Overall Teaching

Sarvajagadrakṣāpraṇidhānavīryaprabhā teaches that while bodhisattva liberations are beyond ordinary understanding, she attained a liberation in the past when she freed tortured prisoners.

Summary

1.     Sudhana then proceeded to the night goddess Sarvajagadrakṣāpraṇidhānavīryaprabhā,[1] who sat on a jewel seat2 reflecting all abodes and principles of the cosmos[2] and who had a body that immeasurably appeared everywhere. Seeing her, Sudhana prostrated on the ground.

2.     When Sudhana arose, he attained ten purities of thought whereby he gained communality with all spiritual friends:

a.     Thought of spiritual friends as his own mind.

b.    He thought of them as the pure essence of the development of his own actions.

c.     He thought of them as adorning the practice of enlightening beings.

d.    He thought of them as bringing him to all aspects of buddhahood.

e.     He thought of them as the state of comfort.

f.      He thought of them as the one way of emancipation.

g.     He thought of them as oceans of virtues of omniscience.

h.    He thought of them as fulfilling, increasing, and preserving all consummate good.

i.      He thought of them as fulfilling all roots of goodness.

j.      He thought of spiritual friends as fulfillers of all aims.

3.     He thus attained countless kinds of communality with spiritual friends and all buddhas, whereby his spiritual faculties were all made to accord with and be unified with those of bodhisattvas and buddhas. Quite a few of these are listed, ending with communality of emancipation, so as to awaken to the knowledge of the ten powers, to fulfill all vows.

4.     Thus he also gained communality with the night goddess, and bearing one shoulder, and bowing to her, he said in verse:

a.     As the power in his mind is as unbending towards awakening as hers, determination now arises.

b.    She instructs him and blocks the path to woe and calamity.

c.     She is a vehicle to emancipation and infinite.

d.    She is a mine of omniscience.

e.     Spiritual friends fulfil the path to omniscience.

f.      She is his guide to omniscience and he cannot thank her enough.

5.     Then Sudhana asked her to tell him about her liberation and how she set out for awakening. She explained:

a.     Her liberation is ‘made of roots of goodness fostering the development of all beings.’

b.    In it she, seeing things as undifferentiated, manifests different bodies appearing in countless different ways according to the needs of beings.

c.     Based on this liberation and fostering beings roots of goodness she establishes infinite beings in the stage of non-regression each mental moment.[3]

d.    As for when she attained this liberation, truly the knowledge of bodhisattvas is beyond time and is utterly pure in its essential nature and only appears to beings when it is time for their development.

i. This is like the sun, the sun itself has no marking of time, but by its presence one either has day or night. ii. Thus, the non-conceptual knowledge of bodhisattvas are distinguished as present or absent by the presence of bodhicitta and bodhisattva behaviour which works to liberate beings.

iii.     Similarly, it is just like the sun, which is reflected in all particles in the world. It does not arise from all particles in the world, and yet it is seen in them all. Thus bodhisattvas and bodhicitta are seen in all realms with their vows of great compassion aiding beings, but these do not arise from any conceptuality, imagination, or length and breadth of the age.

iv.     Just as a boatman is never staying on the near or further shore of a river, but always going back and forward to ferry beings, similarly bodhisattvas neither dwell on the near nor further shore, nor is concerned with the passage of time, in guiding beings to awakening.

v.       Just as space is without discrimination as lands arise and disappear, similarly the will of bodhisattvas is never exhausted and does not follow afflictions. vi. Just as a magically produced man appears in the world but does not have any sickness or exhaustion, similarly bodhisattvas do not indulge in enjoyment in the world or develop attachment towards the world, but work tirelessly to aid the world, as their body is one with the cosmos and their bodies are born of the magic of knowledge.[4]

e.     In a remote past age where ten thousand buddhas appeared, one buddha appeared not far from the capital of the Jewel Light world called Array of Delights, and attained awakening at a bodhi site there after sitting there for a hundred years.[5] In order to mature beings who indulged in the ten evil ways of action, he taught beings for a thousand years.

f.      At that time, there as a king called Victorious Light, who dealt with criminals by putting them in prison and punishing them, arose.[6] His son, Conqueror, saw these criminals suffering in the prisons and being tortured.[7] This inspired his great compassion and he comforted the prisoners and asked the king to set them free. The king, asking his five hundred ministers what to do, was told that they should rather be executed for their crimes against the king. The prince said to the ministers,

let it be so, but free the prisoners and instead torture and punish him instead, for if he cannot liberate these prisoners with material anguish, how could he liberate people whose minds are shackled by ignorance?

g.     The prince then freed all the prisoners and gave up himself and his retinue to the king. The king resolved to kill both his son and the convicts while the queen pleaded with the king. The prince was not fazed by this. The queen then said, allow the prince to do as he wished for a fortnight, and see what happens, and after do as he wished.

h.    Thus, the prince gave away whatever beings needed in a park north of the city for a fortnight. On the last day, the entire population gathered and the king came for an audience. At that time the Buddha took that opportunity to appear to the people and arrived in that assembly radiating light and fires which destroyed beings’ afflictions and clarified their minds, thus all the people prostrated to the Buddha and welcomed him.

i.      The Buddha and his assembly sat on seats that transformed to lotuses and all beings in the assembly were relieved of their afflictions. Knowing the people were suitable for the teachings, he taught them the sūtra on the Illumination of the Multitude of Causes. Countless beings were thus guided to dispassion and many were guided to the Mahāyāna, and the prince attained this liberation which fostered the perfection of all beings according to their mentalities.

j.      The prince, at that time, was none other than the night goddess herself, and that is how she realised bodhicitta and attained this liberation. The five hundred ministers were the five hundred monks turned to heresy by Devadatta, who will in future lives turn to become buddhas in the age Good Light. The criminals of that time who were released were the buddhas of the present age, starting with Krakucchanda, who are now teaching throughout the universe. The king at that time was the debater Satyaka, the Jain who was converted by Śākyamuni Buddha, and his retinue are the other Jains who joined the saṅgha with Satyaka.

k.     The prince left home and went to that Buddha and after cultivating thousands of spiritual practices and attaining thousands of realisations for five hundred years[8] by which he could see and learn from countless buddhas and see countless beings and know the ways to teach them, and he developed twenty-eight of the great marks.[9]

l.      Subsequently he was reborn as a king, and later various gods, always serving buddhas and cultivating bodhisattva practice. He propitiated ten thousand buddhas. In the next age, he gradually was born as various noble men and gods. Gradually he purified his knowledge and was eventually reborn here as a night goddess.

m.   Then in verse she summarised what she had explained.

6.     She said she knows only this liberation but cannot know the liberations of bodhisattvas who have transcended all worldly courses. Thus, Sudhana should go to the goddess in the Lumbini grove called Sutejomaṇḍalaratiśrī and ask her about bodhisattva practice.

7.     Sudhana, paying respects to her, left.

[1] She realised the eighth stage: Immovability.

 “The spirit, whose name means “Light of Energy of the Vow to Protect all Beings,” represents total absorption in helping living beings, using effortless knowledge to let the power of the fundamental vow do its work.” 2 “This [seat] represents how the pure function of knowledge in effortless knowledge appears in all places.”

[2] “This [reflection] represents the body of knowledge appearing in context.”

[3] “The night spirit said she had attained liberty to teach beings in ways that promoted goodness. When knowledge of the essence of nonbeing is realised, all faculties of goodness develop.”

[4] The goddess uses these metaphors “to answer the question of how long it has been since she has been inspired to seek awakening, making it clear that awakening liberation cannot be measured in temporal terms.”

[5] “The buddha represents effortless knowledge, like an echo, everywhere aware yet not based anywhere. The hundred years represent the hundred transcendent ways (pāramitās) of the full ten stages practiced in one stage.”

[6] “The king represents knowledge.”

[7] “The prince represents practical kindness, the prison represents the sphere of operation of kindness.”

[8] “Leading a holy life for five hundred years after renunciation stands for leaving the home of effort and penetrating the five ranks in effortlessness.

[9] The prince only had twenty-eight of the marks of greatness, lacking four, because in the eighth stage one lacks the causes and effects of the ninth and tenth stages.” (1611–1613)