瑜伽師地論 義疏通講 · 冊14

After the Śrāvaka, Before the Bodhisattva — Why Set Up This One Vehicle by Itself

Among the seventeen stages, the śrāvaka (thirteenth), pratyekabuddha (fourteenth), and bodhisattva (fifteenth) stages stand joined in a row — exactly the three vehicles set side by side. Both the śrāvaka and the bodhisattva are familiar to us: the one hears the Buddha's vocal teaching and cultivates the four truths; the other arouses the mind of great compassion and practices the six perfections. But this "pratyekabuddha," wedged in between, what exactly is it? He neither hears the Dharma in a buddha's age nor arouses the resolve to deliver beings — he seems to lean on neither side. Why, then, does the treatise still set up a stage for him by himself, and gravely at that, expounding his lineage, path, practice, dwelling, and conduct?

Jinaputra's commentary points out his rank in a single stroke: "He constantly delights in quiescence and does not wish to dwell mingled [with others]; his intensified practice being complete, without the teaching of teacher or friend he awakens of himself, alone and spontaneously, and forever departs the world. Middling in practice and middling in fruit, he is therefore named a pratyekabuddha [a solitary awakener]. Or, because he awakens to the noble fruit by contemplating conditions, he is also named a pratyekabuddha [a condition-awakener]" 〔Jinaputra's Commentary〕. His is a vehicle "middling in practice and middling in fruit": his practice does not reach the greatness of the bodhisattva, yet it surpasses the śrāvaka's reliance on a teacher; his fruit does not reach the fullness of a buddha, yet it goes beyond the three realms. What most repays reflection in him is not what he realizes, but how he realizes it — and why, having realized it, he does not speak. This stage is, when the three vehicles are set side by side, the very mirror that shows what "awakening yet thin in compassion" looks like.

Within the Lineage, the Ending Is Already Stored Up

The treatise says the pratyekabuddha lineage has three marks. On a first reading they look like three qualifications; looked at closely, they are three buried threads — the loneliness and silence of the pratyekabuddha's whole life are already written into the lineage.

First, thin defilement: the dust of affliction is by nature thin in him, and so "in clamorous places his mind takes no delight, while in quiet places his heart delights deeply" — he inclines, from birth, toward the still. Second, thin compassion: his compassion is by nature thin, and so "in the matter of expounding the true Dharma and benefiting sentient beings his mind takes no delight, while in dwelling quietly with few affairs and cares his heart delights deeply" — he is, from birth, disinclined to trouble himself with the affairs of beings. Third, middling faculties, acting with pride: his capacity is of the middling grade and carries the habit of pride, and so "his heart deeply longs to realize awakening without a teacher and without a rival" — he wants, from birth, to realize the path relying on himself, wanting neither teacher nor rival.

Read these three marks together, and the pratyekabuddha's "fruit" already takes form within his "cause": loving stillness (thin defilement), not delighting to benefit beings (thin compassion), and willing to accomplish the goal alone (proud practice) — a lineage such as this must bear, as its fruit, an awakened one who is "born in an age without a buddha, awakens of himself without a teacher, delights in quiescence and does not expound the Dharma." Lineage is destiny's very artery: what lineage you are, that is the path you walk and the fruit you accomplish. This is precisely the Consciousness-Only principle that "each [factor] arises from its own seed," enlarged across a whole road to buddhahood — the pratyekabuddha's being a pratyekabuddha is not a choice made midway, but something carried within the lineage from the start.

The Rhinoceros Horn and the Group-Dwellers: Two Kinds of "Solitary"

So how is a pratyekabuddha cultivated to completion? The treatise lists three paths and three practices, and draws them to a close with two similes, dividing out two kinds of "solitary."

For the one who follows the "first pratyekabuddha path": he settles in the lineage, passes a hundred aeons, draws near and serves [a buddha] in a buddha's age, and cultivates the "six skills" — in the aggregates, the sense-bases, the elements, dependent origination, the possible-and-impossible, and the truths — yet reserves his realization for an age without a buddha. This class, "the one who becomes a pratyekabuddha through the first practice, is called [an instance of] the rhinoceros-horn simile": like that single horn upon the rhinoceros's head, from first to last he alone, a wholly solitary awakening. For the one who follows the "second and third paths": he is originally one who, on the śrāvaka path, has already aroused warmth, summit, and acceptance, or has already attained a fruit of the renunciant's life, only that in the present life he lacks the power to reach the consummation, and so reserves it for a later, buddha-less age to complete alone. This class "is called [an instance of] the group-dwelling simile": one who once practiced within the community (the assembly) and in the end became solitary.

The two solitudes differ in weight: the rhinoceros-horn is "solitary by birth"; the group-dwelling is "solitary by practice." Dunlun draws the distinction here sharply: "The first is named the rhinoceros-horn; the latter two are named the group-dwelling," and he cites the Abhidharma-samuccaya, fascicle thirteen, for comparison 〔Dunlun, Notes〕. But whichever of the two, the common point is those very words — born in an age without a buddha, teacherless able of himself to cultivate the thirty-seven factors of awakening and so to realize [the goal]. With no buddha, no teacher, no teaching, he contemplates dependent origination through to the end of himself and cultivates the path through to the end. This is the pratyekabuddha's hardest bone: awakening can be walked, by one person, all the way to the end.

The Dwelling and the Conduct: Awakened, Yet Unable to Say It Aloud

Yet it is precisely in the "dwelling" and the "conduct" that the pratyekabuddha comes to the one step he cannot walk past.

The "dwelling" of the rhinoceros-horn-simile pratyekabuddha is to "delight to abide in a solitary grove, delight to dwell alone, delight in profound resolute conviction, delight to contemplate the principle of the profound dependent origination, delight to rest in the attention to the utmost emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness" — he dwells in the deepest emptiness and quiescence, contemplating the twelvefold dependent origination, forward and reverse, through to the very bottom. This is an exceedingly high station: teacherless, yet able to see through dependent origination and to rest in the three gates of liberation.

But when it comes to "conduct," the lineage of thin compassion shows its limit. The treatise says the pratyekabuddha dwells in dependence on villages and towns, well guarding his body, faculties, and right mindfulness, and that even when he meets one who is lowly and benighted, he "rescues and delivers" him — but how does he rescue and deliver? "He rescues and delivers by the body, not by speech": he only manifests bodily form and displays supernormal power, so as even to turn one who has aroused slander toward giving himself over [to the Dharma] — yet "because he expounds the Dharma to them by manifesting bodily form alone, and does not utter words." When he delivers others, it is by silently manifesting a body and showing a little supernormal power, and from beginning to end he does not open his mouth to expound the Dharma. Why does he not speak? The lineage already wrote it down: thin compassion. His compassion being thin, he cannot bring forth the tireless vow to "proclaim the Dharma for the sake of beings." And so the treatise's closing line sets the whole keynote of the pratyekabuddha: "And all these [pratyekabuddhas], it should be known, are from the outset wholly bent toward quiescence." — From the very root, he heads by a single road toward quiescence.

This is the pratyekabuddha's most moving, and most reflection-worthy, stroke: he has true awakening, can awaken alone, and dwells in the deepest emptiness and quiescence, yet because his compassion is thin, he "attains the awakening but cannot say it aloud"; he can deliver others by the body, but cannot deliver them by the Dharma. Awakening and compassion, in him, are set apart — there is awakening, but the compassion is not full.

The One Meaning This Stage Holds Up to the Light

The Pratyekabuddha Stage looks like nothing more than a résumé entered for the "middle vehicle," but it is in fact the most crucial of mirrors when the three vehicles are set side by side: it holds up to the light what "awakening yet thin in compassion" ends in — wholly bent toward quiescence, using the body in place of the mouth, raising no transformation-through-Dharma. To place the pratyekabuddha between the śrāvaka and the bodhisattva is precisely to throw into relief, by contrast: the śrāvaka awakens in reliance on a teacher; the pratyekabuddha, teacherless, [inclines to] quiescence; and the bodhisattva runs awakening and compassion together, in great practice and great fruit, and "does not abide [in nirvāṇa]." The pratyekabuddha reaches the utmost of "awakening, by one person, to the end," and yet at that very utmost he halts — halts at "bent toward quiescence," unable to cross the pass of "the compassionate vow to deliver beings."

So this stage is not asking us to admire the pratyekabuddha's lonely loftiness, nor to disparage the thinness of his compassion, but to make us see clearly: awakening, if it is not held and gathered by great compassion, can only accomplish a solitary one bent toward quiescence; to abide neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa, one must have awakening and compassion at once. By his silence, the pratyekabuddha says on the bodhisattva path's behalf why the two words "great compassion" cannot be dispensed with. An awakened one who cannot say it aloud is the most forceful proof, by contrary, of the great-compassion gate of the Dharma.

Carrying Forward

The pratyekabuddha meaning here in the Basic Section is carried forward by the later treatises for mutual reference: the Abhidharma-samuccaya (the Compendium and the Miscellaneous Compendium), fascicle thirteen, discusses the pratyekabuddha (cited by Dunlun); the Section on Ascertainment sets up no separate ascertainment of the Pratyekabuddha Stage (the outline notes "the Pratyekabuddha Stage is absent"); and the division into the rhinoceros-horn simile and the group-dwelling simile is constantly drawn upon, in the later classification of the teachings, as the authority for "the two classes of the middle vehicle." Contemplating the three vehicles together, the pratyekabuddha stands squarely in the midst — inheriting above the śrāvaka's reliance on the four truths, and setting off below the bodhisattva's great compassion; the three stages are a single line, and without this middle vehicle the three vehicles are not complete.