Overall Teaching

Bodhisattvas train in something unsubstantial but don’t lose heart because there are no dharmas that can lose heart or make them lose heart. Devas will protect them. Buddhas and bodhisattvas in other worlds praise those in this and vice versa.

Summary

1.     The Bodhisattva’s Courage in Difficulties

a.     [1]Śāriputra declares the bodhisattva who practices in PW as practicing in the core of things, but Subhūti declares that they practice in something unsubstantial.

b.     [2]The devas declare that bodhisattvas who raise their thoughts to full awakening are due homage [3]as they do what is hard.

i.     [4]Subhūti, reading their thoughts, declares that it is not hard to not realise the reality-limit, [444] [5]but it is hard to lead countless beings to nirvāṇa who don’t exist—[6]it would be like disciplining space. [7]They thus put on the space-like armour in order to do this, which is isolated. If they don’t lose heart when doing this, [8]for the benefit of beings, they practice in PW. [445]

c.     [9]The bodhisattva does not lose heart because [10]there are no dharmas that can lose heart, [11] [12]or any dharmas that can make a dharma lose heart.

2.     The Bodhisattva Protected by the Gods and Against Māra

a.     [13]All deities & buddhas will pay homage to and help the bodhisattva who practices thus. [446]

b.     [14]No obstacle can stop them, even if conjured up by Māra. [447]

c.     [1]Buddhas will bring them to mind and [2]devas will go up to them and question them [448] and encourage them.

2.     The Buddhas Praise the Bodhisattva

a.     Just as Śākyamuni declares and exults the buddhas and bodhisattvas of other buddha-fields, [449] likewise they do the same for those in this world.

b.     [3]They only do this for irreversible bodhisattvas or who are strong in resisting the enemy, [450] [4]or who are patient in acceptance of the nature of dharmas, [451] [5]but who also resolutely believe in non-production, [6]and have forsaken the other vehicles and [7]who will eventually be predicted to full awakening and irreversibility.

3.     Enlightenment and Suchness

a.     [8]They will be irreversible if they don’t hesitate in believing in the teaching, and desire to learn it further, including wanting to hear Akṣobhya teach it. [452]

b.     [9]Merely to hear it achieves much, let alone believing in it and standing in suchness.

c.     [10]One cannot get at any dharma distinct from suchness, [11]and suchness cannot know, and thus nothing is got at as being [12]demonstrated or [13]demonstrating. [453]

4.     Emptiness and Dwelling in Perfect Wisdom

a.     Śakra declares the depth of this, and praises the non-stupefied bodhisattvas who hear it.

b.     Subhūti declares that there’s nothing to be stupefied, and Śakra praises how Subhūti’s teaching doesn’t get stuck anywhere.

c.     Śakra claims he can also become a teacher of this Dharma if he takes into consideration Subhūti’s teaching.

i.     The Buddha affirms this, [454] as whatever Subhūti teaches, he does so with reference to emptiness and suchness. He does not “get at” any of the things he teaches dwelling in the isolatedness of all dharmas which surpasses all other dwellings. [455] Such a dwelling is the highest of all: that of bodhisattvas who practice PW and dwell in it.

[1] The sixth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of the projection of a basis.

[2] The seventh conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of attachment.

[3] The eighth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of an antidote.

[4] The ninth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of impediments to going where they want to go, and attaining control over psychic powers. These nine are thus taught in negative form in order to counteract them.

[5] The second set of grasper-subject conceptualisations are concerned with nominally existing persons. The first of this set of nine is this, which removes the conceptualisation of those who do not go forth to the aim.

[6] The second conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of determining their own path (and not the Buddha path).

[7] The third conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of production and cessation.

[8] The fourth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of conjunction and disjunction.

[9] The fifth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of standing on form.

[10] The sixth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of the destruction of the lineage.

[11] The seventh conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of the non-existence of yearning for full awakening.

[12] The eighth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of the non-existence of the cause of those dharmas.

[13] The ninth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of the apprehension of hostile dharmas. Thus are the nine subject conceptualisations that Bodhisattvas on the path of seeing must eliminate. The four sets of nine conceptualisations have a four-sided relationship: 1. a representation in the form of a grasped object, 2. a representation that is a single instant in the form of a grasped object, 3. other instants of that, 4. PW free from that. With 4 the first 3 are absent, without 4, the first 3 are present. The above were aspects that oppose the path of seeing with their antidote, the rest of this chapter (section 5) sets forth the cause of bringing awakening to completion.

[1] The second set of grasped-object conceptualisations are concerned with stopping saṃsāra. The first of this set of nine is this, which is the negation of the conceptualisation of a realisation that is deficient.

[2] The second conceptualisation, which removes conceptualisation that there is no mentor.

[3] The third conceptualisation, which removes conceptualisation of a practice that is incomplete.

[4] The fourth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of operating contingent on others.

[5] The fifth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of turning back from the aim.

[6] The sixth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of partial work.

[7] The seventh conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of different realizations.

[8] The eighth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of an absence of knowledge of standing in equipoise and setting out for the sake of beings.

[9] The ninth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of getting at the material reality of the aggregates and the realisation dharmas of a tathāgata.

[10] The first set of grasper-subject conceptualisations are concerned with materially existing persons. The first of this set of nine is this, which removes the conceptualisation of taking hold and releasing.

[11] The second conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of attention that they are practicing in PW.

[12] The third conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of clinging to the three realms, and hence has attained a state of great authority.

[13] The fourth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of being established, thus being protected.

[14] The fifth conceptualisation, which removes the conceptualisation of settling down on existing.