To accomplish this, it is imperative to exert oneself in listening, reflecting and meditating on the genuine teachings. To engage in such activity with such an intention is to develop the supreme commitment to enlightenment, the bodhichitta, which Rinpoche encourages us to develop from the outset.

As stated in one of the sutras taught by the supreme teacher, the Buddha:

The sugatagarbha completely pervades all beings.
This is the Buddha ground in all beings.

To look more closely at what this means we might ask, how is the term “sugatagarbha” or “Buddha nature” to be understood? It refers to clear light luminosity, which constitutes the fundamental ground of being. The essence of this clear light nature of mind is unsoiled by any sort of imperfection. This clear luminous nature itself is the sugatagarbha (which literally means “the heart essence of the one who has passed into bliss”; for convenience’s sake this and several of its synonyms are translated as “Buddha nature”).

The statement being made here about sugatagarbha deals with its overall relationship to sentient beings. The question is, how broadly does sugatagarbha apply to sentient beings? It pervades them all. To illustrate the sense of this term “pervasion,” one could say that sugatagarbha pervades all beings like butter pervades milk. Or, one could say that clear light luminosity, which is basic mind, pervades all beings like sesame oil pervades sesame seeds. Or, just as gold is present in gold ore and silver in silver ore, pure being is present in the mind of beings. “Pure being” is clear light luminosity by nature, and this is precisely what the Buddha nature is.

One can distinguish three different stages in relation to Buddha nature: base, path and fruition. “Basic” Buddha nature refers to the clear light luminosity naturally present as the fundamental nature of mind in all beings. This basic state is obscured or covered over. So Buddha nature in this context constitutes a base in the sense of being that base from which the obscurations are to be removed. It is the state of ordinary beings.

What is referred to as “path” Buddha nature describes the situation in which direct realization of fundamental mind has been achieved and as a result delusion in its coarse form has been eliminated. This is path in the sense that one is in the process of removing delusion in its subtler or finer form. It is the stage of the noble bodhisattvas on the ten bodhisattva levels (bhumis).

When one has removed all trace of delusion together with the habitual tendencies producing it, this is called ‘fruition’ Buddha nature. States of confusion do not belong to the essence of mind. When they have been removed, clear light luminosity, which is essential to mind, directly manifests. When this takes place, fruition sugatagarbha is achieved. One has achieved the enlightenment of the Buddhas.

At the point when the Buddha nature is obscured by the adventitious stains of delusion one might think, “If the basic nature of my own mind is obscured by the incidental stains coming from my own delusion, how am I supposed to know how to rectify the situation?” The point is, such knowledge is accessible, because the Buddha nature contains within it the seeds of knowledge (prajna) and compassion. Because the seed of knowledge is naturally present, listening to, reflecting over and meditating on the dharma is able to catalyse a growth and development of this knowledge. This growth in knowledge in turn corrects the deluded state.

And because the seed of compassion is already present, meditation on the instructions related to compassion is able to produce growth and development of compassion. Whatever is still lacking in one’s compassion is able to develop from its present state all the way up to Buddhahood. When Buddhahood has been attained, one has achieved the maximum possible degree of compassion, which is referred to as the “great noble heart.”
When the unsound state consisting of the deluded state of mind has been eliminated, or in other words, when the knowledge that realizes selflessness has been brought to its final perfection, this is Buddhahood.

We could also look at it from the other angle: when great compassion imbued with loving-kindness has been brought to its final perfection, the name “Buddha” is used to describe the person who has accomplished this. The result is that through the power inherent in compassion one works for the benefit of beings, and through the power inherent in finally perfected knowledge one comprehends fully and in their infinite variety the ways of benefiting beings in individual cases.

This is one approach among many for clarifying the reasoning behind the need to accomplish Buddhahood for the sake of beings.

That was the sutra presentation of the matter. It is also treated in the shastras, [the canonical commentaries on the sutras], for example, in the following quotation from the ‘Mahayana Uttara Tantra Shastra,’ one of the five great treatises composed by the beloved guardian Maitreya:

The nature of mind is luminosity.
This like space is utterly free of change;
Passion and so on, which come from incorrect thinking,
Are adventitious stains; cause no real trouble.

This verse describes the unstainability and unchangeability of the essence of clear light luminosity constituting the nature of mind.

Space is the example used to illustrate both. Even though space goes through temporary situations alternating between being obscured by clouds and not, the essence of space itself does not change. Just as clouds do no affect the essential nature of space itself, the cloudlike adventitious stains of delusion taking the form of thoughts in one’s mind obscure the clear light nature of that mind without that essential nature changing or becoming stained.
There is also a verse describing the temporary obscured state as well as the stains obscuring the sugatagarbha as lacking true existence, that is, as being adventitious, and excellent qualities as being spontaneously present within that Buddha nature:

The basic potential is empty of the adventitious,
Which has the characteristic of being separable;
But is not empty of unsurpassable excellent qualities,
Which have the characteristic of being inseparable.

As a further statement on the matter presented here, to say that “the potential is empty of everything adventitious, which has the characteristic of being separable” means that the basic potential, which is the sugatagarbha, is empty of the stains accompanying delusion and that these stains are adventitious in the sense that they can be separated from the fundamental clear light nature of mind. To say that these are separable means that they do not belong to the essence of the sugatagarbha itself. These stains are incidental in the same sort of way as clouds, which appear to obscure the sky but which are not actually present in the sky’s essential nature.

Although the Buddha nature is empty of the separable stains of temporary delusion, it is not empty of unsurpassable excellent qualities, whose defining trait is their inseparability from the sugatagarbha. These excellent qualities are spontaneously, naturally present. Wherever there is mind, there is mind’s fundamental clear light Buddha nature, and within that the whole set of spontaneously present excellent qualities.

Because the excellent qualities are spontaneously present, at the very instant the adventitious stains of delusion are removed, the clear light Buddha nature directly manifests; that is, Buddhahood is attained, and these qualities become self-evident.

It is because they are already present within the base that they manifest at the point when fruition is attained and not because they have been newly produced in the process of achieving that final result.

This was a brief explanation of two important verses from the Uttaratantra-shastra. For those who would like to conduct an extensive study of this text, it is available in English. It would be good to use that translation as a basis for further studies of these matters.

In this same text there is a brief presentation of three reasons for the presence of the Buddha nature in all beings, a conclusive analysis of ten points clarifying how it is present, and nine examples illustrating how its essence is stainless even while adventitious stains temporarily obscure it. If one is familiar with all of these, the whole matter will become quite clear.

Another very important area of study treats two subjects: the sense in which relative phenomena are nonexistent yet appear, like the appearances in a dream, and the whole subject of transformation. We will now take a look at several verses from the text called “Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being” by Maitreya. The first of these is described in the following words:

To show how phenomena, nonexistent, appear
They are likened to dreams and compared to illusions and so on.

What sorts of things are relative phenomena? Could one say they really exist? Since one experiences phenomena as being things that manifest and appear, one takes them to be truly existent because of this fact that they appear; however, the mere fact of their appearing is not enough to constitute them as truly existent. Something nonexistent can appear. Something appearing can be empty of actual existence. Is there anything we can point to that is like that? The things experienced in dreams or the sorts of appearances connected with illusions are precisely like that. They are not actually present with a truly existent genuine essence. And even though they are empty of true existence, their being empty does not prevent them from appearing in all their variety, nor does the fact that they appear prevent them from being empty. Their appearing and their being empty cannot possibly be separated from each other. This is how dreams and illusions, among other examples, illustrate how phenomena are nonexistent and yet appear.

For the Shentong-Madhyamaka (empty-of-other Middle-way) system [see chart page 27], the attainment of transformation is vital and is the purpose to be pursued. This subject is also treated in “Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being,” for example in the following lines:

To illustrate the total transformation
To space it is likened, to gold and water and so on.

In what sense can one speak of a transformation being attained? To draw out the meaning, transformation is likened to the clouds in the sky clearing away, to water clearing when the sediment within it settles down, and to extracting pure gold from its ore by removing the baser elements. In each of these cases the vital essence manifests directly when nonessential factors are removed – this is the way we are using the word “transformation.”

How does transformation work? In the case of sentient beings, it is the spurious condition of deluded mind that corresponds to the baser elements mixed with the gold, the sediment in the water, and the clouds in the sky. Through refining this stained condition until it is gone, as in our three examples, the clear light nature of mind manifests directly. The pure gold, the clear water, the cloud-free sky of the clear light nature of mind are actualised.

When it comes to habituating oneself to basic mind in clear light meditation practice, one might ask what sorts of steps are involved. An example of the gradual meditative progression relevant here is the practice of the “four applications,” which are outlined in this same text, as follows:

As regards application authentic in its mode,
There are four degrees of engagement involved in this:
Application involving something to focus on,
Application involving nothing to focus on,
Application devoid of focuser serving as focus,
Application whose focus is nothing to focus on.

The explanation of the first way of applying one’s mind, which is called, “application involving something to focus on,” is explained in the following way. Everything that appears as outer objects, all appearances experienced as perceived objects, appear in the way that they do due to habitual tendencies stored in one’s all-base-consciousness (alayavijnana). Throughout beginningless lifetimes objects have appeared in a dualistic fashion, as if perceived and perceiver were two discrete entities, and one has assumed them to actually be two different things. The whole set of habits connected with things appearing in this dualistic fashion and being assumed to be so is stored in the all-base like seeds. When the potential contained within these seeds ripens, the appearances of outer perceived objects are experienced, exactly as in the case in a dream. But one is duped by one’s own habits into thinking that these objects really exist outside.

To give rise to certainty that outer perceived objects are just appearances occurring due to the force of the habitual tendencies connected with such delusion is what is here called the “application involving something to focus on.” Here the sense of the word “focus” is that one brings one’s attention to bear on the appearances of outer perceived objects as being delusory appearances, that is to say, one looks at objects with an understanding that they are just projections of one’s own mind.

The reason that they are mere delusive projections is that, like the appearances in dreams, their manifestation occurs by force of the habitual patterns stored at the most basic level of the process of consciousness, the all-base-consciousness. To develop certainty in one’s knowledge that this is the way it is constitutes the application in which there is something to focus on. This is the first step to be taken.

The second application involves there being nothing to serve as an object of focus. In what sense is that to be understood? When through the first application we become aware that what appear to be outer objects are nothing but delusory projections, we gain the rational ground for understanding that these objects are not real. In other words, when we gain certainty in the fact that what appear to be outer objects are simply manifestations of habitual patterns, like the objects that appear in dreams, this carries with it a force that enables us to realize that there really is nothing outside. Realizing this is what is here referred to as the “application in which there is nothing to focus on.”

The third is the “application devoid of focuser serving as focus.” In what conceivable sense are we to understand such a statement? The word “focuser” here refers to inner perceiving mind. It is said to be the focusing subject because it is inner perceiving mind that conducts the activity of focusing on objects, which are perceived by it to be outer in relation to itself. So what sense does it make to talk about a mental application in which there is no focuser? Well, if the outer perceived objects existed, the inner perceiver of them would also exist. However, since there really are no outer objects, the inner perceiver does not really exist either. Just as in dreams, the lack of an actual presence of what is perceived provides the basis for understanding that the perceiver is correspondingly unreal. If there is no perceived object present, how can there be a perceiver? When certainty has been gained in one’s knowledge of this, the application free of any focuser on which to focus has been gained. One has taken the third step.

The fourth is the application whose focus is nothing to focus on [Rinpoche laughs]. What is the sense of saying that “nothing to focus on” is the focus here? There is nothing of either perceived or perceiver upon which one could focus. “Nothing to focus on” refers to the emptiness of the duality of perceived and perceiver. If one asks, “Now what sort of a focus is emptiness, understood as the non-existence of perceived and perceiver?” This emptiness is the clear light luminosity free of any conceptual elaborations. This is what one focuses on here.

In order to do this last form of meditation mentioned, one has to rest in clear light luminosity. Jamgon Lodro Thaye taught in the section of the Treasury of Knowledge dealing with the meditative progression followed in the context of the yana (vehicle) of characteristics:

The Shentong approach is the great nonconceptual clear
light field.
When it comes to avoiding elaborations, all agree.

In connection with the first line, the way one meditates according to the Shentong approach and the way one meditates in the context of the fourth application just explained both teach us to let mind rest in its natural space, in the great field of clear light which is empty of the duality of perceived and perceiver. Let mind rest in itself without contrivances. This is the Shentong approach.
What about the second line? There are many different ways of meditating. There is the approach in which mind rests in the selflessness of the individual. In the Cittamatra (Mind-only) approach, mind rests in equipoise within emptiness understood as freedom from the duality of perceived and perceiver. In the Svatantrika (autonomy school) approach, mind rests in the equipoise of sheer emptiness, like empty space. In the Prasangika (consequence school) approach, mind rests in the emptiness that is the complete freedom from all conceptual elaborations. And in the Shentong approach mind rests in the equipoise of the great clear light field of luminosity. So there are many ways of centering, but they are all in agreement insofar as each of these are free from conceptual elaborations. The way of resting in equipoise in each case requires that discursive thinking be effectively pacified.

As regards application authentic in its mode
There are four degrees of engagement involved in this:
Application involving something to focus on,
Application involving nothing to focus on,
Application devoid of focuser serving as focus,
Application whose focus is nothing to focus on.

The Shentong approach is the great nonconceptual clear
light field.
When it comes to avoiding elaborations, all agree.

© Copyright Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche & Zhyisil Chokyi Ghatsal Publications 2002.