Establishing, Wisdom, and Sameness — Complete

Fascicle 90 continues fascicle 89's own territory, still within the sense-bases section's (處擇攝) first particular verse, establishing (安立攝) — itself unfolding through eight sub-topics: establishing feelings, their distinctions, the foolish, the not-foolish, teaching, liberation, affliction, and karma. This fascicle opens the second matter under the eighth and final sub-topic, karma: the kinds of karma (業種類), following directly on from karmic defilement (業雜染), closed at the end of fascicle 89.

The "field" is one's parents or teachers (the field of kindness) and those abiding in the path from stream-entry through arhatship, or the Buddha himself (the field of reverence). The Decisions offer a parallel five-cause scheme for heavy killing specifically: fierce intention (strong greed, aversion, or delusion driving it); cruel means (relish in the act, inciting others, prolonged premeditated hatred, killing many at once, or killing the defenseless); lack of antidote (never keeping even minor precepts, never using wealth for merit, never showing reverence to the fields above, without shame, without repentance, without any concentration or noble path to counter it); wrong attachment (holding ritual killing to be righteous, as some outsiders do); and the object itself (killing a great being, a parent, a revered person, one who has taken refuge in oneself, or any noble one — even attempting to wound a Buddha, though he cannot actually be killed). This fascicle's three factors — intention, application, field — map onto that fivefold scheme: intention corresponds directly; application subsumes means, lack of antidote, and wrong attachment; the field corresponds to the object. With this, heavy and light karma (重業輕業), the first of the five pairs, is closed entirely.

Increasing karma, by contrast, is performed with clear awareness while awake, by a wholesome or unwholesome mind, never repented or restrained, and by an ordinary being rather than an arhat. The six marks that intensify karma further: through application (fierce, diligent effort, whether afflicted or wholesome); through habituation (repeated practice compounding its force); through its own-nature (harsh speech worse than idle chatter, divisive speech worse than harsh speech, lying worst of all; killing worse than stealing, stealing worse than sexual misconduct; among mental karma, delusion worse than aversion, aversion worse than greed; mental karma heaviest of the three, bodily karma lightest — and, for wholesome karma, meditation surpassing precept-keeping, precept-keeping surpassing giving, cultivation-wisdom surpassing reflection-wisdom, reflection-wisdom surpassing hearing-wisdom); through its object (reverence shown to the three jewels or the virtuous yields especially great merit); through leaving unwholesome karma entirely uncountered throughout one's life; and, conversely, through countering unwholesome karma so thoroughly — first through mundane concentration, then through the uncontaminated noble path — that wholesome karma itself becomes especially forceful. With this, increasing and non-increasing karma (增進業不增進業), the second of the five pairs, is closed entirely.

Killing a look-alike by mistake for one's intended target is still heavy karma, since heaviness turns on the intention, not on hitting the intended object. Every path of unwholesome action — such as killing — requires five complete factors: the object (a sentient or non-sentient target), perception (an undistorted recognition of it), intention (the wish to act), affliction (the tainted mind, whether the perception was correct or mistaken), and completion through action (carrying the deed through to its result) — lacking any one, the path of action is not fully constituted. With this, deliberate and non-deliberate karma (故思造業非故思造業), the third of the five pairs, is closed entirely.

Determinate and indeterminate receiving (定受業不定受業), the fourth pair: heavy deliberate karma, unrepented and uncountered, definitely bears fruit — even into a future evil-destiny rebirth — while genuine repentance and antidote can transform it into indeterminate, lighter, present-life ripening instead; light deliberate karma, minor or not further pursued through continued deliberation, is indeterminate from the start. With this, determinate and indeterminate receiving is closed entirely.

Karma due only in a life two or more lives away cannot obstruct arhatship attained in this one, since its ripening remains outside this present body — yet it still counts as "determinate," since that classification depends on affliction remaining present as its companion and the formations still flowing onward toward it. An arhat's affliction, however, is permanently exhausted, so any such later-life karma can never actually ripen — hence it poses no obstacle at all. The *Compilation* likens the sheer volume of karma still obstructing an ordinary being or learner to "a sea, a mountain" — karma yielding female birth, birth in the northern continent, the formless heavens, or as one of ambiguous sex among them — obstacles that bite only once their fruit manifests, not while still dormant as seed. With this, already-ripened and not-yet-ripened karma (異熟已熟業異熟未熟業), the fifth pair, is closed entirely — and with it, the five kinds of twofold karma (五種二業) are closed entirely.

Unwholesome karma mirrors wholesome karma's structure: drawing an undesired fruit through affliction-driven action, and clinging wrongly to self-view, eternalism, annihilationism, wrong precepts, or any of the sixty-two views as if the object grasped were real. Indeterminate karma includes several kinds — karmic ripening itself, deportment, craft, and transformation — none classifiable as either wholesome or unwholesome. With this, wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate karma (善不善無記業), the first of the ten triads, is closed entirely.

The second triad, karma according with pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling (順樂受等業), opens by total report: the unmoving karma of the first three dhyānas yields joy and pleasure, the desire realm's own merit yields the pleasure of a human or heavenly rebirth; karma yielding hell, hungry-ghost, or animal rebirth yields suffering; and the fourth dhyāna's and the formless realms' unmoving karma yields the equanimous feeling of neither pain nor pleasure.

Beyond the total report of an entire rebirth, individual report accounts for finer variation within it — a bejeweled elephant or a cherished pet among animals, a fortunate spirit among hungry ghosts, still enjoy some genuine pleasure through their own particular karma; only hell, from karma too heavy to admit any relief, is pure suffering without exception. With this, karma according with pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling (順樂受等業), the second of the ten triads, is closed entirely.

The third triad, karma received now, at next birth, or later still (順現受等業), sorts karma purely by the timing of its ripening — heavy, forceful, or well-tended karma toward a significant field tends to ripen fastest, within this very life. With this, karma received now, at next birth, and later still is closed entirely.

The fourth triad, the learner's, unlearner's, and neither's karma (有學等業), spans the noble path's own stages: a learner (stream-entrant through non-returner) generates both uncontaminated karma through the threefold training and wholesome contaminated karma alongside it, since innate affliction still remains; an unlearner's (arhat's) every karma is uncontaminated, all affliction exhausted; and every ordinary being's wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate karma falls under the third, residual category. With this, the learner's, unlearner's, and neither's karma is closed entirely.

Four causes, four antidotes: loving-kindness counters an intention of aversion; compassion counters an intention to harm; sympathetic joy counters envy, the inability to bear another's good fortune; and equanimity counters deep attachment to what is cherished. With these four immeasurable concentrations mastered, not even the most vulnerable object — a young child — can any longer tempt a thought of harm. With this, proper antidote (由正對治) is closed entirely.

Every karma, body or speech included, is set in motion by volition and thus bound inseparably to mind — so mastering one's own mind is the root from which unwholesome karma is overpowered. With this third reason, universally overwhelming (由遍摧伏) — scope, quality, and mind-dependence together — closes entirely.

The stream-entrant or once-returner who vows to exhaust all karma in this life, then cultivates the four immeasurables to sever the causes and conditions of evil karma, in time attains the non-returner's fruit and never returns to the desire realm to receive ripening there. With this, cultivating the immeasurables (由修無量) — exhausting the causes of evil karma, and advancing toward freedom from craving — closes entirely.

Even a stream-entrant or once-returner who rests content without further striving already possesses the path-concomitant precepts that never regress — such a one creates no more unwholesome karma in this life or any life to come, and is certain never to receive an evil-destiny ripening at a future or later stage. With this, cutting off later still (後斷) closes entirely, and with it broadly explaining removal (廣除斷) and the fifth triad, cut-by-seeing and the rest (見所斷等業), close entirely — the three marks of removal being present-life cutting-off, rebirth cutting-off, and later cutting-off.

Excellent, liberating karma of body, speech, and mind able to lead toward supreme nirvāṇa is called silent karma, also called sage karma — "silent" carrying the sense of stillness and quiescence. With this, the ten triads of threefold karma close entirely: wholesome/unwholesome/indeterminate; the three feelings; the three receiving-times; learner/unlearner/neither; cut-by-seeing/cut-by-cultivation/uncuttable; crooked; defiled; turbid; pure; and silent karma.

Transmundane, undefiled karma is neither an evil cause bringing an undesirable fruit (hence "not dark"), nor a contaminated wholesome cause bringing a desirable fruit (hence "not bright"), nor does it ripen anywhere in the three realms at all (hence "without ripening") — and it alone is able to exhaust every karma binding one to birth-and-death. Since affliction is cut through progressively rather than all at once, both what a given practitioner has already exhausted and what remains to be exhausted count as "able to exhaust all karma" — a designation proper to stream-entrants and above, who no longer create fresh unwholesome karma and who release already-ripened fruit from further entanglement, exactly as the saying goes: "requite old karma as conditions bring it, never create new calamity." A citation from Master Kuiji's commentary confirms: undefiled karma is not a desirable cause and does not bring ripening, hence "not bright." With this, bringing forth the own-nature (出體性) — the four kinds of the fourfold scheme — closes entirely.

The six contact-bases are the present effect-mark; past karma is their cause-mark — cause brings about effect, effect answers to cause, and this is the principle of cause and effect mutually bound. The Xianyang Shengjiao Lun confirms: the present six contact-bases' experience derives from karma deliberately created by volition in a former life. Even facing the identical object, different beings feel differently, precisely because their karmic fruits differ; before learning the Dharma one simply follows pleasure and pain as they come, but having learned it one may transcend both and gain liberation's ease.

With this citation, the sūtra's own explanation is confirmed and the exposition of the kinds of karma (業種類) is complete, closing "broadly explaining karma" (廣說業) — and with it, since establishing (安立攝) has now covered all eight of its topics in full (establishing feelings, their eight distinctions, the foolish, the not-foolish, teaching, liberation, broadly explaining affliction, and broadly explaining karma), establishing itself (安立攝) closes entirely, exactly as the source text marks: "the exposition of the kinds of karma ends here" (以上將業的種類分別到這裡).

Diminishing what is real is the nihilistic wrong view that denies parents, denies spontaneously-born beings, denies true arhats or the utter extinction of contaminants; adding to what is unreal is self-view, extreme-view, view-attachment, and precept-attachment, wrongly affirming a self among the five aggregates; delusion regarding what is truly and clearly revealed is failing to trust the sage teaching, obstructing the path and blocking liberation. These trace to two kinds of ignorance — regarding existence and regarding non-existence — matching two Saṃyukta Āgama sūtras: in the first, a monk asks the Buddha how right knowing and seeing sever self-view through contemplating the six sense-faculties as impermanent; in the second, the Buddha teaches that severing this one dharma, ignorance, alone yields the arhat's self-attestation formula, and answers a further question on how to know and see the ending of ignorance: by cultivating insight into the impermanence of the six faculties, objects, consciousnesses, contacts, and feelings. With this, not-knowing (無智), the first of the ten topics of Wisdom, closes entirely.

Even a scattered-mind practitioner who is not of especially sharp faculties can, through this right view born of hearing and reflection on impermanence and suffering, be said to possess genuine wisdom, already set apart from an ordinary being's outlook. With this, wisdom born of proper reflection (如理作意所發) closes entirely.

Both kinds of wisdom turn on the same marks of impermanence and suffering, but the scattered mind's hearing-and-reflection wisdom lacks tranquility and remains liable to lapses of mindfulness, whereas concentration-produced wisdom is stable, pure, and quiescent throughout. With this, bringing forth the kinds (出種類) — both wisdom born of reflection and wisdom born of concentration — closes entirely.

Uncontaminated conditioned dharmas, such as the noble path, are impermanent yet not suffering, since the path brings quiescent joy — so impermanence alone marks every formation, while suffering marks only what is contaminated. Four companion sūtras illustrate this: the first pair, emphasizing reflection, show a monk (and then all the monks) rightly knowing the six faculties, objects, consciousnesses, contacts, and feelings as impermanent and suffering, thereby growing weary, released, and attaining the arhat's self-attestation; the second pair, emphasizing concentration, show the Buddha teaching the monks to cultivate the nine mental abidings and immeasurable concentrations so that, with the mind stilled, this same genuine wisdom of impermanence and suffering manifests of itself with even greater clarity. With this, Wisdom (智), the second of the ten topics under Wisdom's particular verse, closes entirely.

The true teaching and discipline is as lofty as the sky; the outsiders' path, however elevated it may seem, remains as low as the earth by comparison. With this, the outsider category (外道攝) closes entirely.

Skillful cultivation names the arhat's own attainment, the perfected path fully realized. With this fifth and final mode, the five subtle, quiescent modes of conduct (regulation, covering, guarding, protection, cultivation) close entirely, closing displaying its subtle conduct (釋其妙行), the inner-teaching category (內法攝), and Concentration (定), the third of Wisdom's ten topics, entirely. The lecture compresses its thirteen companion sūtras (81-93): the first four teach that past, future, and present eyes and the other five faculties are all impermanent — and, by substitution, suffering, empty, and without self — so a learned disciple neither longs for the past faculty nor delights in a future one nor clings to the present, thereby leaving desire; four more apply the same fourfold contemplation to the six internal sense-bases, four more to the six external objects. The final sūtra recounts a monk who, questioned by the Buddha, rightly sees eye-contact as neither self, nor what belongs to self, nor self dwelling within it — cutting the root of the view of self as a palm tree is cut at the root, so that it can never sprout again — and the same for the remaining five contact-bases.

The Buddha knows precisely which realms bring uniformly bright ripening (such as the demon's palace or the first three dhyānas), uniformly dark ripening (the hells), and mixed ripening (the human, heavenly, hungry-ghost, and animal destinies of the desire realm) — yet since even the pleasurable ones are impermanent and their afflictive seeds remain unexhausted, pleasure inevitably gives way to pain, so the Buddha teaches disciples to transcend both rather than cling to either. With this, supreme settling (顯勝安立) closes entirely.

Craving for desirable present external objects such as forms and sounds is called what is enjoyed; craving for one's own present six faculties, cared for and indulged at length, is called what is indulged. With this, naming the objects (舉境事) — pursued, dwelt-upon, enjoyed, and indulged — closes entirely.

The delightful mark belongs to the future, pursued and longed for; the pleasing mark belongs to the past, dwelt upon in recollection; the desirable-form mark belongs to present external objects, enjoyed; the peaceful-form mark belongs to present internal feelings — a robust, satisfying vigor of one's own six faculties — indulged. The Compendium of Different Topics confirms the same threefold and fourfold breakdown at greater length. A companion sūtra illustrates the point through hell and heaven: hell-beings meet only undesirable, unmemorable, unwholesome objects at every one of the six sense-doors and so experience only sorrow and pain; heavenly beings meet only desirable, memorable, wholesome objects and so experience only joy and pleasure — yet since both conditions are impermanent, the Buddha teaches disciples neither to delight in pleasure nor to dwell in pain, but to transcend both. With this, the Surpassing (殊勝), the fourth of Wisdom's ten topics, closes entirely.

These desires obstruct concentration for the ordinary being and equally for the stream-entrant or once-returner still cultivating concentration. With this, discerning what obstructs (辨能障) — the two gates, the two times, and the two grounds — closes entirely.

"Attaining samādhi" means attaining the not-yet-arrived concentration; "samādhi perfected" means attaining the four root absorptions; "samādhi self-mastered" means being at ease in entry, abiding, and exit, unobstructed by craving, view, or conceit — only with all these together is cultivation called perfected. The ordinary being's ultimate reach is worldly freedom from desire (the four dhyānas and four formless absorptions); the learner's and unlearner's ultimate reach, resting on such concentration to cultivate insight, is cutting off the three realms' craving and views, realizing nirvāṇa and cessation-attainment — beyond which nothing further remains. With this, displaying what is obstructed (顯所障) — the three samādhis, their joy, their six objects, their perfection, and their ultimate limit — closes entirely, closing the obstruction category (障礙攝) entirely.

When calming and insight, sharing one and the same object, turn together in balance, stillness and insight present as one — this is called proceeding on a single object, explaining the conjoined path distinguished from the separate cultivation above. With this, bringing forth the five methods (出五法) — right mindfulness and right knowing, non-negligence, and calm-and-insight both distinct and conjoined — closes entirely.

Cultivating right mindfulness and right knowing, non-negligence, and calm-and-insight together fully knows and permanently cuts off the obstruction from the two gates, two times, and two grounds, so that the three samādhis of ordinary being, learner, and unlearner, across their six objects, are brought to full completion. With this, the antidote category (對治攝) closes entirely, closing explaining severally (隨別釋) entirely.

The dark class is the truth of suffering and its origin, the three defilements of affliction, karma, and suffering that keep beings turning in birth-and-death; the white class is the truth of cessation and the path, the excellent fruit of nirvāṇa and the means of cultivating it. The companion sūtra recounts the Buddha, before full awakening, observing in solitary meditation that his own mind mostly ran back toward the five sense-pleasures once enjoyed as a prince, and so guarding his mind with great effort — precisely the right mindfulness, right knowing, non-negligence, and calm-and-insight described above — until he drew near to supreme awakening; he then tells the monks to guard their own minds the same way, and, when contact at the six sense-gates gives rise to feeling and then affliction, to keep vigilant right knowing at the six sense-gates. Puzzled by his terse teaching that "if the eye ceases, the perception of form is left behind," the monks seek out Ānanda, who explains the standard dependent-origination chain in reverse — name-and-form ceasing because consciousness ceases, consciousness ceasing because formations cease, formations ceasing because ignorance ceases — so that ignorance's cessation is what truly ceases the six sense-bases. With this citation, bringing forth the cause of understanding (出解因) closes entirely, and with it, since all three of its own topics (marking obstruction and its antidote, explaining severally, and bringing forth the cause of understanding) are now complete, Obstruction (障), the fifth of Wisdom's ten topics, closes entirely.

When the resemblance of emptiness is genuinely left behind, the mind free of discrimination, affliction truly ceased, one has genuinely attested to nirvāṇa and the path — this, contrary to presumption, is no presumption. With this, what should be known (顯應知) closes entirely, closing the ordinary being (異生) entirely, closing cultivating the mark of non-negligence (修不放逸相) — across unlearner, learner, and ordinary being — entirely, and closing Learner and the Rest (學等), the sixth of Wisdom's ten topics, entirely. The companion sūtra has the Buddha explain that he does not teach non-negligence to arhats already free of the three realms' craving and views, since they no longer act negligently at all, but does teach it to those still in training — learners and ordinary beings — precisely so they may fulfill the same three conditions just explained (complete provisions through the five modes of quiescent conduct and the three uncontaminated faculties; a settled mind through contentment with lawful requisites; the two liberations through good friends, hearing the Dharma, and proper reflection) and thereby, before long, attain the arhat's own self-attestation.

One not yet free of desire who cannot relinquish gain and veneration acts carelessly and creates evil karma, causing the true teaching to decline and future lives of birth, old age, sickness, and death to continue; one already free of desire who clings instead to the pleasure of concentration itself, content with that alone, fails to press on toward the path and so does not attain parinirvāṇa even in this very life. With this, the two dangers close entirely, closing explaining severally (別釋) entirely, and closing the dark class (舉黑品), the first matter of Attachment, entirely — a second matter remains to be read before Attachment itself can close.

One who has entered the inner teaching, even while still only at the stage of hearing-produced wisdom and not yet having subdued desire, constantly renews proper reflection and right mindfulness rather than losing oneself in gain and veneration; one already free of desire, having attained concentration, does not rest content with the joy it brings, but presses on to cut off affliction and attain nirvāṇa. Both together are the white class's distinction. The companion sūtra has the Buddha teach the "two dharmas" — the six faculties paired with their six objects — from which consciousness, contact, and feeling arise in turn; not truly knowing feeling's arising, ceasing, savor, danger, and escape sows the seeds of craving, aversion, precept-attachment, and self-view and so the whole mass of suffering, while truly knowing them prevents this and brings the mass of suffering to an end. With this, the white class (白品) closes entirely, closing Attachment (著), the seventh of Wisdom's ten topics, entirely.

A sentient being's life is nothing but consciousness's own-nature, its causes and conditions, and its accompanying mental factors turning together in combination — search as one might, no self can ever be found there, and each of these three is itself impermanent, arising and perishing moment by moment. The companion sūtra has the Buddha teach the same "two dharmas" giving rise to the six consciousnesses, and trace forward through contact, feeling, volition, and conceptualization — all impermanent, conditioned, and mind-dependent — as the basis for realizing non-self. With this, the four causes close entirely, closing Non-Self (無我), the eighth of Wisdom's ten topics, entirely.

These profound teachings — directly seen, unblazing, timely, guiding, and seen only here — belong to the eightfold path and the thirty-seven factors of awakening alone; no outsider teaching reaches this depth. With this, the five supreme marks close entirely, closing the path-factors (道支) entirely.

The Compendium's five marks: transcending doubt about one's own attainment; transcending doubt about another's like attainment; not dependent on another, since direct attestation surpasses hearing and reflection; not swayed by any outsider doctrine, since one never wavers once genuinely attested; and fearlessness before any challenger, since one has truly realized impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and non-self. The companion sūtra has the Buddha answer Venerable Pūrṇa's question on these very terms — directly seen, unblazing, timely, guiding, seen only here, self-realized — with a single example: seeing form with the eye and rightly knowing whether craving for form has arisen is directly seen; seeing form with right mindfulness and proper reflection, without craving arising, is unblazing, timely, guiding, seen only here, and self-realized all at once, exactly as it is with the remaining five faculties. With this citation, the path's fruit (道果) closes entirely, closing explaining severally (別釋) entirely, and closing the Noble Path (聖道), the ninth of Wisdom's ten topics, entirely.

Taking together who submerges into each ocean, by what one submerges, and how one submerges, submersion's distinction (淪沒不同分) — the second of the three marks of the two oceans' difference — closes entirely. A third mark, crossing-over (超渡不同分), follows.

Once the arhat's fruit is reached, one never again returns to lay life, is never disturbed by the eight kinds of evil discursive thought, never again craves worldly gain or veneration, and creates no further evil conduct — the five marks of homelessness, no hoarding, no expectation, cutting off desire, and solitary conduct. The companion sūtras have the Buddha distinguish the ordinary person's "great ocean" from the sage's: the eye itself is a person's great ocean, and form its crashing waves — one who can bear form's waves crosses the eye-ocean, escaping the whirlpool's undertow, the water-vermin of discursive thought, the rakṣasa of craving for gain and veneration, and the female-ghost of the ten evil deeds; the same holds for ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind against their own objects. The Buddha's closing verse: "The great ocean's mighty waves, the water-vermin and rakṣasa's dread — hard to cross, yet it is crossed; every seed of it forever gone." With this, the two oceans' non-identical portions (二海不同分) — own-nature, submersion, and crossing-over now all explained — close entirely, closing the tenth and final topic of Wisdom's ten-topic verse, and, with all ten topics (not-knowing, wisdom, concentration, the surpassing, obstruction, the learner and the rest, attachment, non-self, the noble path, and the two oceans) now complete, closing Wisdom (智攝), the second of 處擇攝's four particular verses, ENTIRELY.

Contemplating impermanence, the conditioned's own mark, does not match nirvāṇa — an unconditioned fruit that is not impermanent — hence non-identical portion relative to the fruit; contemplating non-self, however, does match nirvāṇa, since nirvāṇa too is without self, hence same portion. The companion sūtras have the Buddha teach the same two paths — the track leading to suffering's origin, through craving and grasping to renewed birth and its suffering, in forward order; and the track leading to suffering's cessation, through the reverse cessation of feeling, craving, grasping, and birth — and then two further sūtras on the "nirvāṇa track" proper: contemplating the impermanence of the six faculties, objects, and their derived feelings (the "nirvāṇa track," matching the mode of non-identical portion), and contemplating their non-self nature (the "resembling-nirvāṇa track," matching the mode of same portion, since non-self applies equally to nirvāṇa itself). With this, mode's non-identical portion (行相不同分) closes entirely, closing explaining severally (隨釋) entirely, and closing the path's non-identical portion (道不同分), the first of Sameness and Equality's eight topics, entirely.

Left unremoved, conceit and its fear of nirvāṇa bring not only grave future sickness but a festering boil and a piercing poisoned arrow as well. With this, the three dangers of conceit close entirely.

Free of conceit, one no longer fears nirvāṇa and so is able to enter it; free of self-view and self-conceit, one meets desirable and undesirable objects without affliction or evil karma, so the present life gains no defilement; and, entering nirvāṇa without creating further karma or affliction, one takes no further fruit in the three realms, entering the remainderless nirvāṇa when this very life ends — the three benefits. The companion sūtras have the Buddha teach non-attachment to the six faculties, objects, and their feelings as self or as belonging to self, warn that such attachment brings grave sickness, a festering boil, and a poisoned arrow, and describe the fruit of non-attachment as the arhat's own realization. With this, the fourth phrase (第四句) — conceit's three dangers and freedom-from-conceit's three benefits — closes entirely.

One who squanders this rare human life without cultivating the path strengthens the seed of future existence; one who cultivates the noble path diminishes it — the Buddha alone teaches this forward and reverse dependent origination with such precision. With this fifth phrase, explaining severally (別釋), across all five teacher-established phrases, closes entirely.

Correctly understanding this as the Buddha teaches it perfects the wisdom that abides in the Dharma, and, resting on that, the wisdom of nirvāṇa — both found only within the Buddhist teaching, in no outsider doctrine. The companion sūtras map directly onto each of the five phrases: the forward and reverse tracks of grasping (110, matching phrases one and two); fully knowing all dharmas at the six sense-bases (111, phrase three's first part); why full knowledge matters for reaching suffering's end (112); permanently cutting off desire at the six bases (113); all three together (114, phrase three complete); non-attachment to the six bases as self or self's possession, with the sickness-boil-arrow warning and its reversal (115-118, phrase four); and what increases or decreases the seed of future existence (119-121, phrase five). With this, the Teacher's Non-Identical Portion (師不同分), the second of Sameness and Equality's eight topics, closes entirely.

This is the King's Domain (王國), the third of Sameness and Equality's eight topics — mountains, rivers, and the resources sentient beings rely on are the domain; sentient beings themselves the subjects; the lord of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Others' Emanations, māra, the sovereign over it all. The companion sūtras contrast contaminated dharmas (feeling arisen from the six faculties, worldly and ordinary) with uncontaminated dharmas (the same six faculties experienced with transmundane, non-discriminating wisdom), then have the monk Sāmiddhi ask the Buddha what "the world" means: precisely these same six faculties, objects, consciousnesses, contacts, and feelings — were they not to exist, no world could be spoken of at all — and, extending the same teaching to sentient beings and to māra, conclude that clinging to these very dharmas is what makes one māra's own child.

The great cosmic calamities of fire, water, and wind destroy the material world in cycles — fire burning up through the first dhyāna, water flooding up through the second, wind scattering up through the third — while the sentient world's own body decays moment to moment of its own accord, with no need of an external calamity. The companion sūtra has the Buddha answer Sāmiddhi's question, "what is called the world?", with a single word: the frail and perishable — the six faculties, objects, consciousnesses, contacts, and feelings, all fragile and impermanent, are themselves the world. With this, the Two Worlds (二世間), the fourth of Sameness and Equality's eight topics, closes entirely.

Whether considered by own-nature ("just so" — earth is solid, water is moist, fire is warm, wind moves), by function ("otherwise" — earth supports, water moistens, fire burns, wind dries, functions distinct from their bare natures), or by a designation whose surface term differs from the reality it names ("not so" — a blazing form called "fire"), every dharma everywhere returns to this same naturally-so principle (法爾道理), the Śrāvaka Level's own term for the point where a settled mind need inquire no further. The companion sūtra has Sāmiddhi ask what "the emptiness of the world" means, and the Buddha answer with the same analysis applied to the eye and its object, consciousness, contact, and feeling — each empty of permanence, constancy, an unchanging nature, and self or self's possession, simply because this is their nature, naturally so — extending the same to the remaining five faculties. With this, following broadly (隨廣) closes entirely, closing the Conditioned (有為), the fifth of Sameness and Equality's eight topics, entirely.

Though no ordinary body can walk to the world's edge, cultivating the noble path and cutting off craving and views does reach it — the world itself is the six internal sense-bases; the world's origin is the three cravings (for future existence, for present enjoyment, for what is not yet had); the world's cessation is their utter exhaustion; the path to cessation is the eightfold noble path. Puzzled by the Buddha's terse teaching, the monks turn to Ānanda, who explains it at length and closes with verses: "Not by walking can one reach the world's edge; not reaching it, one cannot escape every suffering... The world's edge is known only by right wisdom; awakened understanding penetrates the world, and so is said to cross to the further shore." With this, concluding what is attained (結能得) closes entirely, closing the world's edge (名得世間邊際) entirely, closing explaining the distinctions (釋差別) entirely, closing explaining (釋) entirely, and closing Restraining Bodily Conduct (遮身行), the sixth of Sameness and Equality's eight topics, entirely.

A single fleeting moment of defiled mind is unavoidable so long as innate afflictive seeds remain, and does not by itself undo one's practice — only letting it continue does. Not feared is the thought's arising; feared is a slow awakening to it. The companion sūtra likens an arisen, un-abandoned affliction to an inner "teacher" one obeys and a "resident disciple" who lives with it, contrasted with the true solitary ease of one free of both — and closes noting that such freedom makes the four immeasurables easy to accomplish and every future cause of suffering cut off at the root. With this, the reason (釋所以) closes entirely, closing Firm Grasping (堅執), the seventh of Sameness and Equality's eight topics, entirely.

Speaking of the dharma abided-in, non-self itself is supreme; speaking of the person, the arhat's own fruit is supreme — the arhat's mind constantly rests in the right view of empty non-self, hence "supreme empty-abiding" in both senses at once. With this, supreme empty-abiding (尊勝空住) closes entirely.

The Buddha, finding Śāriputra fresh from abiding in the supreme empty-abiding, praises it as the abode of a "great person," and teaches all monks to examine, on almsround, whether craving or attachment has arisen at seeing a form — cutting it off at once, as urgently as one would put out a fire on one's own head, if it has, and rejoicing and continuing to study day and night if it has not; a monk who practices this way is said to keep a "clean almsround." The Pali parallel adds that this same empty-abiding is one of four equivalent names for the arhat's liberated mind (empty, signless, wishless, and the immeasurables), and lists further marks of the "great person" abiding this way, including having few desires and being content with whatever is received, among others still to come. With this, drawing forth that abiding (引彼空住) closes entirely, closing empty-abiding emptiness-nature (空住空性), the first of the three emptiness-natures, entirely.

The house still stands even lacking a door or a window — a partial lack is not the same as the house's own substance being empty. With this, the analogy (舉喻), by time and by part-versus-whole, closes entirely.

A blinded eye, a deafened ear, a lost limb, or a lapse of memory is a partial lack among the six bases — not the emptiness of the whole body. With this, right contemplation (明正觀) — by time, by part-and-whole, by the three abodes, and by the six bases — closes entirely.

Through the strength of contemplative wisdom, one observes that dependently arisen dharmas have no fixed nature of absolutely existing or absolutely not existing — this is "ultimately transcended." One sees the illusion-like five aggregates as neither utterly nonexistent nor as harboring any real self, and the five sense-objects as neither nonexistent nor worth clinging to — holding neither to real existence nor to real emptiness, one stays clear of both extremes. With this, true entry (如實趣入) closes entirely, closing distinguishing entry (辨趣入) entirely, and closing explaining emptiness-nature (釋空性), the first of two matters under explaining (釋), entirely. Explaining how to cultivate it (釋修習) follows.

The town-perception carries the coarse unrest and blazing seeds of affliction; the present forest-perception, being its opposite, is empty of that coarseness, while its own subtle, quiescent quality is not-empty. With this, abiding in seclusion (為住遠離) closes entirely.

Each lower stage is seen as coarse, painful, and obstructive; each higher stage as calm, sublime, and freeing — the same method of contemplation applied at every level of the ascent. With this, tending toward freedom from desire (為趣離欲) closes entirely.

By this method of favoring the higher and wearying of the lower, a practitioner progressively leaves desire up through the sphere of nothingness — but this worldly path only suppresses affliction temporarily, without cutting its seeds at the root. With this, the worldly path (依世間道) closes entirely.

Craving and views are now empty; the remainder-bound body, its six sense-bases sustaining one another while the arhat's lifespan continues, and the pure dharmas of precept, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowledge-and-vision of liberation, are not-empty — nothing of the path's own attainment is lost. With this, cultivating the truths in general (總修諦行) closes entirely.

The Buddha tells Ānanda he has always mostly abided in emptiness, illustrating with the hall they sit in — empty of elephants, cattle, and goods, yet not-empty of the assembled monks — the same principle of true, undistorted seeing of what is absent as empty and what remains as not-empty. He then teaches the identical progressive method at length: releasing town-perception and person-perception for forest-perception; releasing forest-perception for a bare, level earth-perception (likened to a hide stretched taut on a hundred pegs); releasing earth-perception in turn for the spheres of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and finally neither-perception-nor-non-perception — each stage empty of what came before, not-empty of itself, and confirmed by the absence of the fatigue that clinging to a coarser object would bring. Finally, even the summit of neither-perception-nor-non-perception must itself be released, since it remains a worldly object; observing with noble-path wisdom, the mind is freed from the contaminants of desire, existence, and ignorance, and one self-attests: "birth for me is ended, the holy life established, what was to be done is done, no further existence is known." The remainder-bound arhat then sees the three contaminants as empty, and the remaining life-body as not-empty. The Buddha closes by affirming that every Buddha of the past, present, and future cultivates this same true, undistorted practice — contaminants exhausted, uncontaminated, unconditioned, mind liberated — and instructs Ānanda to train accordingly. With this citation, weighing empty-abiding (料簡空住) closes entirely, closing the transmundane path (依出世道) entirely, closing explaining how to cultivate (釋修習) entirely, closing explaining (釋) entirely, and closing Cultivating Emptiness-Nature (修習空性), the second of the Three Emptiness-Natures' three matters, entirely.

This arhat never loses the present-life bliss already attained, unlike the dull-faculty type who may or may not retreat — hence "decisively." This decisiveness concerns present-life bliss specifically, not liberation from affliction itself, since (as explained earlier) even a dull-faculty arhat, though liable to lose concentration through a lapse of mindfulness, never loses the liberation already attained — affliction, once truly cut off, can no more manifest again than a shattered bowl can be made whole. With this, unshakable mind-liberation (不動心解脫) closes entirely, closing the two liberations (二解脫) entirely.

Every affliction already purified and every task already accomplished, the arhat meets no object capable of stirring the mind into contrivance or fear, whatever changes it may undergo. With this, explaining what is difficult (隨難釋) closes entirely, closing why one is unable (出不能行), the first of two matters under being unable to practice what one should rightly practice (於自正所應行而不能行) — a second matter, broadly explaining what should be practiced (廣所應行), still remains before that topic itself closes.

Since impermanence entails a lack of self-mastery, and a lack of self-mastery entails non-self, cultivating the view of impermanence naturally opens onto the view of non-self as well. With this, distinguishing the kinds (辨種類) — the two kinds of emptiness to be attested, and the two kinds to be cultivated — closes entirely.

Fully knowing conceit — the same four kinds of self-view (discriminated, innate, referring to one's own basis, referring to another's basis) explained earlier under the Compendium of the Matters — is what internal emptiness rests on, since conceit must be permanently cut off to attest to it; contemplating non-self in turn rests on contemplating impermanence, since seeing that nothing is self-governing reveals that nothing is self; and impermanence's own view rests, most basically, on hearing the Buddha's true teaching and reflecting on it properly. With this, bringing forth the supports (出依止) — all four, in their dependency chain — closes entirely.

Only at the fourth attempt — reflecting on impermanence throughout every internal and external formation — does craving cease to find anything to move toward, since nothing whatsoever remains unchanging; diligent progress from here leads onward to calming and to the path itself. With this, four progressive attempts — impurity, conceit, non-self, impermanence — close the ordinary being's stage (異生位) entirely.

Once attestation is perfected, the mind is freed from all five lower-portion and five upper-portion fetters, cultivation itself is perfected, and the arhat's ten unlearner dharmas — the eightfold path together with right liberation and right knowledge — are accomplished. With this, the unlearner's stage (無學位), and the threefold summary of ordinary being, learner, and unlearner mapped onto attestation and cultivation, close entirely, closing clarifying the stages of cultivation (明修學) entirely, closing broadly explaining what should be practiced (廣所應行) entirely, and closing being unable to practice what one should rightly practice (於自正所應行而不能行), the first of two matters under distinguishing the marks severally (別辨相), entirely.

Unrecognized craving for future existence seeds the next life; manifold cravings burn body and mind in this one; unwholesome karma born of affliction leads to the three evil destinies; and all of this together is the very cause of birth, old age, sickness, and death — four dangers a vigilant, investigative attention forestalls. With this, freedom from defilement (離雜染) closes entirely.

The first speech can discuss the Dharma fluently yet leave the practitioner's own mind untouched by it, like a puppet full of clever moves that vanish the moment they are needed; the second makes the Dharma itself the object resting the mind, aimed always at nirvāṇa or unsurpassed awakening. With this, distinct explanation (別釋) — knowing the right measure, freedom from defilement, and giving rise to speech — closes entirely.

Outsider paths, lacking genuine holy conduct, leave teacher and disciple entangled instead in disputes over rank and status; only within the true teaching are both the holy conduct itself and those who genuinely practice it actually found together. With this, a further distinction (簡差別) closes entirely, closing weighing further (料簡) entirely, and closing bringing forth what should be practiced (出所應行) entirely.

Craving gain and veneration rather than cultivating the path leaves such a one, in the end, ungrateful toward the very Teacher whose kindness made the path available at all — as the Buddha himself lamented before his final nirvāṇa, it is not outsiders who destroy the true teaching, but "worms within the lion's own body, feeding on the lion's own flesh." With this, the concluding rebuke (結斥) closes entirely, closing clarifying inability (明不能行) entirely, and closing being unable to practice what is proper having gone forth within the noble teaching (於聖教出家正所應行亦不能行), the second of two matters under distinguishing the marks severally (別辨相), entirely — and with it, 別辨相 itself, in its entirety.

Not to protect his own reputation, the Buddha would rather bluntly dismiss a wrongly-practicing disciple back to lay life — better an honest return to being a lay supporter of the Three Jewels than a corrupting presence within the saṅgha, "a worm in the lion's own body." This concludes with the full companion Greater Discourse on Emptiness: the Buddha finds Ānanda's fellow monks mending robes rather than meditating, and teaches Ānanda that a monk who delights in noisy company can never attain any of the eight joys — renunciation, the noble path's joy, the joy of desirelessness, seclusion, quiescence, awakening, the foodless joy of the arhat, or the joy beyond birth-and-death — nor either kind of liberation (time-liberated-through-love or unshakable), since no perceived form is worth clinging to when everything perceived is impermanent and its craving brings only grief. The Buddha then teaches, at length and in the sūtra's own words, cultivating internal emptiness by settling the mind on a single object (illustrated by a bather's soap-ball permeating the whole body with the first dhyāna's joy), then testing whether the mind grows scattered — if so, shifting in sequence through external emptiness, internal-external emptiness, and the immovable, cycling back to strengthen concentration wherever the mind will not settle, until each is genuinely attested and named "right knowledge" in turn (four such attestations in all). Ten further marks of right knowledge follow: walking, sitting, entertaining only wholesome thoughts, discussing only what is spiritually beneficial (avoiding the "animal talk" of kings, thieves, food, and the rest, in favor of giving, precepts, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and dependent origination), seeing the five sense-desires' impermanence, and seeing the five aggregates' arising and passing to dissolve conceit — all resting on non-negligence, the very quality by which every Buddha past, present, and future attains awakening. The sūtra closes with a long teaching on "vexed teacher, vexed disciple, vexed holy life" — a teacher or disciple who gains worldly concentration but, craving the acclaim of mixed company, later grows proud and disrobes, versus the Buddha's own example of retreating to solitude both for his own present-life bliss and to set an example future generations can follow, always returning to dwell among the fourfold assembly rather than among laypeople — and a final teaching distinguishing a disciple who merely repeats the teaching by rote from one who genuinely masters its meaning and puts it into practice, the latter alone truly repaying the Teacher's kindness, "not as a potter fixes wet clay into an unchangeable shape," but through each disciple's own self-realization. As the lecture itself notes, the Greater Discourse on Emptiness observes emptiness directly, contemplating external and internal emptiness together with non-self and impermanence, distinct from the Lesser Discourse's step-by-step progression.

With this citation, clarifying the World-Honored One's skillful means (兼明世尊調伏方便), the second of two matters under gathering the brief meaning, closes entirely, closing gathering the brief meaning (攝略義) entirely, closing explaining the cause of obstruction (釋其障因) entirely, closing Attesting to and Cultivating Emptiness-Nature (證修空性), the third and final matter of the Three Emptiness-Natures, entirely, closing the Three Emptiness-Natures (三空性), the eighth and final topic of Sameness and Equality, entirely — and, with all eight topics now complete (the path's non-identical portion, the teacher's non-identical portion, the king's domain, the two worlds, the conditioned, restraining bodily conduct, firm grasping, and the three emptiness-natures), closing Sameness and Equality (同等攝), the THIRD of 處擇攝's four particular verses, ENTIRELY. This is also the exact point at which fascicle 90's source material reaches its own literal end — the source closes with the lecturer's own note distinguishing the Greater and Lesser Discourses on Emptiness, without yet opening 處擇攝's fourth and final particular verse, 離欲等 (freedom from desire and the rest), which continues in fascicle 91.