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To What Aim

Dhamma wheel

“Since, out of all the various paths, it is the Mahayana that you have now taken up, all practices–the ten positive actions, the four boundless qualities, the six transcendent perfections, the four concentrations, the four formless states, sustained calm and profound insight-should be done with perfect Buddhahood as your sole aim, and with the three supreme methods: giving rise to bodhicitta as preparation, remaining free of conceptualization during the actual meditation and closing with prayers of dedication.”

…

Arouse bodicitta of great liberation of Buddhahood , contemplate the characteristics of a Buddha:

The four boundless qualities:

  1. love
  2. compassion
  3. sympathetic joy
  4. impartiality/equanimity 

The 6 perfections (paramitas):

  1. generosity
  2. discipline
  3. patience
  4. diligence
  5. meditation
  6. wisdom (prajna)

The 10 powers:

  1. the power of knowing what is true and what is not
  2. the power of knowing karmic causality at work in the lives of all beings throughout past, present, and future
  3. the power of knowing all stages of concentration, emancipation, and meditation
  4. the power of knowing the conditions of life of all people
  5. the power of discerning all people’s levels of understanding
  6. the power of discerning the superiority or inferiority of all people’s capacity
  7. the power of knowing the effects of all people’s actions
  8. the power of remembering past lifetimes
  9. the power of knowing when each person will be born and will die, and in what realm that person will be reborn
  10. the power of eradicating all illusions

The 4 fearlessnesses:

  1. fearlessness in asserting their own perfect realization
  2. fearlessness in asserting their own perfect abandonment
  3. fearlessness for the sake of others in revealing the path to liberation
  4. fearlessness for the sake of others in revealing potential hindrances on the path

The 18 unshared qualities:

  • (1-10) the 10 powers
  • (11-14) the 4 fearlessnesses
  • (15-17) the three close-mindfulnesses
    1. to avoid attachment towards those who listen respectfully
    2. to avoid hatred towards those who do not listen respectfully
    3. to avoid indifference towards those who do neither
  • (18) great compassion.

The 4 awarenesses:

  1. awareness of the body as transient, compounded form
  2. awareness of feelings as conditioned, reactive responses
  3. awareness of mind as habituated, temporary moods
  4. awareness of phenomena as constructed mental states.

Continue reading “To What Aim”

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For Experience Hath Shewn

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

– from the “Declaration of Independence” by the United States of America

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Ten Conditions to Develop

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The Ten Conditions for Omniscience to Develop: The first topic of The Ornament of Clear Realization is the ten causes or causal conditions for wisdom of the Buddha, to be developed: 

1. Bodhicitta

We must first develop a desire to help all sentient beings reach enlightenment.

2. Practice instructions

We must learn about the Buddhist path and apply ourself to these instructions. These instructions are found in the five paths.

3. The four stages of definite separation

We must go to through the four stages on the Path of Junction: 1. warming to the experience of emptiness 2. summit to the experience of emptiness 3. forbearance, realization of the dharmata 4. highest worldly dharma, threshold to experiencing true reality.

4. Buddha-nature, the basis for our practice

Our whole development of realization relies on the fact that we and all other sentient beings possess Buddha-nature (Skt. gotra, Tib. rigs). 

5. The Objects of Focus

We must realize the emptiness of phenomena and we develop understanding of these through understanding eleven kinds of subjects such as understanding created and uncreated, ordinary and extraordinary, positive and negative actions, etc.

6. The Purpose

We need to understand the purpose for studying the Prajnaparamita and cultivating the bodhisattva path.

7. Armor-like Practice

Finally, there are four different practices we need to do to understand. This practice is perfecting the six paramitas.

8. Applied Practice

We need to then apply the four dhyana meditations to our practice

9. The Practice of Accumulation of wisdom.

We need to practice the accumulation of merit and the accumulation of wisdom

10. The Practice of Certain Release

We need to understand the inseparability of samsara and nirvana 

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The Five Paths

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These five paths (Sanskrit panca-marga, Tibetan lam lnga), toward enlightenment,   are referred to many times in “The Ornament of Clear Realization” A Commentary on the Prajnaparamita of the Maitreya Buddha:

Path of Accumulation (S. sambhara-marga, T. chogs lam)
Practice of the four foundation of mindfulness, what to adopt, and what to avoid

Path of Preparation/Unification (S. prayoga-marga, T. sbyor lam)
Profound insight into the Four Noble Truths, cutting of root attachments

Path of Insight/Seeing (S. darsana-marga, T. mthong lam)
Realization of the Four Noble Truths, entry into first bodhisattva level, realizing the emptiness of phenomena

Path of Cultivation/Meditation (S. bhavana-marga, sgom lam)
Development of insight, entry into the second through ninth bodhisattva levels

Path of No-More-Learning (S. asaiksha-marga, T. mi  slob pa’i lam)
Also called, Path of Fulfillment (S. nishtha-marga). Attaining complete mediation (S. samadhi), and Buddhahood

Maitreya Bodhisattva at the Thikse Monastery in Ladakh, India. Cropped source Wikimedia
Maitreya Bodhisattva at the Thikse Monastery in Ladakh, India. Cropped source Wikimedia
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On a count

If one must make an accounting,
It is of, 
Their own blessings they should 
Take to counting.

“The soul’s made of stories, not atoms, everything that ever happened to us—people we loved, people we lost… people we found again against all the odds—“

The Eleventh Doctor