仁王經疏 1.52

1.52

Exposition: Third is the virtue of the distinction of the three faculties. As for the "three faculties," according to the *Original Record*: “1. The natural faculty, referring to ordinary beings; 2. the faculty of grasping and drawing forward, referring to the ten faiths through the ten bhūmis; 3. the faculty of obtaining the fruit, referring to the Tathāgata.” The present interpretation is not so; [they are] 1. the faculty of coming to know what is not yet known, 2. the faculty of what has already been known, and 3. the faculty of possessing complete knowledge. However, regarding the distribution of these three faculties across the three stages of the paths of seeing, cultivation, and non-learning, the various schools are not identical. In the Sarvāstivāda school, the three undefiled faculties are distinguished across the three stages of the path of seeing, path of cultivation, and path of non-learning: the fifteen moments of mind are called the stage of seeing, and are also named the faculty of coming to know what is not yet known; from the sixteenth moment of mind up to the vajra-like samādhi is called the path of cultivation, and is also named the faculty of what has already been known; after obtaining exhaustion-wisdom, it is called non-learning and the faculty of possessing complete knowledge. Foreign masters say: All sixteen moments of mind are the path of seeing and are also called the faculty of coming to know what is not yet known; the rest is as previously stated. For a detailed analysis, it is as stated in the *Nyāyānusāra*, fascicle nine, and the *Mahāvibhāṣā*, fascicle one hundred and forty-two. Now, according to the Mahāyāna, the *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa* states that either fifteen moments of mind are called the path of seeing, or sixteen moments of mind are called the path of seeing. If based on the *Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi* and so forth, there are multiple kinds of the path of seeing: 1. the signless path of seeing, 2. the three-moment path of seeing, 3. the two kinds of sixteen-moment paths of seeing, and 4. the nine-moment path of seeing. However, as for the distinction of stages of these three faculties, as stated in the seventh fascicle of the *Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi*: The essence of the faculty of coming to know what is not yet known has three stages: 1. The fundamental stage, referring to being in the path of seeing, excluding the final moment, because there is no longer anything not yet known that can come to be known. 2. The stage of preparation, referring to warmth, summit, patience, and supreme worldly dharmas, because they proximately induce the fundamental stage. 3. The stage of provisions: all roots of good from the arousal of the aspiration for definitively superior wholesome dharmas in order to attain the direct realization of the truths, up to the point of not yet attaining the aids to penetration, are called the stage of provisions, because they remotely nourish and give rise to the fundamental stage. In these three stages, the five faculties of faith and so forth, mind, joy, pleasure, and equanimity constitute the nature of this faculty. In stages such as preparation, when one seeks to realize higher dharmas later and feels sorrow, there is also the faculty of grief; but since it is not a genuine wholesome faculty, it is mostly not mentioned. That this faculty exists in the first three formless realms is because there is collateral cultivation and attainment of an exalted path of seeing. Or, when practitioners of the two vehicles turn toward the Mahāyāna, in order to realize the emptiness of dharmas, they also give rise to the undefiled state of the emptiness of persons subsumed by the nine grounds before the bhūmis; since they are all bodhisattvas, they are subsumed under this faculty. The stages of the other two faculties can be known immediately upon reflection. Although the Peak of Existence has the undefiled state of free roaming, it is neither clear nor sharp, and hence not the latter three faculties. For a detailed analysis, the meaning is as in the separate chapter.