瑜伽師地論 三摩呬多地 · 攝諸經宗要·三摩缽底

The third passage of Gate Five (Gathering the Purport of the Sūtras), and also the Consciousness-Only knot where the Stage of Meditative Equipoise is tied off: the three attainments of present-seeing, no-perception, and cessation.

In one line: The attainments, down to their last three — present-seeing (one who has seen the truths contemplating consciousness turning-and-flowing), no-perception (contemplating perception as a sickness, a boil, an arrow), and cessation (the various minds and mental factors ceasing); and what drives the whole stage to its summit is the attainment of cessation's one question, "the mind itself has ceased — what remains?" The answer: there remains that eighth store consciousness which appropriates and holds the seeds of the turning consciousnesses and appropriates the faculty-body. The very floor of the science of concentration is, through and through, Consciousness-Only.

Three Points of the Eye

1. Present-seeing = the contemplation of one who has seen the truths, seeing even "consciousness turning-and-flowing" clearly and distinctly. These five are all attained by the noble ones alone, a directly-clear contemplation (differing from the Lesser Vehicle's account) 〔Kuiji, T1829 0084a07〕. First the contemplation of the impure (one's own body, the skeleton-person), then "the contemplation of the turning-and-flowing of consciousness" — the coarse contemplation of the continuity of "consciousness conditioned by formations" across a single span of life, the fine contemplation of consciousness instant by instant "arising differently and ceasing differently" (Dunlun cites the Abhidharmakośa, reckoning out the time-units lava and muhūrta 〔T1828 0398c10〕). The concentration of one who has seen the truths does not press the mind to death; it sees clean through how consciousness turns-and-flows.

2. The one question of the attainment of cessation = the knot where the Stage of Meditative Equipoise is tied off. "The various minds and mental factors have one and all ceased — how then can it be said that consciousness does not depart from the body?" Answer: "It is because, among the unaltered, unbroken material faculties, there is the store consciousness that is able to appropriate and hold the seeds of the turning consciousnesses, and it does not cease" 〔T1579 0340c28〕 — what stops is the former six (seven) turning consciousnesses; the eighth store consciousness does not cease and appropriates the faculty-body. A four-layered chain of scripture and treatise interlocks: the Āgama ("the attainment of cessation, not relinquishing life and warmth and the faculties, ≠ death") 〔Saṃyukta 568, 0150b13〕 → the Saṃdhinirmocana ("the ādāna follows along and appropriates the body") 〔T676 0692b15〕 → the Section on Ascertainment, the eight-characteristic proof, at "the mindless concentrations · consciousness does not depart from the body" 〔T1579 0579c13〕 → the Cheng Weishi Lun ("that which does not depart from the body — that consciousness is just the eighth consciousness") 〔T1585 0018c20〕. This is Stage One's "the seed-support is the store consciousness," redeemed at the very deepest point of the science of concentration.

3. Entering has stilling and insight; emerging touches three emptinesses. To enter the attainment of cessation two dharmas must "have much to do" with it: the eight successive concentrations = tranquillity (śamatha), all the noble wisdom = insight (vipaśyanā); lacking either, one cannot enter. On emerging one touches three contacts (the unmoving, nothingness, the markless — by way of the existent-field / the object-field / the ceased-field), answering to the emptiness, wishlessness, and marklessness concentrations of the "concentration" gate. No-perception's three similes ("as a sickness, a boil, an arrow") and cessation's pairing ("the eight successive concentrations / the noble wisdom") are both set up by the treatise itself (the ancient masters offer no gloss on this passage); the Consciousness-Only meaning of "consciousness does not depart from the body" rests on the Section on Ascertainment's eight-characteristic proof together with the Cheng Weishi Lun.

The 漢 root text (Xuanzang, T30n1579) is kept as a de-emphasized visual anchor for bilingual readers; the English below renders every word of it in plain, continuous prose.

One · The Five Attainments of Present-Seeing (五現見三摩缽底)

What is the attainment of present-seeing that is fivefold? "The various monks, [contemplating] just upon this body, and so on" (expounded at length as in the sūtra). It is one who has already seen the truths (the path of seeing) who cultivates this attainment, and so it is named "the attainment of present-seeing." This is, with respect to the afflictions to be cut off by the various paths of cultivation, a "counteragent that suppresses, a counteragent that severs, and the contemplation-that-severs" — it should be understood that what is given here is the intrinsic nature stated overall and in brief.

• The first contemplation of the impure: taking "the skillful-means establishment of mindfulness" as its support, so as to keep sensual craving from becoming active, one contemplates the many kinds of impurity within one's own body.
• The second contemplation of the impure: taking that very establishment of mindfulness as its support, and going on to contemplate "the aspect of the skeleton-person," so as to keep that craving from becoming active, one contemplates the many kinds of impurity of this body — it should be understood that, reaching this point, it is named "possessing the contemplation of all that is impure." What is called "reaching the very utmost through-and-through" is the sense of the categorical sequence of the contemplation of the livid-bruised [corpse] and the like, and of the utter overleaping (of craving and the rest).
• 〔A twofold gloss〕In the first contemplation of the impure, one contemplates the many kinds of impurity abiding present within one's own body; in the latter contemplation of the impure, one penetrates the nature of the dharma, contemplating that this body has such-and-such a dharma and has such-and-such a nature (expounded at length, and so on).
• The contemplation of the turning-and-flowing of consciousness: one contemplates the arising-and-ceasing and continuity of this consciousness. Either one contemplates "the successive continuity of the born body" (the coarse contemplation — that is, contemplating consciousness-conditioned-by-formations and the rest); or one contemplates "the successive continuity of instant-by-instant" (the fine contemplation — that is, contemplating the categorical distinctions of a mind-with-craving, a mind-free-of-craving, and so on, elapsing and passing over those several days and nights, instants, lavas, and muhūrtas, and in the intervals between them the non-single, manifold, many-kinded arising-differently and ceasing-differently of consciousness).
• The contemplation directed at severance: one contemplates that, for a learner not yet freed from craving, consciousness together [with its factors] abides in two times (present and future); for one already freed from craving, it abides only in the other time (the future); at the fruit of the arhat, it abides in neither. In this way it is named the contemplation directed at severance.

(The attainments of the bases-of-mastery and the attainments of the totalities have already been stated above 〔in the passage on the liberations〕.)

Two · The Attainment of No-Perception (無想三摩缽底)

What is the attainment of no-perception? It is one who has already become free from craving for the Universally-Pure [heaven] but not yet free from craving above it who, taking as prior the attending "with the perception that seeks release," brings the various minds and mental factors to cessation.

　Question: By what skillful means does one enter this attainment? Answer: One contemplates the perception [of the lower states] "as a sickness, as a boil, as an arrow," enters the fourth dhyāna, cultivates the attending "that turns its back on perception," and abides turning away in aversion from the various perceptions that arise; regarding only the stilled, subtle, and sublime state of no-perception, one holds the mind steady and abides within no-perception. In this way, gradually departing from the various objects, the mind comes to be stilled and ceased. Within this present life one both enters and emerges [from it]; but if one is born there 〔in the heaven of no-perception〕, one only enters and does not emerge; and if perception arises, one at once passes away from there 〔falls back〕.

Three · The Attainment of Cessation (滅盡三摩缽底)

What is the attainment of cessation? It is one who has already become free from craving for the sphere of nothingness who, taking as prior the attending "with the perception of a brief abiding," brings the various minds and mental factors to cessation.

　Question: By what skillful means does one enter this attainment? Answer: If the various noble ones have already become free from craving for the sphere of nothingness, they enter concentration either "in dependence on the aspect of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception" or "in dependence on the aspect of cessation." For one who enters concentration in dependence on the aspect of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, it is because, generating a deep aversion-and-relinquishing toward the mind above this, all the objects that the advance-and-approach of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception [would take] come to be ceased, and so the mind comes to be stilled and ceased; and for one who enters concentration in dependence on the aspect of cessation, it is likewise so.

　When one is about to advance into the attainment of cessation, there are two dharmas that "have much to do" [with the entering] — namely tranquillity (śamatha) and insight (vipaśyanā). What is tranquillity? What is insight? What is it for these two to "have much to do" with it? Herein, "the eight successive concentrations" are named tranquillity, and "all the noble wisdom [there is]" is named insight; if either one of these two is lacking, one cannot enter the attainment of cessation; only by possessing these two can one advance into it — and so these two "have much to do" with it.

　Question: When one enters the attainment of cessation, in what sequence do the three kinds of formation cease? Answer: There are two [cases], namely the time of moving-about and the time of abiding. If it is at the time of moving-about, verbal expression too arises (this activity is present in the first dhyāna, where there is the formation of speech); if it is at the time of abiding, then from the second dhyāna upward, by the force of the successive concentrations, those three kinds of formation cease in sequence. And it should be understood that, at the time of emerging, they arise in the reverse sequence.

　Question: Within the attainment of cessation, the various minds and mental factors have one and all ceased — how then can it be said that "consciousness does not depart from the body"? Answer: It is because, among the unaltered, unbroken material faculties, there is "the store consciousness that is able to appropriate and hold the seeds of the turning consciousnesses," and it does not cease — so that afterward those dharmas [the turning consciousnesses] come to arise again from this 〔store consciousness〕.

　Question: When one enters the attainment of cessation, there is no discriminating thought "I shall enter the attainment, I shall emerge from the attainment"; and while properly within the attainment the mind is stilled and ceased and so is far from any preparatory effort; and when one is about to emerge, since the mind has ceased beforehand, there is likewise no attending [that reaches out] — how then is one able to enter, and able to emerge? Answer: It is because one has beforehand well cultivated-and-purified one's mind. If there are formations, states, and aspects that are able to enter the attainment and able to emerge from it, and one cultivates them, cultivates them exceedingly much — then, by the force of that cultivation, one comes to enter effortlessly and to emerge effortlessly.

　〔The three contacts on emerging from the attainment〕What are the three kinds of contact that one touches when emerging from the attainment of cessation? First, the contact of the unmoving; second, the contact of nothingness; third, the contact of the markless. On emerging from the attainment, one emerges for the most part by way of three fields: first by way of the existent-field, second by way of the object-field, third by way of the ceased-field — and in that very sequence one touches the three kinds of contact. When one emerges from the attainment taking the existent-field as object, there is no self-conceit stirring and disturbing one's mind (there does not arise the self-conceit "this is I," or the reckoning "in the future I shall be," and the like), and so it is said that one touches "the contact of the unmoving." When one emerges taking the object-field as object, there is nothing that is craving, nothing that is aversion, nothing that is delusion, and so it is said that one touches "the contact of nothingness." When one emerges taking the ceased-field as object, one does not think upon any mark [whatsoever] but takes the markless realm as object, and so it is said that one touches "the contact of the markless."

In this way there have now been stated the dhyānas, the liberations, the concentrations, and the attainments 〔the fifth gate of the Stage of Meditative Equipoise, "Gathering the Purport of the Sūtras," is herewith complete〕.

The Last Three of the Attainments: Present-Seeing, No-Perception, Cessation

Earlier, the gate of "Gathering the Purport of the Sūtras" set forth the liberations and the concentrations; this "attainment" (samāpatti) is its third passage. The attainments are properly of six kinds (the five of present-seeing, the eight bases-of-mastery, the ten totalities, the four formless, no-perception, and cessation); but the bases-of-mastery and the totalities were already treated above in the passage on the liberations, and the four formless attainments are no different from the liberations, so here only three are explained: present-seeing, no-perception, and cessation. And within these three, the first speaks of "contemplation" and the latter two of "cessation" — step by step the mind is gathered in to its very limit, gathered right down to where "the various minds and mental factors have one and all ceased." It is just at this limit that the question breaks out: the mind has ceased — what then remains? This one question drives the whole Stage of Meditative Equipoise up to the knot where it is tied off.

Present-Seeing: The Contemplation of One Who Has Seen the Truths — Which Shows You Even "Consciousness Turning-and-Flowing"

The five attainments of present-seeing are cultivated only by "one who has already seen the truths" (a noble one at the path of seeing or above), and so it is named "present-seeing" — a contemplation that is directly and clearly manifest, not the imagining of an ordinary being. The ancient masters make a special point of it: these five are all "attained by the noble ones alone," differing from the Lesser Vehicle's [account], which calls the first two present-seeing and holds the latter three to be merely conditionally-arisen 〔Kuiji, Concise Compendium〕. It first cultivates the contemplation of the impure (contemplating the impurity within one's own body, contemplating the aspect of the skeleton-person), and then advances to "the contemplation of the turning-and-flowing of consciousness" — and it is this contemplation that most displays the discerning eye of Consciousness-Only: one contemplates "the arising-and-ceasing and continuity of this consciousness," coarsely contemplating the continuity of "consciousness conditioned by formations" across a single span of birth-and-death, and finely contemplating how, instant by instant, consciousness "arises differently and ceases differently," so that, in the intervals of days and nights, of instants, of lavas and muhūrtas, countless consciousnesses arise and then cease, cease and then arise again (Dunlun goes on to cite the Abhidharmakośa, reckoning out these time-units one by one for you). The concentration of one who has seen the truths is not a pressing of the mind to death; it is a seeing, clear and distinct, of "how consciousness turns-and-flows" — and this has already laid a thread for what comes later, that "in the attainment of cessation the eighth consciousness still remains."

No-Perception and Cessation: Taking "Perception" as a Sickness, a Boil, an Arrow

These two, no-perception and cessation, are both concentrations in which "the various minds and mental factors cease"; but the means of entering them differ. The attainment of no-perception is entered by one "already free from craving for the Universally-Pure [heaven] but not yet free from craving above it," taking "the perception that seeks release" as prior — and the treatise uses three exceedingly sharp similes to state its means of entry: "one contemplates the perception as a sickness, as a boil, as an arrow". Taking "perception" as a sickness upon the body, as a suppurating boil, as an arrow driven in, one is averse to it, turns one's back on it, and so enters the fourth dhyāna and cultivates the attending "that turns its back on perception"; the various perceptions all being turned away in aversion, the mind comes to be stilled and ceased. These three similes are set up by the treatise itself; the ancient masters offer no separate gloss on this passage.

The attainment of cessation is a layer deeper still: it is the noble one "already free from craving for the sphere of nothingness" who, above the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, is averse to and relinquishes even that subtlest perception, so that the various minds and mental factors are brought to cessation. The treatise says that to enter the attainment of cessation there are two dharmas that "have much to do" with it — tranquillity (śamatha) and insight (vipaśyanā); and it pairs them very concretely: "the eight successive concentrations" are tranquillity, and "all the noble wisdom [there is]" is insight, and if either of the two is lacking one cannot enter the attainment of cessation. Stilling and insight, at the very deepest point of concentration, are still a pair of feet neither of which can be spared.

The Knot, and Its One Question: The Mind Has Ceased — How Can It Still Be Said That "Consciousness Does Not Depart from the Body"?

Reaching this point in the attainment of cessation, the treatise poses on our behalf the very sharpest question: "Within the attainment of cessation, the various minds and mental factors have one and all ceased — how then can it be said that consciousness does not depart from the body?" — The former six turning consciousnesses (down to mental consciousness) have all stopped, yet the sūtra insistently says "consciousness does not depart from the body." What is this "consciousness"?

The treatise's answer is exceedingly terse, exceedingly weighty: "It is because, among the unaltered, unbroken material faculties, there is the store consciousness that is able to appropriate and hold the seeds of the turning consciousnesses, and it does not cease". So then, what is stopped within the attainment of cessation is the former six (and up to the seventh) turning consciousnesses; but that eighth store consciousness — which holds in store all the seeds of the turning consciousnesses and appropriates the faculty-body — has not ceased. It is precisely because it is still appropriating that the faculty-body does not decay, and that, after emerging from the attainment, the various consciousnesses can arise again from it.

This one answer is no isolated assertion of the treatise's author; it draws behind it a complete chain of scripture and treatise. The Buddha, in the Saṃyukta-āgama, said long ago that the attainment of cessation differs from death in just this — "life is not relinquished, warmth does not depart, the faculties are unbroken" — but who is it that appropriates and holds this life, this warmth, these faculties? The Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra answers: it is the appropriating (ādāna) consciousness, which "follows along and appropriates the body," and this ādāna is none other than the store consciousness. This treatise's own later section, the Section on Ascertainment, further proves by "eight characteristics" that the store consciousness definitely exists, and the seventh of these characteristics is exactly "abiding in the mindless concentrations": "That is, one who enters the attainment of no-perception or the attainment of cessation ought, like the consciousness at the relinquishing of life, to depart from the body, [and it would be] not that it does not depart from the body. As the World-Honored One has said: at that very time, consciousness does not depart from the body" — for if there were no store consciousness, would not one who enters the attainment of cessation be no different from a corpse? Yet he emerges from the attainment still alive, which is proof enough that within the attainment there is a subtle consciousness holding the body, not yet departed. And by the time of the Cheng Weishi Lun, this saying is made fully explicit: "Therefore, as for the sūtra's saying 'it does not depart from the body' — that consciousness is just this eighth consciousness, which, when one enters the attainment of cessation, is not brought to rest, for it is this utterly stilled appropriating consciousness".

Between the one question and the one answer, the Stage of Meditative Equipoise completes the knot where it is tied off: a science of concentration cultivated down to the attainment of cessation, where "the mind itself has ceased," leaves remaining not annihilation, not death, but that eighth consciousness which holds in store all the seeds and appropriates the faculty-body — and this is precisely the line from Stage One, "the seed-support of eye-consciousness is the store consciousness," redeemed at the very deepest point of the science of concentration. A whole Consciousness-Only [teaching], setting out from the seed-support of a single moment of eye-consciousness, comes to its close at "in the attainment of cessation consciousness does not depart from the body" — head and tail joined together.

The Three Contacts on Emerging: Coming Back from the Attainment, One Meets Three Kinds of "Emptiness"

At its end the treatise speaks of the "three kinds of contact one touches" when emerging from the attainment of cessation — the contact of the unmoving, the contact of nothingness, and the contact of the markless — arising respectively by way of the existent-field, the object-field, and the ceased-field. When one emerges taking the existent-field as object, no self-conceit "this is I" stirs and disturbs one, and so one touches "the unmoving"; when one emerges taking the object-field as object, there is nothing that is craving, aversion, or delusion, and so one touches "nothingness"; when one emerges taking the ceased-field as object, one does not think upon any mark but takes the markless realm as object, and so one touches "the markless." These three contacts on emerging answer exactly to the three concentrations of the earlier "concentration" gate — emptiness, wishlessness, and marklessness: concentration cultivated to its utmost depth and then emerged from still touches upon that same stillness of no-self, of nothingness, and of the markless.

"In this way there have now been stated the dhyānas, the liberations, the concentrations, and the attainments" — with this single sentence, the gate of "Gathering the Purport of the Sūtras" within the Stage of Meditative Equipoise is drawn to a close.

Carrying Forward

The passage on the meditative attainments is the last passage of the gate of "Gathering the Purport of the Sūtras," and it is also the Consciousness-Only knot where the whole Stage of Meditative Equipoise is tied off. It explains three attainments — present-seeing (one who has seen the truths contemplating consciousness turning-and-flowing), no-perception (contemplating perception as a sickness, a boil, an arrow), and cessation (the various minds and mental factors ceasing) — and what drives the whole stage to its summit is the one question of the attainment of cessation, "consciousness does not depart from the body." The treatise answers it with "the store consciousness that is able to appropriate and hold the seeds of the turning consciousnesses does not cease," and so connects up a whole Consciousness-Only chain: the Āgama (the attainment of cessation not relinquishing life and warmth), the Saṃdhinirmocana (the ādāna appropriating [the body]), the Section on Ascertainment (the eight characteristics proving it, at the "mindless concentrations"), and the Cheng Weishi Lun ("that which does not depart from the body is the eighth consciousness"). Where the science of concentration is cultivated to the very place where mind and mental factors alike have ceased, what is illumined is precisely the eighth store consciousness — and this is of one meaning, head and tail, with the overall-heading's scriptural point-of-the-eye, "one-pointedness of mind is the penetration that the reflected image within concentration is only its own consciousness," and with the eighth liberation of the passage on the liberations, "turning one's back on perception and feeling" (identical with this cessation). The five gates of the Stage of Meditative Equipoise are herewith complete; the next gate, "the Last, of Various Miscellaneous Meanings" (Gate Six), gathers up the miscellaneous meanings scattered through the sūtras, as a final patching-in for this ground of concentration.