The Four Correct Practices, and the Four Footprints of the Dharma
With the thirty-seven factors of awakening now complete, the treatise turns to two further path-categories: the four correct practices, which sort every practitioner's progress by faculty and by whether the fundamental dhyāna has already been mastered, and the four footprints of the Dharma, which map directly onto the three trainings in discipline, concentration, and wisdom.
1. The Four Correct Practices
四種正行者，謂苦遲通行、苦速通行、樂遲通行、樂速通行。初謂鈍根未得根本靜慮，第二謂利根未得根本靜慮，第三謂鈍根已得根本靜慮，第四謂利根已得根本靜慮。
The four correct practices are: the painful-and-slow path, the painful-and-fast path, the pleasant-and-slow path, and the pleasant-and-fast path. The first is one of dull faculties who has not yet attained the fundamental dhyāna. The second is one of sharp faculties who has not yet attained the fundamental dhyāna. The third is one of dull faculties who has already attained the fundamental dhyāna. The fourth is one of sharp faculties who has already attained the fundamental dhyāna.
T1606 explains that "painful" and "pleasant" here name two entirely different meditative supports, not two different degrees of effort. The painful practices rest on the not-yet-attained level and on the formless spheres, where calm-abiding and insight both remain relatively weak and undeveloped — practice under these conditions is simply harder going. The pleasant practices rest instead on the actual dhyānas themselves, where calm-abiding and insight operate jointly and reinforce one another, making the same progress comparatively easier. Cutting across this pleasant/painful axis is a second, independent axis: whether one's own faculties are dull or sharp. A dull-facultied practitioner resting on either support is "slow"; a sharp-facultied practitioner resting on either support is "fast." The four correct practices are simply these two independent variables — which support one practices on, and how quick one's own faculties are — crossed against each other, giving every practitioner's actual progress toward the four truths a definite place among the four combinations.
2. The Four Footprints of the Dharma
四種法迹者，謂無貪、無瞋、正念、正定。無貪、無瞋能令增上戒學清淨，正念能令增上心學清淨，正定能令增上慧學清淨。
The four footprints of the Dharma are: non-greed, non-hatred, correct recollection, and correct concentration. Non-greed and non-hatred bring about the purification of the higher training in discipline. Correct recollection brings about the purification of the higher training in mind. Correct concentration brings about the purification of the higher training in wisdom.
T1606 fills in the mechanism behind each of these three pairings. Non-greed and non-hatred purify the training in discipline for the most direct of reasons: it is specifically through the gateways of greed and hatred that one's own moral precepts actually come to be violated in the first place, so their absence is what keeps discipline intact. Correct recollection purifies the training in mind because it is recollection alone that keeps the object of meditation from ever being lost, holding the mind fixed and thereby making genuine concentration possible at all. And correct concentration purifies the training in wisdom because it is specifically a mind that has already become concentrated that is capable of thoroughly and accurately knowing things as they actually are — wisdom's own discerning activity, on this account, simply cannot get real traction on an unconcentrated mind. Named a "footprint" because each leaves behind a visible trace of the path just as surely as an actual footprint marks a road already walked, these four together compress the entire threefold training of discipline, concentration, and wisdom into a single fourfold formula.
Part 64 Complete
The four correct practices and the four footprints of the Dharma are now examined. Part 65 turns to the treatise's own detailed definitions of calm-abiding and insight themselves, together with the four types of path built from their combination.
Continue to Part 65 — Calm-Abiding and Insight, and the Four Types of Path →