(4) Ah, when I vowed to deliver all beings within the bounds of space in its ten points from the Passions, I myself had not won deliverance from the Passions. Knowing not my now measure, I spoke like a madman. Then I will never turn back from smiting the Passions. I will grapple with them, will wrathfully make war on them all except the passion that makes for the destruction of the Passions. Though my bowels ooze out and my head fall off, I will nowise abase myself before my foes the Passions. An enemy, though driven away, may establish himself in another spot, whence he may return with gathered powers; but such is not the way of the enemy Passion. Where can this dweller in my spirit go when I cast him out; where can he stand, to labour for my destruction? It is only that I — fool that I am — make no effort; the miserable Passions are to be overcome by the vision of wisdom. The Passions lie not in the objects of sense, nor in the sense-organs, nor between them, nor elsewhere; where do they lie? And yet they disturb the whole world! They are but a phantom. Then cast away thy heart's terror, and labour for wisdom; why shouldst thou vainly torture thyself in hell? Thus resolved, I will strive to fulfil the rule as it has been taught; how should he who needs medicine find healing, if he depart from the physician's command?

(1) WHEN thus vigour has been nurtured, it is well to fix the thought in concentred effort; the man of wandering mind lies between the fangs of the Passions. It cannot wander if body and thought be in solitude; so it is well to forsake the world and put away vain imaginations. Because of love, or hunger for gain, and the like, men will not forsake the world; then in order to cast it aside the wise will lay to heart these thoughts. Passion is overcome only by him who has won through stillness of spirit the perfect vision. Knowing this, I must first seek for stillness; it comes through the contentment that is regardless of the world. What creature of a day should cling to other frail beings, when he can never again through thousands of births behold his beloved? Yet when he sees him not, he is ill at ease; he rests not in concentred thought; and even when he beholds him he is not satisfied, but is distressed by the same longing as before. He sees not things in their reality; he loses his horror of the world; he is consumed by his grief in yearning for union with the beloved. In thoughts thereupon his brief life vainly passes away hour by hour; and the eternal Law is broken for the sake of a short-lived friend!

(1) “By this wisdom shall enlightened disciples be enabled to bring into subjection every inordinate desire! Every species of life, whether hatched in the egg, formed in the womb, evolved from spawn, produced by metamorphosis, with or without form or intelligence, possessing or devoid of natural instinct—from these changeful conditions of being, I command you to seek deliverance, in the transcendental concept of Nirvana. Thus, you shall be delivered from an immeasurable, innumerable, and illimitable world of sentient life; but, in reality, there is no world of sentient life from which to seek deliverance. And why? Because, in the minds of enlightened disciples there have ceased to exist such arbitrary concepts of phenomena as an entity, a being, a living being, or a personality.”

(9) Surrounded by the troop of the Passions, a man should become a thousand times prouder, and be as unconquerable to their hordes as a lion to flocks of deer. Even in great stress the eye is unconscious of the sense of taste; and so, into whatever straits he may come, he will not fall into the power of the Passions. He will utterly give himself over to whatever task arrives, greedy for the work, insatiate of spirit, like one who lusts for the delight issuing from his sport. Every work is done for the sake of happiness, whether the happiness come or no; but how can he whose happiness is work itself be happy in doing no work? Desires, like honey on the edge of a razor's blade, bring no contentment in life; but what satiety can there be from the divine draughts of righteous deeds, that are blessed and sweet in their issue? Then when one work is brought to an end, he will plunge into another, as the elephant, vexed by the heat of midday, plunges straightway into the lake that he finds.

(4) Let me not despair that the Enlightenment will come to me; for the Blessed One, the speaker of truth, has revealed this truth, that they who by force of striving have gained hard-won supreme Enlightenment have been erstwhile gnats, gadflies, flies, and worms. Now I am a man by birth, able to know good and evil: why shall I not win the Enlightenment by following the rule of the All-knowing? If I am afraid when I think that I must give my hand or foot, it is because in my heedlessness I confound things of great and of small weight. I may be cleft, pierced, burnt, split open many and many a time for countless millions of aeons, and never win the Enlightenment. But this pain that wins me the Enlightenment is of brief term; it is like the pain of cutting out a buried arrow to heal its smart. All physicians restore health by painful courses; then to undo much suffering let us bear a little. But even this fitting course the Great Physician has not enjoined upon us; he heals them that are grievously sick by tender treatment. At first our Lord ordains gifts only of herbs and the like, and then in due course brings men at last to surrender even their own flesh. When there comes to man the spirit that looks upon his flesh as no more than herbs, what hardship is it for him to surrender his flesh and bone? He is not hurt, for he has cast off sin, nor sad, for knowledge is his; for distress comes in the mind from false imaginations, and in the body from sin. The body is made happy by righteous works, the spirit by knowledge; what can vex the compassionate one who remains in embodied life only for the welfare of others? Annulling his former sins, amassing oceans of righteousness, by the power of his Thought of Enlightenment he travels more swiftly than the Disciples. Having thus in the Thought of Enlightenment a chariot that removes all vexation and weariness, travelling from happiness to happiness, who that is wise will despair?

(2) This brief estate, which once gotten is a means to all the aims of mankind, is exceeding hard to win; if one use it not for wholesome reflection, how shall it ever come again to his lot? As in the night, amidst the gross darkness of the clouds, the lightning shews for an instant its radiance, so by the grace of the Enlightened it may hap that the mind of man turn for an instant to holy works. Thus righteousness is feeble, and the power of evil is constant, mighty, and dire; by what righteousness could it be overcome, if there were not the Thought of Enlightenment? Pondering through many aeons, the Supreme Saints have found this blessing, whereby a swelling joy sweeps in sweetness down the boundless waters of mankind. They who would escape the hundreds of life's sorrows, who would end the anguish of living creatures, and who would taste hundreds of deep delights, must never surrender the Thought of Enlightenment. The wretch held in thrall by Life's minions is declared a son of the Blessed Ones straightway when the Thought of Enlightenment arises in him, and he becomes worshipful to the worlds of men and gods. This foul form that he has taken he makes into the priceless jewel of a Conqueror's form; oh, grasp firmly the Thought of Enlightenment, that exceedingly potent elixir! Ho, ye who are exiles in the marts of bodied being, grasp firmly the precious jewel of the Thought of Enlightenment, which the immeasurably wise sole Guides of the world's caravan have well assayed! Like the plantain- tree, all other righteousness fades away after its fruit is cast; but the tree of the Thought of Enlightenment bears everlasting fruit and fades not, but is ever fecund. Though he have wrought most grievous sins, a man by taking refuge therein escapes them straightway; as ignorant beings under the guardianship of a mighty man escape sore terrors, why seek they not their refuge in this?,..

(278) 'All created things are grief and pain,' he who knows and sees this becomes passive in pain; this is the way that leads to purity.

(226) Those who are ever watchful, who study day and night, and who strive after Nirvâna, their passions will come to an end.

(3) Eager to escape sorrow, men rush into sorrow; from desire of happiness they blindly slay their own happiness, enemies to themselves; they hunger for happiness and suffer manifold pains; whence shall come one so kind as he who can satisfy them with all manner of happiness, allay all their pains, and shatter their delusion — whence such a friend, and whence such a holy deed? He who repays good deed with good deed is praised; what shall be said of the Son of Enlightenment, who does kindness unsought? He who sets a banquet before a few is called a " doer of righteousness," and is honoured by the world, because in his pride he entertains men for half a day with a brief largesse of mere food; but what of him who bestows on a measureless number of creatures a satisfaction of all desires unbounded in time and perishing not when the world of heaven perishes? Such is the Master of the Banquet, the Son of the Conqueror; whosoever sins in his heart against him, saith the Lord, shall abide in hell as many ages as the moments of his sin. But he whose spirit is at peace with them shall thence get abundant fruit; and truly, wrong to the Sons of the Conqueror can be done only by great effort, but kindness towards them is easy. I do homage to the bodies of them in whom has arisen the choice jewel of the Thought, and even the ill-treatment of whom leads to happiness; in these mines of bliss I seek my refuge.

(3) I have found this most rare sphere of weal, I know not how; and shall I with open eyes suffer myself to be borne back to these hells? My thought cannot grasp it; like one who is driven mad by spells, I know not by whom I am crazed or who possesses me. My foes, Desire, Hate, and their kindred, are handless and footless, they are neither valiant nor cunning; how can they have enslaved me? But they dwell in my spirit, and there at their ease smite me. And withal I am not wroth with them; fie on my unseemly long-suffering! If all gods and mankind were my foes, they could not drag me to the fire of the hell Avlchi; but into this flame, at the touch whereof not even ashes would remain of Meru, these mighty enemies the Passions hurl me in an instant. No other foes have life so long as the beginningless, endless, everlasting life of my enemies the Passions. All beings may be turned by submission to kindness; but these Passions become all the more vexatious by my submission. Then whilst these everlasting foes, sole source of the birth of the floods of sorrow, are dwelling in my heart, how can I fearlessly rejoice in the life of the flesh? Whence can I have happiness, if these warders of the prison-house of existence, ay, these torturers of the damned in hell and elsewhere, lodge in the house of my spirit, in the bower of my desire? Then I will not lay down my burden until these foes be smitten before my eyes. Men of lofty spirit are stirred to wrath against even a mean offender, and sleep not until they have smitten him. They rage in the forefront of battle, furious, heeding not the anguish of wounds from arrows and javelins, to strike fiercely at the poor creatures doomed by nature to death, and turn not away until they have fulfilled their purpose. How then, and for what reason, should I, who have set myself to strike down these natural foes, the constant causes of all miseries, sink down in base despair, even for hundreds of disasters? Men bear on their limbs, like ornaments, meaningless scars gotten from their enemies; why should sufferings overcome me, who am labouring to accomplish a lofty end? Setting their thoughts upon their mere livelihood, fishers, Chanqlalas, husbandmen, and the like bear the miseries of cold, heat, and the rest; why should not I suffer them for the weal of the world?

(9) These will come to shine against thy heart simultaneously. O nobly-born, all those are the radiances of thine own intellectual faculties come to shine. They have not come from any other place. Be not attracted towards them; be not weak; be not terrified; but abide in the mood of non-thought-formation. In that state all the forms and radiances will merge into thyself, and Buddhahood will be obtained.

(3) “Subhuti, the Lord Buddha by his prescience, is perfectly cognisant of all such potential disciples, and for these also there is reserved an immeasurable merit. And why? Because, the minds of these disciples will not revert to such arbitrary concepts of phenomena as an entity, a being, a living being, a personality, qualities or ideas coincident with Law, or existing apart from the idea of Law. And why? Because, assuming the permanency and reality of phenomena, the minds of these disciples would be involved in such distinctive ideas as an entity, a being, a living being, and a personality. Affirming the permanency and reality of qualities or ideas coincident with Law, their minds would inevitably be involved in resolving these same definitions. Postulating the inviolate nature of qualities or ideas which have an existence apart from the Law, there yet remain to be explained these abstruse distinctions—an entity, a being, a living being, and a personality. Therefore, enlightened disciples ought not to affirm the permanency or reality of qualities or ideas coincident with Law, nor postulate as being of an inviolate nature, qualities or ideas having an existence apart from the concept of Law.”

(32) For that time there is a profound teaching. O nobly-born, when the attraction and repulsion arise, meditate as follows: 'Alas! what a being of evil karma am I! That I have wandered in the Sangsara hitherto, hath been owing to attraction and repulsion. If I still go on feeling attraction and repulsion, then I shall wander in endless Sangsara and suffer in the Ocean of Misery for a long, long time, by sinking therein. Now I must not act through attraction and repulsion. Alas, for me! Henceforth I will never act through attraction and repulsion.'

(25) O nobly-born, listen unto me undistractedly. By merely recognizing the Four Kayas, thou art certain to obtain perfect Emancipation in any of Them. Be not distracted. The line of demarcation between Buddhas and sentient beings lieth herein. This moment is one of great importance; if thou shouldst be distracted now, it will require innumerable aeons of time for thee to come out of the Quagmire of Misery.