Five Faults of Teaching Emptiness Alone
Chapter Seven answers an objection the treatise poses squarely against itself: if buddha-nature exceeds the domain even of bodhisattvas on the unobstructed, ultimate ground, why teach it to confused, ordinary people at all, rather than simply teaching that everything is empty, like clouds, dreams, and illusions? The answer names five specific faults that arise precisely from teaching emptiness without also teaching that every sentient being possesses the tathāgatagarbha.
The Objection: Why Teach This to Ordinary People?
問曰：真如佛性如來藏義，住無障閡究竟菩薩地菩薩第一聖人亦非境界，以是一切智者境界故。若如是者，何故乃為愚癡顛倒凡夫人說？答曰：以是義故，略說四偈：
處處經中說， 內外一切空，
有為法如雲， 及如夢幻等。
此中何故說， 一切諸眾生，
皆有如來性， 而不說空寂？
以有怯弱心， 輕慢諸眾生，
執著虛妄法， 謗真如佛性，
計身有神我。 為令如是等，
遠離五種過， 故說有佛性。
Question: The meaning of true suchness, buddha-nature, the tathāgatagarbha, is not even the domain of the foremost noble ones — bodhisattvas abiding on the unobstructed, ultimate bodhisattva ground — since it is the domain of the omniscient one alone. If this is so, why then is it taught to foolish, deluded, ordinary people? Answer: For this reason, four verses briefly state:
In sūtra after sūtra it is said that everything, inner and outer, is empty,
and that conditioned dharmas are like clouds, and like dreams and illusions.
Why, then, in this treatise, is it said that every sentient being
possesses tathāgata-nature, rather than simply teaching empty quiescence?
Because of a timid, weak mind; because of holding other beings in contempt;
because of clinging to false dharmas; because of slandering true suchness, buddha-nature;
and because of conceiving a divine self within the body — in order to cause such beings
to become free of these five faults, the existence of buddha-nature is taught.
The Five Faults Explained
此四行偈，以十一偈略釋應知。偈言：
諸修多羅中， 說有為諸法，
謂煩惱業等， 如雲等虛妄，
煩惱猶如雲， 所作業如夢，
如幻陰亦爾， 煩惱業生故。
先已如是說， 此究竟論中，
為離五種過， 說有真如性。
以眾生不聞， 不發菩提心，
或有怯弱心， 欺自身諸過。
未發菩提心， 生起欺慢意，
見發菩提心， 我勝彼菩薩，
如是憍慢人， 不起正智心，
是故虛妄取， 不知如實法。
妄取眾生過， 不知客染心，
實無彼諸過， 自性淨功德。
以取虛妄過， 不知實功德，
是故不得生， 自他平等慈。
聞彼真如性， 起大勇猛力，
及恭敬世尊， 智慧及大悲。
生增長五法， 不退轉平等，
無一切諸過， 唯有諸功德。
取一切眾生， 如我身無異，
速疾得成就， 無上佛菩提。
It should be understood that these four verses are briefly explained by eleven further verses. A verse says:
In the sūtras, it is said that conditioned dharmas — namely afflictions, karma, and the rest —
are false, like clouds and the rest: affliction is like a cloud, the karma produced is like a dream,
and the aggregates, likewise, are like an illusion, because they are born from affliction and karma.
Though this has already been taught thus, in this ultimate treatise,
in order to free beings from five faults, the existence of the nature of true suchness is taught.
Because, not hearing of it, sentient beings do not give rise to the mind of enlightenment,
or else give rise to a timid, weak mind — this is the fault of deceiving oneself about one's own faults.
One who has not yet given rise to the mind of enlightenment gives rise to a contemptuous, arrogant intent,
seeing another who has given rise to the mind of enlightenment and thinking, "I am superior to that bodhisattva" —
such an arrogant person does not give rise to a mind of right wisdom,
and therefore falsely grasps things, not knowing the Dharma as it truly is.
Falsely grasping the faults of sentient beings, not knowing that the defiled mind is adventitious,
they really lack those faults, possessing instead the pure qualities of their own nature.
Because of grasping false faults, and not knowing the real qualities beings possess,
one is unable to give rise to a loving-kindness that regards self and others as equal.
But upon hearing of that nature of true suchness, great, courageous energy arises,
along with reverence for the World-Honored One, wisdom, and great compassion.
These five dharmas arise and increase: non-regression, equality,
freedom from every fault, and the presence of every quality alone.
Regarding every sentient being as no different from one's own body,
one swiftly accomplishes unsurpassed buddha-bodhi.
The five named faults — a timid mind, contempt for other beings, clinging to false dharmas, slandering true suchness, and imagining a divine self in the body — are the classical fivefold rationale for teaching buddha-nature found across this literature, though the treatise's own eleven-verse elaboration develops only some of them at length: discouragement from never having heard the teaching, an arrogant bodhisattva's contempt for those who have not yet given rise to bodhicitta, and a failure to see beings' faults as merely adventitious, which blocks the equal loving-kindness the whole teaching is meant to produce. The chapter's underlying argument is worth noticing on its own terms: emptiness taught by itself, however true, can curdle into despair, arrogance, or nihilism in a mind not yet steady enough to hold it rightly — the teaching of an indwelling, positive potential is offered here not as a concession to weaker students, but as the necessary other half of the very same truth.
Part 23 Complete — Chapter Seven Concluded
This closes the treatise's shortest chapter. Part 24 opens Chapter Eight, 身轉清淨成菩提品第八 ("The Body's Transformation into Pure Enlightenment"), turning at last from the tathāgatagarbha as cause to buddhahood as its fruit — the treatise's eightfold analysis of the resulting dharmakāya's essence, cause, fruit, function, correspondence, manifestation, constancy, and inconceivability, opening with the same sun-and-cloud imagery that closed Chapter Six.
Continue to Part 24 — The Body's Transformation into Enlightenment →