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In chapter 8–15, Śāntideva turns to the topic of purification and discusses the various practices bodhisattvas can engage in to purify themselves of sinful actions and afflictive emotions. These actions include: confession and atonement, the practice of patience, putting forth effort in study and learning, purifying the mind through meditation, and applying the mind to the practice of mindfulness.
Chapter 12: Purifying the Mind
The discourse on living in the wilderness is followed by the instructions for actual meditation. A mind that is distracted cannot even achieve an ordinary state of concentration, let alone attain the concentration that is required for full enlightenment. With concentration and awareness, a bodhisattva must restrain the mind from indulging in form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and phenomena and guard the six senses by not letting notions of real characteristics and the sense of clinging to arise. Śāntideva quotes The Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra (Skt. Prajñāpāramitāsūtra) to say that a bodhisattva must in all circumstances—whether standing, sitting, sleeping, speaking, or not speaking—not let go of the state of meditative concentration and must conduct himself placidly and righteously. He must have equanimity and consistent composure in the face of good or bad, praise or condemnation, gain or loss, etc., for everything is by nature empty of true existence and without the real process of coming into existence or ceasing to exist.
A bodhisattva who is diffident must practice joy and boost his spirit. A bodhisattva who is distracted must think of impermanence. For both, it is said that they should recollect the instructions given in The Questions of Rāṣṭrapāla Sūtra, The Play in Full Sūtra (Skt. Lalitavistarasūtra), and The Advice to the King Sūtra (Skt. Rājāvavādakasūtra), which Śāntideva cites in some detail. The instructions in these sūtras remind the audience, particularly the king in the case of the last sūtra, of how life is impermanent and plagued by the suffering of aging, illness, death and decline, and how Dharma is the only refuge when confronted by the pain of dying. In order to prepare to face one's inevitable death with courage and equanimity, one must meditate on the impermanence and changing nature of all conditioned things and how all beings, including a king with all his royal power, fame, luxury, and entourage, will have to face the end when their cherished bodies turn into dust, whether they are burned with fire, disposed in water, or buried in earth. The citation from The Advice to the King Sūtra in the Tibetan text in the Derge edition, probably due to a scribal error of repeated copying in a distant past, significantly differs from the Sanskrit text by repeating a long passage about dying.
As suffering mainly results from afflictive emotions, Śāntideva points out that the three main afflictive emotions are attachment, aversion, and ignorance and that a bodhisattva must first meditate on the antidote of whichever harms one the most. The antidote to attachment and desire, particularly toward the human body in the context of celibate monks, is the meditation on the repulsiveness and impurity of the human body. Śāntideva cites The Cloud of Jewels Sūtra (Skt. Ratnameghasūtra) and The Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, although he does not mention which specific version of the latter, to provide a gruesome anatomical description of the human body and its parts to invoke a sense of repulsion and disgust. To overcome attachment to the body, a bodhisattva must mentally split the body into numerous parts and components to establish that there is no real body. Seeing a decaying human corpse, its parts, or small pieces of remains in the cemeteries or elsewhere, or a corpse being eaten by animals, a bodhisattva is advised to compare one's body to the corpse or its parts and to see the impermanent nature of the human body and the futility of clinging to it.
The antidote to aversion and hatred is loving-kindness, which is a mental state wishing, desiring, pursuing, and relishing the happiness of others. Śāntideva clarifies that it is a kind of love or attachment but not the afflictive kind aroused by desire for sensual objects or one with expectation of reciprocation or reward. There are three types of loving-kindness given in The Teachings of Akṣayamati: (1) loving-kindness aimed at sentient beings cultivated by beginner bodhisattvas, (2) loving-kindness aimed at phenomena cultivated by bodhisattvas who are engaged in conducts, and (3) loving-kindness without apprehension cultivated by bodhisattvas who have reached the level of patience on the path. The sūtra also classifies loving-kindness into four types, including those aimed at the buddhas, bodhisattvas, hearers and solitary realizers, and sentient beings.
For the most inferior type aiming at sentient beings, one first begins cultivating it toward loved ones, then familiar ones, then ordinary ones, then those in the surrounding area, then those in one's village, then those in other villages, then those in the eastern direction, and then toward those in the ten directions. The loving-kindness aimed at buddhas, however, is cultivated according to the dedication of Bodhisattva Vajradhvaja in which, when one has a feeling of faith, bliss, joy, delight, agility, and satisfaction while engaging in bodhisattva conduct, one must dedicate it to all buddhas. One can do this by praying that all buddhas attain unlimited happiness, the bliss of meditative absorption, and so forth. Similarly, one dedicates to the bodhisattvas by praying that bodhisattvas perfect their qualities, complete the practice of the six perfections, strengthen bodhicitta, fulfill their prayers, and so on. One also dedicates to the hearers and solitary realizers so that they hear the Buddha's teachings, worship the Sangha, and recollect the qualities of the Three Jewels. In the same way, one must dedicate to sentient beings so that their pathways to unhappy realms are blocked and that they generate interest in and resolve to reach buddhahood. In brief, every virtuous thing, as insignificant as giving a small crumb of food, should be dedicated to the realization of the state of the Buddha's omniscience for the benefit and liberation of all sentient beings.
Śāntideva quotes The Sūtra of Golden Light (Skt. Suvarṇabhāsasūtra) in relation to the prayers for dedication. In this sūtra, countless manifestations of the Buddha appear under and on trees with their retinue and chant the dhāraṇī called Drum Beat of Golden Light, causing a cosmic resonance. The sūtra contains prayers that whoever hears the drum beat may become buddhas, turn the wheel of Dharma, live for inconceivable eons, overcome attachment, aversion, and ignorance, remember their past lives, have firm mindfulness, eschew evil actions, engage in virtues, be endowed with all faculties, be freed from fear, ill-health, and bondage, and so forth. It also contains prayers such as the one that follows, which were reformulated by Śāntideva in his Way of the Bodhisattva.
May those beings agonized by hunger and thirst find diverse food and drink. May the blind see all kinds of forms, and may the deaf hear pleasant sounds. May the naked obtain diverse clothes and the poor find treasures.[1]
Moving on to the antidote to ignorance, Śāntideva, following the sūtra sources, urges one to think of the nature of dependent-arising. He cites The Rice Seedling Sūtra (Skt. Śālistambasūtra) to discuss the twelve links of dependent-arising, including ignorance, mental conditioning, consciousness, name and form, six senses, contact, sensation, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old age and death. If the former exists, the latter arises in a chain reaction, thus leading to cyclic existence. Similarly, if the former ceases, the latter ceases to exist, thus leading to the cessation of the cycle of existence. In this way, these twelve links work as the main causes of the inner world of sentient beings. In addition, the six elements—earth, which gives the body solidity, water, which holds the body together, fire, which helps the body digest or mature, air, which helps the body breath and move, space, which gives room, and consciousness, which brings about the body—serve as the condition for the twelve causes. The twelve links and the six elements bring about results effectively when the required causes and conditions are present, without a foregoing thought of doing so, or without a being, person, individual, self, soul, or doer acting as an agent. Thus, empirical existence is a mere flux of momentary events and minute parts, which cannot be found if broken down into further parts. It is sheer ignorance to conceive things to be singular, solid, unchanging, stable, eternal, or whole or to conceive of a real self, being, person, or individual or, furthermore, to conceive them as being created by Īśvara, self, time, or any other creator. From such ignorance arises attachment, aversion, and stupidity toward different objects, which leads to consciousness, and so forth. Just as a reflection appears on a mirror, or a reflection of the moon appears in countless ponds when the causes and conditions are present, all conditioned phenomena occur when the causes and conditions come together.
The twelve links are classified into three categories of afflictive emotions, negative actions, and suffering, which constitute the worldly state of samsara in contrast to the state of nirvana and liberation. Among the twelve, ignorance, craving, and grasping fall under afflictive emotion, mental conditioning and becoming are part of negative action, and the other seven, including consciousness, name and form, the six senses, contact, sensation, birth, and old age and death are included under suffering. The sūtras also state that dependent-arising has five characteristics. Things do not come from an eternal, permanent cause because that which ceases is not the same as the one which arises. Things do not also come from nothing or without any cause, thus steering away from nihilism. Things also do not get transferred or moved from one point to another. A small cause can give rise to great results, just as a small seed can result in an enormous tree and then subsequently numerous flowers, fruits, and seeds. The cause and result are akin, as the result corresponds to the cause, just as a rice seed would result in a rice crop. A bodhisattva who realizes this natural law of dependent-arising understands the truth and does not speculate on cosmological or philosophical theories about the past and future.
Additional resources
Here we need to think about what would be particularly useful to the student/reader at this point. Link to key terms found in chapter one? Any thoughts?
The Way of the Bodhisattva
The Compendium of Training
Notes
- ↑ Derge Tanjur, Khi, f. 123a: སེམས་ཅན་གང་དག་བཀྲེས་སྲེད་སྐོམ་གྱིས་གཟིར། །དེ་དག་ཟས་སྐོམ་སྣ་ཚོགས་རྙེད་པར་ཤོག །ལོང་བས་གཟུགས་རྣམས་སྣ་ཚོགས་མཐོང་གྱུར་ཅིག །འོན་པས་ཡིད་འོང་སྒྲ་རྣམས་ཐོས་པར་ཤོག །གཅེར་བུ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་སྣ་ཚོགས་གོས་རྙེད་གྱུར། །སེམས་ཅན་དབུལ་པོས་གཏེར་རྣམས་རྙེད་པར་ཤོག །
