What Each Quality Accomplishes Complete
The remaining ten functions, closing the treatise's entire account of what the eighteen categories of qualities actually accomplish — from the major marks that inspire instant faith at a single glance, through the ten powers that subdue every wrong theory of causation, to the wisdom of every kind and mode that keeps the very eye of the Dharma alive.
1. Marks, Purities, Powers, and Fearlessness
相及隨好作何業？謂能令暫見，謂大丈夫心生淨信。清淨作何業？謂由此勢力故取生有，隨其樂欲，或住一劫、或復劫餘、或捨壽行，或於諸法自在而轉、或於諸定自在而轉、或復任持諸佛正法。力作何業？謂為除捨無因惡因論、不作而得論，無倒宣說增上生道，悟入一切有情心行正說法品，意樂隨眠境界資糧當能出離，隨其所應宣說決定勝道降伏諸魔，善能記別一切問論。無畏作何業？謂處大眾中自正建立我為大師，摧伏一切邪難外道。
- The major and minor marks: a single, momentary glance alone is enough for genuine faith to arise in the beholder, recognizing at once that this is a great being.
- The purities: by this very power, one takes on rebirth exactly as wished, remaining for a full eon or beyond, or relinquishing life exactly when desired; one moves freely among the dharmas, moves freely among the concentrations, and sustains the buddhas' own correct Dharma.
- The powers: they remove theories of no cause and of wrong cause, correctly proclaim the path to an excellent rebirth without distortion, penetrate every sentient being's own mental disposition and the class of teaching, aspiration, underlying tendency, object, and provisions suited to them, correctly proclaim the path of decisive excellence exactly as needed, subdue every demonic obstruction, and skillfully answer every question raised.
- The fearlessnesses: in the midst of the great assembly, one correctly establishes oneself as the great teacher, subduing every wrongful challenge from every non-Buddhist quarter.
T1606 explains that the ten powers divide their work between two broad goals: the first two powers — knowledge of what is and is not possible, and knowledge of one's own karma — together correctly proclaim the path to an excellent mundane rebirth, subduing the mistaken theories of non-Buddhist teachers who claim either that no cause governs such rebirth at all or that some wrong cause (a creator deity, self-nature, and the like) governs it. The remaining eight powers together proclaim the path of decisive excellence — final liberation itself — penetrating, in turn, each being's own meditative attainments, faculties, resolve, disposition, suitable path, past-life provisions, future capacities, and readiness for liberation, and prescribing the corresponding teaching for each. It is precisely this pair of achievements — correctly guiding beings toward both excellent rebirth and final liberation — that earns the name "powers," since they alone are capable of subduing the four classical adversaries of aggregates, affliction, the gods, and death.
2. Mindfulness, Non-Concealment, Never Forgetting, and Habitual Elimination
念住作何業？謂能不染污攝御大眾。不護作何業？謂能無間斷教授教誡所化徒眾。無忘失法作何業？謂能不捨離一切佛事。永斷習氣作何業？謂離諸煩惱，亦不顯現似諸煩惱所作事業。
- The foundations of mindfulness: they guide and command the great assembly without ever becoming defiled by the reaction of the assembly.
- The states requiring no concealment: they allow teaching and admonition of the assembly of disciples to continue without any interruption whatsoever.
- Never forgetting: it never permits any buddha-deed, of any kind, to be neglected or abandoned.
- Permanent elimination of habitual imprints: it is free of every affliction, and manifests nothing whatsoever that would resemble affliction's own former activity.
3. Great Compassion, the Exclusive Buddha-Qualities, and the Wisdom of Every Kind
大悲作何業？謂日夜六時遍觀世間。不共佛法作何業？謂由身語意業清淨已得不退，若行若住映蔽一切聲聞獨覺。一切種妙智作何業？謂能絕一切有情一切疑網，令正法眼長時得住，由此有情未成熟者令其成熟，已成熟者令得解脫。
- Great compassion: it surveys the entire world without pause across all six watches of the day and night.
- The qualities exclusive to a buddha: through the already-unwavering purity of body, speech, and mind, they eclipse every śrāvaka and every pratyekabuddha alike, whether in active conduct or simply at rest.
- The wisdom of every kind and mode: it is able to cut through every net of doubt held by every sentient being, keeping the very eye of the correct Dharma alive for a long duration — thereby bringing every being not yet ripened to full ripeness, and every being already ripened to genuine liberation.
T1606 explains that great compassion's own ceaseless surveying is specifically directed at discerning, moment by moment, which beings are declining and which are advancing — a constant, active watchfulness rather than a passive general goodwill. And the wisdom of every kind and mode is what actually keeps the Dharma's own eye alive across time: it is this very wisdom that provides the countless distinct approaches through which each successive generation's own doubts can be resolved, and it is by relying on this same wisdom that those who compile and transmit the teaching are able to preserve it, in unbroken sequence, without loss.
Part 115 Complete — All Eighteen Functions in Full
With every one of the eighteen categories' own specific function now examined, this entire stretch of the treatise — spanning the four immeasurables in Part 100 through the wisdom of every kind and mode here — is complete. Part 116 turns to the treatise's closing account of why only bodhisattvas, among all noble ones, are called inexhaustible in wholesome roots and merit, and why fourteen classical questions about the world are deliberately left undetermined.
Continue to Part 116 — Inexhaustible Bodhisattvas, and Fourteen Undetermined Questions →