Stages and Positions I — The Lesser Vehicle and the Initial Teaching
Differences in What Is Taught, V — Stages and Positions, Part One所詮差別・行位分齊
The third sub-topic asks what stages a practitioner actually passes through. Fazang analyzes every teaching's answer through the same three lenses — the marks of position, non-retrogression, and the marks of practice — and the Initial Teaching's answer turns out to hold a surprise: its stages are deliberately built to resemble the Hīnayāna's own, not out of any real similarity, but as calculated skillful means, close enough to be believable and different enough to actually lead somewhere new.
1. Three Lenses, and the Hīnayāna's Four Positions
Fazang announces the analytic he will apply to every teaching in this sub-topic — position, non-retrogression, and practice — then dispatches the Hīnayāna quickly, on the grounds that its scheme is simply too different from the Mahāyāna's to need extended comparison.
◎第三行位差別者。於諸教中皆以三義略示。一明位相。二明不退。三明行相。初者依小乘有四位。謂方便．見修．及究竟也。又說小乘十二住以為究竟。及說三界九地十一地等。廣如小論說。二不退者。此中修行至忍位。得不退故也。其行相亦如彼諸論說。問何故小乘行位等相不廣顯耶。答此中意者。以義差別顯教不同。而小乘異大乘。理無疑故不待說也。
Third, clarifying the differences in stages and positions: in each of the teachings this is shown briefly through three aspects — first, clarifying the marks of position; second, clarifying non-retrogression; third, clarifying the marks of practice. As to the first: according to the Hīnayāna there are four positions — the position of expedient means, that of seeing, that of cultivation, and that of the ultimate. It also speaks of twelve abodes as constituting the ultimate, and of the three realms, the nine grounds, the eleven grounds, and so forth, as explained at length in the Hīnayāna treatises. As to the second, non-retrogression: here, cultivation reaching the stage of forbearance is what attains non-retrogression, and its marks of practice, too, are as those treatises explain. Question: why are the marks of the Hīnayāna's stages and positions not shown at greater length here? Answer: the intent here is this — since the meanings differ, the teachings displaying them differ correspondingly; and because the Hīnayāna is simply different from the Mahāyāna, with no doubt remaining about the principle involved, it need not be dwelt upon further.
The three-lens framework — position, non-retrogression, practice — is worth holding onto for the whole of this sub-topic, since Fazang applies it, sometimes explicitly and sometimes only implicitly, to every teaching through Part 14. "Position" asks what stages exist and how they are named; "non-retrogression" asks at what point a practitioner can no longer fall backward; "practice" asks what a practitioner at a given stage actually looks like, in concrete conduct. The Hīnayāna gets the shortest treatment of any teaching in this whole sub-topic — not because its path is unimportant, but because, in Fazang's classification, it simply is not in dialogue with the Mahāyāna's own stages the way the Initial Teaching's carefully calibrated mimicry, taken up next, is.
2. The Initial Teaching's Positions for Returning Śrāvakas
The Initial Teaching gives two separate accounts of position — one for śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas being drawn toward the Mahāyāna, one for bodhisattvas already practicing it directly. The first account borrows the Hīnayāna's own names wholesale, right down to placing a "buddha-ground" as the tenth in a series that otherwise looks exactly like the Hīnayāna's ten grounds.
若依初教。亦以三義顯。初位相者此中有二。一為引愚法二乘令迴心故。施設迴心教。亦但有見修等四位及九地等名同小乘。或立五位。謂見道前七方便內。分前三種為資糧位。以遠力便故。後四善根為加行位。是近方便故。餘名同前。又亦說為乾慧等十地。第九名菩薩地。第十名佛地者。欲引二乘望上不足。漸次修行至佛果故。又彼佛界不在十地外。同在地中者。以引彼故方便同彼。以二乘人於現身上得聖果故。不在後也。又此位相及行相等。廣如瑜伽聲聞決擇及雜集論說。
According to the Initial Teaching, this too is shown through three aspects. As to the first, the marks of position: here there are two accounts. The first is set up in order to draw the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas of the "foolish dharma" toward turning their minds to the Mahāyāna — a mind-turning teaching is established for them, which likewise has only the four positions of seeing, cultivation, and the rest, and the nine grounds and so on, sharing their names with the Hīnayāna. Or else five positions are set up: within the seven expedient means preceding the path of seeing, the first three are divided out as the stage of provisioning, being the more distant expedient means, while the last four wholesome roots become the stage of applied practice, being the nearer expedient means — the remaining names are as before. Again, this is also spoken of as the ten grounds beginning with "dry wisdom" and the rest, the ninth named the bodhisattva-ground and the tenth the buddha-ground — this is done in order to draw the two vehicles on, since, looking upward, they still fall short, so that they will gradually cultivate practice until they reach the fruit of buddhahood. And that buddha-realm is not placed outside the ten grounds, but classed together within them, precisely because, in order to draw those beings on, the skillful means is made to resemble their own scheme — since persons of the two vehicles attain the sagely fruit within their very own present body, it is not placed afterward. The marks of these positions and of practice are explained at length in the Yogācārabhūmi's "Determination Regarding Śrāvakas" and in the Abhidharmasamuccaya.
The detail worth pausing on is where the "buddha-ground" gets placed. A śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha attains the sagely fruit within the very lifetime he is practicing in — there is no later rebirth in which some higher attainment arrives. So if the Initial Teaching's mind-turning scheme is going to use a buddha-ground to entice such a person upward at all, that buddha-ground has to sit inside the same ten grounds the person is already climbing, as their tenth rung, rather than somewhere beyond them. The placement is not incidental; it is dictated entirely by whom the scheme is designed to persuade.
3. Why Copy the Hīnayāna's Vocabulary at All?
An immediate question follows: if the Yogācārabhūmi's account of the śrāvaka path is meant for the Mahāyāna's own purposes, why does it not simply use different, more obviously Mahāyāna terminology? Fazang's answer turns the resemblance itself into the argument for what kind of śrāvaka is being described.
問何故瑜伽等所明聲聞行位相。而不同彼毘曇等耶。答不同相者。有二義意。一為顯小乘人愚於諸法不了說故。二為方便漸漸引向大乘故耳。是故所明行位等法。皆悉方便順向大說故不同也。此既非是愚法小乘。又非菩薩。即知是彼三乘教中聲聞乘也。
Question: why do the marks of the śrāvaka's stages and positions, as explained in the Yogācārabhūmi and the like, not match those of the Abhidharma treatises and similar texts? Answer: the marks differ for two reasons. First, to show that persons of the Hīnayāna are foolish with regard to the dharmas and do not speak of them completely; second, in order, by skillful means, to draw them gradually toward the Mahāyāna. This is why the stages, positions, and other such dharmas explained here are all spoken of as skillful means oriented toward the Mahāyāna, and so differ from the Hīnayāna's own account. Since this is, then, neither the "foolish dharma" Hīnayāna nor yet the bodhisattva's own path, one thereby knows that it is the śrāvaka-vehicle precisely as it occurs within the three-vehicle teaching.
Fazang is doing careful sorting here: a "śrāvaka" in Yogācāra literature is not automatically the same figure as a "śrāvaka" in Abhidharma literature, even when both texts describe someone practicing to become an arhat. The Yogācārabhūmi's śrāvaka occupies a third category entirely — neither the unreconstructed Hīnayāna practitioner nor a bodhisattva, but a śrāvaka already positioned within the three-vehicle scheme, whose stages are described in Mahāyāna-adjacent language precisely because the description is doing Mahāyāna work: drawing that practitioner onward. The terminology mismatch between Yogācāra and Abhidharma accounts of the very same path is not a discrepancy to explain away — it is diagnostic of which teaching is actually speaking.
4. The Direct-Path Bodhisattva, Also Made to Resemble the Hīnayāna
Even the bodhisattva who never passed through the Hīnayāna at all — the "direct path" practitioner — receives a scheme of positions deliberately built to echo the śrāvaka's own four preliminary stages, right down to matching names drawn from the Mahāyānasaṃgraha.
二為直進人。顯位相者。彼說菩薩十地差別。又以十地說為見修。及通地前以為大乘十二住義。何以故。為影似小乘故。又彼地前有四十心。以彼十信亦成位故。此亦為似小乘道前四方便故。是故梁攝論云。如須陀洹道前有四位。謂煗頂忍世第一法。菩薩地前四位亦如是。謂十信．十解．十行．十迴向。又亦為似迴心教故。以信等四位為資糧位。十迴向後。別立四善根為加行位。見等同前。
Second, as for persons of the direct path, in displaying the marks of their position: this account speaks of the differences among the bodhisattva's ten grounds, and further speaks of the ten grounds as corresponding to seeing and cultivation, together with the stages preceding the grounds, so as to form the Mahāyāna's own version of the twelve abodes. Why is this done? In order to resemble the Hīnayāna. Moreover, before the grounds there are forty minds, since the ten faiths, too, constitute a position — this, too, is done to resemble the Hīnayāna's own four expedient means preceding its path. Hence the Mahāyānasaṃgraha says: just as there are four positions preceding the stream-enterer's path — namely heat, summit, forbearance, and supreme worldly dharma — so too the bodhisattva's four positions preceding the grounds are likewise fourfold: the ten faiths, the ten understandings, the ten practices, and the ten dedications. And again, in order to resemble the mind-turning teaching as well, the four positions of faith and the rest are made the stage of provisioning, while after the ten dedications a further four wholesome roots are separately established as the stage of applied practice — the path of seeing and the rest remaining as before.
Notice that the direct-path bodhisattva's scheme resembles two different things at once: the Hīnayāna's own four expedient-means stages, and the mind-turning teaching's own resemblance to those same stages. This double mimicry is the reason the next section has to ask, quite pointedly, why a bodhisattva who was never a Hīnayāna practitioner at all would need his positions dressed up this way.
5. Two Reasons for the Resemblance, Even Among the Advanced
Fazang answers the double question directly: why resemble the Hīnayāna at all, and why does even the most advanced practitioner within the Initial Teaching still need that resemblance? His answer is a considered theory of skillful means, not an accident of vocabulary.
問何故此教所立名數。多分影似小乘等耶。答為隨方便影似引彼。有勝方便故。若全異彼難信受故。若全同彼不名引故。問若引二乘何須似彼。如為直進何假似彼小耶。答有二意故亦稍似小。一以始教中直進之人機麁淺故。不能盡受大乘深法。是故所示位等法相亦似小乘。而義理仍別。二凡以大乘似小乘說者。皆通二義。一為引小。二為淺機。是故說此為始教也。
Question: why are the names and numbers established in this teaching, for the most part, made to resemble the Hīnayāna's own? Answer: this is done in order to draw those beings on by way of a resemblance that is itself a skillful means — a superior kind of skillful means. For if the teaching were entirely different from theirs, it would be difficult for them to believe and accept it; and if it were entirely identical to theirs, it would no longer count as drawing them on at all. Question: if the point is to draw the two vehicles on, why would this be needed for persons of the direct path as well — why borrow a resemblance to the Hīnayāna for them too? Answer: there are two reasons why even the direct path is made to resemble the Hīnayāna somewhat. First, because persons of the direct path within the Initial Teaching are still of a coarse and shallow capacity, unable to receive the profound dharmas of the Mahāyāna in full — hence the positions and other dharma-marks shown to them likewise resemble the Hīnayāna's, even though their underlying meaning remains distinct. Second, whenever the Mahāyāna is spoken of in a manner resembling the Hīnayāna, it always serves one of two purposes at once: drawing on those of Hīnayāna capacity, or accommodating a shallow capacity generally. This is exactly why this teaching is called the Initial Teaching.
"Too different to be believed, too similar to draw anyone anywhere" is a genuinely useful principle for skillful means in general, and Fazang states it here as a considered design constraint rather than an excuse. The second answer is the more surprising one: even the direct-path bodhisattva, who never needed converting from the Hīnayāna in the first place, gets a scheme dressed in half-borrowed clothing — not to draw him away from anything, but simply because his own capacity, this early in the Initial Teaching, is still too coarse for the Mahāyāna's deepest dharmas to be shown to him undisguised. This is, in fact, the closing definition of the whole Initial Teaching that Fazang offers here: any teaching that resembles the Hīnayāna, for either of these two reasons, is by definition the Initial Teaching and nothing more advanced.
6. Three Grades of Ripeness, Mapped Across the Path
Fazang now cites the Yogācārabhūmi's own threefold grading of a practitioner's ripeness — low, middling, and high — first for the śrāvaka, then, resembling it once more, for the bodhisattva. This grading will resurface in Part 15's account of how long practice takes.
即如何義等者。如瑜伽說。云何已成就補特伽羅相。謂諸聲聞先已串習諸善法故。若時安住下品成熟。爾時便有下品欲樂下品加行。猶往惡趣。非於現法證沙門果。非於現法得般涅槃。若時安住中品成熟。爾時便有中品欲樂中品加行。不往惡趣。於現法中。證沙門果。非於現法得般涅槃。若時安住上品成熟。爾時便有上品欲樂上品加行。不往惡趣。於現法中證沙門果。即於現法得般涅槃。如說聲聞獨覺亦爾。何以故。道與聲聞種性同故。乃至廣說。於菩薩位為似二乘。亦立如是三種成就。故彼論云。若諸菩薩住勝解行地名下品成就。住淨勝意樂地名中品成熟。住墮決定究竟地名上品成就。若菩薩住下品成熟。猶往惡趣。此盡第一無數大劫。乃至廣說。餘二大劫配二成就。如是等文類例非一。皆具上意可準而知。
As for what this means, exactly: the Yogācārabhūmi says: what constitutes an already-accomplished person's mark? It means that, because the śrāvakas have already habituated themselves for a long time in the various wholesome dharmas, when they abide in the lowest grade of ripeness, there is then lowest-grade aspiration and lowest-grade practice; they still fall into the unfortunate destinies, and neither realize the fruit of the ascetic nor attain final nirvāṇa in this very life. When they abide in the middling grade of ripeness, there is then middling-grade aspiration and middling-grade practice; they no longer fall into the unfortunate destinies, and realize the fruit of the ascetic in this very life, though they do not yet attain final nirvāṇa in this very life. When they abide in the highest grade of ripeness, there is then highest-grade aspiration and highest-grade practice; they no longer fall into the unfortunate destinies, realize the fruit of the ascetic in this very life, and attain final nirvāṇa in this very life as well. The same holds, it is said, for pratyekabuddhas — why is this? Because their path shares the very same lineage as the śrāvaka's — and so on, at length. With regard to the bodhisattva's position, made to resemble the two vehicles, the same three kinds of accomplishment are likewise established. Hence that treatise says: bodhisattvas who abide on the ground of resolute conduct are called the lowest grade of accomplishment; those abiding on the ground of pure and superior intention are called the middling grade of ripeness; those abiding on the ground of decisive and final attainment are called the highest grade of accomplishment. A bodhisattva abiding in the lowest grade of accomplishment still falls into the unfortunate destinies — and this exhausts the first incalculable eon — and so on, at length; the remaining two eons are matched to the other two accomplishments. Passages of this kind and their categories are not confined to one instance; all bear the same intent stated above, and may be understood on this model.
The three grades of ripeness matched here to the three incalculable eons — 阿僧祇劫, asaṃkhyeya kalpas — are the same three eons Part 15 will spend a full page discussing across all Five Teachings. Fazang plants the mapping here first: the lowest grade of accomplishment, in which a bodhisattva can still fall into the unfortunate destinies, corresponds to the entire first incalculable eon of practice. Whatever else changes between the teachings, this basic architecture — that practice ripens through recognizable grades, and that those grades correspond to enormous spans of time — remains a shared assumption Fazang treats as needing no further defense.
7. Non-Retrogression, and a Bodhisattva Who Still Wavers
Fazang closes out the marks of practice for the Initial Teaching with two things: the precise point at which each of the three vehicles becomes incapable of falling back, and — quoted at unusual length — a vivid, almost psychological catalog of just how unsteady a bodhisattva still is before that point.
二不退位者。依佛性論。聲聞至苦忍。緣覺至世第一法。菩薩至十迴向。方皆不退也。當知此中聲聞緣覺非是愚法。是故皆是此始教中三乘人也。亦可菩薩地前總說為退。以其猶墮諸惡趣故。如瑜伽云。若諸菩薩住勝解行地。猶往惡趣故。此盡第一無數大劫。如是等也。
Second, on the position of non-retrogression: according to the Buddha-Nature Treatise, the śrāvaka reaches non-retrogression only upon attaining the forbearance regarding suffering; the pratyekabuddha, only upon attaining the supreme worldly dharma; and the bodhisattva, only upon reaching the ten dedications. One should know that the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas spoken of here are not the "foolish dharma" kind, and are therefore all persons of the three vehicles within this Initial Teaching. It may also be said that the bodhisattva, throughout the stages before the grounds, is altogether classed as subject to retrogression, since he still falls into the unfortunate destinies — as the Yogācārabhūmi says: bodhisattvas abiding on the ground of resolute conduct still fall into the unfortunate destinies. This exhausts the first incalculable eon, and so on.
三明位中行相差別者如瑜伽云。勝解行住菩薩轉時。何行何相。或時具足聰慧。於其諸法能受能持。於其義理堪能悟入。或於一時不能如是。或於一時具足憶念。或於一時成於妄類。於諸眾生未能了知調伏方便。於自佛法。亦未了知如實引發善巧方便。為他說法教授教誡勉勵而轉。勉勵轉故。不能如實知。或時虛棄。如闇射。或中或不中。隨欲成故。或於一時於大菩提。已發心而後退捨。由內意樂故欲令自樂。由思擇故欲令他樂。或於一時。聞說甚深廣大法教。而生驚怖猶預疑惑。如是等類名勝解行住。解云。此是十二住中。第二住行相其第一種性住行相更劣。及地上行相皆如彼說。
Third, clarifying the differences in the marks of practice within these positions: the Yogācārabhūmi says: when a bodhisattva dwelling in the abode of resolute conduct is in motion, what practice, what mark does he show? At times he is complete in intelligence, able to receive and retain the various dharmas, and capable of penetrating their meaning and principle; at other times he is not able to do so. At times he is complete in mindfulness; at other times he falls into confusion. He is not yet able to understand the skillful means for taming sentient beings, nor has he yet truly understood how to draw out skillful means with regard to the buddha-dharma for himself; when he acts to teach others the Dharma, to instruct and admonish them, he does so only by forcing himself onward — and because he forces himself onward, he cannot know truly. At times his efforts are wasted, like an arrow shot in the dark, sometimes hitting and sometimes missing, succeeding only by chance. At times, having already given rise to the mind set on great bodhi, he afterward retreats and abandons it; moved by an inward wish for his own happiness, and by deliberation, he wishes also for the happiness of others. At times, on hearing the profound and vast teachings expounded, he becomes startled, fearful, hesitant, and doubtful. Categories such as these are what is called the abode of resolute conduct. Explanation: this is the second of the twelve abodes; the marks of practice in the first, the abode of lineage, are even more inferior than this, while the marks of practice on and above the grounds are all as those treatises explain.
The "arrow shot in the dark" is one of the more striking images in this whole treatise, and it is worth sitting with, because it punctures a common assumption about what an advanced spiritual practitioner is supposed to look like. This is not a beginner Fazang is describing — the abode of resolute conduct is only the second of twelve, but it is already well into the bodhisattva path, well past the merely aspirational abode of lineage that precedes it. And yet this bodhisattva is shown teaching others by force of will rather than real understanding, sometimes helping and sometimes not, essentially by luck; giving rise to the aspiration for buddhahood and then abandoning it; growing frightened by teachings too deep for him. Fazang's larger point in this whole gate is that the teachings differ in what they set forth — and one of the things the Initial Teaching sets forth, honestly, is that non-retrogression is hard-won and comes late. The three worthy stages that follow in the Final Teaching, taken up next, will need to answer for exactly this instability.
8. The Final Teaching Opens: Three Worthies, Not Yet a Position
The Final Teaching restructures the whole picture. Where the Initial Teaching gave the pre-ground stages real positional names, the Final Teaching insists that faith, before the ten abodes, is only ever practice — not yet a position at all, and therefore not yet secure against falling back.
若依終教。亦說菩薩十地差別。亦不以見修等名說。又於地前但有三賢。以信但是行非是位故。未得不退故。本業經云未上住前有此十心。不云位也。又云。始從凡夫地值佛菩薩。正教法中起一念信發菩提心。是人爾時名為住前信相菩薩。亦名假名菩薩名字菩薩。其人略修行十心。謂信進等。廣如彼說。又仁王經云。習忍已前。行十善菩薩有進有退。猶如輕毛隨風東西等。在此修行經十千劫。入十住位。方得不退故。十住初即不退墮下二乘地。況諸惡趣及凡地耶。設本業經。說十住第六心有退者。
According to the Final Teaching, this too speaks of the differences among the bodhisattva's ten grounds, though it does not speak of them using the names "seeing," "cultivation," and the rest. Moreover, before the grounds there are only the three worthy stages, since faith is merely a practice and not yet a position — non-retrogression not yet being attained. The Sūtra of the Original Acts says that, before ascending into the abodes, there are these ten minds, and does not call them a position. It also says: from the very stage of the ordinary person, upon encountering a buddha or bodhisattva, giving rise to a single thought of faith within the true teaching and generating the bodhi-mind — such a person is then called a bodhisattva of the faith-mark prior to the abodes, also named a bodhisattva in name only, a bodhisattva in name alone. Such a person cultivates, in brief, the ten minds — faith, diligence, and the rest — as explained at length there. And the Renwang Sūtra says: before the forbearance of habituation, a bodhisattva practicing the ten wholesome deeds both advances and retreats, like a light feather blown east and west by the wind. Cultivating in this way for ten thousand kalpas, he enters the ten abodes, and only then attains non-retrogression — for from the very first of the ten abodes he no longer retrogresses down into the two lesser vehicles' stage, let alone into the unfortunate destinies or the state of the ordinary person. Suppose, then, that the Sūtra of the Original Acts speaks of retrogression occurring at the sixth mind of the ten abodes —
"A bodhisattva in name only, a bodhisattva in name alone" is a deliberately deflationary title, and it marks a real doctrinal choice: the Final Teaching refuses to dignify the ten minds of initial faith with the status of a position at all, precisely because a mere thought of faith, however sincere, has not yet secured non-retrogression — as the Renwang Sūtra's image of a feather blown east and west by the wind makes vivid. This is a stricter standard than the Initial Teaching's, which at least let the ten faiths count as a stage of provisioning. The apparent tension the passage leaves hanging — the Renwang Sūtra says non-retrogression begins at the very first of the ten abodes, while the Sūtra of the Original Acts seems to describe retrogression occurring as late as the sixth — is picked up and resolved at the opening of Part 14, where the Awakening of Faith is brought in to explain the discrepancy.
Part Thirteen Complete
This closes Part Thirteen: the three-lens framework of position, non-retrogression, and practice; the Hīnayāna's four positions, dispatched briefly; the Initial Teaching's two accounts of position — one for returning śrāvakas, one for direct-path bodhisattvas — both deliberately built to resemble the Hīnayāna as calculated skillful means; the threefold grading of ripeness mapped across the three incalculable eons; the vivid, unsteady portrait of a bodhisattva still in the abode of resolute conduct; and the opening of the Final Teaching's three worthy stages, in which faith before the ten abodes is practice only, not yet a secured position.
Part Fourteen resolves the apparent conflict between the Renwang and Original Acts sūtras on exactly when non-retrogression begins, then turns to the Sudden Teaching's refusal to describe any stages at all, and closes with the Perfect Teaching's famous doctrine that any single position already holds every other position within it — buddhahood included.