Overall Teaching

The six perfections are the good friends, but Wisdom is the key to the others. All things are empty and thus pure, only through mental proliferation are they impure. The Perfection of Wisdom should be recalled constantly like an expensive jewel.  By practicing in emptiness, one’s mind aligns with Perfect Wisdom. Both beings and Perfect Wisdom neither increase or decrease, and nothing fundamentally practices in anything: practicing this is practicing in Perfect Wisdom.

Summary

1.     The Good Friends

a.     [1]A bodhisattva should tend, love, and honour the good friends. They are truly the Perfection of Wisdom, and also all six perfections. [396]

b.     From the six perfections come all buddhas in all times, including Śākyamuni. Therefore the bodhisattva should train in them, [397] and thus be themselves a good friend to those who are in need of one.

c.     [2]But in order to train in the six, one must train in and ask questions, etc., about the Perfection of Wisdom—only through it are the others called perfections. [398]

2.     Emptiness, Defilements, and Purification

a.     [3]The Perfection of Wisdom is marked by non-attachment, as are all dharmas.

b.     Likewise they are isolated and empty.

c.     Subhūti asks: how may they be pure, then? [399]

i.     Beings engage in I-making and mine-making, but they are empty—only to the extent that beings settle down in phenomena and wander in ignorance, despite the fact that they are isolated and empty, are the impure, and only in the absence of such mental proliferation are they pure. [400]

d.     [4]Practicing thus, no one can crush a bodhisattva, and they attain an unsurpassable position being close to full awakening. [401]

3.     Attentions to Perfect Wisdom, and the Pearl of Great Price

a.     [5]If all beings in Jambudvīpa should become a human and give gifts to all beings, they would beget much merit.

i.     But if they, as bodhisattvas, dwell in mental activities connected with the Perfection of Wisdom for just one day, they will become more worthy of gifts than all those beings because except for the buddhas, no one will have a mind as full of friendliness as them. Seeing all beings as on the way to their slaughter, great compassion takes hold of them. [402] Seeing all beings’ sufferings in the various realms, they resolve to save them without becoming partial or deluded due to their aspiration. [403]

b.     [6]Bringing to mind the Perfection of Wisdom, they should not allow room for other matters.

i.     Just as a man had a precious jewel and lost it, would constantly think about that and would not forget it until he either regained it or gained another one of equal quality, similarly a bodhisattva [404] who clearly perceives the preciousness of the Perfection of Wisdom should think about it constantly, and look for it when it is not present, or find an equivalent sūtra.[7]

c.     [8]Subhūti asks how a bodhisattva can have mental activities associated with the Perfection of Wisdom if all dharmas are empty:

i.     The Buddha replies that if a bodhisattva acts on the basis of emptiness, then they don’t lack in mental activities associated with the Perfection of Wisdom: it is empty itself, and neither increases nor decreases.

4.     Emptiness and Growth in Awakening

a.     How then, Subhūti asks, can a bodhisattva arrive at full awakening without an increase in Perfect Wisdom?

i.     A bodhisattva is empty who practices the Perfection of Wisdom also is without increase or decrease, [405] in this way they attain full awakening.

ii.     Being without fear when hearing this, one should be known as a bodhisattva who practices Perfect Wisdom.

b.     The following statements of Subhūti are negated:

i.     Perfect Wisdom practicing in Perfect Wisdom

ii.     Emptiness of Perfect Wisdom practicing in Perfect Wisdom

iii.     Apprehension of any dharma practicing in Perfect Wisdom from outside the emptiness of Perfect Wisdom

iv.     Emptiness practicing in Perfect Wisdom [406]

v.     Apprehension of any dharma practicing in Perfect Wisdom

vi.     Emptiness practicing in emptiness

vii.     Skandhas practicing in Perfect Wisdom

viii.     Apprehension of any dharma outside the skandhas which practices in Perfect Wisdom.

c.     How then does a bodhisattva practice in Perfect Wisdom?

i.     There is no real dharma which practices in Perfect Wisdom [407]

ii.     The Perfect Wisdom in which a bodhisattva practices is not a real thing

iii.     A dharma that is inapprehensible is not a real thing

iv.     Such a dharma is not produced, won’t be, is not being produced, has not stopped, will not be stopped, and is not being stopped.

d.     This insight is what gives a bodhisattva patient acceptance: this allows for them to be destined to full awakening and progress towards a buddha’s self-confidence.

e.     [9]The true nature of all dharmas, which fail to be produced, cannot be destined to full awakening, and the dharma which has a prediction to full awakening is also not real. [408]

i.     This is because no dharmas are apprehended.

[1] The signs of Culmination Realisation #9 continued

[2] (10) Training in the Perfection of Wisdom in all its aspects

[3] (11) Not settling down on anything: “to the extent that beings settle down, to that extent there is defilement. And to the extent that they do not settle down, to that extent there is purification.” (Vol. 4, pp. 150–1)

[4] (12) Being close to the Buddha’s full awakening.

            Declaring the signs in summary, Maitreya writes,

“[The Lord] asserts that culmination practice has twelve signs: even in dreams [they do not wish for a lower vehicle] and they see all dharmas like dreams and so on.” [5.1] (Vol. 4, p. 151)

[5] Haribhadra notes that here begins the 16 increases of Culmination Realisation: (1) The increase of having merit greater than that of all beings in Jambudvīpa honouring the buddhas, etc.

[6] (2) The increase of having a nature which gives special attention to the Perfection of Wisdom.

[7] Haribhadra gives the example of the Samādhirāja Sūtra or any text that discusses the true nature of dharmas.

[8] (3) The increase of the attainment of a surpassing forbearance for dharmas that are not produced

[9] (4) The increase marked by not taking any dharma of an awakening to be won, or a bodhisattva who wins awakening as a basis