The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels, Chapter 4: The Nature of Bodhicitta

 

—CHAPTER FOUR—

THE NATURE OF BODHICITTA

[So now that it has been approximated by metaphors, in order to drive home the significance, the nature of Awareness-Bodhicitta is uncompromisingly presented as follows.]

The nature of the all-inclusive Bodhicitta is like this.

It is not an appearance.It is beyond the dharmas of appearance.

It is not a void.It is beyond the dharmas of void.

It is not an entity.It has no thingness no labels.

It is not a nonentity.It embraces all sangsara/nirvana.

It is not an entity or nonentity.It is the primordial Realm,

naturally-arrived-at and level.

It has no orientation or preferences.It has no ground, no root, no thingness.

[The substance of Awareness is beyond diffusive extremes of thought and communication; so it is not arrived-at in the sphere of entities and nonentities.  it totally embraces all sangsara/nirvana.]

˚

[By nature, its substantiality is completed in Dharma Proper, spread-out and pure.]

Its flow uninterrupted, it is the receptive centre of

clearly comprehended awareness.

Untransformed and untransported, it spreads throughout the sky-Realm.

The totally incomparable significance of self-engendered Full Knowledge

is subsumed in a single unborn, unending drop

that is unstable and all-pervading, completely devoid of extreme

orientations.

˚

[This Realm, while all have it, is shown to be the objective sphere of only a few lucky ones.]

An inheritance of unwavering,  level,  naturally-arrived-at Vajra Heart,

this exceedingly spread-out supreme Realm beyond inclusion & exclusion

is no objective sphere to be described by words.

It is a sphere where each one awares itself,

a spreading receptive centre of Insight.

The yoga practitioner divorced from mental and verbal diffusiveness

knows it to be beyond description and nondescription.

Meditations and things to meditate on are not to be found;

So there is no need to slay the enemies     sinking & scattering,

& distracting thoughts.

[The Diamond Cutter Sutra says,

Dharma Proper is no knowable.

It is not possible to know.]

˚

[Now it is shown that there is no acceptance-rejection of good/bad because appearances/becoming abides in the Buddhafield.]

As there is no sense of belonging to self or others

in the Dharma Proper residing in the total reservoir,

these very three realms are a field of level nature,

Awareness pure and level, a field permeated by the Great Naturally-arrived-at.

[The Occult Matrix says,

The dharmas of the entirety of the three existences

are all without exception Buddhaized.

Dharmas aside from Buddhahood itself

even the Buddhas themselves do not find.]

˚

[So while sangsara even is Buddhaized, dawning as an appropriate manifestation of Awareness, it is also shown that nirvana, too, is nothing more than the appropriate manifestation of Buddhahood.]

The Buddhas of all time are pure, appropriate manifestations

without accepting/rejecting— all in a single beam.

So there is not the least thing to be obtained from others.

All dharmas shine in that great receptive centre of Mind Proper;

there has not been the slightest compromise

on what levelness means.

[In Pure Awareness there is nothing besides what we call ‘Buddha’ since there is no looking for a substantiality of ‘Buddha’ other than through the mind that pushes and strives with causes and for results itself.  Other than Awareness simply pure of adventitious defilements, there is no ‘Buddha’.

The Occult Matrix says

You do not get complete Buddhahood

from anything in space and time.

Mind Proper is completely buddhaized.

Though they search, the Buddhas themselves do not ‘find’.]

˚

[If such an awareness discovers its own substantiality, turnoffs and obscurations are forcefully closed off.]

No inside.    No outside.    Untroubled by dawnings and settings.

The basis for lighting up the darkness of the horizons is Bodhicitta.

Nothing given up, the turnoffs are forcefully closed off.

[The All Making King says,

This Bodhicitta nature

is the essence of all dharmas.

Unproduced, it is completely pure;

so there are no obscurations.

It has no path to go down,

so there are no turnoffs.

Totally naturally-arrived-at,

there is nothing to look for.

In the single Bodhicitta,

the essence of all dharmas,

in the one, various things are numbered,

so turnoffs and obscurations come in.

Going down what isn’t to be gone down,

turnoffs come in.

Looking for what isn’t to be looked upon,

the obscurations of non-seeing come in.]

˚

[Whatever may appear in the continuum of Awareness has not moved from the Realm.]

The various modes of appearance of beings,

of the worlds, and even of the Body and Full Knowledge of pure Buddhahood

fill the sky-Realm with their uninhibited play that

dawns from the special powers of understanding and misunderstanding.

There is only understanding and misunderstanding in the Realm of Dharmas

continuity.

From the pure appearance of Bliss Travellers through understanding;

and from misunderstanding, unawareness and our tendencies toward 

subject/object dichotomies,

various things appear.  Yet they have not moved from the Realm.

[Buddhas come from the self-engendered Full Knowledge-Realm recognizing its own substantiality.  The lack of that recognition makes sentient beings seem to appear.  Since both are of one taste in the Awareness continuity, there is no belittling [of sentient beings] or partiality [for Buddhas].]

˚

[That Awareness is shown to be a great unimpeded void-clarity.]

Bodhicitta is the real basis of everything.

Its character unimpeded, whatever variations dawn

are clarified in the Realm of Pure Dharma Proper, self-clarifying.

So it is undifferentiated and unbreached.

Free-ranging is Awareness’ style.

[Like a pure crystal ball, its substance is void and clear.  From the continuity of the unarrived-at Unproduced, dawns the ceaseless play of whatever.]

˚

[Broadly explaining the nature of the foregoing.]

The self-engendered, passing-right-through Full Knowledge

expands its receptive centre.

Its Sheer Luminosity unobscured, without inner/outer, is:

a Great Light,          a Bodhicitta mirror,          self-engendered Awareness,

a wish-producing precious jewel,          the Realm of Dharmas.

Since everything produces itself without pushing,

the self-engendered Full Knowledge is the best of wish-fulfillers.

˚

[Awareness is shown to be an x-pansive receptive centre of clear comprehension.]

However much the qualities of its greatness may be enumerated,

the supreme Method of Realm coming from Realm

dawns unimpededly.

As everything is naturally completed in the unproduced realm,

it is a receptive centre of clearly comprehended Voidness

that outshines material objects;

it is a receptive centre of clearly comprehended, inherent self-Awareness

that outshines the Void.

˚

[The significance of the preceding is summed up in the Great X-pansive Receptive Centre of Sky.]

Bodhicitta totally lacks appearances/Voidness.

Not two,  unattached,  unthinkable miracles happen.

The timeless,  unproduced Realm of Dharmas

is a receptive centre untransformed, indivisible and uncompounded.

The Realm of eternity’s Buddhas’ Aware Full Knowledge

is a receptive centre of clearly comprehended Awareness

that outshines subject/object dichotomies.

It has no in or out side, Dharma Proper wide-open by nature.

[In Awareness’ substance, appearances, Voidness, etc., are not arrived-at.  The uncompoundedness of the Realm that levels past, present and future is like this—Awareness totally dawns as the Buddhas of past, present and future; so it is the Dharmabody without subject/object dichotomies.]

 — Return to Chapter One

or continue to Chapter Five