Lineage III — The Icchantika Resolved, and the One Vehicle's Own Lineage

...teach the Dharma day and night without a moment's rest, each saving beings as immeasurable as the sands of the Ganges and bringing every one of them into nirvāṇa — and yet the realm of sentient beings neither increases nor decreases. And so it is, moreover, throughout the buddha-worlds of the ten directions: each and every buddha, teaching and transforming beings, saves beings as immeasurable as the sands of the Ganges and brings every one of them into nirvāṇa, and yet in the realm of sentient beings there is likewise neither increase nor decrease. Why is this? Because no fixed characteristic of sentient beings can ever be found at all. This is to say that the realm of sentient beings is like empty space. Suppose there were beings of measureless, surpassing spiritual power, each flying through empty space for measureless kalpas in search of its outer limit — they could never, in the end, exhaust it. Yet this does not mean that, because it cannot be exhausted, there is therefore no such thing as their flying; nor does it mean that their flying could ever actually bring them to its limit. One should know that the principle here is exactly the same: it is not that beings attaining buddhahood brings the realm of beings to an end, nor is it that, because it has no end, one must therefore say there is no attaining at all. For this reason, there is no objection whatsoever that cannot be resolved.

Again: to posit a portion of beings without lineage, for the sake of preserving the buddhas' meritorious work of benefiting others as inexhaustible, in fact reduces those buddhas to possessing only the meritorious work of benefit performed through transformation-bodies, and thereby cuts off their meritorious activity of enjoyment for others' sake as well — since, on this view, no bodhisattva would ever realize the grounds at all. And within the transformation of others it would likewise leave only the coarse elimination of affliction, without the subtle, since not a single being would ever attain the outflow-free realization of the two vehicles. Moreover, from that point on, not a single buddha could ever again teach the three-vehicle teachings and the rest, there being no capable being of holy potential left to receive them — and so the buddhas' great compassion, one in substance with all beings, would itself be cut off. Furthermore, if it is held with certainty that, because all beings possess the nature, all must eventually be exhausted, and one fears that the last buddha would then lack anyone to benefit, and so posits a portion of beings decisively without the nature to prevent this — even so, that final buddha's own practice of benefiting others would still, in the end, remain incomplete, since among those he transforms not a single being would ever attain the sagely fruit. But of the two benefits a buddha and a bodhisattva bring about, benefiting others is the foremost — how could there be a buddha who brings not even one being to the sagely fruit, and yet attains buddhahood himself? Moreover, all buddhas originally raise the great vow, saying: "I will cause all sentient beings, without exception, to attain bodhi." Because beings are thereby caused to attain it, the original vow is not rendered empty; and because the realm of sentient beings can never be exhausted, the original vow is never cut off either. Were it otherwise, the original vow would be violated, the vow and its practice rendered empty, and an empty practice culminating in buddhahood would be unreasonable. Therefore, although one wishes, by establishing "no-lineage," to avoid the faults stated above, one fails to notice that those very faults fall right back upon this position instead. This is why "no-lineage" is not a doctrine of ultimate, definitive meaning.

Question: lineage, whenever it is discussed at all, must surely be a conditioned thing — how then can this teaching take suchness itself as lineage? Answer: because, when suchness, following conditions, combines with defilement to form the root consciousness, within that very suchness there is the outflow-free original enlightenment, which perfumes sentient beings from within and serves as the cause of their turning back against the stream of saṃsāra — and it is this that constitutes the lineage that a being possesses. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha calls this the capacity for understanding within the ālaya; in the Awakening of Faith it is spoken of as the original enlightenment among the two meanings of the ālaya.

Again, in that same treatise, the tathāgatagarbha, complete with the outflow-free, constantly perfumes sentient beings, serving as the cause of pure dharmas. And the Ratnagotravibhāga says: "and that nature of suchness" — its root text says, as the Ṣaḍāyatana Sūtra states, the six sense-faculties, being thus since beginningless time, form the ultimate essence of all dharmas. Explanation: since suchness pervades all dharmas, but here what is non-sentient is screened out, so — restricted to the six sense-bases as they occur among sentient beings — the ultimate principle of suchness found there is taken as the lineage-by-nature. This shares its name with what the Yogācārabhūmi states, but that treatise speaks according to the Initial Teaching, deriving principle from the coarse mark of phenomena, and so clarifies lineage in terms of phenomena. As the Bodhisattvabhūmi says: "I have already briefly explained the coarse mark of lineage" — this is what is meant. The Ratnagotravibhāga, by contrast, speaks according to this Final Teaching, deriving phenomena from principle in its deep and subtle aspect, and so clarifies the lineage-by-nature in terms of suchness itself. Hence the Buddha-Nature Treatise says: the mind pure in its own nature is called the truth of the path. And the Nirvāṇa Sūtra says: buddha-nature is called emptiness in the ultimate sense, and emptiness in the ultimate sense is called wisdom. All of this speaks of the lineage-by-nature in terms of the wisdom-nature of original enlightenment. As for the lineage-by-habituation, this too is formed from suchness — as the Mahāyānasaṃgraha says: the perfuming of extensive Dharma-hearing flows forth from the utterly pure dharma-realm, and so on. And in the Awakening of Faith, the two great aspects of suchness's own essence and characteristics serve as the cause of internal perfuming, while the great aspect of suchness's function serves as the condition of external perfuming; since these combine with the defiled dharma of ignorance, the three greatnesses are therefore said to perfume both from within and from without — and by the power of this perfuming, once ignorance is exhausted, essence and phenomena merge together indistinguishably, without duality, as suchness alone.

Third, clarified according to the Sudden Teaching: it is simply the one suchness, apart from every mark of verbal expression, that is named lineage — and here, too, no distinction is drawn between the lineage-by-nature and the lineage-by-habituation, since all dharmas are, by their very nature, without any mark of duality. Hence the Sūtra on the Non-Activity of All Dharmas says: "What is it that is called lineage? Mañjuśrī: all sentient beings are of a single mark, ultimately unarisen, apart from every name and word — since one and different can never be found there, this is called lineage." This may be taken as the standard. The above completes the account given in terms of the three vehicles.

Third, according to the One Vehicle, there are two accounts. The first takes up and includes all the lineages set out in the preceding teachings, each fully complete with host and retinue, forming its own school — this being the Common Teaching, since it gathers those teachings in as its own skillful means. The second, based on the Separate Teaching, holds that lineage is profound in itself, cause and fruit not two, pervading both the dependent and the proper realms throughout the three kinds of world, comprehending within itself every gate of principle, phenomena, understanding, and practice — originally complete, and already accomplished from the very outset. Hence the great sūtra says: "The bodhisattva's lineage is profound and vast, equal to the dharma-realm and to empty space" — this is what is meant. When it manifests according to a particular gate, then, within each of the five stages, the six decisive meanings and the like are what is called lineage — and this very dharma is likewise called the fruit-mark, since cause and fruit share one and the same substance, being of a single nature. This is explained at length in the sūtra; the rest may be understood on this model.

Question: why do the accounts of lineage differ across the various teachings? Answer: here too there are two meanings. The first is comprehension in terms of the dharma, distinguishing what is hidden from what is manifest, each gathering the other in; the second is the boundary of what is attained according to the capacity of those being taught. As to the first meaning: because this dependently-arisen, unobstructed lineage possesses five gates of meaning, each teaching expounds one gate according to its audience's capacity in order to gather beings in and transform them, without contradiction in the underlying meaning. What are the five? First, the gate of mere attachment, in which lineage does not exist at all — as the Hīnayāna states it. Second, the gate of following phenomena, deficient in some and complete in others — as the Initial Teaching states it. Third, the gate of following principle, which pervades all sentient feeling equally — as the Final Teaching states it. Fourth, the gate that cuts off every mark, apart from words — as the Sudden Teaching states it. Fifth, the gate of the nature complete with every virtue — as the Perfect Teaching states it. Although the meaning is fivefold, lineage itself is perfectly interfused, gathering all five in without remainder — hidden and manifest reaching the very same end. As to the second meaning, clarifying the boundary of what is attained according to capacity: in some cases, all beings are altogether without it, the Buddha alone excepted — as the Hīnayāna states. In some cases, all beings altogether possess it, only plants and the like excepted — as the Final Teaching states. In some cases, it is both possessed and not possessed — as the Initial Teaching states, since it allows that one portion is without nature. In some cases, it is neither possessed nor not possessed — as the Sudden Teaching states, since it is apart from all marks. In some cases, a single teaching comprises all four of the above — as is stated in the One Vehicle's own gate of skillful means. Or again, cause already comprises fruit, pervading the three kinds of world — as the Perfect Teaching states. The rest may be understood on this model.