Stages and Positions II — One Position Holding All Positions

...at the sixth mind of the ten abodes — the Awakening of Faith explains that passage as merely displaying an appearance of retrogression, done in order to spur on those who are lax and complacent; in reality, once a bodhisattva enters the abode of the arising of the mind, he attains non-retrogression at once. As for the marks of practice: the Awakening of Faith says that, already within the initial position of the three worthy stages, one attains a partial vision of the dharma-body, becoming able to benefit sentient beings throughout the worlds of the ten directions by manifesting the eight marks of accomplishing the path; and, by the power of one's vow, one receives bodies at will, no longer bound by karma. By the power of samādhi, one also attains a partial vision of the reward-body buddha. All the practice one cultivates accords with the true nature — knowing that the essence of the dharma-nature is without stinginess or greed, one cultivates the pāramitā of giving and the rest in accordance with it. This is explained at length there.

And the Mahāyānasaṃgraha says: the ten faiths are named the ordinary-person bodhisattva, and the ten understandings are named the holy-person bodhisattva, and so on; the positions and practice above the grounds may be understood on the same model, redoubled beyond what came before. One should therefore know that the difference in depth between the stages and positions here and in the preceding Initial Teaching has now become plain. Question: does this teaching not likewise draw the two vehicles on? Why, then, are its stages and positions not spoken of in a manner resembling the Hīnayāna? Answer: all the later teachings are progressively deeper and more excellent, and the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas they draw on are themselves already ripened to a lofty and superior capacity — so there is no need to borrow any resemblance to the Hīnayāna for them.

According to the Sudden Teaching, all stages and positions whatsoever cannot be spoken of at all, since they are apart from every mark — a single thought unarisen is itself the buddha. To perceive any mark of difference among stages and positions is itself a case of inverted perception. If one wishes to point toward it provisionally, in words: the Laṅkāvatāra says, "the first ground is precisely the eighth ground" — and further says, "there being nothing whatsoever, what sequence could there be?" And the Sūtra of Resolving Doubts says: "if a person hears this true nature of all dharmas, and diligently exerts himself, practicing as it is taught, he does not go from one ground to another ground. And because he does not go from one ground to another ground, this person abides neither in saṃsāra nor in nirvāṇa" — and so on.

According to the Perfect Teaching, there are two accounts. The first takes up and includes the stages and positions set out by the preceding teachings, since these serve as its own skillful means. The second, based on the Separate Teaching, comprises three aspects. The first is clarification by way of provisional position: from the ten faiths all the way to the buddha-ground there are six distinct positions, yet attaining any one of them is to attain all of them. Why is this? Because they are gathered together by the six characteristics, by host and retinue, by mutual inclusion, by mutual identity, and by perfect interfusion. As the sūtra says: within a single ground, all the merits of every ground are universally gathered in. This is exactly what is meant when the sūtra says that, at the culminating advancement of the fulfillment of the ten faiths, one attains all the positions, and the buddha-ground as well. And because the various positions and the buddha-ground are all mutually identical, cause and fruit are not two, and beginning and end are unobstructed — so that, at any single position whatsoever, one is precisely a bodhisattva and precisely a buddha at once. This is the meaning intended here.

The second is clarification of the marks of position by way of retribution across lifetimes: here there are only three lifetimes. The first is accomplishing the position of seeing and hearing — meaning that, upon seeing and hearing this inexhaustible dharma-gate, one forms the vajra seed and the like, as the "Chapter on the Arising of the Nature" explains. The second is accomplishing the position of understanding and practice — meaning, for instance, the son of a Tuṣita god and others who, having emerged from the unfortunate destinies, in a single lifetime attain, just prior to the stainless samādhi, the Ten Grounds' forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas, together with the ten eyes, ten ears, and other such states, as the "Chapter on Lesser Marks" explains at length. And likewise, Sudhana, beginning from the ten faiths and proceeding all the way to the Ten Grounds, becoming, within a single lifetime and a single body, at the place of his good friends, entirely complete in all these practices and positions of Samantabhadra — this too is an instance of this same meaning. The third is the position of realizing the ocean of the fruit — meaning, for instance, when Maitreya tells Sudhana: "when I attain true awakening in time to come, you shall see me" — and so on. One should know that this speaks in terms of cause and fruit divided into two positions, before and after: hence the preceding position is only the cause, while the perfected fruit lies in the position that follows — and this is why it says, "you shall see me."

The third, clarification of position by way of practice, has only two aspects: one's own portion, and advancement beyond it. This gate applies throughout the preceding positions, wherever understanding-and-practice and the boundary of what is attained are discussed — as with, for instance, the youth Universal Adornment and the like. His body abides in a place above the World of Worlds and the like, in the position of a wheel-turning king of the pure white jeweled net, and he attains the flesh-eye of universal sight, seeing ocean-worlds as numerous as motes of dust in ten buddha-lands. This is unlike the flesh-eye of the three vehicles — for the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says: the flesh-eye sees only within the confines of a three-thousand-world system; if it could see beyond a three-thousand-world system, what use would there be for the heavenly eye? Hence one knows this is not the same. He is, moreover, able within a single thought-moment to transform beings beyond all reckoning, bringing them all at once to the very threshold of the stainless samādhi — and so it is again in every successive thought-moment. His store of merit calls forth a fixed, light-filled crystal mirror, illuminating world-oceans as numerous as motes of dust in ten buddha-lands. One should know that this is the mark of practice within the position of understanding-and-practice, among the three lifetimes described above, shown here in terms of the gate of cause.

As for what unfolds once the culminating fulfillment of faith and its resulting position are attained, the practice and function that arise from it pervade the entire dharma-realm — as the sūtra says: able with a single hand to cover the great trichiliocosm and the like, from that hand producing offerings equal in extent to empty space and the dharma-realm, making offerings all at once to inexhaustible buddhas, performing great buddha-deeds and benefiting sentient beings beyond all telling — as explained at length in the sūtra text on the position of faith. It also says: without leaving a single world, without rising from a single seat, one is able to manifest the practice of all one's immeasurable bodies at once; and, in a single thought-moment, buddhahood is attained and the Dharma-wheel turned simultaneously throughout the worlds of the ten directions — and so on, at length. One should therefore know that this is utterly distinct from the boundary set for the three vehicles. Why is this? Because the three vehicles' own stages and positions are spoken of only within the gate of faith-and-understanding based on āgama teaching.

Question: earlier, in the Final Teaching, at the point of non-retrogression, the same eight marks and their functions were also said to be attained — how does this differ from the present case? Answer: there, when this position displays the attainment of buddhahood, one is not yet self-mastering with regard to any of the later positions, since they have not yet been attained — it is merely a temporary arising of transformative activity within that one position alone. Here it is not so: when this function arises within the very first position, it arises simultaneously throughout all the later positions as well, since all of them have already been attained together — because this is genuine practice, comprehending all six positions at once. Question: since the meanings differ in this way, why is it that, in both cases alike, this function is said to arise at the culminating advancement of the fulfillment of faith? Answer: this is done in order to show, by skillful means, that the One Vehicle's attainment of buddhahood at the fulfillment of faith is easy to believe and accept — and so that teaching speaks of it in these same terms first.

Question: if all positions are already present within a single position, and buddhahood is already attained at the fulfillment of the mind of faith, then why is there any need to speak further of the later positions at all? Answer: to speak of the later positions is simply to speak of everything already contained within the first — and the first is, in exactly the same way, contained within the later. Question: if the first already comprises the later, so that attaining the first is attaining the later, then the later should equally comprise the first — and so, if one has not yet attained the later, one should equally not yet have attained the first either. Answer: this is indeed so. But because attaining the first entails that there is no failing to attain the later, there is consequently no case of attaining the first without also attaining the later. Question: if that is so, then why does the sūtra still speak of attaining the various positions in a graduated, descending sequence at all? Answer: because this sūtra establishes the positions by way of two skillful devices. The first, in terms of the gate of appearance, divides the positions into a sequence of before and after, provisionally resembling the three vehicles in order to draw them on by this skillful means — this is the Common Teaching. The second, in terms of the gate of essence, has the various dharmas mutually included before and after, perfectly interfused and self-mastering, distinct from the three vehicles — this is the Separate Teaching. But since, without the gates ever shifting from each other, they remain ever mutually identical without destroying the sequence, and remain ever sequential without destroying the identity, the two meanings are thus fused together without contradiction. Question: if that is so, and the first gate already is the whole, then why does the sūtra not say that attainment occurs at the very first thought-moment of the position of faith, but instead speaks of the fulfillment of that mind? Answer: were this spoken purely from the Separate Teaching's own standpoint, it would not depend on position at all. But here it speaks provisionally, in terms of the three-vehicle Final Teaching's own positional scheme, since in that teaching non-retrogression, and hence entry into position, is only attained at the fulfillment of faith. So it is provisionally in terms of that very point of entry into position that the marks of all the preceding and following positions are attained all at once — which is why it is not spoken of at the very first thought-moment of faith, since at that point non-retrogression is not yet attained, and the mark of position is not yet formed; there is only practice. Question: if that is so, then one should simply say that buddhahood is attained upon entering the abode — why call it the fulfillment of faith? Answer: because it is accomplished through faith. This is why it is called a buddha of practice, not a buddha of position.