Overall Teaching

Awakening is coproduced in dependence upon the first and last thought of aspiration, but not directly by either. In suchness, ultimately, there is no development up to awakening, but conventionally, there is. All discriminative bodily and mental actions depend upon an objective support, but objective supports are signs, and as such have no own-being. Conditionality only makes sense in the convention of speech, but not on the ultimate level. A bodhisattva should practice without fear, dedicating the experience of misfortunes to the benefit of awakening. The Goddess of the Ganges becomes committed to this practice and it is predicted that after studying under Akṣobhya Buddha and others, she will become the Buddha Suvarṇapuṣpa.

People

Akṣobhya Buddha—Jñānākara, the eldest son of the Buddha Mahābhijñājñānābhibhū (in the Lotus Sutra), after vowing to attain buddhahood primarily through morality, he attains awakening as the “immovable” Buddha, i.e. Akṣobhya. His Buddha-field is Abhirati, and is in the eastern direction (in the five dhyānī buddhas, sometimes he is replaced by the Medicine Buddha, as they occupy the same location, which is the case in our main shrine). He is blue in colour and holds a vajra (thunderbolt) or displays the earth-touching mudra. The main attendant in his Buddha-field is Vajrapaṇi Bodhisattva. When entering nirvāṇa, Akṣobhya will disappear in flames.

His Buddha-field, called Abhirati (meaning great joy) is in the eastern direction. Due to his merit and compassion, he made vows such that his Buddha-field will be like the Sahā world, but transformed into a more awakened quality. The Bodhi tree in that world is huge and surrounded by rows of palms and jasmine bushes. The soil is gold and soft as cotton. The sun and moon there are outshone by the brilliance of Akṣobhya. A thought of lust instantly transforms into dhyāna, and while there are men and women, women become pregnant and beings are born there only through the power of thought. Akṣobhya’s resolve was that his land would be optimal for practicing until awakening. Anyone wishing to be born there may dedicate merit to the birth.

Summary

1.     Conditioned Coproduction

a.     A bodhisattva does not attain full awakening through giving rise to the first thought of awakening (aspiration to awakening: bodhicitta) or to the last thought of awakening, nor otherwise than through them.

i.     The Buddha compares this to a wick of a burning oil lamp. It is neither burned up by the first incidence of flame nor by the last incidence of flame, but not independent of them. [352]

2.     No Development

a.     The first thought is not produced again, but rather, by nature, must stop. [353]

b.     The thought which has not yet been produced, by nature, must not [yet] stop because it has not yet been produced.

i.     But when it by nature must stop, it will not then be destroyed.

c.     If the thought’s nature is to neither arise nor cease, it will not stop.

d.     If a phenomenon is, by its nature, already stopped, it will not be stopped.

e.     The true nature of dharmas (in itself) will not be stopped.

f.      The bodhisattva stands firm in the same way as suchness. [354]

i.     That suchness will not be changed away from its immobility.

g.     Thought is not in, identical with, or other than suchness.

h.     Suchness cannot be seen.

i.      A bodhisattva who practices suchness practices nowhere. [355]

i.     A bodhisattva thus practices in ultimate reality, not in a sign. Signs are undone by meditational development, and yet, as the bodhisattva, in the bodhisattva’s practice, makes no efforts, and thus no sign is undone by the bodhisattva by meditational development.

ii.     By practicing without forsaking any signs one becomes a śrāvaka. A bodhisattva’s practice is thus cognizing a sign, its mark and cause, and yet abandoning all signs.

j.      Śāriputra asks Subhūti if the perfection of wisdom increases when one develops the “three doors to liberation” (the empty, signless, and wishless) in his dreams.

i.     Subhūti answers that if it increases in his day, it increases in his dreams, as dream and waking are fundamentally indiscriminate. [356] So, if he has developed the perfection of wisdom in his day, he will also develop, in abundance, the perfection of wisdom in his dreams.

k.     Śāriputra asks if actions in dreams add to one’s karma.

i.     From the ultimate perspective, no, since all phenomena are like a dream.

ii.     But from the conventional perspective, if after waking one reflects on the dream and consciously desires to act upon it, then it is equivalent to the conscious desire to do that deed.

3.     No Objective Supports and no Own-Being

a.     Śāriputra asks whether the Buddha’s reflection that he wants to enter nirvāṇa is added to the Buddha’s karma. [357]

i.     Subhūti points out that, no, the Buddha has given up all reflection and discriminations.

1.     Deeds/karma can only rise with objective support including thoughts—some take defilement upon themselves and others purification.

2.     The objective supports are non-existent entities, signs, that one treats as existent (due to ignorance).

3.     In being conditioned by ignorance, intention, signs, formations, and all the links of dependent origination are isolated.

a.     Their isolation is such in relation to the signs that appear to give rise to them: they arise only in reference to the sign only in conventional expression, and not in reality.

b.     Śāriputra asks whether a gift given by a bodhisattva in a dream can be effectively dedicated to full awakening.

c.     Subhūti says that Maitreya can reply, and Śāriputra asks him:

i.     Maitreya answers that his aggregates do not have the capacity to reply. [359] Nor does he see any phenomenon that can reply.

d.     Śāriputra asks if Maitreya really witnesses what he teaches:

i.     Maitreya says that there is nothing that can witness these, as the own-being of all dharmas is without own-being.

e.     The Buddha asks Śāriputra if he can see the phenomenon whereby he is made into an arhat:

i.     Śāriputra says no. [360]

ii.     The Buddha explains that when a bodhisattva does not think that there is any phenomenon predestined to full awakening, then they are practicing the perfection of wisdom.

4.     Five Places which Inspire Fear

a.     If practicing without fear, the bodhisattva practices in perfect wisdom.

i.     They are not afraid in a wilderness with wild beasts, and thinks that if he is eaten by them, it will be his gift to them, and in his Buddha-field there will be no animals but only heavenly food.

ii.     They are not afraid in a wilderness with robbers, renouncing all attachment to belonging, [361] thinking, that if they are robbed, it is their gift to them, and he will give rise to no ill-will, and in his Buddha-field there will be no robbers.

iii.     They are not afraid in a waterless waste, thinking that if they die from thirst, [362] reflecting that deserts are due to small merit, and that in their Buddha-field there will be no deserts, and that they will exert in the perfection of effort in this way.

iv.     They will not be afraid in a district infested by epidemics, not trembling at the fact that it may be immeasurably long before awakening, [364] reflecting that in their Buddha-field there will be no epidemics, and that they will master the perfection of wisdom.

5.     Prediction of the Goddess of the Ganges

a.     A woman salutes the Buddha and declares that she will not be afraid.

b.     The Buddha smiles and light irradiates from his smile and rises to the heavens and circles him three times and then disappears into his head.

c.     The woman scattered golden flowers over the Buddha and they remained suspended in the air. [365]

d.     Ānanda asks why the Buddha smiled.

i.     The Buddha explains that this is the Goddess of the Ganges, and in the future she will attain full awakening, and become a Tathāgata called Golden Flower (Suvarṇapuṣpa). After dying, she will be reborn as a man in Abhirati, Akṣobhya Buddha’s Buddha-field.

ii.     After passing away in Abhirati, he will go from Buddha-field to Buddha-field, [366] never being deprived of the buddhas until awakening.

e.     Ānanda thought that the bodhisattvas with Akṣobhya must be the congregation of the Tathāgata.

i.     The Buddha read his thoughts and said it is so, and they almost attained full awakening.

ii.     Golden Flower Buddha’s disciples will be immeasurable and incalculable, and there will be no wildernesses with wild beasts, robbers, waterless wastes, or epidemics in his Buddha-field. [367]

iii.     The Goddess of the Ganges first gave rise to bodhicitta after witnessing Śākyamuni Buddha’s prediction to full awakening in the presence of Dīpaṅkara Buddha [368] and was inspired to do the same.