Ten Kinds of Aspiration for Awakening
With the Śrāvaka Ground's own determination now closed, Maitreya opens the Determination of the Bodhisattva Ground, a nine-fascicle analysis drawing out what the Basic Section's own eighteen chapters on the bodhisattva path left implicit. It begins where that path itself begins, with how bodhisattva lineage is established at all, then ten kinds of aspiration for awakening arranged in five contrasting pairs, and the nine right practices by which a bodhisattva benefits himself and others. The greater part of the fascicle then belongs to the Chapter on the Real, which sets out the five things of the Great Vehicle — characteristic, name, discrimination, suchness, and correct knowledge — and turns them over from eleven angles, the last of which sorts them patiently against thirty-six standard categories of the teaching, from the aggregates and the four conditions to the factors of awakening, the absorptions, and the eight liberations, coming to rest exactly where the source lecture-transcript ends.
1. Section: Opening the Bodhisattva Ground's Own Determination, and How Its Lineage Is Established
The determination of the Śrāvaka Ground and of the Solitary-Realizer Ground having now been given, the determination of the Bodhisattva Ground is taken up in turn, a treatment running across the next nine fascicles and drawing out the profound and implicit meanings the Basic Section's own account of the bodhisattva path did not make explicit. That account occupied sixteen fascicles and twenty-eight chapters across four yogic divisions: the first, which sustains the practice leading to unsurpassed awakening through lineage, through the aspiration for awakening, and through the factors of awakening; the second, which cultivates calming and insight in accordance with that same awakening; the third, which sets out the fruit, describing where a bodhisattva takes rebirth from the first ground through the tenth; and the fourth, which simply explains the order in which the chapters themselves were arranged and therefore receives no separate determination here, since apart from the first three divisions it has no independent content. The determination opens with lineage: just as the existence of śrāvaka lineage is established, so too, and in exactly the same way, should the establishment of bodhisattva lineage be understood. The Basic Section had already distinguished two kinds, the lineage that abides by nature, the uncontaminated cause present beginninglessly and carried forward of itself, and the lineage produced through cultivation, developed through the perfuming influence of wholesome practice undertaken later.
攝決擇分中菩薩地之一。如是已說聲聞地等決擇。菩薩地決擇，我今當說。謂如成立聲聞種性，當知成立菩薩種性，亦復如是。
The Determination of the Bodhisattva Ground, part one. The determination of the Śrāvaka Ground and the rest having been given, I shall now set out the determination of the Bodhisattva Ground. Just as the establishment of śrāvaka lineage is set out, so too should the establishment of bodhisattva lineage be understood.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes that the earlier determination of śrāvaka lineage did not restate what lineage is, since the Ground of Lineage had already explained that fully, but instead answered the sharp objection that some beings possess no lineage at all, setting out five rounds of question and answer to show that distinguishing five lineages among beings is entirely reasonable given the actual experience of teaching them; the same reasoning is simply carried over here.
2. Section: Ten Kinds of Aspiration, Arranged in Five Contrasting Pairs
The determination then turns to the aspiration for awakening, of which ten kinds are distinguished, spanning bodhisattvas from ordinary beings through noble ones: the aspiration undertaken conventionally and the aspiration that has obtained the nature of reality; the undetermined aspiration and the determined; the impure aspiration and the pure; the feeble aspiration and the vigorous; and the aspiration whose fruit is not yet accomplished and the aspiration whose fruit is accomplished. These fall naturally into five contrasting pairs: the first pair distinguished by the conventional against the ultimate, the second by whether the aspiration is settled, the third by whether it is purified, the fourth by whether it is strong or weak, and the fifth by whether its fruit has been reached, the aspiration whose fruit is not yet accomplished covering everyone from a bodhisattva still an ordinary being through a noble bodhisattva who has not yet become a buddha, and the aspiration whose fruit is accomplished belonging to a buddha alone.
復次，有十發心。謂世俗受發心、得法性發心、不決定發心、決定發心、不清淨發心、清淨發心、羸劣發心、彊盛發心、未成果發心、已成果發心。
There are ten kinds of aspiration for awakening: the aspiration undertaken conventionally, the aspiration that has obtained the nature of reality, the undetermined aspiration, the determined aspiration, the impure aspiration, the pure aspiration, the feeble aspiration, the vigorous aspiration, the aspiration whose fruit is not yet accomplished, and the aspiration whose fruit is accomplished.
Master Cháng Bǎi points out that the tenth kind belongs to a buddha alone, so that the ninth covers the entire span of the path from a bodhisattva who is still an ordinary being right through to one on the very threshold of buddhahood, a reminder that these ten are not ten different beginnings but a single aspiration described at every stage of its maturing.
3. Section: The Aspiration Merely Undertaken, and the Aspiration That Has Touched Reality Itself
The first pair is then explained. The aspiration undertaken conventionally belongs to bodhisattvas who have not yet entered the bodhisattva's own entry into the certainty of perfection, that is, to bodhisattvas still ordinary beings, the aspiration for unsurpassed awakening generated when receiving the precepts before the Three Jewels. That entry into certainty names the moment a practitioner of any of the three vehicles crosses over from ordinary being to noble one, the path of seeing being where this most characteristically occurs. The aspiration that has obtained the nature of reality covers two kinds. The first belongs to bodhisattvas who have genuinely entered that same certainty, realizing the suchness that is empty of both a self in persons and a self in phenomena, and thus covers every bodhisattva from the first ground through the tenth. The second belongs to śrāvakas and solitary realizers of indeterminate lineage, from the first fruit through arhatship, who having realized the suchness disclosed by the emptiness of a personal self then turn from the lesser vehicle toward the greater and generate the aspiration for unsurpassed awakening. Such a turning is traditionally described as available at any of five fruits, and the Sūtra Unlocking the Mysteries observes that a śrāvaka who turns toward awakening may in another sense be called a bodhisattva, since having already been freed from the obstruction of affliction, such a person may, once awakened by the buddhas, come to be freed from the obstruction to knowledge as well.
世俗受發心者，謂諸菩薩未入菩薩正性離生所有發心。得法性發心者，謂諸菩薩已入菩薩正性離生，及迴向菩提諸聲聞等所有發心。
The aspiration undertaken conventionally is the aspiration of bodhisattvas who have not yet entered the bodhisattva's entry into the certainty of perfection. The aspiration that has obtained the nature of reality is the aspiration of bodhisattvas who have already entered that certainty, together with the aspiration of those śrāvakas and others who turn toward awakening.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes the schools differ sharply here: the Dharma-characteristics tradition holds that only those of indeterminate lineage can make this turn, and that it must happen before entering nirvana without remainder, while the nature tradition holds that even those of fixed lineage in the two vehicles may turn, including those who have already entered that nirvana, so that in the end all beings reach buddhahood. He also cites fascicle 80's own observation that some śrāvakas relinquish their earlier aspiration while still in training and others only upon reaching the stage beyond training.
4. Section: Nine Motives That Leave an Aspiration Impure
The second pair concerns whether the aspiration is settled. The undetermined aspiration belongs to one who is not of bodhisattva lineage at all, or who, though of that lineage, does not sustain the practice, finds the bodhisattva path too demanding, and falls away from the aspiration already generated; the determined aspiration is simply the reverse, belonging to one of bodhisattva lineage who does not relinquish the vow once made. The third pair concerns purity, and nine motives are listed that leave an aspiration impure: generating it merely because someone else does, without any genuine inward conviction that this path alone completes the practice; generating it under pressure or coercion, whether a ruler's decree or a teacher's insistence, without having weighed it carefully oneself; generating it out of fear of a ruler, having fled into the monastic community to escape imprisonment or execution; out of fear of bandits; out of fear of harassment by spirits; out of fear of one's own backsliding, so that the aspiration is forced rather than freely given; for the sake of making a living; for the sake of gain and honor; and out of sheer pretense, having no bodhisattva's heart at all yet posing as one who does. The pure aspiration is the reverse of all these: generated from one's own genuine confidence in the teaching and truly for the benefit of beings, arrived at through careful inward discernment, whether moved by hearing the Dharma or, more remarkably still, moved by the actual practice of benefiting others.
不決定發心者，謂非彼種性，設彼種性復退還法所有發心。與此相違，當知名為決定發心。不清淨發心者，謂如有一，或隨他轉、或被陵逼不揆不量、或怖王難、或怖賊難、或怖鬼難、或怖退轉、或為活命、或為利養恭敬因緣、或復矯誑。如是等類而發心者，當知皆名不清淨發心。與此相違而發心者，名清淨發心。
The undetermined aspiration belongs to one not of that lineage, or who, though of that lineage, falls away from the aspiration; its opposite is the determined aspiration. The impure aspiration is generated merely following another, or under coercion without weighing it, or from fear of a ruler, of bandits, of spirits, or of one's own backsliding, or for a living, or for gain and honor, or out of pretense. Generating it contrary to all these is the pure aspiration.
Master Cháng Bǎi relays Kuiji's compact summary of what makes an aspiration impure, that it arises only from outward circumstance rather than from the person themselves, and adds his own observation that an aspiration awakened through actually working for others' benefit is rarer and more valuable than one awakened through hearing alone.
5. Section: Feeble and Vigorous, Unripened and Ripened, Closing the Ten Aspirations
The fourth pair concerns strength. The feeble aspiration belongs to a bodhisattva who, having already generated the aspiration, is so overwhelmed by the manifest activity of greed, anger, and delusion that wisdom is obscured, correct practice abandoned, and wrong conduct taken up instead; the vigorous aspiration is the reverse, belonging to one whose greed, anger, and delusion are slight, who sustains correct practice, and whose conviction regarding the bodhisattva path is settled and never turns back. The fifth pair concerns the fruit. The aspiration whose fruit is not yet accomplished spans everything from the ground of resolute conduct, covering the path of accumulation and the path of preparation, all the way through the tenth ground. And the aspiration whose fruit is accomplished belongs to the ground of the Tathāgata itself, as the World-Honored One declared: I have been liberated from what is difficult to practice; regarding every difficult practice I am perfectly and completely liberated; my own right vow is fulfilled, and I can bring others too to realize awakening. Commentators are careful to note that calling this an aspiration does not mean a buddha still seeks anything, only that the mind of the fruit itself has arisen, awakening having been realized. This closes the ten kinds of aspiration; as for which among them are defiled and which undefiled, the treatise notes that no further decisive analysis is given.
羸劣發心者，謂如有一已發心菩薩，貪瞋癡纏所蔽伏故，捨於正行，處於邪行。與此相違，名彊盛發心。未成果發心者，謂從勝解行地乃至第十地所有發心。已成果發心者，謂如來地所有發心。如世尊言：我已解脫難行之行，我於一切難行之行極善解脫，自正願滿，亦令於他趣證菩提。
The feeble aspiration belongs to a bodhisattva who, having generated it, is so overwhelmed by greed, anger, and delusion that correct practice is abandoned for wrong conduct; its opposite is the vigorous aspiration. The aspiration whose fruit is not yet accomplished runs from the ground of resolute conduct through the tenth ground. The aspiration whose fruit is accomplished belongs to the ground of the Tathāgata, as the World-Honored One said: I have been liberated from what is difficult to practice, my own right vow is fulfilled, and I bring others too to realize awakening.
Master Cháng Bǎi cites Master Shéntài's careful gloss that a buddha's aspiration names the arising of the mind of the fruit rather than any remaining wish, and cross-references fascicle 45's own fivefold account of a bodhisattva's right vows, the vow of aspiration, of rebirth, of conduct, the right vow, and the great vow, closing the ten kinds of aspiration for awakening.
6. Section: Four Minds Guarding the Aspiration, and Nine Right Practices Benefiting Self and Other Alike
Four minds should be constantly maintained by a bodhisattva to guard the aspiration once generated. The mind formed through hearing and reflection, since only by continually hearing and reflecting on the essentials of the Mahāyāna scriptures, discipline, and treatises can the aspiration be kept from retreating. The mind of compassion, learning from the buddhas the great compassion that arises without conditions and regards all beings as one body, cultivating it constantly and regarding every being impartially. The mind of accumulating provisions, applying oneself diligently to the two accumulations, the six perfections, and the four means of gathering beings, treating every teaching and every being as an occasion for accumulating what the path requires. And the mind formed through cultivation, since a bodhisattva must complete their own virtue as well as benefit others, the Basic Section observing that one who has resources, knowledge, and vigor yet cannot rightly discern beings' capacities is not called flourishing on the path, and equally that one skilled in guiding others yet lacking any accomplishment of their own risks teaching wrongly, being unable to lead others where they have not gone themselves. The determination then turns to the chapter on benefiting self and other, listing nine right practices grounded in one's own benefit and another's alike: right practice amid birth and death; toward beings; toward one's own person; amid the objects of desire; in the actions of body, speech, and mind; in not harming beings; in cultivating wholesome qualities without interruption; in inward calming; and in the insight belonging to the higher wisdom.
復次，有四種心，菩薩應當恆常隨護。一、聞思所成心，二、悲心，三、資糧心，四、修所成心。復次，菩薩有九正行，依於自義及與他義。一、於生死正行，二、於有情正行，三、於自體正行，四、於諸欲正行，五、於身語意業正行，六、於不應損惱有情正行，七、於無間修善法正行，八、於內心奢摩他正行，九、於增上慧法毗鉢舍那正行。
Four minds a bodhisattva should constantly guard: the mind formed through hearing and reflection, the mind of compassion, the mind of accumulating provisions, and the mind formed through cultivation. A bodhisattva has nine right practices, grounded in one's own benefit and another's: right practice amid birth and death; toward beings; toward one's own person; amid the objects of desire; in the actions of body, speech, and mind; in not harming beings; in cultivating wholesome qualities without interruption; in inward calming; and in the insight belonging to the higher wisdom.
Master Cháng Bǎi cites the Basic Section's own tenfold analysis of benefiting self and other, sorted by whether the benefit is exclusive or shared, whether it brings understanding or ease, whether it belongs to the cause or the fruit, whether it operates in this life or a future one, and whether it carries all the way to buddhahood or not, as the fuller background against which these nine right practices should be read.
7. Section: A Patient Swallowing Bitter Medicine, a Physician, a Parent, a Merchant on the Road
Each right practice is then illustrated. Right practice amid birth and death is like a patient with an illness taking a bitter medicine: a bodhisattva regards themselves as genuinely sick, afflicted by clinging to a self in persons and in phenomena, and regards the difficult practices of the bodhisattva path as the bitter medicine that alone counters those two illnesses; the medicine is hard to swallow, but it treats the whole sickness of birth and death. Even a bodhisattva still an ordinary being, though possessed of much greed, anger, and delusion, subdues those very afflictions in the course of forgetting themselves while helping others, and a noble bodhisattva completes the provisions for unsurpassed awakening in exactly the same way, which is why a bodhisattva must understand that the path is undertaken for their own sake as much as for beings' sake, purifying oneself precisely through benefiting others. Right practice toward beings is like a good physician toward the sick: beings are what a bodhisattva exists to heal, and one gives food where the sickness is hunger and teaching where the sickness is in the mind, applying oneself fully to both bodily and mental ills. Right practice toward one's own person is like a skillful parent with a child not yet grown: a bodhisattva discerns for themselves what is right and what is not, resolves to abandon the wrong and follow the right, and supervises their own conduct exactly as a parent constantly watches over a child, correcting the thought as it arises. And right practice amid the objects of desire is like a merchant guarding goods along the road: passing through the perilous road of birth and death and meeting all manner of attractive forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches, a bodhisattva guards mindfulness as a caravan guards its cargo, protecting the seven noble riches, faith, precepts, conscience, shame, learning, generosity, and wisdom, rather than clinging to worldly wealth.
云何菩薩於生死中行於正行？謂如病者於所有病、於辛苦藥。云何菩薩於諸有情行於正行？謂如良醫於有病者。云何菩薩於自體上行於正行？謂如善巧家長於未成就幼童。云何菩薩於諸欲中行於正行？謂如商主行於商路於諸財貨。
How does a bodhisattva practice rightly amid birth and death? As a patient with an illness regards a bitter medicine. How toward beings? As a good physician toward the sick. How toward one's own person? As a skillful parent toward a child not yet grown. How amid the objects of desire? As a merchant travelling the trade road regards the goods.
Master Cháng Bǎi draws out the first simile's real point, that the bodhisattva path is not simply what beings need from a bodhisattva but what the bodhisattva needs for themselves, the medicine being bitter precisely because it treats an illness the practitioner genuinely has, so that self-benefit is completed in the very act of benefiting others rather than set aside for it.
8. Section: A Launderer at the Washing, and a Father Whose Infant Soils His Lap
Right practice in the actions of body, speech, and mind is like a launderer with clothing: just as such a person washes a garment clean or dyes it beautifully, a bodhisattva, while walking the path, continually cultivates precepts, concentration, and wisdom to counter the defilement in their own three kinds of action until all three are brought to completeness. And right practice in not harming beings is like a kind father whose infant soils his own lap: passing through the perilous road of birth and death and encountering beings who behave badly, a bodhisattva takes no account of it whatsoever, exactly as a father does not hold a baby's accident against the baby, treating every being as one's own small child and simply not storing up their wrongdoing in the heart.
云何菩薩於身語意業行於正行？謂如浣染衣者於諸衣服。云何菩薩於不應損惱有情行於正行？謂如慈父於己膝上放失便利嬰孩小兒。
How does a bodhisattva practice rightly in the actions of body, speech, and mind? As one who washes and dyes cloth regards the clothing. How in not harming beings? As a kind father regards the infant who has soiled his own lap.
Master Cháng Bǎi illustrates the sixth simile with a modern account of the monk known as the Golden Mountain Living Buddha, who was doused with a bucket of filth by an army officer resentful of the reverence others showed him, and who neither grew angry nor complained; when a senior officer's wife, herself a disciple, saw what had happened and had the man arrested, it was the monk who prostrated himself to plead for his release, whereupon the officer wept, confessed his fault publicly, and took refuge in the Three Jewels. He puts the question to the reader directly: if someone emptied filth over your head, would you meet it as a parent meets an infant's accident, or would you hold it against them?
9. Section: Drilling for Fire, Entrusting Wealth to Someone Reliable, and a Magician Unfooled by His Own Illusions
Right practice in cultivating wholesome qualities without interruption is like someone seeking fire who works at the fire-drill: just as fire comes only from drilling the wood steadily and without stopping, a bodhisattva seeking unsurpassed awakening must cultivate hearing, reflection, and meditation, precepts, concentration, and wisdom, the six perfections and the four means of gathering beings diligently and without gaps, since only such sustained effort accomplishes awakening. Right practice in inward calming is like an owner entrusting wealth to someone genuinely reliable: just as property placed with a trustworthy custodian cannot be misappropriated, a bodhisattva walking the path needs the power of concentration, cultivating wisdom in dependence on it, so as not to be shaken by the objects of desire, by the eight worldly winds, or by any affliction; calming is what can be entrusted with one's wholesome qualities, and a bodhisattva who places them there remains unmoved and unattached whatever circumstances arise. And right practice in the insight belonging to the higher wisdom is like a skilled magician among his own illusions: just as such a person conjures elephants, horses, oxen, and sheep while never being deceived by any of them, a bodhisattva cultivates the insight of the higher wisdom, is thereby freed from clinging to a self in persons and in phenomena, and can read a listener's capacity and deploy every skillful means to teach beings while clinging to none of it, a bodhisattva accordingly cultivating the contemplations of the śrāvaka vehicle alongside those of the Mahāyāna in order to have the skill to teach beings of every kind. With this the nine right practices close.
云何菩薩於無間修諸善法中行於正行？謂如求火者施功於燧。云何菩薩於內心奢摩他中行於正行？謂如其主於能致財可委付者。云何菩薩於增上慧法毗鉢舍那中行於正行？謂如善幻者於諸幻事。餘決擇文，更不復現。
How does a bodhisattva practice rightly in cultivating wholesome qualities without interruption? As one seeking fire applies effort to the fire-drill. How in inward calming? As an owner regards someone reliable to whom wealth may be entrusted. How in the insight belonging to the higher wisdom? As a skilled magician regards his own illusions. No further text of decisive analysis appears.
Master Cháng Bǎi draws out the magician simile's double edge: the skill lies not only in producing the illusions but in never being taken in by them, so that a bodhisattva who deploys every kind of skillful means must be exactly the one least attached to any of them, closing the nine right practices.
10. Section: Five Kinds of Being Toward Whom Wrong Practice Means Compassion Has Failed
The counterpart is then set out: when a bodhisattva engages in wrong practice toward any of five kinds of being, this is described as being without pity, without compassion, and without any sorrow at their plight, and such a bodhisattva has in that moment gone against their own vow and lost compassion altogether. The five are those who ask something of one; those in danger or hardship; those who have shown one kindness; those who delight in worldly happiness; and those who delight in the Dharma. Those who ask are themselves of five kinds: asking for food and drink; for clothing; for shelter; for medicine and supplies on account of illness; and for rescue and protection. Should a bodhisattva fail to satisfy these requests and instead abuse the one asking, refusing to help, this is precisely wrong practice. Those in danger or hardship are likewise of five kinds: those living in genuine deprivation; those in confusion or disorder; those who come seeking refuge having nowhere else to turn; those who come entrusting some matter to one's care; and those who come seeking an audience in order to ask for help. Should a bodhisattva fail to relieve these and make no effort on their behalf, this too is wrong practice.
復次，若於五種有情眾中起邪行時，說名無哀、無愍、無有傷歎。一、於乞求者，二、於危厄者，三、於有恩者，四、於樂樂者，五、於樂法者。言乞求者，略有五種。一、求飲食，二、求衣服，三、求房舍，四、求病緣醫藥資具，五、求救護。其危厄者，亦有五種。一、住艱乏者，二、住迷亂者，三、來歸依者，四、相投委者，五、來拜覲者。
When one engages in wrong practice toward five kinds of being, this is called being without pity, without compassion, and without sorrow at their plight: those who ask something of one; those in danger or hardship; those who have shown kindness; those who delight in happiness; and those who delight in the Dharma. Those who ask are of five kinds: asking for food, clothing, shelter, medicine and supplies for illness, and rescue. Those in hardship are likewise of five: living in deprivation, in confusion, coming for refuge, entrusting a matter, and coming to seek an audience.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes the force of the treatise's own wording here, that failing these beings is not merely a lapse in conduct but is named as compassion itself having failed, so that a bodhisattva who turns such a person away has, in that very moment, gone against the vow that made them a bodhisattva at all.
11. Section: Those Who Have Shown Kindness, and Those Who Simply Want to Be Happy
Those who have shown kindness are of five kinds: one's mother, whose kindness the scriptures call as deep as the ocean; one's father, whose kindness they call as high as a mountain king; one's spouse and children, who support a bodhisattva in walking the path; the servants and workers who labor on one's behalf; and one's friends, siblings, relatives, and officials. More broadly, every being whatsoever is one's benefactor, the Buddha having observed that across the long night of wandering it is hard to find any being who has not at some point been one's mother, father, brother, sister, teacher, or preceptor; and as the Sūtra on the Contemplation of the Mind-Ground puts it, since beings have circled through the five destinies over hundreds of thousands of eons and have been each other's parents across many lives, every man may be regarded as a kind father and every woman as a loving mother, that former kindness being no different from a present parent's, yet still unrepaid, and sometimes even turned into enmity through delusion, since ignorance covers the knowledge of former lives and one no longer recognizes who was once a parent. Those who delight in happiness are likewise of five kinds: delighting in the happiness of a flourishing livelihood; in that flourishing continuing without loss; in being spared the suffering that changing circumstances bring; in the happiness of relieving fatigue; and in the happiness of advancement and gain. Where such worldly flourishing would genuinely bring a being benefit and ease in this life and the next, a bodhisattva should satisfy their wish rather than frustrate them.
其有恩者，亦有五種。一、母，二、父，三、妻子，四、奴婢僕使，五、朋友兄弟親屬宰官。其樂樂者，亦有五種。一、愛樂事業興盛樂，二、愛樂事業興盛不乖離樂，三、愛樂時節變異苦遠離樂，四、愛樂解疲倦樂，五、愛樂求昇進樂。
Those who have shown kindness are of five kinds: mother, father, spouse and children, servants and workers, and friends, siblings, relatives, and officials. Those who delight in happiness are likewise of five kinds: delighting in a flourishing livelihood; in that flourishing not being lost; in being spared the suffering brought by changing circumstances; in the relief of fatigue; and in advancement and gain.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the widening of "those who have shown kindness" from one's immediate family to all beings as the passage's real weight, since a bodhisattva who sees present relationships as only the momentary shape of a much longer history has no principled ground for withholding help from anyone, every being having stood in a parent's place at some point along the way.
12. Section: Those Who Delight in the Dharma, and Four Shapes Wrong Practice Takes
Those who delight in the Dharma are likewise of five kinds: delighting in hearing the true teaching expounded; delighting in receiving, upholding, reading, and reciting the scriptures; delighting in discussion, analysis, and inquiry into their deeper meaning; delighting in instruction concerning concentration and wisdom and in admonition concerning the precepts; and delighting in practice in accordance with the Dharma, that is, in cultivating calming and insight and the eightfold path toward nirvana. Should a bodhisattva neither help nor rejoice in such a person, ignore them, fail to meet their wish, or worse, actively obstruct them, this is wrong practice. As to what wrong practice consists of across all five kinds of being, it may take four shapes: acting wrongly, as when someone comes asking and the bodhisattva not only refuses but abuses them; failing to act, as when someone is in hardship and the bodhisattva simply does not come to their relief; acting without benefit, as when someone has shown kindness and the bodhisattva neither acknowledges the debt nor treats them well; and acting with indifference, as when someone delights either in worldly happiness or in the Dharma and the bodhisattva remains unmoved, neither rejoicing with them nor benefiting them at all.
其樂法者，亦有五種。一、樂說正法，二、樂受持讀誦，三、樂論議決擇，四、樂教授教誡，五、樂法隨法行。此中邪行者，謂於是中，或作加行故、或不作加行故、或不饒益加行故、或中庸加行故，應知其相。
Those who delight in the Dharma are of five kinds: delighting in its being expounded; in receiving, upholding, reading, and reciting it; in discussion and analysis; in instruction and admonition; and in practice in accordance with the Dharma. Wrong practice here takes four shapes: acting wrongly; failing to act; acting without benefit; and acting with indifference. Its characteristics should be understood accordingly.
Master Cháng Bǎi observes that the fourth shape, mere indifference, is the easiest to overlook precisely because nothing overtly harmful is done, and directs readers to fascicle 79's treatment of the chapter on conduct, where the Ratnakūṭa's own sixteen contrasting marks of right and wrong practice are set out for fuller reflection.
13. Section: Five Ways a Being Can Be Beyond Even a Buddha's Reach
The determination then turns to who can and cannot be trained. Five kinds of incapacity are found among beings, and a being possessing them is difficult even for the buddhas to bring across, let alone bodhisattvas or anyone else; for though the buddhas wish to bring such a being genuine benefit and ease, that being cannot receive what is done for them, and further obstructs the very work undertaken on their behalf. The five are: incapacity for purity; incapacity for the preparatory practice; incapacity for accomplishing the fruit; incapacity for both practice and fruit together; and incapacity for receiving material benefit. Incapacity for purity belongs to one who by nature possesses no capacity for nirvana at all, lacking in the storehouse consciousness any pure seed for it, and therefore never manifesting purity. The Śrāvaka Ground describes such a being through six marks: an unshakeable clinging to self, so deeply perfumed across the realms and destinies that not even the buddhas can dislodge it; an inability to generate any wish for release, remaining wholly unmoved though the faults of birth and death are denounced and the virtues of nirvana praised in countless ways; a fully developed absence of conscience and shame, with no dread of wrongdoing and no belief in cause and effect, valuing only this life's advantage; an absence of wholesome roots, so that even the most beautiful and accessible teaching produces no confidence; going forth in appearance only, whether under compulsion or for a livelihood, and taking no delight in genuine training; and performing only such slight good as is done in hope of prosperity within existence, with no wish to leave birth and death at all.
復次，於有情中，有五種不堪任性。若諸有情成就此者，諸佛如來尚難化度，況諸菩薩，或復餘者。何等為五？一、於清淨無堪任性，二、於加行無堪任性，三、於彼果成辦無堪任性，四、於加行及彼果成辦無堪任性，五、於攝受饒益無堪任性。於清淨無堪任性者，謂如有一，本性無有般涅槃法。
Among beings there are five kinds of incapacity; a being possessing them is difficult even for the buddhas to bring across, let alone bodhisattvas or anyone else. Which five? Incapacity for purity; for the preparatory practice; for accomplishing the fruit; for both together; and for receiving material benefit. Incapacity for purity belongs to one who by nature possesses no capacity for nirvana.
Master Cháng Bǎi cites the Bodhisattva Ground's own parallel statement that a being abiding in no lineage, lacking bodhisattva lineage, is definitively incapable of completing unsurpassed awakening even with an aspiration generated and practice undertaken as its basis, and notes that this is the tradition's hardest teaching about the limits of what compassion can accomplish where the capacity itself is absent.
14. Section: Capacity Ruined by Grave Wrongdoing, and Capacity Simply Not Yet Ripe
Incapacity for the preparatory practice belongs to one who does possess the capacity for nirvana and whose continuum has genuinely ripened, meaning that in this very life they are able to enter the certainty of perfection and realize the noble path, but who then immediately commits and accumulates karma that obstructs correct practice, such as any of the deeds of immediate retribution, and by that cause is left in this present life without the capacity to cultivate the right means. Should such obstruction be described more broadly, the Śrāvaka Ground sets out inner and outer hindrances to cultivating calming and insight: inwardly, hindrances to practice itself such as lacking requisites, overwhelming affliction, frequent illness, or disordered humors; hindrances to seclusion such as coarse food or delight in idle talk; and hindrances to inward stillness such as self-promotion or dwelling in unsuitable places; while outwardly, hindrances arise from beings, namely failing to seek out good friends and keeping company with bad ones, and from the setting itself, a place too noisy, too infested, or too dangerous to practice in. Incapacity for accomplishing the fruit belongs instead to one who possesses the capacity for nirvana and has committed no obstructing karma at all, but whose continuum has simply not yet ripened, so that although practice is undertaken, the fruit cannot yet be accomplished in this life; the Bodhisattva Ground describes the parallel case of a bodhisattva who meets a good friend, learns correctly, and applies vigorous effort, yet whose wholesome roots are not yet mature and whose provisions for awakening are not yet complete, not having accumulated the factors of awakening over a long enough span.
於加行無堪任性者，謂如有一，同般涅槃法相續已熟，於此無間，造作積集能障正加行業。由此因緣，於現法中，無有堪能修正方便。於彼果成辦無堪任性者，謂如有一，同般涅槃法相續未熟，不作不集能障正加行業。由此因緣，無有功能成辦彼果。
Incapacity for the preparatory practice belongs to one whose capacity for nirvana has ripened but who then immediately commits and accumulates karma obstructing correct practice, and by that cause lacks in this life the capacity to cultivate the right means. Incapacity for accomplishing the fruit belongs to one whose capacity for nirvana has not yet ripened and who commits no obstructing karma, and who by that cause lacks the power to accomplish the fruit.
Master Cháng Bǎi points out how differently these two cases should be received: the first is a ripeness ruined by grave wrongdoing, while the second involves no fault at all, only a maturity not yet reached, the Śrāvaka Ground listing among its causes insufficient accumulation of the wholesome faculties, instruction that does not actually conduce to realization, and a practitioner's own still-weak concentration.
15. Section: Both Practice and Fruit Foreclosed, Poverty Fixed by Past Deeds, and the Capable by Contrast
Incapacity for both the preparatory practice and the accomplishment of its fruit belongs to one who possesses the capacity for nirvana but whose continuum has not yet ripened, and who then immediately commits and accumulates karma obstructing correct practice as well, so that by that cause both are foreclosed at once, neither the cultivation of calming and insight nor the realization of the noble path remaining possible. And incapacity for receiving material benefit belongs to one who has immediately committed and accumulated karma certain to produce the suffering of poverty and want, such as theft, so that in this present life, however hard they work, they cannot become wealthy or free from want or dwell at ease; and since such karma is fixed, not even the buddhas can alter its result. This last case applies to beings whether or not they possess lineage, since anyone who commits karma certain to produce poverty will undergo that result regardless. As for those who are capable of being trained, they should simply be understood as the reverse of these five: whoever is free of these five faults may indeed be taught and transformed, and these are the five kinds of being who possess genuine capacity. This closes the chapter on benefiting self and other.
於加行及彼果成辦無堪任性者，謂如有一，同般涅槃法相續未熟，於此無間，造作積集能障正加行業。由此因緣，俱無堪能。於攝受饒益無堪任性者，謂如有一，於此無間，造作積集能感定受貧窮匱乏苦惱之業。由此因緣，於現法中，無有堪能令彼巨富無匱安樂。與此相違，當知五種有堪任性。
Incapacity for both practice and fruit belongs to one whose capacity has not yet ripened and who then immediately commits karma obstructing correct practice, so that by that cause both are foreclosed. Incapacity for receiving material benefit belongs to one who has committed karma certain to produce the suffering of poverty and want, so that in this life they cannot be made wealthy, free from want, or at ease. The reverse of these should be understood as the five kinds of genuine capacity.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes that the fifth incapacity concerns material circumstances rather than spiritual capacity, and applies equally to those with and without lineage, a reminder that fixed karma governs even the ordinary conditions under which practice must be undertaken, closing the discussion of who can and cannot be trained.
16. Section: Opening the Chapter on Ultimate Reality, and the Mahāyāna's Five Things
The determination then takes up the chapter on ultimate reality. Whoever wishes to understand what is ultimately real should first understand that everything may be gathered, in brief, into five things, this fivefold analysis serving here to explain the fourfold account of ultimate reality given in the Basic Section's own chapter. A summarizing verse gathers the whole treatment: raising them together, distinguishing them separately, whether existent, whether real, conventional or ultimate, what produces them, whether they differ, their characteristics, their modes of operation, their various names, and form and the rest. These name the eleven angles from which the five will be examined: raised together as a set; distinguished individually; sorted by existence and non-existence; by whether they are real or merely designated; by whether they are conventional or ultimate; by what produces each; by whether they differ from one another; by their own defining characteristics; by their modes of operation; by their differing names; and finally by matching them against form and the other categories, the aggregates and non-aggregates through to the foundations of mindfulness, some thirty-six headings in all. The five things themselves are: characteristic, name, discrimination, suchness, and correct knowledge.
復次，若欲了知真實義者，當先了知略有五事。嗢柁南曰：總舉別分別 有實世俗事 若生若異等 相行等色等。云何五事？一、相，二、名，三、分別，四、真如，五、正智。
Whoever wishes to understand what is ultimately real should first understand that, in brief, there are five things. The summarizing verse: raising them together, distinguishing them separately, whether existent, whether real, conventional or ultimate, what produces them, whether they differ, their characteristics, their modes of operation, their names, and form and the rest. What are the five things? Characteristic, name, discrimination, suchness, and correct knowledge.
Master Cháng Bǎi explains the function of a summarizing verse in this literature, gathering a great many topics into a very few words so that a student can hold the whole structure in mind while working through the detail, and notes that these five things constitute one of the Mahāyāna's own foundational analytical frameworks.
17. Section: Characteristic, Name, Discrimination, and Suchness
Each of the five is then defined. What is characteristic? In brief, whatever serves as the ground on which speech comes to rest, that is, whatever can serve as the basis for a designation; this is the domain within which discrimination operates, which is why it is called characteristic. What is name? Whatever term is added onto a characteristic, that is, the names of things. Dependently arisen forms and mental events have of themselves no names at all; it is through the sixth consciousness's own discriminating function, the mental factor of perception taking up an image and distinguishing it, that provisional names are assigned to what is in its own nature inexpressible, and this addition is what the term names. The eye and the other faculties, and visible form and the other objects, have in themselves no names, their own characteristics being beyond expression; names are added onto them so that they may be recognized and communicated about. What is discrimination? All the minds and mental factors operating within the conditioned activity of the three realms, the eight consciousnesses and their mental factors having precisely this function of discriminating an object. And what is suchness? That which is disclosed by the absence of any self in phenomena, the domain in which a noble one's own knowledge operates, and precisely not something on which speech can come to rest, since phenomena arise from conditions, are governed by nothing, and are empty and without self; suchness is where the path of language is cut off and the workings of the mind cease.
何等為相？謂若略說，所有言談安足處事。何等為名？謂即於相所有增語。何等為分別？謂三界行中所有心心所。何等為真如？謂法無我所顯，聖智所行，非一切言談安足處事。
What is characteristic? In brief, whatever serves as the ground on which speech comes to rest. What is name? Whatever term is added onto a characteristic. What is discrimination? All the minds and mental factors within the conditioned activity of the three realms. What is suchness? That which is disclosed by the absence of self in phenomena, the domain in which noble knowledge operates, and precisely not a ground on which any speech comes to rest.
Master Cháng Bǎi relays five progressively narrower senses in which "characteristic" may be used: at its widest all five things are characteristics, since all have substance; excluding suchness alone, since suchness is unconditioned and beyond characteristics, the remaining four are characteristics as things speech rests upon; narrower still, characteristic, name, and discrimination are what the minds of the three realms take as objects; narrower again, only characteristic and name, when the point is what a defiled mind takes as its object-aspect; and narrowest of all, whatever the other four do not subsume, the faculties, objects, and the unassociated formations.
18. Section: The Knowledge That Is Purely Transcendent, and How the Five Sciences Purify the Obstruction to Knowledge
Correct knowledge, the fifth thing, is of two kinds: the purely transcendent, and the knowledge that is both worldly and transcendent. The purely transcendent is the fundamental non-discriminating knowledge, and it is by this that śrāvakas, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas alike penetrate suchness, the two lesser vehicles penetrating the suchness disclosed by the emptiness of a self in persons and bodhisattvas penetrating the suchness disclosed by the emptiness of both a self in persons and a self in phenomena. It is further by this same knowledge that bodhisattvas, cultivating skillful means across the five sciences, inner knowledge, logic, medicine, the crafts, and language, and dwelling largely within the knowledge of all-pervading suchness, swiftly accomplish the complete purification of the obstruction to knowledge. Because such a bodhisattva knows that no phenomenon whatsoever is ultimately established, they can test that understanding against every kind of concrete undertaking, and the very variety of the five sciences becomes the field in which emptiness is verified in practice rather than merely held in theory, much as someone who has genuinely grasped the principles of cooking can produce any number of dishes; understanding grows more fluent, more skillful, and more complete precisely through being exercised across so many domains.
何等為正智？謂略有二種。一、唯出世間正智，二、世間出世間正智。何等名為唯出世間正智？謂由此故，聲聞、獨覺、諸菩薩等通達真如。又由此故，彼諸菩薩於五明處善修方便，多住如是一切遍行真如智故，速證圓滿所知障淨。
What is correct knowledge? In brief, of two kinds: the purely transcendent, and the worldly-and-transcendent. What is the purely transcendent? That by which śrāvakas, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas penetrate suchness. And it is by this that bodhisattvas, cultivating skillful means across the five sciences and dwelling largely in the knowledge of all-pervading suchness, swiftly accomplish the complete purification of the obstruction to knowledge.
Master Cháng Bǎi anticipates the natural objection that the five sciences would seem to belong to the subsequently attained knowledge rather than the fundamental one, and relays Master Jǐng's answer that a bodhisattva cultivates the sciences precisely in order to sever clinging to a self in phenomena, so that they too become objects of the transcendent knowledge of suchness. He identifies "all-pervading suchness" with the seven suchnesses said to pervade all conditioned things: the suchness of flowing, of true character, of consciousness-only, and the four corresponding to the noble truths, of establishment, of wrong conduct, of purity, and of right conduct.
19. Section: The Knowledge That Is Both Worldly and Transcendent, and Why It Bears Both Names
The knowledge that is both worldly and transcendent is what śrāvakas and solitary realizers obtain after the first knowledge has penetrated suchness; by this subsequently attained knowledge they continue to contemplate the truths as conventionally set out, so that the mind grows weary of and afraid of the faults of the three realms and comes to relish the peace beyond them. And by dwelling largely in this knowledge, entering again and again into transcendent knowledge, they swiftly accomplish the complete purification of the obstruction of affliction, severing its very seeds. The contrast with a bodhisattva's course is instructive: a bodhisattva who has attained direct realization cultivates, throughout the ten grounds, only the path that eliminates the obstruction to knowledge, applying the knowledge of phenomenal emptiness to the five sciences and the ten perfections, and though the seeds of affliction are not severed during those grounds, its coarse residue is progressively worn away, the seeds themselves being severed all at once only in the adamantine concentration at the threshold of buddhahood. As to why this knowledge bears both names: it is called transcendent because it was never obtained before, arising only once the fundamental knowledge has been realized and therefore genuinely surpassing mere designation; and it is called worldly because it takes the marks of verbal expression as its object, being with characteristics and with discrimination. For this reason it is called the knowledge that is both worldly and transcendent.
何等名為世間出世間正智？謂聲聞、獨覺以初正智通達真如已，由此後所得世間出世間正智，於諸安立諦中，令心厭怖三界過患，愛味三界寂靜。又由多分安住此故，速證圓滿煩惱障淨。又即此智，未曾得義，名出世間；緣言說相為境界義，亦名世間；是故說為世間出世間。
What is the knowledge that is both worldly and transcendent? Śrāvakas and solitary realizers, having penetrated suchness by the first knowledge, then by this subsequently obtained knowledge contemplate the truths as conventionally set out, so that the mind grows weary and afraid of the three realms' faults and relishes their peace; and by dwelling largely in it they swiftly accomplish the complete purification of the obstruction of affliction. This knowledge is called transcendent because it was never obtained before, and worldly because it takes the marks of verbal expression as its object.
Master Cháng Bǎi cites the Bodhisattva Ground's account of where a bodhisattva's affliction is actually worn down, the residue belonging to the lower destinies eliminated at the first ground, that obstructing the forbearance regarding non-arising eliminated at the eighth, and every remaining habitual trace eliminated only upon entering a tathāgata's own abiding, together with the parallel image of the obstruction to knowledge lying first in the skin, then the surface flesh, then the flesh itself, cleared at those same three stages.
20. Section: Three Knowledges the Buddha Named, and Recording a Characteristic as Existent, Non-Existent, Both, and Neither
It was with this implicit meaning that the World-Honored One declared: I speak of worldly knowledge, of transcendent knowledge, and of knowledge that is both worldly and transcendent. Accordingly, knowledge subsumed under discrimination, that is, the knowledge belonging to the minds and mental factors of the three realms, is called worldly alone; the knowledge subsumed under the first correct knowledge is called transcendent alone; and the knowledge subsumed under the second correct knowledge is called both worldly and transcendent. The determination then turns to whether each of the five things exists. Should a characteristic be called existent or non-existent? It should be called existent, since it is a dependently arisen phenomenon arising through conditions. Yet if the question is whether a characteristic exists as the intrinsic nature and the distinctions provisionally established through language, it should be called non-existent, since that belongs to the wholly imagined nature and has no substance at all. And if the question is whether it exists as the object within which the minds of the three realms operate, it should be called existent, since consciousness arising from its seeds produces both a perceiving and a perceived aspect, which arise dependently. It is because a bodhisattva becomes skilled in exactly this that they can rightly record a characteristic as existent, as non-existent, as both existent and non-existent, and as neither existent nor non-existent, and by recording it so skillfully they leave behind the two extremes of superimposition and denial, walk the middle way, and speak well of the realm of reality.
世尊依此密意，說如是言：我說有世間智、有出世間智、有世間出世間智。⋯⋯問：相當言有耶？當言無耶？答：當言是有。⋯⋯如是菩薩於相有性得善巧故，於諸相中善記為有、善記為無、善記為亦有亦無、善記為非有非無。彼由如是善記別故，遠離增益、損減二邊，行於中道，善說法界。
With this implicit meaning the World-Honored One said: I speak of worldly knowledge, transcendent knowledge, and knowledge both worldly and transcendent. Should a characteristic be called existent or non-existent? It should be called existent. A bodhisattva, being skilled regarding a characteristic's having a nature, rightly records characteristics as existent, as non-existent, as both, and as neither; and by recording them so skillfully, leaves behind the extremes of superimposition and denial, walks the middle way, and speaks well of the realm of reality.
Master Cháng Bǎi reads this fourfold recording in two complementary registers: on the single-nature reading, everything turns on the dependently arisen alone, existent as illusory appearance and non-existent as lacking substance; on the three-natures reading, what is recorded as existent is the dependently arisen and what is recorded as non-existent is the wholly imagined, so that a bodhisattva avoids both reifying names into things and denying appearances altogether, the second extreme being what the tradition calls a badly grasped emptiness.
21. Section: Existent Through Speech and Existent Beyond Speech, and Suchness and Correct Knowledge as Existent
A further question: does a characteristic exist in the sense that admits of verbal expression, or in the sense that lies beyond verbal expression? It should be called existent in both senses. Why? Insofar as it serves as the ground on which language comes to rest, it exists in the sense that admits of expression, and this is conventional existence. And insofar as the intrinsic nature and distinctions provisionally established through language turn out not to be accomplished at all, so that upon recognizing their unattainability one leaves the wholly imagined behind and enters the inexpressible suchness disclosed within the dependently arisen, it exists in the sense that lies beyond expression, and this is ultimate existence. What holds for characteristic holds equally for name and for discrimination: a name is what expresses, serving as the ground on which language rests, and is therefore existent, though as a provisional designation upon dependently arisen form and mind it is conventionally existent only; discrimination is the perceiving mind that assigns names upon characteristics, likewise conventionally existent as something arisen from conditions, and ultimately existent in that discrimination transformed at its basis becomes correct knowledge itself. As for the last two, should suchness and correct knowledge be called existent or non-existent? They should be called existent, both belonging to the perfectly accomplished nature.
問：此相為以言說義當言是有？為以離言說義當言是有？答：俱由二義當言是有。何以故？若如語言安立足處，如是以言說義當言是有；若如自性、差別假立不成就義，如是以離言說義當言是有。如相，名、分別亦爾。問：真如、正智當言有耶？當言無耶？答：當言是有。
Does this characteristic exist in the sense that admits of expression, or in the sense beyond expression? It should be called existent in both senses. Why? Insofar as it is the ground on which language rests, it exists in the sense admitting expression; insofar as the intrinsic nature and distinctions provisionally established are not accomplished, it exists in the sense beyond expression. As with characteristic, so too with name and discrimination. Should suchness and correct knowledge be called existent or non-existent? They should be called existent.
Master Cháng Bǎi distinguishes carefully what happens to each of the three at the moment of realization: when fundamental knowledge arises, neither characteristic nor name nor discrimination appears at all; it is the subsequently attained knowledge that again takes up illusory dependent appearances and names, now without clinging, and he sorts these against the fourfold scheme of two truths according to whether that knowledge is engaged with conventional matters, with the sixteen aspects of the truths, or turning back upon suchness itself.
22. Section: Substantially Real or Merely Designated, Across Characteristic, Name, and Discrimination
Should a characteristic be called substantially real or merely designated? Among substantially real operations it should be called substantially real, and among merely designated operations it should be called merely designated, the point turning on whether the object-aspect that a mind takes up is itself substantial. The tradition distinguishes three kinds of such object: the substantial object, produced from the seeds of the storehouse consciousness and directly perceived by that consciousness, by the five sense consciousnesses, and by the mental consciousness accompanying them; the object that is a bare mental image, produced by the mental consciousness alone; and the object carrying a substratum, where a real basis exists but the image produced does not match its own character. The first is substantially real, the latter two merely designated. Conditioned things bearing characteristics are likewise twofold, form, mind, and mental factors being substantially real while the formations dissociated from mind are merely designated; as the Determination puts it elsewhere, whatever does not depend on something else in order to have its own character established is substantially real, and whatever requires something else in order to be so established, as a jar is designated in dependence on color and the rest, is merely designated. As for name, it should be called merely designated, since it is only provisionally assigned upon a characteristic. And as for discrimination, both are present, since among minds and mental factors some are substantially real and some merely designated.
問：相當言實有，當言假有？答：實有行中當言實有，假有行中當言假有。有相諸行亦有二種。問：名當言實有，當言假有？答：當言假有，唯於相中假施設故。問：分別當言實有，當言假有？答：二種俱有。
Should a characteristic be called substantially real or merely designated? Among substantially real operations it should be called substantially real; among merely designated operations, merely designated. Conditioned things bearing characteristics are likewise twofold. Should a name be called substantially real or merely designated? Merely designated, since it is only provisionally assigned upon a characteristic. Should discrimination be called substantially real or merely designated? Both are present.
Master Cháng Bǎi relays the detailed sorting of mental factors into substantial and designated: among wholesome factors, faith, non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion, conscience, shame, pliancy, and effort are substantial while heedfulness, equanimity, and non-harming are designated; among the root afflictions, greed, hatred, ignorance, conceit, and doubt are substantial while view is designated; and he cautions that "substantially real" here is a conventional designation set against the merely designated, not a claim that anything possesses an unchanging intrinsic nature.
23. Section: Suchness Substantially Real, Knowledge Both, and Characteristic as Conventional Existence
Should suchness be called substantially real or merely designated? It should be called substantially real, since it belongs to the ultimate, "ultimate" naming the object within which a noble one's own excellent non-discriminating knowledge operates. And should correct knowledge be called substantially real or merely designated? Both should be affirmed: the knowledge itself is substantially real, while the minds and mental factors that accompany it as its retinue, though also called knowledge because they operate under its lead, are spoken of as designated, since they are not that knowledge proper but only its companions. On the Mahāyāna account, when a bodhisattva of the first ground realizes the fundamental non-discriminating knowledge, the sixth consciousness becomes the knowledge of wondrous observation in its lesser degree and the seventh becomes the knowledge of equality in its lesser degree, while some twenty-one mental factors accompany the purified consciousnesses and are all renamed knowledge; yet apart from the faculty of wisdom itself, none of these is the correct knowledge proper, and so all are called designated. On the śrāvaka account, the eight forbearances of the path of seeing stand in exactly this relation to the eight knowledges. The determination then turns to whether each of the five is conventional or ultimate existence, and of characteristic it answers: it should be called conventional existence.
問：真如當言實有，當言假有？答：當言實有，勝義攝故。問：正智當言實有，當言假有？答：當言俱有。此中智是實有；若智眷屬諸心心所亦名為智，說之為假；故有二種。問：相當言世俗有，當言勝義有？答：當言世俗有。
Should suchness be called substantially real or merely designated? Substantially real, since it belongs to the ultimate. Should correct knowledge be called substantially real or merely designated? Both. Here the knowledge itself is substantially real; while the minds and mental factors that are its retinue, though also called knowledge, are spoken of as designated, so there are two. Should a characteristic be called conventional or ultimate existence? Conventional existence.
Master Cháng Bǎi is careful that calling the retinue "designated" is not a slight on it: these accompanying factors are genuinely pure and genuinely knowledge in the broad sense, and are called designated only because they are not the faculty of wisdom itself, which alone is correct knowledge in the strict sense.
24. Section: Why Characteristic, Name, and Discrimination Are All Conventional Existence
A characteristic is conventional existence for two reasons: because it arises from defilement, being the object-aspect of the minds of the three realms, which are themselves produced by afflictive and karmic defilement and which, taking a characteristic as their support, produce further defilement in turn; and because it is the vessel of designation, serving as the ground on which the mental consciousness establishes its verbal expressions. A name is conventional existence for three reasons: because it arises from defilement, since phenomena have of themselves no names and a name, once forcibly assigned, becomes the basis on which every kind of wholly imagined defilement arises; because it is the vessel of designation, being provisionally established upon the characteristics of conditioned and unconditioned things alike; and because it is what speech depends upon, since a name comes first and perception follows, perception comes first and speech follows, so that whatever depends on speech cannot be the ultimate, which lies beyond expression. And discrimination is conventional existence for four reasons: because it arises from defilement, being produced from the seeds of affliction and karma; because it is the vessel of designation, being what does the designating upon its own object-aspect; because of the latent tendency toward speech, the seeds of verbal expression perfuming even infants and animals who cannot yet speak so that discriminating perceptions still arise in them; and because of the manifest activity of speech, present discriminating minds taking up characteristics through expression so that the phenomena of the world arise at all.
由二因緣故。一、雜染起故；二、施設器故。問：名當言世俗有，當言勝義有？答：當言世俗有。由三因緣故。一、雜染起故；二、施設器故；三、言說所依故。問：分別當言世俗有，當言勝義有？答：當言世俗有。由四因緣故。一、雜染起故；二、施設器故；三、言說隨眠故；四、言說隨覺故。
For two reasons: because it arises from defilement, and because it is the vessel of designation. Should a name be called conventional or ultimate existence? Conventional, for three reasons: because it arises from defilement, because it is the vessel of designation, and because it is what speech depends upon. Should discrimination be called conventional or ultimate existence? Conventional, for four reasons: because it arises from defilement, because it is the vessel of designation, because of the latent tendency toward speech, and because of the manifest activity of speech.
Master Cháng Bǎi cites fascicle 76's account of how this actually drives rebirth: through the mind being perfumed by speech, and through speech's manifest activity and latent tendency, one superimposes the wholly imagined nature upon the dependently arisen and the perfectly accomplished, and just so does one generate the dependently arisen nature of a future life, so that stained by affliction, karma, and birth one runs on through the realms without rest.
25. Section: Suchness and Knowledge as Ultimate, and What Actually Produces a Characteristic or a Name
Should suchness be called conventional or ultimate existence? Ultimate existence, since it is the object within which purified non-discriminating knowledge operates. Should correct knowledge be called conventional or ultimate? The first correct knowledge should be called ultimate existence, being the outflow-free, non-discriminating fundamental knowledge; the second should be affirmed as both, since insofar as it was never before obtained and arises beyond verbal elaboration it is ultimate existence, while insofar as it takes names as its object, with characteristics and with discrimination, it is conventional existence. The determination then asks what produces each of the five. What produces a characteristic? It should be said that a characteristic is produced by characteristics and by prior discrimination: the body and world produced from the seeds of the storehouse consciousness serve as the substantial characteristics that the six consciousnesses take as their objects, while those same six consciousnesses, discriminating upon the images so produced, generate craving toward the agreeable, aversion toward the disagreeable, and confusion toward the neutral, and on that basis perform actions that ripen into future bodies and worlds, which then become the objects of discrimination once again. And what produces a name? It should be said that a name is produced by a person's own wish, arising from speech together with the wish to express something in just such a way, names, phrases, and syllables being arranged in sequence accordingly, since one must have a name in order to think, and thinking in order to speak.
問：真如當言世俗有，當言勝義有？答：當言勝義有，是清淨所緣境性故。問：正智當言世俗有，當言勝義有？答：初正智當言勝義有，第二正智當言俱有。問：相當言誰所生？答：當言相所生，及先分別所生。問：名當言誰所生？答：當言補特伽羅欲所生。
Should suchness be called conventional or ultimate existence? Ultimate, being the object of purified knowledge. Should correct knowledge be called conventional or ultimate? The first should be called ultimate; the second should be affirmed as both. What produces a characteristic? It is produced by characteristics and by prior discrimination. What produces a name? It is produced by a person's own wish.
Master Cháng Bǎi traces the circle the first answer describes: seeds produce the body and world, the six consciousnesses discriminate upon them and act, that action perfumes fresh seeds, and those seeds produce the body and world that the next round of discrimination will take up, so that "produced by characteristics and by prior discrimination" names a loop rather than a single line of causation.
26. Section: Eight Discriminations That Produce One Another, Suchness Unproduced, and Knowledge Born of Hearing and Right Attention
What produces discrimination? It should be said that discrimination is produced by discrimination and by characteristics: whenever a mind of the three realms operates there are both a perceiving and a perceived aspect, the perceiving aspect being discrimination itself, and it arises in dependence on the perceived aspect, which is why characteristics too are said to produce it. The Basic Section names eight such discriminations: discrimination of intrinsic nature, distinguishing what each thing is, resistance being form, receptivity being feeling, taking up an image being perception, and so on; discrimination of distinctions, such as high and low, large and small, long and short; discrimination that takes an aggregate as a unity, as when the assembled parts are grasped as a table and named accordingly; discrimination of a self; discrimination of what belongs to a self; discrimination of the desirable, from which craving arises; discrimination of the undesirable, from which aversion arises; and discrimination of what is neither, from which indifference arises. These perfume the storehouse consciousness continually, producing the body of a future life, upon which further discrimination then depends, so that the whole round of birth and death may be traced to deluded discrimination itself. What produces suchness? It should be said that it is unproduced, being simply how things are, unconditioned, the perfectly accomplished nature. And what produces correct knowledge? It should be said that through hearing the true teaching and through right attention within, correct knowledge comes to arise.
問：分別當言誰所生？答：當言分別所生，及相所生。問：真如當言誰所生？答：當言無生。問：正智當言誰所生？答：當言由聽聞正法、如理作意，正智得生。
What produces discrimination? It is produced by discrimination and by characteristics. What produces suchness? It should be said that it is unproduced. What produces correct knowledge? It should be said that through hearing the true teaching and through right attention within, correct knowledge comes to arise.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes how sharply the three answers differ in kind: discrimination is caught in a loop of its own making, suchness stands outside production altogether, and correct knowledge alone has a stated method, hearing the true teaching from another and attending rightly within, which is exactly why those two are named across this treatise as the decisive conditions for realization.
27. Section: Neither the Same nor Different: Characteristic Against Name, and Characteristic Against Discrimination
Should a characteristic and a name be called different or not different? Neither may be asserted, since both assertions carry a fault. What fault in calling them different? Then a name would have to be substantially real, for if a name could exist apart from any characteristic, needing no characteristic upon which to be established, it would no longer be a mere designation, which contradicts what has already been settled. And what fault in calling them not different? Then whenever a characteristic was apprehended a name would be apprehended along with it, whereas in fact the eye seeing a form does not thereby know what that form is called, further inquiry being required, as with a new product not yet named. The Laṅkāvatāra makes the same point: speech and the deluded characteristic are neither different nor not different, for speech arises because of that characteristic, so were they different speech would arise without a cause, and were they not different speech could not make the object known, whereas it does. Should a characteristic and discrimination be called different or not different? Again neither, since both carry a fault. What fault in calling them different? Then discrimination would not have a characteristic for its object at all, whereas discrimination arises only where there is something discriminated. And what fault in calling them not different? Then every characteristic apart from discrimination would itself have the nature of discriminating, whereas a characteristic does no discriminating whatsoever. Accordingly, characteristic and name, and characteristic and discrimination alike, should be said to be neither the same nor different.
問：相與名當言異，當言不異？答：俱不可說。何以故？俱有過故。異有何過？名應實有。不異有何過？若取相時，應亦取名。問：相與分別當言異，當言不異？答：俱不可說。何以故？俱有過故。異有何過？分別應非相為性。不異有何過？離分別外所有諸相，應以分別為性。
Should characteristic and name be called different or not different? Neither may be asserted, since both carry a fault. What fault in "different"? A name would have to be substantially real. What fault in "not different"? Apprehending a characteristic would mean apprehending a name as well. Should characteristic and discrimination be called different or not different? Neither, since both carry a fault. What fault in "different"? Discrimination would not have a characteristic for its nature. What fault in "not different"? Every characteristic apart from discrimination would have discrimination for its nature.
Master Cháng Bǎi highlights how ordinary the counterexample is that defeats "not different": one sees a thing and simply does not yet know its name, needing to ask, which is a matter of direct experience rather than argument, and therefore decisive against any claim that name and characteristic collapse into one another.
28. Section: Six Faults That Follow from Making Characteristic and Suchness Either the Same or Different
Should a characteristic and suchness be called different or not different? Neither may be asserted, since both carry faults. Three follow from calling them different. First, the ultimate meaning of characteristics would then not be suchness at all, whereas it is precisely by penetrating the ultimate meaning of a characteristic that a noble one's non-discriminating knowledge reaches suchness, no suchness being found apart from characteristics. Second, one who cultivates contemplation would have to abandon characteristics altogether and seek suchness somewhere else, so that contemplating the sixteen aspects of the truths or the fourfold investigation could never issue in direct realization at all. Third, awakening to suchness would not entail any awakening regarding characteristics, so that one could realize suchness while remaining bound by characteristics, which is to say while remaining an ordinary being. Three faults follow equally from calling them not different. First, since suchness admits of no distinctions, characteristics would admit of none either, and there would be no mountains, rivers, or any differentiated appearance whatsoever. Second, an ordinary mind apprehending a characteristic would thereby have realized suchness, which plainly contradicts experience. Third, realizing suchness would be as characterized as apprehending a characteristic is, whereas suchness is unconditioned and without characteristics, so that a mind attaining it would not be purified at all. Characteristic and suchness are therefore neither the same nor different.
問：相與真如當言異，當言不異？答：俱不可說。何以故？俱有過故。異有何過？諸相之勝義，應非即真如。又修觀者應捨諸相，別求真如。又於真如得正覺時，不應於相亦得正覺。不異有何過？如真如無差別，一切相亦應無差別。又得相時，應得真如。又得真如時亦如得相，應不清淨。
Should characteristic and suchness be called different or not different? Neither, since both carry faults. What faults in "different"? The ultimate meaning of characteristics would not be suchness; one who contemplates would have to abandon characteristics and seek suchness elsewhere; and awakening to suchness would entail no awakening regarding characteristics. What faults in "not different"? As suchness admits no distinctions, no characteristic would admit any; apprehending a characteristic would be attaining suchness; and attaining suchness would be as characterized as apprehending a characteristic, and so not purified.
Master Cháng Bǎi points out that the second fault on the "different" side would undo the whole method of this treatise, since every contemplation it teaches works upon characteristics, the truths and their aspects included, and if suchness lay somewhere apart from these there would be no path from one to the other at all.
29. Section: Impermanence in the Aggregates, Space Among Forms, and Grasping Neither Identical to Nor Apart from the Aggregates
Four illustrations make the point. Just as the conditioned aggregates bear the shared characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, which genuinely exist yet cannot be called either different from or not different from those aggregates, since no impermanence is found apart from them while their arising and ceasing simply is impermanence. Just as body and mind exhibit coarseness and pliancy, which genuinely occur yet can be called neither different, since they would then have nothing to do with body and mind at all, nor not different, since body and mind pass between the two conditions. Just as wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral phenomena all have their seeds, which cannot be called different, since then seeds could not produce their manifestations, nor not different, since then no distinction between seed and manifestation would remain. And just as space, being all-pervading, is present wherever form is, yet cannot be called different from form, since then space would be absent where form is, would not pervade everything, and would have to be impermanent; nor not different from form, since then space would be absent where form is absent, would not pervade everything, and would again be impermanent, both conclusions contradicting what is plainly observed. The śrāvaka scriptures make the same kind of statement regarding the aggregates, the World-Honored One declaring: monks, grasping is neither identical to the aggregates nor apart from them, since the affliction of grasping is not the aggregates in its own nature, yet apart from the aggregates it could not exist at all.
如諸行上，有無常、苦、無我共相，雖復是有，而不可說與彼諸行若異不異。又如身心，麤重、輕安雖復是有，而不可說與彼身心若異不異。又如善、惡、無記法中，種子雖有，而不可說與彼諸法若異不異。又如虛空遍一切故，於諸色處雖有虛空，而不可說與彼諸色若異不異。⋯⋯如說：苾芻！取非即蘊，亦不離蘊。
Just as the aggregates bear the shared characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, which exist yet cannot be called different from or not different from them. Just as body and mind bear coarseness and pliancy, likewise. Just as wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral phenomena have seeds, likewise. And just as space, pervading all, is present among forms, yet cannot be called different from or not different from them. As it is said: monks, grasping is neither identical to the aggregates nor apart from them.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the space illustration as the most exact of the four, since both horns are refuted by simple observation rather than by argument: were space different from form it would have to be absent wherever form is, and were it not different it would have to be absent wherever form is absent, and neither is what anyone actually finds.
30. Section: Why Grasping Can Be Neither the Aggregates Nor Apart from Them, and the Same Holds Throughout
What fault follows from calling grasping and the aggregates not different? Then the aggregates would consist of nothing but defilement, and one would be denying the wholesome and neutral phenomena the aggregates in fact contain, which are not impure at all; the reasoning is therefore incomplete and carries the fault of impurity. And what fault from calling them different? Since the appropriated aggregates are impermanent, grasping distinct from them would have to be permanent, and no permanent thing is impure; one would thus be superimposing, outside the aggregates, a grasping that is both permanent and impure, and the reasoning again carries the fault of impurity. As the relation of grasping to the aggregates, so the relation of characteristic to suchness. And what holds for characteristic and suchness holds equally for name, discrimination, and correct knowledge in relation to suchness: in every case neither sameness nor difference may be asserted. Should a characteristic and correct knowledge be called different or not different? As with characteristic and discrimination, neither may be asserted, for were they wholly different one could never move from the characterized toward the uncharacterized through practice at all, and were they the same one would attain correct knowledge the moment any characteristic was seen, which is plainly not so.
不異何過？誹謗蘊中，善、無記法不清淨過。異有何過？於諸取中，增益常性不清淨過。如相與真如不異非不異道理，名、分別、正智與真如，當知亦爾。問：相與正智當言異，當言不異？答：如與分別俱不可說。
What fault in "not different"? Denying the wholesome and neutral phenomena within the aggregates, a fault of impurity. What fault in "different"? Superimposing permanence upon grasping, likewise a fault of impurity. As with characteristic and suchness being neither different nor not different, so too should name, discrimination, and correct knowledge in relation to suchness be understood. Should characteristic and correct knowledge be called different or not different? As with discrimination, neither may be asserted.
Master Cháng Bǎi explains that "fault of impurity" here is a technical verdict from the science of reasoning rather than a moral one, the Sūtra Unlocking the Mysteries listing seven marks by which a stated reason counts as impure, chiefly cases where the reason supports the opponent's thesis as readily as one's own, or is too broad or too narrow to establish anything at all.
31. Section: Where Difference Can Be Asserted, and What Each of the Five Things Actually Looks Like
Not every pairing resists the question. Should name and discrimination be called different or not different? They should be called different, since a name is merely designated while discrimination is substantially real, a name being a formation dissociated from mind and provisionally established upon dependently arisen phenomena, whereas discrimination is a mind or mental factor and thus a real dependently arisen thing. Should name and correct knowledge be called different or not different? Different, for the same reason, correct knowledge being a pure, outflow-free, and substantially real dependently arisen thing. And should discrimination and correct knowledge be called different or not different? Different, since discrimination is the defiled mind and its factors while correct knowledge is pure and free of outflow. The determination then asks what each of the five actually looks like, and the answers are strikingly relational. What is a characteristic like? It is what discrimination ranges over. What is a name like? It is what speech depends upon, since a name comes first and perception follows, perception comes first and speech follows. What is discrimination like? It has a characteristic for what it ranges over. What is suchness like? It is what correct knowledge ranges over. And what is correct knowledge like? It has suchness for what it ranges over.
問：名與分別當言異，當言不異？答：當言異。問：名與正智當言異，當言不異？答：當言異。問：分別與正智當言異，當言不異？答：當言異。問：相有何相？答：分別所行相。問：名有何相？答：言說所依相。問：分別有何相？答：相為所行相。問：真如有何相？答：正智所行相。問：正智有何相？答：真如為所行相。
Should name and discrimination be called different or not different? Different. Name and correct knowledge? Different. Discrimination and correct knowledge? Different. What is a characteristic like? It is what discrimination ranges over. What is a name like? It is what speech depends upon. What is discrimination like? It has a characteristic for what it ranges over. What is suchness like? It is what correct knowledge ranges over. What is correct knowledge like? It has suchness for what it ranges over.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes the neat symmetry of these five answers: each is defined by what it ranges over or is ranged over by, so that characteristic and discrimination form one such pair and suchness and correct knowledge form another, name standing between them as what speech rests upon, the whole framework thus described entirely through relationship rather than through isolated essence.
32. Section: Countless Modes in Which a Characteristic Presents Itself
What modes does a characteristic have? It should be understood as having modes of every kind and beyond counting, since the modes in which discrimination itself operates are of every kind and beyond counting, and the objects discriminated are correspondingly limitless. The treatise then lists them, and they may be gathered into ten groups. By the fivefold division of all phenomena: the modes of form, of mind, of mental factors, of formations dissociated from mind, and of the unconditioned. By the seven skillful analyses: the modes of aggregates, elements, sense-fields, dependent origination, the possible and impossible, faculties, and truths. By the thirty-seven factors of awakening: the modes of the foundations of mindfulness, right exertions, bases of supernatural power, faculties, powers, factors of awakening, and path-branches. By the four courses of practice, painful and slow, painful and swift, pleasant and slow, pleasant and swift, according to whether the fundamental absorption has been attained and whether the faculties are sharp or dull. By the four traces of the Dharma, non-greed and non-hatred belonging to precepts, mindfulness, and concentration. By calming and insight, together with rousing, releasing, their objects, and their supports. By the six elements: earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness. By the vessel world: this world and other worlds, the sun and the moon. By the destinies: hell beings, animals, hungry ghosts, humans, the six heavens of the desire realm, the four absorptions of the form realm, and the four formless attainments. And by phenomena in general: arising and ceasing, existent and non-existent, defiled and pure, what is seen, heard, sensed, and known, what has already been sought out, and what the mind pursues through coarse and subtle examination. Beyond these lie countless further modes not set down here at all.
問：相有何行相？答：應知此相，有種種行相、無量行相，由分別行相種種無量故。謂色相、心相、心所有相、心不相應行相、無為相、蘊相、界相、處相、緣起相、處非處相、根相、諦相、念住相⋯⋯乃至見聞覺知相、已得尋求相、心隨尋伺相，如是等類餘無量相。
What modes does a characteristic have? It should be understood as having modes of every kind and beyond counting, since the modes of discrimination are themselves of every kind and beyond counting: the modes of form, mind, mental factors, formations dissociated from mind, and the unconditioned; of aggregates, elements, sense-fields, dependent origination, the possible and impossible, faculties, and truths; of the foundations of mindfulness and the rest; and so on through what is seen, heard, sensed, and known, what has been sought out, and what the mind pursues through examination, together with countless further modes besides.
Master Cháng Bǎi observes that the treatise's author, having compiled so long a list, deliberately closes it with "and countless further modes besides," the point of the enumeration being precisely to demonstrate that no enumeration could be complete, since the modes of the object are as unlimited as the operations of the discriminating mind that meets them.
33. Section: Six Modes from the Named to the Utterly Empty, and the Substantial Against the Image
A characteristic may further be reduced to six modes. The mode of having a characteristic is what discrimination takes up by way of a name, when the thing is already known by name; the Basic Section describes this as the discrimination of one whose faculties are mature and who is skilled in names and their meanings, able to distinguish objects by the terms that apply to them. The mode of lacking a characteristic is what discrimination takes up directly, without any name, when the thing's name is not known, as with an infant or an animal, or with the mind's settled continuation after the moment of determination has passed. The narrow mode is whatever is discriminated concerning things of the desire realm. The vast mode is whatever is discriminated concerning things of the form realm. The immeasurable mode is whatever is discriminated concerning the formless states of boundless space and boundless consciousness, both objects being without limit. And the mode of utter non-existence is whatever is discriminated in the formless state of nothing whatsoever, where space and consciousness alike are taken as simply not there. A characteristic may also be reduced to five modes, namely the modes of characteristic, name, discrimination, suchness, and correct knowledge, already described. And it may be reduced to two: the substantial mode and the image mode, that is, the object as it actually stands and the image the mind produces of it.
復有六相。一、有相相，二、無相相，三、狹小相，四、廣大相，五、無量相，六、無所有相。云何有相相？謂解了事名分別所有相。云何無相相？謂不解了事名分別所有相。云何狹小相？謂欲界事分別所有相。云何廣大相？謂色界事分別所有相。云何無量相？謂空、識無邊處無色界事分別所有相。云何無所有相？謂無所有處無色界事分別所有相。復有餘五相。⋯⋯復有餘二相。一、本性相，二、影像相。
There are further six modes: having a characteristic, lacking a characteristic, narrow, vast, immeasurable, and utterly non-existent. Having a characteristic is what discrimination takes up regarding a thing known by name; lacking a characteristic, regarding a thing not known by name. Narrow concerns things of the desire realm; vast, of the form realm; immeasurable, of boundless space and boundless consciousness; and utterly non-existent, of the state of nothing whatsoever. There are also five further modes, and two further modes: the substantial and the image.
Master Cháng Bǎi ties the first two modes back to the Basic Section's account of discrimination with and without characteristics, noting that the second covers two quite different cases at once, the settled continuation of a mind that has already determined its object and so no longer discriminates it afresh, and the wholly pre-verbal discrimination of infants and animals, both proceeding without any name in play.
34. Section: What Stands on Its Own and What the Mind Projects, and Twelve Kinds of Name
What is the substantial mode? It is what is produced by prior discrimination together with what is produced by characteristics, jointly constituting the appearance: the faculties, the sense objects, and the elements manifested from the seeds of the storehouse consciousness, arising from the perfuming left by earlier discrimination and from the perfuming of the object-aspect itself. As a related treatise notes, the world of beings and the vessel world do not arise through anyone's discriminating them, being produced by karma and holding steady regardless of what any mind thinks about them, which is precisely why they are commonly acknowledged as what is actually there. And what is the image mode? It is what arises through imaginative construction and what appears through firm resolve, not abiding as anything substantial: the mental consciousness proceeding by way of names, inferring what is not directly present, mistaking a rope for a snake in dim light, dwelling on past or future matters, or a meditator's own object appearing as it does through the force of resolute attention. What modes does a name have? Through the power of the characteristics it expresses, it too has modes of every kind and beyond counting; briefly, twelve kinds may be distinguished: the merely nominal name, as when a poor man is called wealthy or when one speaks of a sky-flower; the name of a real thing, assigned to the faculties and objects; the name matching a class; the name matching an individual; the name following upon a quality, as form is named for its resistance; the provisionally established name, as self or being, or vase or garment; the commonly known name; the name not commonly known, such as technical vocabulary; the transparent name; the opaque name; the general name, such as aggregates or elements; and the particular name, such as form or feeling, eye or ear.
云何本性相？謂先分別所生，及相所生共所成相。云何影像相？謂遍計所起，勝解所現，非住本性相。問：名有何行相？答：由相勢力，亦有種種無量行相。又若略說有十二種。一、假說名，二、實事名，三、種類相應名，四、各別相應名，五、隨德名，六、假立名，七、共所知名，八、非共所知名，九、顯了名，十、不顯了名，十一、總名，十二、別名。
What is the substantial mode? What is produced by prior discrimination together with what is produced by characteristics, jointly constituting the appearance. What is the image mode? What arises through imaginative construction and appears through firm resolve, not abiding as anything substantial. What modes does a name have? Through the power of characteristics it too has countless modes; briefly, twelve: the merely nominal, the name of a real thing, the name matching a class, the name matching an individual, the name following a quality, the provisionally established, the commonly known, the not commonly known, the transparent, the opaque, the general, and the particular.
Master Cháng Bǎi relays the related treatise's practical warning attached to the substantial mode: since the body persists until a lifetime ends and the vessel world persists across an aeon regardless of anyone's thinking, dwelling on how such things might be otherwise brings three faults, a disturbed mind, the generation of demerit, and the failure to accomplish anything wholesome.
35. Section: Seven Modes of Discrimination, and Suchness Whose Mode Cannot Be Stated
What modes does discrimination have? Through the power of characteristics and names alike it too has modes of every kind and beyond counting; briefly, seven. Discrimination with characteristics belongs to one skilled in names, whether the mental consciousness seeking out and determining what the five senses have just presented, or the discrimination of anyone whose faculties are mature and who understands what terms convey. Discrimination without characteristics covers the mind's settled continuation once determination has passed, and the discrimination of infants and animals, and equally of anyone who does not understand the language being used. Spontaneous discrimination regarding an object is what proceeds of itself under the object's own force, requiring no particular effort, as the mental consciousness does throughout waking life. Investigative discrimination is the coarse examination that seeks out an object. Analytical discrimination is the finer examination that goes further into what has already been sought out. Defiled discrimination is discrimination accompanied by greed and the rest, dwelling on past pleasures unable to let them go, reaching after future ones, and clinging to present ones. And undefiled discrimination is discrimination accompanied by non-greed and the other wholesome factors, or else morally neutral, as in ordinary deportment, craftsmanship, and the like. And what mode does suchness have? Its mode cannot be stated, for the path of language is cut off and the workings of the mind cease there; were it statable there would be discrimination, and where there is discrimination there is no purity and nothing that non-discriminating knowledge could take as its object at all.
問：分別有何行相？答：由相、名勢力故，亦有種種無量行相。若略說者，當知有七種。一、有相分別，二、無相分別，三、於境界任運分別，四、尋求分別，五、伺察分別，六、染汙分別，七、無染汙分別。問：真如有何行相？答：其相不可說行相。
What modes does discrimination have? Through the power of characteristics and names it too has countless modes; briefly, seven: discrimination with characteristics, without characteristics, spontaneous discrimination regarding an object, investigative discrimination, analytical discrimination, defiled discrimination, and undefiled discrimination. What mode does suchness have? Its mode cannot be stated.
Master Cháng Bǎi adds a everyday illustration to the second mode: a Chinese speaker hearing Russian discriminates without any characteristic in play, since the names convey nothing, which places an educated adult in exactly the same position as an infant with respect to that particular speech.
36. Section: Nine Names for a Characteristic and Seven for a Name
What mode does correct knowledge have? The transcendent knowledge likewise has a mode that cannot be stated, being free of characteristics and of discrimination; the knowledge that is both worldly and transcendent has as its mode the taking up of the truths as conventionally set out. The determination then gathers the various names under which each of the five is known. A characteristic goes by nine: characteristic, when set against the image; image, when it is what the imagining mind projects; appearance, since these objects are displayed by consciousness itself; existence, since a characteristic arises from existence and, when clung to, generates the karma producing existence again; elaboration, since afflicted aggregates and their world provoke endless meaningless discourse; the perishable collection, naming the impermanent assemblage of appropriated aggregates; conditioned, since whatever bears arising, abiding, change, and ceasing is conditioned, the unconditioned being without characteristics; made by intention, since these appearances are assembled by the force of past volition and the craving that reaches toward a further existence; and conditionally produced, since they arise from their own seeds together with present outer conditions, "made by intention" looking to the past and "conditionally produced" to the present. A name goes by seven: name, being what is added onto a characteristic; perception, since names are what perception assigns and neither can occur without the other; designation, since names, phrases, and syllables are arranged as one wishes to express something; provisional speech; the conventional, since names belong to conventional truth and conceal the truth of emptiness while displaying appearances; provisional establishment; and discourse, covering not only what is said but the written words that speech depends upon.
問：正智有何行相？答：若出世間正智，亦有其相不可說行相；若世間出世間正智，有取安立諦行相。復次，若相、若影像、若顯現、若有、若戲論、若薩迦耶、若有為、若思所造、若緣生，如是等是相差別。若名、若想、若施設、若假言說、若世俗、若假立、若言論，如是等是名差別。
What mode does correct knowledge have? Transcendent knowledge likewise has a mode that cannot be stated; the worldly-and-transcendent knowledge has as its mode the taking up of the truths as conventionally set out. Characteristic, image, appearance, existence, elaboration, the perishable collection, conditioned, made by intention, and conditionally produced: such are the various names of a characteristic. Name, perception, designation, provisional speech, the conventional, provisional establishment, and discourse: such are the various names of a name.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes the temporal division built into the last two names for a characteristic: "made by intention" looks back to the volition and craving of past lives that assembled this body and world, while "conditionally produced" looks to the present, where stored seeds meet outer conditions and the appearance actually arises.
37. Section: Seven Names for Discrimination, Nine for Suchness, and Seven for Correct Knowledge
Discrimination goes by seven names: discrimination itself, the minds and mental factors of the three realms that cognize objects; thinking, since discriminating requires first thinking and then examining, the tradition distinguishing thinking as inquiry resting on direct perception from discrimination as inquiry resting on inference; imaginative construction, the pervasive superimposing of a real self and real phenomena upon what arises through conditions; a wrong path, since deluded discrimination generates wrong views and leads away from the noble path; wrong conduct, since it issues in wrong action; transgressing the stream, since it carries one against the current of wholesome states into the flow of birth and death; and wrong grasping, since it takes up objects under the inversions of permanence, pleasure, self, and purity. Suchness goes by nine: suchness, true and unchanging; real nature; the nature of truth; the state without inversion; the state that is not inverted; the realm free of elaboration; the realm without characteristics; the realm of phenomena, "realm" here meaning cause, since every noble quality arises in dependence on it; and the ultimate limit, since beyond the emptiness of self in persons and phenomena there is nothing further to seek. And correct knowledge goes by seven: correct knowledge; correct wisdom, its substance being the faculty of wisdom; correct awakening, the awakened functioning of both the fundamental and the subsequently attained knowledge; the correct path, named from the nirvana it leads to; correct conduct, named from the actions of body, speech, and mind it makes right; the correct stream, named from its belonging to the class of wholesome things; and correct grasping, named from its object, since what it takes up is suchness, grasped without any characteristic at all.
若分別、若思惟、若遍計、若邪道、若邪行、若越流、若不正取，如是等是分別差別。若真如、若實性、若諦性、若無顛倒性、若不顛倒性、若無戲論界、若無相界、若法界、若實際，如是等是真如差別。若正智、若正慧、若正覺、若正道、若正行、若正流、若正取，如是等是正智差別。
Discrimination, thinking, imaginative construction, a wrong path, wrong conduct, transgressing the stream, and wrong grasping: such are the various names of discrimination. Suchness, real nature, the nature of truth, the state without inversion, the state that is not inverted, the realm free of elaboration, the realm without characteristics, the realm of phenomena, and the ultimate limit: such are the various names of suchness. Correct knowledge, correct wisdom, correct awakening, the correct path, correct conduct, the correct stream, and correct grasping: such are the various names of correct knowledge.
Master Cháng Bǎi observes the deliberate mirroring between the last four names for discrimination and the last four for correct knowledge, wrong path against correct path, wrong conduct against correct conduct, transgressing the stream against the correct stream, and wrong grasping against correct grasping, the two lists being built as exact opposites so that the same four dimensions are covered in each.
38. Section: Sorting the Five Things Against Form, Mind, and the Unconditioned
The final angle sorts the five things against some thirty-six standard headings, beginning with the fivefold division of all phenomena. Of these five things, how many are form, how many mind, how many mental factors, how many formations dissociated from mind, and how many unconditioned? A characteristic runs through all five, since whenever the mind takes up form, mind, mental factors, dissociated formations, or even the unconditioned by way of a name, there is a characteristic, exactly as the earlier account of a characteristic's countless modes indicated. A name is exclusively a formation dissociated from mind, being one of the twenty-four such formations. Discrimination and correct knowledge run through both mind and mental factors, discrimination being the minds and mental factors of the three realms, and correct knowledge having the faculty of wisdom for its substance while never operating apart from a mind, its accompanying factors also being called knowledge. And suchness is exclusively unconditioned, being the nature of phenomena, without arising, abiding, change, or ceasing.
問：如是五事，幾色？幾心？幾心所有？幾心不相應行？幾無為？答：相通五種，名唯心不相應行，分別、正智通心及心所有，真如唯無為。
Of these five things, how many are form, mind, mental factors, formations dissociated from mind, and unconditioned? A characteristic runs through all five; a name is exclusively a formation dissociated from mind; discrimination and correct knowledge run through both mind and mental factors; and suchness is exclusively unconditioned.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes that a characteristic reaches even the unconditioned here, since suchness too can be taken up by a mind proceeding through names and thereby acquires a characteristic, which is precisely why the treatise took such care earlier to distinguish suchness itself from any characteristic of it.
39. Section: Sorting the Five Against the Aggregates, the Elements and Sense-Fields, and Dependent Origination
Of these five things, how many are subsumed under the aggregates and how many not? Three are subsumed: a name belongs to the aggregate of formations, being a formation dissociated from mind, while discrimination and correct knowledge belong to the aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. A characteristic is partly subsumed and partly not, since the characteristics of characteristic, name, discrimination, and correct knowledge are all conditioned and thus belong to the aggregates, whereas the characteristic of suchness is unconditioned and does not. And suchness itself is not subsumed at all, being the truth disclosed by the twofold emptiness of the aggregates, without arising, abiding, change, or ceasing. How many are subsumed under the elements and sense-fields? All five, without exception: a characteristic reaches across all eighteen elements; a name belongs to the element and sense-field of phenomena; discrimination and correct knowledge belong to the mind element and the consciousness elements; and suchness too belongs to the element and sense-field of phenomena. How many are subsumed under dependent origination? Three are: name, discrimination, and correct knowledge, the first two belonging to dependent origination in its forward, transmigratory aspect and the last to dependent origination in its purified, cessation aspect. A characteristic is partly subsumed and partly not, the characteristic of suchness falling outside. And suchness itself is not subsumed, being simply how dependently arisen things already are. The same pattern holds when sorting against the possible and impossible, and against the twenty-two faculties.
問：如是五事，幾蘊所攝？幾非蘊所攝？答：三蘊所攝，相攝不攝，真如不攝。問：如是五事，幾界處所攝？幾非界處所攝？答：一切皆是界處所攝。問：如是五事，幾緣起所攝？幾非緣起所攝？答：三緣起攝，相攝不攝，真如不攝。如緣起攝，處非處攝及與根攝，當知亦爾。
Of these five things, how many are subsumed under the aggregates? Three are; a characteristic is partly subsumed and partly not; suchness is not. How many under the elements and sense-fields? All are. How many under dependent origination? Three are; a characteristic is partly subsumed and partly not; suchness is not. As with dependent origination, so too with the possible and impossible, and with the faculties.
Master Cháng Bǎi highlights the neat division within dependent origination itself: name and discrimination belong to its transmigratory side, being what carries beings onward through birth and death, while correct knowledge belongs to its purified side, being precisely what brings that same process to a halt.
40. Section: The Truths as Conventionally Set Out and the Truth Beyond Setting Out
Of these five things, how many are subsumed under the truths and how many not? There are two kinds of truth: the truths as conventionally set out, namely the four noble truths established through language, and the truth beyond any such setting out, namely suchness, the unchanging emptiness of all phenomena, where the path of language is cut off and the workings of the mind cease. Among the five, three are subsumed under the truths as conventionally set out, a characteristic is both subsumed and not subsumed, and suchness is subsumed exclusively under the truth beyond setting out. The distinction matters for practice: practitioners of the two vehicles, severing clinging to a self in persons but not to a self in phenomena, take the four conventionally set out truths as their object and thereby realize the suchness of personal emptiness, which suffices for release from the three realms; whereas bodhisattvas, severing both kinds of clinging, contemplate the emptiness of phenomena as well, and throughout the path of cultivation take the truth beyond setting out as their object, using the knowledge of phenomenal emptiness to suppress both obstructions and their coarse residues, severing their seeds only in the adamantine concentration at the last.
問：如是五事，幾諦所攝？幾非諦所攝？答：諦有二種。一、安立諦，二、非安立諦。安立諦者，謂四聖諦。非安立諦者，謂真如。此中三是安立諦所攝，相亦攝亦不攝，真如唯非安立諦所攝。
Of these five things, how many are subsumed under the truths? There are two kinds of truth: the truths as conventionally set out, namely the four noble truths, and the truth beyond setting out, namely suchness. Among these, three are subsumed under the truths as conventionally set out; a characteristic is both subsumed and not subsumed; and suchness is subsumed exclusively under the truth beyond setting out.
Master Cháng Bǎi flags an unusually clear divergence between this fascicle and the next: fascicle 73 sorts these same five differently, assigning name to the truth of suffering alone and discrimination to suffering, origin, and the path, and he advises reading the two passages together rather than treating either as the settled account, noting frankly that the sub-commentary's own explanation here does not match what that later passage says.
41. Section: Sorting Against the Four Conditions and the Four Reliances
Of these five things, how many are subsumed under the causal condition, the immediately antecedent condition, the objective condition, and the dominant condition? A characteristic is subsumed under all four: its seeds are the causal condition; the characteristics of discrimination and correct knowledge involve an immediately antecedent condition; the characteristics of characteristic and name serve as objective and dominant conditions for minds; and the characteristic of suchness is the objective condition of correct knowledge. A name is subsumed under all but the immediately antecedent condition, since a name is merely designated rather than a real mental event that could serve as the ground for the next moment. Discrimination and correct knowledge are subsumed under all four. And suchness is subsumed under the objective condition alone, and here the treatise adds an important point: transcendent qualities arise from seeds whose objective condition is suchness itself, not from seeds accumulated by the perfuming of affliction, so that attending to suchness perfumes a wholly different kind of seed, one that counters defiled seeds and eventually issues in non-discriminating knowledge. Sorted against the four reliances, relying on the teaching rather than the person, on the meaning rather than the words, on the definitive rather than the provisional scripture, and on knowledge rather than ordinary consciousness: a characteristic falls under the first three; a name under the reliance on the teaching alone, since a name is what the teaching's expression rests upon; discrimination falls, like a characteristic, under the first three; suchness under the reliance on meaning, since it is what knowledge ranges over; and correct knowledge under the reliance on knowledge alone.
問：如是五事，幾因緣所攝？幾等無間緣、幾所緣緣、幾增上緣所攝？答：相，一切緣所攝。名，等無間緣所不攝。分別、正智，四緣所攝。真如唯所緣緣攝。問：如是五事，幾法依所攝？幾義依、幾了義經依、幾智依所攝？答：相，三依所攝。名唯法依所攝。如相，分別亦爾。真如，智所行故，義依所攝。正智唯智依所攝。
Of these five things, how many are subsumed under the causal, immediately antecedent, objective, and dominant conditions? A characteristic under all; a name under all but the immediately antecedent; discrimination and correct knowledge under all four; and suchness under the objective condition alone. How many under the reliance on the teaching, on meaning, on definitive scripture, and on knowledge? A characteristic under three; a name under the reliance on the teaching alone; discrimination as with a characteristic; suchness, being what knowledge ranges over, under the reliance on meaning; and correct knowledge under the reliance on knowledge alone.
Master Cháng Bǎi draws attention to the doctrine of seeds whose objective condition is suchness, cited here from an earlier fascicle: perfuming produced by attending to suchness does not immediately yield realization, but it is of an entirely different kind from the seeds accumulated through affliction, and it works against them until it eventually matures into non-discriminating knowledge, which is why the object one habitually attends to matters so much.
42. Section: Form and Formless, With Outflow and Without, Conditioned and Unconditioned
Of these five things, how many possess form and how many do not? A characteristic runs through both, since minds take up both material and immaterial things as objects. Discrimination and correct knowledge are formless alone, being minds and mental factors. And name and suchness are neither, a name because it is merely designated upon what has form and what does not, and suchness because it simply cannot be spoken of either way. The same holds when sorting by visible and invisible, and by resistant and unresistant. Of these five, how many have outflow and how many not? A characteristic runs through both, the characteristics of characteristic, name, and discrimination having outflow while those of correct knowledge and suchness do not. Two have outflow alone, name and discrimination, since afflicted minds invariably take up characteristics by way of names, and discrimination itself is the deluded mind of the three realms carrying both innate and constructed clinging. Two are without outflow alone, suchness and correct knowledge: suchness is called without outflow because it is what the exhaustion of outflow takes as its object, though not because it is itself the mark of that exhaustion, since suchness simply is so whether outflow is exhausted or not; and correct knowledge is called without outflow because it is what actually counters outflow and brings it to exhaustion. And of these five, how many are conditioned and how many unconditioned? A characteristic runs through both; three are conditioned alone; and suchness alone is unconditioned, being what the stilling of conditioned activity takes as its object, though not the mark of that stilling itself.
問：如是五事，幾有色？幾無色？答：相通二種。分別、正智唯無色。名與真如俱非二種，是假有故，不可說故。如有色無色，有見無見、有對無對亦爾。問：如是五事，幾有漏？幾無漏？答：相通二種。二唯有漏。二唯無漏。真如漏盡所緣義故，名無漏，非漏盡相義故。正智漏盡對治義故，名無漏。問：如是五事，幾有為？幾無為？答：相通二種。三唯有為。真如唯無為，諸行寂靜所緣義故，非諸行寂靜相義故。
How many possess form? A characteristic runs through both; discrimination and correct knowledge are formless alone; name and suchness are neither, the one being merely designated and the other beyond speaking of. As with form, so with visible and invisible, resistant and unresistant. How many have outflow? A characteristic runs through both; two have outflow alone; two are without outflow alone: suchness because it is what the exhaustion of outflow takes as its object, not because it is that exhaustion's own mark; correct knowledge because it counters outflow. How many are conditioned? A characteristic runs through both; three are conditioned alone; suchness alone is unconditioned.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes the careful qualification attached twice over to suchness, that it is called free of outflow and unconditioned as what the relevant cessation takes as its object rather than as the cessation itself, since suchness holds equally whether affliction has been exhausted or not, and the treatise is at pains not to let a practitioner confuse the object realized with the realization of it.
43. Section: With Contention and Without, Worldly and Transcendent
Of these five things, how many involve contention and how many not? A characteristic runs through both, the characteristics of characteristic, name, and discrimination involving contention since they bear outflow, while the characteristics of suchness and correct knowledge do not, the one being beyond any dispute language could raise and the other no longer engaged in deluded discrimination at all. Two involve contention alone, name and discrimination; and two are without contention alone, suchness and correct knowledge. The same pattern holds for having a relished flavor and being without one, and for what rests on indulgence against what rests on renunciation. Of these five, how many are worldly and how many transcendent? Three are worldly, namely characteristic, name, and discrimination. Suchness is transcendent. And correct knowledge divides: one portion, the fundamental non-discriminating knowledge, is exclusively transcendent, since in it the faculties, objects, consciousnesses, subject and object, world, and language all fail to appear; the other portion, the subsequently attained knowledge, runs through both, being transcendent insofar as it was never previously obtained and worldly insofar as it takes the marks of expression as its object. Suchness is called transcendent because it is what the stilling of all verbal elaboration takes as its object, but explicitly not because it is itself the mark of having surpassed such elaboration, since suchness holds whether elaboration is stilled or not. The same holds when sorting by what falls within the three realms and what does not.
問：如是五事，幾有諍？幾無諍？答：相通二種，二唯有諍，二唯無諍。如有漏無漏，此中道理，當知亦爾。如有諍無諍，如是有愛味無愛味、依耽嗜依出離，當知亦爾。問：如是五事，幾世間？幾出世間？答：三是世間。真如是出世間。正智，一分唯出世間，一分通世間出世間。真如，一切言說戲論寂靜所緣義，名出世間，非超過言說戲論相義故。
How many involve contention? A characteristic runs through both; two involve contention alone; two are without contention alone. As with outflow and its absence, so here. As with contention, so too with a relished flavor and its absence, and with resting on indulgence against resting on renunciation. How many are worldly and how many transcendent? Three are worldly; suchness is transcendent; correct knowledge is in one portion exclusively transcendent and in another portion runs through both. Suchness is called transcendent as what the stilling of all elaboration takes as its object, not as being itself the mark of having surpassed elaboration.
Master Cháng Bǎi points out that the qualification attached to suchness recurs at every heading with the same structure: only transcendent knowledge actually counters verbal elaboration, while suchness is simply what that knowledge realizes, so the treatise consistently refuses to let the object be credited with the work the knowledge performs.
44. Section: Inner and Outer, Coarse and Subtle, Inferior and Superior
Of these five things, how many are inner and how many outer? A characteristic runs through both, covering the inner faculties and consciousnesses as well as the outer objects. A name is exclusively outer, being a formation dissociated from mind belonging to the sense-field of phenomena; there is no such thing as a name inside the body, a name being only a designation applied to what is perceived. Discrimination runs through both, since it is produced in dependence on inner body and outer object alike. Suchness is neither, being simply how inner and outer already are. And correct knowledge, like discrimination, runs through both, arising in dependence on the inner while taking the suchness of both inner and outer sense-fields as its object. Of these five, how many are coarse and how many subtle? Three run through both: among characteristics, those of characteristic, name, and discrimination are coarse while those of suchness and correct knowledge are subtle; among names, the names of characteristic and discrimination are coarse while those of suchness and correct knowledge are subtle; and among discriminations, discriminating a characteristic or a name is coarse while discriminating suchness or correct knowledge is subtle. Suchness is subtle alone, because it is difficult to recognize, and explicitly not because it is what remains when appearance is reduced to its smallest possible unit, since it is not arrived at by any such reduction at all. And correct knowledge is subtle alone, because its own operation is subtle. Of these five, how many are inferior and how many superior? Three run through both; suchness is superior alone, being what purified knowledge takes as its object, though not because it is the mark of advancing upward from something inferior; and correct knowledge is superior alone, because suchness is what it ranges over.
問：如是五事，幾內？幾外？答：相通二種。名唯是外。分別生所攝，故通二種。真如非二種。如分別，正智亦爾。問：如是五事，幾麤？幾細？答：三通二種。真如唯細，難識義故，非相漸減極略義故。正智唯細，行細義故。問：如是五事，幾劣？幾勝？答：三通二種。真如唯勝，清淨所緣義故，非從下劣勝進相義故。正智唯勝，真如為所行義故。
How many are inner and how many outer? A characteristic runs through both; a name is exclusively outer; discrimination, being produced in dependence on both, runs through both; suchness is neither; and correct knowledge is as discrimination. How many are coarse and how many subtle? Three run through both; suchness is subtle alone, being difficult to recognize, not because it is what remains when appearance is reduced to its smallest unit; correct knowledge is subtle alone, its operation being subtle. How many are inferior and how many superior? Three run through both; suchness is superior alone, being what purified knowledge takes as its object; correct knowledge is superior alone, suchness being what it ranges over.
Master Cháng Bǎi draws out the denial attached to suchness being subtle: it is not subtle in the way a particle is subtle, since grinding a world-system into dust would never arrive at it; its subtlety is that of something simply hard to recognize, being the way things already are rather than a very small thing among them.
45. Section: Far and Near, Appropriated or Not, and Whether a Faculty Is Currently in Use
Of these five things, how many are far and how many near? A characteristic runs through both by way of distance in place and distance in time alike, since a characteristic covers both material things, which may be near or far in space according to whether anything intervenes, and immaterial things, which are far as past or future and near as present. Name, discrimination, and correct knowledge all run through both by way of distance in time alone, being immaterial: what past or future minds took as their object is temporally far, what present minds take is near, and correct knowledge past or future is far while correct knowledge presently realized is near. And suchness is neither, on either count, since as unconditioned it belongs neither to place nor to time. Of these five, how many are appropriated by consciousness and how many not? A characteristic runs through both, covering the body and world as well as mental events. Name, discrimination, and correct knowledge are unappropriated. And suchness is neither, being neither material nor mental. Of these five, how many are a faculty currently in use and how many a faculty not currently in use? A characteristic runs through both, since among characteristics the material faculties admit of both conditions, an eye actually giving rise to eye-consciousness being in use while an eye persisting unused during meditation is not. The remaining four are neither, since this distinction is established solely with reference to the material faculties.
問：如是五事，幾遠？幾近？答：一由處遠、時遠故，俱通二種。名、分別、正智由時遠故，皆通二種。真如由二故，俱非二種，以無為故。問：如是五事，幾有執受？幾無執受？答：相通二種，名、分別、正智無執受，真如俱非二種。問：如是五事，幾同分？幾彼同分？答：相通二種。餘非二種，唯依有色諸根建立同分、彼同分故。
How many are far and how many near? One runs through both by distance in place and in time; name, discrimination, and correct knowledge run through both by distance in time; and suchness is neither on either count, being unconditioned. How many are appropriated? A characteristic runs through both; name, discrimination, and correct knowledge are unappropriated; suchness is neither. How many are a faculty in use and how many not? A characteristic runs through both; the rest are neither, since this is established solely with reference to the material faculties.
Master Cháng Bǎi glosses the faculty distinction with a practical example: during seated meditation the eye is not engaged with any visible form and gives rise to no eye-consciousness, yet it persists in its own continuity, and it is exactly this persisting but unengaged condition that the second term names.
46. Section: Cause and Effect, and What Ripens from Past Deeds
Of these five things, how many are causes and how many not? Four are causes: characteristic, name, and discrimination as causes of defilement, and correct knowledge as the cause of purity. Suchness, being unconditioned, is not a cause. The same holds when sorting by effect and non-effect, by having a cause and not, and by having an effect and not: in each case the four qualify and suchness does not. Of these five, how many are what has ripened from past deeds and how many not? A characteristic runs through both, since it includes the faculties and objects and those mental events that are themselves ripened results, while names and some present-conditioned discriminations, along with suchness and correct knowledge, are not. A name is not a ripened result, being a formation dissociated from mind. Discrimination runs through both, since the storehouse consciousness and its co-arising transformations are ripened results whereas a mental consciousness arising in dependence on present conditions is not. Suchness is neither. And correct knowledge is not a ripened result at all, a point worth dwelling on: correct knowledge is obtained through actual cultivation rather than received as a birthright, and once non-discriminating knowledge has been realized, the actions of body, speech, and mind accompanying subsequently attained knowledge are neither dark nor bright and yield no ripening whatsoever within the three realms. Sorting instead by whether each will produce a ripened result: a characteristic runs through both, a name will not, discrimination runs through both according to whether it is wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral, suchness is neither, and correct knowledge definitively will not, being free of outflow and so incapable of producing any result within the three realms.
問：如是五事，幾因？幾非因？答：四是因，真如非因。如因非因，果非果、有因非有因、有果非有果，當知亦爾。問：如是五事，幾是異熟？幾非異熟？答：相通二種，名非異熟，分別通二種，真如俱非二種，正智非異熟。問：如是五事，幾有異熟？幾非有異熟？答：相通二種，名非有異熟，分別通二種，真如俱非二種，正智定非有異熟。
How many are causes? Four are causes; suchness is not. As with cause and non-cause, so with effect, having a cause, and having an effect. How many are ripened results? A characteristic runs through both; a name is not; discrimination runs through both; suchness is neither; correct knowledge is not. How many will produce a ripened result? A characteristic runs through both; a name will not; discrimination runs through both; suchness is neither; and correct knowledge definitively will not.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the verdict that correct knowledge is no ripened result as a genuine encouragement rather than a technicality: no one is born already possessing it, and where it appears to come easily that too was cultivated in an earlier life, so the door to it stands open to anyone willing to do the work.
47. Section: Having an Object, Having Something Above It, Belonging to a Time, and Bound to a Realm
Of these five things, how many have an object and how many not? A characteristic runs through both, since the characteristics of discrimination and correct knowledge have objects while those of characteristic, name, and suchness do not. A name has no object, not being a mental event. Discrimination and correct knowledge both have objects. And suchness is neither. The same pattern holds when sorting by associated and unassociated, by having operation and not, and by having a support and not, all four distinctions turning on whether something is a mind or mental factor at all. Of these five, how many have something above them and how many not? Four have something above them, being conditioned and admitting of degrees, correct knowledge included, since an arhat's correct knowledge accords with the emptiness of persons alone while a bodhisattva's accords with the emptiness of both persons and phenomena, and a bodhisattva's on the ten grounds is not yet the complete knowledge of a buddha. Suchness alone has nothing above it, being the unconditioned object of purified knowledge. Of these five, how many belong to past, present, and future? Four do, being conditioned and bearing arising, abiding, change, and ceasing; suchness belongs to none of the three. And of these five, how many are bound to the desire realm, the form realm, the formless realm, or unbound? Three are bound to each realm in turn, namely characteristic, name, and discrimination. Correct knowledge divides: the purely transcendent portion is unbound, while the worldly-and-transcendent portion runs through both, being bound insofar as it takes the phenomena of the three realms as its object and unbound insofar as it takes suchness. And suchness is neither bound nor unbound.
問：如是五事，幾有所緣？幾無所緣？答：相通二種。名無所緣。分別、正智俱有所緣。真如俱非二種。如有所緣無所緣，相應不相應、有行無行、有依無依，當知亦爾。問：如是五事，幾有上？幾無上？答：四有上。真如無上，無為清淨所緣義故。問：如是五事，幾去來今？幾非去來今？答：四通三種，真如非三種。問：如是五事，幾欲界繫？⋯⋯幾不繫？答：欲、色界繫三。無色界繫亦爾。正智一種，若唯出世間，是不繫；若世間出世間，通繫不繫。真如俱非二種。
How many have an object? A characteristic runs through both; a name has none; discrimination and correct knowledge both have objects; suchness is neither. As here, so too with associated and unassociated, having operation and not, having a support and not. How many have something above them? Four do; suchness alone does not. How many belong to past, present, and future? Four do; suchness belongs to none. How many are bound to the three realms or unbound? Three are bound to each; correct knowledge is unbound in its purely transcendent portion and runs through both in the other; suchness is neither.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes that correct knowledge is counted among what has something above it precisely because it admits of degrees, an arhat's differing from a bodhisattva's and a bodhisattva's on the grounds from a buddha's, so that even the knowledge that realizes the unsurpassable is not itself unsurpassable until it is complete.
48. Section: Wholesome, Unwholesome, or Neutral, and What Hearing, Reflection, and Cultivation Reach
Of these five things, how many are wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral? Characteristic and discrimination run through all three. A name is neutral alone, being a formation dissociated from mind. Suchness is wholesome alone, being what purified and skillful knowledge takes as its object, though explicitly not because it is itself something able to produce an agreeable result, since it is not a mental event and cannot bring anyone a favorable rebirth at all. And correct knowledge is wholesome alone, being free of outflow. Of these five, how many are accomplished through hearing, reflection, and cultivation, and how many are the objects of these three? Characteristic and discrimination are accomplished through all three and are the objects of all three. A name is accomplished through hearing and reflection, since it is in hearing and reflecting that one comes to master the terms of the teaching, and it is the object of all three, for although a name is provisionally established its function is real, and it is by investigating names that one is led toward genuine knowledge. Suchness is the object of cultivation alone, and is not said to be accomplished through cultivation at all, since it is not brought about by practice but simply is how things already are. And correct knowledge is accomplished through cultivation, being what calming and insight bring to light, while remaining the object of all three, since one hears about it, reflects on it, and contemplates suchness in order to realize it.
問：如是五事，幾善？幾不善？幾無記？答：相及分別通三種。名唯無記。真如唯善，清淨善巧所緣義故，非能攝生可愛果相義故。正智唯善。問：如是五事，幾聞所成，聞所成境？幾思所成，思所成境？幾修所成，修所成境？答：相及分別是三種，是三種境。名是聞思所成，是三種境。真如唯是修所成境。正智是修所成，是三種境。
How many are wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral? Characteristic and discrimination run through all three; a name is neutral alone; suchness is wholesome alone, as what purified knowledge takes as its object, not as something able to produce an agreeable result; correct knowledge is wholesome alone. How many are accomplished through hearing, reflection, and cultivation, and are their objects? Characteristic and discrimination are all three and the objects of all three; a name is accomplished through hearing and reflection and is the object of all three; suchness is the object of cultivation alone; and correct knowledge is accomplished through cultivation and is the object of all three.
Master Cháng Bǎi defends the usefulness of names against any suspicion that being provisional makes them idle, quoting the maxim that although a name is provisionally established its function is not nothing, since investigating names is precisely what draws forth the knowledge that sees things as they are; yet he adds that hearing and reflection alone can never pass beyond provisional designation, which only cultivation accomplishes.
49. Section: Emptiness, Wishlessness, and Signlessness, and What Each Ranges Over
Of these five things, how many are the concentration on emptiness and how many its object, how many the concentration on wishlessness and how many its object, how many the concentration on signlessness and how many its object? Characteristic runs through all three and is the object of all three. This is because characteristic covers all five things over again: while the three concentrations are still practiced with outflow there remains the bondage of characteristics and a mind that discriminates, so the characteristic of characteristic and the characteristic of discrimination are what those practices take up, and when they are practiced without outflow there are the characteristic of suchness and the characteristic of correct knowledge. At the causal stage the concentration on emptiness ranges over characteristic, name, discrimination, the characteristic of suchness, and correct knowledge; the concentration on wishlessness ranges over characteristic, name, and discrimination; and the concentration on signlessness ranges over suchness alone, since where signs have been brought to rest there is no ranging over characteristic, name, or discrimination at all. Without outflow, all three take suchness itself as what they range over. A name is none of the three but is the object of two. It is a formation dissociated from mind, provisionally established, accomplished by hearing and reflection, whereas every one of these concentrations, with outflow or without, is a direct perception in which names do not appear; so no name is ever a concentration. Yet a name is the object of emptiness and of wishlessness, for one who contemplates the aggregates as empty of a person must take up the provisional word "I" in order to see through it, and one who contemplates the aggregates as impermanent and painful so as to stop wishing for further becoming must likewise take up the words in which conditioned things are named. It is not the object of signlessness, because a name arrives with a sign, and where signs are extinguished the name is gone with them. Discrimination runs through all three and is likewise the object of two. An ordinary person first taking up these three concentrations cannot do so without discriminating, and until correct knowledge is attained the practice is still discrimination conducted in accordance with reason; and discrimination is the object of emptiness and wishlessness but not of signlessness, since without signs there are no names, and without names no discrimination. Suchness is none of the three and is the object of emptiness and of signlessness. It is not a concentration, for it is the way things already are, present whether or not anyone realizes it, and nothing anyone accomplishes. It is the object of emptiness, since at the causal stage one contemplates precisely the suchness that is the emptiness of a person and the emptiness of phenomena; and it is the object of signlessness, since suchness has no sign. It is not the object of wishlessness, for wishlessness works by contemplating the conditioned aggregates as impermanent, painful, and fit to be turned away from, so that no wish for further becoming arises, and suchness is not conditioned and not included in further becoming at all. And correct knowledge runs through all three while being what emptiness alone ranges over. It runs through all three as the uncontaminated form of each. It is the object-range of emptiness because the two aspects "empty" and "not-self" extend across all four truths and across every phenomenon: not only are suffering and its origin, which have outflow, empty and without self, but the uncontaminated conditioned path and uncontaminated unconditioned cessation are empty and without self as well. Wishlessness does not take an uncontaminated conditioned object, and signlessness at the causal stage has parted with objects altogether, so correct knowledge is what neither of those two ranges over. Then a distinction is drawn in how these three are named. If no difference is marked among them and they are spoken of collectively as emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness, they run through what hearing, reflection, and cultivation accomplish alike; for emptiness is named from what it counters, wishlessness from the direction of the mind's expectation, and signlessness from its object, and all three arrive at the same ultimate. If they are spoken of specifically under the name concentration, they are what cultivation alone accomplishes, and they run through both the worldly and the transcendent. And if they are spoken of under the name doors of liberation, they are what transcendent cultivation alone accomplishes, being joined to the noble path and actually releasing the afflictions — which is where the three doors of liberation differ from the three concentrations.
問：如是五事，幾是空，是空境？幾是無願，是無願境？幾是無相，是無相境？答：相通三種，亦三種境。名非三種，是二種境。分別通三種，是二種境。真如非三種，是空、無相境。正智通三種，是空所行境。若無差別，總說為空、無願、無相，當知此中，通聞思修所成為性。若唯以三摩地名而宣說者，當知此中，唯修所成為性，通世出世。若唯以解脫門名而宣說者，當知此中，唯出世間修所成為性。
How many of these five are emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness, and how many their objects? Characteristic runs through all three and is the object of all three. A name is none of the three and is the object of two. Discrimination runs through all three and is the object of two. Suchness is none of the three and is the object of emptiness and of signlessness. Correct knowledge runs through all three and is what emptiness ranges over. If no difference is marked and they are called collectively emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness, know that here they run through what hearing, reflection, and cultivation accomplish. If they are spoken of only under the name concentration, know that here they are what cultivation alone accomplishes, running through the worldly and the transcendent. And if they are spoken of only under the name doors of liberation, know that here they are what transcendent cultivation alone accomplishes.
Master Cháng Bǎi sets the śrāvaka form of these three concentrations, which turn on the emptiness of a person, beside the bodhisattva form given in the Basic Section on the bodhisattva ground, which turns on the emptiness of phenomena: there the concentration on emptiness is the mind settled in the inexpressible nature of every thing, wishlessness the mind that will not wish for a future stained by the afflictions that wrong discrimination raises, and signlessness the mind settled where every discriminating elaboration has been stilled. He also flags a disagreement among the commentators about the collective naming: one treatise holds that so named the three run through the worldly and the transcendent, while a commentary on this very treatise holds that so named their scope is broad enough to cover all three kinds of wisdom yet is with outflow only.
50. Section: The Three Trainings, Learner and Adept, and What Is Abandoned by Seeing or by Cultivation
Of these five things, how many belong to the training in higher moral discipline or its accessories, how many to the training in higher mind or what that training ranges over, how many to the training in higher wisdom or what it ranges over? Characteristic belongs to the training in higher moral discipline and to its accessories, and belongs to the trainings in higher mind and higher wisdom, and is also what those two range over. It belongs to moral discipline because the precepts of individual liberation have wholesome bodily and verbal action as their own nature, and bodily and verbal action have form and sound as their substance, which are included under characteristic; and the faculties and objective fields by which one guards against wrongdoing are likewise characteristics, so that the characteristic of characteristic, the characteristic of name, and the characteristic of reasoned discrimination all count as accessories of the precepts, since keeping them requires both the named formulation of the rule and an inward discrimination in accordance with reason. Where concentration is attained there is the moral discipline that accompanies it, and where the path is realized there is the moral discipline that accompanies the path, which presupposes the other two, so the characteristic of correct knowledge is an accessory of all three kinds of moral discipline. It belongs to higher mind and higher wisdom because concentration has its own characteristic and wisdom has its own — the mark of stillness when concentration is accomplished, the mark of acuity when wisdom is — and it is what they range over because every concentration and every wisdom with outflow has a characteristic as its object. A name is an accessory of moral discipline and is what higher mind and higher wisdom range over. It is neither bodily nor verbal action, but the rule can only be kept as the words of the rule set it out, and the divisions and classes of the training are established by naming them; and it is ranged over by concentration and wisdom because whoever cultivates either does so by taking up what the holy teaching says, letting the image of the thing to be known appear, and then practicing calming or insight upon it. Discrimination belongs to higher mind and higher wisdom, is what they range over, and is an accessory of moral discipline: every higher mind and higher wisdom with outflow is accomplished through the discriminating mind; both must take the mind itself as their object, knowing which thoughts are wholesome and which are not, in order to remove what is unwholesome; and keeping the precepts requires a mind that discriminates in accordance with reason and is willing to stop what is evil and cultivate what is good. Suchness is what higher mind and higher wisdom range over, and is none of the three. It is the object of uncontaminated concentration and uncontaminated wisdom; but it is not moral discipline, nor an accessory of moral discipline, nor either of the other two trainings, since the three trainings are spoken of upon conditioned things and suchness is unconditioned. And correct knowledge belongs to higher mind and higher wisdom, is what they range over, and is an accessory of moral discipline — for uncontaminated concentration and wisdom joined together are just what correct knowledge is; it is what the trainings seek and dwell upon; and one who realizes the noble path and attains it has the moral discipline that accompanies the path, and therewith the virtue of the other two. Of these five things, how many are of the learner, how many of the adept, how many neither? Characteristic and discrimination run through all three, since the characteristics of characteristic, name, and discrimination have outflow and so are neither, while the characteristics of suchness and correct knowledge are without outflow and so belong to learner and adept alike. A name is neither alone, being provisionally established, so that it cannot be called the property of one who trains or one who has finished training. Suchness too is neither alone, and expressly because it is unconditioned. And correct knowledge runs through learner and adept, being the uncontaminated wisdom of noble ones on the path and of those who have completed it. Of these five, how many are abandoned by seeing, how many by cultivation, how many not abandoned at all? Characteristic runs through them all, its range being the widest: the characteristics of characteristic and of discrimination are abandoned by seeing, since one who enters the path of seeing severs at a stroke the fruits of the lower destinies together with the discriminated afflictions, and they are abandoned by cultivation as well, since the path of cultivation still has to sever the innate afflictions and the craving for pleasant human and heavenly fruits; while the characteristics of suchness and of correct knowledge are uncontaminated and are not abandoned at all. A name is abandoned by cultivation alone, being a neutral thing established upon form and mind. Discrimination is abandoned by seeing and by cultivation, since it is precisely the afflictions of false discrimination that those two paths remove. Suchness is not abandoned, needing no abandonment because it was never contaminated. And correct knowledge likewise is not abandoned.
問：如是五事，幾是增上戒、增上戒眷屬？幾是增上心、增上心所行？幾是增上慧、增上慧所行？答：相是增上戒、增上戒眷屬，是增上心、慧，亦心、慧所行。名是戒眷屬，亦是增上心、慧所行。分別是增上心、慧，亦心、慧所行，是增上戒眷屬。真如是增上心、慧所行，非三種。正智是增上心、慧，亦心、慧所行，是增上戒眷屬。問：如是五事，幾學？幾無學？幾非學非無學？答：相及分別通三種。名唯非學非無學。真如亦唯非學非無學，是無為故。正智通學及無學。問：如是五事，幾見所斷？幾修所斷？幾不斷？答：相通一切，名唯修所斷，分別通見、修所斷，真如是不斷，正智亦唯是不斷。
How many of these five are the training in higher moral discipline or its accessories, the training in higher mind or what it ranges over, the training in higher wisdom or what it ranges over? Characteristic is higher moral discipline and its accessory, is higher mind and higher wisdom, and is what those two range over. A name is an accessory of moral discipline and is what higher mind and higher wisdom range over. Discrimination is higher mind and higher wisdom, is what they range over, and is an accessory of moral discipline. Suchness is what higher mind and higher wisdom range over, and is none of the three. Correct knowledge is higher mind and higher wisdom, is what they range over, and is an accessory of moral discipline. How many are of the learner, of the adept, or of neither? Characteristic and discrimination run through all three. A name is neither alone. Suchness too is neither alone, since it is unconditioned. Correct knowledge runs through learner and adept. How many are abandoned by seeing, by cultivation, or not abandoned? Characteristic runs through them all; a name is abandoned by cultivation alone; discrimination is abandoned by seeing and by cultivation; suchness is not abandoned; and correct knowledge likewise is not abandoned.
Master Cháng Bǎi observes that "higher" carries two senses here — the sense of what a training moves toward, moral discipline cultivated in order to reach higher mind, concentration cultivated in order to reach higher wisdom, wisdom cultivated in order to sever the afflictions — and the sense of what is supreme, these three being the moral discipline, concentration, and wisdom that belong to the Buddha's teaching alone. On the terse verdict that a name is abandoned by cultivation only, he notes that an older treatise distinguishes the name from what the name means, the name being abandoned by cultivation while its meaning may be abandoned by seeing or by cultivation or not abandoned at all, and that commentators have pressed the awkward question of how to account for the names an arhat still uses; the verdict, he concludes, is given for the greater part rather than without remainder.
51. Section: The Four Applications of Mindfulness, and Which Objects Only Suppress the Afflictions and Which Uproot Them
From here down to the limbs of the path, the treatise sets the five things beside the thirty-seven factors of awakening. Taking a characteristic as one's object, how many applications of mindfulness does one cultivate? Four. Body, feeling, mind, and phenomena are all characteristics, and characteristic covers all five things over again: taking the characteristic of the five faculties, one cultivates mindfulness of the body; taking the characteristic of name, which is a formation dissociated from mind and an object of mental consciousness, one cultivates mindfulness of phenomena; taking the characteristic of discrimination, which is the minds and mental factors of the three realms, one cultivates mindfulness of feeling, of mind, and of phenomena; taking the characteristic of suchness, one cultivates mindfulness of phenomena; and taking the characteristic of correct knowledge, one cultivates mindfulness of feeling, of mind, and of phenomena. Taking a name as one's object, how many does one cultivate? One only, mindfulness of phenomena. A name is not form, not feeling, not mind or mental factor, but something provisionally established upon form and mind, so mindfulness of body, feeling, and mind are not cultivated upon it; and being included in the sphere of phenomena and known by mental consciousness, it is where mindfulness of phenomena is cultivated — as when one contemplates the aggregates as having no self and sees that "I" is only a designation established upon them, or when a bodhisattva contemplates the emptiness of phenomena by taking up name, referent, own-nature, and difference and seeing that what "phenomenon" designates has no reality of its own. Taking discrimination as one's object, how many? Three: mindfulness of feeling, of mind, and of phenomena, since discrimination is the minds and mental factors of the three realms, comprising the mental factor of feeling, the eight consciousnesses that are the mind itself, and the whole array of mental factors. Taking suchness as one's object, how many? One only, mindfulness of phenomena, since suchness is included in the sphere of phenomena and it is the suchness that is the emptiness of person or of phenomena that one takes up when contemplating phenomena. But further, in contemplating the suchness of the characteristic of the body, one also cultivates the mindfulness of phenomena that dismantles its object; and one should know the same holds for the characteristics of feeling, mind, and phenomena. As when contemplating the body as a skeleton one at last dissolves even the skeleton and the body is nowhere to be found — the dissolving is what gives this practice its name, for the characteristic of the body must be brought to nothing before one can turn toward suchness. So there are two mindfulnesses of phenomena that take suchness as object: one that does not dismantle its object, taking the very substance of suchness directly, and one that surveys body, feeling, mind, and phenomena and enters suchness through their unfindability. And taking correct knowledge as one's object, how many? Three, as was said for discrimination, correct knowledge being likewise mind and mental factors. Then the question of what such contemplation accomplishes. Taking a characteristic as one's object, should it be said that one can relinquish the evil and unwholesome states already arisen and not yet arisen, or that one cannot? It should be said that one relinquishes them by suppressing them, not that one relinquishes them by destroying the latent tendencies for good. For while one practices calming and insight upon a characteristic there is still a characteristic in the mind, and one who cannot let go of the characteristic can only hold down the present activity of the afflictions — he may well attain concentration, but he cannot injure the seeds. As the Treatise on Consciousness Only says of one at the stage of preparatory effort, who sets up some small thing before himself and calls it the nature of consciousness only, and precisely by having something to attain is not truly abiding in consciousness only. As with characteristic, so with name and with discrimination: a name is accomplished by hearing and reflection and can at most tame what is presently active, and discrimination has outflow, so that until correct knowledge is realized even an accomplished absorption suppresses the afflictions only for a time. But taking suchness and correct knowledge as one's object, it should be said that one relinquishes them by destroying the latent tendencies as well. For at the stage of penetration, when in the perceiving aspect of a single moment of mind suchness is directly realized and nothing at all is attained in the object, the self-verifying aspect that measures that perceiving aspect can sever what it apprehends, and the seeds of the evil and unwholesome are cut off for good.
問：緣相為境修幾念住？答：四。問：緣名為境修幾念住？答：一，法念住。問：緣分別為境修幾念住？答：三，謂受、心、法念住。問：緣真如為境修幾念住？答：一，法念住。又思惟身相真如，亦修壞緣法念住。受、心、法相，當知亦爾。問：緣正智為境修幾念住？答：三，如分別說。問：緣相為境，當言能捨已生、未生惡不善法，當言不能捨耶？答：當言伏斷故捨，非永害隨眠故捨。如相，名、分別亦爾。緣真如及正智為境，當言亦由永害隨眠故捨。
Taking a characteristic as object, how many applications of mindfulness does one cultivate? Four. Taking a name as object? One, mindfulness of phenomena. Taking discrimination as object? Three: mindfulness of feeling, of mind, and of phenomena. Taking suchness as object? One, mindfulness of phenomena; and in contemplating the suchness of the characteristic of the body one also cultivates the mindfulness of phenomena that dismantles its object, and the same should be known for the characteristics of feeling, mind, and phenomena. Taking correct knowledge as object? Three, as was said for discrimination. Taking a characteristic as object, should it be said that one can relinquish the evil and unwholesome states already arisen and not yet arisen, or that one cannot? It should be said that one relinquishes them by suppression, not by destroying the latent tendencies. As with characteristic, so with name and discrimination. Taking suchness and correct knowledge as object, it should be said that one relinquishes them by destroying the latent tendencies as well.
Master Cháng Bǎi sets two verses of the Treatise on Consciousness Only side by side to mark the difference between suppressing the afflictions and uprooting them. Of the stage of preparatory effort it says that one still places some small thing before oneself and names it the nature of consciousness only, and that having something to attain is exactly why one is not yet truly abiding there; of the stage of penetration it says that when knowledge attains nothing whatever in its object, then one abides in consciousness only, apart from the twofold appearance of grasper and grasped. He also notes the commentators' explanation of why mindfulness of the body is not cultivated upon correct knowledge: uncontaminated mind and mental factors do not see form or names standing outside the mind, so names and forms alike belong to what has outflow.
52. Section: Entering the Absorptions, Worldly and Transcendent, and the Peak Where No Noble Path Can Be Built
Among these five things, contemplating how many can one enter the worldly first absorption? Contemplating the characteristic, name, and discrimination bound to the desire realm and those bound to the first absorption. The desire realm has its own characteristic, name, and discrimination, and the first absorption has its own; and the method of entering the first absorption is to turn away from what is below as painful, coarse, and obstructive and to incline toward what is above as pure, subtle, and free — turning away from the unclean characteristic, name, and discrimination bound to the desire realm with their affliction, heaviness, and hindrance, and inclining toward the pure, subtle, and unhindered characteristic, name, and discrimination of the first absorption. Practiced gradually in this way, these two contemplations carry one into the first absorption. In the same way, contemplating the characteristic, name, and discrimination bound to the lower ground and those bound to the ground of the second absorption, one enters the worldly second absorption; and the remaining absorptions and the formless attainments should be known to work the same way, each according to its own case, one always turning from the ground below and inclining toward the ground above. Among these five things, contemplating how many can one enter the transcendent first absorption? Contemplating the characteristic, name, and discrimination bound to the desire realm and those bound to the ground of the first absorption, and suchness besides. One first attains the worldly first absorption by the turning away and inclining just described, and then contemplates that the first absorption is itself produced from conditions and so is nowhere to be found; and by contemplating in this way the aspect of emptiness one penetrates the suchness of the first absorption — or one takes the first absorption as one's support and contemplates through the three doors of emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness, or through the four noble truths — and so enters the transcendent first absorption. And so on up to the sphere of nothing whatever, each according to its own case, should be known to work the same way. But the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception is by its very nature worldly alone. Here the mind's perception is too faint to serve as a support for the noble path, and so no transcendent path exists at that height at all. Then a question about it: should the characteristic bound to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception be called a characteristic? It should be called a signless characteristic, and it is also called a subtle characteristic. The first half of that name answers to "neither perception": from the first absorption up through the sphere of boundless consciousness there is still the perception of something present, and in the sphere of nothing whatever there is the perception that nothing whatever is present — which, for all its emptiness, is still a perception; at this height both are removed, and where there is no perception there is no sign, so it is called a signless characteristic. The second half answers to "nor non-perception": this attainment has not the power to extinguish perception altogether, and a faint perception remains, a faint mind still turning upon a signless object, and so it is also called a subtle characteristic.
問：是五事中，思惟幾事能入世間初靜慮定？答：思惟欲界所繫及初靜慮所繫相、名、分別。如是思惟下地所繫及第二靜慮地所繫相、名、分別，能入世間第二靜慮。如是所餘靜慮、無色，如其所應，當知亦爾。問：是五事中，思惟幾事能入出世初靜慮定？答：即思惟欲界所繫及初靜慮地所繫相、名、分別、真如。如是乃至無所有處，如其所應，當知亦爾。非想非非想處，本性法爾唯是世間。問：非想非非想處所繫相，當言是相耶？答：當言無相相，亦名微細相。
Among these five things, contemplating how many can one enter the worldly first absorption? Contemplating the characteristic, name, and discrimination bound to the desire realm and those bound to the first absorption. Contemplating in the same way those bound to the lower ground and those bound to the ground of the second absorption, one enters the worldly second absorption; and the remaining absorptions and formless attainments should be known to be the same, each according to its case. Among these five, contemplating how many can one enter the transcendent first absorption? Contemplating the characteristic, name, and discrimination bound to the desire realm and to the ground of the first absorption, and suchness. And so on up to the sphere of nothing whatever, each according to its case, should be known to be the same. The sphere of neither perception nor non-perception is by its very nature worldly alone. Should the characteristic bound to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception be called a characteristic? It should be called a signless characteristic, and it is also called a subtle characteristic.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes that correct knowledge is conspicuously left out of the list of what one contemplates in order to enter these absorptions, and gives the commentators' reason: at the causal stage there is still an enterer and something entered, and correct knowledge is not yet present, so it is passed over here — though since correct knowledge was earlier said to be what emptiness ranges over, it may be counted among the objects of the causal stage after all; only at the fruition stage, where enterer and entered have fallen away, is it fitting to say provisionally that correct knowledge is what practices and suchness what is practiced upon. On the highest formless attainment he adds simply that perception there is not keen, and that a mind without force cannot cultivate the noble path.
53. Section: Why the Five Are Called Faculties, When They Become Powers, and the Two Kinds of Awakening Factor
Among these five things, what do faith and the rest have as their own nature, what do they take as their object, and with respect to what are they enhancing, so as to earn the name faculty? Discrimination is their own nature, name and characteristic are their object, and it is with respect to suchness and correct knowledge that they are enhancing, and so earn the name faculty. Faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom run through what has outflow and what does not, and it is upon these five wholesome roots that one attains both the purified worldly absorptions and the transcendent noble path — which is what their being enhancing with respect to purification means. Their own nature is discrimination because at this stage the practitioner has not yet reached the path of seeing and works by a wisdom that still discriminates; their object is name and characteristic because it is upon these that the fourfold search is conducted; and they are called faculties by looking ahead to the suchness and correct knowledge of the first ground, or, on the śrāvaka's way of practice, to the suchness that is the emptiness of a person and the correct knowledge of the first fruit and beyond, which those wholesome roots at the stages of warmth and summit are strong enough to bring about. As with the name faculty, so with the name power. At what stage does one earn the name power? When those same faculties of faith and the rest are no longer intruded upon and adulterated by their opposites — by doubt in place of faith, indolence in place of energy, forgetfulness in place of mindfulness, distraction in place of concentration, wrong understanding in place of wisdom — and when they have become unadulterated, they are then called powers instead. At that point faith is clean; mindfulness holds the four foundations clearly and does not lose them; energy is continuous and does not lapse when the body is unwell or the mind is troubled; concentration is not broken into by agitation or regret or the movements of applied and sustained thought; and the wisdom of insight is unmixed with wrong understanding, so that the noble path can be accomplished. Powers, too, therefore have discrimination as their own nature, name and characteristic as their object, and are named by looking ahead to suchness and correct knowledge. And as with the faculties and the powers, so where the factors of awakening are named as what obtains awakening, these are the worldly factors of awakening, which have discrimination as their own nature. But where the factors of awakening are named as resting upon awakening, these are the transcendent factors of awakening, which have correct knowledge as their own nature, suchness as their object, and are enhancing with respect to awakening to the truths as conventionally set out. The commentary marks the difference plainly: named through their continuity with the faculties and powers, the factors of awakening are the cause by which awakening is obtained but are not yet an awakening that sees things as they are, and so remain worldly, discriminating as the faculties and powers do; named on their own, as the seven alone, they rest upon awakening already, and the wisdom that sees things as they are serves as their limb, and their own nature is therefore correct knowledge. This whole passage, then, is about one thing: the mental factor of wisdom that constitutes the awakening factor of discerning phenomena turning over from discrimination into non-discrimination — still worldly and with outflow through the four stages of preparatory effort, and becoming the correct knowledge of the transcendent at the entry into the path of seeing.
問：是五事中，信等諸法用何為自性，以何為所緣，於何為增上得根名耶？答：分別為自性，名、相為所緣，於真如、正智為增上故，而得根名。如根名，力名亦爾。問：於何位中得力名耶？答：即信等根，非不信等之所陵雜。若成不雜法時，轉名為力。如根及力，如是若得菩提支名為覺支，此是世間覺支，以分別為自性。若依菩提支名為覺支，此是出世間覺支，以正智為自性，真如為所緣，於覺悟安立諦為增上。
Among these five things, what do faith and the rest have as their own nature, what as their object, and with respect to what are they enhancing, so as to earn the name faculty? Discrimination is their own nature, name and characteristic their object, and it is with respect to suchness and correct knowledge that they are enhancing and so earn the name faculty. As with the name faculty, so with the name power. At what stage is the name power earned? When the faculties of faith and the rest are not intruded upon by faithlessness and the rest; when they have become unadulterated, they are called powers instead. And as with the faculties and powers, so where the factors of awakening are named as what obtains awakening, these are the worldly factors of awakening, whose own nature is discrimination. Where the factors of awakening are named as resting upon awakening, these are the transcendent factors of awakening, whose own nature is correct knowledge, whose object is suchness, and which are enhancing with respect to awakening to the truths as conventionally set out.
Master Cháng Bǎi maps these onto the stages of practice twice over. On the Great Vehicle's way: the faculties are the wholesome roots of warmth and summit, where the fourfold search is conducted, and the powers those of forbearance and the highest worldly state, where the fourfold knowledge of things as they are is attained, both named by looking ahead to the suchness and correct knowledge of the first ground. On the śrāvaka's way: the same two pairs of stages while contemplating the sixteen aspects of the four truths, still an ordinary person's practice with outflow, named by looking ahead to the suchness that is the emptiness of a person and the correct knowledge of the first fruit. He adds that in the sequence of the thirty-seven factors, the stage after the five powers is the seven factors of awakening, which is the entry into the first fruit itself.
54. Section: The Limbs of the Path, the Four Ways of Progress, the Four Footings of the Teaching, and Calming and Insight
Further, as for right view and the other limbs of the path: if they are worldly, they should be understood as before, having discrimination as their own nature and name and characteristic as their object, which is what the limbs of the path amount to while one is still an ordinary person. If they are transcendent, they have correct knowledge as their own nature — excepting the limbs that are moral discipline — they take as their object both the truths as conventionally set out and the suchness that is not so set out, and they are enhancing with respect to the exhaustion of every outflow that is realized and the pleasant abidings in the present life. Right speech, right action, and right livelihood are excepted because they belong to the aggregate of moral discipline; they are indeed the retinue of correct knowledge, and correct knowledge may even be called their own nature, since it is when the genuinely uncontaminated noble path is present that the moral discipline accompanying the path arises and one's keeping of the precepts becomes clean — but moral discipline is not itself mind or mental factor, being form, and so has no object at all, and on that account it is set aside here, leaving five of the eight limbs. The remaining five take as their object the four truths as set out in words and letters, and also the suchness that passes beyond words and letters. And they are called enhancing because they have the strength to bring about both the exhaustion of the outflows and the pleasant abidings in the present life, which are the four root absorptions. As with the limbs of the path, so with the ways of progress, the footings of the teaching, calming, insight, and the rest: each should be known to have a worldly and a transcendent form, with objects assigned by the same reasoning. Among these, the ways of progress are established by their differences with respect to dull and sharp faculties and with respect to whether the pleasant abidings in the present life have been attained or not. A practitioner of dull faculties is called slow and one of sharp faculties swift; one who has attained the four root absorptions is called pleasant and one who has only the access concentration and must sever the afflictions from there is called painful; and by these circumstances the course by which a practitioner accomplishes the noble path is divided into four — painful and slow, painful and swift, pleasant and slow, pleasant and swift. Whatever the sharpness of one's faculties and whether or not the root absorptions have been attained, anyone who applies himself can sever the afflictions of the three realms. The footings of the teaching are established by their differences with respect to being able to uphold the true teaching in its conventional and its ultimate sense. The first two are established because they uphold the conventional true teaching that is higher moral discipline: one must be without greed when a pleasing object is met and without hatred when a displeasing one is met, and it is on the strength of these two that the precepts can be kept clean. The last two are established because they uphold the ultimate true teaching that is the remaining trainings in higher mind and higher wisdom: without a mindfulness that holds its object clearly and does not forget it, one does not arrive at right concentration, so mindfulness upholds higher mind; and higher wisdom must have concentration as its support, insight being cultivated within concentration, so right concentration upholds higher wisdom. And it is by the sense of not being scattered from the object, and by the sense of examining the meaning of that object, that calming and insight are established — mindfulness recollecting a single object again and again is what accomplishes calming, and right concentration serving as the support from which one examines the aspects of the object, its own characteristic and shared characteristic, its impermanence, its unsatisfactoriness, its emptiness, its being without self, is what accomplishes insight.
又正見等諸道支，若是世間，如前應知。若出世間，以正智為自性，除諸戒支，安立、非安立真如為所緣，於所證得一切漏盡現法樂住為增上。如諸道支，行跡、法跡、奢摩他、毗鉢舍那等，當知亦爾。此中行跡，依鈍根、利根，現法樂住已得、未得，差別建立。若諸法跡，依能任持世俗、勝義正法，差別建立。謂由任持增上戒世俗正法故，建立初二；由任持所餘增上心、增上慧勝義正法故，建立後二。又由於所緣境不散亂義故，及觀察彼義故，建立奢摩他、毗鉢舍那。
Further, as for right view and the other limbs of the path: if they are worldly, they should be understood as before. If transcendent, they have correct knowledge as their own nature, excepting the limbs that are moral discipline; they take as their object the truths as conventionally set out and the suchness not so set out; and they are enhancing with respect to the exhaustion of every outflow that is realized and the pleasant abidings in the present life. As with the limbs of the path, so with the ways of progress, the footings of the teaching, calming, insight, and the rest — know that these are the same. Among these, the ways of progress are established by their differences with respect to dull and sharp faculties and with respect to whether the pleasant abidings in the present life have been attained. The footings of the teaching are established by their differences with respect to upholding the conventional and the ultimate true teaching: the first two are established because they uphold the conventional true teaching of higher moral discipline, and the last two because they uphold the ultimate true teaching of the remaining trainings in higher mind and higher wisdom. And it is by the sense of not being scattered from the object, and by the sense of examining its meaning, that calming and insight are established.
Master Cháng Bǎi lets the four footings of the teaching stand as four practical handles rather than four items on a list: non-greed and non-hatred are what actually make the keeping of precepts possible in daily encounters with what one likes and dislikes, while mindfulness is what makes concentration possible and concentration is what makes the insight that sees things as they are possible. He notes that a companion treatise describes each footing by what it upholds — the aggregate of moral discipline for the first two, the aggregate of concentration for mindfulness, and the aggregates of wisdom, liberation, and the knowledge and vision of liberation for right concentration — each said to bring about what has not yet arisen and to enlarge what has.
55. Section: The Eight Liberations, What They Take as Object, and the Hindrance to Mastery They Remove
Because they are able to release one from two bonds, the bond of characteristics and the bond of the heaviness of the afflictions, the eight liberations are established. Among these five things, what do they have as their own nature, what do they take as their object, and with respect to what are they enhancing? They have worldly and transcendent correct knowledge as their own nature — the knowledge subsequently attained, which measures things as they are in their extent. As for their objects: the first and the second, which contemplate forms while still perceiving form within and while no longer perceiving form within, take among forms the characteristic of visible color and the characteristic of suchness as their object. The third, the liberation of the beautiful, realized with the body and dwelt in completely, takes among those same forms the characteristic of mutual inclusion and the suchness of that as its object — for one contemplates how the clean and the unclean take each other in, the clean holding the unclean within it and the unclean the clean, as a body wrapped in thin skin looks lovely and is filthy throughout inside, and this mutual entering is what the characteristic of mutual inclusion means; and one contemplates that these clean and unclean forms are in their substance originally empty and of one taste throughout, which is what the characteristic of suchness means here. The next four, which are the four formless attainments, each take their own characteristic as object and take the suchness of that as object as well — boundless space for the first, boundless consciousness for the second, nothing whatever for the third, neither perception nor non-perception for the fourth, and in each case one goes on to contemplate that its own characteristic is nowhere to be found. And the last, the cessation of perception and feeling realized with the body, has no object at all, since the perception and feeling of the six evolving consciousnesses no longer operate, nor does the seventh consciousness joined to the view of self. With respect to what are they enhancing? With respect to bringing forth all the qualities of a noble one's superknowledges. Further, one who cultivates this contemplation is hindered, with regard to the characteristics of form and the characteristics of the formless, by the hindrance to mastery; and it is in order to sever that hindrance that this contemplation is undertaken. When it succeeds, the first three liberations remove the lack of mastery over form and the remaining five remove the lack of mastery over the formless.
問：依能解脫相及麤重二種縛故，立八解脫。於五事中，用誰為自性？以誰為所緣？於誰為增上？答：用世間出世間正智為自性。初及第二，於諸色中以顯色相及真如相為所緣。第三，即諸色中以攝受相及彼真如相為所緣。次四種，各以自相為所緣，及彼真如為所緣。最後，無所緣。於能引發一切聖神通功德為增上。又修觀者，於諸色相及無色相，為自在障之所障故，為斷彼障起此觀行。
Because they release one from the two bonds of characteristics and of heaviness, the eight liberations are established. Among these five things, what is their own nature, what their object, and with respect to what are they enhancing? Their own nature is worldly and transcendent correct knowledge. The first and second take among forms the characteristic of visible color and the characteristic of suchness as their object. The third takes among those same forms the characteristic of mutual inclusion and the suchness of that as its object. The next four each take their own characteristic as object, and the suchness of that as object. The last has no object. They are enhancing with respect to bringing forth all the qualities of a noble one's superknowledges. Further, one who cultivates this contemplation is hindered with regard to the characteristics of form and of the formless by the hindrance to mastery, and it is to sever that hindrance that this contemplation is undertaken.
Master Cháng Bǎi unpacks the third liberation through a companion treatise's three perceptions: that clean and unclean forms are perceived as depending on one another, that each is perceived as entering into the other, and that all of them are perceived as being finally of one taste — the second of which is what the text here calls the characteristic of mutual inclusion, and the third what it calls the characteristic of suchness. He adds a practitioner's illustration: contemplating the skeleton until the bones shine out blue, yellow, red, and white, and then the light too is nowhere to be found, which is where suchness is entered and the liberation accomplished.
56. Section: The Eight Bases of Mastery, the Ten Totalities, and What an Ordinary Person Can and Cannot See
Among the bases of mastery, the first four correspond to the first two liberations and the last four to the third liberation. Because the characteristics of form are hard to master, one who is able to master them here gains mastery over the characteristics of the formless as well. In the liberations there is only mastery of resolve — one has the strength to make form or the formless appear, but not yet to master and turn it, and so is not yet free. In the bases of mastery one can turn what appears: blue becomes yellow, red becomes white, few become many, at will. And whoever can master the characteristics of form can master the formless too, turning space, consciousness, and nothing whatever as he pleases. Further, when superior knowing and superior seeing are spoken of here, this means that noble ones, by rightly directing attention and contemplating the characteristic of the suchness of forms, gain superior knowing and seeing — the knowing coming by the strength of calming and the seeing by the strength of insight. Ordinary people are not like this. If so, in what sense is an ordinary person said to have mastery? By way of three perceptions. Namely, with regard to clean and unclean forms, the perception that they depend upon each other; and because they depend upon each other, with regard to clean and unclean forms, the perception that each follows the other in; and because each follows the other in, with regard to clean and unclean forms, the perception of one pure taste throughout. This last mastery is attained by ordinary people and noble ones in common. Where they differ is that the ordinary person cultivating the bases of mastery arrives at blue, yellow, red, and white light and rests in the perception of one pure taste there, while the noble one contemplates the suchness of those forms, where the light too is nowhere to be found. Further, the ten totalities should be understood in their characteristics through the strength of what the bases of mastery take as object. What differs here is that they too take the characteristics of the great elements as object, and the suchness of those as object — earth, water, fire, and wind contemplated as arisen from other conditions and so without a nature of their own — and further take the characteristics of the sphere of boundless space and the sphere of boundless consciousness as object, and the suchness of those as object. Were it not so, then since the support would not be all-pervading, what rests upon it could not become all-pervading either; but because the suchness of what is taken as object is an objective sphere utterly all-pervading, the name all-pervading is earned. And by the twofold strength of mastery and of pervasion, the liberations too are made pure; and further, all the qualities of the superknowledges of the whole noble assembly are brought forth.
諸勝處中，前四如初二解脫，後四如第三解脫，由諸色相難可勝故，於此事中能勝伏時，於無色相亦得勝自在。又此中言勝知勝見，謂諸聖者由正作意思惟諸色真如相故，得勝知見。若諸異生，即不如是。問：若爾，異生云何名勝？答：由三種想故。謂於淨不淨色由展轉相待想；展轉相待故，於淨不淨色由展轉相隨想；展轉相隨故，於淨不淨色由清淨一味想。此最後勝，異生、聖者二所共得。又十遍處，由勝處所緣力，應知其相。此中差別者，亦以大種相為所緣，及彼真如相為所緣。又空、識無邊處相為所緣，及彼真如相為所緣。若不爾者，由所依止不遍滿故，能依不應得成遍滿。由彼所緣真如之相所緣境界極遍滿故，得名遍滿。由勝遍滿二種勢力，令諸解脫亦得清淨。又能引發一切眾聖神通功德。
Among the bases of mastery, the first four correspond to the first two liberations and the last four to the third. Because the characteristics of form are hard to master, one who can master them here gains mastery over the characteristics of the formless as well. When superior knowing and seeing are spoken of here, this means that noble ones, by rightly directing attention and contemplating the characteristic of the suchness of forms, gain superior knowing and seeing; ordinary people are not like this. If so, in what sense is an ordinary person said to have mastery? By way of three perceptions: with regard to clean and unclean forms, the perception that they depend upon each other; because they depend upon each other, the perception that each follows the other in; and because each follows the other in, the perception of one pure taste throughout. This last mastery is attained by ordinary people and noble ones in common. Further, the ten totalities should be understood in their characteristics through the strength of what the bases of mastery take as object. What differs is that they take the characteristics of the great elements as object, and the suchness of those; and further the characteristics of the spheres of boundless space and boundless consciousness, and the suchness of those. Were it not so, then since the support would not be all-pervading, what rests upon it could not become all-pervading. Because the suchness taken as object is an objective sphere utterly all-pervading, the name all-pervading is earned. And by the twofold strength of mastery and pervasion, the liberations too are made pure, and all the qualities of the superknowledges of the noble assembly are brought forth.
Master Cháng Bǎi notes that the usual order of training runs from the liberations to the bases of mastery to the totalities, but that the commentators allow the reverse as well: taken up within the knowledge that measures things in their extent, the liberations come first and the totalities last; taken up within the knowledge that accords with things as they are, one begins from the totalities and ends with the liberations — which is why the bases of mastery and the totalities can be called the path that purifies the liberations rather than merely their sequel. He also observes that the difference between an ordinary person and a noble one here is not in the technique but in where the contemplation stops: both can turn clean and unclean forms into one taste of light, but only the noble one goes on to the suchness in which the light itself is not found.