The Tenth Stage: Cloud of Teaching

Tenth is the stage of cloud of teaching, emblematic of the ability of practitioners to teach like clouds showering rain. In this stage [...] practitioners [...] attain inconceivable liberation; infinite powers of recollection; and ability to receive, absorb, and hold the revelations of the mysteries of complete enlightenment. (pp. 1562-1563)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary

The Ninth Stage: Good Mind

Ninth is the stage of good mind. Practitioners in this stage gain accurate knowledge of good, bad, neutral, mundane, and transmundane actions. [...] Practitioners also know all about the compartmentalization of mind, the complexity of mind, how the mind becomes defiled, how the mind becomes bound and liberated, and how it creates illusions. Learning to become expert teachers, practitioners in this stage develop analytic knowledge of principles, meanings, expressions, and elocution; and they attain mental command of the teachings through concentration[,] learning to teach in accord with the dispositions, faculties, and inclinations of the people with whom they are working. (p. 1562)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary

The Eighth Stage: Immovability

Eighth is the stage of immovability. In this stage practitioners fully realize that all things are nonconceptual, accessible to nonconceptual knowledge. They become wholly detached from mind, intellect, consciousness, thought, and ideation and thus become free from all striving in thought, word, and deed; no actions based on views, passions, or intentions become manifest in them. Nevertheless, even though they have attained peace and liberation, practitioners in this stage who are supported by their past vows of complete enlightenment do not become complacent but are further inspired to seek infinite knowledge. (pp. 1561-1562)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary

The Seventh Stage: Going Far

Seventh is the stage of going far, in which practitioners are proficient in concentration on emptiness, wishlessness, and signlessness; enter into selflessness and transcend ideas of personality; yet still accumulate virtue and knowledge and do not give up practicing infinite kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. They detach from the world yet work to beautify the world[;] they become calm and serene, yet they can be passionate as an expedient without, however, becoming inflamed by passion. (p. 1561)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary

The Sixth Stage: Presence

Sixth is the stage of presence. Practitioners enter this stage by observing phenomena in terms of their equality in having no ultimate definition, in having no fixed origin, in being apart from any concept or notion of things, in being primordially pure, in neither coming nor going, in being existent in some sense and nonexistent in another, and in being like dreams or reflected images. (p. 1561)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary

The Fifth Stage: Difficult to Conquer

Fifth is the stage difficult to conquer. Practitioners enter this stage by impartial attention to purity of the teachings of past, present, and future buddhas; to purity of conduct, to purity of mind; to purity of removal of opinion, doubt, uncertainty, and perplexity; to purity of knowledge of what to apply and what to relinquish; to purity of the final discernment and realization of all the elements of enlightenment; and to purity of perfecting all people. They attain unwavering attention and become familiar with both conventional and ultimate truths. As they meditate on all truths, practitioners also develop skill in practical arts and sciences, according to the needs of the people of the time. (pp. 1560-1561)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary

The Fourth Stage: Radiance

Fourth is the stage of blazing radiance. Practitioners attain this stage by entering into the radiance of the Teaching through ten ways of contemplation: contemplation of the realms of beings, of the realms of the world, of the realms of phenomena and principles, of the realm of space, of the realm of consciousness, of the realm of desire, of the realm of form, of the realm of the formless, of the realm of high-minded devotion, and of the realm of inclinations of the magnanimous mind. Practitioners at this stage examine inner and outer phenomena with precise awareness, getting rid of worldly desire and dejection; they strive for the development, enhancement, and preservation of good states and for the lessening, elimination, and prevention of bad states. (p. 1560)

Excerpted from "Commentary on Book 39 by Li Tongxuan: Translator's Introduction" in The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Thomas Cleary