Overall Teaching

The night goddess Pramuditanayanajagadvirocanā shows in her emanations the ten perfections which teach beings, and was inspired to awakening in the past in the company of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra bodhisattvas.

Summary

1.     Immersed in the teachings and practice of spiritual benefactors, Sudhana proceeded right[1] to the night goddess Pramuditanayanajagadvirocanā.2

a.     The goddess, in order to further mature Sudhana’s good roots, showed Sudhana how visiting spiritual benefactors is possible due to possession of virtue, knowledge, and effort.

b.    Thus, proceeding with perseverance, Sudhana went to the goddess and saw her sitting on a lion throne in the buddha’s circle. From her emanated beings helping and teaching beings according to their needs, successively they were:

i. Impartially relinquishing to them in all times and directions.

ii.   Showing them the way of life of the awakened. 

iii. Showing patient endurance in the face of defeat and mutilation. 

iv. Showing all beings the exertion of energy needed to attain awakening.

v. Showing joy, removing sensuality, and praising spiritual practice. 

vi. Revealing higher knowledge of all worldly good, without of attraction or repulsion towards the whole world.

vii.     Showing entering the particles in all oceans of worlds, ceaselessly manifesting for all beings and fulfilling bodhisattva vows.

viii.    He saw multitudes of projected bodies showing all beings the unbreakable and irreversible power of the vow for awakening, the power to destroy all demons, shake all buddha-lands, and turn the Dharma Wheel for all beings. 

ix. He saw multitudes of projected bodies filling the endless realms showing beings the energetic activity comprehending the minds of all beings and their faculties.

x. Showing the knowledge of proper timing for helping beings and adapting to the different conditions of lands and producing the power of resolution to help beings to omniscience.[2]

c.     He thus saw multitudes of projected bodies going to all buddhas and manifesting and indicating all the transcendent ways (i.e. pāramitās) and communicating the methods of knowledge of practices, beings, worlds, buddhas, states of bodhisattvas, their origins, vows, practices, and attainments. Sudhana saw all of these emanate and guide beings to maturity (i.e. irreversibility).

d.    He saw some teaching with the use of the four elements, the sounds of various objects, of beings, or all beings to explain the goddess’ liberation. He saw all this coming forth from the goddess’ aspiration.

e.     He thus saw infinitely varied beings and displays coming forth from the night goddess as a result of her vow of inconceivable good and of beings’ inconceivably good roots of virtue.

2.     Sudhana, imbued with the light of the ocean of ecstasy of the bodhisattvas, empowered by the buddhas praised the goddess in verse:

a.     She has studied for countless aeons and now appears according to the minds of beings, knowing them to have no true self.

b.    While the true body is infinite and non-dual, she manifests according to their needs. She has no false imaginings, but manifests to guide beings attached to falsehood.

c.     She makes offerings to buddhas everywhere from her pores, striving to save beings through manifestations, purifying them by showing the path of non-obstruction, her body is purified by her acts of universal good and thus manifests as a goddess in the world.

3.     Then Sudhana asked her how long she has been devoted to awakening and how she attained her liberation. She explained:

a.     Aeons ago, in another jewelled world, there was a king called Lord of the People who shone with light. She was his wife. One night when everyone was asleep a buddha appeared with countless projections. The world quaked announcing his appearance. All deities came to see him, as the buddha taught beings with manifestations. She became joyful and being awakened by a night goddess manifesting above her, she saw the buddha rising above all like mount Sumeru. She vowed to become like him. After waking the king and his people, they went to that buddha and learned from him for thousands of years. Her first aspiration was made then, to attain buddhahood, and, with compassion, liberate beings, and has since then never lost her resolve.

b.    She served billions of buddhas since then but had not yet attained this liberation:

i. Then, a land called Jewel Light arose, wherein countless other buddhas arose. She served them all, but she was still attached to body and mind, with her intellect dwelling on what really had no abode. 

ii. Then, a land called Myriad Lights of the Lamp of Truth arose, and similarly buddhas arose and she learned from them. This continued with different lands and buddhas for many aeons. 

But she had not yet awakened to: 

iii.        The real nature whereby she could enter the ocean of buddhas, 

iv.        The knowledge to enter the ocean of truth, 

v.         The real nature, which is spacelike, inherently pure, based on which she could carry on spiritual practices in all lands,

vi.        The method to purify the unhindered path,

vii.       The forbearance to enter this way of the buddhas,

viii.     The forbearance to enter this ocean of wisdom.

Then, after arising in the land called Splendour of Universal Light, under its buddhas, as the queen Moonlike Face, she listened to a sūtra on the supernal manifestations originating in an ocean of independent vows, after which:

ix.        She attained a samādhi wherein she saw buddha-lands one after another, at the end of which she, by means of kindness, gave rise to a will for awakening as vast as space with the measureless light of the powers of buddhas.

Finally, under the buddha called Paragon of Virtue Radiant as a Jewel, seeing the world in error, and controlled by craving, suffering the pains of suffering, and wishing for beings’ welfare, she produced vows and:

x.         Entered the practice of universal good (Samantabhadra) wherein she realised the myriad practices of the differentiations of the ten universes.

c.     That king, Lord of the People, was none other than Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva, the night goddess who awakened her was Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, the wife of the king was her, ever since which she had never fallen into the lower realms and had never been apart from the sight of the buddhas. After seeing the Buddha Paragon of Virtue Radiant as a Jewel, she attained this liberation, by which she develops and guides sentient beings in this way.[3]

d.    She explained that she just knows this liberation but cannot tell of the practice of bodhisattvas who have attained the ocean of great speed setting out for omniscience in the presence of all buddhas in each instant. Thus, Sudhana should go right of here to the night goddess Samantasattvatrāṇojaḥśrī who can teach him.

4.     Hearing this, Sudhana paid his respects to her, and left.

[1] “The right is the position of compassion this represents initiating action by awakening and developing tolerance and kindness. The goddess is called Joyful Eyes Illuminating the World; joyful eyes represents tolerance and kindess, illuminating the world means not abandoning sentient beings.” 2 She represents the third stage: Refulgence.

[2] “From every pore of her body the night goddess emanated countless multitudes of projected bodies, filling the ten directions and expounding the practical aspects of the ten perfections; this illustrates how the world of the teaching reaches everywhere.”

[3] “This represents how activation of complex functions based on fundamental knowledge (Mañjuśrī) and practice of great compassion (Samantabhadra) are not limited by time; this is because cultivation of world transcendence shows up in an instant, while practice of great compassion goes on forever.” (1607)