Title

The chapter of this title is Viśuddhi, which literally means purity. In the Śrāvakayāna teachings, the mind is pure but is defiled by the kleśas (greed, anger, delusion, etc.). Another meaning is that the mind can be purified in seven ways sequentially, the purity of morality leads to the purity of mind, which leads to the purity of views, which leads to the purity of overcoming doubt, which leads to the purity of knowledge and vision of what is and isn’t the path, which leads to purity of knowledge and vision of progress along the path, which leads to the purity of knowledge and vision in themselves through the four paths.

            The Perfection of Wisdom, as we have seen, is the signless and unconditioned quality of suchness. We are a part of it and it is the cause of all Buddhas. It is an inherent enlightened nature. Another quality which it possesses is purity—this chapter discusses the higher Mahāyāna meaning of viśuddhi.

Overall Teaching

PW is hard to gain confidence in and profound due to its purity which is identical with the purity of the skandhas: their ultimate lack of obscuration. Not seeing the purity or isolation of PW and the skandhas, one is attached, and seeing them, one is non-attached. Demonstrating or non-demonstrating these does not increase or decrease PW or the skandhas, because they’re like space and an echo. This was taught in this way by past buddhas, and will be so taught by Maitreya.

Summary

1.     Depth and Purity of Perfect Wisdom

a.     The Buddha and Subhūti discuss how it is hard to gain confidence in the Perfection of Wisdom if one is:

i.     Unpractised and unpractised in wholesome things

ii.     Lacks wholesome roots

iii.     In the hands of a bad friend

iv.     Dull-witted or does not care

v.     Unlearned

vi.     With inferior wisdom

vii.     Not eager to learn or ask questions

b.     Subhūti asks how profound the perfection of wisdom is. The Buddha replies that

i.     The skandhas are neither bound nor freed, their beginning and end are neither bound nor freed, their being present is neither bound nor freed: all because they are without own-being.[1]

ii.     Yet, Subhūti insists, it is still hard to gain confidence due to the seven above reasons. The Buddha says this is because:

1.     The purity of the skandhas is identical and not separate with the purity of the fruit. Their purity comes from each other. The purity of the skandhas is thus the same as the purity of all-knowledge.[2] [186]

c.     Śāriputra uses nine words to describe the Perfection of Wisdom, which the Buddha insists is due to its purity:

i.     Deep

ii.     A source of illumination

iii.     A light

iv.     Not subject to rebirth

v.     Free from defilement

vi.     Without attainment or reunion

vii.     Not reproducing of itself

viii.     Not being born in the three worlds

ix.     Neither knowing nor perceiving[3] [187-8]

d.     Śāriputra states that the purity skandhas, fruit, all-knowledge, the absence of attainment and reunion, and the boundlessness of the aggregates, are due to the purity and boundlessness of the self, which the Buddha states is because of their absolute purity.[4] [188-9]

e.     Subhūti adds that due to absolute purity the Perfection of Wisdom is neither on this shore, nor the other, nor between the two: one who understand this has Perfect Wisdom, but one cannot even take that insight as an object of perception without being parted from Perfect Wisdom.

2.     Attachments

a.     The Buddha points out that even these things can be taken as sources of attachments.[5]

b.     When asked for clarification by Śāriputra, Subhūti explains that if one perceives phenomena as past, present, or future, or as belonging to the Bodhisattva vehicle or as begetting a heap of merit, that is attachment.

i.     It is attachment because in attempting to transform the thought of awakening into actual awakening, one is engaging in an impossibility: a thought cannot be converted into a reality. One should teach others in this way. [190-1][6]

c.     As regards more subtle attachments, the Buddha points out that if a practitioner attends to the Buddha through a sign and rejoices in his qualities, and dedicates those to awakening: one is truly engaging in an act that cannot be done, as it is attempting to correspond to phenomena that cannot be treated as a sign, perceived, or known. [191]

3.     Non-attachment

a.     Subhūti points out that the essential original nature of phenomena and Perfect Wisdom are deep, and the Buddha indicates that this is because they are isolated in their essential nature.

b.     They have no nature, and no mark, this is how attachments are abandoned. [192][7]

c.     Subhūti makes the following declarations and the Buddha provides the reason:

i.     Perfect Wisdom is deep : through a depth like space

ii.     It’s hard to understand : because nothing is fully known by the awakened

iii.     It’s unthinkable : it’s not something that thought should know or access

iv.     It’s unmade : because no maker can be apprehended

d.     Under these circumstances, how should a Bodhisattva practice it?

i.     By not practicing in the skandhas, in the conviction that they’re impermanent, empty, or defective and not practicing in the conviction of that the skandhas are not defective, etc. [193-4]

e.     If one does not practice in any ideas related to the skandhas or the path, one doesn’t generate attachment. [195]

4.     Like space or an echo

a.     Subhūti declares that demonstration and non-demonstration neither diminishes nor increases the Perfection of Wisdom.

i.     The Buddha compares this to space: if you praise space for your entire life, it neither increases or decreases; or like an illusory man, he is neither affected nor frustrated with praise.[8]

b.     Subhūti declares a bodhisattva as a “doer of what is hard” for developing Perfect Wisdom which is like space, who wants to liberate beings who are space, etc. [196]

c.     Śakra asks the Buddha to request him to defend practitioners of Perfect Wisdom.

i.     Subhūti asks whether he can see the phenomenon he intends to defend. He cannot. Just as one cannot defend an echo, one cannot defend a phenomenon. [197-8]

5.     Conclusion

a.     The four great kings, and all the śakras in the great three thousand world systems saluted the Buddha and circumambulated him.

b.     Through the power of the Buddha, they were all impressed by the sight of a thousand buddhas.

c.     The Perfection of Wisdom was taught by past Buddhas here, with all these deities in attendance, and will be so taught by Maitreya in the future. [198-9]

[1] On the conventional level, ordinary beings are bound and liberated beings (e.g. Buddhas) are freed. However, because they are without own-being (i.e. dependently originated and impermanent and thus empty of own-being), one can neither say they are bound or freed: these are just conventional designations from the perspective of suchness.

[2] Skandhas’ purity is the purity of all-knowledge, this is the same as saying the ultimate and conventional truths are two sides of the same coin. Skandhas are not ultimately obscured: this is a teaching of Buddha Nature. Some insist that the teachings of emptiness and Buddha Nature are not compatible, but here we see that one, in fact, implies the other. The purity of individual things, such as form, is an illusion: the purity of form is just the purity of the Buddha’s all-knowledge.

[3] According to Haribhadra, this can either mean simply that the Mother is not established anywhere or correspond to the nine levels of the path of meditation. These nine are the gradual elimination of obscurations in meditation: e.g. three small, medium, and big levels of meditation counteract three big, medium, and subtle levels of obscuration. The most gross and mundane obscurations are eliminated by the deep, illuminating, and light-like qualities of Perfect Wisdom, whereas the most subtle ones that bar the way to Buddhahood itself are counteracted by the non-reproducing, non-triple world born, and the neither knowing nor perceiving aspects: the most profound and difficult aspects to realise in meditation. Haribhadra likens this to “the example of a washer-woman’s great effort to remove a tiny stain.” Hence, Haribhadra asserts, there is an “infinite purity, mainly of a Buddha Lord, based on the fact that just the last … sameness of all dharmas is the form of the final antidote that counteracts [all stains], because it does not apprehend any knowledge or known object in the triple world.” Thus objects of the world and the knowledge that identifies and understands them, are ultimately the same in nature.

[4] Just as the self is absolutely pure and boundless because it is devoid of any production (i.e. it doesn’t really exist), likewise everything else is pure in the same way: none of these can be said to be produced in any way. But the nature of all-knowledge is fundamentally the same. As Nagarjuna says, “Dependent origination is just emptiness.” This is a realization that Śrāvakas can attain, whereas the prior discussions were on the higher level of buddhas and bodhisattvas, hence Haribhadra asserts that while chapter 2 to here discussed the Knowledge of Paths, whereas the rest of this chapter and chapter 9 discuss the third topic, All-Knowledge, which can also be known by Śrāvakas.

[5] The issue here is that people take names and signs like “Perfect Wisdom” as sources of attachment and as their goals. This is the difference between being a Śrāvaka, without the “good friend” of the Mother of the Victors, and being a Bodhisattva, with the good friend: they realise that these things are signless.

[6] Maitreya writes: “For those unskilled in means she is distant because they seize on her through a sign. For Bodhisattvas with skill in means she is perfectly close by.” [3.2]

[7] Maitreya writes, “To understand they are of one essential nature is to abandon attachment to all dharmas. They say she is hard to know fully because anything seen and so on is negated.” [3.5-6]

[8] Haribhadra adds that while conventionally demonstration and non-demonstration of the Perfection of Wisdom in book form can make her increase or decrease in one’s mind-stream, the “main Mother” is immutable in nature: i.e. this is another case of conventional vs. suchness.