解脫道論 戒的總問、定義與戒相

At the opening of the Chapter on the Analysis of Virtue, the author asks sixteen questions in succession, without placing a single answer between them.

What is virtue, what are its characteristic, function, arising, proximate cause, benefits, meaning, practice, and difference, how many kinds are there, from what does it arise, what are its beginning, middle, and end, how many qualities obstruct it, how many causes does it have, how is it purified, and through how many causes does it remain.

When he has finished asking, he answers only the first.

The other answers are scattered through the eight short units that follow in this chapter, all the way to its final passage. Each answer bears a marker—the wording of the original question repeated: the question asks “what is its characteristic,” and later comes “what is the characteristic of virtue”; it asks “how many kinds of virtue are there,” and later comes “how many kinds of virtue are there”; it asks “how is virtue purified,” and later comes “what purifies received virtue.” Each of these headings occurs only once in the whole treatise.

So this unit is not a unit of content but a table of contents. Recognise it and the order of the whole chapter appears.

The answer to the first question begins with three narrow names: volitional virtue, virtue of conduct, and virtue of non-transgression. All three sentences say what is not done—not doing evil, staying away from places of transgression, having no fault in body or speech.

Then the author changes scope: “Further, conduct in the sense of cutting off means that all wholesome qualities are virtue.”

All wholesome qualities are virtue. The reason is “cutting off”—whatever can cut something off is virtue.

He then lays out thirty-seven sentences of the same form, each describing one quality cutting off one affliction: the five hindrances, the four jhānas, the four formless attainments, the four inversions, the forms of insight, the three doors of freedom, and the kinds of clinging, ending with the path of stream-entry, the path of once-return, the path of non-return, and the path of arahantship, at “cuts off all afflictions.”

The treatise does not say there are thirty-seven and does not give the series a name. But connect the sequence and it forms one complete journey from the first steps to the ultimate.

The first unit of a book on virtue begins with one definition narrow enough to concern only non-transgression, then gives another broad enough to contain every quality of the path. Every classification in the next eight units moves between these two definitions.

The final sentence of this unit is “What is the characteristic of virtue? Conduct that removes misconduct.” What “misconduct” means is not stated here; the first sentence of the next unit asks about it.

The blade falls between the heading and the explanation—the divisions in this chapter are not cut by topic, but by the breathing of question and answer.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The General Questions, Definition, and Characteristic of Virtue · Doorway · Summer 2026

Sixteen Questions at the Opening

Question: What is virtue? What is its characteristic? What is its function? What is its arising? What is its proximate cause? What are its benefits? What are the meaning and practice of virtue? What is the difference between practice and virtue? How many kinds of virtue are there? From what does it arise? What are the beginning, middle, and end of virtue? How many qualities obstruct the path of virtue? How many causes of virtue are there? How many classifications of virtue are there? How is virtue purified? Through how many causes does virtue remain established?

This long series is recorded just as it stands in the treatise. Count each question mark and there are sixteen questions; yet “what are the meaning and practice of virtue?” contains two items in a single question, so there are sixteen questions but seventeen items.

These sixteen questions are not all asked and answered within this unit. The unit answers only the first question and, at its end, introduces the second. The answers to all the other questions are distributed through the later units of this chapter, each headed by the wording of the original question—“what is the characteristic of virtue,” “what are its function, arising, and proximate cause,” “what are the benefits of virtue,” “what does virtue mean,” “what is the difference between practice and virtue,” “how many kinds of virtue are there,” “how does virtue arise,” “what are the beginning, middle, and end of virtue,” “how many qualities obstruct virtue,” “how many classifications of virtue are there,” “what purifies received virtue,” and “through how many practices does it remain.”

The First Question: What Is Virtue?

Answer: What is called virtue is volitional virtue, virtue of conduct, and virtue of non-transgression.

What is volitional virtue? I do no evil; one who does it receives the result oneself.

What is virtue of conduct? Staying away from places of transgression.

What is virtue of non-transgression? A person who possesses virtue has no fault in body or speech.

Conduct in the Sense of Cutting Off: All Wholesome Qualities Are Virtue

Further, conduct in the sense of cutting off means that all wholesome qualities are virtue.

As the Abhidhamma says: by the quality of renunciation one cuts off desire for sensual desire. This is virtue's ability to leave evil behind.

Volitional virtue, guarding virtue, virtue of conduct—

By non-ill-will one cuts off and extinguishes ill will; by the perception of light one cuts off drowsiness; by non-distraction one cuts off agitation; by the arising of vision of the Dhamma one cuts off doubt and remorse; by knowledge one cuts off ignorance; by joy one cuts off the absence of delight.

By the first jhāna one cuts off the five hindrances; by the second jhāna one cuts off applied and sustained thought; by the third jhāna one cuts off rapture; by the fourth jhāna one cuts off pleasure.

By entering the attainment of space one cuts off the perception of form, up through ill will and the various perceptions; by entering the attainment of consciousness one cuts off space; by the attainment of nothingness one cuts off the perception of entering consciousness; by the attainment of neither-perception-nor-non-perception one cuts off nothingness.

By insight into impermanence one cuts off the perception of permanence; by insight into suffering one cuts off the perception of pleasure; by insight into not-self one cuts off the perception of self; by insight into foulness one cuts off the perception of purity.

By insight into danger one cuts off the perception of craving; by insight into non-attachment one cuts off the perception of sensual desire; by insight into cessation one cuts off arising; by insight into dissolving one cuts off density; by insight into division one cuts off aggregation; by insight into arising and ceasing one cuts off permanence.

By insight into the signless one cuts off signs; by insight into the unconstructed one cuts off construction; by insight into emptiness one cuts off entry.

By the insight of higher wisdom one cuts off clinging; by knowledge and vision of things as they are one cuts off clinging to ignorance; by insight into danger one cuts off clinging to abode; by contemplation of that one cuts off contemplation of what is not that; by insight that turns and disperses one cuts off clinging to conjunction.

By the path of stream-entry one cuts off the afflictions seen in one place; by the path of once-return one cuts off coarse afflictions; by the path of non-return one cuts off subtle afflictions; by the path of arahantship one cuts off all afflictions.

This long series of sentences has the same form throughout—each begins with “by” to name what does the cutting off and uses “cuts off” to bind it to what is cut off. Counted item by item, there are thirty-seven. The treatise itself neither gives this number nor supplies a collective name, so they are recorded here as they stand, without counting or naming them on its behalf.

Concluding Formula

This is called virtue of non-transgression, volitional virtue, guarding virtue, and virtue of conduct. This is virtue.

One feature is recorded here just as it stands in the treatise. The opening names three items—volitional virtue, virtue of conduct, and virtue of non-transgression. The sentence in the middle reads “volitional virtue, guarding virtue, virtue of conduct,” replacing “virtue of non-transgression” with “guarding virtue.” The conclusion then has four items—virtue of non-transgression, volitional virtue, guarding virtue, and virtue of conduct. Three at the opening, three in the middle, four at the close: the additional item is “guarding virtue.” Nothing is supplied or deleted here on the treatise's behalf.

Introducing the Second Question

What is the characteristic of virtue? Conduct that removes misconduct.

This sentence takes up the second question, but what “misconduct” means is not explained in this unit—the next unit opens by asking precisely that.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The General Questions, Definition, and Characteristic of Virtue · Vernacular · Summer 2026

Sixteen Questions in a Single Breath

At the opening of the Chapter on the Analysis of Virtue, the author does not begin by explaining what virtue is. He begins by asking—and he asks sixteen questions in succession:

“Question: What is virtue? What is its characteristic? What is its function? What is its arising? What is its proximate cause? What are its benefits? What are the meaning and practice of virtue? What is the difference? How many kinds of virtue are there? From what does it arise? What are the beginning, middle, and end of virtue? How many qualities obstruct the path of virtue? How many causes of virtue are there? How many classifications of virtue are there? How is virtue purified? Through how many causes does virtue remain established?” 〔T32 400c01–04〕

Count the sixteen question marks and that is the number. Yet “what are the meaning and practice of virtue?” contains two matters within one question, so there are sixteen questions and seventeen items to answer.

Once the questions have been asked, the treatise answers only the first, introduces the second at the end, and then this unit is over.

Where are the answers to the other fourteen questions? In the eight short units that follow, extending all the way to the final passage of this chapter.

This is the nature of the present unit: it is not a unit of content but a table of contents. The author lists at once everything the chapter will address and only then begins to answer item by item. Unless this is recognised first, the later, seemingly scattered discussions of “how many kinds of virtue,” “twofold, threefold, and fourfold,” will read like heaps of technical terms. Once it is recognised, each passage can be seen as paying one debt incurred here.

The Answer-Heading Repeats the Wording of the Question

To match the sixteen questions with the later text, the author provides a very convenient marker: the heading of an answer usually repeats the wording of the original question.

The question asks “what is its characteristic,” and later comes “what is the characteristic of virtue” 〔T32 400c26〕. It asks “what are its function, arising, and proximate cause,” and later comes “what are its function, arising, and proximate cause” 〔T32 401a03–04〕. It asks “what are its benefits,” and later comes “what are the benefits of virtue” 〔T32 401a06〕. It asks “what does virtue mean,” and later comes “what does virtue mean” 〔T32 401a15〕. It asks “what is the difference,” and later comes “what is the difference between practice and virtue” 〔T32 401a24〕. It asks “how many kinds of virtue are there,” and later comes “how many kinds of virtue are there” 〔T32 401a26〕. It asks “from what does it arise,” and later comes “how does virtue arise” 〔T32 401b01–02〕. It asks “what are the beginning, middle, and end of virtue,” and later comes “what are the beginning, middle, and end of virtue” 〔T32 401b03〕. It asks “how many qualities obstruct the path of virtue” and “how many causes of virtue are there,” and later comes “how many qualities obstruct virtue” 〔T32 401b04〕, one sentence joining the two matters. It asks “how many classifications of virtue are there,” and later comes “how many classifications of virtue are there” 〔T32 401b12–13〕, followed by twofold, threefold, and fourfold classifications extending through the fifth unit of this chapter. It asks “how is virtue purified,” and later comes “what purifies received virtue” 〔T32 404a10〕. It asks “through how many causes does virtue remain established,” and later comes “through how many practices does it remain” 〔T32 404a21–22〕.

Each of these twelve headings occurs only once in the whole treatise. They are markers made specifically to answer these sixteen questions and cannot be confused with another passage.

Here is a reading method worth carrying away: when this treatise opens with a long series of questions, first count how many things are asked, then search the later text using the wording of the original questions as headings. When a heading appears, one knows that the answer to that item begins there. This is more useful than memorising the answer itself, because it tells the reader where they have arrived and how many debts remain unpaid.

The First Question: Three Names

After listing the sixteen questions, the author answers the first: “Answer: What is called virtue is volitional virtue, virtue of conduct, and virtue of non-transgression.” 〔T32 400c04–05〕

Three items, each given one sentence. Volitional virtue is “I do no evil; one who does it receives the result oneself” 〔T32 400c05–06〕; virtue of conduct is “staying away from places of transgression” 〔T32 400c06〕; virtue of non-transgression is “a person who possesses virtue has no fault in body or speech” 〔T32 400c07〕.

All three sentences are very short and point in the same direction—not doing, not transgressing, having no fault. Up to this point, “virtue” is something stated negatively: it is defined by what one does not do.

Then the Author Changes the Definition

Next comes a sentence of transition: “Further, conduct in the sense of cutting off means that all wholesome qualities are virtue.” 〔T32 400c07–08〕

All wholesome qualities are virtue. This sentence points in precisely the opposite direction from the three above. They say that virtue is non-transgression; this says that virtue is every wholesome quality.

It also supplies a new key word: “cutting off.” Virtue is every wholesome quality because the function of virtue is to cut off—whatever cuts something off is virtue with respect to that thing.

The author then begins to list.

Thirty-Seven Items, from the First Jhāna to the Path of Arahantship

Here one must stop and ask: why does a passage answering “what is virtue,” after answering with three names, lay out a long series of things that seem unrelated to keeping precepts—jhānas, formless attainments, insight into impermanence, the three doors of freedom, and the four paths of ascetics?

First look at what it lists.

The first item cites a treatise: “As the Abhidhamma says: by the quality of renunciation one cuts off desire for sensual desire. This is virtue's ability to leave evil behind.” 〔T32 400c08–09〕 This is the only item with a citation formula; the next thirty-six are listed straight through without another explanation in between.

Next come six items that cut off the hindrances, beginning with “by non-ill-will one cuts off and extinguishes ill will” 〔T32 400c09–10〕.

Then the four jhānas: “by the first jhāna one cuts off the five hindrances; by the second jhāna one cuts off applied and sustained thought; by the third jhāna one cuts off rapture; by the fourth jhāna one cuts off pleasure.” 〔T32 400c12–13〕

Then the four formless attainments, from “by entering the attainment of space one cuts off the perception of form, up through ill will and the various perceptions” 〔T32 400c13–14〕 to “by the attainment of neither-perception-nor-non-perception one cuts off nothingness.” 〔T32 400c15–16〕

Then the antidotes to the four inversions: “by insight into impermanence one cuts off the perception of permanence; by insight into suffering one cuts off the perception of pleasure; by insight into not-self one cuts off the perception of self; by insight into foulness one cuts off the perception of purity.” 〔T32 400c16–17〕

Then six forms of insight, the three doors of freedom—“by insight into the signless one cuts off signs; by insight into the unconstructed one cuts off construction; by insight into emptiness one cuts off entry” 〔T32 400c19–20〕—and five kinds of clinging, from “by the insight of higher wisdom one cuts off clinging” 〔T32 400c20–21〕 to “by insight that turns and disperses one cuts off clinging to conjunction.” 〔T32 400c22–23〕

Finally come the four paths: “by the path of stream-entry one cuts off the afflictions seen in one place; by the path of once-return one cuts off coarse afflictions; by the path of non-return one cuts off subtle afflictions; by the path of arahantship one cuts off all afflictions.” 〔T32 400c23–25〕

Counted item by item, there are thirty-seven. The treatise itself neither states this number nor gives the series a collective name.

These thirty-seven are not scattered items. Connect their sequence: beginning with cutting off the five hindrances, it passes through the four jhānas, the four formless attainments, the contemplations of the path of seeing, then the three doors of freedom, and finally the four paths of ascetics, ending at “all afflictions.” It is one complete journey, from the first steps all the way to the ultimate.

The question above can now be answered. The author places the whole path under the definition of “virtue” because he has just changed its scope: virtue is “cutting off”; whatever cuts off afflictions is virtue. Since the path of arahantship also cuts off afflictions, the path of arahantship is also included within virtue.

Thus, from its first unit, the “virtue” of this chapter does not concern only the virtue of avoiding transgression. It first gives a narrow definition in three items, then a definition broad enough to contain every quality of the path. The eight units that follow repeatedly discuss twofold, threefold, and fourfold virtue, moving between these two definitions.

Three at the Opening, Four at the Close

One small mismatch is also worth remembering.

The opening names three items: volitional virtue, virtue of conduct, and virtue of non-transgression. 〔T32 400c04–05〕

Yet the sentence in the middle reads “volitional virtue, guarding virtue, virtue of conduct” 〔T32 400c09〕—“virtue of non-transgression” has disappeared and been replaced by an unannounced “guarding virtue.”

At the conclusion all four appear together: “This is called virtue of non-transgression, volitional virtue, guarding virtue, and virtue of conduct. This is virtue.” 〔T32 400c25–26〕

Three at the opening, three in the middle, four at the close. The additional “guarding virtue” is never given a sentence of explanation anywhere in the passage.

This kind of thing is not rare in the treatise; in the preceding chapter, the three purities and the three kinds of goodness each lack one concluding formula. The important task is not to supply what is missing but to recognise it: the treatise's lists of terms do not necessarily match word for word between announcement and conclusion. In reading, record separately what is announced and what is concluded; do not use one version to overwrite the other.

Incidentally, the terms “volitional virtue” and “virtue of non-transgression” occur in the whole treatise only in this passage. Beyond this unit they are not used again.

The Final Sentence Is Left for the Next Unit

The final sentence of this unit is: “What is the characteristic of virtue? Conduct that removes misconduct.” 〔T32 400c26–27〕

The answer to the second question is only six characters long, and it uses a term not yet explained—“misconduct.”

The author does not explain it next. The opening sentence of the following unit is: “Question: What is called misconduct? Answer: breaking the Dhamma.” 〔T32 400c27〕

The cut between the units falls precisely between the heading and the explanation. The heading is here, the explanation there; the cut between them is the boundary of the two units. Recognising this also shows that the divisions of this treatise are never cut by topic. They are cut by the breathing of question and answer.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The General Questions, Definition, and Characteristic of Virtue · Exposition · Summer 2026