成唯識論 義疏通講 · 冊6

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.