Section 2. How a Bodhisattva Helps Beings – Union of virtues like bodhicitta and wisdom (combining the six perfections): by bringing understanding of the true and complete nature of their conditions, to any beings who desire to know and are willing to listen: ex. dependent origination and impermanence, emptiness of inherent existence, non-production and non-stopping, non-duality and non-discrimination, space like awareness, "acting without acting" ...
(Summary 2: This section begins with Subhuti acknowledging Bodhisattvas as "doers of what is difficult," practicing the six perfections without seeking personal Nirvāṇa, surveying painful samsaric worlds with compassion, aspiring to full enlightenment without trembling at birth-and-death.
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The Lord affirms, describing Bodhisattvas' self-armoring with vows to become the world's shelter, refuge, resting place, complete relief, islands, lights, leaders, and resort — guiding infinite beings equanimously.
– Each role is detailed: as shelter, illuminating and alleviating sufferings from skandhas / birth-death;
as refuge, revealing freedom from birth / decay / illness / death / sorrow;
as resting place, demonstrating non-embracing of anything, where skandhas / dharmas are non-arising / non-sustaining / non-producing / non-stopping;
as complete relief, showing skandhas as formless / beyond appearance, with no discrimination in full knowledge;
as islands, limiting dharmas like land by water, equated to calm quiet / Nirvāṇa / unperverted;
as lights, dispelling ignorance's darkness with wisdom;
as leaders, revealing absence of production / stopping in skandhas / dharmas distinguishing all beings / vehicles;
as resort, situating skandhas / dharmas as space — neither coming / going / made / affected / produced / stopped, immobile yet indiscriminate / signless / wishless / ineffective / non-arising / absence of self / dream-like / boundless / Nirvāṇa / unrecoverable.
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Subhuti questions who understands this;
– the Lord says Bodhisattvas coursing under Tathagatas, maturing roots, with own-being isolated from discipline, demonstrating it to all as resort to beings.
– Subhuti affirms, noting armor for indicating Nirvāṇa to immeasurables ⇐⇒ yet unconnected to anything / levels.
– He lists three unaspired standpoints (Sravaka / Pratyekabuddha / Buddha levels);
– the Lord clarifies impossibility for true Bodhisattvas in lesser vehicles, as they aspire to Buddhahood for benefit.
– Subhuti praises as fathomless, undevelopable like space / non-attachment / non-arising / no-taking-hold-of.
– The Lord affirms such Bodhisattvas as irreversible — not settling / trusting others, uncowed / immersed / delightful upon teaching, knowing past exploration.
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– Subhuti asks apperceiving mode; the Lord says through thoughts inclined to all-knowledge, as space-yielding non-substance.
– Full awareness as immeasurable / unlimited — not skandhas / attainment / path / cognition / genesis / destruction / development / annihilation, neither from / to / standing anywhere, merely "immeasurable."
– Sakra praises as unfathomable / impossible to fathom / see / cognize, with Tathagata's thought inclined to non-action / non-demonstration.
– The Lord agrees, deep dharma unfathomable as space / self / non-coming / non-going.
– Sakra notes contrary to world's grasping, teaching non-seizing.
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The subtle essence unfolds in Bodhisattvas' compassionate roles as non-dual embodiments of suchness (tathatā), where "helping" is not dualistic intervention but effortless revelation of reality's indescribable nature — worlds / skandhas / dharmas as empty of inherent suffering / self [T2] ⇐⇒ yet dependently arisen as painful appearances [T1] ⇐⇒ United in Two Truths [U2T], implying each other without superiority [U2T-2T].
– Non-embracing / non-discrimination as resting place / relief points to primordial purity: phenomena inherently formless / interconnected / pure / perfect / "One" ⇐⇒ beyond tetralemma (not embracing, not non-embracing, etc.), illusory like dreams / echoes — there yet not there ⇐⇒ self-purified without need for change.
– Armor / vows as unconnected underscore Middle Way: nothing accepted / rejected / changed absolutely, only conventionally engaged if path-aiding, "acting without acting" aware of three spheres' emptiness / interdependence, dissolving self / other duality in equanimous benefit.
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Irreversibility arises from non-settling / non-cowing / delight in unfathomable teaching, past exploration indicating karmic maturity — dependent [T1] ⇐⇒ empty [T2].
– Apperceiving via all-knowledge-inclined thoughts ⇐⇒ as space / non-substance
– subtly reveals Madhyamaka cycle: tetralemma ⇐⇒ emptiness ⇐⇒ origination ⇐⇒ Union of the Two Truths [U2T] ⇐⇒ illusory ⇐⇒ Middle Way ⇐⇒ purity, where immeasurable awareness transcends dharmas / path / fruits, standing nowhere yet encompassing all.
– Sakra's praise highlights contrariness: Perfection teaches non-seizing amid grasping world, deep / unfathomable as space / non-coming, fostering non-action / demonstration — effortless alignment with tathatā, where helping liberates without doing, compassion as non-dual sameness.)
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TEXT: Subhuti: Doers of what is difficult are these Bodhisattvas which set out to realize fully benevolent enlightenment. Due to this practice of these six perfections as herein described, these do not wish to realize some private Nirvāṇa of some own-being. Bodhisattvas survey these highly painful worlds of beings. These aspire to realize full enlightenment, and still these do not tremble at birth-and-death.
The Lord: So it is. Doers of what is difficult are these Bodhisattvas which set out for the benefit and happiness of worlds, out of compassion. - "We are a shelter for worlds, a refuge, a place of rest, a complete relief, islands, lights, and leaders of worlds. We equanimously reveal full enlightenment and resort to these worlds," - with these words these ones make diligent efforts to realize such full enlightenment.
1. How is any Bodhisattva awakened to full enlightenment and come to be the shelter of worlds?
These bring to light the nature of suffering and even by doing this, so offer protection from sufferings which belong to these deep skandhas of birth-and-death. Also these struggle and make efforts to rid the worlds of any and all sufferings, whether a hurt by some slight of heart, a bruised knee or deep and severe as causing the pains of both birth and death.
2. How are these the world's refuge?
These reveal as free from birth, decay, illness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness and despair any beings who are doomed to undergo these by bringing understanding of the true and complete nature of these conditions, to any beings who desire to know and are willing to listen.
3. How are these the worlds resting place?
Tathāgatas demonstrate Dharma to beings so they may learn to not embrace anything whatsoever.
Subhuti: How does this non-embracing come about?
The Lord: Non-embracing comes about, or more accurately, is realized regarding form, feeling, perception, impulse, and consciousness, and is the same as in any skandhas (dharmas or phenomena). What comes to be revealed is an inherent non-arising and uniform non-sustainability, from which is non-production, and so non-stopping. As no thing whatsoever CAN BE revealed in, or, of any beginning, how could any such thing stop? This is revealed and eventually realized as true of any and all skandhas -which would have been- seen, or thought of, or experienced as either thoughts, words and writings, or even actions, as these merely indicate notions only of form, feeling, perception, impulse, or consciousness of anything whatsoever as already being non-embraced. What does not exist, in truth cannot BE embraced. One thus learns not to even think to embrace anything as a result of this cognition and vision. Non-embracing is "already established" as of itself and timelessly self-existent. Once revealed, what comes about is our realization of Such. All dharmas are non-embracing for such cannot be embraced, and these are also non-arising as lacking attributes such as, coming into being (to begin with!), and consequently dwelling in time, duration and place, and ceasing to exist.
4. How are these the complete relief of worlds?
Any state of form is not form, but formless; and so beyond form, and this same fact applies to any state of feeling, perception, impulse and consciousness, and all dharmas.
Subhuti: If form, etc., and all dharmas (as any phenomena) are beyond mere appearance, as such these Bodhisattvas fully know and realize all dharmas, as here is no discrimination between them. [the gradual dawning of the realization of all-knowledge.]
The Lord: So it is. Beyond these mere appearances, here is no discrimination. Through this non-discrimination are all dharmas fully known to Bodhisattvas. This also is most difficult yet effortless, as Bodhisattvas meditate on all dharmas (at once), and neither realize, nor are cowed, and these meditate thus: "In this way are all dharmas fully known...and thus awakened as full enlightenment, we demonstrate and reveal these dharmas."
5. How are these the islands of worlds?
'Islands' are pieces of land limited by water, as rivers or great lakes. Just so form, etc., is only limited at its perceived beginning and end, and so are all dharmas. This limitation of all dharmas is the same as this Calm Quiet, this Sublime, as Nirvāṇa, as this which is Really Existing, the Unperverted or Undifferentiated.
6. How are these the lights of worlds?
Here these Bodhisattvas, once having come to realize full enlightenment, cannot help but to reveal it's light and subsequent knowledge to help dispel this dark obscurity and defiled gloom of non-cognizance from beings who for long are enveloped as the membrane of this eggshell of ignorance, and overcome by darkness, so these illuminate these beings through wisdom.
7. How are these leaders of worlds?
As these are enlightened, Bodhisattvas demonstrate Dharma in order to reveal this absence of production and stopping as but one attribute of infinite quintessential nature of skandhas, and also as these very same dharmas which constitute and distinguish ordinary people, Sravakas as Disciples, Pratyekabuddhas, Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, indeed all dharmas which are no dharma, yet uniform in essence and no thing in general.
8. How are these the resort of worlds?
As these are enlightened, Bodhisattvas demonstrate Dharma by teaching these skandhas are situated as one and the same as this space of worlds. All dharmas exist in equal balance and exchange, as and with space. This does not come, this does not go, this is the same as space. Space neither comes nor goes, is neither made nor unmade, nor affected; space neither stands up to, nor as such does space last, nor endure; such is neither produced nor stopped. The same is true of all dharmas which are, as this fashion of space, indiscriminate. Only within mind's less refined activity as consciousness is thought lent of itself to discriminate...and such fathers this great delusion, mothers this great illusion, and begets this great suffering. Only within mind's exceedingly refined activity toward cognizance of pure spacelike awareness is thought lent of itself to reveal it's nature from beyond even uniform stillness and emptiness. As such is realized as naught, and devoid of any possible notion evolved of subjective states or objective perusal, is begotten of nothing and purely spontaneous. To even say borne of the stuff of stars, does Suchness no justice, yet provides a general directive. As this emptiness of skandhas neither comes nor goes, neither does this emptiness of dharmas, for dharmas are situated as emptiness, and situated as such these dharmas do not depart. These are situated as signless, wishless, ineffective; as non-production, no-birth, non-arising as absence of relativity and polarity, as dream and self, as this boundless, as this calm quiet, as Nirvāṇa, as this Unrecoverable; these neither come, nor go, and are situated as immobility; these are situated as form, etc., and also as full enlightenment of Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas.
