攝大乘論 義疏通講

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The root treatise opens from the ten supreme points taught in the Abhidharma Mahayana Sutra and uses four marks to show that the Great Vehicle is truly the Buddha’s word. The two ancient commentaries unfold both the meanings of the ten headings and the force of the four marks; this exposition begins from that scriptural and commentarial relation.

Turn to the first page of the Mahayanasamgraha, and Asanga does not open by preaching some grand principle at you. He does something that looks, at first, rather odd: right away he throws down a list — ten stiff technical terms, set out in a row, one, two, three, four. You came to study the Dharma, and the opening reads like someone reciting a table of contents? And worse: no sooner has the list ended than Asanga lays down a weighty claim — that it is precisely on the strength of these ten that the Great Vehicle truly is the word of the Buddha.

This touches the real, scalding question that runs underneath this whole chapter: the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) — is it actually what the Buddha himself spoke?

In Asanga's day this was no polite formality. The Sravaka scholars of the schools openly challenged it: these Mahayana scriptures were never heard during the Buddha's lifetime, they are for the most part later fabrications passed off in his name, they do not count as the Buddha's word. Asanga composed the Mahayanasamgraha, and in the very first chapter he means to meet that blade head-on. And the way he meets it is exactly that "list" — so this chapter, which looks like a table of contents, is in truth an opening statement for the defense: he wants you to see that only the Great Vehicle can speak of these ten, and that the sheer weight of the ten themselves turns back and proves that the Great Vehicle issues from the Buddha's mouth. What follows unfolds in five passages, taught straight through, following Asanga's own words.

1. The list is really a body of evidence

Asanga opens by giving the provenance: this treatise comes from a scripture called the Abhidharma-mahayana-sutra. In it, in the presence of the Buddha (the Bhagavan, the World-Honored One), a bodhisattva who had already entered deeply into the Great Vehicle spoke it "to display the greatness of the body of the Great Vehicle" — to show how vast the very substance of the Great Vehicle is. In other words, with his first stroke Asanga ties his words back to scripture: what I teach is not my own invention; I am drawing up a summary on the scripture's behalf.

Then he sets out the headings: it is in dependence on the Great Vehicle alone that the buddhas have the tenfold supremely excellent discourse. That phrase has to be unpacked: "supremely excellent" means specially surpassing, found nowhere else; "discourse" is the teaching itself, supreme to the highest degree; the two together say that these ten are excellent to the utmost — the supreme teaching that the Great Vehicle alone possesses and the other vehicles do not. Vasubandhu's commentary gives a detailed gloss of this naming here. The ten, in order, are:

1. The basis of the knowable — the root on which all "things to be known" depend: what the underlying ground of all dharmas is.
2. The characteristics of the knowable — the manner in which those things-to-be-known appear.
3. Entering the characteristics of the knowable — how one moves from "understanding" to "direct realization," truly awakening into that characteristic.
4. The cause and fruit of that entering — by what cause this awakening comes, and what fruit it bears.
5. The distinctions in that cultivation of that cause and fruit — into what gradations the cultivation of this cause-and-fruit is divided.
6. The higher training in discipline — the further, elevated "discipline" within this cultivation.
7. The higher training in mind — the further, elevated "concentration."
8. The higher training in wisdom — the further, elevated "wisdom."
9. The fruit of severance — the merit of "cessation" attained at the ground of fruition, which is to say nirvana.
10. The fruit of cognition — the "wisdom" accomplished at the ground of fruition, which is to say the Buddha's own domain.

Having finished the list, Asanga delivers his verdict: the scriptural phrases of the buddhas comprehended under these ten suffice to show that the Great Vehicle truly is the word of the Buddha. Notice the weight of this move — he does not first prove that the Great Vehicle is the Buddha's word and then go on to teach the ten; he does the reverse, taking the ten themselves as the evidence that the Great Vehicle is the Buddha's word. So this "table of contents" was never a table of contents from the start; it is evidence entered into the record. By what proof? In the next two passages, Asanga lays it out step by step.

2. Not one of these ten is found in the Sravaka vehicle — and what each one points to

Asanga first puts a question to himself: "How can this be shown?" — how exactly do these ten manage to show that the Great Vehicle is the Buddha's word?

His first reason is clean and forceful: these ten were never spoken in the earlier teachings given to the Sravaka disciples; only in the Great Vehicle are they taught, everywhere. This single line is the pivot of the whole defense: if these ten were also present in the Sravaka vehicle, then the Great Vehicle would have nothing distinctive; it is precisely because not one of them is to be found in the Sravaka vehicle that the Great Vehicle is "other than" — and "superior to" — the Sravaka vehicle.

But to say merely "the Sravaka vehicle does not have them" is still too empty, so Asanga makes each of the ten concrete — he lifts the lid on every heading and tells you what specifically sits underneath. Reading this, you discover that these ten terms are not ten isolated words, but the very themes that each of the following ten chapters will unfold in turn:

• The basis of the knowable speaks of the alaya-vijnana (storehouse consciousness): the deepest, root consciousness of the mind, which stores all the "seeds," the ground of all experience. Since all dharmas are established in dependence on it, it is called the "basis of the knowable."
• The characteristics of the knowable speaks of the three natures — the other-dependent (paratantra), the wholly-imagined (parikalpita), and the perfectly-accomplished (parinispanna): the three identities under which the world appears (Chapter 3 will treat them in detail with the simile of gold, earth, and treasury; here just hold in mind that there are these three layers).
• Entering the characteristics of the knowable speaks of consciousness-only (vijnapti-matrata): personally realizing that "all dharmas are nothing but the manifestation of mind-consciousness" — this is the threshold from knowing to realizing.
• The cause and fruit of that entering speaks of the six perfections (the six paramitas: giving, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, wisdom) — the cause of awakening into consciousness-only, and likewise its fruit.
• The distinctions in that cultivation of that cause and fruit speaks of the ten bodhisattva grounds: the stages this path must pass through, one rung at a time.
• The higher training in discipline speaks of the bodhisattva moral code: the precepts the bodhisattva upholds, wider in scope than the Sravaka's.
• The higher training in mind speaks of the various profound concentrations (samadhis) such as the Surangama and the Akasagarbha.
• The higher training in wisdom speaks of non-discriminating wisdom (nirvikalpa-jnana): the root wisdom that leaves behind the split of subject and object and directly meets reality as it is.
• The fruit of severance speaks of non-abiding nirvana (apratisthita-nirvana): that great liberation which is neither bound by birth-and-death nor withdrawn into a dead stillness.
• The fruit of cognition speaks of the Buddha's three bodies: the self-nature body (svabhavika-kaya), the enjoyment body (sambhogika-kaya), and the transformation body (nairmanika-kaya).

Once the ten are made concrete, Asanga's conclusion stands firm: since these ten are taught by the Great Vehicle alone and the Sravaka vehicle does not have them, they "show that the Great Vehicle is other than the Sravaka vehicle" — marking out the root difference between the two; and because the World-Honored One taught them for bodhisattvas alone, they further "show it to be most supreme." In a word: it is in dependence on the Great Vehicle alone that the buddhas have these ten most excellent teachings.

3. On what grounds does this count as the Buddha's word — Asanga gives four tests

At this point a sharp opponent will press once more: even granting that these ten belong to the Great Vehicle alone, that can only say "the Great Vehicle and the Sravaka vehicle differ" — on what grounds do you leap in one step to "therefore the Great Vehicle is the Buddha's word"? And could it not run the other way — might someone take the Sravaka vehicle and pass it off as the Great Vehicle?

Asanga meets this head-on, and this is the third step of the chapter's argument — he means to do two things at once: on one side to show that "the Great Vehicle truly is the word of the Buddha," and on the other to deny that the Sravaka vehicle is of the nature of the Great Vehicle, blocking off any claim that confuses the Sravaka vehicle for the Great Vehicle. His grounds, beyond the earlier "only the Great Vehicle has them," lie further in the fact that these ten themselves stand up to four tests (these four points Asvabhava develops in fuller detail in his commentary):

1. They are most able to lead to great enlightenment — these ten are most able to give rise to unsurpassed awakening; they are the most powerful cause of buddhahood. A body of teaching that can lead a person to the fruit of buddhahood is not something an ordinary person could fabricate.
2. They are well established — in their doctrine they are set up soundly and hold their ground; they are no offhand talk, no private opinion that crumbles under scrutiny.
3. They are consistent and without contradiction — they follow right principle and hang together from first to last, with no conflict among themselves. A fabricated teaching always shows its seam somewhere; these ten are, through and through, without contradiction.
4. They serve to attain the wisdom of all-wisdom — they are precisely the actual path to that "wisdom that knows all things" of the Buddha; not merely pleasant words, but a road that truly arrives at the ground of fruition.

A body of teaching that passes all four of these gates at once is the teaching of the Buddha, not something an ordinary person could fabricate. Conversely, since the Sravaka vehicle does not even have these ten, it has no standing to claim falsely that it is itself the Great Vehicle. With this passage Asanga brings "the Great Vehicle is the Buddha's word" down from a conviction into a tested, well-ordered argument.

4. Two verses: gathering the whole body of evidence into a single line

Having taught the reasoning out, Asanga uses two verses to draw the foregoing together once more. The ancient treatises often did this — the prose runs the principle through to the end, and then verses are appended at the close so the reader can fix the skeleton in memory; nearly every chapter of the Samgraha that follows uses this same form.

The first verse names the ten in order: the basis of the knowable, the characteristics of the knowable, the cause and fruit of entry, the gradations of cultivation, the three trainings of discipline-concentration-wisdom, the cessation and the wisdom of the fruit — and its closing line, "comprehended in the supreme vehicle, this is the excellence," says that these ten are gathered under the unsurpassed Great Vehicle, and it is precisely on this account that they are excellent. The second verse gathers the conclusion of the defense into a single statement: these ten belong to the Great Vehicle alone and are seen nowhere else ("this teaches them, the rest does not — seen and not seen"); and precisely because they are the most excellent cause of enlightenment ("by this, the most supreme cause of awakening"), it is granted that the Great Vehicle truly is the word of the Buddha ("therefore the Great Vehicle is allowed to be the true word of the Buddha") — when all is traced back, "by the teaching of the ten points, it is excellent." The argument that circled around through the three previous passages is here pressed into two verses, into a single line.

5. The order of the list conceals a path to buddhahood

In the last passage Asanga turns back to explain a question you may have wanted to ask all along: why are these ten arranged in just this order — "basis of the knowable → characteristics of the knowable → entry → cause and fruit → cultivation → three trainings → cessation → wisdom"? Would another order not do?

Asanga's answer is the most moving thing in this chapter: this order is not arranged by a casual hand; it is itself the course of a bodhisattva's cultivation-and-realization, link locked into link, where if the earlier step is not planted firm there is no speaking of the later one —

First one must recognize the "cause" of all dharmas (the basis of the knowable = the alaya-vijnana storing the seeds) before there can be any penetrating of dependent arising; once dependent arising is penetrated, one can see clearly the characteristics of phenomena, and leave behind two errors — one is superadding (samaropa), forcibly attaching to a thing a reality it simply does not have; the other is subtracting (apavada), erasing it altogether into a sheer nothing (this is the characteristics of the knowable = the three natures, and Chapter 3 is precisely where you are taught to walk this middle way). Having seen the characteristics clearly, one can then truly penetrate and let the mind win liberation from its various obstructions (entering the characteristics of the knowable = consciousness-only). After this penetration, the six perfections of the preparatory stage grow more complete through being actually realized, because that deep aspiration toward the path (the heightened resolve) has been purified (the cause and fruit of that entering). Then, with the six perfections held by this purified resolve, one cultivates portion by portion across the ten grounds, passing through the long span of three immeasurable great eons (the distinctions in that cultivation). When the three trainings have been cultivated to fullness all the way through, one at last directly realizes the two fruits — nirvana (the fruit of severance) and unsurpassed perfect enlightenment (the fruit of cognition).

So these ten were never ten items set side by side, but a complete path running from "seeing clearly the underlying ground of the world and the mind" all the way through to "the full accomplishment of buddhahood." Asanga adds one more line at the close: once these ten are taught to the end, "herein all of the Great Vehicle reaches its completion" — the entire doctrine of the Great Vehicle is gathered here, nothing left out.

Looking back over this chapter, you see how artful Asanga's opening is: with a single list he has accomplished three things at once — a table of contents for the whole book, a body of evidence that the Great Vehicle is the Buddha's word, and a map from ordinary person to buddhahood. The ten themes mark out what each of the following ten chapters will teach; they prove that what this treatise teaches is indeed the Buddha's Dharma; and they spread out before your eyes, all at once, the entire order of the path of cultivation-and-realization. From the second chapter on, Asanga will unfold these ten one by one in detail — and the first stop is that consciousness lying hidden at the very bottom: the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness.

Later Reception

The next two divisions unfold the storehouse consciousness and the three natures named here. The Thirty Verses inherits both, the Twenty Verses establishes consciousness-only from the side of defense, and the Cheng weishi lun gathers and expands the line. This later reception marks subsequent development without rewriting the present division.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

This division first cites the realm verse and the storehouse verse of the Abhidharma Mahayana Sutra, then the appropriating-consciousness verse of the Samdhinirmocana Sutra. The two ancient commentaries unfold the three senses of storing, the alternate names, and the refutations of rival accounts; the exposition keeps those warrants together.

Settle yourself first, and ask yourself one thing. Beneath all your thoughts, deeper than that thing you have always called "I" — is there a layer of mind you cannot feel at all, running on without a single pause? Every act you perform, every thought you raise, passes away the moment it is done; but do they truly vanish into nothing? Once an act of karma is done, where is it stored away, that it can ripen into its fruit a lifetime — many lifetimes — later? And the wholesome qualities you laboured to cultivate — where are they kept, that they do not perish together with the thought that preceded them?

Asanga composed the Mahayanasamgraha, setting up ten pillars for the Great Vehicle, which he calls the "ten kinds of excellence"; and of these ten pillars, the first — the very ground on which the other nine must all stand — he calls the "basis of the knowable": the root upon which everything that ought to be known depends. And what is this ground? Asanga says it at the outset, without circling around a single word: it is the storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijnana).

Why must he posit such a consciousness at all? Precisely because of that string of questions above: unless one can find a root consciousness that runs through birth-and-death, that can hold and carry the seeds of karma, that keeps practice from coming to nothing — then samsara makes no sense, and liberation makes no sense either. So this whole chapter, from beginning to end, does one thing only: inch by inch it establishes this mind that lies hidden at the very bottom, which you cannot feel yet which never leaves you for an instant, and at the last it proves head-on that it most certainly exists. What follows expounds Asanga's words in order.

1. "Alaya" simply means a "store"

Asanga begins by giving the lineage. Where did the World-Honoured One ever speak of this consciousness? In a sutra called the Abhidharma-mahayana-sutra, there are two verses. The first says: "From beginningless time there is the realm (dhatu), the equal support of all dharmas; because of it there are the destinies of rebirth, and the attainment of nirvana as well" — from beginningless time there has been just such a fundamental "realm" on which all dharmas equally rest; precisely because it exists, there is the round of the six destinies, and the realization of nirvana as well. The second verse names it outright: "Because it stores and holds all dharmas, it is the consciousness containing all seeds; therefore it is called the alaya" — precisely because it stores up the seeds of all dharmas, it is called the alaya.

These syllables "alaya," rendered over, mean "store." Why "store"? Asanga says there are three senses, none of which may be missing.

First, it is the place where things are stored. Every thought we raise, every act we do — whatever is defiled — leaves in this consciousness a portion of potential "to give rise again later to something of the same kind," which is deposited into it. So with respect to these defiled dharmas, it is the place of storage, the "fruit." Second, it is the master that gives rise to things. The potential deposited into it is not dead; when conditions are right, it again brings forth the active arising out of this consciousness. So, conversely, it is also the "cause" of the arising of all dharmas. Third, it is the object mistakenly grasped as a self. At a deeper level there is a subtle mind (the "defiled mind" to be discussed below) that, from beginningless time, has been clutching this consciousness as "I."

Stored, storing, and grasped as a self — these three senses taken together are what is called the storehouse consciousness. In glossing the name here, both Vasubandhu and Asvabhava expound it along these three senses of "storing and holding"; Asvabhava adds one distinguishing remark: the "store" here is spoken of only on the side of defilement — it does not reckon the pure dharmas into it.

2. The appropriating consciousness — the force of holding that keeps life "continuing on"

The same consciousness is called by yet other names in the sutras, each name pointing to one of its functions. The first alternate name, the deepest, is the appropriating consciousness (adana), which means "the consciousness that holds and appropriates." Asanga cites a verse from the Samdhinirmocana-sutra to describe it, and this verse you must read slowly —

"The appropriating consciousness is deep and subtle; all its seeds are like a torrent. I do not expound it to the foolish, lest they discriminate and grasp it as a self."

See how exact the simile of the torrent is. A waterfall, seen from afar, looks like a still white ribbon hung in the air, as though "one thing" were draped there; but come close, and where is it ever the same handful of water for even a moment? It is wave pushing wave, instant after instant flowing without pause — and only so does it prop up, on the surface, that "unchanging white ribbon." The appropriating consciousness is just like this: deep, exceedingly subtle, the prior thought-moment perishing the very instant the next is born, continuous and unbroken, never resting — and yet within this ceaseless rushing it props up the illusion of "an I." The World-Honoured One says, "I do not expound it to the foolish": for those whose capacity is not yet ripe, he does not at first make this consciousness plain, precisely for fear that the moment they hear there is a consciousness so deep and subtle, running through birth-and-death, they would at once seize upon it as "I," and so come to harm.

What does it hold and appropriate? Asanga says two things. One, it appropriates this material body of ours — precisely because it is there behind the scenes ceaselessly "holding on," the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body do not decay and scatter, and can last out a single lifespan; the moment one's breath stops and it departs, the body at once decays. Two, at the very instant of taking rebirth, it "appropriates" the fruiting body of that life, to serve as the support for a new span of life. In a word: adana is the very force of holding that keeps life "continuing on."

3. Mind, thought, consciousness — three words, each pointing to its own thing

It is also called mind. The Buddha often says "mind, thought, consciousness" in a single breath, and at first this sounds like a synonymous repetition; in truth these three each point to something distinct, which Asanga here takes apart one by one.

"Mind" (citta) is this storehouse consciousness that accumulates seeds — "mind" means "accumulation," and it accumulates the seeds perfumed in by all the various dharmas, like a storehouse that piles up without cease; apart from the storehouse consciousness, no other thing can be found fit to be the substance of "mind." "Consciousness" (vijnana) refers to the first six consciousnesses, whose function is "discerning" — distinguishing the object before one; this much is easy to grasp. But "thought" (manas), most easily glossed over, is the most crucial, and so Asanga discusses it separately.

"Thought" is of two kinds. One is easy: the consciousness that has just perished in the prior moment yields its place to the next moment and serves as its support for arising — this is the thought of "immediate succession" ("immediate succession" meaning that between them there is no interval at all, the prior perishing and the next being born in unbroken sequence). The other is exceedingly subtle: there is a mind, never interrupted, that in the background grasps that storehouse consciousness as "I." This mind is the protagonist of the next section — the defiled mind (klista-manas).

4. The mind that all along is secretly grasping "I": the defiled mind

What is the defiled mind? It is a mind bound up inseparably with four afflictions: the "view of a personal self" (the self-view that takes this body-and-mind to be "I"); "self-conceit" (feeling oneself superior); "self-love" (craving for this self); and "ignorance" (being benighted about the truth). It grasps the storehouse consciousness as "I" without a moment's pause, and these four follow it like an inseparable shadow.

Here comes the question: on what grounds do you say there really is such a mind underneath, when you cannot see it? Asanga's method is exquisite — rather than show it to you directly, he tells you to try removing it and see how many things stop making sense. He lays out in one stretch six faults:

First, if it were absent, that "unshared ignorance" — the kind no one can overcome, unconnected to any particular good or evil, present always like a ground-colour — would have nowhere to be established. Second, when the five (sense-)consciousnesses arise, each has its "co-existent support" (the faculty-support that exists simultaneously with it); this doctrine of "the five sharing one rule" would collapse along with it. Third, even the "explanatory glosses" (the explanations of meaning by the words) of terms like "alaya" and "adana" could not stand. Fourth, the two deep attainments — the attainment of no-thought and the attainment of cessation — ought to differ in rank: the attainment of no-thought still retains the defilement of self-grasping, while only the attainment of cessation truly subdues it; yet if you do not posit a defiled mind, these two attainments cannot be told apart in depth. Fifth, a being born in the heaven of no-thought ought, throughout that whole span of life, still to have self-grasping and self-conceit latent within; remove the defiled mind, and this cannot be accounted for. Sixth — and this one is the most intimate — even while we are plainly doing good, or in a blank, indeterminate (avyakrta) state, that undertone of "supposing there is an I" is still there; it goes on running even while you sleep. If "grasping a self" only occasionally arose together with evil thoughts, then there would be no explaining why self-grasping is equally present in the very moments of doing good and of being indeterminate.

All six faults point to one conclusion: there is indeed underneath a subtle, continuous, self-grasping mind that runs on regardless of good or evil. These six reductios are the very lifeblood of Asanga's establishing of the defiled mind — Vasubandhu glosses these six faults one by one in line with the treatise, while Asvabhava, besides explaining the six faults, further unfolds the verse in which the root treatise gathers up the six faults, and points out its nature: it is neither wholesome nor unwholesome (indeterminate), yet like a thin film cast over the eye, veiling the eye that would see the truth — this is called "obstructive-indeterminate." "Obstructive" means it veils; "indeterminate" means it is recorded as neither wholesome nor unwholesome.

5. Why the Sravaka Vehicle does not say it outright — yet has already quietly pointed to it

Someone may press: such an important consciousness — why is it not spoken of directly in the early sutras taught to the disciples of the Sravaka (Hearer) path? Asanga's answer is finely measured: it is not that it was unknown, but that "for that group there was no need to make it plain." Sravaka practitioners seek to be freed from the birth-and-death of this single body of theirs; they have no need to know thoroughly the inner workings of all dharmas, and so this deep and subtle consciousness is not expounded to them in detail — they still accomplish liberation all the same. But the bodhisattva must know all things thoroughly, must accomplish the Buddha's "omniscient knowledge," and so cannot but make this root clear — otherwise "it is not easy to attain the wisdom of all-knowing-wisdom."

And in fact the Sravaka Vehicle had long since "hinted" at it. A sutra says that beings "love the alaya, delight in the alaya, rejoice in the alaya, take joy in the alaya" — the thing that beings deeply crave and cannot bear to part with is precisely this storehouse consciousness. Different schools too each pointed to it by their own names: the Mahasamghika school called it the "root consciousness," using a tree simile — it is like the root of a tree, on which all the consciousnesses depend in order to arise; cut from the root, nothing can grow. The Mahisasaka school called it the "aggregate that lasts to the end of birth-and-death," meaning the aggregate that exhausts birth-and-death and continues all the way through — because they had noticed that sometimes (as in certain mindless states) the present activity of body-and-mind is interrupted, yet life is not truly cut off, which shows that underneath there must be something unbroken continuing on.

The various names, in truth, all refer to the one same consciousness. Asanga draws it together with a beautiful image: the storehouse consciousness "becomes the great royal road" — just as the small paths from all directions finally lead to the one same "great royal road" (the main thoroughfare), so however many its names, they all lead to the one same place.

6. Why only the "storehouse" deserves to be called alaya — an elegant counter-proof

Since beings "love the alaya," some conjectured: this "alaya" that is loved and clung to — might it in fact be something else? Some said it is this five-aggregate body (the five appropriated aggregates); some said it is that pleasurable feeling accompanied by craving (the joy conjoined with craving); some said it is the "sense that there is an I," the view of a personal self; and some said outright that "mind, thought, and consciousness are at bottom one thing, only the words differ." Asanga says that these various parties, "by both scripture and reasoning, are confused about the storehouse consciousness" — it is because they are not yet clear about the storehouse consciousness that they conjecture so.

How does he refute them? With an exquisite counter-proof: whatever a person comes to loathe and wish to be rid of can never be the very thing that beings most deeply grasp as a self. Consider: born into the most miserable evil destinies, beings want only to fling off this suffering five-aggregate body as fast as they can — how could they cling to it as "I"? Cultivated above the fourth meditative absorption, that craving-accompanied pleasure has long since vanished, has even become a thing despised — how could one cling to it as "I"? One who within the true Dharma has genuinely understood selflessness guards against and loathes "self-view" at every turn — how could he cling to it as "I"? And yet — even if you are born in hell and single-mindedly seek to leave the suffering body, even if you enter deep absorption and have come to loathe pleasurable feeling, even if you understand selflessness and have come to loathe self-view, there is one thing you have never, ever thought of leaving, to which that underlying self-loving grasp clings on and on for dear life: and that is the storehouse consciousness.

Precisely because it alone meets the condition of "being grasped as a self no matter what, yet never being loathed," it alone truly deserves to be called the storehouse consciousness. Vasubandhu gives a concise gloss on the three counter-examples here; Asvabhava unfolds, party by party, the grounds on which each set up its position, and refutes them in fuller detail — this passage on the storehouse consciousness in Chapter 2 is just where the two ancient commentaries are at their most skilful, their analysis most clearly articulated.

7. The three characteristics of the storehouse consciousness: how it "holds the seeds"

To see this consciousness more in the round, Asanga gives three characteristics, three ways of looking at the one same consciousness. The self-characteristic (its own native aspect): it can hold and carry all seeds — this is its native colour, a storehouse that holds the seeds. The cause-characteristic (its aspect as a cause): the seeds in the storehouse are, moment by moment, serving as the cause for the arising of all defiled dharmas. The fruit-characteristic (its aspect as a result): and the reason this storehouse comes to hold these seeds is that it has been perfumed by all defiled dharmas from beginningless time — so it is at the same time the "fruit" that is perfumed, continuing to arise thought after thought. The one same consciousness: viewed from "holding" it is the self-characteristic, from "giving rise" it is the cause-characteristic, from "being perfumed" it is the fruit-characteristic.

8. What "perfuming" is — the scent of flower in sesame

Where do the seeds come from? The key lies in the word "perfuming," and the key to perfuming lies in four words: arising together, perishing together. The thing that perfumes (a thought, say) and the mind that is perfumed arise at the same time and perish at the same time, and in that very instant of co-arising and co-perishing there is left in the perfumed mind a potential "to give rise again later to something of the same kind" — this potential is the seed, and the process that leaves it is perfuming.

Asanga gives three examples, the first the most vivid: perfuming sesame with flowers. The flower and the sesame are placed together and gathered together; the flower withers, the sesame is gathered, yet the sesame has taken on the cause of the flower's scent, so that the oil pressed from it later still carries that fragrance. The sesame and the flower "arise together and perish together," and so the cause of the scent is perfumed in — the principle by which the storehouse consciousness is perfumed is exactly this. The second example: a person heavy with greed perfumes once with every arising of greed, and the greed-laden cause within the mind grows ever thicker, so that the ingrained habit is hard to change. The third example: one who learns much and hears much perfumes in a portion of the cause of retention with each attentive act of hearing, and so can firmly hold what has been learned, becoming a "holder of the Dharma."

9. Seeds are not little things stacked one by one in a warehouse

Here a very natural misunderstanding must be broken: are seeds, then, like grains of rice — separate, solid, heaped up inside this "consciousness" as a warehouse? Asanga says: not at all. Seeds are not a set of independent "real things" residing in the consciousness; but neither are they utterly undifferentiated from the consciousness, fused into one mass beyond telling apart. What, then, are they? They are just this consciousness's "differentiated capacity to give rise to a particular kind of thing" — a potency, a tendency, not a set of little balls. Precisely because this consciousness carries within it all the various fruit-giving capacities, it is called the "consciousness containing all seeds."

Then what is the relation between the consciousness and the defiled dharmas it gives rise to? They are simultaneous, mutually serving as cause. Asanga uses three similes in a row. The first: the flame and the wick of a lamp — the flame and the wick of an oil-lamp are accomplished by each other in the very same instant: the wick burns out the flame, and the flame in turn burns the wick; neither comes after the other, but "simultaneously and mutually." The second: two bundles of reeds propped against each other — two reed-bundles support each other and stand at the same moment, neither falling. The storehouse consciousness and the defiled dharmas are mutual causes in just this way, at the same time: the consciousness holds the seeds and gives rise to the dharmas (the consciousness is cause), and the dharmas, manifest in act, perfume back into the consciousness (the dharmas are cause), back and forth without cease.

The third simile is the finest, addressing "the seeds are plainly without distinction, so how can they give rise to dharmas of every distinct kind?" — tie-dyed cloth into the dye-vat. A piece of cloth to be tie-dyed (the old craft of tie-dyeing, in which the cloth is first bound up according to a pattern): while it is still bound and has not yet gone into the vat, it looks all of one colour, and no pattern can be made out; but the moment it goes into the dye-vat, the riotous figures, the interlacing images, all show forth at once. So too when the seeds are perfumed into the consciousness — all of one flavour, no distinctions to be seen; and when the dye-vat of "fruition" comes forth, the boundless distinctions among the dharmas show forth all at once.

10. The two dependent originations, and the blind men touching the elephant

"Dependent origination" speaks of how all dharmas arise in dependence on conditions. Asanga says this principle is exceedingly subtle and deep within the Great Vehicle, and may be roughly divided into two. The first is called "the dependent origination that distinguishes own-being": all dharmas can arise because the storehouse consciousness can manifest dharmas of all various own-natures (own-beings) — this speaks of the total source of the arising of all dharmas. The second is the familiar twelvefold conditioned arising, called "the dependent origination that distinguishes the loved and the unloved": it governs the loved and unloved fruits of recompense that beings undergo in the good and evil destinies — this speaks of how the fruits of pleasure and pain come about.

Why must these two be distinguished? Because once a person fails to understand the first (the dependent origination of the source), he will wildly guess at a "first cause" of all dharmas: some say it is some hidden own-being, some say it is fixed by fate, some say it is the transformation of Mahesvara (the Great Lord-god), some say there is a real self in command, and some say outright that there is no cause at all, that it is pure chance. And once one fails to understand the second (the dependent origination of recompense), one will suppose there truly "is an I that creates karma, an I that undergoes recompense."

Asanga breaks this open with a simile of blind men touching an elephant. A group of men blind from birth, who have never seen an elephant; someone leads an elephant to them to feel. One feels the trunk, one the tusk, one the ear, one the leg, one the tail, one the spine — each touching one part. Asked what an elephant is like, their answers run all over: the one who felt the trunk says an elephant is like a plough-handle; the one who felt the tusk, like a pestle; the one who felt the ear, like a winnowing-basket; the one who felt the leg, like a mortar; the one who felt the tail, like a broom; the one who felt the back, like a stone mountain. The wild guessing of the ignorant about these two dependent originations is exactly this: each clutching one end, each supposing he has seen the whole elephant. And the whole of the storehouse consciousness — its own-being, its acting as cause, its acting as fruit — is like that whole elephant they never managed to touch in full: no one has seen the whole elephant, yet everyone is handing down a verdict.

11. The conditions seeds must meet, and inner seeds and outer seeds

For seeds to truly serve as seeds, they must meet several conditions, traditionally grouped into six (the six features of seeds). Asanga lists them tightly in verse; here they are stretched out in present-day language. First, perishing in the instant (a seed must be a living thing of instantaneous arising-and-perishing, not a rigid dead thing, so that it has vital force). Second, co-existence (it must exist simultaneously with the fruit it gives rise to, not facing it across generations). Third, continuously following on (continuing of one kind, uninterruptedly following along). Fourth, being determinate (a wholesome cause gives a wholesome fruit, an unwholesome cause an unwholesome fruit; cause and effect are determinate and do not get crossed). Fifth, awaiting the assembly of conditions (it does not pop up of itself at any time, but awaits the gathering of conditions before it gives fruit). Sixth, drawing forth only its own fruit (it draws forth only the fruit of its own kind — plant melons and you get melons, plant beans and you get beans; a melon-seed will never grow a bean).

Asanga further distinguishes "outer seeds" and "inner seeds." Outer seeds, like the grain in the field, can sometimes arise even without perfuming, by borrowing some outer condition (you take grain and sow it without first "perfuming" it). But inner seeds — that is, the seeds within our minds perfumed by karma and by hearing the Dharma — cannot do without perfuming. This point is utterly crucial: if even the seeds perfumed in by hearing the true Dharma could exist "of themselves without perfuming," then practice would make no sense (you could attain the fruit without cultivating, and might even lose it by cultivating — all thrown into disorder). So Asanga stresses: even outer seeds, at bottom, must also rely on the perfuming of the inner storehouse consciousness as their condition before they can truly stand.

12. Root-consciousness and active consciousnesses, how they depend on each other

Besides the storehouse consciousness that serves as the root, those other consciousnesses that turn outward and enjoy objects (the seven active consciousnesses spoken of earlier) may together be called "the consciousnesses that enjoy." The root consciousness is like the chassis, the active consciousnesses like the cars running on the chassis. Asanga cites a verse from the Madhyanta-vibhaga to make it plain: one is called the "conditioning consciousness" (the root consciousness that serves as object-support), the other the "enjoyer" (the active consciousness that enjoys objects).

How do these two work together? Again that same phrase — each serving as the other's condition: the dharmas perfume into the storehouse consciousness (the dharmas are cause, the consciousness is fruit), and the storehouse consciousness in turn gives rise to the dharmas (the consciousness is cause, the dharmas are fruit), back and forth, mutually cause and fruit. Here Asanga cites another verse from the Abhidharma-mahayana-sutra to settle it: "All dharmas store within the consciousness, and the consciousness within the dharmas likewise; reciprocally they are each other's fruit-nature, and constantly each other's cause-nature."

The kinds of condition are thereby sorted out too: in the "dependent origination of the source," the root consciousness and the active consciousnesses are each other's direct cause (the causal condition); over in the "dependent origination of recompense" (the twelvefold chain), the root consciousness is the assisting dominant condition. The arising of the first six consciousnesses relies on these — the dominant condition, the object-condition, and the immediately-preceding condition. The three dependent originations — that which exhausts birth-and-death (the source), that which summons the good and evil destinies (recompense), and that which enjoys objects (the active consciousnesses) — together complete all four conditions (causal condition, dominant condition, object-condition, immediately-preceding condition).

13. The most crucial proof: without the storehouse consciousness, neither defilement nor purity stands

Having set up the various names of the storehouse consciousness, Asanga now means to prove head-on that this consciousness "cannot but exist." His strategy is direct — take the storehouse consciousness away, and you will find that the side of defilement and the side of purity both stop making sense.

First, the side of the afflictions. Suppose there is no storehouse consciousness; then the seeds of greed and the other afflictions could only reside in the first six consciousnesses. But the first six consciousnesses are intermittent — the eye-consciousness has just perished when the ear-consciousness or the mind-consciousness cuts in and interrupts it. An eye-consciousness that has just perished, and now has no substance at all, how could it leap across this whole string of interruptions and hand the seed over to a later greed? What no longer exists cannot give a fruit. And where the perfumed seed is to reside is also a problem: reside in "greed"? Greed itself does not stay put, arising and perishing, and cannot retain a seed. Reside in some other consciousness? The other consciousnesses each depend on their own faculty, and do not co-arise and co-perish with it. Reside in itself? It does not co-arise and co-perish with itself at all. Nowhere can it reside. Which shows: there must be a consciousness continuous and unbroken, able to store the seeds steadily — and that is the storehouse consciousness.

Next, the side of creating karma. In the twelvefold chain, the link "consciousness conditioned by formations" speaks precisely of the karmic formations being perfumed into seeds within the consciousness; with no storehouse consciousness to store them, this link cannot be joined, and the later "existence conditioned by clinging" collapses along with it.

Next, the side of taking rebirth. At the moment of taking rebirth, the defiled mind-consciousness of the intermediate-state being first perishes, and must join with that first-congealed embryonic matter (the kalala) in the mother's womb. Here comes the problem: that consciousness which goes to join with the embryonic matter — if you say it is just the "mind-consciousness," a string of contradictions arises: would there not then be two mind-consciousnesses turning at once in the mother's womb? Moreover, this joining consciousness is constant and does not take outer objects as its support — which is utterly unlike the temperament of the mind-consciousness. Asanga presses on: is this joining consciousness, then, the "consciousness containing all seeds" or not? If it is, then it is in fact the storehouse consciousness, and you have merely renamed it "mind-consciousness." If you say it is "the later consciousness that arises in dependence on it" that is the seed-containing consciousness, then it comes out that the consciousness serving as cause does not hold the seeds while the consciousness serving as fruit holds the seeds — cause and effect reversed. However you push it, only one way out remains: that joining consciousness is not the mind-consciousness, but precisely the ripening consciousness (the alaya) that appropriates and holds life. Beyond this, the appropriating of the material faculties; consciousness and name-and-form propping each other up "like bundles of reeds leaning together"; the "consciousness-as-nutriment" by which sentient beings are sustained; taking rebirth in a state of even-concentration (a meditative ground); being born into the formless realm; the body growing cold section by section from below upward (or from above downward) at the time of death — all of these, the moment the storehouse consciousness is lacking, can no longer be accounted for.

Next, the side of worldly purity (for instance, cultivating up from the desire-realm to the form-realm absorption). What one cultivates with is the wholesome mind of the desire-realm; what is to be accomplished is the concentrated mind of the form-realm. But these two do not co-arise and co-perish, and the former cannot directly perfume into the seed of the latter; and although one may have cultivated the concentrated mind in many past lives, those concentrated minds have long since passed and have no substance now, and cannot serve as today's seed. So there must be a storehouse consciousness to carry the seed of the concentrated mind all the way down to today to serve as the cause, with the wholesome mind of the desire-realm only assisting from the side as a condition.

Finally, the side of supramundane purity. The Buddha says that the supramundane right view arises from two causes: "hearing the true Dharma" and "thinking it through in accordance with principle." But the problem is: while hearing the Dharma the ear-consciousness is active, and while thinking it through the ear-consciousness is no longer arising; and the mind-consciousness is forever being interrupted by other scattered thoughts. Even if a seed is perfumed in for a single instant, this thought of mind-consciousness passes in the blink of an eye and has no substance — how could it still serve as a seed to give rise to the later supramundane mind? Moreover, "thinking it through in accordance with principle" is a worldly mind, and "right view" is a supramundane mind; the two never co-arise and co-perish, and the worldly mind cannot perfume out the supramundane mind. The conclusion is forced once again: there must be a storehouse consciousness to hold and carry the seed perfumed in by hearing, before supramundane purity can make sense.

14. So where, then, does liberation come from? — the pure seeds perfumed by hearing the Dharma

This brings out the deepest and most moving question of the whole chapter: if what the storehouse consciousness holds is all defiled seeds, then the "pure seed" that can counteract defilement and lead a person toward liberation — where on earth does it spring from? The supramundane mind is something we have never cultivated, never given rise to, from beginningless time; by rights its seed simply does not exist — and if the seed never existed, how could the supramundane mind ever be brought forth?

Asanga's answer is the pivot of the whole treatise: the seed of the supramundane mind arises from the "perfuming of right hearing, equally flowing forth from the most pure dharma-realm." That is to say — that most pure reality (the dharma-realm) personally realized by the Buddhas "flows forth equally" as the verbal teaching of the true Dharma; and we, by hearing and being perfumed by this true Dharma that flows forth from the pure dharma-realm, perfume into the mind a brand-new seed. It does not grow out of the defiled seeds of the storehouse consciousness; rather, it is perfumed in by the very act of "hearing the pure true Dharma."

Then comes the most delicate step. Someone will press: does this seed perfumed in by hearing the Dharma count as part of the storehouse consciousness or not? Asanga says: both sides are wrong. If you say it is the very nature of the storehouse consciousness, then it too is defiled — how could it turn around and counteract defilement? If you say it does not belong to the storehouse consciousness at all, then on what does it rest, by what does it exist? The correct view is: before Buddhahood is attained, this pure seed lodges within the storehouse consciousness and turns together with it, just like water and milk mixed together — co-resident in one place, yet of a nature that is not the same. Its identity is always that of "the counter-agent of the storehouse consciousness," a pure current mixed in among the defiled consciousness yet not belonging to the defiled consciousness.

This pure current will grow: from the lower grade it is perfumed into the middle grade, from the middle into the higher, by ceaseless hearing, thinking, and cultivating. And one must know that this pure seed perfumed in by right hearing is in fact the "seed of the dharma-body" — though for now it still lodges within the worldly storehouse consciousness, its nature is supramundane, flowing forth from the most pure dharma-realm. Even before it has manifested as the supramundane mind, it is already exerting its power: counteracting the afflictions, counteracting the force that drags one into the evil destinies, breaking down the evil karma already made, and making a person able to draw near and serve the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. The perfuming a bodhisattva cultivates will in the future accomplish the "dharma-body"; what Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas cultivate accomplishes only the "liberation-body" (freed from birth-and-death alone, the dharma-body not yet perfectly-accomplished).

And so the most beautiful scene appears, and this is "the transformation of the basis" — the changing-over of the very ground on which life depends. As the pure seed grows by stages from lower to middle to higher, the ripening consciousness that holds the defiled seeds wanes by stages; and when the side of purity is perfected and the seeds on the side of defilement are utterly cut off, the "ground" of life is changed over altogether — this is the transformation of the basis. Asanga draws it together with a marvellous simile: water and milk are mixed together, and a goose, drinking, can drink off only the milk and leave the water behind; the pure seed gradually grows within the defiled consciousness while the defiled seeds gradually waste away, just like this goose drinking the milk — able, within what is all blended in one place, to take only the one portion and leave the other behind. It is also like a person who, cultivating to the point of leaving craving behind, finds the perfuming of distraction lessening little by little while the perfuming of concentration increases little by little, and so gradually turns over.

This passage answers the great, seemingly self-contradictory problem of "how a defiled consciousness can give rise to purity." The answer is not "the defiled consciousness itself produced purity," but "there is a separate pure current, come from the pure dharma-realm, lodging for a time within the defiled consciousness, which will in the end turn from guest into host." This is the cornerstone of the whole practice-view of the Mahayanasamgraha.

15. In the attainment of cessation, is there still a mind, or not?

The sacred teaching says that when one cultivates to the "attainment of cessation" (the deep absorption in which even the subtlest activity of mind-consciousness is stilled), "consciousness still does not depart the body." Then this consciousness that does not depart the body — which one is it? It can only be the storehouse consciousness — because what the attainment of cessation stills is the first six consciousnesses and those defiled mental factors; it is not aimed at counteracting the storehouse consciousness. If even the storehouse consciousness were cut off, then when one emerges from the absorption, by what would life be picked up again? Precisely because the storehouse consciousness is not cut off, emergence from the absorption can be picked up.

Someone insists on saying "in the attainment of cessation there is in fact still a mind-consciousness active," and Asanga lists in one breath a long string of contradictions to refute it: since it is named the "attainment of cessation," if there were still a mind-consciousness there taking objects, there turning on, then what kind of "cessation" would that be? Every which way it fails to hold. The conclusion is still the same one: there must be that storehouse consciousness which does not depart the body, before these states can make sense. With this, the whole proof draws together: leave out the storehouse consciousness, and neither defilement nor purity is established; therefore this consciousness most certainly exists.

16. The various modes of the storehouse consciousness

Having proven that the storehouse consciousness really exists, Asanga goes over its "modes of difference" once more, to help us see it in finer detail.

By the kind of perfuming, it may be divided into three perfumings: that of "name-and-language" (using verbal concepts to discriminate things, perfuming in the direct cause for the arising of all dharmas); that of "self-view" (perfumed in by the defiled mind's grasping of a self); and that of "the limbs of existence" (perfumed in by creating wholesome and unwholesome karma and summoning future fruits of recompense). From another angle, it may be divided into four kinds of difference: that newly perfumed and arisen (instigation); that summoning the fruit of ripening (ripening); that serving as the object of the defiled mind (the object-aspect); and the "modes of appearance" to be discussed in detail below.

Within the "modes of appearance," the most worth discussing is one pair: the shared characteristic and the unshared characteristic. The shared characteristic is the seeds of the "container world" (this common world of mountains, rivers, and the great earth); the unshared characteristic is the seeds of each individual's "faculty-body." This pair explains something we take for granted yet is in truth exceedingly deep: why is it that we each have our own body (unshared), yet share one and the same world (shared)? Because the seeds of the shared characteristic are manifested in common, sustained in common, by all. And precisely because of this, when a practitioner has realized the Way and his mind has turned pure, what he is able to extinguish is "only that portion of defiled seeds belonging to his own faculty-body" (the unshared characteristic); that common world (the shared characteristic), because it is still held in common by countless beings who have not realized the Way, does not vanish along with it — but to the one already purified, that same one world shows forth as pure. The verse in the sutra makes this layer plain: of the one same thing, yoga-practitioners of differing states of mind will make out differing characteristics (this is precisely strong evidence for "all dharmas are consciousness-only" — several yoga-practitioners look at one same object and what each sees can each be established, which shows that the objects seen are in fact manifested by each one's own consciousness); and even the pure Buddha-land is manifested by the Buddha's pure seeing.

Beyond this there are several more pairs of modes, touched on together. Coarse-heaviness and pliancy: the seeds of the afflictions make body and mind coarse, heavy, and unworkable; the seeds of wholesome dharmas make body and mind light, quick, and capable of effort. The exhaustible-in-experience and the inexhaustible-in-experience: the seeds of already-ripened wholesome and unwholesome fruits are spent and done once their recompense has been undergone (exhaustible-in-experience); whereas the seeds perfumed in by name-and-language flow on in proliferation from beginningless time, continuing without end (inexhaustible-in-experience). There is also the simile of illusion — what the storehouse consciousness manifests is like an illusion, like a mirage, like a dream, like the sky-flowers seen by an eye with a cataract: seeming to exist, yet not real. And finally a spectrum from ordinary to noble: the ordinary person fully bound by the afflictions (fully bound); the worldly one who has left craving behind, suppressing but not yet cutting off (diminished); the partly-cut learners of the noble path and the bodhisattvas (one portion forever uprooted); the Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas who have cut off the affliction-obscuration; and the Tathagata who has cut off both obscurations — this spectrum, ascending layer by layer from defiled to pure, can likewise only be laid out by positing the storehouse consciousness as holder of the seeds.

Conclusion: why this consciousness is "non-obstructive-indeterminate" — and where it leads

A last question, to draw together the whole chapter: since both wholesome and unwholesome karma arise from the storehouse consciousness, why is the fruiting body it summons (its ripening-nature) "non-obstructive-indeterminate" — neutral, neither wholesome nor unwholesome?

Asanga's answer is masterful: precisely because it is neutral, it can hold the seeds of both good and evil at the same time. Good and evil are mutually opposed, irreconcilable; yet both can be deposited into one neutral storehouse. And precisely because it is neutral, the whole rising and sinking, the turning-over from defiled to pure, can be set in motion. Consider: if this ground were itself wholesome, or itself unwholesome, then the co-residence of defilement and purity, the gradual turning-pure, would be flatly impossible. So the ripening consciousness can only be non-obstructive-indeterminate.

This, then, is the whole aim of "The Basis of the Knowable" from beginning to end: first to establish a non-obstructive-indeterminate storehouse consciousness, able to hold the seeds and receive perfuming, as the common ground of all defiled and pure dharmas; samsara and the return-to-cessation, bondage and liberation, all take place upon this ground. Once the ground is fixed, the next chapter, "The Characteristic of the Knowable," can take up the thread: standing upon this "basis of the knowable," what "characteristics" will the various dharmas we are to know actually show forth? That is the whole country of the three natures (the other-dependent, the wholly-imagined, the perfectly-accomplished). From this layer of "the mind hidden at the very bottom," Asanga means to lead you all the way to the threshold of the truth of "how world and mind present themselves."

Later Reception

The Thirty Verses opens by taking up the storehouse consciousness, maturation, all seeds, and then the defiled mind; the Cheng weishi lun later expands them. This later reception shows how the basis of the knowable became a foundation for subsequent Yogacara treatises while leaving the three recensions and two commentaries primary here.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

This division grounds the three natures, consciousness-only, and the four purities in Mahayana scriptural teaching, drawing also on the Ten Grounds and Samdhinirmocana scriptures. The two ancient commentaries explain the relations among the other-dependent, wholly-imagined, and perfectly-accomplished and the establishing of the consciousnesses; later formulations are not read back into the root.

The world is plainly right here before our eyes — the mountain stands over there, the sound carries across, reach out a hand and you touch the cup. On what grounds do we say we have seen it wrongly?

That is the hard problem this chapter makes you face the moment it opens. The previous chapter, "The Basis of the Knowable," asked: on what, in the end, do all dharmas rest? — on the alaya-consciousness, that deepest layer of mind that stores all the seeds. But "support" stated only the foundation; it had not yet stated the appearance. So this chapter turns at once to the next question: resting upon that foundation, all the dharmas we are to know — what, exactly, do they look like? Asanga's answer is the single most central, and most moving, map in all of Yogacara — the three natures (三自性). And what this map really sets out to answer is precisely that scalding question: at which layer is the world mistaken, and how is it to be seen rightly?

Understand these three words and more than half of Yogacara opens up. What follows takes Asanga's words and explains them, one section at a time.

I. The three natures: three identities of one and the same world

All dharmas can be viewed from three angles — this is the "three natures" (the three kinds of "self-nature," that is, three modes of existence). But first hold fast to the one most crucial sentence: they are not speaking of three things, but of three identities of one and the same thing.

The first layer, other-dependent (依他起) — "arising in dependence on other, manifold conditions." In this world before us not a single thing pops up on its own: all are an assembly of conditions, arising and perishing in an instant, unable to hold themselves the moment they arise, needing conditions to prop them up next. This mode of "condition-born, condition-perished, unable to subsist on its own" is the other-dependent. And in Yogacara's view, the concrete content of this "other-dependent" is not brick and stone, grass and tree outside the mind, but the various "consciousnesses" that arise with the alaya-consciousness as their seed — it is the flowing of mind-consciousness itself.

The second layer, wholly-imagined (遍計所執) — "the thing pervasively reckoned up and grasped at." Originally there is only consciousness flowing; yet our mind forcibly adds a layer on top: it takes the image manifested by consciousness and grabs at it as "a thing really existing outside the mind." This "real outer realm" that we falsely add — which in fact does not exist at all — is the wholly-imagined. Its mark is this: it looks vividly present, yet is utterly unfindable. This is exactly the layer where the world before our eyes goes wrong.

The third layer, perfectly-accomplished (圓成實) — "the perfectly-accomplished real." Right upon the other-dependent, that "outer realm outside the mind" which we falsely grasp as real is in truth eternally absent — search as you will, it is nowhere to be found. And this "eternal falling-away of the falsely-grasped realm" is itself the most real of principles — this is the perfectly-accomplished, which is suchness (真如).

Be sure to hold the relation of the three, for it is the key to the whole chapter: the perfectly-accomplished is not some other thing, but "the eternal falling-away, upon the other-dependent, of the wholly-imagined." In other words, when, upon the manifold of dependent arising, you see through utterly that "there is no outer realm outside the mind," the emptiness, the suchness, disclosed at that seeing-through is the perfectly-accomplished. So the three natures are never three things ranged side by side, but one and the same other-dependent: its condition-born side is the other-dependent, its falsely-grasped side is the wholly-imagined, the side where the false grasp eternally falls away is the perfectly-accomplished. One block of ore, three layers of reading; the gold-earth-ore figure further on will fire this sentence into you.

II. The eleven consciousnesses: what we call "the world" is in fact the arising of eleven kinds of mind

Asanga fears you will hear "other-dependent = consciousness" as an empty slogan, so he spreads this "consciousness" open and counts it out for you — it is in fact eleven kinds of consciousness, and these eleven gather up the whole "external world" we take ourselves to live in.

First come three consciousnesses concerning the "body": the body-consciousness (身識), the consciousness of the six faculties — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; the body-bearer-consciousness (身者識), the portion that grasps this bodily frame as "I"; the enjoyer-consciousness (受者識), the portion that receives and makes use. Then the two ends of reception: the received-consciousness (彼所受識), the six sense-objects received — form, sound, smell, taste, touch, dharmas; the receiving-consciousness (彼能受識), the six consciousnesses that receive. Then it spreads further outward: the time-consciousness (世識, of temporal succession), the number-consciousness (數識, of quantity and counting), the place-consciousness (處識, of space and locale — that is, the receptacle-world), the speech-consciousness (言說識, of language and naming), the self-and-other-distinction-consciousness (自他差別識, that divides oneself from others), and last the good-destiny-and-bad-destiny-death-and-birth-consciousness (善趣惡趣死生識, of cyclic birth-and-death, rising and sinking through the six paths). Eleven kinds, counted to the end.

Where do these eleven consciousnesses come from? They correspond exactly to the three perfumings (the three sources of seeds) taught in the previous chapter — a beautiful joint. The first nine — body, body-bearer, enjoyer, received, receiving, time, number, place, speech — are all born of the seeds of name-and-speech perfuming (名言熏習): the habit-energy we have laid down since beginningless time by discriminating through language and concept. The self-and-other-distinction-consciousness is born of the seeds of self-view perfuming (我見熏習): laid down by the defiled mind at the base that constantly grasps an "I." The good-destiny-and-bad-destiny-death-and-birth-consciousness is born of the seeds of existence-member perfuming (有支熏習): laid down by good and evil karma (the twelve members of existence), which draws future fruits of pain and pleasure.

Map these eleven consciousnesses back onto the traditional "eighteen elements" and the skeleton shows even more clearly: the three — body, body-bearer, enjoyer — are the six faculties (the six inner elements); the received-consciousness is the six objects (the six outer elements); the receiving-consciousness is the six consciousnesses (the six consciousness-elements); and the rest — time, number, place, speech, self-and-other-distinction, good-and-bad-destiny-death-and-birth — are the manifold differentiated aspects of these faculties, objects, and consciousnesses in their various positions. One sentence closes it: we take it that "there is an external world, and an I living and acting within it," but the whole picture is nothing but the arising of these eleven kinds of consciousness — and this is the other-dependent. The world is not out there; it arises within eleven kinds of mind.

III. Consciousness-only-without-a-real-object: that one dream says it all

Since the other-dependent is only consciousness, then the "real realm outside the mind" (which Asanga gives a name — "object," 義) simply does not exist. But — back to our opening problem — the realm is plainly, vividly there before us; on what grounds do we say it is not there?

Asanga does not argue head-on with you; first he asks you to recall a dream.

In a dream a person plainly sees mountains and rivers, houses, groves — there is form, there is sound, all as if present; form, sound, smell, taste, touch, groves, ground, mountains, "the image of a seeming-object manifests," set out there alive. Yet upon waking one knows: in the dream there were no such "outer realms" at all — there was only the image the dreaming mind itself manifested. The waking world is just the same — at all times, in all places, it is only consciousness manifesting; there is no real thing outside the mind. Asanga adds, in passing, a few shadows of the same kind: the elephants and horses a conjuror produces (the illusion, 幻誑); the thirsty deer that takes a mirage for water and rushes toward it (the deer-thirst, 鹿愛, that is, the mirage / 陽焰); the man with eye-disease (翳眩) who sees flowers in empty space — all of them "look distinctly present, yet are utterly not there." The world before our eyes is one and the same affair as the dream, the illusion, the mirage, the sky-flower.

Here you will at once object — and this is exactly the question Asanga asks for you: if waking is also like dreaming, why is it that a person, on waking from a dream, can turn back and recognize "that just now was a dream, was consciousness-only," yet facing the waking world can in no way recognize that it too is consciousness-only?

Asanga's reply is exquisite: only when "true wisdom" (真智) comes forth does this "recognition" flip over. While you are still in the dream you cannot recognize that you are dreaming — only on waking do you recognize it; likewise, before the awakening of true wisdom is attained you cannot recognize that the waking realm too is consciousness-only — only when true wisdom is attained do you recognize it. So the ordinary being's failure to recognize is not because the waking realm really has outer things, but because the "waking of true wisdom" has not yet arrived. At this moment we are simply persons in a dream who have not yet woken.

Then how is one who has not yet attained true wisdom to "infer" that all this is consciousness-only? Asanga gives two roads: scripture (聖教) and right reasoning (正理).

The road of scripture has two most forceful passages. One is the Buddha's plain saying in the Dasabhumika-sutra — "Thus the three realms are mind-only": all that is in the three realms does not depart from one mind. The other is a very fine dialogue between the Buddha and Maitreya (Cishi 慈氏) Bodhisattva in the Samdhinirmocana-sutra. Maitreya asks: the image that appears in the mind during meditative concentration, and the mind that observes it — are they one or two? The Buddha says: not two — because that image is from the start only consciousness; I have always said that what the mind takes as object is only what the mind itself manifests. Maitreya presses again: if the image is just this mind, does it not become "the mind grasping its own self"? The Buddha answers with great subtlety: in truth there is no thing that can grasp another thing; it is only that this mind, when it arises, arises bearing just such an image. It is like looking in a mirror — plainly what is reflected is one's own face, yet one says "I see an image," and takes it that the image exists apart from the person, separately. The mind is exactly so: the moment it arises, it is as though "a thing different from itself, a thing seen," floats up; but in truth the seer and the seen are this one mind, and there is no outer realm to grasp.

The road of right reasoning Asanga illustrates with meditation. One who practices the contemplation of impurity, in the concentrated mind, fixes attention on a bloated, livid corpse, and the livid image is utterly clear — yet where outside the mind is there really a corpse? What is seen is nothing but the manifestation of one's own mind. From this ready example one can infer: all consciousness is only consciousness, with no outer realm. Asanga adds one finer cut: this image in concentration is not "recollected" (it is present-abiding, here and now); and the two kinds of memory that arise from hearing and from reflecting take as their object what is "past," long since perished — since the object is not an existing outer thing at all, that it can still manifest an image proves all the more: everything is consciousness-only.

IV. Why consciousness insists on manifesting as "a real thing"

Still someone is unconvinced: granted the dream-simile holds, yet the form before our eyes is plainly "substantial and resistant" — touchable, visible — and moreover "of one kind, firmly abiding, continuous and unbroken," not changing in an instant like a thought; how can a thing this solid also be consciousness?

Asanga does not duck; he turns it around and asks a deeper question: if these consciousnesses are themselves only consciousness (with no outer form), why do they insist on manifesting "as if there were resistant form," and manifest it so stably, for so long?

The answer is unexpected, yet goes to the heart: precisely in order to serve as a foothold for "inversion" and the various defiled dharmas. Consciousness must manifest a stable, seemingly-real form-realm so that our inverted false grasp has somewhere to hang. Follow it through: if consciousness did not manifest a seemingly-real outer realm, then the inversion of "there being no outer realm from the start, yet forcibly grasping that there is one" could not arise; if inversion cannot arise, then the defilements — affliction-obstruction and the obstruction-to-the-knowable — cannot be spoken of; and if defilement is altogether gone, then the "pure dharmas set up to counter defilement" (practice, liberation) fall away with it. In other words — the whole play of cycling-and-returning, defiled-and-pure, needs a "seemingly-real world" as its stage: this is why consciousness must manifest as if it were substantial form. Here Asanga sets down a verse and closes it into one line: the so-called "form" (the seen, the seemingly-real aspect) and the consciousness that sees it are in fact two sides of one consciousness — the grasped "form-consciousness" and the grasping "non-form-consciousness," mutually dependent, neither dispensable, neither apart from consciousness.

V. Establishing consciousness-only: the image-portion and the seeing-portion

Asanga next gathers "how the consciousnesses are established as consciousness-only" into three points. First, consciousness-only: all consciousnesses have no outer realm, so we say "only consciousness." Second, the two natures: the moment consciousness arises it divides into "the grasped side" (the image-portion, 相分, like the realm seen) and "the grasping side" (the seeing-portion, 見分, the consciousness that sees) — and both sides are still consciousness's own transformation. Third, the manifold: one consciousness can manifest many different appearances, one mind manifesting many realms.

This "image-portion and seeing-portion" deserves a finer word. The first five consciousnesses — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body — each take their own portion of "the realm seen" as image-portion, and "the consciousness that sees" as seeing-portion. The sixth, the mental consciousness, is special: it can take all as object — from the eye all the way to dharmas — so its image-portion is broad enough to embrace the whole manifold, while it takes "the discriminating mental consciousness" as its seeing-portion. Precisely because the mental consciousness discriminates best, it can manifest as if all consciousnesses arose within it. Asanga's verse here makes the point: consciousness-only has "two" (image-portion and seeing-portion) and "the manifold"; one who contemplates enters by wisdom; and once one awakens into "all dharmas are mind-only," along with that one can subdue and grow free of the grasped realm (and even the grasping mind) — this is exactly where practice takes hold: first see consciousness-only, then leave behind the grasping-grasped duality.

VI. The three names, and where each is got from

Why are these three layers named "other-dependent, wholly-imagined, perfectly-accomplished" in just these words? Each has its own reason; the doctrine is hidden inside the names.

The naming of the other-dependent: it is only consciousness, the support upon which "seeming-to-have-an-outer-realm" arises. It is called "other-dependent," first, because it "is born from its own perfuming-seeds and arises only in dependence on the manifold conditions" — depending on other conditions, hence other-dependent; second, because "the moment it arises, the very next instant it has no power to subsist on its own" (it perishes in an instant, needing conditions to continue) — this character of depending-on-other everywhere, unable to stand on its own, is also why it is called other-dependent.

The naming of the wholly-imagined: it arises in dependence on the other-dependent, yet is in fact nothing at all, merely the false appearance of "seeming-to-have-an-outer-realm." It is called "wholly-imagined" because it is "the mental consciousness, of measureless aspects, pervasively reckoning up and invertedly producing this seeming-appearance" — it is reckoned out, grasped out; its own substance-appearance does not exist at all, all there is is "the appearance reckoned and grasped," hence wholly-imagined.

The naming of the perfectly-accomplished: it is the truth that "the wholly-imagined is eternally absent." It is called "perfectly-accomplished" in three senses: one, it is "unchanging and unaltering" (suchness is constant, not following false change), hence perfectly-accomplished and real; two, it is "the object of pure wisdom" (the realm faced by the pure mind); three, it is "the most excellent, most ultimate meaning among all good dharmas" (the supreme among the supreme). By these three it is called perfectly-accomplished. — One reminder again of the key to the whole chapter: the perfectly-accomplished keeps the reading of "the character of dharmas," that is, the suchness disclosed by "the falsely-grasped realm eternally falling away" upon the other-dependent; it is not the setting up of some separate permanent real substance.

VII. Who is doing the "imagining," and who is the wholly-imagined

For the wholly-imagined to be established, there must be the two ends: "the one that imagines" and "the one that is wholly-imagined."

Who imagines? — the sixth, the mental consciousness. Why it? Because it discriminates best: it takes its own name-and-speech habit-energy as seed, and also takes the name-and-speech habit-energy of all consciousnesses as seed, so it can raise boundless discriminating aspects, must reckon up everything, hence the name imagining (the one that pervasively reckons up). Who is the wholly-imagined? — the other-dependent, those condition-born dharmas it reckons up. And when the mental consciousness, with this "reckoning-grasping appearance," takes the other-dependent as object and grasps at it, that added layer, the appearance of seeming-real-realm, is called the "wholly-imagined nature." In one line: the mental consciousness is the hand that reckons, the other-dependent is the material reckoned, and the false appearance of "really existing outside the mind" reckoned out is the wholly-imagined.

How, concretely, does the mental consciousness "reckon"? Asanga asks in a string — on what realm does it take object, what appearance does it grasp, by what does it attach, by what does it raise speech, by what does it speak, what does it superimpose? The answers thread into one: it takes "name" (concept) as object, grasps that seeming-realm's appearance upon the other-dependent, attaches by false view, raises speech by inquiry-and-investigation, speaks by the four kinds of speech (seeing, hearing, sensing, knowing), and finally "superimposes as real, upon a place where there is no outer realm at all." Object-by-name, grasp-the-appearance, attach, raise-speech, superimpose — this string is the whole working of imagining.

VIII. Are the three natures one, or different? And into how many can each be further opened?

Are the three natures one or different? — Asanga answers cleanly: "neither one, nor different." For they are from the start one and the same other-dependent, divided into three only by being viewed from different "angles" (gateways, 異門): from the "arising in dependence on conditions" angle it is the other-dependent; from the "reckoned and grasped by the mental consciousness" angle it is the wholly-imagined; from the "the false grasp eternally falling away" angle it is the perfectly-accomplished. One and the same thing, three angles — so one cannot say they are three separate things (not different), nor say they are simply one and the same affair with no distinction (not not-different).

Then will the three natures blur into one, distinction lost? — No. The "angle" that constitutes one nature is not the angle that constitutes another: what the "arising in dependence on conditions" angle constitutes is the other-dependent — it does not thereby simultaneously constitute the wholly-imagined or the perfectly-accomplished; and so for the other two. So the three natures, though resting on one substance, are by angle distinct, their distinctions clearly drawn, not running together.

Asanga further opens each nature finer. The other-dependent has two kinds (one, arising from perfuming in dependence on conditions; two, its defiled-or-pure character not settling itself, needing conditions to be constituted). The wholly-imagined has two kinds (one, reckoning a dharma's "self-nature," as "this is form"; two, reckoning a dharma's "distinction," as "this form is permanent, is pleasant"). The perfectly-accomplished has two kinds (one, the suchness inherent in all dharmas — the "self-nature perfectly-accomplished"; two, the "purified-of-defilement perfectly-accomplished" disclosed when separated from defilement). And imagining itself has four kinds — reckoning self-nature, reckoning distinction, having-awareness (good at name-and-speech, knowing-and-reckoning), without-awareness (not good at name-and-speech, reckoning blindly); and five kinds more, which speak of how name and object reckon each other up: reckoning object by name, reckoning name by object, reckoning name by name, reckoning object by object, reckoning both by name-and-object together. These are split this fine for one purpose only: to lay open, layer by layer, "how the false mind circles between name-and-speech and realm-appearance."

IX. Ten discriminations → ten distractions → why prajna teaches only "non-discrimination"

This is one supremely beautiful close of the chapter, joining Yogacara to prajna.

Asanga first gathers all "false discrimination" into ten kinds: ① root-discrimination (this is the alaya-consciousness, the root of all discrimination); ② object-appearance discrimination (the image-portion taken as object, that is, form-and-the-rest consciousness); ③ manifesting-appearance discrimination (the seeing-portion that manifests, that is, the eye-consciousness and the rest, with their supports); ④ object-appearance-alteration discrimination (the manifold alterations of the object-appearance: aging, pleasant feeling, greed, suffering and the change of seasons, even the destinies such as the hells, the alterations of the realms such as the desire-realm); ⑤ manifesting-appearance-alteration discrimination (the alteration arising in the manifesting portion accordingly); ⑥ other-led discrimination (raised by another's teaching, whether hearing false dharma or hearing true dharma); ⑦ improper discrimination (raised by the outer paths hearing false dharma); ⑧ proper discrimination (raised within the true dharma by hearing true dharma); ⑨ attachment discrimination (improper attention, the sixty-two wrong views rooted in the view of self, satkaya-drsti); ⑩ distraction discrimination (the "ten distractions" the bodhisattva is to counter).

This tenth is exactly the focus of countering in Mahayana practice. The so-called ten distractions are the ten directions in which the mind slips off the moment it faces suchness: no-appearance, has-appearance, superimposition, denial, oneness, difference, self-nature, distinction, grasping object after name, grasping name after object. Plainly put: on the pairs "is/is-not, adding/subtracting, one/different, self-nature/distinction, name↔object," the mind cannot help sliding out to one side.

And here a key is hidden: the whole of the Prajnaparamita, in teaching "non-conceptual wisdom" (無分別智) over and over, does so precisely to counter these ten distractions. Pair "the ten distractions to be countered" with "the non-conceptual wisdom that counters them," and the entire program of the Prajna scriptures is right here — this too is where the Yogacarins take hold of prajna: the "non-discrimination" prajna teaches is not knowing nothing, but not sliding off wildly in these ten directions.

X. The name does not match a real substance; yet the other-dependent is not sheer nothing

Asanga next sets out to prove one thing: the layer of "seeming-to-have-an-outer-realm" (the wholly-imagined) manifested upon the other-dependent in fact "matches no real substance" — it is only a name-and-speech pasted on, and corresponds to no real thing. How is this known? He gives three "mismatches." One, before a name is established there is no corresponding cognition — if a name really pointed to a real substance, then before naming there ought already to be that cognition; but in fact there is not. Two, one thing can have many names — if names each pointed to a substance, would not one thing then have many substances? Three, the pairing of name and object is altogether unsettled (same name for different things, different names for the same thing) — if a name really fixed-on one substance, how could it be so loose? By these three it is known: that seeming-realm is purely a name-and-speech pasted on, with no real substance.

But here at once springs up a dangerous question: since "what is manifested" (the wholly-imagined) is in fact nothing at all, why not simply say "the other-dependent too is entirely nothing"? Here Asanga must block a deep pit for you — nihilistic emptiness (惡取空), that annihilationist view which sweeps everything away into nothing.

He says: if the other-dependent too were gone, then the perfectly-accomplished would go with it — for the perfectly-accomplished is disclosed by "the false grasp falling away upon the other-dependent"; without the ground of the other-dependent, suchness would have nowhere to be disclosed; once the perfectly-accomplished is gone, then "all is nothing," and one falls into annihilation. Moreover, if both the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished were gone, one commits the great fault of "neither defilement nor purity" — yet cycling (defilement) and returning (purity) are plainly, actually visible, so one absolutely cannot say all is nothing. The conclusion stands: the wholly-imagined is to be refuted (it was never anything), but the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished cannot be swept into nothing. This is Yogacara's measure of "refuting without falling into emptiness" — one hand wards off nihilistic emptiness, the other hand preserves the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished natures.

XI. The great Vaipulya teaching: three natures matched to four purities; eight similes refute eight doubts

In the Mahayana Vaipulya teaching, the Buddhas point out the three natures by three questions and three answers. Asked "how is the wholly-imagined to be known?" — wherever a scripture says "there is nothing at all," it points to the wholly-imagined (which was never anything). Asked "how is the other-dependent to be known?" — wherever it uses the eight similes illusion, mirage (炎), dream, mirror-image (像), light-and-shadow, valley-echo, moon-in-water, magical-transformation, it points to the other-dependent (seeming-to-be, yet not real). Asked "how is the perfectly-accomplished to be known?" — it is where a scripture teaches "the four purities." Which four purities? One, self-nature purity (suchness itself, also named emptiness, the real limit, the markless, the supreme, the dharma-realm); two, purity of separation-from-defilement (this suchness separated from all obstruction-defilement); three, purity of the path that attains this (the path able to realize separation-from-defilement: the limbs of awakening, the perfections, and so on); four, purity of the realm that gives rise to this (the teaching able to give rise to this path, that is, the Mahayana true dharma). The latter two (path and teaching), though conditioned, count as not wholly-imagined (not nothing) because they are "conditions accomplishing purity"; and because they "flow out from the utterly pure dharma-realm," they count as not the defiled other-dependent — so both are gathered into the perfectly-accomplished. These four gather up all pure dharmas entire.

Then Asanga explains a good question: why does the scripture use just the "eight similes of illusion and the rest" for the other-dependent? — It is to refute another's eight doubts about consciousness-only, one doubt matched to one simile, each simile fitting its ailment:

Someone doubts "since there is no outer realm, how can a realm appear before one?" — use the illusion-event simile: the elephants and horses the conjuror produces, unreal yet vividly manifest. Doubts "with no outer realm, how do mind and mental factors operate there?" — use the mirage simile: the mirage has no water, yet the moving appearance is vivid. Doubts "with no outer realm, how is there the enjoyment of pain and pleasure?" — use the dream simile: in the dream there is no realm, yet pain and pleasure are vividly enjoyed. Doubts "with no outer realm, how do pure and impure karma summon the fruits of pain and pleasure?" — use the mirror-image simile: in the mirror there is no thing, yet images fair and foul vividly answer to it. Doubts "with no outer realm, how do the various consciousnesses arise?" — use the light-and-shadow simile. Doubts "with no outer realm, how do the various proliferating discourses arise?" — use the valley-echo simile: the empty valley has no sound-source, yet the echo is vivid. Doubts "with no outer realm, how, in concentration, can one still distinctly grasp a realm?" — use the moon-in-water simile: in the water there is no moon, yet the moon's reflection is vividly grasped. Doubts "with no outer realm, how can a bodhisattva, with an uninverted mind, for the benefit of beings, deliberately take birth?" — use the magical-transformation simile: like a transformation-body, undefiled by real birth-and-death, yet able to manifest taking birth.

Eight similes refute eight doubts, boring through the four words "seeming-to-be, yet not real" of the other-dependent from eight directions at once.

XII. Birth-and-death and nirvana are not two things; the gold-earth-ore figure

In a scripture, the Brahma-pariprccha (《梵問經》), the Buddha says a strange thing: "The Tathagata attains neither birth-and-death, nor nirvana." What does this mean?

Asanga explains: this says that upon one and the same other-dependent, birth-and-death and nirvana are not two separate things — one and the same other-dependent, viewed from the "falsely-grasped" portion becomes birth-and-death, viewed from the "false grasp falling away, suchness disclosed" portion becomes nirvana. Since both rest on one substance, the Tathagata "attains within it no separate birth-and-death to be got, no separate nirvana to be got." This sentence is to be received as it stands; there is no need to soften it.

And the Abhidharma-mahayana-sutra (《阿毘達磨大乘經》) says "dharmas are of three kinds: the defiled portion, the pure portion, and the portion common to both" — speaking of the same affair: upon one other-dependent, the wholly-imagined portion is the defiled, the perfectly-accomplished portion is the pure, and the other-dependent itself is the portion "common to defilement and purity."

Here Asanga brings out the most brilliant figure of the whole chapter — gold-earth-ore (金土藏), the ore that holds gold. The earlier key to the three natures, that sentence "one block of ore, three layers of reading" — now he really puts the ore into the fire and smelts it before you.

In a block of gold-ore there are three things: the earth-element (地界, the underlying matrix of the ore), the earth-soil (土), and the gold (金). Before smelting, you can see the "soil" and cannot see the "gold" — yet this is exactly the inversion: the soil-appearance is in fact falsely manifested, while the gold is what is truly there but hidden, undisclosed. Once put through fire, the soil-appearance vanishes and the gold-appearance manifests. And that "earth-element"? — when manifesting soil it manifests falsely, when manifesting gold it manifests truly; so the earth-element is "common to both," running through both defilement and purity.

This "false-discriminating consciousness" of ours (the other-dependent) is exactly this earth-element: while the fire of non-conceptual wisdom has not yet smelted it, what manifests upon the consciousness is the false wholly-imagined, with the true perfectly-accomplished hidden, undisclosed; once the fire of non-conceptual wisdom smelts it, the perfectly-accomplished manifests and the wholly-imagined hides. So this other-dependent consciousness is exactly like the earth-element in the gold-earth-ore, running through the two portions of defilement and purity. Match them up: earth-element = other-dependent, soil = wholly-imagined, gold = perfectly-accomplished, fire = non-conceptual wisdom. What is called practice is just this one smelting of ore to see gold. The world is not exchanged; the ore is still that same block of ore; what is exchanged is that the fire has come, and the gold has shown forth.

XIII. Permanent and impermanent … every opposition is "not two"

Sometimes the Buddha says "all dharmas are permanent," sometimes "all dharmas are impermanent," sometimes "neither permanent nor impermanent" — which saying counts?

Asanga says: all are correct; it depends on which portion you speak from. One and the same other-dependent: from the perfectly-accomplished portion it is "permanent" (suchness unchanging), from the wholly-imagined portion it is "impermanent" (the false appearance arising and perishing, never anything to begin with), from the portion common to both it is "neither permanent nor impermanent." Permanent and impermanent are thus "not two," and the whole long string of further oppositions is just the same — suffering and pleasure, pure and impure, empty and not-empty, self and no-self, calm and not-calm, having-self-nature and without-self-nature, arising and not-arising, ceasing and not-ceasing, originally-calm and not-originally-calm, self-nature-nirvana and not-self-nature-nirvana, and even birth-and-death and nirvana — all "not two."

Why? Because the two ends of each pair are merely spoken from different portions (angles) of one and the same other-dependent; seemingly head-on opposed, they are in truth not-two. And here a master-key to reading scripture shows itself: when you meet what seem self-contradictory words of the Buddha, do not rush to judge which saying is right — first ask "from which nature, which portion, is this spoken?" and the contradiction dissolves.

XIV. The four intentions, the four hidden teachings

The Buddha's teaching often carries a "meaning beyond the words." Asanga gathers it into four intentions and four hidden teachings, reminding us not to die under the letter.

The four intentions (四意趣) speak of "the Buddha's purpose in saying this." One, the intention of sameness — the Buddha says "in the past I was such-and-such an ancient Buddha," spoken in dependence on the sameness of the dharma-bodies of all Buddhas, not that it was literally the same person. Two, the intention of another-time — sayings like "reciting a certain Buddha's name surely gains awakening," "merely making a vow gains birth in Sukhavati" are spoken "for another time" (Vasubandhu and Asvabhava, in their two commentaries, draw out the sense): to spur the indolent, the fruit "accomplished only after long ages" is spoken as if "accomplished now," the purpose being to first urge a person onto that "cause" (reciting the name, making the vow are distant causes of the fruit; it is not that one recitation now arrives at the fruit-ground). Three, the intention of another-meaning — sayings like "only after serving Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges can one understand the meaning of the Mahayana" point to something else. Four, the intention of a person's disposition — now praising, now demoting, according to each person's capacity: to one person first praise giving, then turn and disparage giving (and likewise for keeping precepts and for cultivation), which is teaching to capacity, not self-contradiction.

The four hidden teachings (四祕密) speak of "the Buddha's hidden way of teaching." One, the hidden teaching that leads in — for those of shallow capacity, first, by conventional truth, teach "there are persons, there are dharmas, there are various distinctions," so as to draw them in the door first. Two, the hidden teaching of appearance — somewhere teaching the appearance of dharmas, disclosing the three natures. Three, the hidden teaching of countering — somewhere teaching the eighty-four thousand kinds of countering. Four, the hidden teaching of turning-around — somewhere using "a turned-around meaning," so that the same words and letters disclose another, deeper layer. Asanga cites a verse, the very living specimen of this "turning-around":

The treatise gives the verse: "Awakening the not-firm as firm, well-abiding within inversion, tormented by the most extreme afflictions, one attains the supreme awakening."

Taking the not-firm as firm, abiding within inversion, tormented by the heaviest afflictions — and yet right here one attains the supreme awakening. Line by line it reads on its face like contrary speech; this is precisely the true face of the "hidden teaching of turning-around": it must be transmitted as it stands, and may not be planed smooth.

(Note: of these, the "intention of another-time" passage has long been drawn upon to interpret the Pure Land teaching of "reciting the name, making the vow, and thereby gaining birth," and is a point of contention in the history of doctrinal classification; here we only expound Asanga's own meaning faithfully, and do not settle the later debates one way or the other.)

XV. How to compose a Mahayana commentary; the passage on "the meaning of the words"

Finally, Asanga demonstrates "to comment on a Mahayana scripture, from which three sides one takes hold": one, speaking of dependent arising; two, speaking of the characteristics of dharmas born from conditions; three, speaking of the meaning of the words.

One, dependent arising: just as taught in the previous chapter — the dharmas born of name-and-speech perfuming, this fruit arising from that seed; the alaya (the maturation-consciousness) and the seven evolving consciousnesses arise as mutual conditions. Two, the characteristics of dharmas born from conditions: the condition-born consciousness has an image-portion and a seeing-portion, with consciousness as its substance; and this other-dependent can be taken "with the cause-condition support as its character, with the wholly-imagined as its character, with dharma-nature (the perfectly-accomplished) as its character" — disclosing precisely the three natures. Here there is a crucial clasp: the wholly-imagined "in fact does not exist" upon the other-dependent, and the perfectly-accomplished "in fact does exist" upon the other-dependent; so "the absence (of the wholly-imagined) and the presence (of the perfectly-accomplished), the not-attaining and the attaining" are established simultaneously upon one and the same other-dependent — the ordinary being sees the "absent wholly-imagined," the noble one sees the "present perfectly-accomplished"; attaining this (the perfectly-accomplished), one no longer attains that (the wholly-imagined); grasping that (the wholly-imagined), one cannot see this (the perfectly-accomplished). Three, the meaning of the words: its method is to "first set up one general phrase, then use the remaining phrases to open it out one by one," and this may be spoken from either "the quality-side" (the Buddha's merits) or "the meaning-side" (the bodhisattva's dharmas). On the quality-side, the general phrase is "the utterly pure awakening," opened out by the Buddha's twenty-one merits; on the meaning-side, the general phrase is "the surpassing resolve to raise benefit and ease in all sentient beings," opened out by the bodhisattva's thirty-two dharmas, and these thirty-two phrases can in turn be classed into sixteen "deeds" (functions). A closing verse gathers it all: precisely because there is that "first phrase," the remaining phrases each disclose its "classes of quality" and its "distinctions of meaning."

The quality-side: the utterly pure awakening and the Buddha's twenty-one merits

These twenty-one sutra lines and the twenty-one merits — Asvabhava gives one rule for reading them all: "in all the later lines, the pairing is to be made in just this way." Each merit-name opens out the sutra line paired with it: the line is the virtue expressed; the merit-name, the gloss that expresses it. Below, the pairs are expounded one by one.

First: "the merit of turning, with respect to the knowable, ever without obstruction" opens out the sutra line "the non-dual conduct." Asvabhava glosses: the Buddha's wisdom turns upon everything knowable without obstruction — toward every thing, every class and kind, unattached and unimpeded; not like the wisdom of the sravakas, "in some places obstructed, in other places not" — two modes of conduct alternating. Since no such two modes of conduct are found here, it is called "the non-dual conduct"; and by this He is named "the utterly pure awakening" — great in capacity, full in wisdom and in severance. In the sequence, this is the first link: toward the knowable the sravakas have two modes of conduct, "right wisdom" and "undefiled not-knowing" (not-knowing that is not defiled); the Buddha has neither of the two — hence the virtue of His wisdom is complete.

Second: "the merit of being able to enter, by the most excellent purity, the suchness that is the 'non-dual characteristic' of 'being and non-being'" opens out the sutra line "turning toward the dharma of no-characteristic." The dharma of no-characteristic is suchness itself: suchness has the perfectly-accomplished mark and has not the wholly-imagined mark — "no-characteristic" is not a blank nothing; it is the absence of that grasped characteristic, and the absence itself is in truth there. This returns us to the backbone argument of this chapter: within the other-dependent, the wholly-imagined is absent, the perfectly-accomplished present. "The most excellent purity": suchness is first among all dharmas, parted from every adventitious stain. "Able to enter": having entered it himself, he leads others in as well. In the sequence, this line shows the virtue of severance complete — abiding neither in the characteristic of birth-and-death nor in that of nirvana.

Third: "the merit of abiding, without effort, in Buddha-work that never rests" opens out the sutra line "abiding in the abode of the Buddhas." The Buddha does the Buddha's work without contrivance, without interruption, among sentient beings, ever rightly abiding in the divine abode, the Brahma abode, and the noble abode — the divine abode being the four meditations; the Brahma abode, compassion and the other measureless minds; the noble abode, the abidings of emptiness, of no-characteristic, and the rest. Not like the sravakas, who must make effort before the work of benefiting beings can be accomplished; nor like the non-Buddhists, who have an abode of sorts, but not the excellent divine abode. In the sequence, a question carries forward: by what means is this nirvana gained? — because he abides well in emptiness and in great compassion, he abides neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvana.

Fourth: "the merit of there being, within the dharma-body, no difference of support, of resolve, or of activity" opens out the sutra line "attaining the equal nature of all Buddhas." Asvabhava explains "no difference" on three sides: no difference of support — all Buddhas alike rest upon the purified wisdom; no difference of resolve — all bear the surpassing resolve to bring benefit and joy to every sentient being; no difference of activity — all perform the altruistic deeds of the enjoyment-body and the transformation-body. Not like the sravakas, who have the support alone. In the sequence, the question carries on: this Buddha-abode — is it shared by all Buddhas, or does each have his own? — hence the next line, "attaining the equal nature of all Buddhas": the conduct of all Buddhas abides interfused, turn upon turn; Buddha and Buddha are equal.

Fifth: "the merit of cultivating the counter to every obstruction" opens out the sutra line "reaching the place of no obstruction." Asvabhava glosses: having long practised the noble path that counters the obstruction of the afflictions and the obstruction upon the knowable, the wisdom-of-every-kind at ease in concentration, he has arrived at the resting-place forever parted from every trace of obstruction. In the sequence, this is a hinge: to here, the fullness of self-benefit has been told; from here, the fullness of benefiting others is set forth at large — and this line first shows that he has gained the counter to every obstruction in those he is to tame.

Sixth: "the merit of subduing all non-Buddhists" opens out the sutra line "the dharma that cannot be turned back." Asvabhava glosses: the Buddha's dharma of teaching and dharma of realization can both be shaken by no one — there is no other dharma that surpasses them — and so all non-Buddhist ways are subdued of themselves. In the sequence: Maras and their kind can turn others back from the dharma, can overturn the aims and benefits sentient beings pursue; with the Buddha, no such thing occurs — hence "the dharma that cannot be turned back."

Seventh: "the merit of being born within the world yet unobstructed by worldly dharmas" opens out the sutra line "conduct without hindrance." "Conduct" means the ground one constantly walks. Though the Buddha walks in the world, the worldly dharmas that stir love and hate — "gain, loss," and the rest — cannot constrain him. Asvabhava cites the verse: "The Buddhas ever range throughout the world, / bringing benefit and joy to every kind of being; / the eight dharmas' fevered winds, deluded reckonings, / can neither sway them nor constrain them." In the sequence: amid all the deeds done for the benefit and joy of beings, nothing high or low can act as hindrance — hence "conduct without hindrance."

Eighth: "the merit of establishing the true Dharma" opens out the sutra line "the establishing of him that is beyond conceiving." "What is established" is the twelvefold teaching, the sutras and the rest — the true Dharma is called an "establishing" because it establishes the own-characteristic and the common characteristic of dharma after dharma. Such an establishing is not what a fool's awareness can walk in; being supramundane, it is "beyond conceiving." In the sequence: by the means of the previous line, "conduct without hindrance," he can do beings every manner of benefiting deed — hence what he establishes is beyond conceiving.

Ninth: "the merit of bestowing prophecies" opens out the sutra line "ranging in the dharma-nature equal throughout the three times." In the dharma-nature equal throughout the three times he ranges everywhere: within that equality of the three times, things past and future — once turned, or yet to turn — he understands as they come, all as if present; and so he can bestow prophecies. In the sequence, again a question is posed: such preparatory practice — is it the same in all Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, or does each differ? — It does not differ. Ranging in the dharma-nature equal throughout the three times, the deeds of the Buddhas of all three times for the benefit of beings are all alike.

Tenth: "the merit of showing forth the body-of-enjoyment and the body-of-transformation in all worlds" opens out the sutra line "his body spread through all worlds." Following those he is to tame, throughout all the worlds, he shows forth the two bodies — of enjoyment and of transformation — and brings them benefit and joy. In the sequence, the question follows: are these benefiting deeds done world by world, one after another? — They are not. His body is spread through all worlds: in all the worlds at once he appears, attaining Buddhahood.

Eleventh: "the merit of cutting off doubt" opens out the sutra line "in all dharmas a wisdom without doubt or hesitation." The Buddha is well settled upon every object: were he himself unsettled about the dharmas, he could not settle another's doubt; and apart from being settled, there is no "cutting off of doubt" to speak of. In the sequence: to show that he can cut off the doubts arising in this place and in that, this line is next spoken.

Twelfth: "the merit of leading one into the various forms of conduct" opens out the sutra line "in all conduct accomplishing the great awakening." On this line Asvabhava and Vasubandhu alike give only the bare pairing; its sense lies wholly in the sequence: the natures of those to be tamed differ, and the Buddha guides each by the fitting means, leading them into conduct of every kind — to show this skill in means, the line "in all conduct accomplishing the great awakening" is spoken.

Thirteenth: "the merit of the wondrous wisdom that will be born in time to come" opens out the sutra line "in the various dharmas a wisdom without any doubt." Asvabhava gives an example: a noble sravaka may say of someone, "this one has not the least root of goodness," and cast him aside; the Buddha, the Bhagavat, knows that his good dharmas will be born in a time to come — knowing by direct realization that some slight seed of goodness from another life still follows him. In the sequence: it is upon this skilled discernment of the "capable and incapable" among those to be tamed that the line is next spoken.

Fourteenth: "the merit of showing forth according to a being's excellent resolve" opens out the sutra line "whatever body he shows being beyond discriminating." Following the varied resolves of sentient beings he shows a golden hue and the rest; yet though showing such a body, the Buddha holds no discrimination within it — like the mani jewel, like pipe and flute, answering whatever strikes them while themselves without discrimination. It is told at large in the Sutra of the Tathagata's Secret (如來密經). In the sequence: among those to be tamed — the wrong, the right, and those in whom wrong and right run together — the mark he should show cannot be discriminated beforehand; to make this appear, the line is spoken.

Fifteenth: "the merit of disciplining sentient beings, and of the preparatory practice for them, through measureless supports" opens out the sutra line "the wisdom sought by all bodhisattvas." By the measureless supports of the bodhisattvas, preparatory practice is set going for the taming of beings — with the Buddha as the empowering force, and hearing the Dharma as what comes first, the wondrous wisdom is obtained; bodhisattvas of every kind receive it and are entrusted with it, and it turns onward, continuous and unbroken — by this is realized "the wisdom sought by all bodhisattvas." Vasubandhu adds a word: this does not mean that the Buddhas, having gained the equality of self and other, must still go seeking this wisdom — only that the Buddhas alone have already done such excellent deeds of taming. In the sequence: to draw on and sustain sravakas and bodhisattvas of the undetermined lineage, the Great Vehicle is praised — hence this line.

Sixteenth: "the merit of the equal dharma-body and the full accomplishment of the perfections" opens out the sutra line "gaining the Buddha's 'non-dual abode' and surpassing the far shore." Asvabhava keeps two readings: first, "non-dual" is why it is called equal — resting on the equal dharma-body, the perfections come to their fullness at the stage of the fruit; second, or "equal" means neither less nor more — within the dharma-body the perfections are complete, every one, with no increase or decrease among them, unlike the perfections on the bodhisattva stages, which still wax and wane. In the sequence: to bar the doubt that those to be tamed might raise toward the Great Teacher — "is he all-knowing, or is he not?" — this line is spoken.

Seventeenth: "the merit of showing forth Buddha-lands differing according to a being's excellent resolve" opens out the sutra line "the wondrous wisdom of the Tathagata's unmixed liberation, brought to the end." Observing the differing resolves of beings, he shows forth Buddha-lands of gold, of silver, and the rest, each unmixed with the others; when the World-Honored One's resolve stands present, whatever the assembly delights in appears, all of it, nothing unknown — hence it is called "the wondrous wisdom of the Tathagata's liberation, brought to the end." Asvabhava adds a gloss of his own: the word "liberation" here is read as "resolve." In the sequence: hearing the words "all Buddhas are equal," one might suppose that all Buddhas must then be of one single nature; to bar this doubt, "unmixed" is spoken.

Eighteenth: "the merit of the three kinds of Buddha-body being without limit of place" opens out the sutra line "realizing the equality of the Buddha-stage 'without middle, without bound'." Asvabhava keeps three readings: first, as the world is without middle and without bound, so too the Buddha-stage — its merits without limit of place. Second, or: the worlds being boundless in place, the three bodies of the Buddhas fill them equally, measured to the worlds' own measure — the dharma-body and the rest abide in just these worlds, and nowhere else. Third, or: the dharma-body and the rest fill the Buddha-stage equally — without middle, without bound, without limit of place — this dharma-body present everywhere, working benefit for sentient beings; and yet, "not that its own nature is without middle and bound" (Asvabhava's own words). In the sequence: "neither one nor different — then what is its characteristic?" To answer this question, the line "realizing the equality of the Buddha-stage without middle, without bound" is spoken.

Nineteenth: "the merit of, to the very end of birth-and-death, ever showing forth benefit and joy to all sentient beings" opens out the sutra line "reaching the very end of the dharma-realm." Because the dharma-realm is utterly pure, it can send forth the sutras and the rest — the teachings that flow out from it; reaching the very end of this dharma-realm, toward all the sentient beings of times to come, as each is fit, he can ever show forth benefit and joy. In the sequence: "permanent, impermanent — every such pair falls within the two extremes; how then is there a no-characteristic?" To step past this difficulty, "reaching the very end of the dharma-realm" is spoken — utterly pure, parted from every elaboration: such is the characteristic of the dharma-realm.

Twentieth: "the merit that is without end" opens out the sutra line "exhausting the nature of empty space." Empty space has non-obstruction for its nature, and toward resistant things, non-obstructing is its work; "nature" means realm — it holds its own characteristic. To exhaust the nature of empty space: as space is without edge or bound, without exhaustion or lessening, without birth, without ceasing, without change, at every moment presently receiving all that resists — so too the dharma-body: ever presently marked by working the benefit and joy of all sentient beings, through every realm doing beings every good, without rest.

Twenty-first: the final "and the rest" at the close of the treatise's list takes in the merit of the ultimate, which opens out the sutra line "penetrating to the boundless reach of the future." This merit reaches through the end of the future, ever unbroken — to the limit of the limitless future — showing that the Buddha's merits are never exhausted, because the beings to be tamed are never exhausted. And here the sequence too comes to rest: all these kinds of deeds for the good of beings — for how long a time? — exhausting the nature of empty space, penetrating to the boundless reach of the future.

Such are the twenty-one lines, each paired with each. Vasubandhu's commentary makes the same pairings line by line, only in the reverse direction — using the sutra lines to gloss the merit-names; the two masters' pairings agree throughout.

The meaning-side: the thirty-two dharmas and the sixteen deeds

By way of meaning, the opening line is "raising, toward all sentient beings, the surpassing resolve of benefit and joy." Asvabhava lists three cases: there is benefit that is not joy — as when one heavy with craving forces himself to the pure practice; there is joy that is not benefit — as when a pleasure-seeker takes his fill of all manner of faulted objects; and there is what is both benefit and joy — as when one whose dust is thin delights in the pure practice. Here the bodhisattva forms this thought: how shall I bring every sentient being to gain the unsurpassed benefit and joy? "Resolve" has wish and settled conviction (欲・勝解) for its own nature; because this resolve surpasses, it is called "the surpassing resolve." All the remaining lines are the several details of this opening line — Asvabhava says the thirty-two dharmas "are displayed severally by the sixteen deeds"; below they are expounded deed by deed, and into every line, "the surpassing resolve of benefit and joy" is to be read back in.

Deed one, the deed of preparatory practice carried on by turns, explains line two, "leading all sentient beings to enter the 'wisdom of the wisdom of all'." Like one lamp lighting a thousand lamps in turn: the bodhisattva leads beings into the wisdom of the wisdom of all, and those who have entered lead others in — preparatory practice carried on by turns, lamp kindling lamp in unbroken line. By this deed, that surpassing resolve of benefit and joy is made to appear.

Deed two, the deed without inversion, explains line three, "knowing of himself, 'by what now, by what wisdom do I borrow my standing'." Even the surpassing resolve of benefit and joy can be inverted — hence one must "know of himself by what he now stands": I have just such hearing-born wisdom, such understanding of the teaching and the realization; I have in myself the capacity to set going, as is fitting, the uninverted preparatory practice. Asvabhava cites the verse: "Whoever takes his own measure, / and strives for the place to be sought, / he, not overtaken by vain toil, / arrives where there is arriving" — and adds that verses of this kind should be recited at large.

Deed three, the deed of preparatory practice undertaken of itself, without waiting for another's request, explains line four, "crushing pride." Though no one comes to ask, the bodhisattva goes to them of himself and teaches the true Dharma.

Deed four, the deed that does not waver or break, explains line five, "a firm and surpassing resolve." The manifold sufferings of birth-and-death cannot shake or break the mind he has raised — hence, "firm."

Deed five, the deed without seeking-and-defilement, has three lines of difference, explaining line six, "a compassion not feigned," line seven, "a mind level toward kin and not-kin," and line eight, "being ever a good friend, to the very last limit of nirvana." Asvabhava displays the three by a threefold contrast of defiled and undefiled. Where there is defiled bondage, compassion is feigned from a cause of craving — a taking-up for a while; where there is no defiled bondage, the compassion is not feigned, and at no time does he let go — this explains "a compassion not feigned." Where compassion rests on craving, then toward kin and not-kin there is love and there is anger, and the mind is not level; where the mind is without defilement, toward the two alike it turns evenly — this explains "a mind level toward kin and not-kin." Where compassion is made from craving, it follows only to the end of this life; where compassion is born without craving, then life after life the pitying mind constantly follows — hence the bodhisattva, to the very limit of nirvana, is a good friend for ever.

Deed six, the deed of fitting speech-deed and body-deed, has two lines of difference, explaining line nine, "speaking to measure," and line ten, "speaking first with a smile." Asvabhava says only this: the two lines are explained as the speech-deed and the body-deed that are "fitting" to the surpassing resolve of benefit and joy.

Deed seven, the deed that is level amid pleasure, amid pain, and amid the neither-of-the-two, explains line eleven, "a great compassion without limit." If great compassion arose only toward those in pain, it could not reach those in pleasure or in equanimity — the turning of one part only, not the level deed. The bodhisattva's great compassion sees the beings held in pleasure, in pain, and in the neither-painful-nor-pleasant all alike pursued by the manifold sufferings of birth-and-death, and pities them equally, without difference — hence it is called the level deed.

Deed eight, the deed that is not lowly, explains line twelve, "not flinching from any task taken on." Devoted wholly to pulling every sentient being to rescue, as one who shoulders a heavy burden: seeing the burden, his mind knows no dread; he does not lay down the toil; and as he has shouldered it, so he accomplishes it — hence, the deed that is not lowly.

Deed nine, the deed that does not turn back, explains line thirteen, "a mind without weariness." The manifold wrong and evil doings of the beings he is taming cannot make him turn back — for this is a deed joined to the surpassing resolve of benefit and joy.

Deed ten, the deed of the means of attraction, explains line fourteen, "never tiring of hearing the meaning." "Hearing" is the hearing of the sutras and the rest — not hearing at random; "the meaning" is the sense which those teachings express. Of this hearing and this meaning he never has his fill — and this is the very nature of the skillful means that gathers in and ripens sentient beings; hence it is named the deed of the means of attraction. Never sated with hearing and with meaning, he guides beings as far as each can bear, in accord with right reason.

Deed eleven, the deed of loathing what is to be countered, has two lines of difference, explaining line fifteen, "with respect to his own wrongdoing, deeply seeing the fault," and line sixteen, "with respect to others' wrongdoing, not being angry but counseling well." "What is to be countered" means craving, anger, and the rest; because he would have them far removed, it is called loathing. Only one who sees the fault deep within his own wrongdoing, and swiftly turns from it, can restrain another from what should not be done — for then his word carries weight; no other can restrain. Asvabhava cites a sutra verse: "He who himself abides in wrong conduct, / and so receives the taunts of others, / that man will never be able / to halt another's fault." And he cites also a worldly saying: "He who, having erred, / lets time pass without examining, / who does not, as reason bids, part from it — / in pride he takes no virtue from it." If one corrects another's fault while harboring anger, it is neither benefit nor means; the word carries no weight, and the other turns away instead, setting wrong conduct of every kind in motion. Hence the further verse: "With pity, as toward an only child, / counsel and raise up what he has done wrong, / so that he surely takes it and holds it, / and afterward offends no more."

Deed twelve, the deed of unbroken attention, explains line seventeen, "ever cultivating the awakening-mind through all the postures." In every deed done, everywhere, without interruption he cultivates the awakening-mind. Asvabhava cites the Sutra of Purified Conduct (所行清淨契經): "Whenever he sees one seated, / let him form this thought: / may all sentient beings / take their seat upon the seat of awakening" — and adds, "and so on, through verses of this kind."

Deed thirteen, the deed of advancing conduct, has seven lines of difference, explaining lines eighteen through twenty-four — the right preparatory practice of the six perfections (giving without craving the fruit; upholding the precepts without leaning on any destiny; practicing patience toward sentient beings without anger or hindrance; vigorously exerting himself to take up all good dharmas; forsaking the formless realm to cultivate meditative absorption; cultivating wisdom in accord with skillful means), together with the making of means through the four means of attraction. Parting from the faults to be countered, as told before, on the stage of Extreme Joy and on each stage beyond, these grow ever stronger, advancing toward fullness; they are named a "deed" because they are things done. Asvabhava says of them himself: the first four perfections are easy, and he does not gloss them; where there is something distinctive, he explains briefly. Forsaking the formless realm to cultivate absorption: the bodhisattva is not born in the formless realm, for there he sees no deeds that could be done for the benefit and joy of beings; nor does he enter again and again the formless attainments, for he sees there no support for much merit. "Forsaking" means parting. Cultivating wisdom in accord with skillful means: cultivating the wondrous wisdom joined with great compassion, by which the deeds that benefit beings can be done; were this lacking, the benefit and joy of sentient beings would have no footing at all — and it is for just this that he seeks the Buddha-fruit. The verse: "Cultivating wisdom and compassion as a pair, / he can work the good of others; / benefiting others, walking the right path, / he tends toward awakening alone." The four means of attraction: giving, kindly speech, beneficial conduct, and shared purpose (同義 — Asvabhava's wording for the fourth). Asvabhava keeps a double pairing: first — by giving he gathers them in; by kindly speech he opens their understanding through fitting means, teaching the character of the dharmas; by beneficial conduct he urges each, as is fitting, to practice the good; by shared purpose, at the last, he brings them to gain the uncommon merits alike. Second — or: by giving he makes them vessels of the Dharma; by kindly speech he brings them settled conviction in the Dharma; by beneficial conduct, resting on that conviction, they set right practice going; by shared purpose, the practice so raised turns purer still, subtler still — and thus the nature of the means is gathered whole.

Deed fourteen, the deed of the preparatory practice brought to fullness, has six lines of difference, explaining eight lines of the sutra — Asvabhava resolves the count himself: "the six lines, 'drawing near to good people' and the rest, explain the eight lines the sutra states; for 'the merit of attention' and 'the merit of the helping companion' each explain two." By this preparatory practice, fullness is reached — hence its name; and this is the deed. Pair by pair: "a mind without duality toward the precept-keeper, the precept-breaker, and the good friend" (explaining "drawing near to good people") — one of good conduct is called precept-keeper, one of bad conduct precept-breaker; toward either of the two, if he can teach the Dharma, then — for the sake of hearing the Dharma, out of reverence for the Dharma — the thought "good friend" arises without any difference. For this reason, one is not to say of the precept-breaker, without more, that he is no good friend. The verse: "Though his footing in the precepts be weak and lame, / if he can preach well and benefit many, / like the Buddha, the Great Teacher, he should be honored — / for love of his good preaching, he is made like him." "Hearing the true Dharma with an earnest heart" — within the broad meaning as it has been taught, one should hear the Dharma by the sixteen modes. "Abiding in the wilderness with an earnest heart" — beyond a krosa's distance from the settlement is called wilderness; to dwell there is called abiding; to abide as is fitting, without slackness, is the earnest heart. "Taking no delight in worldly miscellany" (explaining "keeping far from evil deliberation") — not delighting in the world's songs, laughter, dances, and suchlike miscellany: this is precisely keeping far from the wrong deliberations joined to desire and the rest. The merit of attention (explaining two lines: "never once yearning after the lesser vehicle," "deeply seeing the merit within the Great Vehicle") — forsaking love for the vehicles of sravaka and pratyekabuddha, joined instead to love of the Great Vehicle's merit. The merit of the helping companion (explaining two lines: "keeping far from evil friends," "drawing near to good friends").

Deed fifteen, the deed brought to fullness, has three lines of difference — measureless purity, gaining great might, and realizing merit — explaining the sutra's three lines: "ever cultivating the four divine abodes," "ever disporting in the five higher knowledges," and "making wisdom his resort." Asvabhava says: the characteristic of fullness is named the deed of fullness; the word "deed" here is another name for "characteristic." Measureless purity glosses the four divine abodes: the four measureless minds — loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity — are named the four abodes of Brahma (四梵住); by them it is made known that all his inner virtues stand full and pure. Gaining great might glosses the five higher knowledges: to disport in the five knowledges is called might; the knowledge of the exhaustion of the outflows, being the wisdom of liberation, is named the great might — or, the bodhisattva's surpassing spiritual power is what is named the great might — and this too is a characteristic of fullness. Realizing merit glosses "making wisdom his resort": he has realized present mastery; each one's own inner realization is named the resort to wisdom — "not to the meaning only; for to resort to consciousness is no peace" (Asvabhava's own words).

Deed sixteen, the deed of establishing them, has four lines of difference — the merit of governing the assembly; instruction and admonition settled and without doubt; the joining of attraction-by-wealth and attraction-by-Dharma into one; and a mind without defilement — explaining the sutra's four lines: "not forsaking the various sentient beings, whether they abide in right conduct or do not," "being settled in his word," "prizing truthfulness and sincerity," and "ever making the great awakening-mind his forerunner." By this, the surpassing resolve of benefit and joy is established in them; this is the deed — hence, the deed of establishing them. The merit of governing the assembly glosses "not forsaking": toward the precept-keeping and the precept-breaking alike, whether driving out or taking in, his one wish is to bring them out of the unwholesome place and establish them in the good — this is called not forsaking. Instruction and admonition settled and without doubt glosses "being settled in his word": for so his word carries weight; a word unsettled carries none. The joining of wealth and Dharma into one glosses "prizing truthfulness and sincerity": the attraction by wealth and the attraction by Dharma are joined into one kind; amassing wealth and Dharma without discriminating between them, he distributes them evenly, as first promised — giving just so, save only what he does not presently have. The verse: "The offering of wealth can bring / beings to live out their span; / the offering of Dharma can bring / the ultimate calm divine." A mind without defilement glosses "ever making the great awakening-mind his forerunner": because he is held by the awakening-mind, in whatever he does he never covets another's service or offerings — he seeks only the realization of unsurpassed awakening.

The treatise-master closes the section on the sense of the words with a verse: "From the first line come, severally, / the classes of the way of merit; / from the first line come, severally, / the differences of the way of meaning" — the twenty-one lines of the quality-side and the thirty-two of the meaning-side all open out, in their differences, from a single first line. Asvabhava says here only: "In this gatha the meaning is easily grasped; there is no need to labor the gloss." This exposition does likewise.

Conclusion

This chapter, "The Characteristic of the Knowable," does from beginning to end only one thing — answer our opening problem: the world is plainly before our eyes, on what grounds do we say it is seen wrongly, and how is it to be seen rightly? Its answer is to settle "all that we cognize" onto the map of the three natures. Seen clearly: the world outside the mind that we grasp as real (the wholly-imagined) was never there from the start, it is that layer of false appearance forcibly pasted on; what really flows is only the condition-born, seeming-yet-not-real consciousness (the other-dependent), like a dream, like an illusion, like a mirage, like the moon in water; and right upon this seeming-yet-not-real dependent arising, seeing through that "the falsely-grasped realm eternally falls away," the suchness disclosed at that instant (the perfectly-accomplished) is the home of liberation — that is, the gold shown forth after the block of ore has been smelted by the fire of non-conceptual wisdom. The three natures rest on one substance, divided by angle, and so birth-and-death and nirvana are not two, permanent and impermanent are not two; the hidden intent of all the Buddha's words can be unlocked by this one key.

Yet to have seen the characteristic clearly is, after all, still only to "know." What the next chapter, "Entering the Characteristic of the Knowable," asks is precisely: having recognized this characteristic of the knowable, how does one truly "enter into" it, turning from ordinary to noble? — from knowing to entering, from the map to setting out on the road: that is the true gateway of practice-realization.

Later Reception

The Thirty Verses inherits the three natures and consciousness-only, Discerning the Middle and Extremes opens the same line through unreal imagining, and the Twenty Verses develops the defense of objectlessness. The Cheng weishi lun adds later distinctions, which may be compared but not read back into this division.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

This division draws on the Ten Grounds and Samdhinirmocana scriptures and on two inherited verse sets to display entry into consciousness-only. Both ancient commentaries use the rope-and-snake simile to open entry through the three natures, while one develops the distinctions of image, seeing, and self-awareness more fully.

The previous chapter (the Characteristic of the Knowable) laid everything we cognize onto the single map of the three natures: that external object you grasp as real was never there to begin with (the wholly-imagined nature, parikalpita); what is actually flowing there is the dependently-arisen consciousness (the other-dependent nature, paratantra); and the suchness that shows itself once the false grasping has fallen away is the perfectly-accomplished nature (parinispanna). The map has been read.

But there is a hard pass here that this chapter has to meet head-on —

What exactly stands between "knowing that all phenomena are consciousness-only" and "personally realizing that all phenomena are consciousness-only"? This step — how does one cross it?

This is no small question. A person can master the doctrine of consciousness-only — can expound it, debate it, write it — and still be an ordinary being; only when he has seen it directly does he turn from ordinary to noble. Following a map and actually setting foot on the land are two different things. The whole of Chapter 4, "Entering the Characteristic of the Knowable," is about how one passes through that door — the bridge that carries you from "doctrine" across to "realization." What follows works through Asanga's words, passage by passage.

1. Taking stock before setting out: by what means, what person, where, by what power

Before entering, Asanga first lays out several preconditions for you, like checking your gear before a climb.

By what means? — By the perfuming of much hearing (much study of the teaching). When a person hears the right Mahayana teaching widely, over a long time a force is perfumed into his mind. And here is the marvel of this "perfuming of the heard teaching": although it too resides within the storehouse-consciousness (alaya-vijnana), it is not counted among the defiled stock of the storehouse — Vasubandhu, in his commentary, points out that what this perfuming-of-hearing rests upon "is the very self-substance perfumed by the Mahayana teaching; it is not included within the storehouse-consciousness, but is rather what can counteract the storehouse-consciousness." Just as the storehouse holds seeds, this becomes the seed of pure phenomena. Carried along by "reasoned attention" (yoniso-manaskara, attention in accord with right principle), it gives rise to a kind of mental discourse (manojalpa) that "resembles a phenomenon, resembles a meaning, and carries a seeing-aspect" — put plainly, the inner stream of speech made of concepts and names that runs in our minds. Asanga's opening point is precisely this: entering begins from this pure mental discourse perfumed by the heard teaching.

What person can enter? — A bodhisattva whose provisions are complete. Specifically: one whose hearing of the Mahayana has never broken off, who has already met countless Buddhas appearing in the world, who has already given rise to a resolved conviction set in one single direction (a firm, unwavering conviction that never turns back), and who has accumulated thick enough roots of merit. Asvabhava, in his commentary, adds a pointed distinction: a person of little hearing cannot get through this door of direct realization — and he cites the Sutra of Instruction to Rahula in witness, where the Buddha first asks Rahula, "Have you already upheld the treasury of the right teaching?", urging that he "first uphold the treasury of the teaching," meaning that before direct realization there must first be full hearing, first the upholding. So "much hearing" is no optional preface; it is the hard threshold for entering.

Where does one enter? — Right on that mental discourse "resembling a phenomenon, resembling a meaning, carrying a seeing-aspect," and at the place where the characteristics of the Mahayana teaching arise. The way runs through four stages: the stage of resolved-conviction practice (giving rise to conviction in step with what is heard), the path of seeing (penetrating in accord with principle, the first direct seeing), the path of cultivation (counteracting every obstruction), and the ultimate path (free of every obstruction). And it runs toward one direction: "all phenomena are nothing but the nature of consciousness."

By what power does one enter? — Held up by the power of the roots of merit. Concretely, three things: three forms of self-spurring (the three temperings of the mind), cutting off four kinds of obstructing mind (cutting off four things), and, taking the realm of the teaching's meaning as object, working at calm and insight constantly, earnestly, and without negligence. The first two are taken up in turn below.

2. Three doses of heart-tonic: the three temperings of the mind

The bodhisattva's road is long and hard, and a person's resolve can slacken. Asanga, considerate, gives three doses of "tempering of the mind" — spurrings that lift a slackened resolve back up.

The first dose: consider how many become Buddhas. Across countless worlds, with countless beings, in every single instant someone is realizing unsurpassed perfect enlightenment. With so many reaching Buddhahood, by what right do I decide "I cannot" and shrink back? The second dose: consider the provisions already in hand. It is precisely because I have already given rise to this pure aspiration (the deep, road-bound resolve) that there can even be talk of practicing giving and the other perfections; and since this aspiration is already in hand, I need only add a little more effort to my cultivation and it will, in the end, be brought to fullness — spurring oneself with the "supreme aspiration already attained." The third dose: consider the principle of fruition. Worldly people, whose good deeds are still mixed with affliction and still obstructed, can yet at the moment of death receive a pleasing and complete bodily existence; and I, who cultivate unobstructed excellent good, by what right would I in the end fail to attain fullness? Turn these three over in the mind, and the resolve that was sinking stands straight again.

3. Four kinds of mind to clear away: cutting off four things

Spurring alone is not enough; at the moment of entering there are still four things in the mind that absolutely must be cut off, which Asanga calls cutting off four things.

First, let go of the Hinayana attention of sravakas and pratyekabuddhas that seeks only one's own deliverance — if the mind still rests at "it's enough that I myself am liberated," it cannot enter the great gate of the bodhisattva. Second, cut off doubt about the Mahayana — that wavering, half-believing hesitation contrary to right faith. Third, cut off the grasping of phenomena (dharma-grasping): secretly planting an "I and mine" onto the phenomena one has heard and pondered. Fourth, cut off discrimination: in the face of the various characteristics now present and posited before you, still being unable to resist applying attention to them and discriminating them. Once these four are cleared, the mind is clean, and only then is it fit to enter.

4. The heart of this chapter: the four investigations and the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is

Here we reach the most crucial point of the whole chapter — how, finally, does one enter? Asanga's answer is to do two layers of work upon that mental discourse "resembling a phenomenon, resembling a meaning."

The first layer: the four investigations. "Investigation" means careful searching-out. Searching out what? Searching out four things: the name (the concept, the designation), the meaning (the object the name points to), the own-being (its substance), and the distinctions (its various characteristics). Searched out to the end, one sees that all four are alike merely posited by convention — all are labels stuck on by names and words, not real existents.

The second layer: the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is. "As-it-is" means knowing them just as they are, thoroughly. On the basis of the prior investigation, one goes a step further and knows-as-it-is that these four are conventionally posited, seeing thoroughly that not one of them can be found at all.

Here Vasubandhu and Asvabhava have a distinction worth noting. Vasubandhu divides it by time-stage: first "searching out that name, meaning, own-being, and distinctions are merely posited" — that searching stage is the four investigations; then "knowing-as-it-is that they are all unfindable" — that already-known stage is the four all-encompassing wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is; one before, one after, set up by temporal sequence. Asvabhava divides it by means and fruit: the four investigations are "four means" (the instruments of approach), and the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is are "four fruit-wisdoms" (the wisdom of the fruition-ground). The two masters give the same order — investigation first, all-encompassing wisdom after; one only takes the temporal aspect, the other the cause-and-fruit aspect.

So the bodhisattva works thus: fixing on that mental discourse resembling words and meaning, he searches — "words and names" are nothing but mental discourse; "the meaning that arises in dependence on these names" is likewise nothing but mental discourse; even "the own-being and distinctions of name and meaning" are wholly conventionally posited. And when he personally realizes the moment of "there is only mental discourse — outside, there is no thing at all," he then knows-as-it-is: name, meaning, own-being, and distinctions are all conventionally posited, the very characteristic of "own-being and distinctions" is in fact utterly absent, not one of them can be found. It is by these four investigations and four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is, upon this mental discourse, that the bodhisattva enters "all phenomena are nothing but the nature of consciousness."

5. The rope-snake simile: on a single rope, three layers of cognition fall away one by one

Having brought the doctrine this far, Asanga, fearing you are still a layer removed from it, brings out a famous simile — seeing a rope in the dark as if it were a snake. This is the most vivid passage in the whole chapter; please read it slowly.

Night has fallen; you are walking on the road and glimpse something coiled on the ground — "A snake!" — and start in fright. But when you look hard, there is no snake there at all — the snake was wrongly seen, "because there was never any such thing," it was never there to begin with. Once you see clearly that "there is no snake," that cognition of "snake" ceases; yet notice — at this point the cognition "this is a rope" is still present. The matter is not finished. If you analyze further, finely, you will find that even this "rope" is not real: it is no more than a characteristic assembled out of color, smell, taste, and touch; and so even the cognition of "rope" must, by this further analysis, dissolve.

Asanga maps the marvel of this rope, just as it stands, onto entering consciousness-only: those six "resembling-words, resembling-meaning" characteristics of mental discourse in the mind are exactly like that rope in the dark. When you subdue those six unreal characteristics of meaning (seeing through the fact that the external object was never there), what ceases first is the illusion that "there is a real object outside the mind" — just as the cognition of "snake" ceases first; then you fall back to "it is in fact only consciousness," just as you fall back to "this is a rope." But Asanga at once adds the most crucial cut: even the cognition of "consciousness-only" itself, like the cognition of "rope," must in the end be discarded together with the rest — "the cognition of the nature of consciousness-only is, like the cognition of the snake, also to be discarded" — and only after it is discarded does the cognition of that "perfectly-accomplished own-nature" show itself.

In other words, "consciousness-only" is not the destination; it is the boat for crossing the river. The snake is to be discarded and the rope too; the object is to be discarded, and even the thought "it is only consciousness" is to be discarded. Once on the far shore, even the boat must be set down. Vasubandhu's gloss here is terse, noting only that this rope-simile "displays the entering into the three natures"; Asvabhava develops it in finer detail (this is the consistent pattern of the two commentaries: Vasubandhu glosses the terms directly, Asvabhava takes up more similes and unfolds more analysis), even attaching a verse of his own — "Toward the rope, the cognition of a snake; seeing the rope, one understands the meaning is absent" — chanting this layer-by-layer falling-away once more.

6. Mapping the rope-simile onto the sequence of the three natures: wholly-imagined → other-dependent → perfectly-accomplished

Once the rope-snake simile is set up, the sequence of entering lines up exactly with the three natures, one layer to each.

The first layer: entering the wholly-imagined nature. The bodhisattva sees through the fact that "the meaning-resembling characteristic that appears in mental discourse" was, after all, falsely conceived — this is like seeing through the fact that the "snake" was an illusion. To recognize it as falsely conceived is to enter the wholly-imagined nature (parikalpita; the external object grasped as real, which was never there).

The second layer: entering the other-dependent nature. Understanding that "this meaning-resembling characteristic is in fact only consciousness arisen in dependence on conditions" — this is like falling back to "it is only a rope." To recognize it as dependently-arisen consciousness is to enter the other-dependent nature (paratantra).

The third layer: how, then, does one enter the perfectly-accomplished nature? — This step is the finest. When the bodhisattva further extinguishes even the "consciousness-only conception" of "this is only consciousness" (discarding even the rope-cognition), he has thereby cleared away the grasping of meaning entirely; and so no "meaning-resemblance" can arise any longer, and not even "it seems there is still a consciousness-only left over" can arise. At this step, he abides in "all meanings are utterly indiscriminable," dwelling in correspondence, present and direct, within the realm of phenomena (dharma-dhatu). And just at this moment — the non-discriminating wisdom (nirvikalpa-jnana), in which "the cognizing and the cognized are equal, perfectly equal, without discrimination," arises. Only here is it called "having entered the perfectly-accomplished nature."

In one phrase: discard the object (wholly-imagined), retain consciousness (other-dependent), and finally discard even the conception of consciousness (perfectly-accomplished) — and the moment the non-discriminating wisdom shows itself is the pass of the path of seeing.

7. Crossing that door: the path of seeing, ascending the Joyful Ground

Having entered the nature of consciousness-only, the bodhisattva has thereby entered the characteristics of the knowable; and by this he enters the Joyful Ground — ascends the first of the ten bodhisattva grounds. Asanga speaks gravely of what happens at this moment: he thoroughly reaches the realm of phenomena (penetrates suchness), is born into the family of the Tathagatas (from now on he is a son of the Buddhas, destined to become a Buddha), and attains that mind-nature which is "equal toward all sentient beings, equal toward all bodhisattvas, equal toward all Buddhas."

This moment is called the bodhisattva's path of seeing — the first direct seeing of suchness, the very pass where one truly turns from ordinary to noble. Look back, please: all that work before — the four investigations, the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is, the various concentrations — was all preparation (the applied practices) for arriving at this one step; only by crossing this door is there the true "seeing."

8. What was all this effort for, in the end: subsequently-attained wisdom, the transformation of the basis, and the magician

You might ask: after circling so widely to enter consciousness-only, what is it for? Asanga answers very practically.

It is for giving rise to the "world-transcending calm-and-insight wisdom that takes the general characteristic of all phenomena as object" (a wisdom able to take all phenomena together as object and to contemplate beyond the world), and to the subsequently-attained wisdom (the wisdom applied, after the path of seeing, back among phenomenal affairs) that it further draws forth. Further still, it is for: cutting off those seeds of "characteristic" and "seeing-aspect" within the storehouse-consciousness, nourishing the seed "able to touch and realize the body of teaching," completing the transformation of the basis (replacing the whole defiled foundation of life with a pure foundation), realizing all Buddha-teachings, and realizing the wisdom of all-wisdom.

And that "subsequently-attained wisdom" has one exquisite capacity, for which Asanga here brings out the chapter's second simile — the magician. After his awakening, the bodhisattva is like a skilled magician. The magician knows perfectly well that the illusions he conjures are false — they cannot deceive him in the slightest; yet within this heap of false appearances he can, all the same, methodically speak of cause, speak of fruit, and benefit beings. The bodhisattva is just so: all the cognized characteristics manifest by the storehouse-consciousness, in the eyes of his subsequently-attained wisdom, are "seen as having an illusion-like nature, with no inverted turning" — seen to be entirely illusory and dream-like, no longer deceiving him, and yet within this illusion-like world he can skillfully deliver beings. Knowing full well it is illusion, and yet skillfully using that illusion — this is the true capacity of the subsequently-attained wisdom.

9. The four steps before the path of seeing: the four concentrations and the four factors conducing to penetration

Let us fill in a passage by going back. The process of entering the nature of consciousness-only has, before the path of seeing, a flight of steps belonging to the "applied-practice stage" — four concentrations holding up four positions. These four positions together are called the four factors conducing to penetration (the four steps approaching the path of seeing, about to "discern" the truth — known in the older terms as heat, summit, forbearance, and supreme-worldly-dharma).

First step, heat. By means of the four investigations, when one shallowly accepts that "there is no meaning" (a first acceptance that the external object is absent), there arises the concentration of attaining illumination — holding up the position of "heat." Vasubandhu glosses directly: "illumination" displays this lower-grade "wisdom of no-meaning," and "concentration" is the concentration on which this wisdom-of-no-meaning rests. Asvabhava adds a fire-drilling simile: this concentration's first attainment of the illumination of "wisdom of no-meaning" is like drilling wood and first obtaining fire; and the position "heat" is precisely like the warmth that rises first when one drills for fire — it is the foretoken that the true wisdom is about to arise.

Second step, summit. When one more deeply accepts that "there is no meaning," there arises the concentration of increasing illumination (that measure of illumination grown still more vigorous) — holding up the position of "summit."

Third step, forbearance. Then, by means of the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is, having already entered consciousness-only and become settled and undoubting toward "no-meaning," there arises the concentration of one-portion of the true meaning — holding up the position of "forbearance."

Fourth step, supreme-worldly-dharma. From here, immediately, even the "consciousness-only conception" is subdued, and there arises the uninterrupted concentration — holding up the position of "supreme-worldly-dharma."

Because these four concentrations all immediately adjoin the direct realization of the path of seeing, they are together named the "border of direct realization." One step past supreme-worldly-dharma, and the very next thought is the path of seeing.

10. Having seen the path, one must still cultivate: how the path of cultivation is cultivated

The path of seeing is the "first seeing," but it is by no means the destination. After the bodhisattva has entered the ground, seen the path, and entered consciousness-only, how does he work in the path of cultivation?

— Within the established "ten grounds" (where all the teachings of the scriptures are now present and available for use), he still relies on the "world-transcending, subsequently-attained calm-and-insight wisdom that takes the general characteristic of all phenomena as object," and, across spans of time inconceivably long (countless hundreds of thousands of koti-nayuta eons), cultivates without ceasing, gradually completing the "transformation of the basis"; and in order to realize the three bodies of a Buddha (the self-nature body, the enjoyment body, and the transformation body), he practices diligently and untiringly. In a phrase: the path of seeing is "seeing for the first time," and the path of cultivation is "seeing, then grinding it through again and again" — deepening ground by ground until Buddhahood.

11. Both directly realize — so where do bodhisattva and sravaka differ: the eleven differences of direct realization

Here Asanga turns aside for a moment to answer a question often raised: sravakas too speak of "direct realization" (realizing the truth directly and presently), and bodhisattvas too speak of direct realization — so where, after all, do the two differ? Asanga lists eleven differences in one breath; we follow them through.

One, difference of object — what the bodhisattva takes as object is the Mahayana teaching. Two, difference of support — the bodhisattva relies on the two great provisions of merit and wisdom for support. Three, difference of penetration — the bodhisattva can penetrate both kinds of selflessness, the "selflessness of persons" and the "selflessness of phenomena" (the sravaka leans to the one kind, the selflessness of persons). Four, difference of nirvana — the bodhisattva takes up the non-abiding great nirvana, which "abides neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvana." Five, difference of ground — the bodhisattva goes forth ground by ground through the ten grounds. Six and seven, difference of purification — the bodhisattva not only cuts off affliction but must cut off the "habit-energies of affliction," and further "purify the Buddha-lands." Eight, difference of impartial mind — the bodhisattva is impartial toward self and other alike, and his applied practice of maturing beings never rests. Nine, difference of birth — the bodhisattva is born into the family of the Tathagatas. Ten, difference of receiving birth — the bodhisattva constantly receives birth within the great assemblies of all the Buddhas. Eleven, difference of fruit — the bodhisattva accomplishes the immeasurable fruits of merit: the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen distinctive qualities of a Buddha, and the rest.

In a single phrase: the sravaka settles his own one person's birth-and-death; the bodhisattva walks the great road of becoming a Buddha and delivering beings.

12. Two sets of in-concentration instructions: bringing the contemplation of principle down into walkable steps in concentration

At the close of this chapter, Asanga cites two ready-made "instructions for cultivating contemplation" as practical formulas for entering consciousness-only — bringing the contemplation worked out earlier in principle ("the four investigations, the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is, the rope-snake simile") down into a step-by-step practice one can follow within concentration.

First set: the two verses of the Treatise Discriminating Yoga. In concentration the bodhisattva first contemplates "the image that is the object is in fact only one's own mind"; having extinguished that characteristic "resembling an external meaning," he examines closely and knows: this image is only a thought within one's own mind. Abiding thus within the inner mind, he first knows that "the grasped object" does not exist, and next that even "the grasping mind" does not exist, and finally both grasped and grasper alike are extinguished, with nothing found at all — and this leads all the way through to "non-discrimination." These four steps (contemplating the image as only mind → examining and knowing it is only one's own thought → knowing the grasped is absent → knowing the grasper is likewise absent, arriving at last at nothing found) are the most concentrated sequence of consciousness-only calm-and-insight.

Second set: the five verses of the Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras. The five verses run in order: (i) First prepare the two provisions of merit and wisdom, ponder the teaching, and become settled and undoubting, whereupon one realizes that "all the import of meaning is, after all, only of the class of names and words"; (ii) Knowing that all meanings are only names and words, one abides in the principle "resembling-that, only mind," and directly realizes the true realm of phenomena, the two characteristics of grasped and grasper both falling away; (iii) Comprehending that "apart from mind there is no other thing," one then realizes that "mind" too is unfindable, and the wise one fully understands that "both are absent," abiding equally in the true realm of phenomena of "the two-absences"; (iv) The wise one, by the power of the non-discriminating wisdom, courses pervadingly, impartially, and constantly in accord, extinguishing the heaped-up faults that are like a thicket of brambles, as a great medicine dissolves all poisons; (v) Within the excellent teaching established by the Buddha, with settled wisdom together with faith and the other wholesome roots, one abides in the realm of phenomena, knows that every thought is nothing but discrimination, and so, vigorous and swift, hastens to the far shore of the ocean of merit.

The weight of these two sets of instructions lies just in this: they hand over all the "principle" set out earlier entirely to "practice" — so that on the meditation cushion you truly have steps to walk.

Looking back over this chapter, what Asanga sets out to answer is, from first to last, the hard pass of the opening: what stands between "knowing consciousness-only" and "personally realizing consciousness-only"?

His answer is a whole bridge: to enter, one must first ready the provisions of hearing the teaching, must rely on the three temperings of the mind to spur oneself and not fall back, and must cut off the four obstructing minds; the true method is "the four investigations, the four wisdoms of knowing-as-it-is" — seeing through the fact that name, meaning, own-being, and distinctions are all conventionally posited; thereby one discards the external object and awakens into the wholly-imagined nature, retains consciousness-only and awakens into the other-dependent nature, and then discards even "the conception of consciousness-only" and realizes the perfectly-accomplished nature; and the moment the non-discriminating wisdom shows itself, one ascends the first ground and enters the path of seeing. Thereafter one must still grind it through, again and again, in the path of cultivation — passing through the ten grounds across countless eons, completing the transformation of the basis, and realizing the three Buddha-bodies.

And the one line on that bridge most to be held fast is the eye-dotting touch of the rope-snake simile: even the thought "this is a rope (consciousness-only)" must be set down — consciousness-only is the boat for crossing the river; once on the shore, it is let go.

What, then, comes after entering? The bodhisattva, having entered the gate, by what does he advance next, and what fruit will he bring forth? The next chapter, "The Cause and Fruit of That Entering," takes this up and lays it out in full: the six perfections (giving, discipline, forbearance, vigor, meditation, wisdom) are both the cause of "entering consciousness-only" and its fruit — and the great bodhisattva practice from cause to fruit unfolds from there.

Later Reception

The final five verses of the Thirty Verses carry forward the sequence of provisions, preparation, penetration, cultivation, and completion; Discerning the Middle and Extremes also gives a way of entry into the markless. Later analyses in the Cheng weishi lun illuminate this reception but do not replace this division’s own distinctions.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The opening outline already names the six perfections as the cause and fruit of entry; this division’s own root text unfolds their number, character, sequence, cultivation, and mutual inclusion. The two ancient commentaries follow that structure and explain why there are six and how their resolves operate; no separate scriptural source is invented.

The previous section, "Entry into the Character of the Knowable," described how one moves from the understanding gained through hearing and reflecting all the way to direct realization within meditative contemplation — the four investigations, the four kinds of accurate knowing, the simile of the snake and the rope, right up to the moment of the path of seeing, when the mind accords with cognition-only. But entry is not the end of the matter. A more practical question arises at once:

This entry — by what cause was it originally nourished? And after entry, what fruit does it bear?

Asanga's answer in this section is the one set of headings every Mahayana practitioner knows best — the six perfections (paramitas), the six: giving, discipline, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom. The word "paramita" is a transliteration; it means "reaching the far shore." But Asanga's treatment of the six is unlike ordinary moral exhortation: he means to state both sides at once — the six are at once the cause that ferries a person into cognition-only, and the fruit that naturally flows out once one has entered cognition-only. Hence the section is named "the cause and fruit of that entering": the cause of that entering, and the fruit of that entering. What follows tracks Asanga's words, section by section.

1. The Six Perfections: cause of entry into cognition-only, and also its fruit

First, how they are the cause. Asanga's focus is very concrete: the greatest obstacle to entering cognition-only is scattered movement — the mind being dragged off by external objects, unable to settle. And the six perfections are, one by one, the medicines that counter scattered movement. Not clinging to wealth and position is giving at work; not transgressing the precepts is discipline at work; being unshaken in the face of suffering is patience at work; being undiscouraged in cultivation is effort at work. When these causes that scatter the mind no longer arise, the mind naturally "fixes on a single object"; only at that point can one rightly discern the dharmas and accord with cognition-only. So the six perfections are the cause of entering cognition-only — they sweep scattered movement clean for you and clear a space of stillness.

Then how are they the fruit? Asanga says that once a bodhisattva has, in reliance on the six perfections, entered cognition-only, his six perfections are "upgraded": they become the six perfections subsumed under purified higher resolve. "Higher resolve" refers to that especially deep aspiration turned toward the path; "purified" says that this aspiration has been cleansed, no longer mixed with forced contrivance. Where before he practiced the six perfections gritting his teeth, now he practices them carried naturally out of that purified aspiration. This is the fruit that entering bears.

More remarkable still comes after: at this point, even when this bodhisattva is not actually practicing the six perfections on the ground at a given moment, by his firm conviction in the holy teaching, together with the three attentions of cherishing, rejoicing, and delighting (treated in detail under "the five modes" below), he can also cultivate the six perfections constantly and without interruption, and complete them swiftly. In a word: the six perfections turn from "gritting the teeth" into "flowing naturally" — and this is precisely the fruit that comes only after entering cognition-only.

2. The Seven Aspects of Purified Higher Resolve

So what, concretely, does this mind of "purified higher resolve" look like? Asanga does not state it flatly; he uses three verses to gather up its seven aspects, asking you to identify each against the verse lines one by one. These seven aspects amount to a checkup report on this mind of "purified resolve" —

First is provisions: all wholesome dharmas (the white dharmas) are already complete; the capital is in hand. Second is endurance: he has gained that sharp and swift "patience," able to bear with the dharma. Third is object: what his mind takes as object is the Mahayana's profound and vast teaching, not a shallow, near-at-hand dharma. Fourth is attention: he rightly awakens to "all realms being only what discrimination manifests" — and this is precisely the focus of cognition-only. Fifth is essence: he has gained non-discriminating cognition — that root cognition which leaves behind the subject-object division and directly accords with reality, and which is the very substance of purified resolve. Sixth is auspicious sign: throughout the stream of dharma that has carried him all the way to here, he is able to behold the buddhas, which is a token of purity. Seventh is benefit: he knows that unsurpassed awakening is now near, because awakening is for him no longer hard to attain. Provisions, endurance, object, attention, essence, auspicious sign, benefit — when the seven aspects are complete, this mind of "purified resolve" stands firm.

3. Why Exactly Six — no more, no fewer

At this point, the sharp-minded will press a question: why are the perfections exactly six? Could they not be five, or seven? It is a good question, and Asanga meets it head-on, giving three reasons — and these three reasons, from three different angles, settle the number "six" beyond moving.

The first: to counter three kinds of obstruction. Asanga looks at the long road to buddhahood and sees three barriers lying across it. The first barrier is simply refusing to set out — he calls this "not setting forth": some never raise the aspiration toward the path at all. Why? Because they cling to wealth and position, and cling to home, wife, and children — stuck fast by these two. What counters it is precisely giving (which teaches you to relinquish wealth and position) and discipline (which teaches you to leave defiled attachment), so the first two perfections are established first. The second barrier is setting out and then turning back — called "regressing": some raise the aspiration but turn back midway. Why? First, they cannot bear the various sufferings born of sentient beings' offenses against them; second, they cannot hold up under the weariness born of long cultivation of the wholesome. What counters it is patience (which teaches you to bear up under beings' affliction) and effort (which teaches you to endure the fatigue of long cultivation), so the middle two perfections are established next. The third barrier is not turning back, yet going wrong — called "spoiling": some neither regress, yet their cultivation can spoil. Why? First, the mind is scattered; second, evil views arise. What counters it is meditation (concentration, which gathers in the scattered mind) and wisdom (which breaks evil views), so the last two perfections bring up the rear. Three barriers, six medicines, each set against its own — this is the first reason for "six."

The second: to establish a support for "realizing the dharmas of the buddhas." Asanga says: the first four perfections (giving, discipline, patience, effort) together are "the cause of non-scattering" — they cleanse you mentally; the fifth perfection (meditation, concentration) is "the accomplishment of non-scattering" — the mind has truly settled. With this "non-scattering" as the foundation, one can then accurately and truly awaken to the real meaning of the dharmas, and so go on to realize all the dharmas of the buddhas. In other words, the first five of the six perfections pave the way for the sixth (wisdom realizing the real); to realize the dharmas of the buddhas, one must have this whole set as support, and so it is six.

The third: to accord with the maturing of sentient beings. This reason turns the gaze from self-cultivation toward benefiting others. Asanga continues: by giving, one rightly draws sentient beings in (first bringing people over); by discipline, one does not harm sentient beings (letting people draw near with ease); by patience, one bears it even when sentient beings inflict harm (not being driven off by people); by effort, one helps sentient beings to manage and accomplish what they ought to do. By just this chain of "drawing-in and benefiting" causes, one first nurtures beings to the point of "being fit to receive transformation." From here, two steps bring it to a close: for those whose minds are not yet settled, meditation (concentration) brings them to settle; for those whose minds are already settled, wisdom brings them to liberation — and beings mature at this season of awakening. To walk this whole chain of "maturing sentient beings" to its end, from drawing-in to liberation, link interlocked with link, it is again exactly six. With the three reasons stated, the number "six" can no longer be shifted.

4. The Six Excellences: what raises ordinary good conduct into "reaching the far shore"

Asanga next picks out a question easily overlooked yet crucial: giving is giving — ordinary people give, non-Buddhists give — so on what grounds does only the bodhisattva's giving deserve to be called "paramita (reaching the far shore)"? The difference lies not in "whether it was done," but in whether it possesses, behind it, the six excellences.

First is excellence of support: the bodhisattva's good conduct is raised on the root of the awakening-mind (bodhicitta); ordinary people's good conduct lacks this root. Second is excellence of practice: the bodhisattva brings the six perfections forth together, complete, not picking out just one to do. Third is excellence of locus: the place where his good conduct comes to rest is "benefiting and bringing ease to all sentient beings," not for himself. Fourth is excellence of skillful means: his good conduct is held in by non-discriminating cognition — done, yet without clinging to the mark, and this is the most crucial point. Fifth is excellence of dedication: all that he cultivates is dedicated, in its entirety, to unsurpassed perfect awakening, kept back as nothing private. Sixth is excellence of purity: his good conduct arises freed from both the affliction-obstruction and the obstruction to the knowable, clean and undefiled. With these six excellences complete, ordinary good conduct is truly raised into "reaching the far shore."

And precisely because "the excellence" is the crux, not "the doing," "being giving" need not mean "being a perfection" — the two are not identical. Asanga therefore says: one may take these two concepts and sift them as a four-case set. He explicitly points out only the first case — "there is giving that is not a perfection" (the ordinary person, though he practices giving, lacks the six excellences, and so it is not a perfection); the remaining three cases (a perfection that is not giving; both giving and a perfection; neither giving nor a perfection) can be derived following this one example. The other five perfections can likewise be sifted into four cases this way. The point is single: only what possesses the six excellences counts.

5. Why They Are Ordered This Way, and Where the Names Come From

First the sequence. Why are the six perfections ordered exactly as "giving → discipline → patience → effort → meditation → wisdom"? Asanga's answer is plain: because the earlier perfection naturally draws forth the later. Being able to relinquish (giving) makes it easier to hold the precepts; holding the precepts makes patience possible; being able to be patient makes it possible to take up effort; unflagging effort lets the mind settle (meditation); with the mind settled, wisdom can arise. One pulls the next, generating one another in turn — so this ordering is not a casual list.

Then the origin of the names (in the treatise this is called "etymological explanation," explaining one by one how each term gets its name). Why can the six — giving, discipline, and the rest — all be called "paramita"? Because the wholesome roots of giving and the rest are the most excellent among worldly dharmas, and even among the two vehicles of the disciples and the solitary-awakened, and they reach the far shore — and "reaching the far shore" is just the basic sense of "paramita," so all six bear the common name. As for the individual names, each one is a single specific remedy, and Asanga points each out: giving is called "giving" because it can "rend" stinginess and poverty, and can draw in vast wealth, position, and merit — one rending, one drawing; discipline is called "discipline" because it can "extinguish" bad conduct and bad destinies, and can win good destinies and meditative poise (concentration); patience is called "patience" because it can "exhaust" anger and enmity, and can let self and others abide in security; effort is called "effort" because it can "leave behind" all sloth and evil unwholesome dharmas, and can give rise to and increase measureless wholesome dharmas; meditation is called "meditation" because it can "dissolve" scattered movement, and can draw in inner abiding; wisdom is called "wisdom" because it can "expel" all views and evil false intelligence, and can truly distinguish and know the dharmas. Under each name there is one "rending" and one "establishing," a single specific remedy — the term is not a label, it is the shorthand for a function.

6. How the Six Are Cultivated: the five modes

So how, concretely, are the six perfections cultivated? Asanga says the modes of cultivation are, in brief, five. The first three are easy to grasp: first is "cultivation by present application," which is actually doing it, bringing the six perfections forth in practice; second is "cultivation by firm conviction," giving rise to an unshakable firm conviction in the six perfections as the holy teaching states them; third is "cultivation by attention," cultivating with the three minds of cherishing, rejoicing, and delighting (this one shows the most depth of skill, and gets its own section next). Fourth is "cultivation by skillful means," cultivating while held in by non-discriminating cognition — doing, yet without clinging. These four the treatise (and other places) have already discussed.

What is distinctive is the fifth, "cultivation as the accomplishing of what is to be done." This refers not to the cultivation of an ordinary stage but to cultivation at the fruition-stage of buddhahood: the buddhas, effortlessly and ceaselessly, perform all manner of buddha-deeds without rest, and upon the six perfections that are long since complete to the very peak, they yet continue to cultivate the six "reaching the far shore" effortlessly. This line is the most worth pondering — it turns out cultivation does not stop once one cultivates all the way to buddhahood; even having become a buddha, the six perfections still flow out effortlessly and inexhaustibly. Cultivation has no terminus; it only turns from "with effort" into "effortless."

7. The Six Dispositions — the inner side of the cultivating mind

Among the five modes, "cultivation by attention" shows the most depth, because what it cultivates is not outward conduct but the cultivating mind itself — that is, the six dispositions (six mental attitudes, six aspirations). Asanga states them one by one, each deeper than the last —

First is "vast disposition": how vast is this mind? Asanga has you imagine: over measureless, countless great eons, in every single instant, the bodhisattva suddenly relinquishes all his body and life, offering to the Tathagata as many world-systems filled with the seven treasures as the sands of the Ganges, offering on until he sits upon the seat of awakening and becomes a buddha — and yet his giving-mind still feels it is not enough. Imagine further: in every single instant, set amid a world filled with raging fire, lacking in the four postures every single means of livelihood, he still brings forth discipline, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom thought after thought, on until buddhahood — and yet his mind of discipline, patience, and the rest still feels it is not enough. This mind, vast beyond all bound and never knowing satisfaction, is "vast disposition."

Second is "long-time disposition": that unsatiated mind of "still not enough" above is no passing impulse but holds on all the way to sitting upon the seat of awakening, constant and without interruption — the ability to hold on this long, not resting for an instant, is "long-time disposition."

Third is "joyful disposition": the bodhisattva benefits sentient beings with the six perfections, and having done so gives rise to deep joy — and, this is the crux, his own joy actually exceeds that of the very beings who are benefited. The giver more joyful than the receiver: this is "joyful disposition."

Fourth is "gratitude disposition," the most moving of all. The bodhisattva has benefited sentient beings, and by ordinary reckoning ought to feel "I have been of benefit to sentient beings"; yet the bodhisattva does not think this way at all. He feels only that "it is sentient beings who have given me the chance to accomplish cultivation; sentient beings have done me great kindness," seeing nothing of any kindness he has done to beings. The whole posture of the "benefactor" is turned inside out — this is "gratitude disposition."

Fifth is "great-aim disposition": the bodhisattva takes all the wholesome roots accumulated through the six perfections and, from a deep heart, dedicates and gives them to all sentient beings, wishing only that they all gain lovely and excellent fruits of recompense. This dedication, thinking on beings' behalf, is "great-aim disposition."

Sixth is "purely-good disposition": a further step — the bodhisattva takes these wholesome roots, together with all sentient beings, and dedicates them jointly toward unsurpassed perfect awakening — wishing not merely that beings gain good recompense, but that he realize awakening together with beings. This most ultimate dedication is "purely-good disposition."

What the six dispositions above subsume is "cherishing attention." But cultivation by attention has two further sides: seeing other bodhisattvas cultivate these six dispositions and, in accordance, cultivate measureless wholesome roots, one rejoices from a deep heart — this is "rejoicing disposition"; and aspiring from a deep heart that all sentient beings come to cultivate the six perfections subsumed by these six dispositions, and aspiring that one's own self never part from this cultivation, on until buddhahood — this is "delighting attention." Cherishing, rejoicing, delighting — only when all three attentions are complete is "cultivation by attention" whole. Having finished, Asanga adds a word of encouragement at the close: merely to hear of this cultivation of the six dispositions and to give rise to a single thought of faith can already generate measureless merit and dissolve measureless karmic obstructions — how much more the bodhisattva who truly cultivates it! This line is the bit of warmth Asanga turns back to give the reader, after laying out a long stretch of reasoning.

8. Each Perfection, Further Divided into Three Grades

Having spoken through the "modes of cultivation," Asanga then cuts open the content of each of the six perfections — each perfection is further subdivided into three grades — and with this cut, the inner structure of the six perfections is laid fully open.

Giving has three grades: the gift of dharma (giving the buddhadharma), the gift of goods (giving material things), the gift of fearlessness (giving safety). Discipline has three grades: the discipline of restraining conduct (holding what ought to be held), the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas (accumulating all the good), the discipline of benefiting sentient beings (benefiting beings). Patience has three grades: patience enduring harm from foes (bearing the harm others inflict on oneself), patience accepting suffering (bearing the suffering born of circumstance), patience examining the dharma (enduring the profound dharma, abiding in the truth-principle). Effort has three grades: armor-effort (raising great vows as if donning armor), application-effort (actually doing it), the effort that is without timidity, without regression, without complacency (not faint-hearted, not turning back, not self-satisfied). Meditation has three grades: abiding meditation (abiding in concentration), generating meditation (generating merits and supernormal powers), accomplishing-what-is-to-be-done meditation (accomplishing the work of benefiting beings). Wisdom has three grades: non-discriminating application-wisdom (the application cognition before the path of seeing), non-discriminating wisdom (the root cognition that directly realizes suchness), non-discriminating subsequently-attained wisdom (the subsequently-attained cognition that functions after rising from concentration). Six perfections each in three grades, eighteen grades each distinct.

9. Mutual Inclusion, What Is Countered, Benefits

Asanga next, from three angles, gives the six perfections an overall measuring.

First "mutual inclusion": can the six perfections subsume all wholesome dharmas? They can. Because all wholesome dharmas are either the mark of the six perfections, or accord with the six perfections, or flow out of the six perfections as the same kind (homogeneous outflow) — being their mark, according with them, and flowing out of them, they are naturally all subsumed. So once the six perfections are established, all wholesome dharmas are within them.

Then "what is countered": looked at in reverse, what are all defilements to the six perfections? They are the object countered by the six perfections. Defilement is the mark of what the six perfections counter, the cause of what they counter, the fruit of what they counter — whatever is defiled falls within the range of what the six perfections counter. Subsuming all wholesome dharmas on one side and countering all defilement on the other, the six perfections thus take in both sides, the defiled and the pure.

Last "benefits" (that is, the gains from cultivating the six perfections): a bodhisattva who cultivates the six perfections, even while still circling in birth-and-death, can call forth all manner of excellent fruits of recompense — wealth, rank, and sovereignty; birth into a noble house; vast retinue and following; the accomplishment of vast undertakings and applications; little affliction and harm, with a nature pure and lightly dusted; and good knowledge of all the crafts, treatises, and fields of learning; on to excellent rebirth without fault, all the way to sitting upon the seat of awakening, constantly able to perform every benefit for all sentient beings. This whole string is the "benefit" the six perfections bring.

10. Within a Single Perfection All Perfections Are Included, and the Closing Verse

Finally, Asanga draws the whole section together with a graceful closing. He notices something: when the Buddha teaches, sometimes he speaks only of "giving," sometimes only of "discipline," sometimes only of "patience." Why this picking out of a single perfection? What intent lies behind it? Asanga reveals the answer: because in the actual application of cultivating any one perfection, the other five are all there within it, mutually helping it to completion — when cultivating giving, discipline, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom are all quietly assisting; and so too when cultivating discipline. Within a single perfection, all the perfections are included. Just for this reason, the Buddha can take the name of any single perfection and let it stand for the whole six. This is called "mutual determination."

Having spoken it all through, Asanga, as is his custom, closes the section with a summarizing verse (uddana). The "uddana" sets a section's headings into an easy-to-recite gathering-verse, so the reader can hold the skeleton firm — the Mahayanasamgraha mostly closes each section this way. This summarizing verse runs: "Number, mark, and sequence; etymology, cultivation, distinction; inclusion, what is countered, merit, mutual determination — these are to be known." The ten items in this short line are precisely the ten gates this section has expounded in order: the number of the six perfections (why six), the mark (the six excellences), the sequence, the etymology, the five modes of cultivation, the distinction (three grades), mutual inclusion, what is countered, merit (the benefits), mutual determination — one word per gate, not one left out.

Looking back over this section, Asanga has made the "six perfections" into the two ends of a single bridge: they are at once the cause that ferries a person into cognition-only, and the fruit that flows out naturally once one has entered cognition-only. Why six (three obstructions, three causes), on what grounds they are called reaching the far shore (the six excellences), where the names come from (etymology), how they are cultivated (the five modes), what the cultivating mind is (the six dispositions), how each divides into three grades, and how they mutually include one another — within this one section, it is all expounded. What remains most worth pondering again and again is still that "gratitude disposition": the true bodhisattva does not feel he is doing a kindness, but on the contrary gives thanks to sentient beings for granting him the chance to accomplish cultivation — this single turn of mind is already a miniature of the Mahayana's largeness of heart.

So this cultivation of the six perfections, subsumed under purified resolve, set into practice and placed within the bodhisattva's long path — what tiered, stage-by-stage distinctions will it show as the stages rise and fall? This is just what the next section, "The Distinctions in That Cultivation," goes on to expound in detail — the distinctions, deeper and shallower, that the cultivation of the six perfections takes on at each of the bodhisattva's ten grounds.

Later Reception

The next division expands the six perfections into ten as they become predominant across the grounds; divisions seven through nine then set discipline, concentration, and wisdom apart as the three higher trainings. The Bodhisattva Stage gives the wider treatment of the six, making this division the hinge of the later sequence.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The ten grounds in this division rest on the scriptural sequence of the Ten Grounds. The root treatise correlates ten grounds, ten ignorances, and ten aspects of the dharma-realm; the two ancient commentaries then explain what is countered and realized on each ground.

The previous chapter (Chapter Five) just finished telling us: the six perfections — giving, discipline, patience, vigor, meditation, and wisdom — are both the cause of awakening into mere-cognition and its fruit. But once we have said that, a very concrete question rises up: cultivating the same six perfections, a bodhisattva who has only just set out and a bodhisattva on the verge of buddhahood stand worlds apart. How is this "distinction in cultivation" to be set up? Exactly how many stages does this path to buddhahood divide into? What does each stage counter, and what does each stage realize?

This chapter is Asanga's direct answer to that question. What he sets before us is the single most famous progress-map in all of Mahayana: the ten bodhisattva grounds. From the Joyful Ground, the first foothold on the path of the noble ones, all the way up to the Dharma-Cloud Ground on the brink of buddhahood, the ten grounds are like ten steps of a staircase, marking out clear gradations along the long journey from the path of seeing to buddhahood. This chapter is the instruction manual for that map. What follows tracks Asanga's words, taking them passage by passage.

1. Why exactly "ten" grounds

Reading "ten grounds," you might first want to ask: why neither more nor fewer than exactly ten? Could it not be some other number? Asanga's answer holds the deepest hidden key of this whole chapter.

He says: the reality-realm of suchness is in itself of a single taste, without distinction — it does not divide into stages, does not divide into higher and lower; it is perfectly complete just as it is. The problem lies on our side. Ordinary beings, and even bodhisattvas who have already mounted the grounds, have their realization of this one same reality-realm screened, layer upon layer, by ten ignorances. Each time one layer of ignorance is peeled away, the reality-realm shows you one of its aspects; ten ignorances, ten aspects — and that is why ten grounds are set up: each ground counters one ignorance and realizes one portion of the reality-realm.

Hold this one sentence firmly; it is the key to the whole chapter: the ten grounds are not "ten different suchnesses," but "one same suchness, seen clearly to ten depths." So when Asanga next asks "how do these ten grounds come to be set up," his own answer is exactly: "in order to counter the ten obstructions to be countered, the ten ignorances" — it is in order to counter, one layer at a time, the ignorance that screens the reality-realm that these ten steps exist.

2. The reality-realm shows itself layer by layer: the tenfold reality-realm of the knowable

This is the subtlest place in the chapter. The one same reality-realm, across the ten grounds, gradually shows ten aspects, and Asanga names them ground by ground. As you read, do not take them as ten isolated terms; see them as a single light, each aspect deeper than the last, slowly illuminating the whole sky —

The first ground realizes the all-pervading meaning: suchness, it turns out, pervades all persons and all phenomena, present everywhere; what is broken is the ignorance that supposed suchness was not all-pervading. The second ground realizes the supreme meaning: suchness is most honored, most excellent, and so the bodhisattva upholds discipline to the utmost, allowing not the slightest blemish to consort with it. The third ground realizes the outflow-of-the-excellent meaning: what flows forth in equal measure from suchness is the most excellent teaching, and so the bodhisattva spares not even his own body for the sake of the Dharma, seeking wide learning. The fourth ground realizes the meaning of no appropriation: suchness is not grasped as "mine," and so the bodhisattva lets go of even the most subtle clinging to the Dharma. The fifth ground realizes the meaning of the non-difference of the continuum: the continuum of self and other, of defiled and pure, is in its very nature equal and without distinction. The sixth ground realizes the meaning of undefiled purity: the dependently-arisen is in its nature undefiled, and so it is called "pure." The seventh ground realizes the meaning of the non-difference of the manifold phenomena: the myriad distinct teaching-gates return to a single taste, with no mark to be grasped. The eighth ground realizes the meaning of neither increase nor decrease: suchness neither increases nor decreases as defilement or purity comes and goes — and at this ground one also gains, attendant upon it, two further bases of mastery, mastery over appearance and mastery over the land (the power to manifest forms and lands at will). The ninth ground realizes the meaning of the basis of mastery over wisdom: it gains the basis of the wisdom of mastery, teaching the Dharma without obstruction. The tenth ground realizes the meaning of the basis of mastery over activity: its work of liberating beings attains great mastery, and it gains the bases of mastery over the gates of total-retention (dharani) and the gates of concentration (samadhi) — total-retention and meditative absorption arising spontaneously, of themselves.

Each of the ten aspects is deeper than the one before, and so the reality-realm comes to be recognized in full, layer by layer. Asanga reprises these ten aspects once more in three verses — "the all-pervading, the supreme meaning, and the outflow-of-the-excellent meaning, likewise the no-appropriation meaning, the meaning of the non-difference of the continuum, the meaning of undefiled purity, the meaning of the non-difference of the manifold, the meaning of neither increase nor decrease, and the meaning of the four bases of mastery" — gathering the ten aspects into a single, memorable framework. The closing line — "within the reality-realm there are ten undefiled ignorances; to counter these obstructions to be countered, the ten grounds are set up" — draws the whole thread, "ten aspects — ten ignorances — ten grounds," back into one place: it is because there are these ten layers of ignorance within the reality-realm to be broken that these ten grounds are established.

3. A crucial distinction: the same ignorance is not defiling for the two vehicles, yet IS defiling for bodhisattvas

Having laid out the ten aspects and the ten ignorances, Asanga immediately adds a sentence that is easy to read past yet extremely important: these "ten ignorances" are not counted as "defiling" for sravakas and pratyekabuddhas; for bodhisattvas, however, they ARE "defiling."

How can the same layer of ignorance be no hindrance to one person yet something the other absolutely must break? Asanga's meaning is this: these ignorances do not obstruct "liberating oneself from birth-and-death" — and liberation from birth-and-death is precisely the goal of the sravaka and the pratyekabuddha; since they do not hinder that goal, they are naturally not counted as defiling for the two vehicles. But these same ignorances do gravely obstruct "knowing all things comprehensively, perfectly accomplishing buddhahood" — and that is precisely the bodhisattva's goal; since they hinder what the bodhisattva seeks, for the bodhisattva they are a defilement that absolutely must be broken.

In their commentaries here, the two ancient masters Vasubandhu and Asvabhava both follow the root treatise in expounding it this way, and they make concrete the reason "why it is defiling for the bodhisattva": these ten ignorances belong to the category of the obstruction to the knowable — what they obstruct is the great awakening of "knowing all things comprehensively," not "one's own liberation." So the same layer of ignorance, because the aspiration differs, has its standing reversed. This one distinction in fact points to the deepest dividing line between the Great Vehicle and the two vehicles: it lies not in "whether or not the afflictions are severed," but in "how far one means to go" — if you seek only your own liberation, these ignorances may go unbroken; if you mean to attain buddhahood, not one of them can be evaded.

4. The ten ground-names, each with its own provenance

Asanga took none of the ten ground-names at random; he turns back and accounts, ground by ground, for where each name comes from. Read these ten names in sequence, and they themselves form a single ascending line, from the first realization of the noble station to the great cloud that covers all obstruction —

The first ground is named "Joyful": because here, for the first time, one truly gains the capacity to "accomplish the benefit of self and other," and, first mounting the noble station, one is filled with great joy. The second ground is named "Stainless": because one thoroughly leaves behind the stain of violating discipline. The third ground is named "Radiant": because it becomes the basis of the non-regressing concentrations (the equipoises of attainment and absorption) and the basis of the radiance of the great Dharma, and so it is as if giving off light. The fourth ground is named "Blazing": because the thirty-seven factors of awakening are like a mass of flame, burning up every obstruction clean. The fifth ground is named "Hard-to-Conquer": because it can harmonize into one — and bring into accord — the "wisdom of the supramundane true-meaning" and "mundane wisdom," two things by nature opposed and at odds with each other; supremely hard, yet accomplished, hence the name. The sixth ground is named "Manifest": because, relying on the wisdom of dependent arising, it can bring the perfection of wisdom directly before one, present in front. The seventh ground is named "Far-Reaching": because it reaches the very last station of that stretch of practice that still requires effortful exertion (beyond this, ascending further, one enters the ground of spontaneous, effortless functioning). The eighth ground is named "Immovable": because no appearance, no effortful practice, can shake it. The ninth ground is named "Good-Wisdom": because it gains the most excellent "unobstructed wisdom." The tenth ground is named "Dharma-Cloud": because it gains the great wisdom that "gathers and grasps all phenomena," holding within it measureless gates of total-retention and gates of concentration — just like a vast cloud, able to cover an obstruction as wide as space, and able to moisten and perfect the dharma-body. The name "Dharma-Cloud" is the cloud of majesty at the very end of the whole bodhisattva path. This is the one ready-made image Asanga uses in this chapter, needing no other added to it.

5. What counts as having "attained" a ground: the four marks of attainment

With the ground-names told, Asanga asks: what does it take to count as having "attained" a ground? He gives four levels —

The first is attaining resolve: giving rise to a deep faith and understanding in the state of that ground. The second is attaining right conduct: being able to carry out the ten kinds of right Dharma-conduct that accord with that ground. The third is attaining penetration — and this one is the most marvelous: once a bodhisattva penetrates the reality-realm at the first ground, he "can penetrate all the grounds comprehensively"; penetrate one, and one penetrates all. Why? Precisely as said before — the ten grounds realize one same reality-realm; since the first ground has already intimately realized the reality-realm, what the later grounds realize is no more than deeper aspects of that same reality-realm, and so penetration at one point puts the whole course within view. The fourth is attaining consummation: cultivating that ground to its ultimate perfection.

6. How these grounds are "cultivated": the five cultivations yielding five fruits

So how, concretely, does a bodhisattva "cultivate" within each ground? Asanga says: within every single ground, one walks on two legs — calm-abiding (samatha) and insight (vipasyana) — and the manner of cultivation is of five kinds:

First, comprehensive cultivation, gathering all merits together and cultivating them at once; second, markless cultivation, not grasping at appearances; third, effortless cultivation, accomplished spontaneously without exertion; fourth, intensifying cultivation, like a fire growing fiercer, diligent and non-regressing; fifth, never-satisfied cultivation, never resting content with what has already been gained.

These five cultivations bear five fruits, and Asanga matches them one to one: first, in moment after moment, dissolving away, bit by bit, the coarse substratum of latent tendencies that underlies a life (the basis of coarseness); second, leaving the various appearances behind and tasting the "joy of the Dharma" (the joy of the Dharma-garden); third, truly recognizing that radiance of the great Dharma, all-pervading, measureless, and without bound; fourth, on the side of purity, functioning spontaneously without conceptual construction and without appearance; fifth, in order to perfect the dharma-body, ceaselessly laying the groundwork for "the ever-higher cause of the next stage" (the ever-superior cause). Cultivation and fruit thus beget each other step by step, each level lifting up the one above it.

7. Why the six perfections here open out into "ten perfections": the latter four

Earlier, Chapter Five spoke of the six perfections. But by the time we reach the ten grounds, Asanga says that, because each ground is to be made "ever more excellent" and to bring out its own distinctive emphasis, the six perfections open out into the ten perfections — across the first six grounds, each takes one of the six perfections as its principal cultivation; in the latter four grounds, four further perfections are added. Which four are these latter four?

First, the perfection of skillful means: dedicating the roots of goodness amassed by the first six perfections, together with all sentient beings, toward the joint pursuit of unsurpassed perfect awakening. Second, the perfection of vows: giving rise to all manner of subtle, great vows, summoning excellent supporting conditions for the practice yet to come. Third, the perfection of powers: by the two powers of "discernment and cultivation," causing the first six perfections to function without interruption. Fourth, the perfection of wisdom: through the first six perfections accomplishing a sublime wisdom, by which one enjoys the joy of the Dharma oneself and ripens sentient beings.

Two things must be remembered here, lest the reading go astray. First: these latter four perfections are in fact all an unfolding of the "perfection of wisdom" (prajna) — Asanga states plainly that these four are to be understood as encompassed by the non-conceptual wisdom and the subsequently-attained wisdom of the perfection of wisdom. In other words, the ten perfections are not four extra things added on outside the six; they are branches and leaves opened out from the single perfection of wisdom. Second: it is not that a given ground cultivates only one given perfection; on the contrary, no perfection is left uncultivated — in truth, every ground cultivates all the perfections together; it is only that, ground by ground, one perfection stands out with special prominence. This whole body of teaching, Asanga says, is gathered within the "treasury of the perfections."

8. How long it takes to walk this path: the three incalculable great eons

The last question, and the one that makes one draw a breath: to walk the ten grounds to the end, cultivating to perfection — exactly how long does it take? Asanga's answer is the famous three incalculable great eons — three stretches of time too long to be counted; and he assigns these three stretches to five kinds of practitioner (five persons):

The first stretch (the first incalculable eon) is the span walked through by the person of resolute conduct — that is, the stage before mounting the grounds, cultivating by the force of resolve on the path of accumulation and the path of application. The second stretch (the second incalculable eon) is the span walked through by the person of purified, intensified, superior aspiration and the persons of conduct-with-appearance and conduct-without-appearance — corresponding to the stretch from the first ground up to the seventh. The third stretch (the third incalculable eon) is the span walked through by the person of effortless conduct — corresponding to the stretch from the eighth ground all the way up to the tenth, that final reach already entered upon the realm of spontaneous, effortless functioning.

Asanga closes with a verse that distills the marks of progress across these three great eons into four words: "purity, intensified power, firm resolve, ascent" — purity of aspiration (the purity of the intensified superior aspiration), intensification of power, firmness of resolve, and step-by-step ascent. These four words are the entire mark of progress of the bodhisattva who, across three great eons, advances from the first arising of the mind ever upward.

Closing

Looking back over this chapter, you find that Asanga has done something remarkable: he has taken the abstract "cultivating the six perfections" of Chapter Five and grounded it in a map with visible gradations. The ten grounds, it turns out, are not ten different destinations but one same sky of suchness, with the clouds peeled back layer by layer — each level breaking one ignorance and revealing one aspect of the reality-realm, each ground-name recording its place along the path. The "attainment" of a ground has four marks; the "cultivation" of each ground has five cultivations bearing five fruits; the six perfections here open out into ten, and the latter four are after all gathered back into the perfection of wisdom; and to walk the whole course takes three incalculable great eons, matched to five kinds of practitioner. In a word, this is the complete answer to "how many stages the path to buddhahood divides into, and what each stage breaks and realizes."

From the next chapter on, Asanga turns in a new direction: up to here he has spread out the "gradations" of the whole path for us to see; next, he returns to the content that has been cultivated all along on this path — the bodhisattva's three higher trainings: discipline, concentration, and wisdom. Chapter Seven first treats the first training, higher discipline, expounding in detail just where the bodhisattva's discipline differs from the sravaka's; then Chapter Eight, "higher mind" (concentration), and Chapter Nine, "higher wisdom" (wisdom), follow in turn. The ten grounds are the gradations of this path; the three trainings are the very work practiced upon it throughout — the two are but two faces of one thing.

Later Reception

This division receives the path of seeing from division four and the six perfections from division five, then supplies the ten-ground span within which the three higher trainings unfold. The chapter on the unsurpassed vehicle in Discerning the Middle and Extremes may be read alongside it without importing its divisions here.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The root treatise expressly refers the bodhisattva discipline to the Bodhisattva Stage and gathers it here under four excellences. The two ancient commentaries clarify the shared and unshared rules and, above all, the conditions governing the profound exceptions; this exposition does not turn a bounded exception into general permission.

By the time we reach Chapter 7, the map of the bodhisattva path has in fact already been drawn. The preceding Chapter 6 expounded the "ten grounds," laying out stage by stage the whole ladder one climbs from the first arising of the mind up to buddhahood. In the three chapters that follow, Asanga turns back to expound the practice that runs through this entire road — the three higher trainings: the higher training in discipline, the higher training in mind (concentration), and the higher training in wisdom. The word "higher" (增上) means "a level higher, more excellent": though they go by the same names — discipline, concentration, wisdom — the bodhisattva's set of all three stands a notch above the sravaka's. This chapter takes up the first training: discipline.

And so, underneath this chapter, the question it really has to answer surfaces plainly: the bodhisattva keeps discipline, and the sravaka keeps discipline too — so where exactly do these two kinds of discipline differ? Why is it that some things a sravaka may absolutely never transgress, the bodhisattva is on the contrary permitted to do?

Asanga's answer is crisp and clean: the bodhisattva's discipline is more excellent than the sravaka's, and it is more excellent in four respects — differentiation, the shared-and-unshared, vastness, and profundity. In what follows we will take these four excellences and open each one up, side by side.

First, though, one thing should be kept in mind, which explains why this chapter is so unusually short. Right at the start, Asanga openly sends the reader off to another treatise for the particulars: "as stated in the Bodhisattva Grounds, in the section on formally receiving the bodhisattva discipline" — that is, the chapter of the Yogacarabhumi that deals specifically with the bodhisattva discipline, where the detailed list of precepts all resides. He gives only the headings in this chapter. So this chapter reads like a synopsis, not a precept-manual; what it sets out to convey is not "which articles one should keep" but "on what grounds the bodhisattva's discipline stands higher than the sravaka's."

I. The First Excellence: Differentiation — the bodhisattva's discipline falls into three grades

The sravaka's discipline is principally the "discipline of individual liberation" (pratimoksa) — reining in one's own body and speech so they commit no evil, guarding this one body well, seeking personal liberation. The bodhisattva discipline is different: it falls into three grades of discipline, and the scope all at once opens out:

• The discipline of restraint — guarding body and speech against doing evil. At this level the bodhisattva and the sravaka are the same; what it speaks of is stopping evil.
• The discipline of gathering the good — actively cultivating and accumulating all the buddha-dharma. Asanga says this grade "is established in the sense of cultivating and accumulating all the buddha-dharma"; what it speaks of is doing good.
• The discipline of benefiting beings — actively maturing all sentient beings. Asanga says this grade "is established in the sense of maturing all sentient beings"; what it speaks of is benefiting beings.

One stopping, one doing, one benefiting others. Notice the turn here — the bodhisattva's discipline does not count as fulfilled merely by "not doing bad things"; it further requires that you "must do good, must benefit beings." For the bodhisattva, to fail to benefit beings where benefit is called for is itself a kind of shortfall, a kind of transgression. Keeping oneself merely clean is, within the bodhisattva discipline, not enough. This is the first excellence: in scope alone, it already divides high from low against the sravaka.

II. The Second Excellence: Shared-and-Unshared — where it is the same as the sravaka's, and where it is not

The second excellence is argued in the finest detail, and it has to distinguish where the bodhisattva discipline is "shared" with the sravaka's and where it is "unshared." To follow this passage one must first sort "offences" into two classes:

• Natural offences — acts that are evil by their very nature, such as killing and stealing. These need not wait for the Buddha to lay down a precept; the moment they are done they are offences, because they are intrinsically bad.
• Prohibitory offences — acts not in themselves evil, which the Buddha set down as an extra measure to protect practitioners, such as certain fine points of deportment. Keeping them is a way of not slipping into trouble, but breaking one is not a case of the act itself being in any way evil.

With these two classes distinguished, Asanga's ruling is clear: as for natural offences, the bodhisattva never commits any — and on this point he is exactly the same as the sravaka, which is called "shared"; but as for those "quasi-prohibitory offences," the bodhisattva, on the precondition of "being able to benefit beings," should at times on the contrary do them — and on this point the sravaka holds rigidly fast while the bodhisattva has a permission, which is called "unshared." Hence an interesting crossover arises: for one and the same training-point, there are cases where "the sravaka counts as transgressing while the bodhisattva does not," and cases where "the bodhisattva counts as transgressing while the sravaka does not."

There is a further, more important distinction. The sravaka's discipline governs only the two karmas of "body and speech" — only when something is actually done or actually spoken does it count as a transgression. The bodhisattva's discipline, however, governs the three karmas of "body, speech, and mind" — the mere arising of one evil thought in the mind already counts, for the bodhisattva, as a transgression of discipline. Why so strict? Asvabhava, in his commentary, makes it explicit: this "mental transgression" refers to "merely the inward arising of evil deliberations such as craving, hatred, and harm" — the mere stirring in the mind of evil thoughts of this kind, greed, anger, harmfulness, even before they descend to body and speech, makes the bodhisattva a transgressor. Vasubandhu says the same: "the bodhisattva can transgress in mind as well, which the sravaka cannot," because this is something the sravaka discipline does not contain. The principle is this: the bodhisattva's aim is to benefit all sentient beings, and a single selfish evil thought has already turned away from that direction.

So this second excellence Asanga sums up in a single sentence: whatever karma of body, speech, or mind "is able to benefit beings and is also without fault," the bodhisattva should do it all, should train in it all. Shared in the natural offences; unshared in the prohibitory offences and the discipline of mind — this is the second excellence.

But here Vasubandhu adds one fine discrimination, so the reader will not get "able to benefit beings" wrong: it is not that anything done under the banner of benefiting beings is for that reason without fault. He gives an example — "or though it benefits, it is not without fault, as in handing over women and the like, or unlawful things, to another person": some acts look as if they are benefiting the other party, but in fact they thrust something improper upon a person, and such acts are still faulty; it is precisely to fence off such cases that the discipline specially spells out what does count as "without fault." So the six words "benefiting beings without fault" are to be read together with the "without fault" — not as some vague exoneration.

III. The Third Excellence: Vastness — four directions, all boundlessly vast

The third excellence speaks of the "vastness" of the bodhisattva discipline. Asanga calls it vast from four directions:

• Vastness of training-points — the kinds of precepts the bodhisattva must train in are measureless and boundless, not to be hemmed in by some mere few hundred articles.
• Vastness of merit — the merit produced by keeping this discipline is measureless and boundless.
• Vastness of intention — the heart that is held is to benefit and bring ease to all beings, not for a single self.
• Vastness of awakening — the ultimate goal it runs toward is unsurpassed perfect awakening, that is, buddhahood.

The discipline trained in, the merit accumulated, the heart held, the fruit aimed at — all four sides are vast beyond any limit — and so it is called the "excellence of vastness." The sravaka discipline guards the purity of one body and one lifetime; the bodhisattva discipline stretches open a scope spanning the whole realm of beings and the whole of future time. This is the third excellence.

IV. The Fourth Excellence: Profundity — the deepest side, and the side that most demands caution

With the fourth excellence we touch the deepest side of the bodhisattva discipline, and also the side most easily misunderstood; this is, moreover, the famous hard problem in the study of discipline down the ages: the bodhisattva discipline's "permission."

Asanga's own words run thus: bodhisattvas who possess "skill in means" can "perform the ten kinds of karma such as killing, yet be without offence, give rise to measureless merit, and swiftly realize unsurpassed perfect awakening." That is to say — a bodhisattva, in the condition of being furnished with skill in means, even in doing such things as "killing," which are by nature ten evil karmas, not only incurs no offence but on the contrary gives rise to measureless merit and swiftly realizes the unsurpassed buddha-fruit.

This sentence carries enormous weight, and the whole crux hinges on those words "skill in means." It is no empty phrase. Asvabhava, in his commentary, spells this condition out very concretely — he says "by being of this category, skilled in means" refers to the bodhisattva's "subsequently-attained marvelous wisdom in accord with compassion and vow": it rests upon great compassion and the original vow being in accord, together with the discriminating power of the subsequently-attained wisdom. Going further, he breaks open those "ten kinds of karma" and explains them: the so-called "latter three" refer to the upright mind that has reversed the three of craving, hatred, and wrong view — "delighting in the good dharma, abhorring the unwholesome, seeing into all wrong natures"; the "former seven" are the seven karmas of body and speech. He says it is precisely "in reliance on this [upright mind] that one performs the former seven, killing and the rest, without offence, gives rise to measureless merit, and swiftly realizes awakening." Asvabhava even clarifies where that one thought of mind arises: when such evil karma of the bodhisattva arises, it is "without offence because it cannot summon suffering, and gives rise to measureless merit because it can aid the path."

Asanga then gives two further cases, making this "profundity" more concrete still:

First, a bodhisattva may "display the two karmas of body and speech by transformation" — the karmas of body and speech manifested through the transformation body (i.e. by supernatural transformation); this too belongs to the profound sila (discipline). By this cause and condition, a bodhisattva may become a king and display the doing of all manner of things that vex and harm beings, and thereby establish those beings within the vinaya (the law and measure of discipline).

Second, a bodhisattva further "displays all manner of birth-stories (jataka)" — in the various deeds of past lives, displaying the vexing and oppressing of the remaining beings, while in truth gathering them in: first causing the other's mind to give rise to deep pure faith in the dharma, then gradually leading him toward maturity.

This "seeming to vex and harm, yet in fact gathering and converting," together with the karmas of body and speech manifested by supernatural transformation, all belong to the profound discipline. Asanga closes with a final line: "this is called the profound excellence of the sila in which the bodhisattva trains."

Here it should be stated plainly: as for this "permission" above, its "without offence" condition is one that Asanga set down and Asvabhava elaborated — resting upon the subsequently-attained marvelous wisdom in accord with compassion and vow, resting upon the basis of that upright mind of the "latter three" that has reversed craving, hatred, and wrong view, resting upon "not summoning suffering, able to aid the path." These are the conditions stated by the classical masters; the text does not supply a new rule for re-weighing them. Asanga has himself already set "skill in means" in place there. Precisely because this exception is so deep and fine, it remains the point in bodhisattva discipline that most demands caution.

Conclusion

Looking back over this chapter, Asanga, in the space of a single short synopsis, states crisply and cleanly "why the bodhisattva discipline is excellent" — differentiation (three grades: stopping evil, doing good, benefiting beings), the shared-and-unshared (natural offences shared, quasi-prohibitory offences permitted; and the bodhisattva is held to discipline even in the stirring of a thought), vastness (training-points, merit, intention, awakening, all four sides vast), and profundity (when furnished with skill in means, seeming to vex yet in fact gathering in, performing the ten karmas under permission yet without offence). Taking these four excellences together, Asanga's verdict is: the bodhisattva's "discipline of sila and restraint" far surpasses the sravaka's.

As for the finer precepts, Asanga again and again sends one back to two places — at length to the discipline section of the Bodhisattva Grounds, and also "as stated in the Vinaya-ghosa Vaipulya Sutra." This chapter of his carries only the headings.

From Chapter 8 onward, Asanga will go on to expound the second of the three higher trainings — the higher training in mind, that is, "concentration." With body, speech, and mind held to their direction by discipline, the next step is to gather and settle this very mind: those profound samadhis such as "Surangama" and "Akasagarbha" are precisely the terrain the next chapter opens up.

Later Reception

This division sets discipline apart from the six perfections as the higher training in discipline; divisions eight and nine complete the set with higher mind and higher wisdom. The Bodhisattva Stage provides the fuller detail of the three collections of pure discipline, while this division retains its fourfold outline.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

This division takes Mahayana Dharma as the object and unfolds six distinctions of bodhisattva concentration. One set of veiled statements is introduced as scripture, but no independently locatable Chinese source is presently known; the two ancient commentaries require each surface statement to be read with the answer that discloses its intent.

Of the three higher trainings, the previous chapter finished teaching the first — moral discipline (戒). This chapter takes up the second training: concentration (定). The treatise does not call it "concentration"; it calls it the higher training in mind (增上心學). Concentration is the work of gathering in and settling this very mind, so it is named after "mind"; and because it is a training of the mind that rises above the ordinary, ascending stage upon stage, it is called "higher."

But the moment this chapter opens, a problem is blocking the way: concentration is cultivated by non-Buddhists too, and by the two vehicles too; when the bodhisattva sits down and enters concentration, on what grounds is it superior to the concentration of the sravaka and the pratyekabuddha? And there is something thornier still: as this chapter reaches its depths, Asanga draws out a whole string of sayings that sound utterly upside-down — he says "killing" is a bodhisattva's practice, "having greed" is a Buddha-dharma, and giving requires that there be "not the slightest thing to give." How can the Buddha-dharma contain talk like this, which sounds as if it were endorsing evil, as if it were contradicting itself?

These two questions are exactly what this chapter sets out to answer. Asanga's answer is finely layered: he first uses the six points of difference to show precisely where the bodhisattva's concentration differs from that of the two vehicles; then, working outward from the sixth difference, "activity," he goes on to the great spiritual powers that can shake the world, and the ten difficult practices, and finally lands on that string of upside-down sayings — namely, "awakening-to-hidden-intent in secret words" (隨覺祕密言詞) and the profound Buddha-dharma (甚深佛法). The first half teaches the essence of concentration (what kind of concentration it is); the second half teaches the function of concentration (what this concentration can accomplish) — and the reach of that function runs straight into the inconceivable domain of a Buddha. What follows expounds Asanga's words in order.

1. The bodhisattva's concentration differs from that of the two vehicles in six places

Asanga first asks himself a question: the superiority of the higher training in mind — "how is it to be seen"? How can the superiority of the bodhisattva's concentration be made out? His answer is: it should be known briefly through six points of difference. That is to say, even though it is the same act of entering concentration, the bodhisattva's concentration differs sharply from that of the two vehicles in six respects. We take them one by one.

The first is difference of object (所緣差別). The "object" is the thing the concentrating mind takes hold of and settles upon. When the two vehicles enter concentration, they mostly take as object the field of their own liberation; the bodhisattva's concentration "takes the Mahayana dharma as its object" — it takes hold of the whole body of the Great Vehicle's teaching. From the very start, the scale of what is faced is already different.

The second is difference of kinds (種種差別). The bodhisattva's concentration is not one kind but "kinds beyond measure." Asanga names a few that have famous names: the Mahayana-Radiance samadhi, the King-of-Concentrations-Gathering-Merit samadhi, the Worthy-Guardian samadhi, and the Heroic-March (健行) samadhi (the "Heroic-March" is the well-known Suramgama of the scriptures; Xuanzang took its sense and rendered it 健行 — a great concentration that advances valiantly straight ahead, irresistible in whatever direction it turns). And this is only the ones with nameable names, let alone the countless, measureless rest. The concentration of the two vehicles has nothing of this abundance.

The third is difference of counteraction (對治差別), and this point is the most crucial — and the first stirring moment of this chapter. "Counteraction" means what the concentration is set to "cure" and "remove." The bodhisattva's concentration is "the cognition that takes the common character of all dharmas as its object" — with a wisdom able to take hold of the character shared in common by all dharmas, it does its counteractive work; and as for the manner of the counteraction, Asanga uses a most vivid comparison: "by the principle of driving out a peg with a peg (以楔出楔), it expels all the obstructive coarse-heaviness within the alaya-consciousness."

These four words, "driving out a peg with a peg," are the simile this chapter gives of itself, and must not be passed over. A carpenter wants to pull out an old peg jammed fast in the wood. Yanking it directly does no good — what does he do? He takes a fresh peg and drives it in alongside, and as the new peg goes in, the old peg is forced out. The bodhisattva's counteraction of the defilements works on exactly this principle: in the alaya-consciousness (the most fundamental consciousness, lying at the base of all experience, holding the storehouse of all seeds), there has accumulated the "coarse-heaviness (麁重)" of various obstructions — that is, the coarse, sluggish, weighing-down force of defiled habit-energy that leaves one unfree. To remove it, one does not simply "press down" on emptiness; rather, one takes that pure cognition which holds the common character of all dharmas and drives it in as a fresh peg, forcing out one by one the old defiled seeds held in the storehouse consciousness. Once this peg of pure cognition goes in, that peg of defiled coarse-heaviness loosens and comes out — this is where the very heart of the bodhisattva's concentration-training lies.

The fourth is difference of capacity (堪能差別). "Capacity" means whether this concentration has the strength to "shoulder it and carry it through." Once people of the two vehicles grow attached to the bliss of concentration, they are often bound by that bliss and unwilling to come out. Not so the bodhisattva: "dwelling in the bliss of meditative absorption, he takes birth wherever he wishes" — though he too abides in the bliss of meditation, he can, "wherever he wishes," take birth to liberate beings in whatever place he chooses, entirely unbound by the bliss of concentration. This is precisely the bodhisattva's capital for "coming again on the strength of his vow."

The fifth is difference of evoking (引發差別). The bodhisattva's concentration can "evoke unobstructed spiritual powers throughout all world-systems" — it can give rise to spiritual powers that pervade all worlds without the slightest hindrance. And this connects on to the sixth difference.

The first five have already opened up the whole scale of the bodhisattva's concentration. But what Asanga truly means to expound at length is the sixth.

2. The sixth, "difference of activity," part one: concentration can shake the world

The sixth is called "difference of activity (作業差別)." "Activity" means what this concentration can "do," what great function it can set in motion. The first five spoke of the essence and scale of concentration; this sixth speaks of its marvelous function — and this gate is utterly vast and deep, the centerpiece of this chapter. Asanga begins from the "great spiritual powers."

The bodhisattva's concentration can evoke all manner of miraculous transformations, which Asanga lists off in one breath: it can shake the great earth; can blaze forth radiance and flame; can fill all about with pervading light; can display all manner of scenes and forms; can transform outer objects; can come and go freely; can roll up and unroll world-systems (rolling up the vast worlds and spreading them out again); can make "all forms and images enter into the body" (drawing all shapes and colors in within his own body); can "go among their own kind" (appearing in the body of whatever class of beings he goes among); can "appear or hide" — now manifest, now concealed; can act with full mastery, accomplishing as he wills; can "subdue others' spiritual powers," overpowering the supernormal force of others; can "bestow eloquence, mindfulness, and bliss," granting beings eloquence and the peace of right mindfulness; and can "send forth great radiance."

This whole string is the great spiritual power evoked by the bodhisattva's samadhi. But remember: the spiritual powers are only the opening of this "activity" gate. What is truly deep is still to come.

3. The sixth, "difference of activity," part two: ten things extremely hard yet able to be done

The activity of concentration can also uphold the "ten difficult practices (十難行)" — ten things extremely hard to accomplish, which the bodhisattva is nonetheless able to do. Asanga lists them one by one, and we narrate them in order.

First is the difficult practice of self-vowing (自誓難行): to dare to make the great vow to "take up unsurpassed awakening," shouldering the whole endless long road on one's own shoulders. Second is the difficult practice of not turning back (不退難行): on the road of birth-and-death, where all manner of suffering presses in from every side, he cannot be turned back from his heart set on the Way. Third is the difficult practice of not abandoning (不背難行): though all beings act wildly and commit every kind of wrong practice, the bodhisattva still never abandons or turns his back on them. Fourth is the difficult practice of being-present (現前難行): even toward beings who bear him enmity, he still, face to face, does all manner of benefiting deeds for them. Fifth is the difficult practice of being-undefiled (不染難行): born into the world, mingling among the crowd, he is yet undefiled by the world's various dharmas. Sixth is the difficult practice of resolute conviction (勝解難行): toward the Great Vehicle, vast and profound, though he "cannot yet fully fathom it," he is already able to give rise to deep conviction in it, unshakable. Seventh is the difficult practice of penetration (通達難行): he is able to penetrate "the selflessness of the person (補特伽羅無我)" and "the selflessness of dharmas (法無我)" — that neither person nor dharmas have a real self.

The eighth is the difficult practice of awakening-to-hidden-intent (隨覺難行): "with respect to the profound secret words spoken by all the Tathagatas, he is able to awaken to their hidden intent." The Buddha at times teaches the Dharma using a kind of "secret words," and the bodhisattva is able to "awaken-to-hidden-intent" — to follow along with them and break through to their true meaning. This item is the most special, and is treated on its own below.

Ninth is the difficult practice of neither departing nor being defiled (不離不染難行): he does not forsake birth-and-death, staying long within it to liberate beings, yet is not defiled by birth-and-death. Tenth is the difficult practice of applied effort (加行難行): he is able to cultivate that domain of the Buddhas — "abiding in liberation from all obstructions, to the very limit of birth-and-death exerting no contrived effort, yet ever giving rise to every benefit and welfare for all beings": abiding in the fruition-ground of liberation from all obstructions, to the end of future time and to the very edge of birth-and-death, without depending on any contrived effort, yet constantly raising up every benefiting deed for all beings.

Among the ten difficult practices, the eighth, "awakening-to-hidden-intent," is the threshold set highest of all, and it is the very key to the two passages below.

4. Awakening-to-hidden-intent in secret words: why the Buddha teaches with "upside-down talk"

This is the deepest passage of this chapter, and also the one most easily misread; one must steady oneself and read it slowly.

Asanga then asks: "In the difficult practice of awakening-to-hidden-intent, with respect to which secret words of the Buddha are those bodhisattvas able to awaken to their hidden intent?" — this awakening-to-hidden-intent, just which class of the Buddha's sayings is it that must be broken through? Here one must first set firm a single idea: when the Buddha teaches the Dharma, he sometimes does not speak according to the surface words but uses a kind of "profound secret words" — on the surface they sound like paradoxes, even like endorsements of evil, but at root every line points to the deepest right Dharma. Vasubandhu, in his commentary, marks the import of this passage in exactly this way: this question is set up "to display the intent of the secret words," and the text following will explain it line by line in turn. Asvabhava's commentary puts it even more bluntly: this awakening-to-hidden-intent means that, with respect to these secret words of the Buddha, one must "let go of the meaning heard and awaken to the meaning not heard" — drop that layer of meaning you hear on the surface, and awaken to that layer of hidden intent it did not state outright. Asvabhava further points out that this eighth difficult practice "is not yet fathomed in its meaning, and so must be explained again," and so he draws out the hidden intent line by line.

The first string of examples Asanga gives is giving (布施). The Buddha asks: "How is a bodhisattva able to practice giving?" Answer: "When a bodhisattva has not the slightest thing to give, yet practices giving widely throughout the measureless worlds of the ten directions." — What counts as a bodhisattva able to practice giving? It is when he "has not a single thing to give," and yet practices giving widely throughout the measureless worlds of the ten directions. Again it asks, "How does a bodhisattva give rise to deep conviction in giving?" Answer: "When a bodhisattva practices giving without relying on faith in the Tathagata." — What counts as his deep conviction in giving? It is when he gives "not leaning upon his faith in the Tathagata." And on it goes: "his giving is vast" because "he is apart from the notion of suoluo (娑洛)"; "his giving is pure" because "he wenbotuo (殟波陀) stinginess"; "his giving is ultimate" because "he does not abide in the ultimate" — he does not stagnate on the character of "having already become ultimate."

Here are two of Xuanzang's transliterated terms: "suoluo (娑洛)" and "wenbotuo (殟波陀)," both characters written from Sanskrit sound rather than renderings of sense. The treatise says only that "being apart from the notion of suoluo" grounds "vastness," and that "wenbotuo of stinginess" grounds "purity"; it gives no face-value gloss for either term. What can be established is limited to the root text's own relations: removing the "notion of suoluo" makes giving vast, and performing the "wenbotuo" upon stinginess makes giving pure. As it is with giving in this one perfection, Asanga says, "as with giving, so with discipline at the start and wisdom at the end, and the rest as the case may be should be known to be likewise" — from discipline through to wisdom, the remaining perfections all have this same hidden-intent way of speaking, "stating the highest affirmation in the tone of a negation."

Then comes a string more glaring still — the Buddha actually uses the very names of the ten evils, "killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech," to teach the bodhisattva's right practice. But here is what is crucial: every single line carries its own answer; the hidden intent is hidden in the answering clause. The lines below follow those answering clauses in order.

It asks "how does one kill (云何能殺生)," and answers "when one cuts off the flow and turning of beings' birth-and-death" — so-called "killing" is to cut off the round of beings' birth-and-death. It asks "how does one take what is not given (云何不與取, stealing)," and answers "when, where beings have no one to give, one gathers them in of itself" — it is, in a place where no one gives to beings, to gather them in and liberate them of itself. It asks "how does one commit sexual misconduct (云何欲邪行)," and answers "when, knowing of the desires that they are wrong, one cultivates the right practice" — it is, knowing of the desires that they are wrong, to practice what is right within them. It asks "how does one speak falsely (云何能妄語)," and answers "when amid the false one is able to say it is false" — it is, in the midst of the false, to declare truly that "it is precisely false." It asks "how does one beishuni (云何貝戍尼)," and answers "when one is able to dwell ever in the supreme abiding-in-emptiness"; it asks "how does one boluoshi (云何波魯師)," and answers "when one rightly abides on the far shore of the knowable" — here "beishuni (貝戍尼)" and "boluoshi (波魯師)" are again two transliterated terms. The treatise gives no face-value gloss; what can be established is limited to their answers: dwelling ever in the supreme abiding-in-emptiness and rightly abiding on the far shore of the knowable. It asks "how does one speak idle-and-divisive talk (云何綺間語)," and answers "when one rightly proclaims the various classes and distinctions of the dharmas" — it is rightly to proclaim the kinds and distinctions of the various dharmas. Again it asks "how is one able to be greedy (云何能貪欲)," and answers "when one again and again desires to realize for oneself the unsurpassed meditative absorption" — it is, again and again, to wish to realize for oneself the unsurpassed concentration. It asks "how is one able to hate (云何能瞋恚)," and answers "when, toward one's own mind, one rightly hates and harms all the defilements" — it is, toward all the defilements within one's own mind, rightly to "hate and harm" them. It asks "how is one able to hold wrong view (云何能邪見)," and answers "when, in every place, the pervading nature of wrongness is seen as it truly is" — it is to see through, as it truly is, that "wrongness" which pervades every place.

See: at every glaring word "evil," the answering clause turns it over into a matter of the right Dharma. This is precisely the wonder of "secret words": it deliberately uses the most jarring term, to force you to break through to that layer of true meaning beneath the surface. This is skillful means of the highest order, speaking of the domain and hidden intent on the level of one who has realized the Way — and failing to understand, mistaking the surface words, is precisely the greatest danger here, which is why it is listed as a "difficult practice," and why nothing but "awakening-to-hidden-intent" will do.

Here one rule must be held especially firm: Asanga's own treatise and the two commentaries have already set the conditions for these hidden intents. The answering clause is itself the gloss; Vasubandhu explains line by line, and Asvabhava "lets go of the heard meaning and awakens to the unheard." The inverted words must therefore be understood together with their own answering clauses, neither softened nor given another set of smoothing-over words. Here "killing" is cutting off the flow of birth-and-death, and "having hatred" is hating and harming the defilements. The hidden intent is already in the answering clause; there is no need to add to it.

5. The profound Buddha-dharma: even "having greed, having hatred" is a Buddha-dharma

The final passage pushes this paradox to its very limit. Asanga asks: "What is called the profound Buddha-dharma?" and at once lists ten items, each of which looks self-contradictory — and each one, again, carries its own gloss in the answering clause.

"The abiding dharma (常住法) is a Buddha-dharma," because "the dharma-body is abiding"; yet "the dharma of cessation (斷滅法) is also a Buddha-dharma," because "all obstructions are forever cut off and ceased." "The dharma of arising (生起法) is a Buddha-dharma," because "the transformation-body appears and arises"; "the dharma of attainment (有所得法) is a Buddha-dharma," because "the eighty-four thousand practices of beings and their counteractions can all be attained" — beings' various practices and their counteractions, every one available to be found.

Then comes the most startling string: "the dharma of having greed is a Buddha-dharma," "the dharma of having hatred is a Buddha-dharma," "the dharma of having delusion is a Buddha-dharma," and even "the dharma of the ordinary being (異生, the worldling) is a Buddha-dharma." How can the Buddha-dharma make room for "having greed," "having hatred"? The answering clause Asanga gives is: "because by his own vow he takes up beings who have greed, making them his own essence" — by the great vow of his original resolve, the Buddha takes up these beings who have greed and hatred entirely, drawing them in as his own essence; and so "having greed," as a matter, accomplishes a Buddha-dharma on the Buddha's level instead (having hatred, having delusion, and the ordinary being "should be known to be likewise" — the principle is the same). The hidden intent rests in the answering clause itself: "having greed" is a Buddha-dharma because the Buddha, by his own vow, takes up beings who have greed as his own essence.

At the last it draws back once more to the negative side: "the undefiled dharma (無染法) is a Buddha-dharma," because "having truly-perfected suchness, the stains of all obstructions cannot defile it"; "the unstained dharma (無污法) is a Buddha-dharma," because "though born in the world, the various worldly dharmas cannot stain it." In this gathering-in and letting-out, this affirming and denying, is shown precisely why the Buddha-dharma is "profound": it is framed by no concept on any one side — say "abiding," and it is that too; say "ceased," and it is that too; say "undefiled," and it is that too; say "having greed," and it is that too.

Conclusion

This chapter teaches the bodhisattva's concentration. The first five differences — of object, of kinds, of counteraction, of capacity, of evoking — set up the scale of the bodhisattva's concentration; the sixth, "difference of activity," then displays its marvelous function: from the great spiritual powers that shake the world, to the ten difficult practices, to awakening-to-hidden-intent in secret words and the profound Buddha-dharma. Asanga's last line gathers it all in: this concentration can "evoke the cultivation that crosses to the far shore, the ripening of beings, the purifying of Buddha-lands, and all the Buddha-dharmas" — it can bring one to the far shore, ripen beings, purify Buddha-lands, and accomplish the Buddha-dharma, and all of this too is the "activity" of the bodhisattva's samadhi.

The two passages on awakening to hidden intent and profound Buddha-dharmas establish a carefully bounded reading rule: the veiled statements given in this division must be read together with the answers that disclose their intent. One may not cling to the evil name or negative wording on the surface, but neither may one generalize from this passage and make all Buddha-dharma into paradoxical speech. The cognition that can read these statements through and directly meet reality beyond the division of subject and object has not yet been expounded head-on. It awaits —

the next chapter, "The Higher Training in Wisdom (增上慧學分)." The last of the three higher trainings is wisdom, and the height of wisdom is precisely that "non-discriminating cognition (無分別智)": the root cognition that, apart from all discrimination and reckoning, directly touches suchness. On what exactly does the power to read through the various upside-down hidden intents of this chapter rest? The answer lies in the next chapter.

Later Reception

Higher mind here receives the perfection of meditation and leads into higher wisdom in the next division. Its language of permanence and arising among the profound Buddha-dharmas also reappears in the final division’s profundities of the three bodies. The two sets of veiled speech remain bounded passages, not a universal rule for all Dharma.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The root treatise establishes non-discriminating cognition through sixteen perspectives and states that the perfection of wisdom is not different from it. The two ancient commentaries unfold its support, object, mode, and three phases; the exposition follows this structure without supplying a new taxonomy.

There are three higher trainings. Morality has been treated; concentration has been treated. Now, in this ninth chapter, Asanga comes to the last and highest of the three — wisdom. But the moment he opens his mouth, this "wisdom" arrives carrying a name that stops you short: non-conceptual wisdom (nirvikalpa-jnana), the wisdom free of all false discrimination.

And that forces out the question that really burns under this whole chapter: what kind of wisdom is this wisdom that is "free of all discrimination"? If it does not discriminate, how on earth can it accomplish anything — how can it carry out works and benefit beings?

This is not a question you can wave away. In ordinary speech, to "have wisdom" means to be able to tell things apart, to judge, to see clearly what is right and wrong and crooked and straight — isn't wisdom precisely the power to discriminate? How is it that at the very summit of the Dharma we are told instead not to discriminate? And further: a mind that "discriminates nothing whatever" — how does it differ from blanking out, from sleeping like the dead, from a block of wood? More damning still: once a Buddha has become a Buddha, there remain countless beings to liberate and countless Buddha-deeds to accomplish — and every one of those tasks calls for discrimination, for meeting each being where they are. How could a "non-conceptual" wisdom ever get such things done?

This whole chapter is Asanga taking that wisdom — the one that neither discriminates nor is incapable of anything — and laying it open layer by layer. His method is well-ordered: first he frames it from sixteen angles, then he marks it off from every kind of look-alike deadness with five "it is not"s, and then — the most brilliant stretch of the chapter — he brings out a whole string of similes that make this most abstract of things come alive. We follow Asanga's own words straight through.

1. Wisdom is just non-conceptual wisdom: sixteen framings

Asanga takes the question head-on from the start: "The excellence of the higher training in wisdom — how is it to be seen?" By what right do we call this higher wisdom excellent? His answer is a single phrase: non-conceptual wisdom. The summit of the three trainings is just this kind of root wisdom free of discrimination; and it is precisely the true body of that "perfection of wisdom" (prajna-paramita) among the six perfections.

But that one phrase is too dense; to recognize it, you have to light it from many directions. So Asanga lists, in a single breath, sixteen aspects — sixteen framing-angles: its own-nature (what it essentially is), its support (what it rests on and stands by), its cause-and-condition (what gives rise to it), its object (what it takes as the thing it apprehends), its mode of apprehension (the manner in which it knows), its sustaining, its companions, its maturation, its outflow, its emergence, its reaching-the-ultimate, the benefits of the three wisdoms — preparatory, fundamental, and subsequently-attained — its differences, its similes, its accomplishing of deeds without effort, and its profundity.

These sixteen aspects are not an idle list. Think of them as sixteen cameras set up at different positions: from essence, from origin, from object, from function, from depth — each takes one angle, and only together do they photograph this one wisdom through and through. Asanga says that once you have grasped all sixteen aspects, you "should know non-conceptual wisdom to be called the excellence of the higher training in wisdom." Below he attacks the most crucial aspect first — own-nature: what it ultimately is not.

2. First, mark off the boundary: it is "free of the five marks," it is not those things

To recognize something that is so easily mistaken, the surest way is first to nail down "what it is not." That is exactly what Asanga does — he says that non-conceptual wisdom takes "freedom from five kinds of mark as its own-nature," defining its essence by clearing away five things:

First, it is free of "no mental engagement." It is not a mind gone blank, dulled, taking no object at all. Blanking out is not it — blanking out lacks even "mental engagement" (attention), whereas this wisdom is vividly illumining the real; it is not at a standstill.

Second, it is free of "the stages that still have applied and sustained thought." "Applied thought" (尋, vitarka) is coarse deliberation; "sustained thought" (伺, vicara) is fine examination; these two are the two modes of the ordinary person's thinking. This wisdom has already gone beyond all applied and sustained thought; it is not inside that back-and-forth of guessing and weighing.

Third, it is free of "the quiescence of the cessation of perception and feeling." "The cessation of perception and feeling" is the attainment of cessation (滅盡定) — the mind-stopped absorption in which even feeling and perception are pressed down and out. This wisdom is not that kind of dead stillness; that one switches the mind off, while this one opens the mind to its utmost.

Fourth, it is free of "the own-nature of matter." Wood and stone also "do not discriminate," but theirs is the non-discrimination of the knowing-nothing, sensing-nothing. The non-discrimination of this wisdom is in no way the obtuse insentience of matter.

Fifth, it is free of "construing something other upon the true meaning." Even having realized suchness (真如, tathata), it does not turn around and add yet another thought — "I am now realizing suchness" — to weigh and figure. Add that one extra layer of construing, and you have fallen back into discrimination.

Clear away these five one by one, and what remains is non-conceptual wisdom. These five clauses are crucial: in one stroke they mark this wisdom off from "blanking out, the attainment of cessation, the no-perception state, wood and stone, and abstract speculation" — which shows that "non-discrimination" is by no means "having no awareness," but a supremely high awareness that raises no false discrimination, yet vividly illumines the real.

There is a point of the ancient masters' craft here worth noting. Why are all five framed with the word "free of," all as "it is not," rather than stating positively "it is such-and-such"? In his commentary Asvabhava singles out a methodological reason — he says this is "stating the essence and character of the wisdom by way of the negating gate (遮詮), because it cannot be stated by way of the affirming gate (表詮)." Meaning: non-conceptual wisdom itself cannot be pointed to positively by language (that would be "affirming predication"); it can only be pressed into view by negating and excluding one thing after another (that is "negating predication"). So all five marks are cast as "free of" — not because Asanga ran out of words, but because the very nature of this wisdom admits only the negating, not the affirming. Vasubandhu's commentary, for its part, follows the line straight and states the essence and character of the five "free of"s directly. The two ancient masters — one explaining "why only negation will serve," the other explaining "which five things are negated" — between them complete this aspect.

3. What it "is like": the several similes the treatise itself has ready

Saying "what it is not" is still not enough; the human heart always wants to grasp a "what it is like" before it can settle. So in the long stretch of "establishing-mark" verses, Asanga brings out a string of similes that make this wisdom come alive — and these similes, in passing, also point out the three layers of non-conceptual wisdom together: preparatory wisdom (the preparatory work before the path of seeing), fundamental wisdom (the very instant of directly realizing suchness), and subsequently-attained wisdom (the functioning that arises after emerging from absorption, to liberate beings).

First to appear is the simile of space (虛空), and Asanga uses it on three levels in a row. First level: "Like space, undefiled, is non-conceptual wisdom; the manifold gravest evils — by faith and resolute conviction alone." Space can contain everything yet is itself never stained; so too this wisdom — even facing beings' manifold and gravest evil deeds, it relies on that pure faith and resolute conviction and is not defiled. Second level: "Like space, undefiled... it is liberated from all hindrances, joined to accomplishment." Like space, undefiled — therefore it can be liberated from all hindrances and be joined to attainment. Third level: "Like space, undefiled... it walks constantly in the world, undefiled by worldly things." It walks constantly in the world, entering into the throng of beings to liberate them, yet from start to finish is not defiled by worldly things. The three levels deepen one upon another: from undefiled by evil deeds, to liberated from all hindrances, to entering the world undefiled — space's character of "containing all phenomena while never being touched itself" is just what this wisdom looks like as it walks through the defiled world.

Next comes the most vivid of all in this chapter — the simile of closing and opening the eyes (閉目開目). Asanga says: "As a person with eyes just closed — that is non-conceptual wisdom; and that same person opening the eyes again — subsequently-attained wisdom is just like that." A person with eyes just shut: all shapes and colors before them are blotted out — this is fundamental wisdom, the very instant of entering suchness, when all marks return to quiescence, like seeing nothing with the eyes closed. The same person opens the eyes again, and the manifold forms and colors reappear — this is subsequently-attained wisdom: after emerging from absorption, returning to the realm of things, seeing beings, seeing distinctions, so as to liberate them. He follows at once with space again to underscore it: "Know it to be like space — that is non-conceptual wisdom; and color-images appearing within it — subsequently-attained wisdom is just like that." Space itself is markless (fundamental wisdom), yet the manifold color-images appear right within that space (subsequently-attained wisdom). One closing, one opening; one empty, one appearing — that is the relation of fundamental and subsequently-attained wisdom: first the marks are blotted out and the nature seen, then the eyes open and functioning arises. They are not two wisdoms; they are the entering and the emerging of one and the same wisdom.

Then come the similes used to teach the "sequence of the three wisdoms" — the mute, the fool, the five (consciousnesses) / manas. Asanga lines up several sets in a row: "As a mute seeking the meaning, as a mute just receiving the meaning, as one not mute receiving the meaning — the three wisdoms are illustrated thus"; then again with "a fool," and with "the five (consciousnesses) / manas" each as a set; and at the last, the set "as one who has not yet understood a treatise — seeking the treatise, receiving the teaching, the meaning." These all teach one same thing in three stages. Take "a mute wishing to say something" as the figure: the mute understands inwardly and wishes to speak (seeking — illustrating preparatory wisdom pressing toward the path); is just then receiving that meaning (just receiving — illustrating fundamental wisdom in its direct realization); and, were he not mute, could speak it out (able to receive / able to utter — illustrating subsequently-attained wisdom emerging and able to function). "The fool" and "the five consciousnesses and manas" run the same three-beat frame: seeking → just receiving → able to utter. In other words, preparatory wisdom is "still outside the door, pressing toward"; fundamental wisdom is "arrived in person, just now receiving"; subsequently-attained wisdom is "having received, able to turn it out into use." The sequence of the three wisdoms lies hidden in these three states of "a mute wishing to speak."

Last comes the simile that teaches "how one can still accomplish deeds even after becoming a Buddha" — the wish-gem and heavenly music (末尼天樂) — and this one answers exactly the sharpest doubt we raised at the start. Asanga says: "Like the wish-gem (mani) and heavenly music, accomplishing their own work without a thought, so too the manifold Buddha-deeds are accomplished, ever apart from thought." The wish-gem mirrors forth every color without "raising a thought" to mirror them; the instruments of heavenly music sound of themselves without "stirring an intention" to play. Both accomplish their work of themselves, without relying on deliberate mental engagement. The Buddha's manifold work of liberating beings is just so: once one has become a Buddha, the work of benefiting beings flows out spontaneously, effortlessly, "ever apart from thought" — there is no need to raise again a discriminating thought of "whom shall I go and liberate." This is the fifteenth of the sixteen aspects: accomplishing deeds without effort.

Here the opening question — "how can the non-discriminating accomplish anything?" — gets its positive answer: precisely because it is non-discriminating, it can be effortless; precisely because it need raise no thought, the work, on the contrary, becomes pervasive and spontaneous — just as the gem mirrors all colors without picking and choosing, and the heavenly music sounds its tune without exertion.

Then Asanga drives this wisdom's paradoxical nature to its sharpest point with a single verse: "Not in this, not in another; not wisdom, yet it is wisdom; with its object it has no difference — wisdom becomes non-discriminating." These lines must be bitten down on word by word and not loosened. It is not in "this," nor in "another"; it is "not wisdom, yet it is wisdom" — say it is wisdom, and it is not like that ordinary wisdom of ours that discriminates; say it is not wisdom, and it is plainly the highest wisdom of all. With the object it takes, it has "no difference" — wisdom and object dissolve into one taste, and that is just why it is called "non-discriminating." This way of speaking — "not mind yet it is mind," "not wisdom yet it is wisdom" — recurs further on when the support is treated; it is the signature utterance of this chapter, and must not be altered or straightened out into something smoother to say.

4. By what right can it "not discriminate": because the object was never there

Reading this far, a deeper question arises: why is this wisdom able to not discriminate? Is it forcibly pressing discrimination down? Asanga's answer is flat: not pressing — the object simply had nothing to discriminate in the first place. If the thing to be discriminated was never there, then "discrimination" has nothing to work on. He frames another string of verses to establish this point —

First, one object seen differently. "Hungry ghosts, animals, humans, gods — each according to their kind, the same thing is taken by minds differently; therefore the object is granted not real." The very same "thing" is seen as a different appearance by hungry ghosts, animals, humans, and gods (the same stream of water is seen by hungry ghosts as pus and blood, by humans as water, by gods as lapis lazuli). The same "object," following the difference in mind, appears as a different mark — which shows the "object" is not something real standing out there objectively, but is transformed along with consciousness.

Second, dream-images and reflections. "Concerning past events and the like, in dream-images and the two reflections, though the object is not real, the appearance of the object is established." The image in a dream, the reflection in a mirror, the past event in memory — the object taken is plainly not real, yet the appearance of the object arises just as vividly all the same. Which shows that the object need not truly exist and can still appear vividly before us.

Third, the proof by reductio. "If the object's object-nature were established, there would be no non-conceptual wisdom; and if this were absent, the realization of Buddhahood would be unreasonable." This step is forced out: suppose the "object" really had its own self-existence — then there could be no "non-conceptual wisdom" at all (since this wisdom is established precisely by clearing away the real object); and without this wisdom, "realizing Buddhahood" would have nothing to stand on either. So either you grant that the object was never there — making room for this wisdom, making room for becoming a Buddha — or you grant that the object is real, in which case even Buddhahood falls through.

Fourth, the object turns with the mind. "Bodhisattvas who have gained mastery, by the power of resolute conviction, accomplish as they wish — earth and the rest become so." A bodhisattva who has gained mastery can, by sheer "power of resolute conviction," turn earth, water, fire, and wind into whatever forms are wished; one who has gained concentration can likewise transform objects ("one who has gained concentration is likewise," "contemplating all phenomena, they all appear according to the meaning"). If the object were dead-real, how could it possibly turn with the mind? Which shows it was turning with the mind all along.

Fifth, wisdom and object both dissolved. This is the last and most thoroughgoing step: "When non-conceptual wisdom is present, no object appears at all; know that there is no object, and by this there is no consciousness either." When non-conceptual wisdom is truly active, every "object" no longer appears; and the "object" being gone, the "consciousness" that originally stood up only by resting on the "object" goes too — object and consciousness dissolve together. Note this: here even the "consciousness" of "cognition-only" is finally emptied out as well. The ultimate of cognition-only is not stopping at "only a consciousness remaining," but the dissolving-together of object and consciousness into one equal taste — and this is the deepest layer to which this chapter drives "cognition-only."

5. Prajna is just non-conceptual wisdom: cultivated to fullness only by leaving the five places

After this great circuit, Asanga turns back and points out one thing that brings it home with a jolt: the "perfection of wisdom" (prajna-paramita) everyone knows best, and the "non-conceptual wisdom" expounded all along this road, are simply the same thing — prajna is just non-conceptual wisdom, with no difference.

Then how does a bodhisattva abide in prajna and cultivate it? Asanga says one must be "joined to no place" (非處相應) — not falling onto any one biased, clung-to "place." Concretely, one must keep away from five places: first, away from the non-Buddhist tradition's "place" of self-grasping; second, away from the still-discriminating "place" of the bodhisattva who has not yet seen suchness; third, away from the "place" of the two extremes, samsara and nirvana; fourth, away from the "place" of being content with merely cutting off the hindrance of afflictions (settling for the lesser fruit); fifth, away from the "place" of disregarding beings' welfare and hiding oneself away in the nirvana-realm without remainder. Only by leaving these five places is prajna cultivated to fullness.

See how thoughtfully these five are laid out — they mark out, one by one, the pits each party must avoid: the ordinary person (self-grasping), the unawakened bodhisattva (still discriminating), the two vehicles (falling to the two extremes, cutting off only the afflictions), and the self-finisher (abandoning beings to enter quiescence). Leaving the five places is both a set of road-signs and a sieve.

6. How the bodhisattva's wisdom differs from the sravaka's: five differences

Cultivating wisdom alike, where exactly does the bodhisattva's wisdom differ from the sravaka's? Asanga gathers it up in five differences —

One, the difference of non-discrimination. The bodhisattva is free of discrimination toward all phenomena — the aggregates and the rest; the sravaka still stops at the level of discriminating the marks of phenomena. Two, the difference of not-a-small-portion. The bodhisattva penetrates suchness, enters all the realms of the knowable, and works to liberate all beings universally — not taking only a small portion; the sravaka's reach is only a small portion. Three, the difference of non-abiding. The bodhisattva takes "non-abiding nirvana" (無住涅槃) as the place of abiding — neither abiding in samsara nor abiding in nirvana; the sravaka abides within nirvana. Four, the difference of finality. Even within the nirvana-realm without remainder, the bodhisattva's wisdom "has no cutting-off and no exhaustion" and is never severed; the sravaka's wisdom comes to rest. Five, the difference of unsurpassedness. There is no other vehicle that can surpass it.

A final verse gathers these five marks into one line: "Having great compassion as their substance, by the five marks the supreme wisdom — among the worldly and supramundane fullnesses, this is declared the highest and farthest." The bodhisattva's wisdom, having great compassion as its substance, becomes by these five marks the highest and farthest supreme wisdom among all worldly and supramundane fullnesses. This is the most fundamental divide between Mahayana wisdom and the wisdom of the two vehicles: the sravaka's wisdom finishes the self; the bodhisattva's wisdom, strung through by a single thread of great compassion, must carry all beings the whole way home.

7. A down-to-earth closing question: if the bodhisattva has gained mastery, why do beings still suffer want?

With the three trainings expounded, Asanga adds a thoroughly down-to-earth question, one you cannot help but concede: if the bodhisattva is already complete in the merit of morality, concentration, and wisdom, and has gained great mastery over wealth and station, then why are there still so many in the world who suffer poverty and want? Why does the bodhisattva not simply give a universal bestowal and make everyone rich?

Asanga's answer carries real depth — he lists five reasons, showing that the bodhisattva's wisdom is no indiscriminate kindness but sees clean through: first, some beings have a "grave karmic hindrance" with respect to wealth and station, so that even forced upon them it cannot be used or worked off; second, giving them wealth and station would, on the contrary, obstruct their giving rise to wholesome states — in ease, people readily grow heedless and forget the path; third, letting them lack for a while is precisely what presses out their thought of "weariness of the world and a wish to practice"; fourth, giving them wealth and station becomes their capital for doing evil (a cause for amassing unwholesome states); fifth, giving them wealth and station, they gain power and turn to harming and troubling yet more beings.

So — the bodhisattva does not fail to give; rather, the bodhisattva gives with wisdom. Whether to give, and whether giving would help or harm, the bodhisattva sees clearly. This question closes things off beautifully: it pulls the most abstract "wisdom" of all the way back down to the most concrete act of "giving," telling you that true wisdom carries insight even into a single thought of giving — and this is just what non-conceptual wisdom looks like when it functions on the plane of things, within subsequently-attained wisdom.

Looking back over this chapter, you find how beautifully Asanga has answered that burning question at the start. The wisdom "free of all discrimination" is not blanking out, not the attainment of cessation, not wood and stone (free of the five marks); it is like space, containing all phenomena while undefiled itself, and like a person who closes the eyes and then opens them — first blotting out marks, then arising into function (fundamental and subsequently-attained wisdom); the reason it can not discriminate is that the object was never there, and object and consciousness dissolve together (cognition-only without object); it just is prajna (cultivated to fullness by leaving the five places); it has great compassion as its substance and far surpasses the self-finishing wisdom of the sravaka; and the bodhisattva who has truly gained this wisdom carries insight even into an act of giving. With this, the "fullness of merit" of the three higher trainings — morality, concentration, and wisdom — is wholly expounded.

But the practice is not yet at its end. Once the three trainings are full, two kinds of "fruit" must be borne. The next chapter, "The Fruit of Severance," will teach what this whole course of practice finally severs and what that severance makes manifest — the transformation of the basis (轉依, asraya-paravrtti) disclosed when the two hindrances of affliction and the knowable are burned away, that great liberation which abides neither in samsara nor in nirvana: non-abiding nirvana.

Later Reception

The Thirty Verses carries forward non-discriminating cognition as supramundane cognition; division ten makes it the agency of transformation of the basis, and division eleven displays cognition at the fruit-stage. The Cheng weishi lun later expands transformation and the four cognitions without replacing this division’s sixteenfold frame.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The root treatise establishes transformation of the basis upon the other-dependent nature that supports both defilement and purity: the defiled portion is relinquished and the pure portion attained. The two ancient commentaries unfold the six transformations and the inferior and vast transformations; the exposition preserves this relation without collapsing birth-and-death and nirvana into a simple identity.

The previous three chapters dealt with "higher discipline, higher mind, higher wisdom" — the threefold training of discipline, concentration, and wisdom. That was the "cultivating of causes": how the bodhisattva walks this path step by step. From this chapter on, Asanga turns instead to the "fruit": what, finally, this path bears when walked to its end. The ninth of the ten points of excellence, "the fruit of severance" (彼果斷), speaks of the fruit that is "made manifest" once cultivation has cut off the obstructions.

Yet the very name "the fruit of severance" forces out, on the spot, a genuinely scalding question: cultivated to the end, what is it that is actually "cut off"? — and, more pressing still, this chapter gives that fruit a name distinctive to the Mahayana: non-abiding nirvana (apratisthita-nirvana). The moment the words "non-abiding" appear, the question deepens by a further layer: why is this nirvana called "non-abiding"? It abides neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvana — it neither sinks into birth-and-death the way ordinary beings do, nor retreats into the quiescence of nirvana the way the two vehicles do. So where, then, does it come to rest?

Asanga's answer hangs entirely on two words: transformation of the basis (轉依, asraya-paravrtti). The discussion below follows his words in four parts: first clarifying what "transformation of the basis" is, then showing how it unfolds into six kinds, how higher and lower transformations differ among the vehicles, and finally how the closing verses state the heart of the matter.

1. What is it that is "cut off"? — Transformation of the basis: one and the same basis, defilement and purity reversed

To untie the question "what, finally, is cut off?" one must first break a very common misunderstanding: the notion that nirvana lies somewhere outside birth-and-death, and that cultivation is moving house from the "birth-and-death" side over to the "nirvana" side. Asanga blocks this road in his very first words — he says that the bodhisattva's non-abiding nirvana has "the transformation of the basis as its mark, by way of abandoning defilement yet not abandoning birth-and-death." Bite down on these words: what is cut off is defilement (雜染), and not birth-and-death. This turns the whole direction of the question around.

How can it be so? The key lies here: birth-and-death and nirvana are not two places at all, but two faces of one and the same "other-dependent nature" (依他起性). The "other-dependent nature" is the dependently-arisen stream of consciousness — that stream in which all phenomena arise in dependence on their many conditions. This one and the same other-dependent nature, on its face that is defiled by deluded grasping, is called "birth-and-death" — it is its "defiled aspect"; and on its face that, freed of defilement, shows forth purity, is called "nirvana" — it is its "pure aspect." And what runs through and carries both faces is that one other-dependent nature itself — which Asanga calls "the basis of the two," that is, the other-dependent nature that "pervades both aspects." (This follows straight on from the third chapter's "those two aspects": there it was said that the other-dependent nature embraces both the defiled and the pure aspects; here, at the stage of the fruit, that very point is unfolded.)

With this foundation clear, "transformation of the basis" becomes easy to understand. Asanga puts it exactly: transformation of the basis is "when, on the other-dependent nature itself, the counteragent arises, the defiled aspect is turned away from [and discarded] and the pure aspect is turned toward [and attained]." Unpacked — when the power of the "counteragent" (that is, the non-discriminating wisdom taught in the ninth chapter) arises, then upon the one and the same other-dependent nature, its defiled aspect is "turned away from and discarded" and its pure aspect is "turned toward and attained." The underlying basis is not swapped out at all; the very same basis simply turns over a face: this defiled face sinks down, that pure face shows forth. This is the root meaning of the two words "transformation of the basis." (On this point the two commentaries of Vasubandhu and Asvabhava run along with the root treatise, nearly word for word the same — showing that on this much the two houses within the Xuanzang lineage hold no divergent reading.)

So, returning to the question: what, finally, is "cut off"? The answer is — what is cut off is the defiled aspect, not the stream of birth-and-death itself. Precisely because what is washed away is only the defilement and not birth-and-death, the bodhisattva can accomplish "abandoning defilement yet not abandoning birth-and-death": he remains within birth-and-death, but birth-and-death no longer defiles him. This is the first layer of "non-abiding" in "non-abiding nirvana" — not bound by birth-and-death, yet also not departing from birth-and-death.

2. The six transformations of the basis: a staircase from ordinary being to Buddha

To say only "turn away from defilement, turn toward purity" is still just the general heading. Asanga next unfolds "transformation of the basis," according to the depth of cultivation, into six kinds — which arrange precisely into a staircase running from the ordinary being all the way to the Buddha. The first four are a vertical progression —

First, the transformation that diminishes the power [of defilements] and increases the capacity [for good] (損力益能轉). This is still at the stage "before the grounds" (before entering the first ground). By the power of resolute conviction in the teaching, by abiding in the perfuming of having heard the Dharma, and together with a measure of "conscience and shame" (慚愧 — a sense of moral embarrassment, a willingness to reflect on oneself), one gradually brings it about that the various defilements "manifest only in part," and at length "do not manifest" — that is, one diminishes the power of the defilements and increases the capacity of wholesome states. The name "diminish-power-increase-capacity" means exactly this.

Second, the transformation of penetrating understanding (通達轉). Here the bodhisattva has already "entered the great grounds" (mounted the first ground) and begins to realize suchness directly. From the first ground through the sixth, the "real" shows forth bit by bit, and the "false" sinks away bit by bit — the real gradually manifests, the false gradually subsides.

Third, the transformation of cultivation (修習轉). Here, although subtle "obstruction" still remains, "all marks" no longer appear and the "real" is fully manifest; this transformation runs up to the tenth ground. Note: the treatise here says only "up to the tenth ground," and does not state from which ground the transformation of cultivation begins — so we too speak only to that, adding no line the original does not state.

Fourth, the transformation of the fulfillment of the fruit (果圓滿轉). At the "Buddha-ground," all obstructions are forever cut off, even "marks" no longer arise, the utterly pure real is fulfilled and manifest, and thereupon one is "sovereign over all marks" — gaining great mastery over all phenomena.

These first four are a vertical line running from ordinary being all the way up to the Buddha-ground. The remaining two, however, do not continue that vertical line upward — they are a crosswise contrast: setting the two vehicles and the bodhisattva side by side, comparing precisely "where, after cutting off [defilement], one comes to a halt."

3. Why "non-abiding"? — The inferior turning and the vast turning: the dividing line between the two vehicles and the bodhisattva

The fifth and sixth of these transformations of the basis are exactly where the second layer of "non-abiding" in "non-abiding nirvana" comes to rest: why will the bodhisattva not, like the two vehicles, plunge headlong into nirvana the moment defilement is cut off? The answer lies in this very comparison.

Fifth, the inferior turning (下劣轉) speaks of the sravaka (the two vehicles). Asanga says it plainly: the sravaka "can penetrate only the emptiness of the person" (the selflessness of the personal self) — he has seen through "the self" as empty, but has not gone on to see through "phenomena" (dharmas) as also empty. Having seen through "the emptiness of self," his revulsion from and renunciation of birth-and-death become extreme, and so he "single-mindedly turns his back on birth-and-death, single-mindedly abandons birth-and-death" — one-pointedly turning away from, casting off birth-and-death, hurrying to retreat into quiescence. This is a nirvana biased toward emptiness, hurrying to enter the still.

Sixth, the vast turning (廣大轉) speaks of the bodhisattva. Asanga says: the bodhisattva "also penetrates the selflessness of the emptiness of phenomena" — he has seen through not only "the self" as empty but "phenomena" too as empty. Precisely because of this twofold penetration, he can, right within birth-and-death itself, see that birth-and-death is from the very start quiescent ("right in birth-and-death he sees it as quiescent"). Since birth-and-death is, in its very substance, originally quiescent, he need not flee at all; and so "though he cuts off defilement he does not abandon [birth-and-death]" — what is cut off is defilement, yet he does not abandon birth-and-death; on the contrary, he abides within birth-and-death to liberate sentient beings. Here one must take especially exact aim: the bodhisattva's "not abandoning" is not that he cannot let go of it — it is that he need not, and will not, abandon it.

This contrast Asanga states with great weight, pointedly noting the import of both ends. If the bodhisattva too were to walk the road of the "inferior turning," there are three great faults: one, "he disregards the benefit and welfare of all sentient beings" — he forsakes living beings; two, "he transgresses against all the bodhisattva's Dharma" — he turns his back on the bodhisattva's own calling; three, "he shares the same liberation as the inferior vehicle" — he lowers his own fruition down to the level of the two vehicles. Conversely, to walk the "vast turning" carries great merit: he can "take his own transformation of the basis as his ground," gaining great mastery within the phenomena of birth-and-death; and he can "manifest the body of every kind of sentient being in every destiny" — appearing in manifold bodies throughout the six destinies, using "manifold skillful means of taming," taming sentient beings one by one and establishing them on the path. In a word: the inferior turning ferries only oneself across; the vast turning rides the vow into birth-and-death and ferries all beings widely.

At this point both layers of the words "non-abiding" have come fully to ground: not abiding in birth-and-death (defilement cut off, so neither defiled nor bound by birth-and-death), and not abiding in nirvana either (not, like the two vehicles, retreating into quiescence and casting aside sentient beings). Abiding at neither extreme — and so it is called "non-abiding nirvana."

4. Those few verses: birth-and-death is itself nirvana, neither abandoned nor not abandoned

Having finished the reasoning, Asanga, following the consistent format of the Mahayanasamgraha, uses several verses to gather up once more and point out the heart of this chapter. The prose lays the principle through; at the close, appended verses let one remember the skeleton — and here the verses press, line by line, ever closer to the core.

The first two lines first turn "transformation of the basis" into a contrasting picture: ordinary beings "cover over the real and single-mindedly manifest the false" — they have covered up the real, and only the false remains in their eyes; the bodhisattva "abandons the false and single-mindedly manifests the real" — having abandoned the false, he makes only the real show forth. What is called transformation of the basis is just this one "turning": this single turning-over between the real and the false, between the manifest and the unmanifest.

Then a line points out the worth, on the spot, of this turning: "Transformation of the basis is itself liberation, faring freely as one wishes" — this one turning is, on the spot, liberation, and from then on one can fare freely according to one's heart.

Next comes the most pivotal line of the whole chapter: "Toward birth-and-death and nirvana, when the wisdom of sameness (平等智) arises... birth-and-death is itself nirvana." What is called the "wisdom of sameness" is the wisdom that sees through that birth-and-death and nirvana are originally one and the same other-dependent nature, one and the same suchness — and the moment this wisdom arises, on the spot one realizes that "birth-and-death is itself nirvana." Nirvana is nowhere else; it is right here in this birth-and-death that you have, on the spot, seen through. Note well: this does not say that birth-and-death equals sinking down — it says that "birth-and-death seen through" is, in its very substance, nirvana.

Finally this point is gathered into two clean-cut lines. Toward birth-and-death, it is "neither abandoned, nor not abandoned": not bound by it, so one cannot say he "has not abandoned" it; yet he likewise remains within birth-and-death to liberate beings, not fearing it, so neither can one say he "has abandoned" it. Toward nirvana, it is "neither attained, nor not attained": he is already within nirvana from the start (birth-and-death in its very substance is itself nirvana), so one cannot say he "has attained" anything; yet he does not retreat into nirvana to enjoy it alone, so neither can one say he "has not attained" it. These four "neithers" — neither abandoned, nor not abandoned, neither attained, nor not attained — are precisely where the Mahayana's non-abiding nirvana ultimately rests: abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvana, and so gaining great mastery at both ends.

Looking back over this chapter: what "the fruit of severance" cuts off was never birth-and-death, but only that layer of defilement covering over birth-and-death; and its entire mechanism is "transformation of the basis" — upon the one and the same other-dependent nature, turning away from the defiled aspect and turning toward and attaining the pure aspect, washing away the defilement, not the stream of birth-and-death itself. The six transformations of the basis arrange into a staircase from ordinary being to Buddha, while the crosswise contrast of the "inferior turning" and the "vast turning" lays bare further the root dividing line between the two vehicles and the bodhisattva: one hurries to flee birth-and-death, the other rides the vow and walks into birth-and-death. The final few verses gather all of this onto that line that shakes the heart — "birth-and-death is itself nirvana," toward birth-and-death neither abandoning nor not abandoning, toward nirvana neither attaining nor not attaining. This is the Mahayana's view of nirvana, not held in common with the two vehicles.

What is made manifest by cutting off the obstructions is nirvana — this is the "merit of cessation" of the stage of the fruit. But the stage of the fruit has another side as well: what is accomplished by the fulfillment of the merit of wisdom is the realm of the Buddha. So the next chapter, "the fruit of cognition," goes on to speak of this other side of the fruit — the "three bodies" accomplished through cutting off the obstructions: the self-nature body, the body of enjoyment, and the transformation body.

Later Reception

The last two verses of the Thirty Verses carry forward transformation of the basis and the final stage; the Cheng weishi lun later expands the four nirvanas and the two transformations. Within this treatise, division nine supplies the cognition that transforms, this division displays severance, and division eleven displays cognition at the fruit-stage.

Scriptural and Commentarial Ground

The root treatise displays cognition at the fruit-stage through the self-nature, enjoyment, and transformation bodies and argues separately that the latter two are not the self-nature body. The two ancient commentaries unfold the names of the three bodies and the five marks and ten gates of the dharma-body; this exposition neither fuses the three into one substance nor backfills the later eight-to-four mapping.

In the ten preceding chapters, Asanga has led us down a long road: from "what is the underlying ground of all phenomena" (the basis of the knowable — the alaya-consciousness), to "the three statuses in which the world appears" (the characteristic of the knowable — the three natures), to "how one moves from knowing to realizing" (entry into consciousness-only), then through the cultivation of the six perfections and the ten grounds, the three higher trainings of discipline, concentration, and wisdom — all the way to "the nirvana made manifest by the exhaustion of the afflictions" (the previous chapter's fruit of severance, the virtue of cessation). The whole road, arriving at this final chapter, has just one question left unanswered — and it is the very question that lives in the heart of anyone who reads the scriptures and follows the Buddha's path:

When the whole road has been walked and one has truly become a buddha — what, really, is that like? The buddha's "body," the buddha's "cognition" — just what kind of existence are they?

This chapter, "the fruit of cognition," is precisely about this. It and the previous chapter are two faces of the same buddha-fruit: the previous chapter spoke from the angle of cessation, and this one from the angle of cognition. Asanga displays this fruit through three buddha-bodies: the self-nature body, the enjoyment body, and the transformation body. Each is established according to its own meaning; the enjoyment and transformation bodies arise in dependence on the dharma-body but are not identical with the self-nature body. This is the closing chapter of the Mahayanasamgraha.

I. One Buddha, Three Bodies — First Establishing the "Look" of a Buddha

Asanga opens by laying down the framework: one buddha has three bodies.

The first is the self-nature body, also called the dharma-body — the root treatise calls it the support on which mastery over all phenomena turns. The second is the enjoyment body — in dependence on the dharma-body, it abides in pure buddha-lands and enjoys the Dharma-joy of the Great Vehicle in the buddha assemblies. The third is the transformation body — likewise in dependence on the dharma-body, it displays birth, renunciation, cultivation, awakening, turning the Dharma-wheel, and entry into nirvana. The treatise later argues separately that neither the enjoyment body nor the transformation body is the self-nature body; the relation of dependence and the distinctions among the three must therefore be held together.

On the name "self-nature body," Asvabhava, in his commentary, takes particular pains — he likes to take a term apart character by character to gloss it. He says: it is called "self-nature" because it is not provisionally posited (not set up by borrowing); it is called "body" because it is the support of everything; it is called "dharma-body" because the dharma-nature is just this body, or because it is the place on which all dharmas depend. Vasubandhu's commentary here speaks more briefly, following the root treatise in saying it is simply the Tathagata's dharma-body, the support on which the masterful turning of all phenomena depends. The two ancient masters — one detailed, one brief — point to the same one root body. The three transmission lineages sometimes use the same body-names with differing referents; here the terms follow Xuanzang's rendering.

Having established the three bodies, Asanga uses a "udana" — a summary verse that holds the whole point first in a single stanza — to mark out that what follows will expound the "dharma-body" from ten angles: characteristic, attainment, mastery, support, sustaining, distinction, virtue, profundity, recollection, activity. These ten gates are the skeleton of this chapter; below they are opened out one by one.

II. What Is the Dharma-Body Like? — Five Characteristics

The first gate asks about "characteristic": just what is the dharma-body like? Asanga answers: the dharma-body has five characteristics, five root features.

The first is "transformation of the basis as its characteristic." This line answers exactly to the previous chapter: turning away and extinguishing the "defiled" portion within the other-dependent nature (the entire defilement of the obstructions), and turning toward and bringing forth the "pure" portion (the pure portion that turns masterfully over phenomena) — the dharma-body is just the fruit after this "transformation of the basis" has been brought fully to completion. The second is "constituted by white dharmas as its characteristic": it is constituted by the "ten masteries" accomplished through the full cultivation of the six perfections (the six paramitas). The root treatise spells this out finely: through the perfection of giving, one attains mastery over lifespan, mastery over mind, mastery over necessities; through the perfection of discipline, mastery over karma, mastery over birth; through the perfection of patience, mastery over resolute conviction; through the perfection of effort, mastery over vows; through the perfection of meditation, mastery over spiritual power (which includes the five superknowledges); through the perfection of wisdom, mastery over wisdom, mastery over dharma. The dharma-body is not got for nothing by nature; it is cultivated forth portion by portion through the six perfections. The third is "non-duality as its characteristic": it transcends every opposition — neither existent nor non-existent (all phenomena are inherently without own-being, yet the reality "made manifest by emptiness" is truly existent); neither conditioned nor unconditioned (not fabricated by karma and affliction, yet able masterfully to display conditioned characteristics); neither one nor many (the dharma-body on which all buddhas depend is without difference, hence "one"; yet immeasurable buddhas, each in their own continuum, manifest perfect awakening, hence "many"). For this "neither one nor many" Asanga adds two verses to round it off: because self-grasping is already exhausted, within the dharma-body there is no separate support of one from another, so it is "without difference"; and because the buddhas' lineages differ, what they realize is real and not false, their merit and wisdom are perfected, and there is no beginning — therefore the undefiled basis, though without difference, also cannot be called a pure "one" or a pure "many." The fourth is "constancy as its characteristic": because the pure characteristic of suchness is eternal, because the work of liberating beings drawn forth by the original vow is eternal, and because the beneficial work to be done has no term of exhaustion. The fifth is "inconceivability as its characteristic": because it is solely the inner realization of the sages' pure suchness, no worldly simile can liken it, and it is not a place that the discursive thinking of ordinary beings can reach.

The treatise sets out five masteries through transformation of the basis of the five aggregates. Transforming the basis of form brings mastery over buddha-land, body, marks, boundless voice, and the invisible crown; transforming feeling brings mastery over faultless and immeasurable blissful abiding; transforming perception brings mastery over names, phrases, and syllables; transforming formations brings mastery over manifestation and the gathering of assemblies and pure dharmas; transforming the consciousness aggregate brings mastery over the four cognitions of mirror, equality, observation, and accomplishment. The root treatise states transformation of the consciousness aggregate and these four cognitions here; it does not assign the eight consciousnesses one by one, and this exposition keeps that boundary.

III. The Dharma-Body Has a Dwelling and Has Work — It Is Not an Abstract Principle-Substance

The fourth gate, "support"; the fifth gate, "sustaining"; and the tenth gate, "activity" — taken together, they tell us one important thing: the dharma-body is not an abstract principle hung high in the void; it has its supports and it has its work.

First, "support." The dharma-body's support is seen through three things. One is the "various buddha-abidings" support — here Asanga adds two verses, saying that the five kinds of Dharma-joy the buddhas realize are all because they have equally realized their own dharma-realm; beings are apart from this joy precisely because they have not realized it; therefore those who seek this joy should equally realize it. Two is the "various enjoyment-bodies" support, which is set up specifically to ripen the bodhisattvas on the grounds. Three is the "various transformation-bodies" support, which is mostly set up to ripen the sravakas and the like.

Next, "sustaining" — the dharma-body is sustained by six buddha-dharmas. Each of these six is a "transforming": transforming the alaya-consciousness, one attains the dharma-body (this is the "purity" sustaining, connecting straight back to the fruit-stage transformation of the basis in the second chapter, "the basis of the knowable"); transforming the form faculties, one attains the wisdom of maturation; transforming the abidings of the realm of desire and the like, one attains the abiding of immeasurable wisdom; transforming the masteries of the various karmas one takes up, one attains mastery over the unobstructed superknowledge-wisdom in all worlds; transforming the discursive proliferation of all that is seen, heard, sensed, and known and spoken, one attains mastery over the eloquence-wisdom that makes all beings' minds rejoice; transforming the rescuing of beings from all calamities and faults, one attains the wisdom that rescues all beings from all calamities and faults. The dharma-body is thus constituted by being sustained by these six buddha-dharmas of "transforming the defiled into the pure."

Most moving is the gate of "activity" — the buddha's dharma-realm, at all times, eternally performs five kinds of work to liberate beings. First, rescuing beings from calamity: the buddha by briefly manifesting a single appearance can rescue the blind, the deaf, the mad, and all such calamities. Second, rescuing from evil destinies: drawing beings out of unwholesome places and setting them in wholesome ones. Third, rescuing from "non-means": leading those heterodox practitioners who have taken the wrong road to abandon their mistaken methods and be set within the Tathagata's holy teaching. Fourth, rescuing from "satkaya" (the view of a self in the body): bestowing the holy path that can transcend the three realms. Fifth, rescuing from "vehicle": drawing out those bodhisattvas who were inclined toward the lesser vehicle, and the sravakas of undetermined lineage and the like, rescuing them and settling them so that they cultivate Mahayana practice. And Asanga says particularly: this fivefold activity of the buddhas is equal — every buddha's power to liberate beings is equally perfect, with no division of higher and lower. The accompanying verse says: the reason worldly persons differ in power is that their cause, support, work, nature, and conduct each differ; only the buddha is without such differences, so in the world there is no one who can be compared to the Guide (the buddha). The buddha is not a principle-substance enthroned high in a pure land; the buddha is an existence that, at every single moment, is doing these five works of rescue.

IV. Why Are the Three Bodies Not One? — Neither the Enjoyment Body Nor the Transformation Body Is the Dharma-Body

Asanga next argues the gate of "distinction" very carefully: the enjoyment body and the transformation body, though both arise in dependence on the dharma-body, are neither of them the dharma-body itself. Why take this trouble? Because if one takes the Buddha-body visible before beings' eyes and makes it directly the dharma-body, the whole doctrine becomes incoherent.

Why is the enjoyment body not the self-nature body? Asanga gives six reasons. Because the enjoyment body is "a visible form-body" (the dharma-body is without characteristic); because it has the visible distinction of immeasurable buddha-assemblies (the dharma-body is without distinction); because, following beings' differing resolute convictions, the self-nature seen is itself indeterminate (the dharma-body is determinate); because it is seen separately and its self-nature shifts and moves (the dharma-body is unmoving); because it is seen intermixed among the various assemblies of bodhisattvas, sravakas, gods, and so on (the dharma-body has none of this); and because, if one places the transformation of the basis of the alaya-consciousness and the active consciousnesses upon the enjoyment body, the doctrine too becomes incoherent. On these six points, to say "the buddha's enjoyment body is just the self-nature body" does not accord with reason.

Why is the transformation body not the self-nature body? The reasons are even plainer; Asanga gives eight. Bodhisattvas have long since, from the distant past, attained the concentration of non-retrogression — how would one truly need to take birth from the Tusita heaven, from among humans? Bodhisattvas have long since constantly recollected their former lives — how would one truly be "unable to know rightly" amid writing, reckoning, numbering, seals, the treatises of crafts, and the various conduct of enjoying the dusts of desire? Bodhisattvas have long since clearly distinguished ill-spoken from well-spoken teachings — how would one truly go off to the heterodox practitioners? Bodhisattvas have long since well known the right paths of the three vehicles — how would one truly go cultivate those mistaken austerities? A bodhisattva could relinquish a hundred kotis of Jambudvipas and manifest everywhere, yet realizes perfect awakening and turns the Dharma-wheel in just "one place" — this too does not stand to reason (unless that is a manifested appearance). And further: if, apart from "manifesting the realization of perfect awakening," one used only the transformation body to perform buddha-work elsewhere, then one should realize perfect awakening only in the Tusita heaven — why not arrange for buddhas to appear simultaneously throughout all the Jambudvipas? Since it is not so arranged, one sees that "in one place at one time there are not two buddhas" has both scriptural authority and reason — though a buddha has many transformations, this does not violate the scriptural word that "no two tathagatas appear in the world at once"; because one set of four continents is taken as one world, just as two wheel-turning kings do not arise in the world at the same time. The accompanying verse says: the buddha, with subtle transformation bodies, equally manifests entering the womb in many places, in order to display "all kinds" (the various aspects of liberating beings), manifesting the realization of perfect awakening and turning the wheel. — These eight reasons, this arrangement, every one of them says the same one thing: the body that is visible, that comes and goes, that has a realization of the path and an entry into extinction, is a manifested appearance, not the dharma-body itself.

That then raises a sharp question: if both the enjoyment body and the transformation body are impermanent, why does scripture still say "the Tathagata's body is constant"? Asanga answers steadily: because the dharma-body on which these two bodies depend is constant; and because these two bodies "eternally function without cease" — the enjoyment body eternally enjoys Dharma-joy, the transformation body again and again manifests transformations without ever finally ceasing, continuous and unbroken, so it too is said to be "constant." The root treatise also draws a comparison to show this layer of meaning: just like "constantly receiving pleasure," just like "constantly giving food" — not pointing to some substance permanently unchanging, but to that continuity unbroken and without interval, the constant. "The Tathagata's body is constant" should be understood in this way.

V. The Buddha's "Profundity" — Pointing Toward the Inconceivable Through a String of Paradoxes

The eighth gate, "profundity," is the most moving — and the most thought-demanding — passage in this chapter. To display the "inconceivability" of the dharma-body, Asanga uses not abstract argument but a string of statements that seem to contradict themselves — he wants you, standing before these paradoxes, to set down the measuring-rule of the ordinary being.

He says: the buddha "takes the unborn as birth" (the dharma-body is fundamentally unborn, yet manifests taking birth), "takes non-abiding as abiding," and accomplishes the various buddha-works "without effort" (without laboring, they are spontaneously accomplished). The buddha's "manifesting of perfect awakening is not existent" (the mark of realizing the path is not to be grasped as truly existent), and "the all-pervading awareness is not non-existent" (yet that awareness which knows all is not nothing); the buddha is "neither defiled nor freed from defilement" — He is not stained by the dusts of desire, yet neither does He cut desire off cleanly and then depart; rather He "knows desire to be desireless and enters into the dharma-nature of desire," seeing through to its emptiness in the very substance of desire and thereby emerging from it. The buddha "transcends the aggregates" and yet "abides within the aggregates," and with those aggregates is "neither one nor different, not abandoning them yet well at peace."

Here Asanga also uses several similes the root text itself supplies, exquisite ones: beings' sinful karma cannot block the buddha's manifestation — like the moon reflected on a broken vessel (though the vessel is broken, the moon is not in the least diminished); the radiance of the dharma-body pervades and illumines all worlds — like the sun shining everywhere; the buddha may manifest the realization of perfect awakening, or manifest entry into nirvana — like fire kindling or ceasing — while the dharma-body itself has never been either "existent" or "non-existent" (because the buddhas' bodies are constant). And there is one line that matters most of all: "the afflictions are subdued, not extinguished, as a poison held in check by a spell" — toward the afflictions the buddha does not extinguish them at one stroke, but, like a poison subdued by a divine incantation, subdues them and turns them to use; from "subduing the afflictions" all the way to "the afflictions exhausted," He realizes the buddha's all-knowledge. And so — "the afflictions become the factors of awakening, birth-and-death becomes nirvana": the afflictions in their very substance become the provisions of awakening, birth-and-death in its very substance is nirvana. See — this is precisely the previous chapter's "birth-and-death is just nirvana," now displayed in its fullness at the level of the buddha-fruit. Because they possess such great skillful means, the buddhas are inconceivable.

What matters is this: these paradoxes are not empty rhetorical sleight; they point in a direction — you cannot take the ordinary being's few boxes of "existent, non-existent, one, different" and use them to measure the buddha; only by setting down that measuring-rule does one come even slightly close. Asanga finally gathers this profundity into twelve kinds: the profundity of birth-abiding-and-activity-abiding, the profundity of establishing the work of number, the profundity of manifesting perfect awakening, the profundity of freedom from desire, the profundity of cutting off the aggregates, the profundity of ripening, the profundity of manifestation, the profundity of displaying perfect-awakening and nirvana, the profundity of abiding, the profundity of displaying one's own substance, the profundity of cutting off the afflictions, and the profundity of inconceivability.

(The verse says "the fourth food is taken as food," but the root treatise does not unfold what this "fourth food" specifically refers to. The phrase is therefore left without a supplied explanation.)

VI. How Does a Bodhisattva Recollect the Buddha's Dharma-Body? — Seven Recollections

The ninth gate, "recollection." Since the dharma-body is so profound, how should the aspiring bodhisattva recollect it and cultivate this "recollection of the buddha"? Asanga says it is cultivated by seven recollections. First, recollect that the buddha attains masterful turning over all phenomena (because the buddha attains unobstructed superknowledge in all worlds). Second, recollect that the buddha's body abides constantly (because suchness is uninterrupted, already freed from defilement). Third, recollect that the buddha is most utterly faultless (because both the affliction-obstruction and the knowledge-obstruction are already released from their bonds). Fourth, recollect that the buddha is without effort (because the buddha does not labor, yet all buddha-works are without rest). Fifth, recollect that the buddha enjoys great wealth and bliss (because of the great wealth and bliss of the pure buddha-land). Sixth, recollect that the buddha is far apart from all defilement (because, though the buddha is born in the world, no worldly dharma can defile Him). Seventh, recollect that the buddha can accomplish great works (because the buddha, by manifesting perfect awakening, parinirvana, and so on, can ripen all unripened beings and liberate the already-ripened).

But within these "seven recollections" is hidden one line that is of utmost importance — and most easily read awry — and it must be faced honestly. In speaking of the first recollection (the buddha's mastery over all phenomena), Asanga adds a verse:

"The realm of beings being all-pervading, possessed of obstructions and lacking the cause, those of the two determinate turnings — toward these the buddhas have no mastery."

Reading "the buddhas have no mastery," at first glance one is startled — He just said the buddha attains great mastery over all phenomena, so how here does it say "no mastery"? This line must not be twisted into a positive reading; Asanga's true intent lies precisely in this tension: toward those beings who "possess heavy obstructions and lack the cause for liberation" and who are determinately bound to wander on, even with His great mastery the buddha cannot liberate them. This is not to say the buddha's power is lacking; it is to say that if a being's own obstructions and causes have not arrived, even the buddha cannot defy cause-and-effect and forcibly haul him across. The root text leaves this negative statement standing and does not add an "in fact there is still mastery" reconciliation.

VII. Where Does the Buddha Dwell? — The Eighteen Perfections of the Pure Land

Having finished the recollection of the buddha, Asanga cites scripture to depict the buddha's "pure buddha-land" — this passage cites the introductory chapter of the Bodhisattva-pitaka Hundred-thousand Sutra. It is an exceedingly majestic vista: the Bhagavan (the World-Honored One) dwells in a great palace of the most surpassing brilliance, adorned with the seven treasures, emitting great light that illumines boundless worlds; its measure is unfathomable, surpassing the three realms, and it is the place "whose characteristic is the most utterly masterful pure consciousness" — this line is to be noted: the reason the buddha-land is a pure land lies nowhere else but precisely in its being made manifest by pure consciousness; the tenet of consciousness-only, arriving here at the buddha-fruit's pure land, still holds through to the very end. There is the Tathagata's capital city, where immeasurable great bodhisattvas gather like clouds, where immeasurable gods, nagas, yaksas, and the eight classes of beings constantly attend in train, sustained by the joy of the vast Dharma-savor, performing all that benefits beings, dispelling all afflictions and calamities, far removed from the host of Maras...

Asanga gathers this buddha-land into eighteen perfections: perfection of color, perfection of shape, perfection of measure, perfection of location, perfection of cause, perfection of fruit, perfection of lord, perfection of retinue-aides, perfection of attendant-retinue, perfection of upholding, perfection of work, perfection of beneficial embrace, perfection of fearlessness, perfection of dwelling-place, perfection of path, perfection of vehicle, perfection of gateway, perfection of support — from color and shape to gateway and support, perfect on every side, with not one place unperfected. And the enjoyment of such a pure buddha-land is "four wholly-so": wholly pure and marvelous, wholly peaceful and blissful, wholly faultless, wholly masterful — purely pure, purely blissful, purely faultless, purely masterful, without a single thread of defilement mixed in.

VIII. The Virtues of the Dharma-Body — The Virtue-Marks, and the "Sixteen Verses of Homage"

The seventh gate, "virtue." Asanga lists out the virtue-marks of the dharma-body one by one: the most pure four immeasurables, the eight liberations, the eight bases of mastery, the ten totalities, non-contention, the wisdom of vows, the four unobstructed knowledges, the six superknowledges, the thirty-two marks of a great being, the eighty minor marks, the four-fold purity of all marks, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the three things needing no guarding, the three foundations of mindfulness, the uprooting of habit-energies, the dharma of non-forgetting, great compassion, the eighteen dharmas unique to a buddha, the marvelous wisdom of all marks — with every kind of unsurpassed virtue, the dharma-body is endowed.

Having listed the virtues, Asanga appends a long string of verses of homage — this is the place in this chapter most fit to be read as a "closing of the cultivation." There are sixteen verses in all, nearly every one praising one of the buddha's virtues and ending with the phrase "I pay homage" (I bow, I take refuge), like an unbroken string of prostrations. We may well read it as a devoted general paean at the very close of the whole treatise: praising the buddha's four kinds of intent that ever do not abandon the benefit and joy of beings — homage; praising the buddha freed from all obstruction, whose wisdom pervades the knowable, whose mind has won release — homage; praising the buddha who can exhaust all the afflictions of beings without remainder, who harms the afflictions yet is ever compassionate to the defiled — homage; praising the buddha effortless, unattached, unobstructed, ever in still concentration, able to resolve every difficult question — homage; praising the buddha of unobstructed wisdom ever well-speaking, who for beings manifests knowing speech, conduct, coming-and-going, and emergence — homage; praising the buddha whom beings, on a single sight, deeply trust, the great opener-and-guide — homage; praising the buddha of taking-up, upholding, and relinquishing, who manifests transformations and transmuting, with mastery over meditative-poise and wisdom — homage; praising the buddha who by skillful means, refuge, purity, and Mahayana emergence crushes the Maras — homage; praising the buddha who can speak of wisdom, cessation, and emergence, whose benefit to self and others no heterodox can subdue — homage; praising the buddha who amid assemblies can subdue and speak, far apart from the two defilements, who gathers and governs the great assembly — homage; praising the buddha whose every conduct and abiding is nothing but the work of perfect wisdom, who at all times pervadingly knows the true meaning — homage; praising the buddha whose works of benefit and joy never miss their time, ever without emptiness, without forgetting — homage; praising the buddha who day and night ever in six turns observes all worlds, endowed with great compassion — homage; praising the buddha who by conduct, by realization, by wisdom, and by activity is most surpassing among all the two vehicles — homage; and the last verse, praising the buddha who by the accomplishment of the three bodies and the great bodhi complete in all marks can cut off every doubt in all places — homage. One verse, one prostration — the whole expanse of praise for the buddha is turned into an unbroken string of bowing. Asanga then adds two more verses, stating in summary that the buddhas' dharma-body is endowed with all these virtues, and further endowed with the virtues of own-nature, cause, fruit, activity, correspondence, and turning — so it is to be known that the buddhas' dharma-body has "unsurpassed virtue."

IX. The Great Questions at the Close of the Final Chapter

Arriving at the very end of the whole treatise, Asanga seems to want to settle all the residual doubts in the reader's heart at once, answering in succession several extremely deep — and extremely practice-relevant — great questions.

One vehicle — the buddha plainly says "only one buddha-vehicle," yet earlier he established three vehicles (sravaka, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva); is this not a contradiction? Asanga answers: the buddha speaks of one vehicle "to draw in one kind and to sustain the rest" — to lead that one type of capacity and to sustain the rest whose capacity is undetermined; it is a "setting-up with hidden intent" (a skillful establishment holding a deep meaning), and does not negate the skillful means of the three vehicles. The accompanying verse says: because dharma, no-self, and liberation are the same; because lineages differ; because of attaining the two intents; because of manifestation; and because of the ultimate — therefore one speaks of one vehicle. The one vehicle and the three vehicles, the two statements do not contradict.

Many buddhas — the buddhas are all one same dharma-body, so why is it also said there are immeasurable buddhas? Asanga's verse answers cleanly: because "within one realm there are not two" (within one same world, two buddhas may not arise together at one time); "at one time the immeasurable are perfected" (yet the realm of beings able to perfect buddhahood at one time is immeasurable); "successive turning is contrary to reason" (if one said buddhahood could only be attained one after another in sequence, it would not stand to reason) — therefore there are said to be many buddhas.

Whether the buddha enters nirvana or not — how is one to understand that "within the dharma-body, the buddha neither finally enters nirvana nor finally does not enter nirvana"? The verse answers: because "freed from all obstruction" (all obstructions are already released), the buddha finally enters nirvana; and because "the work has no end" (the work of liberating beings is forever inexhaustible), the buddha finally does not enter nirvana. Both sides are true, leaning to neither edge.

And there is one more question, the most practice-relevant: a bodhisattva, having vowed to cultivate and realize great bodhi — if it were said that after realizing it one "finally enters nirvana" and from then on no longer liberates beings — this too does not accord with reason, for otherwise would not the bodhisattva's original vow and conduct become a fruitless waste? This precisely throws into relief that the buddha-fruit is "the nirvana of no fixed abode" — abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvana.

And regarding the transformation body, one last question remains: why must the transformation body "manifest nirvana" rather than abide in the world forever so that beings could see it every day? Asanga gives six reasons: one, the work is already finished, the beings to be ripened have attained liberation; two, to make beings abandon the mind that "takes no joy in nirvana" and instead seek the Tathagata's constantly-abiding body; three, to make beings abandon contempt for the buddhas and instead enter into the profound true Dharma; four, to make beings give rise to deep longing for the buddha — for fear that what is seen every day instead breeds weariness; five, to make beings rouse effort in themselves — knowing that "one who can rightly preach the Dharma is hard to meet," they learn to treasure it; six, to make beings ripen with utmost speed, making them strive on without setting down the yoke. The core is one line: if the buddha were forever before their eyes, beings would instead grow slack and contemptuous; manifesting nirvana is precisely meant to press out beings' effort and longing — this is not heartlessness, it is the skillful means of great compassion. The accompanying verse holds these six reasons in: because the work is finished, to make them abandon taking-no-joy-in-nirvana, to make them part from contempt for the buddhas, to make them give rise to deep longing, to make them rouse right effort within, and to make them ripen with utmost speed — therefore it is granted that the buddha's transformation body "does not finally abide."

X. The Last Answer — The Dharma-Body Is Beginningless; Why Is Effort Still Required?

The final question asks: since the buddhas' dharma-body is "beginningless, without difference, and immeasurable," should further effort for attainment be unnecessary? The text asks about the relation between the buddhas' dharma-body and the cause of attainment; it does not state that sentient beings already possess the buddha-fruit.

The closing verse binds attainment to its cause: if beings relinquish diligent effort, constant attainment cannot become a cause; cutting off that cause does not accord with reason. What can safely be said here is that attainment does not stand apart from the cause of diligent effort. The passage does not decide a further doctrine of the relation between the dharma-body and the nature of sentient beings, and this exposition leaves that question open.

Conclusion — The Road, Here, Is Walked to Its End

The Mahayanasamgraha, here, comes to its full close.

Looking back over this whole road, you will see that the arc of the "ten supremacies" in the first chapter has now, every segment of it, come to ground: from the declaration of the tenet (the Mahayana has ten kinds of supremacy), to the alaya-consciousness as the basis of the defiled-and-pure (the basis of the knowable), to the three natures as the characteristic of this world (the characteristic of the knowable), to the entry into consciousness-only's realization, to the cause-and-fruit and the distinctions of cultivation that are the six perfections and ten grounds of this entry, to the three higher trainings of discipline, concentration, and wisdom, and on to the fruit-stage cessation (nirvana) — and at last, this chapter's fruit-stage cognition (the three bodies). Basis → characteristic → entry → cause-and-fruit → cultivation → three trainings → cessation → cognition: this sequence, laid out before our eyes at the very opening of the first chapter, has here walked its last step. Asanga has spread the whole of the Mahayana's "object, practice, fruit" into one complete map: first see clearly what the world and the mind are (object), then say how to cultivate (practice), and at last what fruit is realized (fruit).

This final chapter displays the fruit of cognition through the self-nature, enjoyment, and transformation bodies. The latter two arise in dependence on the dharma-body while remaining distinct from it. Within the dharma-body the buddha both finally enters nirvana through freedom from every obstruction and finally does not enter nirvana because the work to be done has no end; the treatise holds both statements together.

At the very end is the colophon Asanga set down with his own hand — at once his self-attestation of the whole treatise and his words of humility: "Of the chapter 'Embracing the Great Vehicle' within the Abhidharma Mahayana Sutra, I, Asanga, have completed a brief commentary." — He signs his own name "Asanga" (i.e., 無著), and humbly calls it: this whole treatise is nothing but a "brief commentary" on that chapter "Embracing the Great Vehicle" of the Abhidharma Mahayana Sutra. A great treatise that embraces the entire outline of the Mahayana — and its author calls it merely a "brief commentary." The whole treatise, here, is brought to its full completion.

Later Reception

The final verse of the Thirty Verses speaks of the undefiled realm and the body of liberation; the Cheng weishi lun later expands the three bodies, four nirvanas, and four cognitions. The root treatise here states only the four-cognition mastery gained through transformation of the consciousness aggregate; the later assignment of eight consciousnesses belongs to onward development, not Asanga’s wording here.