Overall Teaching

Vidvān produces all beings needs, materially and spiritually, looking at the sky (symbolising emptiness).

Summary

1. With Prabhūtā’s illumination, contemplating good, Sudhana sought the householder[1] Vidvān[2] in Mahāsambhāva.[3]

2. Due to his beneficial developed as a result of encountering spiritual benefits, Sudhana managed to see Vidvān on a seat on a pedestal in the central crossroads[4] of Mahāsambhāva covered by a greatly ordained parasol, surrounded by ten thousand virtuous people adorned better than the gods.

3.     Sudhana approached, respected him, and requested him to teach him bodhisattva practice.

4. Vidvān replied by saying it is good for him to aspire to awakening, which is rare—but even rarer is meeting spiritual benefactors and enquiring of them how to engage in practice. He said that all his companions have been caused to live in the family of buddhas and be established in the ranks of the awakened, realising the equality of all things: the cause of saving all beings.

a.     He attained good works from the treasury of his mind, thus giving what is needed to people materially.

b.     He summoned beings to approach so they could see for themselves:

5. After this, countless beings approached towards his house, of various kinds and having diverse needs, all invited by the bodhisattva’s vow, they made requests of him:

a.     In response, Vidvān thought for a moment, and looked to the sky, from whence fell all the goods that each being needed.[5]

b.     After he taught the Dharma to them who were made to be born in the family of the Buddha: the true means to avoiding poverty, attaining virtue, the marks of the awakened, inexhaustible good powers, intelligence for life and health, putting an end to craving, attaining the characteristics of great beings, and teaching them how to get on the Mahāyāna, and modesty of the buddha: each taught according to their needs.6

6. Then Vidvān said to Sudhana, although he knows the treasury of the awakening mind, he cannot know the treasury of offerings of bodhisattvas who shower offerings to buddhas from the heavens and in the abodes of all beings in order to develop all beings. Thus, Sudhana should go south to Siṃhapota, where Ratnacūḍa lives, who can teach him.

7.     Pleased, Sudhana expressed respect, seeing all good qualities coming from the spiritual benefactors, left for Siṃhapota.

[1] He is a householder because “he stayed in society to improve customs and morals.”

[2] Who represents the fourth practice: indomitability. His name means “Knower” because “he observed faculties and examined phenomena.”

[3] Meaning “Great Production” because Vidvān’s diligence produced great benefit.

[4] Representing that “he used the practices of the four integrative methods and seven branches of awakening tot live on the road of life and death unwearied, [thus he] was seen at a crossroads in the city, sitting on a pedestal made of seven precious substances.”

[5] “Since both material and metaphysical generosity are produced by knowledge of emptiness and baselessness, therefore when countless beings come from various lands seeking from him what they desired, Vidvān looked up to the sky, and all they wanted descended from the sky; and he taught them truths according to their faculties.” 6 The deeper meaning of this is that: while in the first abode (in the previous set of ten teachers) “one begins to understand the wisdom of Buddha, and one is born in the home of the awakened. In the fourth abode one quells worldly delusions, pure buddha-knowledge appears, and one is born in the home of the awakened.