Learning Without Practice, One Teaching for Many Minds
The dialogue turns to two questions about the gap between hearing the Dharma and living it. Foremost in Dharma Bodhisattva answers why afflictions can still arise in someone who upholds the true teaching, through nine images of learning that never became practice. Foremost in Wisdom Bodhisattva then answers why the Buddha praises giving, precepts, forbearance, diligence, meditation, and wisdom each in turn, rather than teaching only one path.
Mañjuśrī Questions Foremost in Dharma
Mañjuśrī puts a pointed question to Foremost in Dharma Bodhisattva: the Buddha has said that anyone who receives and upholds the true Dharma is entirely able to cut off every affliction — so why do some who receive and uphold it still find themselves turned about by greed, hatred, conceit, envy, and the rest, with afflictions still arising within their own minds?
爾時，文殊師利菩薩問法首菩薩言：「佛子！如佛所說：『若有眾生，受持正法，悉能除斷一切煩惱。』何故復有受持正法而不斷者？隨貪、瞋、癡，隨慢、隨覆、隨忿、隨恨、隨嫉、隨慳、隨誑、隨諂，勢力所轉，無有離心。能受持法，何故復於心行之內起諸煩惱？」
時，法首菩薩以頌答曰：
「佛子善諦聽，所問如實義，
非但以多聞，能入如來法。
如人水所漂，懼溺而渴死，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如人設美膳，自餓而不食，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如人善方藥，自疾不能救，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如人數他寶，自無半錢分，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如有生王宮，而受餧與寒，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如聾奏音樂，悅彼不自聞，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如盲繢眾像，示彼不自見，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
譬如海船師，而於海中死，
於法不修行，多聞亦如是。
如在四衢道，廣說眾好事，
內自無實德，不行亦如是。」
At that time, Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva asked Foremost in Dharma Bodhisattva, saying: "Son of the Buddha! As the Buddha himself has said: 'If there are living beings who receive and uphold the true Dharma, they are entirely able to eliminate and cut off every affliction.' Why, then, are there some who receive and uphold the true Dharma and yet do not cut them off — who are turned about by the power of greed, hatred, and delusion, by conceit, by concealment, by anger, by resentment, by envy, by stinginess, by deceit, and by flattery, without any mind at all that is free of them? If they are able to receive and uphold the Dharma, why is it that afflictions still arise within the very workings of their own mind?"
At that time, Foremost in Dharma Bodhisattva answered with a verse, saying:
"Son of the Buddha, listen closely and attentively to the true meaning of what has been asked: it is not by learning alone, however much, that one is able to enter the Tathāgata's own Dharma.
Just as someone swept along by water, fearing to drown, yet dies of thirst all the same — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as someone who lays out a fine feast, yet starves himself and does not eat — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as someone skilled in medicine, yet unable to cure his own illness — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as someone who counts another's treasure, yet has not even half a single coin of his own — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as someone born within a king's own palace, yet still suffers hunger and cold — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as one who is deaf plays music that delights others, yet cannot hear it himself — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as one who is blind paints a multitude of images, showing them to others, yet cannot see them himself — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as a ship's pilot upon the sea, who yet dies within that very sea — so too it is with one of great learning who does not practice the Dharma.
Just as one who, standing at a crossroads where four ways meet, vastly proclaims every manner of fine and excellent thing, yet within himself has no real virtue at all — so too it is with one who does not practice."
Mañjuśrī Questions Foremost in Wisdom
Mañjuśrī then asks Foremost in Wisdom Bodhisattva why the Buddha, though wisdom is held foremost within his own Dharma, so often praises giving, precepts, forbearance, diligence, meditation, or the four immeasurable minds instead — when no one has ever attained unsurpassed, complete awakening through any single one of these practices alone.
爾時，文殊師利菩薩問智首菩薩言：「佛子！於佛法中，智為上首。如來何故，或為眾生讚歎布施，或讚持戒，或讚堪忍，或讚精進，或讚禪定，或讚智慧，或復讚歎慈、悲、喜、捨？而終無有唯以一法，而得出離成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提者。」
時，智首菩薩以頌答曰：
「佛子甚希有，能知眾生心，
如仁所問義，諦聽我今說。
過去未來世，現在諸導師，
無有說一法，而得於道者。
佛知眾生心，性分各不同，
隨其所應度，如是而說法。
慳者為讚施，毀禁者讚戒，
多瞋為讚忍，好懈讚精進。
亂意讚禪定，愚癡讚智慧，
不仁讚慈愍，怒害讚大悲。
憂慼為讚喜，曲心讚歎捨，
如是次第修，漸具諸佛法。
如先立基堵，而後造宮室，
施戒亦復然，菩薩眾行本。
譬如建城廓，為護諸人眾，
忍進亦如是，防護諸菩薩。
譬如大力王，率土咸戴仰，
定慧亦如是，菩薩所依賴。
亦如轉輪王，能與一切樂，
四等亦如是，與諸菩薩樂。」
At that time, Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva asked Foremost in Wisdom Bodhisattva, saying: "Son of the Buddha! Within the Buddha's own Dharma, wisdom is held foremost above all. Why is it, then, that the Tathāgata, for the sake of living beings, sometimes praises giving, sometimes praises upholding the precepts, sometimes praises forbearance, sometimes praises diligence, sometimes praises meditative concentration, sometimes praises wisdom, and sometimes again praises loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity? And yet there has never, in the end, been anyone who, by means of a single one of these alone, attains liberation and accomplishes unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening."
At that time, Foremost in Wisdom Bodhisattva answered with a verse, saying:
"Son of the Buddha, it is exceedingly rare to be able to know the mind of living beings as you do; as to the meaning of what you have asked, listen closely, and I shall now explain it.
Among every guide of the past, the future, and the present, there has never been one who, by teaching a single dharma alone, brought anyone to attain the path.
The Buddha knows that the minds of living beings each differ in their own natures and dispositions, and, according to whatever is fitting to deliver each one, teaches the Dharma accordingly.
For the stingy, he praises giving; for one who breaks the precepts, he praises upholding them; for one of much anger, he praises forbearance; for one fond of idleness, he praises diligence.
For a scattered mind, he praises meditative concentration; for foolishness and delusion, he praises wisdom; for the unkind, he praises compassionate love; for the wrathful and harmful, he praises great compassion.
For the sorrowful and troubled, he praises sympathetic joy; for the crooked-minded, he praises equanimity — cultivating in this order, one gradually comes to possess every quality of the Buddha's own Dharma.
Just as one first lays the foundation and only afterward builds the palace hall, so too are giving and upholding the precepts the very root of every bodhisattva's practice.
Just as one builds a city's outer walls in order to protect its multitude of people, so too do forbearance and diligence, in just the same way, guard and protect the bodhisattvas.
Just as a mighty king is revered and upheld by the entire land, so too do meditative concentration and wisdom, in just the same way, serve as what the bodhisattvas rely upon.
And just as a wheel-turning king is able to grant happiness to everyone, so too do the four immeasurable minds, in just the same way, grant happiness to all the bodhisattvas."
These two dialogues fit together as a pair. Foremost in Dharma's nine images all point at the same failure — hearing without doing, holding knowledge that never becomes one's own — a fitting answer to a question about why upholding the Dharma in name does not, by itself, cut off affliction. Foremost in Wisdom then answers a question that could be mistaken for pointing at the same gap, but is not: not why practice sometimes fails to take hold, but why the Buddha teaches so many different practices at all when wisdom alone stands foremost. His answer is architectural rather than corrective — giving and the precepts as the foundation, forbearance and diligence as the walls that protect it, meditation and wisdom as what the whole structure depends upon, the four immeasurable minds as what it is ultimately for. Read together, the two verses distinguish a real problem, half-hearted learning, from what only looks like one: a path built of many practices in careful sequence, each doing work the others cannot.
Part 46 Complete
This closes Part 46. Fascicle thirteen's tenth chapter continues with Mañjuśrī's ninth question — to Foremost in Virtue, on how every buddha teaches the very same single path, and yet their lands, assemblies, and manifestations all appear so different from one another.