three kinds of non-regression ［三不退］ ( san-futai): Also, three levels of non-regression. Three points past which someone engaged in bodhisattva practice does not return or regress. The first is non-regression from [one’s present] stage, or not receding from the stage of development one has attained. The second is non-regression from action, or not retreating from Buddhist practice. The third is non-regression from thought, or not receding from having one’s thoughts fixed on the truth. Each of these three is associated with a different level or stage of bodhisattva practice; in the course of bodhisattva practice, one first attains the non-regression from stage, then non-regression from action, and finally non-regression from thought, in which one’s thoughts are unwaveringly fixed on the truth. Various Buddhist teachers and scholars established different systems relating the three kinds of non-regression to the fifty-two stages of bodhisattva practice.