Property:SanskritTranslation
From Bodhicitta
This is a property of type Text.
T
If you argue: for whom is there compassion if no being exists?,
[our response is] For anyone projected through the delusion which is embraced for the sake of what has to be done. +
An Objector Interjects: If there are no living beings, for whom will we feel compassion?
The Author Replies: For sentient beings conceived by a special delusion of mind, which is maintained for the sake of our goal.<span class="smw-highlighter pagebreaks" data-type="8" data-state="inline" data-title="Page number from:" title="435" tabindex="0"><span class="smwtticon pagebreak note text-80">[p.435]</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> +
An Objector Interjects: But a goal for whom, if there are no beings?
The Author Replies: It is true that this idea of a goal arises from a delusion; but since it will bring to an end all sorrow, this delusion of the goal should not be rejected. +
On the other hand, self-centeredness, the cause of sorrow, is intensified by the delusion of selfhood. Since this delusion keeps us from opposing self-centeredness, it is better to cultivate its opposite, selflessness. +
The body is not the feet, or the legs, or the thighs, the hips, the abdomen, the back, the chest, or the arms. +
It is not the hands, nor the sides of the body; nor is it the armpits, the shoulders, the neck, or the head. Which one among these parts is the body? +
The Author Replies: There is in this no error. According in the yogins’ view of conventional reality things are in fact impermanent. Compared to common humans, even the conventional reality of the yogins is a vision of a higher reality. Otherwise, your position with regard to the examination of the impurity of a woman would be contradicted by the common man’s perception of her as a pure object. +
If the body is present in part in all of these, then each part would be in every part, but where then would the whole body itself be? +
If the body is present in its totality in every part—such as in the hands, etc.—then there would be as many bodies as there are hands and other bodily parts. +
The body is not internal, nor is it external to the person; how could it be in the various parts of the body? But it does not exist apart from them. How then is it to exist at all? +
There is no body, but through an illusion one forms the mental representation of a body with respect to the hands and the rest, because of a specific conjunction of conditions, as when one sees a person where there is only a post through the effects of fog or darkness. +
As long as there is a certain collocation of conditions, the body is perceived as a person. In the same way, if the hands and other bodily members are in a certain collocation, one sees them as a human body. +
In the same way, one may ask: in the ensemble of toes and bones, where is the foot? The foot also comes to be by the collocation of joints and bones, and these members in turn can be analyzed into their own minute parts. +
Each of these parts can be further broken down into atoms, and each atom can be divided according to the ten directions. But each of these ten sides is empty space, because it is indivisible. Therefore, the atom does not exist. +
In this way, form is like a dream. Who could feel passion for it, once he has examined it correctly? If the body is not, then who is female, who is male? +
If pain exists as a real entity, why is it that it does not afflict us at the same time that we feel pleasure? If pleasure really exists, why is it that one who is tortured by grief finds no pleasure in the most delicious dish? +
If you propose that the weaker sensation cannot be experienced when it is overpowered by the stronger sensation, why call sensation what cannot be experienced? . . . +
An Objector Interjects: Then, buddhas also must be like phantoms. How can one derive merit from worshipping the Victorious Conqueror if he is like a magical creation? The Author Replies: In the same manner, how could you derive merit from this even if he were a real entity? An Objector Interjects: If living beings are like magical creations, how can they be reborn after death? +
If suffering does not arise when causes of the opposite have arisen, surely the resulting notion of 'a sensation' is in fact a superimposition of our imagination? +
For that reason this analysis is practised as an antidote to
that superimposition. For spiritual practitioners are nour-
ished by the meditative absorp.tions which grow in the field
of false imagination. +
