Affliction, Karma, and the Absorptions
The determinations move from defilement to the truths to practice, and the fascicle changes character halfway through. It opens with the three defilements — affliction, karma, and birth — and the treatment of affliction is an inventory of twenty items five times over, the driest writing in the treatise. Then the four truths, briefly. And then something the treatise has not done before: a long practical manual of the absorptions, in question-and-answer form, covering what a concentration is entered by, how one abides in it, how one gets up out of it and for what reasons, what warns you it is coming, what makes it tractable, and — at length, with named cases — the ten or more ways a practitioner loses one he had. The last third turns to the factors of enlightenment and the establishments of mindfulness, ending with two scriptural remedies for a mind that either sinks or races.
Where This Fascicle Picks Up
Fascicle 18 completed the determinations on mind, the mental factors, form, the formations dissociated from mind, cause, the unconditioned, and the realms. This fascicle takes up the defilements, the truths, the supports — which turn out to mean the absorptions — and the factors of enlightenment.
Collating against T1603 gives forty-six verse lines here in twenty-three verses of four. Forty-four match T1603 line for line; the remaining two do not appear in the verse text at all, and correctly so — they are a quoted uddāna verse, introduced as the Blessed One's and marked in the source with quotation marks. It is the first place in the treatise where the collation has to distinguish Asaṅga's own root verse from a citation, and the source's own punctuation makes the distinction for us. One single-character variant also falls here, and is noted where it occurs.
Classical text is set in the left-hand column, our English in the right. See also this site's note on translation method.
1. The Four Afflictions That Never Stop
論曰：如是已說界事決擇。於雜染事勝決擇中煩惱雜染勝決擇，今當先說。頌曰：
意相應四惑， 遍行而俱起，
無記最後滅， 隨所生彼性。
論曰：當知意相應煩惱遍行一切位，與一切有漏善等心俱時現行，不相違故。又此煩惱皆是俱生，非分別起；是有覆無記性，非不善性，最後金剛喻定之所頓斷。又此煩惱有四種，所謂無明、薩迦耶見、我慢、我愛。若生此界中補特伽羅，當知此意相應煩惱即是此界體性所攝。
The exposition: the determination regarding the matter of the realms has thus been stated. Within the superior determinations regarding the matters of defilement, the determination regarding the defilement of affliction shall now be stated first.
Four afflictions associated with the mind faculty
are all-pervading and arise together with it;
indeterminate, cut off last,
and of the nature of wherever one is born.
The exposition: know that the afflictions associated with the mind faculty pervade every state, and are presently in operation together with every contaminated wholesome mind and the rest, since they do not contradict them. And these afflictions all arise spontaneously along with it, not by discrimination; they are of the obscured-indeterminate kind and not unwholesome; and they are cut off all at once, at the last, by the vajra-like concentration. And these afflictions are of four kinds: ignorance, the view of a substantial body, self-conceit, and self-love. If a person is born in a given realm, know that these afflictions associated with the mind faculty are comprised within the very nature of that realm.
These are the four afflictions of the defiled mind, already described in fascicle 17. What is added here is when they end: 最後金剛喻定之所頓斷, cut off all at once, at the last, by the vajra-like concentration — the final moment of the path, immediately before buddhahood. Not gradually, and not early. The sense of being a self who is practicing survives every stage of the path, including the path of seeing and the whole path of cultivation, and is removed only in the last instant, by a single stroke.
The reason it can survive so long is given in the phrase 不相違故, since they do not contradict them. A wholesome mind and these four run at the same time without conflict, because they are obscured-indeterminate rather than unwholesome — they do not make an act bad, they only keep an owner attached to it. That is why nothing in ordinary moral or meditative progress dislodges them, and why they need a separate and terminal removal.
2. Twenty Ways an Affliction Is Presently at Work
復次頌曰：
一切生相續， 現起及與緣，
隨眠、境麁重， 各差別二十。
論曰：若生此界此地，即此界地一切煩惱令生相續。又此煩惱雜染，若現行、若緣、若隨眠、若所緣境、若麁重，當知各有二十種相煩惱。現行有二十種者，一隨所欲纏現行，謂在家者；二不隨所欲纏現行，謂出家者；三無所了別，謂處惡說法者；四有所了別，謂處善說法者；五互增上，謂貪等行者；六皆平等，謂等分行者；七微薄，謂薄塵行者；八外門纏現行，謂未離欲者；九內門纏現行，謂由世間道離欲者；十增上纏現行，謂諸異生；十一失念纏現行，謂諸有學；十二分別纏現行，謂堅執著者；十三俱生纏現行，謂不堅執著者；十四觀察現行，謂憙觀察者；十五不自在現行，謂睡眠者；十六自在現行，謂覺悟者；十七不可救現行，謂無涅槃法者；十八可救現行，謂有涅槃法者；十九取相現行，謂尋思彼隨法而取相貌者；二十不取相貌現行，謂不尋思彼隨法不取相貌者。
Furthermore:
All continue on into birth;
presently at work, and their conditions,
latent tendencies, objects, coarse heaviness —
twenty distinctions in each.
The exposition: if one is born in a given realm and on a given level, then all the afflictions of that realm and level cause birth to continue on. And of this defilement of affliction — as presently at work, as conditions, as latent tendency, as objects taken, and as coarse heaviness — know that in each case there are twenty kinds of marks of affliction. Twenty kinds of being presently at work: entanglement at work as one wishes, namely in a householder; entanglement at work not as one wishes, namely in a renunciant; without understanding, namely one placed among those who teach badly; with understanding, namely one placed among those who teach well; each dominant in turn, namely one whose conduct is of craving and the rest; all in balance, namely one whose conduct is of even portions; slight and thin, namely one whose conduct has little dust; entanglement at work by the outer gate, namely one not yet free of craving; entanglement at work by the inner gate, namely one freed of craving by a worldly path; entanglement at work with dominance, namely ordinary beings; entanglement at work through lapse of mindfulness, namely learners; entanglement at work by discrimination, namely one who grasps firmly; entanglement at work spontaneously, namely one who does not grasp firmly; at work in examining, namely one who is glad to examine; at work without mastery, namely one asleep; at work with mastery, namely one awake; at work beyond rescue, namely one without the quality of nirvāṇa; at work within rescue, namely one having the quality of nirvāṇa; at work taking marks, namely one who thinks over what follows from it and takes up its appearance; and at work not taking marks, namely one who does not think it over and does not take up its appearance.
The first pair sets the tone and is the most useful thing on the list. A householder's entanglement operates 隨所欲, as he wishes; a renunciant's operates 不隨所欲, against his wishes. The affliction is the same in both. What differs is whether the person's circumstances let him act on it, and the treatise's implication is unsentimental: renunciation does not reduce affliction, it frustrates it. That is not nothing — frustrated affliction is at least visible — but the list is careful not to credit the robe with more than it does.
The pair about sleep is worth pausing on for the same reason. Entanglement in a sleeper is 不自在, without mastery; in one awake, 自在, with mastery. The affliction does not stop when one sleeps; it simply operates without anybody at the controls. Between these two pairs the section makes a single point twenty different ways: the presence of an affliction and the ability to do something about it are separate questions, and most of the human variation is in the second.
3. Twenty Conditions, Twenty Latent Tendencies
煩惱緣有二十種者，一樂、二苦、三不苦不樂、四欲、五尋、六觸、七先所串習、八隨眠、九不親近善友、十不聽聞正法、十一不如理作意、十二不信、十三懈怠、十四失念、十五散亂、十六不正知、十七放逸煩惱、十八異生性、十九由離欲、二十由受生。
煩惱隨眠有二十種者，一不定地隨眠、二定地隨眠、三隨自境隨眠、四隨他境隨眠、五被損隨眠、六未被損隨眠、七隨順隨眠、八不隨順隨眠、九具滿隨眠、十缺減隨眠、十一可害隨眠、十二不可害隨眠、十三增上隨眠、十四平等隨眠、十五微薄隨眠、十六有覺隨眠、十七無覺隨眠、十八生多苦隨眠、十九生少苦隨眠、二十不生苦隨眠。
Twenty kinds of condition for affliction: pleasure; pain; neither pain nor pleasure; desire; discursive thought; contact; what has been habituated before; latent tendency; not keeping close to good friends; not hearing the true Dharma; attention not in accordance with reason; lack of faith; laziness; lapse of mindfulness; distraction; incorrect knowledge; the affliction of heedlessness; the state of an ordinary being; by becoming free of craving; and by taking birth.
Twenty kinds of latent tendency of affliction: latent tendency on a level that is not concentrated; on a level that is concentrated; following one's own object; following another's object; damaged; not yet damaged; conforming; not conforming; complete and full; deficient and reduced; able to be destroyed; not able to be destroyed; dominant; in balance; slight and thin; with awareness; without awareness; producing much suffering; producing little suffering; and producing no suffering.
The nineteenth and twentieth conditions are the two nobody would put on such a list without thinking about it. 由離欲 — by becoming free of craving — is a condition for affliction. So is taking birth. Both look paradoxical until one notices what kind of list this is: a list of occasions on which afflictions get their opening. Becoming free of craving is such an occasion because it is exactly when conceit and overweening pride find their material, a point the section on falling back from concentration will make at length with worked examples. Nothing on the path is safe from being made into an achievement.
The list of conditions is also a good illustration of how wide the term 緣 is here. It contains feelings, cognitive events, moral defects, social circumstances, and metaphysical facts side by side — pleasure and pain, contact, not having good friends, not hearing the teaching, laziness, being an ordinary being. Nothing organizes them beyond the single question of what gives an affliction a foothold, and by that criterion the company one keeps belongs on the same list as the sensations one has.
4. Twenty Objects, Twenty Coarse Heavinesses
煩惱所緣境有二十種者，一緣有事境、二緣無事境、三緣自相境、四緣共相境、五緣現見境、六緣不現見境、七緣外門境、八緣內門境、九緣自類煩惱境、十緣他類煩惱境、十一緣自境、十二緣他境、十三緣無境、十四緣有漏境、十五緣無漏境、十六緣有為境、十七緣無為境、十八緣自心分別境、十九緣憶念分別境、二十緣事相境。
麁重有二十種者，一性報麁重、二性煩惱麁重、三性業麁重、四煩惱障麁重、五所知障麁重、六定障麁重、七業障麁重、八報障麁重、九蓋障麁重、十不正尋思麁重、十一愁惱麁重、十二怖畏麁重、十三勞倦麁重、十四食麁重、十五眠夢麁重、十六婬欲麁重、十七大種乖違麁重、十八時分變異麁重、十九死麁重、二十遍行麁重。又若略說，了知煩惱由五種相，謂自體相、因相、品類相、於境心亂相及果相。
Twenty kinds of object taken by affliction: an object that is a real matter; an object that is no real matter; an object of particular mark; an object of general mark; an object presently seen; an object not presently seen; an object by the outer gate; an object by the inner gate; an object that is affliction of one's own kind; an object that is affliction of another kind; an object that is one's own; an object that is another's; an object that is nothing; a contaminated object; an uncontaminated object; a conditioned object; an unconditioned object; an object discriminated by one's own mind; an object discriminated in recollection; and an object that is the appearance of a matter.
Twenty kinds of coarse heaviness: the coarse heaviness of recompense by nature; of affliction by nature; of karma by nature; of the obstruction of affliction; of the obstruction to the knowable; of the obstruction to concentration; of the obstruction of karma; of the obstruction of recompense; of the obstruction of the hindrances; of unright discursive thinking; of grief and distress; of fear; of weariness and fatigue; of food; of sleep and dreams; of sexual desire; of the great elements being at odds; of the alteration of the seasons; of death; and the all-pervading coarse heaviness. And in brief, affliction is understood by five marks: the mark of its own substance, of its cause, of its class, of the mind being disordered with respect to an object, and of its fruit.
The list of coarse heavinesses is the only part of this dry stretch that reads like a person wrote it. It begins with the expected categories — the obstruction of affliction, the obstruction to the knowable, the obstruction to concentration — and then, without any change of tone, continues into: grief, fear, tiredness, food, sleep and dreams, sexual desire, the elements being at odds with each other, the turn of the seasons, and death. Heaviness after a large meal is on the same list as the obstruction to omniscience.
This is consistent with how the treatise has used 麁重 since fascicle 1: it is the opposite of pliancy, the quality of not being workable, and it is a condition of the whole psychophysical organism rather than of the mind alone. What a practitioner is up against, on this account, includes weather and digestion. That the list ends with 死 and then with 遍行麁重, the all-pervading coarse heaviness, gives it a shape: particular weights, and then the general one that never lifts.
5. Why "Latent Tendency," and What Makes an Affliction Unwholesome
復次齊何當說煩惱隨眠及不善？頌曰：
隨順自生故， 種子故事故，
生四過失故， 不淨三因故。
論曰：由四種因故說名隨眠，一隨順自生故，謂若煩惱事隨順此煩惱；二種子隨縛故；三彼增上事故；四生四過失故。四過失者，一不寂靜過失、二差別過失、三發行過失、四攝因過失。此中前一由二所顯，三種由四所顯。問：齊何當知不善煩惱相？答：由三因故，謂猛盛故、惱亂有情故、能障礙善故。
Further, on what grounds are the latent tendencies of affliction, and the unwholesome, to be spoken of?
Because it conforms to its own arising,
because of the seed, because of the matter,
because it produces four faults;
and the impure, by three causes.
The exposition: for four reasons it is called a latent tendency. First, because it conforms to its own arising — that is, if the matter of an affliction conforms to that affliction. Second, because the seed binds along with it. Third, because of the matter over which it is dominant. Fourth, because it produces four faults. The four faults are: the fault of not being at peace; the fault of differentiation; the fault of setting practice in motion; and the fault of taking in causes. Of these, the first is displayed by the second reason and the other three by the fourth. Question: on what grounds is the mark of an unwholesome affliction to be known? Answer: for three reasons — because it is fierce and strong; because it disturbs sentient beings; and because it can obstruct the wholesome.
The three criteria for calling an affliction unwholesome are the operative content of this section, and none of them is metaphysical. An affliction is unwholesome if it is 猛盛, fierce and strong; if it 惱亂有情, disturbs sentient beings; and if it 能障礙善, obstructs the wholesome. That is a test by intensity, by harm to others, and by interference with what one is trying to do. It explains the classification given at the head of the fascicle: the four afflictions of the defiled mind fail all three — they are quiet, they harm nobody directly, and they do not prevent a wholesome act — which is exactly why they are called obscured-indeterminate rather than unwholesome, and why they last until the final moment of the path.
6. Karma: Thirteen Kinds, Six Fruits, Three Positions
復次業雜染勝決擇今當說。頌曰：
業思及思已， 差別有十三，
彼果六、三位， 業決定五種。
論曰：若略說業，有二種，謂思及思已。此業差別復有十三種：一身業、二語業、三意業、四律儀所攝業、五不律儀所攝業、六俱非所攝業、七福業、八非福業、九不動業、十黑黑異熟業、十一白白異熟業、十二黑白黑白異熟業、十三非黑白無異熟業，能盡諸業。
如是等業當知有六種果、三種位。六種果者，謂可愛果、不可愛果、清淨果、異熟果、等流果、增上果。三位者，謂作用位、習氣位與果位。又如是業有五種決定：一現法受決定、二生受決定、三後差別受決定、四受報決定、五作業決定。
Further, the superior determination regarding the defilement of karma shall now be stated.
Karma is volition and what is done after volition,
distinguished as thirteen;
its fruits are six, its positions three,
and karma has five certainties.
The exposition: in brief karma is of two kinds, volition and what is done after volition. The distinctions of this karma are again of thirteen kinds: bodily karma; verbal karma; mental karma; karma comprised within restraint; karma comprised within non-restraint; karma comprised within neither; meritorious karma; non-meritorious karma; unmoving karma; black karma with black ripening; white karma with white ripening; black-and-white karma with black-and-white ripening; and karma neither black nor white, without ripening, which is able to exhaust all karma.
Know that such karma has six kinds of fruit and three positions. The six fruits are the welcome fruit, the unwelcome fruit, the pure fruit, the ripened fruit, the outflowing fruit, and the dominant fruit. The three positions are the position of function, the position of habitual tendency, and the position of fruition. And such karma has five certainties: certainty of being undergone in the present life; certainty of being undergone in the next birth; certainty of being undergone at a later time distinct from that; certainty as to the recompense undergone; and certainty as to the karma performed.
The thirteenth kind of karma is the interesting one and it is stated in six characters: 非黑白無異熟業，能盡諸業 — karma neither black nor white, without ripening, able to exhaust all karma. The four-colored scheme is canonical, and its fourth member has always been the odd one out: a kind of action that produces no result and whose function is to bring the whole system of results to an end. That is what the path is, classified as karma. It is the one entry on the list that is not a way of getting somewhere but a way of stopping.
The three positions are the treatise's most compact statement of how karma persists, and they line up with the seed doctrine of fascicle 17 exactly. 作用位, the position of function, is the act as it happens. 習氣位, the position of habitual tendency, is the act as a deposit in the store. 與果位, the position of fruition, is its yielding. An act, a seed, a harvest — the same three-stage account, restated in the vocabulary of karma rather than of consciousness.
7. One's Own Karma, and Nine Causes of Difference
復次頌曰：
自業等四種， 此先熟亦四，
復九種當知， 即二種差別。
論曰：如薄伽梵說：摩納婆當知，一切有情自業所作，業為諍本，從業所生，業為依趣。如是此業自所作業，四種應知：於自相續能與果故、能治所治現在前故、從過去世生現世故、為未來有故。為業盡故，名業依趣。又此業報當知四種先後報熟，所謂最先重業報熟、次最近者、次串習者、後先作者。又不可斷業當知異熟決定；若不定報業，於離欲斷不能為礙。又諸外道起如是見說如是論：隨諸眾生造作諸業，或樂俱行或苦俱行，所受異熟亦復如是。彼諸外道皆是妄執。何以故？具二受故。謂諸善業亦受苦報亦受樂報，不善之業亦復如是。又當知業依二根故成善不善性，謂依善根故起諸善業，依不善根故起不善業。又善不善業差別之相，當知由九種因。一由因及田故，謂由善不善根及尊重等田有差別。二由事故，謂由圓滿不圓滿事。三由方便故，謂由無間殷重方便。四由依止故，謂由依止或淨不淨。五由作意故，謂由猛利淨信及增上纏。六由欲解故，謂由迴向願求勝劣果報。七由助伴故，謂由所餘善不善法之所攝受。八由多修習故，謂自修行亦教他作、讚歎隨喜，見同法者心生喜悅。九由多人故，謂與多人共行此業。
Furthermore:
One's own karma and the rest are four;
what ripens first is also four;
and nine further are to be known,
which are the differences of two kinds.
The exposition: as the Blessed One said — know, young man, that all beings are made by their own karma; karma is the root of contention, they are born from karma, and karma is their resort. This karma as karma done by oneself should be known in four ways: because it can give fruit within one's own continuum; because antidote and what is counteracted are present; because it arises in the present life from a past life; and because it is for a future existence. And because it is for the exhausting of karma, karma is called the resort. Further, know that this recompense of karma ripens in four orders of before and after: the heaviest karma ripens first, then the most recent, then the habituated, then what was done earliest. And know that karma which cannot be cut off has a certain ripening; whereas karma whose recompense is not fixed cannot be an obstacle to the cutting off that comes with freedom from craving. Further, some outsiders give rise to this view and state this doctrine: that as beings perform their karma occurring together with pleasure or with pain, so too is the ripening they undergo. Those outsiders are all falsely grasping. Why? Because both feelings occur. Wholesome karma undergoes both painful and pleasant recompense, and unwholesome karma likewise. Further, know that karma becomes wholesome or unwholesome in dependence on two roots — wholesome karma arises in dependence on wholesome roots, and unwholesome karma in dependence on unwholesome roots. Further, know the marks distinguishing wholesome and unwholesome karma by nine causes. First, by cause and by field, namely by differences in the wholesome or unwholesome root and in the field, whether one deserving reverence or otherwise. Second, by the matter, namely by whether the matter is complete or incomplete. Third, by application, namely by uninterrupted and earnest application. Fourth, by the support, namely by whether the support is pure or impure. Fifth, by attention, namely by keen pure faith or by dominant entanglement. Sixth, by aspiration, namely by dedicating and vowing to seek a superior or inferior fruit. Seventh, by companions, namely by being taken in by the other wholesome or unwholesome things. Eighth, by much cultivation, namely by practicing oneself and also instructing others to do it, praising it, rejoicing in it, and feeling gladness on seeing those who practice likewise. Ninth, by many people, namely by performing this karma together with many others.
The refutation of the outsiders here is short and empirical and it corrects a misunderstanding that is still common. The view refuted is that karma done in a happy state of mind yields happy results and karma done in pain yields painful ones — that the feeling accompanying an act determines the feeling of its fruit. Asaṅga's answer is one clause: 具二受故, because both feelings occur. Wholesome karma undergoes painful recompense as well as pleasant, and unwholesome karma likewise. What determines the moral quality of an act is the root it springs from, not the mood in which it is done, and this is stated immediately afterward.
The four orders of ripening are the classical rule and they are ordered by weight, then recency, then habit, then seniority — 重、近、串習、先作. Note what comes last: the earliest karma ripens last, not first. There is no queue. And note what the passage says about the unfixed: karma whose recompense is not fixed 於離欲斷不能為礙, cannot obstruct the cutting off that comes with freedom from craving. A great deal of what one has done is simply overtaken by the path rather than having to be paid off.
The nine causes of difference are a weighting scheme, and read as one they explain why two outwardly identical acts are not morally equal. The recipient matters. Whether the act was completed matters. Whether it was done wholeheartedly and without interruption matters. What one intended to get from it matters. And the last two are the ones with the longest reach: 多修習, doing it repeatedly and also teaching, praising, and rejoicing in it; and 多人, doing it together with many others. An act performed alone once and an act performed with a crowd and then promoted are different acts, on this scheme, however similar they look.
8. Birth: Dying, the Intermediate State, and the Four Births
復次生雜染勝決擇今當說。頌曰：
命終定不定， 中夭由六因，
明了位三心， 中有或有無。
論曰：有二種命終，一決定，謂北勝上洲；二不決定，謂餘處。又復中夭由六種因，一不避不平等故、二念忘失故、三意瞋忿故、四壽盡故、五業盡故、六福盡故。又命終時有三種心，謂善心、不善心、無記心，此在分明心位；若至不分明位，定唯無記。又命終後或有中有，謂將生有色界者；或無中有，謂將生無色界者。復次頌曰：
依餘有所緣， 染污心生起，
於四種生中， 及三界五趣。
論曰：依止餘中有，緣生處為境，染污心生起，令生有相續。又於四種生中受諸生死，謂卵生、胎生、濕生、化生。又於欲色無色三界中及於地獄等五趣中受諸生死。如是若死若生若處所，已顯生雜染勝決擇。
Further, the superior determination regarding the defilement of birth shall now be stated.
The end of life, fixed or unfixed;
untimely death by six causes;
three minds while awareness is distinct;
an intermediate existence, or none.
The exposition: there are two kinds of ending of life. The first is fixed, namely in the northern continent Uttarakuru. The second is not fixed, namely elsewhere. Further, untimely death occurs by six causes: not avoiding what is unbalanced; lapse of mindfulness; anger and rage in the mind; the exhaustion of the life span; the exhaustion of karma; and the exhaustion of merit. Further, at the ending of life there are three minds — the wholesome mind, the unwholesome mind, and the indeterminate mind — and this is while awareness is still distinct; once it reaches the stage where awareness is not distinct, it is certainly indeterminate alone. Further, after the ending of life there may be an intermediate existence, for one about to be born in a realm that has form; or there may be none, for one about to be born in the formless realm.
Resting on the remaining existence, with an object,
a defiled mind arises,
within the four kinds of birth,
and in the three realms and five destinies.
The exposition: resting on the remaining intermediate existence, and taking the place of birth as its object, a defiled mind arises and causes the existence of birth to continue on. Further, one undergoes birth and death within four kinds of birth: birth from an egg, from a womb, from moisture, and by transformation. And one undergoes birth and death within the three realms of desire, form, and formlessness, and within the five destinies beginning with the hells. Thus, as to dying, as to being born, and as to place, the superior determination regarding the defilement of birth has been displayed.
The verse here carries the fascicle's one variant, and it is trivial: T1603 writes 中殀 where T1602 writes 中夭 — two graphic forms of the same word, "dying young." Nothing distinguishes them in sense and no reading is at stake. It is recorded because the collation of this treatise has been careful to record everything, and because it is useful to see that most variants between the two texts are of exactly this order.
The three minds at death are given a boundary that is easy to miss and worth having: the wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate mind occurs 在分明心位, while awareness is still distinct. Once awareness becomes indistinct, the mind is 定唯無記, certainly indeterminate alone. Whatever one is thinking at the very end is not what determines anything, because at the very end one is not thinking. The doctrinally weighted mind at death is the last clear one, which is a considerable distance from the deathbed drama the idea is sometimes made to support.
9. The Two Truths, and the Four as Illness and Cure
諦事決擇今當說。頌曰：
當知世俗諦， 意解義及說，
淨所緣彼性， 方便名勝義。
論曰：一切言說及因彼意解所得義，皆名世俗諦。若清淨所緣、若清淨性、若彼方便，皆名勝義諦。清淨所緣者，謂四聖諦及真如。
清淨性者，謂滅諦清淨。方便者，謂道諦。復次頌曰：
當知是四種， 染淨之所攝，
未見、未經受， 如病、病滅因。
論曰：當知四諦，染污清淨二法所攝。染污二種，若果、若因。清淨亦爾。如是四諦，從無始來一切有情，未如實見滅道二諦，亦未經受。又如病、病滅及彼二因，建立四諦。苦諦如病，集諦如病因，滅諦如病滅，道諦如病滅因。
The determination regarding the matter of the truths shall now be stated.
Know the conventional truth:
the meaning grasped in thought, and speech;
the object of purity, that nature,
and the means — these are called the ultimate.
The exposition: all speech, and the meaning obtained by the thought that gives rise to it, are called the conventional truth. The object of purity, the nature that is purity, and the means to it are all called the ultimate truth. The object of purity means the four noble truths and suchness. The nature that is purity means the purity of the truth of cessation. The means means the truth of the path.
Know that these four
are comprised within defilement and purity;
not yet seen, not yet undergone —
like illness, and the cause of illness ceasing.
The exposition: know that the four truths are comprised within the two, the defiled and the pure. The defiled is of two kinds, fruit and cause; and the pure likewise. As for these four truths, from beginningless time all beings have not seen the two truths of cessation and the path as they really are, nor have they undergone them. Again, the four truths are established as illness, the ceasing of illness, and the causes of these two: the truth of suffering is like illness; the truth of origin is like the cause of illness; the truth of cessation is like the ceasing of illness; and the truth of the path is like the cause of illness ceasing.
The medical analogy for the four truths is old and familiar, and what is worth noticing here is what the treatise does with the asymmetry it contains. All beings have long since undergone suffering and its origin; those are not news. What nobody has ever seen or undergone is the second pair — 未如實見滅道二諦，亦未經受, has not seen cessation and the path as they really are, nor undergone them. The first half of the diagnosis is confirmed by everyone's experience, and the second half is entirely testimony until it is not. That is a clear-eyed statement of the epistemic position a practitioner is actually in.
The definition of the conventional truth given here differs slightly from the one in fascicle 16, where it was 宣說我法用, speech declaring the working of self and things. Here it is speech together with 因彼意解所得義, the meaning obtained by the thought that gives rise to it. The addition matters: the conventional is not just the words but the understanding they carry. Both definitions locate it in the region where thought and language meet, and neither calls it false.
10. Four Marks of Each Truth
復次頌曰：
當知是四諦， 各四相四行，
遍知等四種， 因果性差別。
論曰：當知四聖諦一一有四種相。苦諦有四相者，一起苦、二內緣苦、三外緣苦、四麁重苦。初謂生苦，第二謂老病死苦，第三謂怨憎會苦、愛別離苦、所欲匱苦，第四謂五取蘊苦。集諦有四相者，一總愛、二後有愛、三喜貪俱行愛、四彼彼處喜愛。滅諦有四相者，一愛盡、二離欲、三滅、四涅槃。道諦有四相者，謂苦遲通等四種行迹，前已說。又一一諦各有四行當知，如成現觀品已說。又於諸諦，有遍知、永斷、作證、修道因果體性應知。前三是果，修道是因，謂遍知苦因、永斷集因、及證滅因。
Furthermore:
Know that these four truths
each have four marks and four aspects;
full knowledge and the other four
differ in nature as cause and fruit.
The exposition: know that each of the four noble truths has four marks. The four marks of the truth of suffering: the suffering that arises; the suffering conditioned inwardly; the suffering conditioned outwardly; and the suffering of coarse heaviness. The first is the suffering of birth; the second is the suffering of aging, sickness, and death; the third is the suffering of meeting what is hated, being parted from what is loved, and lacking what is wanted; and the fourth is the suffering of the five appropriated aggregates. The four marks of the truth of origin: craving in general; craving for future existence; craving occurring together with delight and greed; and delight and craving for this and that place. The four marks of the truth of cessation: the exhaustion of craving; freedom from craving; cessation; and nirvāṇa. The four marks of the truth of the path: the four progressions, painful and slow and the rest, as stated above. And know that each truth has four aspects, as stated in the chapter on Establishing Direct Realization. And with respect to the truths, the nature of full knowledge, permanent abandoning, realizing, and cultivating the path as cause and fruit should be known: the first three are fruits and cultivating the path is the cause — namely, the cause of fully knowing suffering, the cause of permanently abandoning origin, and the cause of realizing cessation.
The last sentence rearranges the four tasks in a way that is worth stating plainly. The four things done with the four truths — fully knowing suffering, abandoning origin, realizing cessation, cultivating the path — are usually listed as parallel. Here they are not: 前三是果，修道是因, the first three are fruits and cultivating the path is the cause. Only one of the four is something a person does. The other three are what happens when it is done. Understanding suffering is not a separate labor to be undertaken alongside the path; it is one of the path's results.
The four marks of suffering also repay a look, because they are the eight sufferings redistributed by source rather than listed. Birth is what starts it; aging, sickness, and death are conditioned from within; meeting the hated, losing the loved, and lacking what is wanted are conditioned from outside; and the fifth aggregate-suffering is put in a class of its own as coarse heaviness — not an event at all, but the standing unworkability of the thing one is. The arrangement makes visible what fascicle 15 argued at length, that the last of the eight is a different kind of item from the other seven.
11. Why They Are Called Truths
云何世俗等說名為諦？頌曰：
彼覺無乖諍， 法爾、證亦然，
諦三種唯善， 復二種應知。
論曰：彼覺無乖諍法爾者，謂世間愚夫等由法爾故，於彼諸法覺無乖諍，名世俗諦法爾。證亦然者，謂諸已見諦者，如其法性證無乖諍，名勝義諦由此道理。薄伽梵說：一切聖者以此為諦，故名聖諦。又苦等四諦當知，初二通善、不善、無記三性，餘唯是善。又善有二種，謂世間、出世間。此復二種，謂斷及道所攝。
Why are the conventional and the rest called truths?
Their awareness is without dispute,
such is the way of things; realization likewise.
Three of the truths are wholesome only,
and two kinds further are to be known.
The exposition: their awareness is without dispute, such being the way of things, means that foolish worldlings and the rest, by the very way of things, have an awareness of those things that is without dispute; this is called the conventional truth being the way of things. Realization likewise means that those who have seen the truths realize, as the nature of things is, without dispute; and by this principle it is called the ultimate truth. The Blessed One said: all the noble ones take this as truth, and therefore they are called noble truths. Further, of the four truths beginning with suffering, know that the first two run through all three natures, wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate, while the remaining two are wholesome alone. And the wholesome is of two kinds, worldly and transcendent; and this again is of two kinds, comprised within abandoning and within the path.
The criterion offered for calling something a truth is agreement — 無乖諍, without dispute — and the same criterion is applied twice, at two levels, which is the elegant part. Ordinary people do not disagree with each other about the conventional; that is what makes it a truth. Those who have seen the truths do not disagree with each other about the ultimate; that is what makes it a truth. In neither case is truth defined by correspondence to something. It is defined by the absence of quarrel among those competent to judge, and the scriptural tag is glossed to fit: they are called noble truths because 一切聖者以此為諦, all the noble ones take these as truth.
The remark that the first two truths run through all three moral natures while the last two are wholesome alone is a small clarification with a sharp edge. Suffering and its origin include wholesome things — a good deed done within saṃsāra is part of the truth of suffering. Only cessation and the path are exclusively wholesome. Being good is not, on this accounting, the same as being free, and the four truths are arranged so that one cannot confuse them.
12. The Seven Supports, and Skill in Concentration and Attainment
如是已說諦事決擇，依止決擇今當說。頌曰：
當知七依止， 三種所依性，
彼善巧二種， 四句等廣說。
論曰：當知由三種所依性故，薄伽梵說七種依止。何等名為三種所依？一漏盡所依、二功德發起所依、三現法樂住所依。又此依止有二種善巧應知：一、三摩地善巧；二、三摩鉢底善巧。此有四句等廣分別，如薄伽梵說嗢柁南伽他曰：
「或有靜慮者， 三摩地善巧，
或三摩鉢底， 或俱不俱等。」
云何三摩地善巧非三摩鉢底善巧？謂於空等三三摩地善巧故，非於勝處、遍處、滅盡定等善巧故。云何三摩鉢底善巧非三摩地善巧？
謂於勝處、遍處、無想定等若入若出三摩鉢底善巧故，非於三三摩地善巧故。云何俱善巧？謂於所說三摩地、三摩鉢底差別俱善巧故。云何俱非善巧？謂於所說三摩地、三摩鉢底差別俱不善巧故。
復次三摩地善巧非三摩鉢底善巧者，謂善了知所入三摩地名句文差別故，不善了知能入三摩地諸行狀相故。三摩鉢底善巧非三摩地善巧者，謂如有一能善了知所入三摩地諸行狀相而入彼定，不善了知此三摩地名句文差別，謂我今入如此如此名三摩地。又有菩薩能入若百三摩地、若千三摩地等，然彼不能了知彼定名句文身差別，謂我今入如此如此名三摩地，乃至未從諸佛及得第一究竟菩薩摩訶薩所聞，或自未得第一究竟。
The determination regarding the matter of the truths having thus been stated, the determination regarding supports shall now be stated.
Know the seven supports,
the three natures of what supports;
skill in them is of two kinds,
expounded at length in four alternatives and the rest.
The exposition: know that by reason of three natures of what supports, the Blessed One taught seven supports. What are the three? The support for the exhaustion of the contaminants; the support for arousing qualities; and the support for dwelling at ease in the present life. And know that skill in these supports is of two kinds: skill in concentration, and skill in the attainments. This is distinguished at length in four alternatives and the rest, as the Blessed One said in an uddāna verse:
"Some who practice absorption
are skilled in concentration;
some in the attainments;
some in both, some in neither, and so on."
What is skill in concentration and not in the attainments? Being skilled in the three concentrations beginning with emptiness, and not skilled in the bases of mastery, the totalities, the attainment of cessation, and the rest. What is skill in the attainments and not in concentration?
Being skilled in entering and rising from the attainments — the bases of mastery, the totalities, the attainment of no-thought, and the rest — and not skilled in the three concentrations. What is skill in both? Being skilled in the distinctions of both concentration and the attainments as stated. What is skill in neither? Being unskilled in the distinctions of both concentration and the attainments as stated.
Further, skill in concentration and not in the attainments means understanding well the distinctions of name, phrase, and syllable for the concentration one enters, while not understanding well the modes and appearances of the practices by which one enters it. Skill in the attainments and not in concentration means, for example, that someone understands well the modes and appearances of the practices for the concentration he enters and so enters it, but does not understand well the distinctions of name, phrase, and syllable for this concentration — such as that "I am now entering the concentration called such-and-such." And there are bodhisattvas who can enter a hundred concentrations, or a thousand, and yet cannot understand the distinctions of name, phrase, and syllable for those concentrations — such as "I am now entering the concentration called such-and-such" — until they have heard it from the buddhas or from bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who have reached the first and final stage, or until they themselves have reached the first and final stage.
The four-line verse here is the first quotation of someone else's verse in this chapter, and the collation confirms it: it does not appear in T1603, which contains only Asaṅga's own root verses. The source marks it with quotation marks and introduces it as 薄伽梵說嗢柁南伽他, an uddāna verse spoken by the Blessed One — an uddāna being a mnemonic summary verse of the kind that punctuates the canonical collections. It is set here as quoted matter, and it is worth noting that the treatise's arithmetic of verse lines only works once such citations are separated out.
The distinction the passage draws is between knowing how to do something and knowing what it is called, and Asaṅga is unusually direct about which is which. A practitioner may enter a hundred concentrations without being able to name one of them, because naming requires 名句文差別 — the technical vocabulary — and that has to be learned from someone. The example given is a bodhisattva, not a beginner. Meditative capacity and doctrinal literacy are separate accomplishments, and the treatise treats the second as genuinely dependent on transmission: one gets it from the buddhas, or from bodhisattvas at the final stage, or by arriving there oneself.
13. Abiding in a Concentration, and Getting Up from One
問：云何住定？答：謂如有一，於能入定諸行狀相善能了取，善了取故隨其所欲住所入定。又於所入諸三摩地無有退失。如是有二種住：一安住於定故名為住、二能不退失故名為住。問：云何起定？
答：謂如有一，於能入定諸行狀相不復思惟，但以不定地分別相所攝定地同分作意思惟諸法故，從此三摩地起；或因隨所作故起、或因決定所作故起、或因期願所作故起。隨所作者，謂衣鉢眾具業。
決定所作者，謂大小便利、供事師長、乞食等行。期願所作者，謂如有一，期許為他隨有所作，或為更入餘定，故從定起。問：云何為行？答：行所緣境而入於定，故名為行。謂依三摩地所起麁、靜、病、癰、箭、無常等行。問：云何名狀？答：若有將入定者，爾時必有定相生起。由此相故行者自知，我當不久將入如是如是相定，或復已入。又教授師亦知，此行者有如是如是相起，不久當入如是如是定。
問：云何名相？答：相有二種，一者境相、二者因相。境相者，謂分別相，由緣此故而入於定。因相者，謂能入定所有資糧，如隨順言教定具積集修俱樂欲厭離之心，極善了知亂不亂相，及不為他之所觸惱，或人非人或聲所作或用所作。
Question: what is abiding in concentration? Answer: someone takes up well the modes and appearances of the practices by which he can enter concentration; and because he takes them up well, he abides in the concentration he has entered as long as he wishes. And he does not fall away from the concentrations he has entered. Thus there are two kinds of abiding: abiding in the sense of settling in the concentration, and abiding in the sense of being able not to fall away.
Question: what is rising from concentration? Answer: someone no longer reflects on the modes and appearances of the practices by which he can enter concentration, but reflects on things with an attention that corresponds to the concentrated level while comprised within the discriminating marks of an unconcentrated level, and so rises from that concentration. Or he rises on account of something to be done as it arises; or on account of something that must be done; or on account of something he has undertaken to do. Something to be done as it arises means the business of robes, bowl, and requisites.
Something that must be done means relieving oneself, attending on one's teachers and elders, going for alms, and the like. Something one has undertaken to do means that someone has promised to do whatever may be needed for another, or intends to enter some other concentration, and so rises from concentration. Question: what is a practice? Answer: one proceeds upon an object taken and thereby enters concentration, and so it is called a practice — namely the practices arisen in dependence on concentration, of the coarse, the still, illness, a boil, an arrow, impermanence, and the like. Question: what is called an appearance? Answer: when someone is about to enter concentration, at that time a mark of the concentration certainly arises. By this mark the practitioner knows for himself: before long I am going to enter a concentration of such-and-such a mark, or I have already entered it. And his instructor also knows: this practitioner has such-and-such a mark arising, and before long will enter such-and-such a concentration.
Question: what is called a mark? Answer: marks are of two kinds, the mark that is an object and the mark that is a cause. The mark that is an object means the discriminated mark, by taking which as object one enters concentration. The mark that is a cause means the whole provision by which one can enter concentration — such as conforming to the instructions, accumulating the equipment for concentration, a mind that both delights in cultivating and is weary of the world, understanding extremely well the marks of being disordered and undisordered, and not being disturbed by others, whether by humans or non-humans, by something done by sound, or by something done in the course of use.
This is the treatise at its most practical, and the passage on rising from concentration is the one that will surprise readers who expect meditation literature to be solemn. Why does a practitioner get up? Because of robes and bowl and equipment. Because he has to relieve himself, wait on his teacher, or go for alms. Because he promised someone he would do something. Because he wants to enter a different concentration. Four reasons, and three of them are errands. The absorptions are here embedded in a monastic day, and the treatise sees nothing incongruous in listing 大小便利 immediately before 供事師長.
The account of 狀, appearance, is the most useful thing in the section for anyone actually practicing: before a concentration is entered, a mark of it arises, and by that mark the practitioner knows what is coming. What makes the observation more than introspective is the sentence that follows — 又教授師亦知, and his instructor also knows. The signs are legible from outside. That is a claim about the transmissibility of meditative instruction, and it is the reason a teacher can say something useful about a state the student has not yet reached.
14. Tractability, Range, and What Makes a Concentration Lovable
問：云何名調順？答：若三摩地為諸行相之所拘執，猶如持水法爾被執，不靜不妙非安隱道，不能證得心定一趣。當知爾時此三摩地不名調順，不隨意住。與此相違名為調順。
問：云何名所行？答：謂三摩地境界，若過此境定不能知。如入初靜慮，不能知見第二靜慮等事，如是根度及補特伽羅度亦不知見。
問：云何引發？答：謂能略攝廣文句義，及能發起諸勝功德。
問：何等三摩地名為可愛？答：謂具慚愧愛敬淨信、如理作意憶念正知、守護諸根持戒無悔等，乃至樂為最後如其所樂入三摩地。當知翻此名非可愛。
問：云何可愛不可愛？謂慚愧等少分成就、少分不成就，謂具慚愧，非愛敬相應等，乃至廣說。
問：云何為增？答：謂三摩地已得增長。問：云何為減？答：謂三摩地得已退失。問：云何方便？答：謂趣二之道。
問：云何奢摩他？答：謂無分別影像作意相。
問：云何執受？答：謂由隨一若清淨相或光明相起執取相。
問：云何棄捨？答：謂於善品已得平等增上捨相。
Question: what is called tractable? Answer: if a concentration is held fast by the marks of the practices — held as it were the way water is held, by the very way of things — then it is not still, not excellent, not a path of ease, and it cannot realize the mind settled and one-pointed. Know that at such a time this concentration is not called tractable, and does not abide as one wishes. The contrary of this is called tractable.
Question: what is called its range? Answer: the objects of a concentration; beyond these objects the concentration cannot know. Thus one who has entered the first absorption cannot know or see the matters of the second absorption and the rest; and in the same way he does not know or see the measure of the faculties or the measure of persons.
Question: what is elicitation? Answer: being able to gather in brief the meaning of extensive texts and phrases, and being able to arouse the excellent qualities.
Question: what sort of concentration is called lovable? Answer: one endowed with a sense of shame and embarrassment, with affection, respect, and pure faith, with attention in accordance with reason, recollection and correct knowledge, with guarding the faculties, keeping moral discipline, and being without regret — down to delight as the last of them — and entering concentration as one delights to. Know that the reverse of this is called not lovable.
Question: what is both lovable and not lovable? A partial accomplishment and a partial non-accomplishment of the sense of shame and the rest — namely, being endowed with a sense of shame and embarrassment but not associated with affection and respect, and so on at length.
Question: what is increase? Answer: a concentration having grown. Question: what is decrease? Answer: a concentration having been obtained and then lost. Question: what is the means? Answer: the path leading to these two.
Question: what is calm abiding? Answer: the mark of attention to an image free of discrimination.
Question: what is appropriation? Answer: giving rise to the mark of grasping by way of some one thing, whether a mark of purity or a mark of radiance.
Question: what is relinquishing? Answer: the mark of an even and dominant equanimity, already obtained with respect to the wholesome.
The simile for an intractable concentration is the best thing in the passage and repays a moment's thought. 猶如持水法爾被執 — held as water is held, by the very way of things. Water in the hand is held and yet not held; it takes the shape of what contains it and cannot be shaped by it. A concentration gripped by the marks of the practices is like that: it is being held, but not by anyone who could direct it, and so it does not abide as one wishes. The point is that a concentration can be genuinely present and still be useless, because being in it and being able to work with it are different.
The account of a lovable concentration is a list of prerequisites that contains not one technical meditative term. Shame and embarrassment, affection and respect, faith, right attention, mindfulness, correct knowledge, guarded senses, kept precepts, and an untroubled conscience. Then, at the end of that list and only there, 樂, delight — and entering the concentration as one delights to. Every item is a matter of character or conduct. Whether one enjoys one's own meditation turns out, on this account, to be almost entirely a question of how one has been living.
15. The Four Absorptions, and What Each Counteracts
復次依諸靜慮勝決擇今當說。頌曰：
靜慮數障分， 及彼廣建立，
遠離於苦動， 後後分勝異。
論曰：如上所說四種靜慮，云何唯四不多不少？由出苦樂事究竟故。所以者何？漸次乃至第四靜慮，憂苦喜樂得超度故。
問：初靜慮所治障云何？答：有五種應知，一貪恚害尋、二苦、三憂、四犯戒、五散亂。
問：第二靜慮所治障云何？答：亦有五種應知，一初靜慮貪、二尋伺、三苦、四掉、五定下劣性。
問：第三靜慮所治障云何？答：有四種應知，一第二靜慮貪、二喜、三踊躍、四定下劣性。
問：第四靜慮所治障云何？答：亦有五種應知，一入出息、二第三靜慮貪、三樂、四樂作意、五定下劣性。
Further, the superior determination regarding the absorptions shall now be stated.
The number of absorptions, their obstructions and factors,
and the establishing of these at length;
keeping far from suffering and from movement;
each later one excels in its distinction.
The exposition: as to the four absorptions stated above, why are they exactly four, neither more nor fewer? Because the matter of getting out of pain and pleasure is thereby brought to its end. Why? Because in succession, on up to the fourth absorption, grief, pain, joy, and pleasure are surpassed.
Question: what are the obstructions counteracted by the first absorption? Answer: five, to be known — discursive thoughts of craving, hatred, and harming; pain; grief; breaking the precepts; and distraction.
Question: what are the obstructions counteracted by the second absorption? Answer: likewise five, to be known — craving for the first absorption; coarse and subtle discursive thought; pain; excitement; and the inferiority of the concentration.
Question: what are the obstructions counteracted by the third absorption? Answer: four, to be known — craving for the second absorption; joy; elation; and the inferiority of the concentration.
Question: what are the obstructions counteracted by the fourth absorption? Answer: likewise five, to be known — the in-breath and out-breath; craving for the third absorption; pleasure; attention to pleasure; and the inferiority of the concentration.
The answer to why there are exactly four absorptions is one sentence and it is a good one: 由出苦樂事究竟故, because the business of getting out of pain and pleasure is thereby finished. Four affective states have to go — grief, pain, joy, pleasure — and the absorptions are however many stages it takes to shed them, which is four. The number is not doctrinal furniture; it is the length of a specific job.
What makes the list of obstructions worth reading closely is that each absorption's first obstruction is craving for the one below it. The second is obstructed by craving for the first, the third by craving for the second, the fourth by craving for the third. At every step, the thing standing in the way is the previous achievement — not a failure but a success one has become attached to. And the recurring fifth item, 定下劣性, the inferiority of the concentration, says the same thing from the other side: a concentration that is good enough to keep is the obstacle to the one above it.
16. The Factors of the Absorptions
問：於諸靜慮有幾支耶？答：初有五支。何等為五？謂尋、伺、喜、樂、心一境性。第二靜慮有四支，謂內等淨、喜、樂、心一境性。問：內等淨以何法為體？答：以念正知及捨為體。第三靜慮有五支，謂念、正知、捨、樂、心一境性。第四靜慮有四支，謂捨清淨、念清淨、不苦不樂、心一境性。問：念、正知、捨一切處有，何故於初靜慮等不說耶？答：初靜慮中由尋伺門所引發故，雖有不說；第二靜慮中有踊躍自體之所作業，及心所有少分煩惱所纏覆故，總以內等淨名顯之；第三靜慮中彼心所有少分煩惱皆遠離故，顯彼自相故，經中說遠離喜貪。初靜慮中雖離欲貪，未離喜貪；第二靜慮中雖離尋伺貪，未離喜貪；第四靜慮中即此捨念極善清淨顯了。是故於諸靜慮中如其所應彼差別應知。
Question: how many factors are there in the absorptions? Answer: the first has five. What five? Coarse discursive thought, subtle discursive thought, joy, pleasure, and one-pointedness of mind. The second absorption has four factors: inner clarity, joy, pleasure, and one-pointedness of mind. Question: what things are the substance of inner clarity? Answer: recollection, correct knowledge, and equanimity are its substance. The third absorption has five factors: recollection, correct knowledge, equanimity, pleasure, and one-pointedness of mind. The fourth absorption has four factors: purity of equanimity, purity of recollection, neither pain nor pleasure, and one-pointedness of mind. Question: recollection, correct knowledge, and equanimity are present everywhere; why then are they not stated in the first absorption and the rest? Answer: in the first absorption they are drawn forth by the gate of coarse and subtle discursive thought, and so, although present, they are not stated. In the second absorption there is the work done by the substance of elation, and the mental factors are covered over by some small part of the afflictions, and so they are displayed under the single name of inner clarity. In the third absorption those small parts of affliction among the mental factors are all kept far away, and so as to display their own mark, the scripture speaks of keeping far from delight and greed. In the first absorption, although one is free of craving for objects of desire, one is not yet free of craving for joy; in the second absorption, although one is free of craving for coarse and subtle discursive thought, one is not yet free of craving for joy. And in the fourth absorption this very equanimity and recollection are displayed as extremely well purified. Therefore in the absorptions these differences should be known, each as is fitting.
The question here is a good one and it is the sort of thing that only arises from taking the canonical formulas seriously. Recollection, correct knowledge, and equanimity are always present — so why does the standard description of the first absorption not mention them? The answer is that a formula names what is salient, not what is present. In the first absorption these three are working through the gate of discursive thought and are not visible as themselves; in the second they are bundled under the single term "inner clarity"; in the third they are named separately, because by then the afflictions that obscured them are gone; and in the fourth they appear again as "purified," because that is what has changed.
The gloss on 內等淨, inner clarity, as recollection, correct knowledge, and equanimity is the useful piece of technical information in the section. The term is often left vague in translation, and here Asaṅga simply says what it is made of. What the second absorption gains when discursive thought drops away is not a new faculty but the emergence into view of three that were always working.
17. Why Factors at All, and Two Questions about the First Absorption
問：何故於四靜慮建立四支五支耶？答：住所依故、住順益故、住自體故。復次思惟境界故、受用境界故、於境不散故。復次順益所依故、增上心所依故、增上慧所依故。復次為對治三種惱亂住障故。三種惱亂住者，謂染污住、苦住、迷亂住。復次如受用五欲者有三種正所作事，顯彼受用諸欲，一以正方便求所受用、二求得已正受用、三自在隨轉。如是修靜慮者依三種正所作事，如其所應建立支分應知。復次為對治自苦行故，修靜慮者建立支分應知。此復三種對治：一離欲對治、二止息身心逼惱對治、三外心散亂寂靜對治。問：何故初靜慮中說離欲已，復說遠離惡不善法？答：為顯諸欲自相及顯過患相故。過患相者，謂彼諸欲起惡行已墮極下處，故名為惡；違善法生，故名不善。復次為顯能斷煩惱雜染故，及顯能斷先所積集業雜染故。復次為顯斷在家者受用事門所生欲故，及顯斷出家者於尋伺門所生法故。復次為顯斷欲尋故，及顯斷恚尋害尋故。復次為顯同彼外仙所得相故，及顯斷彼退已起惡呪故。
問：何故苦根初靜慮中說未斷耶？答：彼品麁重未遠離故。若初靜慮已斷苦根麁重品者，與住第二靜慮時應無差別，是故當知初靜慮中未斷麁重苦品。問：尋伺等法於初靜慮等中能為順益攝受自地令得清淨，何故如來說彼名動？答：望他地故說名為動，非望自地。
問：何故從欲界及於初靜慮等中建立後後支耶？答：略有三因，謂能治所治故、證利益故、證自體故。如是三因，於四靜慮中五支所攝，如其所應當知。問：第二靜慮望初靜慮有何勝異？答：三摩地圓滿勝異。問：第三靜慮望第二靜慮有何勝異？答：順益圓滿勝異。問：第四靜慮望第三靜慮有何勝異？答：清淨圓滿勝異。
Question: why are four factors and five established in the four absorptions? Answer: because of what the abiding rests on, because of what conduces to the abiding, and because of the substance of the abiding. Again: because one reflects on the object, because one enjoys the object, and because one is not scattered with respect to the object. Again: because of what conducive benefit rests on, because of what the higher mind rests on, and because of what the higher wisdom rests on. Again: in order to counteract three obstructions that disturb the abiding — namely defiled abiding, painful abiding, and confused abiding. Again: as one who enjoys the five objects of desire has three proper undertakings that display his enjoyment of those desires — first, seeking what is to be enjoyed by proper means; second, having obtained it, properly enjoying it; and third, having mastery over it as it turns — so too one who cultivates the absorptions has three proper undertakings, and the factors should be known as established accordingly. Again: the factors should be known as established by one who cultivates the absorptions in order to counteract self-mortification. And this is again a threefold counteraction: the counteraction that is freedom from craving; the counteraction that stills the oppression of body and mind; and the counteraction that quiets outward distraction of mind. Question: why, in the first absorption, having said "free of craving," does it also say "keeping far from evil and unwholesome things"? Answer: in order to display the particular mark of the objects of desire and to display the mark of their danger. The mark of danger is that those desires, having given rise to evil conduct, cast one down to the lowest places, and so are called evil; and they arise contrary to wholesome things, and so are called unwholesome. Again: in order to display that one can cut the defilement of affliction, and to display that one can cut the defilement of karma previously accumulated. Again: in order to display cutting the desire arisen by the gate of enjoyment in a householder, and to display cutting what arises by the gate of discursive thought in a renunciant. Again: in order to display cutting discursive thought of desire, and to display cutting discursive thought of hatred and of harming. Again: in order to display the mark shared with what the outside sages attain, and to display cutting the evil spells they utter after falling back from it.
Question: why is it said that the faculty of pain is not yet cut off in the first absorption? Answer: because that class of coarse heaviness has not yet been kept far away. If the coarse heaviness of the class of the faculty of pain were already cut off in the first absorption, there would be no difference between it and abiding in the second absorption; therefore know that in the first absorption the coarse heaviness of the class of pain is not yet cut. Question: coarse and subtle discursive thought and the rest, in the first absorption and so on, can conduce to benefit and take in one's own level and bring it to purity; why then did the Tathāgata call them movement? Answer: they are called movement with respect to another level, not with respect to their own.
Question: why are the later and later factors established from the desire realm and in the first absorption and the rest? Answer: in brief for three reasons: because of antidote and what is counteracted; because of realizing the benefit; and because of realizing the substance. These three reasons are comprised within the five factors in the four absorptions, each as is fitting. Question: in what does the second absorption excel the first? Answer: in the excellence of the fullness of concentration. Question: in what does the third absorption excel the second? Answer: in the excellence of the fullness of conducive benefit. Question: in what does the fourth absorption excel the third? Answer: in the excellence of the fullness of purity.
The comparison in the middle is the boldest thing in this fascicle and it is offered without embarrassment: the three undertakings of a man enjoying the objects of desire — seeking them properly, enjoying them once obtained, having mastery over them — are the same three by which the factors of the absorptions are organized. Meditation is structured like pleasure-seeking, and the treatise says so in order to explain the shape of the factor lists. This is also, read the other way, why craving for a lower absorption is the standing obstruction to the next: the absorptions are enjoyed, and the enjoyment is the problem.
The last of the reasons for the doubled phrase in the first absorption formula is an unexpected piece of religious history. Why does the formula say both "free of craving" and "keeping far from evil and unwholesome things"? Among other reasons: 為顯同彼外仙所得相故，及顯斷彼退已起惡呪故 — to display the mark shared with what the outside sages attain, and to display cutting the evil spells they utter after falling back. The first absorption is granted, without qualification, to non-Buddhist practitioners. What distinguishes the Buddhist version is the second clause, and the danger it names is specific: sages who lose their attainment and then curse. The same episode is used as an example again in the section on falling back below.
18. The Access Concentrations, and Eight Attainments
復次頌曰：
近分喜有動， 唯初能盡漏，
亦二種緣聲， 八等至捨八。
論曰：初靜慮近分喜有動，非如根本靜慮喜。又初近分未至所攝定能盡諸漏非餘。又初近分有二種，謂世間、出世間。餘近分唯世間，由已得初根本無漏靜慮故，非於上地諸近分定無漏現前。又處定中取外聲時，當知由二種取：一由了別定所緣境及種種所緣境意識故、二由此俱生耳識故。八等至捨八者，謂八種三摩鉢底能捨八事捨。何等八？謂捨語、尋、喜、樂故，證四靜慮三摩鉢底；捨色、空、識、無所有處想故，證四無色三摩鉢底。
Furthermore:
In the access, joy has movement;
the first alone can exhaust the contaminants;
and there are two ways of taking sound;
eight attainments relinquish eight.
The exposition: in the access to the first absorption, joy has movement, and is not like the joy of the fundamental absorption. Again, the concentration comprised within the access to the first, the not-yet-arrived, can exhaust the contaminants, and the others cannot. Again, the access to the first is of two kinds, worldly and transcendent; the remaining accesses are worldly only, since one has already obtained the first fundamental uncontaminated absorption, and it is not that the uncontaminated is present in the access concentrations of the higher levels. Again, when one takes an outer sound while in concentration, know that it is taken in two ways: by the mind consciousness that cognizes the object of the concentration and objects of various kinds; and by the ear consciousness arising together with it. As for eight attainments relinquishing eight: the eight attainments are able to relinquish eight things. What eight? Because one relinquishes speech, discursive thought, joy, and pleasure, one realizes the four absorptions as attainments; and because one relinquishes the notions of form, of space, of consciousness, and of nothing whatever, one realizes the four formless attainments.
The claim about the access to the first absorption is doctrinally significant and easy to pass over. 未至定 — the not-yet-arrived — is the threshold state before the first absorption proper, and this passage says that it alone among the accesses can exhaust the contaminants, and that it alone can be transcendent rather than merely worldly. The shallowest meditative state on the list is the one that can carry the path. This is the same conclusion fascicle 16 reached in restricting direct realization to the absorptions rather than the formless attainments, pushed one step further down.
The remark about hearing sounds in concentration answers a question meditators actually have. If one is absorbed, how does one hear the bell? The answer is that both an ear consciousness and the mind consciousness are running, which is only possible because consciousnesses run concurrently — the doctrine argued at length in fascicle 17. A system that allowed one consciousness at a time would have to say that hearing the bell means the concentration has stopped.
19. Why Only the Absorptions Give Ease Here and Now
復次頌曰：
現法安樂住， 能入於現觀，
讚說想解脫， 四種因當知。
論曰：唯諸靜慮是現法安樂住性，具有身心二種安故；非無色定，無身安故。又依靜慮能入現觀，非無色定，以諸靜慮毘鉢舍那極猛利故。又修靜慮及諸定者，於無色解脫數入數出讚說彼相，極寂靜故。又諸外道於無色定起解脫想故數數讚說。又依有想三摩地解脫能盡諸漏，乃至無所有處三摩地極猛利故。是故薄伽梵說：唯依有想三摩鉢底領解通達，非於餘地。四種因者，謂諸三摩鉢底能為現法安樂住等四種依因，如其次第應知。
Furthermore:
Dwelling at ease in the present life;
being able to enter direct realization;
praise, and the notion of liberation —
four causes are to be known.
The exposition: only the absorptions are of the nature of dwelling at ease in the present life, since they possess both kinds of ease, of body and of mind; the formless concentrations are not, since they have no bodily ease. Again, one can enter direct realization in dependence on the absorptions and not on the formless concentrations, since insight in the absorptions is extremely keen. Again, those who cultivate the absorptions and the concentrations enter and rise from the formless liberations again and again and praise their marks, since they are extremely still. Again, the outsiders give rise to the notion that the formless concentrations are liberation, and so praise them again and again. Again, in dependence on the liberation of concentrations that have perception one can exhaust the contaminants, on up to the concentration of the sphere of nothing whatever, since it is extremely keen. Therefore the Blessed One said: it is only in dependence on the attainments that have perception that one understands and penetrates, and not on the other levels. As for the four causes: the attainments serve as the four causes on which dwelling at ease in the present life and the rest depend, and should be known in that order.
The reason given for why only the absorptions are "dwelling at ease in the present life" is refreshingly physical: 具有身心二種安故, they possess both kinds of ease, of body and of mind, whereas the formless attainments 無身安, have no bodily ease. There is no body in the formless realm to be at ease. Whatever the formless attainments are worth, they are not comfortable, because comfort is a condition of a body, and the treatise declines to spiritualize the term.
The third and fourth reasons are placed side by side and the juxtaposition is pointed. Buddhist practitioners praise the formless liberations because they are extremely still. Non-Buddhists praise them because they mistake them for liberation itself. The same states, the same enthusiasm, and the difference is entirely in what one takes them to be. Then the limit is stated with the Blessed One's authority: penetration happens only 有想, where there is perception — so the highest attainments, where perception is attenuated to nothing, are precisely where insight cannot occur.
20. How a Practitioner Loses a Concentration
復次頌曰：
愛味等當知， 十種、六、三種，
退相續障治， 各多種差別。
論曰：愛味相應清淨無漏三種靜慮，如其次第有十種、六種、三種應知。云何十種？謂如攝事品已說。云何六種？謂六種清淨：一引發清淨、二上練清淨、三後得清淨、四垢染清淨、五攝清淨、六堪任清淨。云何三種？謂出世間無漏、離繫無漏、後得無漏。
又從離欲退彼相續，彼障治應知各有多種。謂或由依止不平等故退，謂如有一遭於重疾退失於定。如尊者伐勒迦梨說：我今於此三摩地不能證入，將無於此三摩地由多麁重故而退失耶？又如有一，為性多麁重，由宿習故，由此多麁重故退三摩地。或由境界勝妙故退，謂如有一，得勝妙境界現前故退失定，如聞有外道仙人乃至得非想非非想處定，由觸可愛妙色少女身故退失彼定。或由敬養故退，謂如有一，現前獲得勝妙敬養便退失定，如天與等。或由輕毀故退，謂如有一，被他瞋毀訶責便退失定，如諸外仙瞋忿退已行諸惡呪。或由憍慢故退，謂如有一，因所得定自舉陵他退失於定。或由增上慢故退，謂如有一，於所未得定起已，得增上慢故退所得定。或由不作意故退，謂如有一，先由如是諸行狀相得入諸定，彼於後時更不思惟此行狀相故退失於定。或由不純熟故退，謂如有一，修習始業創發善品。或由自煩惱多現在前故退失定，謂如有一，愛上靜慮乃至疑上靜慮故退失定。或由壽盡、福盡、業盡故退，謂如有一，從上地生處捨命墮下地生。復次若下品煩惱、下品善根補特伽羅，由多剎那用功方退，由多剎那用功方得入定。若下品煩惱、上品善根補特伽羅，由多剎那用功方退，由一剎那速得入定。若上品煩惱、下品善根補特伽羅，由一剎那速退失定，多念用功方能入定。若上品煩惱、上品善根補特伽羅，由一剎那速退失定，由一剎那速能入定。
Furthermore:
Those with relish and the rest are to be known
as ten kinds, six, and three;
falling back, the continuum, obstruction and antidote —
each with many distinctions.
The exposition: the three kinds of absorption — associated with relish, pure, and uncontaminated — are of ten kinds, six kinds, and three kinds respectively, to be known. What ten? As stated in the chapter on Gathering the Topics. What six? Six kinds of purity: purity of eliciting; purity of higher refining; purity subsequently attained; purity from stain and defilement; purity of taking in; and purity of fitness. What three? The transcendent uncontaminated; the uncontaminated that is separation from bonds; and the uncontaminated subsequently attained.
Further, as to falling back from freedom from craving and the continuum of that, its obstructions and antidotes should be known as of many kinds each. One may fall back because the support is unbalanced — as when someone meets with a grave illness and falls away from concentration. As the venerable Vakkalī said: I cannot now realize and enter this concentration; is it not that I have fallen away from this concentration because of much coarse heaviness? Or again, someone is by nature full of coarse heaviness through former habituation, and by that much coarse heaviness falls away from concentration. Or one falls back because of an excellent object — as when someone has an excellent object present before him and falls away from concentration, as it is heard that an outsider sage who had attained even the concentration of the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception fell away from it through the touch of a young woman's lovely body. Or one falls back because of honor and support — as when someone presently obtains excellent honor and support and falls away from concentration, as in the case of Devadatta and the like. Or one falls back because of contempt — as when someone is angrily abused and rebuked by another and falls away from concentration, as with the outside sages who, having fallen back in rage and fury, then work evil spells. Or one falls back because of conceit — as when someone, on account of the concentration he has obtained, exalts himself and looks down on others, and falls away from concentration. Or one falls back because of overweening pride — as when someone gives rise to overweening pride about a concentration he has not obtained, and so falls away from the one he has. Or one falls back because of not attending — as when someone entered the concentrations by such-and-such modes and appearances of practice, and afterward no longer reflects on those modes and appearances, and so falls away. Or one falls back because of not being seasoned — as with someone at the beginning of his practice, newly setting out on the wholesome. Or one falls away from concentration because many of one's own afflictions are present — as when someone craves a higher absorption, or on down to doubting a higher absorption, and so falls away. Or one falls back because life is exhausted, merit is exhausted, or karma is exhausted — as when someone, from a place of birth on a higher level, relinquishes life and falls to birth on a lower level. Further: a person with afflictions of the lower grade and wholesome roots of the lower grade falls back only after many moments of effort, and enters concentration only after many moments of effort. A person with afflictions of the lower grade and wholesome roots of the higher grade falls back only after many moments of effort, and enters concentration swiftly in a single moment. A person with afflictions of the higher grade and wholesome roots of the lower grade falls away swiftly in a single moment, and enters concentration only with many moments of effort. A person with afflictions of the higher grade and wholesome roots of the higher grade falls away swiftly in a single moment, and enters concentration swiftly in a single moment.
This is the most vivid passage in the treatise and one of the few places where it names people. Vakkalī is quoted in his own words, asking whether his illness has cost him his concentration — a question, not a statement, and the diffidence of it is preserved in the Chinese. Devadatta appears as the case of a man ruined by 敬養, honor and support; the Buddha's cousin lost his attainments to patronage. And the outside sages appear twice, once losing the highest of all formless attainments to a moment of physical contact, and once losing theirs to being insulted and then cursing in revenge — the same sages the section on the first absorption mentioned for exactly this.
What the eleven cases have in common is that almost none of them is a failure of technique. Illness, a body constitutionally heavy, a beautiful person, praise, insult, one's own conceit, believing one has attained more than one has, simply not bothering to attend any more, inexperience, wanting the next absorption, and the running out of a life. Concentration is presented as something held on loan, exposed to the whole of one's circumstances and character, and the list is arranged so that no reader can locate himself outside it.
The fourfold grid at the end is the least dramatic part and the most quietly discouraging. Cross afflictions of high or low grade with wholesome roots of high or low grade, and you get four kinds of practitioner: slow to lose and slow to gain; slow to lose and quick to gain; quick to lose and slow to gain; quick to lose and quick to gain. The best case is not "never loses." Strong wholesome roots make one fast, not stable, and strong afflictions make one fast to lose regardless of how good one's roots are. Nobody on this grid is safe; the differences are all in recovery time.
21. Who Does Not Fall Back
復次頌曰：
利根及生轉， 當知無有退，
依下地發定， 離欲後生故。
論曰：如是退定，利根者無。若轉易生，雖鈍根者亦無有退。又靜慮等定必先依下地發起，以先於此間入定然後生彼。何以故？要先離欲者，後時得生彼故。
Furthermore:
Those of keen faculties, and those who change their birth,
are to be known as not falling back;
concentration is aroused in dependence on a lower level,
since one is born there after becoming free of craving.
The exposition: such falling away from concentration does not occur for one of keen faculties. And if one changes one's birth, then even one of dull faculties does not fall back. Again, the absorptions and the other concentrations must first be aroused in dependence on a lower level, since one enters concentration here and only afterward is born there. Why? Because it is only one who has first become free of craving who is later born there.
The last clause states a rule that governs the whole architecture of the realms and is easy to get backward. One does not attain the absorptions by being born in the form realm; one is born in the form realm because one attained the absorptions here. 先於此間入定然後生彼 — one enters concentration here, and afterward is born there. The heavens of form are the result of a practice undertaken in the desire realm, not a place where the practice is easier. This is the same fact that made the desire realm the only place where direct realization can occur, seen from the other end: everything is done down here.
22. The Factors of Enlightenment: Twenty-Seven Skillful Means
如是已說依止決擇，覺分決擇今當說。頌曰：
依二乘大乘， 由二十七相，
正方便當知， 建立於覺分。
論曰：依聲聞獨覺二乘及依大乘建立覺分，由二十七種相正方便應知。何等名為二十七種正方便？謂繫屬所緣正觀方便、捨離染污攝淨方便、修治內心調順方便、引發出世正法方便、彼無間缺方便、真實現覺方便、證餘寂滅方便、入所知方便、入斷方便、通達不淨無樂有苦方便、學圓滿方便、於境無散觀察方便、聖教不壞方便、攝智所知彼果方便、願方便、悲愍有情方便、修治智方便、法現觀方便、能治所治進趣方便、福德資糧積集方便、成熟有情方便、攝一切菩薩道方便、引發威德方便、引發言教方便、廣大甚深心積習方便、遠離匱法業方便、安住有情涅槃二界方便。
The determination regarding supports having thus been stated, the determination regarding the factors of enlightenment shall now be stated.
In dependence on the two vehicles and the Great Vehicle,
by twenty-seven aspects
of right skillful means, it is to be known,
the factors of enlightenment are established.
The exposition: the factors of enlightenment are established in dependence on the two vehicles of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas and in dependence on the Great Vehicle, and should be known by twenty-seven aspects of right skillful means. What are the twenty-seven right skillful means? The means of right observation bound to an object; the means of abandoning defilement and taking in purity; the means of cultivating and making the inner mind tractable; the means of eliciting the transcendent true Dharma; the means of its being without interval or gap; the means of true and direct awakening; the means of realizing the remaining stillness; the means of entering the knowable; the means of entering abandonment; the means of penetrating that things are impure, without pleasure, and full of suffering; the means of fulfilling the training; the means of observing without scattering with respect to objects; the means of the noble teaching not being destroyed; the means of taking in knowledge, the knowable, and their fruit; the means of vows; the means of compassion for beings; the means of cultivating knowledge; the means of the direct realization of things; the means of advancing in antidote and what is counteracted; the means of accumulating the provisions of merit; the means of ripening beings; the means of taking in the whole bodhisattva path; the means of eliciting majestic power; the means of eliciting instruction in words; the means of accumulating a vast and profound mind; the means of keeping far from actions that deprive of the Dharma; and the means of abiding in the two realms, of beings and of nirvāṇa.
Twenty-seven skillful means for a scheme of thirty-seven factors is not an accident of counting; it is a reorganization. The classical thirty-seven — four establishments of mindfulness, four right abandonings, four bases of supernormal power, five faculties, five powers, seven factors of enlightenment, eight branches of the path — are grouped by number. Here they are re-sorted by function: what each is for. And the list's second half is unmistakably Mahāyāna in a way the thirty-seven are not: vows, compassion for beings, ripening beings, taking in the whole bodhisattva path, eliciting instruction in words, and the last, 安住有情涅槃二界, abiding in the two realms, of beings and of nirvāṇa.
That final means is the non-abiding nirvāṇa of fascicle 16 stated as a skill rather than a state: being able to remain in both realms at once, neither absorbed into cessation nor lost among beings. Placing it last, as one item on a list of twenty-seven, is characteristic of this treatise's manner — the most exalted thing in the system is filed as the twenty-seventh entry with no rhetorical emphasis at all.
23. The Establishments of Mindfulness: Three Kinds of Each
復次頌曰：
身等三差別， 彼影像隨觀，
由聞等三智， 念法無迷惑。
論曰：當知身等各有三種差別。身三種者，或有身分自性不淨，如身內分；或有身分相似清淨，如身皮分；或有身分變壞不淨，如命終已青瘀等身分。受有三種者，所謂苦、樂、不苦不樂。心有三種者，謂樂等。受相應法有三種者，謂黑、白、雜。彼影像隨觀者，如尋思經說：於彼身等影像隨觀，與所知事同分類故，名為影像。
所言隨者，是相似義。又此隨觀即是三智，謂聞所生智、思所生智、修所生智。如是三智，由念力故，於彼增上緣修多羅等法無有迷惑，是故說名念住於身、受、心法，由念力住故。
Furthermore:
Body and the rest have three distinctions;
one contemplates their images accordingly;
by the three knowledges of hearing and the rest,
mindfulness of things is without confusion.
The exposition: know that body and the rest each have three distinctions. The three of body: some parts of the body are impure by their own nature, as the inner parts of the body; some parts of the body are apparently clean, as the skin of the body; and some parts of the body are impure through decay, as the parts of a body gone livid and the rest after life has ended. The three of feeling: painful, pleasant, and neither painful nor pleasant. The three of mind: pleasure and the rest. The three of the things associated with feeling: black, white, and mixed. As for contemplating their images accordingly: as the Sūtra on Investigation says, one contemplates accordingly the images of the body and the rest; and because it corresponds in kind to the matter known, it is called an image.
The word "accordingly" has the sense of resembling. And this contemplating accordingly is the three knowledges — the knowledge born of hearing, the knowledge born of reflection, and the knowledge born of cultivation. These three knowledges, by the force of mindfulness, are without confusion regarding the discourses and other teachings that are their dominant condition; and it is therefore said that mindfulness is established on body, feeling, mind, and things, because it abides by the force of mindfulness.
The three distinctions of the body are the traditional meditation on impurity sorted with unusual care: what is impure by nature, meaning the inside; what is 相似清淨, apparently clean, meaning the skin; and what becomes impure through decay, meaning the corpse. The middle term is the interesting one. Skin is not called pure, and it is not called impure; it is called apparently clean, which is exactly right and exactly what makes the practice necessary. The whole difficulty is that the surface presents well.
The gloss on 隨觀 is a small piece of philological care worth preserving: 所言隨者，是相似義 — "accordingly" has the sense of resembling. One does not contemplate the body; one contemplates an image that resembles the body, corresponding in kind to what is known. This is the same 同分影像 that fascicle 16 made the first of the all-pervading objects. The object of mindfulness practice is stated, without apology, to be a mental image rather than the thing itself.
24. Nine Obstructions, Two Attentions, Three Cultivations
復次頌曰：
彼所治九種， 作意當知二，
修差別有三， 二種無失壞。
論曰：當知諸念住有九種所治障，一不厭離、二不作意、三止觀隨煩惱、四沈下、五不能堪忍、六於少劣知足、七忘失教授、八違犯戒行、九棄捨欲樂增上猛利諸妙善軛。又於修念住有二種作意，謂不緩作意、不染作意。經言：熾盛者此顯第一，正智憶念除世間貪憂者此顯第二。又此第二能除三種雜染。何者名為三種雜染？一犯戒因緣心生變悔，由此障故能令初時心不得定。二內心惛略，由此障故雖已得定心於所緣忘失沈沒。三外心散亂，由此障故雖證勝法而著世間名聞利養，或未能證勝進之法心生憂惱。修差別有三者，修諸念住各有三種，謂於內、外、俱身等隨觀。又復於身，或唯觀影像、或以影像比類於身、或復和合總觀。如於身三種，如是乃至於法亦爾。又有二種於諸念住無有失壞：一初無失壞，謂不散亂，由此力故能善發起；二後無失壞，謂無增上慢，由此力故善修究竟。
Furthermore:
Nine kinds are counteracted;
attention is to be known as two;
cultivation is distinguished as three;
and two kinds are without failure.
The exposition: know that the establishments of mindfulness have nine obstructions to be counteracted: not being weary of the world; not attending; the secondary afflictions of calm abiding and insight; sinking down; not being able to endure; being content with what is slight and inferior; forgetting the instructions; transgressing the precepts; and casting off the excellent, dominant, keen yoke of the wholesome for the pleasures of desire. Further, in cultivating the establishments of mindfulness there are two attentions: attention that is not slack, and attention that is not defiled. The scripture's word "ardent" displays the first; "with correct knowledge and mindfulness, removing covetousness and grief for the world" displays the second. And this second can remove three defilements. What three? First, the mind giving rise to remorse on account of transgressing the precepts — by this obstruction the mind cannot become concentrated at the outset. Second, the mind being inwardly dulled and contracted — by this obstruction, although concentration has been obtained, the mind loses its object and sinks. Third, the mind being outwardly distracted — by this obstruction, although one has realized excellent things, one becomes attached to worldly fame and gain; or, not yet having realized further excellence, the mind gives rise to grief and distress. As for cultivation being distinguished as three: each of the establishments of mindfulness is cultivated in three ways, namely contemplating body and the rest inwardly, outwardly, and both. And again with respect to the body: one may contemplate the image alone, or compare the image to the body, or contemplate them together as a whole. As with the three regarding the body, so on down to things. And there are two ways in which the establishments of mindfulness are without failure: first, without failure at the outset, namely not being distracted, by which force one is able to begin well; and second, without failure afterward, namely being without overweening pride, by which force one cultivates well to the end.
The three defilements removed by undefiled attention are the three ways a practice goes wrong, laid out in temporal order, and the diagnosis is exact at each point. Before concentration: guilt about broken precepts keeps the mind from settling at all. During: the mind dulls and contracts and loses its object. After: one either becomes attached to the reputation the practice has earned, or — the last and most humane clause — one has not yet progressed further and becomes despondent about it. Discouragement at not advancing is listed as a defilement of the same order as vanity at having advanced.
The two failures at either end make a neat pair worth remembering: 不散亂 at the beginning and 無增上慢 at the end. Distraction spoils the start; overweening pride spoils the finish. A practice can be lost by never getting going, or by believing it has already arrived. The whole treatment of the establishments of mindfulness here is bracketed by those two, and the second has appeared already among the fifteen settlings of mind in fascicle 18 and among the ways one falls back from concentration above. It is the treatise's most frequently named danger.
25. Sinking and Excitement, and the Quail
復次頌曰：
為斷於沈掉， 相應道二種，
觀察捨煩惱， 及為盡三愛。
論曰：於念住修位中，為斷沈掉故，應修二種相應道。如《比丘尼經》及《取自心相經》說。云何《比丘尼經》說？如彼經言：為斷沈沒故，應當思惟少分可愛清淨相貌。為斷掉動故，復應略攝。云何《取自心相經》說？如彼經言：由不取自心相故令心沈沒，由取少分可愛外相故沈隨煩惱暫時斷息。然心未得定，復更略攝其心，見沈沒過復取外相，見掉動過後復更取自心之相，爾時能斷沈掉隨煩惱心得正定，略攝其心取自心相離沈掉故。
復次由相應道觀察故，能捨煩惱應知，如《鷃經》說。故彼經言：所言鷃者，喻行者心行。非所行處者，喻彼行者思惟可愛境界。被鷂所執者，喻彼行者為貪纏所執。鷃怨訴者，喻彼行者心生變悔。
暫放捨者，喻彼行者貪纏暫息。土塊者，喻五取蘊。大場壠者，喻無常觀。窟穴者，喻通達真如觀。喚鷂子者，喻觀察作意。鷂迅來者，喻彼貪纏將現在前。入窟穴者，喻思惟真如觀。鷂自苦害者，喻隨眠斷。
復次此相應道，當知能盡三愛，謂助伴愛、利養愛、後有愛。為對治此故，顯我與法無有差別。
Furthermore:
To cut off sinking and excitement,
the path of association is of two kinds;
by examining, one relinquishes the afflictions,
and thereby exhausts three cravings.
The exposition: at the stage of cultivating the establishments of mindfulness, in order to cut off sinking and excitement, two kinds of the path of association should be cultivated, as taught in the Sūtra of the Nun and the Sūtra on Taking Up the Mark of One's Own Mind. What does the Sūtra of the Nun say? As that sūtra says: in order to cut off sinking, one should reflect on some small lovely and pure appearance; and in order to cut off excitement, one should again gather the mind in. What does the Sūtra on Taking Up the Mark of One's Own Mind say? As that sūtra says: because one does not take up the mark of one's own mind, the mind sinks; and because one takes up some small lovely outward mark, the secondary affliction of sinking is stilled for a time. But the mind has not yet become concentrated, so one again gathers the mind in; seeing the fault of sinking, one again takes up an outward mark; seeing the fault of excitement, one afterward again takes up the mark of one's own mind. At that time one can cut off the secondary afflictions of sinking and excitement and the mind attains right concentration, since by gathering the mind in and taking up the mark of one's own mind one is free of sinking and excitement.
Further, by examining through the path of association one can relinquish the afflictions, as should be known from the Sūtra of the Quail. As that sūtra says: what is called the quail is a figure for the practitioner's mental conduct. Not the place where it should range is a figure for that practitioner reflecting on a lovely object. Being seized by the hawk is a figure for that practitioner being seized by the entanglement of craving. The quail crying out in grievance is a figure for that practitioner's mind giving rise to remorse.
Being released for a moment is a figure for that practitioner's entanglement of craving being stilled for a time. The clod of earth is a figure for the five appropriated aggregates. The great furrowed field is a figure for the contemplation of impermanence. The burrow is a figure for the contemplation that penetrates suchness. Calling out to the hawk is a figure for the attention of examination. The hawk coming swiftly is a figure for that entanglement of craving being about to appear. Entering the burrow is a figure for reflecting on the contemplation of suchness. The hawk hurting itself is a figure for the latent tendency being cut off.
Further, know that this path of association can exhaust three cravings: craving for companions, craving for gain and support, and craving for future existence. And in order to counteract these, it displays that there is no difference between self and things.
The remedy for sinking and excitement is stated with a precision that is rare in meditation instruction, and the second sūtra gives the mechanism rather than the rule. The mind sinks when it is not holding the mark of itself; it is roused by taking up some small lovely outward mark. But that only stops the sinking for a while and does not produce concentration, so one gathers in again — and gathering in brings excitement back into range. The passage then describes the oscillation frankly: see the fault of sinking, take an outward mark; see the fault of excitement, take the mark of one's own mind again. Concentration arrives out of the alternation, not from getting the setting right once.
The Sūtra of the Quail is the Sakuṇagghi Sutta, and the treatise's allegorization of it is thorough enough to be checked point by point. In the sūtra a quail leaves its own ground, is caught by a hawk, laments that it strayed, is dropped, returns to a ploughed field where it perches on a clod and taunts the hawk to come again — and the hawk, stooping at speed, strikes the clod and is destroyed. Every element is assigned: the clod is the five aggregates, the field is contemplating impermanence, the burrow is penetrating suchness, and the hawk killing itself on the clod is the cutting of the latent tendency. The moral of the original is about staying on one's own ground; the treatise keeps that and specifies where the ground is.
26. Overweening Pride, Relish, Distortion, and Three Inclinations
復次頌曰：
為斷增上慢， 味所依顛倒，
及三心趣入， 修習於念住。
論曰：為欲對治增上慢故、為欲對治愛味所依定故，及為對治四顛倒故，修習念住。為對治增上慢者，如經說：唯應於此身受心法若住憶念，乃至或唯有智、或唯有見、或唯繫念。此增上慢有二種，謂於未斷身等麁重障起，及於未圓滿止觀俱品治起。為對治愛味所依定者，如經說：無所依止故。為對治顛倒故者，如經說：於諸世間無少執取，由顛倒斷故，更不復執少五取蘊為常為樂為我為淨。
又為三心趣入修習念住應知，謂遊行聚落時心趣於出、住憒閙時心趣遠離、處於靜室心趣涅槃。又趣出生死趣、離煩惱、樂寂滅故，心趣涅槃。
Furthermore:
To cut off overweening pride,
the concentration that relish rests on, and distortion,
and for the three inclinations of mind,
one cultivates the establishments of mindfulness.
The exposition: one cultivates the establishments of mindfulness in order to counteract overweening pride, in order to counteract the concentration on which relish rests, and in order to counteract the four distortions. As for counteracting overweening pride: as the scripture says, one should only abide in mindfulness with respect to this body, feeling, mind, and things — down to: there is only knowing, or only seeing, or only mindfulness bound to them. This overweening pride is of two kinds: that which arises with respect to the coarse-heaviness obstruction of the body and the rest, which is not yet cut off; and that which arises with respect to the antidote in the class of calm abiding and insight together, which is not yet fulfilled. As for counteracting the concentration on which relish rests: as the scripture says, because it rests on nothing. As for counteracting distortion: as the scripture says, there is no grasping in the least at anything in the world — for because distortion is cut off, one no longer grasps in the least at the five appropriated aggregates as permanent, as pleasant, as self, or as pure.
Further, know that one cultivates the establishments of mindfulness for the sake of three inclinations of mind: when walking through a village, the mind inclines toward going forth; when dwelling amid noise and commotion, the mind inclines toward seclusion; when in a quiet room, the mind inclines toward nirvāṇa. And because one inclines toward going out from birth and death, toward being free of affliction, and toward delighting in stillness, the mind inclines toward nirvāṇa.
The scriptural formula quoted against overweening pride is the standard closing refrain of the Satipaṭṭhāna instructions — 或唯有智、或唯有見、或唯繫念, there is only knowing, only seeing, only mindfulness bound to them. Read as this passage reads it, that refrain is not a description of a refined state but an antidote to a specific error. The word doing the work is 唯, only. Whatever is happening, there is nothing more than knowing going on — no attainer, and no attainment to be pleased about. Asaṅga then names the two forms the pride takes, and both are premature: thinking the body's coarse heaviness is dealt with when it is not, and thinking calm and insight are complete when they are not.
The three inclinations are the loveliest thing in the fascicle and they are arranged as a rising scale keyed to where one physically is. Walking through a village, the mind turns toward going forth. Amid noise, it turns toward seclusion. In a quiet room, it turns toward nirvāṇa. Each setting produces the wish for the next degree of withdrawal, so the practice is described as something that happens to a person as he moves through an ordinary day rather than only when he sits down. And the last of the three is reached only in the quiet room, which is to say that the wish for nirvāṇa is itself conditioned — it arrives when there is nothing nearer left to want.
Fascicle 19 Complete
The three defilements are determined — affliction, in five sets of twenty; karma, in thirteen kinds with six fruits and three positions; and birth, from the six causes of untimely death to the four kinds of birth. The four truths are given their marks and the reason they are called truths, which turns out to be agreement rather than correspondence. Then the long treatment of the absorptions, which reads less like doctrine than like a manual: what a concentration rests on, how one enters and abides and gets up, what warns that one is coming, why exactly four, what each counteracts, and the eleven ways a practitioner loses one he had — illness, a beautiful person, praise, insult, conceit, and the rest, with Vakkalī and Devadatta named. The fascicle ends with the factors of enlightenment reorganized as twenty-seven skillful means, the establishments of mindfulness in their three kinds each, and two scriptural remedies for a mind that sinks or races. Fascicle 20 completes the chapter and the treatise.
Continue to Fascicle 20 — Gathering the Superior Determinations, Part Four →