The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva

Author:Shantideva
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780834825659
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2007-11-06T05:00:00+00:00

9

Wisdom

1.

All these branches of the Doctrine

The Enlightened Sage expounded for the sake of wisdom.106

Therefore they must cultivate this wisdom

Who wish to have an end of suffering.

2.

Relative and ultimate,

These the two truths are declared to be.

The ultimate is not within the reach of intellect,

For intellect is said to be the relative.107

3.

In light of this, within the world, two kinds of people are observed:

Those with yogic insight and the common run of people.

In this regard, the views of ordinary folk

Are undermined by yogis who themselves are in the world108

4.

(Within whose ranks

The lower, in degrees of insight, are confuted by the higher)

By means of the examples that the yogis and the worldly both accept.

And for the sake of the result, analysis is left aside.

5.

When ordinary folk perceive phenomena,

They look on them as real, and not illusory.

This, then, is the subject of debate

Where ordinary and yogis differ.

6.

Forms and so forth, which we all perceive,

Exist by general acclaim but not by valid reasoning.

They’re false just like, for instance, unclean things

Regarded in the common view as pure.

7.

But that he might instruct the worldly,

Our Protector spoke of “things.”

But these in truth lack even momentariness.

Now if you say it’s wrong to claim the momentary as relative,

8.

There is no fault. For momentariness

Is relative for yogis, but for worldly beings, ultimate.

Were it otherwise, the common view

Could fault the yogic insight into corporal impurity.

9.

“Through a Buddha, who is but illusion, how does merit spring?”

As if the Buddha were existing truly.

“But,” you ask, “if beings are like illusions,

How, when dying, can they take rebirth?”

10.

As long as the conditions are assembled,

Illusions, likewise, will persist and manifest.

Why, through simply being more protracted,

Should sentient beings be regarded as more real?

11.

If one kills or harms the magical illusion of a man,

There is no mind in such a thing and therefore there’s no sin.

But beings do indeed have mirage-like minds;

Sin and merit will, in consequence, arise.

12.

There is no power in things like spells,

So mirage-like minds do not occur through them.

Illusions spring from various causes;

Thus illusions are of different kinds.

13.

A single cause for everything

There never was!

“If ultimately, beings are in nirvāṇa,” you will say,

“But relatively circle in saṃsāra,

14.

“Even Buddhahood reverts to the saṃsāric state.

So why,” you ask, “pursue the Bodhisattva path?”

As long as there’s no cutting of the causal stream,

There is no halting even of illusory displays.

15.

But when the causal stream is severed,

Even relative phenomena do not appear.

“If even that which is deceived does not exist,

What is it,” you will ask, “that sees illusion?”

16.

But if, for you, these same illusions have no being,

What, indeed, is there to be perceived?

“But objects have another mode of being,” you will say,

“That very mode is but the mind itself.”

17.

But if the mirage is the mind itself,

What is then perceived by what?

The Guardian of the World himself has said

That mind cannot be seen by mind.

18.

In just the same way, he has said,

The sword’s edge cannot cut the sword.

“But,” you say, “it’s like the flame

That perfectly illuminates itself.”

19.

The flame, in fact, can never light itself.

And why? Because the darkness never dims it!

“The blueness of a thing by nature blue,” you say,

“Depends, unlike a crystal, upon nothing else.

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