The Flower Ornament Scripture

by Thomas Cleary

  “Great enlightening beings have ten kinds of sufficiency of insight: skillfully analyzing all things; not grasping or clinging to anything; divorcing all deluded views; illumining all senses with the light of knowledge; skillfully generating rightly directed energy; being able to deeply penetrate knowledge of absolute truth; extinguishing the actions of afflictions and developing the knowledge of extinction and knowledge of birthlessness; observing everywhere with the knowledge of the celestial eye; knowing the purity of the past by the recollection of past states; annihilating the contaminations of sentient beings by the spiritual knowledge of ending contamination. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain the supreme illumination of all teachings of the buddhas.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten kinds of quest for truth: quest for truth with a straightforward mind, being free from dishonesty; diligent quest for truth, being free from laziness; wholly devoted quest for truth, not begrudging their lives; quest for truth to destroy all sentient beings’ afflictions, not doing it for fame, profit, or respect; quest for truth to benefit self and others, all sentient beings, not just helping themselves; quest for truth to enter knowledge and wisdom, not taking pleasure in literature; quest for truth to leave birth and death, not craving worldly pleasures; quest for truth to liberate sentient beings, engendering the determination for enlightenment; quest for truth to resolve the doubts of all sentient beings, to free them from vacillation; quest for truth to fulfill buddhahood, not being inclined to lesser aims. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain great knowledge of all elements of buddhahood without being instructed by another.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten kinds of understanding of truth: generating and developing roots of goodness in accord with the conventional world is the way of understanding of truth of unenlightened ordinary people; attaining indestructible faith, aware of the essence of things, is the way of understanding truth of people acting according to faith; leaving behind erroneous ways and turning to the eightfold right path is the way people aiming for stream-entering understand truth; getting rid of bonds, putting an end to the contaminations of birth and death, and seeing reality is the stream-enterer’s understanding of truth; seeing tasting as affliction and knowing no coming or going is the once-returner’s understanding of truth; not taking pleasure in the world, seeking to end contamination, not having so much as a single thought of attachment to life, is the nonreturner’s understanding of truth; attaining the six spiritual powers, eight liberations, nine concentration states, and four special knowledges, all fully developed, is the saint’s understanding of truth; naturally being inclined to contemplate uniform interdependent origination, the mind always tranquil and content, having few concerns, understanding causality, awakening on one’s own without depending on another, accomplishing various kinds of spiritual knowledge, is the individual illuminate’s understanding of truth; having vast knowledge, all faculties clear and sharp, always inclined to liberate all sentient beings, diligently cultivating virtue and knowledge to foster enlightenment, fully developing buddhas’ ten powers, fearlessnesses, and other attributes, is the enlightening being’s understanding of truth. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain the understanding of truth of the supreme great knowledge of buddhas.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten norms of practice: honoring the wise; always being alerted by the celestial spirits; always having shame and conscience before the buddhas; having pity for sentient beings and not abandoning birth and death; carrying tasks through to consummation without change of mind; single-mindedly following the enlightening beings who aspire to universal enlightenment and diligently learning; getting rid of wrong views and earnestly seeking the right Path; destroying demons and the actions of afflictions; knowing the different faculties and temperaments of sentient beings and teaching them to enable them to live in the state of buddhahood; abiding in the infinitely vast cosmos of reality, removing afflictions and purifying the body. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain the buddhas’ supreme method of practice.

  “For great enlightening beings there are ten kinds of demons: the demon of the clusters of mental and material elements, giving rise to attachments; the demon of afflictions, perpetually confusing and defiling; the demon of actions, able to obstruct and inhibit; the demon of mind, which gives rise to pride; the demon of death, which abandons life; the demon of heaven, being self-indulgent; the demon of roots of goodness, because of perpetual clinging; the demon of concentration, because of long indulgence in the experience; the demon of spiritual teachers, because of giving rise to feelings of attachment; the demon of the phenomenon of enlightenment, because of not wanting to relinquish it. Great enlightening beings should apply appropriate means to quickly escape these demons.

  “For great enlightening beings there are ten kinds of demons’ actions: cultivating roots of goodness while forgetting the aspiration for enlightenment; giving with ill-will, keeping precepts with hatred, rejecting people of bad character, rejecting the slothful, slighting the confused, and despising the ignorant; being jealous and stingy with the profound teaching, not explaining it to those who are capable of being enlightened, insisting on explaining it to people without the capacity for it as long as wealth and honor are thereby available; not liking to hear about the ways of transcendence, not practicing them even when hearing about them, tending to negligence even when practicing them, becoming narrow and mean in spirit because of laziness, and not seeking supreme great enlightenment; avoiding good companions, associating with bad companions, craving personal release, not wanting to accept life, wishing for the desirelessness and tranquillity of nirvana; arousing hatred and anger toward enlightening beings, looking at them with malevolent eyes, looking for faults in them, talking of their faults, cutting off their support; repudiating true teaching and being averse to hearing it, immediately criticizing it when hearing it, having no respect for those who expound it, claiming oneself to be right and others all wrong; indulging in the study of secular literature, expounding the vehicles of individual salvation while obscuring the profound Teaching, or giving subtle doctrines to unsuitable people, straying from enlightenment and persisting in false paths; always liking to associate with those who are already liberated and at peace, and giving them offerings, while not being willing to approach or edify those who have not yet attained liberation or peace; developing conceit, having no respect, often troubling or hurting sentient beings, not seeking genuine knowledge of truth, being mean and difficult to awaken. These are the ten kinds of demons’ actions, which enlightening beings should quickly get away from to seek enlightened action.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten ways of getting rid of demons’ actions: associating with the wise and honoring and serving them; not elevating themselves or praising themselves; believing in the profound Teaching of Buddha without repudiating it; never ever forgetting the determination for omniscience; diligently cultivating refined practices, never being lax; always seeking all the teachings for enlightening beings; always expounding the truth tirelessly; taking refuge with all the buddhas of the ten directions, thinking of them as saviors and protectors; faithfully accepting and remembering the support of the spiritual power of the buddhas; equally planting the same roots of goodness with all enlightening beings. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can escape all demonic ways.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten ways of seeing buddhas: the buddha of abiding in the world attaining true enlightenment they see by nonattachment; they see the buddha of vows by production; they see the buddha of rewards of action by deep faith; they see the buddha of preservation by following the Teaching; they see the buddha of nirvana by deeply entering it; they see the cosmic buddha everywhere; they see the buddha of mind by peaceful stability; they see the buddha of concentration by infinite independence; they see the buddha of fundamental essence by clear comprehension; they see the buddha of adaptation by universal awareness. By these they always see the supreme
Buddha.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten kinds of buddha-action. Guiding at appropriate times is buddha-action because it fosters correct cultivation of practice. Causing dream visions is buddha-action because it awakens awareness of past roots of goodness. Expounding to others scriptures they have not yet heard is buddha-action because it causes growth of knowledge and resolution of doubts. Teaching the way to emancipation to those bound up in regrets is buddha-action because it frees them from a doubting mind. Manifesting the glorified body of Buddha for the sake of sentient beings with stingy minds, ignorant minds, minds interested in personal salvation, malevolent minds, doubting minds, scattered minds, or conceited minds, is buddha-action because it nurtures past roots of goodness. Widely expounding the true Teaching in times when true Teaching is difficult to come across, causing those who hear it to attain concentrated knowledge and knowledge of spiritual powers, to be able to benefit innumerable sentient beings, is buddha-action because the resolution is pure. If anything demonic occurs, being able to manifest a voice equal to space explaining the principle of not harming others, in order to quell it, causing the awakening of understanding and causing the majesty of demons who hear to vanish, is buddha-action because the will is extraordinary and the power great. The mind having no lapse, being constantly alert, not permitting experiential entry into the absolute state of individual liberation, and never speaking of the realm of liberation to those whose faculties and characters are not yet mature, is buddha-action because it is the performance of the original vow. Shedding all the bonds and contaminations of birth and death, cultivating the practices of enlightening beings continously, taking care of sentient beings with great compassion, causing them to undertake such practice and eventually be liberated, is buddha-action because it does not stop the practice of the deeds of enlightening beings. Enlightening beings realize that their own bodies as well as sentient beings are fundamentally quiescent and null, yet, not being surprised or afraid, they still tirelessly cultivate virtue and knowledge; though they know all things have no creation, yet they do not ignore the individual characteristics of things; though they are forever aloof of craving for objects, yet they always gladly behold the form bodies of buddhas; though they know one is enlightened into the truth without depending on another, yet they seek omniscience through many kinds of methods; though they know all lands are like space, they always enjoy adorning all buddha-lands; though they always observe that there is no real person or self, yet they tirelessly teach and enlighten sentient beings; though fundamentally unmoving in the cosmos of reality, yet they manifest a multitude of transformations by spiritual powers; though they have already accomplished omniscience, yet they practice the acts of enlightening beings without ceasing; though they know all things are inexplicable, yet they turn the wheel of the pure Teaching and gladden the hearts of all beings; though they are able to manifest the spiritual powers of buddhas, yet they do not reject embodiment as enlightening beings; though they appear to enter ultimate final extinction, they manifest birth in all places—being able to perform these practices, simultaneously carrying out the provisional and the true, is buddha-action. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can achieve supreme teacherless great action without relying on the instruction of another.

  “For great enlightening beings there are ten kinds of conceited action. Not respecting teachers, parents, mendicants, people on the right Path, people aiming for the right Path, or honorable fields of blessings, is conceited action. If there are teachers who have attained to supreme truth, who ride the Great Vehicle of universal enlightenment, who know the way to emancipation, who have attained mental command and expound the great principles of the scriptures, to be haughty toward them or their teachings and to be disrespectful is conceited action. When in an audience hearing the sublime Teaching expounded, to be unwilling to laud its excellence and cause others to believe and accept it, is conceited action. Habitually conceiving the illusion of superiority, elevating oneself and looking down on others, not seeing one’s own faults, not knowing one’s own shortcomings, is conceited action. Habitually imagining that one is better than those who are better than oneself, not praising virtuous people who are praiseworthy, and not being happy when others praise them, is conceited action. When seeing someone preach, in spite of knowing it is the norm, the rule, the truth, the word of Buddha, to despise the teaching because of disliking the person, to slander it and incite others to slander it, is conceited action. Seeking a high seat for oneself, declaring oneself to be a teacher worthy of receiving offerings and not supposed to work, failing to rise to greet old people who have cultivated spiritual practice for a long time, being unwilling to serve them, is conceited action. Frowning unhappily on seeing people with virtue, speaking to them harshly and looking for faults in them, is conceited action. When seeing intelligent people who know the truth, not being willing to approach and attend them, respect and honor them, being unwilling to ask them what is good and what is not good, what should be done and what should not be done, what acts result in various benefits and comforts in the long night, being foolish and deluded, stubborn and contentious, swallowed by self-importance, never able to see the way to emancipation, is conceited action. There are also sentient beings with minds shrouded by conceit, who when buddhas appear in the world are unable to approach, respect, and honor them; in them no new good arises, and goodness from the past evaporates and vanishes; they say what they should not, they contend where they should not; in the future they will surely fall into a deep pit of danger and will not even encounter Buddha, much less hear the Teaching, for hundreds of thousands of eons, though because of having once conceived the aspiration for enlightenment they will in the end wake up on their own—this is conceited action. If enlightening beings get rid of these ten kinds of conceited action, they will attain ten kinds of actions of knowledge.

  “The ten kinds of action of knowledge are believing in consequences of action and not denying causality; not giving up the determination for enlightenment, always remembering the buddhas; attending the wise, respecting and providing for them, honoring them tirelessly; enjoying the teachings and their meanings, never tiring of them, getting rid of wrong awareness and cultivating true awareness; getting rid of haughtiness toward all sentient beings, thinking of enlightening beings as buddhas, valuing the true Teaching as much as one’s own being, honoring the enlightened as though protecting one’s own life, thinking of practitioners as buddhas; being free from all that is not good in thought, word, and deed, praising the excellences of sages and saints, and according with enlightenment; not denying interdependent origination, getting rid of false views, destroying darkness and attaining light, illumining all things; acting in accord with the ten kinds of dedication, thinking of the ways of transcendence as one’s mother, thinking of skillful means as one’s father, and entering the house of enlightenment with a profound, pure mind; diligently accumulating all practices that foster enlightenment, such as charity, morality, learning, cessation and contemplation, virtue and wisdom; indefatigably cultivating any practice that is praised by the buddhas, that can break through the afflictions and conflicts of demons, that can remove all obstructions, veils, shrouds, and bonds, that can teach and tame all sentient beings, that can embrace the truth in accord with knowledge and wisdom, that can purify a buddha-land, that can generate spiritual capacities and insights. Based on these ten actions of knowledge, enlightening beings can attain the supreme action of great knowledge of buddhas, including all skillful means of liberation.

  “For great enlightening beings there are ten kinds of possession by demons: laziness; narrowness and meanness of aspiration; satisfaction with a little practice; exclusivity; not making great vows; liking to be in tranquil extinction and annihilating afflictions; permanently annihilating birth and death; giving up the practices of enlightening beings; not edifying sentient beings; doubting and repudiating the truth. If enlightening beings can get rid of these possessions by demons, they can gain t
en kinds of support by Buddha: they are supported by Buddha in first being able to aspire to enlightenment; in preserving the will for enlightenment life after life without letting it be forgotten; in being aware of manias and being able to avoid them; in learning the ways of transcendence and practicing them as taught; in knowing the pains of birth and death yet not rejecting them; in contemplating the most profound truth and gaining immeasurable reward; in expounding the principles of the two lesser vehicles of salvation for the benefit of sentient beings without actually grasping the liberation of those vehicles; in happily contemplating the uncreated without dwelling therein, and not thinking of the created and the uncreated as dual; in reaching the realm of birthlessness yet manifesting birth; in realizing universal knowledge yet carrying out the practices of enlightening beings and perpetuating the seed of enlightening beings. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain the supreme supportive power of buddhas.

  “Great enlightening beings have ten kinds of support by truth: knowing all conditioned states are impermanent; knowing all conditioned states are painful; knowing all conditioned states are identityless; knowing all phenomena are quiescent nirvana; knowing all phenomena arise from conditions and do not come to be without conditions; knowing that ignorance comes from wrong thought, and finally old age and death come from ignorance, so if wrong thought is extinguished, ignorance is extinguished, and finally old age and death are extinguished; knowing the three doors of liberation and generating the vehicle of hearers, realizing the state of noncontention and generating the vehicle of individual illuminates; knowing the six transcendent ways and the four means of integration, generating the Great Vehicle; knowing that all lands, all phenomena, all sentient beings, and all times are spheres of knowledge of buddhas; knowing how to cut off all thoughts, abandon all grasping, detach from before and after, and accord with nirvana. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain the supreme support of truth of all buddhas.