The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment is a deep, multi-level teaching on how to practice for liberation based on the different capacities that beings experience. We might begin by helping to draw a picture of what this word “capacity” is when used in this context.
Capacity might be seen as the ease or difficulty for a mind to directly taste and realize the true-nature of reality in the here and now. Due to many factors such as: wisdom, karma, circumstances, held views, etc. a practice that will lead to release for one mind may be confusing or not seem to work for another.
In this sutra the Buddha speaks first on practice for those that are the least entangled (operating at the highest capacity). Once the teaching is given the Buddha is asked to describe what practice looks like for one that cannot practice the previously mentioned method. The Buddha then speaks about how to practice at this next capacity, and how these minds may approach cultivation. The process repeats again and again, as the Buddha is asked to describe what practice looks like for one that cannot practice in the previous way mentioned, eventually describing practices at several different levels.
It is perhaps of interest that the practices and perspectives for one operating at one capacity may be incorrect or even contradict the practices and perspectives of those operating at another capacity. In this way the Sutra helps point out why discussion and teachings around spiritual practice can be so different yet may still be accurate and helpful for different beings.
We will be focusing on the first four teachings given in the sutra:
- Penetrating ignorance like awakening from a dream
- Separating from illusion until there remains nothing to be separated from
- Extinguishing the illusory defilements of body and mind
- Freedom from the illusions of discursive thoughts
Penetrating ignorance like awakening from a dream
Mañjuśrī, you should know
All Tathāgatas
From their originally arisen causal stage
Penetrate ignorance
With enlightened wisdom.
Knowing it to be like sky-flowers
They are able to escape transmigration.
It is like the man in the dream
Who has nothing to grasp upon awakening.
Awareness is like space
Equal, changeless.
Enlightenment pervading the worlds of the ten directions
Is none other than the attainment of the Buddha-way.
All illusions cease at no-place
And in accomplishing the Way there is nothing attained.
That’s because the original nature is complete, perfect.
In it, bodhisattvas
Are able to produce bodhicitta
All sentient beings of the degenerate age
Practicing this, will avoid erroneous views.
Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment
Waking up from ignorance is the approach given for minds of high capacity. This involves an immediate realization that a mistaken perspective was being held to, obscuring true-nature. Just like waking from a dream, when the ignorant perspective is seen through, all of the problems that existed in relation to that ignorant perspective vanish as well.
Rest in wúwéi in relation to everything. Non-abiding in suchness.
Separating from illusion until there remains nothing to be separated from
Samantabhadra, you should know
The beginningless illusory ignorance
Of all sentient beings
Is all created from
The perfectly enlightened mind of all the Tathāgatas.
It is just like the sky-flowers
Which have their appearance in relation to the sky;
Though the sky-flowers vanish
The sky has never changed.
Illusion is born from enlightenment;
In the cessation of illusion enlightenment remains perfectly complete.
This is because the enlightened mind is changeless.
If these bodhisattvas
And sentient beings of the degenerate age
Always appropriately separate from illusion,
They will completely free themselves from it.
Like the flame that springs from wood:
The wood is consumed and the flame again disappears.
If you are enlightened, then there are no stages of practice
Nor is there such a thing as expedient means.
The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment
When the approach of waking up from ignorance is unavailable to a mind, the practice given is separating from illusion. In this practice illusory elements within the dream are separated from again and again until illusion has extinguished.
Let go of what is illusion again and again until all that remains is that which illusion springs from and falls back into.
Extinguishing the illusory defilements of body and mind
Universal Vision, you should know
The bodies and minds of all sentient beings
Are only illusion.
The body is composed of the Four Elements;
The mind depends upon the Six Objects.
When the Four Elements disperse,
Who will be there as a synthesis?
In this kind of gradient practice
All is completely pure,
Unchanging, pervading the realm of reality.
Without contrivance, stopping, naturalism or annihilation
And also without any subjective “releaser,”
All Buddha-worlds are
Just like sky-flowers.
The three times are all the same
Ultimately without coming or going.
Bodhisattvas who have recently arisen their minds
And sentient beings of the degenerate age
Who want to enter the Buddha Way
Should practice like this.
The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment
When separating from illusion is unavailable to a mind, the practice given is extinguishing body and mind. In this practice the experiences of body and mind fade and disperse until only purity remains pervading the ten directions.
Let body and mind operate freely without interference until they tranquilize and fade. What remains.
Freedom from the illusions of discursive thoughts
Vajragarbha, you should know
The Tathāgata’s perfectly tranquil nature
Has never had a beginning or end.
If you use the cyclic mind
Discursive thought just revolves,
At most, reaching the limits of cyclic existence,
And you are unable to enter the Buddha-sea.
It is like smelting gold ore:
The gold does not exist because of smelting,
Yet crude gold, from smelting
Once subsequently perfected,
Never returns to the state of ore.
Saṃsāra and nirvana,
Worldlings and Buddhas
Like sky-flowers, are appearances.
Discursive thought is just an illusory phenomenon:
How can it penetrate falsity?
Only after you fully know this mind
Can you seek Perfect Enlightenment.
The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment
When extinguishing body and mind is unavailable to a mind, the practice given is freedom from the illusions of discursive thoughts. In this practice one or more of the senses are directly experienced without adding words or concepts.
Directly experiencing one of the senses, no words or language are needed. Concepts, discursive thought and discrimination naturally pacify and illusions dissolve. When one knot is untied, all knots untie, eventually the cloth itself vanishes.