It should be noted that the above three theories cited from Kuiji’s Cheng weishi lun shuji appear in the commentary on the path of meditative cultivation. Adopting the Abhidharma path, which is believed to have been accepted and practiced in the whole community of Buddhists, in the Cheng weishi lun the path of cultivation is divided into five stages: (1) the stage of equipment (sambhāra, 資糧位), (2) the stage of application (prayoga, 加行位), (3) the stage of penetration (nirvedha通達), which in the Abhidharma literature is also called “the stage of seeing (darśana 見道),” (4) the stage of cultivation (bhāvanā 修習位), and (5) the stage of completion (niṣṭhā 究竟
10 Part of materials in this paper has been presented in another paper, “How to attain enlightenment through cognition of particulars and universals---Huizhao on svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa,” at the International Workshop on “The Ontology of Asian Philosophy---Perspectives from Buddhist Studies and Analytic Philosophy,” 13-14 April, 2013, Ryukoku University and Kyoto University, Kyoto.
位).11 In each stage, several sub-stages of cultivation are also listed. Roughly speaking, the whole system of practice is designed to attain the final liberation by eliminating the psychological and cognitive hindrances, including the hindrances of affliction (kleśâvaraṇa 煩惱障) and the hindrances of the cognitive objects
(jñeyâvaraṇ 所知障).12 According to the Yogācāra doctrine, the hindrance which should be gradually eliminated includes those in forms of mental phenomena (samudācāra 現行), seeds (bīja 種子), and habitual residues (vāsanā 習氣). The mental phenomena are the form which should be tamed first. However, a more crucial step should be further taken to eliminate the seeds and habitual forces which are contained in the store-consciousness. For the Yogācāra, the elimination of the afflictive hindrances leads to the realization of nirvāṇa, while the elimination of cognitive hindrances leads to the realization of enlightenment (bodhi). Although a long time-span course of cultivation is required to eliminate the afflictive hindrances, the elimination of cognitive hindrance is rather considered foundational. It is precisely in the context of eliminating the cognitive hindrances that the cognition of svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa is brought into the agenda of practice, for both svalakṣaṇa and
sāmānyalakṣaṇa are the aspects of object which should be correctly cognized.
In the Cheng weishi lun, the first four stages of practice are further divided into the mundane path and the holy path. The mundane path consists of the first two stages, the stage of equipment and the stage of application, while the holy path consists of the latter two stages, the stage of penetration and the stage of cultivation. Since the whole system of cultivation is so complicated, it is not practical to lay it out here completely.
At this juncture we merely need to point out that, as for the discernment of svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa, the practice at the stage of application is the most crucial before one attains the insight of emptiness at the stage of penetration. The stage of
application is further divided into four sub-stages: “warm” (ūṣmagata), “summit”
(mūrdhan), “receptivity” (kṣānti) and “the worldly supreme dharmas”
(laukikāgradharma). As we will see in the following, the Abhidhamra analysis of svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa is introduced at the stage of warm. In the Cheng weishi lun, the similar analysis is also found in two contexts. One is found in the clarification of the notion of “post-enlightened cognition” (pṛṣṭha-labdha-jñāna 後得 智), which claims that the post-enlightened cognition is able to differentiate the svalakṣaṇa and the sāmānyalakṣaṇa for discerning the difference of sentient beings’
11 For a brief account of the Abhidharma path, see CK Dhammajoti, Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma (Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong, 2007: 564-612.
12 A. Charles Muller, “The Yogâcāra two Hindrances and their Reinterpretations in East Asia.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 27. (2004-1): 207–235. A brief version of
interpretation can be viewed at the entry “two hindrances” by the same author at Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (http://www.buddhism-dict.net).
inborn nature.13 The other instance is found in the exposition of one of the Buddha’s four transformative insights, “the insight of skillful investigation” (pratyavekṣa-jñāna 妙觀察智), which means that the Buddha’s mind of thinking is capable of skillfully discerning the svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa of dharmas.14 These instances show that the epistemological issue of svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa in Yogācāra philosophy is also raised within the context of meditative practice. For Yogācāra, however, they are much more concerned with the Buddha’s experience of cognition than ordinary cognition. The best textual evidence is found in the
Buddhabhumyūpadeśa.
On the side of the Abhidharmam, a yogi is instructed to practice the discerning of svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa at the stage of application (parayoga) in order to acquire three types of wisdom: wisdom acquired through hearing, wisdom acquired through thinking, and wisdom acquired through cultivation. The cognition of
svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa is culminated at the sub-stage of cultivation, which described as follows:
(1) Learn the essentials of teaching either from a master or by way of self-learning.
The essentials of teaching can be classified by different models, such as (i)
Eighteen Realms, (ii) Twelve Fields, (iii) Five Aggregates, (iv) Four Meditation of Mindfulness, and (v) Four Noble Truths, which serve as the taxonomical lists for classifying the objects of discerning.
(2) When a yogi picks up a model for discerning, he has to learn three constituents of model: name, svalakṣaṇa, and sāmānyalakṣaṇa. First, name is used to identify the object of discerning, such as “This is a visual object,” “This is an audible object,”
etc. According to this method of classification, all objects of discerning should be exhausted by the list. Second, “svalakṣaṇa” is used to identify the nature of each category, e.g., the nature of eye-faculty defined as “purity of matter which serves as the basis of visual consciousness (cakṣurvijñānāśrayo rūpaprasāda).15 Third, the practitioner goes on to discern the universal characteristics (sāmānyalakṣaṇa) of object, which consist of sixteen modes of cognitive activities (ākāra-s): (1) suffering (duḥkha), (2) impermanence (anitya), (3) emptiness (śūnya), (4) no-self (anātmaka), (5) cause [of suffering] (hetu), (6) gathering (samudaya), (7) arising (prabhava), (8) conditions (pratyaya), (9) extinction (nirodha), (10) serenity (śānta), (11) sublimity (praṇita), (12) solicitude (niḥsaraṇa), (13) path (mārga),
13 Cheng weishi lun: 此智分別諸法自共相等，觀諸有情根性差別而為說故。T31.50.b.22-23.
14 T31.56.a. 21-22.
15 Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of Vasubandhu ed. by Pradhan, 1967, 5, 24-6, 6, Chap.I v.9cd, cited from Bauddha Kośa, eds., Akira Saito, accessed at
http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~b_kosha/html/index_75dharma.html#, 6/29/2013.
(14) accordance (nyāya), (15) practice (pratipatti), and (16) transcendance (nairyāṇika).16
(3) The whole procedure of discerning consists of three stages: learning, thinking, and cultivation. The same procedure of practice is also applied to three realms: the realm of desire, the realm of form, and the formless realm. The objects in three realms can be discerned either separately or simultaneously. The manual of meditation concludes: “When he discerns the Four Noble Truths in this way, [his discerning] is like someone who sees the images of body through the covering of silk. The wisdom acquired through hearing can be perfected only if one follows the above instruction. It follows that the wisdom acquired through thinking occurs.
As soon as the wisdom acquired through thinking is perfected, the wisdom acquired through cultivation occurs. [The first stage] is called “Warm.” It follows
‘Summit,’ ‘Receptivity,’ ‘the Worldly Supreme Dharmas,’ ‘Path of Insight,’ ‘Path of Cultivation,’ and ‘Path of No Learning’ sequentially. Following the above paths the wholesome capacity is thus fulfilled.”17
Commenting on the path of insight, where two hindrances are said to be eliminated through discerning the sixteen modes of ākāra-s of the Four Noble Truths, Kuiji followed the Abhidharma path to bring the issue of the cognition of svalakṣaṇa and sāmānyalakṣaṇa on the table. The questions are raised again: In the path of cultivation, when one meditates on Four Noble Truths as object of cognition (ālambana), should he take Four Noble Truths as a whole? Or, should he take Four Noble Truths one by one? Which way of discerning is the correct practice? If he takes Four Noble Truths as a whole, then the object of cognition should not be other than sāmānyalakṣaṇa.
Here the question arises again: Is the cognition of sāmānyalakṣaṇa capable of
eliminating the cognitive hindrance? Since the cognition of sāmānyalakṣaṇa is based on reference (anumāṇa), the same question can be addressed as such: Can one realize the enlightenment through inference? The question can be stated conversely: can one realize the enlightenment through perception (pratyakṣa)?18 We will come to the
16 According to KL Dhammajoti’s interpretation, the sixteen ākāra-s of the four noble truths are not
“images or ‘aspects’ of the objects, but are in the active sense of the mental function of understanding.” Those ākāra-s are also identified as sāmānyalakṣaṇa, which are “the universal principles of all dharma-s intuited by spiritual insight pertaining to the absolute truth, not universals abstractly constructed by the mind as in the case of mental inference.” See KL Dhammajoti,
Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, p. 352. For conceptual clarification, ākāra can be referred to subjective mental function, while the objective principle of existent is called sāmānyalakṣaṇa .
17 如是觀察四聖諦時，猶如隔絹觀諸色像，齊此修習聞所成慧，方得圓滿。依此發生思所成慧，
修圓滿已，次復發生修所成慧，即名為煖。煖次生頂，頂次生忍，忍次生於世第一法，世第一法 次生見道，見道次生修道，修道次生無學道，如是次第，善根滿足。(T.27.34.c)
18 問：此言斷者，為總緣智能斷？為別緣智能斷？此有何失？總緣之智非自相智，如何共相比
量之智能斷惑耶？若別相智能斷？即違對法五十九等文，對法七等說。
Chinese Yogācāra’s reply again.