瑜伽師地論 義疏通講 · 冊15

As the Bodhisattva Stage Opens, Why Ask First about Lineage

A hundred fascicles of the Yogācārabhūmi: the first fourteen stages have exhausted the mind and consciousness of the ordinary being (the five sense-consciousnesses, the mental stage), the meditative concentrations of the three realms (meditative equipoise), the three wisdoms of hearing, reflection, and cultivation, and the two vehicles of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha. At the fifteenth, the greatest of the stages — the Bodhisattva Stage — at last comes onto the scene. Yet its very first chapter neither speaks of arousing the mind nor speaks of the six perfections, but coolly poses a single question: Does this person have "bodhisattva lineage" or not?

Why place lineage at the very front? The treatise gives its own answer. The Bodhisattva Stage gathers the path and fruit of the Mahāyāna under "ten dharmas," and the first of the ten dharmas is "sustaining," and the first of sustaining is precisely lineage 〔this treatise〕. What is called "sustaining" is the rest that "is able to be capable, has great power, and is able to realize unsurpassed perfect awakening." Lineage is the foundation-ground of the bodhisattva path — "also named an aid, also named a cause, also named a support, also named a stepping-stage, also named a forerunner, also named a dwelling-house" (tr. it is an aid, a cause, that on which one rests, the stage one climbs step by step, the forerunner that leads the way, the house one lodges in). 〔漢 verbatim: 亦名為助、亦名為因、亦名為依、亦名階級、亦名前導、亦名舍宅.〕

The treatise states the matter very hard: "A person settled in the absence of lineage, because he is without lineage, though he has the arousing of the mind and the cultivation of intensified practice as his rest, is certainly not capable of fulfilling unsurpassed perfect awakening" (tr. without lineage, even the mind aroused and the practice cultivated cannot bring buddhahood to fullness). 〔漢: 住無種姓補特伽羅，無種姓故，雖有發心及行加行為所依止，定不堪任圓滿無上正等菩提.〕 Conversely, "though he has not yet aroused the mind and not yet cultivated the intensified practice a bodhisattva carries out, if he has lineage, it should be known that in relation to that one he attains the name of sustaining" — a person who has not yet aroused the mind, so long as he has lineage, is already nearer the buddha-fruit than that one who has aroused the mind yet is without lineage. On the road to buddhahood, the first question is not "Am I willing to walk it?" but "Am I the stuff that can walk it to the end?" Lineage is just this stuff.

What This Stuff Is: The Innate and the Cultivated

What, then, is lineage, when all is said? The treatise says there are two: "first, the innate lineage; second, the cultivated lineage".

The innate lineage is "that, among the six sense-bases of the bodhisattvas, there is that which is preeminent, bearing such-and-such a mark, handed down in succession from beginningless time, obtained as a matter of the nature of things" (tr. the preeminence among the six bases, transmitted from beginningless time, naturally obtained). This sentence is the eye of the whole chapter. "Preeminence among the six bases" — among the six bases of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, there is one that is preeminent; the ancient masters pressed the question: preeminent in which base? Jing answers cleanly: "The store consciousness is its mental base; among the six bases it is the most preeminent; the preeminent mental base is that on which the innate lineage rests" 〔Dunlun citing Jing〕. Tai further relates the teaching of the various Western masters, whose upshot tends the same way: that preeminent base is the place to which the uncontaminated seeds are attached. In other words, what is called bodhisattva lineage is not outside the mind: it is precisely that portion, within the store consciousness, of the uncontaminated seeds that are innately, primordially present, transmitted from beginningless time. This is exactly what the Cheng Weishi Lun means by "the innate lineage — that is, the uncontaminated dharma-cause obtained as a matter of the nature of things, attached to the root consciousness from beginningless time" — this treatise and the Consciousness-Only teaching, sealing each other in a single line.

The cultivated lineage, then, is "what is obtained through the prior habituation of wholesome roots": that portion bred later, through hearing the Dharma and perfuming cultivation. What is primordially present is the "innate"; what is raised through practice is the "cultivated"; the ancient masters newly render them "innate / cultivated," where the old translation read "lineage-by-nature / lineage-by-habit" 〔Dunlun〕. And the treatise takes special care to note: "here the intended meaning takes both kinds" — for the lineage of buddhahood, the primordially present and the practice-raised cannot lack one another: without the primordially present there is nothing to perfume; and without recourse to habituation the primordially present does not manifest.

The Primordial Presence of Lineage Is Like the Sprout of Ginger

Will the primordially present uncontaminated seeds vanish because for a time one does not practice? The ancient masters answer with an excellent simile. The bodhisattva Dharmapāla says that, though before the grounds one uses contaminated hearing-perfuming to nourish and guide the root-seeds to increase, "like the substance of a ginger sprout and the like, it is of a primordially present kind" 〔Dunlun citing Dharmapāla〕 — lineage is like a sprout put forth on ginger: the sprout must be watered to grow stout, but it is born of that very ginger's primordially present kind, not watered into being. The treatise itself uses "subtle / coarse" to say the same sense: lineage, "when it has not yet been habituated into fruit, is called subtle" and "when it has already been habituated into fruit is called coarse, because it is present together with the fruit"; the Sūtra on the Bodhisattva's Ground is blunter still: "for one who does not habituate, the fruit is subtle and the fruit is far; for one who habituates, the fruit is coarse and the fruit is near". Lineage is primordially present; habituate it and the fruit is near, leave it unhabituated and the fruit is far — but far and near are a matter of the "fruit"; the stuff that is lineage is present all along.

Wherein Lies the Preeminence: Not in Sharp Faculties, but in "Realizing the Purity of the Two Obstructions"

Bodhisattva lineage "already surpasses all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas — how much more, then, all other sentient beings; it should be known that lineage is unsurpassed and supreme". But wherein lies its supremacy? The treatise lists four matters of superiority — superiority of faculty, of practice, of skill-in-means, and of fruit: the bodhisattva is of sharp faculty, benefits both self and others, learns all the sciences throughout, and can realize unsurpassed awakening. But these four matters are still only a superiority in mark. The root that truly parts the three vehicles into separate streams, the treatise breaks open in one line:

"The lineage of all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas is able in time to realize only the purity of the afflictive obstruction, and is not able to realize the purity of the cognitive obstruction; the bodhisattva lineage is able both to realize in time the purity of the afflictive obstruction and to realize the purity of the cognitive obstruction".

This one line is the deepest place in the Chapter on Lineage. The difference between the two vehicles and the bodhisattva lies not in who works harder or who is cleverer, but in how many layers of obstruction the uncontaminated seeds contained in the lineage are able, in time, to sever. The two-vehicle lineage suffices only to sever the afflictive obstruction — sever it to the end and one turns toward quiescence, enters nirvāṇa, and there it stops; the bodhisattva lineage is able as well to sever the cognitive obstruction — and so, through "the purity of the cognitive obstruction," is able to accomplish omniscience and become great awakening. The three vehicles come at last to be parted into śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and buddha; it looks as if the road forked in the walking, but in truth, within the lineage — in whether or not that portion of uncontaminated seeds is able to sever the cognitive obstruction — it was long ago parted and settled.

This may fittingly be read together with the Chapter on Lineage in the Śrāvaka Stage: there it is said that the śrāvaka lineage too is "uncontaminated seeds obtained as a matter of the nature of things, falling within the single continuum of the store-consciousness mental element"; and the Section on Ascertainment says further, "as the śrāvaka lineage is established, it should be known that the bodhisattva lineage too is established just so" — the lineages of the two vehicles and of the bodhisattva are of exactly the same format in their establishing: both are the naturally-obtained uncontaminated seeds within the store consciousness; the sole difference is how many layers of obstruction these seeds "are able in time to realize [the purity of]." One and the same store consciousness, one and the same natural seed, parts out the arhat who turns toward quiescence from the bodhisattva who does not abide in nirvāṇa. That lineage is lineage — its depth lies just here.

Lineage Is the Life-Root: Fall into an Evil Destiny and It Still Cannot Be Burned Away

Since lineage is the primordially present life-root, it will not be lost because of a moment's falling. The treatise says a most moving passage: the bodhisattva who has lineage, if defiled by the four secondary afflictions, has his pure dharmas fail to appear, and even "at one time is born among the various evil destinies"; yet even fallen into an evil destiny, "by the power of lineage, it should be known, there is a great difference between him and the others born into evil destinies" — he "though for a time born therein, is able swiftly to be liberated; though in an evil destiny, does not undergo fierce and sharp feelings of suffering; though touched by a slight suffering, is able to give rise to an exalted weariness-and-disgust, and toward the sentient beings born into evil destinies and undergoing suffering gives rise deeply to a compassion mind."

Falling into the same evil destiny, the one without lineage undergoes retribution purely and simply; the bodhisattva of lineage, on the other hand: the suffering comes shallow and goes fast, and that little suffering instead kindles his weariness-and-disgust and his compassion into flame. Lineage is like a thing that cannot be burned away: cast into the fire, the fire not only fails to burn through it but is borrowed by it to light up the sufferings of beings. A moment's defilement can veil the pure dharmas, but it cannot budge that primordially present seed.

Lineage Is "Can," Not "Must": The Four Conditions and the Absence of Lineage

But one must beware a misunderstanding: to have lineage is not equal to being sure to swiftly attain buddhahood. The treatise very coolly adds the four conditions — the bodhisattva, though he possesses lineage, may, on account of four kinds of lack, be unable to realize swiftly: first, he has not met a good friend to expound the unerring path for him; second, he has met one but trains topsy-turvily; third, he trains without error but is slothful and un-vigorous; fourth, he is bold and vigorous but his wholesome roots are not yet ripe and his store is not yet full. "Though he has lineage, because the conditions are lacking, he is not able to realize swiftly; if the conditions are complete, then he is able to realize swiftly". Lineage is the cause; the good friend, right understanding, vigor, and the store are the conditions; the cause present but the conditions lacking, and the fruit is late. What lineage gives is "can," not "must."

Yet when all is said, it still returns to lineage. The treatise's last line is flatly decisive: "As for the person without lineage, though he has everything, and every one of all the kinds, it should be known, he certainly does not realize awakening". However complete the conditions, without that stuff, in the end no rice can be cooked from it. Lineage is the bottom line of "can or cannot"; the conditions are the variable of "fast or slow" — this chapter, from head to tail, speaks of just this bottom line.

The One Meaning This Chapter Illumines

The Chapter on Lineage looks as though it merely sets an "admission qualification" for the bodhisattva path, but in truth it lays the root of the whole Mahāyāna down upon a portion of the naturally-present uncontaminated seeds within the store consciousness. It tells us three things: buddhahood has first its seed (the primordially present uncontaminated seeds, like the sprout of ginger); the three vehicles part according to how many obstructions can be severed (the bodhisattva lineage is able as well to realize the purity of the cognitive obstruction, and so can become a buddha rather than turn toward quiescence); lineage is the life-root and not a guarantee (fall into an evil destiny and it cannot be burned away; let the conditions be incomplete and the fruit is late). To place lineage at the head of the Bodhisattva Stage is precisely to settle this most plain and yet most deep principle: the Mahāyāna is not held up by a moment's vow; it is that one portion of seed, present from beginningless time, that meets its conditions and grows to maturity.

Carrying Forward

The lineage-meaning of this chapter is carried forward by the later treatises and cross-consulted with them: the Chapter on Lineage broadly clarifies the innate (by-nature) lineage, while, within the same stage, the Chapter on the Lineage of the Powers inclines to clarify the ten-powers lineage of the cultivated; the ancient masters judge that "the former is the lineage-by-nature, the present is the cultivated lineage" 〔Kuiji〕 — the two chapters standing as head and tail of the pair of nature-and-cultivation lineages within a single stage. The Cheng Weishi Lun sets up the two Mahāyāna lineages as the persons able to enter into the five stages of penetrating Consciousness-Only, which is the most direct Consciousness-Only carrying-forward of this chapter's lineage-meaning. The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter on the Ascertainment of Lineage, and, with the single line "as the śrāvaka lineage is established, it should be known that the bodhisattva lineage is established just so," buckles the Chapter on Lineage of the Śrāvaka Stage together with this chapter into one ring — the lineages of the three vehicles, threaded through by a single line, yet each with its own object of severance.

After Lineage, Why Speak Next of Arousing the Mind

The Chapter on Lineage established the root of buddhahood — the innately-abiding lineage (the Chapter on Lineage already clarified that its Consciousness-Only reading is the naturally-present uncontaminated seeds within the store consciousness); but lineage is only a "capacity," not a "motion." Already within the Chapter on Lineage the treatise left a foreshadowing: "Again, a person abiding in the lineage, if he does not arouse the mind and does not cultivate the intensified practice of the bodhisattva's conduct, then though he has the capacity, he will not swiftly realize unsurpassed awakening" 〔Chapter on Lineage〕. And so, among the ten dharmas, the first of the "upholdings" is lineage, and the second is the first arousing of the mind — lineage is the stuff, and arousing the mind is the first vow set up upon the stuff. The Chapter on Arousing the Mind is precisely about this vow: its essence, how it arises, whether it is firm, and what merit it holds.

The treatise places arousing the mind in the position of "the upholding that is the intensified practice of conduct" 〔this treatise〕: lineage is the upholding that is the capacity-nature (the ground on which one can become a buddha), arousing the mind is the upholding that is the intensified practice of conduct (the basis on which practice sets out), and the factors of awakening are the upholding that is great awakening (the basis for the perfecting of the fruit). These three upholdings form one line; arousing the mind stands in the middle, taking up from lineage and opening onto practice.

What Is Arousing the Mind: Its Five Marks

Then what, after all, is "arousing the mind"? The treatise is not vague; it gives five facets 〔this treatise〕.

Its intrinsic nature is the "first right vow" — "among all the right vows held by all bodhisattvas it is the first right vow, universally able to gather in the remaining right vows". The measureless great vows of a bodhisattva's whole life (the four universal vows, the ten great vows…) all take root from this single thought; hence it is named "first," hence it is able to "universally gather in." Kuiji points further to its very essence: "That is, aspiration, faith, and resolute conviction are its essence, or the subsequently-attained knowledge is its essence" 〔Kuiji〕 — arousing the mind is not a passing emotion; it is a settled vow held up by aspiration, faith, and resolute conviction (and even the subsequently-attained knowledge). Its mode of activity is "resolute seeking": one arouses this mind and speaks these words, "May I be resolved to realize unsurpassed perfect awakening, able to work every benefit and welfare for sentient beings" — seeking awakening above and benefiting beings below, the two raised together. Its object is precisely these two matters: great awakening and the welfare of beings; arousing the mind is no empty vow without an object. Its quality is that it takes for its foremost the wholesome roots of the factors of awakening and runs counter to the three kinds of evil conduct. Its supremacy is that it is the very first among all the right vows of this world and beyond this world.

The treatise gives arousing the mind four other names as well: subsumed under entering (to arouse the mind is at once to be counted among the bodhisattvas), the root of awakening (without arousing the mind one cannot realize it), an outflow of great compassion (it is aroused out of pity), and the basis of training (all bodhisattva-training is cultivated on this). A single vow that is at once the entrance ticket, the foundation, the welling-up of compassion, and the basis of training — this is just the weight that "arousing the mind" carries within the bodhisattva path.

How Arousing the Mind Comes About: The Four Conditions, Four Causes, Four Powers

But how is such a vow kindled within a person's heart? The treatise speaks of it in three layers: the four conditions, the four causes, the four powers. The ancient masters put the relation of these three layers excellently: "The four conditions are remote, the four causes are intimate; because the union of cause and condition has driving force, it is named the four powers" 〔Dunlun citing Jing; Kuiji the same〕 — the conditions are the remote outer circumstance, the causes are the intimate inner endowment, and the powers are the driving force born of the union of cause and condition.

The four conditions are four outer circumstances that trigger it: seeing or hearing the might of supernormal transformation of the buddhas and bodhisattvas; hearing the right Dharma of the bodhisattva-canon teaching; seeing that the phenomena of the bodhisattva canon are about to be lost and wishing to guard them; and seeing that in the defiled and evil final age arousing the mind is hard to come by, and rousing oneself. The fourth condition is especially moving: precisely because "in this greatly defiled and evil age … even those able to arouse the inferior mind of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha are hard to find, how much more those of unsurpassed awakening," the bodhisattva instead thinks, "I ought to arouse the great mind of awakening, so that the measureless sentient beings of this evil age may train in accord with me and rouse the vow of awakening" — the harder it is, the more one must arouse it.

The four causes are four inner endowments: completeness in lineage, being gathered in by good friends, compassion, and not fearing the suffering of birth-and-death. Of these the first cause, "completeness in lineage," the treatise defines word for word out of the Chapter on Lineage: "surpassing in the six sense-spheres, transmitted on and on from the beginningless world, attained by the very nature of things" 〔= Chapter on Lineage〕 — the first cause of arousing the mind is precisely the innately-abiding lineage clarified in the Chapter on Lineage (its Consciousness-Only reading as the uncontaminated seeds within the store consciousness has already been seen in the Chapter on Lineage's apparatus). This one line locks the two chapters together: lineage is the cause within the cause, arousing the mind is the vow upon the cause. The distinction of condition from cause the ancient masters draw clearly: merely seeing supernormal transformation is "remote" (a condition); being gathered in and instructed by a good friend is "intimate" (a cause) 〔Dunlun〕.

The four powers are the driving forces of arousing the mind: one's own power, another's power, the power of cause, and the power of intensified practice. Here the treatise sets up an exceedingly important criterion: the mind aroused through one's own power or the power of cause (or the combining of the two) is firm and unmoving; the mind aroused through another's power or the power of intensified practice (or the combining of the two) is neither firm nor solid. Why? Kuiji answers it through: another's power is "a king or one who has power compelling one to arouse the mind," not the mind's own seeing of the buddha and arousing, and so it is movable; one's own power and the power of cause are aroused from one's own seed and one's own vow, and so are unmoving 〔Kuiji〕. Whether the aroused mind is firm turns wholly on whether it has grown out of one's own seed and one's own vow, or been pushed out by an outer force. Conversely, the four causes-and-conditions of turning back (incompleteness of lineage, evil friends, thin compassion, fear of suffering) are precisely the reverse of the four causes — turning back is the lack of the causes.

Once a Firm Mind Is Aroused, What Grows from It

The treatise last lays out, layer upon layer, a whole series of surpassing qualities of "the bodhisattva firm in the first arousing of the mind": he gathers in beings as his retinue yet is unstained by the faults of gathering in a retinue; he gives rise to the two inclinations of benefit and of ease; he raises the two intensified practices of inclination and of right conduct; he opens the two gateways of self-benefit and benefiting-others; and the wholesome dharmas he gathers in surpass, in both cause and fruit, those of the Two Vehicles. And the most concrete, the most palpable, are the "two benefits of arousing the mind": first, "he is at once a field of merit revered by beings, the father and mother of all beings"; second, he "gathers in the merit free of harm."

The merit free of harm the treatise depicts almost tenderly: the bodhisattva who has aroused the mind obtains a "doubled protection of a wheel-turning king" — Master Jing says that one wheel-turning king already has five hundred blue-clad spirits as guards, and the bodhisattva who has aroused the mind has these doubled, obtaining a thousand spirit-guards 〔Dunlun〕; asleep, awake, or in a swoon, sprites and yakṣas cannot trouble him; born again, he has little sickness or none; expounding the Dharma, his body is without utter weariness; and even the coarse heaviness that was already thin while he was yet in the innately-abiding lineage turns, once the mind is aroused, lighter still; wrath, envy, flattery, and the other accompanying afflictions he can crush and make thin; the terrors, quarrels, famines, and calamities of the land where he dwells, do not arise if unarisen, and if arisen are straightway extinguished. And the most telling stroke of all returns once more to the old tune of the Chapter on Lineage: "he may at some time be born amid the utterly evil destinies, in the hells; yet for the most part he swiftly attains release in this hell-destiny … and toward the beings undergoing suffering there gives rise to a heart of great compassion" — this is exactly the same as what the Chapter on Lineage says: "though born amid the evil destinies, by reason of the power of lineage, one should know that he differs greatly from others born into the evil destinies". The ground given by lineage and the vow set up by arousing the mind are here both redeemed into a power that "even falling into hell cannot burn away, but on the contrary gives rise to compassion."

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The Chapter on Arousing the Mind may look like a mere specification-sheet for the "mind of awakening," but it in fact expounds through that one step between lineage (cause) and practice (conduct) — the setting-up of the vow. It tells us: arousing the mind is the "first right vow" that gathers in all vows (with aspiration, faith, and resolute conviction as its essence); it arises from remote condition, intimate cause, and the power of their union, and whether it is firm turns wholly on whether it has grown out of one's own seed and one's own vow; and once firm, it grows into the revered field of merit and the merit free of harm, so that even falling into an evil destiny becomes provisioning for compassion. The Chapter on Lineage says "whether you are the stuff"; the Chapter on Arousing the Mind says "the first vow set up upon the stuff" — to have lineage but not arouse the mind is for the stuff to remain mere stuff; to arouse a firm mind is for the bodhisattva path truly to set out.

Carrying Forward

The meaning of arousing the mind in this chapter is carried forward by the later treatise-parts and read across: the Chapter on Lineage (the same stage) clarifies that lineage is the first cause of arousing the mind (surpassing in the six sense-spheres, by the very nature of things), and the Chapter on Arousing the Mind takes it up to set up the first right vow — cause and vow taking up from one another. The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining the Arousing of the Mind, which, by the "ten arousings of the mind" — from the conventionally-received and the attaining-of-the-nature-of-dharmas up to the already-fruited — re-ascertains the arousing of the mind with respect to the sequence of positions of ordinary being and sage, of defilement and purity, of cause and fruit; this and the present chapter's "marks, causes, and powers of the first arousing of the mind" set each other off on two axes. And the Chapter on the Twofold Benefit (the same stage) takes up from arousing the mind to open the conduct of self-benefit and benefiting-others — arousing the mind being the basis of training. Three chapters form one line: lineage (cause) → arousing the mind (vow) → the twofold benefit (conduct).

Having Aroused the Mind, Where Does One Go? — Training at the Seven Sites

The Chapter on Arousing the Mind fixed the vow; but where is that vow to land and be cultivated? The Chapter on Benefiting Self and Others, at its very first breath, spreads out the whole map: "At what sites do these bodhisattvas train? They train at the seven sites" 〔this treatise〕 — benefiting self, benefiting others, the true meaning, might, the ripening of sentient beings, the ripening of one's own buddha-Dharma, and unsurpassed awakening. These seven sites are precisely the guiding thread of all the chapters that follow in the first section of the Bodhisattva Stage: gathering the seven into five chapters, the Chapter on the True Meaning is the third site, the Chapter on Might is the fourth, the Chapters on Ripening are the fifth and sixth, and the Chapter on Awakening is the seventh. Kuiji and Master Ji both point out: why are the seven factors listed here all at once at the head of the Chapter on Benefiting Self and Others? "Because they are listed at the head of the section on the factors of awakening" 〔Dunlun citing Ji; Kuiji〕. Woncheuk further sets out their sequence of mutual production: "The bodhisattva's contemplative practice takes benefiting self and benefiting others as its root … practice must rely on principle, and so, after the chapter on self-and-others, the true meaning is clarified" 〔Dunlun citing Woncheuk〕. In other words, the Chapter on Benefiting Self and Others is the legend of this map — it first sets up the overall direction of "for self, for others," and then, in order, unfolds principle (the true meaning), power (might), the ripening of beings and of the Dharma, and finally awakening.

Benefiting Self and Others: First Divided into Ten Kinds, Then Seeing Clearly the Trap of the "Pure"

Then how is "benefiting self and others" itself to be cultivated? The treatise first divides it into ten kinds: pure / shared, the class of benefit / the class of ease-and-joy, subsumed under cause / subsumed under fruit, this world / the other world, ultimate / non-ultimate. Huiyuan gathers these ten gates into five pairs: the one benefited, the substance of benefit, the season of benefit (the benefit of cause being present, the benefit of fruit being future), this world and the other world, the true and the false 〔Dunlun citing Master Yuan〕 — a fine-grained table of ten cells.

Most worth savoring is the way "pure" and "shared" are adjudicated. The treatise says: both pure self-benefit and pure benefiting-of-others have a part that "should be known and cut off". Within pure self-benefit a trap lies hidden: seeking wealth for one's own pleasure; holding to the teaching out of stinginess with the Dharma; cultivating precepts, concentration, and wisdom for the sake of rebirth in the heavens; speaking of untrue merits in oneself for the sake of gain and honor; and even feigning to rescue beings from another's servitude, only to turn about and take them in as one's own servants (the treatise puts it "turning about, taking them in oneself as one's own servants") — all these, which use the name of benefiting-others while doing the deed of benefiting-self, are to be cut off. Even "being attached to the pleasant abiding in the present state of the various concentrations, and casting aside the contemplation of matters that benefit beings" counts as a fault of pure self-benefit — if the ease-and-joy of meditative concentration becomes a nest for evading the deliverance of beings, then it is what the bodhisattva must cut off. And within pure benefiting-of-others there are likewise two kinds to be cut off: cultivating giving through wrong views, and, through the view of no-cause and no-fruit, violating the precepts and teaching the Dharma — a good-hearted deed done wrongly is spoiled all the same. What the bodhisattva is to cultivate is "self-benefit shared with others" and "benefiting-others shared with self" — bearing in mind the benefit of others while benefiting self, and not abandoning one's own cultivation while benefiting others. Self and other should never, from the very start, be cut apart.

One Iron Law: Benefit Is Like a Cause, Ease-and-Joy Like a Fruit

This "not cutting apart" the treatise erects, within [the passage on] the class of ease-and-joy, into one iron law. It first takes "pleasure" apart to the finest degree — the five pleasures (the pleasure that is a cause, the pleasure of feeling, the pleasure that is a counteragent to suffering, the pleasure of the cessation of feeling, the pleasure free of vexation-and-harm), and the pleasure free of vexation-and-harm is divided again into four (the pleasures of renunciation, of seclusion, of quiet, and the pleasure of the three [-fold] awakening); and it exposes one deep meaning: "according to the ultimate meaning, all feelings whatsoever are suffering" — even the pleasure of the cessation of feeling (the attainment of the cessation of perception-and-feeling) is only this ultimate-meaning suffering brought to quiet for a while, and only the pleasure of the three [-fold] awakening is the true pleasure of the perpetual cessation of ultimate-meaning suffering.

Then comes that iron law. When the bodhisattva gives pleasure to beings, it is not a blanket pleasing of them: as for a matter "attended by suffering yet of benefit," though the beings do not want it, the bodhisattva should bestow it even should it be attended by grief-and-suffering; as for a matter "attended by pleasure yet without benefit," though the beings want it, the bodhisattva should strip it away even should it be attended by joy-and-pleasure — because skillful expedient means are able to make beings "assuredly attain ease-and-joy afterward." Why dare to do it this way? The treatise gives the ground: "Benefit is like a cause, ease-and-joy like a fruit … if he bestows benefit upon the beings, he must bestow ease-and-joy". Benefit is the cause, ease-and-joy the fruit; bestow the right benefit, and ease-and-joy will bear its own fruit. The bodhisattva's compassion is not a sentimental doling-out of pleasure; it is a compassion that has taken clear aim at the cause-and-fruit of "benefit–ease-and-joy," willing to give even a momentary suffering in order to plant an assured ease-and-joy.

The Bodhisattva's Merit-Reward Is the Capital for Delivering Beings

For benefiting self and others to be made real, the bodhisattva must have "capital." The treatise, within [the passage on] subsumption under cause and under fruit, speaks of three causes and three fruits — maturation, merit, and knowledge. Among them, maturation (rendered "reward" in the two old translations) has eight endowments: with life-span, bodily form, clan and family, sovereign command, trustworthy speech, great majesty, human [male] nature, and great strength. Long life, an upright and stately form, birth into a wealthy and noble family, great wealth and station and retinue, one's word trusted by the multitude, great renown, the male body, and being little-ill and of great strength — at first glance this looks like a discourse on the enjoyment of merit-reward, yet the treatise states its use plainly and clearly: the accomplishing of the eight endowments is for the sake of being "able well to benefit all beings and, in accord [therewith], to give rise to all the buddha-Dharmas" 〔the conclusion on the maturational fruit〕. Because the form is upright and stately, the multitude loves and delights [in one], and so what one says is heeded without exception; because the clan is honored and noble, the exhortation to train is revered and followed without exception; because trustworthy speech is complete, one is able to gather in the multitude by kind speech, beneficial action, and shared benefit … Every item of merit-reward the treatise translates into a kind of capacity for delivering beings. The bodhisattva seeks merit-reward not for enjoyment but to amass the capital for delivering beings. And this capital has a rule too: the bodhisattva must have both matters complete — "himself having the power and ability" plus "settling well the beings to be transformed" — before he can be said truly to perform works of benefit for others 〔the close〕 — with only one's own power but the beings not according [with one], or with the beings according but oneself without power, neither counts.

And these eight kinds of maturation, the treatise says, are brought about by eight causes and increased by three conditions (purity of mind, purity of applied practice, purity of the field). Lord Jing expounds the three conditions plainly: purity of mind is precisely faith; purity of applied practice is the rising of practice out of faith; purity of the field is being fit to receive offerings by reason of faith-and-practice 〔Dunlun citing Jing〕 — faith, practice, fitness-to-receive: it is from here that merit-reward grows.

The Two Wheels: Merit Is the Most Excellent, Knowledge Is the Unsurpassed

Those three causes and three fruits, in the end, are drawn together to the two words "merit" and "knowledge." The treatise adjudicates it to the finest degree: merit is the three perfections of giving, discipline, and patience; knowledge is the one perfection of wisdom; and vigor and the meditative absorptions run through both parts of merit and knowledge. And on the relation of the two, the treatise hands down a famous verdict: "Whether the substance of maturation, or the cause of maturation, or the fruit of maturation — all of these rely on merit and are born from merit; and merit, again, relies on knowledge and is raised up from knowledge … merit is the most excellent, and knowledge is the unsurpassed. If the bodhisattvas are wanting in any one of merit or of knowledge, they assuredly cannot realize unsurpassed perfect awakening". Master Ji explains: within merit it is excellent, and so is named the most excellent; looking beyond to knowledge, higher still, and so knowledge is the unsurpassed 〔Dunlun citing Ji〕. Merit is the foundation (maturation and merit-virtue are both born from it), knowledge is the summit (merit again relies on and is raised up from knowledge); the two are like the two wheels of a cart, and, lacking one, one cannot reach awakening. The bodhisattva path has never been "cultivating merit only" or "cultivating wisdom only" — it is a single path of merit and wisdom borne on together.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Relief

The Chapter on Benefiting Self and Others looks to have many tangled threads (the seven sites, the ten kinds, the five marks, the five pleasures, the three causes and three fruits …), but in truth it erects only two great matters: the first is a map — the overall thread of training at the seven sites, spreading out at one stroke the whole course of the bodhisattva path; the second is an iron law — self and other are not two (benefit is like a cause, ease-and-joy like a fruit), and merit and knowledge are not partial (merit is the most excellent, knowledge is the unsurpassed). What makes a bodhisattva a bodhisattva is not that, having aroused the vow, he buries his head in his own cultivation, nor that he sentimentally doles out pleasure with a single blanket hand, but that he follows this map and keeps to this iron law: at every site of training, "for self is precisely for others"; using merit-reward as the capital for delivering beings; and, by merit and wisdom borne on together, heading toward awakening. The Chapter on Arousing the Mind set up the vow; the Chapter on Benefiting Self and Others tells him: this vow is to be walked in just this way.

Carrying Forward

The meaning of benefiting self and others in this chapter is carried forward by, and mutually consulted with, the later chapters: the overall thread of training at the seven sites opens in this chapter, and the Chapter on the True Meaning (site 3), the Chapter on Might (site 4), the Chapters on Ripening (sites 5/6), and the Chapter on Awakening (site 7) are its site-by-site unfolding — this chapter sets up the thread, the later chapters spread out its topics; and the two accumulations of merit and knowledge (giving, discipline, and patience as merit · wisdom as knowledge · vigor and the meditative absorptions running through both parts) are broadly performed in the six chapters of the perfections, from the Chapter on Giving onward. The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining the Benefiting of Self and Others, which, by the bodhisattva's nine right practices (each bound to a simile: the sick toward medicine, the good physician toward disease, the householder toward the young child …), the five kinds of wrong practice, and the fivefold capacity and incapacity, ascertains anew, unfolding together with this chapter's marks of benefiting self and others along two mutually illuminating axes. Arousing the mind (the vow) → benefiting self and others (the thread of practice) → the various perfections (the topics of practice): one continuous line, carried forward.

Why "Reality" Must Be Divided into Four Kinds

The Chapter on Lineage set fast the root of becoming a buddha; the Chapter on Arousing the Mind and the Chapter on the Twofold Benefit spoke of the bodhisattva's vow and practice; and now, at the fourth chapter, the treatise suddenly halts and asks a most fundamental question: what is "reality"? This one question is of the utmost weight — a person cultivating the path cultivates precisely in order to see "reality"; yet if he has not even settled "what counts as reality," then the so-called seeing of the path has no place to stand.

The treatise's answer is unexpected: reality is not one but four layers — the reality established by consensus in the world, the reality established by reasoning, the reality ranged over by the knowledge purified of the afflictive obstruction, and the reality ranged over by the knowledge purified of the cognitive obstruction 〔the treatise〕. Why divide it into four layers? Because "reality" is shown forth according to "whose knowledge" it is: worldly people hold in common that "earth is earth, suffering is suffering" — this is the reality of the world; those of understanding lay it down by relying on the three means of knowledge (direct perception, inference, and authoritative teaching) and on the reasoning that establishes by proof — this is the reality of reasoning; the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, by their uncontaminated knowledge, contemplate the four noble truths and see that "apart from the aggregates, no self can be found" — this is the reality of the knowledge purified of the afflictive obstruction; while the buddhas and bodhisattvas enter the no-self of phenomena, and, with respect to the ineffable intrinsic nature and the provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature of all phenomena, range over them by an equal-and-even, non-discriminating knowledge — this is the reality of the knowledge purified of the cognitive obstruction. One and the same world: the deeper the knowledge that lights it up, the truer the reality that is seen. The treatise, at the last, ranks the four layers high and low: "the first two are inferior, the third is middling, the fourth is supreme" — the first two are what ordinary beings and those of understanding hold in common; the third is the two vehicles' emptiness of self; and the fourth alone is the bodhisattvas' and buddhas' emptiness-of-phenomena that is ineffable. The whole weight of this chapter is pressed upon this fourth layer.

The Fourth-Layer Reality: the Ineffable Intrinsic Nature and the Provisionally-Spoken Intrinsic Nature

That supreme fourth reality — what sphere, in the end, is it? The treatise says: it is the sphere ranged over by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, who "enter the no-self of phenomena, and, having entered, become thoroughly purified, with respect to the ineffable intrinsic nature and the provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature of all phenomena, [ranged over] by an equal-and-even, non-discriminating knowledge". These two terms are the pivot of the whole chapter. The ancient masters buckle them back onto the threefold nature. Jing judges: "As for the ineffable intrinsic nature of all phenomena, it is the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished nature, these two natures being by nature apart from names; as for the provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature, it is the wholly-imagined [nature] that is grasped, being what is calculated and grasped as existent following the provisional speech" 〔Dunlun citing Jing〕. (The ancient masters have two readings of the assignment of the "provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature": Jing judges it to be the wholly-imagined nature that is grasped; another, the first Western gloss, judges it to be the other-dependent nature — both are set out, without adjudication; see the Apparatus, Heading IV. Yet by whichever reading, the sense that "ineffable / provisionally-spoken" are the threefold nature does not differ.) Dunlun, discerning the essence of the true reality, further opens seven gateways, one of which is "taking the threefold nature as the essence": the nature "just as it is" takes the true nature as its essence, the nature "in its full extent" takes the other-dependent nature as its essence, and the wholly-imagined [nature] is without essence and is subsumed under neither of the two.

In other words, what the Chapter on the True Reality calls "the ineffable / the provisionally-spoken" are precisely the three characters of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra and the three natures of the Cheng Weishi Lun: the provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature = the wholly-imagined mark ("the provisional establishment of the intrinsic nature and distinctions by names" 〔Saṃdhinirmocana〕, "one and all nothing at all" 〔Cheng Weishi Lun〕); the other-dependent subsumed under the ineffable intrinsic nature = the other-dependent mark ("the dependently-arisen intrinsic nature"), the true = the perfectly-accomplished mark ("the equal suchness," "the suchness shown forth by the twofold emptiness" 〔Cheng Weishi Lun〕). The Chapter on the True Reality is the very treatise-ground where the Yogācāra lineage's teaching of the threefold nature resides. Kuiji, opening his exposition, says at once: "As for what is called the true reality: according to what the text makes clear, it is just like the threefold nature — the wholly-imagined is by its very being without essence; the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished are, by the two truths, said to be present".

The Shape of Reality Is "Non-Duality": Apart from Over-Affirmation, Apart from Under-Denial

Yet this fourth reality the treatise does not describe head-on; it shows it forth in reverse, from "being apart from the two extremes." It says that this character of the true reality "is that which is shown forth by non-duality," and the "duality" here spoken of is "being" and "non-being".

"Being" refers to that provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature — the world takes form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, takes eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, takes earth, water, fire, and wind, and on down to nirvāṇa, all as really-existent intrinsic natures; this is "what the world grasps over long time, the root of all discriminating idle proliferation." "Non-being" says that these provisionally-spoken intrinsic natures are in truth "without any thing, without any character," and that the ground of the provisional speech is one and all nothing at all. First it is said to be "being," then it is said to be "non-being"; and being and non-being, the two of them alike, are far removed — only this is the true nature subsumed under the character of phenomena — and this is what is called non-duality, the Middle Way, the unsurpassed. Xuanzang's oral gloss puts it bluntly: "'Being' is the other-dependent nature; 'non-being' is the wholly-imagined [nature]; the essence of suchness is apart from being and non-being, and so it is called non-duality" 〔Dunlun citing the Tripiṭaka-master〕.

The difficulty of the Middle Way lies in this: it permits neither end. To grasp the provisional as real is "over-affirmation"; to dismiss the bare thing as absent is "under-denial." Reality is the ultimate intrinsic nature that is "thus present" apart from these two false graspings, and is ranged over by non-discriminating knowledge alone 〔the treatise〕.

The Most Perilous Pass in the Whole Chapter: the Well-Grasped Emptiness and the Wrongly-Grasped Emptiness

And of this "apart from under-denial" side the treatise speaks with especial gravity, because it is the side most apt to go wrong — one who studies the Great Vehicle, who studies emptiness, but studies it crookedly, becomes one who "wrongly grasps emptiness." The treatise uses a word of the World-Honored One, of astonishing weight: "Better to be like the sort who raises the view of a self than to be like the sort who wrongly grasps emptiness". Better that a person grasp the view of a self than that he fall into the wrongly-grasped emptiness. Why? The one who raises the view of a self is merely confused about the knowable sphere; he does not defame all phenomena, does not fall into the evil destinies, and toward the Dharma and the truths can still establish them. But the one who wrongly grasps emptiness defames the entire knowable sphere, falls into the evil destinies, ruins the Dharma and ruins the truths — he is "the utterly-nihilistic one," with whom even a wise fellow in the holy life ought not to speak or dwell.

Then where is the error? The treatise discerns it with the utmost precision: the one who wrongly grasps emptiness "does not accept in faith 'that by which it is empty,' and does not accept in faith 'that which is empty here'" — he dismisses even the very conditions by which "emptiness" is established. True emptiness is that "'that by which it is empty' — that is in truth absent; 'that which is empty here' — this is in truth present": there must be a "this" (the bare thing) as ground before one can speak of the emptiness of "that" (the wholly-imagined). If all is nothing at all, then where, and what, and by reason of what, is anything named empty?

And so the treatise gives the correct explanation of the well-grasped emptiness: "Because here that [certain thing] is nothing at all, one accordingly, by that [absence], rightly contemplates it as empty; and because here the remainder is in truth present, one accordingly, by that remainder, knows just as it is that it is present". Kuiji explains it with clarity: upon the other-dependent nature, the wholly-imagined is empty (when one sees the other-dependent, one knows there is nothing grasped — this is the empty side); and upon the other-dependent mark, the remainder, the perfectly-accomplished, is present (one knows just as it is that it is present — this is the not-empty side). What is emptied is the false grasping of the wholly-imagined; what is kept is the bare thing of the other-dependent and the suchness of the perfectly-accomplished. The treatise draws the matter to a close with a superb simile: just as there must first be aggregates such as form before there is the provisionally-established person, and it is not that there is a provisionally-established self where there is no real thing; so likewise there must be the "really-present bare thing" of phenomena such as form before there are the provisional expressions of form and the rest 〔the treatise〕. Without the aggregates, where is the provisional name "self" to be lodged? Without the bare thing, on what does the provisional expression "form" hang? The well-grasped emptiness is the Middle Way of "without over-affirming and without under-denying, without grasping and without rejecting" — this is the eye by which this chapter teaches the bodhisattva to look at the world.

(The ancient masters also have a dispute at this pass: Jing, on the ground of the sense of cause-and-fruit, refutes the doctrine that "the threefold nature is one and all nothing at all"; Dunlun then, of his own judgment, [says] "it need not necessarily be so," and cites Wŏnhyo's words — that "the three treatises are for the sweeping-away of the clinging to the view of being, provisionally refuting the nature that follows speech" — as capable of standing. Here the ancient masters' divergent explanations are only recorded, without adjudication.)

What Is the Other-Dependent Like: Eight Similes

That other-dependent bare thing which is "kept" — what manner of "being" is it? The treatise, in the "knowledge-in-accord-with-the-real drawn on by the investigation of the provisional positing of intrinsic nature," gives eight most beautiful similes: the provisional positing of intrinsic nature of the things-conceived-as-form and the rest is not the intrinsic nature of that thing, and yet appears as though it were — like a magical creation, a reflected image, an echo, a play of light and shadow, the moon in water, mirage-water, a dream, an illusion 〔the treatise〕. Woncheuk judges it plainly: "And [the words] 'like a magical creation and the rest, resembling but not real' — these are just the eight similes … the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha says: 'the eight similes show forth the other-dependent' — using the other-dependent as a figure for the dependent-arising" 〔Dunlun citing Woncheuk〕. Kuiji, too, points out one: "As for 'mirage-water': it is the sun's shimmer resembling water".

The excellence of the eight similes lies precisely in the four words "resembling being, yet not real": the moon in water is plainly to be seen, yet one cannot scoop up a single drop of it; mirage-water, gazed at, looks like water, but approach it and it is gone — the myriad phenomena of the other-dependent are just so, appearing vividly and yet utterly without intrinsic nature. This is neither to say they "are not there" (the reflected image truly does appear) nor to say they "really are" (the reflected image is, after all, not the substance). The eight similes are the treatise's transmuting of "the Middle Way of neither-being-nor-non-being" into something the eye can see.

The Resolute Conviction in Emptiness: Why the Bodhisattva Does Not Enter Nirvāṇa

Yet the most moving passage of this chapter is where it joins this "emptiness" view to the very lifeblood of the bodhisattva path — why is it that the bodhisattva, having realized emptiness, does not, like the two vehicles, hasten to enter nirvāṇa?

The treatise says: the bodhisattva "dwells within birth-and-death, and in this life and that life cultivates the resolute conviction in emptiness" 〔the treatise〕, and thereby is able to bring the buddha-dharmas and sentient beings to maturity. The key lies in two "not"s: first, the bodhisattva "knows birth-and-death just as it is, and does not, toward birth-and-death, with a deep heart grow weary and turn away through the practices of impermanence and the rest" — for if he grew deeply weary and turned away from birth-and-death, he would swiftly enter nirvāṇa, and once entered nirvāṇa he could never again deliver beings; second, the bodhisattva "is neither deeply afraid of nirvāṇa nor greatly desirous of it" — neither fearing it nor coveting it, and so "though he sees that nirvāṇa has subtle and excellent benefits and merits, he does not deeply wish to realize it swiftly." This passage is exactly the watershed dividing the bodhisattva from the two vehicles: the two vehicles, by the contemplation of impermanence and suffering, grow weary of birth-and-death and delight in nirvāṇa, and so swiftly enter quiescent cessation; the bodhisattva, by the resolute conviction in emptiness, illumines and breaks through the two characters of birth-and-death and nirvāṇa, and so is neither defiled by birth-and-death nor bound by nirvāṇa — this is the non-abiding of "abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa," which the treatise names "the vast skillful means able to realize the sublime knowledge of a tathāgata."

This very passage buckles back onto the Chapter on Lineage: there it was said that the bodhisattva-lineage "is furthermore able to realize the purification of the cognitive obstruction," while the two-vehicle lineage "realizes only the purification of the afflictive obstruction" 〔the treatise〕; and now the fourth reality of the Chapter on the True Reality is named precisely "the reality ranged over by the knowledge purified of the cognitive obstruction" — that one portion of "being able to cut off the cognitive obstruction" allowed to the bodhisattva-lineage is here redeemed into the directly-perceived sphere of "the ineffable intrinsic nature, the equal non-discriminating knowledge." Lineage is the cause, the true reality is the fruit-sphere it realizes; head and tail buckle into one ring. And relying on this emptiness-wisdom, the bodhisattva "takes only the thing, takes only suchness, but courses in the meaning," and in every place gains the equal view and the supreme equanimity, meeting great hardships and not turning back 〔the treatise〕 — emptiness does not let him flee the world; it lets him be unburnable within the world.

The Eight Discriminations and the Four Investigations: Where Idle Proliferation Arises, Where It Ceases

At the last the treatise answers a question that goes to the root: this whole "world of sentient beings and world that is their container" — from where, in the end, does it well up? The answer is: from the eight kinds of discrimination that arise from "not knowing suchness" — of intrinsic nature, of distinction, of total grasping, of self, of what belongs to self, of the loved, of the unloved, and contrary to both of those 〔the treatise〕. The first three discriminations give rise to the "thing that is the ground-and-object of discriminating idle proliferation" (that is, the world of faculties and objects); the two discriminations of self and of what belongs to self give rise to "the view of the reifying self and the conceit 'I am'"; and the latter three discriminations give rise to "greed, hatred, and delusion"; from these three things, all the phenomena of revolving are universally shown forth. The whole world is a scaffolding raised up by discriminating idle proliferation.

Since it arises from discrimination, it ceases through knowledge. The treatise sets up the four kinds of investigation and the four kinds of knowledge-in-accord-with-the-real as the counteragent: with respect to the name, to see only name; with respect to the thing, to see only thing; with respect to the provisional positing of intrinsic nature, to see only the provisional positing of intrinsic nature; with respect to the provisional positing of distinction, to see only the provisional positing of distinction 〔the treatise〕 (for the last character of "the investigation of the name," the base text follows CBETA in reading 思 [investigation], while the Taishō original print reads 想 [conception]; reading 思 [investigation] is consistent with the fixed naming of the four investigations). Among them, the knowledge-in-accord-with-the-real of the investigation of the thing sees that "the nature of the things-conceived-as-form and the rest is far removed from verbal expression and cannot be expressed in speech"; the knowledge-in-accord-with-the-real of the provisional positing of intrinsic nature sees the other-dependent as "resembling being yet not real, like the eight similes"; and the knowledge-in-accord-with-the-real of the provisional positing of distinction sees "neither the nature of being nor the nature of non-being" — by the truth of the ultimate, not-of-form; by the truth of the conventional, not not-of-form 〔the treatise〕, the two truths shining together in non-duality. The bodhisattva, relying on these four kinds of knowledge-in-accord-with-the-real, rightly knows the eight discriminations, causes the future ground-and-object thing of idle proliferation no longer to arise, and, discrimination and the ground-and-object thing both ceasing, "all idle proliferation ceases," so that he is able to realize the great parinirvāṇa of the Great Vehicle, universally to gain all sovereign masteries, and, in the end, to obtain the five kinds of benefit and accomplish the five kinds of deed 〔the treatise〕. Where idle proliferation arises is the very place where idle proliferation ceases; in delusion it is what weaves out the three realms, in awakening it is what returns and ceases into nirvāṇa.

The One Meaning This Chapter Lights Up

The Chapter on the True Reality looks like an abstruse disquisition on "what is reality," but in truth it sets fast, all at once, the bodhisattva's whole standpoint: reality is four-layered according to knowledge, and the supreme is ineffable (the ineffable intrinsic nature / the provisionally-spoken intrinsic nature are the threefold nature, one with the three characters of the Saṃdhinirmocana and the three natures of the Cheng Weishi Lun); the shape of reality is the non-dual Middle Way (apart from over-affirmation, apart from under-denial); the gateway of entering is the well-grasped emptiness (empty the wholly-imagined, keep the bare thing — like the provisional self upon the aggregates); the character of the other-dependent is like the eight similes (resembling being, yet not real); and the fruit of this resolute conviction in emptiness is the great skillful means of abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa. The Chapter on Lineage said that what makes a bodhisattva a bodhisattva is rooted in "furthermore realizing the purification of the cognitive obstruction"; the Chapter on the True Reality now brings out whole and entire the knowledge-sphere of that "purification of the cognitive obstruction." How a bodhisattva looks at the world — this chapter gives the answer.

Carrying Forward

This chapter's meaning of the threefold nature's ineffability the later treatises carry forward and cross-examine: the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra's Chapter on the Characters of All Phenomena (the three characters), Chapter on the Character of Naturelessness (the threefold naturelessness), and Chapter on the Character of the Ultimate Truth (the ineffable) are its scriptural anchor; the Cheng Weishi Lun's threefold nature in fascicle eight, and the perfectly-accomplished = the suchness shown forth by the twofold emptiness, are its treatise-ground carried forward; the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, showing the other-dependent by the eight similes and discerning the threefold nature of the character of the knowable, is its later-treatise elaboration (Woncheuk cited). The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining the True Reality, re-ascertaining it instead by the "five events" — character, name, discrimination, suchness, and right knowledge; the five events are the unfolding of the threefold nature, and they and this chapter's two axes mutually illumine. The threefold nature is one meaning: this chapter sets up its outline, the later treatises spread out its headings.

Why, Right After the True Meaning, the Treatise Speaks of the Supernormal Powers

The Chapter on Reality expounds the state that the bodhisattva realizes — the threefold nature beyond words, the middle way free of duality. But once this state is realized, what follows? Kuiji, in a single stroke, lays bare the sequence: "The foregoing clarified reality, the object realized by knowledge. There being something realized, it cannot remain idle … [the bodhisattva] displays these powers, and so it is named the Chapter on Powers; hence it comes after the Chapter on Reality". Having realized reality, functioning arises of itself, and that functioning is the "powers." So the Chapter on Powers is not inserted to tell tales of the supernormal powers; it is the "fruit" of the true meaning — only when one has seen that all phenomena are beyond words and have of themselves no fixed intrinsic nature does the bodhisattva possess this heaven-and-earth-overturning mastery. The supernormal powers are a by-product of awakening, not its aim.

The treatise first divides the powers into three: the noble power (the mastery of concentration, wherein one's every wish is accomplished), the power of the Dharma (the vast fruit of the six perfections), and the innate power (the marvelous phenomena, born together with the body, that are drawn forth by the store of merit) 〔本論〕. It then opens out five classes, taking "the supernormal power = the six supernormal powers" as the main axis. Among the six, the two most worthy of deep study are the first, the divine-object power, and the last, the exhaustion of the outflows — the one lays bare the ground of consciousness-only, the other lays bare the bones of not abiding in nirvāṇa.

The Transformation of the Divine Object: The Secret of the Supernormal Powers Is That "the Myriad Phenomena Are Consciousness-Only and Have of Themselves No Fixed Marks"

The divine-object power divides into the power to transform and the power to conjure. The power to transform has eighteen kinds (quaking, blazing, streaming-forth, displaying, transforming, coming-and-going, rolling-up-and-spreading-out … emitting great light), and among them the fifth, "transforming," is the eye of the whole chapter: "if toward the earth one arouses the resolute conviction of water, one causes it to become water in truth and not otherwise" 〔本論〕 — facing the earth, arousing a single resolute conviction of "water," the earth truly becomes water; not an illusion, not a semblance, but water "in truth." Earth, water, fire, and wind can transform into one another; grass, leaves, and cow dung can transform into food and carriages; sand and stones can transform into precious jewels; Sumeru can be rolled up like a mustard seed, a mustard seed spread out like Sumeru 〔rolling-up-and-spreading-out〕.

How is this possible? The ancient master Jing laid bare the secret, joining it to consciousness-only 〔Dunlun quoting Jing〕: "according to the principle-gate of consciousness-only, all phenomena are but consciousness … not material yet resembling the material, being but the measure of consciousness … even Sumeru and the mustard seed are but the measure of consciousness, with no separate real matter of fixed real magnitude." He further quotes the Compendium of the Mahāyāna (the Mahāyānasaṃgraha): "because the practitioner's consciousness serves as dominant condition, the consciousness of others is transformed and the earth becomes water and so on." — The reason earth can transform into water, and Sumeru can be received into a mustard seed, is precisely that the myriad phenomena are from the first but the manifestation transformed by consciousness, and have from the first no real intrinsic nature of "definitely being earth, definitely being water, definitely large, definitely small." The ordinary being is bound fast by his own measure of consciousness, and sees earth as forever earth; the bodhisattva, having realized consciousness-only and grasped that the myriad phenomena are without fixed marks, is able, with the wisdom of marvelous observation, to strike and stir the wisdom of the perfect mirror, causing the consciousness of beings to change along with it — earth ceases, water is born, vivid and in truth. The inconceivability of the supernormal powers has for its ground this one saying: "consciousness-only, without fixed marks." What the Chapter on Reality called the "intrinsic nature beyond words, the middle way free of duality" is, in the Chapter on Powers, redeemed into the direct-perception mastery of "being able to transform earth into water."

Here the ancient masters have also a careful marginal note. Tai and Kuiji caution: transformation, though masterful, "cannot transform the nature" — one may only "make the water-substance cease and the fire-substance separately arise," so that by the Buddha's power there is a moist nature even within fire, and it is precisely this moist nature that is taken as the substance of fire; but were one truly to "transform the insentient into the sentient," this would increase or decrease the realm of beings, and that is not permitted 〔Tai · Kuiji, Concise Compendium〕. Jing, by the measure of consciousness-only, clarifies "being without fixed marks, therefore able to transform"; Tai and Kuiji, by the phenomena of cause-and-condition, set up the guarding limit of "one substance ceasing, another substance born · not transforming the nature" — the two readings stand side by side, the one clarifying how it is possible, the other what it does not do; here they are only set forth together, not appraised. But on whichever reading one relies, the supernormal power is no magic of making-something-from-nothing; it is the manifestation of the one principle that "the myriad phenomena are from the first without fixed marks."

(The power to conjure is another road: "what is without a basis yet comes to be" is named conjuring — with the conjuring mind one fashions phenomena never-before-existent, conjuring bodies, conjuring realms, conjuring speech. The transforming and conjuring of the divine object, the treatise says, accomplish only two things: drawing beings into the sacred teaching, and bestowing benefit and ease on beings who suffer. The supernormal powers are a hand for delivering beings, not something for the bodhisattva to look upon himself.)

The Exhaustion of the Outflows: Able to Enter Nirvāṇa Yet Deliberately Not Entering — the Most Excellent Power

The first five of the six supernormal powers the two vehicles and the outsiders can more or less cultivate; only the sixth, the "exhaustion of the outflows," belongs to the sages alone. Yet the bodhisattva's exhaustion of the outflows the treatise writes down in a way strikingly its own: "Moreover, though the bodhisattvas can truly know the means of realizing all the merits of the exhaustion of the outflows, they do not actualize it. Therefore the bodhisattva does not swiftly forsake the matters of the outflows and the outflows themselves; and though he courses among all manner of matters of the outflows, he is not defiled. Such a power is, among all powers, the most excellent" 〔本論〕.

Look at the weight of these few words. The bodhisattva plainly can cut off the afflictions to their exhaustion, plainly can realize and take up nirvāṇa — the means are all in hand — yet "does not actualize it"; plainly he could once and for all depart from the outflows, yet "does not swiftly forsake" them, deliberately remaining within the birth-and-death of the outflows to deliver beings, and yet "is not defiled." Dunlun judges it crisply: "attending to the four truths yet not actualizing it, so that he courses among the outflows yet is undefiled". The treatise judges this one item to be "among all powers the most excellent" — of all the supernormal transformations, the greatest power is not to transform earth into water, nor to receive Sumeru into a mustard seed, but to be able to enter nirvāṇa yet deliberately not to take up nirvāṇa. This is precisely the echo, in the Chapter on Powers, of the Chapter on Reality's "resolute conviction of emptiness → not dreading nor longing for nirvāṇa, not abiding in either birth-and-death or nirvāṇa": the power of the two vehicles reaches only as far as "being able to depart," while the bodhisattva's power goes one step further, to "being able to depart yet, for the sake of beings, not departing." To retain the afflictions and moisten rebirth, and yet not be defiled by the afflictions — this is the deepest mastery of the Great Vehicle.

The Innate Power: The Eight Aspects of Accomplishing the Way Are Not Wrought by the Supernormal Powers

The Chapter on Powers records still another particular kind of power — the "innate power," drawn forth by the store of merit and inborn, not conjured on the spot by entering concentration. What the treatise lists is precisely the eight aspects of a single buddha's accomplishing of the Way: ascending to Tuṣita; the descent of the spirit and entry into the womb with full awareness; issuing from the womb, walking seven steps, and proclaiming his own titles of virtue; adorned with the thirty-two marks; seated on the seat of awakening, subduing the hosts of Māra by the power of the concentration of loving-kindness; awakening to enlightenment without a teacher; the great Brahmā's entreaty to expound the Dharma … down to the monkey offering pure honey, which the World-Honored One received with pity and, rejoicing, danced for joy; the dragon-clouds ever attending, raining down at his ablutions and yet, when he went forth to travel, halting and not falling; lying on the right side like the king of lions; walking like a lion, stepping like a bull-king; the door he entered, though narrow and small, of itself becoming lofty and wide; when he ate the food he ate, every grain being crushed. The treatise takes special pains to state: "at the time of the parinirvāṇa the great earth quaked … all this is the Tathāgata's innate power, not wrought by the supernormal powers". This stroke is of importance: these marvels of the Buddha are not supernormal powers put on display; they are the fruit that ripens of itself from the store of merit of measureless kalpas — the powers have two kinds, the "presently-cultivated supernormal power" and the "long-accumulated innate power," and the latter is the more the coming-to-fruition of what has ripened in its time, not born of a deliberate act of attention.

The Common and the Uncommon: The Bodhisattva's Power, in Measure, Pervades Every Realm

Finally the treatise distinguishes whether the bodhisattva's power is common or uncommon with the two vehicles, dividing it into three aspects — subtlety, class, and realm. The most immediate is "realm": the śrāvaka's field of the supernormal power reaches only to the two-thousandfold realm, the pratyekabuddha's only to the three-thousandfold — because the pratyekabuddha "cultivates only to subdue his own single body, not for the sake of beings," and so at the utmost takes only a single realm for his field; whereas the bodhisattva takes "all worlds, all the realms of beings" for the field of his power. The magnitude of the supernormal power is, at root, the magnitude of the compassionate vow: for one who is for a single body, the power is confined to a single realm; for one who is for all beings, the power pervades every realm.

The One Meaning This Chapter Illumines

The Chapter on Powers looks like a natural history of the supernormal powers (the eighteen transformations, the six powers, the eight aspects of accomplishing the Way), but in truth it sets up only two deep meanings: first, that the ground of the supernormal powers lies in "the absence of fixed marks" — that one can transform earth into water, and receive Sumeru into a mustard seed, is possible precisely because all phenomena are from the first without fixed intrinsic nature (the ancient master Jing further explains it by the measure of consciousness-only, while Tai and Kuiji set up the guarding limit of one-substance-ceasing-another-born; the two readings set side by side; the realization of the true meaning, here, arises into functioning); second, that the greatest power is "not actualizing it" — the bodhisattva can exhaust the outflows and enter nirvāṇa, yet deliberately keeps to the outflows to deliver beings without being defiled, and this power of "not abiding in nirvāṇa" surpasses all transformations. In this chapter the supernormal powers are never a display of marvels; they are the outward showing of "the mastery that follows upon seeing reality" and of "the compassionate vow that willingly keeps to birth-and-death for the sake of beings." How great a bodhisattva's power is measures how thoroughly he has seen reality, and how deeply he is willing to remain for the sake of beings.

Carrying Forward

The meaning of the powers in this chapter the later treatises carry forward and cross-consult: the powers carry forward the Chapter on Reality (the third of the seven abodes), the object realized by knowledge, and arise into functioning; the transformation's measure of consciousness-only carries forward its threefold nature beyond words; the exhaustion of the outflows' "not actualizing it" carries forward its resolute conviction of emptiness, the non-abiding in nirvāṇa; the noble power's "mastery in dependence on concentration" carries forward the concentration of the Stage of Meditative Equipoise (Stage 06); the supernormal display drawing beings into the teaching, and the bestowal of benefit and ease on beings who suffer, are the instruments of ripening beings in the Chapter on Maturation (the fifth and sixth of the seven abodes) for the ripening of beings. The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining the Powers, which by five reasons (surpassing all discursive thought · no worldly simile can be found · bound only to a well-burnished and polished mind · sharing no part with a mind of the non-fixed grounds · bound only to a mind of the fixed grounds) gathers up whole the inconceivability of the bodhisattva's majestic power, the two axes — this chapter's item-by-item exposition and that summary — mutually setting each other alight.

What Is "Maturation," and Why Is It Placed After the Powers

The foregoing four chapters run like a single line of planting a crop: the Chapter on Lineage sowed the seed (the uncontaminated seed that dwells in one's very nature), the Chapter on the True Meaning let one see the ground clearly — all phenomena beyond words, the middle way free of duality — and the Chapter on Powers is the functioning that arises once reality has been seen. Sown, seen clearly, able to use it — and then one asks the plainest possible question: This crop — when does it ripen? This is the Chapter on Maturation.

The treatise, from its very first words, states "ripening" in the most concrete terms: "because there are seeds of wholesome dharmas, and because one has, again and again, cultivated all manner of wholesome dharmas, one obtains an augmented body-and-mind capable of according with the cutting-off and purification of the two obstructions, having serviceability and a most attuned-and-wholesome nature, whose right applied effort is complete … so as to be able, without interval, to realize the cutting-off of the afflictive obstruction and the cutting-off of the cognitive obstruction" 〔the treatise〕. Note those two words, "without interval" — to ripen is to ripen to the point where "there is no longer any barrier between, and a single touch brings it to completion." The treatise strings together three of the homeliest possible comparisons: a boil ripened to the utmost bursts at a touch; a vessel of earthenware fired to the utmost is taken up and used; a fruit grown to the utmost is plucked and eaten 〔the treatise〕. The ancient master Jing matches these three similes, one by one, to the stages of the path: the boil ripening figures that the two obstructions can be cut off; the earthenware ripening figures that the path can be cultivated; the fruit ripening figures that awakening can be realized 〔Dunlun〕. The single word "ripe" runs through the whole course — the cutting-off of obstructions, the cultivation of the path, the realizing of the fruit.

The Intrinsic Nature of Maturation: What Ripens Is That Uncontaminated Seed within the Store Consciousness

Then what is the substance of "maturation"? The treatise says it is the seeds of wholesome dharmas plus repeated cultivation. The ancient master Dunlun lays bare the provenance of these "seeds of wholesome dharmas": they "are just the naturally-existing uncontaminated seeds" — precisely that natively-dwelling uncontaminated seed spoken of in the Chapter on Lineage, stored from the first within the store consciousness. It is not newly made; it exists naturally, of itself; what the bodhisattva does is to "again and again cultivate all manner of wholesome dharmas," letting this seed, in each later and later stage, "increase further and further, become more and more excellent, arise and abide firmly" 〔the treatise, the increase of the element〕, ripening all the way to "being able, without interval, to realize the purification of the two obstructions."

This links maturation back to the roots of the two preceding chapters. The Chapter on Lineage said the bodhisattva lineage "also realizes the purity of the cognitive obstruction"; the Chapter on the True Meaning said that the fourth and most excellent reality is "the reality ranged over by the knowledge that purifies the cognitive obstruction" — that is the object realized. By the time of the Chapter on Maturation, this "cutting-off and purification of the two obstructions" has turned from an object-to-be-realized into the actual process of a seed ripening through and through. Lineage (the native uncontaminated seed) → the True Meaning (the object realized by the knowledge that purifies the cognitive obstruction) → Maturation (the ripened state where the uncontaminated seed, cultivated again and again, reaches the purification of the two obstructions) — this is a single line. So maturation is no new dharma raising a separate stove; it is that seed, sown and seen in the foregoing chapters, at last come ripe. The ancient master Kuiji adds one boundary: this "being able, without interval, to realize the cutting-off of the two obstructions" is spoken of at the phase of the Section on Ascertainment (before the grounds) 〔Dunlun · Kuiji〕 — ripe to the very threshold, awaiting only entry into the grounds.

The Four Kinds of Person to Be Matured — Even the "No-Lineage" Are within the Scope of Deliverance

The treatise next says the "person to be matured" is of four kinds: one who abides in the śrāvaka lineage, one in the pratyekabuddha lineage, one in the buddha lineage — and a fourth: one who abides in "no lineage," whom the buddhas and bodhisattvas also do not forsake, only "fit to be matured upon abiding in a good destiny" 〔the treatise〕, settling him at ease in the good destinies of gods and humans.

Over this fourth kind, the "no-lineage," the ancient masters here set down a great dispute. Woncheuk records in his Commentary: some, relying on the Nirvāṇa-sūtra's text that "all sentient beings alike have the buddha-nature," then revile the newly-translated scriptures and treatises as not the right teaching; Woncheuk, for his part, cites the old Bodhisattva-śīla-sūtra and the Bodhisattvabhūmi as alike saying that "the no-lineage person may be matured by [settling him in the estate of] gods and humans," and further cites the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra's distinction of two kinds — "those of the parinirvāṇa-dharma bounded in time" and "those utterly without the parinirvāṇa-dharma" — and further cites the Laṅkāvatāra's two kinds of icchantika, "those who have cut off their wholesome roots" and "the bodhisattva [-icchantika]," and records one gloss of the Western regions: that to say "no nirvāṇa" is in order to show that the bodhisattva ultimately does not enter the fruit of the great nirvāṇa (out of pity for beings), and that the icchantika-who-has-cut-off-his-wholesome-roots is raised by way of an abbreviating allusion 〔Dunlun〕. — This ancient dispute of "the buddha-nature pervading all" against "the five lineages each distinct" is here only cited word for word, and not adjudicated. The treatise's own standing is quite clear: even for the no-lineage, the buddhas and bodhisattvas still mature him by [settling him in] the good destinies of gods and humans — the net of deliverance holds within it even the hardest to deliver.

The Distinctions of Maturation: The Faculties, the Wholesome Roots, and Wisdom Each Ripen and Each Cut Off One Obstruction

Ripening is of six distinctions: the maturation of the faculties, of the wholesome roots, of wisdom, and then the three grades — inferior, middling, superior. The first three especially matter, for the treatise pairs them one by one with the "cutting-off of the three obstructions": because of the maturation of the faculties, one is liberated from the obstruction of maturation (the obstruction that is the fruit of suffering); because of the maturation of the wholesome roots, one is liberated from the obstruction of karma; because of the maturation of wisdom, one is liberated from the afflictive obstruction 〔the treatise〕. Dunlun explains why they are so paired: "by the eight excellent [aspects of] body one departs the recompense of the three evil destinies 〔the obstruction of maturation〕; because there are wholesome roots one departs the obstruction of evil karma; wisdom is able to depart the afflictions 〔the afflictive obstruction〕" — the excellent body complete in the eight, such as length of life and bodily form, is the fruit of suffering brought forth by the wholesome karma of former lives and able to depart the three evil destinies, and so answers to the obstruction of maturation; the wholesome roots are by nature apart from evil, and so answer to the obstruction of karma; only wisdom can cut off the afflictions, and so answers to the afflictive obstruction. The three ripenings peel off, in exactly this order, the three layers of "fruit of suffering — evil karma — affliction." As for the three grades, inferior, middling, and superior, they turn only on the deficiency or completeness of the two causes-and-conditions "long or not long in cultivation, inferior or not inferior in habituation": both causes lacking is the inferior grade, one lacking one full is the middling grade, both full is the superior grade 〔the treatise〕.

The Twenty-Seven Means of Maturation: To Deliver Beings, There Is Method

How does one go about "ripening" a person? The treatise lists a full twenty-seven means, running from "the increase of the element" and "taking in through a present condition" all the way to "maturing oneself," "requesting another to mature," and "both maturing together" 〔the treatise〕. It looks like a jumble, yet Dunlun sorts out of it a clear skeleton: the first ten are "self-benefit," the middle six are "benefiting others," the next six "again clarify self-benefit," and the last five "again set forth benefiting others"; and the first ten fall into pairs — a past-and-present pair (the increase of the element is a cause in the past, taking in through a present condition a cause in the present), a faith-and-delight pair (entering in is faith, gathering delight is longing-desire), a first-and-not-first pair, a far-and-near pair, and a from-resolve-arousing-practice pair. So it turns out that the means of delivering beings is first to ripen oneself well and then to go and ripen others, self-benefit and benefiting others coming by turns.

Among these twenty-seven there is "taking in by material goods," the bestowal of food and drink; "taking in by the Dharma," the teaching of the Dharma; "teaching the Dharma covertly," which, for those of infant wisdom, hides away the deep meaning and teaches only the shallow; and "teaching the Dharma manifestly," which, for those of sharp faculties, lays open the profound directly — teaching each according to his measure. The one that most shows compassion is the item "subduing": toward a person who has transgressed the precepts, an inferior-grade transgression is met with loving-kindness in admonishing, a middling-grade with loving-kindness in rebuking, a superior-grade with loving-kindness in driving out 〔the treatise · Dunlun〕. Even the driving-out is loving-kindness: the treatise says that to expel him is to let the rest, seeing it, know to be on their guard and not dare transgress again 〔the treatise〕. Penalty, too, is for the sake of ripening — ripening the one, and ripening the many who look on.

The Person Who Matures: The Six Bodhisattva Grounds Are a Whole Map of the Stages of Realization

Then who is it that "goes and matures others"? The treatise says it is six kinds of bodhisattva, abiding in the six bodhisattva grounds: the practice of resolute conviction, pure and excellent resolve, coursing in right practice, fallen into the fixed [course], coursing in right practice with the fixed [course], and arrival at the ultimate 〔the treatise〕. These six grounds are no six abstruse labels; the ancient masters match them exactly to the stages of the ten grounds familiar to us. Dunlun, following fascicle forty-nine of this very treatise, matches them thus: the ground of the practice of resolute conviction = the forty minds before the grounds; the ground of pure and excellent resolve = the first ground; the ground of coursing in right practice = the second through the seventh grounds; the ground of the fixed [course] = the eighth ground; the ground of coursing in right practice with the fixed [course] = the ninth ground; the ground of arrival at the ultimate = the tenth ground. Kuiji further cites the Compendium of the Mahāyāna to match them against the three incalculable kalpas: the practice of resolute conviction is the first incalculable kalpa; from pure and excellent resolve (the first ground) one enters the second incalculable kalpa; from the fixed [course] (the eighth ground) to the ultimate (the tenth ground) is the third incalculable kalpa. The two masters — the one on the strength of this treatise, the other citing the Compendium — agree broadly in the matching (the practice of resolute conviction before the grounds, the ultimate at the tenth ground), differing only a little in the detail of how the middle span is opened or combined; here they are only set forth together.

The point is this: the bodhisattva "able to mature sentient beings" is not some one special kind of person, but the bodhisattva along the whole road, from arousing the mind before the grounds, through the ten grounds, to the near-buddhahood of the equal-awakening. The very matter of maturing others is itself a stairway of realization running from before the grounds to the ultimate. Delivering beings and realizing oneself are one and the same road.

The Marks of the One Already Matured: However Far One Has Ripened, So Is the Fruit

Whether one has ripened, and to what step, can be seen. The treatise states the marks separately for śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva. The śrāvaka: one of inferior-grade maturation still goes toward the evil destinies, does not realize the śrāmaṇa-fruit in the present life, and does not attain parinirvāṇa; one of middling-grade maturation does not go toward the evil destinies, realizes the śrāmaṇa-fruit in the present life, but does not yet attain parinirvāṇa; one of superior-grade maturation does not go toward the evil destinies, realizes the śrāmaṇa-fruit in the present life, and attains parinirvāṇa in this very life 〔the treatise〕. The pratyekabuddha is the same, only that he awakens on his own, without a teacher, and cultivates the thirty-seven factors conducing to awakening so as to realize 〔the treatise〕.

The passage on the bodhisattva is the most stirring. When the bodhisattva is of inferior-grade maturation, he "still goes toward the evil destinies" — the bodhisattva, still falling into the evil destinies? The ancient master Kuiji unties it with a beautiful comparison: the bodhisattva has in truth long since cut off the karma that draws down the evil destinies and ought not to fall; but, for the sake of benefiting beings, he goes there on purpose to take birth, and, through benefiting beings, gets tainted and undergoes the recompense — just as the garuḍa enters the sea to peck at a dragon, and, its pecking done, flies up into the sky, its feet muddied because it seized the dragon; its intention lay in taking the dragon, not in the mud 〔Dunlun · Kuiji〕. The bodhisattva's "falling" is not a falling dragged down by the force of karma; it is a taint carried down by the vow of compassion. This one stroke states, to the very bone, the Great Vehicle's "retaining the afflictions to moisten rebirth."

Higher still, the treatise matches the three incalculable kalpas to three kinds of "wholesome dharmas of the class of awakening": when the first incalculable kalpa is exhausted, none of the three — blazing, unmoving, utterly well purified — is yet corresponded to; when the second is exhausted, the blazing and the unmoving are corresponded to, the utterly well purified not yet; when the third is exhausted, all three are accomplished 〔the treatise〕. The treatise then itself glosses the three names: rich and thick in essential nature, exceedingly keen and abundant, having a vast fruit, and so named "blazing"; not turning back, not backsliding, ever advancing excellently, and so named "unmoving"; within the bodhisattva grounds the most unsurpassed, and so named "utterly well purified" 〔the treatise〕. Last, the treatise splits maturation into three grades and each grade again into three (inferior-inferior, inferior-middling, inferior-superior … superior-superior), saying "the principle of the further and further distinctions has measureless grades" 〔the treatise〕 — ripening is a continuous process with no ruled-off end.

The One Meaning This Chapter Illumines

The Chapter on Maturation looks like a checklist of methods for delivering beings (four kinds of person, six distinctions, twenty-seven means, six grounds, three grades and nine grades), yet in truth it sets up only one deep meaning: the whole bodhisattva path, from beginning to end, is the single word "ripen." The uncontaminated seed sown in the Chapter on Lineage must ripen to the purification of the two obstructions (the intrinsic nature of maturation); the vow made in arousing the mind must ripen to being able, through the six grounds, to deliver others (the person who matures); the beings one delivers must ripen to realizing the fruit in the present life, and even to parinirvāṇa (the marks of the one already matured). And most crucially, "maturing one's own buddha-dharma" and "maturing sentient beings" have never been two matters — the treatise says plainly at its close that the bodhisattva cultivates these six kinds of maturation both to mature his own buddha-dharma and to cause other beings to depart by mounting the three vehicles 〔the treatise〕. Ripening oneself and ripening others are not two: however far you deliver sentient beings, just so far do you yourself ripen. Whether a bodhisattva has ripened is measured not by how much he understands, but by how deeply his uncontaminated seed has been cultivated, and how long, for the sake of beings, he has willingly ripened within birth-and-death.

Carrying Forward

The meaning of maturation in this chapter looks before and behind and cross-consults the whole frame. The intrinsic nature of maturation's "seeds of wholesome dharmas" carries forward the natively-dwelling uncontaminated seed of the Chapter on Lineage 〔Dunlun〕; the "cutting-off and purification of the two obstructions" that it accords with carries forward the fourth reality of the Chapter on the True Meaning (the reality ranged over by the knowledge that purifies the cognitive obstruction) and the Chapter on Lineage's "also realizing the purity of the cognitive obstruction". The thirteenth of the means of maturation, "drawing in by the supernormal powers," uses the divine-object power of the Chapter on Powers to draw beings into the teaching. The six grounds of the one who matures are just the enterprise of the item "maturation" (item 5 of 6) within the general rubric of the seven abodes of learning opened in the Chapter on Self-and-Other Benefit — which the ancient masters match to the ten grounds and the three incalculable kalpas 〔Dunlun · Kuiji〕. The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining Maturation, taking up only "maturing sentient beings by the ten practices of the Dharma" to ascertain its path of merit / its path of applied effort / its path of purifying the obstructions, and itself declaring that the remaining text "no longer appears" (it does not ascertain over again the six approaches of the Basic Section) — the two axes, this chapter's expansive clarification and that, mutually setting each other alight. Next follows the Chapter on Awakening (item 7 of the seven abodes) — the utmost of maturation is just the realizing of awakening.

When Maturation Has Reached Its Utmost, What Is There?

At the close of the Chapter on Maturation, the treatise says that the bodhisattva cultivates the six kinds of maturation "in order to mature his own buddha-dharmas." Then, at the moment when his own buddha-dharmas have matured to the utmost — when the seed has ripened to the point where, without interval, it can realize the purity of the two obstructions — what is the fruit that is borne? This is the Chapter on Awakening. Kuiji marks the sequence very clearly: "Having realized reality (the Chapter on Reality), and manifested great supernormal power (the Chapter on Might), and matured self and others (the Chapter on Maturation), there must be a realization of the fruit; and so, after the Chapter on Maturation, [the treatise] sets forth the Chapter on Awakening". The six chapters before are cause, are conduct, are ripening; the Chapter on Awakening is fruit.

The definition the treatise gives to awakening is astonishingly short: "What is awakening? Stated briefly, it is the two eliminations and the two knowledges — this is named awakening" 〔the treatise〕. The whole bodhisattva path of measureless eons has, at its very summit, a fruit of just eight words: the two eliminations, the two knowledges.

The Two Eliminations, the Two Knowledges: What Is Eliminated, What Is Gained

The "two eliminations" are the elimination of the afflictive obstruction and the elimination of the cognitive obstruction; the "two knowledges" are the two knowledges that these two eliminations each bring about — because the afflictive obstruction is eliminated, one gains the "knowledge of being ultimately free of defilement, no longer bound by any affliction"; because the cognitive obstruction is eliminated, one gains the "knowledge that is without hindrance and without obstruction toward all that is knowable" 〔the treatise〕. The one makes a person utterly clean of afflictions, never again bound; the other makes a person free of every impediment toward all that is knowable.

This definition does not come out of nowhere; it is precisely the ripened fruit of the several chapters that precede. The Chapter on Maturation says that the intrinsic nature of maturation is that which "conduces to the elimination-and-purity of the two obstructions" — that is the state of "about to ripen but not yet eliminated"; by the Chapter on Awakening, the two obstructions are truly eliminated and the knowledges truly manifest — this is being "fully ripened." The Chapter on Reality says that the fourth and most excellent reality is "the sphere ranged over by the knowledge that has purified the cognitive obstruction" — that is the object to be realized; by the Chapter on Awakening, the "unhindered, unobstructed knowledge" of the eliminated cognitive obstruction manifests before one, and the object has become fruit. Lineage sows the untainted seed, Reality sees clearly the object beyond words, Maturation nurtures the seed to the threshold, and Awakening is the fruit come to ground. That single phrase, "the two eliminations and the two knowledges," gathers up the whole path.

The ancient masters resolved one fine question here: the two eliminations (the elimination of the afflictive obstruction and the elimination of the cognitive obstruction) are, in themselves, "elimination," which is unconditioned; their substance is not "awakening" — so how can they be called "awakening (that which awakens)"? Tai answers crisply: "Just as the nine severing-knowledges are named 'knowledge' because they are the fruit of knowledge, so the two eliminations too are named 'awakening' because they are the fruit of awakening" 〔Dunlun〕 — elimination, though not awakening, is the fruit that awakening bears, and so is named by its fruit. Woncheuk, drawing on the three bodies of the Compendium of the Great Vehicle and the nature of suchness as merits countless as the Ganges' sands, says that [suchness] "is able to generate the gateways of every merit, and so is named 'awakening'"; and he points out that these two knowledges are precisely the knowledge of the emptiness of persons and the knowledge of the emptiness of dharmas 〔Dunlun〕. (Here too is recorded an old dispute between Paramārtha and Xuanzang: Paramārtha posits "an original-awakening knowledge that takes the principle of equality as its object, as the dharma-body," while Xuanzang says that the suchness disclosed by the emptiness of persons and dharmas is not the substance of consciousness and cannot illumine itself — "one raises knowledge to disclose suchness and names it the dharma-body; it is not that knowledge, or suchness [itself], is named the dharma-body" 〔Dunlun〕. Two readings of the ancients; here they are only recorded, not adjudicated.)

One Point of Demarcation That Matters: Where "the Transformation of the Basis" Is Spoken Of

A reader of Consciousness-Only, seeing "the two eliminations and the two knowledges," will naturally think of the "twofold transformation of the basis" — transforming the reliance on the afflictive obstruction to gain nirvāṇa, and transforming the reliance on the cognitive obstruction to gain awakening. But one point of demarcation must be honestly stated: the whole Chapter on Awakening in the Basic Section does not carry the two words "transformation of the basis," and neither Dunlun's nor Kuiji's commentary on the Chapter on Awakening frames it with the "twofold transformation of the basis" or the "four knowledges." The one who plainly marks out this meaning of "the transformation of the basis" is the Chapter Ascertaining Awakening in the Section on Ascertainment: there it says, "the intrinsic nature of great awakening is the transformation of the basis that surpasses the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas," and unfolds it into four characteristics — the basis of the transformation whereby [the supramundane path] arises, the basis of the transformation whereby [affliction] no longer arises, the fruit of the well-examined knowable, and the purity of the dharma-realm 〔the Section on Ascertainment〕.

These two axes illuminate each other exactly: the Section on Ascertainment's "basis of the transformation whereby [affliction] no longer arises (the latent tendencies of affliction not arising)" matches this chapter's "knowledge free of defilement from the elimination of the afflictive obstruction"; and its "fruit of the well-examined knowable + purity of the dharma-realm" matches this chapter's "unhindered knowledge from the elimination of the cognitive obstruction." So "the two eliminations and the two knowledges" and "the four characteristics of the transformation of the basis" speak of one and the same fruit — only, the Basic Section speaks of it by way of "elimination and knowledge," and the Section on Ascertainment by way of "the transformation of the basis." But the demarcation must be kept: the name "transformation of the basis" issues from the Section on Ascertainment, and is another axis within the scriptures, not the text of the Basic Section of this chapter; this chapter honestly is "the two eliminations and the two knowledges."

The Three Alternate Formulations and the One Hundred Forty Exclusive Buddha-Dharmas: The Unfolding of the Fruit's Merits

The treatise then says this awakening over twice more by two "alternate formulations." The one is: the pure knowledge (all afflictions and their latent tendencies ultimately eliminated), the knowledge of all (knowledge operating without hindrance throughout all realms, events, classes, and times), and the unimpeded knowledge (one act of attention and it knows all-pervadingly, with no need to think again and again). The other is "the one hundred forty exclusive buddha-dharmas" — the thirty-two marks, the eighty minor excellences, the four purities of every kind, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the three foundations of mindfulness, the three things needing no guarding, the great compassion, the quality of never forgetting, the everlasting harming-away of the latent tendencies, and the marvelous knowledge of every kind — these being the dharmas a buddha alone has, not shared with the two vehicles (the treatise says the fine details are "to be analyzed at length in the Chapter on Establishment"). This number "one hundred forty" Kuiji reckons very finely: the first seven categories (marks · excellences · the four purities of every kind · the ten powers · the four fearlessnesses · the three foundations of mindfulness · the three things needing no guarding) come to one hundred thirty-six in all; add the four — great compassion, the quality of never forgetting, the everlasting harming-away of the latent tendencies, and the knowledge of every kind — and it comes exactly to one hundred forty. Dunlun, on the other hand, cites the Anuttarāśraya-sūtra for "one hundred eighty exclusive dharmas" — two numbers of different provenance, set side by side and not adjudicated.

The Seven Supremacies and the Three Abidings: Why the Buddha's Awakening Is Supreme

The treatise says this awakening "is named supreme" because it is associated with seven supremacies: the basis (a body adorned with the thirty-two marks), right conduct (benefiting self and others, taking pity on the world), perfection (the four perfections — discipline, view, standards, and pure livelihood), knowledge (the four unhindered discernments), might (the six kinds of supernormal power, that is, what the Chapter on Might makes clear), elimination (the everlasting elimination of all afflictions and their latent tendencies, and of the cognitive obstruction), and abiding (abiding much in the three abidings — noble, divine, and pure) 〔the treatise〕. Because the seven merits are complete together, it is the most excellent among all [forms of] awakening; and by these seven supremacies the Tathāgata also gains seven titles — the Great Person, the Greatly Compassionate One, the One of Great Discipline and the One of Great Dharma, the One of Great Wisdom, the One of Great Supernormal Power, the One of Great Liberation, and the One Who Abides Much and Abides Vastly.

The most worth savoring among the three abidings is the "four supreme abidings": within the noble abiding the Tathāgata abides much in the abiding in emptiness and the abiding in the attainment of cessation, within the divine abiding much in the "unmoving fourth absorption," and within the pure abiding much in the "abiding in great compassion" 〔the treatise〕. The ancient masters gloss "unmoving": the fourth absorption is even in concentration and wisdom, cannot be moved, and is free of the peril of the three catastrophes, and so the Buddha abides much [in it] 〔Dunlun〕; while his abiding much in great compassion within the pure abiding is because "sentient beings have much suffering, and the Buddha's intent lies much in gathering in the suffering." Where a buddha abides most deeply is in the even [and unshakable] concentration, and in the great compassion that does not forsake sentient beings.

The Ten Titles and the Appearance of Buddhas: The Compassionate Vow of a Single Tathāgata

The treatise lists the Tathāgata's ten kinds of merit-title (merits for recollection) — the Thus-Come One, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One, the One Perfect in Knowledge and Conduct, the Well-Gone One, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Person Who Tames and Guides, the Teacher of Gods and Humans, the Buddha, the Bhagavat — each with its meaning (as "the Thus-Come One" = his word is without falsehood; "the Well-Gone One" = ascending to the utmost and never turning back; "the Teacher of Gods and Humans" = acting for sentient beings as a true eye and true knowledge, able to admonish rightly and cause them to escape the multitude of sufferings).

Most moving of all is the passage on "the appearance of buddhas in the world." The treatise asks: why does a single buddha-land have only a single buddha, with no two Tathāgatas appearing in the world at the same time? What the treatise gives is not a limitation of supernormal power, but a compassionate vow: the vow the bodhisattva arouses through the long night is, "I shall be the one and only — in the worlds that have no leading head, I shall act as the leading head, taming sentient beings, causing them to be freed from the multitude of sufferings and to reach parinirvāṇa" 〔the treatise〕 — precisely because each bodhisattva vows to go to "a place without a buddha" and act as the one and only leading head, the buddhas appear each separately in lands empty of a Tathāgata, and no single realm has two buddhas appearing twice over. Again, a single buddha, within a single three-thousandfold great-thousand realm, is already able to perform all the works of a buddha universally, and so a second buddha's appearing in the world would be of no benefit. More to the point still: if sentient beings know "in the world there is only one Tathāgata, and no second; if this buddha enters cessation I shall have nowhere to cultivate the holy life and hear the right Dharma," they will arouse a deep and weighty vigor and hasten to practice — one buddha to one realm is in order to press forth the vigor of sentient beings. And all the merits of the Tathāgatas are equal and equal, without the slightest difference, save only that four dharmas have a character of increase and decrease: length of life, title, clan and lineage, and bodily marks 〔the treatise〕. Between buddha and buddha, these four things alone differ; all the remaining merits are wholly equal.

A Sensitive Point: Awakening Not Realized in a Female Body

The treatise then says: "Further, it is not a female body that can realize unsurpassed perfect awakening," the reason being that all bodhisattvas, at the point of passing beyond the first incalculable eon, have already forsaken the female body, and, down to sitting on the seat of awakening, have never been female 〔the treatise〕. This is the text of the treatise, and it is transmitted here just as it is. To the doubt that follows upon it — did not the dragon-girl of the Lotus become a buddha? — the ancient masters too long had a transmitted resolution: Dunlun and Kuiji alike say that "that dragon-girl too transformed into a male and only then became a buddha; it was not by a female body that she became a buddha" 〔Dunlun · Kuiji〕. This meaning the ancient masters have already reconciled thus; it is transmitted word for word, neither added to nor diminished.

The One Meaning This Chapter Discloses

The Chapter on Awakening may look as though it is laying out the various adornments of the buddha-fruit (the one hundred forty exclusive dharmas, the seven supremacies, the three abidings, the ten titles), but in truth it establishes only a single summit-fruit: the whole bodhisattva path, its fruit is just "the two eliminations and the two knowledges" — the elimination of the afflictive obstruction gaining the knowledge free of defilement, the elimination of the cognitive obstruction gaining the unhindered knowledge. What Lineage sowed, what Reality saw, what Might used, what Maturation nurtured, all comes here to be gathered up into this one fruit (the Section on Ascertainment, for its part, says this fruit otherwise by the "four characteristics of the transformation of the basis," the two axes illuminating each other). And the reason this fruit is unsurpassed lies not in how much supernormal power and adornment it has, but in its "generating all the merits of the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, and the Tathāgatas" and its "passing beyond every path of discursive thought" — and therefore the awakening realized by buddhas alone is the highest, the most honored, the most marvelous, the most supreme 〔the treatise〕. When a path is walked to its very top, at the top is that single thought of purity and unimpededness — the two obstructions eliminated to exhaustion, the two knowledges brought to manifestation.

Carrying Forward

The meaning of awakening in this chapter carries forward from what precedes and opens onto what follows, gathering up the whole frame: the two eliminations of awakening (the elimination of the afflictive obstruction · the elimination of the cognitive obstruction) carry forward the ripened fruit of the Chapter on Maturation's "conducing to the elimination-and-purity of the two obstructions", and the unhindered knowledge from the elimination of the cognitive obstruction carries forward the fourth reality of the Chapter on Reality (the sphere ranged over by the knowledge that has purified the cognitive obstruction); the supremacy of might among the seven supremacies is precisely the six kinds of supernormal power of the Chapter on Might; the one hundred forty exclusive buddha-dharmas are detailed in the Chapter on Establishment. The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining Awakening, re-expounding great awakening by the five characteristics of the transformation of the basis (intrinsic nature 〔the four characteristics of the transformation of the basis〕 / function 〔the ten masteries〕 / means 〔the four kinds of manifestation〕 / turning / returning), illuminating this chapter's two eliminations and two knowledges reciprocally — only, the name "transformation of the basis" issues from the Section on Ascertainment, and is not the text of the Basic Section of this chapter. Next comes the Chapter on the Lineage of Power (the eighth) — awakening now being made clear, [the treatise] goes on to make clear the lineage of power by which awakening is accomplished.

Why, After the Chapter on Lineage, There Is Still a Chapter on "the Power-Lineage"

The Chapter on Lineage spoke of the "lineage that abides by intrinsic nature" — the uncontaminated seed you are born carrying, the seed naturally and originally there. But a seed, left untended, will not grow into a great tree of itself. How, then, is it to be cultivated? That is the Chapter on the Power-Lineage. The ancient masters point out the relation of the two chapters exceedingly clearly: "'Power' is the ten powers; the seed of the ten powers is named the power-lineage; the foregoing first Chapter on Lineage clarified in general the lineage-by-intrinsic-nature of every lineage, but did not yet clarify the acquired lineage of the ten powers; now, because it means to clarify the acquired lineage in particular, it says the Chapter on the Power-Lineage" 〔Dunlun〕, and Kuiji in a single stroke puts it more plainly still: "the former is the lineage-by-nature, the present is the acquired lineage". The Chapter on Lineage is the "seed-by-nature" (the inborn seed); the Chapter on the Power-Lineage is the "acquired lineage" (the seed cultivated by later effort); and the aim of the cultivation is to grow it into the "ten powers" — the seed of a buddha's ten kinds of knowledge-power. This chapter, then, is a bodhisattva's syllabus of cultivation.

The syllabus is opened by an uddāna into seven sections: being furnished with the many resolute convictions, seeking the true Dharma, teaching the true Dharma, cultivating the practice of the Dharma (practice in accord with the Dharma), right instruction, admonition, and the three activities gathered by skillful means 〔the treatise〕. From setting one's aspiration, to seeking learning, to teaching the Dharma, to actual cultivation, to teaching others, to gathering in the assembly — a complete road to becoming fully formed.

The First Step: Being Furnished with the Many Resolute Convictions — First, Set Faith Firmly

To cultivate the seed, one must first have concentrative power and confidence. The bodhisattva, with respect to the eight bases of resolute conviction, sets up "a decisive gladness that has pure faith as its forerunner": toward the merits of the Three Jewels, toward the power of the buddhas and bodhisattvas (clarified in the Chapter on Powers), toward the true meaning (clarified in the Chapter on the True Meaning), toward cause, toward fruit, toward "I shall certainly be able to attain unsurpassed awakening" (the meaning to be attained), toward "with this means one can attain it" (the means of attaining), and toward the good words and good teaching of the discourses and the verse-restatements 〔the treatise〕. All eight bases are faith — faith in the Dharma, faith in the Buddha's power, faith in the truth, faith in cause-and-fruit, faith that one can oneself accomplish it, faith that there is a road to walk, faith in the scriptural teaching. By the two causes-and-conditions of "much cultivating resolute conviction" and "amassing a fierce and keen forbearance," resolute conviction becomes many. (Over how these eight bases are to be counted the ancient masters once had a dispute: the Old Treatise did not mark the numbers, and so Dharma-master Yuan and others miscounted them; Xuanzang's new translation, however, marks the one, the two, plainly 〔Dunlun〕 — here only the dispute is recorded, not judged.)

The Second Step: Seeking the True Dharma — the Five Sciences, and the Ten Causes and Five Fruits of the Inner Science

Having set up faith, one goes to seek the Dharma. Seek what? The bodhisattva is to seek universally the whole bodhisattva canon, the śrāvaka canon, the outer treatises, and the treatises on the worldly crafts — gathered up, this is just the "five sciences": the Inner Science, the Science of Reasoning, the Science of Sound, the Science of Medicine, and the Science of the Crafts 〔the treatise〕. Only when all five are sought is it called diligently seeking all the sciences. (The ancient masters state the opening-and-combining of these five sciences: opening the Buddha's word into the two dharmas of the bodhisattva canon and the śrāvaka canon is the "Inner Science"; combining the Science of Reasoning, the Science of Sound, and the Science of Medicine as the "outer dharmas"; the Science of the Crafts standing alone as the fourth — of which the one gate of the Science of Reasoning "did not flourish until Dignāga, when all the outsiders came to hear and study it" 〔Dunlun〕.)

Among the five sciences, the deepest is the "Inner Science." The Inner Science shows two things: first, the "aspect of right cause-and-fruit"; second, the "aspect of what is done is not lost, what is not done is not gained." And the "aspect of right cause-and-fruit," unfolded, is just the doctrinal center of gravity of this chapter — the ten causes and the five fruits.

The Ten Causes: the Ten Strands of Cause That Explain Everything

What are the ten causes? The cause of speaking-in-accord, the cause of dependence-and-regard, the cause of drawing-in, the cause of taking-up, the cause of arising, the cause of drawing-forth, the cause of determining-differentiation, the cause of co-working, the cause of contrariety, and the cause of non-contrariety 〔the treatise〕. These ten causes are able to explain the arising of everything in the world, all defilement, and all purity. The treatise itself demonstrates it with the most homely "sowing of a crop": the name "barley" (the cause of speaking-in-accord), a person's going to seek and take it because of hunger and thirst (the cause of dependence-and-regard), the barley seed's being able to draw in the later barley (the cause of drawing-in), the aiding conditions of earth and rain (the cause of taking-up), the seed's giving rise to a sprout at the present moment (the cause of arising), the sprout, stem, and leaves in turn growing into the ripened crop (the cause of drawing-forth), a barley seed's producing barley and no other kind (the cause of determining-differentiation), all these causes coming together to form the one crop (the cause of co-working), frost and hail and disaster spoiling it (the cause of contrariety), the absence of disaster then favoring its growth (the cause of non-contrariety) 〔the treatise〕. The same set of ten causes the treatise then uses to explain the "defiled dependent origination" (conditioned by ignorance (avidyā), formations …) and the "pure nirvāṇa" (the applications of mindfulness, the right exertions … from the cessation of ignorance the cessation of formations) — one set of ten causes running through the three proceedings of world, defilement, and purity.

How do these ten causes match up with the "four conditions" we know? The ancient masters, collating the Cheng Weishi Lun's explanation against the Stage with Both Applied and Sustained Thought, gave a clean correspondence 〔Dunlun〕: "this cause-condition is gathered by the producing cause; the nature of the dominant condition is just the means cause; the middle two conditions (the immediately-antecedent condition and the object-condition) are gathered by the cause of taking-up." That is to say — the ten causes gather up into the two causes, the "producing cause" and the "means cause"; the producing cause is just the cause-condition among the four conditions, the means cause is just the dominant condition, and the remaining immediately-antecedent condition and object-condition belong to the cause of taking-up. The ancient masters further distinguish finely the difference between the cause of drawing-in and the cause of arising: the cause of drawing-in is common to both the cause-condition and the dominant condition and is the "basis of the latent-perfuming cause" (the phase of the seed not yet moistened), while the cause of arising is the cause-condition alone and is the "basis of the moistened-seed cause" (the phase of the seed already moistened) 〔Kuiji〕 — one a seed not yet moistened by craving-and-grasping, the other a seed already moistened and about to bring forth its fruit.

The Five Fruits, and the Ālaya Hidden within the Maturational Fruit

Where there is cause, there is fruit. The treatise sets up five fruits: the maturational fruit, the outflowing fruit, the fruit of freedom-from-bondage, the fruit of a person's exertion, and the dominant fruit 〔the treatise〕. The most worth probing is the first, the "maturational fruit" — the ancient masters lay bare its substance: "as for what is called maturational, it is the ālaya" 〔Dunlun〕. The substance of the maturational fruit is precisely the store consciousness (ālaya), together with the maturational seeds and the name-language seeds. The total recompense drawn on by all wholesome and unwholesome deeds is gathered into this ālaya, ever continuing, pervading all three realms. This whole doctrine of cause-and-fruit, the ten causes and five fruits, has consciousness-only for its underlying ground — the cause-and-fruit of the myriad phenomena is never apart from the drawing-in, arising, and drawing-forth of the ālaya's seeds.

When the bodhisattva has known this "aspect of right cause-and-fruit" (the ten causes and five fruits) as it truly is, and diligently cultivates it, he is able to make the seed of one kind of "knowledge-power" attain purity and increase — this is the first of a buddha's ten powers: the lineage of the power of knowing the possible and the impossible 〔the treatise〕. And when he has known the "aspect of what is done is not lost, what is not done is not gained" (that a deed once done is not lost though a hundred aeons pass, and what is not done is not gained) as it truly is, he makes the lineage of the second power — the power of knowing one's own deeds — attain purity and increase 〔the treatise〕.

The Sheer Force of Seeking to Hear the True Dharma

Seeking the Dharma is no cold, dispassionate scholarship. The treatise writes the bodhisattva's love-and-esteem in seeking the Dharma so as to move the reader: to hear a single sentence of well-taught Dharma, the bodhisattva, "even if he must journey by a road across a great hot iron ground where fierce flames blaze, and apart from this there is no other means whereby it may be heard," would even so tread the fire gladly and enter 〔the treatise〕; and taking all his love-and-esteem for his own life and for the requisites of food and drink and setting it against the love-and-esteem of seeking to hear the good Dharma, "it does not amount to a hundredth part … and down to an upaniṣad part (the utmost of the Western regions' numbers) it does not amount to one." His thirst for the Dharma is to exceed his cherishing of his own life. When hearing the Dharma he must further have a mind free of defilement (far from arrogance, contempt, and timidity) and a mind free of distraction (seeking to awaken and understand, single and one-directed, listening to the sound and lending an ear, cleansing and washing his mind, gathering the whole mind).

The Third through the Seventh Steps: Teaching, Cultivating, Teaching Others, Gathering the Assembly

Having gained the Dharma, one must teach it. The bodhisattva teaches the true Dharma by the fifteen aspects of "teaching by way of conformity" (abiding in a lawful deportment, setting out and explaining in the order of the letter, relying on the reasoning of the three means of valid cognition, according with the four noble truths …) and the five aspects of "teaching by way of purity" (abiding in a mind of loving-kindness toward the one who bears enmity, not praising self and disparaging others, teaching without craving benefit and honor), together the "twenty aspects of teaching the Dharma" 〔the treatise〕.

Having taught it, one must cultivate it oneself — this is "practice in accord with the Dharma": the error-free turning-in-accord of the activities of body, speech, and mind, together with the eight aspects of "right reflection" (relying on the meaning, not on the letter; knowing as it truly is the black teaching and the great teaching; at an exceedingly profound point deferring upward to the Tathāgata as "not my domain," and giving rise to no slander) and the four aspects of "right cultivation," namely calm abiding (calm), insight (insight), the joint cultivation of calm and insight, and delighting to cultivate calm and insight 〔the treatise〕. When calm increases one cultivates calm; when insight increases one cultivates insight; when they are even one cultivates both; when they are ripe and spontaneous it is named "delighting to cultivate" (in the words of the ancient master Jing).

A further step is teaching others — the "instruction," of eight kinds, gathered under three headings (making the one whose mind has not come to rest come to rest, making the one already at rest gain his own benefit, making the one not yet at the end relinquish the hindrances) 〔the treatise〕; and the "admonition," of five kinds: restraining what is offensive, permitting what is not offensive, admonishing-and-instructing the one who transgresses for a while, rebuking-and-expelling the one who repeatedly violates, and gladdening-and-consoling the one who is able to practice 〔the treatise〕. Last is "the three activities gathered by skillful means" — the four means of gathering: first gathering conformably by giving, being able to gather by loving speech, making-enter by beneficial conduct, and turning-in-accord by shared undertaking 〔the treatise〕; the Buddha says that "one accomplished in the four-means-of-gathering skillful means is only then named a bodhisattva," and only when one undertakes things together with beings, and has oneself perfectly done so, will the one being converted not turn and ask, "you yourself have not done it — on what ground do you exhort me?"

And these latter eight learning-points (from instruction to gathering the assembly), the treatise says, are precisely what makes the "remaining eight power-lineages" (the eight knowledge-power lineages of meditative-absorption-liberation-concentration-and-attainment, of the superior-and-inferior faculties, of resolute conviction, of the elements, of the paths leading everywhere, of the recollection of former abodes, of death-and-birth, and of the exhaustion of the outflows) attain purity and increase 〔the treatise〕.

The One Meaning This Chapter Illumines

Gather the whole chapter onto a single thread and it becomes clear: the Chapter on the Power-Lineage is a syllabus for "growing the seed-by-nature into the ten powers." The Inner Science's aspect of right cause-and-fruit (the ten causes and five fruits) cultivates into the lineage of the "power of knowing the possible and the impossible"; the aspect of what-is-done-is-not-lost-what-is-not-done-is-not-gained cultivates into the lineage of the "power of knowing one's own deeds"; the latter eight learning-points from instruction onward cultivate into the "remaining eight powers" — two plus eight, which is precisely a buddha's ten powers. The ancient masters lay this thread out plainly: Kuiji asks, "why does it here speak only of the eight powers, and not the two powers of knowing the possible-and-impossible and knowing one's own deeds?" and answers himself, "because, when the foregoing spoke of right cause-and-fruit and of what-is-done-is-not-lost, it had already accounted for these two powers, and so here it only supplies the latter eight", and Jing and Woncheuk hold the same 〔Dunlun〕.

So the Chapter on Lineage gives you an inborn seed (the seed-by-nature); the Chapter on the Power-Lineage teaches you how to water it (seeking the five sciences, understanding the ten causes and five fruits, cultivating calm and insight, teaching others and gathering the assembly), and grow it all the way into a buddha's ten kinds of knowledge-power (the acquired lineage). The lineage is the capital; the power-lineage is the work; without the work, the capital will not grow the ten powers.

Carrying Forward

The meaning of this chapter's power-lineage inherits from before and opens onto what follows: the power-lineage as "the acquired" answers to the Chapter on Lineage's (the frame of the seven abodes) "the lineage that abides by intrinsic nature," the seed-by-nature 〔Dunlun〕; the power and the true meaning among the eight bases of resolute conviction inherit from the Chapter on Powers (the fourth of the seven abodes) and the Chapter on the True Meaning (the third of the seven abodes); the four means of gathering are the skillful means by which the Chapter on Maturation (the fifth and sixth of the seven abodes) matures beings. The ālaya-maturation of the ten causes and five fruits, and the mutual gathering of the ten causes and four conditions, the ancient masters collate by the Cheng Weishi Lun's explanation and the Stage with Both Applied and Sustained Thought 〔Dunlun · Kuiji〕; the dominant activity of the twenty-two faculties of the five fruits is "to be known as in the Section on the Gathering of Events". The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up a Chapter Ascertaining the Power-Lineage, which does not re-ascertain the seven sections, but separately ascertains the six aspects of the Tathāgata's merits, that the gods are not a refuge, that events such as color and the like designated as concepts are but nominally existent, and the gathering-in of right much-hearing, inheriting the one vein of the Three Jewels' power and the true meaning among the eight bases of resolute conviction. What comes next is the Chapter on Giving (the ninth) — the power-lineage being now clarified, one enters upon the first of the six perfections, "giving."

Why the Six Perfections Begin with "Giving"

The close of the Chapter on the Lineage of Power spoke of the four means of gathering, with giving at their head; and at the Chapter on Giving one formally enters the six perfections — giving, discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, wisdom — of which giving is likewise the first. Why is giving taught first? Because "giving," this one act, directly loosens the deepest knot in beings: miserliness (the inability to let go). A person who clutches tight even at things outside himself has no footing for any deeper practice. So the six perfections set out from the most concrete "letting go."

Yet at its very opening the Chapter on Giving sets up an important frame — the "nine aspects": giving of intrinsic nature, giving of all, difficult giving, all-gateway giving, good-person giving, all-kinds giving, request-fulfilling giving, giving that brings happiness in this world and the next, and pure giving 〔this treatise〕. These nine aspects are not merely the rubric of the Chapter on Giving; the ancient masters point out that they are the common frame shared by all six perfections: the Tripiṭaka-master Xuanzang says, "the lower five perfections explain the three 'all's' (giving of all, all-gateway giving, all-kinds giving) — this should be understood by analogy" 〔Dunlun〕. That is to say, discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom — each perfection unfolds according to these nine aspects. The Chapter on Giving is the model for the six perfections.

Giving of Intrinsic Nature: Giving Is Not That Gift, but the Heart That Gives It

The first of the nine aspects, "giving of intrinsic nature," answers a most fundamental question — what, after all, is the essence of "giving"? The treatise says: "the volition that arises together with non-attachment, and the two kinds of action, of body and of speech, that are set in motion thereby and can give all blameless objects of giving" 〔this treatise〕. The two pillars of the ancient masters (Dunlun and Kuiji) point it out with one voice: the essence of giving is "the volition (the mind's intending) associated with non-attachment," plus the two kinds of action, of body and speech, that it sets in motion; Kuiji further indicates that the source is in the Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā, fascicle twelve 〔Dunlun · Kuiji〕.

This one line is of the utmost importance. The essence of the perfection of giving is not the thing that is given away, but that "non-attached intending of the mind" at the moment of giving. "Volition" is the mental factor of shaping, the essence; "non-attachment" is the root of goodness associated with it, the concomitant; the hand and mouth passing the thing over are only its function. So Dunlun adds: not only the giving of wealth, but even the giving of Dharma and the giving of fearlessness "all possess the three kinds of action and the nature of non-attachment" — all three givings have, at bottom, one and the same non-attached heart. Though a person scatter all his household wealth, if he still clutches in his heart the greed and the reckoning of "how much I have given up," that is not the perfection of giving; conversely, a poor man who, with a non-attached heart, hands over a single bowl of rice — that is. As a "perfection," what giving measures is never the quantity of the thing, but the non-attachment of the heart.

(The treatise also states the two foundations of giving: abiding in "moral restraint" and in the "āgama view, the view that there is definitely a fruit" — deep trust in the cause and fruit transmitted by the Buddha, deep trust that giving must have its fruit. Kuiji says "āgama" has two senses, one the sense of "transmission," namely the āgama [scriptures], the other the sense of "cause and fruit," and here the sense of cause and fruit is taken 〔Kuiji〕: for giving to get off the ground, one must first be able to trust cause and fruit.)

Giving of All: What to Give and What Not to Give Is a Matter of Wisdom

The second of the nine aspects, "giving of all," is the longest, taking up nearly half the whole chapter — because "giving" is not answering every request, but a discipline that calls for wisdom. Here the treatise finely distinguishes "what ought and ought not to be given":

What ought to be given must be given: to those who ask for enjoyment, let them have whatever they need; to those who ask for mastery, give it, cutting off all clinging of mind; even one's own body, hand, foot, head, eyes, and marrow, for the sake of beings and of awakening, one can give. But what ought not to be given, not one thing may be given either: to those who come to ask for poison, fire, blade, or liquor to harm themselves or others, one does not give; to those who come to ask for hunting-gear, the cage, the net, the fowling-net, the snare (the gear for catching fish, netting deer, snaring hares 〔Dunlun〕) in order to kill living beings, one does not give; to those who come to ask for things of idle amusement and no meaning, which make one fall into the evil destinies, one does not give; to a sick person asking for unsuitable food and drink, or a grief-stricken one asking for the means of self-harm, one does not give. Above all — to those who come to ask for one's father, mother, teacher, or elder, definitely one does not give: for toward one who has shown him kindness the bodhisattva "submits even to their slaughtering, beating, binding, or selling him, and dares not privately harbor a mind to give them away, how much less openly give them to one who comes asking" 〔this treatise · Dunlun〕; he does not forcibly compel wife and children, servants and maids, to be given away, does not seize the wealth of kinsfolk to give away, does not transgress the precepts to give. If behind the giving there is killing, coercion, seizure, or the ruin of another, then it is not giving — it is the making of sin.

The treatise devotes a further long passage to "giving by skillful wisdom" — giving must be marshaled by wisdom: when two who ask come together and the wealth suffices for only one, first give to the one in danger and hardship, without refuge, and with gentle words send off the one at ease, with refuge 〔this treatise〕; meeting a miserly household, do not take their wealth, but draw them in to rejoice and so plant in them the seed of relinquishing miserliness; having no wealth oneself, then by the crafts gain much wealth with little effort, or expound the Dharma to exhort others to give, or help another to give; as for the giving of Dharma, look to whether the other truly seeks surpassing knowledge (do not give to those who would show off and sell the scripture-scrolls, nor to fault-seeking outsiders). When one has given to the point of not being able to give, there is yet "giving-by-skillful-means-of-not-giving": first relinquish all resources with a pure intention "to the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions" for purification (as a bhikṣu relinquishes his robes and belongings to his preceptor for purification 〔this treatise〕), and, seeing one who ought not to be given to, then with gentle words make it clear — "these are the possession of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and it is not permitted to give them to you" — and further, with some other thing, doubly and respectfully send him off — letting the other understand that the bodhisattva is not miserly and greedy, but is not free to dispose of this Dharma. Every step of giving is steered by wisdom.

The Four Obstacles to Giving and the Four Counteracting Knowledges: What Blocks the "Giving"

Why is a person unable to give? The treatise lists four "obstacles to giving," and Woncheuk further points out the essence of each one by one 〔this treatise · Dunlun〕: the first is "not having practiced it beforehand" (never having practiced letting-go; its essence is the incapacity that lies upon the seeds); the second is "the object of giving being scarce and wanting" (the thing being too little; its essence is the five aggregates and the twelve links); the third is "attachment to the excellent and fine" (unable to let go of a good thing; its essence is surpassing greed); the fourth is "seeing and delighting in the fruit of wealth to come" (coveting the future merit-reward of giving; its essence is the wrong view that seeks a fruit to come).

What counteracts them are four kinds of knowledge 〔this treatise · Dunlun〕: first, "awakening" (perceiving that from of old one has not practiced giving, and forcing oneself to it); second, "enduring the many sufferings" (though the thing be little, enduring hunger and cold and giving all at once); third, "thoroughly knowing the topsy-turvy" (seeing through the fact that attachment to fine wealth is topsy-turvy, is the root of affliction and impurity, and so being able to draw back and give it out); fourth, "seeing that the nature of all conditioned things is without firmness" (understanding the impermanence of conditioned things and not coveting the fruit of giving). The treatise particularly points out: the first three knowledges make a person "definitely able rightly to practice giving," and the fourth makes a person "rightly take up the surpassing fruit of the merit of giving" — the first three settle "whether one can give," the fourth settles "where the giving is dedicated once given."

From the Giving of Wealth to Pure Giving: How Giving Becomes a "Perfection"

Giving is of three kinds: the giving of wealth, the giving of fearlessness, the giving of Dharma 〔this treatise〕. The giving of wealth and the giving of fearlessness bring beings ease in this world; the giving of Dharma brings beings ease in the world to come. But for "giving" to become a "perfection (crossing to the other shore)," the crux lies in the last aspect — the ten marks of "pure giving": without lingering delay, without grasping, without hoarding, without lifting oneself up, without reliance, without timid shrinking, without lowliness, without turning-toward-and-away, without hope of a return for kindness, without wishing for its maturation 〔this treatise〕. The two deepest of these: "without hope of a return for the kindness" (giving only out of pity for beings burned by the fire of craving, whose nature is suffering, seeking no requital), and "without wishing for its maturation" (not coveting the fullness of wealth to come, but observing that conditioned things are false and hollow, and observing the merit of great awakening).

This connects to the deepest meaning of the perfection of giving. The treatise says the bodhisattva "does not falsely reckon that 'the giver, the receiver, and the object of giving, these three matters being Dharma-conforming' is itself the ultimate purity," and Dunlun explains it through 〔Dunlun〕: the three spheres (giver, receiver, object of giving) being Dharma-conforming "is but the provision for the purity of freedom from desire, not the true path of purity; the true path of purity is non-outflowing wisdom." In other words — the purity of the three spheres is still only provision; giving truly becomes a perfection when it is upheld by "non-outflowing wisdom" and all is "dedicated to unsurpassed awakening." So the treatise says again and again: give without a view to the fruit, dedicate all to the swift realization of awakening. Only when giving reaches the emptiness of all three spheres and the dedication to awakening does one cross, from "giving," to "the other shore."

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The Chapter on Giving looks like a "handbook of giving" (the nine aspects, what ought and ought not to be given, skillful wisdom, the obstacles to giving, the three givings, the ten marks of purity), but in truth it sets up only one deep meaning: the perfection of giving lies not in the thing, but in the heart. Its essence is "the volition that arises together with non-attachment" (the non-attached intending that gives); its unfolding is "skillful wisdom" (using wisdom to distinguish what ought and ought not to be given, and how to give); its counteragent is the four knowledges that see through the four obstacles; its ultimate is the purity of the three spheres, dedication to awakening, and the upholding of non-outflowing wisdom. A poor man who, with a non-attached heart, gives a single bowl of rice and dedicates it to beings' becoming buddhas, surpasses a rich man who clutches his reckoning while scattering a thousand pieces of gold. And the nine aspects that the Chapter on Giving sets up are the shared model of the six perfections — below, discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom, each perfection will proceed according to these nine aspects, from "intrinsic nature" through to "purity."

Carrying Forward

The meaning of giving in this chapter, receiving before and opening after, is the model for the six perfections: giving receives the giving that heads the four means of gathering at the close of the Chapter on the Lineage of Power (the 8th of the seven sites); the nine aspects (including the three "all's") are the common frame of the six perfections, the lower five perfections being by analogy 〔Dunlun〕. The giving of intrinsic nature, as the volition arising together with non-attachment, draws in the Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā 〔Kuiji〕; the three spheres as "but the provision for freedom from desire, the true path of purity being non-outflowing wisdom" 〔Dunlun〕 receive the non-conceptual knowledge of the Chapter on Reality (the 3rd of the seven sites) and the dedication to unsurpassed awakening. Giving is an instrument for bringing sentient beings to maturity in the Chapter on Maturation (the 5th/6th of the seven sites) (request-fulfilling giving · giving that brings happiness in this world and the next). The Section on Ascertainment separately sets up the ascertainment of six chapters — giving and the rest — not following the nine aspects, but re-ascertaining giving by "seven kinds of purity × ten marks," re-ascertaining the essential character, the exposition of the term, and the differences (the purity of knowledge) and the four kinds of obstacle (the purity of stains), pointing back to the ten-mark pure giving of the Basic Section, and drawing on the Sūtra of the Five Kinds of Fault and the Śṛgālaka Sūtra as its grounds. Next comes the Chapter on Discipline (the second of the six perfections · the threefold pure discipline) — giving being now clarified, one proceeds into discipline.

Why the Second of the Six Perfections Is "Discipline"

The Giving chapter has been expounded; the Discipline chapter follows. Kuiji points to the seam between the two chapters in a single line: "The earlier [chapter] clarified the Giving chapter, so as to sweep away outward stinginess; now next comes upholding discipline, so as to guard against inward defilement." What giving counteracts is the outwardly manifest knot of "being unable to let go"; what discipline counteracts is a defilement one layer deeper, hidden away in body, speech, and mind. Even a person who can scatter his wealth, if his body, speech, and mind are still unbridled and without regulation, still cannot walk toward awakening. And so the sequence of the six perfections proceeds from "outward relinquishing" to "inward guarding."

The Discipline chapter likewise sets up nine aspects — intrinsic-nature discipline, all-discipline, difficult-to-practice discipline, all-gates discipline, good-person discipline, all-kinds discipline, fulfilling-of-requests discipline, the discipline of the happiness of this world and the next, and pure discipline 〔this treatise〕 — corresponding one for one with the nine aspects of the Giving chapter, still that same six-perfection formula of "the lower five perfections are to be understood along these lines." The present sub-unit (the first section of the Discipline chapter) covers the first two aspects: intrinsic-nature discipline and all-discipline (which within itself contains the overall statement of the three aggregates of pure discipline, the detailed exposition of abiding in the three disciplines, the rite of receiving the discipline, and, most crucial of the whole Discipline chapter, the "four defeats"). These four matters look each independent, but in fact are a single continuous thread: first asking "what is discipline" (intrinsic-nature discipline), then asking "what does discipline unfold into" (the three aggregates of all-discipline), then asking "how does one truly live within these three aggregates" (abiding in the three disciplines), then asking "how does one begin" (the rite of receiving the discipline), and finally asking "where is the bottom line" (the four defeats).

Intrinsic-Nature Discipline: Not a Single Mental Factor, but a Twofold Effort of "Receiving" and "Holding"

The Giving chapter asked "what is the essence of giving," and the answer was a single mental factor — the volition co-arising with non-greed. The Discipline chapter likewise asks "what is the essence of discipline," but the answer is not the same. The treatise lists four qualities: receiving it rightly from another, a well-purified aspiration, restoring purity once one has transgressed, and deep reverence, focused mindfulness, and no transgression 〔this treatise〕.

Dunlun breaks these four into two groups: "Discipline obtained by relying on cultivation is named receiving it rightly from another … the first two are the receiving, the latter two are the holding." Receiving it rightly from another, and a well-purified aspiration, are the two conditions at the very moment of "receiving the discipline" — one, obtaining it in form from another in accord with the Dharma; the other, receiving it inwardly with sincere and pure heart; restoring purity once one has transgressed, and deep reverence and focused mindfulness, are the two efforts after "upholding the discipline" — as soon as one transgresses, confessing and restoring purity, and, at ordinary times, being deeply reverent in heart, thought upon thought not departing from it. Discipline is not a thing received into the hand once and for all; it is a process of, after "receiving," having still to go on "holding" it without cease. This is precisely the structural difference between discipline and giving: the core of giving lies in that single thought-moment of mind at "giving" — one thought of non-greed and it is complete; discipline, however, must continue — received in purity, it must still be held firm, and, once transgressed, one must be able to turn back. The treatise itself points out this layer of cause and effect: from "receiving rightly from another, and a well-purified aspiration" arise conscience and shame; by conscience and shame one is then able to guard well the śīla received; by guarding one is then able to keep far from wrongdoing — this is a chain, not a single point.

How these four qualities are to be gathered into a still more compact structure, the ancient masters do not entirely agree among themselves. Dunlun, besides "the two receivings and two holdings," records also the differing readings of Shentai and Woncheuk: Shentai holds to another division of "two conditions," while Woncheuk has four different ways of reading it ("Woncheuk has four glosses"). Dunlun sets these differing readings side by side and records them without passing judgment — which reminds the reader that the question "what is the essence of intrinsic-nature discipline" is one to which the treatise itself gives a list of four items; but as to just how the final logical skeleton behind these four is to be drawn, the ancient masters had, from the start, reserved room for discussion, and it need not — and cannot — be settled into a single fixed answer on the moderns' behalf.

The Three Aggregates of Pure Discipline: Restraint, Gathering Wholesome Dharmas, Benefiting Beings

The "all-discipline" aspect unfolds discipline into three aggregates: the discipline of restraint (the seven-assembly prātimokṣa restraint, the part that stops evil), the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas (accumulating all wholesome dharmas of body, speech, and mind for the sake of great awakening), and the discipline of benefiting beings (the eleven-aspect matter of benefiting beings). The three aggregates' names sound like three separate things, yet the treatise expounds the effort of "abiding" in these three disciplines in extreme detail — ten limbs guarding the discipline of restraint, ten aspects accomplishing the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas, eleven aspects accomplishing the discipline of benefiting beings — and reading through the whole, one finds that the "stopping" of the discipline of restraint and the "practicing" of the disciplines of gathering wholesome dharmas and of benefiting beings are in fact two faces of one and the same mind: guarding the bottom line non-heedlessly, while at the same time actively turning the strength of the mind toward benefiting others.

The ten limbs of the discipline of restraint are a concrete training in counteracting craving and defilement. The treatise does not say abstractly "one must uphold discipline," but gives ten concrete scenes: being able to renounce, in the face of the wheel-turning king's throne (not longing back at the past); being unmoved in mind, in the face of the deva-māra's wondrous pleasures (not wishing for the future); regarding the finest gains and offerings before one's eyes as though seeing vomit (not being attached to the present); delighting in solitude yet not being self-satisfied thereby (not becoming content); being able swiftly to notice and gather back a stray word or evil thought once arisen (sweeping clean improper talk); neither over-harsh with oneself nor unbridled (not belittling oneself); being gentle in nature, able to endure, non-heedless, complete in right rule and pure livelihood. Reading through the ten limbs, one finds that what they describe is not the image of an unreachable saint, but a set of exercises one can examine oneself against, item by item — which is exactly the point of the line that closes the ten limbs: "The bodhisattva who accomplishes these ten limbs is named one who abides in the discipline of restraint and well guards the discipline of restraint."

The ten aspects of the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas have at their core "knowing five points as they truly are": knowing as it truly is the surpassing gain of the wholesome fruit, knowing as it truly is the wholesome cause, knowing as they truly are the concord and discord of wholesome cause and fruit, knowing as it truly is the obstacle to gathering wholesome dharmas. These four "knowings as they truly are" converge at last on one utterly plain reminder — not falsely seeing the impermanent as permanent, not falsely seeing suffering as happiness, not falsely seeing the impure as pure, not falsely seeing the not-self as self. In other words, what the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas must in the end counteract is not "being too lazy to do good deeds," but "seeing the world wrongly": if the four inverted views are not broken, wholesome conduct lacks a stable foundation; once the four inverted views are broken, the bodhisattva naturally "is able swiftly to gather the wholesome in all its kinds" — that is, the sequence of giving, discipline, patience, vigor, and meditative absorption, and the five kinds of wisdom born of hearing, reflection, and cultivation, all naturally follow along.

The most moving thing about the eleven aspects of the discipline of benefiting beings lies in their concreteness. The treatise does not stop at the slogan "one must benefit beings," but paints, one after another, actual scenes: looking after and waiting upon the sick, pointing out the road to the lost, granting a carriage to the crippled in limb, teaching the foolish with a superior wisdom; toward those meeting the pain of losing kin, consoling them well one by one according to the object lost (father and mother, brother, wife and child, slave, friend, teacher and elder); toward those meeting the loss of wealth and treasure, consoling them well one by one according to the cause of the loss (seized by kings and thieves, burned by fire or drowned by water, deceived and lured by cunning, lost through unskillful management). This manner of writing by "exhaustive classification" is itself a teaching: it tells the reader that true benefiting of beings is not one abstract declaration of compassion, but a willingness to see clearly and see closely the concrete situation of the very person before one, and then, matching the remedy to the ailment, to give the corresponding comfort and help.

The Rite of Receiving the Discipline: The Solemnity of Three Questions and Three Answers

Having expounded the three aggregates, the treatise devotes a fairly long stretch to "how one receives the discipline" — a part often read past, though it in fact hides one of the warmest teachings of the Discipline chapter.

To receive the bodhisattva discipline is to request it formally from a bodhisattva of the same Dharma: first bowing the head, then requesting three times, the one begging for the discipline is to say: "I now wish, in the presence of you, good son, … to beg to receive all the bodhisattva pure discipline; may you not begrudge the toil of a moment, but with pity consent to confer it." The bodhisattva conferring the discipline confers it formally by the karma-rite of three questions and three answers — "Are you a bodhisattva?" "Yes!" "Have you made the vow for awakening?" "I have made it!" — a question-and-answer so terse as to be almost plain, yet it is the most solemn core of the whole procedure of receiving the discipline: the receiving of the essence of the discipline comes at last to rest upon this single honest self-confirmation.

More worthy of note is the scene the treatise next describes: at the instant the karma is completed, "throughout the boundless, limitless world-realms of the ten directions, in the presence of the buddhas now dwelling and the bodhisattvas who have entered the great grounds, a mark spontaneous by the nature of things appears" — the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions, "by reason of recollection, have right knowing and seeing turn; by right knowing and seeing, they know as it truly is: in such a world, the bodhisattva named So-and-so, in the presence of such a bodhisattva, has rightly received the pure discipline received by bodhisattvas," and, "as toward a son, as toward a younger brother, give rise to a mind of kindly intimacy, of cherishing and pity." This is no merely rhetorical blessing; it is the treatise telling the one receiving the discipline: the decision you make at this moment is not a private matter known only to you and your discipline-master — the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions are, at this very moment, all bearing witness, all holding you in mind.

The receiving of the bodhisattva discipline has yet another gate — when there is no master complete in merit to request it from, one may, before an image of the Tathāgata, receive it by self-vow (whose text belongs to the second section of the Discipline chapter, and is not unfolded here). The very existence of this gate itself shows that the receiving of the bodhisattva discipline is not blocked dead by the outward condition of "whether or not one has met a qualified person"; so long as the mind of vow is genuine and earnest, the vow itself is able to accomplish the essence of the discipline. What matters is not which road the form of receiving the discipline has taken, but whether that mind — "I vow to receive all the bodhisattva training-points, I vow to receive all the bodhisattva pure discipline" — is genuine and earnest.

At the close, the treatise adds one careful reminder: not everyone may beg to receive, and not everyone may be sought out to confer. From one without pure faith, one stingy and greedy, one who breaks and transgresses, one wrathful and hateful, one lazy, one of scattered mind, one dull and slanderous, the treatise plainly says "one should not receive it from"; and before conferring the discipline it further requires the one conferring first to explain for him the bodhisattva Dharma-treasury and the marks of discipline-breaking, so that he may "by wisdom examine his own aspiration, and be able to reflect and choose to receive the bodhisattva discipline — not merely at another's urging, nor to surpass another" — receiving the discipline is not a momentary impulse or a being talked into it, but an autonomous decision after careful examination. One solemn gate, and on both sides of it stands careful gatekeeping.

The Four Defeats: The Bottom Line That Makes Discipline Discipline

The two gates of receiving the discipline having been expounded, the treatise turns to the weightiest stretch of the whole Discipline chapter — the four defeats. These are the root grave offenses within the bodhisattva discipline, corresponding to the "pārājika" (defeats — pārājika, the ancient masters' transliteration), the bottom line at which transgressing a single one causes the loss of the bodhisattva pure discipline of restraint:

One: for the sake of craving gain, offerings, and honor, praising oneself and slandering others. Two: having resources and wealth present, yet stingily not giving — when a person comes to seek wealth, not giving; when a person comes to seek the Dharma, likewise not giving. Three: the fetter-bond of wrath and hatred — not only letting loose coarse speech, but further raising the hand to do harm, and, when the other comes to confess and apologize, not accepting it, unwilling to cast off the knot of enmity. Four: slandering the bodhisattva-treasury, propagating a counterfeit right Dharma that merely resembles the true.

Dunlun does not merely explain what these four "are," but points out "which affliction is at work in each": "Among these four defeats: the first is greed; the second, stinginess; the third, anger; the fourth, delusion and conceit — such, in order, are their essence." The root of praising oneself and slandering others is greed; the root of stinginess of wealth and of the Dharma is stinginess; the root of wrath, hatred, and not casting off is anger; the root of slandering the great vehicle is delusion and conceit. Four seemingly different behaviors are in fact the outward manifestations of four root afflictions — greed, stinginess, anger, and delusion-with-conceit — each in its own way. Dunlun further ties them back to the three aggregates: the first limb pertains to the discipline of restraint, the second and third limbs pertain to the discipline of benefiting beings, the fourth limb pertains to the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas — the four defeats are not one independent new rule, but the "not-to-be-yielded bottom line" of each of the three aggregates of pure discipline, laid out concretely.

As for why they are called "defeats," Dunlun explains it plainly: "having no power at all, one is defeated by the other" — the person who transgresses these four has no strength left to stand against the afflictions, against Māra, and is as good as defeated by "the other" (the afflictions / Māra).

The Soft, Middling, and Superior Fetters: The Bodhisattva Discipline Is Not "One Transgression and It Is Over"

The defeats of the śrāvaka discipline (the prātimokṣa discipline): one transgression and it is cast off, with no room to begin again. The bodhisattva discipline is not so. The treatise says: transgressing the four defeats with the soft or middling fetter (the arising of an affliction of a comparatively light degree) does not cast off the discipline; only the superior fetter — transgressing again and again, with no conscience or shame at all, and even regarding it as a merit — truly loses the pure discipline of restraint 〔this treatise〕. Dunlun points out that this is the root difference between the Mahāyāna school and the śrāvaka vehicle: "In the śrāvaka discipline, once one transgresses a grave [offense] it is at once cast off; in the bodhisattva discipline, it is only after transgressing again and again with the fetter arising that it is cast off." And even should one truly transgress to the point of losing it, the bodhisattva is still "in the present life fit to receive it anew" — unlike the śrāvaka discipline, where, once one transgresses a defeat, one can never receive it again for life.

This design is not a loosening of the standard; quite the reverse: it shifts the focus from "has one ever transgressed once" to "does one transgress again and again with no conscience at all." The line at the close of the treatise is deeply telling — "If bodhisattvas, turning to receive a further birth, forget and lose the original mindfulness … though they receive it anew several times, this is not a new receiving, nor a new obtaining": once the essence of the bodhisattva discipline has truly been received, even if one is reborn, forgets and loses it, and receives it anew, that too is not a "receiving anew" of some new thing, but a recovering of what was there from the first. As a perfection, what discipline sets up is not a red line that shatters at a single touch, but a road that allows one to stumble and yet ever calls one back to right mindfulness.

The One Meaning This Sub-Unit Illumines

The first section of the Discipline chapter runs from intrinsic-nature discipline all the way to the four defeats, seemingly expounding "rules," yet from first to last it sets up but one deep meaning: discipline is not an externally added bondage, but the concretization of the inward conscience and pity of the heart; and every step of receiving it and living within it has a concrete, followable path. Receiving rightly from another and a well-purified aspiration are the twofold purity of "receiving"; restoring purity once transgressed and deep reverence with focused mindfulness are the twofold effort of "holding"; the ten limbs of the discipline of restraint, the ten aspects of the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas, and the eleven aspects of the discipline of benefiting beings turn both "stopping evil" and "practicing good" into concrete scenes one can examine oneself against, item by item; the rite of receiving the discipline, whether receiving from a master, or, in the absence of a master, receiving by self-vow before an image of the Buddha (the latter text belonging to the second section), rests not upon outward conditions but upon that mind of vow; the four essences of the four defeats — greed, stinginess, anger, and delusion-with-conceit — point out that what truly must be guarded against is not the behavior itself, but the mind out of control behind the behavior; and the design of the soft, middling, and superior fetters makes "upholding discipline" a road on which one may stumble and turn back, rather than a single trial that settles life and death at one stroke. Giving sweeps away outward stinginess; discipline guards against inward defilement — only when the two chapters are read together is it the complete single step of the six perfections from "relinquishing" to "regulation."

Carrying Forward

Discipline comes carried forward from the Giving chapter; Kuiji's gloss of "sweeping away outward stinginess and guarding against inward defilement" points out the sense in which the two chapters are carried one from the other; the nine aspects correspond one for one with the nine aspects of the Giving chapter, still the six-perfection formula (the lower five perfections are to be understood along these lines). The concrete scene-by-scene enumeration of the ten limbs / ten aspects / eleven aspects of the three aggregates of pure discipline is of one lineage with the Giving chapter's great itemized teaching of "what should and should not be given" — both chapters are unsatisfied with abstract declaration, both bringing practice down to concrete matters one can examine. The four defeats are the weightiest stretch of the present sub-unit; Dunlun's gloss of the four essences of greed, stinginess, anger, and delusion-with-conceit, and his distinguishing of the soft, middling, and superior fetters, are of one lineage with the Chapter on Reality (the third of the seven points) and its precise analysis of the essence of the afflictions. Ahead follow the second section of the Discipline chapter (transgression and restoration to purity: the item-by-item discrimination of defiled and non-defiled, plus the exemption-conditions for the natural offenses of the seven limbs) and the third section of the Discipline chapter (the latter seven disciplines, plus the ten aspects of purity) — discipline, having been made clear as to its essence and its bottom line, and clear as to the rite of receiving and holding it, next enters the discrimination of upholding and transgressing and the marks of its broad practice.

Why the Section on Discipline Spends So Long Speaking of "Transgression"

The first part of the Section on Discipline established the four pārājika-class dharmas — the four root grave offenses that admit of no yielding. The second part of the Section on Discipline then does a finer work: it takes the forty-odd concrete situations that may arise in daily life and examines, one by one, "does this count as a transgression?" At first glance it looks like a tediously long checklist, but every single clause follows one and the same threefold structure: there is a transgression, there is an overstepping, and it is a defiled transgression (a transgression through the active operation of affliction); it is a non-defiled transgression (a transgression through forgetfulness or an indeterminate state of mind, not through the blazing of affliction); there is no transgression (under various specific conditions, it does not count as a transgression).

This structure is itself a teaching: the treatise, in judging an offense, never looks merely at the surface of the act — "did one do it or not" — but turns back to look at "what heart drove it." Take the very same case of not going to visit a sick person: if it be out of disgust and revulsion, it is a defiled transgression; if it be merely a passing lapse of memory, it is a non-defiled transgression; if one is oneself sick, or has already transferred the care to another, then there is no transgression. The outward look of one and the same act may be identical, yet the heart within can be wholly different; and what the treatise wants is precisely that the student learn to discern that heart of his own.

The Forty-Two Clauses, Sorted into Rivers — Not a Jumbled List but a List with a Grain

Reading down clause by clause, one easily loses one's way in the details; but if one steps back, these forty-odd clauses in fact flow along several main currents, and it is worth setting up the grain first before returning to the details:

The first river is "the basic courtesies toward the Three Jewels and toward persons" — letting the days pass empty without making offering to the Three Jewels; not rising to greet the elder and venerable when one sees them; not going when another comes to invite one; refusing and not accepting when another offers goods; refusing and not giving when another comes to seek the Dharma; casting aside and not caring for cruel and evil sentient beings. These six clauses look trivial, but they in fact ask one and the same question: does the bodhisattva, facing "social obligation" and "human feeling," still keep a measure of reverence and softness, or has it already been quietly occupied by arrogance, resentment, and sloth?

The second river is "the measure of what is and is not to be trained in common with the śrāvakas" — here the treatise especially pauses and expounds a not-so-brief stretch of doctrine: of the prohibitory offenses that the Buddha laid down for the śrāvakas, some the bodhisattva must train in common (for the sake of protecting others, for causing the not-yet-believing to believe), while some the bodhisattva on the contrary should not train in common (dwelling with few affairs, few undertakings, and few wants — for the śrāvaka, whose self-benefit is paramount, this may be called excellent; for the bodhisattva, whose benefiting of others is paramount, if he too keeps to few affairs, few undertakings, and few wants, it is on the contrary not excellent). The treatise even plainly states that the bodhisattva, for the sake of benefiting others, may seek a hundred or a thousand garments from those who are not his kin and store up all manner of goods — which, in the eye of the śrāvaka discipline, verges on extravagance; yet the treatise's logic is very clear: the standard for measuring whether a given rule ought to be kept is not the letter of the rule itself, but the very purpose that the rule was originally meant to protect — for the śrāvaka, the purpose is few wants and knowing contentment; for the bodhisattva, the purpose is benefiting sentient beings; the very same "few affairs, few undertakings," fitted onto two purposes, yields exactly opposite conclusions.

The third river is "the permitting circumstances of the seven natural offenses" — treated at length on its own below.

The fourth river is "the self-discipline of word and deed" — deceitful contriving for gain; agitated frivolity and play; craving the taste of meditative absorption; passing the days in idle talk; clinging to and indulging in sleep; enduring and not casting off the five hindrances; not seeking instruction. This river speaks of whether the bodhisattva, facing his own inner distraction and sloth, can face it honestly and take it in hand of his own accord.

The fifth river is "the attitude toward the Dharma" — setting up the wrong view that a bodhisattva ought not to weary of and turn from nirvāṇa; setting up the wrong view that one ought not to study the dharma of the Śrāvaka Vehicle; not yet having thoroughly studied the Bodhisattva Basket yet single-mindedly studying the Śrāvaka Basket; forsaking the Buddha's teaching and thoroughly studying outsider treatises; overstepping one's measure and indulging in outsider treatises; hearing a most profound dharma and slandering it. The heart of this river is: can the bodhisattva, toward a doctrinal meaning he has not yet realized and not yet penetrated, hold to the humility of "strong faith and reception, and no crookedness of flattery," rather than hastening to use his own limited understanding to deny a teaching that exceeds the range of his understanding.

The sixth river is "the responsibility toward the Saṅgha and toward one's disciples" — not acting as a helper and companion; not going to look in on the sick; not expounding right principle for others; being ungrateful and not repaying; seeing suffering and not going to open and console; not giving food and drink; not taking in and instructing the disciples one has gathered; not going along with another's mind; not making manifest another's real virtues; not rebuking, expelling, or driving out where one ought to; not manifesting supernormal terror to draw and gather in. This is the longest river, speaking of the concrete and sustained responsibility that the bodhisattva bears as one member of the Saṅgha, as the object of another's reliance — and almost every clause carries with it a long train of "no transgression" conditions (one is oneself sick; one has no strength; one has already transferred it to another; the other party has his own refuge and support …), reminding the reader: responsibility is real, but responsibility does not mean there is no limit, does not mean one cannot measure one's strength before acting.

Having read through the forty-two clauses, one finds that they in fact depict a complete "daily life of the bodhisattva" — from the dawn offering to the Three Jewels, to the measure of conduct among fellow practitioners, to the awareness of one's own distracted mind, to humility before the profound Dharma, to the sustained responsibility toward the Saṅgha and one's disciples. A transgression is not the violating of some few isolated prohibitions; it is, at some one spot within this complete picture of a life, letting resentment, arrogance, and sloth quietly gain the upper hand.

Within the "No Transgression" Lists Lies the Suppleness of the Bodhisattva Discipline

In reading these forty-odd clauses, what most deserves notice is not "what was transgressed," but the conditions that recur again and again in that "no transgression" passage: being sick in body; being deranged in mind; for the sake of subduing the other party; for the sake of guarding the Saṅgha's regulations; for the sake of guarding another's mind … These conditions appear over and over, showing that the treatise does not require the bodhisattva mechanically to execute one and the same set of rules under any and every circumstance. The bodhisattva discipline acknowledges that a person has limits of strength and of situation, and it also acknowledges that "for the sake of a greater good" one may for a time hold off some one concrete good deed — but this suppleness is never a back door opened for "laziness and sloth": the treatise, in every clause, distinguishes clean and clear between "through laziness and sloth" and "through legitimate reason"; the former is still judged a non-defiled transgression, and is by no means no transgression.

The Permitting Circumstances of the Seven Natural Offenses: The Passage of the Whole Section that Most Tests the Reader

After the clause-by-clause account of transgression is finished, the treatise turns into the passage that carries the heaviest weight of the whole Section on Discipline, and that most tests the reader — the permitting circumstances of the seven natural offenses. This passage says: the bodhisattva, by skillful means, for the sake of benefiting others, may bring about a small measure of what are originally seven kinds of "natural offense" (acts that in themselves draw down evil karma, unlike the "prohibitory offenses" that the Buddha laid down according to time and place) — and not only is there no transgression, but on the contrary many merits are produced.

Dunlun's characterization of this passage is the single most important key to understanding it: "The seven natural offenses are throughout not held in common; the bodhisattva, provisionally acting for the sake of beings, does not transgress. But if, through keeping the discipline, one falls short in the great work of benefiting beings, this too is called a transgression." — This sentence turns the whole passage's logic on its head: it is not that "the bodhisattva may break the discipline," but rather that if one clings dead to the surface of the disciplinary form and thereby misses the great work of benefiting sentient beings, that itself is a kind of "transgression." The purpose of the discipline is to benefit sentient beings; when clinging dead to the rule on the contrary obstructs this purpose, the clinging itself has betrayed the spirit of the discipline.

The “seven limbs” are the three bodily and four verbal courses. Since taking what is not given has two groups of examples, the source has eight narrative units:

The first, taking of life. The treatise says: if a bodhisattva sees a robber-brigand who intends to kill many people, or who would harm a sage, then — because he cannot bear to see the robber commit the deed of the āvīci offenses and in a future life fall into the Avīci hell and there undergo utmost suffering — he, with a heart of compassion, cuts off the robber's life, so that the robber does not come to commit a still deeper and graver karma. Of this situation the treatise plainly says: "there is no transgression whatever against the bodhisattva discipline, and much merit is produced." Dunlun sets a strict threshold upon this first offense: it is limited to the bodhisattva who has already ascended the grounds; the bodhisattva of the eighth ground and above may do this by wholesome mind alone, while below the seventh ground there is still room for the case of an indeterminate mind. In other words, this is not an option that any and every one who has aroused the mind may invoke; it presupposes a correspondingly realized attainment.

The second limb, taking what is not given (two groups of examples). The treatise next gives the deposing of a cruel official who oppresses beings, and the reclaiming of Saṅgha-, stūpa-, or sentient-being property usurped by thieves or custodians. Both belong to the same limb; they do not create a third limb. The source's stated circumstances are preventing further harm to beings and preventing the usurper from undergoing long suffering through wrongful use.

The third limb, sexual misconduct. The treatise says: when the bodhisattva is a householder, if he sees a woman without refuge or resort who intends to seek his love, and fears that she, being refused, will give rise to hatred in her mind and commit much evil karma, he skillfully settles and places her, and causes her to turn instead toward planting wholesome roots. Here the treatise appends a qualification that cannot be omitted: "the renunciant bodhisattva, in order to guard the holy instruction of the śrāvaka precepts and keep it from being ruined and destroyed, must in every case not engage in what is not celibate conduct" — this is a boundary that the treatise itself draws, not a proviso added by later people; it states that this limb is permitted only to the householder bodhisattva and never to the renunciant bodhisattva.

The fourth limb, speaking words at variance to save others from mortal peril. The treatise gives the bodhisattva who, to save many people from death, imprisonment, or mutilation, deliberately and knowingly speaks contrary to the fact. It states the criterion plainly: "the bodhisattva looks only to the benefit and welfare of sentient beings, not to what is without benefit and welfare; himself without a defiled mind, solely for the sake of benefiting sentient beings." Dunlun adds that this limb takes "freeing many sentient beings from mortal peril" as its premise; it cannot be invoked for false speech on any occasion whatever.

The fifth through seventh limbs, divisive, harsh, and frivolous speech. The treatise gives divisive speech used to separate someone from an evil friend and harsh speech used to rebuke someone out of an unwholesome situation. The final limb adapts performance, recitation, song, and talk of kings, thieves, food, or sexual streets to what beings enjoy, first gathering them through delight and then guiding them out of the unwholesome and establishing them in the wholesome. Frivolous speech is the seventh limb; it must not be dropped merely because the second limb has two groups of examples.

Of this passage, Dunlun leaves one textual note worth setting down: "this one passage of text is entirely absent from the old treatise; it was dropped in translation" — meaning that the whole passage is absent from Dharmakṣema's Bodhisattvabhūmi-sūtra / Pusa dichi jing. The omission can also be checked directly in that witness, where the text moves from the rules not shared with śrāvakas straight to the rule on wrong livelihood. This is a historical fact concerning textual transmission; it does not judge the doctrinal superiority of either translation.

The Seven Offenses Are Not a "Loophole" but a Strictly Delimited Exception

What must be seen clearly is that these seven offenses are never a "list of exemptions" that may be invoked at will. Every offense has its own delimiting conditions (station, status, motive, sole purpose), and the treatise, in narrating each offense, uses such phrasings as "the bodhisattva, having thus carefully deliberated" and "the bodhisattva looks only to the benefit and welfare of sentient beings," marking that this is a permission that holds only after careful deliberation, after confirming that one's own mind is undefiled — not a shortcut that may be invoked at any time, in any state of mind. To read this passage as "the bodhisattva may violate the discipline at will," and to read this passage as "clinging dead to the disciplinary form and watching another die without aid is the true transgression," are both misreadings — what the treatise truly means to say is that narrow path between the two extremes, whose measuring-line is "an undefiled mind, solely for the enriching benefit of sentient beings."

The Gathering of the Trainings and the Method of Confession: Once Transgressed, How to Turn Back

The forty-two clauses and the seven offenses being expounded, the treatise turns into a stretch equally important yet often overlooked — once one has transgressed, what then.

The treatise first draws all the trainings back into a single utterance: all these trainings subsumed under the discipline of restraint, the discipline of gathering wholesome dharmas, and the discipline of benefiting sentient beings — the Buddha originally set them forth scattered through various sūtras, in accord with the faculties of sentient beings; and now, in the Mātṛkā of the Bodhisattva Basket, they are synthesized and gathered together. Toward these the bodhisattva should give rise to reverence and respect and to diligent, refined training, and from the very outset should not transgress; and should there be any transgression, he should according to Dharma swiftly confess it, so that the discipline again attains purity.

The procedure of confession, according to the gravity of the transgression, falls into three levels: transgressing a pārājika-class dharma with a superior-grade entanglement — the body of the discipline being already lost — one should receive it anew; transgressing with a middle-grade entanglement, one should, before three persons or more than three, according to the method of disclosing and confessing away the ill-deed, recount and state the matter transgressed and confess it; transgressing with a lower-grade entanglement, and the remaining transgressions, one may disclose and confess before a single person. If truly there be no suitable person before whom to make disclosure, then with a pure intention one gives rise to a mind of self-vowing: "I from this day resolutely guard against it, and will in the end not transgress again" — and thus, with respect to the transgression committed, one comes out again and is again pure. This graded design lets slip a message: confession is not a black-or-white switch; it is, according to the gravity of the transgression, a corresponding procedure to follow; and even where one cannot find a person before whom to confess, one is not thereby left without a road out.

At the end the treatise adds a sentence full of import: "moreover, in the way of transgressing the discipline for a bodhisattva, there is no transgression-without-remainder." Kuiji glosses "without remainder" as the śrāvaka discipline's "pārājika," and states the sentence more fully: "As for the treatise's saying 'there is no transgression-without-remainder' — 'without remainder' means pārājika, for there is nothing remaining, since the offense is at the utmost extreme; this is the śrāvaka discipline. As for the bodhisattva discipline, there is no such transgression-without-remainder." — The śrāvaka discipline's "pārājika" means "without remainder," because it is the utmost offense that can be transgressed under the śrāvaka discipline, and once transgressed the body of the discipline is exhausted and cannot be confessed and recovered; but the bodhisattva discipline has no such "transgression-without-remainder," has no kind of disciplinary transgression that cannot be confessed. This is of one strain with the first part of the Section on Discipline's design — "only a superior-grade entanglement causes forfeiture, and once forfeited it may yet be received again" — the bodhisattva discipline sets up not a red line that shatters at a touch, but a road that allows one to stumble and yet forever calls one to turn back.

The treatise adds besides a sentence easily overlooked yet full of import: the World-Honored One says "bodhisattvas for the most part should be given transgressions that arise from hatred, not those that arise from greed." The treatise explains the hidden intent therein — the bodhisattva, by the surpassing power of loving all sentient beings and having pity on all sentient beings, in whatever he does, all is what a bodhisattva ought to do, and he does not become a transgressor through "doing what ought not be done"; only when the bodhisattva hates sentient beings, envies sentient beings, and cannot practice the works of benefiting self and others — only then is what he does "what ought not be done," and only then does he become a transgressor thereby. In other words, the transgression of the bodhisattva discipline has its root, for the most part, not in greed and desire (the bodhisattva is already learning to relinquish), but in whether hatred and revulsion have quietly taken the place of the heart of compassion.

The Three Kinds of Perfection: Drawing the Whole Study of Keeping and Transgressing Back into One Utterance

The clause-by-clause transgressions and the permitting circumstances of the seven offenses being expounded, the treatise draws to a close with the three kinds of perfection:

Perfection of preparatory practice — within the pure discipline, upholding it without lack or transgression; in body, speech, and mind, purely and actively operating; not repeatedly ruining and transgressing, and disclosing one's own faults and evils.

Perfection of intention — going forth for the sake of the Dharma, not for the sake of livelihood; seeking the great awakening, seeking the fruit of the śramaṇa, seeking nirvāṇa, and not failing to seek; not abiding in the inferior and low vigor of sloth; not defiled by future existence, not stained by the maturation of blazing sufferings.

Perfection of former causes — in former lives having cultivated merit and cultivated the wholesome, so that in the present life the various implements of livelihood are of themselves not scarce, and one is moreover able to practice giving broadly toward others.

These three draw the whole second part of the Section on Discipline together into a single utterance: whether one keeps the discipline well or ill, what is looked to in the end is not whether one has transgressed a rule or two, but whether these three layers — "preparatory practice, intention, former causes" — are purely of one thread throughout. Contrary to these, the treatise says, one comes to "accomplish three kinds of decline and loss, and abide in peril and suffering" — perfection and decline-and-loss are the two faces of one and the same standard.

The One Meaning This Unit Casts into Light

The second part of the Section on Discipline looks as though it were listing a tediously long checklist of transgressions, but in truth it sets up only a single deep meaning: the rule that judges an offense measures, always, that heart — not the outward look of the act. Defiled transgression and non-defiled transgression are divided by whether affliction is in active operation or it is a passing lapse of memory; the six rivers of the forty-two clauses depict a complete picture of the bodhisattva's daily life, not an isolated list of prohibitions; the permitting circumstances of the seven natural offenses are divided by whether one clings dead to the disciplinary form or truly thinks for the sake of sentient beings; the graded design of confession shows that transgressing the discipline is never entering a dead-end alley; the three kinds of perfection are divided by whether preparatory practice, intention, and former causes are of one thread throughout. The whole second part of the Section on Discipline is, in fact, training one single thing: within each concrete situation, honestly to turn back and look at that heart of one's own.

Carrying Forward

This unit carries forward the soft–middle–superior-grade-entanglement mechanism of the four pārājika-class dharmas of the first part of the Section on Discipline; the clause-by-clause discernment of transgression is just that mechanism unfolded within the situations of daily life. The permitting circumstances of the seven natural offenses do not contradict the four pārājika-class dharmas — the latter are the bottom line that admits of no yielding, the former the expedient permitted within the bottom line in response to special conditions; seen together, the two are the complete face of the bodhisattva discipline as "there is that which one does not do, and there is also that which one cannot but do." The Section on Ascertainment's tenth item, ascertaining the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening, separately establishes four conditions for forfeiting the discipline (see 〈Apparatus〉item two), of one spirit with this unit. Next follows the third part of the Section on Discipline (the latter seven precepts and the discipline pure in ten aspects) — keeping and transgressing now being clear, one enters upon the aspects of broad practice and ultimate purity.

Why These Seven Aspects Read as Something Familiar

Having finished the intrinsic-nature discipline and the transgression-and-restoration of Parts One and Two of the Chapter on Discipline, Part Three turns to the remaining seven aspects — difficult discipline, all-gateway discipline, good-person discipline, discipline of all kinds, request-fulfilling discipline, discipline of happiness in this world and the next, and pure discipline. For one who has read the Chapter on Giving, there is here a sense of the familiar: the last stretch of the Chapter on Giving carried these same seven names, only with "giving" swapped in for "discipline." This is no coincidence. Dunlun, in his gloss on the Chapter on Giving, had already spelled it out 〔Dunlun〕: the nine aspects are a common template — "the lower five perfections are to be understood by analogy" — of which discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom each unfolds according to this blueprint that the Chapter on Giving set up. Part Three of the Chapter on Discipline is just what this blueprint looks like carved upon the single degree of "discipline."

Reading the two chapters side by side, the most interesting thing is not the sameness but the "same aspect-count, different content." The discipline of all kinds and the giving of all kinds are both thirteenfold; the pure discipline and the pure giving are both tenfold. The numbers do not differ by a hair, yet the content is wholly other — the thirteen marks of the giving of all kinds in the Chapter on Giving speak of the classification of the object given and the field of giving (fit vessels and unfit vessels, the possessions of sentient beings, the goods of a region…), whereas the thirteen marks of the discipline of all kinds in the Chapter on Discipline speak of the properties of the body of discipline itself (dedication, broad extent, firmness…) and the three classes of maturational fruit. This proves exactly what the word "template" means: it is not a matter of transferring the content of giving onto discipline wholesale, but of borrowing the same skeleton and filling into each the flesh-and-blood proper to that particular degree.

The Seven Aspects Unfolded One by One

Difficult discipline, of three kinds, speaks of three levels of "the difficulty of upholding discipline" — and each level presses closer to the true test than the last. The first level is "being able to let go" — one presently endowed with great wealth, great kin, and commanding mastery is able to cast all this off and take up the pure discipline; this is the giving-up of things outside oneself, hard in that it means releasing an established station and its honor. The second level is "being able to hold fast" — after receiving the precepts, though one meet with pressing peril, even to the point of facing the danger of death, one still lets there be not the slightest failing in the discipline received; this is the test at the crossroads of life and death, hard in that one does not retreat from one's guard even with death upon one. The third level is "being able to endure long" — throughout all going and staying, ever abiding in right mindfulness and constantly free of heedlessness, until the end of life, one never once fails even the finest of the light precepts; this is the test across the span of time, hard in that it leans not on a single sprint of the will but on a fine, unbroken watchfulness kept up over a whole lifetime. From letting-go to holding-fast to enduring-long, the treatise is in fact tracing a complete curve of practice: difficult discipline is not a single-point act of heroism but a long labor stacked up piece upon piece.

All-gateway discipline, of four kinds — the discipline of formally received [precepts], the discipline of inborn nature, the discipline of long habituation, and the discipline conjoined with skillful means — speaks of where discipline comes from, and the very posing of the question is of interest: it draws "the upholding of discipline" out from the flat "in this one life I have resolved to keep the rules" into a question with the depth of time. Some discipline is received from a teacher in this very life (the discipline of formally received precepts); some is a kindly and good root that one is born with, so that the two kinds of action, of body and speech, ever proceed purely in the continuum (the discipline of inborn nature); some was long ago habituated in former lives, so that in this life one is by nature deeply set against evil dharmas and deeply drawn to wholesome ones — the fruit of being "sustained by the force of a cause from former lives" (the discipline of long habituation); and some is the concrete practice, in reliance on the four means of gathering, of ever turning the actions of body and speech toward beings in the wholesome direction (the discipline conjoined with skillful means). Read as a set of four gateways, the treatise is in fact saying: how well a person upholds discipline in this life turns not on the will of this one life alone, but also on the accumulation of former lives and the root-nature one is endowed with — which is also why, when one meets a person of inborn warmth and kindness who upholds pure discipline with no effort at all, there is no cause for surprise: that is very likely the joint working of "the discipline of inborn nature" and "the discipline of long habituation."

Good-person discipline, of five kinds — upholding discipline oneself, exhorting others to receive the precepts, praising the merit of discipline, rejoicing at the sight of others upholding discipline, and helping those who transgress to confess — has a clear rising order to these five aspects: from "perfecting oneself alone" (being oneself endowed with śīla), to "benefiting others as well" (exhorting others to receive, praising the merit of discipline), to "seeing the worthy and matching them" (rejoicing deeply at the sight of a fellow in the Dharma), to "seeing the unworthy and lending support" (if there be transgression, helping to confess and remove it in accord with the Dharma). Good-person discipline expands "upholding discipline" thoroughly from a purely self-benefiting matter into a matter of responsibility toward the community: the true good person will not treat his own purity as a private affair unrelated to others, but lets the Dharma of discipline, through himself, strike root in the people around him as well.

The discipline of all kinds, of thirteen marks, falls into two groups, of six kinds and of seven, and these two groups each answer a different question. The six — the discipline of dedication, of broad extent, of the ground of blameless gladness, the constant, the firm, and the one conjoined with the adornments of śīla — answer "what properties does this discipline possess": dedicated to great awakening (not for one's own fruit-reward), broadly embracing all training-points (not picking out the easy ones to keep), staying far from the two extremes of indulging in desire and mortifying the self (leaning neither to license nor to austerity), not cast off even to the end of the life-span (not falling back for weariness), unsubduable and unwrestable by gain and honor, others' disputation, or the root and secondary afflictions (not shaken by outer conditions), endowed with all the adornments of discipline (whole, not maimed). The seven — the discipline of cessation, of turning-to-action, of guarding-and-protecting, and the four maturations (the marks of a great being, a surpassing mind, a delightful destiny, the benefiting of sentient beings) — answer "what does this discipline do, and what fruit does it bear": ceasing all evil, turning instead to the active doing of good, and guarding the former two so that they do not fall away; and the one whose discipline is pure comes, upon his body, to a surpassing excellence of marks (the maturation that is the marks of a great being), upon his mind to a surpassing resolve (the maturation that is a surpassing mind), upon his circumstances to a delightful place of birth (the maturation that is a delightful destiny), and upon his capacity to the power that truly benefits beings (the maturation that is the benefiting of sentient beings). Upholding discipline is not merely the passive guard of "not doing bad things"; it bears, across every plane of life, concrete and visible fruit.

Request-fulfilling discipline, of eight kinds, is logically of the simplest yet of great force, and is the stretch of the whole Chapter on Discipline that comes closest to common-sense ethics: it reasons back from "do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself" — I do not wish to be killed, robbed, subjected to misconduct, deceived, set at odds, spoken to harshly, or harmed, and neither does another; that being so, even in the face of a threat to life, I do not do these eight things to others. The treatise uses the reasoning of putting oneself in the other's place, rather than appealing to an authority's prohibition — which shows exactly that the deepest ground of the discipline-code is, after all, the fellow-feeling of measuring another's heart by one's own: no lofty doctrine is needed to understand it or to act upon it.

The discipline of happiness in this world and the next, of nine kinds — the four pure disciplines of restraining what ought to be restrained, permitting what ought to be permitted, gathering in whom ought to be gathered, and taming whom ought to be tamed, plus the pure discipline conjoined with the other five perfections — makes clear that the upholding of discipline is never an isolated practice: it proceeds in close conjunction with giving, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom, and together with them brings about the ease and happiness of beings in this world and the next. These nine marks also quietly echo the core teaching of Part Two of the Chapter on Discipline: "restraining what ought to be restrained, permitting what ought to be permitted" is precisely the condensed restatement, here, of that "defiled transgression / non-defiled transgression / no transgression" distinction that recurred through the point-by-point adjudication of transgressions — knowing when to restrain and when to permit is itself an ongoing exercise of wisdom, not a rigid table of rules.

Pure discipline, of ten marks, is the drawing-shut of the whole Chapter on Discipline. The ten marks, in order, are: the discipline of good receiving from the start (a pure motive — for the sake of the path, not of a livelihood); not sinking too far and not lifting up too far (neither blaming oneself excessively nor blaming oneself to no purpose, the two combined into one mark); free of indolence; free of heedlessness; right vow (not seeking birth in the heavens, but the holy life alone); fulfillment of proper conduct; fulfillment of pure livelihood (staying far from deceit and wrong livelihood); free of the two extremes (indulging neither in desire nor in self-mortification); everlasting deliverance (staying free of the views of the outsider-paths); and no loss to what was received before. The Section on Ascertainment divides these ten marks into one of "purity of intention" (the discipline of good receiving from the start, which asks "why do you receive the precepts") and nine of "purity of application" (which ask "how do you uphold them") — first examining the motive, then examining the conduct. This is exactly the complete round that the whole Chapter on Discipline traces, from the intrinsic-nature discipline (the mind that receives the precepts) to this point (the marks of upholding them): Part One asks "what is discipline," Part Two asks "how is transgression and non-transgression judged," and the ten marks of pure discipline in Part Three draw the whole road back to that first question — why, at the very outset, did you receive this precept at all?

The Benefits of Discipline, the Functions of Discipline, the Overall Summary: The Threefold Discipline Gathered into a Single Sentence

The seven aspects finished, the treatise draws to a close with three statements. The benefits of discipline: upholding discipline yields five fruits — one is ever guarded and remembered by the buddhas; at the end of life one abides in great gladness; after death one is ever companioned by bodhisattvas of like pure discipline; one accomplishes the store of measureless merit; and self-nature pure discipline comes at last to be one's very nature. What is interesting about these five benefits is that they are not "external rewards traded for by upholding discipline," but states of life that the act of upholding discipline naturally brings out of itself — the resonance with the buddhas, the composure in the face of death, the like kind of one's future companions, the accumulation of inner merit, and the eventual melting of the nature of discipline into one's own nature, are all natural results unfolded from "upholding discipline" itself, not some further, separate transaction.

The functions of discipline then states, most tersely, the several offices of the three kinds of pure discipline: the discipline of restraint settles and stabilizes the mind; the discipline that gathers wholesome dharmas brings one's own buddha-dharma to maturity; the discipline that benefits sentient beings brings sentient beings to maturity — a single sentence gathering up the whole threefold architecture of the Chapter on Discipline, and echoing the content laid out in detail in that long stretch of Part One on "abiding in the three disciplines": the "ceasing" of the discipline of restraint is, in the end, for settling the mind; the manifold wholesome conduct of the discipline that gathers wholesome dharmas is, in the end, for maturing one's own provision of buddha-dharma; and the manifold benefiting of the discipline that benefits sentient beings is, in the end, for maturing beings.

The overall summary then returns to the very starting point: "The bodhisattvas of the past have already trained in just this; the bodhisattvas of the future will train in just this; the bodhisattvas of the present are now training in just this" — the bodhisattvas of the three times all train in the one same discipline, with nothing "in excess" and nothing "to be added." This closing sentence answers, from afar, the four merits set up at the opening "intrinsic-nature discipline" of Part One: there it spoke of "receiving rightly from another," here it speaks of "the three times training in the same" — one who receives the precepts receives, in the end, no private invention of some one teacher, but the one same road that the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three times have together walked and together proven.

The One Meaning This Part Casts into Light

Part Three of the Chapter on Discipline looks like a mere finishing-off of the itemized listing of the remaining seven aspects, but it in fact accomplishes two important things. First, it proves that the nine-aspect template set up by the Chapter on Giving is truly the skeleton borne in common by the six perfections, and not merely a chance structure proper to the Chapter on Giving alone — the discipline of all kinds and the pure discipline correspond, to the very number, with the Chapter on Giving, and this is the most direct evidence of that common template. Second, it draws the whole Chapter on Discipline back from "what is discipline" to "why do you receive the precepts" — the order of the ten marks of pure discipline, first examining the intention and then the application, gathers the whole road walked from Part One through Part Three back into one complete circle: the intrinsic-nature discipline sets up the essence (what this is), the all discipline sets up the function (how it unfolds), transgression-and-restoration sets up the discernment (how a fault is judged), the remaining seven aspects set up the breadth (how it is to be lived out), and the pure discipline sets up the return (coming back, at the last, to that first mind that first aroused itself).

Carrying Forward

The remaining seven aspects of this part correspond, one to one, with the remaining seven aspects of the Chapter on Giving (see 〈Apparatus〉, heading II), confirming Dunlun's account that "the nine aspects are the common template of the six perfections"; next comes the Chapter on Patience (the third of the six perfections), whose nine aspects will unfold on this same template, so that the sameness and difference of the nine aspects across the three chapters may be read side by side without break. The tenth heading of the Section on Ascertainment, at the close of its ascertainment of the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening, points back to the ten marks of pure discipline of this part, dividing them into purity of intention and purity of application — the Chapters on Giving and Discipline now read through, the common template of the six perfections has two instances set up, and the four chapters to follow, on patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom, may take this common template as the ground of their reading.

The Third Step along the Six Perfections

Giving removes outward stinginess; discipline guards against inward defilement; and patience? What patience faces is the most direct kind of resistance along the path of practice — the harm that others lay upon one's own person. Even one who can give and can keep the precepts, if at the first taste of harm and enmity he flares into hatred and strikes back, his practice is cut off right there. The nine aspects that the Chapter on Patience sets up are still that same common formula (intrinsic nature, the whole, the hard, all-gateways, the good, all-kinds, the fulfilling-of-requests, ease in this world and the next, purity), but this time what the treatise truly means to teach is not the act of "holding patience in," but changing the very eyes with which you look at the one who is harming you.

Patience by Way of Intrinsic Nature: The Undefiled Mind Is Not Suppression

The treatise states the substance of patience by way of intrinsic nature: "either taking the power of discriminating reflection as its support, or by their very nature being able to endure harm and enmity … it is because of an undefiled mind, of a compassion pure and unmixed, that they are able to have endurance." 〔this treatise〕 Dunlun records four masters (Jing, Tai, Kuiji, Woncheuk) and their understandings of this line, each from a different angle, but all revolving around one and the same word: "undefiled." Kuiji takes "patience" apart into two layers — "patience throughout" and "patience universal": to pervade vertically the three realms is patience-throughout; to range broadly across the four births is patience-universal; and again, to reach through to all sentient beings is patience-throughout, while to have patience reach through to the two ends of foe and kin is patience-universal. Woncheuk, for his part, separates "the cause of patience" from "the substance of patience by way of intrinsic nature," matching the undefiled mind and compassion respectively to the counteragents of the two afflictions, greed and hatred.

The single most crucial judgment here is one plain gloss of Kuiji's: "an undefiled mind = the absence of greed." The substance of patience is not the force of will that presses anger down; it is that there is, within the mind, simply nothing of that "attachment" which could be provoked — attachment to one's own reputation, attachment to how one ought to be treated. With no attachment, there is nothing that can be offended. This too is why the alternate translations say the point more plainly: Dharmakṣema's Bodhisattvabhūmi-sūtra says directly "a mind free of greed, a compassion pure and unmixed", and Guṇavarman's Bodhisattva-śīla-sūtra says "by the strength of wisdom he is able to endure … because he has pity, because he has attained a mind of loving-kindness" — the three translations differ in wording, yet they point together at one thing: the root of patience lies not in the power to endure, but in compassion and the undefiled.

The Whole of Patience: Five Contemplations, Seeing "Harm and Enmity" Over Again

The whole of patience divides into two classes, the householder and the renunciant, each of three kinds: patience enduring harm and enmity, patience calmly accepting the mass of sufferings, patience of settled conviction upon reflecting on the Dharma. What these three kinds of patience face are, respectively, "another harming me," "the environment harming me," and "the Dharma not yet realized harming my confidence" — three different battlefields.

The most interesting thing about patience enduring harm and enmity is not that it teaches you to "hold patience in," but that it teaches you how to look at the person before you over again. The treatise gives five contemplations:

The contemplation of former-life kinship and friendship — across the boundless past lives, it is hard to find a single sentient being who has never once been my father, mother, brother, sister, or teacher. This contemplation is not asking you to "pretend" that the one before you who is harming you is a kinsman; it is reminding you: to take "kin" and "foe" as fixed, unchanging labels is itself a kind of illusion.

The contemplation of conforming to phenomena alone — here there is no "self," and no "other," only phenomena resting upon a host of conditions and operating; there is no fixed "one who reviles" and "one who is reviled." This contemplation loosens directly the very presupposition built into the question "who harmed whom."

The contemplation of impermanence — the utmost harm the other can do is no more than to snatch away a life that will of itself, in the end, fade; a sentient being's life is of itself ceasing moment by moment, so why go out of one's way to hasten it.

The contemplation of suffering — even those sentient beings who look flourishing and pleased with themselves are still moment by moment pursued by the three sufferings — the suffering of formations, of change, and of pain itself — how much more the one before me who is doing me ill, who may himself be sunk in a deeper suffering still. Patience, then, turns from "should I forgive him or not" into "should I add one more layer of suffering upon a person already suffering."

The contemplation of embracing — since I have already given rise to the mind of awakening and embraced all sentient beings as my kin, I ought not, because I cannot endure harm and enmity, to turn my back on my own original wish to benefit them.

Seen together, the five contemplations are all in fact doing one thing: not teaching you to press your feelings down, but teaching you to change out the eyes that could be provoked. The definition of patience the treatise gives at the close answers to just this: "there is no bursting-forth of anger within oneself; one does not repay another's enmity; nor does one let it lie latent, flowing on unbroken — this is what is called patience" — that not even the seed of hatred be allowed to lie hidden within and flow on: this is true patience, not a patience merely borne on the surface.

Patience Calmly Accepting the Mass of Sufferings: Eight Sites of Suffering — the Toil of Practice Itself

Patience faces not only the ill-will of others but also the toil that this path of practice itself brings — the suffering of the site of reliance (coarse and poor clothing and food), the suffering of the site of worldly dharmas (the nine worldly dharmas: decline, disgrace, blame, pain, perishing, exhaustion, aging, sickness, death), the suffering of the site of deportment (never lying down to sleep, day and night, through walking, standing, sitting, lying), the suffering of the site of gathering the Dharma (serving the Three Jewels, inquiring after the Dharma, expounding the Dharma, dwelling alone in reflection, cultivating calm-and-insight), the suffering of the site of the mendicant life (shaving the head, robes of dulled color, living by others, and to life's end neither hoarding wealth nor practicing sensuality nor amusing oneself), the suffering of the site of diligent toil, of benefiting others, and of the tasks to be done. Over the "nine kinds of worldly dharma" that the treatise lists, Kuiji spent the longest single stretch of commentary in the whole Chapter on Patience, matching them one by one against the traditional Buddhist "eight worldly dharmas" (gain and loss, disgrace and honor, praise and blame, pain and pleasure) — this long roll of "sites of suffering" reminds the reader: patience is not the meeting of a single one-off clash, but the shouldering of the continuous, minute toil that the whole way-of-life of practice itself brings.

Patience of Settled Conviction upon Reflecting on the Dharma: Eight Sites for Giving Rise to Conviction, a Dialogue across the Gap with the Chapter on the Strength of Lineage

What patience of settled conviction upon reflecting on the Dharma faces is that juncture where, toward the meaning of the Dharma not yet realized, one's confidence may waver. The treatise lists eight sites: the qualities of the Three Jewels, the true meaning, the great spiritual power of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, the site of cause, the site of fruit, the meaning to be attained, one's own means for attaining that meaning, all that is to be known and to be practiced. Dunlun points out especially that these eight sites are exactly the same as those listed in the Chapter on the Strength of Lineage (the eighth of the seven sites), only that the second and third sites are interchanged in order — here the Chapter on Patience is not fashioning a fresh scheme out of nothing; it is taking the skeleton the Chapter on the Strength of Lineage had already set in place and re-lodging it within the context of "patience": that one can dwell in settled conviction toward the meaning of the Dharma is itself a kind of patience — the endurance of what remains unresolved, not yet personally realized.

Difficult Patience, Patience through All Gateways, the Good Person's Patience, Patience of All Kinds, Patience That Fulfills Requests: The Breadth of Patience

Difficult patience is of three kinds — enduring the offense of the feeble, enduring the offense of one's own subjects while holding an honored position, enduring the outrageous offense of one of low caste — three levels that just cover the three ends of human rank: toward the weak, toward the subordinate, toward those far apart in station, the difficulty of patience differs in each. Patience through all gateways is of four kinds, extending the objects of patience to the three classes of kin, foe, and the neutral, and to their lower and superior kinds — neither favoring the kin nor giving free rein to the foe. The good person's patience is of five kinds: first seeing the advantages of patience (few foes, little estrangement, much joy, no regret at death, a good destiny hereafter), then enduring oneself, exhorting others to endure, praising the merit of patience, and rejoicing at seeing others practice it — patience is not only self-cultivation but a virtue that can be extolled and handed on. Patience of all kinds is thirteen aspects (six kinds + seven kinds): the six kinds list six reasons for undertaking patience (dread of the maturational fruit, pity and dear affection, the seeking of unsurpassed awakening, that a receiver of the Dharma ought not to be impatient, the repeated practice of lineage, investigating the nature of phenomena free of proliferation); the seven kinds spread patience out across the five facets of time, place, body, speech, and mind — patience with respect to all non-beneficial acts, patience in all places (both hidden and before the assembly), patience at all times (through the four watches, day and night), and the patience of body, speech, and mind. Patience that fulfills requests is of eight kinds, telling how patience concretely answers others' seeking and suffering — enduring the ill-mannered and pressing, enduring the fierce and precept-breaking without harming or vexing them, plus five kinds of patience enduring diligent toil (removing the suffering of the suffering, seeking the Dharma, practicing according to the Dharma, expounding the Dharma for others, lending a hand in others' affairs). The gloss the treatise gives for this name is very direct: "toward what harms and vexes sentient beings, by patience it keeps away; toward what sentient beings seek, by patience it gives" — patience accomplishes the two ends of what others seek yet fail to gain, and what they would be spared yet cannot escape.

Patience for Ease in This World and the Next, Pure Patience: The Utmost of Patience

Patience for ease in this world and the next is of nine kinds, extending patience from the human sphere out to the natural environment — cold and heat, hunger and thirst, mosquitoes and gadflies, wind and sun, snakes and scorpions, weariness from toil, and even the giving-rise to pity for sentient beings fallen into the sea of birth-and-death. Patience reaching this far is no longer merely a patience "toward people"; it is a shouldering of the whole impermanent world.

Pure patience is of ten aspects, the gathering-up of the entire Chapter on Patience: to the end make no return; to hold no resentment; to let no grudge continue on; to keep the mind to benefit others constant, first and last, alike; to go of oneself to repent and apologize; not to wait until the other is worn out before accepting the apology; toward the places one cannot endure, to give rise to a fierce shame and conscience; toward the Buddha, to give rise to a fierce love and reverence; toward sentient beings, to give rise to a fierce pity; and to keep far from the desires of the desire-realm. Reading the ten aspects down, one finds that pure patience is no longer "holding patience in without letting it break out"; it is that the whole structure of one's character is no longer, at its root, moved by harm and enmity — even "not being able to endure" can itself be taken up to give rise to shame and turned into material for practice. This is precisely what the perfection of patience — the "crossing to the far shore" — means: not to endure until the last moment on the very edge of collapse, but to endure until there is, at bottom, nothing left that needs to be endured.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Relief

The nine aspects of the Chapter on Patience seem to be speaking of "how to respond when facing harm," but from first to last they teach only one thing: patience is not the force of will that presses feelings down; it is changing the very eyes — eyes that cannot be provoked — with which one looks at the world. The undefiled mind of patience by way of intrinsic nature is the root of these eyes; the five contemplations are the method for retraining these eyes to look at people afresh; the eight sites of suffering and the eight sites for giving rise to conviction are what these eyes rely upon to keep steady in the face of the toil of practice and the meaning of the Dharma not yet realized; and the ten aspects of pure patience are the look of these eyes when at last they are no longer moved at all. No greed, no hatred, compassion — the ground-color of the perfection of patience, from beginning to end, is these three alone.

Carrying Forward

Patience comes down from the Chapter on Discipline; the nine aspects are still the common formula of the six perfections. The eight sites for giving rise to conviction of patience of settled conviction upon reflecting on the Dharma are the same enumeration as in the Chapter on the Strength of Lineage (the eighth of the seven sites), the order slightly differing — an instance of the ancient masters' cross-viewing. The Section on Ascertainment, in ascertaining the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening under its tenth heading, sets up separately the ten purities of the perfection of patience (nine of the purity of the power of discriminating reflection + one of the purity of the power of cultivation), belonging to the same overall frame as the ascertainment of the Chapter on Discipline — a re-ascertainment that does not follow the nine aspects. Next comes the Chapter on Vigor (the fourth of the six perfections) — patience sets up the unmoving mind, and vigor goes on to set up valiant conduct.

The Sixth Perfection, Reached at Its Fourth Step

Giving, discipline, patience — all now set in place; the question that comes next is this: this road is so long, from where does the momentum come? What the Chapter on Vigor sets out to teach is not the slogan "one must strive," but the structure of momentum — first set up a vow, large to the point that it sounds unreasonable, and then let every concrete effort be nothing more than the natural and inevitable working-out of that vow.

Intrinsic-Nature Vigor: Woncheuk's Threefold Correspondence Gives the Whole Chapter Its Skeleton

The treatise defines intrinsic-nature vigor: "brave and stalwart within the mind, equal to taking up measureless wholesome dharmas, to the benefit and ease of all sentient beings — blazing and unbroken, without error — together with the actions of body, speech, and mind that this sets in motion." 〔the treatise〕 Dunlun's Notes record Woncheuk's reading, which takes this sentence apart directly into three segments, corresponding to the most important threefold structure of the Chapter on Vigor that follows: "brave, stalwart, and equal" corresponds to armor-vigor (the stalwart bravery of first setting up a vow); "taking up wholesome dharmas" corresponds to gathering-wholesome vigor (the concrete work of accumulating wholesome dharmas); "benefiting and easing sentient beings" corresponds to benefiting-beings vigor (the action of benefiting others).

This correspondence is well worth remembering, for it gives the whole chapter a clear reading-map: armor is "why one must begin," gathering-wholesome is "how one goes about it once begun," and benefiting-beings is "to whom the thing that is made is given." The unfolding that the Chapter on Vigor gives next is in fact all a detailed magnification of these three segments.

Armor-Vigor: A Vow Deliberately Exaggerated to the Point of Unreason

The armor-vigor vow that the treatise cites is the most forceful passage in the whole chapter: "If, in order to free a single sentient being from its suffering, I take a thousand great aeons for a single day and night and dwell within Naraka, not in the other destinies — even to the point where the bodhisattva must pass through so long a span before realizing unsurpassed perfect awakening; and even if it be beyond this, by a hundred-thousand-koṭi-fold of aeons, that I realize unsurpassed perfect awakening — this bravery of mine will still never shrink back." To free a single sentient being, one is willing to compress a thousand great aeons into a single day and night and cast oneself into the hells, and even were it to take a span a hundred-thousand-koṭi-fold as long before buddhahood, this brave and stalwart mind would never once shrink back.

This vow reads as very nearly unreasonable, but that is exactly where its intent lies. Dunlun takes this passage apart into four layers: making clear its bravery, making clear its aim, making clear its long span, and making clear its ultimate dedication; and he cross-verifies it by citing the "four kinds of excellence" of the Abhidharma (the Mahāyāna-abhidharma-samuccaya-vyākhyā, the Compendium with Commentary), down to the very number "three thousand aeons of asaṃkhyeya" for the span of time, which matches exactly — this is no offhand exaggeration, but a whole method of practice, supported by a doctrinal frame, of "first setting the goal at its very limit." The treatise then adds a most practical remark: even to give rise to but a small measure of resolute conviction, a small measure of pure faith, toward such a vow is already to nourish measureless bodhi-lineage-nature — in other words, the use of this vow lies not in your really having to carry out its every word, but in this: that once it is truly set up, every concrete difficult task before your eyes becomes, by comparison, negligible. This is why the treatise says: having already set up this great vow, "toward the seeking of awakening and the benefiting of sentient beings, there is not the slightest difficult task able to give rise to a timid, faint, hard-to-bear mind." First set the goal large to the point of unreason, and the concrete difficulties before your eyes naturally come to seem small — this is the psychological mechanism of armor-vigor, not a line of motivational sloganeering.

Gathering-Wholesome Vigor: Seven Kinds of "Not Being Shaken by Some One Thing"

The seven kinds of gathering-wholesome vigor read like one and the same question answered from seven angles: "What is it that would make vigor come to a stop?" — unshakable vigor (not shaken by discrimination, affliction, heterodox theory, painful contact), firm vigor (earnest intensified practice), measureless vigor (direct realization of all the sciences), skillful-means-corresponding vigor (accord without error), non-erroneous vigor (set in motion by the vow), constant vigor (unbroken intensified practice), conceit-free vigor (not giving rise to conceit on account of vigor). The seven put together in fact say this: the greatest enemy of vigor is not laziness, but being interrupted by every sort of inner and outer object-condition — interrupted by affliction, interrupted by heterodox theory, interrupted by painful feeling, even interrupted by the pride that one's own vigor gives rise to. The treatise says that the diligent intensified practice of these seven kinds of vigor is able to make the bodhisattva "swiftly complete the perfections and quickly realize unsurpassed perfect awakening," and adds an overall appraisal: vigor is "among all the wholesome dharmas able to cultivate-and-realize and able to accomplish awakening, the most excellent cause and condition, the others being not so" — among the six perfections, vigor is granted a place close to that of a pivot, because every single accomplishment of giving, discipline, patience, meditative absorption, and wisdom needs vigor to drive it and to bring it to completion.

For benefiting-beings vigor, the treatise says directly "as stated in the Chapter on Discipline" — this is the most conspicuous economy the Chapter on Vigor practices at the level of the treatise itself: the benefiting-of-beings within the threefold discipline, having been treated once in the Chapter on Discipline, is not unfolded again here; only the subject-term is exchanged (there it speaks of śīla, here it speaks of vigor). The same device is used for request-fulfilling vigor and the vigor for the ease of this world and the next, where it says directly "as should be known from the Chapter on Patience" — which reminds the reader that the shared nine-aspect format of the six perfections is not merely a structural echo: the treatise itself acknowledges, and directly carries over, one another's content, so that not every perfection need be expounded independently from the beginning.

Difficult-to-Practice, All-Gateways, and Good-Person Vigor: The Breadth of Vigor

The three kinds of difficult-to-practice vigor — being far from concern for clothing, food, bedding, and one's own body; exhausting the whole span of a single lifetime without slackening; evenly penetrating merit, neither slack nor urgent — the treatise caps with a summary remark at the end: "it should be known that just this is the cause subsumed by the compassion that takes sentient beings as its object and by prajñā." This remark is crucial: what makes difficult-to-practice vigor difficult is not that it demands strong willpower, but that it must be held together at once by both "compassion" (an inability to bear the suffering of beings) and "prajñā" (error-free wisdom); lacking either, it will either lapse into blind brute effort or lapse into giving up halfway.

The four kinds of all-gateways vigor — departing-defilement (cutting off the bonds, fetters, and latent proclivities), drawing-white-dharma (giving rise to wholesome dharmas and making them increase), purifying-karma (purifying the three karmas), increasing-wisdom (accumulating and increasing the wisdom of hearing, reflection, and cultivation) — cut the working-face of vigor into four blocks: "stopping evil," "giving rise to good," "purifying karma," "increasing wisdom." Seen together as stilling-and-insight, vigor is not a single act but a whole undertaking pressing forward on several planes at once. The five kinds of good-person vigor, by way of the five qualifiers "non-forsaking," "non-diminishing," "non-inferior," "non-erroneous," and "diligent-and-brave-intensified-practice," depict a quality that endures and does not waver — vigor arrived at the level of the good person is no longer occasional exertion, but stable character.

All-Kinds Vigor: Within the Thirteen Kinds of Vigor Lie Two Pieces of the Ancient Masters' Careful Ordering

The thirteen aspects of all-kinds vigor: six kinds plus seven kinds. The six kinds stress vigor's "not being led astray by anything" — unbroken, earnest, outflowing (upheld by the power of prior causes), intensified-practice (again and again reflecting-and-selecting), unshakable, unsatisfied (not content with small attainment); the seven kinds are far more delicate, and the simile in the third of them, "advancing vigor," is especially vivid: "if the mind be defiled or entangled by any one root affliction or secondary affliction, then in order to cut off these afflictions, the vigor is brave and fierce, as one puts out a fire upon the head" — to counter afflictions as urgently as one puts out a fire ablaze on one's own head; this is the most vivid figure of speech in the whole chapter.

Dunlun leaves here two pieces of textual scholarship worth remembering: first, the opinion of "Master Yuan" (Huiyuan of Jingying Monastery), who pairs the seven kinds of vigor one by one with the bodhisattva-stages; second, two notes on the textual differences of the old treatise (Paramārtha's translation). These details remind the reader that this list of "thirteen kinds of vigor" is no iron-cast, settled conclusion: among the ancient masters, room still remains for discussion of how to make the pairings and how to understand the wording.

Purity Vigor: Ten Kinds, Gathered Up in "Dedication"

The ten kinds of purity vigor — well-matched (the antidote corresponding to the affliction), thoroughly-practiced, unslack, well-gathering, cultivating-at-the-fitting-time, penetrating-the-many-marks, non-shrinking, yoke-not-forsaking, even, dedicated-to-great-awakening — the first nine all speak of "how to make vigor dense and solid," and the last, "vigor dedicated to great awakening," gathers up all the preceding nine: "in all the vigor, whatever is undertaken, there is nothing that is not dedicated to unsurpassed perfect awakening." This answers exactly to that vow set up at the opening of armor-vigor — vigorous all the way to the last, what one circles back to is still the original aspiration of the first line, "in order to free a single sentient being from its suffering," only that by now it has been turned into a concrete, dense, unbroken daily practice.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The nine aspects of the Chapter on Vigor look like an enumeration of various "ways of striving," but from first to last they teach one thing only: the momentum of vigor comes not from the strength or weakness of willpower, but from the structure of the vow — first set the goal large to the point of unreason, and the concrete difficult tasks naturally come to seem tiny; then, with seven kinds of unshakable qualities, work that vow down into daily life; and in the end, all effort is dedicated back to that one original thought. Woncheuk's threefold correspondence (armor / gathering-wholesome / benefiting-beings) is exactly the three links of this momentum-chain: why to begin, how to do it, and for whom it is done — the perfection of vigor speaks never of a mere "one must strive," but of a whole complete structure, from vow to action, from action to dedication.

Carrying Forward

Vigor comes carried on from the Chapter on Patience, and the nine aspects are still the shared format of the six perfections; benefiting-beings vigor says plainly "as stated in the Chapter on Discipline," and request-fulfilling and this-world-and-next-ease vigor say plainly "as should be known from the Chapter on Patience" — the Chapter on Vigor is the chapter in the Basic Section whose own plain text most often marks its cross-chapter carrying-over, confirming that the shared nine-aspect format is no idle scaffolding. The Section on Ascertainment (Heading 10), in ascertaining the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening, sets up separately the ten purities of the perfection of vigor, re-ascertaining on a distinct axis, and does not follow the nine aspects. Next comes the Chapter on Meditative Absorption (the fifth of the six perfections) — vigor establishes the practice of bravery, and meditative absorption goes on to establish the mind of quietude.

The Six Perfections Reach the Fifth Step

Giving, discipline, patience, vigor — all along, these have been a work of "movement": giving out, holding the line, bearing injury, pushing oneself forward. Meditative absorption is different: it is the first work among the six perfections that asks a person to "grow still." Yet the very first sentence of the Chapter on Meditative Absorption bars a common misunderstanding at the door: the substance of meditative absorption is not the posture of sitting, nor some special experience, but "one-pointedness of mind" — the mind abiding upon a single object, no longer scattered.

Intrinsic-Nature Absorption: Dunlun Sets the Key in a Single Line

The treatise defines intrinsic-nature absorption: "taking as prior the hearing-and-reflecting upon the bodhisattva collection, whatever fine-and-good, worldly-and-world-transcending one-pointedness of mind there is, the mind rightly abiding therein — whether of the śamatha class, or of the vipaśyanā class, or of the yoked course pervading both classes." 〔the treatise〕 Here Dunlun first sets up a benchmark of definition by citing the Abhidharma-samuccaya-vyākhyā (the Duifa): "the mind being purely good, binding the mind to a single object — hence it is named 'meditative absorption'"; and then gives the single heaviest verdict of the whole chapter: "one-pointedness of mind — this brings out the substance of the meditative absorptions."

This line is worth stopping over. In the Chapter on Patience, where it treats intrinsic-nature patience, Dunlun records the readings of four masters — Jing, Tai, Kuiji, and Woncheuk — each from a different angle; in the Chapter on Vigor, where it treats intrinsic-nature vigor, Woncheuk offers a threefold-correspondence deconstruction. But when it comes to the Chapter on Meditative Absorption, Dunlun gives only one clean-cut settlement of the key — not because this question is any simpler, but because those four characters, "one-pointedness of mind," have in truth already stated to the last the most central thing about the meditative absorptions: whether it be calm (śamatha), or observation (vipaśyanā), or the yoked course of the two, the shared bedrock is that mind which no longer chases about on every side but abides upon a single object.

Calm and Observation: Not Two Prescriptions for Curing an Illness, but Two Emphases of One and the Same Thing

The treatise says of the two classes, calm and observation, "either the two of one same kind, or the joined portion," and both Kuiji and Dunlun leave on record an interesting debate. Master Jing's account is very intuitive: śamatha (calm) and vipaśyanā (observation) counter two distinct lapses respectively — one prone to dullness should cultivate observation to lift himself up, one prone to restlessness should cultivate calm to settle himself; calm and observation are two prescriptions, each curing its own illness. But immediately upon this, another unnamed dissenting account raises a rebuttal: calm and observation were never really separate to begin with — within any given state of concentration, concentration (calm) and wisdom (observation) are both present at once; the reason they are here given distinct names is only that one speaks according to "predominance" (whichever portion is at this moment the more evident), not that within some state of concentration there is only calm and no observation, or only observation and no calm.

The two accounts look contradictory, yet they in fact remind the reader of two levels of one and the same thing: seen from the "point of entry," one may indeed counter dullness or restlessness each in its own way; but seen from the "ultimate point," calm and observation were never truly divided into two households. Both readings are of use on the road of practice — for a beginner, Jing's countering method gives a concrete point of entry; only in the deeper reaches does one come to feel that calm and observation are, from the first, two faces of one body.

All-Absorption: Present-Happiness-Abiding, Meditative-Poise Merits, Benefiting Sentient Beings — the Three Destinations of the Absorptions

All-absorption divides into three destinations. The absorption of abiding in present happiness speaks of the happiness that the absorption itself brings in the present moment — removed from discrimination, bodily and mental pliancy, most utterly quiescent, removed from arrogant elation, parted from all savoring attachment, extinguishing all marks. The absorption that draws forth the meditative-poise merits of the bodhisattva speaks of the excellent realization the absorption sets in motion — "all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas do not so much as know its name, still less can they enter it"; this is a domain of meditative poise the bodhisattva alone has, beyond the reach of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. The absorption of benefiting sentient beings, in turn, extends the working of the absorptions all the way out into the eleven concrete tasks of benefiting others — acting as a person's helper-and-companion, removing suffering for the suffering, expounding in accordance with principle, knowing kindness and repaying it, protecting from fear, undoing grief-and-sorrow, giving the goods of livelihood, governing the multitude, turning in accord with their minds, praising the virtuous, subduing those with faults, manifesting supernormal powers to draw in. Take the three destinations together: the absorptions are not a solitary enjoyment that flees the world; at one and the same time they lead toward one's own realization and toward the benefit of others, favoring neither side over the other.

Difficult-to-Practice Absorption: Already Free to Go, Yet He Chooses to Stay

Of the three difficult-to-practice absorptions, the first is the passage of deepest doctrine in the whole chapter: the bodhisattva has already come to abide in the vast, excellent, most-well-matured states of meditative absorption, and by such power of concentration should, by right, be born into the higher heavens of meditation; yet "following his own wish and delight he relinquishes those most excellent joys of the meditative absorptions, and out of compassion for sentient beings … deliberately deliberates and chooses to be born once more in the desire realm" — plainly free to go, yet, out of compassion for sentient beings, he deliberately chooses to remain in this desire realm so full of affliction and suffering.

This sounds like a kind of sacrifice, but Master Jing's account, as recorded by Dunlun, states the mechanism of the matter with greater precision: "here no afflictions arise, only the seeds moisten birth; this too is without harm, since from the seventh stage onward it is in every case of benefit; when he needs afflictions to arise, at that very moment he makes them arise." When the bodhisattva returns to birth in the desire realm, it is not that afflictions are freshly set arising again — his mind is not, in truth, defiled once more by greed, hatred, and delusion — it is only that the seeds of the afflictions still moisten birth, sustaining the driving mechanism required for taking birth in the desire realm, and this does the bodhisattva no harm; moreover, from the seventh stage onward, this mechanism is not merely without harm but wholly of benefit — when there is need, the bodhisattva can actively, at any moment, make the afflictions arise ("when he needs afflictions to arise, at that very moment he makes them arise"). This is not "the risk having vanished"; it is the bodhisattva's having come into complete self-mastery over this mechanism — using it when he wishes, and not being moved by it in the least when there is no need. In other words, this is not the bodhisattva "backsliding into the afflictions of an ordinary being"; it is the bodhisattva's having precisely retained just so much of a seed as suffices — no more than the taking-birth mechanism requires — and, from the seventh stage onward, having further gained the sovereign power to summon it up at will: a precise operation of compassionate vow, not a sacrifice of willpower. The second and third difficult-to-practice absorptions are, respectively, the setting-in-motion of a meditative poise surpassing the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, and the swift realization, by the power of the absorptions, of unsurpassed awakening. Take the three difficult-to-practice absorptions together: the difficulty is not in "entering" a deep concentration, but in "letting go" of the most excellent happiness that deep concentration brings, and turning back toward sentient beings.

All-Gate Absorption, Good-Persons' Absorption, All-Kinds Absorption: The Skeleton and the Detail of the Absorptions

The four all-gate absorptions — with-applied-and-sustained-thought, joy-accompanied, happiness-accompanied, equanimity-accompanied — are the skeleton of the traditional four dhyānas, using the dhyāna-factors (applied-and-sustained thought, joy, happiness, equanimity) as the axis of classification. The five good-persons' absorptions — savoring-free, loving-kindness-accompanied, compassion-accompanied, sympathetic-joy-accompanied, equanimity-accompanied — set the four immeasurables (loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity) side by side with "not clinging to the savor of meditation," reminding the one who cultivates concentration: the good person's absorption is not a hiding away inside meditative bliss to admire one's own fragrance in solitude, but an entering-into-concentration that carries the four immeasurables with it.

The thirteen aspects of the all-kinds absorption: the six kinds lean toward a classification by the character of the absorptions (wholesome / indeterminate-transformation / śamatha-class / vipaśyanā-class / reflection-on-the-benefit-of-self-and-others / able-to-draw-forth-supernormal-power), and the seven kinds lean toward the object taken by the absorptions (name-object / meaning-object / calm-mark-object / uplifting-mark-object / equanimity-mark-object / present-happiness-abiding / able-to-benefit-others) — the former asks "which kind of concentration is this," the latter asks "what is this concentration attending to"; the two schemes of classification complement each other in angle, and taken together they lay out the inner structure of the absorptions in fine detail.

Wish-Fulfilling Absorption: The Power of Concentration Applied at the Most Concrete Scene of Disaster

The eight wish-fulfilling absorptions read nothing like an abstract description of meditation; rather they read like a disaster-relief checklist: stilling the troubles of poisons, frost-hail, scorching heat, the hauntings of ghosts; dispelling the sicknesses that arise from a discord in the nature of the elements; raising up and calling down sweet rain in times of famine and drought; rescuing from the perils of water and land; giving food and drink to those who lack it and are stranded in the wilds; giving goods and positions to those who lack them; admonishing and instructing the heedless; rightly carrying out what sentient beings need done. Dharmakṣema's alternate-translation edition likewise records, in the corresponding passage, a similar "incantation-based meditation" (averting calamity, calling down rain, and so on) 〔Chapter on Meditation〕, which can be cross-attested with this. This aspect reminds the reader: the "going to the other shore" of the perfection of meditative absorption is not a hiding away in deep mountains, heedless of the world; its power of concentration must in the end come down to earth at the concrete scene of relieving the sicknesses and sufferings of sentient beings — a disaster-relief checklist is precisely the most practical deployment of the meditative absorptions.

The Absorption of the Happiness of This World and the Other, and the Purified Absorption: The Deployment and the Ultimate of the Absorptions

The nine aspects of the absorption of the happiness of this world and the other — subduing sentient beings by the manifesting-transformation of supernormal power, of prognostication, of instruction; displaying the marks of the evil destinies to warn those who do evil; giving eloquence, giving right mindfulness; composing treatises and hymns to sustain the long abiding of the true Dharma; mastering the worldly crafts, writing, and reckoning to benefit sentient beings; sending forth radiance to still the suffering of beings in the evil destinies — these nine continue the direction of the wish-fulfilling absorption, "the power of concentration applied to benefiting others," and lay out the deployment of the absorptions more broadly still.

The ten purified absorptions are the gathering-up of the whole chapter: from worldly purity and world-transcending purity, to the purity of preparatory effort, the purity of the root attained, the purity of advancing beyond the root, to the purity of mastery in entering-abiding-emerging, the purity of once more entering into and realizing mastery, the purity of mastery in the manifesting-transformation of supernormal power, and at last to the purity of being removed from all wrong resorts of view and the purity in which the afflictive and cognitive obstructions are both purified. The ten aspects go from shallow to deep, from the earliest "not clinging" all the way to the final "the two obstructions, afflictive and cognitive, both purified" — the ultimate of the perfection of meditative absorption is not how deep or how long the concentration is, but that mind which is thoroughly no longer bound by any defilement whatsoever.

The One Meaning This Chapter Brings to Light

The nine aspects of the Chapter on Meditative Absorption look as though they are speaking of "the various facets of meditation," but from first to last they teach only one thing: what is settled in absorption is not the posture of the body, but that mind which is no longer scattered and abides upon a single object; and once this mind truly grows still, it does not thereby depart the world — rather it can respond to the world's suffering all the more precisely. One-pointedness of mind is the substance of the absorptions; calm and observation are from the first two faces of one body and not two prescriptions; the "returning to birth in the desire realm" of the difficult-to-practice absorptions shows how the compassionate vow operates with precision between the seeds and the arising of the afflictions; and the disaster-relief checklist of the wish-fulfilling absorption proves that the landing-place of the perfection of meditative absorption was never in the deep mountains, but in the very place where sentient beings are.

Carrying Forward

Meditative absorption comes forward from the Chapter on Vigor; its nine aspects are still the six-perfections common formula; the eleven aspects of the benefiting-sentient-beings absorption of the all-absorption follow the frame of the prior chapter, expressly saying "as before, they should be understood." The Section on Ascertainment, Heading 10, ascertaining the Chapter on the Aids to Awakening, further sets up along a separate axis the ten purified aspects of the perfection of meditative absorption (purity-that-is-purity-itself / uncontaminated / method-that-is-root / realizing-the-root / method-that-is-mastery / abiding-in-mastery / drawing-forth-the-mastery-of-the-higher-knowledges / mastery-of-maturing-sentient-beings / mastery-of-subduing-the-outsiders / unsurpassed-unbinding), re-ascertaining along that other axis. Then follows the Chapter on Wisdom (the last of the six perfections) — the meditative absorptions establish the quiescent mind, wisdom goes on to establish the illumining clarity of seeing; and with this the six perfections come round to completion.

The Last Step of the Six Perfections — and the Step That Turns to See the First Five

Giving, keeping the precepts, patience, vigor, meditative absorption — the whole road down to here, and of the six perfections only the last remains: wisdom. But what is special about the Chapter on Wisdom lies not only in what it says of itself; it lies still more in that long passage of retrospective summation at its close — which gathers the first five perfections back together and makes plain just what these six perfections are, and where they came from. So this chapter is to be read in two layers: first, the nine aspects of wisdom itself; then that concluding passage that draws all six perfections to a close.

Wisdom as to Intrinsic Nature: Non-Conceptual Knowledge and Subsequently-Attained Knowledge — One Body, Two Faces of Seeing

The treatise defines wisdom as to intrinsic nature: "it is the wisdom that is able to enter into every object of knowledge and that, having already entered into every object of knowledge, discerns and sorts out the various dharmas, ranging over all five domains of learning" 〔this treatise〕. Kuiji and Dunlun both read this line by taking it apart into two halves: "entering into every object of knowledge" is non-conceptual knowledge — the knowledge that, at the first realization of suchness, directly beholds without any discrimination of grasper and grasped; "having already entered into every object of knowledge, discerning and sorting out the various dharmas" is subsequently-attained knowledge — the knowledge that comes into use after realization and is able to distinguish the differing marks of the myriad dharmas. Taking these two knowledges together is precisely the innermost structure of the perfection of wisdom: first there is one thorough beholding that carries no discriminating mind whatsoever (non-conceptual knowledge), and only after this beholding is there born the ability to distinguish finely the differences among all things (subsequently-attained knowledge). It is not the "thinking-through of a single matter"; it is that "the way one sees all matters is totally changed" — only when the grasping at discrimination has been broken through can one truly see the marks of discrimination clearly.

Dunlun leaves here one further, extremely precise, qualification that Kuiji did not see: what subsequently-attained knowledge sorts out points specifically to the perfectly-accomplished nature, not the other-dependent nature. The weight of this line lies in its locking the matter of "discerning and sorting out the various dharmas" into a very precise range — it is not the loose distinguishing of the surface marks of the conditioned, provisional confluence of things (the other-dependent nature); it is the seeing-clearly of that truly-real essential nature, perfectly accomplished beneath the conditioned, provisional confluence (the perfectly-accomplished nature). Wisdom looks not at the tangled differences of phenomena themselves, but at the true and unfailing nature behind the differences.

The Whole of Wisdom: From the Truly Real, to Skillful Means, to Benefiting Others — the Sequence of Three Layers of Wisdom

The whole of wisdom is of three kinds. The first: the wisdom able to realize-and-penetrate what is truly real among objects of knowledge — with regard to the selfless nature of the dharma beyond words, most utterly still and far from idle proliferation, "entering into the sameness-nature, realizing the great encompassing mark … far removed from the two extremes of over-affirmation and under-denial, conforming to the middle way." This is the most fundamental wisdom, the direct realization of truth itself. The second: the wisdom decisively skilled in the five domains of learning and the three sets — bringing this fundamental realization down into skill amid the five concrete fields of knowledge, inner learning, the science of reasoning, medicine, grammar, and the crafts; and adding to it the true-to-reality judgment as to the three classes of things ("able to draw forth welfare and benefit," "able to draw forth what is not welfare and benefit," "neither drawing forth welfare-and-benefit nor not"). The third: the wisdom able to accomplish the welfare and benefit of all sentient beings — that is, the eleven kinds of wisdom that benefit sentient beings (as stated before) — bringing the power of skillful judgment, at the last, down into concrete action that benefits living beings.

Taking the three layers of wisdom together, they are a clear descending path: from the most abstract "seeing the truth," to the middle level of "understanding the world's various concrete knowledges and their judgment," to the final "putting all of this to use in helping sentient beings." If the perfection of wisdom halts only at the realization of the first layer, it is not yet complete — it must travel the whole way down to the third layer before it truly becomes a "perfection."

The Wisdom Hard to Practice, Wisdom in Every Gateway, the Wisdom of the Good Person: the Breadth and the Detail of Wisdom

The wisdom hard to practice is of three kinds — the knowledge of the profound selflessness of dharmas; the knowledge of the means for taming sentient beings; the knowledge unobstructed with regard to every object of knowledge — the three running from shallow to deep: first understanding the most fundamental truth of selflessness, then understanding how to respond to differing sentient beings with differing means, and at last being unobstructed with regard to every object whatsoever. Wisdom in every gateway is of four kinds, dividing the sources of wisdom into the wisdom born of hearing, the wisdom born of reflection, and the wisdom subsumed under the power of discernment and the power of cultivation — knowledge may come from hearing, from reflecting, from careful discernment, and it may also arise directly out of the meditative power of actual practice.

The wisdom of the good person is of five kinds — the wisdom gathered from hearing the true Dharma; conjoined with inward correct attention; conjoined with the means of conduct benefiting self and others; well decided without error as to the dharmas; and the wisdom that relinquishes the afflictions — and the treatise adds a further "alternate account" of five: subtle wisdom (entering the just-as-it-is nature), all-round wisdom (entering the as-far-as-it-extends nature), innate wisdom (gathered from the provision of wisdom of former lives), the wisdom furnished with teaching (receiving-and-upholding the dharma-meanings heard from the buddhas and bodhisattvas), and the wisdom furnished with realization (subsumed from the Stage of Pure Resolve to the Ultimate Stage). To give two parallel classifications of one and the same matter is itself a way of writing that lets out a message: the fostering of wisdom needs both the depth of "realizing" (the just-as-it-is nature, the as-far-as-it-extends nature) and the thickness of "accumulating" (hearing the Dharma, the provision of former lives, the ground-by-ground realization) — the two classifications are two facets of one matter, not competitors that replace each other.

Wisdom in Every Kind, the Wisdom That Fulfills Requests, the Wisdom That Brings Ease in This World and the Next: the Range of Wisdom's Operation

Wisdom in every kind has thirteen aspects (six kinds plus seven kinds): the six kinds focus on the knowledges of the four truths and the ultimate station (the four knowledges of suffering, origin, cessation, and path, plus the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising), while the seven kinds reach to a broader set of knowledge-classes (the knowledge of the dharma, inferential knowledge, conventional knowledge, the knowledge of supernormal power, the knowledge of characteristics, the knowledge preliminary to the ten powers, and the knowledge of right principle among the four principles) — this list gathers the various classifications of "knowledge" in the Buddhist tradition into the framework of the perfection of wisdom. The wisdom that fulfills requests is of eight kinds — unobstructed wisdom as to dharma, as to meaning, as to etymological explanation, the unobstructed wisdom of eloquence, plus overwhelming rival theories, establishing one's own theses, being versed in household affairs and worldly business, and well understanding a king's affairs — and reading it, one finds that the perfection of wisdom extends even to abilities that look "worldly," such as managing a household or being versed in governmental affairs. This reminds the reader: the bodhisattva's wisdom does not merely realize truth deep in the mountains; it must also have the ability to come into play amid the world's various concrete affairs, if it is truly to "fulfill" the "requests" of sentient beings.

The wisdom that brings ease in this world and the next is of nine kinds, telling how the bodhisattva employs the skill of the five domains of learning to respond to sentient beings of differing capacity — displaying to the deluded, instructing the negligent, spurring the timid, gladdening those diligently cultivating right conduct. Dunlun points out that these four kinds of sentient beings to be tamed are exactly the teaching framework already set up in the Chapter on Discipline (the good person without virtue / the good person with virtue / the faulty who are soft / the faulty who are hard) — the Chapter on Wisdom here is not fashioning a new classification out of nothing; it is taking the framework already set up in the Chapter on Discipline and re-lodging it within the vein of "wisdom." This echoes the consistent way of writing whereby the Chapter on Patience cross-refers with the Chapter on the Lineage of Power over the patience of resolute conviction in the dharma, and the Chapter on Wisdom cross-refers here with the Chapter on Discipline: the common nine-aspect formula of the six perfections is not a merely formal resemblance — the treatise itself keeps re-using, across chapters, the frameworks it has already set up.

Pure Wisdom: Five Meanings Each in Two, Gathered under "Knowing as It Really Is"

Pure wisdom has ten aspects, paired two by two into five meanings: the meaning of the truly real (the as-far-as-it-extends nature + the just-as-it-is nature), the meaning of the flow of birth-and-death (right cause + right effect), the meaning of appropriation (the mistaken + the unmistaken, known as they really are), the meaning of skillful means (what ought and ought not to be done, known as it really is), and the meaning of the ultimate (defilement + purity, each known as it really is). Reading down the five meanings and ten aspects, one finds the single key phrase running through them all: "knowing as it really is." The purity of pure wisdom lies not in knowing much, but in knowing "as it really is" — neither adding nor subtracting, not mistaken, not self-deceiving.

The Six Perfections Gathered Together: All of This Was, Originally, Maitreya's Teaching Scattered Everywhere

Having finished expounding its own nine aspects, the Chapter on Wisdom turns to an extremely special close — turning back to sum up all six perfections, giving, discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom. The treatise says: these six perfections the World-Honored One originally expounded distinctly here and there in the various scriptures; only now are they gathered into one place and stated in brief. It says, too, that all the immeasurable difficult and painful practices of the birth-stories, carried out when the Tathāgata practiced the bodhisattva path at the causal stage, correspond severally to the six perfections — resting upon one perfection alone, or jointly upon two, on up to all six, all of which should be known. It closes at last with three similes: the wholesome dharmas gathered by the six perfections "are the vast deep of pure dharmas, named the great sea of pure dharmas"; the six perfections, as the cause whereby all sentient beings are fulfilled, are "named the great jewel-spring-pool that wells forth giving."

This closing passage looks like a mere summary, yet hidden within it is a piece of first-hand documentary evidence exceedingly rare in the Basic Section — an editorial note left by the Tripiṭaka-master Xuanzang in his own hand, preserved in Dunlun's Notes:

「勘善戒經，初有如是我聞三紙許經……疑初三紙翻譯之人不解方音翻為經也，其實但是彌勒所造。」

Xuanzang himself examined the Bodhisattva-Śīla Sūtra (菩薩善戒經) translated by Guṇavarman, and found that this version, at the opening of the corresponding passage, carried some three leaves' worth of the typical scriptural opening format, "Thus have I heard." Xuanzang's judgment was: this is very likely a case in which the translator, unfamiliar with the local turns of speech, mistakenly rendered the words of a treatise into the opening format of a scripture — this teaching of the six perfections is in fact Maitreya's composition (a treatise), not something issuing directly from any single scripture spoken by the Buddha. That line at the head of the treatise passage, "in the various scriptures the World-Honored One expounded them distinctly here and there; now they are gathered here into one place," is speaking precisely of this: the content of the six perfections is indeed found scattered through the various scriptures the Buddha spoke, but the one who systematically gathered them into this whole framework of giving-discipline-patience-vigor-meditative-absorption-wisdom, and unfolded them one by one into the common nine-aspect formula, was Maitreya, by his work of arranging and composing the treatise.

The value of this note lies not in adjudicating which translation renders better; it lies in letting the reader see that the whole First Section of the Yoga of the Bodhisattva Stage — the nine chapters and six perfections running from the Chapter on the Lineage all the way down to here — has for the content of its teaching the source of the scriptures spoken by the Buddha, but that the organizing of it into the precise system now before us, one that can be studied chapter by chapter and aspect by aspect, is the achievement of Maitreya's composition. This is precisely why this "nine-aspect" framework can run so evenly through the six perfections and be preserved in common by three Chinese translations — it was, from the start, a carefully designed treatise-framework, not a random patchwork of scattered scriptural passages.

The One Meaning This Chapter Illumines

The nine aspects of the Chapter on Wisdom look as though they expound "the various facets of wisdom," but from first to last they teach one thing only: wisdom is not the thinking-through of some single matter; it is the total change in the way one sees all things after non-conceptual knowledge has broken through grasping — a change that must fall both upon the deepest realization of truth and upon the concrete skill and other-benefiting action of the world. And that documentary note of Xuanzang's at the chapter's close makes plain the nature of the whole teaching of the six perfections: this is not the classroom notes of some single discourse of the Buddha's; it is Maitreya's achievement in composing a treatise, gathering the various scattered sayings the Buddha spoke into one complete system. The common nine-aspect formula of giving-discipline-patience-vigor-meditative-absorption-wisdom that the reader meets today is precisely the precise structure this arranging left behind, one that can be read chapter against chapter.

Carrying Forward

Wisdom comes on from the Chapter on Meditative Absorption; the nine aspects are still the common formula of the six perfections, and here the nine-aspect formula completes its run through all six. The eleven kinds of wisdom that benefit sentient beings and the wisdom decisively skilled in the five domains and the three sets follow the framework of the Chapter on the Lineage of Power; the four kinds of sentient beings to be tamed in the wisdom that brings ease in this world and the next follow the framework of the Chapter on Discipline — the Chapter on Wisdom is the chapter of densest cross-chapter reference in the whole Basic Section, and it bears out that the common nine-aspect formula is no surface form, but a system the treatise itself repeatedly confirms and that mutually supports itself. The tenth heading of the Section on Ascertainment, in ascertaining the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening, concludes with the five purities of the perfection of wisdom; with this, the re-ascertainment of the five perfections of discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, and wisdom in the Section on Ascertainment is entirely finished. The concluding passage of the Chapter on Wisdom — the gathering-together of the six perfections plus Xuanzang's examination of the Bodhisattva-Śīla Sūtra — is, in the whole nine-chapter set of giving-discipline-patience-vigor-meditative-absorption-wisdom, the single place that directly touches the documentary provenance of "where this teaching came from"; one who has read the nine chapters must not pass it over. Next comes the Chapter on the Means of Gathering (the fifteenth) — the six perfections of the First Section's Yoga now complete, the text passes on to the teaching of benefiting sentient beings by the four means of gathering.

Why, After the Six Perfections Have Been Expounded, a Separate Chapter Is Still Set Up for the "Means of Gathering"

The Chapter on Giving, the Chapter on Discipline, the Chapter on Patience, the Chapter on Vigor, the Chapter on Meditation, the Chapter on Wisdom — the six perfections are the bodhisattva's own practice; once the six perfections are complete, is that not enough? Kuiji, at the head of the Chapter on the Means of Gathering, first raises this very question, then answers it himself: "The practice of self-benefit gathers up the prior six perfections; but self-benefit, if it is to be uncontaminated, must have the benefiting of others — and so, next, the Chapter on Gathering is expounded". The six perfections are self-benefit; if self-benefit is to be uncontaminated, there must next be "the benefiting of others" — and this is just the matter that the Chapter on the Means of Gathering sets out to expound. "Gathering" (攝) is gathering-in and taking-in; only by gathering sentient beings in, drawing them near and keeping them close, is there any way to teach them and to deliver them.

The four means of gathering — giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavor — are the four methods by which the bodhisattva gathers "people" in. Giving has already been fully treated earlier, in the Chapter on Giving; this chapter states plainly, "thus have the many kinds of giving and discipline been set forth", and does not repeat it; and so the Chapter on the Means of Gathering in fact unfolds only three means of gathering: kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavor. Kuiji further sets down one intriguing question-and-answer: since all three means of gathering take "wisdom" for their substance, are they not then a repetition of the "perfection of wisdom" among the six perfections? The answer is: "It is said: not so; the one, giving, has already been fully treated earlier, and the three means of gathering, though subsumed under wisdom, have not yet been fully treated earlier, and so are set forth now" — it is the same wisdom, but where the wisdom is put to work, and what shape it takes when put to work, has not yet been expounded; and this is just what the Chapter on the Means of Gathering fills in.

Kind Speech: First Make Them Willing to Listen

The first of the three means of gathering is kind speech — speaking. But kind speech is not so simple a thing as "saying nice words"; the treatise, at the very opening, first defines its substance: "speech that is agreeable and pleasing, truthful speech, Dharma-speech, and speech that draws in and gathers the meaning". Kuiji pairs each of these four kinds of speech with one kind of "keeping-free": agreeable speech he pairs with not being divisive; truthful speech, with not speaking falsely; Dharma-speech, with not being harsh; speech that draws in the meaning, with not being frivolous — in other words, the very ground of kind speech is to take these four pure verbal actions — "not speaking falsely, not being divisive, not being harsh, not being frivolous" — and to say them out, to put them to use, in a positive form.

Kind speech is then, once again, laid out one by one along the "nine-aspect common formula" (intrinsic nature / all-inclusive / difficult / all-doors / good person / all-kinds / request-fulfilling / ease of the two worlds / purity) shared with the Chapter on Giving and the Chapter on Discipline; and within it two places most deserve notice:

Difficult kind speech — it is not easy to open one's mouth to just anyone. The treatise cites three difficulties: toward "foes and evil companions who could kill them," still with a good and pure mind, unsullied and unclouded, to speak consoling, gladdening, and surpassingly beneficial speech; toward people "of the highest stupidity and dull faculties," with a mind free of misgiving, vowing to bear the fatigue, to expound to them over and over; toward those of evil conduct who "flatter, deceive, and cheat their preceptors, their instructors, and their venerable elders," to speak to them free of resentment and free of anger and vexation. These three kinds of people are precisely the three kinds one finds hardest to open one's mouth to, and easiest to give up on — and the Chapter on the Means of Gathering deliberately lists "speaking to them" as the "difficult" within kind speech, and the meaning is clear: to gather in is not to pick out the easy people to gather in.

Pure kind speech — here the treatise, unusually, does not unfold the matter, saying only "there are twenty kinds … which should be known as earlier in the Chapter on the Lineage of the Powers". Kuiji takes these twenty apart to look at them: "the earlier Chapter on the Lineage of the Powers has two: one set of fifteen aspects, and one of five aspects, combining to twenty". That is to say, when kind speech is carried to its purest reach, it is in fact no longer a self-standing set of speaking-technique, but has returned to that very set of "marks of the fullness of expounding" on which the "seeds of the ten powers" rest, back in the Chapter on the Lineage of the Powers — the summit of kind speech and the summit of the bodhisattva's own attainment are one and the same thing.

Beneficial Action: Speech Without Deed Does Not Count as Gathering

The treatise says it plainly: "beneficial action is, at large, as with kind speech; its marks should be known thereby" — beneficial action too is fitted to the same set of nine aspects; but it then adds at once a "differentiating sense": "by kind speech of every class, in accord with expounding this or that meaning to be headed toward, they carry out beneficial action, benefiting sentient beings — and so it is named beneficial action". Kind speech is "saying"; beneficial action is taking the principle that has been said and "doing" it — bringing it down into action so as to benefit the other.

Beneficial action is divided into the three doors of "benefit in the present Dharma [life]," "benefit in the later Dharma [life]," and "benefit in both the present and later Dharma [life]," and is also divided into five kinds each relying on "inner purity" and "outer purity," ten in all — and within these ten kinds of pure beneficial action there is one self-description full of meaning: the bodhisattva "though he presently abides in the most surpassing, foremost, and full wealth and station, humbles himself as a slave, as a servant, and also as a filial son, as a caṇḍāla's son — his mind bowed low, apart from arrogance, apart from conceit, and apart from clinging to a self". One who dwells in an honored station and can give another everything, yet who sets himself in a place as lowly as a slave, a servant, or even a caṇḍāla's son — this is just the measure of beneficial action: to exhort another toward the good while carrying a trace of looking-down-from-above is already to have lost half the exhortation before it starts.

Shared Endeavor: At the Last, Step Down and Do It Oneself

The first three means of gathering — giving, kind speech, beneficial action — can all still be "I give to you, I speak to you, I help you do it"; shared endeavor is not like this. The treatise defines it: "if in this meaning and this wholesome root he exhorts another to undertake and train, then in this very meaning and this very wholesome root he himself presently undertakes and trains, whether equally or more" — exhorting another to train, he himself too goes and trains, goes and cultivates, equally or more deeply; "his endeavor is the same as another's, and so it is named shared endeavor."

The treatise itself points out the most moving thing about shared endeavor: the one to be converted, seeing the "shared endeavor the bodhisattva cultivates," becomes toward his own wholesome root "firm and settled, without any turning back" — why? Because in his heart he understands: "What the bodhisattva exhorts me to undertake and train in must surely be able to bring me benefit and ease. Therefore, what the bodhisattva confers on me, he himself presently practices right within it". No one will fail to trust a teacher who "first does it for you to see"; and, conversely, the treatise writes down the other side without any softening: were it not for a shared endeavor like this, another would have the right to press the challenge — "You yourself cannot even undertake and train in the wholesome — how then can you, with the wholesome, earnestly exhort and guide, and again and again instruct and admonish another?"

But within "shared endeavor" itself, the ancient masters saw a finer measure still — must one, every time, "display that oneself too is training alongside"? Not necessarily. Dunlun sets down two masters' fourfold analysis of the phrases, and of these Tai's account is the clearest:

The first phrase is being in shared endeavor with another yet not displaying it oneself — there is a bodhisattva who is in fact equal to the several bodhisattvas in merit and majestic power, standing plainly as a teacher within the bodhisattva path, yet "because he conceals his own good, he does not display it himself"; his conduct is in fact the same, but he does not parade that he too is training alongside.

The second phrase is not being in shared endeavor with another yet displaying it oneself — for the sake of converting sentient beings of inferior capacity, the bodhisattva "takes birth among dogs and the like," yet does not truly run with the dogs and do the deeds of dogs; he only "appears to be born there" so as to carry out the conversion. This is what Jing sets forth: taking birth in the body of lowly sentient beings of the caṇḍāla or dog class, appearing in person to share their dharma [condition] — for the sake of benefiting, of removing calamity and harm, of taming, and of converting.

The third phrase is being in shared endeavor with another and also displaying it oneself — seeing that the one to be converted has a wholesome root "still shakable," he presently appears sharing the endeavor with him so as to make him abide firmly.

The fourth phrase Tai only says "can be understood," and glosses no further — this one phrase is precisely to be left for the reader himself to work out by holding it against the prior three.

Take the four phrases together, and shared endeavor is not a single fixed gesture, but a matter of deciding, in view of the capacity and need of the one to be converted, "whether or not to let oneself be seen training alongside" — sometimes to conceal one's own merit is compassion (not making the other feel abashed and so turn back), and sometimes to appear in person sharing the dharma is also compassion (not letting the other, alone and companionless, give up).

Drawing to a Close: Why the Wholesome Dharmas "Manifest," Why They Are "Supreme," Why They Are "Pure"

With the three means of gathering expounded, the treatise turns back and gathers up the whole batch of "wholesome dharmas beyond measure that aid the factors of awakening" — giving, discipline, and on to the means of gathering — and asks three levels of question:

Why do they manifest — "by the three conditions of body, speech, and mind": the bodily action does, the verbal action speaks, the mental action intends; only with all three actions complete can a wholesome dharma be set in motion.

Why are they supreme — by the two conditions of "vastness" and "freedom from defilement": vastness is "no distinction among sentient beings, no distinction among endeavors, no distinction among times" — cultivating not for some one person, some one kind of endeavor, some one stretch of time, but universally for all sentient beings, all times, and all places; freedom from defilement is cultivating with a glad mind, without harming or vexing others, not hankering, on account of what one cultivates, after a maturational fruit, not relying on worldly renown or gain — the four aspects taken together are precisely the cleaning-away, along with everything else, of the very thought "I am doing a good deed."

Why are they pure — by the three conditions of "blazing, unmoving, well purified": the bodhisattva who has entered the ground of pure aspiration finds his wholesome dharmas present in blazing abundance without any deliberate deliberating, and the wholesome dharmas he obtains all without any turning back, "like the moon in its bright phase, increasing only, never diminishing" — the moon, from new to full, waxes night by night and never turns back.

Last of all, the treatise fits each of the nine aspects (setting aside intrinsic nature, which is given no separate fruit) with a fruit: all giving, discipline, and shared endeavor bring the fruit of the adamantine, firm body and the true Dharma's long abiding; the difficult, the fruit of the Tathāgata's unequaled, rare, and wondrous Dharma; the all-doors, the fruit of being honored by all the most surpassing; the good-person, the fruit of being the most honored and surpassing; the all-kinds, the fruit of the body adorned with the thirty-two marks and the eighty minor excellences; the request-fulfilling, the fruit of being such that no Māra-foe can shake him; the ease of this world and the next, the fruit of the most surpassing ease of the meditative absorptions, the liberations, the concentrations, and the meditative attainments; the pure, the fruit of the four kinds of every-kind purity, together with the utterly pure fruit of the three things-that-need-no-guarding, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the three foundations of mindfulness, and all the exclusive buddha-dharmas. Nine aspects, nine fruits, each answering to each — what the mark of the mind is in the cultivating is just what the mark of the fruit's virtue is in the accomplishing.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Relief

The Chapter on Giving speaks of "giving"; the Chapter on the Means of Gathering speaks of "gathering" — keeping people close to oneself, keeping them within the true Dharma. But the order the treatise arranges is quite clear: first kind speech (so speaking as to make them willing to listen), then beneficial action (doing it out, so that they gain real benefit), and last shared endeavor (stepping down oneself and cultivating alongside them, so that the other feels neither alone nor taught from on high). The three steps run deeper one than the next: speaking is easy, doing is harder, and to be willing to cultivate and train alongside another, content to dwell low — as a slave, as a servant, as a filial son, as a caṇḍāla's son — is the last step of all in gathering the hearts of others. What the bodhisattva relies on to gather sentient beings in is never the distance of a disparity in majestic virtue, but this whole close-at-hand accompaniment of "said, done, and done oneself too."

Carrying Forward

The means of gathering in this chapter inherit from before and open onto what follows: the one item, giving, inherits from the Chapter on Giving (15-01-09) — "thus have the many kinds of giving and discipline been set forth" — and is not repeated; the twenty aspects of pure kind speech point back to the Chapter on the Lineage of the Powers (15-01-08) — "which should be known as earlier in the Chapter on the Lineage of the Powers" — which Kuiji glosses as fifteen aspects plus five aspects combining to twenty. The closing passage's formula — three conditions for manifest practice / two conditions for supremacy / three conditions for purity, and the fruit-attainment of the latter eight doors — runs in common with the format of the Chapter on Giving and the Chapter on Discipline, and is the drawing-to-a-close shared through giving, discipline, and the means of gathering as three. Verification of the Section on Ascertainment's range of ascertaining the Bodhisattva Stage shows that it sets up no separate ascertainment of the Chapter on the Means of Gathering — the meaning of the four means of gathering is self-sufficient in the Basic Section. There follows the Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurable, the sixteenth.

Why, When the Six Perfections and the Four Means-of-Gathering Have Been Expounded, Another Chapter on Offering Is Still Needed

The earlier chapters, nine through fifteen — the six perfections plus the four means-of-gathering — seem already to have completed the bodhisattva's practice-gates of benefiting self and benefiting others; why should this chapter be set up in addition? Kuiji points to the gap first: "Up to here, the self-portion, though it benefits self and others, has not yet clarified the offering to the three jewels; this is discriminated next. Namely, the practice of building-and-cultivating: making offerings to the three jewels, attending upon good friends, cultivating the immeasurables". Dunlun, for his part, gathers the last two chapters of the First Section together and places them: "Up to here, the seven chapters clarifying the self-portion practice of benefiting self and others are finished; from here the two chapters clarify their surpassing advance. Of these, the first, the chapter on offering, clarifies overall the practice of building-and-cultivating that benefits self and others according to conditions; the later chapter on the factors of awakening clarifies the practice of inner realization" — the earlier chapters expound the "items" of the practice-gates; these two expound their "daily discipline": this chapter is the practice of building-and-cultivating that can be done day by day as conditions allow, and only the next chapter turns to inner realization.

The treatise, at its opening, unfolds three chapters in a single verse: "making offerings to the three jewels, attending upon good friends, cultivating the immeasurables comes last" — making offerings to the three jewels, attending upon good friends, cultivating the four immeasurables. Three matters, each one turning further inward than the last.

Offering: What It Is That Is Offered

Among the ten kinds of offering, the very first already carries a fine point. "Offering to the relics" — is this not just offering to the Buddha's physical-body relics? Kuiji, contrariwise, says: "The old rendering 'offering to the body' is wrong. Kāya is the body; śarīra is the substance — that is, it is the Buddha's substance, the dharma-body" — kāya alone is "body"; śarīra is "substance"; and although the treatise's text below does say "personally making offering in the presence to the Tathāgata's physical body," the intent is "to offer to the true Buddha's dharma-body, and so it says 'substance'". The first kind of offering — its named object is the physical body, but what it points to is already the dharma-body.

This eye opens fully in "offering not in the presence." The treatise teaches one, when setting up offering, to reflect thus: "the dharma-nature of one Tathāgata is precisely the dharma-nature of all Tathāgatas of the past, future, and present; the dharma-nature of one Tathāgata's caitya is precisely the dharma-nature of the caityas of all the Tathāgatas in all the boundless, limitless worlds of the ten directions" — therefore, in offering to this one Buddha before my eyes, I am offering to all the Buddhas of the three times; in offering to this one stūpa before my eyes, I am offering to all the stūpas of the ten directions. Dunlun states the ground in a single stroke: "the principle of suchness is the same, the dharma-body one in substance". That offering can extend from one Buddha to all Buddhas rests not on imagination but on the dharma-nature's being, from the first, without-a-second.

And the order of the fruits of merit the treatise gives is also worth pondering: offering only in the presence, a broad and vast fruit of merit; offering only not in the presence, a great, great fruit of merit; offering both in and not in the presence, the greatest fruit of merit. To look only at the Buddha-image before one's eyes is one layer; to see the "not in the presence," all the Buddhas, is a deeper layer — because that deeper layer rests precisely on the reflection upon the evenness of the dharma-nature, not on the eyes.

How Does One Who Has No Wealth Arouse a "Boundless, Vast Offering"?

Hidden within the ten kinds of offering is a passage of teaching of the utmost commonness. If a bodhisattva himself has no savings, cannot beg them from others, and has no spiritual power to conjure wealth — what is to be done? The treatise says: toward all the low, middling, and high offerings being made throughout the boundless worlds of the ten directions, "with a mind arisen together with pure faith and arisen together with resolution, he reflects all-pervadingly and rejoices in them all together. Such a bodhisattva, using very little effort of merit, arouses a boundless, vast offering, and takes hold of the vast provisions for awakening" — spending not a single coin, he rejoices in all the offerings of the ten directions, and this is a boundless, vast offering. The threshold of offering has never lain in wealth.

Conversely, one who has great wealth and great spiritual power — "the bodhisattva who has gained mastery over provisions," conjuring a hundred thousand koṭis of bodies, a hundred thousand hands, conjuring immeasurable sublime sounds and sublime jewels to offer everywhere to the Tathāgata — the treatise adds a note on the inner truth of it: "Such a bodhisattva no longer longs for a Tathāgata to appear in the world. Why? Because this bodhisattva has already realized and entered the stage of non-retrogression, and in coming and going throughout all buddha-lands to make offering he meets no obstruction at all". Woncheuk gives two readings: from the eighth stage up he abides constantly in the pure lands and ever sees the saṃbhogakāya of the several Buddhas; or, from the first stage up, he has realized and seen suchness — the scale of offering grows of itself according to the level of one's realization; there is no need to vie in comparison.

Offering by Right Conduct: The Most Precious Offering Costs Not a Single Coin

The peak of the ten kinds of offering is the tenth, "offering by right conduct." Not one item of its content is material goods: moment by moment, instant by instant, brief even as "the milking of a cow once" — the time it takes to milk a cow once — one universally cultivates toward all creeping, moving sentient beings the mind arisen together with loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity; toward all conditioned things one cultivates the notion of impermanence, the notion of the suffering of impermanence, the notion of the not-self of suffering; toward nirvāṇa one cultivates the notion of its excellent benefit; toward the Buddha, Dharma, Saṅgha, and the perfections one cultivates recollection; on up to "giving rise toward all dharmas to a small portion of humble acceptance-and-knowledge, believing-and-understanding the suchness of the dharma-nature apart from words, and giving rise to a mental abiding non-conceptual and without marks"; and one guards the śīla-restraints and diligently cultivates and trains in tranquillity, insight, and the factors of awakening.

The treatise places it without the least ambiguity: "This offering is the very first, the highest, the most excellent, the most sublime, the unsurpassed," surpassing the earlier offering of goods and reverence complete in all its kinds by "a hundredfold, a thousandfold, on up to an upaniṣad of times" — an upaniṣad of times, a multiple that reckoning and simile cannot reach. Incense, flowers, banners, and streamers offered to the utmost do not equal the time it takes to milk a cow once, cultivated according to principle.

Woncheuk reads a flight of steps out of this passage: "first, it clarifies the path of provisions; second, from 'moment by moment' onward, it clarifies the path of means; third, from 'the dharma-nature apart from words' onward, it clarifies the path of seeing; fourth, from 'how much more' onward, it clarifies the path of cultivation." — Out of the passage on offering by right conduct the ancient masters read the whole sequence of the path: provisions, means (intensified practice), seeing, and cultivation; and the line "believing-and-understanding the suchness of the dharma-nature apart from words, giving rise to a non-conceptual, markless mental abiding" corresponds precisely to the path of seeing. The two words "apart from words" are the very vein of the Chapter on the True Meaning's "intrinsic nature apart from words" (15-01-04) — the chapter on offering, reaching its peak, links back to the deepest chapter of the Basic Section.

Once offering is expounded, the treatise teaches the arousing of six kinds of superior resolve in recollecting the Tathāgata: the unsurpassed great field of merit; possessed of unsurpassed great gracious virtue; the honored one among all sentient beings; "like the sublime uḍumbara flower, exceedingly hard to meet with"; appearing solitary and alone in the three-thousand-great-thousandfold world; complete in all qualities, the support of all meanings. The sublime uḍumbara flower is the uḍumbara; Kuiji says: "In the western land there is a tree that never puts forth a flower, but only between the forks of its branches; only when a wheel-turning king appears in the world does it then begin to bloom" — the tree is ever there, the flower exceedingly rarely seen; the Buddha-dharma is ever taught, the Buddha's appearing in the world exceedingly rarely met. Making offering while bearing these six recollections, "even doing but a small portion of reflection and thereby arousing offering, he still obtains an immeasurable, great fruit of merit — how much more so when it is much".

The Good Friend: The Eight Limbs for Choosing a Person, the Measure for Listening to the Dharma

The second chapter first asks: who is fit to be a good friend? The eight limbs: abiding in the precepts, being learned, being possessed of realization (truly gaining tranquillity and insight, not empty talk), being pitying, being fearless, being forbearing, being untiring, being good in diction. It then asks how a good friend benefits others (the five aspects of what he does not being in vain, the five aspects of being a support to be relied upon, the five kinds of good-friend deed) and how a learner attends upon him (the four aspects) — among which, of the five kinds of good-friend deed, "admonishing-and-citing, causing to recollect, instructing, admonishing-and-warning, expounding the Dharma," the treatise notes of itself, "their full elaboration should be known as in the Śrāvaka Stage," and "instructing and admonishing-warning are expounded at length as in the earlier Chapter on the Lineage of Power", two explicit back-references, so as not to repeat. Of the fourth of the four aspects of attending, "in a matter that accords with the Dharma, whether joining or parting, he turns as is fitting," Kuiji gives three glosses (the master's teaching, being the same as the old, is called "joining"; being different from the old, "parting"; on up to citing the "joining" and "parting" of Buddhist logic as its training), and reads "he turns as is fitting" as "he follows the master's freedom yet does not sway" — three glosses set side by side, recorded in the apparatus.

Most powerful for teaching is the side of listening to the Dharma. When wishing to listen to the Dharma, one forms five notions: the notion of a jewel (hard to obtain), the notion of an eye (a cause of producing sublime wisdom), the notion of light (the wisdom-eye once gained, illuminating with even discernment as things really are), the notion of a great fruit and surpassing merit, the notion of a blameless great delight. And then the treatise turns its point around and expounds the "five bases on which he forms no divergent intent": one does not, on account of the Dharma-master's breaking the precepts, being of humble birth, being ugly of countenance, being clumsy of diction, or being coarse and harsh of speech, refuse to listen to the Dharma from him — and under the fourth basis, "breach of diction," the treatise itself states the ground of a phrase famed for all time: "he relies on the meaning; he should not rely on the words". The closing line is weightier still: "he should reverently take hold of the true Dharma, and toward the master who expounds the Dharma he never sees a fault"; and conversely, "if there is a bodhisattva whose wisdom is faint and weak, who gives rise in his mind to disdain and contempt toward the master who expounds the Dharma and does not wish to listen to the true Dharma from him, one should know that this conduct does not seek self-benefit, and it loses the surpassing wisdom" — the one who disdains his teacher loses his own wisdom-life.

The Four Immeasurables: The Three Depths of Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity

The third chapter asks: how does a bodhisattva cultivate loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity? The treatise gives three depths: with sentient beings as object — cultivating really and truly with sentient beings as object (giving pleasure and cultivating loving-kindness toward those without suffering-or-pleasure, drawing out suffering and cultivating compassion toward those with suffering, rejoicing-along and cultivating sympathetic joy toward those with pleasure, being apart from delusion, anger, and greed and cultivating equanimity toward the three classes of being); with dharmas as object — "abiding in the superior resolve of the notion 'dharmas only,' rightly contemplating that there are only dharmas, with 'sentient being' fictively designated," so that what is seen is no longer "individual persons" but sentient beings fictively established upon the several dharmas — Woncheuk: "he merely fictively establishes 'sentient being' upon the aggregates, without a true self, and so it is named the unerring sentient being"; without object — "further being apart from discrimination toward the several dharmas," not grasping even the marks of dharmas.

The three depths the treatise judges cleanly: the object of sentient beings is shared with the followers of other paths (they too can cultivate loving-kindness); the object of dharmas is shared with the two vehicles and not shared with the followers of other paths (Dunlun: "because the followers of other paths all have self-grasping, they have no object-of-dharmas [immeasurable]; the without-object is possessed by the Great Vehicle alone"); the without-object is not shared with any śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, or follower of other paths — possessed by the Great Vehicle alone.

What is it that operates in the immeasurable without object? The ancient masters say it plainly. Kuiji: "the former two take the subsequently-attained knowledge as their substance, the immeasurable without object takes the right knowledge as its substance … the 'immeasurable without object' takes non-conceptual knowledge as its taking-suchness-as-object"; Dunlun's record of Kuiji: "the immeasurable with dharmas as object is the knowledge of the person's emptiness, the immeasurable without object is its realizing knowledge; when the two knowledges arise, there is really no difference of the four modes of pity, grief, and the like — but by this knowledge one is able to arouse the discerning-and-understanding of the particular modes of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity within the object of sentient beings, and it takes its name from the fruit" — when the realizing knowledge is present there is no mental mark such as "pity" or "grief," yet the deeds of deliverance that come out of this knowledge are what is called the loving-kindness-and-compassion without object. Master Jing cites the Nirvāṇa: "the without-object takes as object the Tathāgata's objectless dharma-body; because the Tathāgata is apart from discrimination, it is named the objectless". Cultivated to its deepest, loving-kindness-and-compassion has non-conceptual knowledge for its substance — and this is precisely the eye of this chapter's doctrine.

The Hundred-and-Ten Sufferings: An Anatomical Chart of Compassion

To cultivate compassion one must have an object. The treatise therefore lays open a whole chart of suffering: the hundred and ten sufferings. First, the "ascending-enumeration gate" — one suffering, two sufferings, three sufferings … up to ten, counting all the way up, fifty-five in all; then the "nine-suffering gate" — all-suffering, vast suffering, all-gates suffering, wrong-conduct suffering, flowing-round suffering, not-according-with-one's-wishes suffering, violation-and-harm suffering, following-and-pursuing suffering, all-kinds suffering, each unfolded again, another fifty-five. "The former fifty-five, the present fifty-five, make a hundred and ten kinds of suffering in all; these are the object-realm that a bodhisattva's compassion takes as its object".

Dunlun reads a direction out of these two rounds of fifty-five: "the former fifty-five contemplate the suffering of sentient beings, the later fifty-five contemplate one's own suffering" — compassion is not watching a fire from across the river; first one sees the suffering of sentient beings, then turns back and sees one's own suffering; only when both sides are seen level does compassion arise and grow great.

Upon this, the treatise takes nineteen sufferings from the great heap of suffering to arouse "great compassion". Why these nineteen? Kuiji: "because they are taken, the greatest and heaviest, as the object of great compassion; it is said with regard to the ascendancy of the suffering" — the heaviest are picked out. When is compassion at last fit to be called "great compassion"? By four conditions: its object is exceedingly deep (taking as object suffering exceedingly deep, subtle, and hard to understand); long time (formed by accumulated practice over immeasurable hundreds of thousands of great eons); fierce and keen (for the sake of stilling the suffering of sentient beings, one can relinquish even a hundred thousand bodies and lives); utterly pure (the ultimate bodhisattva purity, the Tathāgata purity). Kuiji judges the level: "if compassion is among the four immeasurables, it is named compassion, not great compassion, and is still shared with the śrāvakas; from the first stage on, bodhisattvas too have it … [great compassion] is only in the buddha-ground and the tenth stage. … Before the ninth stage, though the bodhisattva has the two conditions of taking as object exceedingly deep conditioned-suffering and of fierce-and-keen attention, he lacks the conditions of long-time practice and of utter purity" — great compassion is the affair of the tenth stage and the buddha-ground; before the ninth stage, of the four conditions only two are present, and one is still on the way.

Bodhisattva-Awakening Is Established by Compassion

The efficacy of cultivating compassion the treatise writes so that it lands with a ring: because the bodhisattva perfumes and cultivates his mind with the compassion he has cultivated, "of inner and outer things, there is no small portion that he cannot relinquish; there is no discipline-restraint that he cannot train in; there is no harm from others that he cannot bear; there is no vigor that he cannot arouse; there is no meditative absorption that he cannot realize; there is no sublime wisdom that he cannot enter" — giving, discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, wisdom: of the six perfections there is not one that is not driven along by the mind of compassion. Therefore, if the Tathāgata is asked "By whom is bodhisattva-awakening established?", "he always rightly answers, saying: bodhisattva-awakening is established by compassion". Dunlun records the variant reading of the old treatise here: "it is wholly different from the old treatise, which says: if someone asks, what is named a bodhisattva? one should rightly answer, saying: it is the one who abides in great compassion" — the new and old translations, one asking about awakening, one about the bodhisattva, both point their answer to a single word: compassion.

There is a further stroke worth recording: the noble śrāvakas have already realized the present-observation of the truth of suffering and reached the ultimate, and deeply give rise to aversion toward suffering, "yet are not the equal of the bodhisattva, who, with a mind that goes before in compassion toward the several sentient beings, rightly observes them as having fallen into the great heap of a hundred and ten kinds of suffering" — the śrāvaka looks at suffering in order to depart from it, the bodhisattva looks at suffering for the sake of sentient beings; one and the same truth of suffering, two ways of looking.

At the last, the four kinds of meritorious excellence are concluded: gaining the most excellent present-dharma pleasant abiding; taking hold of and increasing immeasurable provisions of merit; being firm in resolve toward unsurpassed perfect awakening; and, for the sake of benefiting sentient beings, being able to bear within birth-and-death all the great sufferings. Kuiji counts them cleanly: "gaining present-dharma pleasant abiding, one; gaining the provisions of merit, two; being firm in resolve toward awakening, three; bearing suffering for the sake of beings, four".

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The three chapters narrow all the way down and deepen all the way through: offering sets out from incense, flowers, and material goods, and its peak is the offering by right conduct that "costs not a single coin" — the time it takes to milk a cow once, believing-and-understanding the dharma-nature apart from words; attending upon good friends sets out from the eight limbs of choosing a teacher, and lands on the listening-mind of "relying on the meaning, not on the words" and "never seeing a fault in the master who expounds the Dharma"; cultivating the immeasurables sets out from taking sentient beings as object, and in its depths is the objectless loving-kindness-and-compassion whose substance is non-conceptual knowledge, and thereafter it grows great compassion out of the hundred-and-ten sufferings and establishes awakening upon great compassion. A single stick of incense is offering; a single thought of compassion is also offering — the treatise ranges the two ends within one and the same chapter, and writes the judgment of high and low without the least ambiguity: conduct surpasses goods, mind runs deeper than things; and the whole root of all the practice-gates is compassion.

Carrying Forward

This chapter both inherits from before and opens onto what follows: the offering by right conduct's "believing-and-understanding the suchness of the dharma-nature apart from words" inherits the vein of "intrinsic nature apart from words" of the Chapter on the True Meaning (15-01-04), and Woncheuk matches it to the path of seeing; the five kinds of good-friend deed explicitly refer back to the Śrāvaka Stage ("their full elaboration should be known as in the Śrāvaka Stage", the good friend's five capacities, 13-01-06) and to the Chapter on the Lineage of Power ("instructing and admonishing-warning are expounded at length as in the earlier Chapter on the Lineage of Power", 15-01-08); in the sequence of chapters it inherits from the Chapter on the Means of Gathering and opens onto the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening — Dunlun judging this chapter to be "the practice of building-and-cultivating according to conditions" and the next chapter "the practice of inner realization". The Section on Ascertainment does not ascertain this chapter; Dunlun states the reason plainly: "it ascertains only sixteen chapters, and does not ascertain the four means-of-gathering chapter [and] the chapter on offerings, attending good friends, and the immeasurables, because their text and meaning are self-evident and so it does not further ascertain them" — text and meaning being self-evident, there is no re-ascertaining.

Why, After the Chapter on Offering, the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening Must Be Set Up

Offering, attending the good friend, and cultivating the four immeasurables are all daily tasks that may be done as occasion allows; but as one does these daily tasks day after day, where is the road that leads inward to realization? Dunlun states the division of labor between the last two chapters of the First Station with perfect clarity: "In the preceding surpassing-progress practice, the earlier Chapter on Offering set forth the practice cultivated as occasion allows; what is now set forth, the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening, is the practice of inner realization". Kuiji, for his part, accounts for the chapter's name and its coming-in: "The factors of awakening by nature are only the thirty-seven; because they alone are able to realize awakening, they are named the factors of awakening. The fifteen gates here are all [such] … the earlier Chapter on Offering gathered in the expedients of cultivation, and the practice that, cultivated to accomplishment, makes the present path a matter of distinctions is named the factors of awakening, and so it is expounded next" — the thirty-seven factors of awakening are the narrow sense; this chapter gathers into fifteen gates every practice-gate that can realize awakening, and names them all factors of awakening.

The uddāna lists fifteen gates: conscience and shame; the firm-strength-holding nature; the mind without weariness; the good knowledge of treatises; the good knowledge of the world; cultivating and correcting the four reliances; the four analytical knowledges; the provisions for awakening; the factors of awakening; tranquillity and insight; skillful means; the dhāraṇīs; right aspiration; the three samādhis; the four Dharma-uddānas. This first section treats the first nine gates; from the tenth gate on, see the second section.

Conscience and Shame: The First Foundation-Stone of the Practice of Inner Realization

The first of the fifteen gates is not meditative concentration, not wisdom, but conscience and shame. The treatise fixes their essence: when a fault is being enacted, being able to be rightly aware that "I am contrary to the Dharma" and giving rise within to a sense of disgrace is conscience; within that very [awareness], keeping a reverent awe of others and giving rise outwardly to a sense of disgrace is shame — to be unable to face oneself is conscience; to be unable to lift one's head before another is shame. And the bodhisattva's sense of disgrace is "by its very nature already sharp — how much more so when cultivation is added."

Among the four bases, the subtlest is the fourth: "regarding the regret they have given rise to over their own [wrongdoing], having something to lean on and, following after it, not letting go, and by this feeling disgrace". What is meant by "regret has something to lean on"? The four ancient masters each have their reading (Dunlun records them together): Jing says, "the enacting-of-evil is regret; having regretted, one does it again, and so it is called 'having something to lean on and following after'" — one regrets and offends again, the later offense leaning on the earlier; Kuiji says the same, "the later doing leans on the earlier doing, and so it is called having something to lean on"; Tai reads it as "the basis on which regret leans"; Woncheuk opens a separate path, "the enacting-of-evil is regret, and 'having something to lean on' is doubt," and adduces the old treatise in proof. The four readings are set out side by side, recorded in the apparatus — but whichever reading it be, the direction is one and the same: even the very matter of "regretting yet not becoming pure" is itself to be an occasion of disgrace. Conscience and shame are not a one-time emotion; they are a sustained watching over one's own continuum.

The Firm-Strength-Holding Nature · The Mind Without Weariness: The Endurance-Range of the Practice of Inner Realization

The firm-strength-holding nature is that "valor of nature" able to restrain the defiled mind, not to be turned by the afflictions, to endure the many sufferings, and to stay unmoved though sharp, dreadful terrors are present before it. Its five bases open out the five sites where the bodhisattva is most under pressure: the great suffering of birth-and-death and the errant conduct of beings; vowing to take on the long-eon flow; the disputes of heterodox theory and teaching before a great assembly; the bodhisattva's training-points; and the vast, most profound, hard-to-conceive Dharma. Woncheuk brings out its essence: "as for 'the nature of valor,' it is vigor; as for 'conjoined,' it is concentration; and 'able to discern' is wisdom," adducing the Sūtrālaṃkāra, "the arising of the three, vigor, concentration, and wisdom" — valor is not hot blood; it is a skeleton composed of the three phenomena of vigor, concentration, and wisdom together.

The mind without weariness has five causes-and-conditions: strength of its own by nature; again-and-again habituation in the mind without weariness; contemplating in sequence the successively surpassing [attainments] before and after; the discernment of subtle wisdom; and the sharp compassion constantly present. Jing takes "the three phenomena of insatiable vigor, wisdom, and compassion as its essence" — not-wearying is fed in turn by three things: the vigor that grows stronger the more one cultivates, the wisdom that sees its own progress, and the compassion that cannot put down the beings.

The Good Knowledge of Treatises · The Good Knowledge of the World: The Practice of Inner Realization Is Not Apart from Knowing the World

The good knowledge of treatises is knowing the Dharma and knowing the meaning within the five sciences, and constantly not abandoning effort — even when hearing and reflection have reached their culmination, one must still "know the successively new-and-newer, later-and-later surpassing distinctions of Dharma-and-meaning": there is no end to learning.

The good knowledge of the world is a whole panorama of diagnosis of the world. First the overall judgment: "such a world is exceedingly perilous, exceedingly deluded" — there is birth, old age, and death, yet no knowing of the escape. Then the five turbidities: the turbidity of lifespan (human lifespan not exceeding a hundred years); the turbidity of beings (not recognizing parents or ascetics, not dreading faults, not cultivating giving, merit, fasting, or precepts); the turbidity of afflictions (unrighteous greed, swords and weapons, flattery-deceit and wrong teaching); the turbidity of views (setting up many counterfeits resembling the right Dharma, falsely pursuing wrong teaching and wrong meaning); and the turbidity of the eon (the three calamities of famine, pestilence, and the sword). Kuiji records the essence of the five turbidities, and his very first item falls upon the Consciousness-Only house-teaching: "the Great Vehicle, by the store consciousness's continuous holding that does not die, provisionally sets up the life-faculty, and takes this very life-faculty as the essence of the turbidity of lifespan"; the turbidity of views "takes the deluded views of the inner path [i.e., within Buddhism] as its essence" — the wrong views of the inner path make a turbidity worse than those of the outer paths. Dunlun, besides recording the same sense, also leaves a mnemonic of the counter-practice: "if in this present life one keeps the precept against killing for a single day and night, one will in the end not be born amid that eon of the sword; if with a single meal one gives to the field of merit that is the Saṅgha, one will in the end not be born amid that eon of famine; if with a single myrobalan fruit one gives to the sick, one will in the end not be born amid that eon of pestilence", with the warning, "it should be known that the present time has already entered within the three calamities".

The passage on the eight aspects of contemplating the world (the world · its arising · its cessation · the practice leading to its arising · the practice leading to its cessation · gratification · danger · escape) is glossed by four ancient masters together, and finally adjudicated by Xuanzang in person: Dunlun records that "the Tripiṭaka-master collated the Sanskrit commentary and glossed it, in meaning agreeing with Master Jing" — Jing reads "the practice leading to arising" as the contemplation of feeling ("from feeling, craving is born; craving is the essence of arising, and feeling is what leads on to it … because arising is the root of birth-and-death, it is therefore contemplated three times over"). The ancients dispute in glossing the scripture, and it is decided by collating the Sanskrit text — this is one instance of that.

And the eye of this gate lies in the passage "there are only provisional names": the eye through to the mind, and the derived matter of the four great elements, joined together to compose the body of a person, "there are only these, provisionally named a personhood"; the "I" and "a being" within it, "this is only conception"; "I see form with my eye … I know phenomena with my mind," "this too is only self-referring utterance"; the elder's name, clan, and lifespan, "this too is only conventional speech." Kuiji gathers it in cleanly: "knowing that there are only its names, one does not give rise to grasping". The summit of the good knowledge of the world is to see through the name-and-word nature of the world.

The long passage on conducting oneself in the world that follows (receiving and greeting the honored; cheering the equal; urging the inferior to virtue; the fourteen defiling deeds, the guarding of the six directions, keeping far from the four evil friends and gathering in the four good friends — "fully as set forth in the Śikhālaka Sūtra") draws the reverence of the six directions from the Śṛgālavāda [Siṅgālaka] of the Dīrgha-āgama into the bodhisattva's conduct; Kuiji glosses "Śikhālaka, here translated 'the topknot-holder'". Dunlun moreover leaves a piece of textual criticism: the old Bodhisattvabhūmi [Dìchí] muddled together "the fourteen defiling deeds" with "the six directions, the four evil friends, and the four good friends" into a single list, "the Bodhisattvabhūmi must be in error" — the ancients collate their books and speak without concealment.

Cultivating and Correcting the Four Reliances: Setting Up "What to Rely On" as the Skeleton

The sixth gate is the one with the strongest character of an overall framework in the whole chapter. The treatise sets up the four reliances in four passages:

Rely on the meaning, not on the words — listening to the Dharma for the sake of seeking the meaning, not for ornamented diction; "even if he meets a teaching in ordinary vocal sounds, he yet relies on the meaning and reverently listens to and receives it". This is of one vein with the Chapter on Offering's "toward corrupt wording, not forming a divergent intent."

Rely on principle (the Dharma), not on the person — knowing as it truly is the dark speaking and the great speaking, "taking principle as one's reliance, and not giving faith-acceptance to a Dharma merely because it is spoken by an elder, a person widely known and acknowledged, or the Buddha, or the Saṅgha". Even "spoken by the Buddha, spoken by the Saṅgha" cannot serve as a reason for faith-acceptance — the reason can only be principle itself. Thus, "his mind does not waver regarding the true meaning, and within the right Dharma he is not carried off by other conditions."

Rely on the scriptures of definitive meaning, not on the non-definitive — the non-definitive scriptures "expound the meaning of the underlying nature through various gateways, are not yet decided, and still give rise to doubt". Under "the meaning of the underlying nature" Kuiji sets down the Consciousness-Only fingerprint: "it is the very nature-essence of phenomena. To say that consciousness is of eight kinds is the underlying nature of consciousness. The non-definitive teaching of the Lesser Vehicle does not state it, and so it is unable to fathom even the underlying nature" — the eight consciousnesses are the underlying nature stated by the definitive-meaning [scriptures], which the non-definitive scriptures do not state.

Rely on knowledge, not on cognition — "taking the knowledge-and-vision of true realization as the real, and not [taking] hearing and reflection, which only cognize Dharma-and-meaning and are not the knowledge of true realization". Kuiji asks and answers himself: hearing and reflection are also knowledge — why not rely on them? "Though it is knowledge, it is scattered knowledge, not yet complete, and cannot be relied upon" — only the true realizing knowledge attained through cultivation serves as the standard; and for this reason, on hearing the Tathāgata's utterly most profound Dharma-and-meaning, one "to the very end does not slander it" — knowing where hearing and reflection cannot reach, one does not take hearing and reflection to deny it.

After the four reliances, four measures are briefly shown (the meaning spoken, right principle, the great teacher, and the true realizing knowledge of the wisdom attained through cultivation). What is interesting is that the ancients' matchings differ: Kuiji matches "the great teacher" with "rely on the Dharma, not on the person" ("the great teacher means the Buddha; what he speaks, too, cannot be given faith[-acceptance merely] as resting in the Dharma"), while Master Jing matches "the great teacher" with "rely on the scriptures of definitive meaning" ("the great teacher means relying on the scriptures of definitive meaning spoken by the great teacher") — the two matchings are recorded together, not judged.

The Four Analytical Knowledges · The Provisions for Awakening: The Equipment for Expounding the Dharma to Others

The four analytical knowledges: regarding all the alternative gateways (Dharma), all the alternative characters (meaning), all the explanatory terms (terms), and all the class-distinctions (eloquence) of all phenomena, all are threaded through by "the exhaustive-extent nature and the such-as-it-is nature, by the unimpeded, non-regressing knowledge attained through cultivation." Jing says "the four all employ measuring knowledge as their essence," and reads "the exhaustive-extent nature / the such-as-it-is nature" as "the teaching that expresses the conventional truth / the teaching that expresses the ultimate truth"; Kuiji adduces the Abhidharma-samuccaya-vyākhyā, fascicle fourteen, to bring out the essence of each one by one. Gaining these four knowledges, one attains skill in the five subjects (aggregates · elements · sense-bases · dependent origination · the possible-and-impossible), "regarding all phenomena being oneself able subtly and well to manifest right full awakening, and also good at revealing it to others without error" — beyond this there is nothing further to add.

The provisions for awakening, the two provisions of merit and wisdom, are by express words referred back to the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others; the three incalculable great eons are matched with the low, middle, and high — the grade of the provisions is reckoned by the number of eons, not by claiming a [particular] state for oneself.

The Thirty-Seven Factors of Awakening: One and the Same Set of Path-Limbs, Two Ways of Seeing

The ninth gate is the conclusion of this first section, and also where the doctrinal eye lies. The bodhisattva, regarding the thirty-seven factors of awakening, "knows them as they truly are, and yet does not take realization of them" — he fully understands the path-limbs of the śrāvaka-vehicle's principled purport ("as in the Śrāvaka Stage"), yet does not take realization. Woncheuk names the reason in a single phrase: "the bodhisattvas know as it truly is the ineffable intrinsic nature, free of being and non-being and not one-sidedly grasping, and so it is said they yet do not take realization".

Then how does the bodhisattva himself cultivate the path-limbs? The great-vehicle principled purport's contemplation following-the-body: "being able to abide upon the body in the contemplation following-the-body, not discriminating upon the body 'there is a being-nature,' nor discriminating 'all kinds whatsoever are utterly without being-nature.' And again, upon the body, knowing as it truly is the Dharma-nature free of the intrinsic nature of verbal expression — it should be known this is called relying on the ultimate-meaning principled purport" — not grasping the body as truly existent, nor dismissing the body as wholly non-existent, but knowing upon the body, as it truly is, the ineffable Dharma-nature. Kuiji matches these three phrases with the three natures: "namely, not discriminating a being-nature is the wholly-imagined; not discriminating that all kinds whatsoever are utterly without being-nature is the other-dependent; being free of the intrinsic nature of verbal expression, the Dharma-nature, is the perfectly-accomplished nature," and points out that "suchness is the ineffable intrinsic-nature Dharma-nature"; and the subtle wisdom that turns in accord with the established principled purport "is the subsequently-attained knowledge. This is precisely how the bodhisattva's contemplation of the factors of awakening differs from that of the two vehicles". Jing, for his part, reads it by way of freedom from the two graspings of over-affirmation and under-denial — the words differ but the track is one: upon the one and the same four foundations of mindfulness, the śrāvaka contemplates the impure, the suffering, and the empty; the bodhisattva contemplates the ineffability of the three natures.

When the Section on Ascertainment re-decides this passage, it speaks yet more penetratingly: "How does the bodhisattva abide upon the body in the contemplation following-the-body? It means, upon the character-body, contemplating round about the suchness-body" — the contemplation following-the-body contemplates the suchness-body behind the character-body.

The One Meaning This Section Illumines

Laid out in order, the first nine gates are a single road from being a person to seeing the path: first there is conscience and shame (taking responsibility for one's own continuum), then firm strength and no-weariness (able to bear up, able to walk far), then knowing treatises and knowing the world (not a practitioner detached from the fires of the human world — and the summit of knowing the world is precisely to see through that the world is only provisional names), then setting up the four reliances (wresting "what to rely on" back from the hands of persons, words, and authority, and handing it to meaning, principle, definitive meaning, and realizing knowledge), then the equipment of the four analytical knowledges and the two provisions, and finally, upon the thirty-seven path-limbs that everyone cultivates in common, turning up the bodhisattva's uncommon way of seeing: not discriminating being, not discriminating non-being, free of the intrinsic nature of verbal expression — body and mind are nothing but the ineffable. From a single instant of disgrace, to seeing through to the ineffable — this road the chapter calls "the practice of inner realization."

Carrying Forward

This section carries forward what precedes and opens what follows: in the sequence of chapters it carries on from the Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables (Dunlun's judgment of "the practice cultivated as occasion allows / the practice of inner realization"); gate 8 by express words refers back to the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others (15-01-03); gate 9's śrāvaka-vehicle principled purport by express words refers back to the Śrāvaka Stage (Stage 13); the contemplation following-the-body's "being free of the intrinsic nature of verbal expression" carries on the ineffable intrinsic nature of the Chapter on Reality (15-01-04), and directly opens the second section's gate 10, tranquillity and insight, "the ineffable, only the bare thing" — a single line reaching to gate 14, the samādhi of emptiness, and gate 15, the no-self of dharmas. The Section on Ascertainment's treatment of this chapter's core passage is detailed in the second section's apparatus. What follows is the second section (gates 10–15).

Tranquillity and Insight: A Tranquillity of Eight Words, an Insight of Two Kinds of Knowledge

At the close of the first sub-part, the bodhisattva's four foundations of mindfulness contemplate "keeping far from the intrinsic nature as spoken"; at the head of this sub-part, the treatise at once asks: that mind which can contemplate — how is it to be set up? The answer is exceedingly brief: "Herein the bodhisattva, right within all phenomena, discerns nothing at all — this should be known as tranquillity. If, with respect to all phenomena, there is the true knowledge in accord with the real that ranges over the ultimate mode of principle, and the wondrous conventional knowledge that ranges over the immeasurable mode of principle established by convention — this should be known as insight" — tranquillity is discerning nothing at all; insight is the two knowledges, the true and the conventional. Dunlun sums it up: "meditative absorption on a single object, apart from the several discernments, should be known as tranquillity; next, showing the two knowledges, true and conventional, is named insight".

Tranquillity has four practices: that which goes before the ultimate and conventional knowledge; the fruit of the ultimate and conventional knowledge; that which throughout all conceptions of idle proliferation turns without effort; and "right within such an ineffable bare thing, by having no character and discerning nothing at all, stilled in mind, tending toward the equal nature, the single-flavored real nature of all phenomena". The ancient masters take the four practices apart line by line (Jing, Tai, and Kuiji — the three masters — set out together by Dunlun): the first practice is the expedient absorption prior to the two knowledges (Kuiji: "the absorption simultaneous with the applied-effort knowledge"); of the fourth practice, Tai judges, "in the ineffable bare thing that is the other-dependent nature, stilled in mind — this is the true knowledge", and Kuiji, "it says that the right knowledge contemplates the other-dependent, and does not discern that it has any nature, and so enters the meaning of the single-flavored suchness". Kuiji further matches the four practices to grades of the path: "the first, in the applied-effort path before the grounds; the second, from entering the grounds up to before the seventh ground; the third, above the eighth ground up to the ninth; the fourth is done by the tenth ground, entering the buddha-ground" — the four practices of tranquillity are just such a ladder of the absorption-discipline, from before the grounds straight through to the buddha-ground.

Insight's four practices take the path of tranquillity as their forerunner: "with respect to all phenomena, keeping far from the wrong-grasping extreme of over-affirmation, keeping far from the wrong-grasping extreme of under-denial," together with the wondrous insight that accords with the mode of principle established by convention — once again the non-dual Middle Way of the Chapter on the True Reality, reappearing in the gateway of insight.

Skill in Means: Six Inward, Six Outward

The twelve kinds of skill in means: six directed inward, toward cultivating and realizing the buddha-dharmas (a heart of compassion and longing, thorough knowing in accord with the real, delight in the buddha-knowledge, and, on the ground of these three, not forsaking birth-and-death, revolving undefiled, being blazingly diligent); and six directed outward, toward ripening sentient beings (a slight root of goodness draws down an immeasurable fruit; slight effort draws in vast roots of goodness; and the four accomplishments toward the four classes of being — those who spurn, those midway, those already entered in, those already ripened).

The teaching of "a slight root of goodness draws down an immeasurable fruit" is exceedingly plain: exhort a person to give away "down even to the very lowest, a single ball of roasted-grain meal" to a beast, and turn it over toward unsurpassed awakening — "though the thing and the field are lowly, by the force of the turning-over, it draws down an immeasurable fruit". "Slight effort draws in vast roots of goodness" is then a whole string of ways for turning the wrong into the right: replacing the self-starving wrong fast with the eightfold holy fast, replacing austerities with the Middle Way, replacing hurling-oneself-off-cliffs-and-rushing-into-fire with meditative absorption, replacing the Vaidika spell with the Buddha's holy teaching (Kuiji: "this means the illumining spell"); on down to the offering of resolute conviction, sympathetic rejoicing, the six recollections, homage by mind-and-word, the vow of compassion to bear suffering in another's stead, and the laying-bare and repenting of the past — "again and again laying bare what has been transgressed, by employing slight effort, all the karmic obstacles attain release."

According-and-Reconciling: Unknotting the Death-Knot for One Frightened by the Emptiness Scriptures

Within the first of the six kinds of outward means lies the weightiest passage of doctrine in this sub-part. Sentient beings hear the very deep emptiness-associated scriptures the Buddha has spoken — "saying that all phenomena are without intrinsic nature, without any thing, without arising and without ceasing, saying that all phenomena are all equal to open space, all like an illusion or a dream" — and, "unable to understand them according to their meaning, their hearts give rise to fright and dread, defaming all such scriptures, saying they are not what the Buddha spoke". What is the bodhisattva to do? He does not evade, does not change his word, but "reconciles in accord with principle" the Tathāgata's hidden intent:

"This scripture does not say that all phenomena whatsoever are altogether nothing at all, but says that the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken of phenomena is altogether nothing at all" — when the scripture says "without intrinsic nature," what is without is the intrinsic nature that speech sets up, not that all phenomena are spoken of as void-and-nothing. Kuiji reads it by the threefold nature: "it does not say that the two natures, the other-dependent and the rest, are altogether without nature; it says that the wholly-imagined intrinsic-nature-as-spoken is what is absent"; and the absence of the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken is "like a rabbit's horn". "Without any thing" means without the wholly-imagined thing, not without the other-dependent; "without arising and without ceasing" means that the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken, being from the origin nothing at all, has nothing that can arise or cease.

"All equal to open space" — the treatise sets up a simile of its own: within open space forms come and forms go, and if one dispels the forms and form-activities altogether, "only the pure open space of the nature-without-form appears in its character" — so, after the wondrous holy knowledge dispels the idle proliferation of speech, "there is shown forth only the intrinsic-nature of all speech as a non-nature," as the pure character of open space appears. Kuiji: "this figures suchness as being like open space, and the wholly-imagined as being like forms and the rest". "All like an illusion or a dream": an illusion and a dream are "not, as they appear, really existent in accord with the real, and yet the shape and stuff of all illusions and dreams are not altogether nothing at all" — phenomena are "neither existent nor non-existent, their nature not-two." Kuiji: "this figures the other-dependent as being like an illusion and the rest"; each of the three natures is itself neither existent nor non-existent, and the truly-accomplished "is not non-existent — it is present in the ultimate sense".

The closing eight words are precisely the practice-form of the well-grasped emptiness: "he grasps no small part and forsakes no small part, makes no under-denial and makes no over-affirmation" — "if a phenomenon is really existent, he knows it as really existent; if a phenomenon is really non-existent, he knows it as really non-existent; as he knows it, thus does he disclose it". Kuiji: "he does not grasp the wholly-imagined, and does not forsake the two natures … this is named not letting it go to ruin".

The four means that follow (jointly setting up a covenant — "if you can know the kindness of father and mother and reverently make offering to them … then I will give you"; a resolve of a differing part — outwardly displaying hardness and fierceness, "solely to benefit, not out of any remaining resolve"; arising from pressure — a householder-master or a king who by reward and chastisement "forcibly presses him to cultivate"; bestowing kindness and requiting kindness — "if you can … uphold the pure precepts, this alone is called requiting kindness greatly") take the skill in means down to the coarse-grained places of human affairs and worldly dealings. The sixth, the skill in means of ultimate purity, is then the display of the Buddha's own person: birth in Tuṣita, descent to the human realm, leaving home, austerities, realizing awakening, waiting for Brahmā's request, contemplating the world with the buddha-eye, turning the wheel of the dharma — Dunlun notes of its arrangement that "it is short four matters and adds one, the austerities"; Tai supplies, "at Brahmā's first request he does not straightway preach … only later, on reaching the Deer Park, does he preach the dharma".

The Wondrous Dhāraṇīs: How a Spell of No Meaning Opens the Ineffable Acceptance

The four dhāraṇīs: dharma (holding what is heard without forgetting), meaning (holding the meaning without forgetting), spell (the mastery of equipoise empowering the spell-phrases so that they "all become potent"), and the one for attaining the bodhisattva's acceptance. The first three are sustaining forces; the fourth is a strange method of cultivation: a bodhisattva furnished with wondrous wisdom, dwelling alone in an empty place, eating sparingly and sleeping little, "examines and reflects in truth and reality" on the spell-phrases of acceptance the Buddha has spoken — the spell-words being: iṭṭhi miṭṭhi kiṭṭhi bhikṣānti padāni svāhā.

Do you want to rack your brains to seek out the meaning of this spell? The treatise's answer overturns everything: he, "not hearing it from another, naturally penetrates through; he knows that such spell-phrases are altogether without meaning, are the perfectly-accomplished real, and are only meaning-less; he knows in accord with the real that the meaning of these phrases is just what is called meaning-less" — the meaning of the spell is "meaning-less" itself. And by this he turns up one level: "the meaning of the intrinsic nature of all phenomena that is spoken and expressed in all speech is one and all not accomplished as real; there is only the ineffable intrinsic nature of phenomena, and this is the meaning of intrinsic nature" — from a spell that expresses nothing he penetrates the ineffable intrinsic nature of all phenomena, attains the bodhisattva's surpassing acceptance established by the dhāraṇī, and before long shall attain the pure surpassing resolve. Here the ancient masters each lay down a hand: the Tripiṭaka-master (Xuanzang) says, "this takes non-conceptual knowledge as its essence. If so, why is it said to be for 'attaining acceptance'? In the applied-effort path, by upholding-and-reflecting on this spell one swiftly gains the true knowledge and realizes suchness, and so the text below places it at the Ground of Practice-through-Resolute-Conviction"; Kuiji, "a bodhisattva before the grounds recites this spell of no meaning, wishing to remove the grasping-and-reckoning … and by this reflection he is then able to enter true contemplation and realize the bodhisattva's acceptance"; Bei, "the spell-phrases rightly convey that the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished are ineffable and unarisen, and so the bodhisattva, reflecting truly, naturally comes to understand the acceptance of the unarisen dharmas. The treatise saying 'without meaning' intends just this". The spell's potency is not in the sound; it is in driving "the mind that seeks a meaning" to the place where the road of language is cut off.

Attaining this dhāraṇī has four qualities for its threshold: having no craving toward desires, not being envious of another's glory, giving equally without regret, and deeply delighting in the bodhisattva-canon — lacking any one, it cannot be.

The Right Vow: From a Single Arousing of the Mind to the Ten Great Vows

The five vows: the vow of arousing the mind (the first arousing), the vow of taking birth (vowing to be born in good destinies that benefit beings), the vow of what is to be practiced, the right vow, and the great vow; the great vow opens out from the right vow into ten kinds — to make offering to immeasurable buddhas; to draw in and guard the right dharma, "transmitting and upholding the dharma-eye so that it is not cut off"; to descend from Tuṣita on down to nirvāṇa; to practice every bodhisattva right practice; to ripen all sentient beings; to display oneself in all worlds; to purify-and-cultivate all buddha-lands; that all bodhisattvas of one resolve enter the Great Vehicle; that no uninverted applied practice be in vain; and swiftly to realize unsurpassed perfect awakening. What is the essence of the vow? The ancient masters set out four readings together (Dunlun): the old masters, following the Satyasiddhi, take acceptance as its essence; Bei takes knowledge as its nature; the Tripiṭaka-master says, "it is a vow provisionally set up upon the willing-desire-and-faith of thought"; Jing takes resolute-conviction, willing, thought, and faith as its essence — Xuanzang's reading too is among them, only recorded, not adjudicated.

The Three Samādhis: Emptiness, Settled upon the Ineffable Intrinsic Nature

The bodhisattva's samādhi of emptiness has but one line for its definition: "he contemplates all things, keeping far from all intrinsic nature as spoken, [seeing] that there is only the ineffable intrinsic nature of phenomena, and his mind is rightly settled" — emptiness is not contemplating "there is nothing whatever," but the mind settled upon the ineffable intrinsic nature. The samādhi of wishlessness: toward the things of the ineffable intrinsic nature, seeing them as defiled by the afflictions and the several sufferings, "toward the world to come, with non-wishing going before, his mind is rightly settled". The samādhi of no-character: toward the things of the ineffable intrinsic nature, "all the characters of discernment and idle proliferation forever extinguished and stilled, knowing in accord with the real, his mind is rightly settled".

Why exactly three? The treatise answers itself: phenomena are of two kinds — the existent (the conditioned and the unconditioned) and the non-existent (self and what belongs to self). Toward the conditioned, because it is loathsome, wishlessness is set up; toward the unconditioned, because one wishes for nirvāṇa, no-character is set up; toward the non-existent, "the bodhisattva neither wishes nor even not-wishes; yet toward the non-existent, the bodhisattva sees it in accord with the real as non-existent — on the basis of this seeing, it should be known, the samādhi of emptiness is established" — the essence of the samādhi of emptiness is a "seeing the non-existent in accord with the real."

Jing sets a placement for this passage: "this shows the Great Vehicle's uncommon three samādhis, spoken in the sense that the non-conceptual knowledge and the associated absorption are of one substance. Below, in terms of the sixteen aspects, it distinguishes the three samādhis that are held in common with the two vehicles" — the three samādhis set up upon the ineffable intrinsic nature are the uncommon gateway of the Great Vehicle; those set up upon the four truths and sixteen aspects are what is held in common with the two vehicles. Kuiji makes a matching of the aspects (emptiness only the latter two aspects under "suffering," and the rest, citing the Xianyang fascicle two), and judges of himself, "the intent of this treatise's text is that, within the true contemplation, these three gates of liberation are distinguished by function-in-meaning".

The Four Dharma-Uddānas: Four Old Sayings That Speak Out the Depth of the Threefold Nature

"There are, further, four dharma-uddānas, which the buddhas and bodhisattvas speak in order to make sentient beings pure": all conditioned activities are impermanent, all conditioned activities are suffering, all phenomena are without a self, nirvāṇa is quiescent. Dunlun leaves a note of correction upon the name: "if it is written with the character wà, it must all be corrected; the old wording is not correct — it is named the four udāna, translated as 'seal' … as it is said, impermanence is the seal-character of the conditioned, suffering the seal-character of the contaminated dharmas, no-self the seal-character of all dharmas, and nirvāṇa-quiescence the seal-character of the unconditioned dharmas"; Kuiji, "this means 'to speak' — namely what the World-Honored One constantly recites and speaks" — "translated as 'seal,'" the ancients say plainly on this point.

Impermanence the treatise gives in two layers: the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken is at all times ever nothing at all, "such conditioned activities being ever unattainable, they are named impermanent" — the impermanence of the wholly-imagined layer is that there is simply no such thing there; the ineffable thing, with not-knowing (ajñāna) as cause, has arising and ceasing to be found — the impermanence of the other-dependent layer is what has arising and ceasing. Jing strings the two layers into one: "grasping speech as having a settled nature is the wholly-imagined; when grasping thus, it perfumes seeds and becomes a cause, giving birth to those other-dependent forms, minds, and the rest, which have arising and forthwith ceasing, and so are named impermanent" — the one thought that grasps speech as real perfumes a seed and gives birth to the other-dependent activities that arise and cease. Beneath the contemplation of the three times (the past without cause and without intrinsic nature; the present with intrinsic nature and without cause; the future with cause and without intrinsic nature ), Woncheuk records two Western glosses: "one says, by the reasoning of the dharma-characters, the three times are established upon a single present dharma … a second says, by the reasoning of consciousness-only the three times are established — namely, upon the substance of the seeing-part in the present there appear the characters of the three times, and so the three times are spoken of, though in truth they are subsumed under the present"; and the Tripiṭaka-master too has two glosses on "the past and the future being alike absent, how are they impermanent" — all set out together.

The passage on the four characters of the instant is a work of subtle dharma-character skill: the prior instant perishes and the new instant arises, and there are arising (the true arising), abiding (arisen but not yet perished), aging (differing from the prior), and ceasing (perishing after arising), while "he does not see that arising and the rest have any separate intrinsic nature" — arising, abiding, aging, ceasing are only the phase-positions of the activities themselves, not four real things existing apart from the activities. Kuiji settles the school-position: "if by the Lesser Vehicle, arising is in the future and the three characters in the present; now by the Great Vehicle, arising and the three characters are in the present, and ceasing in the past," and he answers the doubt of arising and ceasing being simultaneous with the balance simile: "like the two ends of a balance, level and even, and so in a single instant there is arising and there is ceasing". The treatise goes further and breaks the real existence of "arising" by reasoning: if apart from arising there were an arising, there ought to be an "arising of arising," and the arising of activity and the arising of arising, if one, makes the reckoning of arising vain, if different, makes it "not the arising of activity"; and breaks the real existence of "ceasing": if ceasing had arising and ceasing, "if at the time ceasing arises, all activities ought to cease together, and thus by employing slight effort, as though entering the attainment of cessation, the several minds and mental factors would one and all cease; if at the time ceasing ceases, all activities, though already ceased, ought again to arise" — pushing "impermanence" from common sense up to the ultimate sense.

Suffering: the impermanent activities are the ground of the three sufferings — the suffering of conditionedness, the suffering of change, the suffering of suffering. No-self: the twofold no-self — the no-self of the person (it is not that "the dharmas-that-are" are the real self, nor that apart from "the dharmas-that-are" there is a real self; Kuiji: "this means breaking the reckoning of a self as identical-with or different-from the aggregates") and the no-self of phenomena ("that within all that is spoken and expressed, the phenomena that are the intrinsic nature of all speech are altogether nothing at all") — the definition of the no-self of phenomena is still that single "ineffable."

Nirvāṇa-quiescence: the prior cause forever cut off, thereafter ceasing without remainder, utterly not rising. Kuiji's threefold matching: "these are the nirvāṇa-with-remainder and the nirvāṇa-without-remainder. Again, the prior cause forever cut off is in the uninterrupted path; the later cutting-off-without-remainder is in the path of liberation. Again, the prior cause forever cut off is subduing the higher mind in the applied-effort; the later cutting-off-without-remainder is cutting off the seeds".

And thereupon the treatise speaks two long similes. The simile of the prince and the four carts: a prince born in the deep palace has played only with the deer-, ox-, horse-, and elephant-carts his father made up, and so gives rise to a real deer- or horse-notion toward the made-up carts; grown up and out of the palace, seeing real deer and real horses, he then "toward his former resolute conviction follows up with shame" — the palace figures birth-and-death, the young child figures the bodhisattva who has not attained the pure surpassing resolve and the śrāvaka who has not seen the truths, the father figures the buddhas and the great-ground bodhisattvas, the made-up cart figures nirvāṇa as it is proclaimed, and the going-out-and-seeing-in-person figures present realization. The one who has not seen the truths, saying "nirvāṇa is quiescent," is in truth speaking of an image; only after seeing the truths, looking back, does he feel shame that he formerly took the image for the real — yet the treatise does not on this account bid a person shut his mouth, for "he too has attention in accord with principle": the resolute conviction in the image is the road that must be traveled toward present realization. Kuiji further matches the four carts to the four nirvāṇas: "the elephant figures the non-abiding nirvāṇa … the deer, from first to last ever dwelling in the mountain-stillness, figures the originally-pure; the ox, having horns, figures [the nirvāṇa] with remaining basis; the horse, being hornless, figures [the nirvāṇa] without remaining basis" (there is also a matching to the three vehicles, set out alongside).

The simile of the sick one and the good medicine: the former medicine has cured the former illness, a later illness is born and the medicine should be changed, but the sick person, "deeply giving rise to resolute conviction toward the former medicine … is unwilling to cast it away" — the Buddha's dharma-teachings are shallower and deeper, prior and later, and the one who clings to the former medicine cannot take in the later. It is gathered up upon a single cart: the bodhisattvas and śrāvakas of pure faith, "mounting the unsurpassed dharma-vehicle spoken by the Buddha, like a wondrously adorned cart complete in all its parts, like a good driver … swiftly and swiftly press onward, with nothing detaining them".

The One Meaning This Sub-Part Lights Up

From Gate Ten to Gate Fifteen, the treatise in truth teaches the skill of but a single word — the ineffable: the fourth practice of tranquillity settles upon "the ineffable bare thing"; the reconciling of the emptiness scriptures unknots the fright by the one line "the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken is altogether nothing at all"; the acceptance-dhāraṇī takes, from a spell of no meaning, straight hold of "there is only the ineffable intrinsic nature of phenomena, and this is the meaning of intrinsic nature"; the samādhi of emptiness sets the mind upon the ineffable intrinsic nature; the definition of the no-self of phenomena is that the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken is altogether nothing at all; and even "impermanence" is spoken of first from the intrinsic-nature-as-spoken being ever nothing at all. The ineffable intrinsic nature set up in the Chapter on the True Reality has here grown into six gateways of practice. And two similes gather it to a close: the made-up cart and the real deer warn the traveler — your present understanding of "nirvāṇa" and "the ineffable" is still an image, do not cling to it; the former medicine and the later medicine warn the traveler — do not hug the dharma you already understand and refuse to let it go. The last lesson of the practice of inner realization is to keep a sense of shame toward one's own understanding, while the feet beneath do not stop.

Carrying Forward

This sub-part carries forward from the first sub-part (Gate Nine's contemplation of the body along the body, "keeping far from the intrinsic nature as spoken", opens directly into Gate Ten's "ineffable bare thing"); the reconciling passage, the samādhi of emptiness, and the no-self of phenomena all carry forward the vein of the ineffable intrinsic nature and the well-grasped emptiness of the Chapter on the True Reality (15-01-04); "displaying supernormal powers, mind-reading, and disclosing preaching," which Kuiji glosses as "the three spheres", runs through to the Chapter on Might (15-01-05). The Section on Ascertainment treats the substance of this chapter through the contemplation of the body along the suchness-body, the fourteen kinds of coarse-and-heavy bond of character, the cultivation of the foundations of mindfulness in dependence on emptiness, and the eleven successive conception-bonds — where even "the conception of a characterless-of-intrinsic-nature" is a bond (detailed in Apparatus Heading II); the two judgments of the chapter-boundary, Jing's and Dunlun's, are set out together. The chapter then gives way to the Chapter on Qualities, the eighteenth — with this, seventeen of the eighteen chapters of the Preliminary Sustaining are complete.

Why, When the Seventeen Chapters Have Been Expounded, Should One More Chapter Be Set Up to Expound "Merits"

Coming all the way through the First Section of Yoga — lineage, arousing the mind, the twofold benefit, the six perfections, the four means of gathering, offering-attending-and-the-immeasurables, the factors of awakening — the practice-gates a bodhisattva ought to cultivate seem already to have been expounded to the full. Why should one more chapter be set up at the end? Kuiji poses the question first and answers it: "Earlier, awakening was made clear; its theme is the practice of the cause-and-fruit factors of awakening; and since, when practicing these earlier things, there must be something they rest upon, therefore, next after that chapter, the Chapter on Merits is made clear" — what came before was "how to cultivate," and this chapter turns back to take stock: cultivating in this way, what has grown upon the bodhisattva's own person. Dunlun points to this chapter's place in the whole scheme of the First Section still more incisively: "it makes clear his own portion; next, two chapters make clear the surpassing-advance, and are done. Now this one chapter makes clear the cause made complete, the fruit made full" — the own-portion and the surpassing-advance have both been expounded, and this chapter is the overall gathering-up that rounds the "cause" full and knots the "fruit" complete. "'Merit' (功) means labor; 'virtue' (德) means the virtue of the Way; one labors and thereby gains this virtue, and that is named merit": only when effort has been spent is there this virtue; and this chapter expounds precisely that "gain."

The treatise, at its opening, at once asks, "What are the merits that a bodhisattva possesses?", and thereupon, with four uddānas, leads off twenty-seven passages. Dunlun reckons it clearly: "there are five verses, making clear twenty-seven Dharma-gates. Twenty-five kinds directly make clear merits; from this heading of the names on, falling-back-and-declining and the semblance are really not merits" — among the twenty-seven passages, the two passages of the declining portion and the semblance merits are in fact not merits, but a mirror held up to the reverse; those that directly expound merits are twenty-five kinds.

The "Not-Marvelous" Is What Is Utterly Marvelous: The Turning-Over of the Bodhisattva's Marks of Virtue

The first uddāna first sets up five kinds of "utterly marvelous dharma": toward all sentient beings to give rise to close affection without cause or condition; constantly to abide in birth-and-death and endure measureless suffering; toward sentient beings hard to convert to be well able to understand the skillful means of taming; into the reality-principle exceedingly hard to comprehend to be able accordingly to awaken and enter; and to be complete in the inconceivable great might of spirit-power — "not held in common with any of the remaining sentient beings." But hard upon this it turns over a face and says the bodhisattva "accomplishes five kinds of not-marvelous dharma, and yet these are named the accomplishment of utterly marvelous dharmas": taking the suffering incurred through benefiting others for one's own happiness; for the purifying of sentient beings vowing to receive birth-and-death; forsaking the savor of the happiness of silence and constantly preaching the Dharma; giving and not seeking a reward-fruit; taking the matter of benefiting others as the matter of benefiting oneself.

Why should the "not-marvelous" be, on the contrary, "utterly marvelous"? To this turning-over the ancient masters each offer, three houses of them, a reading, set side by side and left unadjudicated. Master Jing speaks from the root: "when he benefits others he takes it as if it were his own affair, and this is named not-marvelous; but trace it to the root, and there is no cause other than great compassion gathering others in as oneself, and so we know it is marvelous" — to gather others in as oneself, the root of this mind is great compassion, and this is why it is marvelous. Master Ji [Kuiji] takes it apart from the two sides of "character" and "intent": "argued from its character, all people can receive it, and it is not-marvelous; but argued from its intent, not to shrink from this task is named a marvelous dharma. Again, measured among his own kind it is not-marvelous; measured against the two vehicles it is utterly marvelous" — looked at as a matter of the deed anyone can do it; looked at in that willingness of heart is it marvelous; measured among bodhisattvas it does not count as marvelous, but set against the two vehicles the marvel shows. Master Ce [Woncheuk], for his part, speaks of the third passage, "constantly preaching the Dharma": "by applied-and-sustained thought and the rest one raises up speech; from the second meditative absorption on up, being free of that applied-and-sustained thought, the cause of raising up speech is gone, and so it is named the savor of the happiness of silence; yet in order to convert the sentient beings he forsakes the meditative absorptions and takes birth in the desire realm to benefit the sentient beings" — from the second absorption up one might well abide in the happiness of silence, yet the bodhisattva pointedly forsakes that savor of quiescent stilling, descends into the desire realm, and preaches the Dharma for the beings. The three houses — from compassion, from character-and-intent, from forsaking quiescence to convert — point to one and the same thing: the bodhisattva's marvel lies not in having done what others cannot do, but in having made benefiting others into his own happiness.

The "not-vain endeavor" with which the first uddāna closes the treatise does not expound over again for itself, but points back in plain words: "all of this, just as was stated earlier in the Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables, should be known as to its character". Both Kuiji and Dunlun take up the thread accordingly: Kuiji cites "as in the Chapter on Offering, where, if he arouses [the mind], there are five matters … third, preaching the Dharma in accord; fourth, not being wearied; fifth, compassion made equal"; Dunlun likewise cites "complete in the equal great compassion, toward the sentient beings of the low, the middling, and the superior classes with a mind without partiality". What was expounded in the earlier chapter is here only hung by a link, not brought out anew — the several chapters of the First Section are, from the first, of a single breath.

The Five Steps of Endeavor, and the Mirror That Shows People on Two Faces

The second uddāna expounds endeavor. The five kinds of unerring endeavor — safeguarding, faultless, the power of discerning-and-selecting, pure and dominant intention, falling-into-the-settled — Dunlun reads as being not a flat list but a single upward ladder of stations: "the first make clear endeavor … the latter three are by station; third, the endeavor of the power of discerning-and-selecting is stationed before the grounds; fourth, the endeavor of pure and dominant intention is entering the first ground up to the seventh ground; fifth, the endeavor of falling-into-the-settled is the eighth, ninth, and tenth grounds". Safeguarding and faultless first put forth the substance of endeavor; the latter three are before the grounds, the first through seventh grounds, and the eighth-ninth-tenth grounds — endeavor is not one single skill, but grows up rung by rung, station upon station.

What shows the most teaching-force in this uddāna is that the treatise sets up a mirror with two faces. One face is the "semblance merit": the treatise says there are five matters that seem to be merits but "should be known to be really the bodhisattva's faults" — toward the violent-and-evil, precept-breaking, on that pretext to perform the deed of not-benefiting; to feign deportment; to mingle among the writings and treatises of the outer paths and thereby gain the name of the wise; to cultivate a faulty giving; to proclaim and set up a "resemblance of the true Dharma" and spread it far and wide. The other face is the "real merit," its five items matched one by one against these: toward the violent-and-evil, precept-breaking, on the contrary to give rise to an exceptional mind of compassion; by very nature to be accomplished in deportment; in the real teaching-and-realization spoken by the Buddha to contrive to be counted among the wise; to cultivate a faultless giving; "to reveal the true Dharma, and to block and extinguish every resemblance of the true Dharma." One and the same deportment, one and the same giving, one and the same preaching of the Dharma — a single thought's difference, and merit and fault are parted by only a hair. The treatise ranks the false ahead of the real precisely so that people should first recognize the false, and only then be able to hold fast to the real.

Taming unerringly in ten places lists all ten items in full. Here the ancient masters leave a stretch of transcribed record: Dunlun first cites the old treatise, then cites a make-up reading given as "handed down by tradition," and at the end transcribes a judgment word for word — "this reading is not so". Both "handed down by tradition" and "this reading is not so" are the ancient masters' own words; we set them down together and do not adjudicate on their behalf.

Prediction, the Settled, and the "Ten Utmost Dharmas"

The third uddāna expounds three matters on the side of the fruit: receiving prediction, falling into the settled, the surely-to-be-done and the always-to-be-done, and the ten utmost dharmas. The six aspects of receiving prediction Master Jing matches one by one against six gates: abiding in the lineage but not yet having aroused the mind (whoever, from before the ten [stations of] faith on, has the great-vehicle lineage receives prediction); having aroused the mind (from the ten faiths on up to the Dharma-Cloud); being present (facing the Buddha and personally receiving it); not being present (not seeking to be in the assembly, the Buddha conferring it upon all together); having a fixed time-span (at such a time you shall realize awakening); having no fixed time-span (conferring the prediction all-inclusively, saying "you shall become a Buddha"). The three kinds of falling into the settled are then gathered into it: it is upon the "last phase of falling into the settled" that the Buddha's prediction is received — lineage and arousing-the-mind can be settled, but only when not-vain practice has reached mastery, cultivating according to wish with nothing passing in vain, does the Buddha confer the "prediction of falling into the settled."

The "ten utmost dharmas" is a table of "utmost" characters for the bodhisattva: among the lineages, the bodhisattva-lineage is the most exceptional; among right aspirations, the first arousing of the mind; among the perfections, vigor and prajñā; among the means of gathering, kind speech; among sentient beings, the Tathāgata; among all the immeasurables, pity; among the meditative absorptions, the fourth absorption; among the three concentrations, the samādhi of emptiness; among the meditative attainments, the attainment of cessation; among all skill-in-means, pure skill. Master Ce [Woncheuk] fixes these ten "utmosts" one by one in his reading: "among the three-vehicle lineages the bodhisattva-lineage is the most exceptional … among the six perfections, vigor, prajñā, and the spurring-of-the-path are the most exceptional … among two-footed sentient beings the Tathāgata is the most exceptional, and among the divine abidings pity is the most exceptional … among the four meditative attainments, the attainment of cessation is the utmost." Among the immeasurables it is pity that is utmost — and this is of one breath with the Chapter on Offering's "the bodhi of the bodhisattva is built up by compassion": take stock of the merits right up to the utmost point, and compassion is still in the midst of it.

The Four Designations-and-Establishments: The Four Ways the Bodhisattva "Sets Up" the Buddha-Dharma

The fourth uddāna is where the chapter's weight lies, and it is where the doctrinal point of the eye is fastened. The treatise first sets up four designations-and-establishments — Dharma, truths, principle, vehicles — and solemnly declares: "only the Tathāgatas and the bodhisattvas are able rightly to designate and rightly to establish them; it is not within the power of any of the rest, whether gods, or humans, or the śramaṇas, or the brahmins, save only after they have heard them". To "set up" the Buddha-Dharma is the affair of buddhas and bodhisattvas; the rest — gods, humans, śramaṇas, brahmins — can only hear it and pass it on.

The designation of the Dharma is the sequential compiling, setting-in-place, and instituting of the twelvefold teaching. Kuiji's reading of these three phrases matches them exceedingly deftly: "compiling means the sūtras; setting-in-place means the mātṛkā; instituting means the Vinaya" — compiled into the sūtras, set in place into the treatises (the mātṛkā, the matrix-mother), instituted into the Vinaya.

The designation of the truths shows most the breadth of the bodhisattva's setting-up: from one truth, two truths, three truths … opening all the way to ten truths, the treatise saying of itself, "if analyzed at length it should be known to be measureless." This is not that the truth has ten separate kinds, but that a single "sense of the not-false-and-vain" can, as occasion serves, be opened into measureless gates. The ancient masters match and gloss the truths of the ascending gates one by one, the three houses of Jing, Ce, and Ji set side by side: within the ascending five-gate, "the first four are the four truths; the last one is the non-established truth" (says Ji); within the ascending seven-gate, relish and peril are matched to arising and suffering, deliverance to cessation (or reaching also to the path), while "dharma-nature means suchness" (says Ji), "fourth, dharma-nature, then, is the non-established truth" (Jing and Ce concur) — opened to the utmost breadth, one of the truths points precisely to suchness.

The designation of principle is the four kinds of principle. The treatise says only "this, analyzed at length, should be known as before," and for the source the ancient masters have two transmissions: Dunlun records, "the old treatise says: the four kinds of skillful-means designation are as stated before in the Chapter on the Lineage of Powers … this reading is not so. Now, following this treatise, the four principles are as in the Śrāvaka Stage, spoken in the twenty-fifth fascicle, the four principles of dependence and the rest" — the old translation points to the Chapter on the Lineage of Powers, the present treatise turns the pointer to the Śrāvaka Stage; "this reading is not so" is the ancient master's own word, transcribed.

The designation of the vehicles distinguishes the three vehicles by seven modes of character. The first mode of character of the śrāvaka vehicle is "the unerring wisdom regarding the four noble truths," and to the phrase below it, "the support of this wisdom," the ancient masters leave two readings side by side: the Tripiṭaka-master (Xuanzang) says "this is the mind-king, and further this is concentration"; Master Ce says "it is the seed-support and the immediately-antecedent support" — one takes the mind-king and concentration as the support, one takes the seed-support and the immediately-antecedent support as the support, and the two readings stand together. And the first mode of character of the unsurpassed great vehicle the treatise writes most deeply: "first, the wisdom of deliverance that is the non-conceptual equality-nature, taking as object the matter free of verbal expression — the suchness present within all dharmas". Where the great-vehicle wisdom differs from the two-vehicle wisdom regarding the four noble truths lies precisely in this: what it takes as object is the suchness that is "the matter free of verbal expression," is the non-conceptual equality-nature — this phrase is directly the suchness contemplated by consciousness-only (唯識, vijñaptimātra), and is precisely where this chapter's point of the eye takes its first hold.

The Four Investigations and the Four Thorough Knowings-as-They-Are: What This Chapter Reconnects to Is the Chapter on the Real Meaning

After the four designations, the treatise sets up the four investigations — name, thing, the designation of intrinsic nature, the designation of distinctions — and the four thorough knowings-as-they-are drawn forth from them; in both places it points back in plain words: "these four kinds, if analyzed at length, should be known as before, in the Chapter on the Real Meaning". This stroke is of the utmost importance: the Chapter on Merits takes stock of the bodhisattva's virtue, and when the stock-taking reaches "thoroughly knowing all dharmas as they are," the treatise itself sends the reader back to the Chapter on the Real Meaning to read the extended discussion. The Chapter on the Real Meaning is the Basic Section's deepest chapter on the meaning of consciousness-only, and the right establishing of the well-grasped emptiness is precisely there: "What again is named the one who grasps emptiness well? That is: because in this that is absent, one rightly contemplates it, by that which is absent, as empty; and further, because in this the remainder is really present, one knows, by that remainder, as it truly is, that it is present" — emptying what ought to be emptied, and knowing as it truly is the really-present remainder: this alone is named "grasping emptiness well." The Chapter on Merits' four investigations and four thorough knowings connect to just this vein; the bodhisattva's utmost merit is to see the dharmas as they truly are.

The Five Immeasurables: The Realm of Sentient Beings Is Sixty-Four; Sahā Means "Endurance"

The treatise next opens the five immeasurables — the realm of sentient beings, the worlds, the dharma-realm, the realm of those to be tamed, the realm of the skillful means of taming — saying that the bodhisattva "toward the five immeasurables is able to give rise to every skillful function." The realm of sentient beings is set at "sixty-four kinds of assemblies of sentient beings", the treatise saying of itself "as before, in the Stage of the Mental, they have already been itemized," and Dunlun takes up the thread: "the sixty-four sentient beings are as stated in the Stage of the Mental, though they differ somewhat from the Xianyang lun. According to the old treatise it says sixty-one beings" — Xuanzang's version reads sixty-four, the old translations (Dharmakṣema, Guṇavarman) read sixty-one, and the two lineages stand together: this is a variant reading to be left for the translator to rule on.

At the immeasurability of the worlds, the treatise takes this realm for its example: "just as this world is named Sahā, and the Brahmā-king of this realm is named the Lord of Sahā". Dunlun glosses, "'Sahā' is here translated 'endurance'" — Sahā is the Sahā-world, and its sense is "capable of enduring"; even the name of the Brahmā-king is "Lord of Endurance," showing exactly that this is a world in which one must endure. The names of the worlds of the ten directions differ each from each; here one "endurance"-world is raised as a specimen.

The realm of those to be tamed opens from one kind out to ten kinds, the distinctions of category coming to fifty-five in all. Among these, the first several items of the ascending seven-gate — the slighting, the middling, those to whom knowledge is broadly displayed, those to whom knowledge is briefly opened — the ancient masters Tai, Jing, and Ce each match, set side by side and unadjudicated; here Kuiji's Concise Compendium reads "tamed by the most yielding (耎) speech", while Dunlun, recording Master Jing, reads "tamed by the most warm (煗) speech" — one "耎," one "煗," two transmitted variant readings, set down together to be left for ruling. Master Ce further cites a case from the Nirvāṇa-sūtra to display "taming from afar and near at hand": Śāriputra had two disciples, one the son of a pearl-stringer, one the son of a laundryman, and Śāriputra could in the end not convert them; later, at the Buddha's place, "the Buddha then taught the laundryman the contemplation of the white bones, and taught the pearl-stringer's son the counting of the breath, and before long the two both gained the Way" — the same two men, and with a change to a skillful means that met their disposition, those who long could not gain the Way at once gained it; the immeasurability of taming lies precisely in the immeasurability of skillful means.

The treatise then poses itself a question, marking off the realm of sentient beings from the realm of those to be tamed: "all sentient beings, whether abiding in the lineage or not abiding in the lineage, without difference, are altogether named the immeasurability of the realm of sentient beings; only those who abide in the lineage, changing over at this or that phase, may then be named the immeasurability of the realm of those to be tamed" — every sentient being counts as the realm of sentient beings, and only those who abide in the lineage and can turn over by phases count as the realm of those to be tamed. The bodhisattva's object is those beings who "can be moved to being tamed."

The Seven Great Natures and the Eight Dharmas That Gather the Great Vehicle: What Alone Deserves to Be Called "Great"

The treatise glosses, by the seven great natures, why the "great vehicle" is named great: Dharma, arousing the mind, resolute conviction, dominant intention, the provisions, time, complete realization, and judges of itself that the first six are cause and complete realization is fruit — "greatness in the nature of Dharma … greatness in the nature of time, these six kinds are all causes of greatness in the nature of complete realization. Greatness in the nature of complete realization is the fruit of the foregoing six kinds of greatness". On the station at which the fifth, greatness in the nature of the provisions, is placed, the ancient masters have two readings side by side: "fifth, greatness in the provisions — Ce says: from the second ground on up. Jing says: through both before the grounds and upon the grounds"; and Dunlun judges of the seven great natures that they are "the same as the seven great natures made clear in the Xianyang. The seven great natures of the Abhidharma-samuccaya and the seven great senses of the Sūtrālaṃkāra are the same in substance under different names" — with the Xianyang, the Abhidharma-samuccaya, and the Sūtrālaṃkāra they are one in substance though the names may differ; so do the ancient masters reconcile them.

The eight dharmas that gather the great vehicle gather the whole thread of the great vehicle into a single line: the bodhisattva-basket teaching, the teaching that reveals the real meaning, the teaching that reveals the buddhas' inconceivable might, hearing in accord with principle, tending toward superior intention, entering the characteristic of cultivating practice, cultivating the fruit to fullness, ultimate deliverance — from teaching, to hearing, to practice, to fruit, drawn down in one breath. Masters Jing and Ce match these against three axes, set side by side: Jing says "the first three argue the vehicle by way of teaching; the next three … argue the vehicle by way of practice; the seventh is the fruit of knowledge, the eighth is the fruit of severance, argued by way of fruit"; Ce says "the first five are all in the station of resolute-conviction practice; the sixth is from the first ground on up to the ninth ground; the seventh is at the tenth ground; the eighth is at the fruit of buddhahood" — one dividing by teaching-practice-fruit, one dividing by station, the two readings standing together.

The Ten Kinds of Bodhisattva and the Sixteen Names Set Up According to Virtue, Drawn to a Close in the "True Bodhisattva"

The treatise finally sets up ten kinds of bodhisattva — abiding in the lineage, having entered upon, of not-yet-purified intention, of already-purified intention, not yet matured, already matured, not yet fallen into the settled, already fallen into the settled, bound by one more birth, abiding in the final existence — spoken all the way from the first lineage out to the ability to realize unsurpassed awakening, and it affirms flatly, "above this there is none further able to train rightly … it is not that above the bodhisattvas as stated there are further bodhisattvas" — the ladder of the bodhisattva-path is here set up to the full, and above it there is no higher "one able to train."

The two names "bound by one more birth" and "abiding in the final existence," the ancient masters cite scripture and match to bodies, set side by side: Ji cites the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa [Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom]'s three births of Maitreya, matching them to the emanation body, the self-enjoyment body, the other-enjoyment body, and the dharma-body — "the self-enjoyment body before the seventh ground is named bound by one more birth; from the eighth ground on it is named the final body … the dharma-body, having no birth, then has nothing of this sense"; Ce cites the Avataṃsaka-sūtra, "receiving the station of buddhahood at the tenth ground for present-report benefit is precisely being bound by one more birth"; and the Silla Master Yin, for his part, glosses the sequence of the Upadeśa's three births of Maitreya, "the first birth in the human world, the middle birth in the heavens, coming back again to the human world for the last birth." One and the same name "one birth," and three masters cite three scriptures for three matchings, set side by side and unadjudicated.

Sixteen provisional names are set up according to virtue: the bodhi-being, the great being, the one accomplished in awakened wisdom, the supreme illumination, the most excellent true son, the most excellent upholder, the one universally able to subdue, the most excellent sprout, and the valiant-and-strong, the most holy, the caravan-leader, the greatly renowned, the pitying, the greatly blessed, the sovereign, the Dharma-master. Master Jing cites the Abhidharma-samuccaya to gloss the first name, "bodhi-being," with two readings, and distinguishes the general from the particular: "'bodhi-being' is a name common to the three vehicles, and so is a general name; from 'great being' down, it is only our own great vehicle that is named 'great sentient being,' and so it is a particular name" — "bodhi-being" is a name common to the three vehicles; "great being" is the particular name belonging to the great vehicle alone.

The whole chapter is drawn to a close upon one clean-cutting judgment: "if any bodhisattvas, present, call themselves 'I am a bodhisattva,' and yet do not rightly cultivate practice in the bodhisattva-training, it should be known that these are named semblance bodhisattvas, not true bodhisattvas; … [but if] they are able rightly to cultivate practice in the bodhisattva-training, it should be known that these are named true bodhisattvas". Having taken stock of a whole chapter's merits, in the end it comes to rest upon a single question: whether one cultivates or not. To cultivate — that alone is the true bodhisattva.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Relief

The Chapter on Merits is the drawing-to-a-close of the First Section, and the twenty-seven passages are in fact doing but one thing — spreading out for view the four words "the cause made complete, the fruit made full." It first uses "the not-marvelous is what is utterly marvelous" to turn over the world's imagining of the marks of virtue (the bodhisattva's marvel lies not in strange powers, but in making benefiting others into his own happiness); then it uses the two mirrors of "semblance / real" to teach people first to recognize the false, and afterward to hold fast to the real; then, by the four designations, the four investigations, and the four thorough knowings-as-they-are, it fixes the bodhisattva's utmost merit upon "thoroughly knowing all dharmas as they are," and in plain words reconnects to the Chapter on the Real Meaning — the well-grasped emptiness, the suchness free of verbal expression, the non-conceptual equality-nature wisdom of deliverance, all gathered in on a single line here. Take stock to the utmost, and pity is the utmost of the immeasurables; take stock to the deepest, and it is the non-conceptual wisdom that takes suchness as its object; take stock to the last, and it is but the one question, "able to cultivate rightly" or not. The merits of a whole chapter arise from arousing the mind, are accomplished in seeing the dharmas as they truly are, and are made full in the four words "true bodhisattva."

Carrying Forward

This chapter is the eighteenth chapter of the First Section of Yoga, that is, the last chapter of the First Section. Dunlun fixes its place as "making clear the cause made complete, the fruit made full" — carrying forward, before it, the sixteenth Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables (the not-vain endeavor's "as stated earlier in the Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables" points back in plain words; the similes of the two-arrow reception, the udumbara marvelous flower, and the rest are also carried forward from that chapter) and the seventeenth Chapter on the Factors of Awakening (the First Section's practice of "surpassing-advance · inner realization"), and here draws all twenty-seven passages together. Within the chapter, the four investigations and four thorough knowings-as-they-are point back in plain words to the Chapter on the Real Meaning (15-01-04); and the right establishing of the well-grasped emptiness is also in the Chapter on the Real Meaning. For the four principles of the designation of principle the ancient masters turn the pointer to the Śrāvaka Stage (Stage 13)'s four principles of dependence and the rest; and the sixty-four of the realm of sentient beings points back to the Stage of the Mental (Stage 3).

This chapter has an ascertainment in the Section on Ascertainment — the Section on Ascertainment's Bodhisattva Stage, the Ascertainment of the Chapter on Merits 〔the closing phrase "thus has been stated the ascertainment of the Chapter on Merits"〕, and this ascertainment is in fact the pivot by which this treatise embeds the whole of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra: it first refutes the wrongly-grasped emptiness, "by the conventional, all is present; by the ultimate, all is absent" (refuting it step by step in the form of interrogation, the treatise's own words, only transcribed and not adjudicated; the right establishing of the well-grasped emptiness, for its part, is in the Chapter on the Real Meaning, and the refutation of the wrongly-grasped emptiness is in the Section on Ascertainment — the boundary between the two places is set down as it truly is); it sets up the eight superiorities and the five characteristics of the ultimate truth — "first, free of the character of name-and-word; second, the character of non-duality; third, the character surpassing the range of applied-and-sustained thought; fourth, the character surpassing the sameness-or-difference of dharmas; fifth, the character pervading all with one taste"; and below this it embeds the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra on a large scale — the bodhisattva Viśālamati on the characters of mind, mentation, and consciousness (the appropriating consciousness (阿陀那識, ādāna), the store consciousness), the bodhisattva Maitreya on tranquillity and insight, and the rest — the root scriptural grounds of the store consciousness, of mind-mentation-and-consciousness, and of tranquillity-and-insight are all embedded in this chapter's ascertainment. The point of the doctrinal eye is fastened to this single line.

The chapter's closing "it should be known that these are named true bodhisattvas" is the very end of fascicle 46; below it follows fascicle 47 — the Second Section of Practice-in-Accord-with-the-Dharma of Yoga, the Chapter on the Characteristics of the Bodhisattva, first 〔the chapter-title of the Characteristics〕: this chapter makes clear the virtue of the "true bodhisattva," and the next chapter at once makes clear "the characteristics of the true bodhisattvas". The eighteen chapters of the First Section of Yoga are here brought wholly to a close, and the Bodhisattva Stage turns from here into the Second Section of Practice-in-Accord-with-the-Dharma of Yoga.

The two alternate translations are set down together and not adjudicated: Dharmakṣema's Chapter on the Merits of the Bodhisattva, eighteenth is prose without summary verses, with a whole set of variant renderings of the terminology (marvelous → marvelous-and-unprecedented, pratyekabuddha → solitary-awakener, the designation of principle → the designation of skillful means, sixty-four → sixty-one, the sixteen names according to virtue contracted to ten); Guṇavarman's Chapter on Merits, twentieth recasts it the most heavily (the designation of the truths wholly changed to "the real, spread abroad," with five reals and ten reals; the designation of principle changed to "skillful means, spread abroad"; the fifth of the seven great natures changed to "greatness of adornment"; the realm of sentient beings tied to "the bodhisattva abiding in the Joyful Ground"; the chapter's close drawn to an end by distinguishing, by the bodhisattva precepts, the caṇḍāla, with the base-text doubled character in "not-named named a bodhisattva" as it stands). The name of the middle vehicle stands tripartite among the three houses (Xuanzang's pratyekabuddha vehicle · Dharmakṣema's solitary-awakener vehicle · Guṇavarman's pratyekabuddha [-as-transliterated] vehicle). See Heading II of the Apparatus.

Why, Once the First "Sustainer" Is Expounded, Must "Characteristics" Come Next

The Bodhisattva Stage opens with ten dharmas — the sustainer, characteristics, division, superior resolve, dwelling, birth, gathering-in, the marks of the ground, conduct, and establishment. The eighteen chapters of the First Sustainer Yoga Sphere have finished expounding the first dharma, "the sustainer": lineage, the arousing of the mind, the factors of awakening — the dharmas that a bodhisattva learns have all been laid out in full. The question that then naturally arises is this: the person who has learned these dharmas — what does he grow to look like?

The ancient masters state this turning point very clearly. Dunlun says: "The First Sustainer Yoga Sphere properly clarifies the dharmas to be learned; this place clarifies that the person able to learn, having completed his learning of what is to be learned, has become one of the bodhisattva's characteristics, and, in accord with the dharmas learned before, sets out to cultivate — hence it is named the Yoga Sphere in Accord with the Dharma". Kuiji agrees: "As for 'characteristics': it means that, having matured these dharmas, one enters into the characteristics of a bodhisattva, and hence it is named 'characteristics'". The four chapters of the Second Sustainer, the "Yoga Sphere in Accord with the Dharma" — characteristics, division, superior resolve, dwelling — expound no longer the roster of dharmas, but the person who cultivates in accord with the dharma: his appearance (the Chapter on Characteristics), his standing (the Chapter on Division), his intent (the Chapter on Superior Resolve), his rank (the Chapter on Dwelling). The Chapter on Characteristics stands at the head, and first answers the most intimate question of all: how does one recognize a true bodhisattva?

The treatise makes its purport plain from the outset: if the five characteristics are accomplished, one is "counted among the number of bodhisattvas" — entered into the number of bodhisattvas. To put it the other way: one who calls himself a bodhisattva but lacks these five characteristics is not yet one. Which five characteristics? Compassion, kind speech, valor, the open hand of giving, and the ability to understand the hidden intent of the profound principle. Each characteristic is again viewed from five angles: intrinsic nature (what it is), ground (where it is applied), fruitful benefit (what fruit it bears), sequence (why it comes in this order), and mutual subsuming (which of the six perfections it belongs to).

Compassion: Present in the Heart, and Present in the Hand as Well

First of the five characteristics is compassion. The treatise first splits it in two: "first, lying in the aspiration; second, lying in right conduct" — to bear toward sentient beings, in the heart, the aspiration to benefit and the aspiration to bring ease is compassion; and, following that heart, truly to benefit them by body and by speech as far as one's strength and ability reach is also compassion. Heart without conduct, or conduct without heart, neither amounts to a bodhisattva's compassion.

Upon whom, then, should compassion fall? The treatise lists five grounds, precisely the five kinds of people who most need compassion and most test it: sentient beings who have suffering (those in the hells and the like, driven and turned about, pressed by feelings of suffering continuing on unbroken); sentient beings of evil conduct (who do not fixedly undergo suffering, yet are "butchers and undisciplined ones who raise sheep, pigs, chickens, and the like," taking joy in dwelling amid all evils); sentient beings of negligence (neither suffering nor evil, yet infatuated with the five desires, "ever delighting to dwell amid all manner of entertainers, singing and dancing, and laughing glances, disporting themselves for their own pleasure"); sentient beings of wrong conduct (who in reliance on deluded views practice all manner of conduct seeking release from suffering, going forth to homelessness within an ill-spoken teaching and discipline); sentient beings latent with affliction ("the worthy and good ordinary beings who are cultivating rightly, and those still in training" — even good people who are cultivating rightly, whose seeds of affliction still lie latent and uncut, are within the range of the bodhisattva's compassion). Counting from the beings of the hells all the way to the worthy and good practitioner, the five grounds gather in the whole of "all sentient beings" — "beyond these there is nothing exceeding and nothing further."

For the fruitful benefit of compassion, the treatise cites the World-Honored One's words as witness: "Again, as the World-Honored One has spoken of the excellent gains attained through cultivating loving-kindness, namely that in the present body poison and blade and staff cannot do harm, and the like". Woncheuk cites the scripture and numbers the benefits at eleven: lying at ease and waking at ease, guarded by the gods and beloved of non-humans, unharmed by poison and unharmed by weapons, unlost to water and fire, sleeping without evil dreams, and being reborn in the Brahmā heaven at death. The Notes goes on to collate the Avataṃsaka-sūtra and the Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga), setting out eleven merits: first, sleeping at ease without fright and dread; second, waking at ease without evil marks; third, no evil dreams; fourth, being loved and cherished by others; fifth, being beloved of non-humans; sixth, being guarded by the gods; seventh, fire, poison, blade, and staff not touching one's body; eighth, the mind swiftly attaining concentration; ninth, a face of light and luster; tenth, dying with the mind unconfused; eleventh, if one has not attained the surpassing dharma, being reborn in the Brahmā heaven. For one who cultivates loving-kindness, the first to receive the benefit are his own body and mind.

Kind Speech, Valor, Giving: One Web of Cross-Reference

The Chapter on Characteristics has one striking way of writing: within the five characteristics, several places do not unfold anew but explicitly point back to earlier chapters — the intrinsic nature of kind speech "should be known as stated earlier in the Chapter on the Means of Gathering", and the five grounds of kind speech "should be known as stated earlier in the Chapter on the Means of Gathering"; the five grounds of valor "are the five grounds of the bodhisattva's 'nature of firm and enduring strength' stated earlier in the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening"; the five grounds of giving (giving again and again, with joy, with earnest reverence, without defilement, without dependence) "should be known as elaborated in full earlier in the Chapter on Giving"; the two fruitful benefits of giving and the profound principle "should be known as the distinction between the power of giving and the power of wisdom in the Chapter on Powers". This is exactly the making-good of the two words "in accord with the dharma": the Chapter on Characteristics sets up no new dharma; it gathers the dharmas already fully clarified in the First Sustainer into a visible appearance upon a single person.

The intrinsic nature of valor the treatise gives in but twelve characters: "firm and resolute in decision, without any timidity or weakness, and possessed of great force". From this single line the ancient masters read out two construals, and Dunlun records both. Jing takes it as: "'firm and resolute in decision' is wisdom; 'firm and enduring' is patience; 'without any weakness of nature, possessed of great force,' and so on, is vigor" (「性劣」, "weakness of nature," is thus in the Taishō base text — presumably a graphic corruption of 「怯」, "timidity") — the three dharmas of vigor, patience, and wisdom taken for its substance. Ji, for his part, says: "Here the sense of the text but singly clarifies vigor; then the three, armor-vigor and the rest, are matched to it in sequence" — vigor as a single dharma, with firm resolve, firmness, and great force matched precisely to the three vigors: the armor, the gathering-in of the wholesome, and the benefiting. The two construals are set forth side by side, each with its own reading.

The Ability to Understand the Hidden Intent of the Profound Principle: The Fifth Characteristic Is the Deepest

The fifth characteristic has the longest name: the ability to understand the hidden intent of the profound principle. Its intrinsic nature is "the four unobstructed understandings, together with the right preparatory knowledge that draws them forth without error" — the four unobstructed understandings of dharma, meaning, diction, and eloquence, plus the fore-going skillful knowledge that draws the four forth. Its five grounds are five kinds of "profound": among the discourses, the teaching that "accords with the profound, is displayed by way of the profound, and corresponds with emptiness and with conditionality and dependent origination"; among the discipline, skill in transgression and in restoration to purity; among the mātṛkā (the matrix), the establishing of the characteristics of dharmas without error; the ability rightly to display and dissolve away the sense of the notions of dharmas that are hard to understand in intent; and the dharma, the meaning, the explanatory diction, and the categorial distinctions of all dharmas. (As for the 「想」, "notion," in "notions" of the dharmas: the Taishō printed edition reads 「相」, "characteristic," while the Song, Yuan, Ming, Palace, Sheng, and Zhi editions read 「想」, "notion"; Kuiji's citation reads 「法相義」, "the sense of the characteristics of dharmas," yet glosses it as 「想謂能詮之名」, "'notion' means the name that expresses" — the two readings coexist; see the collation, Heading II of the Apparatus.)

The first ground, the line "corresponds with emptiness and with conditionality and dependent origination," has left two readings from the ancient masters, and Dunlun records both. Jing says: "The scripture says that the twofold emptiness accords with suchness, hence it says 'accords with the profound' … thus, conditionality and dependent origination are in substance apart from the wholly-imagined nature that is grasped as of fixed nature, and so they lead into correspondence with emptiness"; Woncheuk says: "'Emptiness' is the perfectly-accomplished nature (the perfectly accomplished), while 'conditionality and dependent origination' is the other-dependent, the conventional truth" — the one construing by way of the twofold emptiness dispelling the wholly-imagined, the other matching the perfectly accomplished and the other-dependent to emptiness and to dependent origination. The two readings are set forth side by side. The principle at the profoundest place of the discourses is, in the eyes of the ancient masters, precisely the teaching of the three natures; and this characteristic, "the ability to understand," is just the capacity to read out this layer and to expound it.

Sequence: First the Heart, and Only Last the Hand and the Mouth

Why are the five characteristics in this order? The sequence passage of the treatise gives a clear thread: first cultivate compassion, setting sentient beings upon the heart, "holding them in mind, wishing to work their benefit"; having the heart, only then cultivate kind speech, "making them come forth from the unwholesome and be settled in the wholesome, proclaiming right principle, gathering them in with instruction"; having spoken, people may not heed, may not change, and so one must have valor — toward the sentient beings who raise up wrong conduct and raise up affliction, "able to bear it all, so as not to forsake them"; having borne it, only then can one speak of maturing them: one class gathered in by wealth, one class by the Dharma, one class by wealth and Dharma both — and so at the last one cultivates the open hand of giving and the ability to understand the hidden intent of the profound principle, the one to give wealth, the other to give the Dharma. The sequence of the five characteristics is just the natural order, in the matter of delivering others, from bearing the aspiration to reaching out the hand.

A final question-and-answer draws it to a close: which perfection subsumes each of the five characteristics? "Compassion is subsumed by the perfection of meditation; kind speech, by the perfections of discipline and wisdom; valor, by the perfections of vigor, patience, and wisdom; the open hand of giving is just what is subsumed by the perfection of giving; and the ability to understand the hidden intent of the profound principle, by the perfections of meditation and wisdom" 〔question-and-answer〕. Jing points out why kind speech is matched to two perfections: "The kind speech that is issued is discipline, and the mind that can issue the speech is wisdom" — the words spoken accord with the disciplinary observances, and the mind that arouses these words is wisdom. The five characteristics are not outside the six perfections; they are precisely the look that the six perfections take on upon a single person once they have been cultivated to ripeness — "these five kinds all, by relying upon and practicing the six perfections, accomplish these five kinds, and enter into the characteristics of a bodhisattva".

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The Chapter on Characteristics asks "how to recognize a bodhisattva," yet what it answers, from first to last, is "how to act." Not one of the five characteristics is a posture: compassion must come down to right conduct, kind speech must be able to open the mouth even toward an enemy and an evil friend, valor must withstand the test of transgression and of shrinking back, giving must reach out the hand, and understanding the profound must be able to expound it clearly. A true bodhisattva's "characteristics" lie not in countenance and bearing, but in being able to carry out these five matters, and in not retreating before the five grounds. This is why this chapter is placed at the head of the Yoga Sphere in Accord with the Dharma — the dharmas have been learned; the characteristics are the look that the dharma grows into upon a person.

Carrying Forward

This chapter's web of cross-reference is the densest of all: kind speech carries forward the Chapter on the Means of Gathering (15-01-15); the grounds of valor carry forward the "nature of firm and enduring strength" of the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening (15-01-17); the grounds of giving carry forward the Chapter on Giving (15-01-09); the two fruitful benefits carry forward the Chapter on Powers (15-01-05). Verifying the ascertainment passage of the Yoga Sphere in Accord with the Dharma in the Section on Ascertainment, no separate ascertainment of the Chapter on Characteristics is set up — the sense of the five characteristics is self-sufficient within the Basic Section. Alternate translations: Dharmakṣema's Bodhisattvabhūmi (Sūtra of the Bodhisattva-Ground), the Chapter on the Characteristics of the Bodhisattva, First, in the Sphere of the Method in Accord with the Dharma (the five characteristics given as compassion / kind speech / valor / giving / expounding the sense of the profound Dharma); Guṇavarman's Sūtra of the Bodhisattva's Good Discipline, the Chapter on the Characteristics of the Bodhisattva Who Dwells in Accord with the Dharma, First (the five characteristics given as the mind of pity / gentle speech / valorous vigor / non-craving / explaining the profound sense) — see Heading II of the Apparatus. Next follows the Chapter on Division, Second: the support of the five characteristics is not apart from the two divisions of householder and one gone forth (Dunlun).

What Is "Division"? — A History of Translation Hidden in a Chapter Title

The "division" of the Chapter on the Divisions refers to the householder division and the renunciant division — the two statuses of a bodhisattva. This chapter title has a history of its own. Dunlun set down its Sanskrit sound and its threefold sense: "The Sanskrit sound is bhāga [薄刃]; this word holds three senses: first, the sense of a phase; second, the sense of a distinction of kind; third, the sense of a wing". The old translation named the chapter precisely from this third sense — Dharmakṣema's version titles this chapter "the Chapter on the Wings", and Dunlun explains: "The old name, 'the Chapter on the Wings,' means that practicing the four dharmas can swiftly attain the fruit, just as a bird, relying on its wings, swiftly reaches somewhere" — the four dharmas are like a bird's pair of wings, bearing the bodhisattva to fly swiftly to bodhi. Xuanzang instead took the sense of "division," and Kuiji set out the reason: "Both the householder and the renunciant cultivate; because it is cultivated by the two divisions, it is called 'division,' and so it is titled 'the Chapter on the Divisions'". One chapter title, two generations of translators, each taking one sense: the old translation took the metaphor (the wing), the new took the fact (the division) — and yet the metaphor of the bird's wing still lives on within the ancient masters' glosses.

The order of the chapter, too, falls out naturally: the Chapter on the Characteristics had just finished setting out the five characteristics of a true bodhisattva, and "the support of the five characteristics is not apart from the two divisions, householder and renunciant; hence, after the Chapter on the Characteristics, the Chapter on the Divisions is next discussed" (Dunlun). Having the characteristics, one asks next: a person of what status can cultivate these characteristics into being? The answer is — householder and renunciant, both can.

The Four Dharmas: The Good Cultivation of Undertakings, Skillful Means, the Benefiting of Others, Undistorted Dedication

The treatise opens with a question: "The bodhisattvas of the two divisions, householder and renunciant — how many dharmas are there by which, when they rightly cultivate and train, they swiftly realize supreme perfect awakening?" The answer is four dharmas.

First, the good cultivation of undertakings — cultivating the six perfections to the mark. What counts as "to the mark"? The treatise gives four standards, taking giving as the example: resolute cultivation (when a beggar is present, whether kind or unkind, of virtue or of faults, without any distinction, "one will certainly give," and no one can make the mind of giving waver); thorough cultivation ("when one can bestow even one's own body and life, how much more the things outside the body"); constant cultivation (without weariness, giving away then and there whatever one obtains); faultless cultivation (keeping far from the various defiled kinds of giving spoken of in the Chapter on Giving). The other five — discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, wisdom — are extended by analogy from these four modes. Four adverbs raise a threshold: to cultivate is not merely to have cultivated, but to cultivate resolutely, to cultivate thoroughly, to cultivate unbrokenly, to cultivate cleanly.

Second, skillful means — ten kinds of skill. The first four are the complete process of delivering people: toward those who detest and turn away from the sacred teaching, first remove their anger and vexation; toward those in the middle, cause them to enter in; those already entered in, bring to maturity; those already matured, cause to attain liberation. The fifth is skill with respect to the world's heterodox theories; the sixth, rightly observing the keeping and transgressing of the bodhisattva's pure discipline; the seventh, skill with respect to the right vows; the eighth, ninth, and tenth, skill with respect to the three vehicles of śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and Great Vehicle. The ten skills are drawn together into five deeds: establishing sentient beings in their own aim and benefit; subduing all heterodox theories; guarding the pure discipline (not transgressing what should not be transgressed, and having transgressed, swiftly repenting); realizing the fullness of cherished matters to come; and, according to lineage, faculties, and resolute inclination, speaking the fitting dharma. Dunlun even made an index for the reader: these ten skills — "the first four are as stated in the twelve skillful means, the fifth as in the section on the science of reasoning, the sixth as in the discipline, the seventh as in the five vows, and the last three appear in more than one place, nearest as stated in the Chapter on the Factors of Bodhi" — the Chapter on the Divisions does not itself unfold them, because the earlier text of the Bodhisattva Stage has long widely clarified them.

The line "according to their lineage, their faculties, and their resolute inclination, speak the fitting dharma" carries an essential gloss that Dunlun set down from the Tripiṭaka-master Xuanzang: "The Tripiṭaka-master says: the seed is called 'family-lineage,' the manifest activity is called 'faculty'" — lineage is the phase of the seed, the faculty is the phase of manifest activity; to observe the capacity and suit the teaching to it is to look at what is in this person's seeds and where they stand in manifest activity. This line is also bound to a single-character collation: the treatise reads "according to their lineage [種性]," but the five editions — Song, Yuan, Palace, Sheng, Zhi — all read "family-lineage [種姓]" — Dunlun's cited text and the Tripiṭaka-master's gloss both read "姓," corresponding with the five editions (see the collation, Heading Two of the Apparatus). A difference of one character, and the ancient masters' gloss and the ancient editions' transmission bear mutual witness to each other.

Third, the benefiting of others — in reliance on the four means of gathering: giving, kindly speech, beneficial conduct, and shared undertaking, able to give sentient beings benefit and ease, or both together. Master Kuiji adds: in fact "each of the four means of gathering has both benefit and ease" — that giving of wealth prompts the arising of the mind is benefit, that the goods are there and then put to use is ease; each one is complete in both. Stated at length, it points back to the Chapter on the Aim of Self and Others.

Fourth, undistorted dedication — the first three dharmas are the roots of goodness "amassed by the three gates": the good cultivation of undertakings is one gate, skillful means a second, the benefiting of others a third; what the three gates amass, past, future, and present, is all taken up, and "with a mind of pure single-flavored, sublime, clear faith, dedicated in quest of supreme perfect awakening," never used to seek any other worldly fruit or maturation. Dedication is the closing seam of the four dharmas: all that the first three have earned is invested in one place alone.

The treatise then proclaims the exhaustiveness of the four dharmas: all the dharmas to be trained in that the World-Honored One has expounded for the householder and renunciant bodhisattvas are "all, one should know, gathered by these four" — and it uses a word with much momentum: the bodhisattva who thus cultivates and trains "draws near to and presses close upon" the supreme bodhi so hard to attain, so hard to realize — step by step nearing, bearing right up against that fruit-stage so hard to attain, so hard to realize.

The Five Superiorities of the Renunciant: One Same Path, Two Modes of Practice

The four dharmas are cultivated in common by householder and renunciant, but the treatise's closing passage says plainly: "The renunciant is, in comparison with the householder, greatly different and greatly loftier". Superior in what? Five deeds: first, liberated from the perils of taking in father and mother, wife and child, and kin; second, liberated from the anxiety and suffering of the arduous, pressing affairs of farming, trading, and serving the king; third, "able, without turning aside, to practice the hook-and-chain pure conduct"; fourth, in the dharmas of the factors of bodhi swiftly realizing penetrating knowledge; fifth, abiding in resolute and pure discipline and restraint, so that whatever they utter the multitude all trust and honor.

How is "hook-and-chain pure conduct" to be understood? Master Kuiji: "'Hook-and-chain' takes the sense of mutual restraint and entanglement; the renunciant has restrictions that guard against evil in the three kinds of action, and so is like a hook-and-chain" — the precepts are like hook and ring, ring linked to ring, binding the three kinds of action of body, speech, and mind onto the right track, not one link slipping loose; the Concise Compendium adds a contrast at its end: "the householder bodhisattva is not so, being wholly given to laxity". The superiority of the renunciant lies not in a nobility of status, but in bonds fully loosed and the chain of precepts unbroken — walking the one same path of the four dharmas the faster.

The One Sense This Chapter Illumines

The Chapter on the Divisions gathers the path to buddhahood into four things, and proclaims that "beyond this there is nothing that exceeds them and nothing more" — all bodhisattvas of the three times, householder or renunciant alike, realize supreme bodhi "all by these four dharmas". This is a placing of "status": there is but one path, and the four dharmas are exhaustive; status does not block a person, and the householder division can equally cultivate and equally realize — yet the treatise also does not smooth away the difference, and states the renunciant's five superiorities plainly and clearly. Not to discard a person on account of status, and not to shy from speaking of the loftier out of a wish for equality: both held to truthfully — this is precisely the measure of this chapter.

Carrying Forward

Each of this chapter's four dharmas has its predecessor: faultless cultivation points back to the defiled giving of the Chapter on Giving (15-01-09); the benefiting of others is stated at length by pointing back to the Chapter on the Aim of Self and Others (15-01-03); the sources of the ten skills are matched by Dunlun to the various earlier chapters of the Bodhisattva Stage. In chapter order it carries on from the Chapter on the Characteristics (15-02-01: the support of the five characteristics is not apart from the two divisions). The Section on Ascertainment verifies the ascertainment passage on the section of following-dharma yoga, but establishes no separate ascertainment-chapter for the Divisions — the sense of the four dharmas is self-sufficient within the Basic Section. Alternate translations: Dharmakṣema, the Chapter on the Wings, second (the four dharmas as good cultivation of undertakings / skillful means / gathering in sentient beings / dedication · four deeds of the renunciant) · Guṇavarman, the "Chapter on Meditation," second (the chapter title reads "Chapter on Meditation," but the content is in fact the four dharmas — so the Taishō base text reads; the four dharmas as wholesome-activity skillful means / good skillful means / benefiting others / good making of vows · four deeds of the renunciant) — see the Apparatus, Heading Two. It leads on to the Chapter on the Superior Intent, third: the practice that is set in motion must arise from intent (Dunlun).

Why, After the Chapters on Character and on Division, We Turn Back to the Intent

The Chapter on Character set out the five characters of the true bodhisattva; the Chapter on Division set out the four dharmas of fellow-practitioners, householder and renunciant — both of these are the visible "conduct." But where does conduct come from? Dunlun breaks open the chapter-sequence in a single line: "The foregoing Chapter on Character and Chapter on Division are alike the dharmas of conduct; and the conduct that is set in motion must arise from resolve, and so, after the Chapter on Division, the resolve is next expounded". Kuiji adds a further layer: "Resolve is just aspiration-and-desire, and so it is expounded next" — resolve is what the mind is set upon, what it desires; conduct is the fruit, resolve the root. The Chapter on Exalted Resolve turns the lens from the deed in the hands back to the intent within the heart: the same giving, the same preaching of Dharma — let the intent differ, and the whole is different.

Then what is the essence of "resolve"? The ancient masters have left three accounts set side by side: Dunlun records, "If we follow the Compendium of the Mahāyāna, desire and resolved conviction are the essence of resolve; if we follow the Ornament, desire and volition are the nature of resolve"; Kuiji establishes on his own account, "As for resolve, it has faith, desire, and resolved conviction for its essence". Desire, resolved conviction, volition, faith — all are mental factors among the hundred dharmas; the several masters open and combine them differently, yet all match the essence of resolve to a mental factor. And the treatise's own definition seals just this: "having pure faith as forerunner and the discernment of dharmas as forerunner, the resolved conviction that seals-in-understanding and settles unwaveringly upon the buddha-dharmas — this is called the bodhisattva's exalted resolve" — a mind, drawn forth by pure faith and discrimination, that seals itself upon the buddha-dharma and does not shift.

There is also a small question the ancient masters thought of on the reader's behalf: the two words "exalted" (增上) sound very high — does this belong only to those on the grounds and above? Master Ji: "Here the phrase 'exalted' seems to lie only on the grounds; but expounding the sense according to the text, it holds equally for those before the grounds — there is no fault in that" — the pre-ground bodhisattva likewise has exalted resolve, only differing in degree of purity (this is precisely the foreshadowing of the three phases — impure, pure, well-purified — among the fifteen resolves further on).

The Seven Aspects of Compassion: A Bodhisattva's Intent Is First Tested by "Compassion"

Before expounding resolve, the treatise first expounds the seven aspects of compassion — because "since the bodhisattvas are furnished with compassion, they are called ones of wholesome resolve, ones of utterly wholesome resolve": compassion is the seal-mark of wholesome resolve. The seven aspects are seven tests:

Fearless compassion — not being good to people because one is afraid of someone. Principled compassion — compassion that is not indiscriminate: "they never exhort or transmit to sentient beings by way of what is unlawful, contrary to discipline, or contrary to wholesome conduct, nor in an unfitting place"; Dunlun glosses it as "not exhorting or transmitting to sentient beings by way of the ten evils that are unlawful, contrary to discipline, or contrary to wholesome conduct, nor by the unprincipled place of the heterodox teachings" — to love a person is not to indulge him in everything. Tireless compassion — setting in motion every work of benefit as befits the occasion, never wearying. Unsolicited compassion — "not waiting to be entreated, but of oneself giving rise to compassion": not waiting for a person to open his mouth. Undefiled compassion — "in benefiting others, neither seeking a return of favor nor looking for an agreeable fruit and its maturation to come"; the treatise says it is "also called objectless compassion"; Master Ji takes apart the two names: "not seeking a return of favor is called undefiled; not seeking a later fruit is called objectless" — neither scheming for present return nor scheming for a fruit in a life to come. Vast compassion — "even when they meet with every unbenefiting thing, [the bodhisattvas] do not forsake [beings]; the bodhisattva would sooner take upon himself what is unwished-for than direct ill-will toward the other": when the other harms me, I neither strike back nor let go. Impartial compassion — "extending to every class of sentient beings equally and evenly, without partition or limit within the realm of sentient beings."

What is the essence of the seven aspects of compassion? Two accounts of the ancient masters are set side by side, as Dunlun records: Master Jing says, "The seven kinds of compassion, it should be known, are the ideation of loving-kindness and compassion; loving-kindness and compassion are of the nature of non-anger; true loving-kindness, compassion, and wisdom are their essence"; Master Bei says, "Resolved conviction together with non-anger, [taken] from among the accompanying aids, is named compassion; but reduced to its essence it is still resolved conviction" — the one construes it by loving-kindness-and-compassion (non-anger), the other by resolved conviction; Dunlun also records a reconciling account, "in scripture and treatise the naming is not fixed". Recorded, not adjudicated.

The Fifteen Resolves: By Object, by Meaning, by Stage

The bodhisattva's exalted resolve the treatise opens out into fifteen kinds. Dunlun hands us a very serviceable key of classification: "Among the fifteen, the first seven are named from the object, the next three are named from the meaning, and the last five take their designation from the stage".

The first seven are named from the object grasped: the supreme resolve (toward Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha); the restraining resolve (toward the pure moral code and discipline); the perfection resolve (toward giving, patience, vigor, meditative concentration, and wisdom); the resolve toward the true meaning (toward the twofold no-self and the suchness of all dharmas that is the profound ultimate meaning); the resolve of might (toward the supernormal might and innate might of the buddhas and bodhisattvas); the resolve of benefit (wishing to bestow the wholesome dharmas on sentient beings); the resolve of ease (wishing to bestow benefit on sentient beings). Whatever object the mind arouses resolved conviction toward, it takes that name.

The next three are named from the meaning: the resolve of liberation (a mind free of craving-attachment toward beings, a mind unbound to the maturational fruit to come); the firm resolve (a mind fixed upon unsurpassed awakening, never wavering); the resolve free of falsity (a resolved conviction operating together with unerring knowledge, toward the means of benefit and the means of proceeding to realize).

The last five are named from the stage — these five are in fact one and the same resolve under different names at different stages of the realizing path: all the exalted resolve at the Stage of Resolute Practice (before the grounds) is named the impure resolve; from the Stage of Pure and Surpassing Resolve (the first ground) up to the Stage of Determinate Practice, the pure resolve; upon reaching the Ultimate Stage, the well-purified resolve. And the impure resolve is also named the resolve to-be-disciplined — "because this resolve should be brought under deliberate discernment," it still relies on discernment for its counteracting; the pure and well-purified resolve are also named the innate resolve — "because its nature is accomplished, and it is well established within the [bodily-mental] basis": no longer relying on deliberate rousing, it has become accomplished as the very nature of body and mind.

The two words "innate," the ancient masters make the realization of suchness the watershed. Kuiji: "Before the grounds, having not yet realized the dharma, one only manifests supernormal powers and the like to discipline it; from entering the grounds onward, having self-realized suchness and cultivated it over many aeons, the supernormal powers are born together with the body"; what Dunlun records instead reads, "from the eighth ground onward, having self-realized suchness and cultivated it over many aeons, the supernormal powers are born together with the body" — "entering the grounds," "the eighth ground": two transmissions set side by side, recorded and not adjudicated. The watershed itself is clear: before suchness is realized, good intent must be cultivated, roused, and disciplined; after suchness is realized, it is born together with the body, as natural as breathing. The difference between before the grounds and on the grounds lies not in what is done, but in whether the intent is "roused up" or "grown out."

Accomplishing Ten Things: How Intent Becomes Power

The fifteen resolves are no roster of psychological states; the treatise uses "able to accomplish ten things" to cash out their power one by one: the supreme resolve is able to cultivate offerings of every kind, the most surpassing, to the Three Jewels; the restraining resolve is able to make one "not deliberately transgress against what one might transgress, even in a circumstance bearing on one's very life; and should there be any transgression, to repent and clear it away swiftly" — sooner to give up one's life than deliberately to break a precept; the perfection resolve is able to abide ever in the most surpassing abiding free of negligence; the resolve toward the true meaning is able, for the sake of sentient beings, to flow on through birth-and-death with an undefiled mind, not forsaking the exalted resolve toward nirvāṇa — one who has seen the true meaning dares to remain within birth-and-death undefiled, and yet does not relinquish the bent toward nirvāṇa; the resolve of might is able to perceive and receive, in the holy teaching, the pure and sublime savor of the Dharma, "not growing content on hearing and reflection alone" — it must seek realization through cultivation; the three resolves of benefit, ease, and liberation are able to cultivate diligently and tirelessly in the work of benefit; the firm resolve is able to set in motion blazing vigor, effort unslackening and unbroken; the resolve free of falsity is able swiftly to realize penetrating knowledge, "not growing content amid attainments of a lesser, inferior, or feeble distinction"; the resolve to-be-disciplined is able to draw forth the innate resolve — today's deliberate effort is for the sake of a day when no deliberateness is needed; the innate resolve is able swiftly to proceed to realize unsurpassed awakening, and to work every profit and benefit for gods and human beings.

At the last the treatise draws it to a full close: the exalted resolve the World-Honored One has proclaimed for the bodhisattvas in place after place, "it should be understood that all of it is subsumed within these fifteen resolves"; the bodhisattvas of the three times who realize unsurpassed awakening, "all by the fifteen resolves as thus stated. Apart from these there is nothing that exceeds them and nothing more".

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The Chapter on Character is visible; the Chapter on Division has a standing; but the Chapter on Exalted Resolve is a chapter with no outward mark to inspect at all — what it expounds is only within the heart. Yet the treatise sets it in the position of "the conduct that is set in motion must arise from resolve": the five characters are the flowers it puts forth, the four dharmas are the road it walks out. The last five of the fifteen resolves, "taking their designation from the stage," especially deserve heed: the truest scale of a practitioner's advance is not how many things have been done, but whether the intent has moved from "to-be-disciplined" to "innate" — from good that is roused up, to good that is grown out. This chapter is the heart of the Section on Practice in Accord with Dharma, and it directly foretells the next chapter: intent being now graded by stage, the stages should be laid out in full — and that is the twelve abidings and the thirteen abidings of the Chapter on the Abidings.

Carrying Forward

This chapter carries forward from the Chapter on Arousing the Mind (15-01-02): Dunlun summarizes overall, "here is generally set forth the resolve of the bodhisattvas who have entered upon the arousing of the mind" — the whole picture of intent after the mind is aroused. The object of the resolve toward the true meaning is precisely the four realities of the Chapter on the True Meaning (15-01-04); the object of the resolve of might is precisely the three mights of the Chapter on Might (15-01-05). The three-phase matching-by-stage of the last five resolves (the Stage of Resolute Practice / the Stage of Pure and Surpassing Resolve up to the Stage of Determinate Practice / reaching the Ultimate Stage) is the herald of the twelve abidings and thirteen abidings of the coming Chapter on the Abidings (15-02-04) matched against the ten grounds; the ascertainment of the Chapter on the Abidings in the Section on Ascertainment names the abiding of Utmost Joy the "stage of already-entered pure exalted resolve". The Section on Ascertainment treats the Section on Practice in Accord with Dharma, but does not set up a separate ascertainment-chapter for the exalted resolve — the meaning of this chapter is self-sufficient within the Basic Section. Alternate translations: Dharmakṣema's Chapter on Purifying the Mind, third 〔a separately preserved re-collation witness that reads "loving-remembrance" for "compassion"〕; Guṇavarman's Chapter on the Settled Mind, third 〔"innate" reads "nature-pure," with its own gloss "the nature is of itself just so"〕 — see the Apparatus, Heading Two. This is followed by the Chapter on the Abidings, part one.

Why, Having Expounded the Mindset, Must One Then Expound the Positions

The Chapter on Marks gave the bodhisattva's outward look; the Chapter on Parts gave his status; the Chapter on the Higher Inclination gave his mindset — but a person, from the arousing of the mind to the attainment of buddhahood, just where does he walk, and how far has he come? Dunlun points out the reason the Chapter on the Dwellings comes when it does: "Earlier, the bodhisattva's manifold practices had not been expounded at length; and practice must rest upon a position; therefore, after the Chapter on the Higher Inclination, the Chapter on the Dwellings is expounded". Kuiji reckons it more precisely still: "From the first arousing of the mind through to the utmost fruit, the differences of position amount in all to thirteen". Practice necessarily falls upon some position; spread the positions open, and the whole course of one road can be seen. This is the Chapter on the Dwellings — the capstone of the four chapters of the Section on the Yoga in Accord with the Dharma, and the master-map of the whole scheme of cultivation-and-realization positions of the Bodhisattva Stage.

What does "dwelling" mean? The treatise itself glosses it at its close: "By the meaning of being able to uphold and retain the bodhisattva, it is named a ground; by the meaning of being able to be a dwelling-place of enjoyment, it is named a dwelling" — one and the same stretch of road, called a "ground" from the angle of "bearing," and a "dwelling" from the angle of "residing." Interestingly, the three translated recensions each give an explanation of their own: Dharmakṣema's recension reads "because it gathers in sentient beings it is called a ground; because it is one's own reception of practice and dwelling it is called a dwelling"; Guṇavarman's recension reads "because it benefits others it is called a ground; because it benefits oneself it is called a practice" — upholding/enjoyment, gathering-others/self-reception, benefiting-others/benefiting-self: three translators, three glosses, pointing to the two faces of one and the same pair of concepts.

The Twelve Dwellings: A Single Master Route-Map

The treatise lays them out: the lineage dwelling, the resolute-conviction-practice dwelling, the supremely-joyful dwelling, the higher-discipline dwelling, the higher-mind dwelling, the three higher-wisdom dwellings (associated with the factors of awakening, associated with the truths, associated with the stilling of the flowing-forth of dependent origination), the markless dwelling with effort and with function, the markless dwelling without effort and without function, the unobstructed-discernment dwelling, and the utmost fully-perfected bodhisattva dwelling — the twelve dwellings "wholly gather in all bodhisattva dwellings and wholly gather in all bodhisattva practices." Beyond these there is, further, the Tathāgata's thirteenth dwelling, which "directly and fully awakens to the vast and great awakening before one, and is named the Unsurpassed Dwelling"; the detailed exposition is left to the Chapter on Establishment at the end of the Section on the Ultimate Yoga. Dharmakṣema's recension has, here, a charming old rendering: "Aweisanfo dwells in the Tathāgata dwelling" — "Aweisanfo" is the old phonetic transcription of "directly and fully awakens" (現前等覺); the new and the old translations stand here shoulder to shoulder.

What relation do the twelve dwellings have to the ten grounds of the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds? The treatise says plainly: "The bodhisattva's ten grounds proclaimed at length in that Sūtra of the Ten Grounds are precisely the bodhisattva's ten dwellings briefly proclaimed herein by the matrix (mātṛkā) gathered under the Bodhisattva Canon. In their sequence, from the supremely-joyful dwelling down to the utmost fully-perfected bodhisattva dwelling" — trim off head and tail: remove from the twelve dwellings the foremost lineage dwelling and resolute-conviction-practice dwelling (the two pre-ground positions), and the remaining ten dwellings are exactly the ten grounds. The Chapter on the Dwellings is the matrix-version of the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds.

There is, besides, a precious piece of textual scholarship that Dunlun records — a collation Xuanzang once made. Someone wished to take the three positions and five persons of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha and reconcile them with the twelve dwellings; but "the Tripiṭaka-master, collating the Sanskrit text of the Saṃgraha, [found that] it now has no text of the twelve dwellings; therefore there is no need to reconcile them … it is thereby verified that what the Tripiṭaka-master Paramārtha translated is in error" — Xuanzang, checking the Sanskrit Saṃgraha in person, judged that the "twelve dwellings" text, expanded out in the old translation, would not stand as evidence. Whether or not to reconcile — first collate the original text, then speak: this was the house-method of Xuanzang's school.

The Lineage Dwelling: The Seeds Are Already in the Storehouse

First among the twelve dwellings is the lineage dwelling — the mind not yet aroused, only "by nature naturally benevolent and worthy": within one's nature, naturally inclining toward the wholesome, "not by holding oneself in check and guarding oneself through deliberation" 〔passage〕. The most essential single line is: "he upholds and retains the seeds of all the Buddha's Dharma; within his own substance, and within his support, he already has complete all the seeds of all the Buddha's Dharma" 〔passage〕. What is this "support"? Jing points straight at it: "then within the store consciousness, holding those seeds is named 'within the support'"; Woncheuk confirms it: "this is still the Saṃgraha's 'within the root consciousness'"; and continuing within his passage there come forth two gateways: "the support of the seeds is twofold: first, on the gateway of true principle it rests upon the store consciousness and turns; second, on the gateway of accommodation-to-the-conventional it rests upon and dwells in the body of the five aggregates" 〔the transcribed text bears no separate marker; whether Woncheuk's continuation or Dunlun's own note, both are preserved〕 — spoken from the side of true principle, the seeds are entrusted to the store consciousness; spoken in accommodation to the conventional, they are lodged in the body of the five aggregates. The whole possibility of attaining buddhahood, at this very moment, has already, like seeds entering the storehouse, only to await the ripening of conditions.

Tai divides it one layer further: "lineage is twofold: first, the lineage-by-nature, namely those ordinary beings from beginningless time who have the Great-Vehicle lineage … second, the cultivated lineage" — the innate and the cultivated-into-being, of a piece with the Chapter on Lineage's two lineages, the dwelling-by-nature and the accomplished-through-cultivation.

The Resolute-Conviction-Practice Dwelling: The True Look of the Pre-Ground

From the first arousing of the mind to the not-yet-obtaining of the pure inclination, "all the bodhisattva practices — know that they are all named the resolute-conviction-practice dwelling" 〔passage〕. The treatise writes the practice-state-and-mark of this position without sparing its face: the power of deliberation is strong while spontaneity is deficient — whatever he does, he must "with a discriminating wisdom deliberate again and again before he can cultivate and do it"; he has not yet crossed the five fears (the fear of not surviving, the fear of ill repute, the fear of death, the fear of evil destinies, and the fear of timidity before an assembly); at times, toward sentient beings he raises wrong conduct, toward the sense-objects he raises greedy attachment, and toward the requisites of life he manifests miserliness; "he acts by trusting the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, not yet able to know reality from within himself" — everything he can trust to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, only he himself has not yet personally seen it; in three places he has loss of mindfulness and forgetting; expounding the Dharma and teaching others, "like shooting in the dark: whether it hits or does not hit, it merely, by the wish, comes off" — shooting arrows in the dark, and a hit is only by chance. At times he arouses the mind and then retreats, receives the discipline and then casts it away, practices the benefiting of others halfway and then, growing weary, sets it down again.

This long string of "at one time … at one time …" is a truthful self-portrait that the treatise draws for the pre-ground practitioner — not a rebuke, but a locating: only by knowing which station one is at does one know what the next station looks like. And the way out is written plainly too: the resolute-conviction-practice dwelling has the lower, middling, and superior three grades of forbearance, and "it is precisely when this superior-grade forbearance operates that, with respect to the practices, states, and marks stated above, he is able gradually to make them permanently severed without remainder; and from this without interval, know that the bodhisattva enters the supremely-joyful dwelling" 〔passage〕. What positions do the three grades of forbearance match? Tai matches them "the ten understandings, ten practices, and ten dedications are the lower, middling, and superior three grades of forbearance"; Kuiji matches them "at the position of the ten faiths, named the lower forbearance … at the ten understandings and ten practices, named the middling forbearance; the ten dedications and the rest, the superior forbearance" — the reckoning begins one position apart; the two matchings are set out side by side.

Incidentally, a point of gloss: of the three terms in the question posed at each dwelling, "what practice, what state, what mark," the Tripiṭaka-master says "practice is state, state is mark; the names differ but the meaning is one"; Woncheuk gives besides two further readings, the one matching them to three times, the other going so far as to match them to the four parts — "the seeing part and the mark-part are named 'practice,' the self-witnessing is named 'state,' the witnessing-of-the-self-witnessing part is named 'mark'"; Dunlun, collating Dharmakṣema's old translation "it only asks, what practice-mark is there," concludes "one still follows the Tripiṭaka-master's recension" — the names differ but the meaning is one.

The Supremely-Joyful Dwelling: What Happens on the Day of Entering the Ground

Crossing from the resolute-conviction-practice dwelling into the supremely-joyful dwelling, the treatise uses a great expanse of text to write this one station — because this is the station of qualitative change. First comes the well-determined vow: the bodhisattva's great vow, complete with six marks, "although in a single instant this vow arises, the nature of dharmas is naturally so, and it can obtain the bodhisattva's measureless, bright, and lovely fruit" 〔passage〕. Next comes the four-mark arousing of the mind (by what mark, what does it take as its object, with what state and what self-nature does it arise, what is its excellent benefit) — having aroused this mind, "he surpasses the bodhisattva's ordinary-being stage, realizes and enters the bodhisattva's right nature apart from birth, is born into the family of the Tathāgata, and becomes the true son of the Buddha" 〔passage〕.

Then comes the thorough severing of the five fears: cultivating the wondrous knowledge of no-self, even the "discriminated notion of a self" no longer operates, how much less the love of self — so he does not fear that he cannot survive; benefiting all sentient beings while seeking nothing from them — so he does not fear an ill name; apart from the view of self, having no notion of the self being ruined — so he does not fear death; knowing for himself that after death he will determinedly meet the Buddhas and bodhisattvas — so he does not fear the evil destinies; seeing that in all the world there is not one equal to him — so before an assembly he does not lose his nerve. The pre-ground's five fears (the resolute-conviction-practice-dwelling passage), on the day of entering the ground, are pulled up by the root — read the former and latter passages together, and it is exactly the drop between one station and the next.

Next, the ten great vows are drawn forth in completeness here (with an explicit back-reference to the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening), each vow sworn with "as the realm of sentient beings continues on by turns and is in the end never cut off and exhausted"; the ten dharmas of pure-cultivation dwelling (pure faith, loving-kindness, compassion, giving in generosity, being without weariness, well knowing the treatises, well understanding the world, conscience and shame, the nature of firm strength and upholding, making offerings to the Tathāgata) make this dwelling swiftly obtain purity; the two causes and conditions for seeing the Buddhas (seeking to see by coarse pure faith, taking birth by the right vow); the three kinds of pure causes and conditions (making offerings to the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha; ripening sentient beings by the four means of gathering; dedicating wholesome roots to awakening) make the wholesome roots doubly the more bright and pure — and here the treatise lets fall the first hammer-stroke of the gold-refining simile: "just as a shrewd and wise craftsman of the world puts ore-natured gold into fire, and, refining it thus and thus, thereby turns it, thus and thus, and makes it bright and pure". This gold-simile will follow the bodhisattva all along the way, worked at dwelling by dwelling, down to the Ground of the Dharma-Cloud (see Part Two).

Taking birth, he for the most part becomes a wheel-turning king of Jambudvīpa; and if he goes forth and is diligent, "in a single instant, in a mere flash, an instant, a moment, he is able to realize a hundred bodhisattva concentrations" — seeing a hundred Tathāgatas, shaking a hundred worlds, abiding for a hundred aeons, transforming into a hundred bodies, a hundred gateways firing off together. The supernormal transformations drawn forth by the force of the vow, from this point on, are "in koṭis of nayutas of hundreds of thousands of great aeons not easily to be numbered."

The One Meaning This Chapter (Part One) Casts into Relief

The twelve dwellings spread "bodhisattva" out from a vague name into a road with station-signs: the seeds in the storehouse (the lineage dwelling), setting out and feeling one's way (the resolute-conviction-practice dwelling), the formal entering of the gate (the supremely-joyful dwelling)…. Each station has its practice, its state, its mark — has the things it can and cannot yet do. The treatise does not in the least conceal the pre-ground's raggedness (shooting in the dark), nor in the least stint on the grandeur of entering the ground (the hundred concentrations); for only when both ends are told truthfully does the sequence of "setting-forth — obtaining — purifying" become trustworthy. A trustworthy route-map carries one farther than a heart-stirring slogan.

Carrying Forward

This part inherits, from above, the first three chapters of the Section on the Yoga in Accord with the Dharma (Marks · Parts · the Higher Inclination — the supremely-joyful dwelling being precisely the "pure and supreme inclination dwelling", which directly joins the Chapter on the Higher Inclination's matching of the three grounds of position); the lineage dwelling back-refers to the Chapter on Lineage, the four-mark arousing of the mind runs through the Chapter on Arousing the Mind, and the ten great vows back-refer to the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening; the Tathāgata dwelling points ahead to the later Chapter on Establishment 〔passage〕. The Section on Ascertainment, in the Section on the Yoga in Accord with the Dharma, has a re-ascertainment under nine headings, all of it belonging to the meaning of the Chapter on the Dwellings (see the Apparatus, Heading Two). Alternate translations: Dharmakṣema, the Chapter on the Dwellings, chapter four 〔a re-issued collation-recension at the end of fascicle nine, whose twelve-dwelling naming differs〕 · Guṇavarman, the Chapter on the Ground of Generating Awakening, chapter four 〔it makes twelve "practices," without a "concentration practice," a differently-constructed naming〕 — see the Apparatus, Heading Two. This joins, below, to Part Two: the nine dwellings from the higher-discipline dwelling onward, each dwelling matched to the ten grounds, closing with the three incalculable great aeons, the positions of the severing of the two obstructions, and the dwelling likened to the śrāvaka.

The Knack for Reading This Half: Follow the Gold

The latter half of the Chapter on the Dwellings — running from the Dwelling of Higher Discipline through to the Dwelling of the Utmost, Consummate Bodhisattva — fires off nine stations in a row. Every station carries the same set of questions (what practice, what state, what marks), and every station is matched to one ground of the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds. The bulk is vast; but the treatise has buried within it a single thread to follow: the gold-refining simile. In Part One, at the Dwelling of Utmost Joy, the gold first came out of the ore, first entered the fire. From here on, at each station, this same lump of gold has one more process worked upon it — follow the gold, and the sequence of the nine stations is plain at a glance.

The Dwelling of Higher Discipline (the Stainless Ground): Discipline Has Become Constitution

When the ten kinds of mental inclination have grown to the highest degree and reached utter fullness, one enters the second dwelling. In this dwelling one has "the precepts intact by nature: even the least of the evils and precept-breaches subsumed under the courses of evil action does not so much as come into operation — how much less those of middling or higher degree" 〔the passage〕 — discipline is no longer something kept by effort; it has grown into one's very constitution. And one is able, with subtle wisdom, to know as they truly are the fruits of action, and, seeing that the realm of sentient beings "all falls, one and all, under the suffering of the ultimate meaning," to arouse a vast pity. The gold, at this station: "the refined gold is set in a kāṣāya solution and, placed in the fire, is fired and refined again and again, becoming yet clearer and purer" — it is put into a reagent and refined once more. Dunlun, reading this dwelling, matches it section by section against the Treatise on the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds: "The ten inclinations expounded at the outset are just what the Treatise on the Grounds names the pure portion that is set in motion" — the nine dwellings of this chapter and the ten grounds of the Treatise on the Grounds, the ancient masters read against each other.

The Dwelling of Higher Mind (the Radiant Ground): Casting Oneself into a Fire-Pit for a Single Line of Dharma

When one attends to and reflects upon the ten kinds of pure mental inclination, one enters the third dwelling. The theme of this dwelling is concentration and the quest for Dharma: contemplating that "the ultimate means for liberation from the mass of suffering is solely … unobstructed knowledge," and that this knowledge depends on concentration and concentration depends on hearing — one therefore "arouses great vigor to seek out much learning," and the keenness of it reaches this pitch: "If I could hear a single line of Dharma-meaning such as was spoken above, then even were there a fire-pit filled with blazing fire the size of a three-thousandfold great-thousandfold world-system, I would cast my body in from the Brahmā-heaven above — how much more into a small fire-pit" 〔the passage〕; and to hear a single four-line verse "surpasses the gaining of a heap of great jewels filling a three-thousandfold great-thousandfold world-system." Having sought and gained the Dharma, one practices it as principle requires, and gains the four meditative absorptions, the four formless attainments, the four immeasurables, and the five superknowledges — and then comes a beautiful turn: "he once more relinquishes the meditative absorptions and the rest … and by the power of mastery over his vows returns again to the desire realm" 〔the passage〕 — wherever he can benefit sentient beings and can bring the factors of awakening to fullness, there he is born. The treatise adjudicates this by the three bonds: severing craving for the desire realm is called cutting the bond of desire; relinquishing the attainments of equipoise is called cutting the bond of existence; and having cultivated the resolute conviction in suchness earlier, at the stage of practice through resolute conviction, one has cut the bond of views (Master Jing and Master Tai differ slightly on the station at which the bond of views is cut — both are set down). The gold, at this station: "its filth and dross are exhausted; it holds level with the assay-weight" 〔the passage〕 — full in color and full to the scale.

The Three Dwellings of Higher Wisdom (the Blazing · the Hard-to-Conquer · the Manifest): Three Gates of Wisdom

The Dwelling of Higher Wisdom Associated with the Factors [of Awakening]: one enters by the ten Dharma-illuminations and cultivates the thirty-seven factors of awakening, so that "the most utterly subtle view of the transitory collection … all comes to be finally cut off from operation". The gold begins to become a vessel: "the refined gold is made into an ornament," which, like a maṇi-jewel's radiance, is not outshone by other gems 〔the passage〕.

The Dwelling of Higher Wisdom Associated with the Truths: with respect to the four noble truths one knows them as they truly are through ten modes; and one draws forth the crafts — writing, treatise, seal-carving, calculation, and the rest — using the world's own techniques to benefit the world's own people: breaking poverty, quelling calamity and disease, providing sport and pleasure, delivering those hard-pressed by kings and by thieves 〔the passage〕. Upon the golden vessel are set musāragalva gems; "like the light of the sun, the moon, and the constellations, which no wind-wheel can outshine, yet whose turning goes together with those winds" 〔the passage〕 — not outshone by the world, yet walking together with the world.

The Dwelling of Higher Wisdom Associated with Dependent Origination: by the ten kinds of equality of dharmas, one contemplates the coming-together and coming-apart, the arising and ceasing, of the world through the right contemplation of dependent origination in all its modes, and draws forth the three gates of liberation — emptiness, the markless, and the wishless. This dwelling raises up the most crucial pair of designations in the whole chapter: "with knowledge and compassion following upon each other, it is called the manifesting of the unattached knowledge and the manifesting of the Dwelling of the Perfection of Wisdom" (for the word "compassion" 悲, the three editions of Yuan, Ming, and Palace read "wisdom" 慧; both readings are set down — the Taishō "compassion" 悲 corresponds to the two senses in the passage above, "skilled in the ultimate meaning, and heedful of sentient beings"): toward the conditioned, "abiding yet not abiding"; toward cessation, "seeing its quiescent virtue and yet not abiding either" — sitting fixed at neither end, this is the look of the Perfection of Wisdom made manifest. Upon the golden vessel are set beryl gem-beads; like moonlight gladdening the bodies of sentient beings, which the four wind-wheels cannot sever or break.

The Dwelling with Applied Effort and Function, Markless (the Far-Reaching Ground): The Last Exertion

The seventh dwelling: "within each single mind-moment, the ten perfections being foremost, all the factors of awakening are full and surpassing" — here the treatise looks back and sees that the prior six dwellings each had their own specialty (the first, the great vow; the second, removing the taint of precept-breaking; the third, the illumination of Dharma; the fourth, entering the path; the fifth, worldly occupations; the sixth, dependent origination), whereas this seventh dwelling "fully sets in motion all the qualities of a buddha" 〔the passage〕. Its position is subtle: "that eighth dwelling is thoroughly pure; this seventh dwelling is still called mixed … one should say this dwelling is named undefiled — since not yet attained, one should say this dwelling belongs to the mixed-and-defiled" — "not that it has afflictions, nor that it is free of afflictions: because none of the afflictions comes into operation, yet because the buddha-knowledge it aspires to is not yet attained". Master Kuiji names the criterion of mixed-versus-pure in a single stroke: "because it is still interrupted by mind-with-outflows, it is called mixed; the wholly outflowless is called purely pure"; and the Concise Compendium adds a further cut: at the seventh ground, "it is discussed in terms of a continuity of much outflowless contemplation, and so it is said to be uninterrupted — it is not truly uninterrupted".

At this dwelling, "the attainment of cessation entered at the sixth dwelling can, at this dwelling, be entered mind-moment after mind-moment," and moreover one "constantly abides within the abiding of the true limit, yet is able not to realize cessation" — standing every day at the cliff's edge, and simply not leaping. From which ground onward can cessation be entered? The Tripiṭaka-master transmits two explanations from the West: one says that only from the eighth ground and above can it be entered (what is entered at the sixth and seventh grounds is the concentration associated with fundamental knowledge, not the attainment of cessation that lies among the disjoined formations); the other says that from the first ground and above all can enter it, citing the Laṅkāvatāra's "from the first ground up to the sixth ground one enters the attainment of cessation" as proof — both set down, without adjudication. The golden vessel is inlaid with maṇi-jewels and is "exceedingly luminous and beautiful"; like sunlight drying up the foul dampness of Jambudvīpa.

The Dwelling without Applied Effort and without Function, Markless (the Immovable Ground): A Purity That Needs No Exertion

The eighth dwelling: the ten kinds of knowledge of the ultimate meaning of all dharmas being consummated, "with respect to the non-arising of dharmas, one realizes the bodhisattva's first, foremost, utterly pure forbearance". Whence comes this forbearance? "By the four investigations … one obtains the four kinds of knowledge that accord with the true … expounded at length as before in the Chapter on Reality" — the four investigations and four kinds of knowledge-that-accords-with-the-true laid down in the Chapter on Reality (15-01-04) reach their utter purity at the eighth dwelling. Master Kuiji apportions their substance: "the investigations are its cause 因, not the forbearance of the non-arising [of dharmas], since they are only with-outflows; the knowledge-that-accords-with-the-true extends to the outflowless — this is the substance of the eighth ground's forbearance of the non-arising". By gaining this forbearance one cuts the four calamities (the matter of applied effort and function; the yearning after the higher station; the yearning after the great capacity to benefit beings; and the operation of subtle notions), and gains the ten masteries (Dunlun, following the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds, matches the names: over life, over mind, over property, over action, over birth, over the will, over vows, over resolute conviction, over knowledge, and over Dharma), "constantly, without interruption, never apart from seeing the buddhas" 〔the passage〕. From here on, the similes of gold and of light are "to be understood as in the sūtra" — the treatise itself lets go: this lump of gold no longer needs describing station by station.

The Dwelling of Unhindered Discernment (the Ground of Excellent Wisdom) and the Dwelling of the Utmost, Consummate Bodhisattva (the Dharma-Cloud Ground): The Preacher and the Recipient of Consecration

The ninth dwelling: "in the profound dwelling one does not give rise to satisfaction," but turns to seek the knowledge for preaching the Dharma — knowing as it truly is "all the coursings within the near thicket" (the hidden movements of mind), one "becomes, in every mode, a great Dharma-master, gaining measureless gates of dhāraṇī … eloquence inexhaustible." Incidentally, here is a documentary trace of Xuanzang's collation of the translation: among the names of the "thickets" cited from the commentary-treatise that Dunlun records in this passage, the old translation had the word "faith" 信, and "the Tripiṭaka-master says: 'faith' is a mistranslation; it should be 'resolute conviction' 勝解, which is why the Avataṃsaka-sūtra says 'resolute liberation'" — a collation of a single word, showing the rigor of the translation bureau.

The tenth dwelling: "fit to be a Dharma-king, receiving the Dharma-consecration", the knowledge of all-modes-of-knowledge being sprinkled upon his crown, as a crown-prince receives investiture. Master Kuiji here sets up the distinction of equal-awakening and marvelous-awakening: "the tenth ground has three minds — first, entering; second, abiding; third, fulfilling; within this fulfilling mind one is named an equal-awakening bodhisattva, and the Tathāgata is named marvelous-awakening". As for the name Dharma-Cloud Ground, the treatise closes with cloud and rain: "from the great Dharma-cloud of all the Tathāgatas, he is able to receive … the most utterly vast and subtle rain of Dharma; and this bodhisattva, himself like a great cloud … is able to rain down upon measureless, boundless sentient beings an incomparable, subtle rain of Dharma, extinguishing all the dust of the afflictions, able to make the crops of the various roots of goodness grow and ripen" 〔the passage〕 — the cloud that receives the rain will, in the end, rain down itself.

Summation One: Three Incalculable Great Eons — How Long This Road Takes to Walk

The treatise gives the timeframe: "all the dwellings together take two incalculable great eons" — here the word "two" 二 is read as "three" 三 by the five editions of Song, Yuan, Ming, Palace, and Sheng; and below, the treatise itself counts three legs (in the first incalculable great eon one surpasses the stage of practice through resolute conviction and enters Utmost Joy; in the second incalculable great eon one reaches the eighth dwelling; in the third incalculable great eon one realizes the Dwelling of the Utmost, Consummate 〔the passage〕), and then summarizes, "only after passing three incalculable great eons does one realize unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening — no more than this measure," while Dunlun's citation of the text likewise reads "only after passing three incalculable great eons, no more than this measure" — both readings set down (see the Apparatus, item two, on collation). "Incalculable" 無數 has two glosses: reckoning by days and months up to the measureless is called incalculable; or reckoning by great eons past all counting is called incalculable — taking the latter, "only after passing three incalculable great eons … no more than this measure." Higher-degree vigor can shorten the middling and the great eons, but "one should know that decidedly there is nothing that can convert the incalculable great eons" — one may hurry the small stations, but cannot hurry the whole course.

Here the ancient masters have left a real, hard-fought discussion: Master Jing cites the Sūtra of the Necklace to say that after fulfilling the ten grounds one passes yet more eons learning the elephant-king's gait; Master Tai harmonizes this with "the sūtra states it directly, the treatise-author gathers the small under the many"; Master Bei says flatly, "the Sūtra of the Necklace is not in the catalogue and cannot serve as proof", and Dunlun further records that "the Sūtra of the Necklace was translated by Zhu Fonian in the Former Qin, yet the present Tripiṭaka-master does not trust it" — the discipline of the catalogue steps up to adjudicate a scripture's qualification as proof: a living instance of Tang-dynasty doctrinal learning, set down without adjudication.

Summation Two: The Stations for Cutting the Two Obstructions — Bark, Rind, and Heartwood

Across the three incalculable great eons, what is cut? "One is able to cut off all the coarse heaviness belonging to the afflictive obstruction, and to cut off all the coarse heaviness belonging to the cognitive obstruction". The afflictive obstruction is cut at three dwellings: the Dwelling of Utmost Joy cuts the coarse heaviness of the afflictions of the evil destinies; the eighth dwelling cuts the coarse heaviness of the afflictions that obstruct the forbearance of the non-arising; and the Dwelling of the Utmost, Consummate — "all the latent tendencies and latent proclivities of the afflictions, their every obstruction, are forever cut off, and one enters the Tathāgata's dwelling." What are "latent tendencies" 習氣? Master Tai gives the Consciousness-Only definition: "the older masters called the residual energies latent tendencies; now it is not so — the seeds of the afflictions are also called latent tendencies, and also called latent proclivities" — latent tendencies just are the seeds, just are the latent proclivities; to cut the latent tendencies is precisely to cut the seeds.

The cognitive obstruction, then, is divided into three layers: "the coarse heaviness in the bark, the coarse heaviness in the rind, the coarse heaviness in the flesh", cut in order by the Dwelling of Utmost Joy, the eighth dwelling, and the Tathāgata's dwelling. For "flesh" 肉 the five editions read "heartwood" 實, and the edition Master Jing saw does read "heartwood" 實; he explains the simile: "what is here called 'in the bark, the rind, the heartwood' is mostly taken from trees — the tree's core, firm and solid, is called heartwood 實; the old rendering 'bark, rind, bone' is also called 'bark, flesh, core'" — bark of the tree, rind of the tree, heartwood of the tree: the depth or shallowness of the obstruction is like the three layers of a tree, the deeper in the harder to strip away, and to strip through to the heartwood is precisely the Tathāgata's dwelling (both readings set down; see the Apparatus). The thirteen dwellings are matched to the eleven kinds of purity, and the eight dharmas of the Chapter on Qualities are wholly subsumed among them — the whole chapter draws in here to a table.

Summation Three: Dwellings in the Category of the Śrāvaka — a Cross-Table of the Two Vehicles, Great and Small

The final passage: "the bodhisattva's twelve kinds of dwelling, following their sequence, are in the category of the śrāvaka dwellings": from the śrāvaka's dwelling of its own lineage, dwelling of applied practice, and dwelling of entering the certainty of the right, on through the three higher trainings, the markless samādhi, the dwelling of the place of liberation, and the arhat dwelling — twelve matched against twelve. This is not to demote the bodhisattva to a śrāvaka, but to give the reader familiar with the śrāvaka path a conversion-table: the stations set out in detail in this treatise's own Śrāvaka Stage (Stage 13) each have their corresponding station-post on the bodhisattva path. Master Jing matches them one by one in fine detail (the ninth to the four fundamental absorptions, the tenth to the three formless [attainments] …); the Commentary on the Compendium of the Great Vehicle likewise judges "the thirteenth, the Tathāgata dwelling, is not taken"; the exegetes give a separate reading; and Master Kuiji distinguishes that "the śrāvaka's fourth dwelling takes the mind advancing toward the first fruit, not the dwelling at the time of the first fruit" — on this conversion-table the ancient masters have collated to the finest degree, all set down as above.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Relief

Having read the nine dwellings through, the deepest impression is not the step-by-step ascent of the realms of superknowledge, but the treatise's honesty at both ends: the seventh dwelling is "not that it has afflictions, nor that it is free of afflictions," abiding in the true limit yet not realizing cessation — high as the seventh ground, still it says truthfully that this dwelling "is still called mixed"; the three incalculable great eons "decidedly there is nothing that can convert" — the practice takes no discount, no shortcut exists. And that lump of gold — from coming out of the ore, entering the fire, entering the reagent, having its dross removed, becoming a vessel, being set with gems, up to its dazzling luster — says one and the same thing: purity is not the exchanging of one lump of gold for another; it is the same lump of gold refined process by process. What separates a sentient being from a buddha is not the material, but the sequence of processes.

Carrying Forward

This piece inherits from Part One (the establishing of the twelve dwellings · the first three dwellings), matching each dwelling in order to a ground of the nine grounds of the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds; the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas points back to the Chapter on Reality; the eight dharmas point back to the Chapter on Qualities; the dwellings in the category of the śrāvaka are read in full against the Śrāvaka Stage (Stage 13); and the Tathāgata's dwelling points to the later Chapter on the Establishing [of the Bodhisattva]. The nine-item re-ascertainment of the Section on Ascertainment is in mutual reference with this piece's "four dwellings accomplishing four matters," "the marks of the various grounds," and "cultivated-attainment and outflow-alike" (see the Apparatus, item two). The variant-translation, dwelling by dwelling (practice by practice) matched to the grounds, and the collation of the śrāvaka-category passage, are given in the Apparatus, item two. With this, the Chapter on the Dwellings is wholly complete, and the four chapters of the Yoga-Practice Locus of Following the Dharma are fulfilled; next follows the Chapter on Birth in the third, the Yoga-Practice Locus of the Ultimate.

From "What to Learn" to "Where to Be Born"

By the time the Bodhisattva Stage reaches its third section, the treatise's manner of asking has changed. The first section, in eighteen chapters, speaks of what a bodhisattva should learn (lineage, the arousing of the mind, the six perfections, the four means of gathering, and so on); the section on Yoga in Accord with the Dharma speaks of how these matters of learning are brought gradually to fulfillment in dependence on the abidings; and by the section on the Culmination of Yoga the treatise begins to answer head-on a question that has hung over everything until now: this whole course of learning and cultivation — what kind of fruit does it finally form? Kuiji fixes the place of this third section thus: "The first is the dharma to be learned, which must give rise to the practice able to learn it … Having learned the practice, there is then a fruit and benefit; and so next it distinguishes the fruit of the bodhisattva's taking on birth. This is the fulfillment of what was sought as cause, and so it is called the section on the Culmination of Yoga." What is sought is fulfilled as vowed, and so it is named "culmination." And for the first item of that fruit and benefit, the treatise chooses a theme startling at first glance — "birth."

Why birth? The ordinary person hears "birth" and is afraid, because to take on birth is the ripened recompense of the power of karma, and to be born is to have to age, sicken, and die. But this chapter states its meaning at the outset: "In every abiding, every bodhisattva takes on a birth free of fault, benefiting and giving ease to all sentient beings" — the bodhisattva's taking-on of birth is a "birth free of fault," and moreover it is not a birth he cannot help but undergo; it is a birth for the sake of benefiting and giving ease to all sentient beings. The first two kinds of birth (the quelling of disaster, and into one's own kind) repeat throughout one and the same formulaic phrase: "by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery" (in the opening segment it reads "whether by the power of the great vow or by the power of mastery," and it is marked even in the closing words of the full statement, appearing seven times in all); and Guṇavarman's translation, under the name of the fourth kind, "the existence of mastery," lays down a definition outright: "Mastery is just the power of the vow." This is the key to the whole chapter: the ordinary person is pushed into birth by the power of karma; the bodhisattva chooses birth by the power of the vow. The birth is the same taking-on; the engine is wholly different. As for the latter three kinds of birth (great might, the ascendant, the final), the treatise no longer uses this formulaic phrase, but brings each out with its own words — "the maturational fruit won when he takes birth according to his inborn endowment," "won precisely by the ascendant power of this karma," "the provisions for awakening already utterly perfected." Birth as manifested by the power of the vow and birth as won by cultivation: the treatise, by the presence or absence of the formulaic phrase, forms these into two groups of its own accord — while their being called, alike, a "birth free of fault" is one and the same.

Birth for the Quelling of Disaster: Wherever There Is Disaster, There He Is Born

The first of the five births is the most concrete. The treatise lists six scenes of disaster present before one: famine, plague, war between neighboring lands, quarrels and grudges among people, the tyranny of an evil king, and wrong views deluding the multitude — and the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow and the power of mastery, is born into the very midst of the disaster. In famine he is born as a great fish, "giving of his own flesh universally to all the hungry beings"; in plague he holds the power of efficacious spells and takes on "the body of a king of medicines" — Dunlun explains this body's use: by the power of the vow together with the power of spells, he makes his whole body, its limbs and joints above and below, become good medicine, dividing and giving it out to the sick; in war he is born as a mighty lord of a great country, stilling the war by the Dharma; in quarrels he reconciles by words of sincerity and trust, going back and forth; under tyranny he is born into the royal house as a king who acts according to the Dharma; and when beings, deluded into faith in some heaven, thereby commit evil, he simply takes birth in that very heaven and cuts off the wrong view from within.

Dunlun classes the first five kinds as "the stilling and removal of the five present sufferings" (famine, disease, war, foes, and punishment), and sets the sixth apart as "the cutting off of wrong views and evil deeds". The five sufferings are disasters outside the body; wrong view is a disaster within the mind — and the birth for the quelling of disaster removes even the disaster of the mind along with the rest.

Birth into One's Own Kind: Born into the Very Worst of Company, to Be Their Head

The second kind of birth goes a step further. The birth for the quelling of disaster still goes to "save" from disaster; the birth into one's own kind is to be born directly as "one of their number" — born among the kinds of gods, nāgas, yakṣas, and asuras that plot harm against one another, born among wrong-viewed brahmins, born among the company that delights in doing evil, that maintains itself by wrong livelihood, that clings to the utmost to the desires. Born in among them to do what? The treatise says it with the utmost economy: "He goes to take birth among the same kind as those sentient beings and becomes their foremost head. Having become the foremost head, he teaches and guides them by skillful means. The evil they do, the bodhisattva does not do; the good they do not do, the bodhisattva puts into practice."

Note the mechanism of this teaching: the bodhisattva does not go in to preach; he first becomes their leader, and then uses conduct itself to draw the difference — the evil you do, I do not do; the good you do not do, I do. The treatise lists this very difference as the first cause of his guidance: "By the very fact that the bodhisattva's conduct differs from theirs, and by his expounding of the true Dharma, he removes with skillful means every fault of those sentient beings." First there is the difference in conduct, and then the Dharma he expounds has someone to hear it. This is the taking-to-the-limit of the gathering-through-shared-work (the fourth of the means of gathering, in the Chapter on the Means of Gathering): the same kind, the same body — and yet not the same conduct.

Birth of Great Might, Birth of the Ascendant: Blessed Recompense Too Is a Work of the Vow

The third, the birth of great might, is when the bodhisattva takes birth according to his inborn endowment, and the maturational fruits — life span, form and complexion, clan and lineage, mastery, wealth — are "the most excellent in all the world." As for the undertakings these excellent fruits can accomplish, the treatise points back to itself, to the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others: there it was said that the excellent maturation is the bodhisattva's capital for delivering beings. The fourth, the birth of the ascendant, is where, with the climb through the ten abidings, the place of birth too mounts step by step. Kuiji matches this ladder rung by rung: at the first abiding he becomes king of one continent (a wheel-turning king, ruling Jambudvīpa); at the second, king of the four continents; on to the eighth abiding, lord of a lesser-thousand world; at the ninth, lord of a two-thousand world; at the tenth, he "takes birth in the Maheśvara Heaven, which is the pure land" — and Kuiji especially notes: "In truth it lies between the two lower [heavens]; because it is born by uncontaminated karma, it is called above the Summit of Form," and this is stated with respect to the phase before the body-of-enjoyment of the dharma-realm has been attained. Jing then supplies the sound and sense: Maheśvara, spoken in full, should be "Mahā-Īśvara"; mahā means great, and īśvara is here rendered "mastery" — the Heaven of Great Mastery.

The Final Birth: The One Life in Which the Provisions Are Perfected

The fifth, the final birth: the provisions for awakening already utterly perfected, he takes birth either in the house of a great brahmin royal preceptor or in the house of a great kṣatriya king, "able to bring to full realization, present before him, unsurpassed perfect complete awakening, broadly performing all the works that a buddha performs." Jing judges this to be the mode of awakening in the emanation body.

This passage also draws out a piece of philological scrutiny by Xuanzang himself, set down by Dunlun 〔"Ji relates what the Tripiṭaka-master said"〕: there is another scripture recording that the Buddha told Maitreya — you are to be born in a brahmin house, I in a kṣatriya house; I am born from the right side, you are born by transformation atop the head; my life span is eighty, yours sixty thousand years. Xuanzang points out that this scripture is at variance with what is recorded in the Maitreya Sūtra, and he writes two words upon it: "to be investigated" — held in doubt, awaiting inquiry. Not forcing a verdict, not forcibly harmonizing, but setting down the contradiction as it stands and leaving it to those who come after — this is the philologist's family method handed down by Xuanzang (the "investigation of the Sutra on the Wholesome Precepts" case at the end of the Chapter on Wisdom is of the same character).

Who Is Qualified for the "Five Births"? — A Thousand-Year Discussion Drawn Out by One Line at the Chapter's End

At the chapter's end the treatise draws to a close, saying: all the births taken on by the bodhisattvas of the three times in pure birthplaces are gathered in by the five births, "and beyond them there is nothing further or added." Then it adds a line: "The one thing to be set apart is the birth taken on by bodhisattvas at the ordinary stage. Why? Because what is here intended is the bodhisattva possessed of wisdom, whose manifold births alone are reckoned as the five births." — The birth taken on by bodhisattvas at the ordinary stage is not counted in; the five births refer specifically to the "bodhisattva possessed of wisdom."

This line deserves a second look: both of the two old translations, Dharmakṣema's and Guṇavarman's, lack it (see 〈Apparatus〉heading two) — it is a distinction proper to the transmission handed down by Xuanzang alone. From which rung does "possessed of wisdom" begin to count? Kuiji records two positions: one takes it from the second abiding and above (reaching also to before the grounds); one takes only the first ground and above. Kuiji himself judges that "the first reading is the stronger," on the ground that the bodhisattvas of the ten abidings can already attain awakening through the eight aspects. But the verdict Dunlun records is the reverse: of the two explanations, "the Tripiṭaka-master held the latter to be the better" — Xuanzang inclined to take only bodhisattvas ascended to the grounds, because bodhisattvas before the grounds have not yet won an even-minded regard toward sentient beings, and moreover the five births from the first ground to the seventh pertain to both transformation [-birth] and [ordinary birth], while from the eighth ground and above they are transformation-birth alone. The two pillars record opposite choices; the two are here set side by side without a verdict — what is to be marked is the substance of this discussion: the threshold of the five births is precisely the threshold of "whether the power of the vow can take charge."

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The Chapter on Birth may look as though it recounts all manner of biographical manifestations of a bodhisattva, but from first to last it establishes only one meaning: the very matter of taking on birth can be turned from the recompense of the power of karma into an instrument of the power of the vow. The ordinary person asks, "Why am I born here?"; the bodhisattva asks, "Where do sentient beings need me to be born?" The five births, from the quelling of disaster and into one's own kind on to great might, the ascendant, and the final, are five gears of one and the same power of the vow, from shallow to deep; and the line at the chapter's end, "the resting-basis for the fruit of great awakening," makes it plain: these births are not a prolonging of the round of rebirth, but a stairway to buddhahood — the bodhisattva, treading upon one willingly chosen birth after another, "swiftly realizes unsurpassed perfect complete awakening."

Carrying Forward

The Chapter on Birth opens the five chapters of the section on the Culmination of Yoga. Dunlun's overall outline: the chapters on Birth, on the Means of Gathering, and on the Grounds distinguish the practice of one's own portion; the Chapter on Practice distinguishes the practice of ascent; and the Chapter on the Establishing distinguishes the fruit over against the practice — the present chapter and the Chapter on the Means of Gathering directly succeed one another: "The first makes clear the five-births practice of benefiting beings; the latter makes clear the six-kinds practice of gathering beings". Having taken on the body of the five births, one must next ask how to gather sentient beings with this body — and so follows the Chapter on the Means of Gathering (the second). The birth of great might points back to the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others (the eightfold completeness of maturation); the birth of the ascendant is said with reference to the differing births of the twelve abidings in the Chapter on the Abidings (the section on Yoga in Accord with the Dharma) — the present chapter points back to the first section and to Yoga in Accord with the Dharma, and points forward, opening the six means of gathering: the web of the section on the Culmination of Yoga is already spread from its very first chapter.

From Taking Birth to Embracing: You Have the Body — Now What Do You Use It For?

The Chapter on Birth taught how the bodhisattva, by the power of his vow, chooses to take birth; this chapter follows straight upon it and asks: having received this body, what does one do with it? Dunlun states the relation of the two chapters bluntly: "the first sets forth the practice of the five births that benefit sentient beings; the latter sets forth the practice of the six [ways of] embracing that gather in sentient beings" — the five births are the acquiring of a standing, the six embracings the putting of that standing to use. The definition Kuiji gives beneath the chapter-title points the same way: "having received the excellent birth and completed the fulfilling of one's own benefit, next there is the benefiting of others." Embracing, then, is the whole set of ways in which the bodhisattva builds a relationship with sentient beings and, within that relationship, brings them to fulfillment — and the treatise gathers it into six kinds.

All-at-Once Universal Embracing: At the Very Instant of Arousing the Mind, the Relationship Is Already Wholly Established

The first kind of embracing is the most unexpected — it happens earliest, yet reaches the widest. "It means that when bodhisattvas first arouse the mind, they embrace the whole realm of sentient beings, taking them all as their kinsfolk": at the very instant of first arousing the mind, all sentient beings are already, every one, the bodhisattva's "kinsfolk." Note that this is no mere posture; the treatise at once supplies its workable content: he thinks in this way — I ought, toward them, according to my ability and according to my strength, to do every kind of thing that benefits, gives ease, and enriches — and then "whatever he has thus thought, he does accordingly." Thought of, and done.

Why is it called "all-at-once" and "universal"? Because it does not wait for the relationship to be nurtured slowly: the content of arousing the mind is itself, in a single stroke, a total taking-in of the whole body of sentient beings. The Chapter on Arousing the Mind taught the first right vow; the first embracing of this chapter is precisely the relational face of that right vow — the moment the vow is aroused, the relationship between all the world's beings and myself has already been rewritten.

Dominant Embracing: Household and Realm — Two Practice-Checklists for the Lay Bodhisattva

The second kind of embracing comes down to the two most everyday standings: the householder and the king. This passage is a rare stretch of writing in the Bodhisattva Stage that clings entirely to worldly human relations, and it deserves a line-by-line reading.

As householder: toward his parents he "by every kind of skillful means urges them to cultivate what is good; supports them at all times, never slackening or neglecting; well recognizes their kindness, well knows how to repay it," and, within the bounds of Dharma and principle, accords with their intent. Toward wife, children, bondservants, and servant-boys: he gives at all times food and clothing in accord with the Dharma as they wish, "in the various labors never presses or is harsh," bears with their faults, tends them himself when ill, urges them to cultivate good deeds, bestows goods and comforts them with loving words, and even "gives rise to no such notions as 'bondservant' or 'hired worker,' but looks upon, respects, and nurtures them as he would his own body" — he does not see servants as servants, but cares for them as for his own body.

As king: "he does not carry out demotion or punishment, does not resort to blade and staff, yet is able to govern rightly"; with Dharma and with wealth he enriches the people; "relying on the fields of his own homeland he provides for himself, and does not use violent force to invade and plunder the territory of others" — self-sufficient, launching no aggression; he urges the people to cease evil and cultivate good; "he looks upon the multitude of beings as a father upon his sons"; and by extension — toward unrelated sentient beings he yet gives equally, how much more toward his own subjects; his word is kept, and he "keeps far from all such things as killing, binding, beating, punishment, oppression, and the severing of limbs."

The meaning of these two checklists lies in this: embracing need not wait until one has donned the Dharma-robe. When a person, within a standing he already holds — as a son, as a master, as a sovereign — performs that standing to the bodhisattva's measure, that standing is itself an embracing.

Gathering-In Embracing: The Complete Rule for Leading a Following

The third kind of embracing is "rightly governing one's following" — leading students. The treatise first sets up two baselines: "first, with a mind free of taint he rightly embraces his following; second, in what is of true benefit to the following themselves he rightly teaches them to cultivate and practice, and does not, by crooked devices, ensnare and cajole them." Taking in students is not for oneself (a mind free of taint); what is taught must be of true benefit to the students themselves (in what is of their own benefit); and no crooked device may be used to cajole or ensnare them.

Beneath the baselines is a long string of particulars that reads like a thousand-year-old charter of the teacher's way: hold the mind even, without favoritism and faction; "be not stingy toward them with the right Dharma, nor keep a teacher's [closed] fist" — do not clench the Dharma in one's grip and hold something back; do not crave students' service and offerings, yet do not bar students who come of their own will to draw near and do good (for the growth of their merit); teach the not-yet-understanding into understanding, the already-understanding into greater clarity and purity; cut off doubt as it arises; "in bitterness and in ease, share with them in common"; strive at the students' affairs beyond one's own; reprove in accord with principle when reproof is due, discipline in due season when discipline is due; when students fall ill or grieve, "never abandon them"; toward the poorly endowed, "never slight or bully them"; when weary, expound the Dharma in accord with their state; be "able to bear questioning and challenge without giving rise to anger" — when a student stumps the teacher, the teacher takes no offense; one's own observance of the precepts must be equal to or higher than the students', "never lower and inferior"; and finally, "teaching and training the following by these very things, he also makes his own practice advance still further" — teaching and learning advancing together, not one item omitted.

The closing line is especially clear-eyed: "the bodhisattva ought not to be gathering in a following at all times, nor yet is he never gathering, nor yet is he inconstant and changeable" — not gathering students at every moment, nor never gathering, and still less gathering and casting off by turns. The taking-in of students is itself a thing that calls for discernment.

Long-Time, Short-Time, Final: Three Embracings Are Really Three Firing-Times

The last three embracings come off in a single breath, on a single criterion: the other's grade of maturity. For sentient beings abiding in the lower grade of maturity, "because it is only after a long stretch of time that they become fit for purity," long-time embracing is required; for those in the middle grade, short-time embracing suffices; for those in the higher grade, "because in this very life they become fit for purity," it is final embracing — this very life can bring it to a close.

These three embracings fasten directly onto the lower, middle, and higher grades of maturity already established in the Chapter on Maturation (the sixth chapter of the first section): the Chapter on Maturation speaks of the firing-time of beings themselves; this chapter speaks of the embracing-schedule that matches the firing-time. Delivering beings is no assembly-line of even, side-by-side progress; it is slow work, charging each person's fire with its own measure of fuel — some must be walked a long way, some are only a last mile short.

The Twelve Difficulties: The Treatise Does Not Prettify the Cost of Benefiting Others

The six embracings told, the treatise turns its edge and lists the twelve difficulties the bodhisattva meets when embracing sentient beings. This passage is the most honest writing in the whole chapter — it admits that benefiting others is exceedingly hard, and it counts out the hardships one by one for you to see:

Those who transgress again and again — to punish is not right, to let go is not right (one); to tame evil people one cannot but come down hard, while still guarding oneself against affliction (two); the goods too few, those who come to beg too many (three); one has but a single body, yet requests come all at once from everywhere (four); dwelling in a place of ease, one must still keep the mind unnegligent (five); wishing to benefit all beings, yet one's strength falls short (six); the foolish, fawning-deceitful, and obstinate — to teach is hard, to abandon is hard (seven); seeing clearly the faults of birth-and-death, yet, to deliver beings, unable to depart from it (eight); the pure resolve not yet realized, one fears to lose mindfulness and die (nine); the pure resolve not yet realized, and someone comes to beg the very thing one is most loath to give (ten); beings of divergent views and convictions — to teach each one is hard, to abandon them all is hard (eleven); practicing the utmost non-negligence, yet not obliged to cut off all the afflictions (twelve).

Look closely, and one sees that more than half of the twelve difficulties have the "hard-at-both-ends" structure of a dilemma (punish-or-let-go, expound-or-abandon, teach-each-or-abandon-all); a few others are gaps between the ideal and the actual (goods few, seekers many; one body, many requests; the vow present, the strength absent); and two more are the phase-bound fragility that belongs to one "who has not yet realized the pure resolve" (fear of losing mindfulness and dying; the most-loved thing begged away). The treatise writes these out not to deter but to inoculate the practitioner: these difficulties are not something you meet because you have practiced poorly — this road is simply built this way.

The Counter-Practice: How the Twelve Lines Match the Twelve Difficulties — A Case-File Left by the Ancient Masters

The difficulties listed, the treatise gives the counter-practice passage: observing the grave and the light and acting by expedient means; carefully discerning and selecting the person; coursing along by grasping the cause of embracing with valor; arousing a right vow; curbing and governing one's mind so it does not scatter; settling one's mind; discerning with fierce sharpness; giving rise to no weariness; of oneself enduring with patience; practicing letting-go; arousing diligent vigor, blazing without slackening; rightly cultivating by skillful expedient means (this segmentation follows Dunlun's reading into twelve lines) — the conclusion being that "though all the difficulties present themselves right before him, he is without any faltering, and is himself able rightly to escape them."

Just how do these lines of counter-practice match, one to one, the twelve difficulties before them? Here the ancient masters left a case-file of textual study. Kuiji first sets up one matching (eleven lines against twelve difficulties, the last line serving to explain both the eleventh and the twelfth), then honestly records another master's divergent matching, and finally says: if one follows the Bodhisattvabhūmi Sūtra (Dharmakṣema's old translation), the counter-practice has only nine lines — "one cannot collate against it" — the recensions do not line up. Dunlun records all of this, then hands down his own judgment: "though there are many statements, none is decisive; now I explain it further. Both the new and the old treatises alike have, in due order, twelve lines that counter the foregoing twelve difficulties" — he goes back and re-counts the old translation, reading out that both new and old have twelve lines, matched one to one: the new translation's "one should observe the grave and the light" answers the old's "not observing the grave and the light, one acts by expedient means" to counter the first difficulty; "carefully discern and select the person" answers "examining the person" to counter the second difficulty… and collating the twelve lines through one by one, line answers to line.

Kuiji's matching and Dunlun's judgment are here set side by side without adjudication (see Heading III of the Apparatus). What this case-file leaves behind is Dunlun's very method of work: where the phrasing-and-parsing is in doubt, go back to the alternate translation and collate line by line — he does not guess from doctrine, but counts it out by cross-checking two translations against each other. Which matching is correct is still left as two standing options.

The One Meaning This Chapter Brings to Light

The Chapter on Embracing runs from the total embrace of arousing the mind, through the daily life of household and realm, through the charter of the teacher's gate, all the way to the discernment of firing-times and the reckoning of difficulties — it looks fine-grained and trivial, but it establishes in fact a single meaning: to deliver sentient beings is not one vague wish, but a set of concrete relationships that can be, and must be, made good item by item, at a cost paid item by item. The treatise takes "embracing" apart into six kinds, counts the hardships out as twelve, and matches the counter-practices one to one — this refusal to spare detail is itself the greatest respect paid to the two words "benefiting others": it refuses to let compassion rest as a slogan, and insists on translating it into a daily practice that can be done, and can be borne.

Carrying Forward

The Chapter on Embracing comes on from the Chapter on Birth (the five births receive a body, the six embracings put the body to use; Dunlun's outline places the two chapters together as the "right exposition of one's own portion of practice"); the three embracings of long-time, short-time, and final take directly for their criterion the lower, middle, and higher grades of maturity established in the Chapter on Maturation (the sixth of the first section); all-at-once universal embracing points back to the first right vow of the Chapter on Arousing the Mind; and the third and tenth difficulties echo the teaching of the Chapter on Giving, on giving away the most-cherished and most-excellent thing. Next comes the Chapter on the Grounds (the third) — birth and embracing are "practice," and practice must have a "position" on which it rests, so the seven grounds are set forth next.

Thirteen Maps, Gathered into Seven Pages

The Chapter on Rebirth tells how a bodhisattva takes on rebirth; the Chapter on Taking In tells how, with this body, he takes sentient beings in. But at what "place" do such practices occur? Kuiji, in his definition beneath the chapter's title: "The bodhisattva's positions and stages are relied upon like a ground, and so it is called the Chapter on the Grounds. Again, it is the place where one's own virtue is accomplished, where one is capable of taking on rebirth, and so it is named a ground" — the positions and stages bear up the practices as the great earth bears all things, and so it is called "ground."

The first thing this chapter does is to re-gather the thirteen abidings that the Chapter on the Abidings had established, into seven grounds: the Lineage Ground, the Ground of Conduct through Resolute Conviction, the Ground of Purified Superior Intent, the Ground of Practicing the Right Practice, the Ground of Certainty, the Ground of the Practice of Certainty, and the Ground of Reaching the Ultimate. The thirteen abidings are the detailed ledger; the seven grounds are the master list — among them, the Ground of Practicing the Right Practice gathers up six abidings in one breath (Higher Discipline, Higher Mind, the three Higher Wisdoms, and the Signless with Effort and Function), while the Ground of Reaching the Ultimate gathers the Abiding of the Supreme Fully Perfected Bodhisattva together with the Abiding of the Tathāgata into one. The treatise makes a special declaration: the first six grounds are the Bodhisattva Ground alone; the seventh is "the bodhisattva and the Tathāgata established as a ground in mixture," named the Mixed Ground. Kuiji explains for the treatise the intent behind this word "mixed": earlier (in the Chapter on the Abidings) it spoke only in terms of the causal position, and so it passed over the Buddha and did not mention him; now, recording things as they truly are, it takes the Buddha in as well — the map of the bodhisattva path ought, on its last page, to be drawn all the way up to the Buddha. As for the details of the Ground of the Abiding of the Tathāgata, the treatise gives its own advance notice: "in the later Chapter on Establishing the Buddha's Dharma, it will be expounded at length" — reserved for the fifth chapter of this Section.

A small point of textual research in passing: of the Ground of Certainty (the eighth ground) the treatise says, "because the bodhisattva of this ground has fallen within the third certainty." What are the three certainties? Master Jing cites the Chapter on Merits: certainty of lineage, certainty of raising the aspiration, and certainty of undeceptive conduct, and, using the wording of this chapter itself as self-corroboration, he fits them to their positions: since the eighth ground is named the third, the certainty of undeceptive conduct, then the prior seven grounds are the certainty of raising the aspiration, and everything before the grounds is generally named the certainty of lineage — the reason being that "before those others there is as yet no uncontaminated activity in operation, but only matured uncontaminated seeds" ("before those others" is the wording of the Taishō base text as it stands; the sentence above states plainly "everything before the grounds is generally named the certainty of lineage") — marking off the positions of certainty by uncontaminated seeds that are matured yet not in operation. Kuiji, for his part, cites the Xianyang, fascicle seven, and fixes the certainty of raising the aspiration at the entry into the First Ground. The two placements, Jing's and Kuiji's, are set forth side by side (see Apparatus, Heading Three); while Dharmakṣema's translation renders this same phrase as "of the three certainties, it is the first certainty" — the third having become the first, and this divergence between the old translation and the new is likewise recorded, as it stands, in the Apparatus.

The Heart of the Whole Chapter: A Single Question and Answer

The heaviest in bulk and the deepest in doctrine, in this chapter, is that question and answer at its center: "When the bodhisattva, from the Ground of Conduct through Resolute Conviction, enters the Ground of Purified Superior Intent, how is it that he transcends the evil destinies and the rest?" — Why is it that, the moment a bodhisattva ascends to the First Ground (the Ground of Purified Superior Intent = the Abiding of Utmost Joy), he falls into the three evil destinies never again?

First see clearly the weight of the question. The evil destinies are impelled by karma: one who has done evil-destiny karma must go and receive the evil-destiny recompense — this is the iron law of cause and effect. On what strength, then, does the bodhisattva "transcend"? By offsetting it with merit? By pardon through the Buddha's power? The answer the treatise gives is neither of these — and, moreover, the opening move of the answer is unexpected.

One Who Would Leave the Evil Destinies First Vows to Move Into Them

The treatise's answer is a complete chain of cause and effect, worth walking through step by step.

Step one, the provisions: the bodhisattva, relying on worldly pure meditative absorption, has already well amassed the provisions for awakening in the Ground of Conduct through Resolute Conviction. Step two, cultivating compassion: toward the sentient beings who suffer amid the one hundred and ten kinds of suffering (Dunlun points out that this inventory of sufferings is in fascicle forty-four), he "cultivates compassion, contemplating without omission" — not skipping a single kind of suffering. Step three, gaining the intent: from this he gains the intent of compassion and the intent of pity (Kuiji's distinction: the one who "gains the intent of compassion" is pity, and what follows is compassion).

Then comes the pivotal step four: "in order to benefit the sentient beings of the evil destinies, he vows to abide in the evil destinies as though in his own home". One who would transcend the evil destinies first vows to treat the evil destinies as his own home to dwell in. The treatise even writes out the words of the vow: even if it is only by abiding in such a place that I can realize supreme awakening, I too will endure it. Step five goes further still: "for all the evil-destiny karma of all sentient beings, with a pure intent, I vow that my own body should receive, in their stead, the maturational fruit of suffering" — the evil-destiny karmic recompense of sentient beings, I am willing to take on for them entirely. (Kuiji's distinction here: "pure intent" is of two kinds — from the entry into the grounds and above it is the uncontaminated pure; that before the grounds, because it is superior, is also named pure — and the bodhisattva of this passage is still before the grounds, so it is the latter.) Step six, raising the right vow: he vows that all evil karma should never come into activity, and all wholesome karma should constantly come into activity.

The Mechanism: The Coarse Heaviness Is Expelled, the Transformation of the Basis Is Gained

The six steps above are all cause; the effect is in the last sentence — and it is also the sentence heaviest in Consciousness-Only meaning in the whole Section on the Ultimate Yoga:

"Because he cultivates the power of this compassionate vow of worldly pure meditative absorption, all the coarse heaviness belonging to the class of afflictions of the evil destinies is expelled within his own basis. Because of this severing, the bodhisattva before long gains the transformation of the basis: as to all the evil karma of the evil destinies, in the end he does not perform it; as to the evil destinies, he assuredly does not go there."

Take this sentence apart. The true cause of the evil destinies the treatise locates within one's "own basis" — the basis of one's own body-mind continuum — as "coarse heaviness": the heavy defiled portion left behind by the class of evil-destiny afflictions. That is to say, the evil destinies are not a place waiting outside; they are a batch of sedimented defiled forces buried within one's own basis. What the power of the compassionate vow and the absorption does is not to skirt around the evil destinies out in the external objective field, but to "expel" this coarse heaviness upon the basis. Once the coarse heaviness is expelled, the basis is transformed — "gains the transformation of the basis" — and the basis being transformed, the evil-destiny karma "in the end is not performed," and the evil-destiny recompense "assuredly is not gone to." It is not that he dares not go, but that from the root he can no longer produce a cause that would go to the evil destinies.

Now, looking back at that unexpected opening move, it becomes clear: why is it that "vowing to abide in the evil destinies" is, on the contrary, a cause of transcending them? Because dread and flight before the evil destinies are themselves powerless to touch the coarse heaviness within the basis; only when the compassionate vow is fierce to the very degree of "taking the evil destinies as home, receiving recompense in the stead of sentient beings" can the mind's whole attitude toward evil-destiny karma be turned over — and it is precisely this power of turning-over that expels the defiled portion within the basis. Transcending the evil destinies is transcended upon the basis, not upon the realm of the grounds. The three translations each use their own terms in this sentence: Xuanzang uses "coarse heaviness / basis / transformation of the basis"; Dharmakṣema says "the defiled body received is before long severed; the bodhisattva transforms the evil-destiny body"; Guṇavarman says "he departs far from the afflictive latent tendencies of body and mind, and by departing from the latent tendencies he transforms the body of the four great elements" (see Apparatus, Heading Two) — one and the same mechanism, the three houses differing in the fullness or brevity of their wording; what Xuanzang translated forms its chain with "coarse heaviness / basis / transformation of the basis," writing directly into the translated wording the meaning that "what is to be severed lies within the basis."

The treatise concludes at last: reaching this point, he is named one who has transcended all the evil destinies, is also named one who has transcended the Ground of Conduct through Resolute Conviction, and is also named one who has entered the Ground of Purified Superior Intent — "transcending the evil destinies" and "ascending to the First Ground" are, from the start, two faces of one and the same event.

The Ten Dharmas: The Maintenance Procedure of a Ground

After the question and answer, the treatise appends the chapter's third passage: the ten dharmas — faith and the rest — spoken of in the Chapter on the Abidings are able not only to purify and cultivate the abidings, but "now, here, one should know they are likewise able to purify and cultivate the grounds." Dunlun divides this into three sections: establishment, brief meaning, and sequence.

Establishment is ten pairs of "ailment and remedy": for having altogether not raised the aspiration, counter with faith; for a mind of harm, counter with compassion; for a mind of anger, counter with pity; for attachment and longing toward body, life, and possessions, counter with relinquishment; for seeking requital and craving gain and support, counter with being without weariness; for lacking skillful means, counter with knowing the treatises well; for being unyielding in temperament and not according with others' minds, counter with knowing the world well; for heedlessness and sloth in cultivating the wholesome, counter with shame and dread of blame; for sinking into faint-heartedness before the long suffering of birth-and-death, counter with the nature of firm sustaining strength; for hesitation and doubt toward the Great Teacher, counter with making offerings to the Tathāgata. Each dharma is not a virtue-item established out of the void, but a remedy established over against a specific ailment.

The brief meaning gathers the ten dharmas into two purities: the first three (faith, compassion, pity) are purity of intent — the purity of the mind-ground; the latter seven are purity of exertion — the purity of action. The sequence, then, strings the ten dharmas into a self-verifiable chain of psychological cause and effect: deep faith in the great awakening → raising compassion toward suffering sentient beings → vowing to rescue and thereby raising pity → able to relinquish body, life, and possessions → for their sake exerting oneself diligently without weariness → knowing the treatises well → knowing the world as it truly is → giving rise to deep shame and dread of blame when afflictions suddenly come into activity → not following the afflictions, gaining the nature of firm sustaining strength → wholesome dharmas increasing and increasing, and last of all offering to the Tathāgata the offering of supreme right practice and the offering of material reverence. Beginning from a single thought of pure faith, closing with making offerings to the Tathāgata — walking the sequence of the ten dharmas all the way through is the procedure for purifying one ground; "able to purify and cultivate all the grounds" means that at every ascent to a further ground, the same set of procedures is walked through once again.

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Relief

The Chapter on the Grounds gathers the thirteen abidings into seven grounds at the front, sets up the ten dharmas as a procedure at the back, and runs a single question and answer through the middle — yet the whole chapter, in truth, establishes but one meaning: the advance and ascent through the stations of practice is, in essence, a switching-over of the basis — it is not arriving at a better place, but making over this very "ground" that is oneself. So it is with transcending the evil destinies (the coarse heaviness expelled, the transformation of the basis gained); so too with the ten dharmas purifying the ground (each dharma removing one ailment upon the basis). The evil destinies are not outside; the position of certainty is not in another; what the ascent from ground to ground makes over is, from first to last, the practitioner's own basis.

Carrying Forward

The Chapter on the Grounds comes following upon the two chapters on Rebirth and Taking In (Dunlun's division: the two chapters on Rebirth and Taking In are practice, and "since practice must have a basis, the Chapter on the Grounds is clarified next"). The seven grounds re-gather the thirteen abidings of the Chapter on the Abidings (in the Section on the Yoga That Accords with the Dharma); the ten dharmas turn back to point at the original wording of the Chapter on the Abidings, "as said above in the Chapter on the Abidings"; the Ground of the Abiding of the Tathāgata is given advance notice as "to be expounded at length" in the Chapter on Establishing; Master Jing's three certainties cite the Chapter on Merits (the eighteenth chapter of the first Section); the one hundred and ten sufferings are found cross-referenced in fascicle forty-four. Next comes the Chapter on Practice (the fourth) — the positions and grounds being established, "though there be positions to rely upon, what practice-dharmas are to be practiced" (Kuiji), and so the four bodhisattva practices are clarified next.

The Stages Are Set; Now, upon Them, What Is Practiced?

The Chapter on the Stages gathered the bodhisattva's positions into seven stages; the Chapter on Conduct then, right after, asks the next question. Kuiji puts the question plainly on the treatise's behalf: "The stages above set forth the positions on which learning rests; but although there are positions to rest on, what conduct, what conduct-phenomena, is there to practice…" — the positions are set, so upon this position what, exactly, is done? Dunlun's outline, for its part, marks out where this chapter stands among the five chapters: the first three chapters (Arising, Gathering-in, Stages) have finished discerning the conduct of one's own portion, and this one chapter discerns the conduct of further advancement — "conduct arises in dependence on the stages, and so, after the stages, conduct is set forth…"

The treatise's answer is crisp: from the Stage of Resolute-Conviction Conduct to the Stage of Reaching the Ultimate, throughout all the bodhisattva stages, what the bodhisattva practices "briefly has four bodhisattva conducts" — the conduct of the perfections, the conduct of the factors conducive to awakening, the conduct of the supernormal powers, the conduct of maturing sentient beings. Four classes, gathering up the whole of a bodhisattva's wholesome conduct. What this chapter sets out to do is to make each of these four headings solid, one by one, and then to prove that they are indeed "neither more nor fewer."

The Ten Perfections: The Six with Four Helpers Added

The first conduct is laid out the most fully. Beyond the six perfections, the treatise adds four to make ten: skillful means, vow, power, knowledge. Dunlun fixes their character in a single phrase: "these four, skillful means and the rest, are helper-companions to the former six" — the latter four perfections do not start a new hearth apart from the six; they are the helpers of the six. Their several contents the treatise passes over with "as spoken of before," and Kuiji points out each source in turn: the skillful means of the twelve modes and the five great vows are in the Chapter on the Factors Conducive to Awakening (the great vows are in fact ten, but "on the account that takes the superior ones, it says the former five"); the skillful means of the ten powers is in the Chapter on the Lineage of Power.

If the latter four perfections are gathered into the former six, why still set up ten? The ancient masters leave us a comparison of two scriptures (Kuiji): the Continuity-and-Liberation Sūtra takes them "as gathered in mutually by particular conduct" — skillful means is the companion of the former three perfections, vow the companion of vigor, power the companion of meditative absorption, knowledge the companion of wisdom; the Scripture of the Grounds, on the other hand, says the latter four perfections are companions in common to the former six. Kuiji's reconciliation is: "on the actual" it is as the two scriptures say (the latter four are gathered into the former six); "on the sense, for the reason of their superiority" — on account of their superior function, they are set up under four separate names. The names are ten; the substance returns to six.

Wisdom and Knowledge: A Precise Cut Drawn by the Two Words "with Discrimination"

Among the ten perfections, the treatise stops in particular to distinguish the difference between the sixth, wisdom, and the tenth, knowledge: "the purified sublime wisdom that grasps the ultimate and turns without discrimination should be understood to be named the perfection of wisdom; the purified sublime knowledge that grasps the conventional and turns with discrimination should be understood to be named the perfection of knowledge." Wisdom grasps the ultimate and turns without discrimination; knowledge grasps the conventional and turns with discrimination. Dunlun settles it in six characters: "the sixth takes the true as its object, the tenth takes the conventional."

This cut is worth slowing down for. The earlier handling in the two [older] translations divides by the two truths: Dharmakṣema — "because it knows the ultimate truth, it is named the perfection of prajñā; because it knows the conventional truth, it is named the perfection of knowledge" — and Guṇavarman, the word-order reversed but the sense the same (see the Apparatus, Heading Two): the object known differs, and so two names are set up. Xuanzang's rendering, however, locks in one further layer: not only does the object differ (the ultimate versus the conventional), but the manner of turning differs too — when the object is the ultimate it "turns without discrimination," when the object is the conventional it "turns with discrimination." This is one and the same vein of meaning as the twofold division the ancient masters set up in the Chapter on Wisdom when treating the wisdom of intrinsic nature — non-conceptual knowledge and subsequently-attained knowledge (awaking to all the knowable / having awoken, then discerning the several phenomena): the knowledge that realizes the true carries no discrimination; only the knowledge that gives rise to function has discrimination — discrimination is not a blemish, it is the normal form of the subsequently-attained knowledge giving rise to function; but it must be preceded by the discrimination-free realizing of the true. Wisdom stands at the end of the six perfections and knowledge at the end of the ten; these two "final positions" set exactly this borderline upon the skeleton of the whole system of the perfections.

The passage on the alternate approach, for its part, changes the angle, drawing all four of the latter perfections out from "knowledge" as their substance (Dunlun: vow is "the aspiring of knowledge," power is "power that is still knowledge," and skillful means and knowledge go without saying) — among the ten perfections, the latter four were, originally, four aspects of a single knowledge.

Why It Is Called "Perfection": Three "Utmosts"

The treatise gives the name "perfection" a threefold explanation: they are perfectly realized only through the long cultivation of three great incalculable eons (utmost in time); their intrinsic nature is pure and their essential character superior (utmost in essence); they surpass all the wholesome roots of the worldly, the śrāvaka, and the pratyekabuddha, and draw in the most superior fruit of awakening (utmost in fruit). Kuiji sets it under the heading "three reachings of the other shore": reaching the other shore in time, reaching the other shore in essence ("in the cause, it is not yet manifest, being defiled; in the fruit, it is manifest"), reaching the other shore in awakening ("the two vehicles are named 'cause,' their fruit not full"; only great awakening is named the fruit that reaches the other shore). He further records his teacher's supplement — "the Dharma-master further said" (Dunlun records it as "the Tripiṭaka-master further said," that is, Xuanzang): in fact there may be four, adding "the reaching of the other shore of wholesome roots," since the treatise-text plainly says "surpass all the other wholesome roots of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha." A single lecture-hall gloss between master and disciple thus came to rest in the two commentaries.

Three Ways of Reading the Sequence of the Six Perfections

The treatise then asks itself: giving, discipline, patience, vigor, meditative absorption, wisdom — why this order? The answer gives three paths, all three passable, each revealing one facet of the six perfections. By way of counteraction: stinginess, evil conduct, resentment and vexing-harm, indolence, distraction, dull-witted delusion — six ailments that obstruct awakening; the six perfections are arranged in the order of the prescription. By way of arising: not clinging to wealth and position, and so able to give (giving) → giving, and so leaving home to receive pure discipline (discipline) → revering discipline, and so able to endure others' harm (patience) → discipline pure and unmoved, and so diligently cultivating wholesome matters (vigor) → vigor departing from heedlessness, and so touching one-pointedness of mind (meditative absorption) → the mind concentrated, and so seeing and contemplating all the knowable just as it is (wisdom) — the former giving rise to the latter, this is a chain of psychological cause and effect that a practitioner can verify upon their own person. By way of the fruit of maturation: giving draws external wealth complete; discipline and the rest draw the "fivefold inner completeness of one's own body" — superiority in lifespan and the like, inborn tirelessness and endurance, inborn firmness and courage in one's tasks, an inborn disposition thin in the dust with the mind at will and quick to realize penetrating wisdom, an inborn wisdom vast, sharp, and quick — five inborn endowments, the fruit-imprints left, each, by the five perfections of a former life.

One and the same sequence can be read as a prescription, read as a chain of cause and effect, read as a table of fruit — the treatise does not adjudicate which one is the "real" reason; the standing of the three causes side by side is itself the teaching of a method: the sequence of a set of numbered phenomena often has more than a single layer of reasoning.

A Double Sealing: The Six Perfections Neither More nor Fewer, the Four Conducts Neither More nor Fewer

At the chapter's close, in two passages, the treatise "seals the mouth" twice.

The first seals the six perfections: the former four perfections, by the four senses of provision, intrinsic nature, retinue, and guardianship, accomplish the training in higher discipline (Dunlun assigns them to fact: giving is the provision for discipline, discipline is the intrinsic nature, patience is the retinue, vigor is the guardianship); meditative absorption accomplishes the training in higher mind; prajñā accomplishes the training in higher wisdom; "beyond these three, there is no further bodhisattva path of training to be found" — the three trainings gather up the whole path of training, and the six perfections just fill out the three trainings, "from this it is established that the perfections are only six, and beyond these there is nothing that surpasses or adds to them." The number six is not something patched together; it is locked shut by the frame of the three trainings.

The second seals the four conducts: all that a bodhisattva does, stated briefly, is four things — to cultivate all wholesome conduct in order to realize awakening, taking this as the forerunner to penetrate the true meaning, to perfectly realize power, to mature sentient beings; "these four things done by bodhisattvas should be understood to be the four conducts spoken of before, established according to what each is done for and in their sequence" — the four things and the four conducts buckle together in turn: because of cultivating wholesome conduct, the conduct of the perfections is set up; because of penetrating the true meaning, the conduct of the factors conducive to awakening is set up; because of perfectly realizing power, the conduct of the supernormal powers is set up; because of maturing sentient beings, the conduct of maturing sentient beings is set up. "Therefore, beyond these, no other conducts whatever are established."

Notice the provenance of these four things: penetrating the true meaning — the Chapter on Reality; perfectly realizing power — the Chapter on Power (the treatise-text itself marks the conduct of the supernormal powers "as spoken of before in the Chapter on Power"); maturing sentient beings — the Chapter on Maturation (the treatise-text itself marks "as spoken of in the Chapter on Maturation"). The Chapter on Conduct, at the tail-end of the Section on Ultimate Yoga, gathers the backbone chapter-headings of the Section on the First Grounds one by one back into its own frame of four conducts — all that was learned in the First Grounds is, in the end, edited into these four classes of "conduct." What is called "ultimate" is not the starting of a new movement; it is the drawing-in of the whole of the foregoing places-of-learning into four legs that can walk.

The One Meaning This Chapter Lights Up

The Chapter on Conduct lays out from the four conducts to the ten perfections, from the explanation of the name to the three causes, and finally seals twice; yet it sets up, in truth, only one meaning: however elaborately the bodhisattva path unfolds, gathered up it is only four things — to cultivate wholesome conduct, to see the true, to realize power, to mature beings; and these four things are not, among themselves, a coordinate list, but a single path with a before and an after ("taking this as the forerunner"). The six perfections are sealed within the three trainings, the four conducts within the four things — the sealing is not a limitation, it is a guarantee: one walking upon this path may know for certain that the work in one's own hands is neither more nor fewer, that not one piece is done in vain, and that not one piece has been left out.

Carrying Forward

The Chapter on Conduct comes in dependence on the Chapter on the Stages (conduct arising in dependence on the stages), a standalone chapter for the "conduct of further advancement" of the Section on Ultimate Yoga. The ten perfections cross-refer to the Chapter on the Factors Conducive to Awakening (the twelve modes · the five great vows) and the Chapter on the Lineage of Power (the ten powers); the twofold division of wisdom and knowledge is of one vein with the Chapter on Wisdom's twofold division of the wisdom of intrinsic nature into non-conceptual and subsequently-attained; the four conducts fold back respectively into the Chapter on Reality (the four investigations and four kinds of knowledge-as-they-are · penetrating the true meaning), the Chapter on Power (the six supernormal powers), and the Chapter on Maturation (the two immeasurables · all maturing). The three trainings gather the six perfections and close in the conclusion that they are "only six, and beyond these there is nothing that surpasses or adds to them" (this chapter). Next follows the Chapter on Establishment (the fifth) — the four conducts are the overall heading of the conduct of the causal stage; the Chapter on Establishment turns to clarify the fruit-stage: the Tathāgata's one hundred and forty exclusive buddha-dharmas, the final chapter of the five chapters that "discern the fruit against the conduct" (Dunlun's outline).

The Fruit-Stage at Last Draws Back Its Curtain

The Chapter on the Grounds had said: "The Tathāgata's abiding-stage will be expounded in full later, in the Chapter on Establishing the Buddha-Dharmas" — and now we are at that "later." The first four chapters of the Culmination of Yogic Practice told how a bodhisattva is born, how he is gathered in, on what stage he rests, what practice he practices — all of it the business of the causal stage; the Chapter on Establishment turns about and describes head-on the fruit-stage: after becoming a buddha, what, in the end, has been "become"? Kuiji sets a definition under the chapter's name: "In dependence on the ground he practices the cause; the practice of the cause being complete, and the diligent labor of great kalpas [expended], there must be a coming-to-fruition of the fruit; the fruit being obtained and perfected, and the original aim fulfilled, what has thus been established is named the 〈Chapter on Establishment〉." Three great kalpas were cultivated — there must be an accounting for them — and this chapter is that accounting, what Dunlun classes as, among the five chapters, the closing chapter that "against the practice discerns the fruit".

The treatise's answer is an inventory: the hundred and forty dharmas exclusive to a buddha — the thirty-two marks of a great being, the eighty secondary signs, the four purities of all kinds, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the three establishments of mindfulness, the three non-guardings, great compassion, the dharma free of forgetfulness, the everlasting destruction of the residual perfumings, the wondrous knowledge of all kinds — eleven categories. "Exclusive" means what the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha do not have; "a hundred and forty" is the running total, counted item by item. Part 1 (the present unit) treats the first four categories: the marks and signs, the four purities, and the item-by-item explanation of the ten powers.

The Thirty-Two Marks: Every Bodily Feature Has a Karmic Cause Behind It

The treatise first finishes listing the thirty-two marks — the feet well-settled and level beneath, the thousand-spoked wheels, the slender fingers … down to the uṣṇīṣa upon the crown and the white tuft between the brows. This inventory is opened or joined somewhat differently across the various sūtras and treatises; Dunlun uses a fourfold sorting to collate it against the Extensive Treatise (joined here yet parted there, parted here yet joined there, joined in both, parted in both), showing that the opening-and-joining of the mark-names is not one uniform thing.

But the true weight of this chapter lies not in the listing of names; it lies in the long passage on karmic causes that follows: every single mark corresponds to a concrete set of practices. By being well-settled in discipline, the observances, patience, and generosity, one evokes the feet well-settled and level beneath; by running about and making offerings for father and mother, and rescuing from suffering and distress, one evokes the thousand-spoked wheels; by not injuring, not stealing, revering and serving the elders, and subduing one's own conceit, one evokes the slender fingers; by gathering in the elders through the four means of gathering, one evokes the webbing of the hands and feet; by humbly tending and serving the sick and knowing measure in food and drink, one evokes the body's not being stooped; by standing up for those who are cast out, giving clothing and cultivating conscience-and-shame, one evokes the male organ's concealment within a sheath; by not speaking words that estrange, and by being able to reconcile those who have fallen apart, one evokes the forty teeth being even and without gaps; by regarding sentient beings as one's own children and giving clear, unsullied medicine, one evokes obtaining the supreme taste; by constantly speaking truthful words, kind words, timely words, and words in accord with the Dharma, one evokes the great Brahmā-voice; by constantly cultivating loving-kindness and compassion like a father, like a mother, one evokes the eyes dark blue and the eyelashes like a bull-king's; by truly praising those of virtue, one evokes the white tuft between the brows …

Reading through this table of correspondences, one finds that it is in fact a biography of bodhisattva-conduct written in reverse: not one inch of the Buddha's body came for free. The treatise, still fearing that one might overlook the master-thread, adds a verdict: the thirty-two marks differ in a thousand ways, yet "it should be known that they are all evoked with pure discipline as their cause" — a person who violates pure discipline cannot obtain even a lowly human body, how much less the marks of a great being. The per-mark karmic causes are branches and leaves; pure discipline is the common root. And the treatise also accounts for the Buddha's purpose in expounding this set of karmic causes: sentient beings delight in doing evil, so the Buddha teaches that "performing these wholesome karmas can evoke so superior a fruit," letting people first come to love the fruit-reward and then be willing to forsake evil and cultivate the wholesome — the teaching of the marks and signs is itself a medicine matched to the capacity of the hearer.

The Five Levels: From a Single Seed to Well-Purified and Unsurpassed

From which station do the marks and signs begin to be "collected as goods"? The treatise gives a clear timeline: in the Lineage Stage, "there is only the seed abiding as the supporting body" — still only a seed buried within the body-mind continuum; in the Stage of Conviction-and-Practice, one begins to cultivate the means able to obtain the marks and signs; in the Stage of Pure and Heightened Resolve (the first ground), "it is only then named 'obtained'" — the maturational fruit appears for the first time; in the higher stages it is step by step purified; and at the Culmination Stage it is well-purified and unsurpassed. Kuiji accordingly judges: as for the provisions, "far" is before the grounds (the marks and signs not yet obtained), "near" is from entering the grounds onward — before the grounds one does not obtain the actual-reward marks and signs.

Note the wording of the first station: seed. The whole Bodhisattva Stage opens, in the Chapter on Lineage, with "the innate-abiding lineage = the seed abiding as the supporting body," and here, at the fruit-stage's marks and signs, the treatise still uses the very same word to account for their origin — the Buddha's thirty-two marks were, at the first, only a single seed within the practitioner's body, watered all along by the practice of the five levels until "well-purified and unsurpassed." Between the cause and the fruit lies the one single growth-line of one and the same seed.

The Astronomy of Merit-Heaps

Mark and mark are not of equal value either. The treatise uses a passage of geometric progression as its measuring: the sum-total of the merit-heaps of all sentient beings is only enough to evoke a single "pore" of the Tathāgata; the merit-heaps of all the pores evoke one secondary sign; the merit-heaps of all the secondary signs, multiplied by a hundred, evoke one mark; the merit-heaps of all the marks, multiplied by a thousand, evoke the white tuft between the brows; the white tuft, multiplied again by a hundred thousand, evokes the uṣṇīṣa upon the crown, the mark of the invisible crown; multiplied again to a koṭi-hundred-thousandfold, it evokes the "great Dharma-conch mark" beyond the marks and secondary signs — Dunlun explains this mark: the sound-issuing place within the Tathāgata's throat, shaped like a conch, "from which the sound issues, universal over the boundless realms, utterly perfect." The treatise draws it to a close itself: this is called immeasurable in time (three great kalpas), immeasurable in wondrous-wholesome resolve (the intention to benefit and gladden all sentient beings), and immeasurable in class (the immeasurable classes of wholesome karma) — the Buddha's body is heaped up out of an astronomical figure of merit, and the unit of that astronomical figure is "the benefit of sentient beings."

The Four Purities of All Kinds: Where Does the Fruit-Stage's "Purity" Lie Pure?

The marks and signs are the visible fruit; the four purities are the invisible fruit: the support, the object, the mind, and the knowledge — the purity of all kinds on four planes. The definition of the first item, the purity of the support, is worth reading slowly: "The coarse-heaviness of the whole class of afflictions, together with the various residual perfumings, is everlastingly extinguished without remainder in one's own support; and further, within one's own body, one operates in mastery over taking, abiding, and relinquishing according to one's own wish." — Once again it is "coarse-heaviness" and "the support." The Chapter on the Grounds, speaking of the first-ground bodhisattva's transcending of the evil destinies, meant the coarse-heaviness of the evil-destiny class being cleared away within the support; the purity of the support at the buddha-stage is the coarse-heaviness of the whole class of afflictions, together with the perfumings, being everlastingly extinguished without remainder — the same axis, arrived at its terminus. Dunlun sets the two halves of the definition down separately: the everlasting extinction of coarse-heaviness and perfumings is stated with respect to the enjoyment body; mastery over taking, abiding, and relinquishing (to abide in the world if one would abide, to relinquish the life-span if one would relinquish it) is stated with respect to the emanation body. Kuiji, for his part, collates it against the Abhidharma-samuccaya, fascicle fourteen: there it speaks only of taking, abiding, and relinquishing, and does not speak of the everlasting extinction of perfumings, because "here it is with respect to the completeness of the gathering of dharmas, there with respect to the conditioned purity" — the two places open and join differently, and are reconciled according to the fact. As for the purity of the mind and the purity of the knowledge, Dunlun parts each into substance and function: the exhaustion of coarse-heaviness is the leaving-behind of faults (substance); the amassing of wholesome roots and the mastery of knowledge is the gathering of virtues (function).

The Item-by-Item Explanation of the Ten Powers: The Ten Working-Faces of the Tathāgata's Knowledge

The latter half of Part 1 is the item-by-item explanation of the ten powers. The treatise states its principle at the outset: "It should be known in detail as stated in the Sūtra on the Ten Powers" — this passage is in fact an explanation made following the sūtra. Dunlun points out the essential nature: the ten powers take, as a whole, the five faculties for their intrinsic nature, and "because wisdom is preeminent" they are called powers of knowledge; taking ten kinds of object as their sphere, they are named the ten powers — "named from the object."

The explanation of the power of knowing the possible-and-impossible is the longest; it glosses phrase by phrase "Tathāgata," "the possible," "the impossible," "in accord with reality," "the First," "power," and on to "turning the Brahmā-wheel" and "the true lion's roar amid the great assembly" — Dunlun especially points out what "the impossible" refers to: "Īśvara [the self-mastering god] as an unequal cause is not a place that produces the fruit," nailing the dispute over "no cause, wrong cause" to a concrete object. The power of knowing karma-of-its-own is the personalizing of the law of cause and effect: who does, receives. The power of knowing the meditative absorptions, liberations, concentrations, and attainments treats the concentrated states, and appends the sorting-out of the two defilements and the four purities. The four powers of the superior-and-inferior faculties, the resolute convictions, the elements, and the courses leading everywhere are a graded set: first knowing the sharpness or dullness of the faculty-capacity, then knowing the tendency of love-and-delight, then knowing the "elements" — here Dunlun glosses directly: "it takes for its object the seed, the seed-element," so that what the power of the elements knows is the distinctions of the seeds within sentient beings' minds; and then knowing all the gates of entering. The passage on the power of the recollection of former abodes has its own peculiar interest: it draws the whole format of human self-narration into "the eight statement-phrases, the six brief conducts" — name, birth, father and mother, food and drink, suffering and pleasure, life-span … the treatise flatly asserts: "beyond these there are no further statement-phrases or brief conducts" — every way sentient beings have of telling "who I once was" has only these few formats, and the Tathāgata recollects them all. The power of knowing death-and-birth is the heavenly-eye power; Dunlun records a gloss of Xuanzang's from the lecture-hall: "The Tripiṭaka-master says: because of light, it is named 'heavenly'; 'heavenly' has the sense of light"; and this passage further brings out the good-and-evil color of the intermediate existence and a string of glosses on the naraka explained character by character (perilous, evil destiny, falling). The power of knowing the exhaustion of the outflows closes it off: the latent proclivities everlastingly cut off without remainder, the two liberations of mind and of wisdom, "the inwardly-realized sixth supernormal knowledge" — Master Jing and Master Yuan each have one reading of "inwardly-realized," set side by side in the Notes.

The ten powers, up to this point, are only the "item-by-item explanation." The treatise itself gives advance notice: "Having thus explained the Buddha's ten powers item by item, we shall now treat them as a whole" — the sevenfold whole treatment is in Part 2.

The One Meaning This Unit Casts into Light

Part 1 speaks from the marks and signs to the ten powers, yet establishes in truth only one meaning: the fruit-virtues are no halo airdropped from another world; they are the true-and-real accounting of every single wholesome deed of the causal stage. The thirty-two marks have, mark by mark, a karmic cause, with pure discipline as the master-cause; the marks and signs, from seed to well-purified-and-unsurpassed, have five levels; the merit-heaps accumulate, with "the benefit of sentient beings" as their unit, to an astronomical figure; the four purities push to its terminus the "coarse-heaviness — support" axis that began back in the Chapter on the Grounds; and the ten powers are one and the same wisdom operating, true to reality, over ten kinds of object. The Chapter on Establishment writes of the Buddha, and every stroke of the brush is writing of cause and effect.

Carrying Forward

The Chapter on Establishment, Part 1, comes down from the Chapter on Practice (the four practices being the master-list of the causal stage, and this chapter discerning the fruit against the practice — Dunlun's classing); it makes good the Chapter on the Grounds' advance notice, "the Tathāgata's abiding-stage will be expounded in full in a later chapter." The marks-and-signs' first level, "the seed abiding as the supporting body," echoes the innate-abiding lineage of the Chapter on Lineage; the four purities are to be collated together with the Chapter on Qualities (Kuiji points out "the text is the same as the Abhidharma-samuccaya"); the ten powers inherit the 2+8 master-outline of the Chapter on the Power-Lineage and explain it power by power; great compassion is seen together with the Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables (in Part 2). Next comes Part 2 — "having thus explained the Buddha's ten powers item by item, we shall now treat them as a whole": the sevenfold whole treatment of the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses on to the wondrous knowledge of all kinds, the Tathāgata's ten works, and the summation of the whole chapter.

From Expounding Apart to the General Discussion

Part One expounded the ten powers one by one; the very first sentence of Part Two shifts the register: "Having thus expounded the ten powers of the Buddha apart, now the general discussion is to be made." The general discussion sets up seven gates by a single uddāna: intrinsic nature, discrimination, the uncommon, equality, activity, sequence, difference. The expounding-apart was a file on each of the ten powers severally; the general discussion takes the ten powers as a single whole and puts seven questions to them: what is their substance? why are they measureless? on what ground are they uncommon? are they equal among the buddhas? what are they taken up to do? by what order do they set to work? where do the ten powers draw their boundaries against one another?

The first four gates are clean and quick: the gate of intrinsic nature says the ten powers have, overall, the five faculties for their substance, and "because wisdom is the most excellent" speaks only of "the power of knowing" — the substance of a power is the whole set of cultivated faculties, only with wisdom taken as the representative under whose name they are hung; the gate of discrimination says the ten powers are measureless by the three discriminations of time-division, kind, and continuum — the three ages, the particular and common marks of every single phenomenon, the continuum of every single sentient being in the ten directions, all within range; the gate of the uncommon is a single sentence: only the Buddha has them, the two vehicles have them not; the gate of equality supplies one subtle measure: the ten powers all the buddhas possess in equal fullness, yet "that in which each mostly abides" has its several emphasis — equality is the substance, emphasis is the function.

Within the Gate of Activity Lies a Complete Course in Meditation

The fifth gate, activity, tells what each of the ten powers is "taken up to do"; the format is properly one power to a passage: the power of what-is-and-is-not subdues the theories of no-cause and evil-cause, the power of one's own karma subdues the theory of "the transfer of the merit of giving" (Jing sets down that vivid scene of dispute: someone pays money to "buy" from another the merit of his reverencing the tree of awakening and his giving — the Buddha breaks it by the power of one's own karma: one makes it oneself and receives it oneself, there is no buying and selling), the power of concentration displays the three miraculous transformations, the power of faculties expounds the Dharma to meet the occasion …

But when it reaches the power of knowing the various elements, the treatise suddenly slows and inserts a whole passage of the Tathāgata's instruction to the bodhisattvas beginning their work — this is the deepest passage of doctrine in the whole chapter, and it is worth a careful reading straight through.

The Tathāgata says to the bodhisattva who is beginning his work: Good son, come. Find a secluded place to dwell, sit down alone, and first reflect upon a thing that is most intimate to you: your name. This name that your father, mother, teachers, and elders set up for you — reflect upon it: is there truly some "self," apart from the six sense-fields (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind), of a true intrinsic nature, upon which this name, this name-concept, this designation are set? Reflecting on in this way, "you will find nothing at all of such a thing" — that true self that carries the name is not to be found. The conclusion is a single key phrase: "it is merely upon an adventitious thing that an adventitious concept turns" — the name is only a guest-concept, set upon a guest-thing; there is no master.

Then he turns the same knife upon phenomena: reflect upon your eye. Within the eye there are only two things: first, the name, concept, and designation "eye"; second, that "bare event" — the pure thing itself. The name is not the eye ("the set-up eye-name, eye-concept, and fictive designation of the eye are not themselves the eye"); and apart from the name, not even a trace of "eye"-cognition can arise ("it is not the case that here, apart from the set-up eye-name … there could be even a little eye-awareness that could turn"). The treatise adds a reductio: if the thing were real and matched the name, it ought to draw forth eye-awareness directly, without waiting on the name — "yet such a thing, an awareness turning without waiting upon name and speech, is not to be found." Therefore: the eye-name is a guest, the eye-concept is a guest, and so on to ear, nose, tongue, body, to what is seen, heard, sensed, and cognized, "universally within the concept of all phenomena, only the guest-concept shall arise and be attained." Cultivating on until the concept of idle proliferation is again and again dispelled, "with a mind free of discrimination and free of marks, taking hold only of the meaning as it turns" — grasping neither name nor mark, only truly receiving that meaning apart from words — cultivating and abiding much, one attains the unmistaken one-pointedness of mind. The treatise names this road: "the universal-approaching right practice of all bodhisattvas," one and the same setting-forth of the Tathāgatas of the three ages.

Dunlun's outline lays bare the skeleton of this passage: first the contemplation of the emptiness of the person (seeking the self apart from the six sense-fields and finding it ungraspable), then the contemplation of the emptiness of phenomena (first the emptiness of the eye, then the rest — ear and so on — by extension); and he judges it directly in the language of the three natures: "There is only the other-dependent eye-faculty, the event apart from speech; upon it the eye-name and the rest are fictively established, which the name cannot reach. If, chasing the eye-name, one clings to there being an eye-substance, this is the wholly-imagined — ultimately without substance, and so it is said that the eye is empty" — the name-and-speech is the wholly-imagined, the event-apart-from-words is the other-dependent, and this instruction is the operating manual of the contemplation of the three natures. The closing words are especially weighty: "If one contemplates the emptiness of the person and can enter the patience-of-suffering, the direct realization of phenomena; if one can turn the mind about and contemplate the two emptinesses together, one can then attain the direct realization of the first ground" — the graduation-exit of this course is precisely that "entering the ground of pure superior intention" that the Chapter on the Grounds expounded.

The Gate of Sequence: On the First Day of Buddhahood, Which Power Sets to Work First

The sixth gate, sequence, poses a question few ever think of: when the Buddha first attains the Way, the ten powers are "attained all at once," but after that sudden attainment, is there an order in the putting of them to work? The treatise gives the answer in three gates, each a complete process of teaching-and-transforming. The first gate is the standard process: first the power of what-is-and-is-not sets up cause and fruit, next the power of one's own karma urges the good, next the power of concentration teaches worldly freedom from desire, then faculties → resolute convictions → elements (latent proclivities) → the universal-approaching practice → recollecting former abodes + death-and-birth (expounding the middle path so as to depart from the two extremes of eternalism and annihilation) → the extinction of the outflows (breaking, too, the overweening pride of "supposing the uncut cut"). The second gate has one dramatic moment more: the Buddha, with the power of concentration, observes the renunciant portion, to see whether there is in the world one who can expound the path out of suffering — "having thus observed, he knows rightly that there is none at all. He observes that the various worlds are without protection, without refuge. Out of great compassion, with the buddha-eye he truly beholds all the worlds" — and only then does he begin to know the faculties and bestow the Dharma. The third gate sets out from the realm of phenomena: first he observes the realm of conditionally-arisen phenomena, then observes the fictively-established realm of sentient beings (making it oneself, receiving it oneself), then displays the three miraculous transformations and instructs. Three gates stand side by side — the same brushwork as the three causes-and-conditions of the Chapter on Practice: the sequence admits of more than one reading.

The Gate of Difference: The Boundary Lines of the Ten Powers, and Two Lists of Seeds

The seventh gate, difference, sets adjacent pairs of powers against one another (knowing that karma brings on fruit is the power of what-is-and-is-not, knowing "who makes it and who receives it" is the power of one's own karma …); Ji and Jing each have a parallel set of judgments. When the comparison reaches the boundary between the power of resolute conviction and the power of elements, the treatise forks off two lists of classification of its own.

One is the six inclinations: the non-emerging (those with conviction toward Maheśvara, Nārāyaṇa, Brahmā), the emerging (those with conviction toward the three vehicles), the far-purified (the maturity of the inferior and middling classes), the near-purified (the maturity of the superior class), attaining nirvāṇa in the present life (the śrāvaka vehicle), and attaining nirvāṇa in the world to come (the great vehicle). The other is the four seeds of the elements: the innate-abiding seed, the seed arisen from prior habituation, the amenable-to-cultivation seed (those who have the nature of final nirvāṇa), and the not-amenable-to-cultivation seed (those who do not have the nature of final nirvāṇa).

This second list carries enormous weight. The innate-abiding and the arisen-from-prior-habituation are precisely the "innate lineage / cultivated lineage" of the Chapter on Lineage, reappearing within the fruit-ground power of knowledge; the amenable and not-amenable-to-cultivation gather the Chapter on Lineage's judgment of "those without lineage, determined not to realize" into the scope of the buddha-knowledge's beholding. Jing expounds this boundary most clearly: "If one knows that resolute conviction perfumes and forms a seed of its own resembling kind, this is by the power of resolute conviction; if one rightly illumines and grasps the differences of the seed, this is by the power of elements" — resolute conviction perfumes and forms seeds; the Buddha's knowing that the perfuming is the power of resolute conviction and knowing that the seed is the power of elements. The Buddha, beholding sentient beings, beholds down to this layer of the seed.

From the Four Fearlessnesses to the Marvelous Knowledge: A Quick Reading of Seven Gates of Merit

The four fearlessnesses — the treatise divides the first two respects by the two obstructions: "because the cognitive obstruction is forever released, he perfectly and rightly awakens within every kind of all phenomena, not in common with the śrāvakas"; "because the afflictive obstructions are forever released, he realizes the extinction of the outflows, in common with the śrāvakas" — the fearlessness of omniscience is not in common with the two vehicles, the fearlessness of the extinction of the outflows is in common with them (Dunlun); the framework of the two obstructions is written straight into the definition of the fruit-merits. Dunlun further records at length the four objections and their four resolutions (someone objects to the Buddha: a disciple, when the rains-retreat is over, comes to pay respects, and the Buddha still greets him with inquiry — "this is asking because he does not know"; and again, "loving words to Rāhula" seems to have craving, "reproaching Devadatta" seems to have anger, and so on — each resolved in turn), together with a footnote on the history of compilation: the Tathāgata's latter two fearlessnesses were originally expounded in common for the three vehicles, but "the compilers, in the Śrāvaka Basket they compiled, remove the word 'bodhisattva'; in the Bodhisattva Basket they compiled, recite only this word 'bodhisattva'" — the divergence of the Śrāvaka Basket and the Bodhisattva Basket is brought about by the editing of the compilers.

The three foundations of mindfulness: teaching-and-transforming the great assembly, he does not rejoice over those who accord with him, does not grieve over those who go against him, and dwells in equanimity toward those half-according and half-against — the mind of the Dharma-lord does not move with the success or failure of the teaching. The three guardlessnesses: the Tathāgata's three kinds of karma are utterly without concealment, and so toward his disciples he "earnestly admonishes and openly reproves" without any misgiving — not afraid that, dwelling long, the students may discover the teacher's shortcomings, because there are no shortcomings to be discovered. Great compassion: see the Chapter on Offering, Drawing Near, and the Measureless. The Dharma of never losing mindfulness: matter, place, manner, and time — the four never lost (Ji glosses "manner" = the skillful means suited to the occasion in teaching-and-transforming). The forever harming of the residual perfumings: the arhat cuts off the afflictions, yet the residue still remains (the habitual motions of "the semblance of affliction" in moving about, gazing, discourse, and dwelling at rest); the Tathāgata forever harms even this — which meets and joins with the first four matters of the eighteen exclusive buddha-dharmas of the Section on Ascertainment (see the Textual Study, Heading II). The knowledge marvelous in every kind closes the row; Kuiji judges it by the non-conceptual and the subsequently-attained knowledge: on the surface, to know the unwholesome and indeterminate and not act is the knowledge of every kind, and to know the wholesome and act is the marvelous knowledge; but tracing it to its substance — "in truth, the non-conceptual knowledge does not observe the unwholesome and the like, but makes only a wholesome observation, and so is solely the marvelous knowledge; the subsequently-attained knowledge is the knowledge marvelous in every kind" — the non-conceptual knowledge is solely the marvelous knowledge, and only the subsequently-attained knowledge is the knowledge marvelous in every kind; and he breaks the doctrine that "the subsequently-attained knowledge has right knowledge in both." Jing has a separate judgment, and the two accounts stand set forth side by side (Textual Study, Heading III (6)).

The Last Two Instants: The Adamantine-like Concentration and the Excellent Transformation of the Basis

The reckoning of the one hundred and forty exclusive buddha-dharmas complete, the treatise describes the last two instants of the attaining of buddhahood: the bodhisattva, dwelling in his final existence, seated upon the seat of awakening, his provisions reached to the utmost of good perfection, "without a teacher cultivates the thirty-seven factors of awakening" — the last lesson has no teacher — and attains, in a single instant, "the concentration of unhindered knowledge," which is the adamantine-like concentration (vajropama-samādhi) subsumed under the learning-path of the bodhisattva; "from the second instant, without interval, he all at once attains the remaining exclusive buddha-dharmas." Then comes the gathering-up sentence of the whole chapter's consciousness-only meaning: "Because all the coarse-and-heavy of the category of the cognitive obstruction that is wholly within the flesh is cut off without remainder, he attains the excellent transformation of the basis. Such a transformation of the basis is the most unsurpassed." (The two characters 「在肉」 "within the flesh," the six editions — Song, Yuan, Ming, Palace, Sheng, Zhi — all read 「在實」 "within the real" — the taking or leaving of this character the Textual Study has recorded and set before the reader.)

Lay out the whole axis of the transformation of the basis across the Bodhisattva Stage: in the Chapter on the Grounds, at the first ground, the coarse-and-heavy of the category of the evil destinies is removed and dispelled — the first transformation of the basis; in Establishment, Part One, the support of the buddha-ground is purified, the coarse-and-heavy and the residual perfumings of the category of affliction forever extinguished; here, the coarse-and-heavy of the category of the cognitive obstruction is cut off without remainder — the excellent transformation of the basis, the most unsurpassed. The treatise adds one more line: down even to the transformation of the basis of the bodhisattva in the topmost dwelling of consummate fulfillment, "one should understand that it is still surpassable" — the transformation of the basis has a staircase, and only the Buddha's step is the roof-beam. Dunlun leaves a balancing note under "attained all at once": "This is said with reference to the place of consummate fulfillment, saying the Buddha attains it all at once; in true principle, the several merits are attained gradually from the first ground onward, and only at buddhahood are they full" — the "all at once" is spoken with reference to the place of fulfillment; the "gradually" is spoken with reference to the road traveled.

Then wherein exactly does equal-awakening differ from marvelous-awakening? The treatise answers with eight similes: seeing color through a thin veil of gauze versus with no veil, a painting spread with pigments only its last coloring not yet applied versus already applied, seeing color in a faint gloom versus free of gloom, looking from afar versus from near, an eye with a film versus a pure eye, a body within the womb versus emerged from the womb, an arhat's mind-activity within a dream versus when awake, a dim lamp versus a bright lamp. The eight similes all share one structure: it is not a difference of having versus lacking, but a single veil's remove. The bodhisattva of the ultimate stage has everything already; only that last layer of gauze remains.

Ten Deeds: The Buddha's Work-List

At the chapter's end, the treatise cashes all the one hundred and forty merits out into action: the ten deeds of the Tathāgata, each deed marked with the gate of merit that accomplishes it — manifesting the body of a great man to give pure faith to men (accomplished by the marks and excellences), rousing all instruction (accomplished by the four purities), benefiting beings and cutting off doubt (accomplished by the ten powers), subduing others' theories and establishing one's own (accomplished by the four fearlessnesses), being of mind without defilement toward the according and the contrary (accomplished by the three foundations of mindfulness), being one in word and deed (accomplished by the three guardlessnesses), universally beholding the world day and night with the buddha-eye (accomplished by great compassion), being without withdrawing or forsaking in all deeds (accomplished by never losing mindfulness), the deportment-rules without overstepping (accomplished by the forever harming of the residual perfumings), and selecting-and-relinquishing together with expounding-and-revealing (accomplished by the marvelous knowledge). Eleven gates of merit matched to ten deeds — Dunlun points out the reckoning: "gathering the marks and excellences into one deed, there are therefore only ten". The two old translations here both give nine buddha-deeds — a different way of joining and dividing (Textual Study, Heading II).

This table is the finishing stroke of the whole chapter: merit is not a medal, but a capacity for work. Every gate of exclusive buddha-dharma answers to a concrete function of benefiting beings — the Buddha's greatness is at last totted up by "what he can do for sentient beings."

Rolling Up the Scroll: The Names of the Bodhisattva Stage

Last, the treatise gathers up the whole Bodhisattva Stage: thus fully revealing the learning-path of all bodhisattvas and the fruit of the learning-path, it is named "the Bodhisattva Stage." And it lists its alternate names: the Bodhisattva-Basket Mātṛkā (the Matrix-mother), the Embracing of the Great Vehicle, the Revealing of the Ruined and the Unruined Road, the Root of the Purity of Unhindered Knowledge — Dunlun glosses: "because it possesses the sense of embracing the cause and fruit of the Great Vehicle, it is also named the Embracing of the Great Vehicle; affliction, karma, and suffering are named the ruined road, the world-transcending counteragent the unruined road". The merit of receiving and upholding this stage equals that of receiving and upholding all the scriptures of the Bodhisattva Basket spoken by the Buddha; and the treatise's parting gift is a sober word of warning: while this Dharma dwells in the world, "the semblance right Dharma does not come to flourish, and the right Dharma is not extinguished; if at that time the semblance right Dharma should come to flourish, then at that time the right Dharma that can draw forth the true meaning would swiftly perish and sink away" — the survival or perishing of the right Dharma hangs upon the waxing and waning of the semblance Dharma.

The One Meaning This Unit Reveals

Part Two travels from the general discussion of the seven gates to the rolling-up at the ten deeds, yet it sets up in truth only one meaning: the buddha-fruit is a complete, operating system for benefiting beings — its substance is the power that holds the five faculties together as one; its beholding reaches down to the seed within the sentient being's mind; its cutting reaches the excellent transformation of the basis, where the coarse-and-heavy of the category of the cognitive obstruction is cut off without remainder; and all its merits are at last cashed out into ten works that never rest day or night. And that course in "the merely-adventitious concept," meditation buried within the gate of activity, reminds the reader: the entrance to this system stands open always — beginning from reflecting upon one's own name, the emptiness of the person, the emptiness of phenomena, the two emptinesses contemplated together, the direct realization of the first ground; the Third Section on Ultimate Yoga writes up to the very summit of the Buddha, yet does not forget to set the first rung of the ladder back beneath the reader's own foot.

Carrying Forward

Part Two comes carrying forward from Part One's "now the general discussion is to be made," and together with Part One forms the whole roll of the Chapter on Establishment; the Chapter on Establishment complete, the five chapters of the Third Section on Ultimate Yoga (Birth · Taking-Hold · the Grounds · Practice · Establishment) are all finished, and Dunlun's outline of "discussing the fruit against the practice" here comes to a close. The four seeds of the elements echo the two lineages of the Chapter on Lineage; the excellent transformation of the basis carries forward from the first-ground transformation of the basis of the Chapter on the Grounds and mounts to the summit; the two-emptiness contemplation of the instruction-passage is on the same axis as the intrinsic-nature-apart-from-words of the Chapter on the True Meaning; great compassion is seen mutually with the Chapter on Offering, Drawing Near, and the Measureless; the one hundred and forty carries forward from the prior indication in the Chapter on Awakening, under the second alternate heading; the Section on Ascertainment, in its ascertainment of the Third Section on Ultimate Yoga, meets and joins this chapter by the eighteen exclusive buddha-dharmas. Next follows the Fourth Section, on the Sequential Yoga, the Chapter on Giving Rise to the Mind of Right and Perfect Awakening — the last chapter of the Bodhisattva Stage, which clarifies the sequence of the phenomena of the Bodhisattva Stage.

Why, When It Has Been Fully Spoken, Must It Be Walked Once More?

The Bodhisattva Stage runs to sixteen fascicles and twenty-seven chapters; by the Chapter on Establishing, the buddhas' one hundred and forty exclusive buddha-dharmas have all been expounded — by rights the whole stage should be at an end. And yet at the very last the author of the treatise sets down one more chapter, opening with the words: "Thus has the meaning of the Bodhisattva Stage been expounded. How should one know the sequence within it?"

This chapter adds not a single dharma. Dunlun says it plainly: "The fourth section now has nothing further of its own; it only sets forth the sequence, before and behind, of the foregoing twenty-seven chapters and of the teachings within the bodhisattva chapters — hence it is called the Fourth Section, the Sequential Total-Gathering [of the Practice of Yoga]"; Kuiji is briefer still, giving the whole chapter only two lines: "It simply distinguishes the foregoing chapters, or is the sequence of the meanings of the chapters — go and collate it for yourself" — go and collate it. Yet "nothing further of its own" does not mean it may as well not exist: the foregoing twenty-seven chapters, read one by one, are a bookshelf; this one chapter threads the books on that shelf into a single road — which step comes first, which comes after, which step gives rise to which. The sequence itself is the very dharma this chapter transmits.

Worth recording: among the three Chinese translations of the Bodhisattva Stage, this road is found in Xuanzang's version alone. Dharmakṣema's Sūtra of the Bodhisattva Stage-Holding and Guṇavarman's Sūtra of the Bodhisattva's Good Precepts both draw to a close under three sections, ending with the Chapter on Establishing and the Chapter on Abiding respectively, with no such chapter of sequential total-gathering; and the Ascertainment of the Bodhisattva Stage in the Section on Ascertainment likewise, going chapter by chapter, reaches only the first three sections and sets up no separate ascertainment for the fourth section (see the Apparatus, Heading Two).

The Starting Point Is Not the Arousing of the Mind, but the Lineage

The chapter is named "Arousing the Mind Set on Perfect Awakening," but the first step of the sequence is not the arousing of the mind: "That is, the bodhisattvas must first abide in the bodhisattva lineage before they can rightly arouse the mind set on anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi". First there is the lineage, and only then the arousing of the mind; the mind aroused, only then the right cultivation of the practice of benefiting self and other; when benefiting self and other is rightly cultivated, the skillful means free of defilement is obtained; because free of defilement, the skillful means free of weariness is obtained; because free of weariness, the roots of goodness increase; the roots of goodness having increased, unsurpassed perfect awakening can be realized.

Dunlun matches this short passage to the chapters phrase by phrase: abiding in the lineage and arousing the mind = the Chapter on Lineage and the Chapter on Arousing the Mind; the practice of benefiting self and other = the Chapter on Benefiting Self and Other; the skillful means free of defilement = the Chapter on the True Meaning; the skillful means free of weariness = the Chapter on Might — and for this pairing he gives his reason especially: "because this chapter clarifies that, in seeking the various supernormal powers, one attains freedom from weariness"; the roots of goodness increasing = the Chapter on Maturation; the realization of unsurpassed perfect awakening = the Chapter on Awakening. Seven sentences walk once through the first seven chapters of the first section — and of these, for the five chapters from benefiting self and other onward, Dunlun's summary says: "this gathers up the five chapters and seven dharmas of the Section on the Total-Gathering of the Means of Practice."

"By This, In This, For This" — Within Six Words Lies the Chapter on the Power-Lineage

Next the treatise-text has one exceedingly terse line: "At the time of accomplishing, whatever ought to be acted upon by this, in this, and for this — one acts upon by this, in this, and for this". Read as the bare text, the six words slip by; Dunlun stops here, and says this line gathers up the "eight kinds of instruction and six kinds of admonition" of the Chapter on the Power-Lineage, and takes it apart word by word: "by this" — by whom is one instructed? "either by a bodhisattva or by the buddhas is one able to be instructed"; "in this" — where does one set to work? "one first examines closely that person's mind, faculties, disposition, and inclination"; "for this" — why teach in this way? "having recognized the faculties, one teaches the cultivation of the five stillings, to cure the illness of the excess of one or another [defilement]." The one who teaches, the faculties of the one taught, the illness to be countered — the three fulcra of the single matter of instruction — the author gathers into the sequence in six words.

From trust, from seeking out the right Dharma, from proclaiming it for others, from being able to accomplish the right practice oneself, to these six words, and on to "skillful means gathering up the three actions," Dunlun finishes the count and says: "the foregoing six phrases together gather up the Chapter on the Power-Lineage".

The Increase of Merit and Wisdom Is the Six Perfections; Not Forsaking Birth-and-Death Is the Four Means of Gathering

"When acting by this, in this, and for this, whatever ought to be acted upon so as to make merit and wisdom increase, one acts upon accordingly" — this line gathers up the Chapter on the Six Perfections 〔Dunlun〕: the six perfections are precisely the road by which the two provisions of merit and wisdom increase. "Merit and wisdom having increased, one is able to cultivate rightly the skillful means of not forsaking birth-and-death" — this line gathers up the Chapter on the Means of Gathering and the Chapter on Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables.

The matching invites reflection: why should "the skillful means of not forsaking birth-and-death" be the four means of gathering? The works of embracing sentient beings — giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and shared endeavor, together with offering, attending, and the cultivation of the immeasurables — are all done within birth-and-death; one willing to do the works of gathering will naturally not forsake birth-and-death. By the time the sequence reaches here, the bodhisattva's relation to birth-and-death has turned over: it is not that he is bound by birth-and-death, but that for the sake of sentient beings he does not depart.

The Fifteen Dharmas of the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening, Hidden within a Long String of "And When Rightly Cultivating within This"

From "able to conduct oneself without defilement within birth-and-death" to "the completion of right practice," the treatise-text is a long string of interlocking sentences; Dunlun points out that this is precisely the sequence of the fifteen dharmas of the Chapter on the Factors of Awakening walked through once more, and he cites two verses of that chapter as its outline: "Conscience and shame, firm-strength-holding, freedom from weariness, the wisdom of treatises and world, right reliance and unobstructed understanding, the provisions and the factors of awakening, the nature of tranquillity-and-insight and skillful means, the dhāraṇīs and the right vow, the three that are samādhi, the four uddāna of dharmas."

In the comparison, many places take one by surprise: "able to conduct oneself without defilement within birth-and-death" gathers up conscience and shame; "conducting oneself without clinging to one's own ease" gathers up the nature of firm-strength-holding; "dedicating to the fruit of the great-vehicle parinirvāṇa, not seeking the parinirvāṇa fruit of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha vehicles" gathers up the nature of skillful means — dedication is itself the bodhisattva's greatest skillful means; "cultivating with diligence the three gates of liberation" gathers up samādhi. As for "the dhāraṇīs and the right vow," Dunlun preserves two readings: either the twelfth and thirteenth dharmas are both gathered under one phrase, or "on another reading: it abridges and does not gather the right vow" — the treatise-text perhaps leaves out and does not gather the right vow. He sets both readings side by side, and does not decide.

The Two Kinds of Distinction: The Watershed between the Bodhisattva and the Two Vehicles

After right practice is completed, the treatise-text opens two topical divisions of its own: the distinction of the merit of right practice and the distinction of praiseworthy merit. Dunlun says this is the total-gathering of the twenty-five dharmas of the Chapter on Qualities, the seven dharmas of the first verse being the former division, and the eighteen dharmas of the latter four verses the latter division.

The first two dharmas of the former division Dunlun matches most strikingly: "The bodhisattva who cultivates right practice diligently for the benefit of self and other is called rare. To take the affairs of benefiting others as one's own affairs is called not rare." To cultivate practice for the benefit of self and other is a thing the world seldom has, and so is rare; but to take the affairs of benefiting others thoroughly as one's own affairs is, for a bodhisattva, merely his own portion, nothing to marvel at — "the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas are not so". From this arises the mind of equality, the constant extending of kindness, the not hoping for recompense, the constant raising of an application that does not come to nothing — the distinction of the merit of right practice comes down, in the end, to this one turning-over: to benefit others is to attend to one's own affairs.

The latter division sets out from the prophecy: obtaining the prophecy from the buddhas (not what the two vehicles obtain) → abiding in the stage of non-retrogression → obtaining the firm quality of non-forgetfulness → the wholesome dharmas "increasing on and on, like the moon of the bright fortnight" — like the moon of the waxing fortnight, night after night only increasing and never diminishing → "the bodhisattva is now called true, not called resembling". Why does the latter division first gather the prophecy of the third verse? Dunlun explains: "because one first receives the prophecy and only then raises up practice — it is for this reason". And whereas the verses originally had the two topics of "retrogression" and "resembling," here they are not gathered, and Dunlun records the treatise-masters' choice: "because they are not qualities, the treatise-masters do not gather them" — the sequence gathers up only qualities; retrogression and resembling are not steps upon the road.

The Road's End: As Though in His Own House, Giving Rise to No Satisfaction, Attaining the Unsurpassed

The final passage draws to a close, one by one, the nine chapters of the Attendant Dharmas and the Ultimate 〔Dunlun〕: because he obtains distinguished titles, he obtains the marks of the bodhisattva; the accomplishing in the two divisions of householder and renunciant is the Chapter on the Divisions; the wholly resolute superior intent is the Chapter on the Superior Intent; what the intent embraces is the Chapter on Abiding; "deliberately setting his mind, he takes on the various forms of birth, and in the places where he takes birth he constantly meets the buddhas and bodhisattvas" is the Chapter on Birth — the taking of birth turns from passive rebirth into active choice; the raising of beneficial deeds is the Chapter on Embracing; "within the praiseworthy and embraceable distinguished stations of realization he is able to abide serenely and rightly, as though in his own house" is the Chapter on the Grounds — the station of realization is dwelt in like one's own home, not as a sojourner; "his awakened wisdom in all its various marks advances … and in the midst of this gives rise to no satisfaction" is the Chapter on Practice; "advancing thus, he realizes the ultimate, and from here he no longer seeks any further higher stage. Because he has arrived at the utmost furthest limit of the ultimate, this is called attaining the unsurpassed" is the Chapter on Establishing.

And then comes the very last sentence of the whole Bodhisattva Stage: "This is called the sequence of the meaning of the Bodhisattva Stage."

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The sixteen-fascicle Bodhisattva Stage this one chapter folds into a road that can be set out upon: the starting point is not the arousing of the mind, but the lineage; every waystation along the road — trust, seeking the Dharma, proclaiming it for others, the six perfections, the four means of gathering, the factors of awakening — not one of them is a new dharma, all are some earlier chapter; and the road's end is not supernormal powers, but the walking of the whole way from "giving rise to no satisfaction" through to "having arrived at the utmost furthest limit of the ultimate," the attaining of the unsurpassed. Reading this chapter to its end and looking back, the twenty-seven chapters are no longer twenty-seven books, but the whole life's journey of a single person from first abiding in the lineage to becoming a buddha — the sequence itself is the last dharma the Bodhisattva Stage leaves to the practitioner.

Carrying Forward

What this chapter gathers phrase by phrase are precisely the chapters of this same fascicle-set: the eighteen chapters of the first section (Lineage · Arousing the Mind · Benefiting Self and Other · The True Meaning · Might · Maturation · Awakening · The Power-Lineage · the six chapters of the six perfections · The Means of Gathering · Offering, Attending, and the Immeasurables · The Factors of Awakening · Qualities), the four chapters of the Attendant Dharmas (Marks · Divisions · Superior Intent · Abiding), and the five chapters of the Ultimate (Birth · Embracing · Grounds · Practice · Establishing) — for the full chart of the phrase-by-phrase matching to the chapters, see the Apparatus, Heading Four. The two alternate translations (Dharmakṣema · Guṇavarman) both lack this chapter; and the Section on Ascertainment, ascertaining chapter by chapter, reaches only the three sections and sets up no separate ascertainment for the fourth section — both matters seen in the Apparatus, Heading Two. This is a mutual cross-reading, carried forward, not a one-directional inheriting.