Foremost Among Every Faculty
The catalogue continues with three similes on primacy: it is like the alchemical medicine, which first requires pure water before anything else; the medicine that is the mind of bodhi is likewise, standing foremost among everything a bodhisattva cultivates in every practice. It is like a person, among whose every faculty the life-faculty stands foremost; a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise, and among every buddha's own true Dharma, the mind of bodhi stands foremost. It is like a person whose life-faculty has been severed, who can no longer benefit his own parents or kin; a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise, and departing from the mind of bodhi, he can no longer benefit any sentient being at all.
The First Ingredient, the First Faculty, the Severed Root
「善男子！譬如阿羅娑藥，初用淨水。菩提心藥亦復如是，一切菩薩所修行中，最為先首。
「善男子！譬如有人，諸根法中，命根為首。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，諸佛正法菩提之心，最為其首。
「善男子！譬如有人命根斷故，不能利益父母親族。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，離菩提心，不能饒益一切眾生。
"Good man, it is like the alchemical medicine, which first requires pure water before anything else can be done. The medicine that is the mind of bodhi is likewise: among everything a bodhisattva cultivates in every practice, it stands foremost, coming first before all else.
"Good man, it is like a person, among whose every faculty the life-faculty stands foremost. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise: among every buddha's own true Dharma, the mind of bodhi stands the most foremost of all.
"Good man, it is like a person whose life-faculty has been severed, who is no longer able to benefit his own parents or kin. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise: departing from the mind of bodhi, he is no longer able to benefit any sentient being at all."
This triad of similes moves from a process-based claim (pure water as the necessary first step) to a structural claim (the life-faculty as foremost among faculties) to a negative claim (what is lost when the faculty is severed), building a cumulative argument for bodhicitta's own indispensability from three distinct angles. Fazang treats the final simile — a bodhisattva who departs from bodhicitta being unable to benefit any being at all — as this catalogue's starkest warning yet: unlike similes elsewhere describing what bodhicitta grants, this one describes total incapacity in its absence, framing bodhicitta not as an enhancement to bodhisattva practice but as its very condition of possibility.
Part 374 Complete
Three similes on primacy are now given in full. Part 375 turns to the great ocean, unassailable by any force, and to the sun, whose light no starlight can ever eclipse.
Continue to Part 375 →