Eliminating Affliction IV
One Cut, All Cut一斷一切斷
This part finishes the eighteen-gate list of scriptural devices for reading affliction as an index of position, then closes the entire sub-topic of eliminating affliction with the two teachings that dissolve the whole apparatus of Parts 17–19 from opposite directions: the Sudden Teaching, for which no affliction was ever bound in the first place, and the Perfect Teaching, for which cutting a single affliction cuts every affliction there is — because on this teaching one thing, fully entered into, already contains everything.
The Text
Gates 9–11 — The Ten Grounds, the Humane Kings' Schedule, and Mastery
九於十地中為別相故。三地終心已來。斷二障修惑正使皆盡。四地已去但有微習。何以故。前三地相同世間。四地已去是出世故。是故十地經三地末文云。一切欲縛轉復微薄。一切色縛轉復微薄。一切有縛轉復微薄。一切無明縛轉復微薄。諸見縛者先已除斷。地論釋云。一切欲縛轉微薄等者。斷一切修道欲色無色所有煩惱及彼因。同無明習氣。皆悉微薄遠離故。諸見縛者。於初地見道已斷故。解云。及彼因者煩惱障種子也。無明習氣者所知障種子也。以二障種子同時遠離故云同也。是故當知。二障修惑正使種子此地皆盡。上來多分約終教說。
Ninth, with reference to the distinct characteristics within the Ten Grounds: by the ending mind of the third ground, the direct affliction of the cultivation-afflictions of both hindrances is entirely exhausted; from the fourth ground onward there remains only a faint habitual residue. Why is this? Because the first three grounds are, in character, still akin to the world, while from the fourth ground onward one has gone beyond the world. Hence the closing passage of the third ground in the Daśabhūmika Sūtra says: "Every bond of desire grows ever fainter; every bond of form grows ever fainter; every bond of existence grows ever fainter; every bond of ignorance grows ever fainter; the bonds of views have already been removed and cut off earlier." The Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra's own commentary explains: "'Every bond of desire grows ever fainter' and the rest means that every affliction belonging to the path of cultivation, in the desire, form, and formless realms, together with their causes — identical with the habitual residue of ignorance — all grow faint and are left behind. 'The bonds of views' were already cut off at the path of seeing at the first ground." Explanation: "their causes" means the seeds of the afflictive hindrance; "the habitual residue of ignorance" means the seeds of the cognitive hindrance; since the seeds of both hindrances are left behind at the very same time, they are called "identical." One should therefore understand that, at this ground, the seeds of the direct affliction belonging to the cultivation-afflictions of both hindrances are entirely exhausted. Most of what has come before is spoken according to the Final Teaching.
十又於十地。別相中。寄顯世間三乘菩薩三位別故。仁王經說。前之三地斷三界中色煩惱。四五六地斷三界中心煩惱。七八九地斷三界中色習煩惱。第十地及佛地斷三界中心習煩惱。解云。以三地終位得上界定。極至四空定離下地色故云斷色惑也。以四地已去得二乘無漏出世間位故。於世間色心俱盡故。七地已去是菩薩位。漸細於前故。寄滅於色心習氣。以顯彼位也。十一於此菩薩位中。為顯自在及未自在二位別故。七地已還寄滅三界色心煩惱及彼果報。八地已去寄滅色心二習無明故。本業經云。七地已還滅三界色心二習果報。滅無遺餘。八地色習無明盡。九地心習無明已滅除。十地二習無明滅盡。
Tenth, further, within the distinct characteristics of the Ten Grounds, using them to reveal three distinct positions — worldly attainment, the three vehicles, and the bodhisattva. The Sūtra for Humane Kings says: "The first three grounds cut the form-afflictions within the three realms; the fourth, fifth, and sixth grounds cut the mind-afflictions within the three realms; the seventh, eighth, and ninth grounds cut the habitual form-afflictions within the three realms; the tenth ground and the ground of buddhahood cut the habitual mind-afflictions within the three realms." Explanation: since, by the ending position of the third ground, one attains the concentrations of the higher realms, reaching all the way to the four formless concentrations and departing from the form of the lower realms, this is called "cutting the affliction of form." Since from the fourth ground onward one attains the undefiled, world-transcending position of the two vehicles, worldly form and mind are both exhausted there. From the seventh ground onward is the bodhisattva's own position proper, ever subtler than before, and so it is used to indicate the extinguishing of the habitual residue of form and mind, thereby revealing that position. Eleventh, within this bodhisattva position, in order to reveal the distinction between the position of mastery and the position not yet of mastery: up through the seventh ground, scripture uses the extinguishing of the form- and mind-afflictions of the three realms, together with their fruits of retribution; from the eighth ground onward, it uses the extinguishing of the ignorance belonging to the two habitual residues of form and mind. The Sūtra of the Bodhisattva's Original Acts says: "Up through the seventh ground, the fruits of retribution of the two habitual residues of form and mind within the three realms are extinguished, entirely without remainder. At the eighth ground, the ignorance of the habitual residue of form is exhausted. At the ninth ground, the ignorance of the habitual residue of mind has already been extinguished. At the tenth ground, the ignorance of both habitual residues is utterly extinguished."
Gates 9–11 all read the same Ten Grounds against three different scriptural schedules — the treatise's own Daśabhūmika text, the Sūtra for Humane Kings, and the Sūtra of the Bodhisattva's Original Acts — and none of the three numbers agree on exactly which ground cuts what. Fazang's point is not to adjudicate between them but to show that this is exactly what one should expect once a reader understands that each schedule is a device suited to a particular teaching purpose rather than a competing physics of affliction. Vasubandhu's own Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra, translated in full elsewhere on this site, gives the positive complement to this passage: what each ground newly accomplishes, ground by ground, rather than what each newly cuts.
Gates 12–13 — Seeing and Cultivation, and Why This Is Only a Device
十二依三無性論。寄滅二性以顯見修二位差別。故彼論云。由見道故分別性即無。故言不得。由修道故。依他性即滅。故言不見。
Twelfth, according to the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa, using the extinguishing of two natures to reveal the distinction between the positions of seeing and cultivation. Hence that treatise says: "Through the path of seeing, the discriminated nature is simply absent — hence it is said 'not to be found.' Through the path of cultivation, the dependent nature is extinguished — hence it is said 'not to be seen.'"
十三依雜集論等。以分別俱生二種煩惱。寄顯見修二位差別。何以得知但是寄位非實斷者。如分別我見籍三緣生。謂邪師邪教及邪思惟。妄計即蘊離蘊等我。如佛弟子雖居凡位。然依正師正教正思惟故。非直不起即蘊等執。亦乃願樂於無我性。此人豈斷已非入見道邪。若言雖無現行然有種故非入見者。既無現行即應入資糧加行。義既不爾。是故當知。為顯見道無我理故。寄彼橫計顛倒麁惑。反以顯之。又以任運所起煩惱細難斷故。翻顯修位漸增差別。如實義者。但一煩惱有麁有細。見位斷麁修位斷細。如末那煩惱。通二位斷之。如無相論云。第二執識及相應法。至羅漢位究竟滅盡。若見諦內煩惱識及心法。得出世道十六心時。畢竟斷滅。餘殘未盡但屬思惟。是名第二識。無性攝論亦同此說。如上所引。故得知也。
Thirteenth, according to the Abhidharmasamuccayavyākhyā and the like, using the two kinds of affliction — the discriminated and the innate — to reveal the distinction between the positions of seeing and cultivation. How can one know that this is merely using them to indicate position, and not a report of what is actually cut? Consider how the discriminated view of self arises by drawing on three conditions — a false teacher, false doctrine, and false reflection — falsely conceiving of a self either identical to or apart from the aggregates. A disciple of the Buddha, though still dwelling in the position of an ordinary person, nonetheless relies on a right teacher, right doctrine, and right reflection; not only does he not give rise to the attachment to a self identical to the aggregates and the like, he even takes delight in and aspires to the nature of no-self. Could such a person, having already done this, still fail to have entered the path of seeing? Were one to say that, though there is no manifest activity, the seed still remains, and so he has not entered the path of seeing — then, there being no manifest activity, he ought instead to have entered the paths of provisioning and preparatory application. Since this is plainly not the intended meaning, one should understand that this device exists in order to show the principle of no-self at the path of seeing, taking the coarse affliction of distorted, upside-down false conception as a foil to reveal it. And because the spontaneously arisen affliction is subtle and hard to cut, it is used, in reverse, to reveal the gradual increase of distinction belonging to the position of cultivation. As a matter of how things truly are, it is a single affliction that has a coarse aspect and a subtle aspect: the position of seeing cuts the coarse, the position of cultivation cuts the subtle. Take the affliction of manas, for instance — it is cut across both positions together. As the Amalavijñāna-treatise says: "The second grasping consciousness, together with its associated dharmas, is utterly extinguished only at the stage of arhatship. As for the affliction-consciousness and its mental factors within the truths seen at the path of seeing, these are utterly cut off the very moment one attains the sixteen-mind path transcending the world; what residue is not yet exhausted belongs only to reflective thought — this is called the second consciousness." Asvabhāva's commentary on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha says the same, as already cited above; hence this can be known.
Gate 13 is the closest this list comes to Fazang stating his method outright. He gives an actual argument — not just an assertion — for why "discriminated afflictions are cut at seeing, innate afflictions at cultivation" cannot be taken literally: an ordinary Buddhist disciple, still short of any formal path-attainment, already lacks the discriminated view of self simply by holding right view. If cutting the discriminated view really were what defined entry to the path of seeing, this disciple would already have entered it — which the tradition does not want to say. The only way to keep both claims is to read "discriminated" and "innate" not as two different kinds of affliction sorted by cause, as Part 17's Initial-Teaching bookkeeping had it, but as two degrees of coarseness within what is, in truth, a single affliction. This is Gate 13 quietly revising Gate 1's premise from the inside.
Gates 14–16 — The Three Worthy Stages, Consciousness by Consciousness
十四於分別惑所籍三緣。寄顯地前三賢位別。謂十解等除邪師等。如次應知。此約直進說。又以邪師邪教所起。寄資糧位伏。以行相麁故。邪思惟所起寄加行位伏。以行相細故。此約迴心二乘說。十五於俱生內六七識惑。七地已來寄有現行。八地已去永伏不起。此為寄顯入觀有間無間位異故。作此說。十六又以六識煩惱寄至四地。末那煩惱寄至七地。八地已去唯有所知障。此亦為顯世間二乘菩薩位故。作此說也。
Fourteenth, using the three conditions on which the discriminated afflictions depend, to reveal the distinct stages of the three worthy positions before the ground — that is, the Ten Abodes and the rest removing the false teacher and so forth, each in turn, as should be understood. This is spoken with reference to bodhisattvas who advance directly. Further, what arises from a false teacher and false doctrine is said to be suppressed at the stage of provisioning, since its mode of activity is coarse; what arises from false reflection is said to be suppressed at the stage of preparatory application, since its mode of activity is subtle. This is spoken with reference to the two vehicles who turn their aspiration toward the Mahāyāna. Fifteenth, with respect to the innate afflictions belonging to the sixth and seventh consciousnesses: up through the seventh ground, they are said still to have manifest activity; from the eighth ground onward, they are said to be permanently suppressed and no longer arise. This is stated in order to reveal the distinction between the position where entry into contemplation is interrupted and the position where it is uninterrupted. Sixteenth, further, the afflictions of the sixth consciousness are said to extend to the fourth ground, and the afflictions of manas are said to extend to the seventh ground; from the eighth ground onward there is only the cognitive hindrance. This too is stated in order to reveal the worldly position, the two vehicles' position, and the bodhisattva's position.
Gates 17–18 — Ignorance by the Numbers, and the Eighteen Gates Complete
十七為顯十地至佛地差別故。以十一無明返寄顯之。十八為顯地地真俗二智。故。以二十二無明寄以顯之。如深密經云。由此二十二種愚癡品及十一麁重。安立諸地故。既云安立。故知寄顯也。此諸義廣如瑜伽．對法．唯識攝論等說。上來多分約始教說。已上諸門並是阿含門。寄惑反顯位相差別。何以故。為護十地故。為令眾生於十地中離慢執故。位相甚深極難了知。寄惑顯位生淨信故。餘義準思可見。
Seventeenth, in order to reveal the distinctions from the Ten Grounds through to the ground of buddhahood, the eleven kinds of ignorance are used, in reverse, to reveal them. Eighteenth, in order to reveal, ground by ground, the two wisdoms of the ultimate and the conventional, the twenty-two kinds of ignorance are used to reveal them. As the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra says: "It is by means of these twenty-two categories of delusion and eleven kinds of coarse encumbrance that the various grounds are established." Since it speaks of them as "established," one thereby knows that this too is a device of revealing through indication. These various points are set out at length in the Yogācārabhūmi, the Abhidharmasamuccaya, the commentaries on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha concerning consciousness-only, and the like. Most of what has come before is spoken according to the Initial Teaching.
All of the gates given above belong to the āgama gate: using affliction, in reverse, to reveal the distinctions among positions and their characteristics. Why is this done? In order to protect the Ten Grounds; in order to let sentient beings, within the Ten Grounds, depart from conceit and attachment. The characteristics of position are extremely profound and exceedingly difficult to fully know; using affliction to reveal position gives rise to pure faith regarding them. The remaining points may be seen by the same reasoning.
The closing paragraph is Fazang's own explanation of why eighteen different, mutually incompatible ways of mapping affliction onto position are not a defect of scripture to be explained away, but a deliberate teaching strategy. He gives two reasons: first, "to protect the Ten Grounds" — keeping their true, profound nature from being flattened into a single, over-literal formula that a careless reader might feel they had already mastered; second, to keep practitioners from conceit, since a stage described only ever through the borrowed, humbling language of affliction still needing to be overcome gives a bodhisattva no occasion to feel he has arrived. Multiplicity of device, in other words, is itself doing devotional work, not just descriptive work.
The Sudden Teaching — Nothing Was Ever Bound
若依頓教。一切煩惱本來自離。不可說斷及與不斷。如法界體性經云。佛告文殊師利。汝云何教諸善男子發菩提心。文殊言。我教發我見心。何以故。我見除即是菩提故。此文證之準知。
According to the Sudden Teaching, every affliction is, from the outset, of itself already apart — one cannot speak of it as either cut or not cut. As the Sūtra on the Nature of the Dharma-Realm says: "The Buddha said to Mañjuśrī: How do you teach good sons to arouse the mind of bodhi? Mañjuśrī said: I teach them to arouse the mind that holds a view of self. Why is this? Because the removal of the view of self is itself precisely bodhi." This passage is cited as proof, and should be understood accordingly.
Mañjuśrī's paradox — "I teach them to arouse the mind that holds a view of self" — is deliberately shocking, since the view of self is exactly what every other teaching treats as the first thing to be removed. His own gloss defuses it: the removal of self-view simply is bodhi, so pointing directly at the view of self is the same act as pointing at its own removal. Nothing is cut because, on the Sudden Teaching's own premise, nothing bound was ever really there to cut — nor was there ever a person separate from that binding to do the cutting. This is the mirror image of Part 17's careful, countable 128 afflictions: not a bigger number, but the collapse of the whole counting exercise.
The Perfect Teaching — Cut One, Cut All
若依圓教。一切煩惱不可說其體性。但約其用即甚深廣大。以所障法一即一切具足主伴等故。彼能障惑亦如是也。是故不分使習種現。但如法界一得一切得故。是故煩惱亦一斷一切斷也。故普賢品明一障一切障。小相品明一斷一切斷者。是此義也。
According to the Perfect Teaching, one cannot speak of the very substance-nature of any affliction at all; one can only speak, with reference to its function, of its being exceedingly profound and vast — since the dharma obstructed by it is such that one is precisely all, complete with host and retinue and the rest, the affliction that obstructs it is likewise so. For this reason, no distinction is drawn among direct affliction, habitual residue, seed, and manifest activity: precisely as, within the dharma-realm, attaining one is attaining all, so too, with affliction, cutting one is cutting all. Hence the "Universal Worthy" chapter's explanation that one hindrance is every hindrance, and the "Lesser Marks" chapter's explanation that cutting one is cutting all — this is exactly the meaning intended.
"One is precisely all, complete with host and retinue" is Fazang's own doctrine of interpenetration compressed into a single clause, the same principle given its fullest technical treatment later in this treatise's Ten Mysterious Gates. Applied here to affliction, it produces a genuinely startling result: the careful gradations of Parts 17–19 — discriminated against innate, ground against ground, coarse against subtle — are not wrong so much as they describe a scaffolding that the Perfect Teaching says was never structurally necessary in the first place. If every dharma fully contains every other, then a single affliction, fully understood, already contains and therefore cuts every affliction there is. The Gaṇḍavyūha's own Indra's Net imagery — jewel reflecting jewel reflecting jewel, without end — gives the same principle its narrative form: what this passage states as doctrine, that text shows as something Sudhana is made to see with his own eyes.
Four Accounts of the Boundary, and the Gate on Eliminating Affliction Closed
又此斷惑分齊。準上下經文有四種。一約證。謂十地中斷。二約位。謂十住已去斷。三約行。謂十信終心斷。四約實。謂無可斷。以本來清淨故。廣如經說。又前三乘等諸門斷惑。若一障一切障。一斷一切斷。即入此非。若隨門前後。是三乘等。此約別教言。若約攝方便。前諸教所明並入此中。以是此方便故。及所流所目故。餘義準之。斷惑門竟。
Further, as for the boundary of this cutting of affliction, taking the sūtra's text both before and after together, there are four accounts. First, with reference to direct realization: cutting occurs within the Ten Grounds. Second, with reference to position: cutting occurs from the Ten Abodes onward. Third, with reference to practice: cutting occurs at the final mind of the Ten Faiths. Fourth, with reference to how things truly are: there is nothing whatsoever that can be cut, since it is originally, from the outset, pure. This is set out at length in the sūtra. Further, as for all the gates of cutting affliction belonging to the three vehicles and the rest, set out earlier: if one hindrance is every hindrance and cutting one is cutting all, then this belongs to that which lies beyond them; but if one follows the sequential order of the gates, this is the three vehicles and the like. This is spoken with reference to the One Vehicle as its own Separate Teaching. If one speaks with reference to the inclusion of skillful means, then everything explained in the earlier teachings is gathered into this very teaching, since they are precisely its own skillful means, and its own point of origin and reference. The remaining points should be understood accordingly. The gate on eliminating affliction is hereby concluded.
The four accounts move from latest to earliest — the Ten Grounds, then the Ten Abodes, then the very first stirring of the Ten Faiths, then, finally, no moment at all, since nothing was ever unclean to begin with. Read together with the closing paragraph on the Separate and Common Teachings, this is Fazang's own summary judgment on everything Parts 17–20 have covered: every one of the abhidharma schedules, exegetical devices, and even the Sudden Teaching's dissolution of the whole problem is true and valid on its own terms, as a skillful means — and every one of them is also, from the Perfect Teaching's vantage, already gathered inside the single, undivided act of cutting one affliction and thereby cutting all. This closes gate nine's sixth sub-topic. Parts 21–23 take up its remaining three: whether the two vehicles ever turn their aspiration toward buddhahood, what buddhahood itself consists in, and how far a buddha's own domain extends.