Six Answers to Whether the Two Vehicles Turn Back
Do Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas Ever Aspire to Buddhahood?二乘迴心
Gate Nine's seventh sub-topic asks a question the whole edifice of the Five Teachings has been circling since Part 10's lineage debate: once a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha has entered nirvāṇa, is that truly the end of the story, or does something in them eventually turn back toward the vaster aspiration of a bodhisattva? Fazang lays out six answers, ranging from a flat no, through an elaborate kalpa-by-kalpa timetable keyed to the Laṅkāvatāra and Nirvāṇa Sūtras, to the One Vehicle's own claim that the question dissolves once looked at correctly.
The Text
Answers One and Two — Never, or Always
斷惑門竟。第七二乘迴心者。有六種說。一或一切二乘皆無迴心。以更無餘求故。如小乘中說。
The gate on eliminating affliction is concluded. Seventh, on the two vehicles turning their aspiration: there are six accounts. First, some say that all of the two vehicles never turn their aspiration at all, since they have nothing further left to seek — so it is said within the Hīnayāna.
二或一切二乘皆迴心。以悉有佛性力為內熏因故。如來大悲力外緣不捨故。根本無明猶未盡故。小乘涅槃不究竟故。是故一切無不迴心向大菩提也。此約終教說。
Second, some say that all of the two vehicles turn their aspiration, without exception. This is because every one of them possesses the power of buddha-nature, serving as the internal cause that permeates from within; because the tathāgata's power of great compassion, as an external condition, never abandons them; because their root ignorance is not yet exhausted; and because the nirvāṇa of the Hīnayāna is not ultimate. For these reasons, there is not one among them who fails to turn their aspiration toward great bodhi. This is spoken according to the Final Teaching.
An Objection: What Survives Nirvāṇa Without Remainder?
問如瑜伽顯揚論說諸識成熟及不成熟中四句內聲聞獨覺入無餘依涅槃者。阿賴耶識及諸轉識俱不成熟。既本識轉識皆滅無餘。後生心以何為因。無因而生果不應理故。
Question: The Yogācārabhūmi and the Mahāyānābhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā, in their four-part account of the consciousnesses' ripening and non-ripening, say that when a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha enters nirvāṇa without remainder, the storehouse consciousness together with all the transforming consciousnesses alike become unripened. But if the root consciousness and the transforming consciousnesses are all thereby extinguished without remainder, then, when a mind later arises again, what could possibly serve as its cause? For it is unreasonable that an effect should arise without any cause at all.
答彼論依始教門。引小乘故。所立賴耶行相麁顯。不從真起。故說有滅。又為順小乘故亦許彼涅槃非不究竟。故說入已不復起也。今約終教中就實而說。既以根本無明熏如來藏成梨耶識。彼二乘人。於此二法既俱未斷證。何因得滅阿賴耶識。又由於彼無斷證故。所得涅槃豈為究竟。化城同喻應便有失。又由上四因故得生心也。
Answer: That treatise speaks according to the gate of the Initial Teaching, in order to draw the Hīnayāna onward, and so it establishes the storehouse consciousness's mode of activity as coarse and manifest, not arising from suchness itself — hence it speaks of it as being extinguished. And, in order to accord with the Hīnayāna, it also allows that their nirvāṇa is not other than ultimate, and so says that, once entered, it does not arise again. Speaking now to the matter as it truly is, according to the Final Teaching: since root ignorance permeates the tathāgatagarbha and thereby forms the storehouse consciousness, and since these two vehicles have, with respect to both of these dharmas, neither cut them off nor realized them — by what cause could the storehouse consciousness possibly be extinguished? And, moreover, precisely because they have neither cut off nor realized these, how could the nirvāṇa they attain be ultimate? Were it otherwise, the very simile of the phantom city would itself be at fault. And it is, moreover, owing to the four causes given above that a mind is able to arise again in them.
The "phantom city" is the Lotus Sūtra's own image for exactly this problem: a caravan leader, seeing his party exhausted on a long road, conjures a magnificent illusory city as a resting-place, then dissolves it once they have recovered, so that they will continue on to the real destination. The Hīnayāna nirvāṇa a śrāvaka reaches is, on the Final Teaching's reading, precisely such a phantom city — real enough to rest in, but never the intended endpoint. If that nirvāṇa really were final and without remainder, the simile would be pointless, since there would be no further road left to walk. The four causes named just above this passage — buddha-nature already present, the buddha's compassion never withdrawn, root ignorance not yet exhausted, and the incompleteness of that rest itself — are what keep the road open.
How Long the Turning Takes — Kalpas by the Thousand
問如生心迴向時分齊云何。答由根不等故去有遲疾。遲者經劫乃起故。楞伽云。味著三昧樂。安住無漏界。無有究竟趣。亦復不退還。得諸三昧身。乃至劫不覺。譬如昏醉人酒消然後覺。彼覺法亦然。得佛無上身。
Question: As for the precise timing of a mind's arising again and turning toward the Mahāyāna, what is its boundary? Answer: Because faculties are unequal, the departure from this quiescence comes slowly for some and quickly for others; for the slow, it takes entire kalpas before this mind arises. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says: "Relishing and attached to the bliss of samādhi, dwelling securely within the undefiled realm — there is, in this, no ultimate destination reached, yet neither is there any regressing from it. Having attained bodies of these samādhis, one remains, for kalpas on end, unaware — just as one deep in drunken stupor awakens only once the wine has worn off. The awakening of that dharma is likewise so: one thereby attains the unsurpassed body of a buddha."
解云。此文但總相說。若差別說者。隨其利鈍各別經時皆到阿耨菩提心位。如涅槃經云。須陀洹人亦復不定故。經八萬劫即能得到阿耨菩提心。乃至云。獨覺經十千劫。得到阿耨菩提之心。
Explanation: This passage speaks only in general terms. If one speaks of the distinctions in detail, then, according to whether one's faculties are sharp or dull, each takes its own separate span of time before arriving at the mind of anuttarā bodhi. As the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says: "The stream-enterer, too, is not fixed in duration — after eighty thousand kalpas he is able to arrive at the mind of anuttarā bodhi," going on to say that the pratyekabuddha, after ten thousand kalpas, arrives at the mind of anuttarā bodhi.
解云。此明最鈍須陀洹人受七生已方入涅槃滅心心法。如入滅定。復經八萬劫乃得生心。受佛教化即發菩提心。若於一身得第二果受二生已即入涅槃。經六萬劫即能發心。若於一身得第三果不還欲界即入涅槃。經四萬劫即得發心。若於一身得阿羅漢即現入滅定。經二萬劫即能發心。若獨覺根利經一萬劫便能發心。此五人發心之時。即入十信菩薩位。方名發阿耨菩提心。
Explanation: This makes clear that the dullest stream-enterer, only after undergoing seven more births, finally enters nirvāṇa and extinguishes mind and its mental factors, as though entering the cessation-attainment; and only after a further eighty thousand kalpas does a mind arise again in him, whereupon, receiving the buddha's teaching and transformation, he arouses the mind of bodhi. If, within a single lifetime, one attains the second fruit and, after two more births, enters nirvāṇa, then after sixty thousand kalpas one is able to arouse this mind. If, within a single lifetime, one attains the third fruit, no longer returning to the desire realm, and enters nirvāṇa, then after forty thousand kalpas one arouses this mind. If, within a single lifetime, one attains arhatship and directly enters the cessation-attainment, then after twenty thousand kalpas one is able to arouse this mind. If a pratyekabuddha is of sharp faculties, after ten thousand kalpas he too is able to arouse it. At the moment these five kinds of persons arouse this mind, they enter straightaway into the position of a bodhisattva of the Ten Faiths — only then is it properly called arousing the mind of anuttarā bodhi.
The arithmetic is deliberately vivid rather than precise: eighty thousand kalpas for the dullest stream-enterer, sixty thousand for a once-returner, forty thousand for a non-returner, twenty thousand for an arhat, ten thousand for a sharp-faculty pratyekabuddha — a descending scale that rewards higher attainment within the Hīnayāna with a shorter wait before turning toward the Mahāyāna, on the logic that a more advanced fruit already required more of the very faculties the turn will draw on. What all five have in common is the destination: the very first rung of the bodhisattva path, the Ten Faiths, no further along for a lifelong arhat than for a barely-attained stream-enterer. Centuries of practice within the Hīnayāna purchase, on this reckoning, no head start at all within the Mahāyāna.
A Second Reading of the Timeline
又有義。前五人從凡得小果入涅槃後起迴心修十信行。信滿心已堪入十住初發心住已來。隨根利鈍各經彼劫。未必一向在涅槃中經爾許劫也。如直往人既經一萬劫修行滿足堪能發心。彼獨覺人根最利故。亦似直往人經一萬劫。餘四鈍根。又差別故時多別也。
There is, further, another interpretation: that these five kinds of persons, having attained a Hīnayāna fruit as ordinary beings and entered nirvāṇa, afterward arouse the turning of aspiration and cultivate the practice of the Ten Faiths; and that only once the mind of faith is complete are they capable of entering the Ten Abodes, from the initial abode of arousing the aspiration onward — each, according to whether his faculties are sharp or dull, taking that same span of kalpas. It need not be, on this reading, that the entire span of kalpas is spent residing continuously within nirvāṇa itself. Just as one who advances directly completes ten thousand kalpas of cultivation before being capable of arousing this mind — since the pratyekabuddha's faculties are the sharpest of the five, he too resembles the one who advances directly in taking ten thousand kalpas; the remaining four, being of duller faculties, differ accordingly, and so their spans of time differ greatly as well.
The disagreement between the two readings is exactly about where the clock starts. On the first, the kalpa-count measures dormancy — how long an arhat or stream-enterer lies absorbed in nirvāṇa's own bliss before a mind stirs again at all. On the second, it measures the cultivation of the Ten Faiths itself, begun promptly after the turn but requiring that same span of time to complete, faculty by faculty. Fazang records both without adjudicating between them, true to this treatise's general habit of presenting live scholarly disagreements as disagreements rather than resolving every one.
The Swiftest Case — the Lotus Sūtra's Hidden Buddha-Vehicle
上來明遲者。若極疾者如法華經云。我滅度後復有弟子。不聞是經不知不覺菩薩所行。自於所得功德。生滅度想當入涅槃。我於餘國作佛更有異名。是人雖生滅度之想入於涅槃。而於彼土求佛智慧得聞此經。唯以佛乘而得滅度。更無餘乘。除諸如來方便說法。此上並約終教說。
All of the above explains the case of those who are slow. As for the very swiftest, the Lotus Sūtra says: "After my extinction there will be disciples who, not having heard this sūtra, do not know and do not perceive the bodhisattva's own practice, and who, with respect to the merit they themselves have attained, form the notion of having reached extinction, and are about to enter nirvāṇa. Yet I, in another land, having become a buddha under yet another name — though this person has formed the notion of extinction and entered nirvāṇa, in that other land he will seek the buddha's wisdom and come to hear this very sūtra. It is by the buddha vehicle alone that extinction is truly attained; there is no other vehicle at all, apart from the various skillful means by which the tathāgatas expound the Dharma." All of this above is spoken according to the Final Teaching.
Against the eighty-thousand-kalpa dormancy of the slowest stream-enterer, this citation supplies the opposite extreme: a disciple who believes, in this very life, that he has already reached final nirvāṇa — and is, without knowing it, already on his way to hearing the Lotus Sūtra itself in another buddha's land under another buddha's name. The swiftness is not a matter of faculty at all, but of the buddha's own reach extending past the boundary of a single world-system to meet a disciple exactly where his own understanding believes the story has already ended.
Four More Answers — Some Turn, Neither, Both, or All at Once
三或一切二乘亦迴亦不迴。謂決定種性者趣寂不迴。不定種性者並迴向大。如瑜伽聲聞決擇中說。此約始教引二乘說。四或非迴非不迴。以離相故。如文殊般若等說。此終頓教說。五或合具前四說。以是大法方便故。此約一乘攝方便說。
Third, some say that among all of the two vehicles, some turn and some do not: those of fixed lineage head toward quiescence and do not turn, while those of indeterminate lineage all turn their aspiration toward the Greater Vehicle. So it is set out in the Yogācārabhūmi's discernment concerning śrāvakas. This is spoken according to the Initial Teaching, in order to draw the two vehicles onward. Fourth, some say that it is neither turning nor not turning, since it is apart from any such mark. So the Mañjuśrī Prajñāpāramitā and the like say. This is spoken according to the Final and Sudden Teachings. Fifth, some say that all four of the preceding accounts are held together at once, since they are, all of them, skillful means of the Great Dharma. This is spoken with reference to the One Vehicle's own inclusion of skillful means.
The Sixth Answer — Already Empty, or Already Complete
六或俱絕前五。此有二種。一一切二乘悉無所迴。以望一乘皆即空無可迴也。如經中如聾如盲者是。二一切二乘等並已迴竟。更不復迴。如經中以普賢眼見一切眾生皆已究竟者是。此並約一乘別教說。
Sixth, some say that all five of the preceding accounts alike are cut off. This has two aspects. First, that none of the two vehicles turn their aspiration at all, since, seen from the vantage of the One Vehicle, they are all already empty, with nothing whatsoever left to turn — as when scripture speaks of them as being like the deaf and like the blind. Second, that all of the two vehicles have, without exception, already completed their turning, and turn no further — as when scripture speaks of seeing, with Samantabhadra's own eye, that all sentient beings have already reached the ultimate. Both of these are spoken with reference to the One Vehicle as its own Separate Teaching.
The sixth answer's two halves sound flatly contradictory — no one turns at all, versus everyone has already finished turning — and that is exactly the point. Both statements are refusals of the same thing: the picture, shared by answers one through five, of a definite event called "turning" that some beings undergo and others do not, located at some point along a timeline. "Like the deaf and like the blind" denies that any two-vehicle being, truly seen, is other than empty of the very fixed identity that would need to turn; "already seen as complete through Samantabhadra's eye" denies it from the opposite side, by declaring the turning already, eternally, accomplished. Neither half is a report about when a mind arises; both are refusals to grant the question its premise.
The One Vehicle's Own Turning — Six Thousand Monks Before Mañjuśrī
問如一乘攝方便中迴心。與三乘中迴心所得法門分齊云何。答若三乘中迴心即入十信已去。順行菩提心及大悲等法門。次第而去。若一乘中如下文。舍利弗及因陀羅慧比丘等六千人。於文殊師利邊。迴心即得十大法門及十眼十耳等境界。義當即是解行身遍於五位法也。餘義如別處說。
Question: What is the boundary between the dharma-gate attained by turning one's aspiration within the three vehicles, and that attained by turning one's aspiration within the One Vehicle's own inclusion of skillful means? Answer: Within the three vehicles, turning one's aspiration means entering the Ten Faiths and beyond, advancing in sequence through the dharma-gates of bodhicitta, great compassion, and the rest, stage after stage. Within the One Vehicle, as a later passage of this very text relates, Śāriputra and the six thousand monks led by Indrabuddhi, upon turning their aspiration in the presence of Mañjuśrī, at once attained the ten great dharma-gates, together with the domain of the ten eyes, the ten ears, and the rest — which is to say, precisely a body of understanding and practice pervading the five positions all at once. The remaining points are explained elsewhere.
The contrast closing this sub-topic restates, in miniature, the entire distinction between the three vehicles and the One Vehicle that opened this treatise: gradual, sequential advance through the Ten Faiths and beyond, against the One Vehicle's instantaneous attainment of a "body of understanding and practice pervading the five positions" all at once — the same doctrine already met in this treatise's account of the stages and positions, where a single position was shown to already contain every other. Śāriputra's own turning here is worth noting for readers of the Lotus Sūtra: the very disciple whom that scripture spends an entire chapter reassuring and predicting toward buddhahood is shown here turning again, this time before Mañjuśrī, and receiving in an instant what the gradual path would otherwise unfold across countless stages.