What This Concept Is About
"Gradual teaching" (漸教, kramadeśanā) is not about presenting the Dharma more slowly, nor about diluting profound meaning into easily digestible inspirational talk. It is a mode of instruction that has direction, sequence, and regard for the learner's actual capacity to receive it: it begins where one can presently understand, practice, and verify, then gradually leads toward deeper contemplation, until buddha-wisdom (佛慧, buddha-jñāna) is reached.
《摩訶止觀》 (Móhē Zhǐguān, "The Great Calming and Contemplation") summarizes this precisely in eight characters: "漸名次第，藉淺由深" ("Gradual" means sequential order, using the shallow to enter the deep). The key lies both in "次第" (sequence) and in "由深" (entering the deep): the shallow is the entry point, not the destination; the skillful means (方便, upāya) is a bridge, not the final conclusion.
Let me first clarify the nature of the sources: 《妙法蓮華經玄義》 (Miàofǎ Liánhuá Jīng Xuányì, "The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra") and 《摩訶止觀》 are both Tiantai treatises spoken by Zhìyǐ (智顗) of the Sui dynasty and recorded by his disciples; they are not two scriptures bearing the title "經" (sūtra). They extensively cite classics such as the 《法華經》 (Lotus Sūtra, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra), the 《涅槃經》 (Nirvāṇa Sūtra, Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra), and the 《維摩詰經》 (Vimalakīrti Sūtra, Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa) to establish the Tiantai system of doctrinal classification (教相) and contemplative practice (觀行). To understand gradual teaching, one must distinguish between "scriptural original text," "sūtras cited in the treatises," and "the master's doctrinal judgment" — one cannot present later doctrinal classification directly as the curriculum listed by the sūtras themselves.
Gradual teaching contains at least two interrelated but distinct levels.
First, "約法被緣" (yuē fǎ bèi yuán, "the teaching meeting the conditions of beings") — how the teaching adapts to the faculties (根機) of sentient beings.
The same principle is not appropriate for everyone, at all times, in the same formulation. When a person is dominated by intense greed, anger, or fear, immediately presenting the most perfect teaching on emptiness (空, śūnyatā) may lead him to misunderstand "emptiness" as "nothing matters." When a person has not yet established basic responsibility, telling him to "abide nowhere" may let him use "non-attachment" (不執著) to excuse his own avoidance. Therefore, the teacher begins with what can be put into practice — stopping evil, cultivating good, cause and effect (因果, hetu-phala), giving (布施, dāna), precepts (持戒, śīla), taming the mind (調心) — enabling life to gain a certain stability, and only then gradually enters into impermanence (無常, anitya), no-self (無我, anātman), emptiness, the bodhisattva path, and the buddha way.
《妙法蓮華經玄義》 describes this progression with "始自人天、二乘、菩薩、佛道" (beginning with the human and heavenly [vehicles], the two vehicles, the bodhisattva, and the buddha path): one may first teach people to establish a wholesome life in the world, then lead them toward the practice of transcending birth-and-death (生死, saṃsāra), then expand into the bodhisattva path that does not abandon sentient beings, and finally return to buddha-wisdom. This does not mean that everyone must mechanically complete the same curriculum; it means that the teaching must correspond to a person's actual condition.
Second, "約說次第" (yuē shuō cìdì, "the sequential order of exposition") — how the teaching unfolds in sequence.
《妙法蓮華經玄義》 describes the gradual appearance through the successive emergence of the twelve divisions of scriptures (十二部經, dvādaśāṅga), the sūtras (修多羅, sūtra), vaipulya (方等), prajñā (般若), and nirvāṇa (涅槃), and further says that whatever "enters gradually midway" (中間次第入) can be called gradual. Here "gradual" refers not only to the growth of a person's understanding, but also to the fact that the unfolding of the teaching has stages, turns, and mutual correspondences across time.
Tiantai organizes this process with the analogy of five flavors (五味):
- The Avataṃsaka (華嚴) is like milk (乳), classified as sudden (頓); - The Tripiṭaka (三藏) is like curd (酪); in terms of "the teaching meeting its conditions" it belongs to the gradual teaching phase; - Vaipulya (方等) is like fresh butter (生酥), still in the gradual teaching phase; - Prajñā (般若) is like clarified butter (熟酥), still in gradual transformation; - The Lotus (法華) is like ghee (醍醐), called the "gradually perfect teaching" (漸圓教).
These five flavors must not be crudely understood as "the earlier scriptures are inferior, the later scriptures are superior," and even less as a historically confirmed chronology of the Buddha's preaching in the modern historical sense. They are a framework used by the Tiantai school to explain how the teaching receives beings, eliminates attachment, and opens the provisional to reveal the real (開權顯實, kāiquán xiǎnshí). The point of the five flavors is transformation: milk becomes curd, curd becomes butter; the earlier stage is not simply discarded, but is re-understood, redirected, and integrated in the later stage.
Zhìyǐ describes the basic narrative: the Buddha originally intended to deliver sentient beings through the Great Vehicle (大乘, mahāyāna), but some could not bear it at once, so on the one-vehicle path he conveniently made a distinction and spoke of three vehicles (三乘, triyāna) — "after the initial suddenness, he then opened up the gradual" (初頓之後，次開於漸). Those of gradual faculties first cultivate according to the more accessible teachings, cut off the delusions of views and thoughts (見思惑, dṛṣṭi-kleśa), gradually reduce greed, hatred, and delusion (貪瞋癡, rāga-dveṣa-moha), and pass from ordinary to noble (由凡入聖), like milk turning into curd. Here "faculties unable to bear it" (根機不堪) is not a personal insult but a judgment of actual receptive capacity; just as patients differ in digestive capacity, both medicine and food must take current conditions into account.
However, gradual teaching is by no means a rigid single-flight staircase. Tiantai places sudden (頓), gradual (漸), and indeterminate (不定, aniyata) side by side precisely to avoid mechanizing the Dharma. In the same sermon, different people may derive different benefits; the same person may suddenly awaken within gradual cultivation, or may still need long-term permeation after a sudden awakening.
《妙法蓮華經玄義》 therefore puts forward a set of very subtle relationships:
"若以大破小，是漸頓並陳；若帶小明大，是漸頓相資；若會小歸大，是漸頓泯合。" *"If the great is used to break the small, gradual and sudden are presented together; if the small is retained to reveal the great, gradual and sudden support each other; if the small is gathered back into the great, the opposition between gradual and sudden dissolves."*
This means:
- Using the meaning of the Great Vehicle to break attachment to the lesser teachings is gradual and sudden appearing simultaneously; - Preserving the shallow skillful means while manifesting the deep meaning is gradual and sudden mutually assisting; - When the provisional teachings are gathered back into the one vehicle, the opposition between gradual and sudden finally melts away.
Thus gradual and sudden are not identity labels of "the slow take the slow path, the clever take the shortcut." Sudden refers to directly revealing the ultimate meaning; gradual refers to the sequence of entering the ultimate meaning; the two can be opposed, and they can also interpenetrate. Tiantai even says "即頓而漸，即漸而頓" (within the sudden there is the gradual, within the gradual there is the sudden): the principle realized can be perfectly sudden, while a person's habits (習氣, vāsanā), capacities, and actual practice may still mature gradually; conversely, long-term gradual cultivation may also produce a breakthrough at a given moment that cannot be explained by linear accumulation.
The 《法華經》 has the expression "如是之人，應以此法漸入佛慧" (such persons should use this dharma to gradually enter buddha-wisdom), and 《摩訶止觀》 takes this as one of the scriptural evidences for gradual teaching. The most important point here is not that the character "漸" (gradual) appears in isolation, but that it clearly points to "佛慧" (buddha-wisdom). If a teaching merely keeps comforting people and accumulating knowledge, without guiding them to loosen attachment to self (我執, ātma-grāha), afflictions, and the bonds of birth-and-death, it is at best progressive intellectual education, and cannot thereby be called gradual teaching in the Buddhist sense.
Gradual teaching is not only about the arrangement of scriptural teachings; it also enters into concrete contemplative practice. The "漸次觀" (jiàncì guān, "gradual contemplation") described in 《妙法蓮華經玄義》 proceeds from the aspiration for perfect ultimate attainment, sequentially involving ānāpāna (阿那波那, the contemplation of breath in and out), the twelve gates of dhyāna (十二門禪), the six subtle gates (六妙門), the sixteen special excellences (十六特勝), the contemplation of the twelve links of dependent origination (十二因緣觀), the four great vows (四弘誓願), the six pāramitās (六度), and the bodhisattva practice of the separate teaching (別教). This should not be understood as a checklist that can be drilled mechanically apart from a teacher and one's own condition; the principle it expresses is that physical and mental training, doctrinal observation, the expansion of vows and action, and bodhisattva practice can be organized and deepened layer by layer.
More subtly, even within the perfect teaching (圓教) itself, one can still speak of "gradual." 《妙法蓮華經玄義》 distinguishes "圓漸、漸漸、漸圓、圓圓" (perfect-gradual, gradual-gradual, gradual-perfect, perfect-perfect) and especially emphasizes: "此是圓家漸漸，非理外漸漸" (this is the gradual-gradual of the perfect school, not a gradual outside the principle). It uses the moon as an analogy: the outline of the first-day moon is already round; only the light has not yet fully appeared. From the first day to the fourteenth, the moonlight gradually increases; on the fifteenth, the round brightness is complete.
This analogy points out: gradualness does not necessarily mean that truth itself is cut into pieces. The principle realized can be originally complete, while its function and illumination unfold gradually. It is not that one first obtains ten percent of the truth and finally pieces together the complete truth; it is more like the direction being already aligned with perfection from the start, while obscurations, habits, and practical capacity gradually dissolve and mature. This is "the gradual of the perfect school" (圓家之漸), not climbing a separate staircase unrelated to buddha-wisdom outside the perfect principle.
A Walkthrough in Daily Life
Consider a very common morning: on your commute, you open your phone, intending merely to check one message, and are then led along by short videos, news alerts, and work group chats; seeing a colleague announce an impressive achievement, your heart tightens immediately; your partner happens to send a message in an ambiguous tone, and you begin to guess whether they are dissatisfied. When you arrive at the office, you feel anxious and tell yourself: "Buddhism teaches emptiness — don't be attached." But the emotion does not disappear; instead, a layer of self-blame is added.
If we walk through this according to gradual teaching, we would not demand that we immediately realize emptiness on the spot, nor would we erase the experience with a phrase like "it's all illusory." We can examine it step by step:
First step: handle the behavioral conditions that can be handled right now.
You notice that every time you pick up your phone you are carried away by automatic recommendations, so you first turn off some notifications, remove the apps that most easily trigger mindless scrolling from the home screen, and set a short period during the commute when you do not check information. This is an actual adjustment of conditions within dependent origination (緣起, pratītyasamutpāda), and is close to the function of precepts (戒, śīla) and guarding the sense faculties (護根): reducing the entry points through which afflictions repeatedly grow.
The most common mis-projection here is to understand "gradual teaching" as "don't discuss the fundamental problem, just do efficiency management." Turning off notifications is not itself the path of liberation; it simply creates a space that is not continuously hijacked. If it stops at improving concentration so that one can work more fiercely, that is merely tool optimization, not gradually entering buddha-wisdom.
Second step: discern cause and effect, rather than first labeling yourself.
You observe: seeing the colleague's achievement, contact occurs; an uncomfortable feeling follows; the mind quickly seizes the image, judging "he is ahead" and "I am behind"; then arise the impulses of comparison, defensiveness, and self-justification; these mental activities in turn drive you to keep scrolling messages, checking data, or secretly disparaging the other person.
At this point, you need not say "I am just jealous by nature"; you can see a series of conditionally arisen events. Seeing cause and effect, you know it is not unchangeable. You can choose not to reply immediately, not to continue gathering information that feeds the comparing mind, and not to turn ill will into words and actions.
Third step: establish a more stable mind.
Bringing attention back to the breath, bodily sensations, or the steps of walking is not to forcibly empty the thoughts, but to let the mind temporarily stop running after every stimulus. When the agitation weakens somewhat, you are more able to see things as they are: the tightness in the chest is changing, the intensity of anxiety is changing, and the stories in your mind about your partner and colleague are being revised as well.
A common mismatch here is equating breath counting or mindfulness directly with ultimate wisdom. Stable attention can become a condition for contemplative insight, but concentration itself does not automatically break through attachment to self; a person can be extremely focused on pursuing fame and profit.
Fourth step: shift from moralizing self-blame to observing impermanence and dependent origination.
You see that the displeasure is not a solid entity: it is supported jointly by insufficient sleep, work pressure, habits of comparison, pushed content, bodily sensations, and past memories. When conditions change, it changes. This is not an excuse for harmful behavior, but a change from "I am a terrible person" to "this set of afflictions is presently operating according to conditions." Only the latter leaves room for practice.
Fifth step: further touch the construction of "attachment to self."
Why does a colleague's achievement feel like a threat to "me"? Why does an ambiguous sentence from one's partner quickly get interpreted as "I am not valued"? You begin to see that the mind keeps grasping experiences and assembling a self-image that must be affirmed, must lead, and must not be damaged. This "I" is not a daily designation that does not exist at all, but a core mistakenly taken as independent, permanent, and in control.
Only at this point does speaking of emptiness cease to be using a concept to suppress emotion. Emptiness is not "nothing exists"; it points out that people, emotions, success and failure, and relationships do not exist by virtue of an independent self-nature (自性, svabhāva), but arise through numerous conditions. It is because of emptiness that habits can change; it is because of dependent origination that actions have consequences.
Sixth step: turn from only seeking one's own comfort toward bodhisattva practice.
You no longer ask only "How can I stop being anxious?" but also: "Is my anxiety being transmitted to my partner, children, and colleagues? How can I respond so as to reduce mutual suffering?" So you may first clarify with your partner rather than launching accusations based on guesses; sincerely congratulate the colleague while acknowledging your own comparing mind; and show a little more understanding and a little less contempt toward those who are also being pulled along by algorithms and performance pressure.
This step makes gradual teaching extend beyond personal emotional management. From self-discipline to the vow and practice of benefiting others, this corresponds to the direction from human and heavenly wholesome dharmas, the path of renunciation, the bodhisattva path, and to the buddha path.
Consider another scenario in parenting. A child cries loudly because playtime has ended. If the parent only remembers the highest principle, they might say: "Everything is impermanent — don't be attached." This sentence appears profound in doctrine, but in the present moment it mostly cannot "meet its conditions": the child lacks the corresponding capacity to understand, and the parent may simply be using Buddhist doctrine to suppress their own impatience.
A gradual approach would be: first ensure safety and help the child recognize the emotion; then establish clear and stable boundaries; after the emotion settles, review together how the impulse to "keep playing" grew stronger and then weaker, and discuss promises and consequences; as age and understanding grow, then guide the child to observe desire, gain and loss, and the needs of others. The shallow level does not betray the deep meaning — if the direction is correct, it is preparing a life basis capable of carrying the deep meaning.
The same applies in intimate relationships. When someone has been hurt, others immediately urge them to "let go of discrimination, don't be attached" — this is very likely teaching over the person's head. Gradual teaching would first acknowledge the harm, clarify responsibility, establish boundaries, and stop continued victimization; only after safety and right view are established can one gradually discuss how hatred keeps burning oneself, how sentient beings are driven by ignorance (無明, avidyā), and whether compassion is possible. Compassion cannot cancel boundaries; emptiness cannot cancel responsibility; and gradualness cannot become an excuse to delay dealing with harm.
Why Contemporary People Need It
Contemporary life excels at producing two illusions: first, that anything can be mastered in an extremely short time; second, that understanding a concept is equivalent to accomplishing the corresponding transformation.
We are accustomed to short-video-style knowledge: understand emptiness in a few minutes, grasp Zen in ten sentences, master the stages of practice in one diagram. Information can indeed be acquired quickly, but the structure of life does not automatically change because of it. A person may speak fluently about "no-self" and still fiercely defend their image when criticized; may say "go with the flow" while actually avoiding commitment; may be familiar with "living in the present" while merely chasing immediate gratification.
Gradual teaching reminds us: understanding, contemplation, change of habits, and realization are not the same level. Knowing the map is not the same as having walked the road; occasionally seeing an affliction is not the same as the affliction having lost its power; one intense experience is not the same as one's character, precepts, and compassion having matured.
It also corrects the contemporary obsession with "the optimal path." People often ask which method is fastest, as if liberation were a project whose timeline could be compressed. But the real question is not whether a method is fast in the abstract, but whether it fits this person's affliction structure, level of understanding, life responsibilities, and practice conditions. An "elevated teaching" that cannot be digested is not necessarily elevated in actual effect; the appropriate skillful means that truly moves a person toward liberation is, by contrast, of decisive value.
Algorithmic life can help us understand "permeation" (熏習, vāsanā), but only as a limited analogy. Recommendation systems continue to push similar content based on past clicks; a person's attention and preferences are also reinforced by repeated choices. Each time one follows anger, greed, or comparison, the next time may become easier to follow; each pause, observation, and refusal to act on an affliction also changes the subsequent conditions.
But the two cannot be equated. An algorithmic model is a human-designed technical system, which does not have complete explanatory power over the human mind, karma (業), moral responsibility, and liberation; current neuroscience has not proven all of Buddhism's theories of consciousness either. Scientific research can describe some relevant mechanisms of attention, habit, and emotional regulation, but cannot by these data alone adjudicate the ultimate meaning of nirvāṇa (涅槃), karmic retribution, or emptiness. Using science as material for dialogue is beneficial; claiming that it "has already proven the Dharma" exceeds the evidence.
Gradual teaching is particularly suited to correcting the "worship of sudden enlightenment." Many people love sudden enlightenment stories because they seem to bypass long and unglamorous training. But the "sudden" in the scriptures and the patriarchs' context does not mean an unprepared flash of insight, and even less does it mean that one need no longer observe precepts, cultivate concentration, contemplate the mind, or take responsibility for relationships. Even if the view is suddenly clarified, habits and function may still need to mature gradually; this can be understood through "the moon's body is already round, its light gradually increases."
Conversely, gradual teaching also protects us from despair in practice. Still being angry today does not mean all past practice was ineffective; understanding impermanence yet still fearing loss does not mean one has no capacity at all. What should really be observed is: are afflictions more easily noticed? Is there a little more space between arising and acting? After hurting someone, does one acknowledge it more quickly? Does care extend from oneself to others? When the direction is correct and the power is not yet full, this is precisely the situation that the analogy of "the gradual-gradual of the perfect school" can illuminate.
However, gradualness must never be used for infinite postponement. If one always says "my faculties are not yet mature, so I will not observe precepts, not face my own harmful behavior," that is not gradual teaching but using sequence as an excuse to refuse to start. Every step of gradual teaching should genuinely reduce greed, hatred, and delusion, and move toward wisdom and compassion; it does not permit one to remain forever in the comfort zone.
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
One. Misreading: Gradual teaching is shallow, inferior Buddhism.
Clarification: The shallow is the entry point; buddha-wisdom is the direction. Tiantai does indeed say in its classification of provisional and real that "the subject and object of the gradual are both coarse; the subject and object of the sudden are both sublime" (漸之能、所俱粗；頓之能、所俱妙), but this "coarse/sublime" belongs to a specific classificatory framework and should not be converted into judgments of superiority or inferiority about practitioners. The gradual dharma can also "open the gradual to reveal the sudden" (開漸顯頓), and through such opening be gathered into the perfect meaning. If the skillful means is fixed as forever inferior, one fails to see its guiding function; if the skillful means is taken as ultimate, one equally loses the meaning of gradual teaching.
Two. Misreading: Gradual teaching is a curriculum identical for everyone, with no skipping allowed.
Clarification: "Gradual" has both the sense of "order of preaching" and "the teaching meeting its conditions." Since teaching must adapt to capacities, there cannot be only one assembly line identical for all. Some people begin with ethical responsibility; some, through suffering, urgently experience impermanence; some already have meditative foundations but need to complete their precepts; some understand emptiness quickly but have long lacked compassion and relational capacity. The sequence is real, but it is not mechanical uniformity.
Three. Misreading: Gradual teaching means that the Buddha historically preached in strict accordance with five periods in sequence.
Clarification: The five periods and five flavors are Tiantai's doctrinal organization, whose main function is to explain the depth, opening and closing, and receptive relationships among the various scriptures' teachings; they should not, without explanation, be presented as a historical chronology confirmed by modern philology. 《妙法蓮華經玄義》 itself criticizes earlier views that "the gradual has seven stages and five periods" (漸有七階五時) as unable to encompass all teachings, and emphasizes that its own three categories of sudden, gradual, and indeterminate "share the names with the old but differ in meaning" (名同舊而義異).
Four. Misreading: As long as the learning order goes from easy to hard, it is gradual teaching.
Clarification: Ordinary education also speaks of proceeding step by step, but what Buddhism calls gradual teaching has a clear soteriological direction. It is not simply increasing the quantity of knowledge, but guiding sentient beings to tame afflictions, establish right view, develop contemplative wisdom, and finally enter buddha-wisdom. If a person becomes more arrogant the more they learn, and increasingly uses terminology to suppress others, then even if the order of reading is beautifully arranged, it has deviated from the purpose of gradual teaching.
Five. Misreading: Gradual teaching and sudden teaching are mutually exclusive; one must choose only one.
Clarification: In classification they are opposed, but in actual teaching they can be "presented together," "mutually assisting," and "merged." Gradual cultivation may mature into sudden awakening; after sudden awakening, there may also be the process of gradually eliminating habits and gradually expanding function. The so-called "opening the gradual to reveal the sudden" does not declare that the past was all wrong, but makes the past practice manifest a deeper direction. 《摩訶止觀》 cites the 《法華經》's "汝等所行，是菩薩道" (what you have practiced is the bodhisattva path) to show that past practice, after being opened and revealed, can be re-seen as provisions tending toward the one vehicle.
Six. Misreading: Sudden teaching is for the intelligent, gradual teaching for the dull.
Clarification: Faculties are not a fixed identity, and even less an IQ ranking. The same person may understand one doctrine quickly, yet need long training in emotion, precepts, or relationships; may enter suddenly into one teaching, yet still need gradual adjustment with respect to another attachment. Turning gradual and sudden into a sense of superiority precisely strengthens the attachment to self that Buddhism seeks to loosen.
Seven. Misreading: Gradual cultivation simply means accumulating time; the longer the years, the more certain the awakening.
Clarification: Time itself has no purifying effect. Repeating distraction for ten years only makes distraction more skilled; repeating self-justification also makes attachment to self more solid. The reason gradual cultivation holds is that each stage is corrected by right view, with actual transformation through precepts, concentration, and wisdom, and with ongoing examination of whether the current skillful means is still moving toward liberation.
Eight. Misreading: Since everything is ultimately gathered back into the perfect sudden, the earlier precepts, wholesome actions, and sequence can be omitted.
Clarification: The ultimate meaning does not cancel cause and effect and responsibility within dependent origination. Precisely because all dharmas arise dependently, actions shape body, mind, and relationships. Using emptiness to deny good and evil, using non-abiding to escape commitment, using sudden awakening to despise foundations — these turn the "highest view" into a talisman for afflictions. True opening of the provisional to reveal the real gives the skillful means a deeper explanation; it does not make people more irresponsible.
Nine. Misreading: Gradual teaching acknowledges process, so one can remain forever at the level of skillful means.
Clarification: The weight of "藉淺由深" (using the shallow to enter the deep) is on "由深" (entering the deep). Human and heavenly wholesome dharmas can improve life, but they are not the whole of the Buddhist path of liberation; meditative concentration can stabilize the mind, but does not necessarily break through ignorance; understanding impermanence, if used only for stress reduction, still does not fully touch no-self and liberation. Each stage must ask: where is this method leading me? Am I using the bridge to cross the river, or building a house on the bridge to settle down?
Ten. Misreading: "The gradual-gradual of the perfect school" means that buddha-nature or truth increases day by day.
Clarification: The moon analogy says that the moon's body is originally round while its light and function gradually brighten. What increases gradually is manifestation, illumination, and function — not the processing of an ultimate principle from incompleteness into completeness. Therefore "this is the gradual-gradual of the perfect school, not a gradual outside the principle": from the very beginning, the direction is the perfect principle; but the dissolution of obscuration and the unfolding of qualities still have sequence.
In the final analysis, what gradual teaching preserves is a profound compassion and clarity: neither, because the ultimate truth is profound, does it crudely pour it out upon those not yet able to bear it; nor, because the skillful means is effective, does it let people mistake temporary stability for ultimate liberation. It respects people's actual situation, yet does not fix people forever in their current situation; it acknowledges that transformation requires process, yet always corrects the direction with buddha-wisdom.
Its reminder to contemporary people can be condensed into one sentence: do not use the highest principle to skip the work that must be completed before you; and do not, because you are still completing that work, forget where this path ultimately leads.