“As a star, a cataract, a spark or illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble, a dream, a cloud or lightning, all things that are conditioned, view them all like this.”
The Diamond Sutra (translated by Edward Conze)
“All those who can remain unshaken by the wisdom of the teachings of the buddhas know that dharmas are essentially empty. Without name or appearance, support or duration, without anything to hold or control, get in the way or possess, they’re like space. There’s nothing to cling to, nothing to grasp. Perfectly and utterly still, they’re free from birth or extinction, defilement or purification, creation or destruction, existence or nonexistence. Anyone who has achieved a deep acceptance of this is never apart from the teachings of the buddhas. And how so? The teachings of the buddhas have no nature or characteristics. They can’t be postulate, expressed, or made explicit. No matter where there are beings, the teachings of the buddhas remain empty.”
The Empty Bowl Sutra (translated by Red Pine)
Manjusri said, “Go then if you will, but when you do, don’t lift your feet or put them down, don’t bow or extend your hand, don’t think about anything or engage in fictitious nonsense, don’t think about the road or about the city or its neighborhoods, don’t think about anyone’s age or gender, don’t think about streets or gardens, buildings or houses or doorways. And why not? Because enlightenment is free of conceptions. It isn’t something that’s better or worse. It isn’t contraction or an expansion. It’s the mind free of disturbance, language free of fiction. It doesn’t contain anything to count or measure. This is the enlightenment a bodhisattva seeks. If, Sir, you can go forth like this, then by all means go on your begging round.”
The Empty Bowl Sutra (translated by Red Pine)
No wisdom can we get hold of, no highest perfection,
No Bodhisattva, no thought of enlightenment either.
When told of this, if not bewildered and in no way anxious,
A Bodhisattva courses in the Well-Gone’s wisdom.
In form, in feeling, will, perception and awareness
Nowhere in them they find a place to rest on.
Without a home they wander, dharmas never hold them,
Nor do they grasp at them–the Jina’s Bodhi they are bound to gain.The wanderer Srenika in his gnosis of the truth
Could find no basis, though the skandhas had not been undone.
Just so the Bodhisattva, when he comprehends the dharmas as he should
Does not retire into Blessed Rest. In wisdom then he dwells.
What is this wisdom, whose and whence, he queries,
And then he finds that all these dharmas are entirely empty.
Uncowed and fearless in the face of that discovery
Not far from Bodhi is that Bodhi-being then.To course in the skandhas, in form, in feeling, in perception.
Will and so on, and fail to consider them wisely;
Or to imagine these skandhas as being empty;
Means to course in the sign, the track of non-production ignored.
But when he does not course in form, in feeling, or perception
In will or consciousness, but wanders without home,
Remaining unaware of coursing firm in wisdom,
His thoughts on non-production–then the best of all the calming trances cleaves to him.Through that the bodhisattva now dwells tranquil in himself,
His future Buddhahood assured by antecedent Buddhas.
Whether absorbed in trance, or whether outside it, he minds not.
For of things as they are he knows the essential original nature.Coursing thus he courses in the wisdom of the Sugatas,
And yet he does not apprehend the dharmas in which he course.
This coursing he wisely knows as a no-coursing,
That is his practice of wisdom, the highest perfection.What exists not, that non-existent the foolish imagine;
Non-existence as well as existence they fashion.
As dharmic facts existence and non-existence are both not real.
A bodhisattva goes forth when wisely he knows this.If he knows the five skandhas as like an illusion,
Verses on the perfection of wisdom (translated by Edward Conze)
But makes not illusion one thing, and the skandhas another;
If, freed from the notion of multiple things, he courses in peace–
That this is his practice of wisdom, the highest perfection.
“When the Yogin is coursing in wisdom, the supreme perfection,
He does not see the growth of form, nor its diminution.
If someone does not see dharma, nor no-dharma, nor the Dharma-element
And if he does not experience the Blessed Rest, then he dwells in wisdom.When he courses therein, he does not imagine the Buddhadharmas,
Verses on the perfection of wisdom (translated by Edward Conze)
Nor the powers, nor the roads to psychic power, nor does he imagine the peaceful calm of enlightenment.
Not discriminating, free from constructions, coursing on resolutely,
This is the practice of wisdom, the foremost perfection.”
When the Yogin courses in wisdom, the best of perfections,
He engenders the great compassion, but no notion of a being.
Then the wise becomes worthy of the offerings of the whole world,
He never fruitlessly consumes the alms of the realm.
Verses on the perfection of wisdom (translated by Edward Conze)
Those of great might who dwell in the four Trances
Do not make them into a place to settle down in, nor into a home.
But these four Trances, with their limbs, will in their turn become
The basis for the attainment of the supreme and unsurpassed enlightenment.One who is established in the Trances becomes one who obtains the foremost wisdom;
And also when he experiences the four most excellent Formless Trances,
He makes these Trances subservient to the best and foremost enlightenment.
But it is not for the extinction of the outflows that the Bodhisattva trains himself in these.Astonishing and wonderful is this accumulation of precious qualities.
When they have dwelled in Trance and Concentration, there is then no sign.
When the personality of those who have stood therein breaks up,
They are reborn again in the world of sense-desire, as [and where] they had intended.As some man from Jambudvipa who had in the past been a god,
Would, after reaching again the highest abodes of the gods,
See the apartments contained in them
And would then again come back, and not make his home therein;Just so those Bodhisattvas, bearers of the best qualities,
Verses on the perfection of wisdom (translated by Edward Conze)
Having dwelt in Trance and Concentration, Yogins who have exerted themselves,
Become again established in the sense-world, unstained
As the lotus in water, independent of the dharmas of the fools.
When the bodhisattvas had given their explanations, they all addressed the crown prince Manjusri: “Manjusri, what is the bodhisattva’s entrance into nonduality?”
Manjusri replied, “Good sirs, you have all spoken well. Nevertheless, all your explanations are themselves dualistic. To know no one teaching, to express nothing, to say nothing, to explain nothing, to announce nothing, to indicate nothing, and to designate nothing – that is the entrance into nonduality.”
Then the crown prince Manjusri said to the Licchavi Vimalakirti, “We have all given our own teachings, noble sir. Now, may you elucidate the teaching of the entrance into the principle of nonduality!”
Thereupon, the Licchavi Vimalakirti kept his silence, saying nothing at all.
The crown prince Manjusri applauded the Licchavi Vimalakirti: “Excellent! Excellent, noble sir! This is indeed the entrance into the nonduality of the bodhisattvas. Here there is no use for syllables, sounds, and ideas.”
Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra (translated by Robert A. F. Thurman)
This is known as the Prajñāpāramitā of the bodhisattvas; not grasping at
The Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 verses
form, not grasping at sensation, perception, volitions and cognition
Having attained release, he neither seized upon nor forsook any dharma;
The Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 verses
even up to neither seizing upon nor forsaking nirvāṇa. O Bhagavān!
This is said to be the Prajñāpāramitā of the bodhisattvas; the not seizing at
form; not seizing at sensation, perception, volitions and cognition.
Sariputra: So, how does a Bodhisattva course as one coursing in perfect wisdom?
The Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 verses (translated by Richard Babcock)
Subhuti: One does not course in skandhas, nor in any sign of such skandas, nor in ideas such as
‘skandhas are signs’, nor in production of skandhas, nor in any stopping or destruction of such, nor in
any idea such as ‘skandhas are empty’, or ‘I course’, or ‘I am a Bodhisattva’. And, this also doesn’t
occur to this one, ‘one coursing thus courses in perfect wisdom and develops it’. One courses but one
does not entertain such ideas as ‘I course’, ‘I do not course’, ‘I course and I do not course’, ‘I neither
course nor do I not course’, and the same [four] with ‘I will course’. One does not go near any dharma
at all as all dharma are unapproachable and unappropriatable. So, a Bodhisattva purely cognizes and
is as undifferientiated concentrated insight ‘Not grasping at any dharma’ by name or appearance, and
regardless whether vast, noble, unlimited and steady, not shared by any of the Disciples or
Pratyekabuddhas. As one dwells as this concentrated insight, a Bodhisattva quickly realizes full
enlightenment which Tathagatas of this time predict for one such as this. But as one dwells in such
concentration, one neither reviews nor thinks ‘I am collected’, ‘I will enter concentration’, ‘I am entering
into concentration’, ‘I have entered into concentration’. All these thoughts or notions in any and all ways
do not exist for one such as this.
Likewise, the perfection of wisdom is boundless because of the boundlessness of the triple purity of the perfections of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, wisdom (skill in means, vow, power and cognition).
One speaks of the perfection of wisdom, i.e. the eighteen kinds of emptiness, as follows: emptiness of the subject, emptiness of the object, emptiness of both subject and object, emptiness of emptiness…
The perfection of wisdom for Kausika (translated by Edward Conze)
“Therefore go on dwelling in this dwelling of perfect wisdom! For
The Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 verses
thereby you shall become a saviour of the helpless, a defender of the
defenceless, a refuge to those without refuge, a place to rest to those
without resting place, the final relief of those who are without it, an
island to those without one, a light to the blind, a guide to the guideless,
a resort to those without one, and you shall guide to the path those who
have lost it, and you shall become a support to those who are without
support.”