaka Teaching uses wisdom of impermanence, and the Shared Teaching uses wisdom of immediate emptiness; both first remove views. The Distinct Teaching also first removes views and enters emptiness, then skillfully leaves emptiness for provisional existence, like planting a tree in empty space. Although the Perfect Teaching does not deliberately remove views, views are naturally removed first. To remove a solid view, various methods of treatment must be used. How could one say that everything is treated through emptiness alone? And how could the various treatments jointly treat the same kind of view?

It resembles treating the same cold illness with four kinds of medicine. Taking ginger and cinnamon removes the illness and restores strength. Taking the five minerals removes the illness and enhances the complexion. Taking the multi-storied formula not only lengthens life but enables flight. Taking the golden elixir makes one a great immortal. The illness is one, but the medicines differ and the powers attained differ. The four teachings all treat views, but after the views are removed, the understandings attained differ. Treatment of views is like this, and treatment of the remaining delusions is likewise. The four treatments are the four establishments of mindfulness.

The Bequeathed Teaching Sūtra instructs people to cultivate the path upon the four establishments of mindfulness and thereby leave the burning house. Why? One thought of the view of emptiness is the three realms. The three realms have no separate Dharma but are made by one mind alone. The view of emptiness produces the karma of the six destinies, undergoes bodies of the six destinies, and dwells in the places of the six destinies. The dwelling place is the burning house, the bodies undergone are implements of suffering, and the karma produced is ghosts and spirits. Jostling and pushing one another, the three carts must each travel in order to depart.

The three carts are the separate establishments of mindfulness for each of the three vehicles in the Tripiṭaka Teaching. They are also the one establishment of mindfulness cultivated in common by the three kinds of people in the Shared Teaching; the three expedient establishments of mindfulness and one real establishment in the Distinct Teaching; and the establishment of mindfulness of the one reality in the Perfect Teaching. Explained briefly, these are nine kinds of four establishments of mindfulness; at middle length, nine kinds of factors of the path; extensively, nine kinds of four truths. All these establishments of mindfulness can treat views and enable people to leave the burning house. This is the intent of the bequest.

When Śākyamuni first appeared in the world, he first revealed that the three kinds of people each use their own four establishments of mindfulness, like the goat cart, deer cart, and ox cart in the Lotus Sūtra, each leaving the burning house. Next, he taught the three kinds of people to cultivate one establishment of mindfulness in common, like the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra's one vehicle leaving the three realms and coming to rest in omniscience, and like the Great Collection Sūtra's three vehicles all severing afflictions through the wordless path. Next, he taught bodhisattvas to cultivate sequential establishments of mindfulness, like the prajñā not shared with the Two Vehicles in the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, where the vehicles of the establishments of mindfulness remain separate and are not yet converged. Finally, he taught the Small and Great Vehicles alike to share one establishment of mindfulness, like the Lotus Sūtra's all riding one great cart directly to the place of the path.

Using one view of emptiness to explain the various delusions and treatments does not contradict the scriptures and treatises. A mote of dust containing the scripture scrolls of the great-thousand world means precisely this.

〔Section §14.4.2〕 The Inconceivable Object

Next is clarifying the inconceivable object. One thought of the view of emptiness fully possesses the ten Dharma realms and is precisely Dharma-nature. Dharma-nature is not something far away elsewhere; it is this very mind of the view of emptiness. The Vimalakīrti Sūtra says that the liberation of all buddhas should be sought within the mental activities of sentient beings and within the sixty-two views. The mind of the view of emptiness, the mental activities of sentient beings, and the liberation of all buddhas do not differ, so each is indicated through the others in turn.

All sentient beings are awakening and cannot be attained anew: this is the liberation of perfect purity. The five aggregates are nirvāṇa and cannot be extinguished anew: this is the liberation of purity through skillful means. The suchness of sentient beings is the suchness of buddhas: this is the liberation of intrinsic purity. The liberation of the buddhas means the five kinds of nirvāṇa—liberation of form and so forth. The mind of the view of emptiness is the defiled five aggregates.

Sentient beings exist within the five aggregates, and sentient beings also possess the five aggregates. Name-and-form and sentient beings bind one another and cannot be separated. Contemplating these five aggregates as precisely nirvāṇa, one sees nothing that can be extinguished anew. Originally there is no bondage; this is liberation. Inherent liberation can embrace all Dharmas, so it is said that liberation is sought within this one thought of mind.

Further contemplate the five aggregates of the mind of views as precisely Dharma-nature; then no five aggregates of the mind of views remain to be found. Because outflowed form ceases, one attains the Dharma-nature five aggregates, including permanent form. Because ordinary sentient beings cease, one attains the sentient beings of permanent Dharma-nature. One color fully possesses all colors, one consciousness fully possesses all consciousnesses, and one sentient being fully possesses all sentient beings without mutual obstruction. This resembles a bright, clean mirror displaying various colored images and is called intrinsic purity.

The three liberations cannot be separated from one another. They are neither arranged vertically nor set alongside one another horizontally, but are inconceivably and perfectly complete. Seeking them precisely within the view of emptiness is called the inconceivable object.

Within this object, ignorance and Dharma-nature are clearly and fully present. One grieves that one has long been sunk in darkness and only today begun to awaken; all sentient beings are likewise. Since they are originally Dharma-nature, how could kindness not arise? Since they remain ignorance, how could compassion not arise?

Contemplate this one thought of the view of emptiness as empty and still in its nature, pure like empty space. Then, through skillful means, cause the mind to abide and examine the two Dharmas of ignorance and Dharma-nature. Investigate the aggregate of views and the provisional construction of views through the four propositions: no arising can be found in any of the four. In every simple proposition, compound proposition, and all other propositions, there is an obstruction formed by suffering, origination, and ignorance; in every proposition, there is also a penetration formed by the path, cessation, and the rest.

When contemplating the view of emptiness, one aggregate is all aggregates. The three truths remain unmoved, and one thereby understands the Dharma-body. Next, contemplate this unmoving aggregate as neither pure nor impure and so forth. Nirvāṇa between the twin trees is precisely the place of the path; this contemplation is called prajñā. The breaking of the eight inversions is called liberation. Within one establishment of mindfulness, all establishments of mindfulness arise, and through them sentient beings are regulated and subdued. The three Dharmas of Dharma-body, prajñā, and liberation are neither cause nor result. Not cause, they can function as cause, so the establishment of mindfulness is precisely the place of the path. Not result, they can function as result, so one enters nirvāṇa between the twin trees.

In the very moment when the view of emptiness remains unmoved, cultivate the inconceivable thirty-seven factors of the path. When they universally break through in this way and the view of emptiness can no longer be found, this is called the samādhi of emptiness. When no characteristic of emptiness is seen, this is called the signless samādhi. When such samādhi does not arise from conditioning principle, this is called the wishless samādhi.

If one still cannot enter, one makes great vows: inwardly abandoning attachment to views and outwardly abandoning body, life, and possessions. Because the view of emptiness opposes principle and makes moral discipline impure, one vows that it will no longer violate one's Dharma-body; one guards the seven branches of body and speech and does not disturb or harm conscious beings. Because the view of emptiness clamors and moves so that the inner mind cannot accomplish patience, one vows that even if every suffering comes upon one's body, one will bear everything like a bridge, the earth, or the ocean, and the mind will ultimately remain unmoved.

If the view of emptiness becomes mixed in, one vows to remain pure and single-minded so that thought after thought continues and flows inward. If the view of emptiness disturbs the mind so that it cannot abide in one object, one sincerely repents and stills the two opposing kinds of conditions. Because wisdom of all modes has not yet opened and ignorance has not yet been broken, one vows to contemplate the view of emptiness so that Dharma-nature appears. Resolute and decisive, one advances courageously and does not rest until realization. In this way, one uses treating Dharmas to assist the revelation of nirvāṇa.

One further recognizes one's own stage deeply and does not impersonate a higher ground. Neither inner nor outer winds and dust can destroy it. One does not produce attachment even to Dharmas conforming to the path and therefore does not fall from the stage of the summit. Thought after thought becomes quiescent and flows into the ocean of omniscience. Riding one great cart, one travels in the four directions, goes directly to the place of the path, and accomplishes correct awakening. The remainder is as explained in the preceding text.

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Ten〔Lower〕.

The most dangerous moment for a view is often not when it is dim, but when it is all too clear.

A whole system of principle suddenly opens within the mind. Questions and answers are endless, citations come freely, others cannot break it, and one no longer doubts oneself. This power can resemble an arrow shot into empty space, traveling unobstructed, or a curved shot circling a bird and leaving the other person nowhere to escape. The question then arises: is this wisdom becoming clear, or the net of views tightening?

Zhizhe does not judge from the sharpness of language. He first asks whether the afflictions have been suppressed and the mind of the path arisen together with the understanding. Then he asks whether that understanding can lead a person through the gate, or instead makes one remain at the entrance arguing over tiles and timbers. Contemplating the object of views means placing the attachment that most resembles wisdom back within calming-and-contemplation and illuminating it there.

〔Section §14.0〕 What Is a View, and Why Does It Follow the Object of Dhyāna?

“Various” means that the number is not one. “View” means an understanding formed through improper reasoning—slanted, lucid, and held with certainty. It is not a casual remark or a vague conjecture. Precisely because it can form a system of its own and become immovably firm, it warrants establishment as a separate object.

Does mastery of names and characteristics, then, mean that a view has arisen? Not necessarily. If a person who learns through hearing merely guards the words without contemplating principle, his understanding arises from text and dies without verification. If a dhyāna practitioner speaks only of mental comprehension without recognizing a single name or characteristic, that is merely another partial lack. Guarding a tree stump and claiming wondrous awakening each occupy one extreme, and their judgments of one another will both miss the standard. One genuinely enters this object when views and names begin to operate freely in every direction: one can ask and answer, extend one meaning through many meanings, and remain unobstructed under challenge.

Is this madness? The treatise answers that it is not. A person possessed by a ghost becomes foolish when the ghost leaves; one in whom a view has arisen does not. Is it noble realization? It is not that either. Old craving and anger have not departed, while the new attachment instead increases afflictions, and the eighty-eight agents still bind one in vast profusion. The view has the acuity of wisdom but lacks the noble path's result of severing delusion; it is therefore called the arising of view-wisdom.

Where do views come from? One route is hearing and another dhyāna, with conditions of dhyāna more common. Dhyāna may precede the view, dhyāna and view may arise together, or the view may precede dhyāna. Its placement after the object of meditative concentration does not mean that every view must wait for dhyāna to be completed. Rather, contemplative power within meditative concentration can suddenly unfold past habituation. If sharp faculties have matured, a person may still correct himself by checking his fault against the scriptures and treatises. If he meets a good spiritual friend who clearly reveals right and wrong, the view may also be broken. The greatest difficulty is when he can neither awaken by himself nor find a teacher: his mind resembles crooked timber dragged through a dense forest, pulled ever deeper.

The chapter therefore opens into four questions. What persons grasp what Dharmas? How do these views arise? Where precisely do their faults lie? And how does someone in whom a view has arisen cultivate calming-and-contemplation?

〔Section §14.1〕 First Question: What Persons Grasp What Dharmas?

〔Section §14.1.1〕 Roots and Branches of Non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma

The treatise begins outside Buddha-Dharma. Kapila reckons that the result exists within the cause; Ulūka-Sāṃkhya that the result does not exist within the cause; and Ṛṣabha that the result both exists and does not exist within the cause. From the four schools of oneness, difference, both oneness and difference, and neither oneness nor difference, the account then unfolds to the six teachers of the Buddha's time. Although their names, translated meanings, and doctrines differ, broadly they can all be traced to the four views.

Why list the persons before their Dharmas? Because one doctrinal system is not merely an abstract proposition. It can become a Dharma of knowledge of all that interprets everything, correspond with meditative concentration and become a Dharma of superknowledges, or absorb writing, astronomy, medicine, warfare, and commerce and become a Dharma of the Vedas. Once the root of what is grasped has been established, superknowledges and knowledge both turn back to testify on its behalf. The Dharma gates may appear numerous, yet when traced to their final principle, all still point to that first view alone.

〔Section §14.1.2〕 Borrowing the Buddha's Words to Establish Another View

The second kind does not stand outside Buddha-Dharma but arises by attaching itself to Buddha-Dharma. After reading a treatise, a Vātsīputrīya locates the self outside the four propositions in the fifth repository of the inexpressible. After reading the Buddha's ten similes, a Vaipulya practitioner grasps neither arising nor ceasing and illusion and transformation as a personal doctrine of empty illusion.

The problem is not that they have failed to read Buddhist texts, but that after reading, they seal themselves inside one determinate understanding. The Buddha's words become material, while attachment establishes a separate center. From then on, more scripture does not necessarily bring them closer to entering principle; it may only add adornment to one view.

〔Section §14.1.3〕 How a Correct Gate Turns into Inner Deviance

The third kind is closer still: a person directly studies Buddha-Dharma but attaches himself to a teaching gate, produces afflictions, and cannot enter principle. Entering the Abhidharma, he falls into existence; entering emptiness, he falls into nonexistence; entering the Piṭaka of Categories, he falls into both existence and nonexistence. Even the Great Vehicle's four gates will burn one with deviant fire if skillful means in prajñā is lost.

Does this mean the Dharma gate itself is wrong? The treatise answers clearly: no. In their own time, people who cultivated in dependence upon these treatises could attain the path; practitioners today who cling to them have lost the true intent. The person has failed, not the Dharma. When the Great Vehicle rebukes the Small, it takes only the aspect that has not seen the principle of the Middle and does not take away the function of the preparatory gate. The illness does not lie in the gates of existence, emptiness, both existence and nonexistence, or neither existence nor nonexistence. It lies in sealing what can serve as a passage into an ultimate dwelling place.

〔Section §14.1.4〕 Why Attainments Differ within the Same Teaching

One teacher can produce three Dharmas. Using one view to interpret everything is called the Dharma of knowledge of all. Producing the five superknowledges in dependence upon dhyāna is called the Dharma of superknowledges. Comprehending worldly writing and various arts is called the Dharma of the Vedas. Each of Buddha-Dharma's four gates can likewise produce understanding, superknowledges, and writing, so even within a gate of the same name, attainments remain diverse.

When the true intent is attained, one Tripiṭaka gate can possess the establishment of mindfulness through intrinsic nature, the conjoined establishment of mindfulness, and the establishment of mindfulness through conditions; realization of the result can further yield liberation through wisdom, liberation in both respects, and liberation without doubt. When the intent is lost, the same enumerations are instead swallowed by one's own view. The standard therefore cannot be merely whether someone can discuss principle, display superknowledges, or demonstrate broad learning. It must ask whether these attainments finally cause him to leave attachment, or cause him to deem himself right and everyone else wrong.

〔Section §14.2〕 Second Question: How Do Views Arise?

〔Section §14.2.1〕 A Spring Blocked by Earth and Stones

Across long kalpas, sentient beings have been perfumed by innumerable views. After the separation of a lifetime, memory no longer appears, like a spring blocked by earth and stones. When the obstruction thins, whether meditative concentration opens or hearing stirs a past habit, once the blockage gives way, the water becomes a river.

The experience of an arising view is not a scattering of thoughts but an unfolding that lasts for days. A person continually challenges and answers himself. Whatever he grasps appears real and comprehensible everywhere; whatever he does not grasp appears false and refutable everywhere. The factor of examination resembles a swift horse already sweating, racing forward beyond control. Without the moisture of concentrated power, forced discrimination may harm body and mind. Moistened by concentrated power, a view readily takes shape.

Investigating that the result exists within the cause becomes Kapila's view; investigating that it does not exist becomes Sāṃkhya's; investigating both existence and nonexistence becomes Ṛṣabha's. Locating the self outside the four propositions becomes the Vātsīputrīya view. Taking everything to be the same illusory transformation becomes the Vaipulya view. Arising in dependence upon the Tripiṭaka's four gates yields the views of existence, emptiness, both existence and nonexistence, and neither existence nor nonexistence. Each of the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings can likewise produce views through its four gates.

Why can correct teachings also produce views? Because as soon as true speech is grasped, it becomes language that produces a view; even ambrosia harms life when taken in excess. The teaching does not thereby become false, but it becomes a deviant attachment in a mind that has lost skillful means. Reckonings of intrinsic nature, other-nature, conature, and causelessness can likewise be reestablished within different teaching gates. More elevated names do not guarantee thinner attachment.

Arising through hearing does not mean reliance on distracted listening alone. A practitioner may already possess dhyāna but not yet have produced a view. Upon hearing one sentence that corresponds to a past habit, the mind suddenly opens and hundreds and thousands of layers of meaning well out like a spring among stones. Hearing that the result exists in the cause may produce Kapila's view; hearing of the fifth repository of the inexpressible may produce a Vātsīputrīya view; hearing one gate of the Tripiṭaka or Great Vehicle may also produce a view through that gate. The new statement heard is only a point of contact; what surges forth far exceeds it.

〔Section §14.2.2〕 From Three Dharmas to One Hundred and Forty

Once views arise, some people attain only understanding, some only superknowledges, some only writing, and some attain combinations of two or fully possess all three. Counting three simple attainments, three compound attainments, and one fully endowed attainment gives seven types of people within one school. The three houses, six teachers, Vātsīputrīya, Vaipulya, and the four gates within Buddha-Dharma can all be unfolded in this way.

Although all may be called knowledge of all, their root doctrines differ and so they devour one another. Although all may be called superknowledges, their supporting dhyāna grounds differ and so their functions are broad or narrow. Although all may be called the Vedas, the amounts read differ and so knowledge is broad or narrow. Knowledge, ability, and reputation can make it as difficult to know whether a person is mature as whether an āmra fruit is ripe. The genuine method of verification remains tracing the source and then examining the final doctrine: to what attachment do all his explanations ultimately return?

〔Section §14.3〕 Third Question: Where Do the Faults of Views Lie?

〔Section §14.3.1〕 A Doctrine of Spontaneity Can Produce Good, Evil, and the Indeterminate

The treatise first borrows China's Three Mysteries for explanation. One doctrine of spontaneity can still pursuit, prevent arrogance amid wealth and honor and distress amid poverty and low status, and become a guide for doing good. It can also cause someone to neither take nor reject, abide casually as things proceed, and become indeterminate. Or it can be raised as a reason to indulge in evil.

The inquiry here is not merely whether a statement sounds elevated. One must ask whether it destroys the cause, whether it destroys the result, and what conduct of body, speech, and mind it actually elicits. The same word “spontaneity” can be used to still desire or indulge it. Gain and loss are not determined automatically by the wording.

〔Section §14.3.2〕 Why the View of Emptiness Is Strongest

The Indian view of emptiness then serves as the example. It can destroy the cause without destroying the result or the result without the cause; it can destroy cause and result together while retaining the three unconditioned Dharmas; or it can destroy cause, result, and every Dharma. Deviant emptiness and Buddhist emptiness cannot be distinguished only through the terms substantive and analytical. The boundary lies among deviant causes and conditions, no causes and conditions, and correct causes and conditions.

A view of emptiness arising from deviant causes and conditions can also produce good, evil, and indeterminate conduct, with evil the most fierce. It establishes emptiness as a locus of conflict: loving those who agree, angered by those who refute, proud toward those who do not understand. It calls itself unobstructed yet still protects and cherishes the body; it speaks of equality yet still loves praise and grieves over blame. Emptiness was meant to break attachment but has instead become the firmest object of attachment.

The mind of views resembles a dog that can never eat its fill. As long as one Dharma remains unbroken, it is not satisfied; only after everything is broken does it feel complete. Emptiness and existence refute one another like dogs baring their teeth. Self-praise resembles prolonged barking. It seizes others' faults and drags along its own doctrine. Emptiness does not make the person do evil; the mind attached to emptiness turns emptiness into a locus of anger, love, dispute, and reckoning.

Inner deviance is the same. The Tripiṭaka's four gates were originally ways out, yet when someone does good solely for retribution or does evil to protect one gate, that gate instead closes. The sublime true statements of the Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings can, when grasped perversely, become roots of praise and blame, sorrow and love, pride, reputation, and gain. Dharmas may differ as vastly as heaven and earth, while the afflictions produced by attachment to Dharma remain identical to those of non-Buddhists.

〔Section §14.3.4〕 Four Resemblances and Four Judgments

How are truth and falsity judged together? The treatise gives four similes.

First are gold and iron chains. Although name and material differ, insofar as both bind, neither provides liberation.

Second are a rough jade and a rat-stone. Their outward names may be equally pure and beautiful, while the afflictions within are genuine in one case and false in the other.

Third are cow's milk and donkey's milk. Their colors resemble each other, yet after refinement one can be completed and the other cannot.

Fourth are kālaka and zhentou fruits. Their outward forms resemble one another, but one harms and the other benefits.

Names, afflictions, successful refinement, and harm or benefit must therefore be observed separately. Compassion may be only compassion born of views of love; patience may be only forced endurance; superknowledge may be only transformation with outflows; broad learning may be only worldly wisdom. If the eighty-eight agents still surge vast, a pure and beautiful name cannot turn bondage into liberation.

〔Section §14.3.5〕 The Gate Is Not at Fault; Dwelling at the Gate Is

The Dharmas upon which non-Buddhists depend originally possess outflows. An attached mind attaches to an attachable Dharma, and cause and result both remain in conflict. The correct Dharma's four gates, by contrast, resemble four city gates, all originally capable of leading to the king. Someone urgent to see the king enters through any gate and has no time to remain judging beauty and ugliness. A sick person takes medicine to be healed and likewise should not merely discriminate the medicine's name.

Yet if someone dwells at the city gate, counts the tiles and timbers, and judges north and south, east and west, thick and thin, coarse and fine, he turns a thoroughfare into an obstruction. The gate is not at fault; the person refuses to proceed. If he even places the poison of reputation, followers, superiority, and gain into good medicine, the correct Dharma increases suffering and origination within him.

Thus a person of sharp faculties may covertly awaken to correctness by borrowing a slight cause and condition from a deviant Dharma, while a person of dull faculties may turn the correct Dharma into deviant attachment. A flying flower or moving leaf may prompt a pratyekabuddha's awakening, but the flower and leaf do not thereby become correct teachings. The four gates can enable arhats to depart, but someone attached to a gate does not thereby automatically attain the path. Both the Dharma depended upon and the mind that depends upon it must be examined.

〔Section §14.3.6〕 One Hundred and Forty Is Not the Endpoint

Five rounds with four gates each make twenty gates. Each gate has seven types—three simple, three compound, and one fully endowed—making one hundred and forty. This is a brief scheme of expansion; an extensive account would be immeasurable. Cultivating calming and contemplation in this life provides the shared assisting condition, while the distinct root cause lies in what was studied, heard, and cultivated in past lives.

What is mature and recent arises first; what is unfamiliar and distant is difficult to produce. Superknowledges and writing belong to phenomena and are easily forgotten between lives. Views belong to the nature of wisdom and are harder to forget, like someone who remembers a name after a long separation but has forgotten the face. An external affinity with a ghost may produce ghostly dhyāna and ghostly views; an external affinity with a noble one may also provide correct guidance. The appearance of views has conditions and cannot be understood by looking only at one instance of hearing or seated dhyāna in the present.

〔Section §14.3.7〕 Why Not Cut It Off Immediately?

If it is known to be a deviant view, why not sever it immediately? The treatise uses abdominal worms as its simile: first nurture a tape-worm and let it devour the worms in the abdomen; afterward, use dried-pearl medicine to purge the tape-worm. View-wisdom can devour some dull afflictions and also lies close to correct contemplation, so it may provisionally serve as a forerunner. Yet the simile clearly includes a later medicine; it does not retain the tape-worm as ultimate.

It further resembles a swift horse awakening at the sight of a whip's shadow. Someone with a mind of views who receives the Buddha's teaching may turn around at a single contact. A person without any capacity for understanding remains stubborn beyond the cutting power of ten thousand axes. Noble ones can therefore become teachers and friends and guide through indirect means, turning an arisen view into the correct path. The direction of “nurturing views and examining the mind” is guidance inward, not indulgence. Whether the path is entered still depends upon whether the mind of views is finally illuminated and broken by correct contemplation.

〔Section §14.4〕 Fourth Question: Once a View Has Arisen, How Is Calming-and-Contemplation Cultivated?

〔Section §14.4.0〕 Gather In First, or Break First?

In addressing views, Buddha-Dharma teaches both gathering in and breaking. Refusing to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of others is gathering in. Taking up knives and staves and even beheading is breaking. Giving and taking away follow different roads but share the aim of benefit. Views that cause circulation must be severed without remainder. The aspect that can assist refinement of spiritual understanding and turn the mind back toward correctness may be gathered in.

One person does not produce every view simultaneously. Even if many views arise together, they devour one another until one core regarded as real remains. If every view were individually opened into a Dharma gate, ninety days would not suffice to explain them. If all views were gathered into one gate of contemplation, the Dharmas within that one gate would likewise be inexhaustible. Multiplicity and unity can both be used freely; the example now taken is the view of emptiness, which can destroy everything most effectively.

〔Section §14.4.1〕 Conceivable: How the View of Emptiness Produces the Ten Realms

A cucumber is not hot but can cause hot illness. The view of emptiness is not the ten realms but can serve as their cause and condition. Once it arises, it may elicit the three conducts of good, evil, and indeterminate. Rebellion and harm, shamelessness, and stinginess and greed can form the three evil destinies. Moral discipline, the ten good acts, and root dhyāna can form the good destinies and the form realm. This explains in causal sequence how the view of emptiness produces the six destinies.

〔Section §14.4.1B〕 How Can the Four Truths Be Present within the View of Emptiness?

A false view of emptiness arises in dependence upon the form-body of retribution. Grasping the appearance of emptiness, discriminating emptiness as superior to other Dharmas, and producing consciousness when the dust-object of emptiness faces the faculty of mind mean that the aggregates, sense fields, and elements are already fully present. This is suffering. The view of emptiness further becomes a dwelling place for anger, love, pride, doubt, and the five views, unfolding the eighty-eight agents of the three realms. This is origination.

If in this one thought of the view of emptiness one contemplates form as impure, feeling as suffering, mind as impermanent, and Dharmas as without self, the four inversions of permanence, happiness, self, and purity can be broken and the four establishments of mindfulness arise. Diligent cultivation produces the right efforts, bases of spiritual power, five faculties, five powers, seven factors of awakening, and eightfold path. This is the path. As the four inversions and ten agents cease in sequence, both the bondage of seeds and the bondage of result are broken. This is cessation. The view of emptiness was originally taken to be the path; now it becomes the suffering and origination contemplated. Making this turn enables one to move out of the view.

〔Section §14.4.1C〕 How Does the View of Emptiness Become Contemplation of the Twelve Links?

Falsely reckoning a view of emptiness that is not empty as empty is inversion; inversion is ignorance. Ignorance leads to grasping, grasping to existence, craving to grasping, feeling to craving, contact to feeling, and the sense fields to contact. Through name-and-form, consciousness, and karma, this is traced back to past ignorance. Consciousness resembles a seed, karma a field, craving water, and ignorance a covering; the sprout of name-and-form then arises.

If one only draws lines of existence and nonexistence, inversion produces further inversion and ignorance continues ignorance. If one penetrates that the intrinsic nature of ignorance is originally unreal and exists only through a conjunction of causes and conditions of false thought, then when ignorance comes to rest, formations and all the links through aging and death come to rest. This is true of the view of emptiness and can likewise be true of all one hundred and forty views. Conversely, producing karma for a view resembles a silkworm spinning thread and binding itself; one ultimately cannot leave the net.

〔Section §14.4.1D〕 How Do the Four Vast Vows and Six Perfections Arise from One Thought of the View of Emptiness?

Recognizing suffering, origination, path, and cessation within the view of emptiness means knowing both illness and medicine. Recognizing one's own illness and seeing sentient beings produce countless sets of five aggregates thought after thought, one vows to deliver boundlessly many sentient beings. Seeing immeasurably many afflictions in each thought, one vows to sever immeasurably many afflictions. Seeing that every view possesses a correct and assisting path, one vows to know inexhaustibly many Dharma gates. Seeing that immeasurably many view-delusions can all cease, one vows to accomplish unsurpassed buddhahood.

The six perfections likewise turn upon abandoning views. Giving while attached to emptiness is demonic giving; knowing the faults of the view of emptiness and urging others to abandon views turns it into generosity. Observing precepts while attached to emptiness is no different from attachment to chicken and dog precepts; protecting oneself and others from harm by the view of emptiness turns it into moral discipline. Forced endurance while anger and attachment remain is merely the patience of someone too weak and fearful to resist; suppressing the view of emptiness and urging others to endure it turns this into patience.

Effort that does not remove the view of emptiness is mixed with a deviant view and cannot be called pure advance. Preventing the view of emptiness from arising is purity; breaking the karma of that view and departing is advance. Dhyāna attained without breaking the view of emptiness most often becomes a ghostly Dharma; knowing the faults of emptiness and remaining unmoved by it alone makes correct dhyāna and correct superknowledges. Discussing wisdom without recognizing the view of emptiness is only worldly wisdom. Dissolving afflictions through impermanence and nourishing merit through vows and practices alone turns it into prajñā. Thus the same view of emptiness is no longer merely a cause of descent; it can also become the diseased object illuminated while vows are produced and practices cultivated.

〔Section §14.4.1E〕 Immediately Empty without Abandoning Sentient Beings

Proceeding further, the view of emptiness is precisely ignorance and ignorance in its very substance is empty. The suffering and origination produced from ignorance, and even the establishments of mindfulness and factors of awakening and path that treat them, are all unfindable. The Two Vehicles know immediate emptiness and sever suffering to enter cessation. Bodhisattvas know immediate emptiness yet still produce compassionate vows and practices. Delivering sentient beings resembles delivering empty space; extinguishing afflictions resembles battling empty space; producing Dharma gates resembles producing them from empty space. Although vows are practiced and beings delivered, no sentient being actually attains extinction.

〔Section §14.4.1F〕 Why Do the Four Teachings Treat the Same View yet Yield Different Attainments?

The view of emptiness possesses immeasurably many characteristics, and both what produces and what is produced bear only provisional names. Tracing ignorance as arising from Dharma-nature resembles following a dream back to sleep; one thereby recognizes the tathāgata-garbha from the view of emptiness and cultivates immeasurably many Dharma gates to reveal the pure nature. As for the Perfect Teaching, the treatise gathers it briefly under “as above and as below,” then immediately turns to treating views.

View-delusion resembles water forty li across; the remaining force of thought-delusion resembles one drop. View-delusion is difficult to remove and cannot be treated merely by proclaiming emptiness. If fire arises within water, the water instead cannot extinguish it. One must first recognize the view of emptiness itself as the illness of suffering and origination and only then treat it with wisdom of the truths. The Tripiṭaka Teaching uses wisdom of impermanence; the Shared Teaching, wisdom of immediate emptiness; the Distinct Teaching first enters emptiness and then leaves it for provisional existence; in the Perfect Teaching, one does not deliberately remove the view, yet it naturally disappears. It is like treating the same cold illness with ginger and cinnamon, the five minerals, the multi-storied formula, or the golden elixir. Although the illness is the same, the strength, complexion, lifespan, and wondrous functions attained differ. The view treated is one; the treating Dharmas differ.

The four teachings' establishments of mindfulness further open into nine kinds: the Tripiṭaka's three vehicles each cultivate their own; the Shared Teaching's three kinds of people cultivate in common; the Distinct Teaching has three preparatory establishments and one real establishment; the Perfect Teaching has the one reality. First the goat, deer, and ox carts each leave the burning house. Next the three kinds of people share one vehicle; then the bodhisattva progresses sequentially; finally all ride one great cart directly to the place of the path. One view of emptiness can open into the various delusions and treatments, like a mote of dust containing the scripture scrolls of the great-thousand world.

〔Section §14.4.2〕 Inconceivable: The Ten Realms Are Not Produced Later

The conceivable object says that the view of emptiness serves as cause and condition and produces the ten realms. The inconceivable object directly says that one thought of the view of emptiness fully possesses the ten Dharma realms and is precisely Dharma-nature. Dharma-nature is not a distant object; it is the mind of the view of emptiness itself.

The liberation of all buddhas must be sought within the mental activities of sentient beings and the sixty-two views. Sentient beings are awakening and cannot be attained anew: this is the liberation of perfect purity. The five aggregates are nirvāṇa and cannot be extinguished anew: this is the liberation of purity through skillful means. The suchness of sentient beings does not differ from the suchness of buddhas: this is the liberation of intrinsic purity. Name-and-form and sentient beings were originally mutually bound; now, contemplating the five aggregates as precisely nirvāṇa, one knows that bondage never existed.

The five aggregates of the mind of views are precisely Dharma-nature. One color can therefore fully possess all colors, one consciousness all consciousnesses, and one sentient being all sentient beings without mutual obstruction, like a bright, clean mirror displaying many images. The three liberations do not separate from one another. Neither vertical nor horizontal, they are perfectly and fully present and are all sought within this one thought of the view of emptiness.

Does knowing this complete possession mean the work is already finished? No. Precisely because one sees ignorance and Dharma-nature clearly present together within this object, one becomes alert to one's own long darkness and produces kindness and compassion for sentient beings who are likewise dark. Contemplate the view of emptiness as empty and still in its nature, pure like empty space; then skillfully settle the mind and examine ignorance and Dharma-nature. Investigate the aggregate of views and the provisional construction of views through the four propositions, illuminating both the obstruction of suffering and origination and the penetration of path and cessation within every proposition.

One aggregate is all aggregates; the three truths remain unmoved and the Dharma-body is understood. Contemplating the unmoving aggregate accomplishes prajñā; breaking the eight inversions is called liberation. One further produces all establishments of mindfulness within one establishment, cultivates the inconceivable thirty-seven factors, and enters the samādhis of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness. If one still does not enter, one makes great vows, inwardly abandons attachment to views, outwardly abandons life and possessions, and applies moral discipline, patience, effort, repentance, wisdom, and the various treatments to assist the opening of nirvāṇa.

Finally, one must still deeply recognize one's stage and not usurp a higher ground. Neither inner nor outer winds and dust can destroy it, and attachment to Dharmas conforming to the path does not arise. Mind after mind becomes quiescent, flows into the ocean of wisdom, and rides one great cart directly to the place of the path. Thus the endpoint of contemplating the object of views is not the establishment of one more supreme view, but leaving behind not even attachment to Dharmas that conform to the path.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

Zhanran first narrows “view” from understanding in general: although many things may arise, only what arises contrary to principle is called a view. The two partial failures of merely guarding the words and merely esteeming contemplation of principle do not yet mean that a view has arisen. This object begins when views and names operate freely in every direction. The distinction prevents the whole chapter from mixing ignorance and ordinary opinions with determinate view-wisdom.

Concerning “neither mad nor noble,” Zhanran points out that views belong to the nature of wisdom and can therefore be lucid and acute, yet because the afflictions remain unsevered, they cannot be securely treated as noble realization. The more common cases of a view arising after dhyāna or view and dhyāna arising together do not mean views can appear only in a fixed sequence. When a view must be corrected, what is removed is the nature of attachment; view-wisdom itself is not erased in one stroke. This statement prepares a place for nurturing views and examining the mind later in the text.

Across the three levels of non-Buddhists outside Buddha-Dharma, non-Buddhists attached to Buddha-Dharma, and those who become non-Buddhists while studying Buddha-Dharma, Zhanran repeatedly separates Dharma gates from attachment to gates. Especially in the third category, losing skillful means means losing the Dharma gate's function of penetrating principle. The meaning of emptiness in the Chengshi Lun does not become identical to a non-Buddhist doctrine simply because its wording resembles nonexistence. When the Vimalakīrti Sūtra frustrates the Small Vehicle by comparing it to non-Buddhists, it rebukes only the aspect that has not seen the Middle Way; it does not take away the Small Vehicle's preparatory function.

For arising through hearing, Zhanran supplies the crucial condition: such arising does not occur in a distracted mind. “Through hearing” still means that dhyāna was already present and the sound heard served as the activating condition. The treatise retains only “and so forth” for Paramārtha's statement about China's two kinds of merit; its particular explanation belongs to the commentarial layer and should not be supplied in the vernacular body. One hundred and forty is likewise only one expansion calculated through five rounds, four gates, and seven types of attainment. If arising through hearing were separately calculated, there could be another one hundred and forty. The number cannot be taken as the maximum total of all views.

Within the section on faults, Zhanran identifies the view of emptiness as a support of afflictions and gathers the two chains of gold and iron, two rough stones of jade and rat-stone, two milks of cow and donkey, and two fruits of kālaka and zhentou into four levels of judgment. If a correct gate is grasped, the afflictions produced by the attaching mind can be the same as those of non-Buddhists; yet the correct Dharma depended upon still differs as vastly from the non-Buddhist deviant Dharma as heaven from earth. One cannot call the Dharma gates identical merely because the afflictions agree, nor excuse the mind attached to a gate merely because the gate is correct.

“Nurturing views and examining the mind” must especially be read through Zhanran's sequence. He explicitly judges the tape-worm simile as first nurturing the acute agents so that they devour the dull agents; after the dull agents are exhausted, the acute agents must still be treated. Nurturing views therefore does not stop at views but provisionally uses view-wisdom as a forerunner. The Small Vehicle's shifting the view means urgently severing that view. The Great Vehicle's not shifting it means immediately penetrating that the view itself is the factors of the path. This is not an everyday psychological opposition between suppression and acceptance, but two ways of entering the path.

Entering the fourth major section, Zhanran gathers the meanings of gathering in and breaking separately: gathering in is nurturing views and examining the mind; breaking means removing views without leaving so much as a blade of grass. Both serve entry into correctness. Gathering in cannot be understood as permanent retention, nor breaking as crude suppression without distinguishing faculties.

Within the conceivable object, Zhanran establishes its causal structure through “the view of emptiness as the cause of the ten realms.” The śrāvaka passage opens suffering, origination, path, and cessation in order. The pratyekabuddha passage answers a question about the twelve links with the sixty-two views not because question and answer diverge, but because it directly recognizes views as ignorance and contemplates the twelve links forward and backward from the views. Through the Shared Teaching bodhisattva passage, the treatise first explains the Tripiṭaka's three vehicles together within the same object and then turns to the Shared Teaching. The sections should not be mistaken for a disorderly juxtaposition merely from their surface arrangement.

The general eye through which the four teachings treat views is that view-delusion is one while the four treatments differ. The nine establishments of mindfulness are therefore not nine unrelated Dharmas. They are the Tripiṭaka's three vehicles, common cultivation in the Shared Teaching, preparatory and real practices in the Distinct Teaching, and the one reality in the Perfect Teaching, proceeding through the teaching method from three carts to convergence in one great cart.

Zhanran also separates the verbs of the conceivable and inconceivable levels. In the conceivable object, the view of emptiness acts as cause, and the ten realms arise in sequence through good and evil, the four truths, twelve links, four vast vows, six perfections, and the rest. The inconceivable object instead establishes the object from one thought of the view of emptiness intrinsically possessing the ten realms and five aggregates. The latter does not wait for the ten realms to arise successively. If causal production and intrinsic possession are collapsed into one statement, the sequence of the śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva passages loses its function, and the turn by which one thought of the view of emptiness is Dharma-nature becomes flattened.

In the śrāvaka passage on the four truths, Zhanran not only labels the long text with suffering, origination, path, and cessation, but also reveals the turn in the method of contemplation. Previously, the person attached to emptiness took emptiness as path and nirvāṇa. Now, within the view of emptiness itself, one instead distinguishes aggregates, sense fields, and elements and the eighty-eight agents, then produces the establishments of mindfulness and factors of the path, severs the agents, and realizes cessation. Contemplating the object of views does not mean seeking an abstract object apart from views; it means turning the very mind now attached to emptiness into what is contemplated. This judgment also runs through the later passages on the twelve links and the four vast vows and six perfections.

Within the inconceivable object, Zhanran calls the ten realms and five aggregates inside the mind of the view of emptiness “sentient beings,” so that the view of emptiness, sentient beings, and liberation are not separate. Although the long passage that follows does not label every item, he still points out the sequence of producing the mind, settling the mind, breaking through universally, discerning obstruction and penetration, and correcting and assisting. These judgments help reveal that the treatise does not stop after merely saying that one thought fully possesses everything. Upon the object of complete possession, it continues to produce the mind, initiate practice, discern stages, and leave attachment until the extant body of the text concludes.