Practical Ethics and Profound Emptiness
Page 35
When a doctor operates on the affected area of a person who is very ill, the purpose is to prevent the person from having to bear the greater suffering of dying. Experiencing a comparatively small amount of pain to save ourselves from greater pain is reasonable. Similarly, if someone who is to be executed has his sentence commuted to amputation of a limb, the person would be overjoyed and would gladly endure the loss of a limb in order to be able to continue living. While we don’t go looking for suffering, when it comes our way — especially in the context of doing an action that will enable us to avoid great suffering in the lower realms or bring the great happiness of awakening — we should gladly endure it for that higher purpose.
373.[The scriptures] maintain: The mind is the prerequisite for all dharmas —
the mind is the principal factor [in karma].
So if one does something helpful with the intention to be helpful,
how could it be unhelpful, even if suffering is involved?
374.If one does something unpleasant that will later be helpful,
then what about doing something for oneself and for others
that is both pleasant and helpful?
This is an ancient principle.
Don’t Be Angry at a Little Suffering That Can Eliminate All Our Duhkha
Even though the universal vehicle’s practice of giving away the body and other things causes a small amount of suffering now, we shouldn’t be upset about doing it or the pain that occurs. Being confident in the great benefit this will bring in the future for ourselves and others, tolerate this comparatively small suffering now. Although some bodhisattva practices may involve some discomfort or pain, they will act as a cause for the eradication of all our duhkha forever.
In general, when we have a virtuous motivation, our actions of body and speech become constructive. Even if this action produces a small amount of pain now, it remains virtuous and will bring happiness to ourselves and others in the future since our motivation is to benefit others.
Someone objects, “Sometimes people have a virtuous motivation but their physical and verbal actions cause problems.” This is true. However, while the immediate result may be confusion or aggravation, acting with good intentions will still bring good results in future lives.
When bodhisattvas undergo the hardships of giving away their body or parts of their body they first generate a very strong virtuous motivation wishing to benefit others. Then, despite some temporary suffering, their action will bring an immensely salutary and vast result. This practice of bearing a smaller pain for a greater good is done by all the buddhas of the past, present, and future. Even ordinary people recognize that when great profit will accrue in the long term, it is worth pushing ahead despite a small problem in the short term.
375.If one will later attain great happiness
from forsaking some trivial pleasure now,
then sensible people, realizing that they will gain great happiness,
should abandon that trifling pleasure now.
376.If you cannot bear this,
then healers and such
who prescribe bitter medicine would disappear,
and that makes no sense.
Exert Yourselves for Great Happiness and Don’t Be Attached to Small Happiness
When great happiness will be the ultimate result of an action, it is wise to give up small short-term happiness to attain it. All Dharma practitioners must do this, no matter whether they follow the hearer, solitary realizer, or bodhisattva path. To keep either the lay or monastic precepts we have to give up chasing every object of attachment we see, even though restraining ourselves may be unpleasant. If we aren’t willing to do this, we won’t take bitter medicine to save our lives, and that makes no sense at all. We put up with such things because they will bring a good outcome in the long term — otherwise we may hasten our own death.
Similarly, sometimes practicing the path to full awakening entails giving up some comparatively small and insignificant pleasures of this life to accomplish long-term joy for ourselves and others. It is only reasonable to do this.
In short, beings of less intelligence fear suffering and are thus incapable of doing certain bodhisattva deeds. Seeing the benefit of such compassionate deeds and courageously accepting whatever suffering doing them may entail, great bodhisattvas happily engage in such actions to benefit others and to swiftly fulfill the two collections.
377.The wise see that in some cases
what is [usually] harmful can be helpful.
All treatises propose
both general rules and exceptions.
In general, everything in cyclic existence is duhkha in nature and thus to be abandoned. In that case, shouldn’t we avoid giving away our body or parts of it on the bodhisattva path because it causes duhkha? While in general it is true that suffering is to be abandoned, there are exceptions when this is not the case. Treatises and commentaries always present a general situation as well as exceptions to it. For example, in general we want to relinquish rebirth in cyclic existence, but bodhisattvas, motivated by compassion, must take birth in order to benefit sentient beings and to collect the merit that will bring peerless awakening. Similarly, in general we need to take care of our bodies. But there is an exception in the case of bodhisattvas — when they see the time is right and that giving away their bodies will benefit others in a vast way, they do so without attachment. We must develop intelligence and skill in order to be able to discern what is generally the case and what is an exception.
378.The universal vehicle says
that all activities should be motivated by compassion,
and that wisdom will make them pure —
what sensible person would deride this?
It Is Appropriate to Take Delight in the Universal Vehicle
The universal vehicle scriptures are based on compassion and wisdom, and everyone — even secular people who have no religion — appreciates compassion. These scriptures describe in full the way to cultivate great compassion and bodhichitta. They also give instructions on the bodhisattva practices of the six perfections and the methods to cultivate serenity and insight. Attaining serenity and insight enables us to generate the wisdom that understands emptiness, which purifies all the bodhisattva practices by contemplating that their agents, actions, and objects are mutually dependent and thus lack inherent existence.
Practicing the bodhisattva path leads to the fulfillment of the two collections of merit and wisdom by which practitioners attain a buddha’s truth body and form body. Who can fault such a wonderful path and result? Since all of this is explained in detail in the universal vehicle scriptures, it is appropriate to appreciate them. Those who aspire for peerless awakening should be delighted to discover this explanation of how to attain their noble goal.
379.Discouraged by its vastness and profundity,
ignorant persons, due to their confusion,
today deride the universal vehicle
[and thus become] the foes of themselves and others.
When they merely listen to the explanation of the vast bodhisattva practices and the actual mode of existence, people of inferior intelligence become afraid and discouraged, and do not want to follow the bodhisattva path. Unable to bear even hearing about it, they criticize the universal vehicle. In this way, they become their own worst enemies and deprive themselves of the bliss of full awakening.
To be attracted to the universal vehicle in this life requires having latencies from studying and/or practicing it in previous lives. Those who lack such latencies misunderstand and criticize it. In doing so, they abandon the universal vehicle and the causes for peerless awakening, putting the chance to attain peerless awakening far away.
SHOWING THE UNIVERSAL VEHICLE SCRIPTURES ARE THE BUDDHA’S WORD
Having explained the benefits of practicing the universal vehicle and the disadvantages of criticizing it, Nagarjuna now turns to allaying the doubts of those who wonder if the Buddha indeed taught the universal
vehicle scriptures. He does this by first saying that since the bodhisattva vehicle includes such a wonderful practice that everyone appreciates, it must be taught by an awakened one. In addition, these scriptures contain all the essential points of the bodhisattva practice — the six perfections, the collection of merit and wisdom, and the methods to attain the form bodies and truth body of a buddha. If the Buddha didn’t teach such a wonderful path and result, who else could have?
380.The nature of what the universal vehicle maintains
is generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort,
meditative stability, wisdom, and compassion —
how could it contain a wrong statement?
The Universal Vehicle Scriptures Contain Not Even the Slightest Bad Explanation
The universal vehicle scriptures contain nothing harmful or incorrect that would bring the downfall of sentient beings. The six perfections — generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort, meditative stability, and wisdom — are noble qualities that everyone admires, even secular people. Furthermore, bodhichitta, which is the basis of these practices, and its cause, great compassion, as well as the steps in the two methods of generating bodhichitta are clearly explained in great detail by the Buddha in the universal vehicle scriptures. What could be faulty with this?
381.Others’ aims are achieved through generosity and ethical conduct;
one’s own through fortitude and joyous effort;
meditative stability and wisdom lead to liberation —
this summarizes the universal vehicle teachings.
The Universal Vehicle Scriptures Contain All the Essential Points of the Bodhisattva Practice
The practice of the six perfections is the heart of the universal vehicle, and they are fully explained in its scriptures. Generosity is the principal cause that enables us to have the material things we need in life, and ethical conduct is the principal cause for attaining a higher rebirth. Temporarily these two practices benefit others, in that our generosity benefits the recipients of our gifts and offerings, and our ethical conduct benefits those we otherwise may have harmed through lack of restraint. Of course generosity and ethical conduct benefit us too, but here they are said to benefit others from the viewpoint of who receives the immediate benefit.
From the temporal and immediate viewpoint, fortitude and joyous effort accomplish our own benefit. Fortitude prevents us from destroying our virtue through anger, and it helps us avoid creating new nonvirtue by getting angry. When we delight in virtue, joyous effort spurs us to create virtue we didn’t have before and makes us happy to increase the virtue we already have.
The practices of meditative stability and wisdom encompass serenity and insight, which are the main causes of attaining liberation. Serenity is the ability to stay on the meditation object one-pointedly for as long as we wish, free of excitement and laxity. Wisdom gained by insight knows the ultimate nature of reality. At the moment, we may intellectually understand emptiness — we may know the reasons phenomena lack inherent existence or be able to explain emptiness to others. However, this does not mean we have realized emptiness. One reason for this is poor concentration that prevents us from entering meditative equipoise on emptiness. Our concentration is interrupted by excitement and laxity that move our mindfulness off the object. Once we are able to concentrate properly, this will help us to realize emptiness directly, which in turn will bring about liberation. In this way, meditative stability and wisdom lead to liberation.
All the bodhisattva practices can be subsumed into these six. Thus they are said to summarize the universal vehicle teachings. Meditation on these six is practicing and meditating on the meaning of the universal vehicle scriptures. Reciting the words that explain them is maintaining the words of the universal vehicle scriptures.
382.In brief, the teachings of the Buddha include
what benefits oneself and others, and [the way to attain] liberation.
These topics are contained in the six perfections.
Therefore, they are also the Buddha’s words.
The Universal Vehicle Scriptures Were Taught by the Buddha
The fundamental vehicle scriptures teach the causes for higher rebirth and highest good, and in this way, they enable us to attain our own aim — liberation from cyclic existence. These are also taught in the universal vehicle scriptures, which additionally teach the practices that benefit others. While some bodhisattva practices are taught in the fundamental vehicle scriptures, they are not described in the detail or to the extent that they are in the universal vehicle scriptures. Nevertheless, since the main practices of these two vehicles are similar and both are based on the four truths of aryas, the teachings of both vehicles must be the word of the Buddha. No one else could have delineated such a magnificent and correct path.
383.Those blinded by ignorance cannot tolerate the universal vehicle,
in which the Buddha taught the great path
consisting of merit and wisdom
that leads to awakening.
The Need to Learn the Complete Bodhisattva Path from the Universal Vehicle Scriptures
Like a highway that is broad enough for many people to travel on, the universal vehicle is a great path that will benefit all sentient beings in the universe. It is the path followed by all the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three times and ten directions.
Some Buddhists reject the Buddha’s teachings on the emptiness of inherent existence, saying that liberation is attained by realizing the four truths of the aryas. They assert that realizing the lack of a self-sufficient, substantially existent person is the selflessness of person, and some of these schools — the Vaibhashika and Sautrantika — do not assert a selflessness of phenomena. Those that do — the Chittamatra and Svatantrika — do not assert the lack of inherent existence as the selflessness of both persons and phenomena.
The Madhyamikas differ, saying, “If realizing only the four truths were necessary to attain liberation, why would the Buddha have taught the emptiness of inherent existence in so many sutras? If there were no selflessness of phenomena, why did the Buddha teach it?”
The followers of the lower tenets systems do not understand that full awakening arises from the vast collections of merit and wisdom, and that the collection of wisdom is accumulated by meditating on the emptiness of inherent existence of persons and phenomena. All this and more is explained in the universal vehicle scriptures.
384.Since [a Victor comes from] merit that is as inconceivable as space,
a Victor is said to have inconceivable good qualities.
Hence one should accept the greatness of buddhas,
as [explained] in the universal vehicle.
385.Even just the ethical conduct [of the Buddha]
was beyond Shariputra’s ken.
Why then wouldn’t one accept that
the greatness of the buddhas is inconceivable?
Universal Vehicle Scriptures Show the Limitless Causes for Attaining the Form Body
As limited beings, we are unable to understand the Buddha’s limitless and inconceivable qualities. One time the Buddha asked the arhat Shariputra if he could understand one quality of the Buddha — his ethical conduct. Shariputra replied that he couldn’t fathom it at all! Because the Buddha’s qualities are so subtle and difficult to understand, they are not visible to sentient beings. We cannot know or understand even one of the Buddha’s qualities, let alone all of them.
Because the causes of the Buddha’s form body and truth body are incomparable, the qualities of these two resultant bodies are also inconceivable. From inconceivable and limitless causes — the collections of merit and wisdom — come inconceivable and limitless results. For that reason, we should accept the magnificent qualities of the Buddha that are explained in the universal vehicle scriptures and also accept that these scriptures were taught by the Buddha. It doesn’t make sense to be irritated by teachings that instruct us how to be like our Teacher.
386.The non-
arising taught in the universal vehicle
and the extinction [taught] for other [Buddhists] are [both] emptiness.
Therefore, one should accept that
extinction and non-arising are ultimately the same.
387.Emptiness is the majesty of the awakened one;
reflecting thus with reasoning,
how could the wise not maintain
that what is said in the universal vehicle and the other are equal?
The Knowledge of Extinction and the Knowledge of Non-Arising Are the Same
The fundamental vehicle’s explanation of the knowledge of extinction and the universal vehicle teachings on the knowledge of non-arising are the same in indicating the meaning of emptiness. Nagarjuna bases this explanation on a fundamental vehicle scripture in which the term extinction refers to the primordial extinction of duhkha and the aggregates — that is, the emptiness of inherent existence that is the ultimate nature of duhkha and the aggregates. In universal vehicle scriptures non-arising refers to phenomena not arising by their own nature, that is, they do not arise inherently. Afflictions, karma, and duhkha are not inherently produced; they do not arise under their own power. Thus the knowledge of extinction spoken of in the fundamental vehicle means knowing that self-grasping, afflictions, polluted karma, and so forth are naturally empty of inherent existence, and the knowledge of non-arising spoken of in the universal vehicle means knowing that none of these arise inherently and thus do not exist inherently; they are naturally empty of inherent existence.
One reason some hearers do not like the universal vehicle scriptures is because they think that the principal cause for attaining liberation as explained in the fundamental vehicle scriptures isn’t explained in the universal vehicle scriptures. However, as explained above, the fundamental vehicle scriptures’ explanation of the knowledge of extinction is the same as the universal vehicle scriptures’ explanation of the knowledge of non-arising. They both refer to the realization of emptiness, which is the essential cause of liberation. For that reason hearers should accept the subtle emptiness that is taught in their own scriptures and accept that the universal vehicle scriptures are the word of the Buddha.