Being, Bodhisattva, Buddha: One Reality Under Three Names
The seventh point, difference across time, and the eighth, pervading every place, are argued together: the identical dharmakāya, named "being" while impure, "bodhisattva" while mixed, and "buddha" once fully pure, no more genuinely different across these three names than empty space is different depending on which vessel — clay, silver, or gold — happens to hold it.
Three Time-Periods, Three Names
又復即依彼三種人，依時差別故，說一偈：
有不淨有淨， 及以善淨等，
如是次第說， 眾生菩薩佛。
此偈示現何義？偈言：
體等六句義， 略明法性體，
次第三時中， 說三種名字。
此偈明何義？謂向所明無漏法性，如來廣說種種法門，彼諸法門略說依於六種句義，所謂攝、聚、體、因果、業相應及行。偈言：體等六句義，略明法性體故。於三時中次第依彼三種名字畢竟應知。偈言，次第三時中，說三種名字故。此以何義？謂不淨時名為眾生，偈言：有不淨故。不淨淨時名為菩薩，偈言：有淨故。於善淨時名為如來，偈言：及以善淨故。以是義故，《不增不減經》言：舍利弗！即此法身過於恒沙無量煩惱所纏，從無始來隨順世間生死濤波去來生退，名為眾生。舍利弗！即此法身厭離世間生死苦惱，捨一切欲，行十波羅蜜，攝八萬四千法門，修菩提行，名為菩薩。舍利弗！即此法身，得離一切煩惱使纏，過一切苦，離一切煩惱垢，得淨得清淨，得住彼岸清淨法中，到一切眾生所觀之地，於一切境界中更無勝者，離一切障離一切礙，於一切法中得自在力，名為如來，應，正遍知故。偈言：如是次第說，眾生、菩薩、佛故。
Furthermore, in dependence on these same three kinds of person, and on the meaning of difference across time, a verse is spoken:
There is impurity, there is purity, and there is complete purity —
in this order, being, bodhisattva, and buddha are spoken of.
What meaning does this verse reveal? A verse says:
The essence and the other six points briefly clarify the essence of the dharma-nature;
in order, across three time-periods, three names are spoken.
What meaning does this verse make clear? The uncontaminated dharma-nature explained before, the Tathāgata sets forth broadly through various dharma-gates, and these various dharma-gates, briefly stated, rest on six points of meaning — namely, inclusion, gathering, essence, cause and fruit, function and correspondence, and manifestation. Across three time-periods, in order, three names should ultimately be known in dependence on these. What does this mean? In the time of impurity it is named a being. In the time of impure-and-pure, it is named a bodhisattva. In the time of complete purity, it is named a tathāgata. For this reason, the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa Sūtra says: "Śāriputra! It is this very dharmakāya, wrapped in immeasurable afflictions beyond the sands of the Ganges, following along with the world from beginningless time, coming and going, arising and declining on the waves of birth-and-death, that is named a being. Śāriputra! It is this very dharmakāya, wearied of and turning away from the suffering and affliction of saṃsāra, giving up every desire, practicing the ten pāramitās, gathering in the eighty-four thousand teachings, and cultivating the practice of bodhi, that is named a bodhisattva. Śāriputra! It is this very dharmakāya, having attained freedom from every proclivity and entanglement of affliction, having gone beyond every suffering, freed from every stain of affliction, made pure and utterly pure, abiding within the pure dharma of the far shore, having arrived at the very ground every being looks up to, with no one superior to it in any domain, freed from every obstruction and every hindrance, having attained sovereign mastery over every dharma, that is named the Tathāgata, Worthy One, Perfectly and Fully Awakened One."
This citation matches this site's own Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa Sūtra translation of the identical passage almost verbatim, and confirms exactly what this collection's own reading notes on that shorter sūtra predicted before this treatise had been translated: that the treatise "quotes both paragraphs of this passage nearly verbatim, and uses them as its scriptural anchor for an entire chapter's worth of systematic argument." The claim being made here is worth restating plainly, since it is easy to read past given how familiar the three terms "being," "bodhisattva," and "buddha" already are: these are not three different things related by a causal sequence, one gradually becoming the next, but three names for the identical dharmakāya, distinguished only by which of three time-periods — impure, mixed, or fully pure — happens to describe it at a given moment. A being is not dharmakāya-in-waiting; on this treatise's own account, a being simply already is the dharmakāya, under a specific description.
Space in a Vessel of Clay, of Silver, and of Gold
自此以下，即依彼三時明如來法性遍一切處故，說一偈：
如空遍一切， 而空無分別，
自性無垢心， 亦遍無分別。
此偈示現何義？偈言：
過功德畢竟， 遍至及同相，
下中勝眾生， 如虛空中色。
此偈明何義？所有凡夫、聖人、諸佛如來，自性清淨心平等無分別。彼清淨心於三時中，次第於過失時，於功德時，於功德清淨畢竟時，同相無差別。猶如虛空，在瓦，銀，金三種器中平等無異無差別一切時有。以是義故，經中說有三時次第。如《不增不減經》言：舍利弗！不離眾生界有法身，不離法身有眾生界。眾生界即法身，法身即眾生界。舍利弗！此二法者義一名異故。
From this point on, in dependence on these three time-periods, in order to clarify how the Tathāgata's dharma-nature pervades every place, a verse is spoken:
Just as space pervades everything, and space is without discrimination,
the mind stainless by its own nature also pervades, and is likewise without discrimination.
What meaning does this verse reveal? A verse says:
Fault, virtue, and their ultimate completion; pervading everywhere, and the identical mark;
inferior, middling, and superior beings — like forms within empty space.
What meaning does this verse make clear? Every ordinary being, noble one, and buddha, tathāgata alike, possesses the mind pure by its own nature, equal and without discrimination. That pure mind, across the three time-periods — in turn, in the time of fault, the time of virtue, and the time of virtue's ultimate purity — bears the identical mark, without any distinction, just as empty space, present within a vessel of clay, of silver, or of gold, is equal, without difference, without distinction, present at every time. For this reason, the sūtra speaks of these three time-periods in order. As the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa Sūtra says: "Śāriputra! There is no dharmakāya apart from the realm of beings, and no realm of beings apart from the dharmakāya. The realm of beings is itself the dharmakāya, and the dharmakāya is itself the realm of beings. Śāriputra! These two dharmas are one in meaning, though different in name."
The vessel simile is doing careful, specific work: space itself never changes at all whether it happens to be enclosed, at a given moment, within cheap clay, precious silver, or the finest gold — the vessel's own quality tracks nothing real about the space inside it. Mapped onto "inferior, middling, and superior beings," the simile makes an almost startling claim explicit: whatever ranks a being as spiritually inferior or superior — an ordinary being's affliction, a bodhisattva's partial purity, a buddha's completion — describes the vessel, not the space. The pure mind itself is exactly, unchangingly identical in an ordinary being, a bodhisattva, and a buddha; what differs is only ever the surrounding container. This is also the second time this treatise quotes this site's Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa Sūtra directly within the space of a single part — the sūtra's own closing identity claim, "the realm of beings is itself the dharmakāya," doing exactly the same argumentative work here that it does at that sūtra's own climax.
Part 12 Complete
This closes the treatise's account of difference across time and the first stage of pervading every place. Part 13 continues with the chapter's most extended sustained image yet: eleven full verses comparing the tathāgatagarbha to space itself, untouched by the fire that consumes everything around it.
Continue to Part 13 — Eleven Verses on Space That Fire Cannot Burn →