Maitreya's Semtsema (Part 5 of 6)

by Khenchen Appey Rinpoche

We have seen in the previous part of this profound teaching on the qualities of the Buddha how His mind is unfathomable, utterly and permanently aware, and free from all conceptual fabrications and duality. His Mahakaruna, or Great Compassion, embraces every single being and knows each one’s defilements and their respective antidotes. There is not a single one of the Buddha’s activities that is not completely virtuous and dedicated to the benefit of all beings. Another among the qualities of the Buddha that this eulogy describes - is His omniscience, His perfect knowledge of the spectrum of all phenomena without exception.

All the qualities described here are inherent in the three kayas, or bodies, of the Buddha. The first among these is the dharmakaya, or form body. This true body is one that is devoid of any impurities or obscurations, and it is defined by its complete realisation of the lack of inherent existence of phenomena. The dharmakaya refers to the mind of the Buddha.

The second kaya is the sambogakaya. This refers to the enjoyment body of the Buddha. This is a manifestation of the form body, which by definition spins the wheel of Dharma of the greater vehicle, the Mahayana, and the only disciples who receive teachings from the sambogakaya are Bodhisattvas.

The third kaya is the nirmanakaya. This is a manifestation of the sambogakaya that appears to beings of superior qualities. It is the result of a deliberate act by the Buddha of assuming any physical form that can be seen by beings and is beneficial to them.

There are three kinds of nirmanakaya, containing as many manifestations as are needed to suit the needs of beings of different levels or predispositions. The first of these three is birth nirmanakaya. An example of birth nirmanakaya is Maitreya Buddha, who is currently residing in Tushita heaven. Although He is enlightened, He is the reigning Buddha in Tushita heaven.

The second kind of nirmanakaya is excellent nirmanakaya, referring to the excellent qualities possessed by this manifestation of the Buddha. An example of this is Shakyamuni Buddha, who assumed a physical form and displayed twelve great deeds of enlightenment in order to bolster the faith of disciples.

The third is artistic nirmanakaya, and an example of this is the story of the Buddha when, shortly before attaining mahaparinirvana, He tamed a proud disciple called Rabga. The latter was a great Gandarva, or king, who was so proud of his lute-playing talents, that he felt that he didn’t need to attend the Buddha’s teachings. In order to correct Gandarva Rabga’s arrogance, the Buddha artistically assumed the form of a lutist and, challenging the proud musician to a contest, played infinitely better than him, shattering his exaggerated sense of self-importance. Gandarva Rabga was one of the last disciples to be tamed by the Buddha.

There are three levels of enlightenment, with that of the Buddha being great enlightenment, or mahabodhi, which is superior to the other two levels. Mahabodhi means that the Fully Enlightened One has perfect knowledge of the nature of both relative and ultimate phenomena, of the way things appear in the relative form and the way things actually are in ultimate reality. The Buddha is omniscient and is able to sever the doubts and obscurations of all sentient beings. If a being is able to make a single mistake, he is likely to make others, and is therefore not fully enlightened. On the other hand, there is absolutely no possibility that one who is fully enlightened can make the slightest mistake.

The next set of qualities with which the Buddha is endowed, is that of the six perfections. The six perfections are the path of the great vehicle, and one who has accomplished these perfections has, by the same token, overcome their opposing factors. And so here, the author pays homage to “You who are without grasping”. An act of giving, whether it be offering one’s virtuous behavior or one’s body, must be free from grasping to either the act itself or to its result. Here, the Buddha’s total freedom from grasping to acts of giving is being praised.

The second perfection is that of morality, and here the Buddha is praised as “You who are without moral fault”. Most beings, as ethical as their conduct may be, are prone to committing moral infractions at some point or another. But the Fully Enlightened One will never transgress moral dictates by an iota. His morality is perfect.

The third perfection is patience. “You who are never distracted” applies to the Buddha’s quality of equanimity, acquired through the practice of patience. This means that whatever harm is directed to Him, instead of letting Himself become disturbed or agitated by this, He remains in an unperturbed state of tranquility.

The fourth perfection is diligence. “You who do not remain lazily” refers to the quality of diligence, whereby the Buddha never ceases to engage joyously in virtuous activities, without ever being affected by any kind of indolence or laziness.

Meditative concentration, or samadhi, is the fifth perfection. This is the ability to remain one-pointedly focused on the object of meditation without being distracted by anything or being agitated by discursive thoughts. There is never a single moment when the Buddha is not in samadhi.

And the last of the six perfections is that of wisdom. This is the knowledge of the nature of things as they are, not as they appear. It is the understanding of reality, totally free from discursive elaboration. The Buddha’s mind remains fixedly in the understanding of things as they are, and there is no object or phenomenon whatsoever that causes it to fall prey to digressive thought.

Thus ends the eulogy to the Buddha composed by the Lord Maitreya. He now pauses and elaborates no further. This is not because he knows no additional qualities of the Buddhas that are worthy of praise, but rather because He feels contented with the ones that He has expounded so far.

Sakya Pandita, who felt that there were more qualities of the Buddha that were worth praising, writes the rest of the Semtsema. This begins with the two meaningful activities of accomplishing perfection for oneself and for the benefit of others. He writes; “You who have acquired all obtainable excellent qualities”, alluding to the Buddha being endowed with both common and unique qualities, that is to say, those gifted by arhats as well as those unique to the Buddha. In short, the Buddha possesses all conceivable qualities. These very qualities provide Him with the potential to engage in activities that lead not only to His own accomplishment, but also to that of others.

These activities of the Buddha directed to the accomplishment of others are of inconceivable magnitude and constancy. The Fully Enlightened One never ceases even for a fraction of an instant to benefit beings, and He constantly benefits as many beings as there are atoms.

Further, the Fully Enlightened One knows everything that is knowable and carries out every single beneficial activity that needs to be completed, and each one of these activities leads to accomplishment. So these three: perfect knowledge, activity, and accomplishment - constitute another set of the qualities of the Buddha.

Sakya Pandita then begins to describe a further set of qualities of the Buddha called the ‘thirty-seven attributes of enlightenment’, or ‘Bodhipaksha’. These are divided into seven categories, the first of which is called the ‘four frames of reference’. This indicates the qualities of mindfulness of body, feelings, consciousness and mental attributes, through which the Fully Enlightened One achieves full realisation of selflessness, of the lack of inherent existence of self.

The second of the seven categories is that of the vigours, or exertions. This refers to the four pure accomplishments, or the four thorough renunciations attained by pure effort. These are: the joyous effort of destroying non-virtuous habits, not introducing new non-virtuous habits, sustaining existing virtuous conduct and introducing non-existing wholesome conduct.

The third category is that of meditative absorption. In this context, meditative absorption refers to the ability to create miraculous appearances. There are four attributes related to this faculty, called the four legs of miraculous accomplishment, which points to the fact that meditative concentration is as important to attaining enlightenment as legs are to walking.

The fourth and fifth classifications are the five faculties and the five powers. They both have the same five components – faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom, but their meaning is different in each respective category. For example, the five powers have the potential to destroy their opposites – doubt, laziness, and so forth, while the five faculties empower one to carry out activities conducive to helping beings. While the first three categories are related to the path of accumulation, the two latter ones are linked to the path of preparation.

The sixth category is the seven factors of awakening, and is related to the path of seeing, which leads to insight into the true nature of things. This is related to the meditative stabilisation of the first bhumi or state of enlightenment.

The seventh and last category is the Eightfold Noble Path, which corresponds to the path of meditation. Having gone through the first three paths of accumulation, preparation and seeing, one arrives at the path of meditation, where one becomes stabilised in the state of full realisation.

Moreover, the verse “I pay homage to you who have well accomplished all thirty-seven attributes” is very important, in the sense that the arhats and pratyekabuddhas also possess these attributes, but that the latter are only fully accomplished by the Fully Enlightened One.

And here, Sakya Pandita begins the eulogy of the Buddha’s nine meditative absorptions. These are the four samadhis of meditative concentration, the four meditative stabilisations in relation to the formless realms and the meditative stabilisation of total cessation.

The function of these meditative absorptions or samadhis is to eradicate all defilements and mental afflictions of all beings residing in the three realms of existence. The author says “You who have brought perfect completion, the power that crushes the hard, uncultivated soil”, referring to the mind stream of beings that is completely hardened with residues from afflictions and is difficult to penetrate. The power of the Buddha’s mindfulness and teachings is able to crush and pulverise the hard soil of the mind stream of beings.

And then, the author pays homage to the quality called ‘the three thorough doors of liberation’. The first among these is the thorough door of the liberation of emptiness, illustrating that the Buddha’s mind sees no inherent duality between subject and object, but only sees its absence. The second is the thorough door of wishlessness, which means that the Buddha’s mind is no longer concerned with contaminated phenomena, whether this is form, object or body. There’s not a single object that His mind covets or feels aversion to. Third, is the thorough door of signlessness, which means that the Buddha’s mind remains in a state that is free of signs. Signs of empty and non-empty, existent and non-existent - these are all dualistic concepts - from which the Buddha’s mind is free.

The three thorough doors of emptiness, wishlessness and signlessness are also within the domain of arhats, but only the Buddha is endowed with their perfect forms.

Sakya Pandita goes on to praise the conquest of the Buddha over the four evils or maras, the first of which is the klesha mara, or mara of the defilements of desire, hatred and ignorance. The Fully Enlightened One has completely overcome and destroyed any trace of these afflictions. The second mara is that of the skandas, or psycho-physical constituents to which we’re subjected due to our karma and defilements – we have a psycho-physical body that is the basis of all our suffering, whereas the Fully Enlightened One has overcome the desire to have a body. As for the mrityu mara, or mara of death, the Buddha is not threatened by it because He is not pushed by the desire to take a body that can die. Also, the devaputra mara, or mara of the son of god, is one that creates obstacles and harm to those who engage in the practice of the dharma, and it can be easily defeated by the Buddha.

The verse “To you who have subdued well” pays homage to the one who, through eons of practicing wisdom and compassion, has made His mind both worthy and powerful in order to conquer the four maras. The first three maras are subdued by the practice of wisdom. Because primordial wisdom is the root cause for the realisation of the lack of inherent existence of the self, it defeats the defilements, or kleshas. Once the kleshas are defeated, the desire that pushes one to be reborn is also defeated and, as mentioned above, if we are not born into an ordinary body, then we are not subject to death.

As for the mara of the son of god, this is vanquished by compassion. If one practices loving kindness and compassion toward all beings, the chances of attracting obstacles are greatly reduced and eventually eliminated.

And so the Fully Enlightened One has completely vanquished all the maras, and is free from any kind of obscuration or defilement.