Property:SanskritTranslation
From Bodhicitta
This is a property of type Text.
T
You may think, "at that time it will be myself suffering,” but these are only vain imaginings, for the person who dies is not the same person who is reborn. +
If you think that only one’s own suffering should be avoided, then given that the foot’s pains are not the hand’s, how come the latter protects the former? +
The Great Muni<span class="smw-highlighter" data-type="8" data-state="inline" data-title="Note 9" title="9" tabindex="0"><span class="smwtticon bca-note note">9</span><span class="smwttcontent">Sage (i.e., the Buddha).</span></span> has taught that one gathers all this equipment of virtues for the sake of wisdom. Therefore, if one seeks nirvana and happiness, one should also develop wisdom.<span class="smw-highlighter pagebreaks" data-type="8" data-state="inline" data-title="Page number from:" title="433" tabindex="0"><span class="smwtticon pagebreak note text-80">[p.433]</span><span class="smwttcontent"><big>[[How to Be a Bodhisattva: Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva Path (The Bodhicaryāvatāra)]]</big> <br> <span class="muted">Gómez, Luis O., trans. "How to Be a Bodhisattva: Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva Path (''The Bodhicaryāvatāra'')." In ''Norton Anthology of World Religions: Buddhism'', edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., 395–441. New York: Norton, 2017.</span></span></span> +
The Author Replies: Magical creations also subsist for as long as there are certain collocations of conditions. Why should you assume that a living being is more real than a magical creation simply because the series of phenomena that you identify with it lasts much longer? +
Moreover, there is no one who experiences sensation, therefore, in reality, there is no sensation. So who, in this bundle devoid of self, can be afflicted by it? +
The mind is not positioned in the sense faculties, nor in form or the other aggregates, nor in the space in between.
The mind is found neither internally nor externally, nor anywhere else either. +
Mind does not reside in the sense organs, in their objects, or in the space in between them. Mind is not inside, outside, nor anywhere else. +
That which is not found in the body, nor elsewhere, nor in both places at the same time or separately, is nothing at all. Therefore, sentient beings are by nature in the state of perfect peace. +
If cognition existed before the cognizable object arose, then by depending on what object did the cognition come into existence? If cognition arose simultaneously with its object, by depending on what object did it come into existence? +
But, again, if it appeared after its object, then whence did this cognition arise?
In the same manner one cannot apprehend any arising in any thing whatsoever. +
An Objector Interjects: If this is so, conventional reality does not exist. Where do you find then a twofold truth? If you claim that conventional reality does exist in the sense that the “reality” contradicted by knowledge of absolute truth is still the object of a conventional cognition of another person, then how could any living being ever attain the peace of nirvana? +
The Author Replies: This “living being” is only a conceptual construct in the mind of some other being who is not liberated, but for the one who has attained supreme peace he does not exist even in terms of his own conventional cognitions. For him the only conventional reality there is must be expressed thus: “If this is, that will be; if this is not, that will not be.” +
Conceptualization and that which is constructed by it are mutually dependent. We present our critique by relying exclusively on things as they are commonly perceived. +
An Objector Interjects: But if your critique is based on the same arguments that you criticize, then your conclusion is groundless, insofar as your critique would also be its own critique. +
An Objector Interjects: There would be no sin in murdering a phantom man, since there is no human mind in it. The Author Replies: But as long as the phantom is associated with the magical illusion of a mind, there will be sin and virtue. +
The Author Replies: When the object of our critique has been shown to be false, the discursive faculty has no basis whatsoever. Because it is baseless, it arises no more, and this is called peace, “nirvana.” +
On the other hand, the one who holds that these two, the imagination of discursive thought and its objects, are real, stands on very unstable ground: If the reality of the object depends on the capacity of knowledge to establish it, how does one establish the reality of knowledge? +
If, on the<span class="smw-highlighter pagebreaks" data-type="8" data-state="inline" data-title="Page number from:" title="437" tabindex="0"><span class="smwtticon pagebreak note text-80">[p.437]</span><span class="smwttcontent"><big>[[How to Be a Bodhisattva: Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva Path (The Bodhicaryāvatāra)]]</big> <br> <span class="muted">Gómez, Luis O., trans. "How to Be a Bodhisattva: Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva Path (''The Bodhicaryāvatāra'')." In ''Norton Anthology of World Religions: Buddhism'', edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., 395–441. New York: Norton, 2017.</span></span></span> contrary, knowledge depends on the known object for its reliability, how does one establish the reality of the object to begin with? Finally, if they mutually establish each other’s reality, then both would be equally unreal. +
[Objection] A shoot grows from a seed. The seed is indicated by that shoot. Why is the existence of an object of
consciousness not verified by the consciousness which results from it? +
[Mādhyamika] The existence of the seed is verified by a consciousness which is not the same as the shoot. How is the existence of consciousness cognized so that it verifies the object of consciousness? +
