The Great Chariot
by Longchenpa | 268,580 words
A Commentary on Great Perfection: The Nature of Mind, Easer of Weariness In Sanskrit the title is ‘Mahāsandhi-cittā-visranta-vṛtti-mahāratha-nāma’. In Tibetan ‘rDzogs pa chen po sems nyid ngal gso’i shing rta chen po shes bya ba ’...
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Part 2e - The related explanation of the divisions of the virtues
1) How the unification of the two accumulations is perfected:
Now the nature and divisions of the virtues are explained.
The actions of the ten virtues, the best of the worldly dharmas,
Along with such things as the dhyanas and the formless attainments
Are all accumulations that have to do with appearance.What transcends the world, completely without its complexity,
Is accumulation of wisdom, which is the absolute.These are the objects of meditation and post-meditation.
By practicing the unification of these two,
Everything that is excellent will be established.
As previously taught, the ten virtues, dhyanas, and formless attainments are in accord with merit; but when a being has aroused bodhicitta and attained prajña and upaya; the ten virtues, dhyanas, formless attainments, and so forth become causes of liberation. The Middle Length Prajñaparamita says:
O Subhuti, those who develop the conduct of the ten virtues, the four samadhis, and the four formless attainments, when they also arouse bodhicitta, aspiration to unsurpassable enlightenment, at that time, since this is in accord with liberation, it becomes a cause of omniscience. This should be done.
By being mastered, this should be established.
2) How not to dwell in samsara or nirvana
Just as with good actions that are samsaric formations,
Formations of nirvana are explained as karmic actions.
But since the latter are a means of transcending samsara,
They are also a means of liberation from karma.
The ten good actions that accord with merit are samsaric confusions. However, if we think that with these we will become confused, it is not so. These activities lead to liberation when we also know that karma is natureless, as is taught by corresponding examples. Insofar as these activities are a means of being liberated from samsara, they do not produce samsaric formations. In any case, the great compassion by which we become saddened with samsara exists within samsara without being covered by its defects. While itknows all dharmas to be unborn, by skillful means, the great compassion does not fall into one-sided peace. The Abhisamayalankara says:
By knowledge we do not dwell within samsara.
By compassion we do not dwell in a state of peace.
The Precious Garland says:
Exponents of nothingness go to the lower realms.
Exponents of eternity go to the higher ones.
However, knowing reality exactly as it is,
With no dualistic dependence, we will be liberated.
And that is how it is.
3) The explanation of the fruition
3.a) The brief teachings
Now the fruition of entering into the ten virtues of the path is explained:
For those who are on the path, the fruit of the ten good actions
Has ripening, concordant cause, the power, and action.
These are its four aspects.
3.b) The extensive explanation
3.b.i) Ripening
As for the fruition of ripening:
Depending on whether such practice is small, between, or great,
We will be born for a while as human beings or gods,
And ultimately attain to ultimate truth and goodness.
The aspect according with merit is not exhausted. Temporally we experience the happiness of gods and human beings. Ultimately, we attain the level of buddhahood. The Prajñaparamita in Eight Thousand Lines says:
O noble Shariputra, what is gained by virtuous roots is that after going among gods and human beings, we become unsurpassably enlightened.
What are virtuous roots? There are the ten virtues, which possess the single arousal of bodhicitta, the aspiration to supreme enlightenment, the four dhyanas, the four formless attainments, and the six perfections. These never have any gaps and never become non-existent.
3.b.ii) Karmic fruition that accords with the cause
As for the fruition according with the cause:
Actions that have compatibility with the cause
Are those of one who is by nature inclined to goodness.
Experience of this is of long life with great enjoyment.
We have a compatible consort and have no enemies.
We are not reviled. Relationships are friendly.
Our words are taken to heart, and people gladly hear them.
Satisfied, we are kind to others, and have good views.
The Sutra Teaching the Ten Purities (dge ba bcu bstan pa’i mdo) says:
Because of the karma of these ten virtues, the buddha field is ennobled by our efforts. Our lives are lengthened. Our enjoyments are increased. We have compatible spouses and no enemies.
We are not disparaged. Everyone is pleasant to us. Our words are considered worthy of heed. Everyone is glad to hear them. We become content. There is mutual kindness. There are good views.
3.b.iii) The fruition of power
As for mastery or power:
We are born by the power of goodness in rich and brilliant countries.
Potent food, drink, and herbs are easily digested.
We are born in clean places of medicinal herbs and such.
The odor and atmosphere is good and agreeable.
Others do not cheat us, and we are not in fear.
There are no harmful obstacles or danger to our lives.
People suit us, and contact with them is very happy.
The flow of the seasons is good, and grain is plentiful.
We live in level places, adorned by lakes and ponds.
The many flourishing flowers and fruits are excellent.
Vegetables, fruits, and herbs are delicious with fine aromas.
Everything grows well, and there are friends and protectors.
By giving up cutting off life, we are born in good and pleasant countries.
By giving up taking what is not given, we are born in places where food and drink are good-tasting and easily digested and medicinal herbs are potently effective.
By abandoning sexual transgressions, we are born in clean and good-smelling places.
By abandoning false speaking, the places in which we are born are without danger of harm from enemies, thieves, and so on, and we are not deceived.
By abandoning slander, we are born in places with many compatible people, with few rocks, stones, and thorns.
By abandoning harsh language, we are born in a place where the seasons are regular, and grain ripens at a good time.
By abandoning sophistic speech, we are born in level places ornamented with lakes and ponds.
By abandoning coveting we are born with places where many flowers and fruits and abundant good harvests are seen. We have excellent protectors, relatives, and friends.
This is taught in the Sutra of the Ten Purities.
3.b.iv) The fruition of action
Moreover.
The actions of beings spread happiness on happiness.
All good thoughts are established, just as we desire.
The Vast Play says:
By good behavior our stock of merit is increased.
We are made holders of that which is excellent,
The supreme accumulation of enlightenment.
The Excellent Action (bzang po spyod pa) says:
These excellences occur even within this human life.
3.b.v) The fruition of the six perfections
How?
Generosity brings enjoyment, and discipline happiness.
Patience brings beauty, and diligence brilliant qualities.
Meditation brings peace of mind, and prajña freedom.
The accomplishments of bodhicitta are that possessiveness is renounced, harmful behavior is checked, anger is abandoned, we exert ourselves in what is good, the mind is one-pointed in virtue, and the nature of the two truths is known. By good actions of the six perfections, true fruition is attained. The Precious Garland says:
Generosity, discipline, patience, and exertion
Meditation and prajña, and compassion are cultivated.Generosity completely bestows our intrinsic wealth.
Discipline performs beneficial actions for others.
Patience is the way that we abandon aggression.
Exertion is enthusiastic, wholesome action.
Meditation is one-pointedness, without the kleshas.
Prajña is resolving the meaning of the truth.
Compassion is a heartfelt noble empathy.With all other sentient beings of one taste with ourselves,
Generosity beings enjoyment, discipline happiness;
Patience brings radiance and exertion brilliance.
Meditation brings peace, and prajña liberation.
Their essential kindness is the accomplishing of all goals.When all of these seven activities, without remainder,
Have been brought to complete perfection all at once,
There is the sphere of wisdom beyond the compass of thought.
We have attained the being of a world-honored one.
The six perfections are essentially kindness. This is the accomplisher of the deeds of bodhicitta. The extensive explanation is below.
3.b.vi) The fruition: The Four Immeasurables
As for the benefits of the four immeasurables:
Kindness makes us pleasant, and compassion beneficial.
Joy fulfills, and equanimity soothes our trouble.
In short the ultimate fruit of the two accumulations
Is that incidentally higher states are manifested.
Ultimately truth and goodness are established.
This excellent path is the chariot of the Mahayana.
It establishes the perfection of the buddhas of the three times.
Through kindness, we are pleasant to everyone. Through compassion we perform limitless benefits. Joy brings perfect wealth. Equanimity makes the mind workable. The sutras say:
By having kindness mind is vast. The seven activities have been performed. Our knowledge is certain. Shravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and extraordinary ones attain the pleasures of gods and human beings and are colorfully adorned.
The Precious Garland says:
Three hundred pots of food
Offered three times each day
Will never match the pure merit
Of just a moment of kindnessThe kind will be gods and humans.
They will be well-restrained.
Unharmed by poison and weapons,
Their minds will be good and happy.Born in the world of Bhrama,
Their success will be effortless.
Even if not liberated,
They will attain the eight qualities.[1]As beings arouse and enter,
Relying on bodhicitta,
As steady as Meru, within them,
Bodhicitta will be eternal.Always with freedom for faith,
By discipline they will be good.
By emptiness and so forth,
Without desiring dharmas,They will carefully gain all goodness,
But their motionlessness will be mindful.
Their reflection will gain understanding
And their reverence realization.Guarding Dharma, they will have prajña.
Those who hear and give the Dharma,
By having no obscurations,
Will accompany the buddhas.Their wishes will quickly be gained,
Successful without attachment.
Enjoyments will grow without greed.
They will lead without pride.Grasping power by Dharmic patience,
With essential and fearless giving,
Unharmed by all the maras.
They will gain the highest powers.Stupas strung with lamps,
Lights to those in darkness,
By these generous lamps and ships
The divine eye will be gained.By offerings of stupas,
Services, music, and bells,
Excellent yak tails and conches,
The divine ear will be gained.Not discussing confusions of others,
Not mentioning injured limbs,
Guarding their own minds,
They will know the minds of others.
Giving boots and horses,
Growing humble and reverent,
Giving their mounts to the guru,
They will gain miraculous power.For the sake of Dharma and such,
They remember the meanings of texts.
By spotless generous Dharma
They remember former lives.Knowing things as they are,
They will know things as essenceless.
They will gain the six higher perceptions,
Exhausting all defilements.To accomplish the liberation
Of limitless sentient beings,
They will possess equanimity,
Knowing the nature of suchness,Because their meditation
Is moistened with compassion,
Having the highest aspects,
They will be victorious ones.By various pure aspirations,
The buddha fields will be purified.
Giving precious things to the sages,
They will emanate limitless lightWith such pure karma and fruit,
Always thinking of beings,
They will always do benefit.
And that will benefit you.
Just those are the realm means of crossing over to the level of buddhahood. The Succession of Lives (jatakamala, skyes rabs) says:
Of the two accumulations of merit and wisdom
The highest fruit is entering holy liberation
No other way of entering was ever known to exist.
Descending from the gathering clouds of purity
Let the cool rain of excellent dharmas now appear.
3.b.vii) The fruition of the two truths
How?
The formative actions of both samsara and nirvana
Depend on mind, whose nature is luminosity.
Simplicity like the sky, it does not think of a doer,
The meaning of both the two truths is dependent origination.
All karma depends on mind. If we examine mind, it is essenceless and luminous. The supreme distinction of the relative and absolute truths, because of the nature of interdependent arising is completely pure. The Shri- Samadhiraja Sutra says:
At that time without evil deeds, and with the ten powers,
There is the supreme samadhi of the Victorious One.
Beings in samsara are like the beings in a dream.
None of them is ever born or ever dies.Sentient beings do not attain to name and life.
These dharmas are like bubbles, or a plantain tree.
They are like illusion or lightening in the sky.
They are like the moon in water or a mirage.Though in transmigration we go to other worlds,
None our karmic actions is ever left behind.
Within samsara their black and white fruitions ripen.
Though they are not permanent, they are not nothingness.Without any gathered karma, there would be no pure lands.
Even if they were created, no one could never reach them.
If someone else produced them, they could not be seen.
Without any transmigration, there is no rebirth.Nothing at all exists, and nothing is non-existent,
Therefore, entering into the god realms is not pure.
The coursing of beings can never enter the highest peace.
The three worlds like a dream are utterly essenceless,Quickly vanishing, impermanent like illusion.
Because there is no coming, there also is no going.
The streams of things, eternally empty, have no marks.As for sugata experience, the conqueror’s buddha qualities,
The markless natural state is the peace of the unborn.
Its powers and strengths are powers of buddha qualities.
This itself is the Buddha, supreme among lordly bulls.By collecting the qualities of excellent white dharmas
We attain the qualities, powers of wisdom, and excellent powers
As well as the excellences of miracle and display.
By that the five good higher perceptions are attained.
3.b.viii) The individual fruitions of virtue and evil deeds
Appearing even while it is nothingness, karma is explained by the example of being like a dream:
Primordial purity appearing in nothingness,
Like a painter, karma produces everything.
It follows us everywhere, as a shadow does the body.
Like physical pleasure and pain, it never slips away.
Like a waterfall, it is difficult to deflect.
Making beings rise or fall, it is like the ruler of beings.
It is extremely vast, like the endless space of the sky.
Whether black or white, it never changes at all,
Any more than the white kunda lotus becomes the blue utpala.
Though karmas and kleshas are natureless, they ceaselessly appear. They depend on ignorance as their root. The condition is the arising of objects. The cause is connection with the three poisons. The Objects of Mindfulness says:
The ground of karma is ignorance. If there is insight, we will not come into the power of karma. It is like a skilled and confident painter who produces a variety of works. The condition is thoughts of objects. Like a monkey, it is very active. Like a fish, it dwells in the ocean of samsara. Like a householder, it collects a variety of habitual patterns. Like illusion, something that does not exist still appears. Like a shadow, it always follows us. Like joy and sorrow, it does not transmigrate. Like a river, it is hard to turn back. Like a king, it can exchange happiness and unhappiness. Like the sky, it is vast. Like utpala and kumut lotuses, one does not become another.
3.b.ix) The fruition of profound interdependent arising
Though on examining karmas, they have no nature at all,
Like dreams they are still creators of various joys and sorrows.
Except as mere projections, they have no substance or quality.
Profound dependent arising, infallible cause and effect,
Neither existent nor nothing, they are non-duality.
They ripen as something like the action that was done.
This is the vision of things in their nature and extent.
As it was well-taught by the Omniscient One.
The inner and outer realms are false conceptions. If they are analyzed, even if we look for them, no karma and kleshas are found.
The Bodhicharyavatara says:
If the kleshas are not in objects, the senses, between, or elsewhere,
Where are these harmers of beings? They are like illusion.
Abandon the fear in your heart and try to rely on prajña.
In the absolute there is no karma; but here in the dream-like relative, there is happiness and unhappiness, and joy and sorrow are distinguished. If it is discriminated and examined by the mind, karma, beyond existence and non-existence, is like space. Since there is no karma to be accumulated, do not accumulate karma by the mind being confused over and over again. That is the instruction. This presentation is known and taught only
by the Omniscient One, and not by the traditions of others. The teacher Bhavya says in his Precious Lamp of Madhyamaka (madhyamakaratnapradipa, dbu ma rin po che’i sgron ma):
Karmas with non-deceptive cause and effect,
As it has been taught, are like a dream.
Bhagavan, this is taught by you alone.
Aside from that, it is not explained in treatises.
Footnotes and references:
[1]: