AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SIX PERFECTIONS
c) How to learn the bodhisattva deeds after developing the spirit of enlightenment
i) The reason why you must learn the trainings after developing the spirit of enlightenment
ii) Demonstrating that you will not become a buddha by learning either method or wisdom separately
c) How to learn the bodhisattva deeds after developing the spirit of enlightenment
How to learn the bodhisattva deeds after developing the spirit of enlightenment has three parts:
1. The reason why you must learn the trainings after developing the spirit of enlightenment
2. Demonstrating that you will not become a buddha by learning either method or wisdom separately
3. Explanation of the process of learning the precepts (Chapters 8 and on)
i) The reason why you must learn the trainings after developing the spirit of enlightenment
It is indeed the case that great benefit comes from mere development of the aspirational spirit of enlightenment without learning the trainings of generosity and so forth. Consider in this regard the passage from the Life of Maitreya cited earlier.144 However, you still have to practice the bodhisattva trainings. If you do not emphasize this practice, you will never become a buddha. So learn the bodhisattva deeds. Thus the Foremost of Gayā says:145
Enlightenment is for great bodhisattvas who take practice to heart, but not for those who take a wrong practice to heart.
And the King of Concentrations Sūtra also says: 146
Therefore take practice to heart. Why? O Prince, because when you take practice to heart, perfect enlightenment is not hard to attain.
“Practice” means the method of achieving buddhahood, i.e., learning the bodhisattva trainings. The first Stages of Meditation also says:147
The bodhisattvas, who have thus developed the spirit of enlightenment, understand that without disciplining themselves they cannot discipline others and so involve themselves in the practice of generosity and so forth; without practice they will not attain enlightenment.
And Dharmakīrti’s Commentary on the “Compendium of Valid Cognition” says:148
In order to destroy suffering, the compassionate
Work at actualizing the methods; [341]
It is hard for them to explain the methods and their results
When these remain hidden to them.
Those who have great compassion for others feel the need to relieve others’ suffering. To relieve it, the kind thought, “May they be free of their suffering,” is not enough; they must engage in the methods that will bring it about. Now, if they do not first engage in those methods themselves, they will be unable to free others. Therefore, if you want to work for others’ welfare, you must first discipline yourself. In reference to this the King of Concentrations Sūtra says that you should “take practice to heart.” Practice is said to be learning the training in the precepts associated with the bodhisattva vows after you have taken them. Therefore, it is very important that you are not mistaken about just what is entailed in taking practice to heart.
ii) Demonstrating that you will not become a buddha by learning either method or wisdom separately
It is not enough just to want to attain buddhahood; you must engage in the method of achieving it. This method has to be unmistaken because no matter how much you strive on a mistaken path, you will not obtain the result—like milking a horn in the hope of getting milk. Even if the method is unmistaken, if it is not complete in all particulars, striving will not bring the result, just as the absence of a seed, water, earth, or the like will preclude the production of a sprout. Thus the second Stages of Meditation says:149
If you earnestly strive at a mistaken cause, even a tremendous amount of time will not bring you the desired result, like milking a horn. A result does not come from an incomplete causal complex, just as an effect like the production of a sprout does not happen when something like a seed is missing. Therefore, someone who wants the result must depend upon an unmistaken and complete set of causes and conditions.
What, then, is the unmistaken and complete set of causes and conditions? Vairocana’s Great Enlightenment Discourse (Mahā-vairocanābhisaṃbodhi-dharma-paryāya) says:150
Lord of Secrets, the sublime wisdom of omniscience comes from compassion as its root. It comes from the spirit of enlightenment as its cause. It is brought to completion by method. [342]
In regard to this, I have already explained compassion.151 The great trailblazer Kamalaśīla explains that the “spirit of enlightenment” is both the conventional and ultimate spirits of enlightenment, and that “method” is all virtues such as generosity and so forth.
Opponents’ position: Some persons like the Chinese Ha-shang (Hva-shang), who have a mistaken idea about the path of the two types of spirit of enlightenment, say that any thought—nonvirtuous thoughts, of course, but even virtuous ones—binds us to cyclic existence, so its results do not transcend cyclic existence. It is like being tied up with a golden rope or with an ordinary rope, like white or dark clouds covering the sky, or like the pain from being bitten by a white or a black dog. Therefore, just setting your mind in a state that lacks any thought is the path to future buddhahood. Such virtues as generosity and ethical discipline are taught for foolish people incapable of such meditation on the definitive [emptiness]. To engage in those deeds after you have found the definitive would be like a king descending to a common status or like finding an elephant and then searching for its footprints. Ha-shang attempts to prove this position by citing, from the sūtras, eighty passages which extol this state of mind that lacks any thought.
Reply: Ha-shang’s saying, “Everything to do with method is not an actual path to buddhahood,” is a tremendous denial of the conventional. And, since he refutes analyzing with discerning wisdom the selfless reality that is at the heart of the Conqueror’s teaching, he banishes the system of the ultimate to the far distance. The great bodhisattva Kamalaśīla excellently refuted with a mass of scriptural citation and stainless reasoning this epitome of wrong views in which it is maintained that the sublime path consists of stabilizing the mind in a state that lacks any thought. Such stabilizing of the mind is a practice properly subsumed under the mere category of meditative serenity, no matter how superior it may be. Kamalaśīla then wrote at length on the good path pleasing to the conquerors. [343]
Nevertheless, there are still some who continue to do just what Ha-shang did, because the total decline of the Buddha’s teaching is drawing near, because the excellent persons who ascertain with total certainty through scriptures of definitive meaning and stainless reasoning all the key points of the path in their entirety are no more, because the merit of living beings is so minimal, and because there are so many who have little faith in the teaching and feeble intelligence. Some belittle the deeds that are part of the path—the vows which are to be kept and the like—rejecting them and so forth when they cultivate the path; others do not accept Ha-shang’s mistaken denial of the factor of method, but assert that his way of understanding the philosophical view is excellent; and still others cast aside discerning wisdom and claim that Ha-shang’s meditation of not thinking is best.
The path of these persons is indeed not at all in the direction or vicinity of a meditation on emptiness. But even if you were to allow that it is a meditation on emptiness, you would not then go on to say that those with the knowledge that comes from their cultivation of a faultless method of meditation, after they have found the unmistaken meaning of emptiness, should meditate on emptiness alone and “not cultivate conventional states of mind pertaining to deeds,” or, alternatively, “do not have to strive at those conventional states of mind in a variety of ways, upholding them as the core practice.” To say such things contradicts all the scriptures and completely flies in the face of reason, for the goal for practitioners of the Mahāyāna is a non-abiding nirvāṇa. For this you have to achieve non-abiding in cyclic existence via the wisdom that knows reality, the stages of the path contingent on the ultimate, the “profound path,” the collection of sublime wisdom, the so-called “factor of wisdom.” You also have to achieve a non-abiding in the peace that is nirvāṇa via the wisdom that understands the diversity of phenomena, the stages of the path contingent on conventional truths, the vast path, the collection of merit, the so-called “factor of method.” [344] The Sūtra of Showing the Tathāgata’s Inconceivable Secret (Tathāgatācintya-guhya-nirdeśa-sūtra) thus says:152
The collection of sublime wisdom eliminates all afflictions. The collection of merit nurtures all living beings. Bhagavan, since this is the case, mahāsattva bodhisattvas should strive for the collections of sublime wisdom and merit.
The Questions of Sky Treasure Sūtra (Gagana-gañja-paripṛcchā-sūtra) says:153
With the knowledge of wisdom, you completely eliminate all afflictions. With the knowledge of method, you include all living beings.
The Sūtra Unravelling the Intended Meaning (Saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra) says:154
Utterly turning away from the welfare of all living beings and utterly turning away from all participation in motivated action—I have not taught these to be unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment.
The Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra) states at length:155
What is bondage for the bodhisattvas and what is their liberation? Attachment to wandering through cyclic existence without method is bondage for a bodhisattva; proceeding through cyclic existence with method is liberation. Attachment to wandering through cyclic existence without wisdom is bondage for a bodhisattva; proceeding through cyclic existence with wisdom is liberation. Wisdom that is not imbued with method is bondage; wisdom imbued with method is liberation. Method not imbued with wisdom is bondage; method imbued with wisdom is liberation.
Therefore, when you are on the path—right from the time of wanting the goal of buddhahood—you must depend on both method and wisdom; you will not attain it by either one alone. The Foremost of Gayā says:156
If you summarize the paths for bodhisattvas, there are these two. Which two? Method and wisdom. [345]
The Glorious First and Foremost Tantra (Śrī-paramādya-kalpa-rāja) states:157
The perfection of wisdom is the mother. Skill-in-means is the father.
And the Kāśyapa Chapter also says: 158
Kāśyapa, it is like this. Just as kings informed by ministers perform all royal duties, so too the wisdom of bodhisattvas imbued with skill-in-means performs all the deeds of a buddha.
Therefore, meditate on an emptiness that has the supremacy of being associated with all aspects, i.e., an emptiness that is complete in all the facets of method—generosity and so forth. By meditating on emptiness in isolation you will never reach the Mahāyāna path. The Questions of Crest Jewel Sūtra (Ratna-cūḍā-sūtra) states this at length:159
After you put on the armor of love and station yourself in a state of great compassion, you stabilize your mind in meditation on an actual emptiness that has the supremacy of being associated with all aspects. What is an emptiness that has the supremacy of being associated with all aspects? It is one that is not divorced from generosity, that is not divorced from ethical discipline, that is not divorced from patience, that is not divorced from joyous perseverance, that is not divorced from meditative stabilization, that is not divorced from wisdom, and that is not divorced from method.
The Sublime Continuum comments on this passage as follows: 160
Generosity, ethical discipline, patience, and so forth—
These are the painters;
Emptiness supreme in all aspects
Is said to be the likeness.
This uses the analogy of assembling a group of artists to paint a king’s likeness. One knows how to paint a head but not something else, one knows how to paint a hand but not something else, and so on. If even one artist is missing, the painting will not get finished. The king’s likeness is analogous to emptiness and the painters are analogous to generosity and so forth. So if method—generosity and so forth—is incomplete, it would be like a decapitated or amputated likeness. [346]
Furthermore, to take emptiness in isolation as what is to be meditated on and say, “There is no need to cultivate anything else,” expresses an idea that the Bhagavan set forth as a view to be opposed, and he thereupon refuted it. Were the statement true, then the many eons of a bodhisattva’s practice of generosity, observance of ethical discipline, etc. would be an exercise in faulty wisdom that did not comprehend the definitive, as the Bhagavan says in the Sūtra Gathering All the Threads (Sarva-vaidalya-saṃgraha-sūtra):161
Maitreya, fools intending to repudiate the other perfections will speak thus about the bodhisattvas’ correct practice of the six perfections for the sake of perfect enlightenment: “Bodhisattvas should train in perfect wisdom alone, the remaining perfections have no use.” Ajita [Maitreya], what do you think? Was he who was the king of Kāśi [Śākyamuni Buddha in a previous life] exercising faulty wisdom when he gave his own flesh to the hawk for the sake of the pigeon?
Maitreya replied, “No, Bhagavan, he was not.”
The Bhagavan continued, “Maitreya, when I was performing the deeds of a bodhisattva, did the roots of virtue that I accumulated—the roots of virtue that go with the six perfections—harm me?”
Maitreya replied, “No, Bhagavan, they did not.”
The Bhagavan continued, “Ajita, you have so far practiced the perfection of generosity over sixty eons, you have practiced the perfection of ethical discipline over sixty eons, the perfection of patience over sixty eons, the perfection of joyous perseverance over sixty eons, the perfection of meditative stabilization over sixty eons, and the perfection of wisdom over sixty eons, in regard to which these fools will say that enlightenment is only reached through a single way—the way of emptiness. [347] Their deeds will be completely impure.
Therefore, to say “It is unnecessary for someone who knows emptiness to strive hard to cultivate method” is a mistaken denial that states, in effect, “The period of Our Teacher’s previous holy lifetimes was a time when he had no understanding of the definitive.”
Opponents’ position: Practicing the deeds of generosity and so forth in a variety of ways is for when you do not have a firm knowledge of emptiness. When you do have this firm knowledge, then this is enough.
Reply: This is a very wrong view. If it were correct, then the children of the conquerors who have ascended to the great levels where they have attained the nonconceptual sublime wisdom that perceives the ultimate truth, and, in particular, the eighth-level bodhisattvas, who have control over nonconceptual wisdom, would not need the bodhisattva deeds. This is incorrect because the Sūtra on the Ten Levels (Daśa-bhūmika-sūtra) says that even though on each of the ten levels there is an emphasis on one of the deeds—generosity, etc.—it is not the case that they do not perform the other deeds, so it is said that they practice all six or ten perfections on each level. Further, since Ajita [Maitreya], Nāgārjuna, and Asaṇga explain the meaning of these sūtras in this fashion, it is not possible to interpret them otherwise.
In particular, bodhisattvas eliminate all afflictions on the eighth level. Therefore, when they stabilize on the ultimate, wherein they have quelled all elaboration, the buddhas exhort them, explaining that they have to train in the bodhisattva deeds: “With just this knowledge of emptiness you cannot become enlightened because the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas have also obtained this nonconceptuality. Look at my immeasurable body, immeasurable sublime wisdom, immeasurable realm, and so forth. You also do not have my powers and so on. Joyously persevere for the sake of these attributes. Think about the living beings not at peace, disturbed by various afflictions. But do not discard this forbearance [meditation on emptiness],” and so forth. [348] To be satisfied with a certain, trivial meditative concentration and to set aside everything else is something ridiculed by scholars. The Sūtra on the Ten Levels says:162
Listen! There are children of the conquerors, bodhisattvas, who abide in this bodhisattva’s immovable level [eighth level], who have generated the power of previous aspirational prayers, and who are stabilized in the “stream of entrance to the teaching” meditation [meditation on emptiness]. The bhagavan buddhas have them accomplish a tathāgata’s sublime wisdom, saying this: “Children of good lineage, very good, very good! This goal—the knowledge of all the buddha qualities—is a forbearance of the ultimate. Nevertheless, you do not have my ten powers, fearlessnesses, and so forth, the buddha qualities in all their richness. Joyously persevere at seeking these perfected qualities of a buddha. Do not throw away this very entrance to forbearance [meditation on emptiness]. Children of good lineage, though you have thus attained peace and liberation, think about the ordinary, childish beings, who are not at peace and are driven by various upsurges of diverse afflictions. Children of good lineage, recollect your earlier aspirational prayers, what you should attain for the welfare of living beings, and the inestimable entrance to sublime wisdom. Also, children of good lineage, this is the reality of phenomena. Whether there are tathāgatas or not, the sphere of reality simply remains; it is the emptiness of all phenomena, the non-apprehension of all things. Not by this alone are the tathāgatas to be distinguished; all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas also attain this nonconceptual real nature. [349] Also, children of good lineage, look at my immeasurable body, my immeasurable sublime wisdom, my immeasurable buddha-realm, my immeasurable actualization of sublime wisdom, my immeasurable halo of light, and the immeasurable pure modulations of my voice—and produce something similar in yourselves.”
The Sūtra on the Ten Levels also gives the example of a ship sailing out to sea, driven by a favorable wind.163 The distance it covers in a single day exceeds the distance it goes even in a hundred years after starting from port without a wind and using effort to move it. Likewise, it says, after you have reached the eighth level, without a great effort you cover in just a moment an amount of the path to omniscience not possible before reaching this level, even if you were to strive at the path for one hundred thousand eons. You fool yourself, therefore, by saying “I have a shortcut,” and then not learning the bodhisattva deeds.
Opponents’ position: I do not assert that generosity and so forth are unnecessary, but rather that they are fully present in the state of mind that lacks any thought, because the absence of adherence to a giver, gift, and recipient makes non-apprehending generosity fully present, and in the same way the remaining perfections are fully present, too. It is also because the sūtras say that you include the practice of all six perfections within the practice of each.
Reply: If they are fully present in a state of mind that lacks thought, then when non-Buddhist meditators are in meditative equipoise even in single-pointed states of serenity, all the perfections would be fully present because they also are not adhering to a giver, gift, and recipient. In particular, when śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas nonconceptually perceive the real nature, as in the earlier quotation from the Sūtra on the Ten Levels, all bodhisattva deeds would be fully present—so they would, absurdly, be Mahāyāna practitioners. And if you assert that just one practice is sufficient because the sūtras say that all six perfections are included in each, well then, since it also says all six are present even when offering a maṇḍala while reciting the verse beginning, “Giving cow dung together with water . . .,” it would also be enough to do only this. [350]
Deeds imbued with the philosophical view and wisdom imbued with method may be understood by way of an analogy. When a mother stricken with grief at the death of her beloved child engages in conversation and other activities with others, the feelings she expresses do not eliminate the force of her grief. Yet not every feeling she expresses is necessarily grief. Similarly, if the wisdom that knows emptiness is very strong, even though the states of mind associated with giving, making obeisance, circumambulating, or reciting are not cognitions of emptiness, this still does not preclude your being involved in them while endowed with the potency or force of the cognition of emptiness. For instance, at the start of a meditation session, if you first generate a very strong spirit of enlightenment, this spirit of enlightenment is not manifestly there when you then enter meditative equipoise in a concentration on emptiness. Yet this does not preclude this concentration’s being imbued with the potency of the spirit of enlightenment.
It is this sort of thing that is referred to by the term “non-apprehending generosity.” It is not the complete absence of a generous attitude, wherein giving is not feasible. Understand the remaining perfections in a similar way. Know also that this is how method and wisdom are inseparable.
Furthermore, you should not misconstrue statements that things in cyclic existence such as your body, resources, and a long life span are the result of collections of merit; they are so only in the absence of skill-in-means and wisdom. When collections of merit are imbued with these, it is entirely proper that they are the causes of liberation and omniscience. There are limitless passages in the scriptures which say as much, such as this one from the Precious Garland:164
To sum up, the embodiment of form,
O King, is born from the collection of merit.
Moreover, it looks like you are saying that even all ill deeds and afflictions that cause the miserable realms can sometimes become causes of buddhahood, and that virtue––generosity, ethical discipline, and so forth that lead to high status––causes cyclic existence, but does not become a cause of buddhahood. So compose yourself before you speak. [351]
Do not misconstrue the following statements: From the sūtras: 165
Adhering to the six perfections—generosity and so forth—is de-monic activity.
From the Three Heaps Sūtra (Tri-skandhaka-sūtra):166
Confess each of these: descending to the level of objective existence and giving gifts, observing ethical discipline because of a belief in the supremacy of ethics, etc.
And from the Sūtra Requested by Brahmā (Brahma-paripṛcchā-sūtra): 167
All analysis is conceptual thought; the nonconceptual is enlightenment.
The meaning of the first passage is that generosity, etc. motivated by a mistaken adherence to the two types of self [the self of persons and the self of objects] is not pure, and, therefore, is stated to be “demonic activity.” This passage does not teach that generosity and so forth is demonic activity; otherwise, since it mentions all six perfections, you would also have to assert that the perfections of meditative stabilization and wisdom are demonic activity.
The second scriptural passage means that the perfections are impure because of being motivated by a mistaken adherence and explains that you must confess them. It does not teach that you should not be involved in generosity, etc.; otherwise, the mention of a descent to the level of objective existence in the phrase, “descending to the level of objective existence and giving gifts” would be unnecessary, and it would instead have stated, “confess the giving of gifts in general,” which it does not in fact say.
This method of response, formulated in the third Stages of Meditation, emphasizes an extremely important point, because Ha-shang’s view misunderstands this passage and asserts that the whole range of deeds is qualified by signs, wherein the deeds are taken to be the apprehension of signs of a self of persons and objects. If every sort of virtuous conceptual thought—such as the generous attitude when thinking, “I shall give this thing,” and the attitude of restraint when thinking, “I shall restrain from this wrongdoing”—were an apprehension of a self of objects that misconceives the three spheres [agent, object, and recipient], then it would be right and proper that everyone finding the view of the selflessness of objects should completely reject virtuous conceptual thought just as they reject hostility, pride, etc., and it would be quite wrong for them to purposefully cultivate those virtues. [352]
If all conceptual thoughts, which think, “This is this,” were conceptions of the self of objects that misconceive the three spheres, then what about contemplating the good qualities of a teacher; contemplating leisure and opportunity, death, and the suffering of the miserable realms; training in the practice of going for refuge; thinking how a certain action gives rise to a certain result; training in love, compassion, and the spirit of enlightenment; and practicing the precepts of the engaged spirit of enlightenment? Since all of these paths require only that you induce certain knowledge by thinking, “This is this,” “This comes from that,” “This has this good quality or that fault,” you would increase your conception of a self of objects commensurate to your certainty about these paths. Conversely, you would become less certain about these paths commensurate to the certain knowledge of the selflessness of objects you could sustain in meditation. The deeds component and view component would thus become mutually exclusive, like hot and cold, and you would then never develop a long-lasting and very forceful certainty about both the view and deeds.
Therefore, just as in the context of the goal there is no contradiction that a buddha’s embodiment of truth and a buddha’s embodiment of form are both presented as attainments, so on the path you must induce without any contradiction (1) certain knowledge of the total freedom from any elaboration of the conception of signs of true existence in the two kinds of self with respect to even a particle of a mental object and (2) certain knowledge that “This comes from that,” and “This has this good quality or that fault.” This, in turn, is contingent on how you determine the two truths, the philosophical view of what exists. You are counted “a person who knows the two truths and who has found the Conqueror’s intent” if you are convinced that the following two valid cognitions not only do not, of course, harm each other, but rather aid each other: (1) the valid cognition that establishes the ultimate, which is determined through scripture and reasoning to be the absence of even a particle of essential nature in the way of being or ontological status of any phenomenon of cyclic existence or nirvāṇa, and (2) the conventional valid cognition that establishes that causes and effects, in their diverse workings, are certain, without any confusion of even the slightest cause or effect. [353] I shall explain this system in the insight section.168
As to the third scriptural passage, the one from the Sūtra Requested by Brahmā, since the context for this passage in the sūtra is an analysis of production and so forth, in order to teach that generosity, etc. are not absolutely produced, it uses the term “conceptual thought” to indicate that they are mere imputations by conceptual thought. It is not teaching that you should not involve yourself in these deeds and reject them.
Therefore, since there is no time when it is not necessary to practice these deeds—the six perfections, etc.—until you become a buddha, it is incumbent upon you to train in these deeds. If you strive right now from the depths of your heart, you will accomplish with effort what you can achieve. With respect to the practices that you are unable to do for the time being, make an aspiration to do them and, as causes of the ability to practice them, accumulate the collections, clear away the obscurations, and make many aspirational prayers. Once you do this, it will not be long before you put them into practice. Otherwise, if you take the position that you, personally, cannot understand the deeds or cannot do them, and you then say to others, “You do not need to train in them,” not only do you ruin yourself and bring ruin on others as well, but it also becomes a condition for the decline of the teaching. So do not do this. As Nāgārjuna’s Compendium of Sūtras (Sūtra-samuccaya) says:169
Discerning even the non-composite and still being disillusioned with composite virtue is demonic activity. Understanding even the path to enlightenment and still not seeking the path of the perfections is demonic activity.
And also:
A bodhisattva who lacks skill-in-means should not strive for the state of profound reality.
And the Sūtra of Showing the Tathāgata’s Inconceivable Secret says: 170
Children of good lineage, it is like this. Fire, for example, burns from a cause and goes out when this cause ceases to exist. Similarly, mind is activated by an observed object; without this it is inactive. The bodhisattvas with this skill-in-means know, through the purity of their perfection of wisdom, the elimination of a truly existent observed object, and yet they do not eliminate the observation of roots of virtue. [354] They do not give rise to the observation of the afflictions and yet set their attention on the observed objects of the perfections. They discern an observation of emptiness, yet still observe and consider all living beings with great compassion.
You must distinguish between explanations of how there is no observed object and explanations of how there is an observed object.
Accordingly, while you must loosen the bonds of the afflictions and the conceptions of signs of true existence, you must be firmly bound by the rope of ethical training, and, while you need to eradicate both kinds of misdeeds [deeds that are wrong by nature and deeds that are wrong by prohibition], you must not eradicate virtuous activities. Being bound by ethical training and being bound by conceiving signs of true existence are not the same, and loosening the safeguarding of vows and loosening the chain of the conception of self are not the same either.
You achieve omniscience from a number of causes, each of which is insufficient by itself. So know that the following sort of person is a teacher of nonvirtue who blocks the door to the two collections: someone who says, “Hundreds of birds are driven out with a single stone from a slingshot,” and who attains a fortunate life of leisure and should then take advantage of it in many ways, but rather does not train in anything other than one specific aspect of the path.
Also, the difference between the Hīnayāna or Mahāyāna comes down to whether its practitioners train in the limitless collections at the time of putting the teachings into practice, because the “modest vehicle” and Hīnayāna are synonymous, and the meaning of “modest” is “partial.” You must achieve even lesser, current results—food, drink, and the like—through many causes and conditions, so it is quite wrong to hold that something partial is sufficient to achieve a person’s highest purpose, buddhahood, for it is the nature of dependent-arising that results are made in accordance with their causes. With this in mind the Buddha said in the Lotus of Compassion Sūtra (Karuṇā-puṇḍarīka-sūtra) that something partial comes from what is partial, and something total comes from what is total. [355] This is explained at length in the Sūtra on the Coming Forth of the Tathāgatas (Tathāgatotpatti-saṃbhava):171
None of the tathāgatas arose from a single cause. Why? O conquerors’ children! Tathāgatas are established from ten times one hundred thousand immeasurable establishing causes. What are the ten? They are these: the genuine cause of not being satisfied with the immeasurable collections of merit and sublime wisdom. . . .
This is also explained at length in the Teaching of Vimalakīrti: 172
O friends! The bodies of tathāgatas are produced from hundreds of meritorious deeds, from all virtues, from immeasurable virtuous paths. . . .
And the protector Nāgārjuna also says in his Precious Garland: 173
When the causes of even a buddha’s embodiment of form
Have no measure, as with the world,
How then could there be a measure
Of the causes of the embodiment of truth?
This training in method and wisdom comprising the six perfections is, as explained earlier, common to both the mantra and perfection vehicles. For in many of the tantric classics we find repeated mention of the complete path of the perfections—the six perfections, the thirty-seven branches of enlightenment, the sixteen emptinesses, etc.—in the context of explanations that the entire celestial mansion and the array of resident deities are the inner qualities of mind. Therefore, know that all the Perfection of Wisdom literature’s explanations about what is to be adopted and what is to be discarded are comprehensively shared with the mantra vehicle, except in the case of the tantric teachings for certain exceptional persons in which they must take the experience of sensory objects as the path, and so forth.
Take the above explanation as a seed and reflect on it well. If you are not then certain about a path that is not just partial but complete in all aspects, you have not comprehended the foundation of the Mahāyāna path in general. Therefore, intelligent ones, generate a solid certainty about this path of method and wisdom and, in many ways, continuously grow in your natural capacity for the supreme vehicle. [356]