Chapter 7: Underlying tendencies and the abandonment of defilements¶

The proper name for defilements in this system is "underlying tendencies" (anuśaya). Essay 15 dealt with their neighbors, acquisition, nonmanifest material form, and the life faculty, but did not address defilements themselves. This chapter fills that gap while keeping this essay's question in view. Is the increasingly fine schedule of stages for abandoning defilements an achievement of classification or an example of multiplying entities?

The dispute over the status of underlying tendencies. First, note the main disagreement. The Sarvāstivādins hold that an underlying tendency is the very substance of a defilement and is associated with mind. Dormancy and manifestation differ only in the efficacy of the same dharma. The Vibhāṣā inherits this position. In explaining "growth along with" in fascicle 1, the root Jñānaprasthāna says, "Underlying tendencies associated with this mind and not yet abandoned, as well as those that take this mind as their object." The two Chinese characters 相应, "associated," are already in the root treatise.¹ Fascicle 50 of the Vibhāṣā uses the position as a settled premise. "Underlying tendencies are all associated with mind and so forth. How can the account be based on what is unassociated?" The answer is "Here the name underlying tendency is applied to acquisition."² The opposition is not a single party. The Vibhajyavādins hold that underlying tendencies are seeds of entanglements. Underlying tendencies are by nature unassociated with mind, while entanglements are by nature associated with mind and arise from underlying tendencies. These statements occur in fascicle 60, their sole occurrence in the work. They are not an isolated statement of position but premises in the argument that arhats cannot fall. Once underlying tendencies have been abandoned, entanglements do not arise. Without arising entanglements, there is no basis for falling.² The record of the Dārṣṭāntikas takes a different route. Fascicle 22 says that they allow neither growth of underlying tendencies along with their objects nor growth along with associated dharmas. Fascicle 90 says that they hold mind and mental factors to arise successively without being associated with one another.² The conclusions meet, but the routes differ. The Vibhajyavādins posit a separate, unassociated entity to house the seed. The Dārṣṭāntikas abolish the relation of association altogether. In fascicle 19 of the Kośa, the Sautrāntikas state the position fully. "The substance of an underlying tendency is neither associated nor unassociated with mind, since it is no separate thing. A defilement in its sleeping state is called an underlying tendency; in its waking state, an entanglement." The same passage turns back to refute the Vibhajyavādins. If a defilement has a separate underlying tendency unassociated with mind as its seed, then mindfulness should likewise have a separate unassociated dharma to produce later mindfulness. But mindfulness has no such thing.³ The character 纏, "entanglement," occurs 775 times in the work. The division of labor between underlying tendency and entanglement is the ground of this dispute.²

What is at issue? One sentence suffices. When defilements are not manifest, in what way do they remain? The Sarvāstivāda answer has the same structure as its answer to every question of persistence. The substance of a dharma always exists, and acquisition governs to whom it belongs. An underlying tendency must therefore be a real dharma associated with mind. Both opposing routes describe an unmanifest defilement as a potential. This is precisely the precursor of the seed theory. The thread taken up in Chapter 3 of Essay 17 begins here. The Vibhāṣā does not hand this dispute to "The evaluation states." The two characters 評曰 are absent throughout fascicles 22 and 50, and the two instances in fascicle 60 concern other topics. The association side stands on two supports. Fascicle 50 treats it as a premise that need not be questioned again. Fascicle 60 answers the Vibhajyavādins with four reproaches: "the fruit of not knowing," "the fruit of darkness," "the fruit of ignorance," and "the fruit of failing to exert oneself in the means."² This agrees with the direction identified in Chapter 3. The account in terms of potential would loosen the ground of eternally existing dharma substances. Positions that preserve those substances win.

Ninety-eight underlying tendencies, a standard multiplication. The five-character phrase 九十八随眠, "ninety-eight underlying tendencies," occurs 109 times in the work.² Its enumeration follows the procedure already familiar in this essay. There are six root defilements, greed, hatred, conceit, ignorance, doubt, and view. View divides into five, making ten. The ten underlying tendencies are distributed across the three realms and five divisions, those abandoned through seeing suffering, seeing its origin, seeing its cessation, seeing the path, and through cultivation. Multiplying these out yields ninety-eight. Chapter 1 said that the book is long because it carries out every multiplication its method calls for. The ninety-eight underlying tendencies are the most standard illustration of that statement. There is only one layer of ideas, the six root defilements and the grid of five divisions across three realms. Everything else is a row produced by multiplication.

The paths of seeing and cultivation, and the density of the schedule of stages. 見道, "path of seeing," occurs 943 times in the work; 修道, "path of cultivation," 268; 無間道, "uninterrupted path," 611; and 解脫道, "path of liberation," 668.² Their density shows the place of the schedule of stages in this book. Abandoning defilements is not a single event but a timetable. Which division of defilements is abandoned on which path, how many moments abandonment takes, and how the uninterrupted path abandons while the path of liberation realizes are assigned cell by cell. The table is exceedingly precise. The question concerns its status. If it describes meditative experience, it must answer to experience. If it legislates by inference from doctrinal sets, it answers only to the grid. This book judges that the latter predominates. The subdivisions of stages far exceed any verifiable report of experience. Their order is the order of the grid.

Three realms and nine grounds, two interlocking tables. 三界九地, "three realms and nine grounds," occurs forty-seven times; 九地, "nine grounds," 150; and 九品, "nine grades," more than 250.² Ground is the spatial axis of abandoning defilements, grade the axis of their intensity, and stage the axis of progress. Multiply the three axes, and each ground has nine grades of defilements, assigned nine uninterrupted paths and nine paths of liberation, advancing ground by ground from the desire realm to the summit of existence. This is the most spectacular exhibit of Vibhāṣā multiplication, more spectacular even than the list of seventy-five dharmas because it is three-dimensional. Classification reaches its peak here. Argument is needed at only one point, the initial dispute over status. That point does not pass through "The evaluation states"; the ending relies on assertion of the school's position and reproach. This chapter's answer thus joins that of Chapter 2. The table is a real achievement. Its foundation has been adjudicated into place.

On to Chapter 8. The schedule of stages arranges how a person moves through time. The next chapter examines what this system has made of time itself.

References¶