解脫道論 四諦所以與前四門

At the outset, this passage asks: why are the four noble truths four, not three or five?

The treatise previously also asks, “Why are the ten impurities neither more nor fewer?” 〔T32 426b10–426b11〕, so this is not the only place in the entire work where a number is questioned. What is distinctive here is that it explicitly brackets the number of the four noble truths with three and five: Why are four noble truths taught, not three or five?

What is even more worth seeing is how it answers: it appeals to no authority and gives two reasons independent of one another.

The first is structural: suffering is the worldly result, and arising the worldly cause; cessation is the supramundane result, and path the supramundane cause. Worldly and supramundane each yield one result and one cause; two times two makes exactly four.

The second concerns practice: to be known, to be abandoned, to be realized, and to be cultivated—four things to be done, therefore four.

Neither reason quotes scripture or invokes a Buddha-saying; both rest on the structure of the four truths themselves.

Once the reasons have been given, the treatise states its master heading: these four noble truths may be mastered and known through eleven approaches. Eleven is the largest number in this chapter’s series of master headings—the aggregates have four approaches, the sense bases five, the element passage omits the formula, conditionality has seven, and the noble truths have eleven. The master heading changes its wording once again: the aggregate and sense-base passages use “can be surpassed,” the conditionality passage says “can be known through seven approaches,” and here it says “may be mastered and known.” One pattern, three wordings.

Eleven names then follow, but counted literally, “sequence” appears twice, while the last item reads “extended through mutual inclusion.” The basis for restoring the division comes later—three units on, the treatise itself asks, “How through extended sequence?” “Extended sequence” is the name of a single approach; punctuated in this way, the eleven approaches number exactly eleven. The evidence lies not in the surface wording, but in the question the treatise itself asks later.

Here is a tool that can be checked within this passage alone: both instances of “again” do more than add a point; each takes up a different ruler and measures once more.

“Again” occurs twice in this passage. The first is in the reason for there being four: after measuring with cause and result, the text changes to the four things that should be done and measures again; the count is still four. The second is in the character approach: the first round gives one character for each truth, four in all; when “again” arrives, the scale changes to four characters for each truth, sixteen in all. The two rounds are not the same measurement repeated once coarsely and once finely; they work at two different granularities—one gives an overall character, the other four facets.

There is a count to make in the phrase-meaning approach. The question asks for the phrase-meanings of the four truths, but the answer first explains the two collective names “noble truth” and “truth,” and only then suffering, arising, cessation, and path. Four items yield six. This is already the third time in this chapter.

The latter half of the sequence approach is a simile: a discerning physician first sees the disease, then asks about its cause, seeks to end the disease, and prescribes medicine according to it. The passage then maps them back one by one—disease is like suffering, the cause of disease like arising, the exhaustion of disease like cessation, and medicine like path. Four things, four correspondences, with not one omitted. The simile does not make one general comparison; it compares item by item.

There is one place worth pausing over for yourself. The third group in the summary approach says: suffering can initiate the opening of the personality-view door; arising can initiate the opening of the annihilation-view door; cessation can initiate the opening of the eternalist-view door; and path can initiate the opening of the wrong-view door.

The critical note falls precisely on the character “open”—the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace witnesses read “close.”

The two readings point in exactly opposite directions: in the base text, each of the four truths can open one view-door; in the four witnesses, each can close one view-door. And the three-character source expression “can initiate opening” occurs four times in this passage, so the variant affects all four places—not one minor variation, but the reading of an entire group flipped over.

Do these four doors open or close? Only two things can be checked: the base text reads open and the four witnesses read close, consistently at all four occurrences. This passage gives no further explanation of these four doors, and the same formula occurs nowhere else; the treatise itself does not provide enough to decide.

This edition records both without adjudicating and follows the base text in the body. This is exactly where “record both without adjudicating” is most needed: not because the two readings differ so little that they can be ignored, but because they differ so greatly that the edition cannot choose on the treatise’s behalf.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Why Four Truths and the First Four Approaches · Doorway · Summer 2026

Why Four, Not Three or Five?

Question: Why are four noble truths taught, not three and not five?

Answer: For all doubts. Because they comprise the worldly and supramundane in terms of result and cause, they are four.

Four Positions of Result and Cause, and Four Tasks

Question: How so?

Answer: The result of the worldly truth is suffering, and arising is the cause of the worldly truth; the cessation of the result is the result of the supramundane truth; the path is the cause of the supramundane truth. Therefore there are four, not three or five.

Again: to be known, to be abandoned, to be realized, and to be cultivated—because of these four tasks, the truths are four.

Master Heading: Eleven Approaches

These four noble truths can be mastered and known through eleven approaches: through phrase-meaning, through character, through sequence, through summary, through simile, through analysis, through number, through unity, through diversity, through sequence, and extensively through mutual inclusion.

Here the base text reads “through sequence, extensively through mutual inclusion.” Its punctuation separates “sequence” from “extended” and attaches “extended” to “mutual inclusion.” The treatise itself reports eleven approaches, while the approaches that follow are each posed as a question; the tenth asks, “How through extended sequence?” Its name can therefore be recovered as “through extended sequence,” with “through mutual inclusion” as the other approach. On this reconstruction, the eleven are phrase-meaning, character, sequence, summary, simile, analysis, number, unity, diversity, extended sequence, and mutual inclusion—exactly eleven. The original wording is recorded here as it stands; this edition does not change the punctuation.

First Approach: Phrase-Meaning

Question: How through phrase-meaning?

Answer: A noble truth is spoken by noble persons and is therefore called a noble truth; because it is penetrated, it becomes a noble truth.

Truth means the meaning of thusness, the meaning of non-difference, and the meaning of its own character not being different.

Suffering means result; arising means cause; cessation means ceasing accordingly; the path means seeing the highest meaning.

Thus it can be known through phrase-meaning.

The question asks for the phrase-meaning of the four truths, yet before the four items the answer first gives two—“noble truth” and “truth”—making six in all. They are recorded here as they stand; this edition does not delete them.

Second Approach: Character

Question: How through character?

Answer: Suffering has the character of danger; arising has the character of cause; cessation has the character of non-arising; the path has the character of a method.

Again: suffering has the characters of oppression, grief, conditionedness, and boundedness; arising has the characters of gathering, conditionality, conjunction, and attachment; cessation has the characters of release, profound peace, unconditionedness, and ghee; the path has the characters of a vehicle, leading-to, seeing, and support.

Thus their distinct characters can be known.

The first round gives one character for each truth, four in all; the second gives four characters for each truth, sixteen in all. Together they make twenty characters. They are recorded here.

Third Approach: Sequence

Question: How through sequence?

Answer: Because of the meaning of coarseness and the meaning of realization, the truth of suffering is taught first. This suffering arises from this; arising is second. When this arising ceases, that is the cessation of this suffering; cessation is third. This means is for true cessation; the path is taught fourth.

Like a discerning physician: first he sees the source of the disease, afterward he asks about the conditions of the disease, and, in order to end the disease, prescribes medicine according to the disease.

In this way, the disease should be understood as suffering. In this way, the conditions of the disease should be understood as arising. In this way, the exhaustion of the disease should be understood as release, as cessation. In this way, the medicine should be understood as the path.

Thus it can be known through sequence.

Fourth Approach: Summary

Question: How through summary?

Answer:

Birth is suffering; what brings about birth is arising; the stopping of suffering is cessation; what brings about stopping is the path.

The locus of defilement is suffering; defilement is arising; the abandoning of defilement is cessation; the means of abandoning is the path.

Suffering can bring about the opening of the personality-view door; arising can bring about the opening of the annihilation-view door; cessation can bring about the opening of the eternalist-view door; the path can bring about the opening of the wrong-view door.

Thus it can be known through summary.

Each of the three groups gives four items, with the four corresponding item by item within each group. In the third group, the base text reads “open,” while all four Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace witnesses read “close”; the two readings point in opposite directions (one opens these four doors, while the other closes them). Both are recorded here; the body follows the base text.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Why Four Truths and the First Four Approaches · Vernacular · Summer 2026

Let the central observation be stated first: this passage opens by asking, “Why are four noble truths taught, not three and not five?” Earlier in the treatise there is already the question “Why are there ten forms of foulness, neither more nor fewer?” 〔T32 426b10–426b11〕, so this is not the treatise’s only instance of asking why a number is what it is. What can be verified as distinctive here is that it explicitly sets three and five on either side of the number of the four truths, then gives two reasons in succession.

Still more worth seeing is how it answers: it does not appeal to authority, but gives two reasons independent of each other.

Two Reasons

The first reason is stated in terms of result and cause: “Doubts. Because the worldly and supramundane comprise result and cause, they are four. Question: How so? The worldly” 〔T32 452b29〕 “truth has suffering as its result, and arising is the cause of the worldly truth. Cessation is the result, the result of the supramundane truth. The path is the supramundane” 〔T32 452c01〕 “cause. Therefore there are four, not three or five” 〔T32 452c02〕.

Suffering is the result of the worldly truth and arising its cause; cessation is the result of the supramundane truth and path its cause. Each of the two truths supplies one result and one cause; two times two gives exactly four.

The second reason is stated in terms of practice: “cause. Therefore there are four, not three or five. Again, they are to be known, to be abandoned, to be realized, and to be” 〔T32 452c02〕 “cultivated; because there are four statements, they are four” 〔T32 452c03〕.

To be known, to be abandoned, to be realized, to be cultivated—four things that ought to be done, and so there are four.

One reason speaks from structure, crossing result with cause; the other speaks from practice, through the four things to be done. Neither cites scripture or says that the Buddha taught it. Each is established from the configuration of the four truths themselves. This edition says only what the text says here and does not establish another explanation on the treatise’s behalf.

(Keep in mind in passing one point of wording: here it reads “to be known, to be abandoned, to be realized, to be cultivated”; three units later, the approach of diversity reads “the truth of suffering can be known, the truth of arising can be abandoned, the truth of cessation can be realized, and the truth of the path should be cultivated” 〔T32 453b05–453b06〕—the first three auxiliaries change to “can,” while the last remains “should.” The wording of the same four practices is not uniform in the two places. They are recorded as they stand and are not made uniform.)

Master Heading: A Third Formula and Punctuation Restored by a Later Question

Once the reasons have been given, the treatise states the master heading: “cultivated; because there are four statements, they are four. These four noble truths, through eleven approaches, may be mastered” 〔T32 452c03〕 “and known” 〔T32 452c04〕.

Eleven approaches. This is the largest number in the chapter—the aggregates have four approaches, the sense bases five, no number is supplied for the elements, conditionality has seven, and the noble truths have eleven.

The wording of this master heading changes once again. For the aggregates and sense bases it reads “what may be mastered may be known”; for conditionality it reads “may be known through seven approaches”; here it reads “may be mastered and known.” One formula, three wordings (the four-character source expression rendered “may be mastered and known” occurs only once in the entire treatise 〔T32 452c03–04〕). They are recorded as they stand and are not made uniform.

The eleven names are then listed: “and known. Thus by phrase-meaning, by character, by sequence, by summary, by simile,” 〔T32 452c04〕 “by analysis, by number, by unity, by diversity, by sequence, extensively through mutual inclusion” 〔T32 452c05〕.

Count the wording as it stands: phrase-meaning, character, sequence, summary, simile, analysis, number, unity, diversity, sequence, extensively through mutual inclusion—“sequence” appears twice, while the final item reads “extensively through mutual inclusion,” which looks like a single name.

The basis for restoring the division lies later in the text. Three units later, the treatise itself asks: “How by extended sequence?” 〔T32 453b07〕. “Extended sequence” is the name of one approach.

The sentence should therefore be divided: by extended sequence; by mutual inclusion. The eleven approaches are then phrase-meaning, character, sequence, summary, simile, analysis, number, unity, diversity, extended sequence, and mutual inclusion—exactly eleven, agreeing with the number the treatise itself reports.

This way of recovering punctuation from what comes later has already appeared several times along the course of this chapter. Here, as at those earlier places before 11-16, the evidence is not in the wording itself, but in the question the treatise later asks. The original wording is recorded as it stands; this edition does not repunctuate it on the treatise’s behalf.

Reading Practice: “Again” Signals a New Measuring Rule

The two occurrences of “again” in this passage do not merely add one more point. Each changes the scale of observation: in this passage, read “again” as “take up a different ruler and measure once more.”

“Again” occurs twice in this passage, and both times it works in this way.

The first comes in the explanation of why there are four. Once the ruler of result and cause has finished measuring, “again” brings in another ruler, that of what is to be known, abandoned, realized, and cultivated; the number still comes to four 〔T32 452c02〕.

The second comes in the approach of character. The first round gives one character to each truth: “How by character? Answer: suffering has the character of danger, arising the character of cause, and cessation non-arising” 〔T32 452c10〕 “as its character; path has method as its character” 〔T32 452c11〕—four characters. When “again” appears, the ruler changes to four characters for each truth: “Again, suffering has the characters of oppression, grief, and conditionedness” 〔T32 452c11〕 “and boundedness; arising has the characters of gathering, condition, conjunction, and attachment; cessation” 〔T32 452c12〕 “has the characters of release, profound peace, unconditionedness, and ghee; path has the characters of a vehicle,” 〔T32 452c13〕 “bringing-to, seeing, and support” 〔T32 452c14〕—sixteen characters.

The first round has four and the second sixteen, making twenty characters altogether. The two rounds are not the same account repeated once broadly and once in detail; they use two different scales: the first gives one general character for each truth, while the second gives four aspects of each.

The path truth in the preceding unit works in the same way—the factors of the eightfold path are first set out as numbered practices, then linked to Nibbāna—and so do the ten forms of suffering, first as two kinds and then as three. Once we recognize “again” as this signal, the treatise’s layers separate themselves.

Phrase-Meaning: Four Asked, Six Answered

There is one count to make in the approach of phrase-meaning.

The question asks for the phrase-meaning of the four truths, but the answer begins by explaining two names that are not among the four truths: “Question: How by phrase-meaning? Answer: ‘Noble truth’—what noble persons speak is called a noble” 〔T32 452c06〕 “truth; through penetrating it one becomes noble, and so it is a noble truth. ‘Truth’ means the meaning of thusness, the meaning of non-difference, and the non-difference of its own” 〔T32 452c07〕 “character” 〔T32 452c08〕—first “noble truth,” then “truth,” and only then the four items suffering, arising, cessation, and path.

Four items are asked for; six are given.

This is already the third time in this chapter: the phrase-meaning approach for the five aggregates adds “aggregate means the meaning of a collection of kinds” 〔T32 448b28〕; the phrase-meaning approach for the twelve sense bases ends by giving three meanings of the word “base” 〔T32 449a12〕; here the two collective names “noble truth” and “truth” come first.

The same method appears in three places, but in a different position each time: in one it comes at the end; in another it comes at the end with twice the quantity; in one it comes at the beginning. Only this distribution itself can be verified. This edition records it without deleting anything or supplying an explanation.

Four Acts of the Physician

The latter half of the sequence approach is a simile, and the way it is built deserves attention: “This method brings true cessation, and the path is taught fourth. Like a discerning physician, he first sees the source of the disease” 〔T32 452c17〕 “and afterward asks the condition of the disease, then, in order to end the disease, prescribes medicine according to the disease” 〔T32 452c18〕.

The discerning physician does four things: first he sees the source of the disease, then asks its condition, seeks to end the disease, and prescribes medicine according to the disease.

It then matches them back one by one: “Thus disease is like suffering” 〔T32 452c18〕 “and should be known as such. Thus the condition of disease is like arising and should be known as such. Thus the exhaustion of disease is like release” 〔T32 452c19〕 “and cessation and should be known as such. Thus medicine is like the path and should be known as such” 〔T32 452c20〕.

Four acts, four correspondences, not one omitted. This simile is built in the same way as the two major similes earlier in the chapter: the king and mango in 11-09 has eleven correspondences, and the grain seed in 11-11 has ten links and ten correspondences—the simile is not a single overall comparison; each item is compared separately. (The three-character source expression rendered “discerning physician” occurs only once in the entire treatise.)

Pause: Do These Four Doors Open or Close?

The summary approach has three groups, each with four items, matched group by group and item by item.

First group: birth is suffering; what brings forth birth is arising; the stopping of suffering is cessation; what brings it to a stop is path. Second group: the locus of defilements is suffering; defilements are arising; abandoning defilements is cessation; the method for abandoning them is path.

The third group changes its manner of expression: “is cessation, and the method of abandoning is path. Suffering can initiate the opening of the personality-view door; arising can” 〔T32 452c23〕 “initiate the opening of the annihilation-view door; cessation can initiate the opening of the eternalist-view door; path can initiate the opening of the” 〔T32 452c24〕 wrong-view door.

Suffering can initiate the opening of the personality-view door; arising can initiate the opening of the annihilation-view door; cessation can initiate the opening of the eternalist-view door; path can initiate the opening of the wrong-view door.

But the critical note falls precisely on the word “open”: the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace witnesses read “close.”

Pause and ask one question: do these four doors open or close?

The two readings point in exactly opposite directions. According to the base text, each of the four truths can “open” a view-door; according to the four witnesses, each can “close” one. The three-character expression “can initiate opening” occurs four times in this passage, and the variant changes all four—this is not a small difference at one place, but the reversal of an entire group’s reading.

Only two things can be verified: the base reads “open,” and the four witnesses read “close”; all four occurrences are consistent. Which reading better fits the treatise’s meaning cannot be decided from this passage itself—the surrounding text gives no further explanation of these four doors, and the same sentence pattern is not used elsewhere.

This edition records both readings without adjudicating between them and follows the base text in the body. This is precisely the kind of case for which “record both without adjudicating” is most needed: not because the difference is too small to matter, but because it is too great for us to choose on the treatise’s behalf.

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Carry away three things: one observation—the passage explicitly asks, “Why are four noble truths taught, not three and not five?” 〔T32 452b28〕 and answers with two reasons: the crossing of result and cause gives four, and the four things to be done give four. Both reasons are established from the configuration of the four truths themselves; neither cites scripture nor says that the Buddha taught it. Earlier in the treatise there is already “Why are there ten forms of foulness, neither more nor fewer?” 〔T32 426b10–426b11〕, so this is not called unique in the whole treatise. One reading practice—both occurrences of “again” in this passage bring out a different ruler: one changes the ruler for measuring “four,” from result and cause to four statements; the other changes the ruler for measuring “character,” from four characters to sixteen. One place to pause—in the third group of the summary approach the base text reads “open,” while four witnesses read “close” 〔T32 452c23〕. The two readings point in exactly opposite directions—opening these four view-doors or closing these four view-doors—and the variant affects all four occurrences: do these four doors open or close? This edition records both readings without adjudicating between them.

Three smaller points should also be remembered: the master heading reads “may be mastered and known” 〔T32 452c03–04〕, the third form of the master-heading formula in this chapter, the other two being “what may be mastered may be known” and “may be known through seven approaches”; the final two names among the eleven approaches are separated by the transmitted punctuation, and the evidence for restoring them lies in the later question “How by extended sequence?” 〔T32 453b07〕; the phrase-meaning approach asks about four but answers with six, placing the two collective names “noble truth” and “truth” first, the third occurrence of the same method in this chapter.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Why Four Truths and the First Four Approaches · Exposition · Summer 2026