The Connotation of the Three Barriers in Chan Buddhism

The three barriers (guan) of the Chan school are the gateways through which wisdom advances. The first barrier is realizing the tathāgatagarbha; the second barrier is seeing the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, that is, the buddha-nature, whereby one can see the functions arising from the tathāgatagarbha in all six sense objects. The third barrier is the final barrier (laoguan); once one passes through it, the great matter of birth and death can be resolved, and one gains the ability to enter nirvāṇa. When Chan meditation inquiry is complete, one must then go on to study the vast Vaibhāṣika—no, rather, the extensive Yogācāra teachings of broad and expansive meaning (fangguang weishi).

At the moment of Chan enlightenment, one is equivalent to the first fruit of the Small Vehicle; the third barrier corresponds to the third and fourth fruits of the Small Vehicle. Attaining the fruit of the Great Vehicle simultaneously includes the fruit of the Small Vehicle, whereas attaining the fruit of the Small Vehicle does not necessarily include the fruit of the Great Vehicle—this shows that the Great Vehicle encompasses the Small Vehicle. When an arhat sees emptiness, he sees the emptiness of the self of persons, knowing that the five aggregates and eighteen realms are empty and not the self, but he has not yet realized the tathāgatagarbha. When a bodhisattva sees emptiness, he realizes that the tathāgatagarbha is real and is the mind of emptiness (śūnyatā), while also knowing that the dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms produced by the tathāgatagarbha are empty. Both realize emptiness, but the content is not entirely the same.