CHAPTER FIVE

Benefit

Buddha element, buddha awakening,

buddha qualities, and buddha activity

cannot be thought, not even by purified beings.

They are the field of experience of their guides.

Those of insight who have devotion to this buddha domain

will become vessels for the multitude of all buddha qualities,

while those truly delighting in these inconceivable properties

will exceed in merit [the good actions of] all sentient beings.

Someone striving for enlightenment may turn to the Dharma kings, offering golden fields adorned with gems

of equal [number] to the atoms in the buddhafields, and may continue doing so every day.

Another may just hear a word of this, and upon hearing it become filled with devotion.

He will attain merits far greater and more manifold than the virtue sprung from this practice of giving.

An intelligent person wishing for enlightenment may by body, speech, and mind

guard a flawless moral conduct and do so effortlessly, even through many eons.

Another may just hear a word of this, and upon hearing it become filled with devotion.

He will attain merits far greater and more manifold than the virtue sprung from this discipline.

Someone here may finally achieve the divine meditative stabilities and Brahma’s abode, thus quenching all affliction’s fire

within the three realms of existence, and may cultivate these as a means to reach unchanging and perfect enlightenment.

Another may just hear a word of this, and upon hearing it become filled with devotion.

He will attain merits far greater and more manifold than the virtue sprung from this meditation.

Why [is it so beneficial]? Generosity only yields wealth,

discipline leads to the higher states of existence, and meditation removes affliction.

Discriminative wisdom fully abandons all afflictions and [hindrances to] knowledge.

It is therefore supreme, and its cause is studying these.

The presence [of the element], its result,

its qualities, and the achievement of benefit

are the objects of understanding of a buddha.

When towards these four, as explained above,

one of understanding is filled with devotion

to their presence, ability, and qualities,

he will be quickly endowed with the fortune

by which one attains the state of a tathagata.

Those who realize: “This inconceivable object is present

and someone like me can attain it;

its attainment will hold such qualities and endowment”

will aspire to it, filled with faith.

Thus becoming vessels of all qualities,

such as longing, diligence, mindfulness,

meditative stability, wisdom, and so on,

bodhichitta will be ever-present in them.

[Bodhichitta] being ever-present in them

the heirs of the Victor will not fall back.

The perfection of merit will be refined

until being transformed into total purity.

Once these five perfections of merit

are not ideated in threefold division,

they will become perfect and fully pure,

as their opposite facets are abandoned.

The merit of generosity arises from giving,

that of morality arises from moral conduct.

The two aspects of patience and meditative stability

stem from meditation, and diligence accompanies all.

Whatever ideates [in terms of] the three circles

is viewed as the veil of the hindrances to knowledge.

Whatever is the impulse of avarice and so on

is to be regarded as the veil of the mental poisons.

Since apart from discriminative wisdom

there is no other cause to remove these [veils],

this discriminative wisdom is supreme.

Its ground being study, such study is supreme.

Based on the trustworthy words of the Buddha and on scriptures of logic,

I have explained this for the sole purpose

of purifying myself and supporting all those

whose understanding has the best of virtue and devotion.

As someone with eyes sees by relying on a lamp,

or on lightning, a jewel, the sun, or the moon,

this has been truly explained by relying on the Muni,

brilliant in meaning, words, phenomena, and power.

Whatever speech is meaningful and well connected with Dharma,

which removes all afflictions of the three realms

and shows the benefit of the [attainment] of peace,

is the speech of the Sage, while any different speech is other.

Whatever someone has explained with undistracted mind,

exclusively in the light of the Victor’s teaching,

and conducive to the path of attaining release,

one should place on one’s head as the words of the Sage.

There is no one in this world more skilled in Dharma than the Victor.

No other has such insight, knowing everything without exception [and knowing] supreme thatness the way it is.

Thus one should not distort the sutras presented by the Sage himself,

since this would destroy the Muni’s manner [of teaching] and furthermore cause harm to the sacred Dharma.

Those blinded by poisons [and possessed of] the nature of ignorance

revile the noble ones and despise the teachings they have spoken.

Since all this stems from a fixated view, mind should not be joined with polluted vision.

Clean cloth is totally transformed by color, but never is cloth [to be treated] with oil.

Due to a feeble intellect, lack of striving for virtue, reliance on false pride,

a nature obscured by neglect of pure Dharma, taking the provisional for the definitive meaning—for thatness, craving for profit,

being under the sway of [inferior] views, relying on those disapproving [of Dharma], staying away from those who uphold the teachings,

and due to mean devotion, the teachings of the Foe-Vanquishers are abandoned.

Skillful beings must not be as deeply afraid of fire and cruel poisonous snakes,

of murderers or lightning, as they should be of the loss of the profound Dharma.

Fire, snakes, enemies, and thunderbolts [can] only separate us from this life,

but cannot take us to the utterly fearful states of [the hells] of direst pain.

Even someone who has relied on evil friends again and again and thus heeded harmful intentions towards a buddha,

who has committed one of the most heinous acts—killing his father, mother, or an arhat, or splitting the sublime Assembly—

will be quickly released from these, once genuinely reflecting the dharmata.

But where would liberation be for someone whose mind is hostile to Dharma?

Having properly explained the seven [vajra] points of the jewels, the utterly pure element,

flawless enlightenment, qualities, and activity, may any virtue I harvest from this

lead all sentient beings to see the Lord of Boundless Life who is endowed with Infinite Light.

Upon seeing, may their stainless Dharma-eye open and may they reach highest enlightenment.

On what basis, for what reason, and in what way

[this has been given], what it explains

and what cause is conducive [to understanding it]

have been taught by means of four stanzas.

Two stanzas [show] the means to purify oneself

and one [shows] the cause of deterioration.

Thereupon, by means of two further stanzas

the fruit [sprung from deterioration] is explained.

[Being born] in the mandala of a buddha’s retinue,

attaining patience and [then] enlightenment:

expressing these qualities, the two aspects of fruit

are explained by the last in a summarized way.

This was the section “Benefit,” the fifth chapter of The Commentary on the Highest Continuity of the Mahayana Dharma which Analyzes the Disposition of the Rare and Sublime Ones.