成唯識論 釋結施願分

The treatise closes. Its title is accounted for in a sentence: "This treatise, in three divisions, establishes consciousness-only; therefore it is called the Cheng Weishi Lun."

The three divisions are those of Kuiji's outline: the prefatory homage division, the division of full establishment on scripture, the concluding dedication division. Together they establish consciousness-only, and hence the name. "Establish" means to prove, not to finish. The treatise does not describe consciousness-only; it argues it — from the first verse refuting the graspings at self and dharmas to the thirtieth setting out the three bodies of buddhahood, every step an argument.

After the close come the ascription of merit and the dedication. The author ascribes the merit of composition to the Buddha and the masters, claiming none of it, and dedicates that merit to all beings, that together they may accomplish the buddha-path. The form is standard in Indian treatises; read after ten fascicles it carries a different weight: ten fascicles of argument, and at the end he says it is not his.

Appended at the end is the postface by Shen Xuanming of the Tang. It is not a treatise but a record from the scene of the translation: Xuanzang's journey west in search of the Dharma, the course of the blended translation of the ten commentaries, and why Kuiji asked that they be "welded into one, with Dharmapāla's as the settled sense." Without that postface we should not know how this book came to be.

Reading this far, one can look back at the treatise's road: first refuting what you took to be real (self, dharmas); then establishing what transforms (the three transformers); then answering what you were bound to ask (causation, birth-and-death, the three natures); then pointing to what is real (the nature of consciousness-only); then laying out the road (the five stages) and telling the fruit (the three bodies).

Refute, establish, answer, point, walk, fruit — six steps, and consciousness-only stands.

C. The division of concluding interpretation and the vow of dedication

〔Concluding interpretation showing the right title〕

This treatise uses "three divisions" (that is, the three sections of object, practice, and fruit — or of mark, nature, and stages) to establish the principle of "consciousness-only," and that is why it is called Cheng Weishi Lun ("establish" meaning to establish and to prove).

〔Interpreting the alternate title〕

This treatise also has another name, Jing Weishi Lun (the treatise of pure consciousness-only). Why the word "pure"? Because it discloses this principle of "consciousness-only" so utterly clearly and brightly; and so that name is used.

〔Showing the root-treatise's title · interpreting the dedication-and-vow conclusion〕

The "root treatise" spoken of here means those thirty verses composed by the bodhisattva Vasubandhu (the Cheng Weishi Lun is the interpretive treatise by which later people explained these thirty verses; these thirty verses are the very root that gets explained, and so they are called the "root treatise"). The name of this "root treatise" is the Weishi Sanshi Lun-song (the Thirty Verses on consciousness-only) — why is it called "thirty"? Because just these thirty verses alone bring the principle of "consciousness-only" to perfect completion: not one verse too many, not one verse too few — one more would be excess, one fewer would be lack, and exactly these thirty round the principle out to the full. 　　Next comes a "closing verse of dedication and vow" (the verse that rounds off the composition, dedicating and making a vow): (Vasubandhu says) I have, in dependence on the holy teaching (the scriptures the Buddha spoke) and on right principle (correct reasoning), distinguished and made clear the two senses of "consciousness-only" — its "nature" (its essence) and its "mark" (its appearance); and I am willing to take all the merit I have gained by composing this treatise and bestow it on all beings, and to make this vow: that together with all beings I may swiftly mount to "supreme awakening" (that is, supreme, perfect awakening, the most complete realization of all).

〔Postface〕— composed by Shen Xuanming (a Tang dynasty ancient worthy)

Shen Xuanming of the Tang dynasty composed this postface in parallel prose. It records the treatise's composition, Xuanzang's compilation and translation, and the personnel of the translation bureau; it is not part of the treatise's doctrinal exposition.

Postface 〔T31 0059b02〕

(The postface opens by praising the Buddha's state.) Speaking from the root of it — the state of the Buddha's awakening is like one great ocean, at once clear and deep and dark-mysterious, taking in the thousand streams and ten thousand currents all at once, running through all the way to the "ultimate ground" (that is, the most final principle); and the Buddha's marvelous workings of mind can disclose the subtlest, hardest-to-see principles, covering heaven and earth and the ten thousand images, congealing them into the "utterly real" (the truest substance of all). To draw a comparison: the Buddha is like one bright sun of wisdom blazing high, lighting up every one of the "six dark places" (the gloomy corners within the six destinies) clear as a bright mirror; and like a spread of compassion-clouds let down, watering the "eight quarters" (the lands of the eight directions) into coolness. The Buddha preaches with but "one sound" (the Buddha emits only one kind of voice in preaching), yet beings each understand it on the spot in their own way (the many kinds of beings, each according to his own capacity, all grasp it and all draw benefit); and the Buddha's teaching ranges far beyond the "three vehicles" (the three roads of the disciple, the solitary-realizer, and the bodhisattva), galloping and racing onward upon the Way, with no end to its course.

(Next it tells how the Buddha taught according to capacity, from the Lesser Vehicle all the way to the Great.) The World-Honored One saw that Kauṇḍinya and the rest were "half-vessels" (that is, Lesser Vehicle men who could hold only half, whose capacity was still small), and so at the Deer Park he opened for them the teaching that ferries across by way of "the existent" (preaching "the existent" first, the Four Noble Truths and such); later he saw that Subhūti (that is, "Sublime Manifestation") was already of full and complete great capacity, and so on Vulture Peak (also called "the Eagle Range") he expounded for him the prajñā of "emptiness of emptiness" (the ultimate prajñā in which even "emptiness" itself must be emptied out). Although the Buddha had long since utterly transcended the two extremes of "permanence and annihilation" (clinging neither to all things as eternal nor to all things as cut off), did he therefore throw away the whole teaching of "the existent" and "emptiness" too, like a fish-trap or a rabbit-snare (the trap and snare, tools one discards once done with)? — No, he did not; it is precisely by these that the Buddha discloses the unsurpassed, numinous, ultimate purport, congealing the "middle way" (the right path that falls into neither extreme) into this (consciousness-only) teaching.

(Now it tells how, after the Buddha's passing, the true Dharma gradually scattered into confusion.) When the Buddha by the Gold River (that is, the bank of the Hiraṇyavatī at Kuśinagara) entered final extinction and gathered in his light, the source of the Dharma, once pure and unmixed, broke up into one branching stream after another, no longer to be traced back to its spring; and the "jade-tablets" (meaning the scriptures) of later ages, like petals drifting down in scattered flurries, fell apart in disorder, while stream after stream of thinning customs (meaning mistaken doctrines) rose up one after another, each fanning the next. Thereupon the "twenty-eight views" (the assorted false views of the outer paths) churned people into a daze throughout the "five heavens" (the five regions of India, the whole of India), like wild geese in a mulberry grove that have lost their way and cannot find the road; and the "sixteen masters" (the sixteen schoolmasters of the outer paths) churned people, all across the "four lords' [realms]" (the lands ruled by the sovereigns of the four quarters), into not telling true from false, like oxen in the mist that cannot be made out whether black or white.

(This passage brings on the protagonist, the bodhisattva Vasubandhu.) Nearly five hundred years after the Buddha's passing ("half a thousand" being five hundred), a holy one came into the world — this is Vasubandhu, who truly is the realized man who came in response to the age within this "Worthy Eon" (this great eon of ours). He hid away his "born-knowing" gift (the great wisdom he had from birth) and first took up shallow, near-at-hand means to lift up and teach the people; from the moment of his birth he was like flying light shedding splendor, lighting up the host of sentient beings. He first worked within the Lesser Vehicle: he cast the never-dimming wisdom upon the "eight aggregates" (meaning the Sarvāstivāda's Jñānaprasthāna, whose whole text is divided into eight aggregates), and polished his earliest thought upon the "six feet" (meaning the Sarvāstivāda's six "foot" treatises); within the Abhidharmakośa he opened the rare blossom of disputation ("blossom" being the magic fungus, a figure for brilliant argument), holding high the leftover doctrines of the "those-who-teach-the-existent" school (meaning the Sarvāstivāda). Later he turned round to the Great Vehicle: he took in its mysterious dharma-ocean, and adorned still more richly the ultimate principle of "investigating emptiness" (delving deep into the sense of emptiness); his teaching-way was mounting upward and shining to the very limit, and at last it congealed — clear, still, pure, and unified — into these (thirty) verses. — This Triṃśikā (the Thirty Verses on consciousness-only) is the work Vasubandhu left behind when he "returned to the root" (in his later years coming home to the Great Vehicle, returning to the foundation).

(This passage praises the thirty verses as compact in word and deep in sense, while pointing out that they "set up only the verses, without expounding them at length.") The principle within these thirty verses is stored away deep, like a great ocean's abyss; it lets the assorted object-appearances of consciousness-only float up upon the "Splendid River" (a river of glittering radiance). Its sense is lush and thick, like a mass of "rising vapor"; its literary luster is gorgeous, like a piece woven of rainbow brocade spread across the "Dark Garden" (the immortals' park atop Mount Kunlun). Its words hold within them heaven and earth and the ten thousand images, and a single short character wraps up a thousand layers of meaning inside it; its marvelous purport soars so high it seems about to fly up to heaven, and its deep luster is like a sky full of starry splendor. And yet — here the brush turns — these subtle threads of the principle Vasubandhu had not yet had the chance to expound one by one; that dim, profound spirit reaches far beyond the bounds an ordinary man can attain; its solitary brightness keeps its glow drawn in, unwilling to show itself, and those secret thoughts lie hidden away at the ferry-crossing (held back, not let out). — (The point of these few lines is to say: Vasubandhu composed only these root thirty verses, and before he had the chance to expound them in detail himself, he hid this deep principle away. The line that follows takes it right up: it was the ten great masters afterward who composed the interpretation for him.)

(This passage tells how the ten great masters came forth to compose the interpretation of the thirty verses, and accounts for the origin of the treatise's titles.) After Vasubandhu there came the "ten great bodhisattvas" — Dharmapāla, Sthiramati, and the rest (that is, the ten great masters who annotated these thirty verses). They stored the mysterious pearl away in the "eight treasuries" (meaning the vast teaching-store, all the teaching-texts), and reared up tier upon tier of doctrine-towers in the "four surrounds" (the four quarters). They settled their minds upon the contemplation of the "two causes" (deeply examining the principle of cause and effect), and lodged their spirits within the pure "three contemplations" (cultivating the various contemplation-practices); their radiance rose to the "ten stages" (the ten ranks of the bodhisattva's cultivation and realization), and with the pure water of wisdom they watered the "grove of the worthy" (the park where the worthy gather, a figure for the body of students); they had already drawn near to the subtle pivot of the "seven [factors of] awakening" (the seven awakening-limbs, the seven dharmas tending toward awakening), and with the bright moon of practice they broke open the "layered night" (the long, long night, layer upon layer, a figure for ignorance). In temper they were at once gentle and ardent, looking up to and following in the footsteps of the worthy of former ages ("treading" being to walk in the tracks of those before); their words gushed like arrows, welled like an inexhaustible spring; their thoughts went racing like a wind that carries jewels along — and they all, facing these root thirty verses of Vasubandhu, each wrote down his own annotation (each composing one interpretive treatise). Afterward Xuanzang wove these ten houses' interpretive treatises into one, and fixed its name as the Cheng Weishi Lun, also named the Jing Weishi Lun.

(This passage tells of the treatise's function in the doctrine — refuting "the existent" and refuting "emptiness" too, and setting up the middle way.) This treatise, on the one hand, empties out the "two graspings" outside the mind (that is, the "grasping" subject and the "grasped" object, the two ends taken to be really existent), stilling that one-sided clinging to "real existence" gone astray (refuting the "attachment to the existent"); and on the other hand it sets up the "one mind" within consciousness (granting that there is this one mind that consciousness-only manifests), driving out that deluded clinging that flatly takes everything to be "empty" (refuting the "wrongly-grasped emptiness," that is, the mistake of taking emptiness to mean sheer nothingness). If a man stays dim and unclear about this principle of "mind" and "object," he will sink and drown long in the sea of suffering; but if he wakes to the purport that "the existent" and "emptiness" are not two extremes (the middle way of neither-empty-nor-existent), he can at one step mount up to the far shore of awakening. Before this treatise, the "ninety[-five] outer paths" (the ninety-five kinds of outer paths) had their wheel-ruts thrown into confusion and their very banners toppled (a figure for the outer paths' doctrines being refuted), and the "eighteen [schools of the] Lesser Vehicle" too had their "ram-carts" pulled up short (the little carts the rams draw, a figure for the Lesser Vehicle) and turned instead to uphold the "dragon-hub" (the great carriage the dragons draw, a figure for the Great Vehicle). This treatise probes through to the marvelous, fathoms the finest principle, and enters into the most hidden places ("the hidden" being the deep-concealed) to search out their pivot; its sense purely runs through the "ten supports" (the ten support-treatises of the Yogācāra school), and thoroughly gathers up the "nine divisions" (the nine divisions of the Buddha's teaching, the nine classes of scriptural text). In its grandeur it can look back and fly wing to wing with the "Ten Wings" of the Book of Changes (the ten pieces by which Confucius explained the Changes), and can look down upon the "nine streams" (the hundred schools of thought) and dredge up from them a jade-pure current; it has expounded to the full the deepest, finest principle, and disclosed entire the profound scriptures of the Dharma-King (the Buddha). At its utmost, even "names and marks" (the assorted designations) are blotted out, and even "words and images" (the tools of speech and of taking-an-image, the very fish-trap-and-snare spoken of above) are forgotten together (words gone, images cut off, directly meeting the root sense). It made the numinous radiance blaze out across the "Western Sindhu" (Western India, that is, India), and stored the rainbow-like luster away in "Cīnasthāna" (ancient India's name for China); it ferries beings across and propagates the great Way, and in the end comes home, far and deep, to the root virtue-and-purport.

(This passage turns to the translation-master Xuanzang, first praising his virtue and learning, then telling of his westward journey in quest of the Dharma.) As for that great preceptor, the Tripiṭaka master of the Dharma Xuanzang — by nature he was wise and clear-sighted, able to let go of every false clinging (laying down even the clinging to "the real"); he both walked the path of benevolence and had wisdom as far-soaring as flight; within the "nine gates of meditative absorption" (the various gateways of dhyāna) he realized stillness, settled as a high mountain blended into one, and the "eighty thousand mysterious fords" within his breast (the marvelous ferry-crossings of the eighty-four thousand dharma-gates) surged and poured forth, gathering into a vast sea. The cultivation of his wisdom-virtue was like a golden wall built tier upon tier, gleaming like the moon; like a high jade hall, soaring up like rosy cloud. His fragrant purity outdid the "clear orchid" (the sweet-scented orchid grass), and the splendor he nurtured outdid the "dragon-wing." He grieved that the Buddha's fine, subtle teaching had had its luster buried away, and sighed that the great doctrine's radiance had fallen into decline, and so he made a vow and set out upon this far journey (meaning his westward journey to India): he swam across the barring waters of the "Auspicious River," climbed the low-hanging branches of the holy land's jewel-trees, and along the carved-railing bridge ("the carved span") roamed in spirit all the way, treading with steady steps over the snow-piled peaks ("the snow peaks"); he mounted the steps where the Buddha had walked to realize the Way, and gazed up at the Buddha's mysterious holy shadow to adorn his own cultivation-cause. In India he sought out the profound and viewed everywhere the rare and precious, passing through, all told, "two cycles" (one cycle being twelve years, two cycles about twenty-four years, meaning the whole span of his westward quest for the Dharma); at last he sealed up with sandalwood and tablet-by-tablet recorded the scripture-texts written on palm-leaves, and like the White Horse of old that carried the scriptures (using the allusion of "the White Horse carrying the scriptures," meaning bearing the scripture-rolls), he returned to the "Three Qin" (the region around Chang'an).

(This passage praises the imperial house of the Great Tang for upholding the translation of scriptures, and lists the personnel and scale of the translation bureau.) Our Great Tang — its felicity and auspicious omens may be matched with the "Golden Wheel" (the Golden-Wheel sage-king, the highest grade of wheel-turning kings); its blessed signs rest upon the imperial virtue like a "pivot, like lightning" (a figure for the Son of Heaven's majestic virtue, like the pivot of all things, like a lightning-flash). The Great Tang takes in the "Great Thousand" (the great-thousand world, a figure for the breadth of all-under-heaven) and lets its light cover and house the four quarters, riding the "six [kinds of] eloquence" so as to fly like a dragon in the heavens; its marvelous teaching reaches quietly through to the four quarters, so that even the "nine immortals" (the far countries of the four directions) come to offer their precious tribute ("tribute-treasure" being the treasures presented in homage), and its mysterious counsels are propagated on every side, so that the hundred spirits stand in awe and each fulfills his office. The Son of Heaven, "his beaded crown still, his hands deep-folded" (the jade strings hanging from the crown, the hands clasped deep — a figure for ruling by letting the robes hang and folding the hands, governing by non-action), in the dark of night reached afar and communed in dream with the holy ones (a hidden use of the allusion of "seeking the Dharma through a dream-vision"); he plied his literary brilliance and spread out splendid pieces, and in radiance wrote down words to give his hidden support (to the Buddha-Dharma). Thereupon the Son of Heaven sent down a "silken edict" (an imperial command), commanding broadly that the translation be done: he charged the Director of the Department of State Affairs of the Left, Duke of Yan, Yu Zhining; the Secretariat Director, Duke of Gaoyang, Xu Jingzong, and the rest with "polishing" (refining the wording); the śramaṇa Shi Shentai and the rest with "verifying the sense" (settling whether the doctrine was correct); and the śramaṇa Shi Jingmai and the rest with "weighing the text" (collating the words, weighing ornament against plainness). This work of translation began in the nineteenth year of Zhenguan (645) and went on until the close of the Xianqing era; the number of texts translated came to nearly sixty, the number of fascicles to as many as a thousand. The grandeur of this affair far outdid the fairyland of Penglai, vast and rolling, the pool-waters circling without end; it made the Dharma-treasure flourish all the more, and greatly opened up the many deluded beings. Even the "merit-praising piece" and the "scripture-prefacing piece" were honored with the Son of Heaven's own "imperial composition" (the writing the emperor wrote with his own hand) — a flourishing of this mysterious Buddha-Dharma never before heard of.

(This passage records specifically in which year and how the Cheng Weishi Lun was redacted and translated — the key of the whole piece.) It was in the fourth year of Xianqing (659; in that year the cyclical sign was jiwei, which the postface points to with the old calendrical phrase "the dragon roosting at xiehe"), when the winter season answered to the turn of the calendar and the intercalary month of that year fell just upon the yang month, that Xuanzang took these "ten interpretations" (the ten interpretive treatises of the ten great masters), four thousand five hundred verses in all, and gathered them together — they had each stood apart, each following its own text, and Xuanzang wove them (blending and translating them into one) into a single text, fixing it into ten fascicles. By the time that month was at its end and that year drawing to its close, the work of sorting and synthesizing was at last complete. The translated text finely encompassed the "glosses" (the explanations of word-meanings), and carefully sought out the correspondences between "barbarian and Chinese" (that is, the Sanskrit and the Chinese on either side); its cadence startled the "Shao melodies" (a figure for the beauty of its sound-rules, like the music of Shun), and its literary luster reached up to the very courts of heaven. There were moreover the "white phoenix" showing forth a rare portent and the "Purple Tenuity" (the emperor-star) revealing an auspicious sign — omens of every kind. And so the interpretive treatises of the ten houses, which had been "alike in wording yet diverging in sense" (each saying its own thing), once Xuanzang had woven them this way, came out as if of one piece, as though from the brush of one and the same master. From this one may see: the "ancient sages" (meaning Vasubandhu and the ten great masters) and the "worthy of today" (meaning Xuanzang) — their tenor of principle is in fact one and the same ("measure" being the standard, the principle).

(The postface's last passage praises Xuanzang's disciple Kuiji, and accounts for his composing the Shuji to hand down to later students; with this the whole piece closes.) The disciple of Tripiṭaka master Xuanzang, named "Ji" (that is, the great master Kuiji) — he came of a "noble clan and lofty house, of jade-field flowering stock" (all phrases describing a family of name and station, the son of a great house); in the prime of his years he was already savoring the Buddha-Way, and from his youth ("the silken years" being the time of youth) he was already probing the mysterious principle. The loftiness of his learning surpassed "Lin and Yuan" (meaning the two eminent monks of the Eastern Jin, Daoan and Huiyuan); the clarity of his discernment was like one mirror of cloud. His leisurely deportment was bright and pure as jade, surpassing the Way's own depth in its limpid clarity; his free-flowing tone was fragrant as the orchid, and his soaring eloquence overtopped "Fatai" (the famous monk of the Eastern Jin, Zhu Fatai). He drew out the immortal dharma-sounds like the "eight Brahmā [tones]" (the eight kinds of pure brahma-voice), like a sky-soaring white crane dancing and bearing in good fortune; and he laid out splendid dharma-models like the "nine chapters" (the elegant, classic pieces), gorgeous and many-hued as the shadow of a luan-bird upon the wutong tree. Among his fellows in translation he sent forth light, so that even "Rui" (the famous Eastern Jin monk Sengrui) must bow before him and hide his own glow, melting his luster into Kuiji's; among the body of students of the doctrine he showed his splendor, so that looking back even "You" (meaning eminent monks of the Huiyou rank) might unfurl and reach freely, mounting high above. He was lovely as the first dawn ("the first daybreak" being the break of day), that one round of jade-bright morning sun, his brightness far outshining the worldly metaphysicians and Confucians; he was strong as the "heaven-spanning" (meaning "the heaven-spanning Shi Daoan," for Daoan styled himself "the heaven-spanning Shi Daoan"), that peerless brush, leaping and striding beyond both the conventional and the ultimate truths. He received in person Xuanzang's true transmission of the "four eloquences" (the four unobstructed eloquences), and in his discourse could moreover help draw forth the "three clarities" (the three clarities: knowledge of former lives, the divine eye, and the extinction of the outflows); for later students he opened up the door and window ("the door and window" being the gateway into the Way), and ferried them across at the crossing; his achievement had its resource in a plain, unadorned root, and his penetrating grasp of the doctrine was lodged in spirit. He synthesized the great outline of this Cheng Weishi Lun, distinguished its chapters and sections in their order, and besides this composed the Yishu (that is, the Cheng Weishi Lun Shuji), to hand it down to the students who came after. May this teaching coil and settle upon the "Yellow Land" (the Central Plains, the heartland of China), its grandeur striding across to rival the "tortoise-tablets" (meaning the River Chart and the Luo Writing, those auspicious signs); may this auspice float up over the Purple Palace (the imperial palace), its splendor overshadowing the "qilin-seal" (the ancient writings, the great-seal and tadpole scripts and the like). (Shen Xuanming closes with a word of self-deprecation:) I have only used to the full my own "mean and shallow" (humble, coarse, lowly) words, to set out in brief outline the purport and whole story of how this treatise was composed and translated — that is all.

We have arrived. The thirty verses have all been expounded, and the treatise as a whole now draws to its close. This final section is short but weighty. The author of the treatise first makes clear why this work bears the title Cheng Weishi Lun — "The Treatise that Establishes consciousness-only"; then he gathers up, in one motion, the title of Vasubandhu's root verses themselves, together with the closing verse of aspiration that dedicates the whole work's merit to all beings. After this comes an Afterword written by the Tang-dynasty author Shen Xuanming. That afterword is not doctrine; it is a record of how the treatise came to be made, of the full course of Xuanzang's translation bureau, and of how Kuiji composed his commentary and handed the teaching on to later generations. It is a historian's pen at full literary flourish, and its value as a source document is high. Below we first treat the treatise's own closing, and then work through the Afterword section by section until its sense is plain.

This part must first have its "basis" made clear. The concluding verse of the dissemination section is unlike the earlier exposition of the nature and characteristics of consciousness-only, which had particular scriptures and treatises as its basis. It is rather the composer's own statement of aspiration — a passage that turns the accomplished merit over to all beings — and not an explanation of the doctrine of any one scripture or any one line of treatise; so there is no separate "scripture taken as basis" to point to here. What can be read alongside it is the formula of "dedicating the merit to the multitude of beings" that the lineage of Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu mostly appends at the close of composing a treatise. The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, after expounding the conformity that benefits others, sets up a verse of turning-over whose sense is this: that whatever the bodhisattva does — in differing capacities, in differing places, engaged in differing kinds of work — all that he does, he turns back to benefit sentient beings. This is exactly the same form as this treatise's closing verse, "the merit gained I give to the multitude of beings; may we together swiftly mount to supreme awakening" — the merit accomplished in composing a treatise and in cultivating the path is not enjoyed for oneself, but bestowed universally upon all sentient beings. This is the common rule of dedication for one who composes a treatise in the consciousness-only lineage; and the treatise's own closing verse, treated below, should be read in light of this common rule.

C. The Concluding, Dedicatory, and Aspirational Part

One. Explaining the conclusion and showing the proper title — why it is called the Cheng Weishi Lun

This treatise uses a "threefold" framework to set up the meaning of "consciousness-only." By the threefold is meant object, practice, and fruit — or, put another way, the three-tiered structure of characteristic (the appearance of things), nature (their underlying reality), and stage (the levels of the path). The whole treatise follows out these three tiers and, in doing so, establishes the truth of consciousness-only. That is exactly why it is called the Cheng Weishi Lun: it means "the treatise that establishes the truth of consciousness-only." Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) makes two points here. The first concerns the setting-up of this "threefold": it is meant to match the complete form of the Buddha's preaching of the dharma — "good in the beginning, the middle, and the end, unalloyed, fulfilled, pure, the holy life" — and so this treatise too is judged to possess its three parts. The second explains the word "establish": it runs through two senses at once — "establishing the teaching by the teaching" (using the holy teaching to establish the holy teaching) and "establishing the principle by the teaching" (using the holy teaching to establish the meaning) — both sides, teaching and principle, hold good, and it is not that only one is taken.

Two. Explaining the alternate title — it is also called the Treatise that Purifies Consciousness-Only

This treatise has another name as well: the Treatise that Purifies consciousness-only. Why is it also called this? Because the truth of "consciousness-only" that it reveals is utterly clear and utterly pure — it sweeps away every deluded clinging to real objects standing outside the mind, leaving only this one clear and pure principle of consciousness. It is for this that the word "pure" is set as its marker. Kuiji's Notes explains this word "pure" as "shown by way of a simile": just as the nature of suchness, though pure of itself from the very first, has no way of manifesting that purity unless one cultivates it — so too the principle of consciousness-only is of itself clear and pure, yet it must be drawn forth and displayed by this treatise's teaching and principle before the name "pure" is borne out. Hence the word "pure" holds good on both sides, in the teaching and in the principle.

Three. Showing the title of the root verses, with the dedication and aspiration — the root verses are called the Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only, and the merit is turned over to all beings

Two layers must be kept distinct. What was said above is the title of this commentarial treatise. But the verses that Vasubandhu composed have a title of their own: they are called the Thirty Verses on consciousness-only. Why "thirty"? Because the truth of consciousness-only is brought to its full and complete display in exactly these thirty verses — not one verse too many, not one verse too few. The number thirty rounds the principle out precisely, and so "thirty" is taken as its name. On this very line — "by the thirty verses the truth of consciousness-only is brought to its full and complete display, neither added to nor subtracted from" — Kuiji's Notes adds a remark: this sense of "neither added to nor subtracted from" can be assigned, tier by tier, to the threefold of characteristic, nature, and stage — and however one assigns it, against whichever tier, the number thirty is seen to be exactly complete, with nothing that could be added and nothing that could be removed.

At the close of the verses, Vasubandhu appended a single verse of aspiration that turns the whole work over as a dedication. Kuiji's Notes judges the structure of these four lines thus: the first two lines — "having relied on the holy teaching and on right reasoning, I have distinguished the meaning of the nature and characteristic of consciousness-only" — are the "gathering-up and citing of the text above," drawing together and citing the original intent of all that the treatise has composed; while the latter two lines — "the merit gained I give to the multitude of beings; may we together swiftly mount to supreme awakening" — are the "formal dedication and arising of the aspiration," the formal turning-over of the merit and the rousing of the aspiration to mount together to the fruit of awakening. Following out this division: everything expounded above has been carried out by relying on the Buddha's holy teaching and by relying on right reasoning, in order to distinguish and clarify the two tiers of meaning in "consciousness-only" — its nature and its characteristic. And now, all the merit gained in composing this treatise is not kept for oneself; it is given over, in full, to all sentient beings, with the wish that oneself and all beings together may swiftly mount to "supreme awakening" — that is, to unsurpassed, perfect, complete enlightenment, the ultimate fruit of buddhahood. The author does not gather the roots of goodness to himself. This single thought of dedication is precisely the original heart of one who composes a treatise in the Great Vehicle.

[Afterword] — composed by Shen Xuanming of the Tang dynasty

What follows is the Afterword by Shen Xuanming of the Tang dynasty. Written in parallel prose, it records the treatise's composition, Xuanzang's compilation and translation, and the personnel of the translation bureau rather than expounding the treatise's doctrine. The exposition below follows its sequence section by section.

One. The ocean of awakening and the single voice — the grandeur of the Buddha-dharma

The piece opens with a series of vast images describing the Buddha's awakened realm. The great ocean of awakening is clear and deep; it draws in ten thousand tributary streams and runs all the way to the most ultimate principle of all. The Buddha's marvelous mind unfolds the most subtle and hidden of things, covers the ten thousand appearances of the world, and condenses them into "the utterly true." This awakened wisdom is like a sun of insight hung on high, lighting up the darkness of the six destinies; and like a spread of compassionate cloud, cooling the eight directions. The Buddha teaches with a "single voice," yet sentient beings, each according to their own capacity, are each able to reach understanding in their own way. The Buddha-dharma surpasses the confines of the three vehicles — those of the hearers, the solitary realizers, and the bodhisattvas — and races swiftly and far toward the great Way.

Two. The half-vessel and the ripe capacity — the unfolding of a lifetime of teaching

The afterword then looks back over the opening and closing of the Buddha's lifetime of teaching. The World-honored One, discerning that the capacity of Kauṇḍinya and his company was still only a "half-vessel" — the limited measure of the Lesser Vehicle — first ferried them across at the Deer Park with the teaching that "speaks of existence," expounding the Four Noble Truths and the other principles of what "exists." Then, when the time was ripe, he looked upon the full and ripe capacity of Subhūti and, on Vulture Peak, set forth the perfection of wisdom that "empties even emptiness." Yet though the Buddha had already left far behind the two biased extremes — the extreme of permanence-and-view and the extreme of annihilation-and-extinction — when did he ever truly throw away, in their entirety, the skillful verbal teachings of "existence" and "emptiness," the fish-trap and the snare that catch the meaning and are then set down? What he meant in the end to reveal was that unsurpassed, marvelous ultimate principle, and to fix the "middle way" firmly within this teaching of consciousness-only. This single clause is exactly what installs consciousness-only as the teaching of the middle way that is neither emptiness nor existence.

Three. The disorder of the dharma after the Buddha's passing — the tangle of heterodox schools and partisan doctrines

The afterword next describes the situation after the Buddha's passing. When the Buddha entered final extinction by the Golden River, at Kuśinagara, and gathered in his light and radiance, the pure source of the dharma split and scattered in four directions and could no longer be drawn back. The scriptures of later ages drifted apart like petals falling in confusion, and a thinning, corrupting wind was fanned up by one party after another. And so the "twenty-eight kinds of heterodox views" ran wild in disorder across the Five Indias, like a flock of geese over the mulberry fields that had lost their bearings; and the "sixteen masters," those heads of heterodox schools, stirred one another up within the realms of the rulers of the four quarters, like cattle in the clouds that cannot be told apart. The ocean of dharma was for a time turbid and disordered — and this is precisely the background against which Vasubandhu appeared in the world and consciousness-only was established as a teaching.

Four. Vasubandhu appears in the world — the work of returning to the root, the Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only

When the disordered age had run nearly five hundred years, a sage at last appeared in the world, and this sage was Vasubandhu — truly a genuine man born in response to the needs of this fortunate eon. He concealed his heaven-sent wisdom and used it to uphold and guide sentient beings; throughout his life his radiance flew forth in brilliant colors, illuminating the host of beings. He first set the lamp of his ever-bright wisdom to work upon the "eight aggregates" of the Jñānaprasthāna, and embellished the first unfolding of his understanding upon the "six-footed" treatises of the Abhidharma; in the Abhidharmakośa he came forth brilliantly in debate, raising up the remaining tenets of the Sarvāstivāda. Afterward he drew the deep waves of the dharma back into the Great Vehicle, gave literary form to the ultimate principle of "investigating emptiness," and made the work of guidance rise step by step until it shone through to the utmost — and at last it came to rest, serenely settled, in these thirty verses. This is why we say: the Thirty Verses on consciousness-only is the late-life work in which Vasubandhu "returned to the root," returning home to the Great Vehicle.

Five. The root verses are deep yet were never given a full commentary — Vasubandhu composed the verses and then withdrew

This passage sighs over the depth and the brevity of Vasubandhu's root verses. Their meaning lies hidden deep as an abyssal sea, floating the objects and appearances of consciousness-only upon a river of radiance; their flavor is rich and dense as cloud-vapor, and ornate as the rainbow-patterned writings above the immortals' gardens of the mysterious mounts. A single line can embrace ten thousand appearances; a single word can hold a thousand kinds of interpretation; the marvelous import is by nature transcendent, and the diction is deep as the splendor of the stars. And yet this subtle thread of meaning Vasubandhu had no time to proclaim at length: that abstruse and profound mind was cut off beyond the bounds of the ordinary world; his solitary brilliance was withdrawn and gathered in, his secret thought sank from sight. The meaning is this: Vasubandhu composed only this fundamental set of verses, and withdrew before he could compose any detailed explanation of it. This is precisely what lays the ground for what follows — "the ten great bodhisattvas each composed a commentary."

Six. The ten great bodhisattvas each compose a commentary — the origin of the title Cheng Weishi Lun

After Vasubandhu came the "ten great bodhisattvas" — that is, the ten great commentator-masters — among them Dharmapāla and Sthiramati. They stored the deep treasure of the dharma, the dark pearl, within the storehouse of the teaching, and raised up, in the four quarters, tier upon tier of edifices of doctrinal learning. They settled their minds upon discerning the "two causes" and lodged their spirits in repose within the pure "three contemplations"; their wisdom climbed and shone as one ascends the "ten grounds," and with clear waters of wisdom they nourished the grove of the worthy; they drew near to the subtle workings of the "seven factors of awakening," and with the bright moon of their practice broke through layer upon layer of long night. Unhurried and yet ardent, they looked up to and walked in the tracks of the worthies before them; their words welled up like arrows, like springs, and their thought flew like the wind, scattered like jewels. These ten each contemplated Vasubandhu's root verses, each made their own determinations, and each composed a commentary. Later, Xuanzang blended the commentaries of these ten houses into a single work, and named it the Cheng Weishi Lun — also called the Treatise that Purifies consciousness-only. The very root of the treatise's title lies here.

Seven. The function of the consciousness-only middle way — emptying the two graspings, establishing the one mind

This passage points out the essential function and purport of this treatise. It empties the "two graspings" that lie outside the mind — the deluded reckoning of a grasping subject in the seeing-portion and the deluded reckoning of a grasped object in the appearance-portion — and so brings to rest those who have lost their way by clinging to real existence outside the mind, those mired in existence. At the same time it establishes the "one mind" within consciousness, and so dispels the deluded clinging that strikes everything down into sheer nothingness — the wrongly grasped emptiness, the falling into nihilism. If one is blind to this principle of "mind and object," then beings sink and drift long in the sea of suffering; but if one awakens to this purport of "neither emptiness nor existence," then one can stand high upon the far shore of awakening. And so the disordered dust and wheel-ruts of the "ninety-five kinds of heterodox paths" are swept flat and the star-banners of wrong views are toppled; the "eighteen schools of the Lesser Vehicle," which had carried beings only as far as the sheep-cart, come to a halt, and turn instead to be lifted onto the dragon-hub of the Great Vehicle. This treatise probes the marvelous to its very depths and to its most crucial pivots; it threads together the "ten branches" of the treatises and penetrates the "nine divisions" of the teaching, glancing aside at the "Ten Wings" of the Book of Changes as if soaring on immortal plumage, and looking down upon the "nine streams" of the various philosophers as if dredging deep the jade waves — drawing out in full the abstruse ultimate principle, and bringing to light the profound canon of the Buddha, that king of the dharma. Reaching this height, even names and verbal images are alike forgotten — displaying its marvelous radiance in western India, and storing this rainbow-light to be transmitted into China, ferrying beings across and spreading the great Way, until at last it returns in silence to the virtue of this school.

Eight. Xuanzang's journey west in search of the dharma — fetching the scriptures and returning east

The afterword now turns to Xuanzang. This great monk, the Tripiṭaka master Xuanzang, was by nature wise and penetrating, and had let go of the deluded clinging even to "the true"; he walked in benevolence and soared in wisdom. In the "nine gateways of meditative absorption" he realized a stillness like a mountain at rest, and the "eighty thousand gateways of the dharma" surged within his breast like a dark ford brimming into an ocean. His wisdom and virtue were like a wall of gold rising in tiers and shining like the bright moon, like a tall jade hall with the clouds and rosy mists flying up; his fragrant purity surpassed the clear orchid, and his grace and brilliance were nurtured as on the wings of dragons. He grieved that the radiance of the subtle words had been buried, and lamented that the splendor of the great meaning had been lost; and so he made a vow and resolutely set out upon that distant journey in search of the dharma: swimming across the auspicious river, plucking the low branches of the jewel-trees, roaming in spirit along carved and ornamented bridges, walking calmly over the snow-peaks, climbing the purple steps to realize the Way, and looking down upon the dark reflections to adorn the cause of his own cultivation. In India he gathered the deep meaning and surveyed its rare treasures, all told for some twenty-four years; and at the last he sealed up the sandalwood, inscribed the palm-leaf scriptures, and, like the white horse bearing the canon, returned east to Chang'an, to the land of the Three Qin.

Nine. The translation bureau of the great Tang — the imperial decree to translate, and the personnel of the bureau

The afterword next describes the flourishing of the great Tang translation bureau after Xuanzang's return east. The auspicious fortune of our great Tang was manifest in the virtue of the "golden-wheel-turning sage king," and its blessings drew upon the heavenly majesty of the sovereign; it held the great thousand-fold world and its light covered all under heaven; it rode the "six eloquences" as though flying through the heavens; its divine transformation ran secretly through all, and the immortals of the nine quarters offered up their treasures; the marvelous plan of the dharma was set forth in the four directions, and the hundred spirits each rose up in awe to do their offices. The emperor governed with folded hands and ruled in stillness, communing with dreams in the dim glow of night; and he spread out his literary brilliance, illustrious in using fine writing to give hidden support to the Buddha-dharma. And so an imperial decree was handed down, ordering a general translation: it was commanded that the Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs, the Duke of Yan, Yu Zhining, and the Director of the Secretariat, the Duke of Gaoyang, Xu Jingzong, and others should be in charge of "polishing" the diction; that the monk Shen Tai and others should be in charge of "verifying the meaning," fixing the doctrine; and that the monk Jing Mai and others should be in charge of "examining the text," collating substance and style. This enterprise of translation began in the nineteenth year of the Zhenguan era and continued to the close of the Xianqing era; the number of works rendered came to nearly sixty, and the number of fascicles ran to a thousand. Its splendor surpassed the isles of Penglai and was vast as the encircling sea, making the treasure of the dharma flourish greatly and opening the way wide for the multitude of the lost; and even the writings praising its virtue and prefacing the scriptures were composed by the emperor's own hand, his imperial brush. Such a flourishing of the mysterious teaching had never been heard of before.

Ten. Blending the ten commentaries into one work — the making of the Cheng Weishi Lun

This passage records, specifically, the blended translation of the Cheng Weishi Lun itself. In the fourth year of the Xianqing era, the year jiwei, in the season of winter, with the intercalary month falling in the bright month, Xuanzang gathered together the "ten commentaries" — the ten works of the ten great commentator-masters, four thousand five hundred verses in all — and, following each of their originals and making his selections among them, combined them into a single work, fixed in ten fascicles. By the year's end the ordering and synthesizing were at last completed. He examined the glosses with precision and studied closely the correspondences between Sanskrit and Chinese, between the foreign and the native; his literary cadence startled the very modes of music and his diction flowed forth as in the courts of heaven, like a white phoenix selecting rare treasures, like the pole-star presenting auspicious signs — until at last these ten houses, "alike in words but differing in meaning," were blended together as though they had come from the hand of a single master. This is precisely what shows that the ancient sages — Vasubandhu and the ten great masters — and the present worthy — Xuanzang — were, in their guiding purport, in fact of one accord.

Eleven. Kuiji composes the commentary and hands it on — the end of the afterword

Finally the afterword writes of Xuanzang's disciple Kuiji. Kuiji, the disciple of the Tripiṭaka master Xuanzang, came from an illustrious clan of high station, a distinguished house of jade fields and flowering lineage; in the prime of life he gave his heart to the Way, and as a youth he was already inquiring into the deep principles. The loftiness of his learning matched that of Dao'an and Huiyuan, and the clarity of his insight was like a mirror of cloud; his easeful bearing was pure as the gleam of jade, surpassing the depth of the Way and self-luminous in its clarity; the soaring grace of his rhythm was fragrant as the orchid, and his flying eloquence outshone that of Zhu Fatai. He drew out a heavenly music in the "eight kinds of pure Sanskrit sound," like dancing cranes of the empyrean gathering in auspicious throngs; he spread out a beautiful pattern in the writing of the "nine sections," like the shadows of phoenixes on the paulownia, brilliant and richly wrought. Among his fellow translators his luster rose, and he bowed humbly toward Sengrui and blended his radiance with his; among the company of doctrinal scholars he ascended to the painted seat, and looking back to the wise plans of the past he gazed far ahead. He shone as the light of fine jade in the first of morning, illumining both the mysterious learning and the Confucian; he was vigorous as that peerless literary brush of "Dao'an who covers the heavens," soaring above the two truths, the ultimate and the conventional. He directly received Xuanzang's "four kinds of unobstructed eloquence" and was favored with the "three clear knowledges"; for those who came after, he cleared the gateways and ferried them across the crucial fords, with his talent supporting his cultivation and his penetration of principle lodging his spirit. He organized the framework of the Cheng Weishi Lun, fixed its order and divisions, and in addition composed a Commentary — that is, the Notes on the Cheng Weishi Lun — to hand on to later learners. He wished that this teaching might take firm hold of the central land, surpass and harmonize with the River Chart and Luo Writing, that its auspicious light might float above the purple palace and shine more brightly than the ancient writings. And so Shen Xuanming said: with these few poor words he had exhausted his powers in recording, as above, the whole origin and purport of how this treatise was composed, translated, and handed on. With this the afterword reaches its end, and the whole treatise is brought to its close.

Onward Transmission

This part is the concluding verse of the whole treatise — it explains the title of the treatise and dedicates the merit in turning-over; it sets up no new doctrinal characteristics. And so, within the sequence of the consciousness-only lineage, its "onward use" too takes on a distinct character.

In the Hundred Dharmas treatise, the words of the concluding verse, dedicating and turning over the merit, are not among the dharma-characteristics that the gateway of the hundred dharmas embraces; there is no single item that answers to it head-on, and so here it is left aside.

In the Thirty Verses on consciousness-only, the root verses run out at the thirtieth verse (the ultimate stage, "named the dharma of the great Sage"); and this treatise's closing verse of dedication and aspiration is the turning-over of merit that the blended commentary appends at the very end of the verse-text — answering, chapter by chapter, to the Thirty Verses: the verses run out and the treatise concludes, and here head and tail meet.

In the Twenty Verses on consciousness-only, that treatise closes by refuting the outsiders' clinging to real external objects, and has no text corresponding to "a concluding verse that dedicates and turns the merit over to the multitude of beings"; so here it is left aside.

In the Madhyānta-vibhāga, however, there is the most direct correspondence: at the close of its chapter on the unsurpassed vehicle, it likewise appends a verse dedicating the merit of composing the treatise, whose sense is to bestow universally upon all sentient beings the whole of the merit accomplished in expounding this treatise, wishing that they may gain superior places of birth, increase in merit and wisdom, and swiftly realize the vast awakening. This is exactly the same form as this treatise's "the merit gained I give to the multitude of beings; may we together swiftly mount to supreme awakening" — at the close of composing a treatise, the merit accomplished is bestowed universally upon the multitude of beings, with the aspiration roused to realize awakening together. This is the closest cross-reading for the dedication of one who composes a treatise in the consciousness-only lineage.

In the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, the treatise ends in the exposition of "the wisdom that is the fruit of those" and of "the ultimate abiding," and sets up no separate concluding verse of dedication and turning-over at the close of composing the treatise; so on this point too there is no correspondence, and here it is left aside.