Bodhisattvacharyavatara

by Andreas Kretschmar | 246,740 words

The English translation of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara (“entering the conduct of the bodhisattvas”), a Sanskrit text with Tibetan commentary. This book explains the bodhisattva concept and gives guidance to the Buddhist practitioner following the Mahāyāna path towards the attainment of enlightenment. The text was written in Sanskrit by Shantideva ...

While Śāntideva was reciting the Bodhisattva-caryāvatāra, Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī appeared in the sky before him. When Śāntideva came to stanza 34 in the ninth chapter, the chapter on transcendental knowledge, both he and Mañjuśrī began floating up into the sky, until they gradually disappeared. After he had disappeared, Śāntideva’s voice continued to echo from the sky, completing the entire text through the end of the tenth chapter.

Stanza 34 from the ninth chapter, reads as follows:

When neither an ‘entity’ nor a ‘non-entity’
Remains before the mind,
At that point, since there is no other position,
It rests in utter peace, without any conceptualizing.

gang tshe dngos dang dngos med dag
blo yi mdun na mi gnas pa
de tshe rnam pa gzhan med pas
dmigs pa med par rab tu zhi

This stanza describes the wisdom of equanimity of noble beings [’phags pa’i mnyam bzhag gi ye shes], which is achieved from the first bodhisattva level, the path of seeing [mthong lam] onward. When a bodhisattva has reached this level of realization, mind’s tendency of conceptualizing [dmigs pa] and fixating [’dzin pa] on everything has come to an end.

When one has genuinely recognized the buddha nature, the essence of one’s mind, one is free from the view of a truly existing ‘entity’, believing that things truly exist [dngos por mngon par zhen pa] as well as free from the view of a truly existing ‘nonentity’, thinking that emptiness is something that truly exists [stong pa nyid du mngon par zhen pa]. At that time, one is also free from any other type of position, such as the view of ‘both existence and non-existence’ and of ‘neither existence nor non-existence’.

Once all positions of fixation [’dzin stangs] have collapsed, all reference points to conceptualize, “It is empty” or “It is not empty” have collapsed. Thus, the wisdom of equanimity of noble beings rests in utter peace, without any conceptualizing. In this context the terms ‘to fixate upon something’ [der ’dzin], ‘to have a view of something’ [lta ba] or ‘to conceptualize something’ [dmigs pa] and ‘to think’ [bsam pa] have the same meaning.

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