Do you see that those in this great assembly and in the immense ocean differ in their shape, form, and kind?
All such differences are caused by their minds, from which arise wholesome or unwholesome body karmas, voice karmas, and mind karmas, yet the mind itself is formless and invisible, beyond anyone’s grasp.
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Sutra of the Path of the Ten Wholesome Karmas
To develop bodhicitta is to seek perfect enlightenment.
To seek perfect enlightenment is to develop the desire to free sentient beings.
The desire to free sentient beings is none other than the mind that gathers in all beings and helps them to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land.
—Arya Vasubandhu, Treatise on Rebirth
As our skin wrinkles and our hair turns white, we see ourselves growing decrepit and senile.
Even if we are rich and blessed with heirs, we cannot escape the ravages of aging.
We may be happy in a thousand ways, but death always comes in the end.
The sole path ahead is to practice, reciting the name of Amideva.
—Shandao
They’re not the same.
Many people are under the impression that the ultimate truth of Buddha Dharma is a ‘non-affirming negation’, that is, an understanding of reality as void, null, non-existent.
While the Buddha encouraged us not to be fooled by appearances and to stop ascribing independent existence to that which is temporary and dependent, it is a misunderstanding to interpret his teaching as promoting ‘nothing’ as the ultimate truth.
This misunderstanding is often based on the sutras of the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma:
Form is empty, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form, form is also not other than emptiness. Likewise, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness are empty.
In this way, all things are emptiness; they are without defining characteristics; they are not born, they do not cease, they are not defiled, they are not undefiled. They have no increase, they have no decrease. —Heart Sutra
All things are empty. No thing is truly established –no thing exists independently of the consciousness that perceives it. But does this mean that reality is nothing?
Kunchen Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen says, in The Fourth Council:
The meaning of the Second Dharma Wheel is Thusness, with complete infinite qualities. It is not a non-affirming negation; it is not an emptiness of self-nature, an emptiness of nothingness, or a nihilistic emptiness.
When the unreal is set aside, when we no longer place our trust in things, what remains is non-dual pristine awareness.
To think of suffering as happiness is perverse; to think of happiness as suffering is perverse.
To think of the impermanent as permanent is perverse; to think of the permanent as impermanent is perverse.
To think of non-being as being is perverse; to think of being as non-being is perverse.
To think of the impure as pure is perverse; to think of the pure as impure is perverse.
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Mahaparinirvana Sutra
Great Middle Way is a translation of Maha Madhyamaka, which is what our Lamas call the Jonang view of the Dharma.
The Great Middle Way is found beyond (not between) all extremes: beyond austerity and hedonism, eternalism and nihilism, sectarianism and eclecticism, dualism and monism.
“It is not this. It is not that. It is not both. It is not neither.” —Nagarjuna
Once the Blessed One was staying at Kosambi in the rosewood forest. Then, picking up a few rosewood leaves with his hand, he asked the monks:
—Which are more numerous, the few leaves in my hand or those overhead in the forest?
—The leaves in the hand of the Blessed One are few in number, Lord. Those overhead in the forest are more numerous.
—In the same way, those things that I have known with direct knowledge but have not taught are far more numerous than what I have taught. And why haven’t I taught them? Because they are not connected with the goal, do not relate to the essentials of the path, and do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to tranquility, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to liberation. That is why I have not taught them.
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Rosewood Sutra
