The first of the Fourfold Teachings is the “Tripiṭaka Teaching. The understanding of twelvefold conditioned co-arising in the Tripiṭaka Teaching is that all links] from ignorance to all volitional activity and so forth including decay-and-death do indeed arise. From the three [links of ignorance, passion, and attachment]⁴³¹ the two [links of volition and existence]⁴³² arise. From these two [links]⁴³³ the other seven [links] arise. From these seven [links, which in turn act as causes], the three [original links of ignorance, passion, and attachment] arise. [In this way] the links of conditioned co-arising are mutually interactive [as the causes and results of each other]. Deluded passions [kleśa] are the causes and conditions of karma; karmic activity is the cause and condition of suffering.⁴³⁴ These are transient and arise and perish. The Mūlamadhyamakakārika classifies this teaching as the dharma for those of dull faculties.⁴³⁵ The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra calls this the incomplete [teaching; lit. “alphabet”] which is diligently taught.⁴³⁶ This Lotus Sūtra calls this a liberation which is merely a detachment from empty delusion.⁴³⁷ Therefore we know that this is a crude [understanding] of objects.

431

As Chih-i pointed out … these three links correspond to the “way of delusion.” return

432

These two links correspond to the “way of karma.” return

433

The five resultant links in the present from consciousness to experience, and the two results in the future of rebirth and decay-and-death. These links correspond to the “way of suffering.” return

434

To take it one step further, suffering is in turn the cause and condition for passionate delusion, giving us the endless cycle of saṃsāra. return

435

See the Mūlamadhyamakakārika passage quoted above, that pratītyasamutpāda was taught as the dharma appropriate for śrāvakas, and is thus the content of the Tripiṭaka Teaching. return

436

This phrase is not from the chapter on “letters” which discusses this subject in detail, but is from a section of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra in which the Buddha denies that he has any “secret teaching” which is hidden and undisclosed. This is illustrated with the analogy of a rich father who loves his son and takes him to a teacher to receive an education. However, the son is not yet ready to absorb advanced studies such as grammar, so the father takes him home and diligently teaches him the alphabet. In other words, the father teaches the alphabet to his son not in order to hide and keep secret the more profound and difficult subject of grammar, but teaches him according to the son’s capacity to prepare him for eventually learning advanced grammar. The Buddha’s teaching of the Hinayāna Tripiṭaka is like this. return

437

Perhaps this refers to the section from the simile of plants in the Lotus Sūtra, which Hurvitz, Lotus Sūtra, 103, translates: “Those grasses and trees, shrubs and forests, and medicinal herbs do not know themselves whether their nature is superior, intermediate, or inferior; but the Thus Come One knows this Dharma of a single mark and a single flavor, namely, the mark of deliverance, the mark of disenchantment, the mark of extinction, the mark of ultimate nirvāṇa, of eternally quiescent nirvāṇa, finally reducing itself to Emptiness. The Buddha, knowing this, observes the heart’s desire of each of the beings, and guides them protectively. For this reason he does not immediately preach to them the knowledge of all modes.” return