The Thirty-Seven Factors of Awakening Begin
The treatise names eleven further descriptions of the path before opening its single most comprehensive scheme: the thirty-seven factors of awakening, analyzed throughout by a consistent five-part framework — object, essence, accompaniment, cultivation, and fruit — worked through here in full for the first of the seven classical categories, the four foundations of mindfulness.
1. Eleven Further Descriptions of the Path
又道差別有十一種，謂觀察事道、勤功用道、修治定道、現觀方便道、親近現觀道、現觀道、清淨出離道、依根差別道、淨修三學道、發諸功德道、遍攝諸道道。如是諸道隨其次第，謂三十七菩提分法、四種正行、四種法迹、奢摩他、毘鉢舍那、三無漏根。
The path, further, admits of eleven distinct descriptions: the path of examining a matter, the path of diligent effort, the path of cultivating and mastering concentration, the path preparing for direct realization, the path drawing near to direct realization, the path of direct realization itself, the path of pure release, the path distinguished by faculty, the path purifying the three trainings, the path bringing forth every excellent quality, and the path that comprehensively subsumes every other path. These, in their corresponding order, are: the thirty-seven factors of awakening, the four kinds of correct practice, the four footprints of the Dharma, calm-abiding, insight, and the three uncontaminated faculties.
This opening list functions as a table of contents for everything the remainder of the truth of the path will actually cover, each of the eleven descriptive names matched one-to-one with a specific classical scheme: the thirty-seven factors of awakening (taken up beginning now), the four kinds of correct practice and four footprints of the Dharma, calm-abiding and insight as a pair, and the three uncontaminated faculties that close out this entire section. Rather than treating these as six unrelated topics, the treatise frames them as eleven different angles on one and the same underlying path — examined as a matter to be investigated, as sustained effort, as concentration to be mastered, as preparation for realization, and so on through to comprehensive subsumption of everything else.
2. The Five-Part Framework
此中一切菩提分法，皆由五門而得建立，謂所緣故、自體故、助伴故、修習故、修果故。
Every one of the factors of awakening, without exception, is established through five gates: object, essence, accompaniment, cultivation, and fruit.
This five-part framework — what a given factor takes as its object, what its own defining essence actually is, what mental factors accompany it, how it is specifically cultivated, and what result that cultivation produces — will recur, unchanged, across every one of the seven classical categories that follow, from the four foundations of mindfulness examined in the rest of this part through the noble eightfold path itself. Holding this fixed template in mind makes the otherwise dense series of definitions considerably easier to track: each new factor is simply the same five questions, answered afresh.
3. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
四念住所緣者，謂身受心法。復有四事，謂我所依事、我受用事、我自體事、我染淨事。自體者，謂慧及念。助伴者，謂彼相應心心所等。修習者，謂於內身等修循身等觀。如於內，於外、於內外亦爾。
The four foundations of mindfulness take as their object: body, feeling, mind, and dharmas. These correspond, further, to four matters: the basis mistaken for self, the enjoyment mistaken for self, the very essence mistaken for self, and the defilement-and-purity mistaken for self. Their essence is wisdom together with recollection. Their accompaniment is whatever mind and mental factors are associated with these. Their cultivation is contemplating the body internally, in accordance with the body itself, and correspondingly for the external body and for both internal and external together.
內身者，謂於此身中所有內色處。外身者，謂外所有外色處。內外身者，謂內處相應所有外處根所依止。又他身中所有內色處。云何於身修循身觀？謂以分別影像身與本質身平等。隨觀內受者，謂因內身所生受。外受者，謂因外身所生受。內外受者，謂因內外身所生受。如受，心、法亦爾。
The internal body is the internal physical sense-fields present within this very body. The external body is the physical sense-fields present externally. The internal-and-external body is the external sense-fields' own physical basis, corresponding to the internal sense-fields — and further, the internal physical sense-fields present within another's body. How is the body contemplated in accordance with the body? By recognizing the equality of the constructed, mentally-represented body with the actual, original body itself. Internal feeling is followed by contemplating feeling arisen dependent on the internal body. External feeling is feeling arisen dependent on the external body. Internal-and-external feeling is feeling arisen dependent on both together. The same holds correspondingly for mind and for dharmas.
又修習者，謂欲、勤、策、勵、勇猛、不息、正念、正知及不放逸，修習差別故。欲修習者，謂為對治不作意隨煩惱。勤修習者，謂為對治懈怠隨煩惱。策修習者，謂為對治惛沈掉舉隨煩惱。勵修習者，謂為對治心下劣性隨煩惱。勇猛修習者，謂為對治踈漏疲倦隨煩惱。不息修習者，謂為對治得少善法生知足喜隨煩惱。正念修習者，謂為對治忘失尊教隨煩惱。正知修習者，謂為對治毀犯追悔隨煩惱。不放逸修習者，謂為對治捨諸善軛隨煩惱。修果者，謂斷四顛倒、趣入四諦、身等離繫。
Cultivation, further, is distinguished into aspiration, diligence, exertion, effort, courage, tirelessness, correct recollection, clear comprehension, and heedfulness. Cultivating aspiration counters the secondary affliction of failing to apply the mind at all. Cultivating diligence counters laziness. Cultivating exertion counters torpor and restlessness. Cultivating effort counters a mind sunk into inferiority. Cultivating courage counters carelessness and fatigue. Cultivating tirelessness counters the complacent satisfaction that arises from a small measure of wholesome attainment. Cultivating correct recollection counters forgetting one's teacher's own instruction. Cultivating clear comprehension counters regret over one's own transgressions. Cultivating heedfulness counters casting off the very yoke of wholesome practice.
Their fruit is severing the four distorted views, entering the four noble truths, and release from bondage for body and the rest.
T1606 explains the four "matters" the four foundations counter as four specific ways ordinary beings mistakenly locate a self: the body is mistaken for self's own physical basis, feeling for what a self enjoys, mind for a self's own defining essence, and dharmas (specifically, the arising and ceasing of defilement and purity) for what a self undergoes. Contemplating body, feeling, mind, and dharmas in turn is thus never a merely neutral exercise in attention — each foundation is precisely targeted at dismantling one specific facet of the ordinary, habitual sense of self. The internal/external/both-together threefold pattern, applied to all four foundations alike, extends mindfulness beyond one's own immediate experience to include, crucially, other beings' bodies, feelings, minds, and dharmas as well — since seeing selflessness only within one's own continuum, while still implicitly treating others as substantial selves, would leave the underlying error only half corrected. And the nine distinct modes of cultivation, each targeting one specific obstacle, show that even so foundational a practice as mindfulness is never simply "paying attention" in an undifferentiated way, but a carefully structured discipline addressing nine distinct ways attention itself characteristically fails.
Part 59 Complete
Eleven further descriptions of the path, the five-part analytic framework, and the four foundations of mindfulness in full are now examined. Part 60 continues the thirty-seven factors of awakening with the four correct exertions and the four bases of supernormal power.
Continue to Part 60 — Correct Exertions, and the Bases of Supernormal Power →