Madhyamika Teaching (II)
Late Ven. Khenpo Migmar Tsering
Sydney, Australia - 1993
[Please note:
Any errors that appear here is due to my lack of skill in transcribing, and are not the faults of the actual teacher or teachings themselves.]
THE THIRD BHUMI
The person on the third Bhumi's accomplishment and knowldege of realising ultimate emptiness has become better or more accomplished than on the first two Bhumis. That person will have the experience, the generation of transcendental knowledge in which there will be a vision similar to the colour of copper, or similar to the colour in the sky at sunrise. There is a direct realisation or experience of transcendental knowledge and the understanding of ultimate emptiness but it is likened to that first light of sunrise stage. It is a direct knowledge but it is still not the ultimate realisation.
The Practice of Patience
The Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi is more advanced on the practice of patience. Because he has realised the selflessness of person and phenomena, so even if someone cuts his body into different piece slowly bit by bit which would normally cause a lot of pain, the patience of the Bodhisattva will become stronger towards the person who is cutting his body. This shows that the practice of patience of the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi has become very advanced. One will come to realise the advancement of the person on the third Bhumi if his attitude to the person cutting his body is a sense of patience and nothing else. This is the practice of patience in the conventional sense or the practice of patience with respect to relative truth.
In respect to the ultimate truth, when someone is cutting your body, what is being cut, the cutter and the action of cutting are all devoid of any inherent existance other than the state of emptiness. He understands or realises the ultimate nature of these things, realises the whole process of cutting his body as empty of inherent existance being only like a reflection in the water and because of this his practice of patience towards that person will become perfect. This is the practice of patience in respect to the ultimate sense. The practice of patience with respect to the relative sense is to have the practice of patience depending on various reasonings. The practice of patience with the respect to the ultimate sense is in fact similar to the compassion and bodhicitta of ultimate truth. It is the understanding of ultimate suchness, because of which your practice of patience becomes that of ultimate nature.
In this case you do not see any person who is doing the activity of cutting and so there is no need for you to feel hatred towards someone. The understanding of the mere abscence of anybody as an object of hatred itself becomes the practice of patience. In the context of the practice of patience it is further mentioned that the opposite of the practice of patience which is feeling anger towards others and doing harmful activities will lead to negative results. Feeling hatred towards someone and returning harm to someone who has inflicted harm upon you is of no use, of no benefit. If for instance you hit someone in return for his hitting you, or in return of the harm he has inflicted on you, if the harm he has inflicted upon you is reversed as a result of your hitting back then it would become useful and of some benefit. But because it will not be reversed and because the action of harm that was done to you would remain whether you return his harm or not, there is no point in having any negative attitude or any kind of negative action directed towards that person who has given harm to you.
This shows that there is no benefit, within this life, in giving harm in return to someone . Then of course there is no benefit at all in the context of future lives. The future life is always dependent on whatever action you are now engaged in and so if you are engaged in this kind of activity of harming someone in return for harm done to you, then since it will become a non virtuous action there will be only unfavourable results in future lives. There will not be any positive result or happiness in future lifetimes as a result of your activity. So from all these different perspectives there is no benefit in returning a harm or showing hatred towards someone who has inflicted harm on you. There will be unpleasant feeling within you because of having anger or hatred towards someone, your mind will not be at peace and there are many other faults within this lifetime. Also the negative result in future lifetimes we do not need to go into detail here. So from this point of view it is necesarry and good in the course of ones practice to avoid having negative attitudes and giving physical harm to others, even if someone has inflicted harm on you.
It is also important and helpful to think that whatever harm is being inflicted on you by others, is the result of your own previous negative karma. It is because in one or another previous lifetime one may have inflicted harm on that particular person and so now one is experiencing the result. If you think from that perspective then you will know that if you have the sense of toleration and patience with respect to receiving this harm without giving any harm in return then the previous negative karma which you have committed will come to an end. Further because you don't have any negative attitude and you don't create further non-virtuous karma then there won't be any negative result in future lifetimes. If you are engaged in negative attitude and hatred towards the person who harms you then this feeling of hatred will become a non-virtuous seed and such seeds will result in a lot of suffering arising in future lifetimes.
So in order to practice patience especially as an ordinary person, it may be difficult at certain points to do so even if you know all the different reasonings as to the benefits of practicing patience. In the beginning it may be difficult for you to practice when it comes to practical things in your real life; but if you try a little harder by using the different reasonings and techniques then it will become easier in the long run. In this way you will come to know that your practice of patience improves gradually. This is why in several of the texts dealing with patience, particularly in the chapter dealing with patience in the Bodhisattvacaryavatara so many reasonings and ways of thinking in regard to the practice of patience have been mentioned.
Negative Results of Impatience
If for instance you have produced hatred or anger towards a Bodhisattva, even for one moment, the result is that whatever meritorious actions of giving or moral discipline you have accumulated for one hundred aeons will be destroyed. Therefore there is no non virtuous action more forceful in destroying merits than the non virtuous action of generating hatred or anger towards another being. In the Bodhisattvacaryavatara it states that having anger towards a Bodhisattva will result in the destruction of the virtuous merits that you have accumulated for one thousand eons. Whether it is one hundred or one thousand eons this illustrates the amount of harm that you will inflict upon yourself as a result of having anger.
The difference of one hundred eons or one thousand eons in these two texts is said to be dependent on different types of Bodhisattvas. For instance if you are a Bodhisattva yourself and if you generate a moment of anger towards a Bodhisattva of a higher level then the merits you have accumulated from giving and moral discipline for one thousand eons will be destroyed. ON the other hand if a Bodhisattva on a higher level produces anger towards a Bodhisattva on a lower level then the virtuous actions accumulated for one hundred eons will be destroyed. If a common person generates hatred towards a Bodhisattva of any level, who is of course higher in realisation than the ordinary person then the virtuous actions that would be destroyed are countless.
While you may be engaged in very good activities but at the same time under certain circumstances if you go through these negative attitudes of anger and hatred towards others then there is a possibility of destroying all your good actions with these negative attitudes. So while being engaged in good activities it is very important to avoid having these negative attitudes and actions. There is a Tibetan saying that "whatever is done by your hands is erased by your mouth". This means that even if you help someone in the form of giving material things etc. which is a good virtuous action, nevertheless if you are a short tempered person, who uses a lot of harsh words towards that person, then despite your help to that person, it is likely that he will forget your kindness and instead willsee only the negative part of you and hate you. One does not remain grateful to a person, however kind he may be, if he has a short temper and uses negative words against others. This also shows the amount of negative result in this very lifetime that attitudes such as anger would create.
It is also said that due to having anger and hatred you will not be counted among those people who are of the noble class and instead you will be counted among those who are engaged in non meritorious actions. As a result of having hatred and anger in your ,mind your knowledge or sense of discerning what is right and wrong, will also be lost. Then finally as a result of your impatience and hatred in your mind you will be reborn in a lower realm with suffering. All of these are the negative results or faults of having anger or impatience.
Benefits of Patience
The benefits of having patience are the opposites of whatever has been mentioned as the negative effects. Just because one has a sense of patience one will be considered as an appealing person. This will also put him or her in the category of wise people and that person will be able to see the difference between right and wrong. In other words one will be in ones right mind to be able to discern right and wrong. As result of this, in the future, one would be reborn in the higher realms. These are the advantages of patience.
One should know the faults of the anger that common people have and the benefit of the patience that Bodhisattvas have and should always exert effort to generate the sense of patience which is always praised by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. If one is attached to the characteristics of the three factors of patience then one's practice of patience will become worldly, whereas if there is no such attachment then it will become the practice of patience beyond the world.
In fact these two practices of the two perfections - worldly and trans-worldly are both related to the Bodhisattvas on the Bhumis. There is no question as to whether one of these practices has to do with self grasping or not, or whether it has to do with the grasping of inherent existance. In the lower paths i.e. the path of accumulation and the path of application, there may be the practice of patience and giving etc. but all these are definitely of the type in which the practitioners is not only attached to the characteristics of the three factors but also attached to the inherent existance because one has not got rid of self grasping or grasping of inherent existance during those two paths.
As a result of perfect practice in the perfection of patience, the Bodhisattva will also be able to develop other qualitities such as
the four absorptions and
the six kinds of clairvoyance
and one will also be able to get rid of the delusions of desire and hatred. We know that these in general have already been abandoned by the Bodhisattva on the first Bhumi because in order to get rid of samsara one has to get rid of these delusions which motivate the actions that in turn lead the beings to rebirth in samsara. Since one has cut off the rebirth in samsara due to delusions at this stage then the delusions must have already been abandoned.
Nevetheless it is said that the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi is also said to have abandoned the delusions of desire and hatred. This is because there isn't any kind of desire and hatred which is delusion. But in the same way that a Bodhisattva would have a grasping of the mere charactieristics of things there is also a similar sense of desire and hatred which is not deluded. These attitudes may not be in a manifest form but in a hidden form wich is considered to be the obscuration of a knowable object not the obscuration of delusion. These are considered the imprints or residues of delusions. So the Bodhisattva on the first Bhumi has got rid of all the delusions which will result in the rebirth in samsara but there are still residues left within the mental continuum which are no longer delusions or strong enough to lead the Bodhisattva into samsara but which still obstruct the Bodhisattva in having the ultimate knowledge in a fully accomplished way. This will still obstruct him in accomplishing the method aspect of practice and also obstruct him in the knowledge aspect in an ultimate way. So he still has to get rid of these.
These will be abandoned gradually during the higher Bhumis. It is in this context that the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi is said to be abandoning the delusions of hatred and desire. There are not different types of residues of delusions that one connects which each different Bhumi, rather the amount of the residue becomes less and less as one ascends up the Bhumi. Usually one says that the Bodhisattvas on the ten Bhumis abandon those residues of delusions which are of their share. This means that there is a certain amount of residue of delusions that each Bhumi has to get rid of. So when it is mentioned that the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi has abandoned desire and hatred, it does not refer to gross desire and hatred which have previusly been abandoned. There are residues of the gross delusions and the respective residues are abandoned on their respective Bhumis. Thus this is referring to the residue of desire and hatred that remains to be abandoned on the third Bhumi.
Not only will the Bodhisattva be able to do this, but she will help other beings get rid of their delusion of desire. In fact the delusion of desire is present also in the form realm and formless realm, but the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi will be more effective in helping those beings on the desire realm to get rid of their delusion of desire. So in these ways the main practice of the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi is the perfection of patience.
It is said at the end of the third chapter that out of the six paramitas or perfections, the first three practices of perfection that is giving, moral discipline and patience are mainly praised by the Buddha as
a practice for lay devotees
as related to the accumulation of merit and
as the cause of the form body rather than the truth body of the Buddha.
The division of the six paramitas is into the first three plus the perfection of effort, and then the last two again with the perfection of effort which appears in both divisions. If we divide them into two groups of three each, then the three later ones are mainly praised
as practices for the renunciated ones,
as the accumulation of wisdom, and
as the cause of the truth body of an enlightened being.
The division of the six Paramitas into two groups, one for lay practitioners and one for ordained practitions, is made only in respect to the emphasis placed on each paramita by lay and ordained practitioners it does not mean either group of practitioners omits any paramita. A Bodhisattva can be a lay person or an ordained person. In the case of a lay Bodhisattva it is easier and more applicable for him to engage in the first three rather than the last three, particularly the perfection of absorption and the perfection of wisdom. For these one has to get away from the crowd and practice at an isolated and quiet place.
As you practice more and more you will come to realise that even within the practice of one perfection you will be able to assimilate and include other perfections also. For example in the practice of giving alone you can engage in the practice of moral discipline and patience right up to the practice of wisdom. The same thing can be applied with other practices of perfection. This means that they are not contradictory to each other. This also means that there is not only the accumulation of merit in the first three practices, but because one can also apply the later three within the first three, there is also some accumulation of wisdom while you are engaged in the practice of the first three perfections. In a general way when you are not able to assimilate these perfections within each other then the general division is that the first three belong to the accumulation of merit and the next three belong to the accumulation of wisdom.
The Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi remains in the transcendental wisdom which illuminates as a sun would illuminate. Because of this illuminating transcendental knowledge which this Bodhisattva has she will be able to get rid of the darkness of delusions within herself first and then she will be able to dispel the darkness of other beings. For example the sun would first illuminate itself and then the next process is to illuminate other worlds. This is not only with in the context of the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi but with every Bodhisattva. First one has to get rid of delusions within oneself and then one will be able to help other beings get rid of delusions. This Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi is very sharp minded and her mental faculty is of superior quality because of which she comes to know of any being who is having negative attitudes towards her or who is inflicting harm to her. However her practice of patience is so strong that despite this knowledge she will not be cultivating any kind of anger or hatred towards them. This ends the third chapter.
Q: Where do I stand karmically if I harm someone in an attempt to restrain him from harming others?
A: It depends on the motivation. You have to see the amount of benefit and the amount of harm. If you are doing little harm to stop a great harm to another then it would be good if the motivation is pure to obstruct that person from harming the other person. If the harm the other person is going to do is lesser than the harm that you are inflicting then your activity is more injurious and so you have to restrain yourself from it. In the context of Bodhisattva practice there will be many circumstances in which you will have to engage in some kind of seemingly harmful or non-virtuous practice. That is permitted in the Bodhisattva practice contrary to the Hinayana practice. One example is given about the black man with a short spear encountered by Buddha in one of his previous lifetimes. When Buddha was a leader of merchants in the ocean he already had some sense of clairvoyance and he came to know that that black man was going to kill all the five hundred merchants on the ship. He thought that if the black man was not stopped then he would kill five hundred people and consequently would go to the hell realms and of course experience a lot of suffering. In order to stop the black man from being reborn in the hell realm and in order to stop the suffering of being murdered that the five hundred people would experience the merchant leader killed the black man. Because the motivation was compassion and very genuine and the action benefitted everyone, it is said that by that deed he accumulated so much merit, that the amount of merit that would normally take ninety nine eons was accumulated with that single action. So it depends on circumstances.
THE FOURTH BHUMI
Effort
The name of the third Bhumi is "Shining Light", the name of the second Bhumi is the"Stainless One". The fourth Bhumi is known as the "Sparkling Light". The practice particularly associated with this Bhumi is the perfection of effort. When we talk about effort it is within the six or ten perfections. Any kind of effort that we use in any activity is not considered as effort in this context. We may need to exert effort even in to commit negative or unwholesome activities. But that is not considered the practice of effort in this case. Effort here is defined in terms of mental state. It is the mental state where there is a strong and genuine sense of enthusiasm for the performance of virtuous action. Because if this strong wish there will be actual performance related to body and speech, actual physical effort is applied. But the main definition given is applied to the mental state, the mental effort.
The opposite of effort of course is laziness. When laziness is defined it is not just the laziness in the usual sense. Even if one is not lazy in that common sense but one is quite active in doing wrongful and negative activities that is still considered as part of laziness. At this point the Bodhisattva on the fourth Bhumi is greatly engaged with the thirty seven practices of a Bodhisattva. In fact when we generally explain the thirty seven types of practices, these are not practices exclusive to Mahayana practitioners. These practices are also pursued by the Hinayana practitioners. This is especially so with regard to the first parts of the practice. For example the four practices of mindfullness are very much practiced in the Hinayana path.
The thirty seven practices
All the thirty seven practices are more emphasised and forceful in the Bodhisattva practice especially in the Bodhisattva on the fourth Bhumi. At this point this practice becomes very strong so it is mentioned here as a distinguishing factor of the Bodhisattva on the fourth Bhumi.
The thirty seven practices are
the four mindfullnesses
the four types of complete abandonment
the four feet of miracles
the five predominant factors
the five forces
the seven limbs of enlightenment or Bodhi
the eight noble practices or eight noble paths
This makes up thirty seven practices. Each of these practices are predominantly done at different levels. For example, the practice of the four mindfullnesses is a practice at the time of the inferior level of the the path of accumulation. The four types of complete abandonment are practice on the path of accumulation on the mediocre level; and the practice of the four feet of miracles is done at the superior level of the path of accumulation. Then the five predominant factors, which are also mentioned in the Abhidharma such as the predominant factor of faith etc., are there in the two lower divisions of the path of application, that is during heat and crescent. The five forces are again of the same division like the force of faith, effort etc., but because of the difference in the degrees of the practice different names are given. These five forces are the main practices of the two higher divisions of the path of application, meaning patience and supreme dharma. The seven limbs of enlightenment are the practices of those on the the path of seeing and the eight noble paths are the practices of the Bodhisattva on the path of meditation.
Of course even when a Bodhisattva is on the path of application he will still make efforts to engage in the practice of all the thirty-seven practices. These practices will continue and will become very stable at the time of the fourth Bhumi. The light of the transcendental knowledge will become brighter as compared to the vision of transcendental knowledge of the Bodhisattva on the third Bhumi. The Bodhisattva on the fourth Bhumi will be able to illuminate phenomena more brightly and get rid of all those residues of self grasping which become an obstacle to his achievement. In other words his or her own share of the object of abandonement, which is the residues of delusions, will be abandoned by him or her.
THE FIFTH BHUMI
The Bodhisattva on the fifth Bhumi is called the "Invincible One". The main practice for this Bodhisattva with respect to the ten perfections is the perfection of dyana or absorption. Here because of his advanced practice in absorption his understanding of the ultimate nature, or emptiness becomes much more accomplished than before and as a result he will become skillful with respect to understanding the subtle nature of the Four Noble Truths. Of course the Four Noble Truths are understood by the Bodhisattva before him, but it is a matter of his understanding the more subtle aspects as he develops on the path. It is a Bhumi where it is difficult for any external obstacles to come in the way of the Bodhisattva.
THE SIXTH BHUMI
In the sixth Bhumi, which constitutes the largest part of this text, the Bodhisattva's transcendental knowledge becomes much more advanced than before as a result of her emphatic practice of the perfection of wisdom. Because of her realising the state of dependent arising in a more subtle way, she is said to have acquired what is known as cessation. This cessation is similar to the analytical cessation which is mentioned in Abhidharma, which is the cessation of objects of abandonement. However the term "acquisition of cessation" which is used in that context is not applicable to all kinds of cessations. There may be cessations of objects of abandonement, particularly delusions, even before the sixth Bhumi. The term of "acquiring cessation" is only applicable from the level of the Bodhisattva on the sixth Bhumi. This is because all the Bodhisattvas, even before that, all those on the Aryan path, are the same as far as their remaining in meditative equipoise is concerned, where there is no conceptual thought and there are no gross objects of abandonement. There are no delusions when they remain in meditative equipoise so at that time there is what can be termed as cessation. However after coming out of meditative equipoise they will not be able to have the same realisation of the ultimate emptiness as they have during meditative equipoise, because their practice of wisdom is not perfected.
In the case of the Bodhisattva on the sixth Bhumi, due to his accomplished practice in the perfection of wisdom, even in the subsequent attainment during post meditative session he will be able to focus his knowledge in the same manner as during meditative equipoise. Because of this he is said to have acquired what is called cessation. We may talk about cessation, the ultimate emptiness, the perfect conclusion, suchness, nature, all of these are the state of being free from all conceptual elaborations. All of these are synonymous. When one realises the ultimate emptiness, meaning the state of being free from all conceptualisations, then one is also realising what is known as cessation. There is no other cessation higher than the state of being free from all conceptualisations.
In the conventional sense things do differ with respect to different nominations or imputations or different terms. In the case of the Bodhisattva on the sixth Bhumi, although there is no difference between the Bhumis in respect to the nature of how the Bodhisattva would realise the ultimate emptiness, because in the subsequent attainment his practice of wisdom is more accomplished, more perfect, his understanding of ultimate emptiness is named as acquiring cessation.
In this Bhumi the perfection of wisdom is appreciated and more practiced so the text deals with this subject at great length. The perfection of wisdom or knowledge is the same as what is termed as special insight or superior insight. This means that as a result of the practice of one pointed meditation the kowledge which directly comes in contact or directly realises the ultimate object i.e. ultimate emptiness, is attained. This is referred to as transcendental knowledge or special insight, and it is also known as Abhidharma - the undefiled or pure dharma. This transcendental knowledge is very necessary in order to understand the ultimate truth, and in order to gain any kind of realisation. All other practices of perfection before that, ranging from giving to meditation, are dependent on this perfection of knowledge or wisdom. In the same way as a blind person cannot walk to a certain place on his own without being dependent upon someone with eyes, the parctice of the first five perfections cannot lead you to any proper destination or achievement without being led by the perfection of the practice of wisdom.
When it is divided into two accumulations then both the practice of the perfection of absorption and wisdom are counted as part of the accumulation of wisdom, but the one that has the main role in understanding ultimate emptiness is the perfection of wisdom. Even in the case of the perfection of giving it is a practice to do with mental state. When we talk about the practice of giving it does not necessarily refer to the actual action of giving but the motivation, the mental state behind that action of giving.
All the practices of the six perfections have to be understood in terms of the different mental states. When it comes to the practice of giving, for instance, the two divisions were mentioned earlier - the perfection of giving and the trans-worldly perfection of giving. The perfection of giving beyond the world is named so because it is accompanied by the practice of wisdom which realises the ultimate emptiness. Because of the accompaniment of this knowledge, while engaged in the practice of giving you will be seeing the emptiness of all the three characteristics of giving, and will not be attached to the characteristics of the three factors. Then your practice of giving is called the practice of giving beyond the world.
Generally there is the practice of giving for the ordinary practitioner who only aspires to gain happiness in this world, and then there is also the practice of giving for the practitioner of the Hinayana level, but these are not the practices of giving that a Mahayana practitioner or a Bodhisattva would like to have. Even though the Bodhisattva practice includes both types of perfection a Bodhisattva would like to have the accomplished or the ultimate practice of giving which is the practice of giving beyond world where there is no grasping at the characteristics of the three factors of giving. This means that you have to have the practice of the perfection of wisdom in order to make the other practices of perfection perfect. This is likened to the person with eyes without whom the blind people cannot reach the desired places.
It is in this context that the emptiness and the two selflessnesses are mentioned here, and out of the ten perfections the perfection of wisdom is described as the main practice of the Bodhisattva on the sixth Bhumi. In order to understand the perfection of wisdom you have to know the ultimate emptiness, the object which is understood or realised by this perfection of wisdom. So you have to understand what ultimate truth and ultimate emptiness is. This state of emptiness which is the object of the realisation of the sixth Bhumi and of course the knowledge which realises this are not topics or subjects that can be understood by people who are on the lower levels. But even being a commoner one can express or explain these by depending on someone who has realised and has come in direct contact with the ultimate emptiness.
Here Chandrakirti, the author of this text, says that since he has not seen or realised the ultimate emptiness directly he will deal with the topic of emptiness on the basis of the explanation of Nagarjuna. It is in this context that another order of the three causes mentioned earlier is also described. It is said that the teaching of emptiness is very effective especially when it involves the right disciple. This means that a person who has a karmic link with the Mahayana teaching of emptiness develops certain indicative signs whenever he or she listens to the teachings of emptiness. For instance asa result of hearing teachings on emptiness there arises spontaneous hoy in his or her mind, all the hairs in thepores of his or her skin stand erect and tears come out of his or her eyes.
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