Part 6 - The final summary expressing the purpose of the paths and bhumis

Now the final summary tells the purpose of these paths and bhumis.

No buddhas have ever arisen anywhere at all
Without having first gone through these ten bhumis and five paths.
Liberated through many lives in many kalpas,
This is the path where all of them have placed their trust.
Those on the vehicles of either cause or fruition,
Must learn these paths and bhumis and travel over them.

It is impossible that unsurpassable enlightenment should arise without fully completing the paths and bhumis. The Sutra of Buddhas and Beings says:

Those who attained the kalpa’s buddhahood
Who became its lord steersmen, all of these
Arose by having traversed the paths and bhumis.
Therefore desiring the treasury of the Buddha,
Supported by ultimate buddhahood, strive on these.
Aside from this path, it will not rise from another.

Whether buddhahood is attained over many kalpas, in ten lives, six, and so forth, or very quickly in one life, we must travel according to the paths and the bhumis. That is because the obscurations of these must be purified and their good qualities perfected. These days, when people try to attain buddhahood without depending on the paths and bhumis, the accumulations are not perfected. The obscurations are not purified. Exponents of this approach say that enlightenment is attained without completing the paths and bhumis, and that the same blessings manifest in another way; but this would contradict the great learned and accomplished ones of the sutras and tantras, and the great treatises. Therefore, try to train in the genuine paths and bhumis.