瑜伽師地論 思所成地 · 體義伽他 · 第十二段「劬勞」

The Body-Meaning Verses, Segment Twelve · five verses (the first four and a half verses chant of toilsome labor · with three question-and-answers). The World-Honored One narrates his own crooked road on the path.

In one line: The "Toilsome Labor" segment is the World-Honored One's self-narration — the "valiant vigor subsumed under non-means" of his six years of former austerity bought only growing feeble → coming to a halt → being carried adrift (bowing to the wrong outsider teachers Uddaka and Āḷāra); only at the seat of awakening, letting go of toilsome labor and seeking the right Dharma without complacency, did he — with no teacher, spontaneously — cultivate the thirty-seven factors of awakening and realize supreme, right, and full awakening, being named the Greatly Awakened One.

Three Points of the Eye

1. The four lines of toilsome labor (the Buddha's self-narration): toilsome labor (non-means austere vigor · suffering hardship for nothing) → growing feeble (wrong means, wholesome dharmas fall away) → coming to a halt (letting the wrong means come to rest) → being carried adrift (seeking out a further teacher · the neither-perception-nor-non-perception concentration of Uddaka / the nothing-whatever concentration of Āḷāra · following along and observing, and carried off by the concentrative states). What runs counter to this = the bright class.
2. The turning at the seat of awakening: seated on the seat of awakening, casting away the non-means vigor → wholesome dharmas grow → no complacency, no halting · searching onward for the surpassing → seeking out no further outsider teacher, with no teacher, spontaneously cultivating the thirty-seven factors of awakening, realizing supreme, right, and full awakening, named the Greatly Awakened One. The key = the problem lies in "non-means," not in vigor.
3. Two "four lines" that bear it out: nirvāṇa's no-reliance-no-abiding, the four causes (relying on the applied thought of greedy relishing → indolence → abiding in the portion of an ordinary being → going along with the stream of birth-and-death and carried adrift; reversed, one crosses) · the four lines of falling away from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling (having attained the attainment of cessation, then heedless · abiding much in perception and feeling and not abiding in the cessation of perception and feeling → falling away · sinking to the cause for arising in a lower ground). What is attained can still fall away · let the direction slacken by a hair, and one drifts.

Appended · Pointers

Non-means austerity = toilsome labor → Segment One, keep clear of the extreme of self-mortifying austerity (11-03-01) · the middle way; the cessation of perception and feeling → the Stage of Meditative Equipoise (Stage 06); with no teacher, spontaneously, the factors of awakening → the Bodhisattva Stage (fasc. 35+). For the doctrine set out in full, see the Exposition.

The Verses (in today's language · five verses)

〔The World-Honored One narrating of himself:〕 "Just as I 〔vainly〕 toiled, so did I 〔grow〕 the more feeble; just as I grew feeble, so did I 〔come to a〕 halt; just as I came to a halt, so was I 〔carried〕 adrift 〔and drowned〕. O deva! Just as I let go of that toilsome labor, so did I no longer grow feeble." Thus is set out at length the "bright-and-white class"; and among these the "jñeya-verse" (the verse of light) should be understood.

The Prose Exposition (in today's language)

Within this verse, as for "having nothing to cling to, nothing to abide in": this means nirvāṇa and the attainment of cessation, as already said above.

The World-Honored One, in reliance on what he showed forth in former days when cultivating the bodhisattva practice — all that "most extremely hard-to-do austerity," that "valiant vigor comprised under non-means" — and further in reliance on what he showed forth when seated on the seat of awakening, the "full comprehension that cuts off the valiant vigor comprised under non-means" — spoke these words: "O deva! You should know: in former days, just as I vainly set up toilsome labor 〔suffering hardship to no purpose〕, so did I 〔grow〕 the more feeble; just as I grew feeble, so did I 〔come to a〕 halt; just as I came to a halt, so was I again carried adrift and drowned." What runs counter to this — this should be understood as the "bright class" (the side of pure and wholesome dharmas).

Herein is shown: the "valiant vigor comprised under non-means" at the time of cultivating austerity is named "toilsome labor"; practicing a wrong means, so that wholesome dharmas fall away and are lost, is named "growing feeble"; once one knows the wholesome dharmas have fallen away, and so lets the wrong means come to rest, this is named "coming to a halt"; letting go of the various austerities, yet then seeking out another teacher, and so at the places of wrong grasping of "Uddaka, Āḷāra" and the like 〔the outsider teachers〕 following along and observing — this is why it is named "being carried adrift and drowned." And again at a later time, 〔the World-Honored One〕 seated on the seat of awakening, cast away every "valiant vigor comprised under non-means," and all wholesome dharmas thereupon grew and increased; the wholesome dharmas having grown and increased, he then, toward the wholesome dharmas, "gave rise to no complacency, took no leisure to halt," and toward what was to be cultivated and cut off he searched onward and onward for what was surpassing and subtle; and it being by such non-complacency that "he sought out no further outsider teacher," but, "with no teacher, spontaneously," cultivated the thirty-seven factors of awakening, and realized supreme, right, and full awakening — he is named "the Greatly Awakened One." The four meanings herein should be understood as matched, in due order, to the four lines of the scripture — "letting go of toilsome labor" and the rest.

How, again, is the distinction shown by way of nirvāṇa's "having no reliance, no abiding"? It is that 〔a person〕 unable to cross the torrent of the entanglements and latent tendencies of the afflictions is so, in brief, by four causes. What four? Namely: first of all there is "the applied thought that relies on greedy relishing"; and because it relies on and takes as its support the applied thought of greedy relishing, there is "indolence"; and further, because it relies on and takes as its support indolence, one "abides in the portion of an ordinary being"; and because it relies on and takes as its support abiding in the portion of an ordinary being, one "goes along with the stream of birth-and-death" — the force of craving makes him, within the river of birth-and-death of the five destinies, go along downstream, carried adrift and drowned. By the four causes that run counter to these, one is able to cross the torrent, as should accordingly be understood.

How, again, is the distinction shown by way of "the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling"? It is that, just as there is someone who, having already realized the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, yet abides in heedlessness — abiding much in "perception and feeling," and not abiding much in "the cessations of the various perceptions and feelings"; by this causal condition he falls away from the attainment of cessation; and by this falling away, he comes once more to a halt in "the cause for arising in a lower ground"; and because he abides in that cause, his mind then determinately proceeds toward the fruit obtained there. What runs counter to this should be understood as the four-line distinction of the "bright class."

Segment Twelve, five verses — the most singular of all: it is the World-Honored One's "self-narration" of his own crooked road on the path. The hard points are all told in words the treatise itself already has.

First, a Question: How Does the Buddha Answer the Question Left at the End of Segment Eleven?

At the end of Segment Eleven, the deva asked the bhikṣu, question upon question: "Being like what, do you — with nothing to cling to, nothing to abide in — already cross the torrent?" This segment, the World-Honored One answers by his own lived experience — a thing extremely rare among the verses: it is the Buddha coming forth in person to teach, laying open for people the crooked road he himself once walked.

The verse is very short, yet it descends layer upon layer: "Just as I toiled, so and so was I feeble; just as I was feeble, so and so did I halt; just as I halted, so and so was I carried adrift." — The more I 〔vainly〕 toiled, the more feeble I grew; the more feeble, the more I came to a halt; the more I halted, the more I was carried adrift and drowned. The treatise matches these four words, one by one, onto the Buddha's own history on the path:

• Toilsome labor = the Buddha's "six years of austerity" of former days, that "valiant vigor comprised under non-means" (fierce exertion pointed in the wrong direction; the ancient masters say outright it was "vainly making toilsome labor," suffering hardship for nothing);
• Growing feeble = practicing a wrong means, so that wholesome dharmas fall away instead;
• Coming to a halt = knowing they had fallen away, and so stopping that set of wrong means;
• Being carried adrift and drowned = having stopped, then going off to seek out another teacher — running to "Uddaka, Āḷāra" (the two outsider teachers he relied on after leaving home, one teaching the concentration of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, one the concentration of nothing-whatever), following along and observing at their places of wrong grasping, and being carried off, in the end, by the concentrative states.

A crooked road — "austerity spent for nothing → falling away → stopping → then bowing to the wrong teacher" — the Buddha says without the least concealment: this is a road I walked in person.

The Turning at the Seat of Awakening: Letting Go of Toilsome Labor, and Instead "Growing No More Feeble"

The latter half of the verse is the side of light: "O deva! Just as I let go of toilsome labor, so and so did I grow no more feeble." The treatise points out that the turning came exactly beneath the tree of awakening — the World-Honored One "seated on the seat of awakening, cast away every valiant vigor comprised under non-means," and only then did wholesome dharmas grow. The wondrous thing is the line that follows: the wholesome dharmas having grown, he "gave rise to no complacency, took no leisure to halt," but rather searched onward and onward for what was more surpassing and subtle; and it was precisely because of this non-complacency that he "sought out no further outsider teacher, but, with no teacher, spontaneously cultivated the thirty-seven factors of awakening, realized supreme, right, and full awakening, and is named the Greatly Awakened One."

Hidden here is the deepest lesson of the whole segment: the problem was never "vigor" itself, but vigor that is "non-means" (wrong in direction, wrong in method). Fierce exertion in the wrong direction (toilsome labor) only grows the more feeble the harder it is driven; only by letting it go, and seeking the right Dharma without complacency, does one walk through to great awakening. The Buddha draws the dividing line between "austerity is of no benefit" and "the right effort of the middle way" and tells it out plainly through his own life-story — and this answers, too, Segment One's "keep clear of the extreme of self-mortifying austerity."

Two Sets of "Four Lines": Crossing the Torrent, and Guarding the Attainment of Cessation

The treatise adds two further sets of contrasts, telling through the whole mechanism of "drifting" and "crossing":

• Nirvāṇa, no reliance and no abiding · the four causes: the one unable to cross the torrent is one who slides all the way down "relying on the applied thought of greedy relishing → indolence → abiding in the portion of an ordinary being → going along with the stream of birth-and-death and being carried adrift"; by the four causes reversed, one is able to cross.
• The attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling · the four lines: even one who has attained "the attainment of cessation," if he "abides in heedlessness, abiding much in perception and feeling and not much in the cessation of perception and feeling," will also fall away from the attainment of cessation, and sink back to the cause for arising in a lower ground.

Both sets speak the one same principle: what is attained can still fall away; let the direction slacken by a hair, and one drifts. Even the Buddha walked a crooked road; even the attainment of cessation can fall away — and so "no complacency, no heedlessness" is the very key to not drifting.

The Point of This Segment

The "Toilsome Labor" segment is the Buddha's self-narration: the "non-means vigor" of six years of austerity bought only growing feeble, halting, and drifting (bowing to the wrong teachers Uddaka and Āḷāra); only at the seat of awakening, letting go of toilsome labor and seeking the right Dharma without complacency, did he — with no teacher, spontaneously — realize great awakening; and then, with "the four causes for crossing the torrent" and "the four lines of falling away from the attainment of cessation," he bears out that "let the direction err / slacken, and one drifts." Vigor pointed in the wrong direction is called toilsome labor — this is the one line of the whole segment, and it is what the Buddha realized in person.

Carrying Forward

Non-means austerity = toilsome labor · letting it go realizes great awakening → Segment One, keep clear of the extreme of self-mortifying austerity (11-03-01) · the middle way; falling away from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling → the Stage of Meditative Equipoise (Stage 06), the attainment of cessation; with no teacher, spontaneously cultivating the factors of awakening → the Bodhisattva Stage (fasc. 35+); going along with the stream of birth-and-death and being carried adrift → Segments Nine and Eleven, crossing the flood.