The Eighteen Exclusive Buddha-Qualities Complete

T1606 explains that even an arhat, already free of the afflictive obstruction, may still be subject to decline connected with the subtler cognitive obstruction not yet fully purified — decline of aspiration, of diligence, of mindfulness, of concentration, of wisdom, and of liberation itself. In the Tathāgata, every one of these six is permanently free of any such decline whatsoever. T1606 maps these six onto three underlying categories: aspiration is the very basis on which the rest depend; liberation is their fruit; and diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom are the faculties that carry the basis through to that fruit — a buddha's own basis, faculties, and fruit alike admitting no decline at any point along the way.

T1606 draws a further contrast with the arhat: an arhat's bodily conduct may, at a given moment, be wholesome, and at another moment, morally neutral — and it is the same with the arhat's verbal and mental conduct. The Tathāgata's three activities of body, speech, and mind, by contrast, are in every instance led by wisdom and proceed always in accordance with wisdom, admitting no morally neutral conduct whatsoever. "Led by wisdom" means that wisdom is what gives rise to the activity in the first place; "proceeding in accordance with wisdom" means that wisdom accompanies the activity throughout its entire course, never once absent from it.

T1606 explains the final three qualities through a last contrast with the arhat: a monk who has attained arhatship, when a thought arises concerning some matter belonging to the three times, is not thereby able to comprehend that matter instantly and completely — knowledge and vision remain attached, in the sense of still needing further effort to reach their object, and are not able to comprehend absolutely everything at once, remaining hindered in that further sense. The Tathāgata, by contrast, the very moment a thought concerning any matter belonging to the three times arises, comprehends everything connected with it all at once — knowledge and vision here entirely unattached and entirely unhindered.

T1606 closes this eighteenfold catalogue by mapping all eighteen back onto the treatise's own fourfold division stated at the very outset in Part 111: the first six rest on purity of body, speech, and mind conduct; the six qualities admitting no decline rest on the basis (aspiration), fruit (liberation), and faculties (diligence, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom) remaining forever free of decline; the three activities led by wisdom rest on activity exclusive to a buddha; and the final three rest on abiding knowledge exclusive to a buddha — every one of the eighteen items thereby accounted for within the four categories the treatise itself first proposed.

T1606 explains that this excellent knowing, complete in every kind and mode, means fully penetrating every single distinction belonging to the essential nature and the differentiated characteristics of the aggregates and the rest, right down to the very outermost limit of what there is to know — a knowledge whose scope leaves absolutely nothing still unaccounted for. With this eighteenth and final quality, the treatise's entire catalogue of the eighteen categories belonging to subsequent and culminating realization — begun with the four immeasurables in Part 100 and unfolding across thirteen parts through the liberations, stations of mastery, totalities, non-contention, wish-knowledge, unhindered understandings, superknowledges, marks, purities, powers, fearlessnesses, foundations of mindfulness, states requiring no concealment, never forgetting, permanent elimination of habitual imprints, great compassion, and the eighteen exclusive buddha-qualities — is now complete.