Overall Teaching

The deep stations of a bodhisattva are synonymous with suchness and all phenomena. A bodhisattva reflects on the deep stations and thus develops the perfection of wisdom. The merit of attending to the perfection of wisdom for one day, of dedicating in accordance with the Perfection of Wisdom, and meditating on it is greater than the greatest of deeds without it. All activities and merits of a bodhisattva are immeasurable and beyond words, equal to suchness, in the same way, awakening neither increases or diminishes—reflecting on this is the practice.

Terms                                 

Station – sthāna. In order of literalness: standing, standing place, position, state, condition. In Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, sthāna is often used in the sense of a subject matter of study, an underlying condition or occasion, or basis. (Edgerton, 610)

Summary

1.     Deep Stations

a.     Subhūti and the Buddha praise the deep cognition which irreversible bodhisattvas gain, exclusive of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, which are infinite.

b.     The deep stations of a bodhisattva connected with the perfection of wisdom are synonymous with emptiness, signless, wishless, uneffected, unproduced, birthless, non-existent, dispassion, cessation, nirvana, and departing. [341]

i.     These are synonymous with all phenomena.

c.     Subhūti points out that this teaching both opens up/impedes the aggregates while indicating nirvāṇa at the same time.

2.     How to Attend to Perfect Wisdom

a.     When a bodhisattva reflects on the deep stations connected with the perfection of wisdom, [342] it is a great deed.

b.     The bodhisattva seeks to end birth and death in this way for as many aeons as the number of times a man, planning to meet a woman, would think about her in a day.

3.     Merit

a.     When practicing the perfection of wisdom, one also removes the faults which cause one to turn away from awakening. [343]

b.     The bodhisattva who devotes to perfect wisdom for only one day is greater than one who, without perfect wisdom, gives gifts for countless aeons;

i.     As than one who gives gifts to all classes of holy persons;

ii.     As than one who also observes the precepts also; [344]

iii.     As than one who also is endowed with patience and effort.

c.     The bodhisattva who gives the gift of the Dharma and dedicates it to full awakening is also greater;

i.     Greater than that one is one who also dedicates in the way the Perfection of Wisdom teaches; [345]

ii.     But a bodhisattva who also makes efforts about the Perfection of Wisdom in meditation is still greater.

4.     Immeasurable, Empty and Talk

a.     But Subhūti asks how merit of one can be greater than another, since all accumulations come forth from false discrimination.

i.     The Buddha points out that in this case such an amount of merit is empty and worthless, but to this extent, not lacking in the perfection of wisdom, a bodhisattva thus begets immeasurable and incalculable merit.

ii.     Immeasurable means all measurement ceases in it.

iii.     Incalculable means it exhausts all efforts to count it.

b.     The skandhas are immeasurable. [346]

c.     Immeasurable is synonymous with emptiness, signless, and wishless.

i.     Thus are all dharmas: thus immeasurable and incalculable, unproduced, etc., this is the consummation of the Buddha’s teachings. [347]

ii.     Thus, all dharmas cannot be properly expressed in words.

5.     No Growth or Diminution

a.     Subhūti asks if anything can have growth or diminution if it is beyond words.

i.     The Buddha denies that it is so.

ii.     But Subhūti asks how awakening is then possible if one cannot grow in the six perfections. [348]

1.     The Buddha points out that for a bodhisattva the perfections do not grow, but sees them as mere words.

2.     Thus they engage, respecting the reality of full awakening, in giving, morality, patience, [349] effort, dhyānas, and wisdom. [350]

b.     Thus, supreme awakening is suchness which neither grows nor diminishes.

i.     Engaging in mental activities that reflect thus, a bodhisattva approaches to perfect awakening. [351]