Overall Teaching

Māyā has been the mother of all bodhisattvas who became buddhas in their final births and tells of the story about how this came to be.

Summary

1. Sudhana, going to Lady Māyā,[1] considering how he can learn from spiritual benefactors whose bodies are made of mind, are emanations, and are beyond attachments.

2. The city goddess named Jewel Eyes appeared to him and implored him to guard the city of mind, adorn it, extinguish its burning, make it firm, purify it, and so forth. Thereby, a bodhisattva can produce all good, because no obstacles will stand before one whose mind city is purified, and spiritual friends will be easily perceptible.[2]

3. Then the goddess Spiritual Lotus, and many other goddesses, came forth from the awakening site and praised Lady Māyā, and after revealing to Sudhana in lights the multitude of lands with forms of buddhas everywhere, they entered into Sudhana’s head and pores.[3]

a.     Thereupon, Sudhana acquired many eyes whereby he could see beings, phenomena, buddhas, and their teachings.

4.     Then the supernatural being Fine Eye, doorkeeper of the hall of the bodhisattva assembly, sprinkled Sudhana with flowers and said that Bodhisattvas can approach all spiritual friends if they have ten qualities:[4]

i.               A pure mind free from guile and deceit; 

ii.              great compassion taking in all beings as a whole; 

iii.            meditation on the unreality of self-existence of all beings; 

iv.            the willpower to proceed unswervingly toward omniscience; 

v.              the power of attention to the spheres of all buddhas; 

vi.            clear perception of the purity of essence of all phenomena; 

vii.           great kindness to all beings as a whole; 

viii.          the light of knowledge that dissolves all barriers; 

ix.            the great body of teachings that acts as a shield against the miseries of the mundane whirl; 

x.              the eye of knowledge of all currents of reality, directed toward the path of spiritual friends. 

5. Then, through meditation on spiritual friends their virtues, and going to them, they can come face to face with all spiritual friends at all times.

6. In reply, Sudhana asked Fine Eye how to find spiritual friends and where he should search. Fine Eye replied:

a.     By having universal respect, remembering them in all things, and realising mind and body are like reflections, one finds them.

7. Sudhana practiced as Fine Eye instructed, and saw a jeweled tower arise from the ground, which had bells that emanated sounds which told of the buddhas’ qualities, and the throne on top of the tower was surrounded by countless other jeweled seats. On the throne was Lady Māyā, who had countless virtues and constantly adapted to the needs of beings, being dream-like, infinite, measureless, non-dwelling and non-dual, and non-conceptual like thusness. Her physical body was thus none of the aggregates and settled in the nature of the Dharmakāya but appeared according to all beings’ minds: some saw her as a devil woman, some as a devī, and some as a human princess. She was engaged in bodhisattva activity and skilled in all branches of meditation, constantly seeing all buddhas of the three times, knowing all beings and their minds, and pervading all directions, and undertook to be the mother of all bodhisattvas and buddhas.[5]

8. Seeing her in this way, Sudhana made his body as extensive as that of Lady Māyā, and consequently a variety of samādhis entered into him. After exiting them he told Lady Māyā about his journey and asked her how bodhisattvas may practice for omniscience. She explained:

a.     She attained the liberation “magical manifestation of knowledge of great vows.” This liberation allows her to be the mother of all bodhisattvas in their final birth. By the power of this liberation she became the wife of King Śuddhodana, and mother of Siddhartha.

b.     She then relayed the process whereby the bodhisattva descended into her body and what the miracles were attending his entry, such as how she saw all bodhisattvas thus arising and buddhas turning the Dharma in all directions. Her body thus became as great as space but did not change its human size.

c.     When the bodhisattva was in her womb, at the exact same time countless bodhisattvas in all space descended from Tusita and dispelled darkness from all realms.

d.     In her womb, they walked in strides as big as a billion-world universe, and countless congregations of bodhisattvas and devas also came into the womb, and yet the body was not enlarged or any larger than a human body. This is because of the power of her liberation.[6]

e.     Just as she received the bodhisattva in her womb in this world, she did in all space and all times for infinite bodhisattvas who became buddhas, including the five buddhas of this age from Krakucchanda to Maitreya.

9.     Sudhana asked how long ago she attained this liberation. She replied:

a.     Aeons ago in the age Pure Light, in the world Elevated, in the middle continent Supreme Lionlike Majesty, in the city Possessed of Great Banners, there was the king Great Energetic Power. At the enlightenment site near that city, called conscious Rays of Light, there was a deity called Radiant Eyes. There, the

Bodhisattva Pure Standard sat. But the demon Golden Light attempted to prevent

him from attaining buddhahood. The king had just attained bodhisattva mastery whereby he could magically create an illusory army, which surrounded and fought off the demon army. Thus, Pure Standard attained full buddhahood.

b.     The goddess Radiant Eyes, seeing this, prostrated to the Buddha and vowed that wherever she may be born, may Great Energetic Power be her son until he attains buddhahood. 

c.     That goddess was her, herself. The king was the present Buddha, Vairocana. Since then, the king, who was every bodhisattva and every buddha in all space and time, she has been the mother of the buddha. He has attained full buddhahood an infinite number of times, moment to moment, and in every case, he was her mother, and will be for all future buddhas.[7]

10. She claimed to only know this liberation but could not tell the practice or virtues of bodhisattvas filled with great compassion emanating buddhas’ miracles from every pore. Thus, Sudhana should go to the goddess Surendrābhā in the heaven of the thirty-three who can teach him bodhisattva practice.

11. Sudhana, paying respects to her, left.

[1] She represented the first of Samantabhadra’s practices: Producing Knowledge from Compassion.

 “‘This world’ symbolises the realm embraced by great compassion, without distinctions of far and near, inside and outside. Lady Māyā represents the effortless great compassion that is always in the world. The fact that she is the mother of Buddha symbolizes great compassion magically producing great knowledge.

[2] “Jewel Eyes represents the eye of knowledge within compassion…” 

[3] “… the lights symbolise teaching…”

[4] “… and the goblin represents devouring the poisons of ignorance. These three principles constitute expedients on the threshold of the eleventh stage, ushering one into the great practice of Samantabhadra.”

[5] The arising of Māyā and her manifestations “illustrates the absence of inherent identity of body and mind—this is seeing bodies magically produced by compassion and knowledge.”

[6] “This means that the ocean of great compassionate practices of Samantabhadra is endlessly vast, like space.”

[7] This story tells of how she came to be mother of buddhas from a conventional level which makes it appear as if it happened in a particular place and time, but ultimately, beyond space and time, how she attained this liberation is inconceivable.

 “Māyā also said she had attained this liberation of the magic of knowledge inconceivable aeons before, making it clear that it is not possible to calculate in ordinary relative terms—it is necessary that calculation be forgotten, feelings end, and knowledge become manifest before one could know how long it has been since she had attained this liberation. Therefore only buddhas could know how many aeons it had been.” (1616–1617)