What Each Quality Accomplishes Begins
Having examined how each quality is generated, the treatise now asks what each one actually accomplishes once present — the specific work each performs in the world, from the immeasurables' swift perfection of the provisions of merit through the superknowledges' work of guiding beings into the noble teaching.
The Function of Each Quality, Part One
無量作何業？謂捨所治障，哀愍住故，能速圓滿福德資糧，成熟有情心無厭倦。解脫作何業？謂引發變化事，於淨不淨變化無有艱難，於寂靜解脫無有滯礙，能住第一寂靜聖住，由勝解思惟故。勝處作何業？謂能令前三解脫所緣境界自在而轉，由勝伏所緣故。遍處作何業？謂善能成辦解脫所緣，遍滿流布故。無諍作何業？謂所發語言聞皆信伏，愛護他心最為勝故，如其所應發語言故。願智作何業？謂能善記別三世等事，一切世間咸所恭敬，由達一切眾所歸仰故。無礙解作何業？謂善說法要悅眾生心，能絕一切諸疑網故。神通作何業？謂以身業語業記心，化導有情令入聖教，善知有情一切心行及過未已，如應教授令永出離。
- The immeasurables: abandoning the very afflictions counteracted, and abiding in compassionate care, they swiftly perfect the provisions of merit and ripen sentient beings with a mind never wearied by the effort.
- The liberations: generating the capacity for meditative transformation, they remove every difficulty in transforming clean and unclean forms, remove every obstruction to the still liberations, and allow one to abide in the very foremost noble stillness — accomplished through resolute reflection.
- The stations of mastery: they grant free and unhindered command over the objects taken up by the first three liberations, since they master those objects outright.
- The totalities: they skillfully bring the object of the liberations to full completion, causing it to pervade and spread without limit.
- Non-contention: whatever is spoken is heard with trust and conviction, since guarding others' minds is held as most excellent, and speech is uttered exactly as each situation requires.
- Wish-knowledge: it skillfully foretells matters belonging to the three times and the like, and is revered throughout the entire world, since it penetrates whatever every assembly of beings looks to for guidance.
- The unhindered understandings: they skillfully teach the essentials of the Dharma, gladdening the minds of sentient beings, and are able to cut through every net of doubt.
- The superknowledges: through bodily action, verbal action, and the knowing of others' minds, they guide and transform sentient beings, bringing them into the noble teaching; knowing every being's own mental activity, past and present alike, they instruct each exactly as needed, leading them to permanent deliverance.
T1606 adds a few clarifying points. Among the liberations, it is specifically the first two that generate the capacity for meditative transformation, the third (the pure liberation) that removes difficulty in transforming clean and unclean forms, the four formless liberations that remove obstruction to the still liberations, and the eighth and final liberation — the cessation of perception and feeling — that grants abiding in the very foremost noble stillness itself. Among the six superknowledges, T1606 explains the specific division of labor: miraculous power, the divine ear, knowledge of others' minds, recollection of past lives, knowledge of death and rebirth, and knowledge of the exhaustion of the contaminants each contribute their own respective share to this single overall work of bodily guidance, verbal instruction, and mind-reading — with the divine ear specifically enabling the verbal instruction, since it is only by first understanding every distinct form of speech that appropriate verbal teaching can actually be given.
Part 114 Complete
The functions of the first eight categories are now examined. Part 115 turns to the remaining ten — the marks and purities through the wisdom of every kind and mode — closing the treatise's account of what each of the eighteen categories of qualities actually accomplishes in the world.
Continue to Part 115 — What Each Quality Accomplishes Complete →