Overall Teaching

All things (both dharmas and non-dharmas) are a projection of the mind, like waves in the ocean (of the storehouse consciousness). Their varieties and discriminations are all projections. Knowing this directly renders a transformation in consciousness. The buddha's body is the awareness/knowledge and surpassing of this process: it is the oneness which is the tathāgatagarbha.[1]

Summary

1. The Buddha, with an assembly headed by Mahāmati who knew that all external things are perceptions of one's mind, was teaching in Sagara Palace of the Naga King on the bottom of the ocean for seven days. After arising from the ocean, he beheld Lanka and declared that as buddhas of the past taught the self-realisation of buddha knowledge,2 he will do so today for the sake of King Rāvaṇa.

2. By the Buddha's power Rāvaṇa heard what the Buddha said and perceived everyone's minds (storehouse consciousness) as the ocean and thoughts like the waves (stirred by wind of externality).  

3. Rāvaṇa flew in his chariot to the Buddha and praised him with his assembly and invites him to come to his palace to teach them.

4. The Buddha accepts the invitation and goes to Rāvaṇa's palace on Mount Malaya, to Lanka city on his chariot.  

5. Rāvaṇa asks Mahāmati to request the Buddha for a teaching, as he was known for requests.

6. The Buddha then conjured mountains around them: on each mountain was a city, a Buddha, Rāvaṇa, an assembly, and Mahāmati requesting the Buddha for a teaching. After the conjured vision disappeared, Rāvaṇa wondered what happened, who spoke and listened, who saw and was seen, and where the cities and buddhas went. Rāvaṇa asks about this, and then declares:

a. The mirage/dream/smoke-like nature of the vision is the nature of things: the realm of nothing but mind. Beings are bewildered by false projections. Those who view illusions as real don't see the Buddha: only those who transform their existence see the Buddha (through meditative practice).

7. Rāvaṇa thus had a transformation of consciousness and saw all appearances as projections of our own minds. His yogic abilities attained were:

a.     How to manifest various forms

b.     How to master skilful means

c.     How to know the stages

d. How to delight in detachment from mind, will, and conceptual consciousness (8th, 7th, and 6th consciousnesses)

e.     How to liberate himself from views involving greed, anger, & ignorance

f.      How to refute arguments of other sects regarding causation

g.     How to understand buddhahood, self-realisation, and tathāgatagarbha

h.     How to live with the knowledge of a buddha

8. Rāvaṇa hears a voice inside and outside praise him and declare:  

a.     Others should practice as him: not clinging to any attainment or path: those of Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas, Vedas, powers, or dhyānas.  

b. It declares that the use of subtlest wisdom to transform consciousness is the Mahayana path.

c.     It suggests that practicing samadhi makes this clearer: one should not cling to the world, or even that ignorance and the chain of causation are real: it is only emptiness.

d.     Through self-realisation one removes the waves of consciousness and abandons views of dualism and self. One should view the Tathāgatas in the same way.

9. Rāvaṇa then wishes to see the Buddha again.

10.  The Buddha knows Rāvaṇa attained patience in regards to the non-arising of dharmas (at the eighth stage) and again appears before him on all the mountains with Mahāmati, etc. The Buddha then smiled & emitted a very bright light which made the gods wonder why.

11.  Mahāmati asked the Buddha why he smiled. The Buddha explained:

a. Mahāmati asked a question for the benefit of himself and others.

b. In the past Rāvaṇa asked the buddhas a twofold question and he wishes to again.

c.     If Rāvaṇa questions him now, he will know the practices appropriate for selfrealisation and the bliss of samadhi, protected by the buddhas and avoiding mistakes.

d.     Rāvaṇa will also, on the 8th, 9th, and 10th stage, realise that all dharmas are without selfexistence and be instructed by buddhas while seated on a jewelled lotus flower.

e.     While on that lotus flower, Rāvaṇa will be surrounded by bodhisattvas on lotus flowers gazing at him, a thing not known by those on other paths or the gods.

12.  Rāvaṇa and his assembly scatter flowers on the mountain and conjure other adornments and instruments. Then Rāvaṇa rises into the air and offerings rained down for the Buddha. He then sat on another jewelled peak with lotuses as bright as the sun.

13.  Rāvaṇa requests to ask the Buddha about the two kinds of dharmas (in the sense of phenomena), about which he asked past buddhas. He was taught about his by apparition buddhas (nirmāṇakāya) but not primordial buddhas (dharmakāya) who only cultivate bliss of samadhi.

14.  With the Buddha's permission, Rāvaṇa asks:

a. As the Buddha teaches we should abandon both dharmas and non-dharmas, what does he mean by that?

b. What constitutes a dharma and non-dharma and why should we abandon them?

c. Wouldn't this abandonment result in projecting the existence and non-existence of something real and non-real?

d. If it is so that we only behold illusions and realms of impure knowledge, how are we to abandon them?

15.  The Buddha replies:

a.     The distinction between dharma and non-dharma is just a projection of the ignorant (i.e. dharmas are no more real than non-dharmas). The wise don't see things in terms of characteristics. Their distinction is like the one or many seen in fire: it is either seen as a singular burning thing or a diversity of flames. The varieties of consciousness and objects are projections, as are the distinctions in characteristics between a dharma and non-dharma.

b.     A dharma is anything imagined: they have no substance, no causes, and there is no distinction between those that are good and to be avoided (as RP notes, this imagining = creating distinctions). Viewing them in this way is to abandon them.  

c.     A non-dharma is anything without characteristics, uncaused, and which can neither exist nor not-exist. They are things that are talked about but which have no form, such as the horns of a rabbit or a barren woman's child, or something that cannot be known by any form of consciousness. Thus, it should be abandoned. (We can also see, in this description, that fundamentally, non-dharmas are no different from dharmas).

d. The three times are also projections.

e.     The buddhas don't project reality (dharma-nature) but transcend projection and fabrication, and also that which projects (e.g. a self, life, person, or dependent consciousness). Thus, buddhas are knowledge (knowledge = the buddha body) free from that which projects and the projected (the transformed equivalent of the ālāyavijñāna is the tathāgatagarbha).

f.  The appearances of beings are like paintings: they're not conscious and not subject to karma. As are dharmas and non-dharmas. They are all like an illusion:

i.   Not realising this, people fail to attain tranquillity.

ii.  Tranquillity is oneness.

iii. Oneness is the tathāgatagarbha: self-realisation of buddha knowledge from which the supreme samadhi arises (the samadhi in which the primordial buddhas (i.e. the dharmakāya) dwell).

[1] Womb of the Tathāgata: when the mind projects based upon habituation, its basis is termed the storehouse consciousness (alayavijnana), but in it's true nature free of projections, it is termed the tathāgatagarbha. When it is hidden it is called the tathāgatagarbha (like an embryo hidden in the womb), but when it is visible/realised, it is called the Dharma body. But ultimately, these words are also skilful means and conventions: they must be abandoned for the realisation of the truth. 2 Red Pine's note: "The personal experience of what buddhas know."