The Ten Powers
The ten powers of the Tathāgata, each a form of knowledge operating without attachment and without hindrance across its own specific field — from what is and is not causally possible, through the precise workings of karma and the meditative attainments, to the faculties, dispositions, and destinies of every being, and finally the exhaustion of the contaminants itself.
1. The First Two Powers, in Full
力者，謂如來十力。云何處非處智力？謂依止靜慮，於一切種處非處智具足中若定若慧，及彼相應諸心心所。云何自業智力？謂依止靜慮，於一切種自業智具足中若定若慧，餘如前說。餘力隨應當知亦爾。
The powers are the ten powers of the Tathāgata. What is the power of knowledge of what is and is not possible? It is, resting on the foundation of dhyāna, the concentration and wisdom fully present within a mastery of knowledge, of every kind, operating without attachment and without hindrance regarding what is and is not causally possible, together with the associated mind and mental factors.
What is the power of knowledge of one's own karma? It is, resting on that same foundation, the concentration and wisdom fully present within that same unattached, unhindered mastery, now applied to knowledge of one's own karma, the remainder exactly as already stated. Each of the remaining powers should be understood in exactly this same manner.
2. The Remaining Eight, in Brief
Following the root text's own instruction that the remaining eight powers are to be understood by the same pattern already given for the first two, T1606 supplies each in turn — unattached, unhindered knowledge, in every case, operating across its own specific field:
- Power of knowledge of the meditative attainments: knowledge of every kind of dhyāna, liberation, concentration, and attainment.
- Power of knowledge of the faculties' relative sharpness: knowledge of every kind of dullness or sharpness among the faculties of different beings.
- Power of knowledge of every kind of resolve: knowledge of the differentiated resolute convictions held by different beings.
- Power of knowledge of every kind of disposition: knowledge of the differentiated underlying dispositions belonging to different beings.
- Power of knowledge of the path leading to every destiny: knowledge of every kind of path and the specific destiny it leads to.
- Power of recollection of past lives: knowledge of every kind of past life recollected in detail.
- Power of knowledge of death and rebirth: knowledge of every kind of death and rebirth.
- Power of knowledge of the exhaustion of the contaminants: knowledge of every kind of exhaustion of the contaminants.
Each of these ten powers is, T1606 emphasizes, distinguished from an ordinary noble one's own corresponding knowledge by two qualities named repeatedly across every single definition: it is entirely unattached, meaning it is never obstructed by any limitation on its own scope, and entirely unhindered, meaning it operates with complete freedom and immediacy wherever it is directed. It is precisely this unattached, unhindered totality — knowing every instance of its object without exception or gap — that distinguishes a buddha's own power from the same knowledge as it appears, still partial, in an arhat or advanced bodhisattva.
Part 107 Complete
The ten powers of the Tathāgata are now examined. Part 108 turns to the four fearlessnesses — the confidence with which a buddha proclaims his own complete awakening, his own exhaustion of the contaminants, the specific dharmas that obstruct the path, and the specific path that leads out of suffering, unshaken by any challenge from any quarter whatsoever.
Continue to Part 108 — The Four Fearlessnesses →