瑜伽師地論 義疏通講 · 冊6

Arriving at the Sixth Stage: From "Whether There Is Applied or Sustained Thought" to Concentration Itself

The seventeen stages of the Basic Section proceed, all along, in order. The first five stages look consciousness over from every side — the fivefold body of consciousness, the Stage of the Mental, and then the three stages of with-both-applied-and-sustained-thought, with-sustained-thought-only, and with-neither-applied-nor-sustained-thought; all of them ask the one question, "When the mind is in motion, does it carry applied thought, does it carry sustained thought?" On reaching the sixth stage the treatise turns its edge: it no longer asks "into what shape does the mind move," but asks directly after concentration itself — and this is the Stage of Meditative Equipoise.

The ancient masters saw this step very clearly. Kuiji judges the seventeen stages under a threefold division of "object, practice, fruit": the first nine stages are the object to be contemplated, the middle six are the practice that contemplates, the last two are the fruit to be realized 〔Concise Compendium〕. The Stage of Meditative Equipoise still lies within "object," yet within object it belongs to the class of "function" — "because it exercises a function in the two times, the concentrated and the scattered". That is to say: the foregoing stages made plain the substance and the characteristics of consciousness; here what is to be looked at is the manner of the mind's functioning when it is gathered in and settled into concentration. The learning of concentration takes its formal start from this stage.

What Does "Meditative Equipoise" Mean? And Why Is It Not Simply Called "Concentration"?

The name of this stage is a transliteration — sanmoxiduo (samāhita). What does it mean? Jinaputra glosses it plainly: "That which is called the Stage of Meditative Equipoise is the stage of surpassing concentration. Because it is apart from sinking, agitation, and the like, and evenly can draw forth, or draws forth to evenness, or is itself that which the even draws forth, it is named the stage of even-drawing" 〔Commentary〕. Kuiji takes this name apart for our hearing: "sanmo says 'even'; xiduo says 'drawing'" 〔Concise Compendium〕 — "even" is evenness, "drawing" is drawing-forth. Put together, "even-drawing" bears three senses: this concentration can evenly draw forth qualities (the even that can draw); can draw the mind to evenness (drawing to the even); and is itself that which is drawn forth by the even expedient apart from sinking and apart from agitation (that which the even draws forth). One word, "even," points to the very lifeline of concentration: it is neither dead sinking nor scattered agitation, but a surpassing concentration that, having left both extremes, is level and upright.

Then the question arises: in speaking of concentration, has the land of Han not long had such words as "meditation" (chan), "samādhi," and "right reception"? Why must this stage of all stages use "meditative equipoise" (samāhita)? The ancients' answer lies hidden in a table of the broad and narrow scope of terms. Kuiji lists seven names, of which the first four are the most vital:

• Sanmoxiduo (samāhita), rendered here even-drawing;
• Sanmodi (samādhi), rendered here even-holding (the old rendering "sanmei" is corrupt);
• Sanmobodi (samāpatti), rendered here even-reaching (the old rendering "sanmobati" is corrupt);
• Duoyanna (dhyāna), rendered here meditative absorption (the old rendering "chan" is not fully apt).

These four names govern scopes that are not the same. Kuiji says: "samādhi" (even-holding) is only the single item "even-holding" among the object-specific mental factors — it pervades both the concentrated station and the scattered station, and the several scriptures and treatises, taking it in its surpassing form, single out emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness and call these the concentration; "samāpatti" (even-reaching) governs, throughout, the substance of concentration in all the concentrated stations, with-mind and without-mind — and, taking it in its surpassing form, speaks only of the several concentrations associated with the five direct-beholdings and the like; but even-drawing alone — "because it gathers in, throughout, the qualities of all the concentrated stations, with-mind and without-mind, being altogether the broadest and most pervasive, it is singled out to establish the name of the stage". In a word: among these many names for "concentration," "even-drawing" governs the broadest scope, taking in the whole of the qualities of with-mind concentration and without-mind concentration — and so this entire stage is hung out under this, the broadest of the names. The name is chosen broad because this stage must wrap the whole matter of "concentration" round and complete.

The Overall Heading of Four Kinds: First Laying a Stage's Dharma Out into a Single List

The name settled, the treatise proceeds to the "overall heading" — first laying open, at a stroke, into how many classes this stage is briefly divided: "It is that within this stage there are, in brief, four kinds: the first is meditative absorption; the second is liberation; the third is concentration; the fourth is meditative attainment." These four kinds Jinaputra's Commentary likewise sets out, corresponding to the treatise-text:

• Meditative absorption is the four absorptions — from the first absorption, born of seclusion and carrying applied and sustained thought, to the second, born of concentration and without applied and without sustained thought, then the third, freed from joy, and the fourth, of purity through equanimity and mindfulness. This is the "rungs" of concentration.
• Liberation is the eight liberations — from "one possessed of form contemplating forms" all the way to "the cessation of perception and feeling, realized in one's own body." This is the "release" from concentration's stations.
• Concentrative equipoise is the three concentrations (emptiness, wishlessness, signlessness), beneath which are further opened out with-applied-and-sustained-thought and the other three, small–great–immeasurable, one-part and both-part, joy– bliss– equanimity– accompanied, the four cultivations of concentration, the five noble knowledges, the noble five-limbed, having-cause-and-equipment, the adamantine-like … grouping upon grouping. This is the "gateways" of concentration.
• Meditative attainment is the six classes of attainment — the five direct-beholdings, the eight bases of mastery, the ten totalities, the four formless, non-perception, cessation. This is the "reach," shallow and deep, of concentration.

One should note: here at the overall heading, the treatise only unfolds and expounds "meditative absorption" in detail (the four absorptions); liberation, concentration, and meditative attainment it only names, without expounding in detail. The ancients laid bare this arrangement: "Within the gateways of setting-forth and the rest, it expounds only meditative absorption, and does not expound liberation, concentration, or meditative attainment, because it will expound them below, within the essential purport" 〔Kuiji, Concise Compendium; Dunlun, Notes, to the same effect, the wording differing, "within the essential purport below, it will then expound the three,"〕. So these four kinds are no level spread: meditative absorption is assigned to the earlier "setting-forth" gateway for detailed exposition, while liberation, concentration, and attainment must wait until the later fifth gateway, "the gathering of the essential purport of the several scriptures," to be unfolded one by one. The overall heading only hands you, first, a table of contents.

The Uddāna of Six Gateways: The Whole Map of This Stage

How, then, is that "table of contents" compiled? The treatise, at its very first utterance, gives an uddāna (a summary verse): "the overall heading, and the setting-forth; attention; the distinctions of characteristics; the gathering of the essential purport of the several scriptures; and, last, the various miscellaneous meanings." Six gateways — these are the six passes of this stage.

How did the ancients read these six gateways? They made two mergings. The first: "the last, the various miscellaneous meanings, enters into the fifth, the essential purport of the several scriptures … since both expound the scriptures, they form one gateway" — the miscellaneous meanings are in fact also the expounding of the scattered and miscellaneous meanings of the several scriptures, and being, like the fifth gateway "the gathering of the purport," an expounding of the scriptures, they are merged into one class. The second: when it comes to the actual exposition (the exposition by gateway), "attention" and "the distinctions of characteristics" are again combined into the one section "attention and its object." Thus the six gateways are first gathered into five, and in the broad exposition further gathered into four sections: "first, the overall heading; second, the setting-forth; third, attention and its object; fourth, the exposition of the scriptures" 〔Dunlun; Kuiji〕.

This is exactly the ground on which the present translation-and-annotation cuts this stage into its several sub-units: the overall heading as one sub-unit, the setting-forth as one, attention-and-the-distinctions-of-characteristics combined into one, the gathering of the essential purport of the scriptures divided into the three of liberation / concentration / attainment, and the miscellaneous meanings as one. The map the treatise itself gives is the best line along which to cut.

Concentration Is Not Finished with "Settling Down": The Tranquillity-and-Insight and the Consciousness-Only in Its Scriptural Grounds

Last of all, this stage must be joined back to its scripture. The Stage of Meditative Equipoise expounds concentration, and the scriptural source of that concentration lies nowhere else than in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, in its Chapter on the Yoga of Discrimination — the very chapter in which the Buddha discusses tranquillity and insight with the bodhisattva Maitreya (that same Maitreya who is the speaker of this treatise). A stage's learning of concentration and the tranquillity-and-insight that Maitreya, who speaks this treatise, asks after in the scripture are of one vein.

In that chapter the Buddha makes "concentration" live. To cultivate concentration is not merely to press the mind down and hold it unmoving — the Buddha says one must, "within the inwardly continuous mind, attend and reflect … until there arise a physical pliancy and a mental pliancy, and this is called tranquillity" (śamatha); and then "within the object of knowledge that is the image in concentration, be able rightly to discern, to discern to the utmost … and this is called insight" (vipaśyanā). Tranquillity and insight must "join and proceed together," and at the place of their joining and proceeding together the Buddha points to four words: "if one rightly reflects, the mind being one-pointed upon its object".

What is the mind's one-pointedness upon its object? Here lies the deepest single glance of the whole stage. The Buddha answers: "It is penetrating that the image traversed in concentration is nothing but one's own consciousness" — that the mind, concentrated upon a single object until it arrives home, penetrates that the image appearing within concentration is, after all, only one's own consciousness. And the Buddha takes a mirror for a simile: "as, in dependence on a well-polished and pure mirror-surface, one sees, with the substance for condition, the substance itself again," and yet a man supposes there is a separate image appearing apart from the mirror; the image in concentration is just so — there seems to be a separate object appearing before one, but in truth "I have said that the object of consciousness is only what consciousness manifests". Concentration, in its depths, is to behold "consciousness-only" — a stage's learning of concentration, it turns out, runs through to a foundation of consciousness-only. No wonder the Section on Ascertainment, in ascertaining this stage, at its very opening fixes upon "whether one can rightly realize the mind's one-pointedness upon its object," naming one by one the eighteen secondary afflictions that block the way 〔Section on Ascertainment〕: the success or failure of the learning of concentration lies at this one pass, "the mind's one-pointedness upon its object."

Carrying Forward

The overall heading, one gateway, looks like the mere opening of a list, yet it has in fact already set up the whole skeleton of the learning of concentration: it hangs out the name under the broadest term, "even-drawing" (gathering in all the concentration-qualities of with-mind and without-mind); it gathers a stage's dharma under the four kinds of meditative absorption, liberation, concentration, and meditative attainment; it draws the whole map of the stage with the six gateways of the uddāna; and with the Saṃdhinirmocana's tranquillity-and-insight and the mind's one-pointedness upon its object it joins the learning of concentration to its scriptural source and to its consciousness-only foundation. The gateways of this stage that issue below — the setting-forth gateway expounding in detail the four absorptions and the hindrances, the limbs, the names of concentration; the attention gateway opening out the seven attentions and the forty attentions; the gateway gathering the essential purport of the scriptures broadly expounding the eight liberations, the three concentrations, and the attainments; the miscellaneous-meanings gateway gathering in the twelve miscellaneous-meaning scriptures — are all the unfolding, gateway by gateway, upon this overall map; and the Section on Ascertainment (fascicles 62–63) then makes a further ascertainment of the obstacles and characteristics of this stage. That one word "concentration" must be split into four kinds and opened into six gateways precisely in order to set forth plainly, layer upon layer — by name, by dharma, by gateway, by scripture — this one matter: "apart from sinking and apart from agitation, evenly able to draw forth."

Why the Desire-Realm's "Mind Fixed on One Object" Does Not Count as "Equipoise," Though It Too Is One-Pointedness

The overall heading laid out the four kinds of concentration — the meditative absorptions, the liberations, the concentrations (samādhi), and the attainments. The Establishment gate now sets about a very practical task: drawing a line. The treatise opens with a terse stroke: "these alone are named the Stage of Equipoise, not the one-pointedness of mind of the desire-realm (非於欲界心一境性)." Its meaning is this — even in the desire-realm you can have a moment of concentration (listening to a piece of music, working out a problem, the mind too can rest on a single object), yet that does not count as "equipoise." Why? The treatise gives the criterion: this kind of concentration, equipoise, is "drawn forth by non-regret, gladness, and ease (無悔、歡喜、安樂)"; the desire-realm's kind of concentration does not come about in this way.

The ancient masters make this line still clearer. Kuiji says: the Stage of Equipoise is established "because, through keeping the precepts, the mind comes to be without regret; being without regret, there is gladness; through gladness, there is ease; through ease, one attains concentration" 〔Concise Compendium〕. So it turns out that "equipoise" is not just any sort of concentration; it is a chain with a definite provenance: purity of discipline → non-regret → gladness → the pliancy of calm → the attainment of concentration. The desire-realm's concentration has no such root of pure, non-regretting discipline, and so, though for a moment the mind may rest on one object, it still does not rise to the level of "equipoise." The first thing the Establishment gate does is to set up this very threshold: the concentration of which the science of concentration speaks is a concentration grown out of purity and non-regret.

The Joy-and-Bliss Born of Seclusion: Entering the First Absorption, What Five Things Must Be Cut Off, and What Five Must Be Grown

Past the threshold, the first step is the "joy born of seclusion" of the first meditative absorption. The treatise says that to realize and abide in this one must "cut off five factors and bring five factors to fullness in cultivation" — this is a very concrete ledger of loss and gain.

The five to be cut off turn about one word, "desire," and one word, "the unwholesome": the gladness drawn forth by desire (the gladness of clinging to the five sense-pleasures), the sorrow drawn forth by desire (the sorrow and vexation when one seeks desire and does not succeed), the gladness drawn forth by the unwholesome (still bearing pleasure while doing evil), the sorrow drawn forth by the unwholesome (bearing suffering while doing evil), and the equanimity drawn forth by the unwholesome (the subtlest kind of all — like a master who does not himself do evil with his own hands yet indulges his servants in doing evil, "tolerating and not restraining," arousing a middling feeling that is neither painful nor pleasant). These five are the five flavors by which the desire-realm mind sticks to its objects; the first absorption is to depart from them.

The five to be grown are another chain: cheer (the joyful gladness with non-regret going first), gladness (the congratulatory gladness with the properly-cultivated means going first), calm (the bodily-and-mental fitness that departs from coarse heaviness), bliss (the bliss of body and mind free of harm, and the bliss of liberation), and concentration (the one-pointedness of mind that scrutinizingly and rightly observes the object). Set these two ledgers side by side and it becomes plain: the first absorption is not "thinking of nothing at all"; it is the exchange of the desire-realm's five clinging feelings for these five pure feelings. Seclusion is departing from the clinging of those five factors; the joy-and-bliss born is the growing of the purity of these five.

Five Gates: The Five Hindrances, and "With What Do You Feed It, With What Do You Cut It Off"

The most practical stretch in the science of concentration is here. The treatise says that when one is about to realize the absorptions there are "five hindrances" that act as obstruction: sensual desire, ill-will, dullness-and-drowsiness, restlessness-and-remorse, and doubt. The first thing the meditator runs up against is precisely these five gates.

There is a very fine point in the treatise's treatment of the five hindrances: though it plainly lists five hindrances, with greed, hatred, and doubt each one apiece, dullness and drowsiness are combined into a single hindrance, and restlessness and remorse likewise into a single hindrance — why? The ancient masters answer cleanly: dullness "conforms to giving rise to the afflictions and damages the cutting-off effort," while drowsiness is "the mind's being utterly dim and contracted"; the two are the one a prior cause and the other a subsequent effect, arising in mutual conformity, and so are combined into one; restlessness and remorse, for their part, are "alike in their locus" (their objects are of one class, both circling about kinsfolk, homeland, and the like) and "similar in mode" (both being mournful longing and leaping-up), and so are combined into one. Kuiji even adds a sentence to head off a possible misunderstanding: combining them thus "is not out of accord with the principle of the Consciousness-Only [treatise]" 〔Concise Compendium〕 — the combining of hindrances is a combining spoken with respect to their function of obstructing concentration; it is not to say that the intrinsic natures of restlessness and remorse are the same. As for the doubt-hindrance's arising of doubt "toward the teacher, the Dharma, the training, instruction, and realization," the ancient masters point it out: this is precisely doubting the four Dharma-jewels of teaching, principle, practice, and fruit, together with the two jewels of Buddha and Saṃgha — doubt is the shaking of the whole basis one relies on for the path.

But recognizing the five hindrances is not yet enough; the treatise goes on to ask two things of every hindrance: with what do you feed it (its food), with what do you cut it off (its non-food). The ancient masters fix this pair of concepts: "'Food' has the sense of nourishing-and-growing, augmenting the conditions that give rise to the hindrance; 'non-food' is what cuts off and destroys the hindering factors". And so every hindrance has a set of antidotes:

• The hindrance of sensual desire: its food is the "agreeable-and-fine mark" (the treatise goes down even to the eight places on a woman's body — singing, dancing, laughter, the sidelong glance, and the other lovely marks), its non-food the "impure mark" (the contemplation of the livid-bruised [corpse] and the inner and outer impurity of the body). The treatise lays down a fine simile here: to be free of defilement one starts from the "foremost, most excellent and fine" desire-mark — "just as, having subdued the strong one, the remaining weak ones subdue themselves (如制強力，餘劣自伏)" — subdue the strongest one, and the remaining inferior ones follow of themselves.
• The hindrance of ill-will: its food is the nature-of-ill-will and the mark-of-ill-will, its non-food "benevolent loving-kindness and worthy goodness" (contemplating with a loving mind, taming the nine vexing matters).
• The hindrance of dullness-and-drowsiness: its food is the "mark of blackness-and-darkness," its non-food the "mark of light" — the treatise divides light into three tiers: light that dispels darkness (stars, moon, sun, fire), the light of the Dharma (contemplating phenomena, recollecting the Buddha), and light dependent on the body (the natural bodily radiance of sentient beings). Among these, what can truly dispel the darkness of dullness-and-drowsiness is the "light of the Dharma" — the ancient masters say this is the wisdom of hearing, reflection, and cultivation "making manifest the nature of phenomena". The darkness of dullness-and-drowsiness must be broken with the light of wisdom.
• The hindrance of restlessness-and-remorse: its food is the ruminating on kinsfolk, homeland, and the like, and the recollecting of jest and merry-making, its non-food "tranquility (śamatha)" — namely the nine kinds of settling the mind.
• The hindrance of doubt: its food is improper attention toward the three times ("Was I, in the past, existent or non-existent?..."), its non-food the "taking of dependent origination as object" — contemplating that "there is only phenomena and only the cause of phenomena, only suffering and only the cause of suffering," whereupon doubt is cut off of itself.

This whole passage is a "clinical antidote-chart" of the science of concentration. Its most precious feature is this: it does not speak abstractly of "cutting off the afflictions," but tells you, hindrance by hindrance — by what does this hindrance grow, by what is it dissolved. And it is worth noting that this chart is no invention of the treatise-author: it is precisely the abhidharma unfolding of that passage of the Buddha's word in the Saṃyukta-āgama, sūtra 715, "the five hindrances are established in dependence on food, not on non-food" — the scripture says "food / non-food," the treatise says "food / non-food," and the sequence of the five hindrances answers, one by one, to the antidotes of the impurity-contemplation, the loving mind, the illumining light, tranquility, and the dharma of dependent origination 〔Saṃyukta-āgama 715〕. The treatise is spelling out for us, hindrance by hindrance, the antidote-dharma the Buddha taught.

Four Pillars: Why the Absorptions Establish Just These Few Limbs

Past the five hindrances, the treatise establishes the "limbs of the absorptions" — the first absorption's five limbs (applied thought, sustained thought, joy, bliss, one-pointedness of mind), the second absorption's four, the third absorption's five, the fourth absorption's four. There is a good question here: within a single absorption there are ever so many mental phenomena; why pick out just these few to call "limbs"? The treatise answers with a touch of human warmth: "Although there are yet other phenomena within the absorptions, because these are the most excellent and are of the gravest benefit to one who cultivates concentration, they alone are established as limbs (為恩重故，偏立為支)" 〔Dunlun, Notes〕 — these few limbs are "of the gravest benefit and kindness" to the one who cultivates concentration, and so they alone are singled out and established as limbs. The ancient masters take an army for a simile: "just as the four divisions of an army, because each is an antidote (如四支軍，各對治故)" — as an army has its four divisions of elephants, cavalry, chariots, and infantry, each shouldering one duty, so the limbs of the absorptions divide their labor thus: applied and sustained thought take charge of "grasping the object," concentration of "the support," joy of "receiving the object-field," bliss of "removing coarse heaviness."

And there is one further question that most tests one's skill: why does the first absorption still "have applied and sustained thought" (still have coarse-and-fine applied thinking) — is that not less still? The treatise answers: because the first absorption, though able to grow weary of the desire-realm and enter, is "not yet able to observe the fault of applied and sustained thought"; only in the second absorption does one see the fault of applied and sustained thought and speak of "the stilling of applied and sustained thought." The Tripiṭaka-master Xuanzang has a personal gloss on this question, which Dunlun set down: "In cultivating whatever quality, at the preliminary stage one has applied and sustained thought; once one reaches the fundamental [absorption], there is no applied and sustained thought (若至根本即無尋伺)" — applied and sustained thought are the tools used at the "preliminary" stage; once at the fundamental concentration they are set down. The second absorption sees the fault of applied and sustained thought, the third the fault of joy, the fourth the fault of bliss — layer by layer seeing through the trace of coarse stirring the previous layer still retained, and stilling it. The sequence of the absorptions is just the sequence of "seeing the fault and relinquishing," one layer at a time.

A Word of Warning: Do Not Mistake Worldly Concentration for Nirvāṇa

When the Establishment gate comes to speak of "alternate names," a weighty reminder is tucked away. The treatise says the absorptions may be named "the superior mind" or "blissful abiding" — well and good; but it also says the absorptions "may be named the nirvāṇa-of-that-part, and may also be named the differentiated nirvāṇa (彼分涅槃…差別涅槃)" — and these two names call for caution. The ancient masters explain it through: the nirvāṇa-of-that-part is "a portion of the afflictions cut off, not definitive, [and] conditioned"; it is a false nirvāṇa merely "similar in kind" to the true nirvāṇa 〔Concise Compendium, "the false nirvāṇa is named the nirvāṇa-of-that-part; 'that-part' has the sense of similarity in kind"〕; the differentiated nirvāṇa means that it is "not the ultimate." In other words: worldly absorption can bring "a portion" of the afflictions to rest, and that portion of stillness closely resembles nirvāṇa — yet it is conditioned and liable to fall away. The treatise had already said earlier that worldly absorption "is able only to relinquish, gradually, the coarse heaviness of that class; it does not uproot the seed (不拔種子)." To mistake this "very-like-nirvāṇa" bliss of concentration for nirvāṇa is precisely the pit most easily fallen into in cultivating concentration. With the two words "that-part / differentiated" the Establishment gate lightly drives in a warning-stake right here: the bliss of concentration is like nirvāṇa but is not nirvāṇa; to uproot the seed, one needs the uncontaminated absorption.

Four Things to Rely On: On the Path, What to Rely On and What Not to Rely On

The Establishment gate draws to a close on the "reliances of departure" — the four reliances. The treatise says: what can surpass the faults of ill-will and the rest is called "departure," and what "may rightly be relied upon" at the time of departure is called "reliance." The World-Honored One speaks of four reliances: the Dharma is the reliance, not the person; the meaning is the reliance, not the letter; the scripture of definitive meaning is the reliance, not the scripture of provisional meaning; knowledge is the reliance, not [ordinary] consciousness. The ancient masters point out that these four reliances are established as antidotes to the failings of four kinds of person: to the "flattering-and-deceitful" (who blindly follow merely from seeing the master's dignified deportment) it says rely on the Dharma, not the person; to the "world-conforming" (who cling to the letter) it says rely on the meaning, not the letter; to those who "abide in the grasping of their own views" it says rely on the scripture of definitive meaning; to those "for whom hearing is the utmost" it says rely on knowledge, not [ordinary] consciousness; and it matches them, moreover, to the four times of practicing the path: at the time of obtaining the Dharma, rely on the Dharma; at the time of upholding, rely on the meaning; at the time of contemplating the meaning, rely on the definitive; at the time of practicing the Dharma and what accords with the Dharma, rely on knowledge. These four reliances are the Dharma-seal that the Buddha established with his own mouth in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra — "rely on the Dharma, not the person; rely on the meaning, not the words; rely on knowledge, not [ordinary] consciousness; rely on the scripture of definitive meaning, not the scripture of provisional meaning" 〔Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra〕; the treatise here splices it into the science of concentration, making of it four measuring-cords for the one who cultivates the path all along the way.

(There are two more passages within the Establishment gate worth mentioning: "the departure from the feelings" says that the four absorptions each depart from one feeling-faculty — the first departs from sorrow, the second from suffering, the third from joy, the fourth from bliss, and the markless from equanimity — and it cites a Sūtra of Non-Error teaching one to know, as it really is, the cause, condition, sequence, mark, and motion of the sorrow-faculty; only this Sūtra of Non-Error has no surviving Chinese witness, and is preserved solely by this one citation of the treatise. And "the elements conducive to departure" says that by abiding in this one is able to depart from desire, ill-will, harm, and the rest, and rounds off the body and mind of the one who departs with an exquisite simile: the defiled feelings do not cling to his body, "like the red lotus flower, on which the water-drops do not cling (如紅蓮花，水滴不著)".)

Carrying Forward

The Establishment gate looks piecemeal — a paring-down of concentration, the cutting-and-cultivating, the five hindrances, the limbs of the absorptions, the alternate names, the four reliances — but it is in fact the filling-in, sinew by sinew, of that framework of the science of concentration that the "overall heading" set up: first it draws out the threshold of equipoise (drawn forth by pure, non-regretting discipline; the desire-realm does not enter); then it gives the ledger of loss and gain for entering concentration (cut off five, cultivate five); then it lays out the clinical antidotes of cultivating concentration (the five hindrances, food and non-food); then it dissects the inner structure of the absorptions (the four limbs each an antidote; applied and sustained thought are set down once one reaches the fundamental); then it drives in a warning-stake (the nirvāṇa-of-that-part is not the true nirvāṇa; worldly concentration does not uproot the seed); and at the last it hands over the four measuring-cords for practicing the path (the four reliances). Most of this is no new fabrication of the treatise-author, but the spelling-out, item by item, in abhidharma terms, of the five-hindrances-food of the Saṃyukta-āgama and the four reliances of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, spliced into the science of concentration. The next gate, "Attention," will speak of how, upon this ground of concentration now filled out with sinew, the mind should apply itself step by step (the seven attentions, the forty attentions); and the "one-pointedness of mind" accomplished by the cutting-off of the five hindrances joins directly with the scriptural point of the overall heading — the success or failure of concentration comes down, in the end, to whether one can rightly realize the one-pointedness of mind.

Why "Attention" and "Aspect" Are Expounded Together

The gate of establishment has already set up the threshold of the absorption-ground, its counteractings, and its supports; and next one should ask: upon this absorption-ground, how, after all, does the mind "apply itself"? This is the gate of attention. And the moment the treatise opens its mouth, it joins two matters together — "attention" and "object (aspect)." Why join them? An ancient master pierces it in one line: "for here the object is precisely the aspect" 〔Kuiji, Concise Compendium〕. Applying oneself (attention) is always applied upon some object, and what an object presents when it arises is precisely the "aspect"; the attention that takes an object and the aspect that is taken as object are, from the first, two faces of one thing, and so they are expounded together. First look at "how one applies oneself" (attention), then at "what aspects the mind presents while applying itself, and which to take up and which to lay down" (the differences of aspect).

The Seven Attentions: An Arc from "Discerning the Coarse and the Calm" to "Becoming Free of Craving and Accomplishing the Absorption"

The treatise first sets out the seven root attentions: discerning the characteristics, resolute conviction, seclusion, drawing in delight, investigation, the culmination of applied effort, and the fruit of the culmination of applied effort. At first glance these are seven nouns; in fact they are a single arc of becoming free of craving — the ancient masters string them together and expound them in one continuous breath:

First is "discerning the characteristics" — recognizing the coarse-and-inferior of the lower ground (the desire realm) and the tranquillity of the higher ground (the first meditative absorption); this first step is one where "hearing and reflection are still intermixed" (it still carries the wisdom of hearing and the wisdom of reflection). Next, "resolute conviction" — single-mindedly cultivating these two characteristics of the coarse and the calm, giving rise again and again to resolute conviction. From this, "seclusion" — the path of initial cutting-off arises, and the higher-grade defilements and the coarse heaviness are all cut off. Then "drawing in delight" — delighting in the higher cutting-off, cultivating the attention of the calm-and-sublime so as to gladden the mind. Then "investigation" — closely examining whether the defilements have been cut off or not. Then "the culmination of applied effort" — this is the final applied effort of the first meditative absorption. And at last "the fruit of the culmination of applied effort" — realizing the fundamental first meditative absorption, and the attention that operates together with it. The seven attentions, then, are the seven steps by which a person becomes free of the desire realm, one step at a time, and enters the first meditative absorption. The ancient masters further supply the matching of paths: the attention of seclusion is the "uninterrupted path" (that single stroke of right cutting-off), and the seventh attention is the "path of liberation" (the settled abiding after the cutting-off). Cultivating absorption is not done at a single bound; it is walked out in these seven steps.

Worth remembering: these seven attentions are not peculiar to the Stage of Meditative Equipoise — they are precisely the very spine of the whole "becoming free of craving for the desire realm" in the Śrāvaka Stage (Stage Thirteen). The Śrāvaka Stage says "it is by the seven attentions that one is able to attain freedom from craving for the desire realm", working these seven steps to the full upon the object that is the four noble truths. The Stage of Meditative Equipoise here establishes their name, and the Śrāvaka Stage broadens their practice — one name, one practice, each the inside and outside of the other.

The Forty Attentions, and the "Eye of Tranquillity-and-Insight" Hidden Within

Beyond the seven attentions, the treatise opens the "forty attentions" — with the Dharma as object, with the meaning as object, resolute conviction, the real, thorough knowledge, right cutting-off … all the way to established by another, inward-dominant grasping, the vast, and the all-pervading — laying out in full every way in which one cultivating absorption applies the mind. The ancient masters say: the seven attentions are "confined to the absorption-ground only," whereas the forty attentions "range broadly through both the concentrated and the scattered" 〔Dunlun, Notes〕 — the seven attentions expound only that arc of entering absorption, while the forty attentions gather in every application of mind, within absorption and outside it alike.

Within these forty is hidden the deepest single eye of this whole gate. Among them four attentions — whose object is a reflected image with discrimination, whose object is a reflected image without discrimination, whose object is the boundary-limit of things, and whose object is the accomplishment of what is to be done — are no new coinage of the treatise's author: they are precisely the attention-form of the "four kinds of object-field" that the Buddha expounded in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, Chapter on the Analysis of Yoga. The sūtra sets up the four kinds of object (the field), and the treatise subsumes them under four kinds of attention (the apprehender), and matches them, moreover, with perfect clarity: the "reflected image without discrimination" is the object of tranquillity (śamatha); the "reflected image with discrimination" is the object of insight (vipaśyanā); and the "boundary-limit of things" and the "accomplishment of what is to be done" are objects of tranquillity and insight together 〔sūtra; treatise〕. Follow it straight down and it becomes plain: that "reflected image" which is the object in absorption is without discrimination in tranquillity, with discrimination in insight — and this image, as the master heading's scriptural ground has already said, "is nothing but consciousness itself." The forty attentions may look trivial and fragmentary; in fact they set the whole object-domain of tranquillity-and-insight (indeed of tranquillity-and-insight-as-penetrating-consciousness-only) into the study of absorption, one item at a time.

Within the forty attentions there is also a cluster that divides "who, in the one discerning of characteristics, is the one discerning" into the three vehicles: the "attention established by another" is the śrāvaka's (he must depend upon another's spoken sound before he can attend rightly); the "attention of inward-dominant grasping" is the pratyekabuddha's and the bodhisattva's (they awaken of themselves without following a teacher); the "vast attention" is the bodhisattva's (the non-abiding nirvāṇa, the broad practice of the twofold benefit of compassion-and-wisdom); and the "all-pervading attention" is the Buddha's (the all-unobstructed knowledge). Herein the vast belongs to the bodhisattva and the all-pervading to the Buddha, as Kuiji's Concise Compendium and Dunlun's Notes both attest 〔same passage: "the non-abiding nirvāṇa, established by compassion-and-wisdom, the broad practice of the twofold benefit"〕; whereas the assignment of "established by another = the śrāvaka, inward-dominant grasping = the pratyekabuddha" is what Dunlun in particular brings out, and what Kuiji's Concise Compendium does not there finely divide. One and the same "discerning of characteristics" — the śrāvaka relies on hearing another's sound, the pratyekabuddha and bodhisattva rely on self-awakening, and the Buddha shines all-pervadingly. A single attention lays open the division of the three vehicles' capacities.

The Thirty-Two Aspects: A Mirror the One Cultivating Absorption Carries at His Side

Having expounded "how one applies oneself," the treatise turns to "the differences of aspect" — while applying oneself, the mind presents all manner of aspects, of which some are to be secluded from and some to be cultivated. First it sets up the four root aspects: the aspect of the object, the aspect of the cause-and-condition, the aspect to be secluded from, and the aspect to be cultivated. Of these, the "aspect to be secluded from" is the most practical; it finely divides into the four aspects of sinking, excitedness, distraction, and clinging — the mind has sunk, the mind has become excited, the mind has grown distracted, the mind has clung — each with its own root of illness (the ancient masters say the "aspect of clinging" is, in essence, ignorance (avidyā), or craving, or all the defilements such as view and doubt); and the "aspect to be cultivated" is precisely the counteracting of these four aspects.

The treatise then lays out the thirty-two aspects — the aspect of one's own mind, the outer aspect, the aspect of the support, the aspect of the sphere ranged over, the aspect of attention, the aspect of the mind's arising … all the way to the aspect of stilling, of uplifting, of contemplation, of equanimity, of entering absorption, of abiding in absorption, of emerging from absorption, of increase, of decrease, of drawing forth. These thirty-two aspects are less a theory than a self-beholding mirror the one cultivating absorption carries at his side: constantly taking the aspect of his own mind, seeing "in such and such a way the mind has defilement, or is without defilement," knowing whether at this moment he is sinking, or excited, or stilled, or uplifted, or entering absorption, or emerging from absorption, or increasing, or decreasing. The ancient masters gloss several of these very finely — the "aspect of the support" is the seeing-part and the seen-part (the five aggregates of one's own body, together with the seeds); the "aspect of the particular characteristic" is the characteristic of each of the five aggregates severally; the "aspect of drawing forth" is the sage's masterful penetration of "gathering measureless textual phrases and their meaning into a single syllable". Cultivating absorption is not a matter of sitting bolt upright with eyes shut in barren blankness; it is walking along thus, beholding one's own mind aspect by aspect.

General Discussion: The Absorptions Have Four Ways of Attainment, the Difference of Savoring-Pure-Uncontaminated, the Division into Regression-Abiding-Superior-Discernment

At the last the treatise conducts a "general discussion" of the absorptions, and several of its groupings of judgment are most practical:

The four who attain the meditative absorption — having attained the same absorption, their motives differ as heaven from earth: the "craving-topped" clings to the bliss of absorption; the "view-topped" clings to what he sees within absorption as true (as when, recollecting the many past aeons, he thereupon clings to "all worlds are permanent"); the "conceit-topped" enters through rivalry ("since they can enter, by what reason can I not?"); the "doubt-topped" gives rise to doubt because he is dull and dim. The ancient masters say these four are precisely the "four roots of the indeterminate"; the four kinds of persons attaining absorption give rise to these four, though not necessarily does one person possess all four. Attaining absorption is not hard; getting the motive right is what is hard.

Savoring, pure, uncontaminated — the "absorption of savoring" is cleaving to the bliss of absorption (the ancient masters distinguish: that which is savored — the pure absorption — has already entered the past, while that which does the savoring — the defiled mind — is now in the present); the "pure absorption" can reflect upon the danger in the absorption and gives rise to no savoring; the "uncontaminated absorption" reflects upon phenomena as "like a disease, like a boil," gives rise toward conditioned phenomena to a mind of weariness and dread, and enters by fixing mindfulness upon the realm of the deathless-nectar. Each layer is more distant from craving than the last.

The fourfold division of the absorptions — the portion conducing to regression (regressing because one cannot endure the joy, the bliss, and the superior virtues), the portion conducing to abiding (giving rise only to savoring, neither advancing nor regressing), the portion conducing to the superior (not contented, further seeking a superior station), and the portion conducing to penetrating discernment (deeply seeing the danger within the personality-view, able to enter the uncontaminated). For the name "portion of penetrating discernment," the treatise itself takes pearls and vases for a simile: "just as with worldly things such as pearls and vases, what has been well sifted is called 'discerned' … since beyond this there is nothing further to sift and select, it is named the portion of penetrating discernment" 〔treatise; Dunlun glosses the same〕 — sifted to where nothing further can be sifted, one thereupon enters the uncontaminated.

Carrying Forward

The gate of attention and the differences of aspect takes the absorption-study that the master heading set up and the flesh-and-blood that the establishment filled in, and pushes them one layer further inward — pushes them to "that mind in absorption" itself: how it becomes free of craving one step at a time (the arc of the seven attentions), how it gathers in every application of mind (the forty attentions, with even the object of tranquillity-and-insight bound to consciousness-only), how it beholds itself at its own side (the mirror of the thirty-two aspects), and how it divides into higher and lower (savoring-pure-uncontaminated, regression-abiding-superior-discernment). The most crucial single joint among these is the way the "four reflected-image object attentions" splice the four kinds of object-field of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra into the study of absorption — that image which is the object of tranquillity-and-insight runs through, it turns out, to that single eye of the master heading's scriptural ground, "it is nothing but consciousness itself." The next gate, "gathering the essential points of the several scriptures," will unfold the concrete superior absorptions upon this absorption-ground — the eight liberations, the three concentrations, the attainments — and these are, without exception, absorptions accomplished by attention and presented by their object.

Why Only at This Gate Are Liberation, the Dominant Bases, and the Totalities Expounded

The general heading has long since laid open the four kinds that make up the training in concentration — meditative absorption (dhyāna), liberation, concentrative poise (samādhi), and the equipoise-attainments (samāpatti). But the earlier gates gave a detailed exposition only of "meditative absorption," while liberation, concentrative poise, and the equipoise-attainments were all held back, unopened. It is at this "Gathering the Essential Purport of the Sūtras" gate that the treatise at last expounds the latter three, one by one. The ancient masters have made this arrangement plain: "Under the gate of establishment, only meditative absorption was expounded, and not liberation, concentrative poise, and the equipoise-attainments — for it is under Gathering the Purport below that the three are expounded" 〔Dunlun, Notes〕. And this gate has a distinctive feature: what it expounds is "the essential purport of the sūtras" — which is to say, the eight liberations, the eight dominant bases, and the ten totalities are all, at root, dharma-characteristics scattered throughout the Buddha's sūtras (the Āgama discourses); here the treatise gathers up the essentials of those sūtras and makes each plain. So in reading this gate, we should remember: what it expounds is not something newly set up by the author of the treatise, but the concentration-dharmas that the Buddha long ago spoke in the sūtras. The scriptural source of the eight liberations lies in the Madhyama-āgama · Great Discourse on Causation — "there are eight liberations … the liberation of the cessation of perception-and-knowing, realized bodily and dwelt in complete, this is called the eighth liberation". In the Āgamas the eight dominant bases are called "the eight bases of overcoming," and the ten totalities "the bases of all-pervasion" — the same dharmas under different names.

The Eight Liberations: The First Seven "Give Rise to Resolute Conviction," the Eighth "Turns Its Back on Perception and Feeling"

For the eight liberations, the treatise in a single stroke points out the dividing line of its two parts: "The first seven liberations are named 'liberation' because, with respect to what is already liberated, they give rise to resolute conviction; the eighth liberation is named 'liberation' because it turns its back on and casts off perception and feeling." The ancient masters have spoken through to the bottom of these two senses of the name "liberation" 〔Kuiji, Concise Compendium〕: for the first seven, "the dharma to be contemplated must first become free of the affliction-obstruction defilements of that ground before one begins to cultivate the practice" — that is to say, one first becomes free of the defilement of that particular ground, and only then cultivates this contemplation, giving rise once more to "resolute conviction" upon the object already liberated (in order to remove the concentration-obstruction and to draw forth the meritorious qualities of the supernormal powers); the eighth is otherwise — it "turns its back on and casts off perception and feeling" — for although the far-off uninterrupted path earlier had already extinguished the obstruction of perception-and-feeling, it is only at this present moment, "when one actually gives rise to liberation and momentarily turns its back on perception and feeling," that the name "liberation" is established. One is a "giving rise to resolute conviction," the other a "turning its back": the first seven raise a further marvelous function upon an already-purified object, while the eighth sets down perception and feeling altogether — and this eighth is precisely the attainment of cessation (the cessation of perception and feeling) to be expounded further on.

When the treatise expounds the first liberation, "having material form, one contemplates material forms," it moreover, in passing, breaks a misunderstanding. It says that to contemplate the material forms of the desire-realm is to "apply attention and reflect with the aspect of luminosity" — and the ancient masters give a special reminder: this is not the same as the Lesser Vehicle, "for it is unlike the Lesser Vehicle's forming of the perception of foulness; here it speaks of contemplating the perception of luminosity" 〔Kuiji〕. It is the same contemplation of form, but where the Lesser Vehicle contemplates foulness in order to become free of defilement, here one gives rise to resolute conviction, with the aspect of luminosity, upon form from which one is already free of defilement — the aim being "to realize mastery of resolute conviction." Becoming free of desire is only the starting point; attaining mastery over form is what this liberation is after. (There is, besides, a textual note from the ancient masters: as to the character "inward" in "inwardly without perception of form, one contemplates outward material forms," the Tripiṭaka-master Xuanzang said, "the Sanskrit sūtra and treatise both have no character 'inward'; adding the character 'inward' in translation does no harm to the sense either" 〔Dunlun〕 — over the taking-up or leaving-out of a single character, the Tripiṭaka-master gives an account perfectly clear.)

The Eight Dominant Bases: Liberation Is "Mastery of Resolute Conviction," the Dominant Bases Are "Mastery of Subjugation"

After liberation come the dominant bases. The treatise says: "Only after one has already refined the resolute conviction of applied attention can one then give rise to excellent knowing and excellent seeing; and so they are named dominant bases" — first there is the resolute conviction of the liberation-position, and only then does one advance to the "excellent knowing and excellent seeing" of the dominant-bases-position. The treatise lists "five kinds of excellence" (outclassing the lowly, subjugating the feeble, being able to conceal others, wearying-and-wearing-down the object, turning-and-wheeling with mastery), and further says: among these five, the intent is to display the two excellences of "concealing" and "mastery."

So wherein, exactly, do the dominant bases differ from liberation? The treatise cleaves it apart in a single line: "In the liberation earlier it was mastery of resolute conviction; now, in the dominant bases, it is mastery of subjugation." The ancient masters, citing the Abhidharmakośa, make this stroke keener still 〔Kuiji〕: "In cultivating liberation earlier, one could only turn one's back; in cultivating the dominant bases after, one is able to master the object — contemplating however one pleases, or in the end not giving rise to it at all" — the liberation-position can only "turn its back" (turn away from the object-realm), whereas the dominant-bases-position is able to "master the object" (to hold the object-realm in hand, to contemplate it however one wishes, and to make it not arise if one wishes it not to arise). The ancient masters go on to say: when the dominant bases are cultivated to fullness, "by the eight dominant bases subjugating the object, one is able to make the first three liberations pure" 〔Kuiji〕. So the dominant bases are not a fresh start on new ground; they are the work that turns back and "polishes clean" the first three liberations. From "being able to turn one's back" to "being able to hold firm," the power of concentration has climbed a rank.

The Ten Totalities: From "Holding Firm" to "Spreading Full"

After the dominant bases come the totalities. The treatise says that through the various totalities one "gives rise to a pervading resolute conviction upon the object of resolute conviction, and so they are named totalities" — to spread that resolute conviction full across everything. Here the treatise asks a fine question: among the ten totalities (earth, water, fire, wind, blue, yellow, red, white, space, consciousness), the first eight are plainly form — why then are "the totalities established with respect only to the two bases of form and the tangible"? The treatise answers: because these two, form and the tangible, are "shared by one's own body and others' bodies, pervade the whole form-realm, and continue on constantly"; the form of the eye-faculty and the rest belongs to one's own body alone, the two objects of smell and taste do not pervade everything, and sound, moreover, has intervals — and so they are not set up as totalities. The ancient masters, following on, supply a further scriptural note: why, among the ten totalities, is "fire left out"? Because "the fire-serving heterodox ones take fire to be a god, and say that the substance of fire pervades"; were a fire-totality established, it would foster the clinging of the heterodox, and so, for such persons, the Buddha "left out the fire-totality" 〔Kuiji, citing the Nirvāṇa-sūtra〕 — the taking-up or leaving-out of a single totality turns out to be set for the sake of countering the heterodox.

The Three Positions on a Single Line: Blending the Clay, Tempering, Transforming at Will

The treatise, at the last, strings liberation, the dominant bases, and the totalities into a single line of practice-and-production, and closes it off with a thoroughly homely simile: "The one who cultivates contemplative practice first reflects with resolute conviction upon the object (liberation); next he is able to subjugate it (the dominant bases); and having attained mastery over subjugation, he then, upon this, pervading everything, forms a resolute conviction according to whatever he wishes (the totalities)." The ancient masters likewise cite fascicle sixty-three and the Xianyang in confirmation: "The dominant bases and the totalities are the path by which the liberations are made pure" 〔Kuiji; the Section on Ascertainment agrees〕 — the dominant bases and the totalities are not some separate dharma outside the liberations; they are precisely the path that polishes the liberations to purity.

And the simile is one the treatise sets up on its own: "It is like the ironsmith-goldsmith of the world: at first he blends the clay and so forth, not yet well tempered — the position of liberation is likewise; when it is well tempered — the position of the dominant bases is likewise; when the tempering is done, and he transforms it according to his wish — the position of the totalities is likewise". A smith: at first he only blends the clay and readies his stock, not yet fired to temper — this is the liberation-position, where one is just able to give rise to resolute conviction upon the object; once fired to temper, the heat brought to its point — this is the dominant-bases-position, where one is able to hold the material firm and subjugate it; once tempered, so that whatever he would beat it into, into that it is beaten — this is the totality-position, transforming at will, pervading everything. It is one and the same body of concentration-power: from "readying the stock" to "firing to temper" to "beating out as the heart wills," rank by rank it grasps mastery firmly. When the treatise expounds liberation, what it expounds is never merely "becoming free"; it is, having become free, attaining a great mastery over the object-realm, step by step.

Carrying Forward

The Liberation sub-section is the first section of the "Gathering the Essential Purport of the Sūtras" gate; it gathers up and makes plain those several groups of concentration-dharmas from the Buddha's sūtras — the eight liberations, the eight dominant bases (the eight bases of overcoming), and the ten totalities (the bases of all-pervasion) — and lays out a single line of practice-and-production: liberation (mastery of resolute conviction) → the dominant bases (mastery of subjugation) → the totalities (mastery of pervading transformation), with the dominant bases and the totalities as the path that polishes the liberations to purity. Among them, the eighth liberation, "turning its back on and casting off perception and feeling," is precisely the attainment of cessation (the cessation of perception and feeling) that the equipoise-attainment sub-section further on will expound in detail — where perception and feeling cease and yet consciousness does not depart from the body, connecting downward to the Consciousness-Only sense of the eighth consciousness that appropriates and holds. The remaining two sections of the Gathering-the-Purport gate go on to unfold "concentrative poise" (the three concentrative poises and the rest, some thirteen items) and "the equipoise-attainments" (the attainment of manifest seeing, the attainment of no-perception, the attainment of cessation) — each of them one of the concrete, excellent concentrations gathered from the sūtras upon this same ground of concentration.

Why This Sub-Section Is the Longest: "Concentration" Gathers In the Widest

Already in the general heading, when "concentration" (samādhi) was treated, a hint was buried in a single line — that among the names for concentration, this word "concentration" governs the widest, "gathering in the single-pointedness of mind throughout every phase in which there is mind." And so, when the sub-section on "Concentration" within the door of "Gathering the Sūtra-Purport" comes to expound it, the treatise draws in, in one breath, thirteen sorts of samādhi: the three samādhis (emptiness, wishless, markless) lead off; then follow the three of applied-and-sustained thought and the rest, the limited-great-measureless, the four measureless states, the one-portion and full-portion cultivations, the samādhis conjoined with joy-pleasure-equanimity, the four cultivations of concentration, the five noble knowledges, the five noble limbs, and the noble right samādhi that has a cause and equipment, with the adamantine-like concentration to close. The reason this sub-section is the longest is precisely that this name "concentration" gathers in the broadest — the various concentrations scattered through the Buddha's sūtras are, for the most part, gathered under this one heading to be expounded.

The Three Samādhis: Why Emptiness First, Then Wishless, Then Markless

The three samādhis are emptiness, wishless, and markless — the three skeletal doors of the science of concentration. What the treatise expounds most carefully is their order. The samādhi of emptiness contemplates "self and what belongs to self" as empty (subdivided further into four: contemplative emptiness, the emptiness that is its fruit, inner emptiness, and outer emptiness); the samādhi of the wishless contemplates, with respect to the five appropriating aggregates, impermanence and suffering; the samādhi of the markless takes as its object the cessation of the appropriating aggregates and contemplates the quiescent. The treatise poses itself a question: elsewhere it plainly says "because impermanent therefore suffering, because suffering therefore without self, and only afterward speaks of emptiness" — so how is it that here the order is reversed, with emptiness spoken first? The treatise answers through to the ground: "one must first rest upon the perception of no-self, and only thereafter, without interval, does one attain the wishless" — only having seen no-self (emptiness) will one no longer wish for anything within the three realms (wishless), and only then will one be willing single-mindedly to seek deliverance and enter the markless. Hence the sūtra says "the perceptions of impermanence come to rest in dependence upon the perception of no-self". The three doors are a single line: seeing emptiness → not wishing → the markless — precisely the inner sequence by which a person passes from seeing through the clinging to self to single-mindedly seeking deliverance.

The markless concentration carries a fine reminder besides. The treatise cites the sūtra saying "the samādhi of the markless mind is neither low nor high" — what is "neither low nor high"? "Not corresponding to the two marks of adverse and favorable": in adversity the mind goes low, in favor the mind goes high, and the markless concentration is apart from both these extremes. This "neither low nor high," in the Āgamas, reads "neither surging nor sinking" 〔Saṃyukta Āgama 556〕 — the same mark of steadiness of the markless concentration; the treatise says "low-and-high," the sūtra says "surging-and-sinking," and they speak of one thing. The treatise further distinguishes "the expedient means" and "the fruit of the expedient means": that which attains its dwelling only by relying on repeated striving, though named liberation, is not the good liberation; that which comes to dwell spontaneously, without any further need to strive, is what is called "the utterly good liberation." The heat of concentration is measured by just this — whether or not effort is still being applied.

The Four Measureless States: Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, Equanimity, Each Matched to Its Most Corresponding Region

Among the thirteen headings, the one that most shows the Buddha's heart is the four measureless states. The treatise asks: why establish the four — loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity? Because sentient beings are of three grades — those without suffering and without pleasure, those with suffering, those with pleasure; toward them, one separately "desires to give them pleasure (loving-kindness), desires to free them from suffering (compassion), desires that their pleasure never part (sympathetic joy)," and then, toward the bias-faults of these three attentions (longing, ill-will, craving), one gives rise to undefiled attention and establishes "equanimity." The four measureless states are not four emotions; they are four attentions of "wishing sentient beings well."

Most marvelous is how the treatise matches each of the four measureless states to its most corresponding region of concentration: "cultivating loving-kindness to the utmost of the all-pervadingly pure, cultivating compassion to the utmost of the sphere of space, cultivating sympathetic joy to the utmost of the sphere of consciousness, cultivating equanimity to the utmost of the sphere of nothingness." Why? Cultivating loving-kindness is the giving of pleasure, and in the third meditative absorption pleasure is supreme, so recollecting this pleasure and cultivating loving-kindness is foremost; cultivating compassion is the extracting of suffering, and the formless sphere of space is far apart from the mass of sufferings, so recollecting the sphere of boundless space and cultivating compassion, one wishes all suffering sentient beings to reach the place without suffering; cultivating sympathetic joy is the rejoicing at another's pleasure, and consciousness is without measure, so recollecting the sphere of boundless consciousness and cultivating sympathetic joy, one wishes sentient beings to enjoy pleasure as consciousness is without measure; cultivating equanimity is evenness, and the sphere of nothingness is the very last edge of the ground of the uncontaminated mind, and equanimity is foremost (just as the arhat is undefiled amid suffering and pleasure alike), so one recollects the sphere of nothingness and cultivates equanimity. This matching is no fanciful speculation of the treatise's author — it is word-for-word imprinted in the seven-hundred-forty-third sūtra of the Saṃyukta Āgama: "the mind together with loving-kindness, much cultivated, is supreme in the pure; compassion cultivated is supreme in the sphere of space; sympathetic joy cultivated is supreme in the sphere of consciousness; equanimity cultivated is supreme in the sphere of nothingness". Here the treatise is expounding, line by line, the "loving-kindness–pure, compassion–space, sympathetic joy–consciousness, equanimity–nothingness" that the Buddha himself spoke. And the treatise's closing line is especially weighty: the four measureless states "can be cultivated only by the noble ones," and so the sūtra says they are "conjoined with the factors of awakening" — cultivated to the utmost, loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity are a noble practice corresponding to the factors of enlightenment, not the mere good-heartedness of the ordinary being.

The "Pits" of Cultivating Concentration: The Eleven Difficulties of the Radiance Concentration

When the treatise expounds "one-portion cultivation and full-portion cultivation" (cultivating the radiance concentration, either taking up radiance alone or taking up the mass of forms as well), it lists in passing the eleven kinds of "concentration-difficulty" one will run up against in cultivating the radiance concentration — an exceedingly practical table for avoiding the pits of cultivation. Running up against doubt (not rightly knowing the radiance-and-form mark), not-attending (the expedient means too slack, like shutting the eyes and turning the back when one does not wish to see), torpor-and-drowsiness (not guarding the gates of the faculties, much sleeping), too-excessive vigor, too-slack baseness (like one urgently seizing a chì-yàn bird — grip it and it tires, loose it and it flies), the elation of hoping for one and gaining two (like a man who suddenly gains two hidden treasures and delights overmuch), the great terror at seeing inauspicious forms, the raising of various outer perceptions, self-exaltation (reckoning oneself superior to others), much talking and deliberating, abandoning the inner and taking up the outer…… one difficulty after another, all of them psychological traps the cultivator will truly meet. The treatise names them one by one precisely so that the cultivator may recognize them: falling away from concentration falls away not upon the object, but in these subtle excesses and deficiencies of the applied mind.

The Five Noble Limbs, the Noble Right Concentration: When Concentration Reaches the Noble Stage, It Must Have Sūtra, Simile, Limb, and Path

The last several headings push "concentration" up to the noble stage. The samādhi of the five noble knowledges — the noble one himself knows "this samādhi of mine is noble, undefiled, without grasping," and it contains five knowledges (of its own substance, concerning the person, of purity, of the fruit, of the marks of entering and emerging from concentration); the treatise further matches the fourteen phrases of the sūtra one by one into these five knowledges 〔Kuiji〕. The samādhi of the five noble limbs — within the four meditative absorptions one limb is taken from each, and a further limb of "closely contemplating dependent origination and cutting off the remaining fetters" is added, making five limbs; the treatise uses five exceedingly homely similes to expound them (the bathing-ball simile for joy-and-pleasure pervading the body, the mountain-spring with its water-axle and water-rope for the moistening of joy-and-pleasure, the utpala flower-embryo for the pleasure apart from joy, the elder's eight-thread nine-thread weave for the purity and firm closeness of the fourth meditative absorption, and repeated contemplation for the close contemplation of the three times). The ancient masters explain in passing the Western customs behind several of these similes — "in the West, bathing has master and pupil," "in the West, the folded weave takes eight strands and nine strands for one warp" 〔Kuiji〕 — a few homely matters of a foreign land, borrowed by the treatise to expound the joy-and-pleasure and purity within concentration. The noble right samādhi that has a cause and has equipment — this concentration has a "cause" and has "equipment": the first five path-limbs (right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood) are the cause; the latter three (right view, right effort, right mindfulness) are the equipment. This is precisely what the Buddha himself spoke in the Sūtra on the Noble Path of the Madhyama Āgama: "the noble right concentration has its practice, has its aids, and moreover has its equipment, and has seven limbs" — within the noble eightfold path, apart from the limb of right concentration itself, the remaining seven limbs are precisely the cause and equipment for accomplishing the noble right concentration. The treatise further gathers it into the three trainings: right mindfulness is the training in the higher mind, right view and right effort are the training in the higher wisdom, and the three trainings all attain fullness in the cultivation of the noble right concentration.

The Adamantine-Like Concentration: The Last Blow

Last comes the adamantine-like concentration — "the samādhi of the last edge of the trainee's stage," that final moment of concentration at the trainee's stage. The treatise closes with one hardest simile: "just as the adamant, its nature firm and solid, the maṇis and the rest cannot pierce and break it, yet it can pierce and break all the maṇi-jewels" — this concentration, above it there is no longer any affliction able to break it, yet it can overwhelm every affliction. In one moment the adamantine-like concentration arises, and the subtlest seeds of delusion are cut off at the sound of it; the trainee's stage is thereby brought to fullness and turns into the stage beyond training. The thirteen kinds of samādhi, expounded to this point — the path of the science of concentration sets out from seeing emptiness and comes to its close in the single adamantine blow.

Carrying Forward

The Concentration sub-section is the widest stretch of the door "Gathering the Sūtra-Purport," gathering up and expounding thirteen sorts of samādhi scattered through the Buddha's sūtras: the three samādhis set up the skeleton of the science of concentration (the order emptiness → wishless → markless); the four measureless states are matched to four concentrations (loving-kindness–pure, compassion–space, sympathetic joy–consciousness, equanimity–nothingness, word-for-word from the Saṃyukta Āgama); the eleven difficulties of the radiance concentration list out the pits of cultivating concentration; the five noble knowledges, five noble limbs, and noble right concentration push concentration up to the noble stage; and the adamantine-like concentration is the last blow. Of the sūtras drawn in here (the three samādhis, the four measureless states, the Sūtra on the Noble Path, the Sūtra on the Surpassing Gods), all are Āgama sūtra-texts, and the treatise here is expounding, one by one, the various concentrations the Buddha taught; the five noble knowledges and the adamantine-like concentration, however, are names of the treatise's own system, with no Āgama transmission, and are marked as such in truth. The final stretch of the door "Gathering the Sūtra-Purport," the sub-section on "attainment-concentration" (the direct-vision, the no-perception, the cessation attainments), unfolds the depth and shallowness of the "reaching" of concentration — and especially the passage on the attainment of cessation (the cessation of perception and feeling) joins directly to the eighth liberation, "turning away from perception and feeling," of the Liberation sub-section, and runs downward to the appropriating grasp of the eighth consciousness in Consciousness-Only.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrying Forward

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

Why, at the End of a Stage, Set Up a "Miscellaneous Meanings" Gate

The Stage of Meditative Equipoise has run its whole course — setting up the name overall, filling in flesh and blood by establishing [the definitions], speaking of the exertion by way of attention, and gathering the essential purport of the several sutras to unfold liberation, concentration, and the [meditative] attainments — and now, at this "last, miscellaneous meanings," it is the closing of the whole stage. Unlike the earlier gates, it has no single main thread; rather, it is like a "gleaning" pocket: the essentials of the science of concentration that the sutras teach scatteredly, yet that were not gathered into any of the earlier gates, are gathered back one by one and made plain. The ancient masters point out its structure clearly: this gate is "eleven 'furthermores,' each separately drawing in a sutra to explain it, and then, at the end, upholding the sacred teaching by four true Dharmas" 〔Kuiji, Concise Compendium〕 — the first eleven passages each draw in one short sutra to explain (bodily-and-mental seclusion; the immeasurable and the constant-and-thorough; skill in concentration and in attainment; distinguishing the meditative absorptions; the four examinings of practice in concentration; not receiving perception or non-perception with respect to the six objects; the four ways of proceeding on the path; the four superiorities of purification; the five marks of purified-mind practice; dust-washing; reflecting on the three marks); and the last passage, by "upholding the sacred teaching by four true Dharmas," draws the whole stage to a close. In reading this gate, one must remember: what it gathers is the scattered science of concentration that the Buddha spoke, and what the treatise does here is the work of "gleaning the nuggets and smelting them into a vessel."

One Thread Running Through: Tranquillity and Insight Must Be Practiced Twinned

The miscellaneous-meanings gate looks scattered, but in fact one hidden thread runs through it — the twinned practice of tranquillity (śamatha, the calming) and insight (vipaśyanā, the observing). The very first sutra of the gate sets up this meaning: the Buddha says "delight in solitude, and inwardly abide in right tranquillity," and the treatise explains "delighting in solitude" as bodily seclusion and "the nine stations of abiding the mind within" as mental seclusion; body and mind being secluded, one can then draw forth tranquillity, tranquillity draws forth insight, and insight well cultivated then "awakens, among all phenomena, to them as they truly are". The second sutra draws this pair out still finer: to cultivate concentration one must have "the immeasurable, the constant-and-thorough, and abiding in right mindfulness" — the immeasurable displays the path of tranquillity, abiding in right mindfulness displays the path of insight, and the constant-and-thorough displays the path by which these two swiftly proceed to realization. One calming, one observing; and at the closing "upholding the sacred teaching by four Dharmas" this is made still plainer: either "having practiced tranquillity, one attains liberation in dependence on insight," or "having practiced insight, one attains liberation of mind in dependence on tranquillity" — the two roads reach the same goal by different ways, and both require tranquillity and insight to be complete. Scattered as the miscellaneous meanings are, the very lifeblood of the science of concentration is always this one pair of feet.

(This meaning is not the treatise-author's solitary insight: the "four ways of proceeding on the path," in which tranquillity and insight are practiced in accord, are precisely the "four paths" spoken by Ānanda in the Saṃyukta-āgama, sutra 560, whose fourth path is exactly "tranquillity and insight, in harmony, practiced together" — of one vein with the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra's "tranquillity and insight, in harmony, turning together" in its Chapter on the Yoga of Distinguishing; here the treatise splices the four paths the Buddha spoke into the science of concentration.)

One of the Brightest Nuggets: The Gold-Smelting Simile of the Dust-Washing Sutra

The most moving passage within the miscellaneous-meanings gate is the tenth, the "Dust-Washing Sutra." In that sutra the Buddha says: "One should smelt one's mind as by the method of smelting raw gold." The treatise unfolds it into three smeltings: the smelting that removes dross (gradually removing from the gold-nature its coarse, middling, and fine dross, until only clean gold-sand remains), the smelting that takes up-and-holds (gravely melting and boiling that clean gold), and the smelting that renders supple (after the melting and boiling, refining still more finely its flaws, cracks, and other impurities). Then one line drives home the point: "as is the raw gold within the gold-nature, so, know, is it also with the purified-mind practitioner in the phase of the lineage" — a practitioner capable of realizing nirvāṇa has a mind that, like the raw gold within a gold-vein, must be smelted just so, one step at a time. The ancient masters matched these three smeltings to three phases of practice: arousing the [aspiring] mind and going forth is the first smelting (removing dross); gaining the meditative absorptions on the path of equipment is the second smelting (taking up-and-holding); and entering the noble phase is the third smelting (rendering supple) 〔Kuiji〕.

This simile is not one the treatise-author set up out of thin air — it is exactly the gold-smelting method the Buddha himself spoke in the Saṃyukta-āgama, sutra 1246: the goldsmith smelting gold first pans away the hard stones and solid lumps (figuring the severance of coarse afflictions, evil karma, and mistaken views), then removes the coarse sand and gravel (figuring the removal of the thought of desire, the thought of ill-will, the thought of harm), then removes the fine dust and black soil (figuring the removal of the thought of kinsfolk, the thought of crowds, the thought of being born in heaven), and at last gains pure gold. What the treatise does here is to hammer this nugget of the Buddha's gold-smelting simile, blow by blow, into the science of concentration: for the purified-mind practitioner to cultivate concentration just is to smelt away, layer by layer, the three layers of dross within the mind — coarse, middling, and fine — smelting until it is "not held bound by the volitionally-conditioned," whereupon one can transform things at will and accomplish supernormal powers, like that well-smelted pure gold, to be beaten into whatever vessel one wishes. (A textual note in passing: the treatise writes "盪 dust-washing sutra," the ancient masters write "蕩 dust-washing sutra" — the same sutra, differently written.)

Two Mirrors on the Road of Cultivating Concentration: Inversion and the Superiorities of Purification

The miscellaneous-meanings gate also gathers two exceedingly practical teachings of "self-reflection."

The first is the "four turnings of waxing and waning" spoken by the Sutra Distinguishing the Meditative Absorptions — the cultivator of concentration most readily sees inversely with respect to "advance" and "retreat": though he is in fact passing from the first meditative absorption into the access of the second, so that the joy-and-ease of the first absorption has passed and the joy-and-ease of the second is not yet gained, he mistakenly takes it that "I have lost the joy-and-ease born of seclusion," and thereupon withdraws his mind back — this is the inversion of "at the time of advance, calling it retreat". The treatise distinguishes these four kinds of "advance-and-retreat, inverted-and-uninverted" one by one, so that the cultivator may recognize: the marks of concentration's advance and retreat are subtle, and one mistaken thought loses the path.

The second is the four purifications of morality, concentration, view, and liberation spoken by the Sutra on the Four Superiorities of Purification — each of the four is divided into the twofold "perfection" and "taking-up," matched to the sequence of the ordinary being, the noble phase, and the phase beyond training 〔Kuiji〕. Morality, concentration, view, and liberation are not gained once and gained forever; they must, at differing phases, be perfected one degree at a time, taken up into one's own substance one degree at a time. With these two mirrors the miscellaneous-meanings gate shows the cultivator the "seeing-wrong" and the "not-yet-perfected" on the road of cultivating concentration.

The Closing Hammer-Blow: Upholding the Sacred Teaching by Four Dharmas

At the very end of the whole stage, the treatise concludes with "upholding the sacred teaching by four true Dharmas" — seclusion (mountain and forest, beneath trees, a solitary quiet chamber), cultivation (tranquillity and insight), the fruit of cultivation, and being without discord-and-dispute. The fruit of cultivation the treatise weights most heavily: in dependence on tranquillity and insight, severing the practices to be severed by the path of seeing is named the "realm of severance"; severing the practices to be severed by the path of cultivation is named the "realm of freedom-from-craving"; the forever-extinguishing of all the graspings of existence is named the "realm of cessation" — these three realms (severance, freedom-from-craving, cessation) are precisely the threefold liberation of the science of concentration cultivated to the very end. Among the ancient masters, Dunlun explains these three realms most fully (Kuiji, under this heading, treats only the four gates and does not unfold the three realms), and further cites a scriptural passage of the Extensive Treatise (the Śrāvaka Stage) in evidence: Ānanda takes one and the same phrase and asks the elder with it, asks the five hundred disciples with it, asks the Tathāgata with it, and the answers do not differ by a single word — "because the practices are severed it is named the realm of severance, because the practices are separated-from it is named the realm of separation, because the practices are extinguished it is named the realm of cessation" 〔Dunlun, Notes〕. This "without discord-and-dispute" meaning closes things exceedingly well: what the Buddha and his disciples say is, in meaning and phrase, evenly moistened-and-blended and mutually accordant, because their realizing-vision is the same — unlike the divergent-path teachers, whose views are manifold and at odds. A whole Stage of Meditative Equipoise, which began by asking "what is the Stage of Meditative Equipoise?", closes with this one line of "meaning and phrase without discord, mutually accordant" — the whole stage of the science of concentration stands upon the bedrock of the one same realizing-vision of the Buddha and his noble disciples.

Carrying Forward

The last, miscellaneous meanings are the gleaning and the drawing-to-a-close of the Stage of Meditative Equipoise: by eleven passages each separately drawing in a sutra (dust-washing and the smelting of gold, the four ways of proceeding on the path, the four superiorities of purification, the inversions of distinguishing the meditative absorptions, and so on), the scattered nuggets of the science of concentration that the sutras teach are gathered back piece by piece and smelted into a vessel; and then, by "upholding the sacred teaching by four Dharmas," the fruit of the threefold liberation is drawn out — the realm of severance, the realm of freedom-from-craving, the realm of cessation. Running through the whole is always the single thread of the twinned practice of tranquillity and insight; and the sutras it draws in mostly belong to the discourses of the Āgama (dust-washing = Saṃyukta-āgama 1246; the four ways of proceeding on the path = Saṃyukta-āgama 560), the treatise here explaining the Buddha's science of concentration one by one, and not setting up any new doctrine of its own. With this, the six gates of the Stage of Meditative Equipoise's uddāna — setting up the name overall, establishing [the definitions], attention, the distinctions of marks, gathering the essential purport of the several sutras, and the last, miscellaneous meanings — are all explained through; and the whole stage of the science of concentration, from the name "equipoise" that departs from sinking and departs from restlessness, through the consciousness-only knot at the attainment of cessation where "consciousness does not depart from the body," to the threefold-realm liberation of upholding the sacred teaching by four Dharmas, is complete from head to tail. From this stage (Stage 06) the Basic Section passes on to the Stage of Non-Equipoise (Stage 07); the concentrated and the non-concentrated are established as correlatives, each awaiting the other.