Thus having gone to refuge, from the main topic, the path of Mahayana, there are the two sections on producing the two bodhicitta’s of aspiring to and entering into the supreme mind of enlightenment.
Within that first there are the ten sections of the seventh chapter on the four immeasurables:
·
A. The description of and the teaching of meditation on the four Bhrama-viharas·
B. The particular teaching·
C. The particular objects of meditation·
D. The faults of impure objects of meditation·
E. The real object of meditation·
F. The particular aspects·
G. How to meditate·
H. Other ways to meditate / Further explanation of the way of meditating·
I. The fruition of the meditation·
J. The dedication of merit
A. The description of and the teaching of meditation on the four Bhrama-viharas
[The four immeasurables: kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity. Antidotes to selfishness -- the root of our suffering-; cultivating the mind to benefit all sentient beings without discrimination. Wholesome qualities already present in ourselves and in accord with the real nature of our mind, and of everything.]
Having gone to refuge, one meditates on the four immeasurables. Therefore, that is taught next:
Beings who become the vessels of dharma by taking refuge.
Cultivate their minds to benefit sentient beings.
Watered by equanimity in the cool shade of joy,
Flowers of compassion will bloom in the soil of kindness.
(i.e. A preliminary to the meditation on the root of all Dharmas, the two bodhicitta’s)
Here the example is a very pleasant garden-grove. In the soil of kindness green and rich [snga dang snub pa destroy/suppress read sngo dang snum pa] The various kinds of flowers of compassion open and bloom. In the cool shade of pleasant trees many birds and deer are present. From the lake of equanimity, and ponds, and good springs, flow a collection of many streams, where travelers tired out by samsara can refresh themselves. Weariness of mind is eased and cleansed away. What is described is arranged in ornamental forms. The Middle Length Prajñápáramitá says:
Subhuti, Here a bodhisattva Mahasattva should meditate on kindness, compassion, great joy, and great equanimity.
(i.e. As for the four immeasurable minds, they are loving - kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.
·
Loving - kindness refers to being affectionately mindful of [other] beings such that one constantly seeks to benefit them with situations which induce peace, security and bliss. (in opposition to hurting others: aggression)·
Compassion refers to being sympathetically mindful of beings' undergoing of all manner of physical and mental suffering in the five paths. (in opposition to being selfish, only interested with our own need, always wanting more: desire)·
Sympathetic joy refers to the desire to cause beings to go from the experiencing of pleasure to the realization of joyfulness. (in opposition to being in competition with others: jealousy)·
Equanimity (she equals upek.saa) refers to the relinquishing (she) of the three [other immeasurable] minds such that one is simply mindful of beings in such a way that one is not either averse or affectionate towards them. (in opposition to love, hate, and indifference: discrimination based on ignorance)·
One cultivates the mind of loving - kindness for the sake of getting rid of initial thoughts (vitarka, as opposed to secondary thought, vicaara) [characterized by] hatred towards beings.·
One cultivates the mind of compassion for the sake of getting rid of initial thoughts [characterized by] affliction towards beings.·
One cultivates the mind of sympathetic joy for the sake of getting rid of displeasure towards beings.·
One cultivates the mind of equanimity for the sake of getting rid of affection and hatred towards beings.
-- Kalavinka, Prajñápáramitá - The Four Immeasurable Minds)
Four immeasurables:
The four infinite meditations, the four limitless thoughts, the four boundless contemplations, used to develop bodhicitta by cultivating:
·
(1) Love, 'may all beings have happiness'; (physical happiness -- in opposition to physical suffering)·
(2) Compassion, 'may all beings be free from suffering';·
(3) Joy, 'may all beings have sorrow-less joy,' and (mental happiness -- in opposition to the suffering of change)·
(4) Equanimity, 'may all beings be free from attraction and aversion.'
Aspiring [bodhicitta] has the essence of the four immeasurables.
And entering [bodhicitta] that of the six paramitas, it is maintained.
In Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, these four are known under the name of Brahma-vihara. This term may be rendered by: excellent, lofty or sublime states of mind; or alternatively, by: Brahma-like, god-like or divine abodes.
These four attitudes are said to be excellent or sublime because they are the right or ideal way of conduct towards living beings (sattesu samma patipatti). They provide, in fact, the answer to all situations arising from social contact. They are the great removers of tension, the great peacemakers in social conflict, and the great healers of wounds suffered in the struggle of existence. They level social barriers, build harmonious communities, awaken slumbering magnanimity long forgotten, revive joy and hope long abandoned, and promote human brotherhood against the forces of egotism.
The Brahma-viharas are incompatible with a hating state of mind, and in that they are akin to Brahma, the divine but transient ruler of the higher heavens in the traditional Buddhist picture of the universe. In contrast to many other conceptions of deities, East and West, who by their own devotees are said to show anger, wrath, jealousy and "righteous indignation," Brahma is free from hate; and one who assiduously develops these four sublime states, by conduct and meditation, is said to become an equal of Brahma (brahma-samo). If they become the dominant influence in his mind, he will be reborn in congenial worlds, the realms of Brahma. Therefore, these states of mind are called God-like, Brahma-like.
They are called abodes (vihara) because they should become the mind's constant dwelling-places where we feel "at home"; they should not remain merely places of rare and short visits, soon forgotten. In other words, our minds should become thoroughly saturated by them. They should become our inseparable companions, and we should be mindful of them in all our common activities. As the Metta Sutta, the Song of Loving-kindness, says:
When standing, walking, sitting, lying down,
Whenever he feels free of tiredness
Let him establish well this mindfulness --
This, it is said, is the Divine Abode.
These four -- love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity -- are also known as the boundless states (appamañña), because, in their perfection and their true nature, they should not be narrowed by any limitation as to the range of beings towards whom they are extended. They should be non-exclusive and impartial, not bound by selective preferences or prejudices. A mind that has attained to that boundlessness of the Brahma-viharas will not harbor any national, racial, religious or class hatred.
But unless rooted in a strong natural affinity with such a mental attitude, it will certainly not be easy for us to effect that boundless application by a deliberate effort of will and to avoid consistently any kind or degree of partiality. To achieve that, in most cases, we shall have to use these four qualities not only as principles of conduct and objects of reflection, but also as subjects of methodical meditation. That meditation is called Brahma-vihara-bhávaná, the meditative development of the sublime states.
The practical aim is to achieve, with the help of these sublime states, those high stages of mental concentration called jhana, "meditative absorption."
·
The meditations on love, compassion and sympathetic joy may each produce the attainment of the first three absorptions,·
While the meditation on equanimity will lead to the fourth jhana only, in which equanimity is the most significant factor.
Generally speaking, persistent meditative practice will have two crowning effects:
·
First, it will make these four qualities sink deep into the heart so that they become spontaneous attitudes not easily overthrown;·
Second, it will bring out and secure their boundless extension, the unfolding of their all-embracing range.
-- Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States
B. The particular teaching
[When they are perfected on the path, these four becomes the four immeasurables. From partial, to universal, then perfecting them by combining them with the wisdom realizing the real nature of the objects.]
As for the particular explanation of this and other things:
When these four have not been joined to the path of freedom,
These sources of sanity are causes of samsara.
But when they are empowered by the path of peace,
Then they manifest as the four immeasurables
By which we can transcend the ocean of samsara.
(i.e. A skillful means in accord with the goal, transcending the ego, transcending all discrimination.)
The Supreme Essence says:
Shariputra, these four, by which, if genuine mind is not produced, it will not be produced later, kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, are the four bhrama-viharas. They are accompanied by samsaric karmic formations. They produce genuine mind. The kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity that are subsequently produced are called the four immeasurables. This is because they also produce the path of nirvana.
C. The teaching of the particular objects of meditation
[They are universal, without discrimination, first with objects, then without objects by meditating on their real nature, adding the wisdom realizing the emptiness of the three: subject, object, action]
Their scope is universal, both with and without objects.
Encompassing both sentient beings and dharmata.
(i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature)
The meditation-objects of the four immeasurables are
·
All sentient beings, in the arising of four immeasurables with a mental object;·
And also the dharmata of all dharmas, with such-ness as the meditation object, in the arising of the four immeasurables without a mental object. (i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature)
The Bhumi-Collection says:
With the support of sentient beings and dharmata respectively, the four immeasurables with and without a mental object arise.
(i.e. We could have worldly compassion, kindness, joy or equanimity for people close to us; then a more impartial compassion and kindness for all sentient beings in samsara without discrimination, until there is equality; then without object, knowing that they are all merely imputed by the mind. Using a method, and then seeing the emptiness of all its objects. Combining method and wisdom, the two truths.
The important point is that the realization of the ultimate truth, emptiness, doesn't deny dependent origination, conventional truths, and Buddha qualities like compassion. With the perfect union with emptiness, compassion just becomes the great compassion, the compassion in accord with the real nature of everything. Emptiness doesn't mean complete non-existence, nihilism, total rejection of compassion, etc. The real nature of everything is not existence, not non-existence, not both, not either. Meditation on the four immeasurables without object means in total union with the awareness of the ultimate truth, perfecting the utilization of both method and wisdom together.)
D. The faults of an impure meditation-object
There are two parts.
·
1. The faults of an impure meditation-object·
2. The instruction to learn the liberating four immeasurables
1. The faults of an impure meditation-object [with discrimination / for a limited number of sentient beings: then, they are the cause of a rebirth in Brahma heavens]
The former concerns a limited number of sentient beings.
Such impure objects are the cause of the Bhrama-viharas.
(i.e. Divine abodes; sublime states - Brahma heavens -- the non-sensual heavens of form or formlessness)
(i.e. Impure means: worldly compassion, kindness, joy or equanimity for people close to us only -- with discrimination. It is not Liberating, because it doesn't combine method and wisdom, it is not in accord with the real nature of everything. But it is the first step.
Also: "If beings hear that cultivating loving - kindness results in being reborn in the Brahma heaven, then they will have faith in and cultivate the dharma of loving - kindness. It is for this reason that it is said that cultivating loving - kindness results in being born in the Brahma heaven." - Maha Prajñápáramitá at Kalavinka)
The meditation objects of the four Bhrama-viharas are the arousing of these four mental phenomena, kindness and so forth, for a limited number of sentient beings, one, two, or whatever. Here liberated mind is not achieved. One to one kindness, like that of a woman crossing the river Ganges with her child, produces samsaric causation, such as the arising of the Bhrama-viharas. The Bodhicaryavatara says:
The fruition of this attitude arising for one person
Is the Bhrama-viharas and so forth.
2. The instruction to learn the liberating four immeasurables [without discrimination, then without object: That is perfecting them, and making them causes for Liberation: combining method and wisdom (of impermanence, relativity and emptiness).]
With the above-described awareness, these become the four immeasurables:
Directed to liberation, these become objectless.
This should be learned by those who are compassionate.
---
Those who are unhappy or tormented by suffering,
Or feel animosity to others, near or far,
Through being preoccupied with happiness and wealth,
Are objects of kindness, joy, compassion and equanimity
(i.e. Without discrimination to all sentient beings in samsara. Then without any object, knowing the real nature of every beings.
-- The temporary goal is to diminish the power of the ego until we can accept to see its real nature and the relativity of the point of views.
-- The temporary goal is to see the relativity of those feelings toward others, and to see that it is not reasonable to have them with discrimination.
-- So the starting point is a total dualism between self and others. This is transformed into relativity, and equality between self and others. Then all is seen as empty of inherent existence because dependently arisen.
-- Using a temporary raft, a skillful means, and then seeing the real nature of the raft. Using both method and wisdom.
-- From discrimination, to relativity, to equality, to emptiness.)
Those desiring liberation should learn to meditate on phenomena in the manner of the four immeasurables.
E. The real meditation object
[The universal object of each: not necessarily all sentient beings in all situation, but all of those need each: loving-kindness for all of those who wants happiness, compassion for all of those who are suffering, eternal joy for all of those having happiness but are afraid of losing their happiness, and equanimity for all of those who are obsessed with discrimination (liking some, disliking others, indifferent to the rest).]
Now the meditation object of the four immeasurables is explained:
Those who are unhappy or tormented by suffering,
Feeling greed or hatred towards others, near or far,
Through being preoccupied with happiness and wealth,
Are objects of kindness, joy, compassion and equanimity
(i.e. All sentient beings stuck in samsara, without any discrimination. They are all in the same situation. They are all equal: same desires, same suffering, same samsara. -- not the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas...)
The sentient beings taken as the meditation object of the four immeasurables are those who are not happy or are afflicted with suffering; and those who feel desire and aggression toward others nearby or far away because of their own pleasure, happiness, and wealth. The Mahayanasutralankara says:
The objects are those who desire happiness
And those with happiness afflicted by suffering,
And those who have the kleshas....
F. The particular aspects
[The possibility and the wish that all sentient beings be happy, free from suffering, always in joy, having equanimity. May they all see the real non-dual nature of everything through their own conditioning. May they come to possess the wisdom of non-thought, inseparability of dependent origination and emptiness.]
As for the particular aspects:
The particular desires are that it may be workable [we are wishing for it]
That all beings may be happy, and also free from suffering;
and that never parting from joy, they have equanimity.
(i.e. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all sentient beings never be separated from the happiness that knows no suffering.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment and anger that hold some close and others distant.)
The object of these four immeasurables should be the wish that beings be without suffering and possess happiness; and that, not separated from joy, but leaving behind passion and aggression, their minds have only equanimity and kindness. The same text says:
I prostrate to you who are kind to sentient beings,
Intending that they should not be blocked by conflict,
Possessing as well the intention of non-separation,
Who have the intent of goodness of benefit.
The four immeasurables are free from what does not accord with the essence of each of them. The same text says:
May the objects abandon what does not fit with sanity.
May they come to possess the wisdom of non-thought.
May all sentient beings be completely ripened.
As for abandoning partialities that do not fit with each one, the commentary of that same text mentions not conceptualizing self and others, good or bad, happiness, suffering, and in between. Having abandoned them, benefit the object, sentient beings.
As to how to enter into the object, those who merely do not have happiness are the object of equanimity. In those who are tormented by suffering and possess passion and aggression there exists the cause and fruition of suffering. Therefore they are the object of suffering. The objects of joy, happiness and goodness, are those who enter into these three. That the four immeasurables have such dharmas as their objects is said in all the treatises. In the four immeasurables that have the object of dharmata, the nature of these is realized as the unborn. (i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature) Moreover, in the tantras and their commentaries there is found the terminology of the four immeasurables, which have not realized ego-less-ness, which halfway and dualistically realize it, and those realizing two fold ego-less-ness.
The Bodhisattva-bhumi says:
That with sentient beings as object is an object in common with heretics.
That with dharmas as object is in common with shravakas, and Pratyekabuddhas.
That with no object is not in common with anyone.
(i.e. Loving - kindness is [operative] in the form realm. It may be [characterized as] either
·
"With outflows"·
Or "without outflows,"·
As "subject to cutting off"·
Or as "not subject to cutting off."
It is present in both the basic - level Dhyanas* (gen ben chan) as well as within the Dhyanas proper. It is associated with three faculties. It is excluded in the faculties of suffering and of worry. The Abhidharma discusses such distinctions as these.
·
Because there is a seizing on the appearance of a "being" it is [characterized as] "with outflows."·
Because after having once seized on the appearance of a being one may then [eventually] gain access to the true character of dharmas it may [also] be [characterized as] "without outflows."
It is for this reason that it says in The Questions of Inexhaustible Intellect Bodhisattva, "Loving - kindness is of three kinds.
1. The first takes beings as its [objective] condition.
As the Buddha explains in many places in the Sutras, "There are Bhikshus who, on account of taking up thoughts associated with loving - kindness, are devoid of enmity (hwei), devoid of animosity (hen), devoid of hostility (ywan) and devoid of cruelty (nao). They well cultivate a mind of loving - kindness, which is vast, great and immeasurable and so, realize an understanding which is universally pervasive. With respect to the beings in the worlds to the east he generates a mind of loving - kindness [through which] he realizes an understanding, which is universally pervasive. So too does he [carry out this contemplation] with respect to the beings in the [rest of] the ten directions: to the south, to the west, to the north, to the four midpoints, above and below. And so too does he take up in this very same manner the mind associated with compassion, the mind associated with sympathetic joy and the mind associated with equanimity."
[When one employs] the mind of loving - kindness in this fashion this is to take beings as the [objective] condition. For the most part it is [the level] practiced among common people or perhaps among those with more to study who have not yet brought outflows to an end.2. The second takes dharmas as its [objective] conditions.
Those whose practice takes dharmas as the [objective] condition include those Arhats who have put an end to outflows, the Pratyekabuddhas and the Buddhas. Because all of these sages have destroyed the characteristics of a self and have extinguished the characteristics of unity and difference, they simply contemplate that it is from an [apparent] continuity of causes and conditions that all desires are generated. When they take up loving - kindness in their mindfulness of beings, [they observe] that they are produced from an [apparent] continuity on the part of a conjunction of causes and conditions and [observe that] it is only five empty aggregates, which constitute beings. In their mindfulness of the five aggregates they take up loving - kindness and [so] are mindful that beings are unaware of this emptiness of dharmas. Thus [beings] constantly and single - mindedly seek after pleasure. The sages have sympathy for them and so cause them to gain pleasure according to their aspirations. Because this [practice is carried out] for the sake of mundane worldly dharmas it is referred to as [practice which takes] dharmas as the [objective] condition.
3. The third takes nothing whatsoever as its [objective] condition.
As for [the loving - kindness] which is takes nothing whatsoever as the [objective] condition, this loving - kindness is possessed only by the Buddhas. Why is that? The mind of the Buddha does not abide in either the conditioned or unconditioned nature. It does not rely upon or rest in the past, the future or the present eras and is aware that no conditions are real [as their existence] is a result of the deceptiveness of inverted views. The [Buddha's] mind has nothing whatsoever which it takes as a condition. Because beings are not aware of this true character of all dharmas and so come and go in the five paths [of rebirth], their minds attaching to dharmas and making distinctions whereby they either seize upon or avoid [them], the Buddha employs this wisdom [which perceives] the true character of all dharmas to cause beings to realize it [themselves]. This is what is referred to as [the loving - kindness which takes] nothing whatsoever as the [objective] condition.
1. "Where beings are taken as the [objective] condition, that is [on the level of] outflows.
2. Where nothing whatsoever is taken as the [objective] condition, that is [on the level of] no outflows.
3. Where dharmas are taken as the [objective] condition, that is sometimes [on the level of] outflows and sometimes [on the level of] no outflows."
-- Kalavinka, Prajñápáramitá - The Four Immeasurable Minds
There are three kinds of beings:
1. There are those [beings] such as the gods and a minor fraction of humans who experience pleasure.
2. There are those [beings] such as [the inhabitants of] the three paths of evil and a minor fraction of humans who experience suffering.
3. There are those constituting a minor fraction [of the inhabitants] of the five paths [of rebirth] that experience neither suffering nor pleasure.
Why then is it that the practitioner of loving - kindness (maitri) contemplates all beings as experiencing pleasure
and the practitioner of compassion (karuna) contemplates all beings as experiencing suffering?
Reply: When the practitioner desires to study this immeasurable mind of loving - kindness, he first formulates an aspiration wherein he wishes that all beings may be able to experience all manner of pleasure. He takes up this image of people experiencing pleasure, focuses his mind and then enters Dhyana [meditation]. This image gradually increases in its breadth such that he then perceives all beings as experiencing pleasure.
Question: In [cultivating] the mind of compassion one takes up the image of people undergoing suffering and in [cultivating] the mind of sympathetic joy one takes up the image of people experiencing joy. In [cultivating] the mind of equanimity, what sort of image does one take up?
Reply: One takes up the image of people undergoing neither suffering nor pleasure. On account of this mind's gradually increasing and growing more vast the practitioner perceives absolutely everyone as undergoing neither suffering nor pleasure.
-- Kalavinka, Prajñápáramitá - The Four Immeasurable Minds)
These arise with the object of sentient beings, dharmas, and with no object. Explaining the arising of these four in terms of the six aspects that do not correspond with the six paramitas, the Mahayanasutralankara says:
Kindness to the miserly, and to vicious unsuitable ones,
Kindness to the irascible, and to the un-conscientious.
Kindness to whose who are motivated by external objects,
And kindness to those who are strongly inclined to wrong attachments.
Explaining the ten objects for which they are produced, the same text says:
One who comes into the power of the fiercely blazing enemy
One covered with suffering who is obscured with darkness.
All who are dwelling on paths that are difficult to travel.
Those who really have fetters that are very great.
Those attached to spiritual food that is mixed with poison.
Those who become completely lost upon the path.
Those of little energy who have gone far astray,
It is being kind to people such as these.·
1.) Those who blaze with the kleshas as if they were in a fire·
2.) Those for whom obstacles of Mara have arisen, even though they have entered the path·
3.) Those of the three lower realms·
4.) Those with stupidity and delusion about karma, cause, and effect·
5.) Those who have entered wrong paths·
6.) Those who are really bound by the knots of the kleshas·
7.) Those who relish the taste of the bliss of samádhi·
8.) Those who dwell on the paths of shravakas·
9.) Those who dwell on the paths of Pratyekabuddhas·
10.) Neophyte bodhisattvas.
These four immeasurables arise with four conditions.
·
1.) The naturally existing family or dhatu is the causal condition.·
2.) The spiritual friend who teaches the instructions of the four immeasurables is the dominant condition.·
3.) The manifestation of one's particular object is the object-condition.·
4.) Previous acquaintance with the benefits of meditating on the four immeasurables and the harm of not doing so is the immediately preceding condition.
The former text says:
From the causes of that happiness and suffering
Comes the kindness of the bodhisattva.
Along with those causes, from the spiritual friend
And from one's natural attitude rises compassion.
The Abhidharmakosha says:
By four conditions there are mind and mental events.
By three conditions there are the two Samapattis.
Others things arise from only two conditions.
Mind and mental events are produced by four conditions, the cause, predominating, immediately preceding and object conditions. Samapatti is produced by three, the cause, predominating, and immediately preceding conditions. Material things arise from two, a cause, such as the seed, and a predominant conditions, such as water and manure.
G. How to meditate
[Protection against a rebirth in one of the five realms: hell, prêtas, animals, titans, gods. Purification of the five poisons. Purification of the body, speech and mind, and the three together. Purification of the eight consciousnesses. Realizing the real non-dual nature of our own mind, and of everything, of the three worlds. Revealing the four kayas and five wisdoms.]
There are four sections
·
1. Equanimity meditation·
2. Meditation on kindness·
3. Compassion·
4. The meditation of joy
(i.e. Vimalakirti Sutra - 7.2 - Right motivation / resolve :
[How to generate the Four Immeasurables]
Manjusri then asked further,
"Noble sir, if a bodhisattva considers all living beings in such a way, how does he generate the great love toward them?"
Vimalakirti replied,
"Manjusri, when a bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks: 'Just as I have realized the Dharma, so should I teach it to living beings.' Thereby, he generates
Ø
The love that is truly a refuge for all living beings;Ø
The love that is peaceful because free of grasping;Ø
The love that is not feverish, because free of passions;Ø
The love that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all three times;Ø
The love that is without conflict because free of the violence of the passions;Ø
The love that is non-dual because it is involved neither with the external nor with the internal;Ø
The love that is imperturbable because totally ultimate."Thereby he generates the love that is firm, its high resolve unbreakable, like a diamond;
Ø
The love that is pure, purified in its intrinsic nature;Ø
The love that is even, its aspirations being equal;Ø
The saint's love that has eliminated its enemy;Ø
The bodhisattva's love that continuously develops living beings;Ø
The Tathágata’s love that understands reality;Ø
The Buddha's love that causes living beings to awaken from their sleep;Ø
The love that is spontaneous because it is fully enlightened spontaneously;Ø
The love that is enlightenment because it is unity of experience;Ø
The love that has no presumption because it has eliminated attachment and aversion;Ø
The love that is great compassion because it infuses the Mahayana with radiance;Ø
The love that is never exhausted because it acknowledges void-ness and selflessness;Ø
The love that is giving because it bestows the gift of Dharma free of the tight fist of a bad teacher;Ø
The love that is morality because it improves immoral living beings;Ø
The love that is tolerance because it protects both self and others;Ø
The love that is effort because it takes responsibility for all living beings;Ø
The love that is contemplation because it refrains from indulgence in tastes;Ø
The love that is wisdom because it causes attainment at the proper time;Ø
The love that is liberative technique because it shows the way everywhere;Ø
The love that is without formality because it is pure in motivation;Ø
The love that is without deviation because it acts from decisive motivation;Ø
The love that is high resolve because it is without passions;Ø
The love that is without deceit because it is not artificial;Ø
The love that is happiness because it introduces living beings to the happiness of the Buddha.Such, Manjusri, is the great love of a bodhisattva."
Manjusri: What is the great compassion of a bodhisattva?
Vimalakirti: It is the giving of all accumulated roots of virtue to all living
beings.
Manjusri: What is the great joy of the bodhisattva?
Vimalakirti: It is to be joyful and without regret in giving.
Manjusri: What is the equanimity of the bodhisattva?
Vimalakirti: It is what benefits both self and others.)
[Prayer to Chenresig
-- from Osel Shen Phen Ling --
(The visualization of Chenrezig in this practice, unlike many
other deities, has four arms and four hands.
The four arms and hands signify the four immeasurables: immeasurable
loving-kindness, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable joy, and immeasurable
equanimity.
Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Boundless Compassion, is the very embodiment and
realization of the four immeasurables.
The four immeasurables are the vehicles through which Chenrezig benefits beings;
therefore, Chenrezig has four arms. -- Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, KTD)
I pray to you, my guru, Chenresig.
I pray to you, my yidam, Chenresig.
I pray to you, perfect noble one, Chenresig.
I pray to you, lord protector, Chenresig.
I pray to you, lord of love, Chenresig.
Buddha of great compassion, hold me fast in your compassion.
From time without beginning, beings have wandered in samsara,
Undergoing unendurable suffering.
They have no other protector than you.
Please bless them that they may achieve the omniscient state of Buddhahood.
With the power of evil karma gathered from beginning-less
time,
Sentient beings, through the force of stupidity
Are born as animals and experience the suffering of dullness and stupidity.
May they all be born in your presence, protector.
om mani padme hum
With the power of evil karma gathered from beginning-less
time,
Sentient beings, through the force of pride
Are born in the realm of gods and experience the suffering of change and
falling.
May they be born in your realm, the Potala.
om mani padme hum
1. Equanimity meditation
[Antidote to pride (god) and ignorance (animals), analysis, discrimination. Instead of being obsessed with analysis and discrimination, we remember their equality, and the relativity of any discrimination. There is no absolute basis for objective discrimination; even wholesome actions are dependently arisen conditioning. It is just based on conditioning and generating more conditioning. But wholesomeness creates the conditions favorable to transcendence. Seeing everything as ultimately equal is more in accord with the real nature of everything, more wholesome, thus bringing more calm, happiness and self-amplifying virtues / Buddha qualities. The perfection of this meditation is combining the wisdom of emptiness to it; accumulating both merit and wisdom. The Middle Way: not discriminating, not non-discriminating. Knowing the real nature of everybody and everything as we discriminate in order to help all sentient beings without discrimination: combining method and wisdom. No absolute, only adapted skillful means.]
[The Limitless Equilibrium Meditation
SEM-CHEN TAM-CHE NYE-RING CHA-DANG-DANG
How wonderful it would be if all beings were in Equanimity
DREL-WAI TANG-NYOM LA-NE-NA CHI-MA-RUNG
Free from attachment and hatred which keeps some beings close and others far
NE-PA GYUR-CHIG, NE-PA DAG-GI CHA-WO
May they be in equanimity, I myself will make them be in equanimity
DE-TAR CHE NU-PAR LAMA-LHA JIN-GYI LAB-TU-SOL
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this]
There are thirteen sections.
·
a. The purpose of equanimity meditation [beginners should start with equanimity; toward those both far and near. This is because if we do not bring everything near and far into equanimity, it is difficult for the other three to arise.]·
b. The meditation object of equanimity [We should examine our minds to how we are doing. Are we discriminating: liking some, hating others, indifferent to the rest.]·
c. Remembering the kindness of the object of equanimity [Relativity: remembering that the situation change in relations to circumstances. There is no absolute, only relative, dependently arisen feelings about other people, and objects. All of this based on the belief in inherently existing characteristics, objects, and self. We think people are good or bad in essence. But it is all merely imputed by the mind. There is no absolute basis for objective discrimination. -- Even such enemies have been our fathers and mothers.]·
d. Equanimity meditation on uncertainty [Impermanence: no relation is stable, or absolute. The situation never last forever; it is constantly changing. Continuing to discriminate with ignorance is quite immature. It is just creating more karma, more causes for suffering. All discrimination are based on this ignorance, on self-preoccupation. We should use antidotes against this kind of reaction, and thus be more in accord with the real nature of everything, until we can transcend both the problem and the antidote.]·
e. The meditation on equanimity [Start with people close, and try to see them (both friends and enemies) with equality, remembering that all feelings are dependently arisen, empty of inherent existence.]·
f. Equanimity meditation to benefit sentient beings [Be conscious of discrimination based on acquired conditioning. Eliminate unconscious discrimination, categories based on kleshas. Try not to judge people in absolute terms, since all judgment are relative. The Middle Way: not accepting, not rejecting. Not seeing people as different or separate, not the same.]·
g. Equanimity about getting and losing, by meditating on them as one [All in the same situation: All equal in desiring happiness, and not desiring suffering. -- All stuck in samsara, unconscious and slaves to our own conditioning, attracted to the very causes of our suffering, continuously jumping from one extreme to the other, from one realms to the other. But we have enough freedom with this precious human life to see through this conditioning and, with some help, to transcend this whole conditioning.. All sentient being have the unborn Buddha-nature.]·
h. The real object of equanimity [The wish: "How wonderful it would be if everyone had equanimity, free from hatred and attachment! May they have equanimity. I will cause them to have it."]·
i. Expanding the object of equanimity [After doing it with people close, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration.Everything is already pure, beyond discrimination, equal in emptiness, luminous space. It is just a matter of gradually seeing this. All sentient being have the unborn Buddha-nature.]
·
j. The measure of having trained in equanimity within one's being [The sign of success: when either self or others, Or enemies and friends, are seen with equality.]·
k. Post-meditation in equanimity meditation [Then go on to the equanimity without object. Everything is mind, whose nature is like the sky. Rest in this emptiness, the unborn absolute, Free from complexities of mental phenomena.The objects to be meditated upon, these appearances of sentient beings, are like a reflection, appearing while they do not exist, unborn by nature. Rest in mindfulness of this.
Meditating on simple equanimity alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great equanimity of the Buddha, the perfection of equanimity.
Perfecting the wholesomeness by using various progressive methods combined with wisdom permits ultimately to transcend all conditioning.
The only way to really definitively transcend this reactive discrimination and its consequences, karma formation and suffering, is to see the real nature of our own mind and of everything. That is why this method, this antidote, meditating on the equality of all sentient beings, is always combined with the wisdom of realizing their real non-dual nature. Only then is it wholesomeness associated with Liberation, and not just another conditioning. Only then is it really in accord with Liberation, with the real non-dual nature of everything. Only then do we have a chance to relax enough the pressure of the cycle of suffering, to see through the whole conditioning cycle, and to transcend samsara definitively.Those sentient beings are not existent, not non-existent, not both, not neither. They are not separate or different, not the same. All are just part of a flow of interdependence without any inherently existing entities in it. Their real nature is beyond any description, beyond any conceptualization, beyond any discrimination or non-discrimination. The same for our own nature; it is non-dual Buddha-nature, inseparability of compassion and emptiness. The same for the Buddha-like qualities and activities. Everything has these two aspects: the union of existence and non-existence.]
·
l. The benefits of equanimity meditation [realization of profound peace arises and realization of the nature of all dharmas as primordially unborn equality. -- All discrimination are based on conditioning; there is no absolute basis for any discrimination; no absolute characteristics or objects. Everything is dependent on the mind judging, or perceiving, it. Nothing is really good, or bad, or this, or that. Everything is equal in being beyond all of those discriminations, empty of inherent existence.-- By combining method and wisdom we get closer and closer to the real nature of our own mind, to our Buddha-nature, closer and closer to acting perfectly in accord the real nature of everything.The wholesomeness of the gradual path is already within us. Simulating the Buddha qualities, like the great equanimity, bring us to the realization of those Buddha qualities; that is the nature of wholesomeness.]
·
m. The fruition of equanimityØ
[The absolute, non-dual dharmata, will be realized.There is the spontaneous presence of the natural state. This is the actual nature of reality.
Ø
That is wholesomeness in accord with the real nature of our own mind, and of everything. It is bringing the fruit into the path. It is gradually perfecting a virtue, or uncovering an already existing Buddha quality. A Buddha has great equanimity: inseparability of equanimity and emptiness, inseparability of compassion and emptiness, inseparability of the Two Truths.Ø
When equanimity has eliminated pride As well as stupidity, there is the essence of things through equality Dharmadhatu wisdom (compatibility original awareness) will manifest. The simplicity of dharmata is svabhavikakaya.Ø
When equanimity has purified pride and ignorance, the wisdom of equality and the Dharmadhatu wisdom are established. Svabhavikakaya, the unchanging vajra kaya and the kaya of the manifestation of enlightenment manifest.Ø
Equanimity makes us sublime. Equanimity makes the mind workable.Ø
By the karma of ignorance we are born as animals. Those who have pure merit, but also an equal amount of pride, are born as gods or human beings.Ø
When these eight consciousnesses are transmuted or transformed, they become the Five Wisdoms. Alaya is transformed into the wisdom of Dharmadhatu. By pacifying ignorance into space, there is simple, space-like wisdom.Ø
By pride being pacified into space, the equality of self and other is known, and samsara and nirvana are non-dual. Within the equality wisdom all the dharmas are equal.Ø
Alaya is transformed into the wisdom of Dharmadhatu. By pacifying ignorance into space, there is simple, space-like wisdom. As for the Dharmadhatu wisdom, for example, if everything has gone into space, though it exists in some sense, it is inexpressible. Everything is of one taste with no variety. Similarly in the Dharmadhatu wisdom, all knowable’s exist inexpressibly without variety, in one taste.Ø
Within the equality wisdom all the dharmas are equal. Here samsara and nirvana are non-dual. This is the equality of the great perfection. By pride being pacified into space, the equality of self and other is known, and samsara and nirvana are non-dual. In the wisdom of equality, all dharmas enter into mark-less equality, so that pleasure and pain are of one taste. Therefore, they are established as equality/equanimity.Ø
Thus, when their powerful ignorance has been removed, The field is Akanishta and the teacher Vairochana. The Dharma is Dharmadhatu wisdom, completely pure. At the time of the path of seeing, the ignorance of imputed false conceptions is transformed into the Dharmadhatu wisdom. Attaining the first bhumi, "supremely joyful," one sees Vairochana.Ø
By removal of pride there is the field of Ratnasambhava. For pride, the wisdom of equality of Ratnasambhava is taught. On the lesser three paths of meditation, transforming pride into the wisdom of equanimity, one sees Ratnasambhava.Ø
The second is the "Gnosis of equality" / the wisdoms of equality, which is that portion of Gnosis that abides neither in cyclic existence nor in the extinction of Nirvana.Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch
Ø
Even awareness: Our pride returns as a recognition of the composite nature of all things.Ø
All - encompassing awareness. Our confusion reappears as all-pervading intuition.Ø
The profound state of emptiness illuminates the darkness of stupidity.Ø
It destroys conceit in joy. --Ø
If one cultivates assiduously and cultivates well the mind of equanimity, the blessings [accruing there-from] culminate in the station of nothing whatsoever."Prajñápáramitá
Ø
Purification Of Body, Speech and Mind Together]
a. The purpose of equanimity meditation
[beginners should start with equanimity; toward those both far and near. This is because if we do not bring everything near and far into equanimity, it is difficult for the other three to arise.]
Now, as to how to meditate, one is purely and definitely concerned with these alone:
These do not have to be practiced in any one fixed order,
But, even so, beginners should start with equanimity.
Having developed this toward those both far and near,
Then they should meditate upon the other three.
First we should compose ourselves, putting ourselves at ease. This is because if we do not bring everything near and far into equanimity, it is difficult for the other three to arise. Therefore, first we meditate on equanimity. The master Jnanagarbha says in his Ornament of the Middle Way
Crossing with equanimity to the land of goodness,
Like a meadow covered with blossoming flowers of kindness,
Well-adorned with the cooling protective shade of compassion.
The water of joy will be pure, and not disturbed and muddied.
The Two Examinations says:
First we should meditate on kindness,
Second we should turn to compassion
Third we should meditate on joy,
And last of all equanimity.
This is from the viewpoint a teacher joined with inner divine such-ness. For them it is easy first to produce the arising of the other three, kindness and so forth.
(i.e. IV. Equanimity (Upekkha)
Equanimityis a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight.
Looking at the world around us, and looking into our own heart, we see clearly how difficult it is to attain and maintain balance of mind.
Looking into life we notice how it continually moves between contrasts: rise and fall, success and failure, loss and gain, honor and blame. We feel how our heart responds to all this with happiness and sorrow, delight and despair, disappointment and satisfaction, hope and fear. These waves of emotion carry us up and fling us down; and no sooner do we find rest, than we are in the power of a new wave again. How can we expect to get a footing on the crest of the waves? How can we erect the building of our lives in the midst of this ever-restless ocean of existence, if not on the Island of Equanimity.
A world where that little share of happiness allotted to beings is mostly secured after many disappointments, failures and defeats;
A world where only the courage to start anew, again and again, promises success;
A world where scanty joy grows amidst sickness, separation and death;
A world where beings who were a short while ago connected with us by sympathetic joy, are at the next moment in want of our compassion -- such a world needs equanimity.
But the kind of equanimity required has to be based on vigilant presence of mind, not on indifferent dullness. It has to be the result of hard, deliberate training, not the casual outcome of a passing mood. But equanimity would not deserve its name if it had to be produced by exertion again and again. In such a case it would surely be weakened and finally defeated by the vicissitudes of life. True equanimity, however, should be able to meet all these severe tests and to regenerate its strength from sources within. It will possess this power of resistance and self-renewal only if it is rooted in insight.
What, now, is the nature of that insight? It is the clear understanding of how all these vicissitudes of life originate, and of our own true nature. We have to understand that the various experiences we undergo result from our kamma -- our actions in thought, word and deed -- performed in this life and in earlier lives. Kamma is the womb from which we spring (kamma-yoni), and whether we like it or not, we are the inalienable "owners" of our deeds (kamma-ssaka). But as soon as we have performed any action, our control over it is lost: it forever remains with us and inevitably returns to us as our due heritage (kamma-dayada). Nothing that happens to us comes from an "outer" hostile world foreign to ourselves; everything is the outcome of our own mind and deeds. Because this knowledge frees us from fear, it is the first basis of equanimity. When, in everything that befalls us we only meet ourselves, why should we fear?
If, however, fear or uncertainty should arise, we know the refuge where it can be allayed: our good deeds (kamma-patisarana). By taking this refuge, confidence and courage will grow within us -- confidence in the protecting power of our good deeds done in the past; courage to perform more good deeds right now, despite the discouraging hardships of our present life. For we know that noble and selfless deeds provide the best defense against the hard blows of destiny, that it is never too late but always the right time for good actions. If that refuge, in doing good and avoiding evil, becomes firmly established within us, one day we shall feel assured: "More and more ceases the misery and evil rooted in the past. And this present life -- I try to make it spotless and pure. What else can the future bring than increase of the good?" And from that certainty our minds will become serene, and we shall gain the strength of patience and equanimity to bear with all our present adversities. Then our deeds will be our friends (kamma-bandhu).
Likewise, all the various events of our lives, being the result of our deeds, will also be our friends, even if they bring us sorrow and pain. Our deeds return to us in a guise that often makes them unrecognizable. Sometimes our actions return to us in the way that others treat us, sometimes as a thorough upheaval in our lives; often the results are against our expectations or contrary to our wills. Such experiences point out to us consequences of our deeds we did not foresee; they render visible half-conscious motives of our former actions which we tried to hide even from ourselves, covering them up with various pretexts. If we learn to see things from this angle, and to read the message conveyed by our own experience, then suffering, too, will be our friend. It will be a stern friend, but a truthful and well-meaning one who teaches us the most difficult subject, knowledge about ourselves, and warns us against abysses towards which we are moving blindly. By looking at suffering as our teacher and friend, we shall better succeed in enduring it with equanimity. Consequently, the teaching of kamma will give us a powerful impulse for freeing ourselves from kamma, from those deeds, which again and again throw us into the suffering of repeated births. Disgust will arise at our own craving, at our own delusion, at our own propensity to create situations, which try our strength, our resistance and our equanimity.
The second insight on which equanimity should be based is the Buddha's teaching of no-self (anattá). This doctrine shows that in the ultimate sense deeds are not performed by any self, nor do their results affect any self. Further, it shows that if there is no self, we cannot speak of "my own." It is the delusion of a self that creates suffering and hinders or disturbs equanimity. If this or that quality of ours is blamed, one thinks: "I am blamed" and equanimity is shaken. If this or that work does not succeed, one thinks: "My work has failed" and equanimity is shaken. If wealth or loved ones are lost, one thinks: "What is mine has gone" and equanimity is shaken.
·
To establish equanimity as an unshakable state of mind, one has to give up all possessive thoughts of "mine", beginning with little things from which it is easy to detach oneself, and gradually working up to possessions and aims to which one's whole heart clings.·
One also has to give up the counterpart to such thoughts, all egoistic thoughts of "self," beginning with a small section of one's personality, with qualities of minor importance, with small weaknesses one clearly sees, and gradually working up to those emotions and aversions which one regards as the center of one's being. Thus detachment should be practiced.
To the degree we forsake thoughts of "mine" or "self" equanimity will enter our hearts. For how can anything we realize to be foreign and void of a self cause us agitation due to lust, hatred or grief? Thus the teaching of no-self will be our guide on the path to deliverance, to perfect equanimity.
Equanimity is the crown and culmination of the four sublime states. But this should not be understood to mean that equanimity is the negation of love, compassion and sympathetic joy, or that it leaves them behind as inferior. Far from that, equanimity includes and pervades them fully, just as they fully pervade perfect equanimity.
-- Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States)
(i.e.¼Maybe it is more about seeing the negative side of partiality, judgments, discrimination, god's pride, animal's ignorance, unwholesome body speech and mind based on the belief of inherent existence. And, automatically, when those unwholesome poisons are dropped, after seeing their real nature, after seeing the real nature of the objects of the three worlds (monism), then the equality Dharmadhatu wisdom that emerge is similar to the opposite of the unwholesome actions, equanimity. But these wholesome methods, already less egoistic, have to be perfected by combining them with the wisdom of emptiness. Considering the two inseparable aspects of reality is what makes them transcending wholesomeness, and more in accord with Liberation, with the real non-dual nature of everything, more close to our unborn Buddha-nature.
So it is not about "artificially having equanimity" for more beings, not about "artificially dropping discrimination", and having more preoccupation and problems because of such "artificial non-discrimination", but about becoming free from the problems caused by pride, ignorance, unwholesome body speech and mind, which are based on an immature conception of reality. "Universal equanimity" is certainly a more wholesome method than pride and ignorance, bringing more beneficial results (rebirth in a higher realm, experiences of happiness similar to this cause, good habits, etc.), but, since the nature of the whole samsara is suffering, we should use the opportunity of this precious human life to try to transcend them both (wholesomeness and unwholesomeness) by combining wisdom to the wholesome methods, by realizing the emptiness of the three: subject, object, action. Unwholesome body speech and mind are purified by seeing the real nature of the inseparable body speech and mind, of the three inseparable realms. The result is the inseparable Trikaya of the Buddha, the vajra kaya, the kaya of the manifestation of enlightenment.
"Worldly equanimity", or "group identification", is necessarily partial and thus associated with "partiality" for the group. By making it "universal", by making all beings part of our group, its opposite, partiality, and its negative consequences, are gradually reduced. This adapted skillful means permits a gradual de-conditioning and self-amplification of virtues, bringing more and more favorable conditions for progress on the path to Enlightenment. But it is still "samsaric" and "unstable" because it is based on inherent existence, and not on the real nature of everything. So we should adopt the Middle Way: not accepting this skillful means as an absolute, not rejecting it all together thinking it is completely useless, not functional, because everything is empty. Emptiness doesn't deny dependent origination, the methods, the skillful means. They are complementary. Their perfect Union is Buddhahood.
So when pride or discrimination based on ignorance (love, hate, indifference) arises, we should try to see through it by seeing its real nature (conditioning, circumstantial, dependently arisen, impermanent, emptiness of the three), or at least use its opposite, equanimity, as temporary antidote, in order to minimize the consequential bad effects. We should drop unwholesomeness, adopt wholesomeness, and combine it with wisdom -- perfecting the two accumulations of merit and wisdom.)
b. The meditation object of equanimity
[We should examine our minds to how we are doing. Are we discriminating: liking some, hating others, indifferent to the rest.]
Now, to explain equanimity meditation:
Since the meditational object is all sentient beings,
We should examine our minds to how we are doing.
If we love our mothers and fathers and our friends,
But hate our enemies, our attitude is bad.
(i.e. One method: examine our own mind to see how we discriminate on irrational basis.)
If there is any sentient being that we make our friend or enemy, this loving and hating is not proper.
c. Remembering the kindness of the object of equanimity
[Relativity: remembering that the situation change in relations to circumstances. There is no absolute, only relative, dependently arisen feelings about other people, and objects. All of this based on the belief in inherently existing characteristics, objects, and self. We think people are good or bad in essence. But it is all merely imputed by the mind. There is no absolute basis for objective discrimination. -- Even such enemies have been our fathers and mothers.]
In samsara:
While we have been wandering without beginning or end,
Even such enemies have been our fathers and mothers.
They were formerly friendly and gave their help to us.
Shall we now cultivate malice to return their kindness?
(i.e. Another method: Remembering that the situation change in relations to circumstances. There is no absolute, only relative, dependently arisen feelings about other people.)
It is not right to repay with harm those who formerly benefited us. The Dulwa Lung says:
Returning good for good is excellent.
Returning harm or indifference is wrong.
d. Equanimity meditation on uncertainty
[Impermanence: no relation is stable, or absolute. The situation never last forever; it is constantly changing. Continuing to discriminate with ignorance is quite immature. It is just creating more karma, more causes for suffering. All discrimination are based on this ignorance, on self-preoccupation. We should use antidotes against this kind of reaction, and thus be more in accord with the real nature of everything, until we can transcend both the problem and the antidote.]
For many generations:
Even these friends were enemies and did us harm.
Even now that suffering is still infecting us.
How can it be right to repay this with benefit?
And those who are neither now were once both friends and enemies.
Where benefit and harm are without certainty
Loving and hating are irrationality.
(i.e. Another method: the situation never last forever; it is constantly changing.
--Relativity of those feelings. No absolute characteristics. Emptiness of all characteristics and feelings.)
If it is not suitable to benefit an enemy who has done us harm, our friends in former generations did us harm, and even now, as a result, suffering still defiles us. Just this produces our loving and hating. Why repay that with benefit?
As for beings who are indifferent to us now, if we think about it, whether they did us benefit or harm before or which they will do later is not certain. Therefore we should produce equanimity for those who are far and near. The Prajñápáramitá in Twenty Thousand Verses says:
Subhuti, all sentient beings are mutually equal, and you should produce an attitude of equanimity.
e. The meditation on equanimity
[Start with people close, and try to see them (both friends and enemies) with equality, remembering that all feelings are dependently arisen, empty of inherent existence.]
For this reason:
Therefore, start by regarding friends and relatives
With neither love nor hate, as we would those who are neutral.
Then we should give up hatred, being neutral to our enemies.
When we do this, near and far are non-existent.
(i.e. Start with people close, and try to see them with equality, remembering that all feelings are dependently arisen, empty of inherent existence.)
Thus we should equalize friends and enemies as indifferent.
f. Equanimity meditation to benefit sentient beings:
[Be conscious of discrimination based on acquired conditioning. Eliminate unconscious discrimination, categories based on kleshas. Try not to judge people in absolute terms, since all judgment are relative. The Middle Way: not accepting, not rejecting. Not seeing people as different or separate, not the same.]
To be rid of the mental darkness that comes from fixating neutrality,
Eliminate habits of thinking of beings in terms of the kleshas.
Meditate on phenomena in freedom from samsara.
(i.e. Eliminate unconscious discrimination. Try not to judge people, since all judgment are relative.
-- Also, this equanimity is not "indifference" but a realization of the relativity of all judgments, and a great love and compassion for all sentient beings slave of their conditioning without knowing their reality and the way out.)
Subsequently may kleshas be completely pacified with regard to all sentient beings, starting with our enemies and friends. May love and hate never arise. May our minds become mutually workable.
g. Equanimity about getting and losing, by meditating on them as one:
[All in the same situation: All equal in desiring happiness, and not desiring suffering. -- All stuck in samsara, unconscious and slaves to our own conditioning, attracted to the very causes of our suffering, continuously jumping from one extreme to the other, from one realms to the other. But we have enough freedom with this precious human life to see through this conditioning and, with some help, to transcend this whole conditioning.. All sentient being have the unborn Buddha-nature.]
All who want happiness want to eliminate suffering.
But their ignorance courses in the cause of suffering.
(i.e. All equal in desiring happiness, and not desiring suffering.
-- Without understanding the emptiness of inherent existence, or relativity, of all characteristics, all sentient beings stuck in samsara, conditioned by their accumulated karma, discriminate thinking those characteristics are absolute, and thus create the causes of more karma and suffering.)
Those who truly want joy for themselves do not desire what is painful. Since all beings are like that, how can malevolence toward them be appropriate? Desire, even desire for happiness, is a cause of suffering. We should eliminate this unwholesome approach.
h. The real object of equanimity
[The wish: "How wonderful it would be if everyone had equanimity, free from hatred and attachment! May they have equanimity. I will cause them to have it."]
Kye ma! If only the draining host of kleshas of sentient beings, °
With all their habitual patterns, were equalized in peace.
May it come about that all embodied beings,
Tormented by their violent loves and raging hatreds,
Are free from either clinging or animosity,
For all either near or far feeling equanimity.
(i.e. How wonderful it would be if all beings were in Equanimity
Free from attachment and hatred which keeps some beings close and others far
May they be in equanimity, I myself will make them be in equanimity
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this.
--- or ---
How wonderful it would be if everyone had equanimity, free from hatred and attachment!
May they have equanimity. I will cause them to have it.
Please, guru-Buddha, bless me to be able to do this. )
May all the kleshas of sentient beings be pacified. In particular, after the fires of love and hate are pacified, without near and far, may our minds become workable.
i. Expanding the object of equanimity:
[After doing it with people close, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration. -- Everything is already pure, beyond discrimination, equal in emptiness, luminous space. It is just a matter of gradually seeing this. All sentient being have the unborn Buddha-nature.]
Having contemplated on one being in this way,
Then going further, do the same with two or three.
Go on to a country, and then to a continent.
Then having contemplated all the four continents,
Try one or two thousand worlds-- we should consider them all.
The training is complete when self is the same as others,
And enemies and friends are seen with equality.
(i.e. After doing it with people close, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration.)
Beginners should meditate on friends and enemies as neutral without regret. Then from one, two, three, beings and so forth, we should go on to our whole town and then our country, its continent, and finally all of this world Jambuling. Then from the continent of videha and so forth go on and meditate on a thousand, two, three, and all the world systems. Also first meditate on human beings, and then on animals and so forth as being equal.
j. The measure of having trained in equanimity within one's being
[The sign of success: when either self or others, Or enemies and friends, are seen with equality.]
Within one's being:
The training is complete when either self or others,
Or enemies and friends, are seen with equality.
(i.e. There is no difference between all sentient beings. They all want happiness, discriminate because of their ignorance, and suffer because of that. But they all have the Buddha potential. There is no basis for discrimination in our own favor.)
For anyone who has attained this attitude, jealousy and enmity will not arise, since they will be hindered by the arising of equality.
k. Post-meditation in equanimity meditation
[Then go on to the equanimity without object. Everything is mind, whose nature is like the sky. Rest in this emptiness, the unborn absolute, Free from complexities of mental phenomena. -- The objects to be meditated upon, these appearances of sentient beings, are like a reflection, appearing while they do not exist, unborn by nature. Rest in mindfulness of this. -- Meditating on simple equanimity alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great equanimity of the Buddha, the perfection of equanimity. -- Perfecting the wholesomeness by using various progressive methods combined with wisdom permits ultimately to transcend all conditioning. -- The only way to really definitively transcend this reactive discrimination and its consequences, karma formation and suffering, is to see the real nature of our own mind and of everything. That is why this method, this antidote, meditating on the equality of all sentient beings, is always combined with the wisdom of realizing their real non-dual nature. Only then is it wholesomeness associated with Liberation, and not just another conditioning. Only then is it really in accord with Liberation, with the real non-dual nature of everything. Only then do we have a chance to relax enough the pressure of the cycle of suffering, to see through the whole conditioning cycle, and to transcend samsara definitively. -- Those sentient beings are not existent, not non-existent, not both, not neither. They are not separate or different, not the same. All are just part of a flow of interdependence without any inherently existing entities in it. Their real nature is beyond any description, beyond any conceptualization, beyond any discrimination or non-discrimination The same for our own nature; it is non-dual Buddha-nature, inseparability of compassion and emptiness. The same for the Buddha-like qualities and activities. Everything has these two aspects: the union of existence and non-existence.]
Then after a session of meditating with that object:
Then go on to the equanimity without object.
Everything is mind, whose nature is like the sky.
Rest in this emptiness, the unborn absolute,
Free from complexities of mental phenomena.
(i.e. Joining the wisdom to the method. Uniting the Ultimate Truth to the conventional truths, to the skillful means. Remembering that the raft is just a raft. -- All of those beings are also merely imputed by the mind. That is the whole point that all sentient beings stuck in samsara are missing. -- Note: It may seem contradictory for now that we meditate on all sentient beings, and then remember that they are not existent. But there is no contradiction. The real nature of all beings is not existence, not non-existence, not both, not either. Their real nature is the unborn non-dual Buddha-nature, but for now it is covered by all of those defilements due to ignorance of themselves.)
The objects to be meditated upon, these appearances of sentient beings, are like a reflection, appearing while they do not exist, unborn by nature. Rest in mindfulness of this. Though we are attached to the skandhas as being grasped objects and a fixating ego other than these, both are false. This is like thinking that a reflection in a mirror is a face.
What does not exist appears, depending on the skandhas. The Precious Mala says:
Though depending on a shining mirror
Reflections of oneself and others appear,
All such vivid images as these
In actuality do not exist.Likewise, in dependence on the skandhas,
Ego is perceived and firmly grasped.
Like the reflected image of one's face,
Really it does not exist at all.As without depending on a mirror,
No reflected natures will appear,
If there is no dependence on the skandhas,
Ego-grasping too will disappear.
By their nature, if the skandhas are grasped as an ego, karma exists. Since from karma birth exists, by intervals old age and death will also exist. When we do not grasp the skandhas, all this is reversed. The same text says:
As long as the skandhas are being grasped at all
So long will they be grasped as truly being an ego.
If there is ego-grasping, there is also karma.
As a result of that, there also will be birth.The three kinds of action have no beginning, end, or middle. [1]
The mandala of samsara, like a whirling fire-brand,
Has recursive causes, so it will keep on whirling.
But if the cause of that were not to be established,Conceptions of self and other and distinctions of the three times,
The context of ego grasping would be entirely exhausted.
Therefore karma and birth will be extinguished too,
And likewise cause and fruition, will simply cease to be.Having seen the exhaustion of these, in the world of truth
There is no thought of existence, no thought of non-existence.
Therefore all dharmas, without an I or any object to grasp, should be known to be non-existent, like a reflection.
l. The benefits of equanimity meditation
[Realization of profound peace arises and realization of the nature of all dharmas as primordially unborn equality. -- All discrimination are based on conditioning; there is no absolute basis for any discrimination; no absolute characteristics or objects. Everything is dependent on the mind judging, or perceiving, it. Nothing is really good, or bad, or this, or that. Everything is equal in being beyond all of those discriminations, empty of inherent existence.-- By combining method and wisdom we get closer and closer to the real nature of our own mind, to our Buddha-nature, closer and closer to acting perfectly in accord the real nature of everything. -- The wholesomeness of the gradual path is already within us. Simulating the Buddha qualities, like the great equanimity, bring us to the realization of those Buddha qualities; that is the nature of wholesomeness.]
The measure of being well-trained by meditating in this way, is that realization of profound peace arises and realization of the nature of all dharmas as primordially unborn equality. The All-Creating King says:
Within the unthinking enlightenment of dharmata,
By resting in non-duality, wisdom will arise.
(i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature)
m. The fruition of equanimity
·
[The absolute, non-dual dharmata, will be realized. -- There is the spontaneous presence of the natural state. This is the actual nature of reality.·
That is wholesomeness in accord with the real nature of our own mind, and of everything. It is bringing the fruit into the path. It is gradually perfecting a virtue, or uncovering an already existing Buddha quality. A Buddha has great equanimity: inseparability of equanimity and emptiness, inseparability of compassion and emptiness, inseparability of the Two Truths.·
When equanimity has eliminated pride As well as stupidity, there is the essence of things through equality Dharmadhatu wisdom (compatibility original awareness) will manifest. The simplicity of dharmata is svabhavikakaya.·
When equanimity has purified pride and ignorance, the wisdom of equality and the Dharmadhatu wisdom are established. Svabhavikakaya, the unchanging vajra kaya and the kaya of the manifestation of enlightenment manifest.·
Equanimity makes us sublime. Equanimity makes the mind workable.·
by the karma of ignorance we are born as animals. Those who have pure merit, but also an equal amount of pride, are born as gods or human beings.·
When these eight consciousnesses are transmuted or transformed, they become the Five Wisdoms. Alaya is transformed into the wisdom of Dharmadhatu. By pacifying ignorance into space, there is simple, space-like wisdom.·
By pride being pacified into space, the equality of self and other is known, and samsara and nirvana are non-dual. Within the equality wisdom all the dharmas are equal.·
Alaya is transformed into the wisdom of Dharmadhatu. By pacifying ignorance into space, there is simple, space-like wisdom. As for the Dharmadhatu wisdom, for example, if everything has gone into space, though it exists in some sense, it is inexpressible. Everything is of one taste with no variety. Similarly in the Dharmadhatu wisdom, all knowables exist inexpressibly without variety, in one taste.·
Within the equality wisdom all the dharmas are equal. Here samsara and nirvana are non-dual. This is the equality of the great perfection. By pride being pacified into space, the equality of self and other is known, and samsara and nirvana are non-dual. In the wisdom of equality, all dharmas enter into mark-less equality, so that pleasure and pain are of one taste. Therefore, they are established as equality/equanimity.·
Thus, when their powerful ignorance has been removed, the field is Akanishta and the teacher Vairochana. The Dharma is Dharmadhatu wisdom, completely pure. At the time of the path of seeing, the ignorance of imputed false conceptions is transformed into the Dharmadhatu wisdom. Attaining the first bhumi, "supremely joyful," one sees Vairochana.·
By removal of pride there is the field of Ratnasambhava. For pride, the wisdom of equality of Ratnasambhava is taught. On the lesser three paths of meditation, transforming pride into the wisdom of equanimity, one sees Ratnasambhava.·
The second is the "Gnosis of equality" / the wisdoms of equality, which is that portion of Gnosis that abides neither in cyclic existence nor in the extinction of Nirvana. -- Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch·
Even awareness: Our pride returns as a recognition of the composite nature of all things.·
All - encompassing awareness. Our confusion reappears as all-pervading intuition.·
The profound state of emptiness illuminates the darkness of stupidity.·
It destroys conceit in joy.·
Purification Of Body, Speech And Mind Together]
Of this meditation:
The fruition is that for mind, undisturbed by near and far,
There is the spontaneous presence of the natural state.
This is the actual nature of reality.
(i.e. primordial awareness, without discrimination.
The real nature of the mind; and thus of everything is to be directly seen right
here.)
(i.e. Once the duality ego vs. others is relaxed enough by seeing the relativity of all point of views, and the equality of all sentient beings, then it is much easier to see the real nature of this ego. By eliminating the opposition, the ego is not afraid of loosing its life. There is no "absolute individuality" just relative imputation and suffering.)
When the relativity of self and other, near and far, is non-existent; the absolute, non-dual dharmata, will be realized. (i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature)
When we are used to this, we should perform the meditation of primordial kindness.
[With the power of evil karma gathered from beginning-less
time,
Sentient beings, through the force of anger,
Are born as hell beings and experience the suffering of heat and cold.
May they all be born in your presence, perfect deity.
om mani padme hum]
2. Meditation on kindness
[About aggressive reactions to obstacles. Antidote to aggression (hell beings). Instead of wanting to hurt others, we want to give them love and kindness. Obstacles are seen as empty, merely imputed by the mind, reflections on the mirror. So instead of feeling threatened by obstacles, we enjoy everything.]
[The Limitless Love Meditation
SEM-CHEN TAM-CHE DE-WA-DANG
How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and
DE-WAY GYU-DANG DEN-NA CHI-MA-RUNG
the cause of happiness. May they have happiness and its cause
DEN-PA GYUR-CHIG DEN-PA DAG-GI CHA-WO
I myself will make them have happiness and its cause
DE-TAR CHE NU-PAR LAMA-LHA JIN-GYI LAB-TU-SOL
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this]
There are five sections.
·
a. Increasing kindness [Start with people close, like your mother, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration.Most sentient beings have almost no happiness at all. It would be better if they all had happiness. So instead of wishing to hurt them, we wish to bring them happiness.]
·
b. The object of kindness [The wish: "How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and the cause of happiness. May they have happiness and its cause. I myself will make them have happiness and its cause.]·
c. The sign of training in kindness [The sign of success: supreme and all-pervading kindness, greater than a mother's love for her only child.]·
d. Kindness without object [Then go on to the kindness without object. Rest everything in equanimity. This is the great kindness without a reference point. The sign is the unity of kindness and emptiness.Meditating on simple loving-kindness alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great loving-kindness of the Buddha, the perfection of kindness.]
·
e. The fruition of meditating on kindnessØ
[The visible result is experience of pure pleasure (cleansed of disturbances of love and hate and so forth).Ø
When perfect enjoyment of kindness is without aggression, Then the mirror-like wisdom (mirror-like original awareness) will have been fully attained, As Sambhogakaya adorned with the major and minor marks.Ø
After kindness has transformed aggression into the mirror-like wisdom, one attains Sambhogakaya.Ø
Through kindness, we are pleasant to everyone.Ø
By the karma of aggression we are born in Hell.Ø
Alaya Vijnana is transformed into the mirror-like wisdom. Mirror-like wisdom is the source of luminous emptiness. As such it is the great source of all the later wisdoms.Ø
Alaya Vijnana is transformed into the mirror-like wisdom. Mirror-like wisdom is the source of luminous emptiness. Alaya Vijnana is the ground of arising and proliferation of all the other consciousnesses. The wisdom of subsiding into space is the ground of arising of the remaining three [wisdoms]. It is like the surface of a pure mirror, without defilements of grasping and fixation. As for the mirror-like wisdom, for example, although reflections of things appear in the surface of a mirror; those things do not exist there. This is effortless, and such things are have no conditional formations at all. Similarly, though the various reflections of omniscience arise within the mirror-like wisdom, they do not exist, are effortless, and are unconditioned.Ø
For aggression the Dharma of the mirror-like wisdom of Akshobhya is taught on the precious eighth bhumi, the seeds of aggression, the pain of conceptualization, and alaya Vijnana are transformed into the mirror-like wisdom so that one attains complete non-thought and sees Akshobhya.Ø
The first of these is the "mirror-like Gnosis" / the mirror-like wisdom (w1), which is the portion of Gnosis that is free of both apprehending subject and apprehended object.Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch
Ø
Mirror - like awareness: When our anger is transformed, the resultant insight is clear like a mirror. It neither adds nor withdraws anythingØ
The profound state of emptiness crumples the mountain of anger.Ø
If one cultivates assiduously and cultivates well the mind of lovingkindness (a), the blessings [accruing there from] culminate in the heaven of universal purity.
Prajñápáramitá
Ø
Purification Of Speech.]
a. Increasing kindness
[Start with people close, like your mother, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration. -- Most sentient beings have almost no happiness at all. It would be better if they all had happiness. So instead of wishing to hurt them, we wish to bring them happiness.]
As explained above:
After the mind has developed this equanimity,
Think of the happiness that you want for your mother.
Then contemplate all embodied beings in just that way.
When the mind has been equalized, just as one feels kindness towards one's father and mother, one should meditate on all sentient beings, placing the mind in the attitude one has toward one's father and mother. The Prajñápáramitá in Eight Thousand lines says:
One should meditate with an attitude of kindness, not letting it be ravished away by the shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas.
(i.e. I. Love (Metta) :
·
Love, without desire to possess, knowing well that in the ultimate sense there is no possession and no possessor: this is the highest love.·
Love, without speaking and thinking of "I," knowing well that this so-called "I" is a mere delusion.·
Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to do so means to create loves own contrasts: dislike, aversion and hatred.·
Love, embracing all beings: small and great, far and near, be it on earth, in the water or in the air.·
Love, embracing impartially all sentient beings, and not only those who are useful, pleasing or amusing to us.·
Love, embracing all beings, be they noble-minded or low-minded, good or evil. The noble and the good are embraced because love is flowing to them spontaneously. The low-minded and evil-minded are included because they are those who are most in need of love. In many of them the seed of goodness may have died merely because warmth was lacking for its growth, because it perished from cold in a loveless world.·
Love, embracing all beings, knowing well that we all are fellow wayfarers through this round of existence -- that we all are overcome by the same law of suffering.·
Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns, scorches and tortures, that inflicts more wounds than it cures -- flaring up now, at the next moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and loneliness than was felt before.·
Rather, love that lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings, ever unchanged in its sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any response it meets. Love that is comforting coolness to those who burn with the fire of suffering and passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned in the cold desert of loneliness, to those who are shivering in the frost of a loveless world; to those whose hearts have become as if empty and dry by the repeated calls for help, by deepest despair.·
Love, that is a sublime nobility of heart and intellect, which knows, understands and is ready to help.·
Love, that is strength and gives strength: this is the highest love.·
Love, which by the Enlightened One was named "the liberation of the heart," "the most sublime beauty": this is the highest love.
And what is the highest manifestation of love?
To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.)
-- Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States)
(i.e. Maybe it is more about seeing the negative side of hell's anger, unwholesome speech (Lying, harsh words, divisive speech, idle talk) . And, automatically, when those unwholesome poisons are dropped, after seeing their real nature, after seeing the real nature of the objects of the form realm (abstract, conceptual, symbolic -- idealism), then the mirror-like wisdom that emerge is similar to the opposite of the unwholesome actions, loving-kindness. But these wholesome methods, already less egoistic, have to be perfected by combining them with the wisdom of emptiness. Considering the two inseparable aspects of reality is what makes them transcending wholesomeness, and more in accord with Liberation, with the real pure nature of everything, more close to our unborn Buddha-nature.
So it is not about "artificially loving" more beings, and having more preoccupation and problems because of such "bigger worldly love", but about becoming free from the problems caused by anger and hate, unwholesome speech, which are based on an immature conception of reality. "Universal love" is certainly a more wholesome method than hate and anger, bringing more beneficial results (rebirth in a higher realm, experiences of happiness similar to this cause, good habits, etc.), but, since the nature of the whole samsara is suffering, we should use the opportunity of this precious human life to try to transcend them both (wholesomeness and unwholesomeness) by combining wisdom to the wholesome methods, by realizing the emptiness of the three: subject, object, action. Unwholesome speech is purified by seeing the real nature of speech, of the form realm. The result is the pure speech of the Buddha, Sambhogakaya.
"Worldly love" is necessarily partial and thus associated with "hate and anger" for some others. By making it "universal", its opposite, and its negative consequences, are gradually reduced. This adapted skillful means permits a gradual de-conditioning and self-amplification of virtues, bringing more and more favorable conditions for progress on the path to Enlightenment. But it is still "samsaric" and "unstable" because it is based on inherent existence, and not on the real nature of everything. So we should adopt the Middle Way: not accepting this skillful means as an absolute, not rejecting it all together thinking it is completely useless, not functional, because everything is empty. Emptiness doesn't deny dependent origination, the methods, the skillful means. They are complementary. Their perfect Union is Buddhahood.
So when anger arises, we should try to see through it by seeing its real nature (conditioning, circumstantial, dependently arisen, impermanent, emptiness of the three), or at least use its opposite, loving-kindness and patience, using pleasant words, as temporary antidote, in order to minimize the consequential bad effects. We should drop unwholesomeness, adopt wholesomeness, and combine it with wisdom -- perfecting the two accumulations of merit and wisdom.)
b. The object of kindness
[The wish: "How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and the cause of happiness. May they have happiness and its cause. I myself will make them have happiness and its cause.]
How to do this?
The object of conceptual kindness is all beings.
It wants to accomplish for these various sentient beings,
The incidental happiness of gods and human beings,
As well as the ultimate happiness of enlightenment.
Move from meditating on a single being
Up to all beings within the limits of the directions.
(i.e. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and
the cause of happiness. May they have happiness and its cause
I myself will make them have happiness and its cause
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this)
When unhappy sentient beings are seen, may they meet incidentally with the happiness of gods and human beings, and ultimately with the happiness of Buddhahood. Thinking that, one should go from one to meditating on all sentient beings as limitless as the space of the sky. The Middle Length Prajñápáramitá says:
When we see sentient beings who have no happiness, we should imagine to ourselves as follows, "May these sentient beings attain the god realm, where the happiness of the gods is perfect."
c. The sign of training in kindness
[The sign of success: supreme and all-pervading kindness, greater than a mother's love for her only child.]
As for training:
The sign of success is supreme and all-pervading kindness.
Greater than a mother's love for her only child.
Whatever sentient beings are seen one is pleased and with a great kind longing, one wants to benefit them.
d. Kindness without object
[Then go on to the kindness without object. Rest everything in equanimity. This is the great kindness without a reference point. The sign is the unity of kindness and emptiness. -- Meditating on simple loving-kindness alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great loving-kindness of the Buddha, the perfection of kindness.]
After meditating on kindness with an object:
Then rest everything in equanimity.
This is the great kindness without a reference point.
The sign is the unity of kindness and emptiness.
The object of meditation on kindness is sentient beings, arising from the gathering together of the six elements.
These elements are
Ø
1.) EarthØ
2.) WaterØ
3.) FireØ
4.) AirØ
5.) SpaceØ
6.) Consciousness.
If these are examined their coarse atoms, subtle real nature, and pure consciousness do not exist as real things. Meditate, thinking that they are like space. The Ratnavali says:
People are not earth and are not water.
Neither are they fire, air, nor space,
Nor are they consciousness, nor all of these.
A person is something different from this.
Since persons are gathered from the six elements,
They are not real, and here is the reason why.
A gathered nature cannot be something real.
The skandhas are not the ego, nor ego the skandhas.
Yet neither would be there without the other.
Also:
At the time when things cannot be found
At that time there is pure thing-less-ness
Things of form are simply non-existent,
Even space is nothing but a name.Without arising, form is superfluous,
Therefore, even its name does not exist.
Feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness
Seem to arise and be thought of as an ego.
But without the six elements, there can be no ego.
Why does it not exist? When sentient beings appear, if we examine their bodily nature, it does not exist. Neither the support or supported of consciousness is seen, so the "me" and the "mine" are not perceived. When analyzed they vanish, essentially empty. The same text says:
Just as if the layers of a plantain tree [2]
Are all destroyed, then nothing is there at all
People too, if all the parts of their nature
Should be destroyed, would likewise disappear.
All dharmas are without a self, and therefore,
That is what the victorious ones have taught.
This mere appearance of seeing and hearing is neither true nor false, since truth and falsity are correspondence to a pattern of dharmas in the mind. The same text says:
Just by being able to see and hear and so forth,
It is taught there neither true nor false.
Also it says there:
This world transcends both truth and falsity.
Thus all dharmas are beyond truth and falsity, like a plantain or banana tree. This is also taught in the Samadhiraja Sutra:
Just as with the moist leafy trunks of plantain trees
Wanting to find the essence, people tear them up,
But nowhere inside or out is an essence to be found.
All the various dharmas should be known to be like that.
The sign of good training is that while kindness arises, at the same time there arises the realization that beings, like a plantain tree essentially have no self or nature.
e. The fruition of meditating on kindness
·
[The visible result is experience of pure pleasure (cleansed of disturbances of love and hate and so forth).·
When perfect enjoyment of kindness is without aggression, Then the mirror-like wisdom (mirror-like original awareness) will have been fully attained, As Sambhogakaya adorned with the major and minor marks.·
After kindness has transformed aggression into the mirror-like wisdom, one attains Sambhogakaya.·
Through kindness, we are pleasant to everyone.·
by the karma of aggression we are born in Hell.·
Alaya Vijnana is transformed into the mirror-like wisdom. Mirror-like wisdom is the source of luminous emptiness. As such it is the great source of all the later wisdoms.·
Alaya Vijnana is transformed into the mirror-like wisdom. Mirror-like wisdom is the source of luminous emptiness. Alaya Vijnana is the ground of arising and proliferation of all the other consciousnesses. The wisdom of subsiding into space is the ground of arising of the remaining three [wisdoms]. It is like the surface of a pure mirror, without defilements of grasping and fixation. As for the mirror-like wisdom, for example, although reflections of things appear in the surface of a mirror; those things do not exist there. This is effortless, and such things are have no conditional formations at all. Similarly, though the various reflections of omniscience arise within the mirror-like wisdom, they do not exist, are effortless, and are unconditioned.·
For aggression the Dharma of the mirror-like wisdom of Akshobhya is taught On the precious eighth bhumi, the seeds of aggression, the pain of conceptualization, and alaya Vijnana are transformed into the mirror-like wisdom so that one attains complete non-thought and sees Akshobhya.·
The first of these is the "mirror-like Gnosis" / the mirror-like wisdom, which is the portion of Gnosis that is free of both apprehending subject and apprehended object. -- Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch·
Mirror - like awareness: When our anger is transformed, the resultant insight is clear like a mirror. It neither adds nor withdraws anything·
The profound state of emptiness crumples the mountain of anger.·
Purification Of Speech.]
What is the fruition?
The visible result is experience of pure pleasure.
Seeing sentient beings is pleasurable, and the beings, when they are seen, are cleansed of disturbances of love and hate and so forth.
The Prajñápáramitá in Eight Thousand Lines says:
Those who have an attitude of kindness meditate a great deal, and when they see the sentient beings inhabiting the world, it is pleasurable. They have no anger.
Also immeasurable merit is attained. The Sutra of the Great Liberation Blossoming in the Ten Directions says:
Though someone in the world keeps discipline pure for a kalpa,
An instant of joy produced by kindness is better than that.If one in this world does evil in body speech and mind,
Though they fall to the lower realms, by that kindness it has an end.
[With the power of evil karma gathered from beginning-less time,
Sentient beings, through the force of greed
Are born in the realms of prêtas and experience the suffering of hunger and
thirst.
May they all be reborn in your perfect realm, the Potala.
om mani padme hum]
3. Meditation on Compassion
[Antidote to desire, attachment, passion (humans), greed, miserliness (hungry ghosts). Instead of being obsessed by our own suffering and need, we think about the suffering of all others in samsara. We understand the link between desire and suffering, the logic of karma and the cycle of samsara. So we drop all worldly desire and abide in pure Dharmakaya.]
[The Limitless Compassion Meditation
SEM-CHEN TAM-CHE DUG-NGEL-DANG
How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were released from suffering
DUG-NGEL-GYI GYU-DANG DREL-NA CHI-MA-RUNG
And the cause of suffering. May they be released from suffering and its causes
DREL-WAR GYUR-CHIG DREL-WAR DAG-GI CHA-WO
I myself will release them from suffering and its causes
DE-TAR CHE NU-PAR LAMA-LHA JIN-GYI LAB-TU-SOL
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this]
There are seven sections.
·
a. Thinking about the sufferings of sentient beings [Start with people close, like your parents, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration.]·
b. How to meditate on Compassion [Seeing them in specific great variety of suffering.The whole samsara is suffering. It would be better if they never had any suffering at all.]
·
c. The main topic of compassion [Thinking that they don't know how to get out of the cycle, creating more and more causes for suffering.]·
d. The reason of compassion [The wish: "How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were released from suffering and the cause of suffering. May they be released from suffering and its causes. I myself will release them from suffering and its causes"]·
e. The sign of training in compassion [The sign of success: the suffering of beings, arising within us, becomes unbearable.]·
e. The post-meditation of compassion meditation [Then go on to the compassion without object. Then meditate on compassion without a reference point. The sign is the unity of compassion and emptiness.Meditating on simple compassion alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great compassion of the Buddha, the perfection of compassion.]
·
f. The fruition of meditating on compassionØ
[The fruition is a mind without injurious malice, Workable by its establishment in primordial purity.Ø
When compassion is desire-less, there is Dharmakaya, Producing the manifestation of discriminating wisdom (specificity -initiating original awareness). Its dharmas like the ten powers are utterly distinct.Ø
Compassion pure of desire is discriminating awareness wisdom and Dharmakaya.Ø
Compassion makes us beneficial. Through compassion we perform limitless benefits.Ø
By the karma of seduction and desire we are born as prêtasØ
By the subsiding of passion into space, discriminating awareness wisdom knows the empty nature of knowables as it is, and knows the extent of all the essences of various appearances, along with their causes and effects. For discriminating wisdom objects are distinct.Ø
For discriminating wisdom objects are distinct. The visions of nature and extent are completely pure. By the subsiding of passion into space, discriminating awareness wisdom knows the empty nature of knowables as it is, and knows the extent of all the essences of various appearances, along with their causes and effects.Ø
By removing desire, there is the field of Amitabha. For passion, the discriminating awareness wisdom of Amitabha is taught. On the middle three, transforming all kinds of passion into discriminating awareness wisdom, one sees Amitabha.Ø
The third is the "discriminative Gnosis" discriminating awareness, which is the portion of Gnosis that understands objects in their multiplicity and variety.Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch
Ø
Discerning awareness: Our attachment becomes the ability to see situations both singly and as part of a totality.Ø
The profound state of emptiness dries up the ocean of passion.Ø
If one cultivates assiduously and cultivates well the mind of compassion, the blessings [accruing there from] culminate in the station of empty space.Prajñápáramitá
Ø
Purification Of Mind]
a. Thinking about the sufferings of sentient beings
[Start with people close, like your parents, then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration.]
Now compassion is taught:
After encompassing all beings within this kindness.
Think of their sufferings, arousing such a compassion
As when your mind cannot endure your parents' suffering.
If our kind parents for our sake did evil deeds and were tormented by the sufferings of the three lower realms and so forth, we would think, "I should be compassionate to them." The Middle Length Prajñápáramitá says:
If we see sentient beings who are suffering, we will think, "May these sentient beings be freed from suffering."
(i.e. II. Compassion (Karuna)
The world suffers. But most men have their eyes and ears closed. They do not see the unbroken stream of tears flowing through life; they do not hear the cry of distress continually pervading the world. Their own little grief or joy bars their sight, deafens their ears. Bound by selfishness, their hearts turn stiff and narrow. Being stiff and narrow, how should they be able to strive for any higher goal, to realize that only release from selfish craving will effect their own freedom from suffering?
It is compassion that removes the heavy bar, opens the door to freedom, makes the narrow heart as wide as the world. Compassion takes away from the heart the inert weight, the paralyzing heaviness; it gives wings to those who cling to the lowlands of self.
Through compassion the fact of suffering remains vividly present to our mind, even at times when we personally are free from it. It gives us the rich experience of suffering, thus strengthening us to meet it prepared, when it does befall us.
Compassion reconciles us to our own destiny by showing us the life of others, often much harder than ours.
Behold the endless caravan of beings, men and beasts, burdened with sorrow and pain! The burden of every one of them, we also have carried in bygone times during the unfathomable sequence of repeated births. Behold this, and open your heart to compassion!
And this misery may well be our own destiny again! He who is without compassion now, will one day cry for it. If sympathy with others is lacking, it will have to be acquired through one's own long and painful experience. This is the great law of life. Knowing this, keep guard over yourself!
Beings, sunk in ignorance, lost in delusion, hasten from one state of suffering to another, not knowing the real cause, not knowing the escape from it. This insight into the general law of suffering is the real foundation of our compassion, not any isolated fact of suffering.
Hence our compassion will also include those who at the moment may be happy, but act with an evil and deluded mind. In their present deeds we shall foresee their future state of distress, and compassion will arise.
The compassion of the wise man does not render him a victim of suffering. His thoughts, words and deeds are full of pity. But his heart does not waver; unchanged it remains, serene and calm. How else should he be able to help?
May such compassion arise in our hearts! Compassion that is sublime nobility of heart and intellect, which knows, understands and is ready to help.
Compassion that is strength and gives strength: this is highest compassion.
And what is the highest manifestation of compassion?
To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
-- Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States)
(i.e. Maybe it is more about seeing the negative side of egotism, prêtas' greed, desire, unwholesome mind (Craving, ill will, wrong views). And, automatically, when those unwholesome poisons are dropped, after seeing their real nature, after seeing the real nature of the objects of the formless realm (intuitive -- dualism), then the discriminating wisdom that emerge is similar to the opposite of the unwholesome actions, compassion. But these wholesome methods, already less egoistic, have to be perfected by combining them with the wisdom of emptiness. Considering the two inseparable aspects of reality is what makes them transcending wholesomeness, and more in accord with Liberation, with the real luminous nature of everything, more close to our unborn Buddha-nature.
So it is not about "artificially having compassion" for more beings, and having more preoccupation and problems because of such "bigger worldly compassion", but about becoming free from the problems caused by egotism, greed, desire, unwholesome mind, which are based on an immature conception of reality. "Universal compassion" is certainly a more wholesome method than egotism, greed, bringing more beneficial results (rebirth in a higher realm, experiences of happiness similar to this cause, good habits, etc.), but, since the nature of the whole samsara is suffering, we should use the opportunity of this precious human life to try to transcend them both (wholesomeness and unwholesomeness) by combining wisdom to the wholesome methods, by realizing the emptiness of the three: subject, object, action. Unwholesome mind is purified by seeing the real nature of mind, of the formless realm. The result is the pure mind of the Buddha, Dharmakaya.
"Worldly compassion" is necessarily partial and thus associated with "desire" for self, or for those chosen ones. By making it "universal", by making all beings equal to ourselves, its opposite, egotism, and its negative consequences, are gradually reduced. This adapted skillful means permits a gradual de-conditioning and self-amplification of virtues, bringing more and more favorable conditions for progress on the path to Enlightenment. But it is still "worldly" and "unstable" because it is based on inherent existence, and not on the real nature of everything. So we should adopt the Middle Way: not accepting this skillful means as an absolute, not rejecting it all together thinking it is completely useless, not functional, because everything is empty. Emptiness doesn't deny dependent origination, the methods, the skillful means. They are complementary. Their perfect Union is Buddhahood.
So when egotism, greed, or desire arises, we should try to see through it by seeing its real nature (conditioning, circumstantial, dependently arisen, impermanent, emptiness of the three), or at least use its opposite, compassion for others, remembering the variety of suffering in samsara, as temporary antidote, in order to minimize the consequential bad effects. We should drop unwholesomeness, adopt wholesomeness, and combine it with wisdom -- perfecting the two accumulations of merit and wisdom.)
b. How to meditate on Compassion
[Seeing them in specific great variety of suffering. -- The whole samsara is suffering. It would be better if they never had any suffering at all.]
As for how to meditate:
Think how our parents, who were so kind to us,
Suffered by doing evil actions for our sake,
With hunger, thirst and heat and cold and even murder.
They are sinking down into the raging sea,
Of birth and old age, of sickness and of death,
Exhausted by the great variety of sufferings.
Because they did evil deeds for our sake, now they are tormented by their particular sufferings.
c. The main topic of compassion
[Thinking that they don't know how to get out of the cycle, creating more and more causes for suffering.]
From this present suffering:
Though they want liberation, they have no peace of mind.
There is no spiritual friend to show the proper path.
How pitiable is their limitless wandering in samsara.
Having seen it, can I forsake and abandon them?
The beings of samsara are suffering and know no way of being liberated. Except for a very few spiritual friends, there is no one to teach them all the path of liberation. None of these beings who now suffer without limit in samsara, formerly was not my father, mother, relative, and friend. As for just abandoning them without a refuge or protector, they are my family, father, and mother! That is how we should think.
[The Letter to Students says:
For whomever has got in this situation and remains
Whoever with careful kindness receives this cautiously,
Will have no instance of suffering from these kleshas, and discarding them,
If to beings one is bad-tempered and, who is better off?
d. The reason of compassion
[The wish: "How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were released from suffering and the cause of suffering. May they be released from suffering and its causes. I myself will release them from suffering and its causes"]
the reason:
Then we should think from the very depths of our heart and bones,
"May all beings be freed in a moment from their sufferings,
By means of our bodies and enjoyment of our wealth,
And any happiness that is ours throughout the three times."
(i.e. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were released from suffering
And the cause of suffering. May they be released from suffering and its causes
I myself will release them from suffering and its causes
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this)
Thus may all our enjoyment and happiness be transferred to other beings and having been freed from suffering, may they forever enjoy immeasurable happiness. One should think that from the depths of one's heart. The Prajñápáramitá in Eight Thousand Lines says:
With that vast mind possessing the great compassion, all shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas should meditate in this extraordinary way.
e. The sign of training in compassion
[The sign of success: the suffering of beings, arising within us, becomes unbearable.]
When training in this meditation, as we go from one sentient being to all,
the sign is that
the suffering of beings, arising within us, becomes unbearable.
e. The post-meditation of compassion meditation
[Then go on to the compassion without object. Then meditate on compassion without a reference point. The sign is the unity of compassion and emptiness. -- Meditating on simple compassion alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great compassion of the Buddha, the perfection of compassion.]
After all sessions of meditating like this on compassion with objects:
Then meditate on compassion without a reference point.
The sign is the unity of compassion and emptiness.
If the objects of compassion, sentient beings, are examined and analyzed, they are nature-less like the appearance of water in a mirage. No water is really there. That is how we should think. The Samadhiraja-sutra says:
As when the summer sun is at its peak,
Persons tormented by thirst and other beings
With their skandhas see water in a mirage.
All dharmas should be known to be like that.
The Ratnavali says:
As water in a mirage
Is neither water nor real,
Egos in the skandhas
Are neither there nor real.That water is a mirage.
If so, then why go there?
If that water is non-existent,
Grasping it is stupid.Existing like an illusion,
This world is non-existent."
The grasper of it is stupid,
And if so, will not be free.
Also it says there:
As these two reasons are true,
Nothing comes, goes, or stays.
So our suffering too is gone.
Also it says there:
The Buddhas' teaching is deathless and never changes.
It is beyond existence and non-existence.
Therefore, it is explained to be like that.
After we understand the nature of all dharmas through meditation, emptiness and compassion are unified. This is how practice is done on the true path. If either of these two is absent, one strays from the path. The Dohakosha says:
If without compassion we dwell in emptiness
Gaining nothing we will not gain the highest path.
But if we solely meditate upon compassion,
We will never be free from dwelling in samsara.Those who have the power of joining both of these
Will not dwell in samsara and nor yet within nirvana.
(i.e. Vimalakirti Sutra - The way to practice of the
Bodhisattva -
Both Wisdom and Great Compassion are necessary
(neither without wisdom - as a fool -, indulging the mind and suffering,
neither controlling the mind - as the disciples - and abandoning others
Note : Compassion is liberative technique / bodhicitta)
A) The source of the Great Compassion - without
sentimentality
(the emptiness of the sickness of all others, and of all others, also: the
non-duality)
"Manjusri, thus should a sick bodhisattva control his own mind in order to overcome old age, sickness, death, and birth. Such, Manjusri, is the sickness of the bodhisattva. If he takes it otherwise, all his efforts will be in vain. For example, one is called 'hero' when one conquers the miseries of aging, sickness, and death.
"The sick bodhisattva should tell himself: 'Just as my sickness is unreal and nonexistent, so the sicknesses of all living beings are unreal and nonexistent.' Through such considerations, he arouses the great compassion toward all living beings without falling into any sentimental compassion. The great compassion that strives to eliminate the accidental passions does not conceive of any life in living beings. Why? Because great compassion that falls into sentimentally purposive views only exhausts the bodhisattva in his reincarnations. But the great compassion, which is free of involvement with sentimentally purposive views, does not exhaust the bodhisattva in all his reincarnations. He does not reincarnate through involvement with such views but reincarnates with his mind free of involvement. Hence, even his reincarnation is like a liberation. Being reincarnated as if being liberated, he has the power and ability to teach the Dharma, which liberates living beings from their bondage. As the Lord declares: 'It is not possible for one who is himself bound to deliver others from their bondage. But one who is himself liberated is able to liberate others from their bondage.' Therefore, the bodhisattva should participate in liberation and should not participate in bondage.
Precision on the nature of the path
(only controlling your mind as in the Hinayana is bondage - it maintain the
false duality)
B) "What is bondage? And what is liberation?
(Only one of them is bondage, both - wisdom and liberative techniques - is
liberation)
(It Is The Union Of Both Ultimate Truth And Conventional Truth: it is not complete void-ness, it is not complete indulgence, it is not both simultaneously or in sequence. Emptiness is just an antidote to one extreme, dependent origination and the method is just an antidote to the other extreme; liberation is the union of both method and wisdom. The last duality to remove is probably the duality between conventional truth and ultimate truth -- as in emptiness --. You cannot have only the mind of a Buddha, you automatically have the body of a Buddha also -- they are inseparable.)
·
To indulge in liberation from the world without employing liberative technique is bondage for the bodhisattva.·
To engage in life in the world with full employment of liberative technique is liberation for the bodhisattva.·
To experience the taste of contemplation, meditation, and concentration without skill in liberative technique is bondage.·
To experience the taste of contemplation and meditation with skill in liberative technique is liberation.·
Wisdom not integrated with liberative technique is bondage, but wisdom integrated with liberative technique is liberation.·
Liberative technique not integrated with wisdom is bondage, but liberative technique integrated with wisdom is liberation.·
"How is wisdom not integrated with liberative technique a bondage? Wisdom not integrated with liberative technique consists of concentration on void-ness, sign-less-ness, and wish-less-ness, and yet, being motivated by sentimental compassion, failure to concentrate on cultivation of the auspicious signs and marks, on the adornment of the Buddha-field, and on the work of development of living beings it is bondage.·
"How is wisdom integrated with liberative technique a liberation? Wisdom integrated with liberative technique consists of being motivated by the great compassion and thus of concentration on cultivation of the auspicious signs and marks, on the adornment of the Buddha-field, and on the work of development of living beings, all the while concentrating on deep investigation of void-ness, sign-less-ness, and wish-less-ness - and it is liberation.·
"What is the bondage of liberative technique not integrated with wisdom? The bondage of liberative technique not integrated with wisdom consists of the bodhisattva's planting of the roots of virtue without dedicating them for the sake of enlightenment, while living in the grip of dogmatic convictions, passions, attachments, resentments, and their subconscious instincts.·
"What is the liberation of liberative technique integrated with wisdom? The liberation of liberative technique integrated with wisdom consists of the bodhisattva's dedication of his roots of virtue for the sake of enlightenment, without taking any pride therein, while forgoing all convictions, passions, attachments, resentments, and their subconscious instincts.
"Manjusri, thus should the sick bodhisattva consider things.
·
His wisdom is the consideration of body, mind, and sickness as impermanent, miserable, empty, and selfless.·
His liberative technique consists of not exhausting himself by trying to avoid all physical sickness, and in applying himself to accomplish the benefit of living beings, without interrupting the cycle of reincarnations. (i.e. being motivated by the Great Compassion -- the emptiness of all sickness and beings, the non-duality)·
Furthermore, his wisdom lies in understanding that the body, mind, and sickness are neither new nor old, both simultaneously and sequentially.·
And his liberative technique lies in not seeking cessation of body, mind, or sicknesses.)
f. The fruition of meditating on compassion
·
[The fruition is a mind without injurious malice, Workable by its establishment in primordial purity.·
When compassion is desire-less, there is Dharmakaya, Producing the manifestation of discriminating wisdom (specificity -initiating original awareness). Its dharmas like the ten powers are utterly distinct.·
Compassion pure of desire is discriminating awareness wisdom and Dharmakaya.·
Compassion makes us beneficial. Through compassion we perform limitless benefits.·
by the karma of seduction and desire we are born as prêtas·
By the subsiding of passion into space, discriminating awareness wisdom knows the empty nature of knowables as it is, and knows the extent of all the essences of various appearances, along with their causes and effects. For discriminating wisdom objects are distinct.·
For discriminating wisdom objects are distinct. The visions of nature and extent are completely pure. By the subsiding of passion into space, discriminating awareness wisdom knows the empty nature of knowables as it is, and knows the extent of all the essences of various appearances, along with their causes and effects·
By removing desire, there is the field of Amitabha. For passion, the discriminating awareness wisdom of Amitabha is taught. On the middle three, transforming all kinds of passion into discriminating awareness wisdom, one sees Amitabha.·
The third is the "discriminative Gnosis" / discriminating awareness, which is the portion of Gnosis that understands objects in their multiplicity and variety. -- Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch·
Discerning awareness: Our attachment becomes the ability to see situations both singly and as part of a totality.·
The profound state of emptiness dries up the ocean of passion.·
Purification Of Mind
Of meditating in this way:
The fruition is a mind without injurious malice,
Workable by its establishment in primordial purity.
One attains a workable mind without malice and harm. Therefore the Buddha's enlightenment will be established.
The Supreme Essence says:
By the great compassion the mind becomes workable, and deathless, and attains the supreme ornament of delight.
[With the power of evil karma gathered from beginning-less time,
Sentient beings, through the force of jealousy
Are born in the realm of titans and experience the suffering of fighting and
quarreling.
May they be born in your realm, the Potala.
om mani padme hum]
4. The meditation of joy
[Antidote to jealousy, envy, competitivity (jealous demi-god, asuras). Instead of being jealous of the happiness of others, we feel joy for them" Instead of competing with others, we want to help them find permanent happiness.]
[The Limitless Joy Meditation
SEM-CHEN TAM-CHE TORE-DANG
How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated
TAR-PEY DE-WA DAMPA-DANG MA DREL-NA CHI-MA-RUNG
From the sublime happiness of release and the happiness of higher rebirths.
MI-DREL-WAR GYUR-CHIG MI DREL-WAR DAG-GI CHA-WO
May they not be separated from these, I myself will make them not be separated
from these.
DE-TAR CHE NU-PAR LAMA-LHA JIN-GYI LAB-TU-SOL
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this.]
There are six sections
·
a. The purpose of meditating on joy [Start with people in happiness close to you, , then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration.Their worldly happiness is necessarily impermanent, subject to the suffering of change. It would be better if they had permanent happiness.]
·
b. The object of meditation on joy [The proper object of joy is happy sentient beings. The wish: "How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated from the sublime happiness of release and the happiness of higher rebirths. May they not be separated from these, I myself will make them not be separated from these."]·
c. The measure of joy [The sign of success: the arising of joy that is free from envy.]·
d. The essence of joy [Then go on to the joy without object. Then meditate on joy without a reference point. -- Meditating on simple joy alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great joy of the Buddha, the perfection of joy.]·
e. The virtues of joy [The sign is Body, speech and mind have spontaneous peace and bliss.]·
f. The fruition of meditating on joyØ
[By the wealth of the fruition joy is stabilized.Ø
When joy eliminates jealousy, there is Nirmanakaya. The holy all-accomplishing wisdom (task-posed-and-accomplished original awareness) is attained. Nirmanakaya is nothing fixed, but of various forms. This self-existing kaya is spontaneous Buddha activity.Ø
By immeasurable joy one attains the all-accomplishing wisdom, whose nature is perfect Buddha activity. Purifying jealousy makes Nirmanakaya manifest.Ø
Joy fulfills. Joy brings perfect wealth.Ø
Those who have equal parts of goodness and jealousy are born as asuras.Ø
By the subsiding of envy into space, ... All accomplishing wisdom is perfect Buddha activity. The subsiding of the consciousnesses of the five gates into space is the all-accomplishing wisdom.Ø
The subsiding of the consciousnesses of the five gates into space is the all-accomplishing wisdom. All accomplishing wisdom is perfect Buddha activity. It is not obstructed by knowing everything all the time. By the subsiding of envy into space, as for the wisdom that unremittingly acts to accomplish benefit for sentient beings.Ø
By removing jealousy, the field of Amoghasiddhi. Jealousy is purified by showing the all-accomplishing wisdom of Amoghasiddhi. On the ninth and tenth bhumis, purifying the seeds of jealousy, the fields of the five gates are purified by the four modes of genuine individual awareness. Perfect Buddha activity produces benefit for sentient beings, the all-accomplishing wisdom is attained, and seeing Amoghasiddhi, one is empowered by great light rays. This is perfection of the great deeds of the Buddhas.Ø
The fourth is "action-accomplishing Gnosis" / all- accomplishing wisdom, which is the portion of Gnosis through which the Buddha understands the personalities and dispositions of sentient creatures.Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch
Ø
Spontaneously fulfilling awareness: Our jealousy manifests the wisdom of experience.Ø
The profound state of emptiness calms down the gale of jealousy.Ø
If one cultivates assiduously and cultivates well the mind of sympathetic joy, the blessings [accruing there from] culminate in the station of consciousness.Prajñápáramitá
Ø
Purification Of The Body]
a. The purpose of meditating on joy
[Start with people in happiness close to you, , then gradually include more and more people, and sentient beings, into the consideration. -- Their worldly happiness is necessarily impermanent, subject to the suffering of change. It would be better if they had permanent happiness.]
Now joy will be explained. As just explained:
After beings are steeped in compassion, and each is happy,
Then we should go further and meditate on joy.
If we see happy sentient beings, we should meditate on joy. The Prajñápáramitá in 20,000 Lines says:
Whenever we see sentient beings joined to their particular happiness, we should think, "May they be inseparable from this happiness. May they possess the happiness of omniscience, beyond that of gods and human beings.
(i.e. III. Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)
Not only to compassion, but also to joy with others open your heart!
Small, indeed, is the share of happiness and joy allotted to beings! Whenever a little happiness comes to them, then you may rejoice that at least one ray of joy has pierced through the darkness of their lives, and dispelled the gray and gloomy mist that enwraps their hearts.
Your life will gain in joy by sharing the happiness of others as if it were yours. Did you never observe how in moments of happiness men's features change and become bright with joy? Did you never notice how joy rouses men to noble aspirations and deeds, exceeding their normal capacity? Did not such experience fill your own heart with joyful bliss? It is in your power to increase such experience of sympathetic joy, by producing happiness in others, by bringing them joy and solace.
Let us teach real joy to men! Many have unlearned it. Life, though full of woe, holds also sources of happiness and joy, unknown to most. Let us teach people to seek and to find real joy within themselves and to rejoice with the joy of others! Let us teach them to unfold their joy to ever sublimer heights!
Noble and sublime joy is not foreign to the Teaching of the Enlightened One. Wrongly the Buddha's Teaching is sometimes considered to be a doctrine diffusing melancholy. Far from it: the Dhamma leads step by step to an ever purer and loftier happiness.
Noble and sublime joy is a helper on the path to the extinction of suffering. Not he who is depressed by grief, but one possessed of joy finds that serene calmness leading to a contemplative state of mind. And only a mind serene and collected is able to gain the liberating wisdom.
The more sublime and noble the joy of others is, the more justified will be our own sympathetic joy. A cause for our joy with others is their noble life securing them happiness here and in lives hereafter. A still nobler cause for our joy with others is their faith in the Dhamma, their understanding of the Dhamma, their following the Dhamma. Let us give them the help of the Dhamma! Let us strive to become more and more able ourselves to render such help!
Sympathetic joy means a sublime nobility of heart and intellect, which knows, understands and is ready to help.
Sympathetic joy that is strength and gives strength: this is the highest joy.
And what is the highest manifestation of sympathetic joy?
To show to the world the path leading to the end of suffering, the path pointed out, trodden, and realized to perfection by Him, the Exalted One, the Buddha.
-- Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States)
(i.e. Maybe it is more about seeing the negative side of asuras' jealousy, envy, competitivity, unwholesome body (Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct). And, automatically, when those unwholesome poisons are dropped, after seeing their real nature, after seeing the real nature of the objects of the desire realm (objects of the senses -- realism), then the all-accomplishing wisdom that emerge is similar to the opposite of the unwholesome actions, joy. But these wholesome methods, already less egoistic, have to be perfected by combining them with the wisdom of emptiness. Considering the two inseparable aspects of reality is what makes them transcending wholesomeness, and more in accord with Liberation, with the real dependently arisen nature of everything, more close to our unborn Buddha-nature.
So it is not about "artificially having joy" for more beings, not about "artificially inducing bliss", but about becoming free from the problems caused by jealousy, envy, competitivity, unwholesome body, which are based on an immature conception of reality. "Universal joy" is certainly a more wholesome method than jealousy and competitivity, bringing more beneficial results (rebirth in a higher realm, experiences of happiness similar to this cause, good habits, etc.), but, since the nature of the whole samsara is suffering, we should use the opportunity of this precious human life to try to transcend them both (wholesomeness and unwholesomeness) by combining wisdom to the wholesome methods, by realizing the emptiness of the three: subject, object, action. Unwholesome body is purified by seeing the real nature of body, of the desire realm. The result is the pure body of the Buddha, Nirmanakaya.
"Worldly joy" is necessarily partial and thus associated with "jealousy" toward some others. By making it "universal", its opposite, and its negative consequences, are gradually reduced. This adapted skillful means permits a gradual de-conditioning and self-amplification of virtues, bringing more and more favorable conditions for progress on the path to Enlightenment. But it is still "samsaric" and "unstable" because it is based on inherent existence, and not on the real nature of everything. So we should adopt the Middle Way: not accepting this skillful means as an absolute, not rejecting it all together thinking it is completely useless, not functional, because everything is empty. Emptiness doesn't deny dependent origination, the methods, the skillful means. They are complementary. Their perfect Union is Buddhahood.
So when jealousy arises, we should try to see through it by seeing its real nature (conditioning, circumstantial, dependently arisen, impermanent, emptiness of the three), or at least use its opposite, joy for their merit, as temporary antidote, in order to minimize the consequential bad effects. We should drop unwholesomeness, adopt wholesomeness, and combine it with wisdom -- perfecting the two accumulations of merit and wisdom.)
b. The object of meditation on joy
[The proper object of joy is happy sentient beings. The wish: "How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated From the sublime happiness of release and the happiness of higher rebirths. May they not be separated from these, I myself will make them not be separated from these."]
How?
The proper object of joy is happy sentient beings.
The content is thinking, "E ma! there is no need
For me to try to establish these beings in happiness.
Each of them has gained their proper happiness.
Until they attain the essence of enlightenment,
May they never be parted from this happiness."
First think of one, then meditate on all of them.
(i.e. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated
From the sublime happiness of release and the happiness of higher rebirths.
May they not be separated from these, I myself will make them not be separated from these.
Please Guru Deities bless me to be able to do this.)
Go like that from meditating on one happy sentient being to all of them.
c. The measure of joy
[The sign of success: the arising of joy that is free from envy.]
As for the measure of training:
The sign is the arising of joy that is free from envy.
Ultimate joy has no envy for the wealth of others.
d. The essence of joy
[Then go on to the joy without object. Then meditate on joy without a reference point. -- Meditating on simple joy alone is not enough; it has to be combined with wisdom. Then it becomes the great joy of the Buddha, the perfection of joy.]
After a session of meditating on conceptual joy:
Then meditate on joy without a reference point.
Meditate on the objects of joy, all sentient beings, as appearing while they do not exist, like an illusion. The Samadhiraja Sutra says:
Just as in the midst of many sentient beings
Magicians may emanate illusory forms of things,
But the horses and chariots, and elephants that they conjure
Do not exist at all in they way that they appear,
Every dharma should be known to be like that.
The Ratnavali says:
A secret from people in general,
Is this very deep Dharma teaching
The amrita of Buddha's teaching
That the world is like illusion.Just as illusory elephants
Appear to arise and vanish,
While in truth and reality
Nothing arises and vanishes,Likewise this world of illusion,
Appearing to rise and vanish,
In the real and absolute truth,
Neither rises nor is destroyed.As an illusory elephant
Coming from nothing goes nowhere;
By exhausting mind's obscuration,
It really, truly is gone.This world, just like that elephant,
Coming from nothing goes nowhere;
By exhausting the mind's obscuration,
It really, truly is gone.The nature beyond the three times;
And existence and non-existence,
Not realizing them all as mere labels;
How will someone possess the nature?
e. The virtues of joy:
[The sign is Body, speech and mind have spontaneous peace and bliss.]
In meditating in this way, by the joy of the natural state:
Body, speech and mind have spontaneous peace and bliss.
This is the measure.
f. The fruition of meditating on joy:
·
[By the wealth of the fruition joy is stabilized.·
When joy eliminates jealousy, there is Nirmanakaya. The holy all-accomplishing wisdom (task-posed-and-accomplished original awareness) is attained. Nirmanakaya is nothing fixed, but of various forms. This self-existing kaya is spontaneous Buddha activity.·
By immeasurable joy one attains the all-accomplishing wisdom, whose nature is perfect Buddha activity. Purifying jealousy makes Nirmanakaya manifest.·
Joy fulfills. Joy brings perfect wealth.·
Those who have equal parts of goodness and jealousy are born as asuras.·
By the subsiding of envy into space, ... All accomplishing wisdom is perfect Buddha activity. The subsiding of the consciousnesses of the five gates into space is the all-accomplishing wisdom.·
The subsiding of the consciousnesses of the five gates into space is the all-accomplishing wisdom. All accomplishing wisdom is perfect Buddha activity. It is not obstructed by knowing everything all the time. By the subsiding of envy into space, as for the wisdom that unremittingly acts to accomplish benefit for sentient beings.·
By removing jealousy, the field of Amoghasiddhi. Jealousy is purified by showing the all-accomplishing wisdom of Amoghasiddhi. On the ninth and tenth bhumis, purifying the seeds of jealousy, the fields of the five gates are purified by the four modes of genuine individual awareness. Perfect Buddha activity produces benefit for sentient beings, the all-accomplishing wisdom is attained, and seeing Amoghasiddhi, one is empowered by great light rays. This is perfection of the great deeds of the Buddhas.·
The fourth is "action-accomplishing Gnosis" / all- accomplishing wisdom, which is the portion of Gnosis through which the Buddha understands the personalities and dispositions of sentient creatures. -- Ven. Khenpo Appey Rinpoche, The Qualities of Buddhahood: A Brief Sketch·
Spontaneously fulfilling awareness: Our jealousy manifests the wisdom of experience.·
The profound state of emptiness calms down the gale of jealousy.·
Purification Of The Body]
By the wealth of the fruition joy is stabilized.
The Prajñápáramitá in Eight Thousand Lines says:
Immeasurably vast, joyful mind is never taken from us. With this unsurpassable perfection we attain the heights.
[May I, myself, through all my existences,
Act in the same manner as Chenresig.
By this means, may all beings be liberated
From the impure realms and
May the most perfect sound of the six-syllable mantra
Spread in the ten directions.
By the power of this prayer to you,
Most noble and perfect one,
May all beings be trained by me,
Take karma and its effects into account
And practice skillful means diligently.
May they take up the Dharma for the good of all
By having prayed like this one pointedly, light shining from
the holy form, removes all impure karma and bewilderment.
The outer realm becomes the realm of bliss (dewachen).
All knowledge, sound and appearances become inseparable from emptiness.
(i.e. purification of the body, speech and mind, and the three together)
Recite the mantra as many times as you can.
Finally, let the mind remain absorbed in its own essence, without making
distinctions between subject, object and act.
(i.e. combining this method with wisdom realizing the ultimate nature of the
three.)]
H. Further explanation of the way of meditating
[Using one against the extreme tendencies of the other. The same as for realism, idealism, dualism and monism. No absolute only adapted skillful means.]
There are seven sections
·
1. The details of meditation after this is familiar [Starting with kindness; breaking attachment to any of the our]·
2. How to stop obstacles to kindness with compassion [If sometimes one becomes permanently attached to other sentient beings as one's father and mother, a second meditation on compassion will serve as an antidote.]·
3. How to stop obstacles to compassion with joy [When there is attachment to compassion as an individually characterized phenomenon, illusion-like, objectless joy will clear away all sadness and attachment.]·
4. How to stop obstacles to joy with equanimity [If we are sad because of longing for joy in the happiness of others, it will be cleared away by meditating on objectless equanimity]·
5. Stopping the obstacles to equanimity with kindness [If everything seems to become indifferent, arouse kindness and meditate on that.]·
6. The way of meditating when we have become increasingly familiar [meditate in a different order, or jump about]·
7. The virtues of meditating in this way [By that the meditation will gain the advantage of freshness. Its steadiness will grow to the very greatest degree.]
1. The details of meditation after this is familiar,
[Starting with kindness; breaking attachment to any of the our]
Now the way of meditating will be further explained. As explained above:
After this is familiar, then, beginning with kindness,
Meditate on all four, one right after the next,
Gradually breaking attachment to any of the four.
(i.e. No absolute, only adapted skillful means. We should use the rafts, but not get attached to them.
-- The Middle Way: not accepting any position as absolute, not rejecting any position as meaningless useless non-functional.
-- The real nature of everything is not existence (realism), not non-existence (idealism or nihilism), not both existence and non-existence (dualism), not neither existence not non-existence (monism).
-- So none of those four positions are "it", but they could still be used as antidotes to the extreme tendency of another position.
-- Emptiness is used as an antidote to too much realism. Dependent origination is used as an antidote to too much emptiness. Oneness is used as an antidote to too much dualism. Dualism is used as an antidote to too much monism.
-- It is the same here with the four immeasurables. No absolute, only adapted skillful means. Using one as an antidote to the extreme tendency of another.)
Sometimes meditate on these four in order, as an antidote to liberate them into purity.
(i.e. Question: There ought to be blessings and merit inherent in [the cultivation of] each of these three kinds of mind. What benefit does [cultivation of] this mind of equanimity hold for those beings beset by neither suffering nor pleasure?
Reply: The practitioner formulates this thought: "Whenever any being leaves behind pleasure he experiences suffering. Whenever he is undergoing suffering, that [too] is just suffering. Whenever he gains [the state of] neither suffering nor pleasure then he is peaceful and secure. It is with this [result] that benefit is achieved.
·
When the practitioner cultivates the mind of loving - kindness or the mind of sympathetic joy there may be times when the mind of desire and attachment arises* (*see the counteractive siddhaanta's warnings about the sometimes pathogenic effects of loving - kindness practice).·
When cultivating the mind of compassion there may be times when the mind of worry and distress arises.
On account of this desire or worry the mind may become disturbed. When one accesses this mind of equanimity one gets rid of this desire and worry. It is because desire and worry are gotten rid of that [this mind] is referred to as the mind of equanimity.
-- Kalavinka, Prajñápáramitá - The Four Immeasurable Minds
Then again, [it may be explained that] when practicing in accord with loving - kindness, compassion and sympathetic joy it is difficult to develop equanimity with respect to beings. [But] because one accesses this mind of equanimity it becomes easy to transcend.
-- Kalavinka, Prajñápáramitá - The Four Immeasurable Minds)
The Inter-relations of the Four Sublime States
How, then, do these four sublime states pervade and suffuse each other?
Unbounded love guards compassion against turning into partiality, prevents it from making discriminations by selecting and excluding and thus protects it from falling into partiality or aversion against the excluded side.
Love imparts to equanimity its selflessness, its boundless nature and even its fervor. For fervor, too, transformed and controlled, is part of perfect equanimity, strengthening its power of keen penetration and wise restraint.
Compassion prevents love and sympathetic joy from forgetting that, while both are enjoying or giving temporary and limited happiness, there still exist at that time most dreadful states of suffering in the world. It reminds them that their happiness coexists with measureless misery, perhaps at the next doorstep. It is a reminder to love and sympathetic joy that there is more suffering in the world than they are able to mitigate; that, after the effect of such mitigation has vanished, sorrow and pain are sure to arise anew until suffering is uprooted entirely at the attainment of Nibbána. Compassion does not allow that love and sympathetic joy shut themselves up against the wide world by confining themselves to a narrow sector of it. Compassion prevents love and sympathetic joy from turning into states of self-satisfied complacency within a jealously guarded petty happiness. Compassion stirs and urges love to widen its sphere; it stirs and urges sympathetic joy to search for fresh nourishment. Thus it helps both of them to grow into truly boundless states (appamañña).
Compassion guards equanimity from falling into a cold indifference, and keeps it from indolent or selfish isolation. Until equanimity has reached perfection, compassion urges it to enter again and again the battle of the world, in order to be able to stand the test, by hardening and strengthening itself.
Sympathetic joy holds compassion back from becoming overwhelmed by the sight of the world's suffering, from being absorbed by it to the exclusion of everything else. Sympathetic joy relieves the tension of mind, soothes the painful burning of the compassionate heart. It keeps compassion away from melancholic brooding without purpose, from a futile sentimentality that merely weakens and consumes the strength of mind and heart. Sympathetic joy develops compassion into active sympathy.
Sympathetic joy gives to equanimity the mild serenity that softens its stern appearance. It is the divine smile on the face of the Enlightened One, a smile that persists in spite of his deep knowledge of the world's suffering, a smile that gives solace and hope, fearlessness and confidence: "Wide open are the doors to deliverance," thus it speaks.
Equanimity rooted in insight is the guiding and restraining power for the other three sublime states. It points out to them the direction they have to take, and sees to it that this direction is followed. Equanimity guards love and compassion from being dissipated in vain quests and from going astray in the labyrinths of uncontrolled emotion. Equanimity, being a vigilant self-control for the sake of the final goal, does not allow sympathetic joy to rest content with humble results, forgetting the real aims we have to strive for.
Equanimity, which means "even-mindedness," gives to love an even, unchanging firmness and loyalty. It endows it with the great virtue of patience. Equanimity furnishes compassion with an even, unwavering courage and fearlessness, enabling it to face the awesome abyss of misery and despair, which confront boundless compassion again and again. To the active side of compassion, equanimity is the calm and firm hand led by wisdom -- indispensable to those who want to practice the difficult art of helping others. And here again equanimity means patience, the patient devotion to the work of compassion.
In these and other ways equanimity may be said to be the crown and culmination of the other three sublime states. The first three, if unconnected with equanimity and insight, may dwindle away due to the lack of a stabilizing factor. Isolated virtues, if unsupported by other qualities, which give them either the needed firmness or pliancy, often deteriorate into their own characteristic defects. For instance, loving-kindness, without energy and insight, may easily decline to a mere sentimental goodness of weak and unreliable nature. Moreover, such isolated virtues may often carry us in a direction contrary to our original aims and contrary to the welfare of others, too. It is the firm and balanced character of a person that knits isolated virtues into an organic and harmonious whole, within which the single qualities exhibit their best manifestations and avoid the pitfalls of their respective weaknesses. And this is the very function of equanimity, the way it contributes to an ideal relationship between all four sublime states.
Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight. But in its perfection and unshakable nature equanimity is not dull, heartless and frigid. Its perfection is not due to an emotional "emptiness," but to a "fullness" of understanding, to its being complete in itself. Its unshakable nature is not the immovability of a dead, cold stone, but the manifestation of the highest strength.
In what way, now, is equanimity perfect and unshakable?
Whatever causes stagnation is here destroyed, what dams up is removed, what obstructs is destroyed. Vanished are the whirls of emotion and the meandering of intellect. Unhindered goes the calm and majestic stream of consciousness, pure and radiant. Watchful mindfulness (sati) has harmonized the warmth of faith (saddha) with the penetrative keenness of wisdom (paññá); it has balanced strength of will (viriya) with calmness of mind (samádhi); and these five inner faculties (indriya) have grown into inner forces (bala) that cannot be lost again. They cannot be lost because they do not lose themselves any more in the labyrinths of the world (samsara), in the endless diffuseness of life (papañca). These inner forces emanate from the mind and act upon the world, but being guarded by mindfulness, they nowhere bind themselves, and they return unchanged. Love, compassion and sympathetic joy continue to emanate from the mind and act upon the world, but being guarded by equanimity, they cling nowhere, and return un-weakened and unsullied.
Thus within the Arahat, the Liberated One, nothing is lessened by giving, and he does not become poorer by bestowing upon others the riches of his heart and mind. The Arahat is like the clear, well-cut crystal which, being without stains, fully absorbs all the rays of light and sends them out again, intensified by its concentrative power. The rays cannot stain the crystal with their various colors. They cannot pierce its hardness, nor disturb its harmonious structure. In its genuine purity and strength, the crystal remains unchanged. "Just as all the streams of the world enter the great ocean, and all the waters of the sky rain into it, but no increase or decrease of the great ocean is to be seen" -- even so is the nature of holy equanimity.
Holy equanimity, or -- as we may likewise express it -- the Arahat endowed with holy equanimity, is the inner center of the world. But this inner center should be well distinguished from the numberless apparent centers of limited spheres; that is, their so-called "personalities," governing laws, and so on. All of these are only apparent centers, because they cease to be centers whenever their spheres, obeying the laws of impermanence, undergo a total change of their structure; and consequently the center of their gravity, material or mental, will shift. But the inner center of the Arahat's equanimity is unshakable, because it is immutable. It is immutable because it clings to nothing.
Says the Master:
For one who clings, motion exists; but for one who clings not, there is no motion. Where no motion is, there is stillness. Where stillness is, there is no craving. Where no craving is, there is neither coming nor going. Where no coming nor going is, there is neither arising nor passing away. Where neither arising nor passing away is, there is neither this world nor a world beyond, nor a state between. This, verily, is the end of suffering.
Udana 8:3
-- Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States)
2. How to stop obstacles to kindness with compassion:
[If sometimes one becomes permanently attached to other sentient beings as one's father and mother, a second meditation on compassion will serve as an antidote.]
If kindness attaches you intimately to all beings,
Compassion breaks attachment to the cause and effect of suffering.
(i.e. This is like meditating on death and impermanence in order to relax our attachments, or mental excitement in meditation.
This is like using emptiness as an antidote to too much realism. Things that we are attached to are not existent, they are all impermanent, unsatisfactory, empty of inherent existence.)
If sometimes one becomes permanently attached to other sentient beings as one's father and mother, a second meditation on compassion will serve as an antidote.
3. How to stop obstacles to compassion with joy:
[When there is attachment to compassion as an individually characterized phenomenon, illusion-like, objectless joy will clear away all sadness and attachment.]
When a lesser compassion attaches to reference points,
Sadness is stopped by the joy that has no reference point.
(i.e. This is like meditating on the precious human life in order to relax torpor, depression, or mental sinking in meditation.
This is like using dependent origination as an antidote to too much emptiness. Things are not completely non-existent either. We all have a Buddha-nature.)
When there is attachment to compassion as an individually characterized phenomenon, illusion-like, objectless joy will clear away all sadness and attachment.
4. How to stop obstacles to joy with equanimity:
[If we are sad because of longing for joy in the happiness of others, it will be cleared away by meditating on objectless equanimity]