Verse I.153 Variations
न ह्यचक्षुः प्रभादीप्तमीक्षते सूर्यमण्डलम्
na hyacakṣuḥ prabhādīptamīkṣate sūryamaṇḍalam
དད་པ་ཉིད་ཀྱིས་རྟོགས་བྱ་ཡིན། །
ཉི་མའི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་འོད་འབར་བ། །
མིག་མེད་པས་ནི་མཐོང་བ་མེད། །
Is to be realized through confidence alone.
Those without eyes do not see
The bright and radiant disk of the sun.
如無眼目者 不能見日輪
L’absolu des [bouddhas] nés d’eux-mêmes. Qui n’a pas d’yeux ne peut voir L’éclat de l’orbe solaire.
RGVV Commentary on Verse I.153
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- Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Unicode Input
- Brunnhölzl, Karl. When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sūtra and Tantra. Boston: Snow Lion Publications, an imprint of Shambhala Publications, 2014.
- D45.48, fol. 275a.2–3.
Though they should furthermore familiarize with the tathāgata heart as being pure, they delight [only] in familiarizing with the notion of [all phenomena’s] being impure instead of familiarizing with the notion of the [tathāgata heart’s] being pure. Thus, due to this sequence [of familiarizing with those four notions], they delight in the path that is adverse to[1] attaining the dharmakāya. Therefore, it is said that the basic element, which is characterized by supreme permanence, bliss, self, and purity, is not even the sphere of any śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. That this [basic element] is not the sphere of those who delight in mistakenness (those who [entertain] the notions of impermanence, suffering, lack of a self, and impurity) was accordingly established by the Bhagavān in detail in the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra through the example of a jewel in the water of a pond:
O bhikṣus, it is as follows. Suppose that, at the time of the hot season, people were to hitch up their clothes for bathing and play in the water with their own ornaments and objects of pastime. Suppose then that someone there were to cast a genuine beryl stone into the water. {J75} In order to [retrieve] that beryl, all those [people] would leave their ornaments aside and dive [into the water]. [However,] they would [mistakenly] think that the pebbles and the gravel in the [water] are that jewel, seize them, and draw them out [of the water], thinking, "I got the jewel." Dwelling at the bank of the pond, they would then properly discern[2] that those [pebbles and so on] are not the jewel. [They were deceived because] through the power of that jewel, the water of the pond would sparkle like the shine of that [jewel]. Thus, seeing this sparkling water, they would entertain the notion that [the pebbles in it possess] the qualities of that jewel. Eventually, someone there who is skilled and intelligent would actually retrieve that jewel.
Bhikṣus, likewise, not knowing the true reality of phenomena, which is like that jewel,[3] {D13b} you repeatedly meditate through all your clinging to everything as being impermanent, everything as being suffering, everything as being without a self, {P118a} and everything as being impure. You do so many times, [but] all such attempts are meaningless. Therefore, bhikṣus, you should not be[4] like those who are fixated on the pebbles and the gravel in that pond, but you should be skilled in means. Bhikṣus, right within each one of your repeated meditations on everything as being impermanent, everything as being suffering, everything as being without a self, and everything as being impure, which you do many times, [there exists] what is permanent, blissful, pure, and a self.[5]
Thus, the instruction on those who are mistaken with regard to the presentation of the supreme true reality of phenomena should be understood in detail according to the sūtras.
(4) Now, those who are called "those whose minds are distracted from emptiness" are those bodhisattvas who have newly entered the [mahā]yāna and deviate from the principle of what emptiness means in the case of the tathāgata heart.[6] [Among them, there are] those who [wrongly] assert the door to liberation that is emptiness in order to destroy [really existing] entities, [thinking] that parinirvāṇa refers to the extinction and destruction of [previously] really existing phenomena at a later time. Or, [there are] also those who resort to emptiness through focusing on emptiness [as some real entity, thinking] that what is called "emptiness" exists, by way of being distinct from form and so on, as some entity that is to be realized and with which one should familiarize.[7]
|OtherTranslations=
Obermiller (1931) [8]
- The Absolute Essence of the Buddhas
- Can be cognized only by faith.
- The blazing disk of the sun
- Cannot be seen by those who have no eyes.
Takasaki (1966) [9]
- The Highest Truth of the Buddhas
- Can be understood only by faith,
- Indeed, the eyeless one cannot see
- The blazing disk of the sun.
Fuchs (2000) [10]
- This truth of the Self-Sprung Ones
- is to be realized through faith.
- The orb of the sun blazes with light,
- [but] is not seen by the blind.
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- Skt. vidhura can also mean "destitute of" or "devoid of,"but DP read ’gal ba.
- MB has the correct form pravarttayeyuḥ instead of J pravarteyuḥ.
- J omits "which is like that gem" (maṇivad), but MB and DP (MA maṇaṇivad) contain this phrase.
- I follow MA bhūta instead of J bhūtā.
- D120, fol. 33a.4–33b.2. The text of D120 has several variant readings, but none is of significant difference.
- This could also be read as "the principle of the tathāgata heart’s being the [actual] meaning of emptiness."DP has "the tathāgata heart as the principle of emptiness" (stong pa nyid kyi tshul du de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po).
- "Whose minds are distracted from emptiness"translates the Sanskrit compound śūnyatāvikṣiptacitta, which contains an intriguing ambiguity since it can be understood as a mind distracted by emptiness, toward emptiness, or from emptiness. The primary reading "distracted from emptiness" is supported by the occurrence of śūnyatārthanayād bahiś cittaṃ vikṣipyate in the text below and the consistent rendering stong pa nyid las sems rnam par g.yengs pa in DP (P once has stong pa nyid la). However, the comments here show that this compound also contains the meaning "distracted by or toward emptiness." For the point is that beginner bodhisattvas are distracted by a wrong understanding of emptiness toward a wrong notion of emptiness (either misconceiving it as something that destroys phenomena or as some separate reified entity to be focused on deliberately) and thus are distracted from the correct understanding of emptiness, which is explicitly identified here as the principle of what emptiness means in the case of the tathāgata heart (explained in detail in the comments on I.154–155 in the text below). This ambiguity is reflected in the quotations of the passages from RGVV that contain this Sanskrit compound in other Tibetan texts and translations, which (in a rather inconsistent manner) take this compound to have either one of the above meanings (respectively using la, las, or kyis after stong pa nyid; as mentioned already, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra has kyis). GC (438.26–439.20) comments on RGVV’s paragraph on "those who are distracted from emptiness" as follows. In general, among the four kinds of bodhisattvas mentioned above (those who have generated bodhicitta for the first time, those who have entered bodhisattva conduct, irreversible bodhisattvas, and those obstructed from buddhahood by only a single lifetime), it is impossible for the latter three to be distracted from emptiness. However, since such is possible for those who have generated bodhicitta for the first time, they are called "those who have newly entered the [mahā]yāna." Still, only some of them are distracted from emptiness because there are also those beginner bodhisattvas who first ascertain the ultimate and then generate bodhicitta through the power of the compassion that arises from that ascertainment. Therefore, the Niyatāniyatagatimudrāvatārasūtra explains that there are "the bodhisattvas proceeding as if by ox-cart" who, after having generated bodhicitta, rely on the śrāvakayāna for their practice. The ones who have that disposition are the first kind of those who are distracted from emptiness. Through not directing their minds toward phenomenal identitylessness, when they attain nirvāṇa, they apprehend the impermanence in terms of the previously existing reality of the origin of suffering having discontinued and perished to be nirvāṇa. They also assert the state that is characterized by suffering’s not arising henceforth to be nirvāṇa and emptiness. The second kind of those who are distracted from emptiness are described by the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra ’s speaking of bodhisattvas on the level of engagement through aspiration who hold that the characteristics of formational phenomena and the characteristics of the ultimate are different or the same (as for the term "engagement through aspiration,"in its more general sense, as is the case here, it refers to both the paths of accumulation and preparation, while its more narrow sense refers to the path of preparation alone). Thus, to assert that what is called "emptiness"—the object that is to be directly realized and with which one should familiarize in a deliberate way —exists as an entity that is different from form and so on means to assert that the characteristics of formational phenomena and the ultimate are different. Since those who hold the characteristics of formational phenomena and the ultimate to be the same apprehend what is not emptiness as emptiness, they too are implicitly included in those who are distracted from emptiness. As for the phrase, "through focusing on emptiness" in RGVV, it is through focusing on emptiness as a (real) entity that the second kind of those who are distracted from emptiness assert emptiness as the door of emptiness and resort to that emptiness. By contrast, Chaba Chökyi Sengé’s commentary on the Uttaratantra (Phyva pa chos kyi seng ge 2006, fol. 63b.5–8) says, "The principle of emptiness—the tathāgata heart—refers to being merely empty of an object to be negated that is something to be eliminated (rnam par bcad pa). Those who deviate from this regard it as something that is positively delimited (yongs gcod)." Thus, he continues to identify bodhisattvas of the first type who have newly entered the mahāyāna as being the Mere Mentalists. He elaborates that "‘the destruction of [previously] really existing phenomena at a later time’ refers to emptiness [in the sense of] the ultimately existent impure dependent [nature’s] having been destroyed later through having been eliminated and thus having become nonexistent. As for this being asserted as nirvāṇa, it is claimed to be the stainless purity [that is the perfect nature]. To assert this as the door to liberation [that is emptiness] means that it is claimed to be the ultimate." Then, Chaba identifies bodhisattvas of the second type who have newly entered the mahāyāna as those who assert emptiness as the emptiness of one thing’s not existing in another one. Regarding this as "what is to be realized and with which one should familiarize" refers to the time of the result and the path, respectively. "Form" consists of the duality of apprehender and apprehended. "An entity that is distinct from form"refers to the self-aware mind that is empty of that duality, which is an implicative negation—the emptiness that is the ultimate dependent nature. "Those who resort to emptiness"are those who claim this limited emptiness.
- Obermiller, E. "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism." Acta Orientalia IX (1931), pp. 81-306.
- Takasaki, Jikido. A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra): Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Serie Orientale Roma 33. Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (ISMEO), 1966.
- Fuchs, Rosemarie, trans. Buddha Nature: The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra. Commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul and explanations by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso. Ithaca, N. Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 2000.
