The Listener, Praising the Buddha, and a Sūtra Explained in Full

The second half of the Compendium of Explanations opens directly from the first: having explained how a teacher perfects his own marks and speech, the treatise turns to the other side of the encounter — how that teacher settles the listener's mind. A teacher equipped with the ten marks and eight kinds of speech, addressing any of the five assemblies, should bring each listener to genuinely respectful, error-free attention — not merely five assemblies reached, but each mind within them rightly settled. This settling is accomplished through as many as ten reasons, which the treatise now unfolds one by one, echoing the Śrāvaka Ground's own account of undistorted instruction: teaching dharma without distortion so that hearers retain it, recite it, and practice it, truly gaining release and reaching the very limit of suffering.

Both the effort of teaching and the effort of listening bear real fruit, worldly and transcendent — which is exactly why a teacher must settle listeners in respectful attention, and why listeners in turn must listen respectfully and without distortion; otherwise the labor on both sides would be spent for nothing. With this, the second of the ten reasons is closed.

Abandoning evil destinies and gaining good ones together fulfill what the Ground of Thought Cultivation calls the fulfillment of higher rebirth — going toward a good destiny — while swiftly drawing in the cause of nirvāṇa fulfills the fulfillment of decisive excellence — craving exhausted, desire abandoned, cessation and nirvāṇa reached. With this, the third of the ten reasons is closed.

These four links form a single chain: understanding the twelve divisions of scripture makes it possible to abandon greed, hatred, and delusion and take up wholesome dharmas both worldly and transcendent; abandoning unwholesome causes means no further evil karma is created, and so no further suffering in the three evil destinies is incurred; and abandoning evil causes while taking up good ones in this way leads swiftly to nirvāṇa itself. With this, the fourth of the ten reasons for respectful listening is closed.

The Compendium of Synonyms restates these five in terms closer to monastic discipline: having cause and occasion, since every precept is established only upon an actual occasion of misconduct; having leading-out, since a proper method of confession is established so a violator may return to purity; having what is relied upon, since the four reliances — on robes, food, dwelling, and medicine, each kept simple — let a practitioner rise above every corrupted precept; having what transcends, since the precepts steer a practitioner in the middle way, away from both indulgence in desire and fruitless austerity; and having miraculous transformation, the same three already explained, established so that practitioners swiftly gain spiritual mastery. Though the wording differs slightly from the account just given, the meaning is the same. With this, the first of the two meanings under the fifth reason is closed. The true dharma's five excellences give disciples every reason to listen and study it well.

Hearing what has not yet been heard, and investigating what has been heard, together purify the mind through the wisdom born of hearing; cutting off the net of doubt and casting aside every view together purify it through the wisdom born of reflection; and penetrating all profound words and meanings — the empty nature of all dharmas — purifies it through the wisdom born of cultivation, corresponding to the Grounds of What Is Heard, What Is Thought, and What Is Cultivated among the treatise's seventeen grounds: the three vehicles all rely on hearing, reflection, and cultivation as the means by which surpassing virtue is established. With this second meaning, and with both meanings of the fifth reason together, the fifth of the ten reasons for respectful listening is closed.

The Buddha labored across three great incalculable eons to win this dharma for our sake — gratitude alone should move a listener to attend. Present benefit means every precept observed and every training undertaken now already elevates one's lifespan, appearance, and fortune, ripening toward nirvāṇa itself. Freedom from consuming affliction follows from rightly establishing all dharmas, worldly and transcendent, as already explained under the second reason. According with true deportment means the Buddha's own moral code, unlike the brahmins' — which the 披尋記 contrasts point by point: permitting harm where the brahmin code allows it, versus prohibiting it entirely; encouraging accumulation of land, house, and wealth, wife and servants, versus renouncing all such possessions but the means to end suffering; indulging adornment, song, dance, and sensual pleasure, versus enjoying only the blameless wisdom born of hearing, reflection, and cultivation — the monastic code proving superior in precept, in what is embraced, and in what is enjoyed, at every point. Easily seen and understood follows the same contrast: brahminical teaching is hollow and deliberately obscured in wording, while the Buddha's teaching is genuinely meaningful and stated in plain, undisguised language. And what the wise know through inner realization means suchness itself, tasted directly, not merely reasoned about. With this, the sixth of the ten reasons for respectful listening is closed.

Traditional Vinaya sources unpack this list as seven things a renunciant should know daily. Knowing the teaching: grasping the twelve divisions of scripture — their provisional names, how their terms interrelate, their proper sequence of practice, who among the noble ones spoke them, and the self- or other-benefiting intent behind each. Knowing the meaning: grasping the circumstances that occasioned a teaching, the different angles from which its words are framed, the sequence by which it is explained and established, the four principles of reasoning behind it, and its essential gist in brief. Knowing the time: recognizing, moment to moment in meditation practice, when dullness or agitation is present, approaching, subsiding, or already resolved, and applying the right corrective — exertion, calming, or equanimity — accordingly. Knowing the measure: moderation in food and in exertion alike, so that the body stays balanced and healthy and effort neither slackens into dullness nor strains into agitation. Knowing oneself: an honest, daily accounting of one's own present measure of faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Knowing the assembly: recognizing who is present — noble or common, monastic or lay, elder or junior, scholar of sūtra, treatise, or yogic practice. And knowing persons: discerning each listener's own capacity, sharp or dull, faithful or not, without attachment yet with real clarity, so as to give each the teaching actually suited to them. A teacher equipped with all seven forms of knowing is thereby equipped to settle any listener in respectful, undistorted attention.

The Buddha teaches every being alike regardless of caste or station, even the lowliest outcaste, in whatever way — provisional or ultimate, direct or skillful — fits the listener; his teaching is coherent and clear enough to practice in any posture at any time; and it draws out both worldly and transcendent fruit at once. The Compendium of Synonyms explains the three "good"s concretely: good in the beginning, since simply hearing it gives rise to joy; good in the middle, since practicing it involves no real hardship, keeping to the middle way between indulgence and austerity; and good in the end, since carried through it ultimately uproots every defilement and brings freedom from the three realms entirely. Present pleasant result and future pleasant result then round out the eight, teaching bearing fruit both now and in lives to come. With this, the eighth of the ten reasons for respectful listening is closed.

Nine images, one after another, for what the dharma frees a listener from. The prison of birth-and-death holds every being fast in craving, aversion, and the fetters of desire, shrouded in ignorance's dense thicket, unable to escape the three realms unaided — the dharma alone offers a way out. The seven kinds of noble wealth it establishes in place of poverty are faith, discipline, a sense of shame before oneself, a sense of shame before others, learning, generosity, and wisdom — each the remedy for a corresponding deficiency the 披尋記 names as a kind of poverty. Scarcity of good conduct gives way to abundance the more one hears and practices; ignorance's darkness gives way to wisdom's light; the four torrents — of desire, of becoming, of views, and of ignorance — are crossed only by hearing the true dharma, carrying one to nirvāṇa's far shore; affliction's sickness is cured, since the Buddha alone is the great physician; the net of craving, woven from endless attachment, is escaped; and the trackless wilderness of beginningless birth-and-death, thick with every conditioned activity, is finally crossed. With this, the ninth of the ten reasons for respectful listening is closed.

Affliction and karma are dharmas of accumulation, belonging to the truth of origin; once craving and views are fully cut off, present and future suffering are stilled, becoming dharmas of cessation, belonging to the truth of cessation — respectful listening turns one into the other. "Far from dust, free of defilement" the Compendium of Synonyms glosses two ways: dust as the conceit still arising, intermittently or continuously, before direct realization is complete, and defilement as its residual latent tendencies together with those cut off at the path of seeing — both now permanently absent; or, more broadly, dust as self-conceit and every view-based affliction cut off at the path of seeing, defilement as the coarse latent residue of both. "Among all dharmas" means within the particular and shared characteristics dharmas rest in; the "dharma-eye" is the direct realization that there is only dharma — the five aggregates as illusory, without self or what belongs to a self. The last four parts then draw straight through every level of the path: the provisions for the four fruits from stream-entry to arhatship, for solitary buddhahood, for unsurpassed complete awakening, and for every worldly and transcendent meditative attainment — the four absorptions, eight liberations, eleven unified states, and six attainments detailed in the Ground of Unified Meditative States. With this tenth reason complete in all its ten parts, all ten reasons for respectful listening — presently realized benefit and ease, right establishment of all dharmas, escape from evil destinies, understanding what is taught, the dharma's five excellences and threefold wisdom, repaying the teacher's kindness, the sevenfold knowing, the dharma's eight further excellences, freedom from ninefold worldly oppression, and this tenfold final reason — are now fully set forth, closing the account of the listener entirely. The treatise turns next to praising the Buddha before teaching begins.

Having closed the listener's own ten reasons for respectful attention, the treatise turns to the third of the four topics under explaining well — praising the Buddha before teaching begins. The Sūtra of the Great Adornment records that a Dharma-teacher in the time of Kāśyapa Buddha, praising that buddha before his assembly, was reborn in the heavens for it, ever after enjoying happiness among gods and humans with fragrance issuing naturally from his mouth — praise of the Buddha is no idle formality, but bears its own fruit.

The source names these five in fuller color: wondrous form, complete with the thirty-two marks of a great being and the eighty subsidiary excellences adorning his limbs, radiant as a great mountain of gold; stillness, every faculty at rest, mind utterly at peace, having reached the utmost shore of calm and self-mastery, guarding the senses so completely as to be called the dragon among men, the bull leading the herd, the well-tamed horse, clear and unruffled as a still pool, every trace of affliction's habituation forever drawn out; surpassing wisdom, unobstructed and unattached toward all dharmas of the three times and beyond time; right conduct, the six perfections and four means of gathering beings, benefiting self and other, both brought to full completion; and majestic virtue, the blazing splendor of a tathāgata's unhindered play of spiritual powers.

The Buddha's six perfected spiritual powers, wielded with great wisdom and great compassion, transform freely and rescue beings effortlessly, mind utterly pure and unstained — hence "play." The Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise explains the word directly: a magician conjures endless transformations at will and calls it play; a bodhisattva's spiritual powers transform just as freely, and so are likewise called play — most essential of all in maturing beings and purifying buddha-lands together. With this fifth mark, brief praise of the Buddha by five marks is complete.

Complete in merit means every worldly and transcendent virtue the Buddha has achieved, surpassing what any word or song could capture. Free of every defilement means free of the seven kinds of taint — no taint of desiring others' recognition, no taint of clinging to views, no taint of doubt, no taint of comparing himself to others, no taint of intoxicated self-satisfaction, no taint of any latent tendency of affliction whatsoever, and no taint of stinginess. Without turbidity or impurity means unshakable in seven further ways: no outsider can shake it; no army of Māra — the aggregates, afflictions, death, or the god of the sixth heaven — can shake it; no thief can seize the noble wealth of faith, discipline, learning, shame before self, shame before others, generosity, and wisdom he has perfected, since it is formless and beyond every calamity; no kinsman can destroy it; no king's decree can remove it; no elemental disaster of fire, water, or wind can alter it; and even when his lifespan ends and he enters cessation, his merit never diminishes, enduring to the very end of future time. Without equal means his conditioned and unconditioned virtues are so vast, so exalted, so many, and so powerfully great that neither pure-minded śrāvakas nor bodhisattvas already on the grounds can match him, let alone beings still cycling through the six destinies — his merit stands foremost in all three realms. Whose only work is benefiting sentient beings means that, rather than resting in the vast, faultless ease of the nirvāṇa he has attained, he skillfully manifests himself again and again for others' benefit. And fully capable in this work means he accomplishes this benefiting effortlessly and spontaneously, without needing to form any intention, sustaining it without interruption to the very end of future time. The 披尋記 traces all six back to the Determinations' fourfold account of great awakening's own nature — as the ground on which arising and its cessation both rest, as what rightly discerns the fruit of all that is known, and as the pure dharma-realm itself — together with its ten masteries (over lifespan, mind, requisites, karma, birth, resolve, aspiration, spiritual power, wisdom, and dharma, detailed in the Bodhisattva Ground's chapter on abiding) and its skillful means for teaching beings through four kinds of transformative activity: ripening the unripe, liberating the ripened across countless world-systems at once, and appearing as a śrāvaka or a solitary buddha as each occasion calls for. With this sixfold account, brief praise of the Buddha — whether by the five marks or by these six — is now fully closed. The treatise turns next to extensive praise.

Seven virtues concerning the path itself. He realized the noble eightfold path entirely without a teacher, and so can realize what no one else has yet realized; having become a buddha, he establishes precepts never established before, fitted to each occasion, so beings may cultivate a pure conduct free of desire; he truly knows the middle way, apart from suffering and pleasure, permanence and annihilation, existence and non-existence, excess and deficiency; he has realized buddhahood itself, together with the ten powers, the four kinds of fearlessness, and every other excellent quality; he reveals the path, skillfully unfolding the supreme truth and cutting through every net of doubt by his own example; he teaches the path, expounding the many stages, faculties, persons, kinds of faith, kinds of understanding, and kinds of reflection, and the domain known only to one of all-encompassing wisdom, so that beings realize the fruits of the three vehicles; and he guides upon the path, leading each being through whatever approach they themselves find congenial, according to their own capacity, until they are carried across. With this, the fifth of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

Eight images drawn from the natural world. Fiercest and most fearless of beasts, the lion pictures the Buddha's fearless nirvāṇa, beyond every calamity; the bull that leads its herd pictures him leading all beings in form and wisdom alike; a nation's own leader pictures his place as foremost of all beings; the dragon-king's flawless power pictures the unerring action among his eighteen unique buddha-qualities; the well-tamed horse pictures a mind that answers only to its own wisdom; his royal lineage and princely bearing, together with the thirty-two marks and eighty excellences already described under wondrous form, outshine all others; his discipline (already named "stillness" in brief praise), right conduct, surpassing wisdom, and majestic virtue outshine all others; and the lotus, rising unstained from the mud, pictures him living untouched by the world's eight winds — gain and loss, honor and disgrace, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. With this, the sixth of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

Twelve further titles. No being equals the Buddha's wisdom, merit, compassion, and power; yet every buddha equals every other buddha across all three times — "the unequaled equal." He is foremost among beings, having realized unsurpassed awakening in full. He is the great sage-king, an elder venerable in discipline through three great incalculable eons of accumulated pure conduct, who has realized the very ancient path — the noble eightfold path — that every noble one before him has walked. He prevails over every outsider and every demonic hindrance — the afflictions, the aggregates, death, and the sixth-heaven god alike. He is the great muni ("muni" meaning stillness): body, speech, and mind all stilled, free of restlessness, conceit, and ignorance — the very three stillnesses just named. No being's arising and no rival philosophy can shift his understanding. He is "well bathed," forever free of every affliction and evil karma, having washed himself clean of dust. And he has reached the far shore, having gone beyond every view of a self, wisdom encompassing the whole dharma-realm, both forms of self-clinging extinguished, unmoving in his own true nature. With this, the seventh of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

The traditional ten epithets, each explained here in turn. Tathāgata — his every word, from the day of his awakening to his final nirvāṇa, was never once false. Worthy One — in the threefold sense of having attained every attainment to be attained, being fit to serve as the unsurpassed field of merit for the world, and being worthy of all reverence and offering. Perfectly and Fully Enlightened — awakened to all dharmas exactly as their ultimate nature truly is, both obstructions cut off, wisdom unobstructed toward everything knowable. Perfect in Wisdom and Conduct — complete in the three knowledges (of the heavenly eye, of past lives, and of the exhaustion of contaminants) together with the practice of calm-abiding and insight. Well-Gone — risen to the very highest, never to return. Knower of the World — skillfully understanding every realm of beings and their vessel-world alike, defiled and pure. Unsurpassed Tamer — the one true great being of the world, master of his own mind, guided by wisdom alone. Teacher of Gods and Humans — explained through four aspects (the true eye, true wisdom, true meaning, and true dharma he offers as refuge and guide) that together let him rightly instruct gods and humans out of every suffering. Buddha — awakened effortlessly and spontaneously, without needing to reflect, to all three gatherings of teaching: what leads to benefit, what leads away from it, and what is neither. Bhagavān — victorious over the aggregates, afflictions, death, and the sixth-heaven god, and, by another accounting, possessed of sovereignty, blazing glory, dignity, renown, auspiciousness, and honor all at once. With this, the eighth of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

Thirteen final images close this longest of the fourteen sections. He has attained nirvāṇa, both obstructions cut off; drawn out the arrow of craving that pierces every being's own sense of self and its objects; tamed and stilled both himself and others, echoing the "well tamed" and "truly still" just explained, now extended to benefiting others as well; comforted ordinary beings into the first two fruits and carried those already there on to non-returning and arhatship; he bears no shackles of greed, hatred, or delusion; has escaped the desires of the three realms, pictured as a pit of fire from which the treatise elsewhere says no one escapes unburned; has crossed the deep trench of ignorance that the āgamas name explicitly; has mastered the three kinds of craving — for pleasure, for continued existence, and for a renunciant's own liberation; remains unmoved by any arising pride, idle elaboration, or craving born of aspiration, as one settled in signless concentration; has toppled the rigid banner of self-conceit, having realized the selflessness of both person and dharma; and abides as the great, unconditioned reality of nirvāṇa itself — beyond arising, abiding, change, or cessation, neither large by contrast with something small nor first small and later become large, but simply the true nature of mind itself, without location, without measure, without before or after. With this, the ninth and longest of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

The Śrāvaka Ground spells this out: what was to be done is done, nothing further remains, one's own goal — nirvāṇa — is realized, and every fetter of existence is exhausted, the five lower fetters (self-view, clinging to rules and rituals, and doubt, together with sensual desire and ill will) and the five higher fetters (craving and conceit and ignorance tied to the form and formless realms) alike. Whatever an arhat has accomplished, the Buddha has accomplished in full. With this, the tenth of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

The five branches forever cut off: never again abandoning the training and turning back; never again hoarding possessions or indulging in sense pleasures; never again lying for the sake of wealth or life; never again taking what is not given; and never again departing from solitude to engage in unchaste conduct. The six branches accomplished: seeing a form, or any object, with neither elation nor distress, abiding in equanimity with mindfulness and clear comprehension throughout. And the treatise goes on, at length, to describe one always guarding the four requisites rightly, utterly withdrawn, singular and truthful, free of craving, free of impure thought, body at ease, mind well liberated, wisdom well liberated, without peer, right conduct established — one who has drawn near to the unsurpassed great being. Whatever is said here of an arhat applies to the Buddha without exception.

Seven kinds of knowing, in brief: knowing the teaching, the twelve divisions of scripture; knowing its meaning, the principle it conveys; knowing the time, what practice suits which moment; knowing the measure, right conduct through every posture, meal, and word; knowing himself, his own awakening and its perfection of merit and wisdom fully realized; knowing the assembly, the particulars of whoever is present; and knowing persons, discerning the noble and the lowly among them by their own wholesome roots. This same sevenfold knowing already grounds the seven true dharmas explained earlier in this fascicle as the seventh reason for respectful listening.

Nine further titles. Great renunciant, having stilled greed, hatred, and delusion through the noble path; great brahmin, since though not born to that caste, he is the true practitioner of pure conduct in the ultimate sense; free of defilement and undefiled, the two obstructions — affliction and what obstructs knowledge — cut off in turn, the second alone barring unsurpassed awakening even where the first no longer bars liberation; the good physician, skillfully diagnosing and curing every being's affliction; the guide of caravans, his perfected merit compared to a great merchant-leader who guides all beings to the treasure of liberation; one of surpassing insight, reviewing the world's condition six times each day and night — at dawn, midday, and dusk, and through the three watches of the night — so as to catch the moment any being is ripe for the path; the world's refuge; and honored among beings, having cultivated for measureless eons without ever abandoning compassion, the rarest object of reverence any being could find. With this, the thirteenth of extensive praise's fourteen sections is closed.

Four qualities together make this compassion "great," matching the Bodhisattva Ground's own list: an object profound and vast (all beings, and all their suffering — the Bodhisattva Ground itemizes a full 110 kinds); intense application (never shaken by beings' own harmful, changeable, or ungrateful conduct); and perfect constancy (turning equally toward every being without exception) — together with the long accumulation just named. The Compendium of the Mahāyāna further sorts beings into ten kinds this compassion embraces: those blazing with desire, those beset by hostile obstacles, those crushed by the suffering of the three evil destinies, those shrouded in the darkness of unknowing wrongdoing, those content to drift in saṃsāra, those bound tightly by wrong views, those intoxicated by the very pleasure of meditative absorption, those who mistake attainment for true realization, those of indeterminate lineage with no path to buddhahood at all, and bodhisattvas still thin in merit and wisdom — and pictures great compassion as a tree: compassion its root, patience its trunk, the intention to benefit others its branches, the vow for an excellent rebirth its leaves, the resulting excellent birth its flowers, and the ripening of all beings its fruit. With this, great compassion is fully explained, closing the fourteenth and final section of extensive praise — and with it, extensive praise entire, both brief and extensive praise of the Buddha together, and all four aspects of explaining well — the teacher, the speaker's eightfold speech to five assemblies, the listener's tenfold reasons, and praising the Buddha — are now closed in full. The treatise turns next to a summary in brief of everything explained.

Having explained every part in full across fascicles 81 and 82, the treatise now draws the whole method together into five steps, likened to the five notes of the classical Chinese pentatonic scale, sounding together in harmony: first, grasp the sutra's own text and meaning, and unfold it through the five aspects of explanation — the dharma itself, its arising, its meaning, resolving objections, and sequence; second, perfect oneself in the ten marks of a genuine teacher, from skill in the dharma's meaning to the power of patience; third, address the five assemblies through the eight kinds of skillful speech; fourth, settle the listener in respectful, undistorted attention through the ten reasons already given; and fifth, praise the Buddha's own virtues, briefly or at length, before teaching begins. A teacher complete in all five brings joy and benefit to speaker and listener alike, exactly as the five notes of music, sounded together, bring joy no single note could bring alone.

Five benefits, each tracing back to one part of the whole method just summarized. Grasping a sutra's text and meaning first makes the Buddha's own words no longer hard to understand. Mastering the five aspects of explanation lets one give a complete account of any dharma's marks. Cultivating the ten marks of a teacher and the eight kinds of speech across the five assemblies arouses real joy in both speaker and listener. Settling listeners in respectful, undistorted attention draws them toward wholesome release, their praise eventually filling heaven and the human world alike. And praising the Buddha, briefly or at length, gives rise to measureless merit in its own right. With this, the summary in brief — both the five-step sequence and its five benefits — is closed, and with it, explaining well, the second of the four topics under the sūtra's body and explanation, is closed entirely. The treatise turns next to a worked demonstration, applying the whole method to an actual sūtra passage.

Having explained the whole method in the abstract, the treatise now demonstrates it directly on an actual sūtra passage — of the kind found in the Sūtra of This Was Said, on abiding in pure discipline as the ground of concentration, wisdom, and release from birth-and-death. As explained in fascicle 81, a sūtra's body has two sides: text, the six kinds of what supports meaning (the bodies of names, phrases, and syllables, speech, aspect, and occasion of address), and meaning, the ten kinds of what the text conveys (ground, characteristic, purpose, basis, fault, benefit, what is to be remedied, the remedy, brief statement, and elaboration) — the very framework now to be applied.

The sentence teaches a training-ground directly, giving rise in the listener's mind to the very intention to train in and abide by pure discipline — this is aspect. It was spoken because a monk actually asked the Buddha to teach it — this is the occasion of address, one of the twenty-seven kinds of listener whose request may occasion a teaching. And it was spoken with the Tathāgata's own voice — this is speech, already explained through its sixteen perfected qualities. With all six kinds of text present in this single sentence, its analysis is complete.

The sūtra continues: "wisdom is foremost, liberation is firm, mindfulness is what governs" — twelve syllables again, with liberation, wisdom, mindfulness, foremost, firm, and governing forming six names in one phrase. The same six kinds of text apply throughout: this teaching on wisdom is its aspect, the monks addressed are its occasion, and the Buddha's own voice is its speech. With this, the analysis of the sūtra's text, the first of its two-part body, is closed. The treatise turns next to its meaning.

Meaning unfolds in seven kinds; this section demonstrates the first, ground, matched line by line against the whole path a monastic disciple travels. Since the sūtra is addressed to monks, it belongs among the seventeen grounds to the Śrāvaka Ground specifically — yet this same single sentence also spans all five stages of the path at once: training in discipline as the very foundation belongs to the stage of accumulation, where a practitioner still relies on the wisdom born of hearing and reflection; wisdom made foremost belongs to the stage of preparation, where the four applications of mindfulness and the four noble truths are directly investigated; and firm liberation sustained by governing mindfulness spans the stage of seeing, the stage of cultivation, and the ultimate stage — the liberation of a noble one, once attained, never again falling back to an ordinary being's condition. From training's first benefit to mindfulness as governor, the sentence thus carries a monastic disciple, novice to arhat, through the entire path in miniature.

The second of the ten kinds of meaning applied to the same four phrases. Discipline itself is what "the benefit of training" names directly. Wisdom's own mark is its own faculty of discernment; but wisdom never operates alone — the mind it depends on, its supporting conditions, its accompanying mental factors, and its object are all bound up with it, and these shared factors form its "shared characteristic" as distinct from wisdom's own essential nature. Liberation's mark is simply this: every seed of affliction permanently uprooted, "coarse residue" here naming the latent seed itself. And mindfulness's mark is holding a familiar object clearly in mind without forgetting, thereby advancing liberation further still. With this, the meaning of characteristic is closed.

Discipline itself is not one of the seven attentive applications, but the very ground on which they are built — without it, calm-abiding and insight have nowhere to stand. Wisdom as foremost belongs to the two applications that begin the path of preparation, grasping the object's mark and forming resolve about it. Firm liberation spans the four remaining applications: withdrawal cuts off the coarsest afflictions, gathering joy the middling ones, the culmination of effort the subtlest, and the fruit of that culmination is liberation itself realized — the first three belonging to the uninterrupted path, the last to the path of liberation proper. And governing mindfulness names the application of observation, the careful checking that confirms affliction is genuinely, completely cut off, belonging to the path of distinction that follows. The treatise then extends this same method outward: matched against the ten kinds of wisdom (of dharmas, of their kind, of convention, of others' minds, and of each of the four truths, together with wisdom of exhaustion and of non-arising), the six consciousnesses, the nine kinds of comprehension that mark affliction's cutting-off stage by stage, and the three gates of liberation (emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness) — training in discipline belongs to none of these, being still at the very ground stage; wisdom made foremost belongs to conventional wisdom and the mind consciousness; firm liberation, spanning the stages of seeing, cultivation, and the ultimate, draws in six or all ten kinds of wisdom according to stage, the earlier comprehensions and, at the ultimate stage, all nine, together with all three gates of liberation; and governing mindfulness belongs again to the mind consciousness alone. With this, the meaning of attentive application is closed.

Among the twenty-seven kinds of listener, this sūtra's own audience is the renunciant, of whatever faculty — dull, sharp, or in between, the Śrāvaka Ground distinguishing them by how readily each grasps the dharma's meaning and swiftly realizes the truth. Rejoicing itself brings five benefits: it steadies the listener's own confidence in what has been realized, moves others toward the same aspiration, purifies the mind of any who had doubted, settles the wavering into equanimity, and deepens the faith of those already pure. Time further shapes how guidance is given: for one already at the first or second fruit, demonstrating desire's dangers in the present moves them onward; for the future, instruction and encouragement carry them toward the third and fourth fruits still to come. With this, the meaning of basis, the fourth of the ten kinds of meaning, is closed.

The fifth and sixth kinds of meaning read the same sentence two ways at once: what benefit follows from heeding it, and what fault follows from ignoring it. Heeded, the three trainings in discipline, concentration, and wisdom reach completion swiftly — real benefit. Ignored, a renunciant drifts into conduct unbecoming a renunciant, hoarding possessions rather than living as simply as an arhat, who keeps no food even overnight — real fault, born of the very desire the training exists to uproot. Reading a passage for both its benefit and its fault together uncovers meaning that a single reading would miss. With this, the meanings of benefit and fault are closed.

Read specifically, each phrase of the sentence remedies one particular failing: "the benefit of training" remedies broken discipline; "wisdom is foremost" remedies the ignorance that mistakes mere merit-making for the whole path; "liberation is firm" remedies affliction itself, its seeds finally uprooted; and "mindfulness is what governs" remedies the lost mindfulness that lets a practitioner drift into wrongdoing unnoticed. Read generally, the same four phrases stand simply for every defiled conduct on one side and every pure conduct — the three trainings and their like — on the other: craving remedied by contemplating the impure, hatred remedied by loving-kindness, and so through every such pairing. With this, the meanings of what is to be remedied and its remedy are closed.

The four short phrases themselves are the brief statement — discipline, concentration, and wisdom, and the liberation they lead to, named in a single breath; everything unpacked across the nine sections just completed is the elaboration of that same single sentence. Looking back across all ten kinds of meaning applied to these same four phrases: ground carried the sentence across all five stages of the path; characteristic distinguished each phrase's own and shared marks; attentive application matched it to the seven applications and, beyond them, to wisdom, consciousness, comprehension, and the gates of liberation; basis read it through the lens of matter, person, and time; benefit and fault read it for what is gained by heeding it and lost by ignoring it; what is to be remedied and its remedy read it against affliction on one side and practice on the other; and brief statement and elaboration now close the circle, showing the same one sentence to be, at once, the shortest possible summary and the ground of everything unfolded from it. With this, all ten kinds of meaning are now fully demonstrated.

The ten kinds of meaning demonstrated here account for the sentence completely — no further category is needed, none is missing. With this, the demonstration of a sūtra's body — its text through six kinds, and its meaning through ten — is closed in full. The treatise turns next to demonstrating the second of the five aspects of explanation: how the very same sentence is explained through the dharma itself, its arising, and the rest.

Arising is grounded, as fascicle 81 explained, in the matter taught, the time, and the person addressed. Here the Buddha spoke first to display his own power of the wisdom of all paths — one of the ten powers, knowing without error the path that leads out of suffering and the path that does not, across the three vehicles, the five destinies, and every outside doctrine. And he spoke further out of compassion for two kinds of monk before him: those already earnestly practicing the pure conduct of the three trainings, whom the teaching confirms and encourages, and those still overly attached to wealth and possessions, whom the teaching turns back toward the training's true benefit — so that both, trusting what is taught, might diligently practice and swiftly perfect discipline, concentration, and wisdom.

A verse from the Ground of Thought Cultivation pictures the true monk: no cunning livelihood, valuing himself lightly, delighting in what is superior, every faculty fully released, homeless, possessionless, without expectation, desire cut off, walking alone — the true renunciant. Five virtues mark him: a livelihood free of scheming; contentment with little; a taste for superior discipline; the three roots of greed, hatred, and delusion exhausted; and liberation, every seed of affliction gone. And five things are eliminated: no home to return to; no sense of "mine" to cling to or hoard; no false claims made to sustain himself; sensual desire cut off entirely; and a mind that keeps company with no clinging to any object whatsoever. With this, all four kinds of monk this single sentence distinguishes — free of mere lineage or feigned form, free of craving for renown, and genuinely practicing toward firm liberation — are now fully shown.

Listening to the dharma in order to appear learned, rather than to remedy one's own afflictions, leaves wisdom unmoved no matter how diligently one attends — the motive itself blocks the very growth the practice is meant to produce. Only once that craving is set aside does a monk become someone the Buddha can actually guide toward genuine practice and real liberation. With this, the occasion for freeing beings from desire is closed.

Four further kinds of monk, each gently corrected by one phrase: one absorbed in worldly writing and magical arts rather than discipline is called back to the benefit of training itself; one who keeps discipline but neglects broad learning, mistaking discipline alone for the whole path, is reminded that wisdom, built on concentration built on discipline, must come foremost; one satisfied with mere intellectual understanding through hearing and reflection, never taking up sustained meditative practice, is urged toward firm liberation, the actual uprooting of affliction's seeds; and one who has practiced discipline, concentration, and wisdom yet mistakes some attainment along the way for realization itself is called back to mindfulness as governor — a constant, honest check on whether desire has truly been left behind. With this, every occasion behind the sūtra's four phrases — freeing from desire, and encouraging toward advancement — is now shown in full, closing the whole account of its arising. The treatise turns next to demonstrating its meaning, the third of the five aspects of explanation.

Discipline, concentration, and wisdom mark the outer boundary of what training itself means — nothing more is asked of a trainee than to perfect these three. The single word "abiding" then packs in the four yogas that make such training actually work, each unfolding into four further aspects of its own: faith (two aspects of attitude and two grounds it rests on), aspiration (to realize, to inquire, to gather the necessary conditions, and to accord with yogic practice), effort (applied to hearing, to reflection, to cultivation, and to purifying obstacles), and skillful means (grounded in discipline, guarding one's own mindfulness, guarding the mind through vigilance, and cultivating calm-abiding and insight) — sixteen aspects in all, packed into that one small word. And read again, "abiding in the three trainings" names not the practice but its fruit: the very benefit of training, wisdom made foremost, and liberation made firm are themselves what steady abiding in the three trainings actually produces.

Faith in the reality of nirvāṇa comes first, giving rise to genuine aspiration toward it; aspiration in turn drives two kinds of effort — abiding purely in discipline, and hearing the Buddha's own teaching — and two kinds of skillful means — insight and calm-abiding, the causes that draw forth concentration and the cutting-off of affliction. With this, the general meaning — that the sentence teaches both right conduct, practiced through these four yogas, and its fruit, purified discipline, concentration, and wisdom — is closed. The treatise turns next to the particular meaning of each phrase.

The same five-fold method for glossing any term, already given in fascicle 81, applies here to "training" itself: its mark, threefold — unbroken discipline actually upheld, discipline's own nature well guarded, and the further marks of flawless deportment before others and genuine dread of even the smallest fault; its own-nature, the pure bodily conduct, speech, and livelihood already named; its function, subduing affliction, the very basis on which calm-abiding and insight are established; the teaching, the body of names, phrases, and syllables that convey it; and cause and fruit, discipline kept purely being the near cause of a heavenly rebirth and the distant cause of nirvāṇa itself, with rebirth and nirvāṇa its respective fruits.

Beings of the desire realm hold individual-liberation vows, each precept its own separate release from a corresponding affliction; beings of the form and formless realms, absorbed in meditative concentration, hold instead the discipline that arises together with concentration itself; and the noble ones, learners and adepts alike, who have attained contaminant-free concentration, hold a discipline arising with the path itself, bound to no realm of the three at all. With this, the distinction of realm is closed.

Discipline's own excellence never changes with the calendar — training already completed, training yet to come, and training happening this very moment are all equally worthy, so a practitioner has no excuse to relax simply because much time has already been spent in practice, nor to delay simply because the moment feels inconvenient. With this, the distinction of time is closed.

Whatever the stage of ripening or the accompanying feeling, discipline that truly accords with the Buddha's teaching is by nature wholesome through and through — never unwholesome, and never merely neutral. With this, the distinctions by stage — of ripening, of feeling, and of moral quality — are closed.

Two final lenses on stage. First, the threefold wisdom: simply hearing the benefits of discipline and forming the wish to receive it is the stage of hearing; reflecting afterward on what is permitted and what is not is the stage of reflection; and actually cultivating calm-abiding and insight once access concentration is reached, gaining discipline that arises with concentration, is the stage of cultivation. Second, the three higher trainings themselves stand in a nesting order: the higher wisdom already contains the higher mind and higher discipline beneath it, and the higher mind already contains higher discipline — so anyone still short of the higher mind and higher wisdom stands only at the stage of higher discipline, the foundation everything else builds on. With this, the distinction of stage — by maturity, by feeling, by moral quality, by wisdom, and by the three higher trainings, fifteen ways of viewing it in all — is closed.

Several more exclusions narrow the audience precisely: only those actually of the lineage capable of nirvāṇa, already inside the true dharma, and free of any obstructing view such as self-view; both ordinary beings still fully bound by affliction and learners at the first three fruits already partly free — but not arhats, already entirely unbound, for whom this teaching no longer applies; and human beings specifically, not the gods. With this, the distinction of person is closed, and with it, all five distinctions — own-nature, realm, time, stage, and person — as applied to "the benefit of training," the sentence's first phrase, are now fully demonstrated. The treatise turns next to the remaining three phrases.

Own-nature, realm, time, stage, and person — the same five-fold lens just applied at length to "the benefit of training" applies equally to wisdom, liberation, and mindfulness, though the treatise does not spell each one out again in full, leaving the reader to extend the same method. With this, the entire analysis of "training" — its name, its nature, why it is so called, the five ways of glossing any term, and these five distinctions of meaning — is closed. The treatise turns next to "benefit" itself, the second element of the phrase.

Three reasons converge on the same name. Discipline genuinely helps both oneself and others, and so deserves to be called praiseworthy benefit. The pure seed it plants stays bound to the being who cultivated it through every future rebirth across the three realms, following wherever that being goes — benefit that never simply disappears. And discipline kept purely draws genuine praise that follows the practitioner as naturally as a shadow — benefit in the sense of a good name earned and kept. With this, the account of why the word "benefit" is used is closed.

The ten distinctions here are simply the ten benefits already named as discipline's own nature — the Buddha, seeing these ten results clearly, taught discipline as what gathers the community together, in each of its further nine effects as well. With this, the account of "benefit" — its names, own nature, why it is so called, and its distinctions — is closed. The treatise turns next to "monk," the third element of the phrase.

Monks come from every caste of ancient India — Venerable Upāli from the lowest caste, Venerable Śāriputra from the priestly caste among them — and from every family standing, wealthy or humble, and every age, from under thirty to over fifty and beyond. With this, the account of "monk" — its names, nature, reason for the name, and distinctions — is closed. The treatise turns next to "abiding," the fourth and final element of the phrase.

Whatever the moment — five-robe worn at labor, nine-robe worn while teaching, lying on the right side to sleep — discipline holds throughout every deportment, hence "abiding." A monk's day itself illustrates the distinctions: walking meditation and sitting before dawn, alms-round through late morning, more walking and sitting after the midday meal, dharma talks and self-examination in the afternoon — walking like the wind, sitting like a bell, lying like a bow, standing like a pine, day and night alike given over to purifying the mind and cutting off affliction. With this, "abiding" — its names, nature, reason for the name, and distinctions — is closed, and with it, the analysis of all four elements of the sūtra's first phrase — training, benefit, monk, and abiding — is complete. The treatise turns next to the second phrase, "wisdom is foremost."

Three reasons for the name: positively, wisdom discerns; negatively, it remedies ignorance; further, it distinguishes every kind of dharma without exception; and further still, it shows that a genuinely wise person's body, speech, and mind are all themselves marked by that same wise nature — as the Śrāvaka Ground puts it, the wise think well what they think, say well what they say, and do well what they do. With this, the account of "wisdom" — its names, nature, and reason for the name — is closed, its distinctions of meaning left to follow the same five-fold pattern (own-nature, realm, time, stage, and person) already demonstrated in full for "training." The treatise turns next to "liberation."

Seven kinds of liberation, ranging from dull to sharp faculty and from partial to complete: liberation dependent on occasion belongs to a dull-faculty arhat, whose peace still depends on suitable robes, food, lodging, and company; unshakable liberation belongs to a sharp-faculty arhat, undisturbed whatever the outer circumstance; liberation cut off at the path of seeing belongs to the stream-enterer, who has severed the discriminated afflictions; liberation cut off at the path of cultivation belongs to the once-returner and beyond, gradually severing the innate afflictions that remain; liberation from the conduct of the desire realm belongs to one approaching the third fruit; liberation from the conduct of the form realm always implies the previous; and liberation from the conduct of the formless realm, an arhat's freedom even from attachment to formless absorption, always implies both the previous two. With this, liberation — its names, own nature, reason for the name, and sevenfold distinction — is closed, its finer distinctions again following the same five-fold pattern already given. The treatise turns next to "mindfulness," the final element of "mindfulness is what governs."

Six recollections — of the Buddha, the dharma, the saṅgha, generosity, discipline, and the heavens — each unfold mindfulness in their own direction, just as the four foundations of mindfulness (of body, feeling, mind, and dharmas) each unfold it in theirs, contemplating the body as impure, feeling as suffering, mind as impermanent, and dharmas as without self. With this, "mindfulness" — its names, nature, reason for the name, and distinctions — is closed, closing the entire particular meaning of all four phrases (training, wisdom, liberation, and mindfulness), and with it, the whole demonstration of meaning, the third of the five aspects of explanation. The treatise turns next to demonstrating the fourth aspect: resolving objections.

Liberation counts as firm only once every affliction cut off at both the path of seeing and the path of cultivation is permanently gone. And mindfulness governs precisely by refusing to settle for whatever small progress has already been made — the same observation-application already explained, now made explicit: a practitioner should constantly check, reflect on, and measure their own present attainment, pressing always toward what remains incomplete. With this, all four phrases have now been questioned and answered in turn, closing the demonstration of resolving the non-definitive-meaning objection. The treatise turns next to resolving the objection of apparent contradiction between differing accounts.

Wisdom is like an eye — the sharper it grows, the more clearly a practitioner sees which afflictions are present and how to remove them, which is exactly why the other four faculties (faith, effort, mindfulness, and concentration) all mature under wisdom's own guidance: greater wisdom yields firmer faith, more accurate effort, steadier mindfulness, and more easily attained concentration. Along the eightfold noble path this same primacy holds — right view and right intention are wisdom, right speech, action, and livelihood are discipline, right effort and right mindfulness and right concentration are concentration — and wisdom runs through the whole path start to finish. With this, the objection of sequence — why wisdom follows discipline directly, without naming mind — is fully resolved.

The same answer as before applies again: since "wisdom is foremost" already reveals wisdom as the very cause that draws forth both concentration and the severance of affliction, the higher training of mind is already implicitly included, with no need to name its perfection separately. With this, the objection of apparent contradiction over sequence is closed in full. The treatise turns next to resolving the objection of apparent contradiction in reasoning.

Wisdom is, relatively speaking, lesser than liberation, being only its preparatory cause — naming wisdom as foremost implicitly points toward liberation as more excellent still, exactly as discipline pointed toward wisdom and liberation before it. But there is a deeper reason too: wisdom, however unsurpassed, is still a conditioned dharma, itself impermanent, arising through the very contemplation of impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and no-self that eventually yields liberation; liberation itself, by contrast, is an unconditioned dharma, permanent, blissful, possessed of true self, and pure — which is exactly why the sūtra pairs "liberation" with "firm" rather than with "foremost," reserving "foremost" for wisdom's conditioned excellence and "firm" for liberation's unconditioned constancy. With this, the objection of apparent contradiction in reasoning is closed in full. The treatise turns next to resolving the objection of uncertain, non-definitive demonstration.

The tenth and final benefit looks beyond any single practitioner to the dharma's own survival — discipline preserved lets pure conduct spread among many, be taught rightly to gods and humans alike, and keep the sacred teaching itself alive, unbroken, across generations. With this, all ten benefits of discipline are now individually explained in full. The treatise turns next to gathering them into a threefold summary.

The 披尋記 maps each of the seven protections onto specific benefits among the first nine: guarding against reverence and support maps to the first two (gathering the community, keeping it earnest); guarding against self-mortification maps to the third (bringing ease); guarding against scarcity maps to the fourth and fifth (bringing and deepening faith); guarding against mutual friction maps to the sixth (taming the difficult); guarding against regretful change of mind maps to the seventh (ease for the ashamed); guarding against affliction's manifestation maps to the eighth (guarding against present contaminants); and guarding against false aspiration maps to the ninth (destroying future contaminants) — while the tenth and final benefit, the sacred teaching's own long continuance, stands apart, served by all nine together rather than mapped to any single protection. With this, the ten benefits of discipline, both individually and gathered into three, and the seven protections beneath them, are fully explained. Having seen these benefits, a monk naturally comes to delight in keeping discipline — the treatise turns next to five concrete marks of what that discipline-keeping actually looks like.

Without actually learning the precepts, one cannot know what is permitted and what is not, what is light and what is grave — ignorance itself becomes its own kind of fault. The Śrāvaka Ground describes this training in full: hearing a portion of the precepts' own nature from the preceptor at full ordination, then hearing the remaining individual-liberation teaching from one's instructing and supervising teachers — more than two hundred fifty training-grounds in all, each vowed to be learned; then hearing further from senior companions and at the fortnightly recitation of the code, and vowing again to train in all of it. Learning every training-ground in this way is what constitutes receiving the individual-liberation vows properly at all. With this, all five marks of genuinely keeping discipline — constant guarding, firm guarding, constant practice, constant turning, and training in the training-grounds — are now fully explained, closing this account of "the benefit of training." The treatise turns next to briefly demonstrate the remaining three phrases in the same manner.

Once liberation is genuinely realized through the threefold wisdom, it never falls back into bondage again — this permanence of result is exactly why it is named firm, the direct fruit of the noble path's own wisdom rather than of ordinary reasoning. With this, "liberation is firm" is demonstrated.

Among the many forms mindfulness can take — the four foundations, recollection of past deeds and words, of texts studied, of a teacher's instruction, of the six objects of recollection (Buddha, dharma, saṅgha, generosity, discipline, and the heavens) — the one this phrase singles out as most excellent is the constant, honest check on what should and should not be done: observing whether one's own discipline remains pure, whether any lapse from forgetfulness, disrespect, affliction, or ignorance has occurred, and if so resolving with full sincerity never to repeat it, doing only what should be done and nothing else. With this, the accounts of what training, wisdom, liberation, and mindfulness each specifically depend on are complete, closing resolving objections, the fourth of the five aspects of explanation, entirely — the same four difficulties (non-definitive meaning, apparent contradiction of statement, apparent contradiction of reasoning, and uncertain demonstration) now fully worked through on this one concrete sūtra passage. The treatise turns next to demonstrating sequence, the fifth and final aspect.

This sequence names the fruit-side of practice: discipline first, freedom from regret and concentration following, wisdom completing the higher training of mind, and liberation itself the final result — each earlier cause perfecting the next, all the way to the end. With this, the sequence of completeness is closed. The treatise turns next to the sequence of establishment.

This sequence names the cause-side rather than the fruit-side: discipline establishes wisdom, wisdom establishes liberation — the earlier phrase establishing the later, exactly the first of the two directions fascicle 81 described for this same sequence. And mindfulness runs beneath the entire chain as what actually secures each stage in turn, from the earliest resolve to keep discipline through to firm liberation itself — without mindfulness's constant governance, none of the earlier causes would reliably produce their intended fruit. Taken together, discipline, wisdom, liberation, and mindfulness swiftly bring the three trainings to their shared completion.

Wrong view, by nature, breeds defilement; the Buddha's appearance in the world, proclaiming the true dharma, overcomes such doctrines entirely. With this, all three marks of "great teacher" — skillful instruction, guiding measureless beings, and overcoming outside doctrines — are shown, closing the marks of the speaker who taught this sūtra. The treatise turns next to the marks of those the sūtra was spoken for.

A śrāvaka hears the dharma from the Buddha or another teacher and, once realized, passes it on in turn to later hearers — hearing and re-transmitting alike give the name its double sense. Unlike a solitary buddha, who frees only himself, a śrāvaka follows the Tathāgata's teaching directly and carries it forward, making the śrāvaka assembly, in this sense, the Buddha's own true heirs — which is exactly why this teaching addresses them by name. With this, the mark of those the sūtra addresses is shown. The treatise turns next to the marks of what was actually taught.

Monastic offenses fall into five categories of decreasing severity: defeat, the gravest, cutting a monk off from the community as surely as a severed head cannot be reattached; the remainder-offenses, second gravest, still admitting confession, likened to clinging to life by the barest thread; offenses causing downfall into the evil destinies; offenses confessed individually to another monk; and minor wrongdoing, confessed through simple acknowledgment. With this, the marks of the speaker, the addressee, and what was taught are all shown in brief. The treatise turns next to an extensive account of the same three, beginning with the great teacher himself.

Though this sūtra addresses monastics directly, its compassion is never confined to the monastic assembly alone. With this, the great teacher's compassion covering all beings is closed. The treatise turns next to how he rightly and skillfully teaches.

Discipline, concentration, and wisdom together supply both benefit and ease at once, neither alone. With this, all five ways the Buddha rightly and skillfully teaches — revealing reality as it is and in its full extent, proclaiming the true dharma, and bringing benefit, ease, or both together — are shown in full. The treatise turns next to how the Buddha skillfully observes which of the three to teach in a given case.

A concise rule of thumb: teaching for benefit alone points to the higher discipline, for ease alone to the higher mind, and for both together to the higher wisdom. This matching is skillful for two reasons: the Buddha has thoroughly diagnosed, across a beginningless night of habituation, exactly what afflictions grip a given being — the cause of the sickness — and, being himself undistorted and fully awakened, free of every ordinary or even śrāvaka-level misapprehension of reality, knows precisely the remedy that fits.

Whatever kind of liberation is at stake — worldly or transcendent, of a learner or beyond learning, shakable or unshakable — realizing it well depends on the higher mind and wisdom, and counts as genuine realization on two conditions: reaching the very end, meaning arhatship itself for a śrāvaka; or reaching the stage of no return, meaning stream-entry and beyond, where a noble one never again falls back to an ordinary being's condition. With this, skillful observation, the third of the four marks examined "with respect to the great teacher," is closed. The treatise turns next to the same four marks examined with respect to the śrāvaka disciple himself.

Not yet having reached arhatship, the very end, and not yet having reached the stage of no return where regression to an ordinary being's state is impossible — either shortfall means liberation has not yet been genuinely realized. With this, the extensive examination of the four marks, both with respect to the great teacher and with respect to the śrāvaka disciple, is closed in full. The treatise turns next to a concluding summary.

This single closing line gathers the whole of the sequence of explanation into one gesture — the marks of the speaker, the addressee, and what was taught briefly outlined, then the great teacher's compassion, skillful teaching, observation, and realization, together with the disciple's own possible shortfalls in each, all extensively distinguished. With this, the sequence of explanation, and with it all three sequences — completeness, establishment, and explanation — and with them, all five aspects of explanation demonstrated on this one sūtra passage across this entire fascicle, are now closed in full. The treatise turns next to a sixth method of explaining a sūtra, offered as a further, complementary approach.

The five-aspect method and this sixfold method are not rivals but complements, each casting its own light across the same territory a teacher must master. With this, the listing of the six aspects is closed. The treatise turns next to explaining what proved most difficult among them.

Four stages, one producing the next through wisdom's own increasing power. Weariness arises from clearly seeing the fault in conditioned existence — impermanent, painful, and subject to decay; from cultivating that weariness comes freedom from desire, craving no longer arising even without deliberate effort; from freedom from desire comes liberation itself, the discriminated seeds of craving permanently cut off at the path of seeing; and from liberation comes complete liberation, when the affliction thereby freed brings freedom from birth and all its attendant suffering as well — the entire ripening of wisdom's own power across cultivation, laid out step by step.

Four famous lines, each marking a further stage of realization: "birth for me is ended" belongs to the stream-enterer, self-view finally cut off, at most seven more returns between the human and heavenly worlds remaining before arhatship; "the pure conduct established" belongs to the non-returner, who has confirmed freedom from desire and settled into pure conduct; and "what was to be done is done, no further existence is to be known" belong to the arhat alone, every task of the path complete, no further rebirth in the three realms to come once this life's span ends. With this, all six aspects — the matter, abandoning unwholesome conduct, taking up wholesome conduct, penetrating understanding, the fruit, and its shared realization — are fully explained, closing the sixth method, and with it the entire detailed account of the sequence of explanation, in full. The treatise turns next to its own final, closing words.

The Commentary on the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra sums up this entire two-fascicle division in a single sentence: it lays out the sequence and method for explaining a sūtra, centered on the sūtra's own body — its text and its meaning — unfolded through five aspects, or through six, examined from every angle a teacher could need. With this single closing line, the Compendium of Explanations — the third of the treatise's five major divisions, spanning fascicles 81 and 82 in their entirety — is closed. This closes the source text of fascicle 82 at its own natural end.