[Fourteen verses on embracing the bodhi-mind]
3.1 The pain of hellish suffering is abated by an act of goodness, done by any being: in this truth, I quietly rejoice. May those who are suffering find lasting peace.
3.2 I rejoice that real, embodied beings have found freedom from the suffering of samsara. Again, I rejoice in the bodhisattva-hood and the buddha-hood of the protectors.
3.3. The vast teachings flooding forth from their minds bring happiness to all creatures, and give benefit to all creatures -- I rejoice in the oceans of the teachers.
3.4 With palms joined, I pray to the fully awakened buddhas in all directions: Act as lanterns of the dharma, for those who, through ignorance, have fallen into suffering.
3.5 Again, with palms joined I appeal to the victors whose desire is to be extinguished: Remain for endless aeons. Do not leave this world blind.
3.6 With any good I have gained like this, putting all this into practice, may I become for all living beings the allayer of every kind of suffering.
3.7 For the sick, I am medicine. May I become both a doctor and one who cares for them, until the illness is no more.
3.8 May I remove the hardship of hunger and thirst with showers of food and drink. In long periods of famine and drought, may I be food and drink.
3.9 Again, for beings living in poverty may I be an inexhaustible treasure. May I be there with them to provide many forms of assistance.
3.10 Incarnations of myself, enjoyments, and any good done in all three times -- these I give up without a second thought, if it will help all living beings to find meaning in their lives.
3.11 To let go of everything is nirvana, and it is nirvana that my mind seeks. If I am to let go of everything, it had best be given to living beings.
3.12 Again, I have put this self beyond pleasure into the hands of all embodied beings -- let them constantly beat it up, or let them put it down; let them cover it with shit.
3.13 Let them play with my body. Let them laugh at it and fool with it. I have already given it to them -- why should I worry about it?
3.27 Just as a blind man might find a jewel among heaps of rubbish so, somehow, has this bodhi-mind arisen in me.
[The first three pāramitās - 1. free giving, 2. ethical conduct, 3. tolerance]
5.10 From the mind to cede to all people all that one has, along with all reward, stems what is called the virtue of free giving. Therefore that virtue is the mind itself.
5.11 "Where should fish and the like be led so that I might not kill them?" Rather, when the mind of cessation is obtained, that is esteemed as the virtue of ethical conduct.
5.12 "How many shall I kill of those bad guys who are endless as the sky?" Rather, when the angry mind is killed, all enemies are killed.
5.13 Where will the leather be found to cover the whole earth? With only the leather of a pair of sandals, the earth is indeed being covered.
[tolerance continued]
6.1 All of this good conduct, free giving, honouring of the ones gone well, practised for thousands of aeons -- anger nullifies it all.
6.2 There is no evil like hatred, and no ascetic practice as tough as tolerance. Therefore one should make an effort to cultivate tolerance, by various methods.
[4. persevering effort]
7.1 The one who thus endures should practise persevering effort, in which direction enlightenment resides. For without persevering effort there is no merit, just as a there is no sailing without wind.
7.2 What is persevering effort? Persevering in the good. What is its opposite called? Laziness, attachment to base things, dejection, low self-esteem.
[5. meditation]
8.1 Developing perseverance in this way, one should let the mind rest in the stillness of samadhi. A person whose mind is scattered, on the contrary, remains between the fangs of the afflictions.
8.2 With seclusion of the body and mind, scattering does not occur. Therefore, leaving the world behind, one should let fanciful thoughts flee away.
[6. wisdom]
9.1 All this groundwork the Sage set out only for the sake of wisdom. Therefore let wisdom be cultivated, with the wish that suffering should cease.
9.2 Conventional and ultimate [or concealing and ultimate]: these are esteemed as the two truths. Beyond the scope of human intelligence is reality. Intelligence is called the concealer.
9.3 Then the world is seen to be of two sorts: the yogi and the ordinary person, and the world of the ordinary is negated by the yogi's world.
9.4 When even yogis, with their particular differences in insight, negate one another, each side having something to prove, they are neglecting the point of practice.
9.5 Things are seen by the world and conceived of as real, instead of as like magic. Hence yogis and the world differ.
9.6 Visual forms and the rest, even when sensed directly, are provisionally assumed to be and not definitively proven. Like purity seen in what is impure, the assumption is false.
[From Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṁ]
Here, monks, a monk who has gone to the wilderness, or has gone to the root of a tree, or has gone to an empty place, sits. Folding his legs into the lotus posture, directing the body up, and thus establishing mindfulness to the fore, he, just being mindful breathes in, and just being mindful breathes out.
While breathing in long, he knows “I am breathing in long”,
or, while breathing out long, knows “I am breathing out long”;
or, while breathing in short, knows “I am breathing in short”,
or, while breathing out short, knows “I am breathing out short”.
“Being aware of the whole body, I will breathe in”: like this he trains;
“being aware of the whole body, I will breathe out”: like this he trains.
“Letting bodily doing cease, I will breathe in”: like this he trains;
“letting bodily doing cease, I will breathe out”: like this he trains.
[Beginning, middle and end of Nāgārjuna's Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā]
1.1 Beyond cessation, beyond arising; beyond annihilation, beyond eternity;
Beyond singularity and multiplicity of meanings; beyond coming, beyond going,
1.2 The fully awakened Buddha taught the dependent arising which is the benign extinction of convenient fictions -- I praise him, the best of speakers.
26.1 The doings that lead to yet further becoming, a person engulfed in ignorance, in the three ways, does do – and by these actions, to a new sphere in the cycle of going, does go.
26.2 Divided consciousness, into the new sphere of going, does seep, having doings as its causal grounds. And so with the seeping in of this divided consciousness, psycho-physicality is instilled.
26.3 There again: With the instilling of psycho-physicality, there is the coming about of six senses. Six senses having arrived, there occurs contact.
26.4 Depending on eye, on form, and on the bringing of the two together – depending in other words on psycho-physicality – divided consciousness occurs.
26.5 When the threesome of form, consciousness and eye are combined, that is contact; and from that contact there occurs feeling.
26.6 With feeling as its causal grounds, there is thirsting – because the object of feeling is thirsted after. While thirsting is going on, taking hold takes hold in the four ways.
26.7 While taking hold is taking hold, the becoming arises of the taker – because becoming, if it were free of taking hold, would be liberated and would not become becoming.
26.8-9 Five aggregates, again, are becoming itself. Out of the becoming arises birth. The suffering and suchlike of ageing and death – sorrows, accompanied by bewailing and complaining; frustration, troubles – all this arises out of birth. In this way there is the coming into being of this whole aggregate of suffering.
26.10 The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the ignorant one do. The ignorant one therefore is the doer; the wise one is not, because of the realisation of reality.
26.11 In the dispelling of ignorance, there is the non-coming-into-being of doings. At the same time, the dispelling of ignorance rests on the bringing-into-being of just this act of knowing.
26.12 By the stopping of this one and that one, this one and that one no longer advance. This whole aggregate of suffering in this way is completely prevented.
27.30
In the direction of abandoning all views
He taught the true dharma,
Putting compassion into practice --
I bow to him, Gautama.
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