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 ...

Text Sections 120-121

Khenpo Kunpal here discusses a particular meditation used as preparation for listening to the teachings. At first, before the teaching begins, the listener must develop bodhicitta. Whatever teaching you receive, whatever practice you do, if you lack bodhicitta you are not engaged in the Mahāyāna path.

Having given rise to bodhicitta, the listener now meditates upon himself as the female bodhisattva Tārā, imagining a white lotus appearing at the level of his right ear. Meditate that your teacher is the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, the manifestation of the wisdom aspect of all the buddhas, sitting in the sky before you on a throne which is supported by eight lions and upon which are lotus, sun, and moon discs. Mañjuśrī holds the sword of wisdom [ye shes ral gri] in his right hand, and in his left hand he holds the Prajñāpāramitā scripture [sher phyin glegs bam].

On the basis of this meditation, continue the visualization by imagining that as you hear the master’s teachings, light rays emanate from the master’s mouth and dissolve into the lotus by your ear. Furthermore, visualize all beings as female deities. While receiving teachings, always meditate upon your teacher as a male deity and on all the students, including yourself, as female deities. At the end [thon khar] of the teaching, rest a few moments in the recognition of non-conceptual emptiness. This is the yoga for the beginning, the main part, and the end of a teaching session.

This teaching instruction guides students in the practice of pure perception, thus transforming them into proper vessels for receiving the teachings. This practice, which is known as ’the six sections of Tārā’ [sgrol ma yan lag drug], is the method of visualizing oneself as Tārā while receiving teachings.

The reason for visualizing the teacher as Mañjuśrī and yourself and all fellow students as female deities is to purify the ordinary subject-object dichotomy [yul dang yul can]. The purified object is dharmadhātu [chos kyi dbyings], the expanse of absolute truth, and the purified subject is wisdom [ye shes]. In this practice, wisdom is symbolized through a male deity, here Mañjuśrī, while the expanse [dbyings], or dharmadhātu, is symbolized through a female deity, here Tārā.

This is a training in pure perception [dag snang]; the teacher is considered to be the personification of wisdom [ye shes kyi rang gzugs], while the students regard themselves as female deities, as the personification of discriminating knowledge [shes rab gyi rang gzugs]. On the ultimate level, the terms wisdom [ye shes] and discriminating knowledge [shes rab] are synonymous; however, on the relative level, it is discriminating knowledge that recognizes non-conceptual wisdom.

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