Nothing Is Fixed
Bright Virtuous King presses the sūtra's own claim that even the icchantika possesses buddha-nature: if so, why do they still fall to hell? The Buddha's answer becomes this fascicle's governing principle — nothing is ever fixed, not an icchantika's fate, not a crime, not even the Tathāgata's own nature, unpacked through a vast catalogue of what the Buddha both is and is not. The fascicle then turns practical, teaching a bodhisattva how to guard the five senses against every distraction, temptation, and evil companionship that could sever this hard-won understanding.
What the Two Lesser Vehicles Never Heard
◎善男子！云何菩薩摩訶薩修大涅槃不聞而聞？十二部經其義深邃，昔來不聞，今因是經，得具足聞。先雖得聞，唯聞名字，而今於此大涅槃經，乃得聞義。聲聞緣覺唯聞十二部經名字，不聞其義，今於此經具足得聞，是名不聞而聞。善男子！一切聲聞緣覺經中，不曾聞佛有常樂我淨、不畢竟滅，三寶佛性無差別相，犯四重罪、謗方等經、作五逆罪及一闡提悉有佛性，今於此經而得聞之，是名不聞而聞。」
"Good son, how does the bodhisattva-mahāsattva who cultivates this great nirvāṇa hear what he has not heard? The twelve divisions of scripture are, in their meaning, very deep and profound — never heard before, and now, through this very sūtra, one comes to hear them in full. Though one may have heard them before, one heard only their names, and it is only now, in this great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, that one comes to hear their actual meaning. The śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha have heard only the names of the twelve divisions of scripture, never their meaning — and now, in this very sūtra, they come to hear it in full. This is what is meant by hearing what one has not heard. Good son, in every scripture of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha, one has never heard that the Buddha possesses permanence, bliss, self, and purity, and never, in the end, is extinguished; that the Three Jewels and buddha-nature bear no mark of difference between them; and that one who transgresses the four gravest offenses, slanders the Vaipulya teachings, commits one of the five gravest offenses, or is an icchantika, still possesses buddha-nature all the same — and now, in this very sūtra, one comes to hear this. This is what is meant by hearing what one has not heard."
Huiyuan reads this short passage as completing the "hearing what was not heard" merit from Part 21 by applying it specifically to buddha-nature and the icchantika question, distinguishing three progressively deeper senses in which something can be "unheard": never encountered at all, encountered only as a bare name without its meaning, and — the deepest case — encountered as a name whose meaning the two lesser vehicles' own scriptures never actually disclose. It is this third, most provocative claim (that even the icchantika possesses buddha-nature) that immediately draws Bright Virtuous King's sharpest challenge yet, opening the fascicle's central argument.
If They Have Buddha-Nature, Why Hell?
光明遍照高貴德王菩薩摩訶薩白佛言：「世尊！若犯重禁、謗方等經、作五逆罪、一闡提等，有佛性者，是等云何復墮地獄？世尊！若使是等有佛性者，云何復言無常樂我淨？世尊！若斷善根名一闡提者，斷善根時所有佛性云何不斷？佛性若斷，云何復言常樂我淨？如其不斷，何故名為一闡提耶？世尊！犯四重禁名為不定，謗方等經、作五逆罪及一闡提悉名不定，如是等輩若決定者，云何得成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提？得須陀洹乃至辟支佛亦名不定，若須陀洹至辟支佛是決定者，亦不應成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提？世尊！若犯四重不決定者，須陀洹乃至辟支佛亦不決定，如是不定，諸佛如來亦復不定；若佛不定，涅槃體性亦復不定，至一切法亦復不定。云何不定？若一闡提除一闡提，則成佛道。諸佛如來亦應如是，入涅槃已，亦應還出，不入涅槃。若如是者，涅槃之性則為不定，不決定故當知無有常樂我淨，云何說言一闡提等當得涅槃？」
The bodhisattva-mahāsattva Bright Virtuous King of Universal Illumination said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, should one who transgresses the gravest precepts, slanders the Vaipulya teachings, commits one of the five gravest offenses, or is an icchantika, still possess buddha-nature, how, then, could such a person still fall into hell? World-Honored One, should such a person truly possess buddha-nature, how, then, can it still be said that he lacks permanence, bliss, self, and purity? World-Honored One, should one who severs his own wholesome roots be named an icchantika, why, then, at the very moment his wholesome roots are severed, is his own buddha-nature not severed along with them? Should buddha-nature itself be severed, how, then, can it still be said to be permanence, bliss, self, and purity? And should it not be severed, why, then, is he named an icchantika at all? World-Honored One, transgressing the four gravest offenses is said to be indeterminate; slandering the Vaipulya teachings, committing one of the five gravest offenses, and being an icchantika are all likewise said to be indeterminate — but should people of this kind be fixed and determinate, how could they ever attain unsurpassed, complete awakening? And the attainment of stream-entry, up through the path of the pratyekabuddha, is likewise said to be indeterminate — but should the stream-enterer, up through the pratyekabuddha, be fixed and determinate, then they, too, should be unable to attain unsurpassed, complete awakening. World-Honored One, should transgressing the four gravest offenses be indeterminate, then the stream-enterer, up through the pratyekabuddha, must likewise be indeterminate — and, being indeterminate in this way, every buddha, every tathāgata, must likewise be indeterminate; and, should the Buddha himself be indeterminate, the very substance and nature of nirvāṇa, too, must be indeterminate, and, indeed, every single dharma must be indeterminate as well. How is this indeterminacy to be understood? Should an icchantika be able to remove his own icchantika-hood, he thereby accomplishes the buddha-path — and every buddha, every tathāgata, should likewise, having entered nirvāṇa, be able to emerge from it once again, rather than remaining permanently within it. Should this be so, then the very nature of nirvāṇa is indeterminate — and, being indeterminate, one should know that it possesses no permanence, bliss, self, or purity at all. How, then, can it be said that the icchantika and the rest shall ever attain nirvāṇa?"
Huiyuan isolates three distinct arguments compressed into Bright Virtuous King's challenge, each attacking the icchantika-buddha-nature teaching from a different angle: first, an argument from observed consequence — buddha-nature, being wholesome, should logically block rebirth in hell, so continued rebirth there proves its absence; second, an argument from incompatible qualities — buddha-nature is defined as permanence, bliss, self, and purity, so a being visibly lacking all four cannot coherently be said to possess it; and third, and most technical, an argument from the very definition of "icchantika" itself — since severing wholesome roots is what constitutes an icchantika, and buddha-nature counts as a wholesome root, either it is severed along with the rest (making the "eternal" buddha-nature not eternal after all) or it is not severed (making the very term "icchantika," which implies total severance, incoherent). He then reads the objection's second half — deploying "indeterminacy," a term the sūtra itself has already used approvingly elsewhere, as ammunition against the sūtra's own teaching — as a genuinely sophisticated move: if nothing is fixed, this cuts both ways, threatening to make even the Buddha's own nirvāṇa an unstable, reversible state rather than a secure attainment.
Huiyuan flags that the Buddha's coming answer addresses only the third of the three opening arguments directly (the severing-of-wholesome-roots puzzle) — the first (rebirth in hell) he treats as already answered by material this collection covered in Part 16's treatment of the icchantika's total absence of the five spiritual faculties, and the second (incompatible qualities) as properly belonging to the later 師子吼菩薩品, where the sūtra takes up buddha-nature's own precise relationship to visible qualities at far greater length. He also flags, before Bright Virtuous King's own closing acknowledgment later in this fascicle, that the Buddha praises the king lavishly before answering — noting his own long history of having asked this identical question of countless past buddhas already, framing the coming answer as a teaching whose depth matches an inquiry no one else present is equipped to have raised.
Nothing Is Fixed, Except in Nirvāṇa
爾時世尊告光明遍照高貴德王菩薩摩訶薩言：「善哉，善哉！善男子！為欲利益無量眾生令得安樂，憐愍慈念諸世間故，為欲增長發菩提心諸菩薩故，作如是問。……善男子！一闡提者亦不決定，若決定者，是一闡提終不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提；以不決定，是故能得。如汝所言，佛性不斷，云何一闡提斷善根者？善男子！善根有二種：一者內，二者外。佛性非內非外，以是義故，佛性不斷。復有二種：一者有漏，二者無漏。佛性非有漏，非無漏，是故不斷。復有二種：一者常，二者無常。佛性非常，非無常，是故不斷。若是斷者，則應還得，若不還得，則名不斷，若斷已得，名一闡提。犯四重者亦是不定，若決定者，犯四重禁終不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。謗方等經亦復不定，若決定者，謗正法人終不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。作五逆罪亦復不定，若決定者，五逆之人終不能得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。色與色相二俱不定，香、味、觸相，生相、至無明相，陰入界相、二十五有相、四生，乃至一切諸法，皆亦不定。」
At that time, the World-Honored One said to the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Bright Virtuous King of Universal Illumination: "Excellent, excellent, good son! You have asked this question for the sake of benefiting immeasurable beings and bringing them peace, out of compassion and loving concern for every world, and for the sake of strengthening every bodhisattva who has given rise to the bodhi-mind… Good son, the icchantika, too, is not fixed and determinate — should he be fixed and determinate, this icchantika could never, in the end, attain unsurpassed, complete awakening; it is precisely because he is not fixed and determinate that he is able to attain it. As you yourself have said, buddha-nature is not severed — how, then, can an icchantika be one who severs his own wholesome roots? Good son, wholesome roots are of two kinds: internal, and external. Buddha-nature is neither internal nor external — it is for this very reason that it is not severed. There are, further, two kinds: subject to outflow, and free of outflow. Buddha-nature is neither subject to outflow nor free of it — it is for this reason that it is not severed. There are, further, two kinds: permanent, and impermanent. Buddha-nature is neither permanent nor impermanent — it is for this reason that it is not severed. Should something truly be severed, it must be capable of being regained; and should it not be regained, this shows that it was never, in fact, severed at all — it is only once what was severed has been regained that one is named an icchantika. Transgressing the four gravest offenses, too, is indeterminate — should it be fixed and determinate, one who transgresses these four gravest offenses could never, in the end, attain unsurpassed, complete awakening. Slandering the Vaipulya teachings, too, is indeterminate — should it be fixed and determinate, one who slanders the true Dharma could never, in the end, attain unsurpassed, complete awakening. Committing one of the five gravest offenses, too, is indeterminate — should it be fixed and determinate, one guilty of one of the five gravest offenses could never, in the end, attain unsurpassed, complete awakening. Form and the mark of form are both, likewise, indeterminate; and so, too, are the marks of fragrance, flavor, and touch; the marks running from birth to ignorance; the marks of the aggregates, the sense-fields, and the elements; the mark of the twenty-five states of existence; the four modes of birth; and so on, up through every single dharma — every one of these, likewise, is indeterminate."
「善男子！譬如幻師，在大眾中化作四兵，車、步、象、馬，作諸瓔珞嚴身之具，城邑聚落、山林樹木、泉池河井。而彼眾中，有諸小兒，無有智慧，覩見之時，悉以為實。其中智人知其虛誑，以幻力故，惑人眼目。善男子！一切凡夫乃至聲聞辟支佛等，於一切法，見有定相亦復如是。諸佛菩薩於一切法不見定相。善男子！譬如小兒於盛夏月，見熱時焰，謂之為水。有智之人，於此熱焰，終不生於實水之想，但是虛焰誑人眼目，非實是水。一切凡夫聲聞緣覺見一切法，亦復如是，悉謂是實。諸佛菩薩於一切法不見定相。善男子！譬如山澗因聲有響，小兒聞之謂是實聲。有智之人解無定實，但有聲相，誑於耳識。善男子！一切凡夫聲聞緣覺於一切法，亦復如是，見有定相。諸菩薩等解了諸法，悉無定相，見無常相、空寂等相、無生滅相，以是義故，菩薩摩訶薩見一切法是無常相。善男子！亦有定相。云何為定？常樂我淨。在何處耶？所謂涅槃。善男子！須陀洹果亦復不定，不決定故，經八萬劫，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。斯陀含果亦復不定，不決定故，經六萬劫得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。阿那含果亦復不定，不決定故，經四萬劫得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。阿羅漢果亦復不定，不決定故，經二萬劫得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。辟支佛道亦復不定，不決定故，經十千劫得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。」
"Good son, it is like an illusionist who, within a great assembly, conjures four kinds of troops — chariots, foot soldiers, elephants, and cavalry — and every kind of ornament for adorning the body, and cities, towns, and villages, mountains, forests, and trees, and springs, ponds, rivers, and wells. Among that very assembly, there are small children, lacking any wisdom, who, upon seeing all this, take every bit of it to be real; while the wise among them know it to be an empty deception, the illusionist's own power merely confusing the eyes of onlookers. Good son, every ordinary being, and even the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha, is exactly the same, seeing a fixed mark in every dharma — but every buddha and bodhisattva sees no fixed mark in any dharma at all. Good son, it is like a small child who, in the height of summer, sees a mirage in the heat and takes it to be water; a person of wisdom, seeing this same mirage, never gives rise to the notion of real water in it, knowing it to be nothing but an empty shimmer, deceiving the eyes, and not truly water at all. Every ordinary being, śrāvaka, and pratyekabuddha, seeing every dharma, is exactly the same, taking every one of them to be real — but every buddha and bodhisattva sees no fixed mark in any dharma at all. Good son, it is like a mountain ravine, whose echo arises on account of a sound — a small child, hearing it, takes it to be a real sound; a person of wisdom understands that it has no fixed reality at all, being nothing but the mark of a sound, deceiving the faculty of hearing. Good son, every ordinary being, śrāvaka, and pratyekabuddha, with regard to every dharma, is exactly the same, seeing a fixed mark within it — but every bodhisattva understands every dharma fully, and sees that none of them has any fixed mark at all, seeing instead the mark of impermanence, the mark of emptiness and stillness, and the mark of neither arising nor ceasing; it is for this very reason that the bodhisattva-mahāsattva sees every dharma as bearing the mark of impermanence. Good son, and yet there is, indeed, a fixed mark. What is this fixed mark? Permanence, bliss, self, and purity. And where is it found? Namely, in nirvāṇa. Good son, the fruit of stream-entry, too, is indeterminate — and, being indeterminate, after eighty thousand kalpas, one comes to give rise to the mind of unsurpassed, complete awakening. The fruit of once-returning, too, is indeterminate — and, being indeterminate, after sixty thousand kalpas, one comes to give rise to this same mind. The fruit of non-returning, too, is indeterminate — and, being indeterminate, after forty thousand kalpas, one comes to give rise to this same mind. The fruit of arhatship, too, is indeterminate — and, being indeterminate, after twenty thousand kalpas, one comes to give rise to this same mind. And the path of the pratyekabuddha, too, is indeterminate — and, being indeterminate, after ten thousand kalpas, one comes to give rise to this same mind."
Huiyuan reads the Buddha's core answer as resolving Bright Virtuous King's severing-of-wholesome-roots puzzle through three successive pairs, each showing buddha-nature to fall on neither side of a dichotomy that does apply to ordinary wholesome roots: wholesome roots are internal (mental) or external (bodily/verbal) — buddha-nature is neither, and so shares neither category's vulnerability to severance; wholesome roots are tainted or untainted — buddha-nature is neither; wholesome roots are conditioned-permanent or impermanent in the ordinary sense — buddha-nature is neither. His sharpest gloss is on the closing test for "severed": anything genuinely severable must, in principle, be capable of being regained later (since severance is itself a temporary event, reversible by further cultivation) — and it is precisely this capacity for eventual recovery that "icchantika" names, on his reading, not an actual, permanent loss of buddha-nature but the temporary absence of every other wholesome root that would otherwise let it manifest. The term "icchantika" describes the interval before recovery, not a different metaphysical category of being.
On the three similes of illusion (conjured armies, a summer mirage, a mountain echo), Huiyuan reads these as illustrating three distinct ways ordinary beings mistake appearance for fixed reality — an illusionist's own deliberate craft deceiving the eye, a natural phenomenon (heat distortion) deceiving the eye without any deceiver's intent behind it, and a purely auditory case (an echo) deceiving the ear rather than the eye — together covering the full range of sensory misapprehension the sūtra wants to indict as "seeing a fixed mark" where none exists. His point in flagging the passage's own concession — "and yet there is, indeed, a fixed mark: permanence, bliss, self, and purity, found in nirvāṇa" — is that "nothing is fixed" was never meant as a universal solvent dissolving every claim whatsoever; it is precisely because everything else is indeterminate that nirvāṇa's own fixed, unconditioned nature stands out as the one genuine exception, which is also, not coincidentally, the fixed point Bright Virtuous King's own closing argument tried to threaten by extending "indeterminacy" to the Buddha's nirvāṇa itself — a move the fascicle's next section answers directly.
Is the Tathāgata a God?
「善男子！如來今於拘尸那城娑羅雙樹間，示現倚臥師子之床，欲入涅槃，令諸未得阿羅漢果眾弟子等，及諸力士，生大憂苦，亦令天、人、阿修羅、乾闥婆、迦樓羅、緊那羅、摩睺羅伽等大設供養，欲使諸人以千端疊纏裹其身，七寶為棺盛滿香油，積諸香木以火焚之，唯除二端不可得燒：一者儭身，二最在外。為諸眾生分散舍利，以為八分。一切所有聲聞弟子，咸言如來入於涅槃，當知如來亦不畢定入於涅槃。何以故？如來常住不變易故，以是義故，如來涅槃亦復不定。善男子！當知如來亦復不定。如來非天。何以故？有四種天：一者世間天、二者生天、三者淨天、四者義天。世間天者如諸國王；生天者從四天王乃至非有想非無想天；淨天者從須陀洹至辟支佛；義天者十住菩薩摩訶薩等。以何義故，十住菩薩名為義天？以能善解諸法義故。云何為義？見一切法是空義故。善男子！如來非王，亦非四天乃至非有想非無想天、從須陀洹至辟支佛、十住菩薩，以是義故，如來非天。然諸眾生亦復稱佛為天中天，是故如來非天、非非天，非人、非非人，非鬼、非非鬼，非地獄畜生餓鬼、非非地獄畜生餓鬼，非眾生、非非眾生，非法、非非法，非色、非非色，非長、非非長，非短、非非短，非相、非非相，非心、非非心，非有漏、非無漏，非有為、非無為，非常、非無常，非幻、非非幻，非名、非非名，非定、非非定，非有、非無，非說、非非說，非如來、非不如來，以是義故，如來不定。」
"Good son, the Tathāgata now, among the twin sāla trees at the city of Kuśinagara, manifests himself reclining upon a lion's own couch, about to enter nirvāṇa — causing every one of his disciples who has not yet attained arhatship, and every one of the strongmen present, to give rise to great grief and suffering, and causing every god, human, asura, gandharva, garuḍa, kinnara, and mahoraga to prepare great offerings; and about to cause everyone to wrap his own body in a thousand lengths of fine cloth, place it within a coffin of the seven treasures filled with fragrant oil, pile up fragrant wood, and cremate it with fire — with only two of these thousand lengths of cloth left unburned: the innermost, next to his own body, and the very outermost — and, for the sake of every being, his relics divided into eight portions. Every one of his śrāvaka disciples will together say that the Tathāgata has entered nirvāṇa — and yet you should know that the Tathāgata does not, in the end, actually enter nirvāṇa at all. Why is this? Because the Tathāgata is forever ever-abiding, unchanging — and it is for this very reason that the Tathāgata's own nirvāṇa, too, is indeterminate. Good son, you should know that the Tathāgata, too, is indeterminate. The Tathāgata is not a god. Why is this? There are four kinds of gods: the worldly god, the born god, the pure god, and the meaning god. The worldly god is like any king of a realm; the born god runs from the Four Heavenly Kings up through the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception; the pure god runs from the stream-enterer up through the pratyekabuddha; and the meaning god is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva of the ten abidings. For what reason is the bodhisattva of the ten abidings named the meaning god? Because he is able to understand well the meaning of every dharma. And what is this meaning? Seeing that every dharma bears the meaning of emptiness. Good son, the Tathāgata is not a king, nor is he any of the four kinds of gods — not the born god up through the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, not the pure god from the stream-enterer up through the pratyekabuddha, and not the meaning god, the bodhisattva of the ten abidings — it is for this very reason that the Tathāgata is not a god. And yet every being, too, calls the Buddha 'the god beyond gods' — it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is neither a god nor not a god, neither a human nor not a human, neither a spirit nor not a spirit, neither a denizen of hell, an animal, nor a hungry ghost, nor not one of these, neither a being nor not a being, neither a dharma nor not a dharma, neither form nor not form, neither long nor not long, neither short nor not short, neither marked nor unmarked, neither mind nor not mind, neither subject to outflow nor free of it, neither conditioned nor unconditioned, neither permanent nor impermanent, neither an illusion nor not an illusion, neither a name nor not a name, neither fixed nor unfixed, neither existent nor non-existent, neither spoken of nor unspoken of, and neither the Tathāgata nor not the Tathāgata — it is for this very reason that the Tathāgata is indeterminate."
Huiyuan reads the cremation scene's own careful detail — a thousand lengths of cloth burned entirely except the innermost and outermost — as bearing a double meaning worth preserving rather than passed over as ritual color: read literally, the inner cloth survives to keep the relics clean and the outer to shield the ash from the surrounding dirt; read symbolically, the pair signals that the Tathāgata remains, at once, untouched by any outer defilement and inwardly ever-pure — or, on a further reading, that his true body (the Dharma-body) and his manifested body (the form seen by the assembly) both persist even through what looks, to an unenlightened onlooker, like total extinction. This entire elaborate death-scene, staged here as something about to happen, functions as the concrete referent for "the Tathāgata's own nirvāṇa is indeterminate" — the assembled śrāvakas will call this event "nirvāṇa," and, at one level, they will be right; and yet, because the Tathāgata is ever-abiding and unchanging, they will also, at a deeper level, be describing something that never actually occurred as an ending at all.
On the four kinds of heaven, Huiyuan cross-references the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's own terminology: the "worldly god" (kings and rulers, godlike only by social convention), and what that same text groups together as simply "pure gods" (a category Huiyuan's own source splits further into the "pure god" proper — the noble ones from stream-entry through pratyekabuddhahood, pure through their own attainment — and the "meaning god" — bodhisattvas of the ten abidings, distinguished not by purity of conduct alone but by penetrating insight into the meaning, specifically the emptiness, of every dharma). The Tathāgata is none of these four, and yet beings rightly call him "god beyond gods" — which is exactly the move repeated, Huiyuan notes, across every one of the roughly twenty pairs that follow: each pair denies two opposite, equally mistaken ways of fixing the Tathāgata's nature to a single category, whether that category seems to elevate him (a god) or merely describe him factually (a being, a mind, a name).
Neither This Nor That
「善男子！何故如來不名世天？世天者即是諸王，如來久於無量劫中已捨王位，是故非王。非非王者，如來生於迦毘羅城淨飯王家，是故非非王。非生天者，如來久已離諸有故，是故非生天。非非生天。何以故？昇兜率天，下閻浮提故，是故如來非非生天。亦非淨天。何以故？如來非是須陀洹乃至非辟支佛，是故如來非是淨天。非非淨天。何以故？世間八法所不能染，猶如蓮花不受塵水，是故如來非非淨天。亦非義天。何以故？如來非是十住菩薩故，是故如來非義天也。非非義天。何以故？如來常修十八空義故，是故如來非非義天。如來非人。何以故？如來久於無量劫中離人有故，是故非人。亦非非人。何以故？生於迦毘羅城故，是故非非人。如來非鬼。何以故？不害一切諸眾生故，是故非鬼。亦非非鬼。何以故？亦以鬼像化眾生故，是故非非鬼。如來亦非地獄畜生餓鬼。何以故？如來久離諸惡業故，是故非地獄畜生餓鬼。亦非非地獄畜生餓鬼。何以故？如來亦復現受三惡諸趣之身，化眾生故，是故非非地獄畜生餓鬼。亦非眾生。何以故？久已遠離眾生性故，是故如來非眾生。亦非非眾生。何以故？或時演說眾生相故，是故如來非非眾生。」
「如來非法。何以故？諸法各各有別異相，如來不爾，唯有一相，是故非法。亦非非法。何以故？如來法界故，是故非非法。如來非色。何以故？十色入所不攝故，是故非色。亦非非色。何以故？身有三十二相、八十種好故，是故非非色。如來非長。何以故？斷諸色故，是故非長。亦非非長。何以故？一切世間無有能見頂髻相故，是故非非長。如來非短。何以故？久已遠離憍慢結故，是故非短。亦非非短，何以故？為瞿師羅長者示三尺身故，是故非非短。如來非相。何以故？久已遠離諸相相故，是故非相。亦非非相。何以故？善知諸相故，是故非非相。如來非心。何以故？虛空相故，是故非心。亦非非心。何以故？有十力心法故，亦能知他眾生心故，是故非非心。如來非有為。何以故？常樂我淨故，是故非有為。亦非無為。何以故？有來去坐臥示現涅槃故，是故非無為。」
"Good son, why is the Tathāgata not named a worldly god? A worldly god means precisely a king — and the Tathāgata, long ago, throughout immeasurable kalpas, already cast off his own royal throne; it is for this reason that he is not a king. And why is he not not a king? The Tathāgata was born into the household of King Śuddhodana at the city of Kapilavastu; it is for this reason that he is not not a king. Why is he not a born god? The Tathāgata has, long ago, already left behind every state of existence; it is for this reason that he is not a born god. And why is he not not a born god? Because he ascended to Tuṣita heaven and descended to Jambudvīpa; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not not a born god. Nor is he a pure god. Why is this? The Tathāgata is not a stream-enterer, nor even a pratyekabuddha; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not a pure god. And why is he not not a pure god? Because he cannot be stained by any of the eight worldly dharmas, just as a lotus flower is untouched by dust or water; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not not a pure god. Nor is he the meaning god. Why is this? The Tathāgata is not a bodhisattva of the ten abidings; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not the meaning god. And why is he not not the meaning god? Because the Tathāgata forever cultivates the meaning of the eighteen emptinesses; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not not the meaning god. The Tathāgata is not a human. Why is this? The Tathāgata, long ago, throughout immeasurable kalpas, has left behind the state of a human being; it is for this reason that he is not a human. And is he not not a human? He was born at the city of Kapilavastu; it is for this reason that he is not not a human. The Tathāgata is not a spirit. Why is this? Because he harms not a single being; it is for this reason that he is not a spirit. And is he not not a spirit? Because he also transforms himself into the form of a spirit in order to save beings; it is for this reason that he is not not a spirit. Nor is the Tathāgata a denizen of hell, an animal, or a hungry ghost. Why is this? The Tathāgata, long ago, left behind every evil karma; it is for this reason that he is none of these. Nor is he not one of these. Why is this? The Tathāgata, too, manifests himself receiving a body among the three evil destinies, in order to save beings; it is for this reason that he is not not one of these. Nor is he a being at all. Why is this? He has, long ago, left far behind the very nature of a being; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not a being. Nor is he not a being. Why is this? He sometimes expounds the very mark of a being; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata is not not a being."
"The Tathāgata is not a dharma. Why is this? Every dharma bears, each one, its own distinct mark of difference — the Tathāgata is not like this, possessing only a single mark; it is for this reason that he is not a dharma. Nor is he not a dharma. Why is this? Because the Tathāgata is himself the dharma-realm; it is for this reason that he is not not a dharma. The Tathāgata is not form. Why is this? He is not encompassed by any of the ten sense-fields of form; it is for this reason that he is not form. Nor is he not form. Why is this? His body possesses the thirty-two marks and eighty subsidiary signs; it is for this reason that he is not not form. The Tathāgata is not long. Why is this? He has severed every form entirely; it is for this reason that he is not long. Nor is he not not long. Why is this? No one in the entire world is able to see the very crown of his head; it is for this reason that he is not not long. The Tathāgata is not short. Why is this? He has, long ago, left far behind the fetter of arrogance; it is for this reason that he is not short. Nor is he not not short. Why is this? For the sake of the elder Gośāla, he manifested a body only three feet tall; it is for this reason that he is not not short. The Tathāgata is not marked. Why is this? He has, long ago, left far behind every mark of every kind; it is for this reason that he is not marked. Nor is he not marked. Why is this? Because he knows well every mark; it is for this reason that he is not unmarked. The Tathāgata is not mind. Why is this? He bears the mark of empty space itself; it is for this reason that he is not mind. Nor is he not mind. Why is this? He possesses the mental factor of the ten powers, and is able, further, to know the minds of every other being; it is for this reason that he is not without mind. The Tathāgata is not conditioned. Why is this? Because he possesses permanence, bliss, self, and purity; it is for this reason that he is not conditioned. Nor is he unconditioned. Why is this? He comes and goes, sits and lies down, and manifests himself entering nirvāṇa; it is for this reason that he is not unconditioned."
Huiyuan notes that Huiyuan's own commentary leaves several of these pairs unglossed individually, on the explicit ground that they are already covered by the fuller treatment of "neither permanent nor impermanent" that follows in the next section: "neither existent nor non-existent," "neither a name nor not a name," and "neither the Tathāgata nor not the Tathāgata" all share the same underlying logic already spelled out there in greater technical detail, so repeating the analysis pair by pair would be redundant. His running gloss for every pair that is treated individually follows one consistent template: the negative half of each pair denies that the Tathāgata is exhausted by some category true of ordinary, conditioned things (a king bound to a throne, a being bound by a fixed nature, form bound by the ten sense-fields, long or short measured against an ordinary body), while the positive half denies the opposite extreme — that he therefore has no worldly presence, engagement, or describable feature at all (he was, after all, born a prince, does appear with a body bearing every mark, does manifest a short body for Gośāla's sake, and does come, go, sit, and lie down like anyone else).
He singles out "neither conditioned nor unconditioned" as carrying particular weight for the fascicle's larger argument: denying that the Tathāgata is merely conditioned protects his permanence, bliss, self, and purity from the same critique Bright Virtuous King leveled against nirvāṇa in Part 21 (that whatever depends on cultivated causes must be impermanent); but denying that he is simply, inertly unconditioned is equally necessary, since an entirely static, non-responsive being could never actually appear, teach, or manifest a parinirvāṇa at all — the entire elaborate scene of the sāla trees, the couch, and the coming cremation this fascicle opened with. Huiyuan's broader point across this whole catalogue: each pair models, in miniature, the exact structure the sūtra needs for its own central claim — a reality that is neither destroyed by conditions nor cut off from all activity within them.
Neither Permanent Nor Impermanent
「如來非常。何以故？身有分故，是故非常。云何非常？以有知故。常法無知，猶如虛空，如來有知，是故非常。云何非常？有言說故。常法無言，亦如虛空，如來有言，是故無常。有姓氏故名曰無常，無姓之法乃名為常，虛空常故無有姓氏，如來有姓，姓瞿曇氏，是故無常。有父母故名曰無常，無父母者乃名曰常，虛空常故無有父母，佛有父母是故無常。有四威儀名曰無常，無四威儀乃名曰常，虛空常故無四威儀，佛有四威儀，是故無常。常住之法無有方所，虛空常故無有方所，如來出在中天竺地，住舍婆提或王舍城，是故無常。以是義故，如來非常。」
「亦非非常。何以故？生永斷故。有生之法名曰無常，無生之法乃名為常，如來無生是故為常。常法無性，有性之法名曰無常，如來無生、無性，無生無性故常。有常之法遍一切處，猶如虛空無處不有，如來亦爾，遍一切處，是故為常。無常之法，或言此有、或言彼無，如來不爾，不可說言是處有、彼處無，是故為常。無常之法，有時是有、有時是無，如來不爾有時是有有時是無，是故為常。常住之法無名無色，虛空常故無名無色，如來亦爾無名無色，是故為常。常住之法無因無果，虛空常故無因無果，如來亦爾無因無果，是故為常。常住之法三世不攝，如來亦爾三世不攝，是故為常。」
「如來非幻。何以故？永斷一切虛誑心故，是故非幻。亦非非幻。何以故？如來或時分此一身為無量身，無量之身復為一身，山壁直過無有障礙，履水如地，入地如水，行空如地，身出煙焰如大火聚，雲雷震動其聲可畏，或為城邑、聚落舍宅、山川樹木，或作大身或作小身、男身女身、童男童女身，是故如來亦非非幻。如來非定。何以故？如來於此拘尸那城娑羅雙樹間，示現入於般涅槃故，是故非定。亦非非定。何以故？常樂我淨故，是故如來亦非非定。如來非有漏。何以故？斷三漏故，故非有漏。三漏者，欲界一切煩惱，除無明，是名欲漏。色、無色界一切煩惱，除無明，是名有漏。三界無明，名無明漏。如來永斷，是故非漏。」
"The Tathāgata is not permanent. Why is this? Because his body has parts; it is for this reason that he is not permanent. In what other sense is he not permanent? Because he possesses knowledge — a permanent dharma has no knowledge at all, just like empty space, and the Tathāgata possesses knowledge; it is for this reason that he is not permanent. In what other sense is he not permanent? Because he possesses speech — a permanent dharma has no speech at all, likewise like empty space, and the Tathāgata possesses speech; it is for this reason that he is impermanent. Possessing a clan-name is named impermanent, and a dharma without any clan-name is named permanent — empty space, being permanent, has no clan-name at all, while the Tathāgata possesses a clan-name, the Gautama clan; it is for this reason that he is impermanent. Possessing father and mother is named impermanent, and one without father or mother is named permanent — empty space, being permanent, has no father or mother, while the Buddha possesses a father and mother; it is for this reason that he is impermanent. Possessing the four bodily postures is named impermanent, and one without the four postures is named permanent — empty space, being permanent, has none of the four postures, while the Buddha possesses the four postures; it is for this reason that he is impermanent. An ever-abiding dharma occupies no fixed place at all — empty space, being permanent, occupies no fixed place — while the Tathāgata appeared in the land of Madhyadeśa, and dwells at Śrāvastī or at Rājagṛha; it is for this reason that he is impermanent. It is for these reasons that the Tathāgata is not permanent."
"Nor is he not permanent. Why is this? Because birth is forever severed in him. A dharma subject to birth is named impermanent, and a dharma free of birth is named permanent — the Tathāgata is free of birth, and is therefore permanent. A permanent dharma has no fixed nature of its own; a dharma possessed of such a nature is named impermanent — the Tathāgata is free of birth and free of any fixed nature, and, being free of both, is permanent. A permanent dharma pervades every place, just like empty space, present nowhere it is not — the Tathāgata is exactly the same, pervading every place; it is for this reason that he is permanent. An impermanent dharma may be said to exist here, or said not to exist there — the Tathāgata is not like this; it cannot be said that he exists in one place and not in another; it is for this reason that he is permanent. An impermanent dharma exists at one time and not at another — the Tathāgata is not like this, existing at one time and not existing at another; it is for this reason that he is permanent. An ever-abiding dharma has no name and no form — empty space, being permanent, has no name and no form — the Tathāgata is exactly the same, without name or form; it is for this reason that he is permanent. An ever-abiding dharma has no cause and no effect — empty space, being permanent, has no cause and no effect — the Tathāgata is exactly the same, without cause or effect; it is for this reason that he is permanent. An ever-abiding dharma is not encompassed by the three time-periods — the Tathāgata is exactly the same, not encompassed by the three time-periods; it is for this reason that he is permanent."
"The Tathāgata is not an illusion. Why is this? Because he has forever severed every deceptive, false mind entirely; it is for this reason that he is not an illusion. Nor is he not an illusion. Why is this? The Tathāgata sometimes divides this single body of his into immeasurable bodies, and these immeasurable bodies again into a single body; he passes straight through mountains and cliffs without any obstruction, walks upon water as though upon solid ground, sinks into the earth as though into water, and walks through the air as though upon solid ground; his body emits smoke and flame like a great mass of fire, and thunder and cloud rumble forth from it, terrifying to hear; he becomes, at times, a city, a town, a village, a house, a mountain, a river, or a tree; he becomes, at times, a great body or a small body, a man's body or a woman's body, the body of a boy or of a girl — it is for this reason that the Tathāgata, too, is not not an illusion. The Tathāgata is not fixed in meditative absorption. Why is this? Because the Tathāgata, here among the twin sāla trees at the city of Kuśinagara, manifests himself entering parinirvāṇa; it is for this reason that he is not fixed. Nor is he not fixed. Why is this? Because he possesses permanence, bliss, self, and purity; it is for this reason that the Tathāgata, too, is not unfixed. The Tathāgata is not subject to outflow. Why is this? Because he has severed the three outflows entirely; it is for this reason that he is not subject to outflow. These three outflows are: every affliction of the desire realm, apart from ignorance, which is named the outflow of desire; every affliction of the form and formless realms, apart from ignorance, which is named the outflow of existence; and the ignorance present within all three realms, which is named the outflow of ignorance. The Tathāgata has forever severed these; it is for this reason that he is free of outflow."
Huiyuan counts seven distinct reasons offered for "the Tathāgata is not permanent" (a body with parts, possessing knowledge, possessing speech, possessing a clan-name, possessing parents, possessing the four postures, occupying a fixed place) and eight for "nor is he not permanent" (freedom from birth, from fixed nature, universal presence, freedom from location-bound existence, freedom from time-bound existence, namelessness and formlessness, freedom from cause and effect, and transcendence of the three time-periods) — each list measured consistently against empty space as the standard image of true permanence, but reaching opposite verdicts because the Tathāgata, unlike space, does visibly speak, teach, and appear with a body and a lineage, while also, unlike any ordinary conditioned thing, sharing space's own freedom from birth, location, and temporal restriction. He reads this seven-versus-eight asymmetry as unremarkable — the pattern is illustrative rather than a rigid, matched taxonomy — and treats "neither permanent nor impermanent" as this fascicle's technical centerpiece precisely because it is the pair Bright Virtuous King's own challenge most directly threatened by extending "indeterminacy" to nirvāṇa itself.
On the closing image of the Tathāgata's own transformations (multiplying bodies, passing through mountains, walking on water, becoming a city or a tree), Huiyuan reads this not as displaying illusion-like unreality but as displaying the opposite: only a being who has fully severed every deceptive mind is capable of manifestations this total and unconstrained, since an ordinary illusionist's tricks (recalled from this fascicle's own earlier simile) work only by deceiving another's perception, whereas the Tathāgata's transformations involve no deception of anyone at all — a real capacity, not a false appearance, which is exactly why he is "not an illusion" and yet, in the very same breath, "not not an illusion" either. The three-outflow definition closing this section (desire, existence, ignorance) sets up the technical vocabulary — outflow, 漏 — that the fascicle's remaining sections will use to organize an entirely practical turn: having established what the Tathāgata has already severed completely, the sūtra now teaches the bodhisattva still on the path how to sever these same outflows himself.
What Ordinary Beings Cannot Even See
「復次，一切凡夫不見有漏。云何凡夫不見有漏？一切凡夫於未來世悉有疑心，未來世中當得身耶？不得身耶？過去世中，身本有耶？為本無耶？現在世中，是身有耶？是身無耶？若有我者，是色耶？非色耶？色非色耶？非色非非色耶？想耶？非想耶？想非想耶？非想非非想耶？是身屬他耶？不屬他耶？屬不屬耶？非屬非不屬耶？有命無身耶？有身無命耶？有身有命耶？無身無命耶？身之與命有常耶？無常耶？常無常耶？非常非無常耶？身之與命自在作耶？時節作耶？無因作耶？世性作耶？微塵作耶？法非法作耶？士夫作耶？煩惱作耶？父母作耶？我住心耶？住眼中耶？遍滿身中耶？從何來耶？去何至耶？誰生耶？誰死耶？我於過去是婆羅門姓耶？是剎利姓耶？是毘舍姓耶？是首陀羅姓耶？當於未來得何姓耶？我此身者，過去之時，是男身耶？是女身耶？畜生身耶？若我殺生，當有罪耶？當無罪耶？乃至飲酒當有罪耶？當無罪耶？我自作耶？為他作耶？我受報耶？身受報耶？如是疑見、無量煩惱、覆眾生心，因是疑見，生六種心：決定有我、決定無我、我見我、我見無我、無我見我、我作我受我知，是名邪見。如來永拔如是無量見漏根本，是故非漏。」
"Furthermore, every ordinary being fails to see the outflow present within him at all. How is it that an ordinary being fails to see this outflow? Every ordinary being harbors doubt with regard to the future: in the world to come, shall I obtain a body, or shall I not? In the past, did this body of mine originally exist, or did it not? In the present, does this body exist, or does it not? Should there be a self, is it form, or is it not form, or is it both form and not form, or neither form nor not form? Is it perception, or not perception, or both, or neither? Does this body belong to another, or not, or both, or neither? Is there life without a body, or a body without life, or both, or neither? Are body and life permanent, or impermanent, or both, or neither? Are body and life made by one's own free will, made by the seasons, made without any cause at all, made by the primordial nature of the world, made by atoms, made by dharma or by what is not dharma, made by some cosmic person, made by affliction, or made by one's own parents? Does the self abide in the mind, or in the eye, or does it pervade the entire body? From where has it come, and to where does it go? Who is born, and who dies? Was I, in a past life, of the brahmin caste, the kṣatriya caste, the vaiśya caste, or the śūdra caste — and what caste shall I obtain in a life to come? Was this very body of mine, in a past life, a man's body, a woman's body, or an animal's body? Should I kill a living being, shall I incur a crime, or shall I not? And so on, up through: should I drink wine, shall I incur a crime, or shall I not? Do I act of my own accord, or does another act through me? Do I receive the fruit of this, or does the body receive it? Doubtful views of this kind, immeasurable in their affliction, cover over the minds of beings, and, on account of these doubtful views, six kinds of mind arise: the fixed view that a self exists, the fixed view that no self exists, a self that sees a self, a self that sees no self, no self that sees a self, and a self that acts, receives, and knows — views of this kind are named wrong view. The Tathāgata has forever uprooted every immeasurable root of this outflow of view; it is for this very reason that he is free of outflow."
Huiyuan reads this catalogue of unanswerable questions — deliberately overwhelming in its exhaustiveness — as illustrating the first two of the seven kinds of outflow the Satyasiddhi tradition catalogues in detail: the outflow of view (見漏, afflictions tied to holding fixed philosophical positions, exemplified here by the doubts about self, body, time, and causation) and, by extension, the outflow of cultivation (修漏, afflictions that persist even after such views are abandoned, addressed only implicitly here). His point in cataloguing the sheer range of the questions — biological origin, caste in past and future lives, whether the self resides in the mind or the eye or the whole body, whether killing or drinking carries a fixed moral weight regardless of intent — is that an ordinary being's mind is not troubled by one or two philosophical puzzles but by an entire, self-perpetuating field of unresolved uncertainty, out of which arise the six specific kinds of wrong view the passage names (a fixed self, a fixed no-self, and four further permutations of a self seeing or not seeing itself) — a taxonomy he reads as covering every logically possible stance one could take on the self's own reality without ever actually resolving the underlying doubt that generated the question.
Having established this deep root of affliction (the outflow of view, the first and most fundamental of the seven), the sūtra turns, in the fascicle's remaining sections, to the practical outflows a bodhisattva must actively guard against in daily conduct — the outflow of the faculties (根漏), of evil companionship (惡漏), and of reliance on the four requisites (親近漏) — which Huiyuan reads as a deliberate movement from the deepest, most abstract root of affliction to its most concrete, everyday expressions, ending the fascicle on practical instruction rather than further doctrinal analysis.
Taming the Five Faculties
「善男子！菩薩摩訶薩於大涅槃修聖行者，亦得永斷如是諸漏。諸佛如來常修聖行，是故無漏。善男子！凡夫不能善攝五根，則有三漏，為惡所牽至不善處。善男子！譬如惡馬，其性佷悷，能令乘者至嶮惡處。不能善攝此五根者，亦復如是，令人遠離涅槃善道，至諸惡處。譬如惡象，心未調順，有人乘之，不隨意去，遠離城邑，至空曠處。不能善攝此五根者，亦復如是，將人遠離涅槃城邑，至於生死曠野之處。善男子！譬如佞臣，教王作惡；五根佞臣，亦復如是，常教眾生造無量惡。善男子！譬如惡子，不受師長、父母教勅，則無惡不造；不調五根，亦復如是，不受師長善言教勅，無惡不造。善男子！凡夫之人不攝五根，常為地獄畜生餓鬼之所賊害，亦如怨盜害及善人。善男子！凡夫之人不攝五根，馳騁五塵，譬如牧牛，不善守護，犯人苗稼。凡夫之人不攝五根，常在諸有多受苦惱。善男子！菩薩摩訶薩修大涅槃，行聖行時，常能善調，守攝五根，怖畏貪欲、瞋恚、愚癡、憍慢、嫉妬，為得一切諸善法故。」
「善男子！若能善守此五根者，則能攝心，若能攝心，則攝五根。譬如有人擁護於王，則護國土，護國土者則護於王。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，若得聞是大涅槃經，則得智慧，得智慧故則得專念，五根若散，念則能止。何以故？是念慧故。善男子！如善牧者，設牛東西噉他苗稼，則便遮止不令犯暴。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，念慧因緣故，守攝五根，不令馳散。菩薩摩訶薩有念慧者，不見我相、不見我所相、不見眾生及所受用，見一切法同法性相，生於土石瓦礫之相，譬如屋舍，從眾緣生，無有定性。見諸眾生四大五陰之所成立，推無定性，無定性故，菩薩於中不生貪著。一切凡夫見有眾生故，起煩惱，菩薩摩訶薩修大涅槃，有念慧故，於諸眾生不生貪著。」
"Good son, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva who cultivates noble conduct within this great nirvāṇa likewise comes to sever these very outflows forever. Every buddha, every tathāgata, forever cultivates noble conduct; it is for this reason that they are free of outflow. Good son, an ordinary being who is unable to guard his own five faculties well thereby has the three outflows, and is dragged by evil to places of unwholesomeness. Good son, it is like a vicious horse, savage by nature, able to carry its rider straight into a place of danger and ruin — one unable to guard these five faculties well is exactly the same, kept far from the good path of nirvāṇa and driven into every kind of evil place. It is like a vicious elephant, its own mind untamed, upon which a person rides against his own will, carried far away from any town and out into an empty, desolate waste — one unable to guard these five faculties well is exactly the same, carried far from the very city of nirvāṇa and out into the desolate wilderness of birth-and-death. Good son, it is like a flattering minister, teaching his own king to do evil — the five faculties, acting as flattering ministers, are exactly the same, forever teaching beings to commit every kind of immeasurable evil. Good son, it is like a wicked son, who accepts no instruction from his own teachers, elders, or parents, and so commits every evil without exception — one who fails to tame his own five faculties is exactly the same, accepting no wholesome instruction from his own teachers and elders, and committing every evil without exception. Good son, an ordinary being who fails to guard his own five faculties is forever robbed and harmed by hell, by the animal realm, and by hungry ghosts, just as bandits and thieves harm even a good person. Good son, an ordinary being who fails to guard his own five faculties, letting them run wild among the five sense-objects, is like a cowherd who fails to watch his own cattle carefully, letting them trample another's own crops. An ordinary being who fails to guard his own five faculties forever remains among the states of existence, undergoing much suffering and affliction. Good son, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, cultivating this great nirvāṇa and practicing noble conduct, is forever able to tame and guard his own five faculties well, holding craving, anger, delusion, arrogance, and envy in fear and caution, for the sake of attaining every wholesome dharma."
"Good son, should one be able to guard these five faculties well, he is thereby able to hold his own mind; and should he be able to hold his own mind, he thereby holds his five faculties as well. It is like a person who guards the king — in guarding the king, he thereby guards the whole kingdom, and in guarding the kingdom, he thereby guards the king himself. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is exactly the same: should he come to hear this great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, he thereby attains wisdom, and, attaining wisdom, thereby attains single-minded recollection — and, should his five faculties begin to scatter, this recollection is able to restrain them at once. Why is this? Because this is the recollection born of wisdom. Good son, it is like a skilled herdsman who, should his cattle wander east or west to graze on another's own crops, at once holds them back and does not let them trample it — the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is exactly the same: through the causes and conditions of mindfulness and wisdom, he guards and holds his own five faculties, never letting them run wild. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva possessed of mindfulness and wisdom sees no mark of a self, no mark of anything belonging to a self, and no being at all, nor anything it makes use of; he sees every dharma as bearing the same mark of the nature of dharmas itself, arising like a mark of earth, stone, tile, and rubble — like a house, arisen from a combination of many conditions, possessing no fixed nature of its own at all. Seeing every being as constituted from the four great elements and the five aggregates, he investigates and finds no fixed nature there at all — and, there being no fixed nature, the bodhisattva gives rise to no craving or attachment with regard to it. Every ordinary being, seeing that a being exists, gives rise to affliction on that very account — but the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, cultivating this great nirvāṇa, possessed of mindfulness and wisdom, gives rise to no craving or attachment with regard to any being at all."
Huiyuan identifies this section as beginning the sūtra's treatment of the third of the seven kinds of outflow, the outflow of the faculties (根漏) — afflictions that arise specifically because the five sense-faculties, left unguarded, generate craving toward their objects — and reads the five similes (vicious horse, untamed elephant, flattering minister, wayward son, and bandit) as covering five distinct failure-modes rather than five decorative repetitions of one point: the horse and elephant show unguarded faculties actively carrying the practitioner somewhere he did not choose to go; the flattering minister shows them actively counseling wrong action, rather than merely failing to resist it; the wayward son shows a failure to receive correction that would otherwise be available; and the bandit shows the faculties as an external threat exploited by hostile forces (hell, the animal realm, hungry ghosts) rather than an internal failing alone.
On the king-and-kingdom analogy, Huiyuan reads the reciprocal relationship (guarding the king guards the kingdom; guarding the kingdom guards the king) as making a precise technical point about the relationship between mind and the five faculties: neither is more fundamental than the other in practice, so that mindfulness born of wisdom (念慧), cultivated by hearing and reflecting on this very sūtra, disciplines the faculties indirectly by holding the mind steady, exactly as a skilled herdsman restrains cattle not by chasing each one individually but by maintaining a single, attentive watch. The closing insight — that a bodhisattva possessed of this mindfulness sees no fixed self, no fixed being, only conditions combining the way stray materials combine into a house — is, on Huiyuan's reading, the actual mechanism by which craving is prevented in the first place: not by suppressing desire through willpower directed at the five faculties themselves, but by removing the false perception of a fixed, graspable object that desire could ever actually attach to.
The Painter Who Sees No Man or Woman
「復次菩薩摩訶薩修大涅槃經者，不著眾生相，作種種法相。善男子！譬如畫師，以眾雜彩，畫作眾像，若男若女、若牛若馬。凡夫無智，見之則生男女等相，畫師了知無有男女。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，於法異相觀於一相，終不生於眾生之相。何以故？有念慧故。菩薩摩訶薩修大涅槃，或時覩見端正女人，終不生於貪著之相。何以故？善觀相故。善男子！菩薩摩訶薩知五欲法無有歡樂，不得暫停，如犬囓枯骨、如人持火逆風而行、如篋毒蛇夢中所得、路首有果樹多人所擲、亦如段肉眾鳥競逐、如水上泡畫水之迹、如織經盡、如囚趣市，猶如假借勢不得久，觀欲如是多諸過惡。」
"Furthermore, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva who cultivates this great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra does not cling to the mark of any being, though he still works with every kind of dharma's own mark. Good son, it is like a painter, who, with a great variety of colors, paints every kind of image — a man, a woman, an ox, or a horse. The foolish, without any wisdom, seeing this, give rise to the notion of a man or a woman — while the painter himself knows well that there is no man or woman there at all. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is exactly the same: amid the differing marks of every dharma, he sees a single mark, and never, in the end, gives rise to the mark of a being at all. Why is this? Because he possesses mindfulness and wisdom. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, cultivating this great nirvāṇa, may, at times, behold a woman of fine and pleasing appearance, and yet never, in the end, gives rise to any mark of craving or attachment toward her. Why is this? Because he observes her mark skillfully. Good son, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva knows that the dharma of the five desires holds no true joy at all, and cannot be held onto even for a moment — like a dog gnawing a dry bone, like a man carrying fire while walking against the wind, like a poisonous snake kept in a basket, like something obtained only in a dream, like a fruit tree standing at the head of a road, pelted by many passersby, like a piece of meat contested by a flock of birds, like foam upon the water, like a mark drawn upon water, like the last thread unraveling from a loom, or like a condemned prisoner being led to the marketplace — borrowed, on loan, and never able to last. Contemplating desire in this way, one sees how very many faults and evils it contains."
Huiyuan reads the painter simile as extending the previous section's "no fixed self, no fixed being" insight from abstract analysis into active engagement with the world: a bodhisattva does not withdraw from working with the conventional marks of things (form, gender, category) any more than a painter refuses to paint recognizable figures — the difference lies entirely in whether the one perceiving knows the figure to be a construction of colors on a surface, or mistakes it for the real thing. This is why the bodhisattva can behold a beautiful woman and feel no craving: not through suppressing the sense-perception itself, but through "skillfully observing her mark" — seeing the conventional appearance without the superimposed belief in a fixed, inherently desirable object underneath it.
On the ten similes for the five desires, Huiyuan reads these as covering distinct facets of why desire fails to deliver what it promises: the dry bone and the fire against the wind show pursuit that harms the pursuer more than it satisfies him; the snake in the basket and the dream-object show danger and unreality masquerading as safety and substance; the roadside fruit tree and the contested meat show how what looks desirable actually invites attack and competition from others; and foam, a mark on water, an unraveling thread, and a prisoner en route to execution together show simple transience — nothing to be held onto even briefly. He reads the accumulation of so many similes for a single point as deliberate, matching this sūtra's own established rhetorical habit (already seen in earlier fascicles' extended lists) of overwhelming the reader with images until the point is felt rather than merely understood.
A Mountain of Bones
「復次善男子！菩薩摩訶薩觀諸眾生，為色、香、味、觸因緣故，從昔無數無量劫來，常受苦惱。一一眾生，一劫之中所積身骨，如王舍城毘富羅山，所飲乳汁如四海水，身所出血多四海水，父母兄弟妻子眷屬命終哭泣所出目淚多四大海，盡地草木為四寸籌以數父母亦不能盡，無量劫來或在地獄畜生餓鬼所受行苦不可稱計，揣此大地猶如棗等易可窮極，生死難盡。菩薩摩訶薩如是深觀一切眾生，以是欲因緣故受苦無量，菩薩以是生死行苦故不失念慧。善男子！譬如世間有諸大眾滿二十五里，王勅一臣：『持一油鉢經由中過莫令傾覆，若棄一渧，當斷汝命。』復遣一人，拔刀在後，隨而怖之。臣受王教，盡心堅持，經歷爾所大眾之中，雖見可意五邪欲等，心常念言：『我若放逸，著彼邪欲，當棄所持，命不全濟。』是人以是怖因緣故，乃至不棄一渧之油。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，於生死中不失念慧，以不失故，雖見五欲心不貪著，若見淨色，不生色相，唯觀苦相，乃至識相亦復如是，不作生相、不作滅相、不作因相、觀和合相，菩薩爾時五根清淨，根清淨故護根戒具。一切凡夫五根不淨，不能善持，名曰根漏。菩薩永斷是故無漏，如來拔出永斷根本，是故非漏。」
"Furthermore, good son, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva contemplates that every being, on account of the causes and conditions of form, fragrance, flavor, and touch, has forever undergone suffering and affliction from immeasurable, incalculable kalpas past. Each and every being's own accumulated bones, over the course of a single kalpa alone, would rise as high as Mount Vipula at Rājagṛha; the milk each has drunk would equal the water of the four great oceans; the blood each has shed would exceed the water of the four great oceans; and the tears each has wept, mourning the deaths of parents, brothers, wife, children, and kin, would likewise exceed the four great oceans. Were every blade of grass and tree upon the whole earth cut into four-inch tally sticks, one could not, even so, finish counting one's own parents across these lives; and the suffering undergone, throughout immeasurable kalpas, in hell, among animals, and among hungry ghosts, cannot be reckoned at all. Grasping the whole of this great earth is, by comparison, as easy as holding a single date in one's hand — but birth-and-death is inexhaustible. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, contemplating every being in this deep way — that it is on account of the causes and conditions of desire that they undergo suffering beyond measure — through this very contemplation of the suffering inherent in birth-and-death, never loses his own mindfulness and wisdom. Good son, it is like a great multitude of people, filling twenty-five leagues, among whom the king commands one minister: 'Carry this single bowl of oil through the entire crowd, and let none of it spill — should you spill even a single drop, I shall take your life.' And he sends, further, one man behind him, sword drawn, to keep him in terror. The minister, receiving the king's command, holds the bowl with his whole mind fixed upon it, and, passing through that entire great multitude, though he sees every kind of tempting, wrongful desire along the way, forever thinks to himself: 'Should I grow heedless and become attached to any of these wrongful desires, I would drop what I carry, and my life would not be spared.' It is on account of this very terror that this man does not spill even a single drop of the oil. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is exactly the same: amid birth-and-death, he never loses his own mindfulness and wisdom, and, because he does not lose it, though he sees the five desires, his mind gives rise to no craving or attachment toward them. Seeing a pure and pleasing form, he gives rise to no mark of form at all, but observes only the mark of suffering; and it is exactly the same, up through the mark of consciousness — he gives rise to no mark of arising, no mark of ceasing, and no mark of a cause, but observes only the mark of a combination of conditions. The bodhisattva, at this time, has purified his own five faculties; and, his faculties being pure, he thereby guards them and is fully endowed with their discipline. Every ordinary being's five faculties are impure, unable to be well maintained — this is named the outflow of the faculties. The bodhisattva has forever severed this, and is therefore free of outflow; and the Tathāgata has uprooted and forever severed its very root, and is therefore, likewise, free of outflow."
Huiyuan reads this vast accounting of accumulated suffering — bones piled higher than a mountain, tears and blood exceeding the oceans, parents too numerous to count even with the entire earth's vegetation converted into tally sticks — as a deliberate escalation beyond any single lifetime's own scale, designed to make the true magnitude of saṃsāra's suffering register emotionally rather than merely conceptually, closing on the striking comparison that even the whole physical earth is, by contrast, graspable and finite where birth-and-death is not. He reads this contemplation as the specific antidote to desire's own seduction: having just cultivated non-attachment through recognizing desire's inherent instability (the previous section's ten similes), the bodhisattva here adds recognition of its actual cost, measured across the full span of his own past lives.
On the oil-bowl parable, Huiyuan reads the two threats facing the carrier — losing the king's oil, and the executioner's blade close behind — as together modeling the specific quality of a bodhisattva's own vigilance: not casual mindfulness maintained at leisure, but attention sustained under a felt stake genuinely equal to the reward, since the bodhisattva's own "spilled drop" (a lapse into craving amid the five desires) carries a consequence just as serious, in his own reckoning, as sudden death. This closes the sūtra's treatment of the outflow of the faculties on the same note it opened: purification of the five faculties comes not from avoiding sense-objects altogether, but from perceiving them correctly, through mindfulness and wisdom, at the very moment of contact — the "mark of suffering" and "the mark of a combination of conditions" replacing the ordinary, craving-generating mark of a fixed, desirable form.
The Sūtra That Protects Like an Incantation
「復次善男子！復有離漏。菩薩摩訶薩欲為無上甘露佛果故，離於惡漏。云何為離？若能修行大涅槃經，書寫受持、讀誦解說、思惟其義是名為離，何以故？善男子！我都不見十二部經能離惡漏如此方等大涅槃經。善男子！譬如良師教諸弟子，諸弟子中有受教者，心不造惡。菩薩摩訶薩修大涅槃微妙經典，亦復如是心不造惡。善男子！譬如世間有善呪術，若有一聞，却後七年，不為一切毒藥所中，蛇不能螫，若有誦者，乃至命盡，無有眾惡。善男子！是大涅槃，亦復如是，若有眾生一經耳者，却後七劫，不墮惡道。若有書寫、讀誦解說、思惟其義，必得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，淨見佛性，如彼聖王得甘露味。善男子！是大涅槃有如是等無量功德。善男子！若有人能書寫是經，讀誦解說為他敷演，思惟其義，當知是人真我弟子，善受我教，是我所見，我之所念，是人諦知我不涅槃。隨如是人所住之處，若城邑聚落、山林曠野、房舍田宅、樓閣殿堂，我亦在中常住不移，我於是人常作受施，或作比丘、比丘尼、優婆塞、優婆夷、婆羅門、梵志、貧窮乞人。云何當令是人得知，如來受其所施之物？善男子！是人或於夜臥夢中，夢見佛像、或見天像、沙門之像、國王、聖王、師子王像、蓮花形像、優曇花像，或見大山、或大海水、或見日月、或見白象及白馬像、或見父母，得花得果、金銀琉璃頗梨等寶、五種牛味，爾時當知，即是如來受其所施。寤已喜樂，尋得種種所須之物，心不念惡，樂修善法。善男子！是大涅槃悉能成就如是無量阿僧祇等不可思議無邊功德。」
「善男子，汝今應當信受我語，若有善男子、善女人欲見我者，欲恭敬我，欲同法性而見於我，欲得空定，欲見實相，欲得修習首楞嚴定、師子王定，欲破八魔——八魔者，所謂四魔、無常、無樂、無我、無淨——欲得人中天上樂者，見有受持大涅槃經書寫讀誦、為他解說、思惟義者，當往親近依附諮受，供養恭敬尊重讚歎，為洗手足布置床席四事供給，令無所乏。若從遠來，應十由延，路次奉迎，為是經故，所重之物應以奉獻，如其無者應自賣身。何以故？是經難遇過優曇花。」
"Furthermore, good son, there is, further, the outflow of separation. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, wishing to attain the unsurpassed, ambrosial fruit of buddhahood, separates himself from the outflow of evil. How does he do this? Should he be able to practice this great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra — copying it out, upholding it, reciting it, expounding it, and reflecting on its meaning — this is what is meant by separation. Why is this? Good son, I see, among all twelve divisions of scripture, none able to separate one from the outflow of evil as this very great Vaipulya Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra can. Good son, it is like a fine teacher instructing his disciples — among these disciples, whoever accepts his instruction commits no evil in his own mind. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva who cultivates this subtle and wondrous scripture of the great nirvāṇa is exactly the same, committing no evil in his own mind. Good son, it is like a fine incantation that exists in this world — should one hear it even once, for the following seven years, he is harmed by no poison at all, and no snake can bite him; and should one recite it, then, for as long as his life lasts, no evil at all can touch him. Good son, this great nirvāṇa is exactly the same: should any being's ear once pass over it, for the following seven kalpas, he shall not fall into any evil destiny. And should he copy it out, recite it, expound it, and reflect on its meaning, he shall most certainly attain unsurpassed, complete awakening, and purely see buddha-nature, just as that sage king attained the flavor of ambrosia. Good son, this great nirvāṇa possesses immeasurable merit of exactly this kind. Good son, should any person be able to copy out this sūtra, recite it, expound it broadly for others, and reflect on its meaning, know that this very person is truly my own disciple, one who has well received my own teaching, one whom I truly see, one whom I truly hold in mind — this person truly knows that I do not enter nirvāṇa at all. Wherever such a person dwells — whether in a city, a town, a village, a mountain forest, a wilderness, a dwelling, a field, a house, a tower, or a hall — I, too, dwell there always, without ever departing, and I forever receive offerings through this very person, appearing, at times, as a monk, a nun, a layman, a laywoman, a brahmin, an ascetic, or a poor beggar. How, then, might such a person come to know that the Tathāgata has received his offering? Good son, such a person may, in a dream while sleeping at night, dream of an image of the Buddha, or of a god, of a śramaṇa, of a king, of a sage-king, of a lion-king, of a lotus flower, or of an udumbara flower; or he may see a great mountain, or the waters of a great ocean, or the sun and moon, or a white elephant or a white horse; or he may see his own father and mother, or obtain flowers or fruit, or gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, and other treasures, or the five products of the cow — at such a time, he should know that this is precisely the Tathāgata receiving his own offering. Waking, filled with joy, he soon obtains every kind of thing he needs, his mind gives rise to no evil thought, and he takes delight in cultivating every wholesome dharma. Good son, this great nirvāṇa is able to accomplish immeasurable, incalculable, inconceivable, and boundless merit of exactly this kind."
"Good son, you should now believe and accept my own words: should any good son or good daughter wish to see me, wish to revere me, wish to see me by sharing in the very nature of dharmas, wish to attain the concentration on emptiness, wish to see true reality, wish to cultivate the Śūraṅgama samādhi or the lion-king samādhi, wish to break through the eight demons — these eight demons being the four demons, together with impermanence, the absence of bliss, the absence of self, and the absence of purity — or wish to attain the happiness of humans and gods, and should he see anyone who upholds this great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, copying it out, reciting it, expounding it for others, and reflecting on its meaning, he should go to draw near to and rely upon such a person, consulting and receiving his teaching, making offerings, showing reverence, respect, and praise, washing his hands and feet, arranging his bedding, and providing him with the four requisites so that he lacks nothing at all. Should this teacher come from far away, he should go out ten leagues along the road to welcome him, and, for the sake of this very sūtra, offer up whatever he holds most precious — and, should he possess nothing at all to offer, he should sell his own body. Why is this? This sūtra is harder to encounter even than the udumbara flower."
Huiyuan reads this section as opening the fourth of the seven kinds of outflow, the outflow of evil (惡漏), through the same three-fold structure the fascicle has used consistently — a bodhisattva's own practice (studying this sūtra), a set of similes illustrating its power (a good teacher's own restraining influence, a protective incantation), and the sūtra's own explicit self-praise, which he reads not as mere rhetorical inflation but as functionally necessary: since this outflow specifically concerns exposure to corrupting external influences, the sūtra must establish, before anything else, that engaging with this particular text is itself protective rather than merely neutral, which is why the incantation simile is chosen deliberately — an incantation heard even once continues to protect for years afterward, exactly paralleling how a single encounter with this sūtra is said to protect for seven kalpas.
On the promise that the Buddha "dwells always" wherever someone upholds this sūtra, appearing to receive offerings even in the guise of a beggar, Huiyuan reads the list of auspicious dream-signs (buddha images, mountains, oceans, white elephants, one's own parents, the five products of the cow used in traditional offerings) as a pastoral concession rather than a doctrinal claim requiring literal belief: an ordinary practitioner, uncertain whether devotion offered to an absent teacher actually "reaches" anyone, is given a concrete, checkable sign of confirmation, addressing a real psychological need for reassurance that the sūtra's more abstract teachings on the Tathāgata's own indeterminate nature do not, by themselves, satisfy. The closing exhortation — travel ten leagues to welcome such a teacher, give what is most precious, sell your own body if you have nothing else — Huiyuan reads as setting up, quite deliberately, the story the Buddha tells next: his own account of having done exactly this, in a past life, for the sake of hearing a single verse.
Three Ounces of Flesh a Day
「善男子！我念過去無量無邊那由他劫，爾時世界名曰娑婆，有佛世尊，號釋迦牟尼如來、應、正遍知、明行足、善逝、世間解、無上士、調御丈夫、天人師、佛、世尊，為諸大眾宣說如是大涅槃經。我於爾時從善友所，轉聞彼佛當為大眾說大涅槃。我聞是已，其心歡喜，欲設供養，居貧無物，欲自賣身，薄福不售，即欲還家。路見一人，而便語言：『吾欲賣身，君能買不？』其人答曰：『我家作業，人無堪者，汝設能為，我當買汝。』我即問言：『有何作業，人無堪能？』其人見答：『吾有惡病，良醫處藥，應當日服人肉三兩。卿若能以身肉三兩日日見給，便當與汝金錢五枚。』我時聞已，心中歡喜，我復語言：『汝與我錢，假我七日，須我事訖，便還相就。』其人見答：『七日不可，審能爾者，當許一日。』善男子！我於爾時，即取其錢，還至佛所，頭面禮足，盡其所有，而以奉獻，然後誠心聽受是經。我時闇鈍，雖得聞經，唯能受持一偈文句：『如來證涅槃，永斷於生死。若有至心聽，常得無量樂。』受是偈已，即便還至彼病人家。善男子！我時雖復日日與三兩肉，以念偈因緣故，不以為痛，日日不廢，足滿一月。善男子！以是因緣，其病得差，我身平復亦無瘡痍。我時見身具足完具，即發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。一偈之力尚能如是，何況具足受持讀誦。我見此經有如是利，復倍發心，願於未來成得佛道，字釋迦牟尼。善男子！以是一偈因緣力故，令我今日於大眾中為諸天人具足宣說。善男子！以是因緣，是大涅槃不可思議，成就無量無邊功德，乃是諸佛如來甚深祕密之藏，以是義故，能受持者，斷離惡漏。」
"Good son, I recall that, in ages past, throughout immeasurable, boundless nayutas of kalpas, there was, at that time, a world named Sahā, in which there was a buddha, a world-honored one, named the Tathāgata Śākyamuni, the worthy one, the fully and rightly awakened one, the one perfect in wisdom and conduct, the well-gone one, the knower of the world, the unsurpassed one, the tamer who guides the true man, the teacher of gods and men, the buddha, the world-honored one — who expounded this very great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra for the great assembly. I, at that time, hearing it passed along from a good and wise friend, learned that this buddha was about to expound this great nirvāṇa for the great assembly. Hearing this, my own heart filled with joy, and I wished to make an offering — but, living in poverty, I possessed nothing at all, and so I wished to sell my own body; yet, my own merit being slight, no one would buy it, and I was about to turn back home. Along the road, I saw a man, and said to him: 'I wish to sell my own body — are you able to buy it?' The man answered: 'There is a task in my own household that no one is able to perform — should you be able to do it, I shall buy you.' I asked at once: 'What task is this, that no one is able to perform?' The man answered me: 'I suffer from a grave illness, and a good physician has prescribed a medicine for it — I must eat three ounces of human flesh each day. Should you be able to supply me with three ounces of your own flesh, day after day, I shall give you five pieces of gold in return.' Hearing this, my heart filled with joy, and I said to him further: 'Give me the money now, and grant me seven days — once my own affairs are settled, I shall come and fulfill my task.' The man answered me: 'Seven days is not possible — should you truly be able to do this, I shall grant you only a single day.' Good son, I then took his money, and returned to where the Buddha was; I bowed my head to his feet, and, giving everything I had, offered it up to him, and only then, with a sincere heart, listened to and received this very sūtra. I was, at that time, dull and slow of understanding, and, though I heard the sūtra, was able to uphold only a single verse of its text: 'The Tathāgata realizes nirvāṇa, / forever severing birth-and-death. / Should one listen with a sincere mind, / he forever attains immeasurable bliss.' Having received this verse, I returned at once to that sick man's own house. Good son, though I gave him three ounces of my own flesh, day after day, on account of my own recollection of this very verse, I did not feel it as pain at all, and continued without fail, day after day, for a full month. Good son, on account of this very cause and condition, his illness was cured, and my own body, too, was restored, entirely without any wound or scar. Seeing my own body fully whole and complete once more, I at once gave rise to the mind of unsurpassed, complete awakening. The power of a single verse alone was able to accomplish this much — how much more so, then, one who upholds, recites, and fully receives the entire sūtra? Seeing that this sūtra held benefit of this very kind, my resolve redoubled, and I vowed that, in a future age, I would accomplish the buddha-path, and be named Śākyamuni. Good son, it is through the very power of the causes and conditions of this single verse that I am now able, in the midst of this great assembly, to expound it fully for the sake of every god and human present. Good son, it is on account of this very cause and condition that this great nirvāṇa is inconceivable, accomplishing immeasurable, boundless merit, and is indeed the very deep, secret treasury of every buddha, every tathāgata — and it is for this very reason that whoever is able to uphold it severs and separates himself from the outflow of evil."
Huiyuan reads this as a distinct past-life story from the more famous "half-verse" account of the Snow Mountain boy this collection already translated in Part 14, and cautions against conflating the two: there, the bodhisattva traded his own life outright for half a verse from a transformed demon, illustrating total, unconditional sacrifice; here, the bodhisattva trades a month of his own flesh, in fixed daily increments, for the far more modest opportunity merely to attend a teaching and retain a single verse of it — a smaller sacrifice matched to a smaller, though still substantial, gain, and Huiyuan reads the pairing of these two stories across the sūtra as showing that this kind of self-sacrifice for the Dharma is not limited to one dramatic, unrepeatable case, but recurs across the bodhisattva's own path in proportion to what is actually being sought.
He reads the detail of the bodhisattva's own request for seven days, refused in favor of a single day, as adding a note of real, unglamorized negotiation to what could otherwise read as pure hagiography — this is a story about someone poor enough that even his own body has to be haggled over, and desperate enough to accept far worse terms than he asked for. The verse itself, retained despite the bodhisattva's own admitted dullness at the time, becomes the entire content of his month-long ordeal, sustaining him against pain the same way the oil-bowl carrier's fear of death sustained his own attention two sections earlier — a deliberate echo, on Huiyuan's reading, tying this story back to the fascicle's larger argument that mindfulness genuinely fixed on the Dharma changes what a body can actually endure. That this single verse's power was sufficient to heal the wounds entirely and prompt the bodhi-resolve that would eventually make him the very Buddha now telling the story, Huiyuan reads as the sūtra's own closing argument for its opening claim in this section: engaging this teaching, even in the smallest possible dose, already separates a being from the outflow of evil.
The Elephant and the Friend, and What the Four Requisites Are For
「所謂惡者、惡象、惡馬、惡牛、惡狗，毒蛇住處、惡刺土地、懸崖嶮岸、暴水迴澓，惡人惡國、惡城惡舍、惡知識等，如是等輩，若作漏因，菩薩即離，若不能作則不遠離；若增有漏則便離之，若不增長則不遠離；若作惡法則便離之，若能作善則不遠離。云何為離？不持刀杖，常以正慧方便而遠離之，是故名為正慧遠離。為生善法則離惡法，菩薩摩訶薩自觀其身，如病、如瘡、如癰、如怨，如箭入體，是大苦聚，悉是一切諸惡根本。是身雖復不淨如是，菩薩猶故瞻視將養。何以故？非為貪身，為善法故，為於涅槃不為生死，為常樂我淨，不為無常無樂我淨，為菩提道不為有道，為於一乘不為三乘，為三十二相八十種好微妙之身不為乃至非有想非無想身，為法輪王不為轉輪王。」
「善男子！菩薩摩訶薩常當護身。何以故？若不護身命，則不全命，若不全則不能得書寫是經受持讀誦，為他廣說思惟其義，是故菩薩應善護身，以是義故，菩薩得離一切惡漏。……菩薩摩訶薩觀於惡象及惡知識，等無有二。何以故？俱壞身故。菩薩摩訶薩於惡象等心無怖懼，於惡知識生畏懼心。何以故？是惡象等唯能壞身不能壞心，惡知識者二俱壞故。是惡象等唯壞一身，惡知識者壞無量善身、無量善心。是惡象等唯能破壞不淨臭身，惡知識者能壞淨身及以淨心。是惡象等能壞肉身，惡知識者壞於法身。為惡象殺不至三惡，為惡友殺必至三惡。是惡象等但為身怨，惡知識者為善法怨。是故菩薩常當遠離諸惡知識。如是等漏凡夫不離，是故生漏。菩薩離之則不生漏。菩薩如是尚無有漏，況於如來？是故非漏。」
"As for what is meant by 'evil': a vicious elephant, a vicious horse, a vicious ox, a vicious dog, a place where poisonous snakes dwell, ground covered in evil thorns, a sheer and dangerous cliff, a raging, swirling flood, an evil person, an evil kingdom, an evil city, an evil dwelling, or an evil companion — beings and things of this kind, should they become the cause of any outflow, the bodhisattva at once separates himself from them; and should they fail to become such a cause, he does not keep himself far from them on that account alone. Should they increase what is subject to outflow, he separates himself from them at once; and should they not increase it, he does not keep far from them. Should they lead to an evil act, he separates himself from them at once; and should they be capable of a wholesome act, he does not keep far from them. How does he separate himself from them? Not by taking up blade or staff against them, but forever through right wisdom and skillful means, keeping himself far from them — it is for this reason that this is named 'keeping far through right wisdom.' It is for the sake of giving rise to wholesome dharmas that he separates himself from evil dharmas. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva contemplates his own body as though it were an illness, a sore, a boil, or an enemy, as though an arrow had pierced it, a great mass of suffering, the very root of every evil — and yet, though his body is impure in exactly this way, the bodhisattva still tends and nourishes it all the same. Why is this? Not out of any craving for the body itself, but for the sake of wholesome dharmas; for the sake of nirvāṇa, not for the sake of birth-and-death; for the sake of permanence, bliss, self, and purity, not for the sake of impermanence, suffering, non-self, and impurity; for the sake of the bodhi-path, not for the sake of any worldly path; for the sake of the one vehicle, not for the sake of the three vehicles; for the sake of the subtle and wondrous body possessed of the thirty-two marks and eighty subsidiary signs, not for the sake of any body up through that of the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception; and for the sake of becoming a Dharma-wheel-turning king, not a mere wheel-turning king."
"Good son, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva should forever guard his own body. Why is this? Should he fail to guard his own body and life, his life cannot be preserved whole; and should it not be preserved whole, he is unable to copy out this sūtra, uphold it, recite it, expound it broadly for others, or reflect on its meaning. It is for this very reason that the bodhisattva should guard his own body well — and it is for this reason that the bodhisattva comes to separate himself from every outflow of evil… The bodhisattva-mahāsattva regards a vicious elephant and an evil companion as equal, without any difference between them. Why is this? Because both alike destroy the body. And yet the bodhisattva-mahāsattva feels no fear at all toward a vicious elephant, while giving rise to a mind of dread toward an evil companion. Why is this? A vicious elephant of this kind is able only to destroy the body, and cannot destroy the mind — an evil companion destroys both alike. A vicious elephant destroys only a single body — an evil companion destroys immeasurable wholesome bodies and immeasurable wholesome minds. A vicious elephant is able only to destroy this impure, malodorous body — an evil companion is able to destroy a pure body, and a pure mind as well. A vicious elephant is able to destroy the body of flesh — an evil companion destroys the Dharma-body itself. Being killed by a vicious elephant does not lead to the three evil destinies — being killed by an evil companion most certainly leads to the three evil destinies. A vicious elephant is only an enemy to the body — an evil companion is an enemy to every wholesome dharma. It is for this very reason that the bodhisattva should forever keep far from every evil companion. Outflows of this kind, the ordinary being fails to separate himself from, and so gives rise to outflow — the bodhisattva separates himself from them, and so gives rise to no outflow at all. Should even the bodhisattva be free of outflow in this way, how much more so the Tathāgata? It is for this very reason that he is free of outflow."
「云何親近漏？一切凡夫，受取衣食、臥具醫藥，為身心樂，求如是物，造種種惡，不知過未，輪迴三趣，是故名漏。菩薩摩訶薩見如是過，則便遠離，若須衣時即便受取，不為身故但為於法，不長憍慢，心常卑下，不為嚴飾，但為羞恥，障諸寒暑、惡風惡雨、惡蟲蚊虻、蠅蚤蝮螫。雖受飲食，心無貪著，不為身故，常為正法，不為肌膚，但為眾生，不為憍慢，為身力故，不為怨害，為治飢瘡，雖得上味，心無貪著，受取房舍亦復如是。貪慢之結不令居心，為菩提舍遮止結賊，障惡風雨故受屋舍。求醫藥者心無貪慢，但為正法，不為壽命，為常命故。善男子！如人病瘡，為蘇麨塗，以衣裹之。為出膿血，蘇麨塗拊，為瘡愈故以藥坌之，為惡風故在深屋中。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，觀身是瘡故以衣覆，為九孔膿求索飲食，為惡風雨取受房舍，為四毒發求覓醫藥。菩薩受取四種供養，為菩提道，非為壽命。何以故？菩薩摩訶薩作是思惟：『我若不受是四供養，身則磨滅不得堅牢，若不堅牢則不忍苦，若不忍苦則不能得修習善法，若能忍苦則得修習無量善法。我若不能堪忍眾苦，則於苦受生瞋恚心，於樂受中生貪著心，若求樂不得則生無明。』是故凡夫於四供養生於有漏，菩薩摩訶薩能深觀察不生於漏。是故菩薩名為無漏，云何如來當名有漏？是故如來不名有漏。」
"What is meant by the outflow of reliance? Every ordinary being, receiving clothing, food, bedding, and medicine for the sake of his own bodily and mental pleasure, seeks after things of this kind, and, in doing so, commits every kind of evil, unaware of the past or the future, and so turns endlessly among the three evil destinies — this is what is meant by this outflow. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, seeing this fault, at once keeps far from it: when he needs clothing, he accepts it, but not for the sake of his own body — only for the sake of the Dharma; he does not let arrogance grow within him, but keeps his mind forever humble; he does not seek fine adornment, but only to cover his own shame, and to guard against cold and heat, harsh wind and rain, and biting insects, flies, fleas, and vipers. Though he accepts food and drink, his mind holds no craving or attachment toward it — not for the sake of his own body, but forever for the sake of the true Dharma, not for the sake of his own flesh and skin, but only for the sake of beings; not out of arrogance, but for the sake of bodily strength, not to harm any enemy, but to treat the affliction of hunger; and, though he obtains fine flavors, his mind holds no craving toward them. His acceptance of lodging is exactly the same: he does not let the fetter of craving and arrogance dwell in his mind, but accepts a dwelling only to house his own resolve toward bodhi and to hold back the thief of the fetters, and to guard against harsh wind and rain. In seeking medicine, his mind holds no craving or arrogance, but seeks only for the sake of the true Dharma, not for the sake of his own lifespan, but for the sake of the ever-abiding life. Good son, it is like a person suffering from a wound, who applies a paste of butter and roasted flour and wraps it in cloth; to draw out pus and blood, he applies this very paste; to heal the wound, he dusts it with medicine; and, to guard against harsh wind, he remains within a deep dwelling. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is exactly the same: seeing that his own body is itself a wound, he covers it with clothing; on account of the pus flowing from its nine openings, he seeks food and drink; to guard against harsh wind and rain, he accepts a dwelling; and, on account of the four poisons that may arise within it, he seeks out medicine. The bodhisattva accepts these four kinds of offering for the sake of the bodhi-path, not for the sake of his own lifespan. Why is this? The bodhisattva-mahāsattva reflects in this way: 'Should I fail to accept these four offerings, my body would waste away and lose its own firmness; and, lacking firmness, I would be unable to endure suffering; and, unable to endure suffering, I would be unable to cultivate wholesome dharmas; but, able to endure suffering, I am able to cultivate immeasurable wholesome dharmas. Should I be unable to bear every kind of suffering, I would give rise to a mind of anger toward painful sensation, and a mind of craving toward pleasant sensation, and, seeking pleasure and failing to obtain it, I would give rise to ignorance.' It is for this very reason that the ordinary being gives rise to outflow through these four offerings, while the bodhisattva-mahāsattva, through deep contemplation, gives rise to no outflow at all through them. It is for this reason that the bodhisattva is named free of outflow — how, then, could the Tathāgata ever be named subject to outflow? It is for this very reason that the Tathāgata is not named subject to outflow."
Huiyuan reads the bodhisattva's own conditional avoidance principle — separating from what actually functions as a cause of outflow, and only from that, rather than from things by category regardless of their actual effect — as the section's key methodological point: a bodhisattva does not treat "elephant," "thorny ground," or "companion" as inherently defiling categories to be shunned on sight, but assesses each encounter by its actual causal contribution to affliction, wholesome or otherwise, and adjusts accordingly — the same discernment already modeled by the painter and the mindful sense-contact of earlier sections, now applied to the choice of external circumstances rather than internal perception. His gloss on tending an admittedly impure body (compared to illness, a sore, a boil, an enemy, an arrow-wound) as nonetheless worth preserving turns on a sharp means-end distinction: the body is never valued for its own sake, but solely as the instrument through which the Dharma can be practiced and eventually a wholly different, marked body (the thirty-two marks) attained — value derived entirely from function, not from any inherent worth in the flesh itself.
On the elephant-versus-companion comparison, Huiyuan traces the six-fold escalation explicitly: mind versus body-only harm; scope (one being versus countless); the kind of body harmed (impure flesh versus a purified body and mind); the kind of harm (physical body versus Dharma-body); the destination after death (not necessarily the three evil destinies versus certainly the three evil destinies); and the nature of the enmity itself (personal, bodily enemy versus enemy to the Dharma as such) — six distinct reasons, not mere repetition, for why an outwardly far more frightening threat (a rampaging elephant) merits less actual fear than an ordinary human companion whose influence corrupts from within. The closing treatment of the four requisites, framed through the extended wound-dressing analogy, closes the fascicle's entire sequence of the seven outflows on a note of practical moderation rather than asceticism for its own sake: the bodhisattva's own body is a wound requiring ongoing care, and refusing the four requisites out of some misguided purity would itself produce the very failure of endurance — and thus the very inability to practice — that this whole fascicle's teaching on outflow was meant to prevent.
Part 22 Complete
This closes Part 22 (fascicle 22 of 40) and continues 光明遍照高貴德王菩薩品. Bright Virtuous King's challenge — that buddha-nature and hell cannot coexist, that indeterminacy threatens even the Buddha's own nirvāṇa — is answered by making indeterminacy the fascicle's own governing principle: nothing is fixed except nirvāṇa itself, buddha-nature is severed by nothing because it falls outside every category that could sever it, and even the Tathāgata's own nature resists every fixed description offered for it, catalogued at exhaustive length through paired negations covering divinity, humanity, form, permanence, and outflow itself. The fascicle then turns from doctrine to discipline, working through the seven kinds of outflow — view, cultivation, the five faculties, evil companionship, and reliance on the four requisites — each addressed through vivid similes: a vicious horse and untamed elephant for unguarded senses, a painter who sees no man or woman in his own painted figures, a mountain of accumulated bone and an oil-bowl carried through a crowd under threat of death, an incantation whose protection outlasts its hearing, and the Buddha's own past-life account of trading a month of his flesh for a single verse. Part 23 continues 光明遍照高貴德王菩薩品第十之三.
Continue to Part 23 →