c" The process of learning the perfections
1" How to train in the bodhisattva deeds in general
(a) Training in the perfections that mature the qualities you will have when you become a buddha
(i) How to train in the perfection of generosity
(a') What generosity is
(b') How to begin the development of generosity
(c') The divisions of generosity
(1') How everyone should practice it
(2') Divisions of generosity relative to particular persons
(3') Divisions of actual generosity
(a") The gift of the teachings
(b") The gift of fearlessness
(c") Material gifts
(1") The generosity of actually giving material things
(a)) How to give away material things
(1)) Recipients of giving
(2)) The motivation for giving
(a')) What kind of motivation is required
(b')) What kind of motivation must be eliminated
c" The process of learning the perfections
The process of learning the perfections has two parts:
1. How to train in the bodhisattva deeds in general (Chapters 9-15)
2. In particular, how to train in the last two perfections (Volume 3)
1" How to train in the bodhisattva deeds in general
How to train in the bodhisattva deeds in general has two parts:
1. Training in the perfections that mature the qualities you will have when you become a buddha (Chapters 9-14)
2. Training in the four ways to gather disciples that help others to mature (Chapter 15)
(a) Training in the perfections that mature the qualities you will have when you become a buddha
Training in the perfections that mature the qualities you will have when you become a buddha has six parts:
1. How to train in the perfection of generosity (Chapters 9–10)
2. How to train in the perfection of ethical discipline (Chapter 11)
3. How to train in the perfection of patience (Chapter 12)
4. How to train in the perfection of joyous perseverance (Chapter 13)
5. How to train in the perfection of meditative stabilization (Chapter 14)
6. How to train in the perfection of wisdom (Chapter 14)
(i) How to train in the perfection of generosity
How to train in the perfection of generosity has four sections:
1. What generosity is
2. How to begin the development of generosity
3. The divisions of generosity (Chapters 9-10)
4. A summary (Chapter 10)
(a') What generosity is
The Bodhisattva Levels says:185
What is the nature of generosity? It is the intention accompanying bodhisattvas’ disinterested non-attachment to all their possessions and their body, and, motivated by this, the physical and verbal actions of giving the things to be given.
Hence it is the virtue of a generous attitude, and the physical and verbal actions which are motivated by this. [365]
Bringing the perfection of generosity to completion is not contingent on removing beings’ poverty by giving gifts to others. Otherwise, since there still remain many destitute living beings, all the earlier conquerors would not have attained perfect generosity. Therefore, the physical and verbal aspects of generosity are not the main thing; the main thing is the mental aspect. This is because you perfect generosity after you destroy your stingy clinging to all that you own—your body, resources, and roots of virtue—and you completely condition your mind to giving them away to living beings from the depths of your heart and, not only that, but also to giving to others the effects of this giving as well. Thus Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds says:186
If generosity were perfected
By removing beings’ poverty,
Since beings are still destitute
How could past saviors have perfected it?
Generosity is perfected, it is said,
Through the attitude of giving away to all beings
All your possessions, along with the effects of this.
Therefore, generosity is a state of mind.
Thus the practice of the perfection of generosity entails generating in various ways the intention to give and steadily increasing this generosity, even though you may not be actually giving away something to others.
(b') How to begin the development of generosity
Simply destroying all stinginess in regard to your body and resources is not the perfection of generosity, for stinginess is included within attachment and so even the two kinds of Hīnayāna arhats have totally eliminated it along with its seeds. What is required, then, is that you not only clear away stinginess’s tightfistedness, which prevents giving things away, but also that you develop from the depths of your heart the intention to give away to others all your possessions. For this you have to meditate on the faults of holding on to things and the benefits of giving them away. I shall, therefore, discuss these.
The Moon Lamp Sūtra (Candra-pradīpa-sūtra) says:187
These childish people are attached
To this rotting body and to this
Rushing life-force, both of which lack independence
And are like a dream or a magician’s illusion. [366]
So these unintelligent beings do terrible things,
Fall under the control of sin,
And, carried away by the chariot of Death’s Lord,
Proceed to unbearable hells.
This says that you should stop attachment by viewing the body as unclean, life as rushing like a mountain cascade, both body and life as devoid of an independent self because they are under the control of karma, and both as false like a dream or a magician’s illusion. Furthermore, if you do not stop attachment, you will become dominated by it, build up great wrongdoing, and proceed to miserable realms.
Consider also the Formula That Accomplishes Limitless Methods (Ananta-mukha-nirhāra-dhāraṇī):188
As to living beings who dispute with others,
It is tightfistedness that is the root cause.
So renounce that which you crave.
After you give up craving, the formula will work.
The Compendium of Trainings says:189
My body and mind
Move on moment by moment.
If with this impermanent body, dripping with filth,
I attain enlightenment,
Which is permanent and pure,
Will I not have attained what is priceless?
And the Garland of Birth Stories (Jātaka-mālā) states:190
This body devoid of self, perishing, without substance,
Suffering, ungrateful, and continually impure
Is of benefit to others; not to delight in this
Is not to be intelligent.
Though you make much effort to care for your body, which has no substance, you have to discard it. By sincerely giving it away to others you fulfill many of your own and others’ aims. After you think, “I would be a fool not to train my mind to do this,” do whatever you can to produce the thought of giving away your body and the like to others. Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds says:191
By giving everything away, I pass from sorrow,
So my mind reaches nirvāṇa.
As I have to give up everything [at death],
It is best to give it to living beings. [367]
And the Compendium of the Perfections says:192
If you see the impermanence of resources
And naturally have great compassion
You will know with good reason that the gifts
You have kept in your house belong to others.
There is never fear from what has been given away;
What is kept at home gives rise to fears
That it is insufficient, ordinary, or needing constant protection.
If you give it away, these faults never harm you.
By giving you achieve happiness in future lives;
Not giving brings suffering even in this life.
Human wealth is like a shooting star—
What is not given away will cease to exist.
Wealth not given is transitory and will be gone;
By giving it away it remains a treasury.
Wealth of no value comes to have value
When you strive to help living beings.
The wise praise giving wealth away,
Childish persons like to hoard it;
No wealth is kept by holding on to it;
From giving it away excellence always arises.
By giving things away, you no longer grasp the afflictions;
Being miserly breeds afflictions on an ignoble path.
Noble beings say generosity is the best path,
While its opposite is a bad path.
If you dedicate from the depths of your heart all roots of virtue, however great or small they may be, for the sake of accomplishing both temporarily and ultimately extensive benefit and happiness for all living beings, and then give something, you obtain merit related to each living being. Hence you easily complete the collection of merit. The Precious Garland states:193
Were the merit of saying this
To have physical form
It would not fit into universes as numerous
As the grains of the Ganges’ sand.
The Bhagavan said this
And there is a logic to it—
The expanse of living beings is immeasurable;
The merit of the wish to help them is the same. [368]
Furthermore, do not hold on to companions and belongings that have prevented you from increasing your ability to give things away, that have intensified your stinginess, that have stopped the development of previously absent inclinations to give, or that have weakened your inclinations to give. Do not take on these kinds of companions or accept these kinds of material gifts even if others offer them. The Compendium of the Perfections states:194
Bodhisattvas give up all possessions
That intensify the fault of stinginess
Or that do not expand generosity,
The deceivers that become an obstacle.
Bodhisattvas should not accept
Jewels, wealth, or even a kingdom
If it would harm their generous attitude and
Obscure the path to perfect enlightenment.
When you act in this way, stinginess may lead you to feel attached to your goods. If so, become unattached by thinking, “The Sage reached enlightenment after he gave away every possession. Previously, recalling my commitment to emulate him, I gave away my body, every resource, and all my virtue to all living beings. If I am still attached to resources, I am behaving just like an elephant, oppressed by the sun, who goes into the water and bathes and then, back on dry land, rolls in the dirt. Then again, after it sees that it is covered in dirt, it goes back into the water and does the same thing over again.” The Compendium of the Perfections says:195
Recalling the superior deeds of the sages,
Strive at them and reflect on your commitment;
Understand the following excellent thoughts
In order to clear away your attachment to things:
“I gave away my body to all beings;
Then I relinquished the virtue of this gift.
My being attached to external objects
Is senseless, like an elephant’s bathing.”
If you are able to generate intense delight as you contemplate the many benefits of giving things away and great fear as you reflect on the faults of tightfistedness, you will naturally produce a generous attitude. [369] Accordingly, generate the thought of giving away everything to others at the conclusion of cultivating love and compassion, or at the conclusion of reflecting on the life stories of the Conqueror, his children, and so forth. Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds states how this is done:196
I will give away without a sense of loss
My body and my resources
As well as all my virtue from the past, present, and future
For the welfare of all living beings.
You focus on three things—your body, your resources, and your roots of virtue—and mentally give them away to all living beings.
If you stop the craving that conceives everything to be your personal property and then repeatedly condition yourself to the attitude of giving it all away to others, you will be called a bodhisattva. The Compendium of the Perfections says:197
“All these things are yours;
I have no pride that they are mine.”
Someone who has this amazing thought repeatedly
And emulates the qualities of the perfect Buddha
Is called a bodhisattva—so said
The inconceivable Buddha, the supreme being.
At present, as your determination has not matured and is weak, you do not actually give away flesh, etc., though you have already mentally given your body to all beings. According to the Compendium of Trainings, however, if you do not train in the thought of giving away your body and life, you will not become accustomed to it and so will remain incapable of giving away your body and life. Therefore, from now on cultivate this thought.
If you use food, clothes, shelter and so on that you have sincerely given away to all beings, and you do so with craving for your personal welfare, forgetting the thought, “I will use them for others’ welfare,” then you commit a major infraction. When you have no craving but forget to apply the idea of focusing on all living beings, or if you use those resources for a particular living being out of attachment, you commit a minor infraction. [370]
With regard to the material goods that you have turned over to others, the Compendium of Trainings states198 that when you use them for your own welfare fully cognizant of their being the property of others, you are stealing, and if the total value is enough, you commit a cardinal transgression of the vows of individual liberation. In response to this, some say that since you have turned over your food, etc., to all living beings, it is impossible for the total value of any one being’s portion to be enough, so you cannot commit a cardinal transgression. Others say this is not correct because you have turned over your belongings as a whole to each being individually. Others argue that even though you have mentally surrendered them to others, they do not take personal possession of them, so there is no cardinal transgression.
The intended meaning behind the Compendium of Trainings statement is that you incur a cardinal transgression (given that the total value requirement has been met) when you sincerely turn your food, etc., over to a human being, and this person knows it and takes possession, whereupon you, fully cognizant of their being another’s property, appropriate them for your own use. Therefore, the positions stated by the others are wrong.
There is no fault in using some living beings’ resources if you think, while using them, “I do this for their welfare.” The Compendium of Trainings states:199
There is no fault in using things if you think, “I am taking care of my body which is owned by others with these resources that are owned by others.” Slaves have no material goods of their own with which to survive.
You may think, “I incur a fault because, after I have turned over these belongings to living beings, I use them without their permission,” but there is no fault. The Compendium of Trainings says:200
A servant who labors hard on a master’s behalf might use the master’s belongings without permission when the master’s mind is unclear due to illness and so forth, but incurs no fault.
Do not lack faith and think, “Mentally giving everything away to living beings while not actually giving it is tantamount to a lie and, therefore, is without real substance.” The Compendium of Trainings says:201
Some people who are close to a bodhisattva who practices in this way fail to understand the bodhisattva’s practice accurately and lack faith. This is unwarranted because they are well acquainted with someone who has a great and wonderful spirit of generosity. [371] It is wrong for them to doubt this method.
(c') The divisions of generosity
The section on the divisions of generosity has three parts:
1. How everyone should practice it
2. Divisions of generosity relative to particular persons
3. Divisions of actual generosity (Chapters 9-10)
(1') How everyone should practice it
Asaṇga’s Mahāyāna Compendium says that you practice generosity in association with six supremacies. Supreme basis means that you practice generosity based on the spirit of enlightenment; i.e., you act after you have been motivated by it. Supreme things means that in general you give all objects that can be given, and, even when you are engaged in specific acts of generosity, you do not give up this thought of giving away everything. Supreme aim is when you give things away to all living beings for the sake of their immediate happiness and ultimate benefit. Supreme skill-in-means is said to be when generosity is imbued with nonconceptual sublime wisdom; beginning bodhisattvas should take this to be the wisdom that knows the lack of intrinsic nature in objects. Supreme dedication means that you dedicate the virtue from generosity to complete enlightenment. Supreme purity is when you stop both the afflictive and cognitive obscurations.
Haribhadra’s Long Explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in Eight Thousand Lines says that you practice generosity with the six perfections present. When you are giving the teachings, for instance, it is extremely powerful if you practice all six perfections. You have ethical discipline when you restrain yourself from the considerations of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas; patience when you bear any hardship while you aspire to the qualities of omniscience and when you are patient with abuse from others; joyous perseverance when you yearn for the ever-greater increase of your generosity; meditative stabilization when you dedicate to complete enlightenment the virtue that you cultivate with one-pointed attention unmixed with Hīnayāna considerations; and wisdom when you know that the giver, gift, and recipient are like a magician’s illusion.
(2') Divisions of generosity relative to particular persons
In general it is said that lay bodhisattvas make gifts of material things and renunciate bodhisattvas make gifts of the teachings. [372] The Bodhisattva Vows of Liberation (Bodhisattva-prātimokṣa) says:202
Śāriputra, the renunciate bodhisattva who teaches just a single four-line stanza produces much more merit than the lay bodhisattva who makes offerings of buddha-realms filled with jewels, as many in number as the sand grains of the River Ganges, to the tathāgatas, the arhats, the perfectly enlightened buddhas. Śāriputra, the Tathāgata does not permit renunciates to make material gifts.
The Compendium of Trainings says the Buddha intended here material gifts that would become a hindrance to study and the like. It is said that renunciates are prohibited from making offerings of material goods that they have worked to obtain, but they must give them away if they obtain many things through the force of their previous merit and without hindering their virtuous activities.
Also, Sha-ra-wa (Sha-ra-ba) said:
I am not talking to you about the benefits of giving; I am talking to you about the faults of tightfistedness.
It is displeasing news when renunciates harm their ethical discipline as they strain to the utmost in their search for wealth to give away.
(3') Divisions of actual generosity
The presentation of the divisions of actual generosity has three parts:
1. The gift of the teachings
2. The gift of fearlessness
3. Material gifts (Chapters 9-10)
(a") The gift of the teachings
The gift of the teachings is teaching the sublime teaching without making mistakes, teaching the arts and the like (worldly occupations which are blameless and proper to learn), and involving others in upholding the fundamental precepts.
(b") The gift of fearlessness
The gift of fearlessness is protecting living beings from fear of humans such as kings and robbers, from fear of non-human beings such as lions, tigers, and crocodiles, and from fear of the elements such as water and fire.
(c") Material gifts
Material gifts are explained in two parts:
1. The generosity of actually giving material things (Chapters 9-10) [373]
2. The generosity which is just mental (Chapter 10)
(1") The generosity of actually giving material things
The generosity of actually giving material things has three parts:
1. How to give away material things (Chapters 9-10)
2. What to do if you are unable to give (Chapter 10)
3. Relying on the remedies for the hindrances to generosity (Chapter 10)
(a)) How to give away material things
This section has four parts:
1. Recipients of giving
2. The motivation for giving
3. How to give (Chapter 10)
4. Things to give (Chapter 10)
(1)) Recipients of giving
There are ten of these: (1) friends and relatives who help you, (2) enemies who harm you, (3) ordinary people who neither harm nor help you, (4) those with good qualities such as ethical discipline, (5) those with flaws such as faulty ethical discipline, (6) those inferior to you, (7) those equal to you, (8) those superior to you, (9) the rich and happy, and (10) the miserable and destitute.
(2)) The motivation for giving
The motivation for giving has two sections:
1. What kind of motivation is required
2. What kind of motivation must be eliminated
(a')) What kind of motivation is required
Your motivation should have three attributes: (1) a focus on purpose, which thinks, “Based on this I will complete the perfection of generosity, a precondition for unexcelled enlightenment”; (2) a focus on the thing to be given, which thinks, “From the outset a bodhisattva gives away all possessions to living beings, so the material goods that I am giving belong to others, and it is as if they are receiving things kept in trust”; and (3) a focus on the recipient, which thinks, “Since these recipients, whether asking for the gift or not, bring to completion my perfection of generosity, they are my teachers.” The Compendium of the Perfections states:203
When someone comes to ask for something,
Bodhisattvas, so as to build up the preconditions for complete enlightenment,
Consider what they have as belonging to others, give it as from a trust,
And consider the person their teacher.
With respect to giving away individual things, understand in detail from the Questions of Subāhu Sūtra (Subāhu-paripṛcchā) and the Compendium of the Perfections your motivation’s focus on purpose, which is the thought, “I will give this away for this or for that purpose.” As to your motivation’s focus on the recipient explained above, you should apply it to all situations of generosity, so it is the general motivation. [374] Specific motivations would be when you make a gift to those who harm you, once you have established a loving attitude; to those who suffer, once you have established a compassionate attitude; to those who have good qualities, once you have established an attitude of delight; and to those who help you, once you have established an impartial attitude.
Moreover, you must be even-minded toward all recipients, give away to living beings—such as those who ask and so forth—all the virtuous results of giving, and, in particular, be compassionate to those recipients who are suffering. Candrakīrti says:
Once the giving is free from stinginess,
The giver must compassionately make gifts
Which are given equally with an even-mindedness
To those who are superior or inferior recipients.
The results of such giving
Go to both self and other at the same time.
Holy beings praise this giving without stinginess
To those who seek gifts.
And the Praise of Infinite Qualities says: 204
Even when some see a hopeful person who is destitute and of low birth
They do not care and, out of desire for results, seek other recipients who have good qualities.
They have a base motive; though givers, they are the same as those asking for gifts, you [Buddha] said.
Hence, you remain committed out of compassion to giving to those who ask.
(b') What kind of motivation must be eliminated
1. A motivation that believes in the supremacy of bad views. Lacking this means that you do not give while thinking, “There is no result from generosity,” “Harmful blood offerings are religious,” “I am giving as I apply myself to what is good and beneficial,” or “Through just the completion of generosity alone I will be free of mundane and supramundane attachments.”
2. A motivation that is arrogant. Lacking this means that you do not despise the person who asks for something, you do not compete with others, and, after you give something, you do not conceitedly think, “I am so generous; no one else can do like this.” [375]
The Purification of the Obscurations of Karma Sūtra (Karmāvaraṇa-viśuddhi-sūtra) explains that when ordinary beings make gifts, they lose faith in those who are stingy, on account of which they get angry and are reborn in a hell, so it is said that this obstructs generosity. When these ordinary persons observe ethical discipline, they speak unflatteringly of those whose ethical discipline is faulty, so they lose faith in many living beings and fall into miserable realms on account of their loss of faith; and when these ordinary people maintain patience and the like, they speak disparagingly of those who do the opposite of these, and so obstruct their own ethical discipline and so forth.
Hence you should do as the Praise of Infinite Qualities says: 205
At the times when you were learned and very intelligent you did not praise yourself;
You extolled and revered other persons who had few good qualities.
When you maintained a mass of good qualities, you seized on even a small fault in your own behavior.
3. A motivation for support. Lacking this means that you do not give with the hope of getting praise or fame.
4. A motivation of discouragement. Lacking this means that when you give after becoming joyful even before the act of giving, you are filled with faith and then have no regret after giving; and even when you hear about a bodhisattva’s vast acts of generosity, you are not discouraged but intensify your enthusiasm without belittling yourself.
5. A motivation in which you turn your back on someone. Lacking this means that you give out of an even-minded compassion that is impartial toward enemy, friend, and ordinary persons.
6. A motivation of expecting something in return. Lacking this means that you do not give to others out of the hope that they will help you, but because you see that these beings are bereft of happiness, burned by the flames of craving, without the power to relieve their sufferings, and naturally miserable.
7. A motivation of expecting fruition. Lacking this means that you do not hope for the fruition of an excellent body and resources in future lives, but give because you see that all composite things are without substance but can contribute to unexcelled enlightenment. This does not stop you from expecting these results in the short term, but stops you from taking the mere body and resources of cyclic existence to be your goal. [376]
Besides these, you should give without the motivation of wrong livelihood in which you think, “If I make this gift, the ruler, etc., will recognize me as a generous person, and I will get some respect.” Do not give from fear of becoming poor, or with the motivation to deceive someone who asks for something. Give something when you are free from distraction and feelings of dislike or anger. Make gifts when you are not dispirited due to the various wrong actions of the one who asks for something. Even when you see the faults of someone who has deceived you, etc., do not give with the motivation to proclaim these faults to others. Finally, give in the belief, from which others cannot dissuade you, that each individual act of giving will give rise to an individual result.