Summary

The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines is one version of the Long Perfection of Wisdom sūtras that developed in South and South-Central Asia in tandem with the Eight Thousand version, probably during the first five hundred years of the Common Era. It contains many of the passages in the oldest extant Long Perfection of Wisdom text (the Gilgit manuscript in Sanskrit), and is similar in structure to the other versions of the Long Perfection of Wisdom sūtras (the One Hundred Thousand and Twenty-Five Thousand) in Tibetan in the Kangyur. While setting forth the sacred fundamental doctrines of Buddhist practice with veneration, it simultaneously exhorts the reader to reject them as an object of attachment, its recurring message being that all dharmas without exception lack any intrinsic nature.

The sūtra can be divided loosely into three parts: an introductory section that sets the scene, a long central section, and three concluding chapters that consist of two important summaries of the long central section. The first of these (chapter 84) is in verse and also circulates as a separate work called The Verse Summary of the Jewel Qualities (Toh 13). The second summary is in the form of the story of Sadāprarudita and his guru Dharmodgata (chapters 85 and 86), after which the text concludes with the Buddha entrusting the work to his close companion Ānanda.

Acknowledgements

This sūtra was translated by Gareth Sparham under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

The Translator’s Acknowledgments

This is a good occasion to remember and thank my friend Nicholas Ribush, who first gave me a copy of Edward Conze’s translation of The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines in 1973. I also thank the Tibetan teachers and students at the Riklam Lobdra in Dharamshala, India, where I began to study the Perfection of Wisdom, for their kindness and patience; Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper, who steered me in the direction of the Perfection of Wisdom and have been very kind to me over the years; and Ashok Aklujkar and others at the University of British Columbia in Canada, who taught me Sanskrit and Indian culture while I was writing my dissertation on Haribhadra’s Perfection of Wisdom commentary. I thank the hermits in the hills above Riklam Lobdra and the many Tibetan scholars and practitioners who encouraged me while I continued working on the Perfection of Wisdom after I graduated from the University of British Columbia. I thank all those who continued to support me as a monk and scholar after the violent death of my friend and mentor toward the end of the millennium. I thank those at the University of Michigan and then at the University of California (Berkeley), particularly Donald Lopez and Jacob Dalton, who enabled me to complete the set of four volumes of translations from Sanskrit of the Perfection of Wisdom commentaries by Haribhadra and Āryavimuktisena and four volumes of the fourteenth-century Tibetan commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom by Tsongkhapa. I thank Gene Smith, who introduced me to 84000. I thank everyone at 84000: Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and the sponsors; the scholars, translators, editors, and technicians; and all the other indispensable people whose work has made this translation of The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines and its accompanying commentary possible.

• Around me everything I see would be part of a perfect road if I had better driving skills.
• Where I was born, where everything is made of concrete, it too is a perfect place.
• Everyone I have been with, everyone who is near me now, and even those I have forgotten‍—there is no one who has not helped me.
• So, I bow to everyone and to the world and ask for patience, and, as a boon, a smile.

Acknowledgment of Sponsors

We gratefully acknowledge the generous sponsorship of Matthew Yizhen Kong, Steven Ye Kong and family; An Zhang, Hannah Zhang, Lucas Zhang, Aiden Zhang, Jinglan Chi, Jingcan Chi, Jinghui Chi and family, Hong Zhang and family; Mao Guirong, Zhang Yikun, Chi Linlin; and Joseph Tse, Patricia Tse and family. Their support has helped make the work on this translation possible.

Introduction

In the introduction to his translation of The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom in Ten Thousand Lines, Gyurme Dorje has given a clear account of the Tibetan tradition’s explanation (1) of the origin of the Perfection of Wisdom in the words of the Buddha on Gṛdhrakūṭa Hill in Rājagṛha some 2,500 years ago, (2) of the way the Perfection of Wisdom became extant in our world through the efforts of Nāgārjuna, and (3) of the Perfection of Wisdom’s place in the vast corpus of the Buddha’s words as “the middle turning of the wheel of the Dharma.” He has also given a brief account of the conclusions arrived at by the Western research tradition, which suggest that the Perfection of Wisdom may have originated in the south of the Indian subcontinent, perhaps the Andhra region, but more likely first began circulating in the far northwest of the Indian subcontinent. A prophecy in the text translated into English here provides some support for this conclusion. In chapter 39 the Buddha says to Śāriputra, “with the passing away of the Tathāgata this perfection of wisdom will circulate in the southern region,” and “from the country Vartani [the east] this deep perfection of wisdom will circulate into the northern region.” A comparison of early fragments of a Perfection of Wisdom in the Gāndhārī language, written in Kharoṣṭhī script and dated ca. 75 ᴄᴇ, with an early translation of a Perfection of Wisdom text into Chinese by Lokakṣema in the middle of the second century ᴄᴇ has led the Western research tradition to the tentative conclusion that the Perfection of Wisdom first circulated in written form in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent some 2,000 years ago.

About the Perfection of Wisdom Manuscripts

The text translated here into English is the one found in the Degé Kangyur with reference to the other Kangyur editions contained in the Comparative Edition (Tib dpe bsdur ma). Both the original handwritten Indic manuscript (or manuscripts) on which the Tibetan translation of The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines was based and the original handwritten manuscript of the earliest Tibetan translation are lost. There is, however, a large, nearly complete birch bark manuscript of a Perfection of Wisdom text written in Sanskrit in a Gilgit-Bāmiyān type alphabet that shows surprising similarities to the alphabet later used for the translation of Indian Buddhist texts into Tibetan. Stefano Zacchetti calls the birch bark manuscript, unearthed in northwest India in Gilgit in 1931, the “[Larger] Prajñāpāramitā from Gilgit,” and he dates it to “between [the] 6th and the beginning of the 7th century.” It is not misleading to say it is similar in the main to the Tibetan translation that is the basis of the English translation presented here. It is not, however, exactly the same, and it certainly was not the Indic manuscript on which the Tibetan translation of the Eighteen Thousand was based.

Besides the Gilgit manuscript there are the Śatasāhasrikā (Hundred Thousand) and Pañca­viṃśati­sāhasrikā (Twenty-Five Thousand) groups of Indic manuscripts, mainly originating from collections in Nepal that are similar in many respects to the Tibetan text that is the basis of the English translation presented here. There are a considerable number of these relatively recent manuscripts, dating at the earliest to the seventeenth century. Pratāpacandra Ghoṣa published a heroic Sanskrit edition (1902–13) of the first section (khaṇḍa) of the Hundred Thousand that runs to 1,676 pages! Takayasu Kimura (2009–14) has published the Sanskrit of the Hundred Thousand equivalent up to about chapter 32 of the 87 chapters translated here (up to halfway through the sixth of the twelve volumes of the Tibetan translation of the Hundred Thousand in the Kangyur). The Hundred Thousand is obviously much longer than the Eighteen Thousand but is similar in many respects.

Kimura has also published a complete Sanskrit edition of Haribhadra’s version of the Twenty-Five Thousand (1986–2009). This version is one of the two bases (together with the Gilgit manuscript) for Edward Conze’s (1984) magisterial translation called The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom. Kimura’s Sanskrit edition of the Twenty-Five Thousand is also similar in many respects to the Tibetan translation of the Eighteen Thousand that is the basis of the English translation presented here.

The Title: Eighteen Thousand

According to Stefano Zacchetti, Bodhiruci (fl. beginning of the sixth century), a translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese, is the first to explicitly mention an Eighteen Thousand. Bodhiruci lists it, among other texts, as one of the three sizes of what he calls the Larger Perfection of Wisdom. We have not determined with certainty if Bodhiruci meant Eighteen Thousand as an actual title of a Perfection of Wisdom text or simply as a description of the length of a text.

In A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka, the first entry is Xuanzang’s huge Dabanruoboluomi jing (Long Perfection of Wisdom, finished ca. 659). A text in fifty-nine fascicles and thirty-one chapters is included as part of it. Based on the K’yuen-lu (Nañjio’s transliteration) written in 1287, which compares Perfection of Wisdom works in the Tibetan canon and the Chinese canon, says it “agrees with the Tibetan Pragñāpāramitā in 18,000 ślokas.”

We have not been able to read Xuanzang’s translation, so we cannot say with certainty whether or not the name Eighteen Thousand is found there, but speaking generally, in Chinese Buddhism bibliographical material is organized based on the person (the translator and so on) rather than genre or title, certainly after Fei Changfang’s Lidai sanbao ji (Record of the Three Treasures throughout Successive Dynasties, published in 597). It therefore remains to be conclusively determined whether the name Eighteen Thousand is actually used by Xuanzang to identify this part of his long translation or whether it is, again, just a description of the length of part of a longer book.

In the Denkarma, the catalog of Buddhist works translated into Tibetan compiled in the early years of the ninth century by the translators Paltsek (dpal brtsegs) and Lui Wangpo (klu’i dbang po), the Eighteen Thousand comes third in the first subdivision of Mahāyāna sūtras. Later the two translators include in their list of commentaries on Mahāyāna sūtras The Long Explanation of the One Hundred, Twenty-Five, and Eighteen Thousand (Toh 3808). So, we can say with certainty that a Perfection of Wisdom text in Tibetan identified by the name Eighteen Thousand existed by about the year 820.

Edward Conze gives the name Aṣṭā­daśa­prajñā­pāramitā (The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines) to the later part of the Gilgit manuscript (starting from folio 188). Other scholars have followed him, describing fragments of Perfection of Wisdom texts that correspond to parts of the Gilgit manuscript as fragments of the Eighteen Thousand. But Zacchetti persuasively argues that Conze has made a mistake. He says Conze takes the early part of the Gilgit manuscript to reflect the text of the Twenty-Five Thousand and the later part the Eighteen Thousand because of an inconsequential mistake on the part of the Gilgit scribe. Zacchetti says the scribe accidentally wrote chapter 48 instead of 38 at the end of the chapter following chapter 37. Not all the chapters in the Gilgit manuscript have both titles and numbers. Conze noticed that the next chapter in the Gilgit manuscript after the chapter mistakenly numbered 48 that has both a title and number is chapter 50, with the title Avinivartanīya­liṅga­nirdeśa (Teaching the signs of irreversibility). Conze also noticed that it corresponded to chapter 50 in the Tibetan translation of the Eighteen Thousand, which has the same title (Teaching the signs of irreversibility). This is the reason, Zacchetti argues, that Conze mistakenly said that the scribe “calmly chang[ed] from the version in 25.000 Lines to the version in 18.000 Lines (at f. 187/188) without telling anybody about it.” Zacchetti concludes that the Gilgit manuscript in fact reflects “a single version of the Larger PP” and says that trying to decide if it is a version of the Twenty-Five Thousand or Eighteen Thousand is “a futile question.”

The research of Zacchetti and other modern scholars presupposes that the Eighteen Thousand begins with an original compiler and undergoes changes over time. The shorter Eight Thousand represents an earlier (more original) version, and the different longer texts, including the Eighteen Thousand, reflect later changes. Heuristically, given that an origin is being investigated, this is a helpful presupposition. The research, however, has not identified an original, and one suspects never will. If it finally proves to be the case that no original can be identified it will corroborate the view set forth in the Eighteen Thousand itself, that a sacred book or tradition, when sought for in reality, is nowhere to be found.

The Structure of the Eighteen Thousand

Gyurme Dorje has already set forth the structure of a Perfection of Wisdom text based on the Tibetan tradition that privileges The Ornament for the Clear Realizations (Abhisamayālaṃkāra). According to that tradition the Eighteen Thousand, like the Ten Thousand, is one of the six major texts, which is to say the Eighteen Thousand makes a presentation of all eight clear realizations (abhisamaya) set forth in the Ornament for the Clear Realizations. The Eighteen Thousand also includes as its eighty-fourth chapter another of the six major texts, the verse summary of the entire Perfection of Wisdom that circulates as a separate text called The Verse Summary of the Jewel Qualities (Ratna­guṇa­saṃcaya­gāthā). It also includes as its eighty-third chapter the Categorization of a Bodhisattva’s Training, one of the important eleven minor Perfection of Wisdom texts that circulates separately under the name The Maitreya Chapter or The Questions of Maitreya.

By contrast, what follows is the structure based on Vasubandhu’s or Daṃṣṭrāsena’s Long Explanation of the One Hundred, Twenty-Five, and Eighteen Thousand. Butön Rinchen Drup (1290–1364), the famous scholar and editor of the Kangyur, characterizes this as one of the four accepted ways to approach the Perfection of Wisdom corpus, and for the fourteenth century writer Dölpopa Sherap Gyaltsen it is the only way.

According to that structure, there are five major divisions [I–V] and eleven sections [(1)–(11)].

I. Introduction

After the statement of the place and time (“Thus did I hear at one time. The Lord dwelt at Rājagṛha on Gṛdhrakūṭa Hill…”) and the list of śrāvakas and bodhisattvas in the retinue and their excellent qualities, the Lord Buddha, the Blessed One, sets up his seat and sits in meditation. He displays miraculous powers‍—emitting light that goes to the ends of the cosmos, shaking the cosmos, and creating a magical canopy of flowers above his head. The light illuminates buddhas and their retinues in different worlds in the ten directions, prompting bodhisattva students to come to attend the discourse, thereby completing the huge retinue.

II. Brief Exegesis

Following the introduction there is the single statement by the Lord at the beginning of chapter 2: “Here, Śāriputra, bodhisattva great beings who want to fully awaken to all dharmas in all forms should make an effort at the perfection of wisdom.” This says it all in brief. The reader should understand that the Lord remains silent after saying this.

III. Intermediate Exegesis

Then, beginning the intermediate exegesis there is Śāriputra’s question (2.2), “How then, Lord, should bodhisattva great beings who want to fully awaken to all dharmas in all forms make an effort at the perfection of wisdom?” followed by the Lord’s response. Śāriputra’s inquiry raises the following questions: What is a bodhisattva and a great being? What is it to want fully to awaken to all dharmas in all forms? What is “making an effort”? And, what is the perfection of wisdom? Śāriputra’s inquiry thus introduces the reader to (i) bodhisattva great beings, (ii) all dharmas, (iii) the perfection of wisdom, (iv) full awakening, and (v) making an effort‍—that is, actually putting the perfection of wisdom into practice. These five provide the outline of the intermediate exegesis.

Informing both the Lord’s statement and Śāriputra’s question is the important word want‍—a word that signals a bodhisattva’s compassionate aspiration because it references a bodhisattva’s motivation. Hence, what truly informs the statement is bodhicitta (“the thought of awakening”), a technical term for a special altruism. This section has two parts: (1) the explanation for and by Śāriputra that goes from chapter 2 through chapter 5 and (2) the explanation for and by Subhūti, from chapter 6 through chapter 21. This two-part section corresponds to the first chapter of the Eight Thousand.

IV. Detailed Exegesis

The detailed exegesis of the opening statement goes from chapters 22 to 82. It comprises an explanation of the conceptual and nonconceptual perfection of wisdom in a detailed exposition based on relative and ultimate truth for the sake of those who understand from a longer explanation. The explanation is subdivided into (3) an explanation for the head god Śatakratu (chapter 22) and (4) an explanation by Subhūti (chapters 23–32). (5) Then there is an explanation that includes an exchange with Maitreya (chapter 33) and (6–9) three more sections associated with Subhūti and one with Śatakratu. (10) A second explanation for Maitreya is chapter 83, titled “The Categorization of a Bodhisattva’s Training.” Conze and Iida (1968) call it Maitreya’s Questions. It is included in the Twenty-Five Thousand and the Lhasa edition of the Hundred Thousand but not the Degé edition of the Hundred Thousand.

V. Summaries

Chapter 84 is the summary in verse for Subhūti that circulates separately as The Verse Summary of the Jewel Qualities. In the Eighteen Thousand it is not divided into chapters. (11) Chapters 85 and 86 are a summary of the earlier chapters in the form of a story about Sadāprarudita’s quest to find his teacher Dharmodgata and learn the perfection of wisdom, and the final chapter is a short one in which the Lord entrusts the perfection of wisdom to Ānanda and the retinue rejoices.

What Does the Eighteen Thousand Say?

In essence, the Eighteen Thousand says that attachment to sacred texts and sacred traditions is the greatest impediment to awakening. For a modern reader the major difficulty when reading the Eighteen Thousand is therefore the lack of knowledge of the specific sacred texts and traditions the Eighteen Thousand references.

We have seen that the opening chapter of the Eighteen Thousand sets the scene and describes the retinue, in which, we are told, are many worthy ones as well as bodhisattvas. Worthy ones are those who, by definition, have reached the final goal explained in the fundamental texts that record the Buddha Śākyamuni’s teachings for those who seek their own liberation. Bodhisattvas are those who privilege the teachings given by him to and for bodhisattvas in Mahāyāna texts like the Eighteen Thousand.

Both the fundamental texts and the Mahāyāna texts like the Eighteen Thousand make a presentation of the dharmas. In the English translation we have sometimes left the word dharma untranslated, sometimes when appropriate rendered it “phenomenon,” and sometimes when appropriate “attribute” or “quality.” When it is capitalized, Dharma means the doctrine, as in “turn the wheel of the Dharma.” The doctrine can be either the books (words) or the meanings, in particular the meanings as they are found in the mindstreams of those who have a proper understanding.

The dharmas set forth in the fundamental texts are basic to an understanding of the tradition that the author of the Eighteen Thousand treats as sacred. In the fundamental texts these dharmas are in two categories: the dharmas of defilement (saṃkleśa) and the dharmas of purification (vyavadāna). Included in the former are the first two of the four noble truths, which comprise, among others, the aggregates, sense fields, constituents, contacts, feelings arising from contacts, and the twelve links of dependent origination. All describe the ordinary practitioner (the so-called “suffering” being).

Included in the purification dharmas that are covered by the last two noble truths are the thirty-seven dharmas on the side of awakening (ending with the eightfold noble path), the three gateways to liberation (emptiness and so on), and the eight results of the practice (beginning with the stream enterer and ending with the worthy one). They describe the state of the practitioner progressing toward the goal and when the goal is reached. Worthy ones, the first part of the intended audience of the Eighteen Thousand, do not need to be taught these dharmas. Just the word rūpa (“form”), the material reality that locates a particular individual, at the beginning of a list is enough for a worthy one to know what is intended. Thus, the Heart Sūtra says “no form … no eyes … no truth of suffering,” and so on.

Modern readers unfamiliar with the sacred tradition set forth in the fundamental texts can read, for example, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s In the Buddha’s Words. Alternatively, the fundamental texts can be learned from the Eighteen Thousand, which presents them in a very clear and accessible manner. But a modern reader unfamiliar with the dharmas set forth in the fundamental texts can get confused, because at the same time that the Eighteen Thousand is setting them forth with veneration, it is exhorting the reader to reject them as an object of attachment.

Thus, chapter 3 of the Eighteen Thousand begins with the monk Śāriputra asking, “How then should bodhisattva great beings practice the perfection of wisdom?” to which the Lord responds, “They do not see form. Similarly, they do not see feeling, perception, volitional factors, or consciousness either.” “They do not see” means that they reject it as an object of attachment. It does not mean that the aggregates, and so on, are not there or are not something they should know. Worthy ones obviously know the aggregates and so on, because it is the basic teaching of the truth of suffering, the first words the Buddha Śākyamuni uttered to the five companions when he returned to the Deer Park outside Vārāṇasī after reaching awakening.

The Eighteen Thousand does not only focus on the fundamental Buddhist teachings and caution the reader to avoid taking them as objects of attachment, but it also references the sacred teachings of the Eighteen Thousand and other Mahāyāna texts and stresses that bodhisattvas, the second part of the retinue described in the Introduction chapter, should avoid attachment toward them. It does this first by expanding the list of basic purification dharmas to include all the possible qualities of bodhisattvas, among which are “the four detailed and thorough knowledges, the four fearlessnesses, the five undiminished clairvoyances, the six perfections, the six principles of being liked, the seven riches, the eight ways great persons think, the nine places beings live, the ten tathāgata powers, the eighteen distinct attributes of a buddha, great love, and great compassion.”

The second way the Eighteen Thousand says that the sacred Mahāyāna tradition must be rejected as an object of attachment is by negating the mental representations (the ideas or names) of the defilement and purification dharmas. The recurring message of the Eighteen Thousand is that all dharmas without exception lack any intrinsic nature (svabhāva). A Mahāyāna practitioner‍—a worthy one or an advanced bodhisattva‍—who has learned this lesson sees dharmas as they are supposed to appear, as lacking any intrinsic nature and with only a nominal or conventional reality. This, and the sacred tradition that teaches it, can become an object of attachment as much as anything else. To “settle down on” (abhiniviś) something is to be negatively attached to it.

Even though the texts, practices, and results of the fundamental and the Mahāyāna traditions are equally rejected as objects of attachment, the Eighteen Thousand extols the Mahāyāna tradition as most excellent for its wide range and concomitant benefits, and for undercutting itself, as it were, by extending the analysis of the person (the selflessness of a person understood by those who know the basic dharmas taught in the fundamental texts) to all phenomena. The Eighteen Thousand says that reliquaries, statues, books, practices, knowledge, and anything wholesome and beneficial are good, but only to the extent that they do not become objects of attachment. It also preaches the value of skillful means for benefiting others in whatever way is helpful to them. The Eighteen Thousand says of itself that it is special, as a book, to the extent that the knowledge it conveys is the source of all that is beneficial. But if, as a book, or even as the knowledge the book conveys, it becomes an object of attachment, it results in the exact opposite of what, in its own terms, it preaches. When the Eighteen Thousand praises itself and says that even writing out one word of it is more beneficial by far than the words of the fundamental texts or the wisdom of the worthy ones, it is not setting forth some new tradition that transcends the problem of attachment.

SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTERS

Chapter 1

The first chapter sets the scene. It is in two parts: an introduction shared with many other sūtras and an introduction unique to the Perfection of Wisdom. The first part, beginning with “Thus did I hear at one time,” describes the qualities of the arhat monks and most important nuns and ends with a description of the bodhisattvas, including many of their names.

The second part describes the Buddha, always called “Lord” (bhagavat), or occasionally Tathāgata, setting up and taking his seat and then demonstrating the three miraculous powers. The miraculous power of meditative stabilization causes light to radiate from the Buddha’s major marks and minor signs and from the different parts and pores of his body, causes the radiation of natural light, and causes light to radiate from the tongue faculty in particular. The miraculous, wonder-working power magically creates a great tower out of flowers and, having done so, suspends it in midair and so on. And finally, the miraculous dharma-illuminating power illuminates buddhas dwelling in different worlds, prompting their bodhisattva retinues to make the journey to attend the discourse to follow.

Chapter 2

This chapter begins the discourse proper with the single, all-encompassing statement: “Here, Śāriputra, bodhisattva great beings who want to fully awaken to all dharmas in all forms should make an effort at the perfection of wisdom.” The key term here is “want” (kāma). The bodhisattva great beings “want to fully awaken.” This is the great central statement of the compassion unique to the Perfection of Wisdom and other Mahāyāna scriptures, described as wanting (kāma) everything of use to others both in the interim and ultimately‍—the daily necessities and the necessities for different levels of liberation for all beings according to their capacities‍—making “beings who are blind … see shapes with their eyes,” and so forth, and the miraculous powers to “blow out with one puff of breath the fire in the great billionfold world system when the eon is burning up,” and so forth.

The chapter ends with a discussion of celibacy. The compassionate sons and daughters of good families want to be born into a bodhisattva’s family. This leads the gods to think that a perfect practitioner remains celibate, like the Buddha, until awakening, which prompts Śāriputra to ask if a practitioner has to have a family or has to be celibate. The Lord replies that there are many types of practitioners, but those who understand the deep perfection of wisdom like a magician, who uses magic to make a show of dallying with, enjoying, and acting gratified by the five sorts of sense objects in order to bring beings to maturity, is not contaminated by them. The chapter ends with the statement, “Alternatively, bodhisattva great beings speak disparagingly of sense objects: ‘Sense objects are ablaze, disgusting, murderous, and against you.’ So, Śāriputra, bodhisattva great beings take to these sorts of sense objects in order to bring beings to maturity.”

Chapters 3–5

A practitioner exists conventionally but not ultimately. All the possible physical or mental marks through which one might “see” or apprehend a practitioner, all the names of those things, even all the ultimate or conventional realities of a practitioner, their deficiencies and perfections, are ultimately unfindable, and so too with awakening and the practice. Thus, one pursues the practice of the perfection of wisdom by avoiding the extremes of naïve realism and nihilism through understanding the imaginary, other-powered, and thoroughly established natures of all dharmas. Such an insight surpasses that of the practitioners of fundamental Buddhism exemplified by Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana.

One practices the perfection of wisdom when “engaged with the emptiness of form,” and so on. This teaches the thoroughly established nature. There is no connection between the practice and the defilement dharmas that define the suffering state, no engagement with a practice that disconnects the practitioner from those defilement dharmas, and no connection between the purification dharmas and the perfection of wisdom. Still, practitioners conventionally exist, so the members of the community of irreversible bodhisattvas practicing the perfection of wisdom are enumerated based on where they were before coming to this world, and so on, and where they will be born and what they will demonstrate prior to their complete awakening.

The retinue praises the Lord’s discourse on the perfection of wisdom as “the calm and gentle perfection … the space-like perfection, it is the perfection of the emptiness of particular defining marks, it is the perfection endowed with all good qualities.” The Lord extends his tongue, illuminating the perfection of wisdom in all worlds for all beings. They all come and worship the Lord and generate the altruistic aspiration to become buddhas to teach this same doctrine for the benefit of beings. The Lord then smiles because he sees with clairvoyance that the compassion generated by monks in the retinue as they listened to the discourse will cause them all to become fully awakened buddhas in the future.

Chapter 6

All teaching by śrāvaka trainees or the gods is through the Tathāgata’s power and does not contradict the true nature of phenomena. This statement comes at the beginning of the Eight Thousand and begins the summary verses in chapter 84 of the Eighteen Thousand.

The word bodhisattva is used again and again but ultimately is not a word for anything. The form aggregate and so on are just designations, just labels used conventionally to aid comprehension, and similarly with the sense fields and so on, all the parts of the body‍—the skull and neck bones down to the bones in the feet‍—and all external things such as grass and leaves; even all the buddhas are just names and conventional terms. Since this is so, the bodhisattva practitioners understand that the fundamental doctrines of the four noble truths‍—that the aggregates, sense fields, and constituents and the like are impermanent rather than permanent, suffering rather than pleasurable, and so on‍—are just names to make things known for the benefit of beings, and practice accordingly. Similarly, “standing without mentally constructing any phenomenon,” the bodhisattvas cultivate the basic, shared practices set out in the fundamental Buddhist scriptures. These are systematized as the thirty-seven dharmas on the side of awakening. And beyond those the bodhisattvas cultivate the unique bodhisattva practices of the six perfections and the powers and fearlessnesses, up to the eighteen distinct attributes of a buddha.

Bodhisattvas should not settle down even on an ultimate, undivided true reality as the final referent of the name bodhisattva. Those who do not tremble in the face of such a reality, or perhaps lack of reality, are practicing the perfection of wisdom.

Chapter 7

From the practice of the perfection of wisdom that sees all phenomena as dharma designations, not absolute truths, all the benefits of fundamental and bodhisattva practice arise, included among which are all the meditative stabilizations starting from the bodhyaṅgavatin and siṃha­vijṛmbhita meditative stabilizations and ending with the ākāśāsaṃga­vimukti­nirupalepa meditative stabilization.

The practice enables bodhisattvas to avoid “hardheadedness,” the “love for dharmas.” This is when a practitioner loses track of the purpose of practice‍—the welfare of others‍—and sees the realization of reality, the attainment of peace, or even altruism as an end in itself. Hardheaded bodhisattvas fall to the śrāvaka level, bereft of the guiding compassionate principle of the bodhisattva. The absence of hardheadedness is flawlessness, or the secure state of a bodhisattva. Here the bodhisattvas do not falsely project anything even while knowing all and practicing all for the sake of others.

Even the sublime thought of awakening (bodhicitta) is just a label, so how does it operate in bodhisattvas in the flawless state? That “thought is no thought because the basic nature of thought is clear light.” It is clear light because it is not together with or free from any shortcoming, any accompanying afflictive emotion, or any intention to enter into a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha nirvāṇa. Such a thought, the clear light, neither knows nor does not know, neither exists nor does not exist. It is the state in which all phenomena “are just so.”

In conclusion, Śāriputra praises Subhūti’s explanation as authentic and in accord with the Lord’s intention and says, “in this perfection of wisdom is detailed instruction for the three vehicles in which bodhisattva great beings should train on the level of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas.”

Chapter 8

Subhūti rhetorically poses a hypothetical question. If all phenomena are just names, just dharma designations, then practice is futile. So, “which bodhisattva will I advise and instruct in what perfection of wisdom?” In response Subhūti says that phenomena are conventional terms for the inexpressible true nature of things that cannot be expressed as anything at all. It is just because of that that all starting places for practice, all practices, and all attainments are tenable. Bodhisattvas who are not terrified by this reality are irreversible from full awakening.

All phenomena are empty. Form is empty of form. The twelve links of dependent origination are empty. Ignorance is empty of ignorance, up to old age and death are empty of old age and death. All phenomena are empty, so bodhisattvas practicing the perfection of wisdom are standing by way of taking no stand on anything. Hence, bodhisattvas do not march under the banner of any letters, words, or statements, under the banner of the four noble truths, under the banner of emptiness, or under the banner of anything else. To do so is to have descended into grasping at “I” and “mine” and to practice without skillful means. Bodhisattvas do not grasp at anything because grasping requires a differentiation through language based on causal signs (nimitta), and bodhisattvas see causal signs just as śrāvakas see afflictive emotions. An afflictive emotion is based on settling down on a causal sign for things as real. That causes attachment and hatred. These same causal signs cause bodhisattvas without skillful means to settle down on a basis, path, and set of results as real. This is the case because the religious mendicant Śreṇika, a śrāvaka, gained nirvāṇa by listening to this teaching because it led him to avoid a belief in causal signs. Śreṇika achieved nirvāṇa by realizing that even nirvāṇa could not be grasped through a causal sign. Similarly, bodhisattvas master such a nirvāṇa but do not actually enter into it until their prayers that are vows are fully carried out and they have brought beings to maturity, purified a buddhafield, and fully awakened to perfect, complete awakening.

Śāriputra asks Subhūti what does not exist and cannot be apprehended. Subhūti says all phenomena do not exist because all phenomena are empty of an intrinsic nature. A bodhisattva’s mind is never separated from a buddha’s mind because all phenomena are separated from an intrinsic nature. An intrinsic nature is not something real. All phenomena are without defining marks. Training in that way, bodhisattvas go forth to the knowledge of all aspects because nothing has been produced and nothing has gone forth. Everything is empty. Even the ultimate is empty of an intrinsic nature. Training in the perfection of wisdom like this, bodhisattvas get close to awakening.

Chapter 9

Thinking “I am practicing the perfection of wisdom” is a lack of skillful means, a practice that occasions something, or a practice of an enactment (abhisaṃskāra). Not only does it not even lead to śrāvaka nirvāṇa, it leads to the suffering of saṃsāra. Bodhisattvas who do not have such beliefs and mistaken notions have skillful means because, in reality, there are no dharmas apart from emptiness. Bodhisattvas do not assert any dharma or practice but know all dharmas are the same insofar as they have never been produced, and bodhisattvas remain in the sarva­dharmānutpāda meditative stabilization up to the ākāśāsaṃga­vimukti­nirupa­lepa meditative stabilization. The awakening of such bodhisattvas is prophesied, but only conventionally, not ultimately, because none of the meditative stabilizations ultimately exist. The Lord compliments Subhūti, “the foremost of śrāvakas at the conflict-free stage,” for his explanation.

Everything is in the state of absolute natural purity where there is no production or defilement, where nothing appears or is enacted. Employing the two meanings of the Sanskrit word vid (“to exist” and “to know”), the Lord says form, and so on, do not exist in the way foolish, ordinary people take them to be, and because they do not exist, they are ignorance. Nothing goes forth, nothing rests. Those who mentally construct a starting point, progress, and a goal do not train in the perfection of wisdom. Those who do not apprehend any phenomenon go forth to the knowledge of all aspects.

Chapter 10

Everything is like an illusion. Everything is just a name and conventional term that in reality is not produced. Bodhisattvas who understand that go forth to the knowledge of all aspects. This frightens new bodhisattvas without spiritual friends. To accept and teach the four noble truths in an absolutist way, apprehending the words as ultimately true, is to fall under the sway of Māra and bad friends. These bad friends dissuade bodhisattvas from this perfection of wisdom, saying that it is not the true doctrine of the Tathāgata. The bad friend may be Māra disguised as a buddha, setting forth an absolutist doctrine that takes the four noble truths as an absolute, and the doctrine of awakening for the sake of others through training in the perfection of wisdom as absurd. The bad friend says that if everything is empty there is no point, dissuading the bodhisattvas from the bodhisattva’s career. Sometimes Māra the bad friend approaches in the form of a mother or father saying rather than stay in the world with all its tortures, make hard work meaningful by working for nirvāṇa; sometimes Māra the bad friend approaches in the form of a monk teaching the doctrine of the four noble truths in an absolutist way.

Chapters 11–13

Explaining the word bodhisattva from many different angles, the text says the basis in reality of the word bodhisattva is no basis at all. The track left by a bodhisattva is like the track left by a bird in space. There is no basis in reality for light, even the light of a tathāgata.

There follows a list of all phenomena, starting with ordinary wholesome phenomena like honoring parents, and so on, and the nine perceptions of the repulsive state of a body after death, as well as all the other levels of ordinary mindfulness and meditation. It also lists the ordinary unwholesome phenomena like the ten unwholesome actions, and so on; extraordinary phenomena (those same phenomena informed by an understanding of their illusory and ultimate nature); and phenomena without outflows‍—the purification dharmas in the mindstreams of buddhas, shared in common with other practitioners, and unique to the practice of those following the buddhas.

The Lord, Śāriputra, and Subhūti explain the term great being from many different angles. A great being is foremost among all the stream enterers, and so on; sees the ultimate nature of beings and treats them all the same and works for them all equally; never entertains a negative thought toward them; cares about the doctrine; perfects the meditative stabilizations and all the other purification dharmas; and is not attached even to the greatest thought, bodhicitta.

Śāriputra asks why all ordinary foolish beings are not free of attachments and the sense of possession, and Subhūti says that in reality they are, just as the mind of a buddha in its intrinsic nature is without attachment and any sense of possession. All phenomena are equally empty and pure.

Pūrṇa says a great being is armored with the great armor of the interwoven six perfections based on a concern for all beings. Each of the six perfections of giving, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom incorporates all the other five perfections, and all thirty-six subdivisions of the perfections are informed by the understanding that all phenomena are like illusions, devoid of any intrinsic nature. The practice of them is always focused on and dedicated to the knowledge of all aspects. Such a practice of the perfections brings the bodhisattva close to the very limit of reality‍—nirvāṇa. With skillful means, entering into all the meditative states without relishing them, taking birth through compassion but not through the force of meditative attainment, turning over everything to perfect and complete awakening for the sake of all beings, bodhisattvas are truly great beings delighting all the buddhas and bodhisattvas in the ten directions.

Śāriputra asks Pūrṇa why a great being’s vehicle is great. It is a great vehicle because when great beings practice the perfection of giving, and so on, it carries them higher and higher through the states of immeasurable love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, and higher and higher through the first to the fourth concentrations and through the four formless absorptions of endless space, endless consciousness, nothing-at-all, and neither perception nor nonperception. In the Great Vehicle bodhisattvas are absorbed in and emerge from all those meditative stabilizations and absorptions without falling to the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha level.

The Great Vehicle is a knowledge of all the emptinesses, meditative states, and aspects of the four noble truths by way of not apprehending anything, so it is not a knowledge in any of the three periods of time or in any of the three realms of desire, form, and formlessness. In this sense it is a knowledge that is no knowledge at all. At the same time, the Great Vehicle is of infinite expanse, including all practices and attainments, including maturing beings, purifying a buddhafield, and complete and perfect awakening.

How does the Great Vehicle proceed higher and higher? It does so as a practice of all the purification dharmas by a practitioner set on the knowledge of all aspects who does not apprehend anything at all. The practitioner, “from the first thought of awakening up until sitting at the site of awakening,” intentionally appropriates bodies to look after the needs of beings, roams from buddhafield to buddhafield, and listens to the teaching of the buddhas without any notion of buddhafields or beings to benefit. Finally, the practitioner gains the knowledge of all aspects and turns the wheel of the Dharma so that all the buddhas raise their voices in praise.

Chapter 14

Armed with great armor the bodhisattvas enter into a variety of bodies and demonstrate the practice of the six perfections, pervading all world systems with light and shaking the earth, blowing out all the fires in the hells, and so on. Demonstrating the perfection of giving, bodhisattvas cause beings to emerge from the hells and other bad rebirths and be reborn as gods and humans, understanding the performance of the perfections to be illusory, doing everything like a magician, conjuring up worlds made of beautiful materials, and giving food and whatever else beings require or enjoy. The mind of the bodhisattva is always set on the knowledge of all aspects and always concerned with the welfare of every living being, working to establish them in whatever attainment is appropriate to their dispositions, but always knowing the illusory nature of phenomena. That is, the bodhisattvas know that all phenomena, even the knowledge of all aspects, are without defining marks, are not made, and do not occasion anything because there is nothing that could make them, just as in a dream. For this reason, form and so on, all the defilement and purification dharmas, are not bound and are not freed. Nothing is freed because nothing exists, just as in a dream.

Chapters 15–16

Subhūti asks a series of questions: “Lord, what is the Great Vehicle of bodhisattva great beings? Lord, how have bodhisattva great beings come to have set out in the Great Vehicle? Where will the Great Vehicle have set out? Where will the Great Vehicle stand? Who will go forth in the Great Vehicle?”

The response to the first question occasions an explanation of all purification dharmas both as a personal practice and as a practice modeling the dharmas as a demonstration for others. It lists and explains the eighteen emptinesses and the meaning of each of the names of all the meditative stabilizations. Similarly, it lists and explains the four applications of mindfulness, occasioning a long explanation of mindfulness of the body through awareness of its makeup as sense faculties and their objects, of physical activity, of breathing, of the body’s constituent elements and different types of filth, and of what it looks like after death. It also explains the rest of the thirty-seven dharmas on the side of awakening, the three meditative stabilizations on emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness, the eleven knowledges, and each of the three faculties‍—the faculty of coming to understand what one does not understand, the faculty of understanding, and the faculty of having understood. There is a further explanation of the stages of meditative stabilization between the desire realm and first concentration level, and from there to the highest formless absorption; of the ten mindfulnesses (of the Three Jewels and so on); and of the four immeasurables and each of the four concentrations, four formless absorptions, eight deliverances, and nine serial absorptions. There is also an explanation of each of the ten powers, four fearlessnesses, four detailed and thorough knowledges, and eighteen distinct attributes of a buddha, and, finally, a detailed explanation of the types of dhāraṇī based on the letters of the Karoṣṭhī alphabet.

Chapter 17

In response to Subhūti’s question about how bodhisattvas come to have set out in the Great Vehicle, the text says that bodhisattvas do so by ascending from the first of the ten levels up to the last. For each of the ten levels there are a different number of purification s, first set forth in lists and then individually explained in a second section. A bodhisattva great being on the tenth level is called a tathāgata. To reach that level bodhisattvas practice all six perfections, and so on, with skillful means, passing beyond the Śuklavipaśyanā, Gotra, Aṣṭamaka, Darśana, Tanū, Vītarāga, Kṛtāvin, and Pratyekabuddha levels. These are all the fundamental Buddhist attainments of stream enterer, and so on, that bodhisattvas master but do not fully actualize. It then says the practitioner “pass beyond these nine levels and stands on the buddha level.” Even the unshared bodhisattva practice of mastery of all levels as a demonstration for the benefit of others is illusory and transcended. At that point the bodhisattva on the tenth level is modeling the perfect life of a fully awakened being, which is also transcended for the final authentic full awakening.

Chapter 18

In response to the question “From where will the Great Vehicle go forth?” the text says that a mahāyāna (“great vehicle”) is equivalent to a niryāna that means both “going forth” and “devoid of a vehicle.” The Great Vehicle includes all phenomena and all practices because all are illusory and none has any defining mark. Reality, emptiness, and the unmarked do not go forth from anywhere, and an illusion does not go forth, either. “That vehicle does not move.”

In response to the question “Where will the Great Vehicle stand?” the text says it stands nowhere because all phenomena stand nowhere, since even the intrinsic nature of reality is empty of the intrinsic nature of reality. All phenomena, all the noble beings in the results of basic practice, and even the bodhisattva practice stand nowhere.

In response to the question “Who will go forth in the Great Vehicle?” the text says no one will go forth in the Great Vehicle because a self, a being, and so on cannot be apprehended anywhere, nor can any of the dharmas that might locate such a being be apprehended. Everything is absolutely pure in its nature and knows no increase or decrease. Nothing is apprehended because everything is empty.

Chapter 19

The Great Vehicle is great because it surpasses the world. It is like space in that it encompasses all the perfections up to the dhāraṇīs, and just as you cannot apprehend space as coming or going, and just as time is equally just time in all time periods and does not come and go, so too with the Great Vehicle.

The Great Vehicle surpasses the world because the world is a construction. The Great Vehicle is equal to space. The directions of space do not make themselves known. Space cannot be qualified by size, color, time, defilement, or purification, as something that should be understood, as free from greed and so on, and there are no levels or paths or results in space. You cannot hear or see or remember space, and it is not included anywhere. In space no thought comes into being, and similarly with the Great Vehicle. The dharma-constituent (dharmadhātu), space, and beings are infinite because, playing on the similarity of the Sanskrit words sattva (“being,” “state of being”) and sattā (“state of existence”), to be is not to exist, and spaces are states that do not exist, and so too with all phenomena. Just as the state of nirvāṇa has room for all beings, so too does the Great Vehicle.