Maitreya's Semtsema (Part 6 of 6)

by Khenchen Appey Rinpoche

This is the last part of the Semtsema, in which the infinite and unsurpassable qualities of the Buddha continue to be praised.

The elucidation of the Buddha’s qualities resumes with the description of the Fully Enlightened One’s Ten Powers, whereby the Buddha has dominion over innumerable phenomena.

The first of these powers is the power over rebirth. The Buddha is able to choose His own rebirth in the way most expedient for Him to benefit beings. He can choose to be reborn in any form and in any realm of existence whatsoever in order to carry out beneficial activities.

The second is the power over material objects, which allows the Enlightened One to effortlessly obtain and use any material object to serve His purpose. These two powers are referred to as the dominion over external phenomena.

The third is the power over one’s own mind, the power to practise and meditate at will. The Buddha’s mind has power over its wishes and desires, power over itself.

The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh powers are the dominion over both external and internal phenomena. The fourth is the power over lifespan – one can choose to live as long as one wishes to, while the fifth is power over one’s actions of body, speech and mind, whereby one always elects to perform whatever activity is most beneficial to beings. The sixth power allows one to easily and successfully pursue one’s purposes by transforming phenomena and circumstances according to one’s wish. The seventh is the miraculous power over miracles, that of displaying miracles for the benefit of sentient beings.

The eighth power is the dominion over prayers and aspiration, the ability to create the correct aspiration and to recite the appropriate prayer in order to attain the desired result. The ninth is power over primordial wisdom, the wisdom that sees the nature of things as they really are with discriminating awareness. This gives one dominion over the knowledge of all knowable things. The tenth power is the dominion over Dharma. This means that one has mastered all the fields of outer and inner Dharmas, in particular the teachings of the Buddha contained in the Three Baskets, or Tripitaka.

With these ten powers, the Fully Enlightened One has the capacity to carry out every possible activity that can be of benefit to sentient beings.

The next set of qualities of the Buddha that are eulogised in these verses is that of the Enlightened One’s samadhi qualities. These are described as wondrous qualities, spontaneous realisation qualities and unhindered qualities. The Enlightened One carries out wondrous activities effortlessly and spontaneously and, due to His knowledge of all things through meditative concentration, these are free from all obstructions and mistakes.

Of these two forms of samadhi, one is accomplished samadhi, and the other relinquished samadhi. The first is called this way because samadhi is attained through the relentless practice of the Path, while the second refers to the relinquishment of faults. Together, accomplishment and relinquishment create a diamond-like samadhi, unshakeable and perfect.

A further set of qualities is now extolled, called zum in Tibetan. There is no exact English translation for this, but it might be described as ‘retentive memory’. It is comparable to what we call photographic memory. The Enlightened One fully understands everything without ever needing any explanation, and perfectly retains everything that His senses encounter. Not only this, but He is able to expound concisely and with the utmost clarity the rich and profound meaning of everything that His mind apprehends. This is what we call in Sanskrit ‘skatarani’.

So the verse “You, diligent custodian of knowledge, endowed with the firm retention and ability needed to dispense the teachings and to eloquently and concisely elucidate their meaning, by merely pronouncing a few words or even syllables, You are able to expound the meaning of numberless teachings, thereby revealing the treasure of spiritual knowledge that is otherwise inaccessible to beings. To You who are the giver of this treasure, I pay homage.”

The next set of qualities described in this eulogy is that which brings about the complete elimination of all the obscurations that are otherwise exceedingly difficult for sentient beings to overcome. Not only gross obscurations are eliminated by the Fully Enlightened One, but also the subtle conceptual constructs that uphold the belief in a separate self. The verse “To You who have eliminated the obscurations to knowledge caused by the conceptual structure of the three spheres” refers to the realisation of dependent origination, that is to say the knowledge of the lack of inherent existence of phenomena and of the interdependence of the three spheres of subject, action and object.

All the deep, subtle stains of the mind are gradually removed by the Enlightened One, even what are called bhakchak in Tibetan, the latent, deeply sedimented propensities that are hidden in the mind, until the ultimate relinquishment of all obscurations is attained.

Next begins a praise to the four stainless wisdoms. The first among these is mirror-like wisdom. Just as a mirror reflects reality as it is, likewise one who has mirror-like wisdom clearly and vividly sees the nature of things as they truly are.

The second wisdom is that of equality, through which the notion of self and others is eradicated, and with it all dualistic and extremist views of reality.

The third is the wisdom of discriminating awareness, which causes the Fully Enlightened One to be utterly free from delusion and completely realise ultimate reality and intrinsically know every aspect of relative reality with clarity and precision.

And the fourth is the wisdom of accomplishment, the manifestation of the Buddha’s enlightened activities, through which He spontaneously and effortlessly knows what is the most effective method to free beings from samsara.

The first, mirror-like wisdom, serves as a base for the three others. By seeing the nature of things as they truly are, the Buddha realises the non-existence of self and knows all aspects of ultimate and relative reality. Through this, not only is He free from delusion, but He knows exactly what skillful means are necessary in order to awaken beings from ignorance.

The next verse eulogises the qualities of the Buddha’s melodious speech and voice. The words “Your speech is the roar of the fearless lion and is endowed with the sixty melodious sounds of the Buddha” refer to the Enlightened One’s complete lack of fear of anything whatsoever and to His ability to expound the teachings with such melodious tones that beings are captivated by the sound of His speech.

The sound of the Buddha’s voice is soft and appealing and yet thunderous in the sense that it can make itself heard by all beings and awaken them from their delusion.

Next follows a eulogy to the Buddha’s qualities of transformation: “You have transformed the defiled stream of ordinary existence through Your realising the truth of the Path.” This expresses how the Buddha’s teachings show the noble truth of the Path that leads to the ultimate realisation of the noble truth of cessation. The mindstream of beings, otherwise tainted by defilements, is no longer defiled and their consciousness is transformed into the four wisdoms. Their physical body ceases to be ordinary and transforms into the rupakaya.

And then, “I pay homage to You who know the purity inherent in all beings” expresses how the Buddha sees through the apparent defilements of beings and knows how to transform them into wisdom.

The next verse praises the perfect possessions of the Buddha. “Homage to You who are consummately endowed with all the attributes that pertain to the gods of the worldly spheres and the sons of the conquerors, and with the supreme attributes of a great teacher.” This refers to all the qualities that pertain to the sravakas that are surpassed by those of the pratyekabuddhas, whose qualities are surpassed by those of the bodhisattvas, and these in turn surpassed by those of the Fully Enlightened One.

“Homage to You who are the refuge of all living beings in the world.” The Buddha is endowed with qualities shared with superior beings such as sravakas and pratyekabuddhas, but the text reiterates that He also possesses unique qualities, one of which is that of being a worthy refuge for all beings. Examples of the shared perfect possessions are the four immeasurables, the nine meditative absorptions, as well as the transformative qualities, which are shared with the first bhumi Bodhisatvas; the major and minor marks qualities which are shared by bodhisattavas dwelling on the 4th bhumi; and the four discriminating awarenesses which are shared with bodhisattvas of the 9th bhumi; and the eighteen unmixed unique characteristics and ten powers which are shared by those over the ninth bhumi. And finally the unique, unshared qualities that only the Fully Enlightened One is endowed with. And so, these absolutely perfect possessions make the Buddha the only perfect, unfailing refuge for all beings: “Because You are endowed with shared and unique qualities, preeminent qualities, inestimable qualities, wondrous qualities, powerful qualities, You create wonders and transformations, and thus You are a worthy refuge for all living beings.”

The next and last verse is the dedication of the merit obtained by offering these praises to the Buddha. Whatever virtue, however slight, derived from performing such a virtuous act is enhanced by dedicating its merits to the benefit of all beings. “By the dedication of illuminating the precious jewel of the doctrine of the Buddha and praising His perfect possessions, may all living beings perfectly see the ultimate reality of all knowable things”.

The merits accrued by expounding the Buddha’s teachings are incalculable. These are like a precious jewel because they have the ability to eliminate suffering and to bring happiness, and so their elucidation is extremely meritorious.

“May all living beings be able to see the ultimate reality of all phenomena as they appear in conventional reality and may they see reality as it is, ie ultimate reality, the underlying reality of all things.” Here, the author forms the aspiration that the virtue acquired by this explanation may be a cause of enlightenment for all sentient beings, leading them to reach their respective state of samyaksambudhaya.