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and every sentient being to the ultimate goal of enlightenment,

according to his or her own way and inclination. Therefore, the

Lotus Sutra explains that the vehicle of the Bodhisattvas, the

vehicle of the Pratyekabuddhas (or ‘private Buddhas’), and the

vehicle of the disciples are nothing more than skillful means cal-

culated to suit the differing capacities and inclinations of sen-

tient beings.

Chapter three of the Lotus Sutra uses a compelling parable

to explain the nature of skillful means. The story it tells is this:

Suppose there is a rich man who inhabits an old house and who

has a number of children. One day the house suddenly catches

on fire. The father, seeing that it will soon be engulfed in flames,

calls to his children to come out, but they are absorbed in their

play and do not heed his words. Being familiar with the incli-

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nations of his children, the father thinks of a skillful device to

induce them to leave the house. Knowing they are fond of toys,

he calls to them to come out at once because he has brought them

all different kinds of toy carts. The children abandon their play

and rush out to get the carts. Once they are safely away from the

burning house, the father gives each and everyone of them only

the most excellent cart, the vehicle of the Buddhas.

It is easy to see that in this parable the house is the world, the fire is the fire of the afflictions, the father is the Buddha,

and the children are the people of the world. The toy carts are

the vehicles of the Bodhisattvas, Pratyekabuddhas, and disci-

ples. Elsewhere in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha explains that

he taught the Hinayana path for those who believe in the exis-

tence of the world, and the Mahayana for those whose merit is

well matured. To have taught only the Hinayana would have

been miserly, yet had he taught only the Mahayana, many would

have despaired of achieving the goal of enlightenment and not

entered the path at all. Thus the Hinayana and Mahayana are

expedient devices for the people of the world, designed to suit

their different capacities and inclinations.

The Buddha also says in the sutra that Arhats like Shariputra

and Rahula will all eventually attain Buddhahood. He then lik-

ens the nirvana of the Arhats to an illusory city conjured up by

a wise guide who is leading a party of travelers to a vast treasure.

On the way, the travelers grow weary and tired. They despair

of reaching their goal, so the guide conjures up the appearance

of a city that has all the amenities needed for them to rest and

recover their strength. Thereafter, they will be able to continue

their journey until they eventually reach the treasure. In this

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parable the guide is the Buddha, the travelers are the people of

the world, and the illusory city is the nirvana of the Arhats.

The message of skillful means is further explained in the

Lotus Sutra by other parables and similes. For example, in chap-

ter four there is the parable of a son who has been parted from

his father at a young age and who spends the better part of his

life in poverty and suffering, ignorant of his origins. His father,

longing to see his son again and hand down his vast inheritance

to him, is grieved by his inability to locate him. One day, the son

happens to come to his father’s house. Seeing the splendor of the

household and the respect the servants have for the master of the

house, he becomes conscious of his inferiority and attempts to

flee, but his father recognizes him and sends men to bring him

back. Unable to recognize his father in return, the son is terri-

fied and protests his innocence. Seeing the situation, the father

tells his men to let him go.

Some time later, the father sends his men, dressed in poor

apparel, to offer his son the work of sweeping out dung in the

cow sheds of the household. His son accepts this menial task

and works for some time. Gradually, the father increases his

wages. All the while, the son is unaware that the master is in

fact his own father, and the father refrains from revealing it so

as not to upset or frighten him. Eventually the son is elevated to

the position of foreman. Only when he has thus broadened his

vision and aspirations does his father reveal to him his origins

and hand over to him his inheritance. At that point the son real-

izes his nobility and is overjoyed by his achievement.

In the same way, the Lotus Sutra says that we are all sons of

the Buddha and will all achieve the inheritance of Buddhahood.

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But because our ambitions and aspirations are paltry, the Buddha

has set us disciplines whereby we will gradually develop and

expand our vision until we realize our true nature and kinship

and are ready to accept this inheritance of Buddhahood.

The central theme of the Lotus Sutra is the working of skill-

ful means out of great compassion. Out of great compassion, the

Buddhas appear in the world. Out of great compassion, they

exercise their skillful means in countless ways, through countless

forms, devices, practices, and vehicles. All these are calculated

to suit the varying capacities and inclinations of sentient beings

so that each one can, in his or her own way and time, aspire to

and achieve full and perfect enlightenment, the enlightenment

of the Buddha. It is because of this message – with its universal-

ity, optimism, and encouragement for all – that the Mahayana

tradition has been able to win such phenomenal popularity not

only in India but also in Central and East Asia.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The eart Sutra

In this chapter we will discuss a very important class of

Mahayana literature that concerns the perfection of wisdom

(prajnaparamita). But before we look at the texts themselves, it

may be useful to examine the meaning of the term prajnaparam-

ita and the history of the Perfection of Wisdom discourses. The

term prajna, which is often translated ‘wisdom’ or ‘insight,’ is

composed of the prefix pra and the root jna which means know-

ledge. Pra added to the root jna gives the sense of spontaneity,

penetration, transcendentality. One might therefore better trans-

late prajna as ‘penetrative or special knowledge or wisdom.’ The

term paramita is most often translated ‘perfection’; other popu-

lar translations include ‘gone beyond,’ ‘transcendental,’ and even

‘the climax of’ wisdom. We will understand the term better if we

notice its similarity to the English words ‘parameter’ and ‘meter,’

both of which concern measurement or limit. In paramita, there-

fore, we have a word that indicates ‘going beyond the limit.’

Thus the whole term prajnaparamita ought to be understood

to mean ‘penetrative wisdom or insight gone beyond the limit.’

If we remember this, we will avoid the danger of thinking of the

perfection of wisdom as something static or fixed. This inevi-

tably happens because the word ‘perfection’ conjures up images

of an unchanging, perfected condition. Yet in the perfection of

wisdom we have a dynamic idea – the idea of a penetrative wis-

dom or insight that transcends the limit, that is transcenden-

tal. The perfection of wisdom is one of the Six Perfections of

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the Mahayana tradition. It is also the name of a large number

of Mahayana sutras that are collectively called the Perfection of

Wisdom literature or Prajnaparamita sutras.

This class of texts includes discourses such as the Diamond

Sutra (Vajrachchhedika) as well as the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra

in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra),

the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines

(Panchavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra), and the Heart

of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra),

which runs to a little over one page. It is generally agreed that

each of these is either an expansion or an abridgment of a fun-

damental text of the Perfection of Wisdom discourses, presented

in different versions and lengths to suit the tastes of different

readers.

It is generally accepted by modern scholars that the Perfection

of Wisdom discourses date to the beginning of the common era,

and that they were among the first Buddhist texts translated

into Chinese in the second century c.e. On the basis of this and

additional evidence from India, we can confidently say that the

Perfection of Wisdom literature is among the oldest available to

us from any of the Buddhist traditions.

The particular example we will discuss here is the Heart

of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, or the Heart Sutra for short,

which is an excellent example of the essence of the Perfection

of Wisdom teachings. There are three prominent figures who

participate in the conversation in this sutra – the Buddha, the

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and the disciple Shariputra. The

presence of Shariputra is another indication of the continu-

ity in the Buddhist tradition because, just as Shariputra figures

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prominently in the Abhidharma, so he is a major figure in the

Perfection of Wisdom sutras.

Another important fact is that, although the dialogue

between Shariputra and Avalokiteshvara is said to take place

through the power of the Buddha, the Buddha is said at the

very outset to be seated all the time in deep absorption. It is only

at the end of the dialogue that the Buddha manifestly enters

the conversation to commend Avalokiteshvara on his exposi-

tion. This is another indication of the inconceivable, extraordi-

nary power of the Buddha – a reflection of the Mahayana vision

of the transcendent nature of the Buddha that we considered in

our discussion of the Lotus Sutra in Chapter 15.

The Heart Sutra, like the other Perfection of Wisdom dis-

courses, sets out to accomplish one important task: to expound

and encourage the transformation of wisdom into the perfec-

tion of wisdom. It sets out to complement analytical wisdom

(which belongs to wisdom per se) with relational wisdom (which

belongs to the perfection of wisdom). The analytical and rela-

tional methods are used in the Abhidharma literature, in the

first and seventh books of the Abhidharma Pitaka, respectively.

We might illustrate the nature of these two methods by means of

an analogy: Through the analytical method, a chariot is seen not

to be a unitary and homogenous whole but, rather, to be com-

posed of individual parts. This comprehension of the composite

nature of the chariot is the result of analytical wisdom. Through

the relational method, however, even the individual parts of the

chariot are seen not to exist ultimately. In the light of the per-

fection of wisdom, they are now seen to be dependent, condi-

tioned, relative.

171

The passage from wisdom to the perfection of wisdom is thus

the passage from a vision of reality characterized by perception

and acceptance of individual components of reality to a vision

characterized by perception of the emptiness, or voidness (shun-

yata), even of these individual components. This point is made

very clearly in the Heart Sutra with reference to the five aggre-

gates and eighteen elements, which are the result of the analyt-

ical method of the Buddhist investigation of reality.

In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara says

that form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness are, in

their own being, void – that is, that the nature of the aggregates

is empty of independent existence. And just as the five aggre-

gates are empty, so are the eighteen elements that comprise per-

sonal experience.

Analysis reveals that three elements are involved in each of

the six avenues of personal experience (the five senses plus the

mind). For example, the activity of seeing can be analyzed into

(1) the element of form, which is the visible object; (2) the ele-

ment of the eye, which is the sense faculty of vision; and (3) the

element of visual consciousness, which is the mental element. Similarly, in each of the activities of hearing, smelling, tasting,

touching, and thinking, there is (1) an external or objective ele-

ment, (2) an internal, subjective sense faculty, and (3) the con-

sciousness that arises in conjunction with the external object and

the sense faculty. Hence there are three components for each of

the six activities, for a total of eighteen elements that result from

the analytical investigation of personal experience. According to

Avalokiteshvara, these eighteen elements do not exist in reality;

like the five aggregates, they are empty of existence, or void.

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Emptiness is not, however, a metaphysical entity. According

to the teaching of the Perfection of Wisdom and Mahayana mas-

ters, emptiness is synonymous with both interdependent origina-

tion and the Middle Way. It is synonymous with interdependent

origination because all that exists is conditioned and, relative to

other factors, empty of independent existence. Emptiness is syn-

onymous with the Middle Way because understanding empti-

ness enables one to transcend the alternatives or dualities of exis-

tence and nonexistence, identity and difference, and so forth.

Emptiness is not a view. This is illustrated at considerable

length in the works of Nagarjuna, the founder of the Middle Way

school, which championed emptiness. Emptiness is itself relative

and devoid of independent existence. This is why Haribhadra,

in his commentary on the Abhisamayalankara, a text that elabo-

rates on the message of the Perfection of Wisdom literature, lists

among the various types of emptiness ‘the emptiness of empti-

ness’: emptiness, too, is relative and empty.

Emptiness is, in fact, a therapeutic device. It is a corrective

for the exclusively analytical view, which leaves us with a resid-

ual belief in the real existence of the elements of experience.

Emptiness is a device that enables us to transcend this plural-

istic belief in the independent existence of things. It is for this

reason that emptiness is likened to a medicine that cures resid-

ual belief in the independent existence of elements. Emptiness

is also likened to salt, which makes food palatable.

Like medicine and salt, emptiness taken in excess, or at the

wrong time or place, can be dangerous and unpalatable. This is

why one ought not abide in or cling to emptiness. Like a medi-

cine, emptiness is designed to cure the illness of perceiving the

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independent existence of things. Once this illness has been over-

come, one should discontinue the treatment, not persist in tak-

ing the medicine. Similarly, emptiness is the salt that renders

experience palatable, and just as salt by itself is unpalatable, so

emptiness by itself is an unpalatable diet.

It is because emptiness reveals and expresses the relativity of

all phenomena that it becomes the key to understanding nondu-

ality. We can see how recognition of the relativity – and subse-

quent transcendence – of opposites is tantamount to the percep-

tion of nonduality, or non-differentiation.

At this point we come to the central Mahayana doctrine of

the nonduality, or non-differentiation, of samsara and nirvana.

This is indicated in the Heart Sutra when Avalokiteshvara says

that form is not different from emptiness and emptiness is not

different from form. The other aggregates, too, are not different

from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from the aggre-

gates. Thus samsara and nirvana, the aggregates and emptiness,

phenomena and the unconditioned, the conditioned and the

transcendental are all alternatives that are relative to each other:

they have no independent existence. Indeed, because they are

relative to each other, they are, each of them, ultimately unreal

and empty. Hence the duality of samsara and nirvana is dis-

solved in the vision of emptiness. Emptiness is the way out of all

extremes, even the extremes of samsara and nirvana.

Indeed, just as the distinction between samsara and nirvana

is relative – being a subjective distinction that belongs to our way

of perceiving and not to samsara and nirvana in themselves – so,

in emptiness, there is an absence of other alternatives, an absence

of the characteristics of origination and cessation, which are rel-

174

ative to each other and unreal. Unreal, too, according to the

Heart Sutra, are ignorance, old age, and death; the destruction

of ignorance, old age, and death; the Four Noble Truths; attain-

ment and non-attainment. Like the roof beams of a house, none

of these concepts, which depend one upon the other, exists inde-

pendently.

The Heart Sutra says that, by relying on this perfection of

wisdom whose object is emptiness, all the Tathagatas of the past

have achieved the ultimate, supreme, and perfect enlighten-

ment. It is for this reason that the perfection of wisdom, through

which emptiness is known, has been called ‘the mother of the

Tathagatas’ – in other words, that from which the Tathagatas

come.

The perfection of wisdom has also been likened to a sighted

guide leading an assembly of blind men to their goal. The other

perfections (of generosity, morality, patience, energy, and con-

centration) are themselves blind. They are unable to find the way

to the goal of Buddhahood. But with the help of the eyes of the

perfection of wisdom, they can arrive at that goal.

Again, the perfection of wisdom has been compared to bak-

ing an earthenware jar which, in the process, becomes resistant

to shattering: so, too, when a Bodhisattva is trained and steeped

in the perfection of wisdom, he becomes durable, stable, and dif-

ficult to shatter.

The drive toward condensing the teaching of the larger

Perfection of Wisdom Sutra into the pith instruction of the Heart

Sutra is further reflected in the emergence of the verbal formulas

and mantras we find in the Mahayana tradition. Many of these

are condensations of elaborate ideas that serve as aids to mem-

175

ory as well as to meditation. In the Heart Sutra we find the man-

tra of the perfection of wisdom, which, the sutra says, makes the

unequal equal. We can see why this should be so if we recall that,

in emptiness, all opposites, all alternatives, all extremes, and all

characteristics do not exist. The perfection of wisdom mantra is

also said to pacify all suffering. This, too, is clear from under-

standing that, in emptiness, neither beings nor sufferings exist.

We can see the essence of the perfection of wisdom expressed

in the few lines of the mantra,

Tadyatha, Om, gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, svaha

(‘Thus, Om, gone, gone, gone beyond, gone well beyond, enlightenment, hail’).

This is the transcendence of all alternatives, all views, all dual-

ities that marks the entry into enlightenment through going

beyond all limitations, dualities, and dogmas.

Arising from his deep absorption in meditation during the

dialogue between Avalokiteshvara and Shariputra in the Heart

Sutra, the Buddha commends Avalokiteshvara on his exposi-

tion of the perfection of wisdom, an exposition that reflects the

ultimate, not the conventional standpoint. Briefly, the ultimate

standpoint is the standpoint according to which beings, objects,

and karma have no place, whereas the conventional standpoint

conforms to the usages familiar in the world, in which beings,

objects, and karma are treated as if they exist in reality. The

Perfection of Wisdom sutras reflect the ultimate standpoint, born

of the experience of nirvana. Even according to the Theravada

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canon, the Buddha said of this state that neither earth nor water,

fire nor air, origination nor cessation exists in it, and that it is not

describable in terms of existence, nonexistence, both, or neither.

The Perfection of Wisdom literature suggests that we can

all see symbols of emptiness in our own experience – stars, faults

of vision, lamps, magical illusions, dewdrops, bubbles, dreams,

lightning, clouds, and the like. Such phenomena are the visible

expressions or manifestations of emptiness. In the conditioned,

dependent, and insubstantial nature of these phenomena, we

find intimations of the emptiness that is revealed in the perfec-

tion of wisdom.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Lankavatara Sutra

The Lankavatara Sutra is representative of a large body of

literature and is particularly important for an understand-

ing of the Mahayana tradition. Like the Lotus Sutra and the

Perfection of Wisdom sutras, the Lankavatara is a voluminous

work. It is complex in terms of both ideas and literary compo-

sition. Scholars have tended to date the written work to as late

as the fourth century of the common era. Although this may

be acceptable as far as the literary production of the text is con-

cerned, a survey of the sutra reveals a number of germinal ideas

that were systematized and elaborated on by Mahayana masters

like Asanga and Vasubandhu. If we remember that both these

masters lived in the fourth century c.e., we will have to place

the formulation of the doctrines contained in the Lankavatara

well before that time.

This is in line with what I have said before about the origin

and authenticity of Mahayana literature in general. After all, we

have seen that many of the germinal ideas of the Mahayana tra-

dition are found even in the Theravada canon (see Chapter 14).

The Lankavatara is representative of the canonical literature that

is the foundation of the Mahayana school variously known as

the Yogachara (school affirming the unity of meditation and

action), the Vijnanavada (school affirming consciousness), and

the Chittamatra (school affirming Mind Only). Just as the

Perfection of Wisdom literature in general forms the canonical

foundation of the Middle Way, or Madhyamaka, school, so the

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Lankavatara Sutra and a number of other discourses form the

canonical foundation of the Yogachara or Vijnanavada school,

though obviously elements of one school can be found in the

doctrine of the other, and vice versa.

The doctrine for which the Lankavatara is famous is the doc-

trine of the primacy of consciousness. This is sometimes called

the doctrine of Mind Only, or of the sole reality of conscious-

ness. The sutra states in unequivocal terms that the three worlds,

or spheres – the sphere of sense desire, the sphere of form, and

the formless sphere – are just mind itself. In other words, all the

manifold objects of the world, the names and forms of experi-

ence, are merely manifestations of the mind. The Lankavatara

says that our inability to free ourselves from the discrimination

between the conceptions of subject and object is the cause of our

rebirth in the cycle of birth and death. As long as we are unable

to free ourselves from discrimination, we continue to be reborn

in samsara. It is therefore the ability to free ourselves from the

dualistic conceptions of subject and object that is the key to

enlightenment.

But what is this ‘Mind Only’ of which the Lankavatara

Sutra speaks? Is it the empirical mind, the mind that participates

in the activities of the six consciousnesses? It is clearly not this

mind. The mind of which the sutra speaks both transcends and

annihilates the conceptions of the dualities of existence and non-

existence, identity and difference, permanence and imperma-

nence. It transcends the concepts of self, substance, and karma.

It even transcends the concept of causation. According to the

sutra, all these concepts are the products of false imagination, or

discriminating thought (vikalpa). The mind of which the sutra

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speaks does not participate in these dualistic conceptions. From

this it is clear that the mind of which the Lankavatara speaks

is precisely that emptiness (shunyata) of which the Perfection of

Wisdom literature speaks.

If the mind of which the Lankavatara speaks transcends the

conceptions of the dualities of existence and nonexistence, identity

and difference, and so forth, then how is it that this nondual reality

of mind manifests itself in the manifold objects of the world? The

Lankavatara – and, indeed, the Mind Only school – expounds a

system of eight types of consciousness. These eight include the six

with which we are familiar from the Buddhist tradition at large

(i.e., the five consciousnesses that arise in conjunction with the

five physical sense faculties, and the sixth consciousness, which

arises in conjunction with the faculty of the mind). The two addi-

tional types are the storehouse consciousness (alayavijnana) and

the afflicted mind (klishtamanas). These eight consciousnesses

form the basis of Yogachara or Vijnanavada philosophy.

The sutra uses an analogy to describe the process of schism

that takes us from the ultimate, nondual condition of mind to

the fragmented condition, characterized by the six empirical

consciousnesses, that we experience in daily life. The analogy

is that of the ocean, wind, and waves. In its depths the ocean is

tranquil, just as, in its depths, the storehouse consciousness is. Moved by the wind, the surface of the ocean is stirred into waves,

which roll on and on. Similarly, the tranquil depths of the store-

house consciousness are disturbed by the wind of discrimination,

causing waves, which are analogous to the functioning of the six

empirical consciousnesses.

The villain of the piece is the afflicted mind – the wind of dis-

180

crimination – because it is by means of the afflicted mind that

discrimination takes place. The afflicted mind is the go-between

that mediates between the storehouse consciousness on the one

hand and the six empirical consciousnesses on the other hand.

We may call this afflicted mind the ego principle, the principle

of individuation, or discrimination.

The storehouse consciousness plays a particularly important

role because it not only exists as the tranquil depths of the ocean

do but also functions as a repository. This is why it is called a

storehouse – because it collects the seeds of sense impressions

and actions. Therefore we can best understand the scheme of

the eight consciousnesses presented in the Lankavatara Sutra if

we picture them in a circle, just as we picture the constituents of

interdependent origination. In this sense we have an evolution

from the storehouse consciousness in its own nondual nature,

through the functioning of discrimination by means of the

agency of the afflicted mind, and on into the six empirical con-

sciousnesses, which in turn supply the storehouse consciousness

with the impressions of actions, or karma. Thus we have a cycli-

cal process wherein the storehouse consciousness evolves through

discrimination into six empirical consciousnesses, which in turn

sow the seeds of future actions in the fertile soil of the store-

house consciousness.

The storehouse consciousness is particularly important for

the Lankavatara Sutra and, indeed, for this whole phase of

Mahayana Buddhism. It is significant that, in the Tibetan trans-

lation, we find the storehouse consciousness called the ‘all-base

consciousness’ – the consciousness that is the substratum of all.

This implies that it has within it the potential for both samsara

181

and nirvana, both the phenomenal world and enlightenment.

And just as it is through discrimination that the storehouse

consciousness evolves into the six empirical consciousnesses, so,

through the elimination of discrimination, the storehouse con-

sciousness becomes the seed of nirvana.

It is important to look closely at the relationship between the

storehouse consciousness and the notion of the Buddha nature

(tathagatagarbha, literally, ‘the womb of tathagatahood’). You will

be aware of the natural connection between the two from what I

have just said about the nirvanic potential of the storehouse con-

sciousness. The Lankavatara describes the mind, or conscious-

ness, as pure in its original, intrinsic nature. What is meant by

the term ‘pure’? A careful examination of the Lankavatara Sutra

and other canonical and commentarial literature reveals that this

means that the mind is empty. Therefore, ‘the original purity of

the mind’ means that the mind is intrinsically and originally

pure of the dualities of existence and nonexistence, identity and

difference, and so forth. Its purity is equivalent to its emptiness. This purity, or emptiness, is the very essence of Buddha nature, of the nirvanic potential of the storehouse consciousness.

It is in this context that the Buddha nature is likened to gold,

to a precious stone, or to a soiled garment. The intrinsic purity

or emptiness of the mind finds the expression of its potential

in the realization of Buddhahood when the impurities of dis-

crimination are removed. Just as the brightness of gold, a pre-

cious stone, or a soiled garment is revealed through refinement

and through cleansing of impurities, so one reveals the original,

intrinsic, empty and pure nature of the mind through cleansing

oneself of the habit of discriminating between subject and object

182

by application of the discipline of a Bodhisattva. The Buddha nature is the empty and pure nature of the mind.

Because of the essential emptiness and purity of the mind, all

sentient beings have the potential to attain Buddhahood.

Like a lump of bronze, which can be shaped into a cham-

ber pot, a vessel for offering water at a shrine, or a statue of the

Buddha, the empty nature of mind can, depending on causes

and conditions, appear in the form of a common living being, a

Bodhisattva, or a Buddha.

The Buddha nature is not a self or a soul. It is not a static

entity. It may be likened to a stream because it is ever-chang-

ing, infinitely manifold and dynamic. It is for this reason that, in

another famous sutra, the Sandhinirmochana, the Buddha says

that the storehouse consciousness is profound and subtle, mov-

ing like a stream with all its seeds of sense impressions. The

Buddha says that he has not taught the idea of this storehouse

consciousness to fools, for fear that they might mistake it for a

self. It is interesting to note that the storehouse consciousness

is fundamentally similar to the Theravada concept, found in the

Abhidharma, of the factor of subconscious continuity (bhavanga)

that carries the seeds of former actions. This concept is expanded

and elaborated on in the Lankavatara Sutra and in the philoso-

phy of the Yogachara school.

The Lankavatara Sutra suggests another important Mahayana

doctrine in germinal form: the doctrine of the three bodies, or

dimensions, of Buddhahood – the transcendental dimension,

(dharmakaya) the celestial dimension, (sambhogakaya) and the

terrestrial or transformational dimension, (nirmanakaya). These

three reflect, in general terms, three levels of enlightened reality:

183

(1) the transcendental dimension is synonymous with the ulti-

mate level of enlightenment, which is beyond names and forms;

(2) the celestial dimension is an expression of the symbolic and

archetypal dimension of Buddhahood, to which only the spiri-

tually developed have access; and (3) the terrestrial dimension is

the dimension of Buddhahood to which all of us in our unen-

lightened condition have access, and which participates in the

world of mundane phenomena. It is this terrestrial dimension

that appears in countless forms in order to nurture and emanci-

pate sentient beings.

Here you may recall that the essence of the Mahayana tradi-

tion is great compassion. The skillful means that spring directly

from great compassion manifest themselves not only in the

devising of various disciplines, or vehicles, but also in diverse

and countless forms of the terrestrial dimension of Buddhahood.

According to the Lankavatara and other Mahayana texts, the

terrestrial dimension of Buddhahood can assume any form and

any number of forms. It can assume not only a recognizable, spe-

cial form like Shakyamuni Buddha, with whom we are all famil-

iar but also the form of a drunkard, gambler or the like, in order

to benefit and liberate sentient beings. If a particular drunkard

or gambler is not affected by the delivery of an exalted Dharma

discourse, nor by the examples of moral purity advocated in the

conduct of a Bodhisattva, a Buddha or Bodhisattva will assume

the form of one of that’s persons company and, through the exer-

cise of skillful means labor to bring about the emancipation of

that person. In addition to assuming the form of animate beings,

Bodhisattvas can also assume the form of inanimate things, such

as food, clothing, medicine, a bridge, a road, and so forth. This

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is put very beautifully by Shantideva in his book on the Practice

of the Bodhisattva, Bodhicharyavatara where he prays that he

may become food for the hungry, medicine for the ill, and shel-

ter for the homeless. Thus, through skillful means born of great

compassion, the Buddha and Bodhisattvas appear in countless

unknown and unrecognizable forms, working for the emancipa-

tion of all sentient beings, each according to his or her individ-

ual needs and abilities.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Philosophy of the Middle Way

The philosophy of the Middle Way, or Madhyamaka philos-

ophy, has sometimes been called the central philosophy of

the Mahayana tradition. It has even been called the central phi-

losophy of Buddhism in general. This alone is sufficient to give

us some idea of its importance. The Madhyamaka philosophy

has also been called the doctrine of emptiness (shunyata) and the

doctrine of the non-self-existence, or insubstantiality, of things

(nihsvabhavavada).

The founder of this philosophy was the great holy man and

scholar, Nagarjuna, who lived between the end of the first and the

beginning of the second century of the common era. He was born

in the south of India, of Brahmin parents. Biographers, however,

tell us that he was an early convert to Buddhism. Nagarjuna was

an interpreter more than an innovator. He took certain inspira-

tions and insights from the sutras and the Abhidharma, reinter-

preting and restating them in a particularly clear and forthright

way. He is noted for his substantial literary works, which include

not only philosophical works, like the Foundation Stanzas of the

Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika) and the Seventy Stanzas

on Emptiness (Shunyatasaptati), but also works on logic, the prac-

tices of the Bodhisattva, fundamentals of Buddhism, and even

works of a devotional character, such as four works extolling the

virtues of qualities like the perfection of wisdom. Nagarjuna’s

efforts in promoting and propagating the central ideas of the

Mahayana won him widespread recognition as a Bodhisattva

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not only in India but also in Tibet, China, and Japan. He figures

prominently among the primary founders of the Tibetan, and

Ch’an, and Zen Buddhist traditions.

The works of Nagarjuna – and, indeed, the teaching of the

Madhyamaka philosophy – should not be seen as a radical depar-

ture from the general direction and development of Buddhist

thought as a whole. They had definite origins in the teachings

of the Buddha and in the early Buddhist tradition, particu-

larly the Abhidharma. In the Theravada canon, there is a record

of the Buddha’s statements about the importance of emptiness

(shunyata) and also a record of the famous ‘fourteen inexpress-

ibles,’ or unanswerable questions. In addition, we find a very clear

precursor of the Madhyamaka philosophy in the Perfection of

Wisdom literature, where the primary theme is emptiness. This

is the very theme elaborated by Nagarjuna in works like his

Mulamadhyamakakarika. In the Abhidharma Pitaka, in the Book

of Causal Relations (Patthana), too, we can see the anticipation of

the Madhyamaka philosophy in the emphasis on the examina-

tion of relations. All these are clear indications of the very early

and authentic origins of the Madhyamaka philosophy.

Just as the contents of the Madhyamaka philosophy are not

anything radically new, so the method of the Madhyamaka is not,

but can be found in the very earliest period of the Buddhist tra-

dition. The characteristic method of the Madhyamaka is analy-

sis – the analysis of phenomena and of relations. One might even

say that its characteristic method is not only analysis but also

critical dialectic. All this methodology – from analysis to crit-

icism and dialectic – is, like the substance of the Madhyamaka, indicated both in the Buddha’s own approach in his discourses,

187

the sutras, and in the approach of the Abhidharma tradition,

where we find the various alternatives isolated and methods of

answering questions elucidated. This should be sufficient to indi-

cate that the origins and methods of the Madhyamaka philoso-

phy go far back in the history of Buddhist thought.

As for Nagarjuna’s fundamental message in his philosophical

works, it is important first to realize the object toward which his

criticism is directed – namely, the notion of independent being,

or self-existence (svabhava). The fact that his doctrine has been

termed the doctrine of insubstantiality (nihsvabhavavada, liter-

ally, ‘the doctrine that refutes svabhava’) emphasizes Nagarjuna’s

characteristic rejection of the notion of self-existence.

Nagarjuna rejects self-existence by examining relativity, or

interdependent origination, in a critical, dialectic way, beginning

with the idea of self-existence, going on to the idea of relativity

or the absence of self-existence, and terminating with the idea

of emptiness (shunyata). These three steps – from self-existence

to non-self-existence, and finally to emptiness – are developed

through three types of investigation: (1) the investigation of cau-

sality, (2) the investigation of concepts, and (3) the investigation

of knowledge. Through the investigation of these three classes

of phenomena, Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka system take us

from the naive, everyday belief in the idea of self-existence, in

the independent reality of phenomena, to an intellectual under-

standing of emptiness.

Let us first look at the Madhyamaka critique of causality.

Madhyamaka philosophy arrives at the insubstantiality and rel-

ativity of all phenomena through an examination of interdepen-

dent origination. In this context it is shown that, insofar as all

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things exist dependent on a combination of causes and condi-

tions, they have no independent self-existence and are therefore

empty. The classical example is that of the sprout, which exists

dependent on the seed, earth, water, air, and sunlight. Inasmuch

as the sprout depends on these factors for its existence, it has no

self-existence and is therefore without self-existence. And being

without self-existence, it is empty. This is the simplest and most

direct Madhyamaka investigation of causality, and it leads us

straight to the notion of emptiness.

But for the Madhyamaka, emptiness also means non-

origination, non-production. In the Perfection of Wisdom liter-

ature, as we saw in the Heart Sutra, the idea of non-origination

and non-cessation occurs very frequently. Here, too, in the Mad-

hyamaka philosophy, emptiness means non-origination – the

non-arising in reality of all phenomena. Nagarjuna explains

this particular consequence of emptiness through the dialectic

method. Here we see again the fourfold dialectical analysis that

appeared in the fourteen inexpressible propositions which the

Buddha rejected.

There are four possibilities for the origination of phenom-

ena, or the relationship between cause and effect: (a) that the

cause and effect are identical, (b) that the cause and effect are

different, (c) that the cause and effect are both identical and

different, and (d) that phenomena arise without cause. These

four basic alternatives are indicated in the first verse of the

Mulamadhyamakakarika, which states that ‘No entity is pro-

duced at any time, anywhere, or in any manner from self, from

other, from both, or without cause.’ This is the fundamental

Madhyamaka critique of causality.

189

It is interesting to note that these four alternatives are ana-

lytically derived. Otherwise, one might wonder how it is that we

isolate only these four. The Madhyamaka isolates these four in

the following way: If phenomena do originate, they will orig-

inate either with a cause or without a cause. Here we already

have two fundamental alternatives: phenomena originate either

with or without a cause. The latter position is represented in

the fourth alternative, according to which phenomena originate

without a cause. Now, if we accept that phenomena do originate

with a cause, then the effect and the cause can either be identi-

cal or different. In this way, we isolate the first two of the four

alternatives: the identity of cause and effect, and the difference of

cause and effect. The third alternative – that the cause and effect

are both identical and different – is simply a combination of the

first two. In this way, we analytically arrive at the four alterna-

tives, each of which is, in turn, to be rejected.

Each of these four explanations of the nature of causality

was represented by a philosophical school contemporary with

the Madhyamaka. The position that maintains that cause and

effect are identical was advocated by the Sankhya system, one of

the classical systems of Indian philosophy. The position accord-

ing to which cause and effect are different was propounded by

the Hinayana schools of Buddhism, the Vaibhashikas and the

Sautrantikas, and by some of the Brahmanical schools. The posi-

tion according to which phenomena originate from causes that are

both identical and different was affirmed by the Jaina philosophers.

The last alternative, which holds that phenomena originate with-

out a cause, was affirmed by the materialists in ancient India.

The Madhyamaka refutes these four explanations of origina-

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tion by means of a very typical Madhyamaka method that has

drawn the attention of many scholars both in the East and the

West. This method is called the method of reductio ad absurdum,

and it is a kind of negative dialectic that exposes the inherent

contradictions and absurdities in the opponent’s position. Let

us try to illustrate how this method of argumentation works.

Take the first alternative, which affirms the identity of cause

and effect. The Madhyamaka says that, if in fact cause and effect

are identical, then having bought cottonseed with the price one

would pay for cloth, one ought to be able to clothe oneself with

it. The idea that cause and effect are identical thus leads to absur-

dity. If cause and effect are identical, then there would be no dif-

ference between father and son, and also no difference between

food and excrement.

In the case of the second alternative – that cause and effect

are different – anything could originate from anything else,

because all phenomena are equally different. Hence a stalk of

rice might just as easily originate from a piece of coal as from a

grain of rice, for there would be no connection between a stalk

of rice and a grain of rice, and a piece of coal and a grain of rice

would have the same relationship of difference to a stalk of rice.

Thus the notion that cause and effect are absolutely different is

an intrinsically absurd idea.

The third alternative – that cause and effect are both identical

and different – is no more acceptable, and suffers from two faults.

First, both the argument that refuted the identity of cause and

effect and the argument that refuted the difference of cause and

effect are applicable to the third alternative as well. The argu-

ment refuting the identity of cause and effect is applicable inso-

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far as cause and effect are identical, and the argument refuting

their difference is applicable insofar as cause and effect are dif-

ferent. We really have no new proposition in the case of the third

alternative. Second, the third alternative is faulty because of the

law of contradiction: no phenomenon can have contradictory

characteristics. An entity cannot be both existent and nonexis-

tent at once, just as one entity cannot be both red and not red at

the same time.

Finally, the fourth alternative – the idea that phenom-

ena originate without cause – is rejected by appeal to common

experience. For instance, if we set a kettle of water on a lighted

stove, the water will boil, but if we set it on a block of ice, it

won’t. Hence Madhyamaka philosophy concludes that causality

according to any one of these four alternatives – from self, from

other, from both, and without cause – is impossible. This is the

Madhyamaka critique of causality.

There is also a Madhyamaka critique of concepts – the con-

cepts of identity and difference, existence and nonexistence, and

so forth. All these concepts are relative; they are mutually con-

ditioning. Let us take the concepts of short and long. The ideas

of short and long are relative one to the other. We say that A

is shorter than B or that B is longer than C, so the concepts of

long and short are relative. If I put two fingers side by side, we

can say that one finger is longer than the other, but if I put out

a single finger, unrelated to anything else, we cannot say any-

thing about it being long or short. This is another kind of inter-

dependence. Just as we have material dependence in the origin

of a sprout that is dependent on a seed, the earth, sunlight, and

so on, here we have conceptual dependence, the dependence of

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one concept on another.

And just as short and long are dependent one upon another,

so identity and difference are dependent, or relative, to each

other. Identity only has meaning in relation to difference, and

difference only makes sense in relation to identity. The same is

true of existence and nonexistence. Without the idea of exis-

tence, nonexistence has no meaning, and without nonexistence,

existence has none. This is also true of the three divisions of

time – past, present, and future. Depending on the past, the

ideas of the present and future are conceived; depending on the

past and future, we speak about the present; and depending on

the present and the past, we speak about the future. The three

moments of time – like short and long, identity and difference,

and existence and nonexistence – are all concepts that are inter-

dependent, relative, and empty.

Finally, the analysis of relativity is applied to knowledge, or

to the means of acquiring knowledge. This is an important appli-

cation of the Madhyamaka critique because ordinarily we accept

the reality of phenomena on the basis of perception. For example,

we say that this cup which I have before me undoubtedly exists

because I perceive it – I can see and touch it. We have know-

ledge of things through the means of knowledge. Traditionally, in India, there were four means of knowledge: (i) perception, (ii) inference, (iii) testimony, and (iv) comparison.

For the sake of simplicity, let us take the case of percep-

tion. Suppose something is established by perception, that it

is through perception that we accept the existence of the cup:

What, then, is it that proves the existence (or truth) of the per-

ception itself (i.e., the means of knowledge itself)? One might

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say that perception is proved by itself. In that case it would not

require proof, but since when can something be accepted with-

out proof?

Alternatively, one might say that perception is established or

proved by other means of knowledge, but in that case we have

an infinite regress, as in the old story of the philosopher who,

when asked what the earth stood on, replied that it stood on a

great tortoise, and when asked what the great tortoise stood on, said that it stood on four great elephants, and so on and so forth.

Nowhere can we find a firm foundation for perception if percep-

tion is proved by other means of knowledge.

Finally, if perception is established by the object of percep-

tion, then perception and its object are mutually established

and interdependent. This is, in fact, the case: The subject and

object of perception are interdependent. They are mutually con-

ditioned. Perception is therefore in no position to prove the exis-

tence of its object, and that object is in no position to prove the

existence of perception, since they depend on each other. Thus

knowledge – like cause and effect and mutually related con-

cepts – is interdependent. It lacks self-existence, and is therefore

empty. Nagarjuna composed a very interesting text, called The

Turning Away of Objections (Vigrahavyavartani) which discusses

this point.

Let us now consider some of the more practical, therapeutic

applications of the Madhyamaka philosophy. The Madhyamaka

uses the critical and dialectical method to reject the notions of

cause and effect, mutually related concepts, and the subject

and object of knowledge because these notions are the prod-

ucts of imagination, or discriminating thought (vikalpa). The

194

Madhyamaka is concerned with dispelling these products of dis-

criminating thought because they are the causes of suffering. It is

as a result of discriminating the ideas of cause and effect, identity

and difference, existence and nonexistence, and so forth that we

are imprisoned in samsara. Discriminating thought, which has

its seed in the mind, is the fundamental cause of suffering.

Nagarjuna says that, just as a painter, having painted the pic-

ture of a fearful demon, is then terrified by that image, so igno-

rant people, through discriminating thought, produce the cycle

of the six realms of existence and then suffer as a consequence.

Hence mind, which is afflicted by ignorance through the func-

tion of discriminating thought, produces the world we know, or

samsara, where the concepts of causality, origination, cessation,

and the rest have a meaning. This is the origin of suffering. And

if samsara is the product of discriminating thought – if cause and

effect, identity and difference, and existence and nonexistence

are actually relative and empty – then there is no objective dif-

ference between samsara and nirvana.

What the renowned Mahayana and Madhyamaka doctrine

of the non-differentiation of samsara and nirvana means is that

the difference between samsara and nirvana is a subjective dif-

ference, a difference within one’s own mind. It is not a difference

in anything objective or real. Samsara and nirvana are the same

thing seen from two different points of view: from the point of

view of ignorance (of causality, identity and difference, existence

and nonexistence), reality appears as samsara; from the point of

view of insubstantiality, relativity, and emptiness, however, real-

ity appears as nirvana.

Thus samsara and nirvana do not depend on anything ‘out

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there’: they depend, rather, on the point of view. It is in this con-

text that the portrayal of nirvana emphasizes the fact that it is

beyond existence and nonexistence, beyond origination and ces-

sation, beyond all conceptions and expressions. Indeed, if nir-

vana is unconditioned, it must transcend these relative con-

cepts. The two points of view – that of discriminating thought

and ignorance, and that of insubstantiality, relativity, and emp-

tiness – are reflected in the doctrine of the two truths, conven-

tional and ultimate. The conventional truth is valid of this world

in which ignorance prevails, in which we operate by accept-

ing – and taking for granted – the ideas of cause and effect, iden-

tity and difference, existence and nonexistence, and the like. The

ultimate truth is valid of this world seen in the light of insub-

stantiality, relativity, and emptiness. Like samsara and nirvana,

the conventional truth and ultimate truth are not contradictory

but complementary. They refer to two points of view – the ordi-

nary, afflicted point of view obscured by ignorance, and the point

of view of the enlightened ones.

Nagarjuna said that without relying on the conventional

truth, the ultimate truth is not taught, and without arriving at

the ultimate truth, nirvana is not achieved. In these few words,

we can understand the complementary and necessary relation-

ship between the two truths. We must rely on the conventional

truth to communicate and function in the world, yet without

arriving at an understanding of ultimate reality, or emptiness,

nirvana is not gained. Hence we can see how groundless is the

charge of nihilism leveled against the Madhyamaka by some of

its opponents. Emptiness is not nothingness. The Madhyamaka

does not teach the absolute nonexistence of cause and effect, or

196

karma (wholesome and unwholesome actions with their conse-

quences). All these exist on the conventional level. They exist as

long as they are sustained by discriminating thought and igno-

rance. Without relying on the notion of cause and effect, or the

doctrine of karma, the ultimate is not taught; yet without tran-

scending causality, karma, concepts, and expressions, nirvana is

not achieved.

Nagarjuna asserts that interdependent origination, empti-

ness, and the Middle Way are identical in significance. Taken

from the point of view of ignorance, interdependent origination

explains, sustains, and is the very essence of samsara. But inter-

dependent origination is also emptiness, because everything that

exists dependent on something else does not really exist – it has

no independent being and does not exist by itself. Therefore, it

is empty. All that is interdependent origination is also empti-

ness. And interdependent origination which avoids the alter-

natives of identity and difference, existence and nonexistence,

eternalism and nihilism is also the Middle Way taught by the

Buddha. Hence the system founded by Nagarjuna and sustained

by his disciples and successors is known as the philosophy of the

Middle Way, or Madhyamaka.

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Philosophy of Mind Only

The Mind Only school and the Middle Way school are the

philosophical backbone of the Mahayana tradition. There

are several names by which the Mind Only school is known,

the three most popular being Chittamatra (school affirming

Mind Only), Vijnanavada (school affirming consciousness), and

Yogachara (school affirming the unity of meditation and action).

Yogachara refers to the union of the practice of meditation (yoga)

and conduct (achara). The Mind Only school arose as an inde-

pendent and identifiable philosophical tradition in the fourth

century c.e. Two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu, played a

central role in the formulation and popularization of the philos-

ophy of this school. They were born in Northwest India, in what

is now Pakistan. Through their writings and skill as teachers and

debaters, they popularized the Mind Only philosophy within a

relatively short time. Both started out as realistic pluralists, and

in addition to his many works on the Mind Only philosophy,

Vasubandhu is well known for his Abhidharmakosha, a collection

of Abhidharma philosophy written from the standpoint of the

Vaibhashika school.

These two great scholars were converted to Mahayana and

together produced a large number of works defining, catego-

rizing, and setting forth the Mind Only philosophy. Asanga is

famous for his Stages of the Bodhisattva Path (Bodhisattvabhumi),

Compendium of the Abhidharma (Abhidharmasamuchchaya), writ-

ten from the Mahayana or Mind Only viewpoint, and many com-

198

mentaries on major works of the Mind Only school. Vasubandhu

is renowned for his short treatises on Cognition Only and a trea-

tise explaining the three natures of the Mind Only philosophy.

Asanga’s commentaries to a number of important texts of the

Mind Only school are attributed by the Mahayana tradition to

Lord Maitreya. Although modern scholars have attempted to

identify Maitreya with a historical personality, the Mahayana

tradition has no doubt that Maitreya is the future Buddha, now

residing in Tushita Heaven. The major works of the Mind Only

school attributed to him include the Distinction of the Middle

from the Extremes (Madhyantavibhaga) and the Ornament of the

Mahayana (Mahayanasutralankara). They are said to have been

transmitted by Maitreya to Asanga, who wrote them down and

added commentaries. It is in this sense that a large portion of the

textual foundation of the Mind Only philosophy is attributed to

the future Buddha Maitreya.

Like the Middle Way philosophy, the Mind Only philos-

ophy has its origin in the earliest tradition of Buddhism. For

example, even according to the Theravada canon, the Buddha

declared that mind is the creator of all things and referred to

the luminous and pure nature of consciousness. The body of

Mahayana sutras includes many discourses, like the Lankavatara

Sutra, that deal at some length with the fundamental principles

of the Mind Only philosophy. A long and weighty textual tra-

dition thus precedes the emergence of the Mind Only tradition

as an independent philosophical school.

In addition to these textual anticipations in the canons of the

Hinayana and Mahayana traditions, we find conceptual ante-

cedents of the Mind Only philosophy in the course of the devel-

199

opment of Buddhist thought. We all know that mind has been

extremely important in Buddhism from the beginning. We need

only remember the Buddha’s affirmation of the creative role of the

mind to realize what a central place mind has in Buddhist thought,

or look at the thirty-seven factors conducive to enlightenment to

be struck by how many of them have to do with the mind.

The central importance of mind continued in the Vaibhashika

and Sautrantika schools, two realistic and pluralistic schools

that flourished prior to the emergence of the Middle Way and

Mind Only schools. The Vaibhashika took its name from com-

mentaries composed during the Fourth Buddhist Council, in

the first century c.e. It is perhaps the most atomistic, realistic,

and pluralistic of the Indian schools, and is even more plural-

istic and realistic than the Theravada school of Sri Lanka. The

Vaibhashikas advocated the doctrine of the two natures of fac-

tors (dharmas) – the phenomenal nature and the eternal nature.

This eternal nature has sometimes been likened to Plato’s doc-

trine of ideas in Greek philosophy.

The Sautrantika takes its name from the fact that it wanted

to return to the original teachings of the Buddha contained in

the sutras. This is the school that rejected the authenticity of the

Abhidharma. The Sautrantikas are interesting philosophically

because they emphasized the role of conceptualization, or dis-

crimination (vikalpa). They rejected the independent, objective

reality of many of the factors the Vaibhashikas accepted, ascrib-

ing these dharmas to the functioning of discrimination or imag-

ination. This goes some way toward the standpoint of the Mind

Only school, which eventually denied the objective reality of all

objects and affirmed the sole reality of mind.

200

In addition, the Sautrantikas formulated a very interesting

theory of perception. They believed that we never really know

external objects directly and that what we perceive – what we

take to be an external object (for example, the cup in front of

me) – is a mental reflection or representation of that object, so

that the process of perception is the process of perceiving men-

tal reflections of external objects. The Sautrantikas claimed that

these mental representations are the effects of external objects.

Consequently, they held that we know of the existence of exter-

nal objects by inference. The mental images or reflections of an

external object are evidence of that object’s existence, although

we cannot know it directly.

This theory is very similar to John Locke’s representative

theory of perception. What I find important about this view is

that if it is accepted, it leaves the status of the external world in

a very precarious position, since we would never know objects in

themselves but only the objectified contents of our consciousness.

By thus emphasizing the role of conceptualization or imagina-

tion, this philosophical development of the Sautrantikas antic-

ipates the full-fledged mentalist philosophy of the Mind Only

school, which claims that the apparently real objects of the world

are none other than mind.

There are a number of lines along which the Mind Only

philosophy developed its doctrine of the primacy of conscious-

ness. Its adherents were convinced that objects depend on mind

for their nature and being. First, the school put forward the

view that a single object appears differently to different sentient

beings. This argument is worked out with respect to the six

realms of existence. For example, a cup of milk appears to us as

201

milk, but it would appear as nectar to the gods, as molten iron

to hell beings, and as pus or blood to hungry ghosts. A single

object appears differently to different beings in samsara accord-

ing to their respective karma. In other words, an object appears

in different forms according to the conditioned, subjective state

of the mind. We can see this even without reference to the six

realms. For example, a woman may appear as an object of sexual

attraction to a man, a heap of meat to a wolf, and a skeleton to

an Arhat. This is the first argument the Mind Only school used

in support of its subjectivist view of experience.

Second, the Mind Only school made extensive use of the

analogy of dreaming, arguing that in dreams the mind creates

and projects a world which, for all intents and purposes, it expe-

riences as real as long as the dream state prevails. If we look at

Vasubandhu’s Twenty Verses on Cognition Only we can see how he

rejects several objections to this argument by analogy. For exam-

ple, opponents of this view said that dream experience is not

collective the way waking experience is, to which Vasubandhu

countered that we do experience events in common with the

other figures in a given dream. Opponents also said that dream

experience is not effective and does not have the power to bring

about real effects, yet Vasubandhu showed, by using the exam-

ple of nocturnal emission, that this is not so. In short, if we look

closely at dream experience, we will be forced to admit that, as

long as we are in a dream state, there are no reasonable grounds

on which we can distinguish it from waking experience.

It is interesting to note that this analogy has received some

support in recent years from the evidence of experiments in the

field of sensory deprivation. These experiments place volun-

202

teers in situations where they are cut off from all sensory stim-

uli; some subjects then begin to create, out of their own minds,

an entire three-dimensional universe. It would follow that the

Mind Only argument developed on the analogy of dream expe-

rience has a certain amount of cogency.

Third, the Mind Only school rejected the independent exis-

tence of objects by exposing the infinite divisibility of mat-

ter. This is another early conceptual conclusion reached by the

Buddhist tradition that has recently been confirmed by scien-

tific discoveries. Mind Only philosophers argued that the notion

of an atom – an irreducible unit of matter – is impossible. They

argued this on the grounds of the necessity of the combination

or collection of atoms in order to produce a mass, an extended

material object.

The atom was thought to be unitary and indivisible, and

was therefore held to be without parts, yet it was thought that

objects (like a cup or a table) are collections of atoms that form

extended objects. Objects acquire mass through the collecting

together of countless atoms in an assembly. If atoms are indi-

visible and without parts, then it will be impossible for them to

assemble together. However, if atoms assemble, as they must, to

form extended material objects, then each atom must have at

least six distinguishable parts: an upper part, a lower part, and

an eastern, southern, western, and northern part.

By means of this argument, Vasubandhu and other Mind

Only philosophers established the concept of the infinite divis-

ibility of the atom. This conclusion has been verified by mod-

ern physics, so once again we have an early analytical conception

that has been confirmed experimentally by discoveries of mod-

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ern science. The atom as well as its components have been shown

to be reducible to even smaller components, and we have finally

arrived at a point in time when there is precious little evidence

of any ultimate element of matter.

Through these arguments rejecting the existence of mate-

rial objects, Mind Only philosophers established the relativity

of subject and object, the identity of the objects of consciousness

with consciousness itself. They revealed what we might call the

nonduality of the subject and object of consciousness – of con-

sciousness and its contents.

I want now to touch upon a conception which appears in the

Lankavatara Sutra and to which Vasubandhu devoted one of his

more famous works, the Exposition of the Three Natures. This

is a doctrine very important to Mind Only philosophy, namely,

the doctrine of the three natures, or levels, of reality: (1) the illu-

sory or imputed nature (parikalpita), (2) the dependent or rela-

tive nature (paratantra), and (3) the perfected or accomplished

nature (parinishpanna).

These three natures may be likened respectively to (a) the

mistaken belief that water exists in a mirage; (b) the appearance

itself of the mirage, dependent on atmospheric causes and con-

ditions; and (c) the empty nature of the mirage, inasmuch as it

is conditioned, relative, and dependent on causes and conditions.

The belief that water exists in the mirage is utterly false and

is similar to the illusory nature. The simple appearance of the

mirage relative to causes and conditions is similar to the depen-

dent nature. The empty character of the mirage, inasmuch as it is

dependent and conditioned, is similar to the perfected nature.

It is necessary to draw particular attention to the second of

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the three natures, the dependent nature, because it is this nature

that is central in the Mind Only philosophy, insofar as it is con-

cerned with liberation and emancipation. The dependent nature

is identical with mind, and particularly with the storehouse

consciousness, which we discussed in our consideration of the

Lankavatara Sutra (see Chapter 17). What this means is that in

this dependent nature we have, on the one hand, the potential

to produce the illusory prison of samsara and, on the other, the

potential for the liberation of nirvana.

I have said that the storehouse consciousness was termed by

the Tibetans ‘the all-base consciousness,’ and that in that sense

it is the root of samsara and nirvana. Here, too, we can see, on

the one hand, how the dependent nature, if it is objectified by

discrimination of an external object, results in the fabrication by

mind of an external world, which is samsara. If the mind dis-

criminates an external object – bifurcates this dependent nature

into subject and object – then we have the creation of the illu-

sory nature, that is to say, the imposition of false ideas (such as

the idea of the existence of water in a mirage, or of the self and

other): in a word, we have samsara.

On the other hand, if this dependent nature, which is iden-

tical with the storehouse consciousness, is purified of discrimi-

nating thought and the emptiness of subject and object is real-

ized, then the storehouse consciousness results in the perfected

nature; it results in freedom. The dependent nature is therefore

the central nature of the three. If played upon by discrimination,

it becomes illusion, samsara; if played upon by the knowledge of

the abandonment of duality, it becomes nirvana.

It is interesting to note that this dependent nature is also

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the source of the phenomenalizing activity of the enlightened

beings. In other words, the dependent nature, or storehouse con-

sciousness, supplies the potential for the emanation of all forms,

the forms of the terrestrial dimension and those of the celes-

tial dimension – the heavenly Bodhisattvas like Manjushri and

Avalokiteshvara, who work for the enlightenment of all sentient

beings.

You will recall that, in the example of the mirage, it is the

notion of the existence of water that belongs to the illusory

nature; the mere appearance of the mirage as a pure, conditioned

phenomenon belongs to the dependent nature. We might inter-

pret this in terms of experience – that is, the experience of subject

and object as different. The notion that an external object exists

independent of consciousness, or mind, belongs to the realm of

the illusory nature, whereas the appearance of phenomena with-

out the mistaken notions of their objectivity and independence

belongs to the dependent nature.

This dependent nature is thus intrinsically pure and can

function in an altruistic way for the liberation of others. It is in

this sense that the three natures in the Mind Only system cor-

respond to the three dimensions of Buddhahood: the illusory

nature corresponds to the terrestrial dimension, the dependent

nature to the celestial dimension, and the perfected nature to

the transcendental dimension. Therefore, when Buddhas appear

as objective historical personalities, this is the appearance of the

dependent nature – in the guise of subject-object duality – in the

sphere of the illusory nature. When Buddhas appear free from

the duality of subject and object, in the ideal form of celestial

Bodhisattvas like Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara, this is an

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appearance of the celestial dimension, of the dependent nature

free from the illusion of subject-object duality.

I would like to conclude by underlining what I believe to be

the very close correspondence between the philosophies of Mind

Only and the Middle Way. You will recall that we have the con-

ceptions of samsara and nirvana in the Middle Way philosophy,

just as we do in the whole of Buddhist thought. In addition, we

have two pedagogical concepts – those of conventional truth and

ultimate truth, which refer respectively to samsara and nirvana.

What is it in the philosophy of the Middle Way that medi-

ates between conventional truth and ultimate truth, between

samsara and nirvana? How is it that eventually we have an iden-

tity, or non-differentiation, of samsara and nirvana professed in

the Middle Way school? If we look at the Middle Way philoso-

phy, we find that interdependent origination is the principle that

unites conventional and ultimate truth, samsara and nirvana. In

the Mulamadhyamakakarika, Nagarjuna says that if we take

interdependent origination as the relationship between cause

and effect, we have samsara, but if we take interdependent orig-

ination as non-causal – as emptiness – we have nirvana. The link

between cause and effect, between karma and its consequences,

is conceptualization or imagination. Nagarjuna says clearly that

imagination is responsible for the connection between cause and

effect. This, in general, is the scheme we find in the Middle Way

school.

When we look at the Mind Only philosophy, we see that it

runs parallel to that of the Middle Way. The conventional truth

in the Middle Way philosophy is similar to the illusory nature

of Mind Only philosophy, and in both systems this corresponds

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to cause and effect, to samsara. The ultimate truth in the Middle

Way philosophy is similar to the perfected nature in the Mind

Only philosophy, and in both systems this corresponds to emp-

tiness, nonduality, non-origination, and nirvana. What in the

Middle Way school is interdependent origination – the link

between samsara and nirvana – is the dependent nature in the

Mind Only school.

Mind is of the utmost importance to both interdependent

origination and the dependent nature. Mind is the essence of

both. In both systems we have the conventional, samsaric, illu-

sory reality on the one hand, and the ultimate, nirvanic, per-

fected reality on the other; mediating between the two is the

principle of relativity, the principle of dependence, which is of

the essence of mind. In Chapter 20 we will further explore the

parallelism between the Middle Way philosophy and the Mind

Only philosophy. We will then try to apply the combined vision

of these philosophies to the practice of the Mahayana path.

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CHAPTER T WENTY

The Development of Mahayana Philosophy

In this chapter I would like to consider the further development

of Mahayana philosophy in India, the relationship between

the Middle Way philosophy and the Mind Only philosophy, and

how these two influence the religious and practical traditions

of Buddhism. We have discussed the Middle Way and Mind

Only philosophies in Chapter 18 and Chapter 19, but have merely

sketched the outlines of Mahayana philosophy. The philosophy

of the Middle Way, as presented by Nagarjuna, and that of Mind

Only, as presented by Asanga and Vasubandhu, are the twofold

basis of the Mahayana tradition, forming its general foundation

as it evolved during the first four centuries of the common era.

This period was followed by another eight hundred years

of philosophical development of the Mahayana tradition in

India, not to mention its continuing development in the other

countries of Asia to which Buddhism traveled – China, Korea,

Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia. To gain a comprehensive picture

of this development in India, I would like to trace the interac-

tion between the Middle Way and Mind Only schools from the

fourth century c.e. to the end of the first millennium.

Let us look first at what took place in the Middle Way

school. The principles set forth by Nagarjuna were elaborated by

his disciples and successors, beginning with Aryadeva. Whereas

Nagarjuna’s primary concern had been to establish the authen-

ticity of the philosophy of emptiness in opposition to the earlier

schools of Buddhist philosophy, Aryadeva’s was to demonstrate

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that the philosophy of emptiness was equally valid in the case

of the non-Buddhist Brahmanical and Vedantic schools. The

works of Nagarjuna and Aryadeva fall within the formative and

fundamental period of the philosophy of the Middle Way. The

period after Nagarjuna saw the emergence of two Middle Way

sub-schools, the Prasangika and the Svatantrika. The division

between these two schools is based on how they present the phi-

losophy of emptiness. When we discussed the philosophy of emptiness in Chapter 18,

we spoke about a characteristic method of argument, the reduc-

tio ad absurdum, that Middle Way philosophers used to reject

the positions advanced by their opponents. In Sanskrit this form

of argument is called prasanga, and it was from this term that

the Prasangika school took its name. Arguments ad absurdum

are designed to expose contradictions and absurdities in oppo-

nents’ positions. For example, the theory of self-production (i.e.,

that entities originate from existent things) was advocated by a

rival of the Prasangikas, the Sankhya philosophical school. Self-

production can be refuted by the argument that if entities origi-

nated from themselves, then they would go on originating indef-

initely and we would have an endless series of reproductions of

the same existing entities. In other words, there would be noth-

ing new under the sun. The prasanga argument is that entities

do not originate from themselves because they already exist, and

the origination of something that already exists is plainly absurd.

Besides, if existent entities do originate, then they will go on

reproducing themselves ad infinitum.

Alternatively, one might reject the Sankhya theory of self-

production by means of a syllogism. This form of argument is

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called an independent (svatantra) argument, and it is from this

term that the Svatantrika school got its name. One might illus-

trate this method of argument by saying, ‘Entities do not origi-

nate from themselves.’ This would be the proposition, the first so-

called member of an independent argument. Then one might say, ‘This is because they exist,’ which would be the second member,

the reason of the syllogism. Next, one might say, ‘They exist like

a jar does,’ which would be the example, and the third and final

member. By means of these three members of a syllogism, one

might demonstrate the impossibility of origination from self – the

same objective demonstrated by an argument ad absurdum.

We have, therefore, two forms of argument, a reduction and

a syllogism conforming to the rules of formal logic. Buddhapalita

and Chandrakirti are famous for their expositions championing

the reductio ad absurdum, while Bhavaviveka is famous for cham-

pioning syllogistic, independent argument. Both the Prasangika

and the Svatantrika school enjoyed considerable popularity in

India. The strength of the Svatantrika school reflected an increas-

ing concern with conforming to accepted standards of logic. It

was common for rival Indian philosophical schools to engage

in public debates, which tended to require arguments that met

accepted standards of validity. This led gradually to more formal

requirements of discussion and influenced the philosophical argu-

ments of the Middle Way school, contributing to the popularity

of the Svatantrika sub-school, which favored the use of indepen-

dent argument. This trend even led the Prasangika sub-school to

gradually refine and formalize its argument ad absurdum, so that

within the course of a few hundred years, a much more formal

presentation of the philosophy of emptiness emerged.

211

Just as this was taking place within the Middle Way

school, developments were also occurring within the Mind

Only school. The next significant Mind Only philosophers in

India were the fifth century Buddhist logicians Dinnaga and

Dharmakirti, who also played a significant role in the devel-

opment of the Mind Only philosophy. They rejected the exis-

tence of the objects of consciousness – of forms, sounds, and so

forth – present in experience, and are therefore known as the

philosophers who reject the representations of consciousness.

Whereas both Asanga and Vasubandhu affirmed the existence

of the objects of consciousness, insofar as these participate in

the reality of mind, Dinnaga and Dharmakirti maintained that,

although the reality of consciousness is indubitable, the reality

of the forms, or objects, of consciousness is not.

In about the eighth century c.e., there arose in India a figure

of note, a scholar who made a very important contribution to the

integration of these different tendencies within Mahayana phi-

losophy. His name was Shantarakshita. In addition to the fame

he won as a result of his philosophical and literary production,

Shantarakshita was the first to introduce systematic Buddhist

thought to Tibet. He formulated what we now call the syncretic

or synthetic philosophy that unites in a systematic way the phi-

losophy of emptiness and the philosophy of Mind Only.

We have discussed the importance of mind in the thought of

the Middle Way school, and also the parallelism between con-

ventional truth and ultimate truth on the one hand and the illu-

sory and perfected natures on the other. We indicated the par-

allel status of mind, interdependence, and the dependent nature

in the Middle Way and Mind Only schools (see Chapter 19).

212

What we have in the thought of Shantarakshita is a systematic

integration of the major tenets of the Middle Way and the Mind

Only schools, so that emptiness is acknowledged to be consistent

with ultimate truth and the perfected nature, while the creative

nature of consciousness is acknowledged to be consistent with

the conventional truth and the illusory nature.

In addition to the reconciliation and stratification of the

principle tenets of these two schools, Shantarakshita’s philosophy

integrates the elements of logical argument and treats system-

atically the role of mind in the origination and cessation of suf-

fering. In his syncretic philosophy we have what we might term

the apex of the development of Mahayana philosophy in India,

in that Shantarakshita correlated and synthesized, in one coher-

ent philosophical system, the principal insights of outstanding

Mahayana masters like Nagarjuna, Asanga, and Vasubandhu.

The synthesis of the tenets of emptiness and Mind Only had

a direct and determining impact on the two major traditions

that grew out of Mahayana philosophy: (1) the Vajrayana, which

held sway in Tibet and Mongolia, and (2) the Ch’an Zen tra-

dition, which was predominant in China and Japan. Although

these two traditions of practice differ markedly in the forms of

their religious expression, both rely very heavily on the tenets of

emptiness and Mind Only for their function and effectiveness.

In the Vajrayana, it is the philosophy of emptiness which

supplies the openness and fluidity that allows for the transfor-

mation of phenomena from an impure condition to a pure con-

dition. If entities had an independent and unchanging nature

and were therefore not empty, it would be impossible to trans-

form impure experience saturated by suffering into pure expe-

213

rience suffused by great bliss. While emptiness supplies the

ground upon which this transformation can take place, mind

supplies the effective means of achieving that transformation,

because it is the mind that shapes and determines the nature of

our experience. By controlling, disciplining, and manipulating

the mind, we can change our experience from an impure expe-

rience to a pure experience. In the theory and practice of the

Vajrayana tradition, emptiness and mind are indispensable – both

because, without emptiness, transformation of things would be

impossible, and because it is mind that is the key to and means

of achieving that transformation.

In the Ch’an and Zen tradition, it is emptiness that is

descriptive of the real state of things. It is the realization of

emptiness that brings about the transcendence of duality and the

attainment of enlightenment. And how is this emptiness real-

ized in this tradition? By looking at the mind – by meditating

on the nature of mind itself. Here, as in the Vajrayana, empti-

ness and mind perform similar functions and are indispensable.

Emptiness is the ground of transformation, while mind accom-

plishes that transformation.

Thus it is not coincidental that both the Vajrayana and the

Ch’an and Zen traditions look to these fundamental ideas of the

Indian Mahayana for their inspiration. Nagarjuna and Asanga

are traditionally regarded as the founders of the Vajrayana tra-

dition; Nagarjuna is also one of the early patriarchs of the Ch’an

and Zen tradition. Bodhidharma, who introduced Ch’an to

China, is said to have favored the Lankavatara Sutra above all

other texts. In this way, the Middle Way and Mind Only schools

played an important role in the development of the principal tra-

214

ditions of Mahayana practice throughout Asia.

Let us spend some time looking at the method of investigation

that was developed in India in line with the insights of the Middle

Way and Mind Only schools. The fundamental division of experi-

ence into subject (nama) and object (rupa), found in the scheme of

the five aggregates and in many of the analytical schemes of the

Abhidharma, is also present in the Mahayana context. We can

see the investigation of reality unfolding in this binary way with

respect first to the object and then to the subject.

In investigating the object and the subject, two methods

are used that we have encountered in other Buddhist traditions

also – namely, the analytical method and the relational method

(see Chapter 16). Beginning with the object, we find first an

analytical investigation of the object applied. This means, in the

Mahayana context, a consideration of the infinite divisibility of

the object. We have discussed the importance of the infinite

divisibility of matter in the formulation of Mind Only philoso-

phy (see Chapter 19). Here, too, we begin with the investigation

and revelation of matter’s infinite divisibility.

This analytical investigation of the object is followed by a

relational investigation of the object, which reveals that the

object depends on the subject – that is, on consciousness. In this

way, we arrive at the rejection of the notion of an independent

object both analytically and relationally.

We then proceed to analytical and relational investigation

of the subject, the mind itself. When we investigate mind ana-

lytically, we do so in terms of its characteristics. The paradigm

for this is in the Perfection of Wisdom literature, which says,

‘Examine the mind: Is it long or short? Is it round or square? Is

215

it white, blue, or otherwise?’ Such an analytical investigation

reveals that the mind is inherently unidentifiable.

This analytical investigation of the subject is followed by a

relational investigation, which reveals that the subject (mind)

is relationally dependent on the object. Shantideva, one of the

renowned masters of the Middle Way school said that, with-

out an object, consciousness is unintelligible, incomprehensible.

Consciousness must have an object in order to function, in order

to exist. Consciousness independent of an object is impossible. Explanations of the truth of this statement date back a long way.

For example, in the Abhidharma literature, it is said that con-

sciousness arises dependent on an object.

The analytical and relational investigations of object and sub-

ject lead to an understanding of reality as ineffable – as beyond

existence and nonexistence, as empty and luminous. In the

Mahayana tradition, this is the ultimate realization: Reality can-

not be described in terms of existence and nonexistence. It is empty,

luminous, and pure. Reality is beyond existence because all exis-

tence is relative and dependent. It is beyond nonexistence because,

despite its emptiness and transience, reality does appear and is

experienced. Therefore, reality is not altogether nonexistent.

You may recall our use of the word ‘pure’ as a synonym of

empty. Here we have another word used, ‘luminous.’ You need

not be confused by this. It is simply a restatement of that equiv-

alence set forth in the Heart Sutra’s assertion that ‘Emptiness is

form, and form is emptiness.’ Reality is not only empty: it is also

form; it is also luminous, bright with the potential for appear-

ance. This luminosity – this potential inherent in the real state of

things – manifests itself to the impure, afflicted consciousness as

216

samsara, but it manifests itself to the purified consciousness as

the pure universe of the exalted Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It is

within the context of this luminosity, this potential appearance

of reality, that we have the manifestation of the celestial Buddhas

and Bodhisattvas like Amitabha, Akshobhya, Avalokiteshvara,

Manjushri, and the rest. They are luminous, pure, and the bright

manifestation of reality – that reality which is simultaneously

emptiness and luminosity, emptiness and purity. Emptiness and

luminosity are the characteristics of reality that emerge from the

Mahayanic investigation of the subject and object of experience.

Let me conclude by describing a practical mode of contem-

plation which reflects this progressive insight that eventually

reveals the ineffable character of the real. This contemplative

technique of meditation unfolds through four stages.

The first stage involves contemplation of the mind-depen-

dent nature of all experience. On this stage we are asked to

regard all experience as similar to a dream. This is reinforced by

recourse to examples that illustrate the mind-dependent nature

of experience: not only the experience of dreaming, which is per-

haps the most telling but also that of illness, when one perceives

a white conch as yellow because of jaundice, and the experience

of altered perception as a result of the ingestion of hallucino-

genic substances.

On the second stage we contemplate all experience being

like a magical show. Like dreaming, this example has an

old and venerable history in Buddhist literature, both in the

Perfection of Wisdom discourses and in the writings of the

Middle Way and Mind Only traditions. Here the example of

a magical illusion is used as a paradigm for experience: When

217

the apparatus needed to produce a magical illusion is present,

the magical illusion appears, but when the apparatus is absent, the

magical illusion does not. In the same way, entities appear only

when the right causes and conditions are present, and fail to

appear when the right causes and conditions are absent.

We might feel that this example of magical illusion is no

longer relevant today, but this is not the case if we understand

magical illusion in a broader sense. Some of you may be famil-

iar with holography – the projection of a laser beam so as to pro-

duce a three-dimensional image of an object. The image does

not really exist; if we reach out for that object – an apple, let us

say – it is not there. When the holographic apparatus is present,

the illusion of the three-dimensional object appears, but when

it is absent, the illusion does not. Like a magical illusion and a

holographic image, all experiences appear relative to the pres-

ence of certain causes and conditions, and do not appear when

the right causes and conditions are not present.

On the third stage, we are encouraged to contemplate all

experience as relative, as interdependent. This follows very closely

from the consideration of all experience as similar to a magical

illusion. All experience appears relative to causes and conditions.

The sprout exists relative to the seed, earth, water, sunlight, and

air. The flame in an oil lamp exists relative to the wick and the

oil. In this way all phenomena appear relative to causes and con-

ditions, and all experience is interdependent.

The fourth stage in the process of progressive realization of

the ultimate nature of things is contemplation of the inexpress-

ibility of experience. The interdependence of experience means

that experience is inexpressible in terms of existence and nonex-

218

istence, identity and difference, and so forth. Entities and their

causes can be said to be neither identical nor different. For exam-

ple, whether the sprout and the seed are identical or different is

inexpressible: they cannot be described in terms of either iden-

tity or difference. Experience in general is intrinsically inde-

scribable, like the sensation of being tickled or the feeling that

ensues as a consequence of sexual intercourse. Similarly, all enti-

ties that exist dependent on causes and conditions are inexpress-

ible in terms of absolute existence and nonexistence. Hence this

last stage involves the contemplation of all things as inexpress-

ible and ineffable.

By means of this four-stage process of contemplating all

experience as mind-dependent – like a dream, like a magical illu-

sion, interdependent, and, finally, inexpressible – we can arrive

at some understanding of the Mahayana view of reality. For the

Mahayana tradition, reality is empty, luminous, and beyond

existence and nonexistence, identity and difference, and all the

other dichotomies of discriminating thought.

219

CHAPTER T WENTY-ONE

Mahayana Buddhism in Practice

We have looked at the origins of the Mahayana tradition

and at three representative sutras that belong to the for-

mative period of its canonical literature. We have also looked at

the development of Mahayana exegetical thought, at the doc-

trine of emptiness, at the central importance of mind in the

Buddhist tradition, and, in so doing, at the philosophies of the

Middle Way and Mind Only schools. Finally, we have dis-

cussed the subsequent syncretic development of Mahayana phi-

losophy. Having done all this, it is important to devote some

time to the practice of the Mahayana path. The Mahayana is

not only a highly developed and profound philosophy and psy-

chology, it is also an accessible, dynamic vehicle for the achieve-

ment of Buddhahood. Although religious and philosophical

developments may be its backbone, the Mahayana is also a very

attractive and vibrant path to many people in different cultures

throughout Asia and in parts of the Western world. It is said that

the Mahayana path begins with the awakening of the enlight-

enment thought (bodhichitta). But even before the awakening of

bodhichitta, there are certain important preliminaries that need

to be cultivated if one is to embark on the path to Buddhahood.

As we examine briefly these preliminary practices, it will become

clear that the Mahayana is not a path different from or indepen-

dent of the Buddhist path as a whole. Rather, it is an enhance-

ment of the Buddhist path in general.

The first of the preliminary practices is the cultivation of

220

faith, or confidence. Like a seed, faith is said to precede all

things. Faith is like a treasure because one can call on it when

in need; it is also said to be like hands and feet because it is a

means of getting what one wants. Hence the cultivation of faith

is the beginning of the Mahayana path. In this context, we can

divide faith into three levels: (1) clear faith, which consists of a

clear appreciation of the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, and

Sangha; (2) aspiring faith, which means that, having devel-

oped a clear appreciation of the qualities of the Triple Gem, one

aspires to achieve these qualities for oneself; and (3) confident

faith, which means that, once clear faith and aspiring faith have

been firmly established, one’s faith gradually becomes unshak-

able. Through these three levels of faith – from appreciation to

aspiration to confident certainty – one’s faith is developed to a

point where its progress and effects are irreversible.

The cultivation of faith is combined with the taking of ref-

uge. The path to enlightenment and Buddhahood is a long

one, on which the obstacles are many and our own deficien-

cies numerous, so it is necessary to have a support, a stabiliz-

ing influence. This support is provided by the practice of taking

refuge. Through the act of taking refuge, we acquire a guide, a

path, and a community, all of which contribute to our progress

on the path.

The cultivation of faith and taking of refuge are followed by

contemplation of the precious nature of the human form, that

is, of the rare circumstances of human birth and opportunity

to practice the Dharma. Nagarjuna said that one who uses a

jewel-adorned golden vessel for vomit and spittle is surely fool-

ish; similarly foolish is one who uses the precious human form

221

for the practice of unwholesome acts. If we consider the causes

of human birth, the rarity of human birth, and the difficulty of

securing a situation in which we are able to practice the Dharma,

then surely, having secured all the opportune conditions, we

must practice the Dharma quickly. To motivate ourselves to do

so, and to take up all the practices that will eventually culminate

in the attainment of Buddhahood, we contemplate the rarity and

precious nature of the human form and of conditions conducive

to practice of the Dharma.

This contemplation is followed by meditation on death and

impermanence. This meditation is an incentive to practice; it is

also a key to understanding the ultimate truth. Just as the culti-

vation of faith and the taking of refuge complement each other,

so contemplation of the precious nature of the human form and

meditation on death and impermanence are complementary.

These contemplations are followed by careful consideration

of the truth of the universality of suffering in the six realms, accompanied by contemplation of the law of karma.

The preliminary practices are meant to transform one’s atti-

tudes to such an extent that one is ready to begin practicing the

Mahayana path. The result of the preliminary practices is two-

fold: (1) enthusiasm for an elevated and exalted goal, the goal of

Buddhahood; and (2) disengagement from, or renunciation of, all

attachment to the things of this life and to the cycle of samsara

as a whole. At this point, as Shantideva said in his Introduction

to the Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicharyavatara), one is ready

to expel attachment to the world the same way one would cough

up spittle.

The Mahayana path only begins when disengagement from

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the world has been achieved with conviction. This is why it is a

mistake to regard the Mahayana as intrinsically more worldly

than, say, the Theravada path. When renunciation has thus been

achieved, we come to the beginning of the path per se, which

is the awakening of the enlightenment thought praised by all

Mahayana masters. In a way, as we shall see, this awakening of

bodhichitta is also the end of the Mahayana path.

The enlightenment thought is awakened through cultivation

of great love and great compassion. Great love and great compas-

sion are the altruistic wish that all sentient beings be happy and

free from suffering. Love and compassion follow upon under-

standing the equality of all sentient beings. This awareness of the

sameness of all that lives is the great universality of the Mahayana

tradition and of Buddhism as a whole. Each and every living

being is alike in wanting happiness and fearing suffering.

This awareness of the equality of all living beings is not only

the foundation of Buddhist morality, it is also the foundation of

great love and great compassion and of bodhichitta, the resolve to

attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all living beings. We culti-

vate great love and great compassion by contemplating the same-

ness of all sentient beings. We amplify and extend this feeling of

love and compassion by considering the relationships that bind

us to all that lives.

In this context, we should remember that at one time or

another all sentient beings have been kind mothers to us. If we

remember the kindness of our own mothers, then we must also

remember the debt we owe them. Just as it would not be right

to allow your mother to continue to suffer, so it is not right that

all sentient beings, who have at some time or another been kind

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mothers to you, should continue to suffer in samsara. It is in

this sense that the wish for all to be happy and free from suf-

fering implies the wish to attain Buddhahood – because, despite

our cultivation of the wish that all beings become happy and

free from suffering, we are at present unable to do anything for

them.

No one other than a fully enlightened Buddha can secure

the goal of ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering for

all beings. No matter how much we may try to do so, no matter

how much great love and compassion we feel for living beings,

unless and until we ourselves have achieved supreme and per-

fect enlightenment, we will not be able to secure the real hap-

piness of living beings. Recognition of the sameness of all liv-

ing beings; recognition of the debt we owe all living beings who

have at one time or another been our kind mothers; the conse-

quent wish for all to be happy and free from suffering; and rec-

ognition of our present inability to do anything to achieve this

goal – all these culminate in the awakening of the enlightenment

thought, namely, the determination to attain Buddhahood for

the sake of all living beings.

It is this moment of enlightenment consciousness which

transforms a miserable wretch living in a prison into a son or

daughter of the Buddha. This bodhichitta, or consciousness of

enlightenment, is divided into two categories: (1) the relative,

or conventional, enlightenment thought, and (2) the ultimate

enlightenment consciousness. The conventional enlightenment

thought is the determination or resolve to attain Buddhahood

for the benefit of all living beings. In the conventional enlighten-

ment thought, we still perceive the dualities of subject and object,

224

samsara and nirvana, ignorance and enlightenment. Because the

resolve to attain Buddhahood is based on these dualistic con-

ceptions, it is called ‘conventional.’ The ultimate enlightenment

consciousness, which we can metaphorically term ‘the Buddha

mind,’ is a state in which dualities no longer have any meaning.

Let us look a little more closely at the conventional enlight-

enment thought and at the means of transforming it into the ulti-

mate enlightenment consciousness. The conventional enlighten-

ment thought is itself divided into two categories: (a) the aspir-

ing enlightenment thought, and (b) the applied enlightenment

thought. The former is the mere wish or aspiration to achieve

enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, and is analo-

gous to the decision to travel to a distant country. The latter is

the implementation of the means of achieving Buddhahood, and

is analogous to actually making such a journey.

Specifically, the applied enlightenment thought entails prac-

tice of the Six Perfections of generosity, morality, patience, energy,

meditation, and wisdom. It is the practice of these perfections

that transforms the mere determination to achieve enlighten-

ment (or conventional enlightenment thought) into the Buddha

mind (or ultimate enlightenment consciousness).

It is important to remember the special role of meditation

and wisdom in the practice of the perfections. Mahayana mas-

ters from the great Nagarjuna in India to Hui Neng in China

have stressed that there is no meditation without wisdom and

no wisdom without meditation. This means that, for Buddhists,

a concentrated mind without insight is an unproductive and

inconsequential achievement. It is only when such a mind is

coupled with wisdom that meditation is productive of real free-

225

dom. Similarly, without a concentrated mind, insight cannot be

achieved.

Wisdom is the crown of the Six Perfections. It is the per-

fection of wisdom – the penetrative, direct understanding of

emptiness – that transforms the practices of generosity, moral-

ity, patience, energy, and meditation into perfections. It makes

them transcendental. Without the perfection of wisdom, there is

no perfection of the other five practices. This is why it is said that

the perfection of wisdom is like firing a clay jar, for left unfired, the ‘jar’ of the other five perfections is easily shattered. Similarly,

if a Bodhisattva does not practice the perfection of wisdom, he

or she can be easily overcome. It is also said that the other five

perfections are like blind men who will never reach their desti-

nation on their own, but who can do so with the help of a single

sighted guide. Similarly, without the perfection of wisdom, the

other five practices cannot lead to the goal of Buddhahood.

Why is the role of the perfection of wisdom unique among

the Six Perfections? It is in the light of the perfection of wisdom

that we see the emptiness of the subject, object, and action of

the other five perfections. These are the three ‘pure circles’ men-

tioned in Mahayana literature: the purity, or emptiness, of the

subject, object, and action. In the perfection of generosity, for

instance, it is the perfection of wisdom that causes us to under-

stand the emptiness of the giver (the subject of the action of giv-

ing), the emptiness of the recipient (the object of giving), and the

emptiness of the gift. Similarly, in the perfections of morality, patience, energy,

and meditation, it is through understanding the perfection of

wisdom that one understands the purity or emptiness of the sub-

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ject, object, and action present in every sphere of action. In every

practice, too, it is understanding the perfection of wisdom that

enables one to act perfectly to achieve the perfection of gener-

osity, the perfection of morality, and so forth. It is in this con-

text that we need to appreciate the unique role of the perfection

of wisdom.

We have arrived at the attainment of the ultimate enlighten-

ment consciousness, or the enlightened mind of a Buddha, with

its perfect understanding of emptiness. At this point we might

wonder whether the Buddha mind has any room left for compas-

sion, in light of its understanding the emptiness of the object of

compassion (living beings), the subject of compassion (the prac-

titioner), and the activity of compassion. The answer is that, at

this point, the Buddha mind undergoes a spontaneous or volun-

tary association with suffering.

Let us look at an example that illustrates the compatibility of

wisdom and compassion on the stage of enlightenment. Suppose

you dream that you are trapped in a burning house. Naturally,

you are distressed. Suppose, then, that you eventually awake and

realize that the suffering you experienced in the dream was not

real. Suppose, too, that on the following night you observe your

roommate or partner thrashing about in bed, muttering ‘Fire!

Fire!’ or something similar. You know, in your awakened state,

that your friend’s fear and anxiety are groundless, and yet, to the

person experiencing it in a dream, the suffering is real enough.

Notwithstanding your knowledge of the emptiness of that suf-

fering, your wisdom is automatically accompanied by compas-

sion, by the wish to relieve the suffering of your friend.

It is this reintegration with the world of illusion, this volun-

227

tary reassociation with fictitious suffering, that finds its expres-

sion in what are called ‘the four secondary perfections of the

enlightened ones’ – namely, skillful means, resolution, power,

and knowledge: (1) the perfection of skillful means enables the

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to implement countless devices for

the liberation of living beings; (2) the perfection of resolution

enables them to shape the particular forms of the activities they

employ; (3) the perfection of power enables the enlightened ones

to work spontaneously and effectively for the benefit of others;

and (4) the perfection of knowledge provides them with all that

knowledge of the conditions and attitudes of sentient beings

which is necessary to effect their liberation.

The four secondary perfections may also be termed soterio-

logical or altruistic perfections. They are the automatic and spon-

taneous fulfillment of the enlightened ones’ intent to free all liv-

ing beings. All these activities of the enlightenment conscious-

ness expressing itself in skillful means, resolution, power, and

knowledge are a spontaneous reflection of the enlightened state.

It is said that, just as a wind chime spontaneously and appropri-

ately gives forth the right sound in response to the currents of

air that blow against it, so the enlightened ones respond spon-

taneously and appropriately to each and every current of karmic

energy emanating from sentient beings with a kind of automatic, effortless activity aimed at the liberation of all.

The state of Buddhahood is the culmination of the practice

of the six basic perfections. The practice of the Six Perfections

results in the accomplishment of the two accumulations of merit

and of knowledge. The perfections of generosity, morality, and

patience result in the accumulation of merit, while those of medi-

228

tation and wisdom result in the accumulation of knowledge; the

perfection of energy is necessary in both cases. These two accu-

mulations result in the twofold being of Buddhahood – (a) the

form dimension (rupakaya), and (b) the truth or transcendental

dimension (dharmakaya).

The accumulation of merit through the practice of the per-

fections of generosity, morality, and patience is manifested in the

form dimension. The accumulation of knowledge through the

practice of the perfections of meditation and wisdom is mani-

fested in the truth dimension. We can therefore see, in the prac-

tice of the Six Perfections, the causes or seeds of the being of a

Buddha. In the practice of the six basic perfections, we can see

the seeds of the Buddhas’ two-dimensional being as form and

truth. In the practice of the four secondary perfections, we can

see the seeds of the Buddhas’ activities directed toward the lib-

eration of all sentient beings.

This twofold division of Buddhahood in terms of the form

and truth dimensions is congruent with the classification of

the three bodies (or dimensions) of Buddhahood: the terres-

trial, celestial, and transcendental. The form dimension can be

divided into (i) the terrestrial body, and (ii) the celestial body, but

the truth or transcendental dimension has no division at all since

it is inconceivable, inexpressible, and beyond name and form

of any kind. The form dimension, however, takes innumerable

names and forms. We can call the terrestrial body (or dimension)

the earthly manifestation of Buddhahood because it is accessible

to all of us all the time, regardless of our state of spiritual devel-

opment. In contrast, the celestial or exalted dimension is mani-

fested only to the spiritually advanced.

229

These three bodies or dimensions of Buddhahood oper-

ate together to effect the liberation of sentient beings accord-

ing to their natures and capacities. The terrestrial dimension

manifests especially in the appearance of the historical Buddha

Shakyamuni, and also in the appearance of enlightened liv-

ing beings (spiritual friends) and inanimate things. The celes-

tial dimension manifests itself in the appearance of the heav-

enly Buddhas, like Amitabha and Akshobhya, and in the exalted

Bodhisattvas, like Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri.

This three-dimensional nature of Buddhahood reflects the

unity of samsara and nirvana, of enlightenment and ignorance,

of a pure vision of the universe and an impure vision of it. It also

reflects the complete and total freedom of a Buddha. It reflects

his or her freedom from the cycle of birth and death, and free-

dom to exercise his or her enlightening influence in countless,

inconceivable ways for the liberation of all sentient beings. This

is the greatness of the Mahayana conception of Buddhahood, the greatness of the goal of the Mahayana path.

230

Part Three

The Vajrayana

CHAPTER T WENTY-T WO

The Origins of the Vajrayana Tradition

Let us begin by looking at the Vajrayana tradition briefly

in the context of the Mahayana. The Mahayana tradi-

tion is divided into two paths, the practice of the perfections

(Paramitayana) and the practice of the Vajrayana (Mantrayana).

The Vajrayana is a part of the Mahayana tradition. There is no

distinction between the two in terms of their starting point

(the experience of suffering) and their goal (Buddhahood). The

only difference is in methodology: whereas accomplishment of

the path of the perfections requires three eons, the methods of

the Vajrayana enable one to accelerate development and thereby

progress more rapidly along the path.

There are three names by which the Vajrayana tradition is

best known: Vajrayana, Mantrayana, and Tantrayana. Vajrayana

is the way of the adamant, or diamond. Vajra means diamond,

the substance more durable than any other. The vajra is also

the thunderbolt or scepter wielded by Indra, the king of the

Brahmanical gods. The vajra is therefore a symbol of indestruc-

tibility and also of mastery over the universe.

A mantra is a short formula that generally has three pur-

poses. First, it is used as an aid to concentration. Just as one can

use one’s breath, an image of the Buddha, a blue flower, or an

idea as an object on which to concentrate one’s mind, so one

can use the sound of a mantra. Second, it is an aid to memory.

When one recites the mantra, Om mani padme hum, for exam-

ple, one remembers not only the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

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but also skillful means and wisdom, and the necessity of uniting

them. Third, a mantra has the power to enhance one’s spiritual

development, in that the repeated use of mantras by meditation

masters over many centuries has charged these mantras with a

particular potency. The word mantra is composed of two parts:

man comes from the term manas, which means ‘mind,’ and tra

from tranam, ‘to protect.’ Mantra therefore means ‘something

that protects the mind.’ In general, it also means the esoteric or

secret vehicle.

Tantra means the extension or continuity of knowledge.

Literally, tantra is derived from the continuity of a thread

in a fabric; by implication, it means following the thread of

knowledge continuously and thus extending it to encompass

all knowledge.

A distinction can be drawn between the literature of the

Vajrayana and the literature of the Mahayana proper. Just as

the Mahayana tradition is composed of the Paramitayana and

Vajrayana, so Mahayana literature is composed of the sutras

and tantras. Both the sutras and tantras are believed to have

been spoken by the Buddha, and they form the canonical liter-

ature of the Mahayana and Vajrayana, respectively. There are a

large number of tantras; some of the more important ones are

the Guhyasamaja Tantra ( The Collection of the Hidden or Secret

Meaning), the Hevajra Tantra ( The Tantra of Adamantine Bliss),

and the Kalachakra Tantra ( The Tantra of the Wheel of Time). In

addition to the tantras, the Vajrayana tradition recognizes a large

amount of commentarial literature attributed to Nagarjuna and

Chandrakirti, and also to the eighty-four men of great attain-

ment, or Mahasiddhas.

233

Let us spend a moment on the origins of the tantras, since it

is often asked whether they were indeed taught by the Buddha.

From the very beginning of the Buddhist tradition, it was com-

mon for the Buddha to give teachings in all kinds of unusual cir-

cumstances. Sometimes he taught in response to the request of a

god or another supra-human being, and even the Abhidharma is

believed to have been taught by the Buddha to his mother after

her death, when she was residing in the Heaven of the Thirty-

Three. In the Mahayana tradition, it is generally accepted that

Mahayana masters can receive instruction through extraordi-

nary means. For example, the fundamental texts of the Mind

Only school are said to have been taught to Asanga by the future

Buddha Maitreya (see Chapter 19).

The tantras are said to have been transmitted in a similar

way. The tantras are not unreasonable if we examine them care-

fully. They do not contradict the meaning of other Buddhist

scriptures, as will become apparent in the chapters that follow. If

the Buddha did not teach the tantras at once to everyone, surely

it was because not everyone is able to appreciate their true sig-

nificance. In the light of these considerations, there is no reason-

able doubt that the Vajrayana literature is authentic.

The Vajrayana arose as a result of the evolution of three cur-

rents of thought – currents that were already present even in

the Buddha’s own day. These were (1) the democratic current, (2) the magical or ritual current, and (3) the symbolic current.

The democratic current sought to avail lay people of the highest

fruits of religious life, such as enlightenment. An example of the

democratic current at work in the early period of the Buddhist

tradition is the attainment of Arhatship by the Buddha’s father,

234

Shuddhodana while still a layman. In the Mahayana tradition,

this current was accelerated and amplified, so that the figure of

the householder Bodhisattva became the norm.

Examples of the magical or ritual current occur in accounts

in the Pali canon. We find the Buddha pronouncing formulas of

protection against snakebite and the perils of childbirth. There is

also an account of the Buddha’s conversion of a queen, Kshema, in which the Buddha creates the vision of a lovely maiden who,

as Kshema watches, becomes old and decrepit in a matter of

moments. In this case the Buddha used extraordinary powers

to create an apparition that would teach the truth of imper-

manence. This happens with great frequency in Mahayana lit-

erature, where we find the Buddha assuming various forms in

order to teach. In the Mahayana, too, there is an increasing use

of dharanis (verbal formulas that are precursors of mantras), as

well as the continuation of various rituals of the early Buddhist

period, particularly ordination rituals like the removal of the

hair and donning of yellow robes.

The use of symbols was also present in the Buddhist tradi-

tion from the earliest period. For example, the symbol of the

wheel was used to indicate the Dharma, and the symbol of the

lute was used to explain the Middle Way. In the Mahayana, this

use of symbols continued to play an important role. In these

three currents of thought and action – the democratic, magic or

ritual, and symbolic – we have the main streams that contributed

to the growth of the Vajrayana tradition.

The phenomenon that we now identify as the Vajrayana tra-

dition originated in India between the third and seventh cen-

tury c.e. By the seventh century, the Vajrayana was flourishing

235

throughout India. Nagarjuna and Asanga played a major role

in its growth at the outset; later, the Vajrayana tradition was

greatly influenced by the eighty-four Mahasiddhas. You may be

surprised to find the names of Nagarjuna and Asanga occurring

in this context, but the Vajrayana tradition is unanimous in call-

ing them its founders. We will understand why this is true from

the conceptual point of view when we examine the philosoph-

ical and religious background of the Vajrayana in Chapter 23.

For now, let us look at the traditional biographies of Nagarjuna

and Asanga, which will help us understand the environment in

which the Vajrayana originated and developed.

According to the traditional Tibetan biographies of Nagar-

juna, it was predicted that he would not survive beyond the age of

seven. The biographies tell us that, when the boy’s seventh birth-

day drew near, his parents, unwilling to watch him die, sent him

away with companions and provisions on an extended journey.

The accounts say that Nagarjuna proceeded north and eventually

reached Nalanda University. There Nagarjuna met an adept pro-

fessor by the name of Saraha. When Saraha heard of Nagarjuna’s

predicted early demise, he counseled him to recite the mantra of

Aparamitayus, the Buddha of Limitless Life. After reciting the

mantra throughout the night of his seventh birthday, Nagarjuna

escaped the death that had been predicted for him.

Whether or not we want to credit this account as history, we

can learn something rather important about the climate in which

it was accepted as biography – namely, that it was one in which

mantras were believed to have the power to influence reality.

In the biographies of Nagarjuna we also learn that, dur-

ing a famine, he sustained his colleagues in the monastery by

236

transforming ordinary, base objects into gold. Here we have an

example of the symbolism of alchemy. This symbolism became

important in the Vajrayana tradition because just as the alche-

mist transforms base objects into gold, so the Vajrayana adept

transforms the impure and defiled experience of ordinary human

beings into the experience of enlightenment.

If we look at the biographies of Asanga, we find very reveal-

ing stories there as well. According to these texts, Asanga retired

to a cave to meditate on the future Buddha Maitreya, practicing

for three years without success. Discouraged, he left the cave at

the end of the third year and almost immediately came upon a

man rubbing a piece of iron with a feather. When Asanga asked

him what he was doing, the man said he was making a needle.

Asanga thought that if people had such patience even in worldly

tasks, perhaps he had been too hasty in abandoning his practice, so he returned to the cave and continued with his meditation.

Asanga meditated for twelve years in all without having any

direct experience of Maitreya. At the end of the twelfth year, he

once again left the cave. This time he came upon a dog lying ill

by the side of the path, his body covered with festering wounds

in which maggots were feeding. Having meditated on Maitreya

for twelve years and thereby having developed great compassion,

Asanga immediately wished to ease the suffering of the dog. He

thought of removing the maggots but reflected that if he were

to use his fingers, he would injure them. In order not to injure

the maggots and yet relieve the dog, he bent down to remove the

maggots with his tongue. The moment he did so, the dog disap-

peared into a burst of rainbow-colored light and the Bodhisattva

Maitreya appeared before him.

237

Asanga asked, ‘Where have you been all these years?’ to

which Maitreya replied, ‘I have been with you all along – it is

just that you were not able to see me. Only when you had devel-

oped your compassion and purified your mind sufficiently were

you able to see me.’ To demonstrate the truth of this, he asked

Asanga to take him on his shoulders and walk through the vil-

lage. Nobody saw anything on Asanga’s shoulders except for one

old woman, who asked him, ‘What are you doing carrying that

sick dog?’

Thus, in the biographies of Asanga, we find another

important truth: that whatever we experience – the whole of

reality – depends on the condition of our minds.

In the biographies of these two founding fathers, we can see

various elements that are important to the Vajrayana tradition: the

magical or ritual element, the alchemical element, and the ele-

ment of the apparitional, or mind-dependent, nature of reality.

While Nagarjuna and Asanga are credited with being the

founding fathers of Vajrayana, the eighty-four men of great

attainment, or Mahasiddhas, undoubtedly performed the work of

disseminating the Vajrayana throughout India. These men were

examples of a new kind of religious personality. Not necessarily

monks of orthodox Buddhism or priests of the old Brahmanism,

these figures who played principal roles in the spread of Vajryana

were laymen, naked ascetics, boatmen, potters, and kings. If we

look at the accounts of these new heroes’ lives and times, we will

appreciate the spiritual climate that existed in India during the

rise of the Vajrayana tradition. Let us look at the biographies of

two of these Mahasiddhas, Virupa and Naropa.

Virupa is responsible for the origin and transmission of many

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important Vajrayana teachings. He was a professor at Nalanda

University, where he taught philosophy all day and practiced

Vajrayana all night. He practiced for years and recited thousands

of mantras without success. Finally, he got fed up and threw his

rosary into a latrine. The next night, while Virupa was sleeping,

a vision of Nairatmya, a goddess of insubstantiality, appeared

before him and told him that he had been reciting the mantra of

the wrong deity. The next day Virupa retrieved his rosary from

the latrine and went back to the Vajrayana, reciting and practic-

ing the meditation on the Goddess Nairatmya. He achieved suc-

cess in his practice and left his professorial post, wandering as a

naked yogi throughout India.

Three important things are said of Virupa: he is said to have

stopped the flow of the Ganges River so that he might cross it;

to have drunk wine for three days nonstop in a wine shop; and

to have held the sun immobile in the sky all the while. What

do these feats mean? Stopping the flow of the Ganges means

stopping the river of the afflictions, breaking the cycle of birth

and death. Drinking wine for three days means enjoying the

supreme bliss of emancipation. Holding the sun immobile in

the sky means holding the light of the mind in the sky of omni-

science.

In the biographies of Virupa, we have an indication of the

premium that the Vajrayana places on experiential or direct

knowledge. Virupa was a professor at Nalanda University, but

that was not enough. In addition to the knowledge he acquired

through study, he had to acquire direct, immediate knowledge

in order to realize the truth for himself.

The same theme is evident in the biography of Naropa, who

239

was also a professor at Nalanda. One day, while he was sitting

in his cell surrounded by his books, an old woman appeared and

asked him whether he understood the letter of the teaching con-

tained in all his books. Naropa replied that he did. The woman

was very pleased and then asked whether he understood the

spirit of the teaching as well. Naropa thought that since she had

been so pleased with his earlier answer, he would reply that he

also understood the spirit of the teaching contained in the books.

But the old woman then became angry, and said that although

the first time he had told the truth, the second time he had lied.

The old woman was Vajravarahi, another goddess of insubstanti-

ality. As a consequence of the disclosure that he did not under-

stand the spirit of what he had read, Naropa, too, left his profes-

sorial post and went forth as a seeker of the truth.

Let us conclude by looking at a few ideas from verses that

are attributed to the Mahasiddhas. In these verses we see the new

type of religious personality that they exemplified. We also see

the use of various symbols to convey the importance of the tran-

scendence of duality.

The first verse is as follows:

Dombi, (the name of an outcast woman) your hut lies outside

the village. You are touched by the bald-headed and by the caste-

conscious Brahmin. I am a naked Kapalika, an ascetic who

wears a garland of skulls. I have no prejudices. I will take you

for my maid.

Here ‘Dombi’ is a symbol of Nairatmya, a goddess of insubstan-

tiality. ‘Your hut lies outside the village’ means that, in order to

240

really understand emptiness, one has to transcend conventional

limitations. The rest of the verse means that, although emptiness

may be touched by monks and Brahmins, only the yogi – the new

type of religious figure who has no prejudices – can make emp-

tiness his maid, that is, identify with emptiness.

A second example runs:

The wine woman brews her wine. The wine drinker sees the sign

on the tenth door of the wine shop, and enters.

Here ‘the wine woman’ is a symbol of Nairatmya. ‘Wine’ is the

wine of nonduality, of going beyond this and that. ‘The sign on

the tenth door’ means the tenth stage of the Bodhisattva path,

the threshold of Buddhahood. Thus the verse means that the

wine drinker enters the door of Buddhahood through abiding

in nonduality.

With the increasing popularity of magic, ritual, and sym-

bolism, and the gathering strength of the democratic currents

that promised the highest fruits of religion to all types of per-

sons, the Vajrayana became exceedingly widespread throughout

India within the space of a few centuries.

241

CHAPTER T WENTY-THREE

Philosophical and Religious Foundations

It is important to examine the philosophical and religious

foundations of the Vajrayana so as to better understand how

it fits into the Buddhist tradition as a whole. As we look at the

Vajrayana tradition in more detail, we will find that it incorpo-

rates a number of important Mahayana ideas. Three religious

and philosophical ideas that are prevalent in the Mahayana

play a vital role in the Vajrayana as well. These are the ideas

of (1) emptiness, (2) Mind Only, and (3) expedient or skillful

means.

In Chapter 22, I had occasion to refer to the fact that the

Tibetan tradition regards Nagarjuna and Asanga as the found-

ers of the Vajrayana path. In addition to the Vajrayana elements

contained in their biographies, as discussed in Chapter 22, there

is an equally significant way Nagarjuna and Asanga can be con-

sidered Vajrayana’s founding fathers – namely, because of their

advocacy and explanation of the ideas of emptiness and the pri-

macy of consciousness (or Mind Only). A number of Vajrayana

works in the Tibetan canon are attributed to Nagarjuna and

Asanga, though this attribution is disputed by modern schol-

ars. Whether or not Nagarjuna and Asanga actually wrote spe-

cifically Vajrayana works, it is quite clear that, without the ideas

they put forward, the Vajrayana would be unintelligible, and

very likely impossible as well.

Let us look first at the idea of emptiness, which is so char-

acteristic of the writings of Nagarjuna. In Chapter 22, I referred

242

to a situation in which Nagarjuna is said to have transformed

base objects into gold. This can be seen as a metaphor for the

main project with which the Vajrayana is concerned: transform-

ing common experience into the experience of enlightenment.

If we look at this analogy of alchemy, we see that, for transfor-

mation to be possible, the base object cannot have any real, per-

manent nature of its own. For instance, if a piece of coal were to

have an unchanging, intrinsic nature, it could never be changed

into anything else. Yet we know that a piece of coal can, under

certain conditions, become a diamond.

The idea of an unchanging, independent character is ex-

pressed in Sanskrit by the term svabhava, which means ‘own-

being’ or ‘self-existence.’ The absence of own-being is nihsva-

bhava, which is synonymous with emptiness. Emptiness is, of

course, not nothingness. It is, rather, a kind of openness, a situ-

ation in which phenomena exist dependent on causes and con-

ditions.

Although this idea of emptiness is most commonly asso-

ciated with Nagarjuna and the Middle Way school, like the

other important doctrines of the Mahayana, it also exists in the

Theravada tradition. For example, according to the Theravada

canon, the Buddha likened all phenomena to the flame of an oil

lamp, which exists dependent on the oil and the wick. The flame

is nothing in itself. Similarly, all phenomena depend on causes

and conditions.

In the Mahayana, where this idea is elaborated at great

length, all phenomena are likened to a magical illusion. An illu-

sory elephant, for example, appears dependent on some basis,

like a hill of earth or a piece of wood, and is brought into being

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by a magician using certain magical spells and so forth. Thus

illusory appearances come about dependent on certain causes

and conditions. Similarly, all phenomena exist dependent on

certain causes and conditions. It is because of this dependence, this emptiness, that transformation is possible.

Nagarjuna says that if there were any own-being, transfor-

mation by means of the path of liberation would be impossible.

In other words, if that lump of coal we referred to a moment ago

had an unchangeable nature, it could never become a diamond.

Similarly, if each and every one of us had an own-being or per-

manent existence as ordinary, afflicted sentient beings – if this

were our identity – then no matter how much we practiced the

Dharma, we could never become enlightened. It is because we

are subject to the afflictions (ignorance, attachment, and aver-

sion) that we have the nature of ordinary sentient beings. But

if we replace ignorance with wisdom, attachment with lack of

attachment, and aversion with love and compassion, we can

change these conditions. By changing these conditions, we can

change the nature of our being and become Buddhas. Emptiness

is therefore absolutely necessary to allow for transformation from

the condition of samsara to the liberation of nirvana.

Let us look now at the second idea, that of the role of the

mind in experience. Here Asanga and his younger brother

Vasubandhu made two general points: (a) that objects have no

stable or fixed form of appearance, and (b) that objects appear

even without an external stimulus.

Like other major tenets of the Mahayana and Vajrayana, these two points are not absent from the Theravada tradition.

The first is evident in a number of Buddhist texts. For exam-

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ple, the incident involving the Elder Tissa is well known within

Theravada circles: when asked whether he had seen a woman on

the road, Tissa replied that he did not know whether it was a

man or a woman, but only that he had seen a heap of bones going

up the road. This shows that objects have no stable or fixed form

of appearance; what appears as an attractive woman to one man

appears as a heap of bones to another.

The Mahayana tradition elaborates on this by recourse to

the experience of a number of altered states of consciousness.

For example, one feels the earth move, or that one has enor-

mous power, when one has imbibed too much alcohol. Similarly,

under the influence of psychedelic substances, one’s perception

of objects is different. In his Twenty Verses on Cognition Only,

Vasubandhu illustrates this with reference to the experience of

the beings of the six realms (see also Chapter 19). There, he spells

out the diverse ways objects appear depending on the subjective

conditions of the perceiver, concluding that objects appear in

different shapes and forms to different sentient beings accord-

ing to their karmic condition.

The second point, that objects appear even without an exter-

nal stimulus, is also found in the early Theravada tradition. For

example, in Buddhaghosha’s explanation of the three stages of

concentration (preliminary, proximate, and accomplished), the

image of meditation becomes internalized at the proximate stage.

If a meditator uses, say, a blue disk at the first stage, at the second

stage that disk becomes internalized and he now meditates on a

mental replica of it. Consequently, whereas on the first stage he

uses a physical object as his object of meditation, on the second

stage of concentration he no longer needs that external support.

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The object now appears to him without the need of an external

stimulus. We can also see this in dreams, where the dreamer

experiences objects without any external stimuli.

Vasubandhu adds to this the case of the wardens of the hell

realms. If these wardens were reborn in the hells because of their

own karma, they, too, would experience the sufferings there. But since wardens are in the hells simply to torment hell beings,

Vasubandhu suggests that they are mere creations of the minds

of the hell beings themselves. In other words, because of their

unwholesome karma, hell beings project images of wardens who

then proceed to torment them.

In all these cases – the experiences of meditation, of dream-

ing, and of hell beings – objects appear without any external

stimulus. This is why it is said that, just as a painter might paint

a portrait of the demon and then be terrified by it, so unenlight-

ened beings paint a picture of the six realms of samsara and then

are tormented and terrified by that picture. Through the power

of our minds, we create the six realms of existence and then cir-

cle in them endlessly. We are able to create these six realms pre-

cisely because there is no own-being.

These first two ideas – the idea of emptiness and the idea of

the role of the mind in creating experience – go together. Objects

have no independent existence. Their existence is relative to

causes and conditions – most importantly, the mental causes

and conditions of ignorance, attachment, aversion, greed, anger,

jealousy, and the like. Because of these mental conditions, and

because of the fact that phenomena are empty, the mind con-

structs and creates experience in a particular form, in the form

of the suffering of the six realms.

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Just as the mind can work unconsciously and automatically

to create the experience of suffering in the six realms, so the

mind can be made to work deliberately and consciously to bring

about a change in that experience, to bring about the experience

of liberation. This is quite clear in the example of the experience

of meditation that we considered a moment ago. Ordinarily, the

mind functions unconsciously and automatically to create expe-

rience. We respond to an object, such as the form of a woman,

because of our habitual conditioning, because we are subject to

desire and ignorance. In meditation we train the mind to func-

tion in a chosen, decisive way to change our experience. Through

the experience of meditation, we can change our perception of

the object in the same way the Elder Tissa changed his percep-

tion so that he was able to see the form of a woman as only a

heap of bones.

Again, we ordinarily perceive different colors automati-

cally, in an undirected and unspecified way. Through medita-

tion, we can alter that situation so that we can, at will, visualize

and create a particular patch of color within our mental expe-

rience. The idea of emptiness and the idea of the creative power

of the mind are clearly present in the structure of the Vajrayana

techniques of meditation, which we will be looking at in greater

detail in Chapter 29. Emptiness and the creative power of the

mind together give us the ability and the methodology needed

to transform our experience. We can transform our experience

because nothing has any nature of its own, and the way we trans-

form it is through using the power of our minds to create and

determine the way we experience objects.

As mentioned in Chapter 22, the Vajrayana is one with the

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Mahayana both in its starting point and in its goal. The fun-

damental idea in the Mahayana tradition is the enlightenment

thought or mind (bodhichitta, the resolve to achieve enlighten-

ment for the sake of all sentient beings), and the fruit of this

resolve is the attainment of Buddhahood, with its transcenden-

tal dimension and its phenomenal dimension. The phenomenal

dimension is an expression of the Buddha’s great compassion,

which manifests itself in skillful means – the third idea prevalent

in the Mahayana and crucial to the Vajrayana as well.

Skillful means is the ability to reach all sentient beings at

their own levels. In many Mahayana sutras, this is explained

with the help of analogies, such as the parable of the three carts

and that of rainfall and the light of the sun and moon in the

Lotus Sutra (see Chapter 15) The phenomenal dimension of the

Buddha appears to all sentient beings according to their partic-

ular needs and abilities. It manifests itself in a variety of forms,

such as that of the beautiful maiden whom the Buddha caused

to appear for the sake of Kshema (see Chapter 22). In many

Mahayana discourses and treatises, the Buddha manifests him-

self in the form of ordinary people or gods in order to assist sen-

tient beings along the path to liberation.

It is in this way, too, that the Buddha manifests himself in

the special forms of the deities of the Vajrayana pantheon accord-

ing to the needs and propensities of sentient beings. For exam-

ple, in the case of the five celestial Buddhas, the Buddha mani-

fests himself in five special forms that correspond to the partic-

ular karmic propensities of sentient beings. Thus he manifests as

the Buddha Vairochana especially for sentient beings whose pri-

mary affliction is ignorance, while it is Akshobhya who appears

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to those whose primary affliction is ill-will and Amitabha to

those whose primary affliction is attachment. The Buddha man-

ifests himself in these different forms to best assist different sen-

tient beings with particular karmic problems.

These manifestations of the Buddha interact with sentient

beings to bring about their liberation. There is a kind of inter-

dependence between the manifestations of the Buddha (in the

forms of the Heavenly Buddhas and of deities of the Vajrayana

pantheon) and the development of sentient beings through the

practice of meditation. To illustrate this, let me return to the

story of Asanga and the future Buddha Maitreya. Asanga med-

itated for twelve years before he was able to perceive Maitreya.

Maitreya was with him all along, but Asanga had to develop his

vision so that he was in a position to experience Maitreya directly.

In the same way, the manifestations of the Buddha are around us

all the time, but to perceive them directly we must develop our

minds through meditation, through the careful purification of

our beings. This purification of the mind may be likened to the

process of tuning a television set to receive a particular transmis-

sion. The transmission is there all along, but unless and until the

receiver is tuned to the correct frequency to receive it, the pic-

ture cannot be seen.

If we remember these three principles – the principle of emp-

tiness, the principle of the power of the mind to determine the

nature of our experience, and the principle of skillful means, we

will be able to understand how the Vajrayana path can work. We

will also be able to understand the diversity of the forms and

images that the Vajrayana uses to expedite the process of trans-

formation.

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CHAPTER T WENTY-FOUR

Methodology

As noted in Chapter 22 and Chapter 23, the Vajrayana and

the Mahayana are identical in their views of the begin-

ning and end of the path. Where the two differ is in methodol-

ogy. The special claim of the Vajrayana is that it provides a more

skillful and rapid means of getting from that beginning (the ini-

tial situation of suffering) to the end (the goal of Buddhahood).

Therefore a look at its methodology is particularly important to

an understanding of the Vajrayana.

Let us begin by discussing the mechanism of the initial situ-

ation of suffering. The fundamental cause of suffering has tradi-

tionally been called ignorance. But ignorance means the dichot-

omy or duality between subject and object, between self and

other. There are different ways to deconstruct or dismantle this

duality which is the substance of ignorance. In the Abhidharma

literature (see Chapter 19), the emphasis is on the dismantling of

the self. By taking apart the self – one pole of the duality – the

subject is dismantled. And ultimately, dismantling the subject

implies dismantling the object, too. This is why great emphasis

is placed on the analytical dissection of the self. This has been

the main thrust of the Abhidharmic tradition, although not its

exclusive contents, since the Abhidharma Pitaka also contains

the important Book of Causal Relations (Patthana), in which the

object as well as the subject is dismantled.

In the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, there is a slightly

different approach, in that these traditions begin by attacking

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the object in various ways. For instance, in Chapter 23 we discov-

ered that the object is not stable in its mode of appearance, and

that an object can appear even without any external stimulus. Thus the object is like an object seen in a dream; it is unreal.

The discovery that the object is unreal raises the question of

the status of the self, or subject. In the Mahayana and Vajrayana,

the general procedure for deconstructing the subject-object or

self-and-other duality follows these lines: We begin by show-

ing that the object is dreamlike and unreal, and then apply our

understanding of interdependence to reveal that, if the object

is unreal, then the subject which is dependent on the object is

also dreamlike and unreal. If the seed is unreal, the sprout, too,

must be unreal. This brings us to the understanding of the emp-

tiness of subject and object. This process is reflected to an extent

in the attitudes of the two main Mahayana schools – the Mind

Only school, which focuses on the dreamlike nature of experi-

ence, and the Middle Way school, which focuses on the idea of

interdependence.

In addition to this fundamental duality – the subject-object or

self-other duality – there are many others that must be removed

if we are going to achieve enlightenment. The other major dual-

ity which produces suffering, and on which the Mahayana and

the Vajrayana focus, is the duality between samsara and nir-

vana. In general, this is a duality between what is conditioned

and what is unconditioned. Samsara is conditioned and nirvana

is unconditioned. This is reflected in the technical description of

the phenomena of samsara as conditioned phenomena and nir-

vana as unconditioned reality. Samsara is conditioned because

it is characterized by origination and destruction, by birth and

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death, whereas nirvana is unconditioned because it is character-

ized by non-origination and non-destruction.

But is this duality real or is it merely constructed? The posi-

tion of the Mahayana and Vajrayana is that the duality between

samsara and nirvana is unreal. It is merely constructed by, and

hence an illusion of, the mind. This is shown by an analysis of

the characteristics of samsara – that is, by an analysis of origina-

tion and destruction.

There are various ways origination and destruction are

examined within the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. One

is found in Nagarjuna’s extensive examination of origination in

his Foundation Stanzas of the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamaka-

karika.). There he considers the four possibilities of origination:

(i) from self, (ii) from other, (iii) from both, and (iv) without a

cause (see Chapter 18). But here we can content ourselves with

an analogical examination of origination, in which it is said that

if objects are like objects seen in a dream, then there is neither

any real origination nor any real destruction.

In the Samadhiraja Sutra, it is mentioned that if a young, virgin woman has a dream in which she gives birth to a child,

and in that same dream she sees that the child dies, she will

(of course) experience first happiness and then sorrow in the

dream. But when she awakes she will realize that there was no

real birth or death of a child. Similarly, all phenomena have no

real origination and no real destruction. If, in reality, all things

have no origination and no destruction, then the characteris-

tics of samsara no longer hold good as real characteristics. The

distinction between samsara and nirvana collapses, and we

are left with the conclusion that, as Nagarjuna puts it in the

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Mulamadhyamakakarika, there is not even the subtlest difference

between samsara and nirvana. If there is no origination and no

destruction, then samsara’s characteristics are the same as nir-

vana’s, since nirvana is characterized by the absence of origina-

tion and destruction. There is, therefore, no difference between

samsara and nirvana.

To summarize, we arrive at the identity of samsara and nir-

vana first through a dismantling of our conception of samsara.

We define samsara as conditioned. We say that the characteris-

tics of the conditioned are origination and destruction, but find

that there is no real origination and no real destruction. If sam-

sara does not have these characteristics, then its opposite, nir-

vana, has no meaning. In this way we arrive at the identity of

samsara and nirvana.

Everything I have said thus far about ignorance being the

fundamental cause of suffering, about the duality of subject and

object and of samsara and nirvana, and about the emptiness of

each pole of these dualities – all this holds true for the Mahayana